The Tower (23 page)

By the time the sun dipped low enough to touch the horizon, Liv and Tariq were ready to leave. Following the discovery of Kasim’s theft everyone had decided they should try and get to Al-Hillah as planned, food or no food. They didn’t really have much choice.

They filled as many canteens as they could carry and drank freely from the pool to fully hydrate themselves before the long march ahead. One small consolation of Kasim’s clandestine departure was that he had not been able to take much water as filling the canteens at the pool would have been too obvious. As a result Liv and Tariq had plenty of spare water containers for their journey. They were heavy but Liv consoled herself with the thought that the more they drank, the lighter they would become.

The two of them set off with the sky still bright but the sun now gone, rising out of the depression in the ground like the dead coming back to life. Tariq led the way, past the dam and along the line of the river back towards the compound. Al-Hillah lay directly beyond. They had talked about taking a wide route to avoid the compound entirely, but with hunger already gnawing at their stomachs and the extra miles this would add to their journey they had decided to risk taking the direct route instead, timing their march so they could creep past it as close as they dared under cover of darkness.

Night fell quickly and so did the temperature. Liv pulled her clothes tight against the creeping cold but could still feel it slowly taking hold of her feet, numbing them as they trudged forward. Ahead of them the compound glowed into life as the battery-powered security lights switched on automatically, using power collected by solar panels during the day. She felt drawn to them, a moth to the light. ‘They seem brighter tonight,’ she said.

‘It’s because they’re getting closer,’ Tariq whispered, then pressed his finger to his lips. ‘We should keep quiet. Sound travels further in the still of a desert night.’ It felt good to be moving again and she found the tightness that had tugged at her as she walked away from the compound was lessening again with every step she took back to it.

For the next hour they walked in silence, settling into a steady pace, stopping occasionally to adjust anything on their packs that made a noise. It was in the soft silence of one of these stops that they heard it, a steady, rhythmic sound, rising and falling as the night breezes shifted it around. Liv titled her head towards it and Tariq did the same. Through the whisper of the wind they heard it again, the unmistakable thrum of a diesel engine.

‘Generator,’ Tariq whispered. ‘That’s why the lights are so bright. They must have fresh supplies of fuel and have switched on the main perimeter lights. Someone else must be there.’

Liv listened harder, trying to pick out any other sounds of life. She was listening so hard that when the new sound came, close and loud, it made her spin round in alarm. It had come from behind, a haunted, moaning sound from over by the river. The sound came again, rattling and wet and she saw what had made it. It was a man, shuffling up the bank, his breath coming in gasping, laborious moans.

Kasim.

Liv started to back away as his eyes locked onto her, so wide and staring that they seemed to glow in the night. A thick, viscous rope of dark drool leaked from his mouth and he raised an arm to point directly at her, his hand bent into a claw.

SaHeira,
he said, his voice ragged and raw.

Witch.

Then he coughed, a fierce racking sound that brought him to his knees and sent him into convulsions. He rolled onto his back, fighting for air. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he started to spasm. Liv jumped as a hand fell on her shoulder. ‘Don’t look,’ Tariq said, trying to turn her away from the death throes.

Liv shrugged away, her eyes transfixed by Kasim, bucking and twitching on the ground, fighting for his final breath. He gave one last long shudder then was still.

‘Look,’ Tariq said, pointing past his body, ‘you were right.’

Kasim’s canteen drifted in the water where he had stopped to drink, driven by thirst and lack of supplies. Tariq stepped over the body and retrieved his backpack lying on the bank. Inside were the missing rations. ‘We need to get away from here,’ Tariq said, shouldering the bag. ‘He made too much noise. People will be coming to see what it was.’

