Holy Terror (52 page)

Conor picked up the phone and asked for International Directory Enquiries. Then he dialed 001 – 212 745 1234. ‘Hi … I'm planning on a visit to the UN headquarters. Can you tell me if the General Assembly or the Security Council are meeting this week? I see. Sure. And I can get tickets? Right, thank you very much.'

He put down the phone. ‘There's a Special Session of the General Assembly on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m., to discuss international religious terrorism in general, and Dennis Branch's threat in particular.'

‘That
must
be his moment,' said Eleanor. ‘He has the same instincts as a theatrical producer. Look at the way he used Magda and Ramon to raise money for him. Look at the way he exhumed those bodies on Spitsbergen. Everything that Dennis Branch does is a drama, played out for an audience. That's the way he preaches, that's the way he arouses his congregation. All my life I've known men like him – producers, directors – men who have to control everything around them.'

Conor said, ‘I just hope we're right. I don't want to fly back to New York to find out that he's in the European Community headquarters in Brussels; or Paris; or God knows where.'

‘What choice do we have?' asked Eleanor.

* * *

They arrived at Newark on Tuesday afternoon. It was a chilly fall day, and it was raining hard. Conor called Luigi Guttuso as they rode in their taxi into Manhattan, and asked if it was OK for them to use the apartment on Bleecker Street for a few more days.

‘Why do you want to stay in New York? You should use my beach-house in Sarasota.'

‘That's very generous of you, Luigi, but Bleecker Street will do fine.'

‘I'll have some champagne sent over. It's the best.'

‘Luigi, I don't want to be beholden to you.'

‘You're not beholden. Who says you're beholden? You're my brother.'

That's what I was afraid of, thought Conor, and switched off the phone.

As soon as they got back to the Bleecker Street apartment, Conor tried to ring Lacey, but there was no reply, only the answerphone. He took some consolation from the fact that she hadn't yet deleted his name from the welcome message.

Eleanor called the hospital to see how Sidney was, only to be told that he had been discharged and had gone back home.

‘His doctor said he was making a wonderful recovery. None of the bullets hit anything vital, and he's as tough as they come.'

She called Staten Island. Sidney took a long, long time to answer, and when he did, Eleanor was too choked up to speak.

At last she managed to say, ‘Sidney? How are
you, my darling? I just can't wait to see you. How do you feel? Are you walking? Oh, that's marvelous.'

Conor talked to him for a while. He sounded just the same as ever – soft-spoken, droning but resilient beyond his years. ‘I want to tell you, Conor, when I felt those bullets hit me, I put myself into a trance. I didn't feel any pain at all. I imagined that I was back at home, lying in my hammock with Mesmer chasing butterflies all around me.

‘The doctor said that it helped to save my life. Slowed down my pulse rate, so that I didn't lose so much blood, and kept me from going into shock.'

‘We said a few prayers for you, too, Sidney. I hope those helped a little.'

Sidney hesitated for a moment, and then he said, ‘Would it be impertinent of me to ask why you've all come back?'

‘You've heard about this threat on the Internet,' said Conor, and gave him the briefest of accounts of what had happened in Norway.

‘And you think he's here in New York, this Dennis Branch character?'

‘Let's say it's an educated guess.'

‘Do you need some help tracking him down? You could use a good hypnotist, couldn't you?'

‘Well, we have Magda with us.'

‘And you trust her?'

‘I have to.'

‘I could come over and help you. Be glad to, as a matter of fact. I was beginning to think that I was snatched from the jaws of death just so that I could go home and die of boredom.'

‘Sidney, I'm sorry. You're still convalescing.'

‘I'd take it easy. Wouldn't overtax myself, anything like that.'

‘Sidney, I really appreciate your offer, but no.'

‘I tried, though, didn't I?'

‘Yes, Sidney. You tried.'

That night, in the very small hours of the morning, Conor thought he heard a door click. He opened his eyes and frowned into the darkness. He felt too tired to get out of bed and see what it was. The wind, probably. There was a gale blowing outside and a whole chorus of drafts were softly whistling under the floorboards.

