The Tower A Novel (Sanctus)

38





The C-130 dropped through violently churning clouds and banked hard to bring it into the wind and onto its approach heading.

‘Jesus, would you look at that,’ the pilot’s voice crackled through the comms.

Shepherd peered across the cargo space and through the tiny windows opposite. He caught small glimpses of the city of Charleston

below, frozen solid and blanketed with snow. He wondered why the pilot sounded so surprised after what he had told them about the

weather earlier. It was like this all over the South he had said. A section of midtown slid into view, the higher buildings

looking like huge ice crystals that had punched up through the ground, then the plane shifted again, bringing a new view into the

windows.

Below him the broad Cooper River snaked through the heart of the city. It seemed low, just a narrow channel winding its way

through flat, snow dusted banks. The USS Yorktown, a World War Two museum ship at permanent mooring just down from the Ravenel

Bridge, looked like it was beached on the white flats. Then Shepherd saw cracks in the white that surrounded it and realized what

it was. The river wasn’t low at all and the white flats not the banks, they were the river. The whole thing had frozen solid

leaving just a trickle of water running down the centre.

The plane levelled off, bringing more of the city into view and Shepherd finally saw what the pilot had seen. It wasn’t the snow

or even the extraordinary sight of a frozen South Carolina tidal river that had drawn the exclamation from his lips – it was what

was on the river.

East of the bridge and beyond the cracked edge of the ice sheet where the fresh water met the salt of the sea were more ships than

Shepherd had ever seen before in one place. Closest to land were smaller vessels and fishing boats, all crammed together so tight

it looked like you could almost walk across the river using them as stepping-stones. Further out in the deeper water were bigger

ships: container vessels, tankers, cruise liners, military ships and even the immense outline of an aircraft carrier. It was an

astonishing sight and there was something both impressive and deeply unsettling about it. Just before the plane started its final

descent and cut the view entirely Shepherd realized what it was. They all had their bow inward. Every single one of the hundred or

so ships was pointing towards land.





39





Father Malachi surged through the library in his halo of light.

Following his meeting with Athanasius and Father Thomas he was in a state of total shock. A month ago, when the Abbot and the

Prelate still lived and the Sancti still held sway within the mountain, Athanasius would have been executed for even considering

the heresy he was now proposing. Secrecy and isolation were how the mountain had kept its great secrets for so long. Now that

damned fool with his weak, liberal ideas was going to allow a bunch of total strangers inside – civilians, doctors, women! – all

of them carrying this filthy disease. How quickly the solid walls of his world had started to crumble.

He passed through an arch and strode through the Renaissance section, his follow light becoming steadily dimmer as he travelled

back through the great archive of man’s learning. While others in the Citadel turned to God in their time of need, Malachi always

found divinity and peace in the written word. Every great thought and every profound event mankind had ever had or experienced was

written and recorded somewhere in this vast network of caves. There was an answer for everything here somewhere.

When that damned monk Samuel had jumped to his death and the Abbot had confided in him that his body may have contained clues as

to the identity of the Sacrament, he had come to the library and taken solace in the chronicles of the Rides of the Tabula Rasa.

These recorded every historical instance where the identity of the Sacrament had been threatened. Each time the knights had ridden

out and each time the traitors had been found and silenced and the Sacrament’s secret had remained. Later when the blight had

appeared he had found records detailing outbreaks of other contagions throughout the Citadel’s long history. Again, the mountain

had always recovered and prospered. It would do so again. He had to believe that. Whatever lunacy Athanasius was considering it

was up to him to maintain the true spirit of the Citadel. And with the Sacrament gone it was the library that now held the

greatest secrets. He would keep the door locked and the world outside, even if the mountain beyond was awash with strangers. The

soul of the Citadel was in these books, and so – somewhere – was the answer to the question now running though his head. ‘What

should be done about Athanasius?’





40





Liv and Tariq stood by the edge of the pool, staring down at the muddy dish of water. They had only been in the desert half a day

but already the water level was down by half.

‘You did tell everyone to go easy?’ Liv murmured.

Tariq nodded and squinted up at the sun, dropping low in the afternoon sky. ‘It’s not the people who are the problem.’