Liv turned to the compound glowing brightly in the night, close enough now to pick out details. She could see the spindly structures of the guard towers, the shiny-sided buildings, the drill tower in the centre still throwing water high into the air; but no movement, and no people. She started walking towards it, following the line of the widening stream to its source at the centre of the compound. She did not want to look upon the agonized death mask of Kasim any more. But most of all she did not want Tariq to see the tears that had started to run down her cheeks. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying. Maybe it was exhaustion – or guilt. Wherever she went it seemed, people died – and she was weary of death. It seemed to walk alongside her, taking the lives of everyone she touched and driving others away. She couldn’t shake the growing feeling that it was she who was at the heart of all this misery – that she was the cause and the curse.

‘What are you doing?’ Tariq said, drawing level with her, his voice a low whisper so it would not carry.

‘I’m going back,’ she said, her eyes fixed on the compound. ‘And if they shoot me then they’ll be doing me and everyone else a favour. You go on to Al-Hillah if you want. I’m tired of running scared.’

She marched on, feeling relieved more than anything as the tension continued to unwind inside her. The adrenalin of the incident with Kasim burned away leaving a gnawing sickness in the pit of her empty stomach and her muscles feeling heavy and weak. Ahead of her the compound opened up a little as her perspective shifted. She could see past the main building now into the wide central area where the derrick rose from the main pool of water. There was still no sign of life, no horses, no people. Maybe they had realized the water was poisoned and ridden away.

The compound opened up a little more and she saw two vehicles parked by the main transport hanger that hadn’t been there before: a jeep and a transport truck. It explained the fresh supplies of fuel. She was close enough now to read the registration plates and make out the logo on the side of the truck – a flower with the earth at its centre. The heat of hope warmed her exhausted muscles and she broke into a shambling run. It was the symbol of the international aid agency ORTUS – the charity Gabriel worked for. He had said he would come back. He had promised. Maybe he had …

She made it to the gate too exhausted from her sprint even to call out his name. She rattled the gate then found a stone on the ground and started banging it against the steel frame. The anvil clang echoed in the night like a chapel bell and she kept at it, beating the stone against the metal until it splintered in her hands.

A door opened on the side of the transport hangar, framing the silhouette of a man and Liv crumpled to her knees, all her energy spent. The figure hurried out of the door towards her and another followed. She could not make out details of their faces because of the bright lights shining behind them. She watched them draw closer, clinging to the gate to keep herself vaguely upright as hope drained steadily out of her. The way they moved, the slope of their shoulders, other tiny things told her, long before they reached the gate to open it, that neither man was Gabriel.

She let go of the gate and allowed herself to slump down the last few feet to the cold earth. The smell of the earth filled her nostrils as her head made contact with the ground. Then she gave in to the welcome relief of oblivion, closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.

The Reverend Fulton Cooper was shorter than Shepherd had expected but he displaced the air like a much larger man. He was standing in the middle of a large room that had been converted into a TV studio, talking to a tall reed of a man clutching a clipboard and wearing headphones. The studio was basic, just three cameras on wheeled tripods with wireless transmitters plugged in the back feeding a signal directly into a large iMac in the corner. Including the laptops the telephone operators were using there was maybe less than twenty thousand dollars' worth of technology on display. No wonder the Reverend could afford to base his church in a million-dollar mansion. He was broadcasting to the world with a miniscule overhead and no taxes to pay.

‘Gentlemen.’ Cooper finally turned his attention to them, all smiles and open arms. ‘My apologies for the wait. As you can see I am rather busy, but I am more than happy to be of assistance if I can.’ He stayed where he was, inviting them to come to him, establishing the power structure.

Franklin didn’t move. ‘And we surely appreciate that,’ he said. ‘Is there maybe somewhere more private we could talk?’

Cooper’s smile widened. ‘I have nothing to hide from any of these people: we can talk about anything right here in this room.’

‘All right,’ Franklin said. ‘How’s your catching?’

The smile slipped a little. ‘I don’t get your meaning?’

‘Your catching,’ Franklin repeated, then his arm shot forward sending something arcing through the air. Cooper took a step back, his smooth veneer further ruffled by the unexpected move and swatted the object away with his left hand, sending a plastic key ring skittering across the floor of the studio.