He raised his head and listened for a while, but there were no more clicks, and in the end he dropped back onto the pillow.

He dreamed of polar bears again, running after him across the pack-ice.

Eleanor brought him a cup of coffee at a quarter of eight. She pulled back the drapes and said, ‘Magda's gone.'

‘What?'

‘Her bed's empty. Hasn't even been slept in.'

Conor raked his fingers through his tousled hair. ‘That's all we need. God – let's hope she's not planning to get in touch with Dennis Branch and tell him that we're here in New York. This could screw up everything.'

Eleanor handed him a note. It was written in sloping, spidery writing, with circles over the i's instead of dots.
Dearest Conor … I think now is the time for me to go in search of a new destiny
…

I will also think of you with love and respect … a man of honor … take very good care of yourself … Magda
.

‘It doesn't
sound
as if she's going to rat on us,' said Eleanor.

‘No, you're right. But even if she doesn't, I really could have used her talent.'

‘You're good at hypnosis, too.'

‘Forget it. I'm nowhere near as good as Magda.'

He climbed out of bed, and while Eleanor went into the kitchen to make herself some lemon tea, he showered and dressed. He wore a pale gray shirt and a charcoal sweater. He wanted to look as inconspicuous as possible. It always amazed him that muggers and robbers dress in such highly identifiable clothing, like designer sportswear and distinctive hats. They might just as well have worn name tags. Eleanor wore the same gray dress she had bought in Oslo.

‘It's only eight-thirty,' she said. ‘Do you want another cup of coffee?'

‘I'm jittery enough already, thanks.'

‘We could always call Sidney, you know.'

‘Come on, Eleanor. Sidney's still recuperating. What if something happens to him? I can't take the responsibility for that.'

‘What if millions of people catch the Spanish flu? Can you take the responsibility for
that
?'

Conor sat with his hand over his mouth, thinking. Then he picked up the phone and punched out Sidney's number.

‘Sidney? Does your offer still stand?'

‘Are you serious?'

‘Magda just quit on us. We really need you, Sidney.'

‘OK, then. Be glad to. How soon do you need me?'

‘As soon as you can. But Sidney, make me one promise. Don't you go dying on me, do you understand? If you die on me I'll never speak to you again.'

They reached United Nations headquarters a few minutes after 10 a.m. and went straight to the information desk in the main lobby. Tickets for the General Assembly were free, but they were only available on a first-come first-served basis. They collected three and made their way to the General Assembly chamber.

Sidney was stooped, and his face was gray, and he was even thinner than he had been before. But he still had the same brightness in his eyes, and he was able to walk quite well with the aid of a stick. He wouldn't shake Conor's hand – ‘Don't want to hypnotize
you
today, do I?' – but he smiled and held him close for a moment and said, ‘Good to see you, son. Very, very good to see you. I see you've been taking care of my Bipsy for me.'

Eleanor took hold of Sidney's hand and squeezed it, but didn't say anything.

UN headquarters was crowded this morning, with secretaries hurrying this way and that, while crocodiles of Japanese tourists were led across the lobby, chattering and taking photographs of everything, even the ashtrays. The congestion wasn't helped by a group of workmen erecting a large display of blown-up photographs depicting Peace In
Our Time, and a florist in white overalls with BLOSSOM TIME INC. stenciled on the back was working on a huge display of red and white chrysanthemums, arranging them to look like the UN dove, and spraying them with water to liven them up. Occasionally, there were brief flickers of photo-flash outside the main lobby as the delegates arrived. Conor took a long look around the lobby but there was no sign of Dennis Branch anywhere; or of anyone who looked like one of his followers.

‘If he
is
here,' said Conor, ‘how is he going to introduce the virus?'

‘I saw a movie once where some terrorist infected the air-conditioning system,' said Stanley.

‘I don't know … I suppose it would work if you did it on a plane, with a limited air supply. But in a building this size it seems pretty hit-and-miss. Like Eleanor says, Dennis Branch is out to make a grand theatrical gesture. Waiting for the virus to infiltrate the air supply could take days; and that's if it works at all.'