The combination of fierce desert sun, the dam stopping the river from replenishing the pool and the natural leaching away of water

into the dry ground meant the pool was emptying so fast they could almost see it happening.

Liv looked up at Tariq. ‘We can’t stay here long. Where’s the nearest town or settlement?’

He nodded back towards the compound. ‘Al-Hillah is half a day’s ride in that direction, so maybe two days’ walking.’

Liv imagined walking for two days in this heat. The few hours it had taken to get here had been hellish enough. ‘How much food do

we have?’

‘Hardly any: the riders didn’t give us much time to pack and everyone was busy filling their canteens with water. Certainly not

enough to feed everyone on a hard, two-day journey.’ He looked at the lengthening shadows stretching across the land. ‘I will go

alone, one person alone will need less food. The heat is fading so I could travel all night and cover a lot of ground. I will take

as little as I need and bring back horses and supplies. The water here should last another day.’

Liv shook her head. ‘If you’re going I’m coming with you.’

‘No. You should stay.’

‘With Kasim and his barely disguised looks of hate? I don’t think so. Besides, what if something happens to you out there and we

’re stuck here, slowly dying of hunger and thirst while we wait for your return?’

‘Nothing will happen to me.’

‘Not if there’s two of us it won’t. Come on, let’s go check the food supplies and break the happy news.’ She turned and

walked away before Tariq could argue.

The food had been collected and stored in a large backpack that was kept in the shade of one of the rocks to protect it from the

worst of the heat. They had been rationing it, handing out just a handful of dried dates or a small piece of an energy bar every

few hours to make it last. Liv wasn’t sure how much was left but figured she and Tariq would need to take the lion’s share to

give them the energy they would need for their journey. She scanned the patches of shade beneath the larger boulders looking for

Kasim, figuring if anyone was going to object to their plan it would be him. She felt relieved when she couldn’t see him.

She made it to the boulder where their ‘larder’ was kept and reached into the gap beneath it for the pack. She knew something

was wrong the moment her hand closed around the shoulder strap and pulled the bag towards her. It was too light. She dragged it

out, unsnapped the cover and looked inside. Empty.

She looked around in panic, her exhausted mind knocked sideways by the discovery. The flat stone and pocket knife used for cutting

the energy bars was on the ground beside her. She was in the right place – so where was the food? No one had said anything about

it running low the last time the rations had been handed out.

Then she stopped dead, remembering the last person who had done it.

It had been Kasim.

Kasim had handed round the last rations about an hour ago.

And now Kasim was missing.





41





Joint Base Charleston served as both a civil and a military airport, hence the blunt utility of its name. It was also shared by

different branches of the armed forces and the C-130 pulled to a stop now between the drooping wings of two massive C17 military

transports, one painted in Army camouflage the other in Air Force blue.

‘Agents Franklin and Shepherd?’ Their welcoming committee snapped to attention as they walked down the loading ramp into a

freezing wind that was whipping off the river. He was a two-chevron Petty Officer with a clipboard and a pink, scrubbed-looking

face that appeared to be suffering in the cold. Franklin flashed his creds, Shepherd fumbled his from the coat he’d borrowed from

Marshall after his had been destroyed by the helium blast, the PO ticked something on his clipboard and gestured towards a waiting

Crown Victoria with base markings on the side and its engine running. ‘Sorry gentlemen, you just got me. We’re kind of short-

staffed here. And I can’t hang around or let you have the car either. I can take you off base and into town but that’s about

all. Traffic is hellacious today for some reason. You’ll have to find your own way back. I’m real sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it, son – we’re grateful for any help.’ Franklin showed him Cooper’s address and the PO whistled through

his teeth. ‘Fancy. That’s south of Broad in the old town, where the tourists go and the rich folks live. Like I say, I can take

you there but I can’t wait.’

Franklin held up his hands in surrender. ‘No problem – we can hook up with the local PD once we’re off base and take it from

there.’

Franklin moved towards the passenger seat leaving the back for Shepherd. He didn’t speak again until the car was rolling.

‘Your staffing situation got anything to do with that floating traffic jam out in the river?’