‘You’ll never make the team catching like that,’ Franklin said, finally taking a step forward. ‘Did you know only around ten per cent of the population are left-handed? Also most people use the same hand to do everything like throw, catch – write threatening postcards to NASA.’

The smile returned but it didn’t quite make it to Reverend Cooper’s eyes. ‘Take twenty minutes, everyone,’ he announced to the room. ‘Gregory, can you run infomercials on a loop until I’m finished with these gentlemen?’ He turned back to them. ‘Why don’t we sit down,’ he gestured towards two sofas in the middle of the studio arranged around a low table with a laptop on it. ‘Miss Boerman, if you would be so kind as to bring us a large pot of coffee.’

‘Coffee!’ Franklin said. ‘Now there’s an idea.’

They settled in the sofas and sat in silence while the room emptied, Cooper busying himself with his cell phone in a way that suggested whatever was on his phone was far more important and deserving of his attention than they were. Shepherd didn’t mind. It gave him the chance to study him up close: he found him vaguely fascinating. His head seemed too big for his compact body and every facial gesture seemed amplified. He also hummed with a restless energy that combined with his carefully combed silver hair and expensive colour-matched suit to make him come across like a high-powered corporate executive or a senator with his eye on higher office.

‘If you could switch your phone to silent and leave it on the table while we talk,’ Franklin said, ‘I would appreciate it.’

Cooper looked up.

‘This is an informal interview but an important one and I don’t want you to be distracted while we talk.’

Cooper obeyed, reluctantly laying his phone down next to the laptop.

‘Mind if I smoke?’ Franklin asked, producing his pack of cigarettes.

Cooper’s frown deepened. ‘I believe smoking inside any public building is illegal.’

Franklin tapped a cigarette out and popped it between his lips, reaching a finger inside the pack to fish out his lighter. ‘That’s true but I believe the deeds to this house are in your name, which makes it a private residence. A man can do whatever he likes in his own home.’

‘I’m afraid I must still insist that you do not smoke.’

Franklin shrugged, returned the cigarette to the pack and laid it on the table next to Cooper’s phone. ‘Your house, your rules.’

The door closed as the final person left and Shepherd reached into the laptop case to pull out copies of the postcards sent to Kinderman and Douglas.

‘Recognize these?’ Franklin asked.

The Reverend took them and studied them, his eyes struggling to focus, his vanity preventing him from wearing reading glasses. ‘Of course I recognize them.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Those are the shining words of Genesis.’

Franklin returned the smile but there was no warmth in it. ‘Do you recognize the handwriting?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because it’s mine.’

Silence stretched out in the empty room. The sofa creaked as Franklin leaned forward. ‘Care to tell us why you sent them?’

Cooper opened his mouth to reply but the door opened and Miss Boerman reappeared carrying a tray of coffee. She moved the laptop to one side and placed it on the table, careful to avoid the documents and other items on the table. Cooper waited until she had left. ‘Do you believe what is written in the Bible, gentlemen? Are you men of faith? Because if you know your Scripture then you will not be blind to the clear signs that judgement day is upon us. I saw that those telescopes were an insult to the Lord, modern-day versions of the Tower of Babel, symbol of man’s pride in seeking to gaze upon the face of God, and I prayed to Him saying, “Lord, I know we have offended you, what would you have me do in your blessed name to make amends?”’

‘And he told you to send death threats?’

Cooper smiled like a gambler with an ace in the hole. ‘Death threats? I sent no death threats.’

Shepherd reached into the case and handed over copies of the final letters sent to both Kinderman and Douglas. ‘Then maybe you can explain these.’

Cooper took them and held them at arm's length taking his time to inspect them before handing them back. ‘If you recall I admitted I did write those cards. But these are
letters,
and they have been
typed
not written.’

‘So you’re saying you did not send these?’

‘I did not.’

Franklin leaned further forward, his voice dropping in a way that was both conspiratorial and menacing. ‘Quite a coincidence, though, don’t you think, them both making reference to the exact same thing.’