At 10:25 a.m. they took their seats in the public gallery in the chamber. Conor had only seen the General Assembly on television before, but it looked unusually full, with a high proportion of delegates from the Middle East – Saudi Arabia and Iran and Egypt.

The Special Session opened with a bulletin on the latest threat from the Global Message Movement, read out by the bald-headed Moroccan chairman, Ibn Battuta.

‘Dennis Branch warns that he will not extend the deadline of eleven-thirty a.m. today. He says that the
Word of God is non-negotiable. He has given no indication of where he might release the Spanish influenza virus, or how, but we have received preliminary reports from psychological profile experts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and from Norwegian investigators on Spitsbergen, and they are in no doubt that he is both capable and likely to carry out his threat.'

Eleanor said, ‘Don't you think we ought to warn the security guards?'

‘How can we? Supposing we've made a mistake, and he isn't here? We'll all be detained, I'll be arrested as a fugitive, and who's going to stop him then?'

The Special Session continued. The Saudi delegate was furious that the United States never failed to punish Islamic terror groups, but ignored the ‘writhing snakepit of murderous extremists within its own boundaries'. The Swedish delegate wanted to know if there was any vaccine that could protect the world population from Spanish influenza, to which Professor Sheldon Farber from the epidemiology department of New York University Medical Center replied, ‘No, sir. And even if we had one, we could never produce enough.'

The German delegate asked if this was a ‘doomsday scenario'. Professor Farber said, ‘If you consider the rapid and painful deaths of a number of people equivalent to the entire populations of New York, Washington and Los Angeles to be a “doomsday scenario” – then, yes, you could call it a “doomsday scenario”.'

‘It's supposed to happen in less than eleven
minutes,' declared the Argentinian delegate. ‘And what are we doing about it?'

‘Have any religious leaders anywhere in the world said that they will comply with the demands of the Global Message Movement?' asked the Greek delegate.

Ibn Battuta said, ‘I am informed that thirteen different sects have shown some willingness to discuss Mr Branch's demands. I am not at liberty to say who they are, but I can tell you that most of them hold fundamentalist Christian views not very distinct from Mr Branch's own. There has been a statement from one Islamic group that if a single member of its organization dies of Spanish influenza, the streets of the Western world will run red with infidel blood.'

It was 11:28 a.m. Conor kept swiveling his head around, looking for some indication that somebody was attempting to do something unusual. Maybe Branch
had
infected the air-conditioning system, but if he had, and it worked, then it was probably already too late.

One of the Arab delegates abruptly broke into a spasm of coughs. His aide opened the bottle of sparkling mineral water on his desk and poured him a glass. Conor kept an eye on him: it might have been possible for Dennis Branch to infect just one of the delegates, in the expectation that he would spread the virus all the way through the chamber.

The discussions went on, but after only a few minutes Ibn Battuta placed his hand to his forehead and took off his glasses. The Arab started coughing again, almost uncontrollably this time; and then
another delegate got to his feet and said, ‘Mr Secretary, if you'll excuse me …' He swayed for a moment, then his legs buckled and he fell to the floor.

Another delegate started to cough, and then another. The Arab suddenly gave one explosive cough and splattered his agenda papers with bright red blood. A woman delegate screamed.

In less than fifteen minutes, the whole General Assembly chamber was echoing with coughing and groaning and people calling for help in a cacophony of different languages. Even the security men were leaning against the walls, gasping for air.

‘We need medics, fast!' called the Canadian delegate. And Professor Farber ordered, ‘You must seal off the doors! You mustn't let anybody leave! If this is the Spanish flu virus, then it mustn't get out of here!'

Conor said to Eleanor, ‘Time to hit the bricks – now! Sidney – come on, let's go!'

They pushed their way through the growing confusion in the public gallery. Nobody understood what was happening. At least a third of the delegates had collapsed and the remainder were milling around in panic. A blaring alarm started to sound, which made the scene even more apocalyptic.