‘You got that right, sir. We’ve had unauthorized ships arriving here for the past twenty-four hours. The Port Authority is in

meltdown. They’ve drafted us in to help deal with the situation but it seems to be getting worse. We put out a general call

twelve hours ago advising all shipping that the port is now embargoed but no one seems to be taking any notice. They just keep on

coming.’ The PO eased out onto a broad boulevard lined with piles of greying snow. ‘Did you see the carrier when you came in?’

‘Hard to miss it.’

‘That’s the USS Ronald Reagan. It’s supposed to be out on patrol in the Atlantic but it showed up here about an hour ago. There

’s all hell breaking loose over at command. They’re talking mutiny and all kinds of stuff.’

‘Anyone spoken to the captain?’

‘If they have, I don’t know about it. What I do know is that none of the ships – military or civilian – have responded to

communications. We can track them coming in on radar so we know they’re headed here, but all attempts to contact them and divert

them elsewhere have been met with radio silence. It’s like a fleet of ghost ships coming in to anchor.’

‘What about the crews, they sick or something?’

‘They’re all fine. Everything’s fine. There’s no engine failure or nothing like that. They get here, drop anchor and start

disembarking. That’s why we’re short-staffed, everyone’s on double duty trying to deal with all the paperwork. By rights all

the military personnel should be arrested for dereliction of duty and held in the brig but we haven’t even got the capacity for

that. The brig holds around three hundred men and it’s full already. There’s six thousand on the Reagan alone. We also got a

cruiser and a destroyer out there and a coupla frigates heading this way. I heard talk they were gonna commandeer Fort Sumter out

in the bay and use it as a holding pen, but then the National Park Service got all bent out of shape because it’s a civil war

monument and all. You ask me, the whole thing’s a mess. A big crazy mess.’ He shook his head.

Shepherd watched the PO’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. They were edgy, flicking left and right, fixing on the road then checking

the mirrors like someone might be following them. His fingers tapped on the wheel as he drove, like he was nervous or scared.

‘Can’t you send some of these ships off to another port, take the pressure off here a little?’ he asked.

‘Well that’s the thing, sir – we got Kings Bay and Jacksonville south of here but they’re having the same problem. They got

ships showing up there too.’

‘Any port in a storm,’ Shepherd muttered, looking out of the window at the frozen edges of the city as it started to snow again.

‘What’s that, sir?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I tell you one thing.’ The PO’s hands continued to drum anxiously on the wheel. ‘The one thing all the ships have in common.

’ He checked the rear-view mirror one last time before whispering his secret. ‘They’re all American. American registered and

American crews. And the funny thing is, when we interview the crews, and ask ’em why they put in here, they all keep saying the

same thing: “We just needed to get home”, that’s what they’re saying – “We need to get home”.’

Home

That word again, taunting Shepherd with a meaning he had never really known. Outside his window the parking lots and business

units of northern Charleston began to disappear as they headed Downtown. The PO had been right about the traffic. Lines of cars

packed solid with people and possessions, inching forward through the drifting snow. The vast majority of them were from out of

state. Shepherd even spotted one with Canadian tags.

Shepherd’s phone buzzed and he checked the caller ID before answering.

‘Hello, Merriweather.’

‘I just heard about the explosion at Marshall. Is it true?’ He sounded about as tired as Shepherd felt.

Shepherd glanced at Franklin before answering. ‘Unofficially, yes. We’re trying to keep a lid on it at the moment, though, so

don’t repeat that to anyone.’

‘What about James Webb? Was it badly damaged?’

Shepherd looked out of the window at the frozen city. ‘It was totally destroyed, or at least all the components in the cryo

testing lab were.’

The phone went silent and Shepherd watched the lines of traffic slip by as the PO made good use of his lights and siren to thread

his way through it.

‘What about Professor Douglas?’ Merriweather said. ‘Is he – was he?’

‘He’s fine so far as we know. We haven’t found him yet. He wasn’t at the facility. We’re trying to track him down now. But

no-one was hurt, which is the only good news. Well, that and the fact that your job probably just got a little more secure. It

will probably be cheaper to fix Hubble now than rebuild James Webb, so I guess every storm cloud has a silver lining.’

‘Yeah I guess.’ He didn’t sound particularly happy.

Outside, the lines of cars thinned a little as they reached the older part of town with its grander, prettier architecture:

Colonial- style mansions, Federal, Georgian – all sliding past behind a veil of snow like ghosts of the city’s history.

‘How is Hubble – any change?’ Shepherd asked, trying to lift Merriweather’s mood.

‘Yes actually there is.’ He brightened a little. ‘It’s still pointing straight down to Earth but at least it hasn’t started

losing altitude or anything worrying like that. If anything, it appears to be settling into a new orbit.’

‘What about Taurus, anything new appearing there?’

‘Not that I know of but I’m a bit blind at the moment. I’ll do some asking around with some people I know with telescopes that

still work.’

‘Thanks, Merriweather. I appreciate it. Try and get some sleep.’

‘Ah, sleep is overrated. I can sleep when I’m old.’

Shepherd smiled. ‘Take care, Merriweather.’ He hung up.

The tyres rumbled as they hit the old cobbled roads built with discarded ballast stones from British sailing ships when Charleston

was part of its expanding Empire.

‘Take a right over there,’ Franklin said, pointing to a turn up ahead, ‘otherwise you’ll get caught up in the one-way system.

’

‘You been here before, sir?’ the driver said, making the turn.

‘Coupla of times.’

They were in the heart of the tourist district now and every store served either food or nostalgia. The driver slowed as they

passed a mule-drawn carriage with a few brave tourists huddled in the back, heads down against the driving snow, looking back to

where the harbour was framed at the end of the long street. You could just see the ships through the snow, clustered together in

the same waters where sails once billowed and cannons boomed as the British were driven out.

‘Here you go, gentlemen.’

The Crown Vic turned a corner and pulled up to the kerb by a classic red-brick Charleston Single House with chocolate-brown

shutters framing tall sash windows. Bright lights burned inside making the windows glow, and steam rose from a vent in the

basement. On street level two broad steps led up through an arch to an iron gate that served as the front entrance. A Christmas

wreath was hanging above a rectangle of polished brass with the church of christ’s salvation engraved on it.

‘Sorry I got to dump you,’ the PO said, like a cab driver desperate to get rid of his last fare before home. ‘Just bad timing

with all the craziness.’

‘Don’t worry about it and thanks for the ride.’ They got out of the car and Shepherd felt the cold wrap itself round him as it

drove off, the snow swallowing the sound of its engine and leaving them in crystal silence. Franklin pressed a button by the side

of the locked gate but if it made a sound inside the house the snow swallowed that too. ‘You think we should sing Christmas

carols?’ he said.

The sound of a bolt cracked through the silence, making Shepherd jump.

Halfway along the side of the house a door opened and a woman stepped out and started making her way towards them. She looked to

be about thirty or so, her black hair cut short and matched by a black two-piece trouser suit worn over a grey turtle-neck

sweater. She didn’t smile as she covered the ten or so feet between them, merely looked at them both, sizing them up, her breath

clouding in the cold air. Shepherd noticed she had a slight limp and, as she drew closer, he saw a thin pale scar cutting across

her left cheek. She stopped a foot short of the closed gate and regarded them through the bars. ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ The

scar puckered a little when she spoke.

‘Yes, I think you probably can,’ Franklin held up his ID. ‘Is the good Reverend at home?’

Her grey eyes flicked to the badge then back again.

‘The Reverend Cooper is on air at the moment.’

‘That’s OK, we can wait.’ Franklin smiled. The woman did not. Neither did she make any move to open the gate.

‘What’s your name, miss?’

‘Boerman. Caroline Boerman.’

‘Well, Miss Caroline from the Carolinas we can wait out here if you’d like.’ He kicked his shoe against the wall to clear the

snow from it. ‘But I should tell you I’m a Southern boy and the cold makes me awful grouchy.’

A small smile finally cracked the mask of her face, puckering the scar even more but going nowhere near her eyes. ‘Of course,’

she said, unlocking the gate and stepping back to allow them past. ‘Where are my manners?’