The Tower A Novel (Sanctus)

59





The soldiers immediately made themselves at home.

As well as the food and fresh fuel supplies – which they offloaded from the lorry with impressive and well-drilled speed – they

volunteered to take over the grave-digging detail their arrival had disrupted. They also brought something far more valuable than

any of these – they brought a laptop.

All the communications and technology in the compound had either been destroyed or looted, effectively cutting it off from the

wider world. So while everyone else was out beyond the perimeter fence Liv traced cables from the dish on the roof of the main

building and hot-wired the laptop into the compound’s satellite link.

Like any journalist Liv was a total information junkie and she’d been cold-turkey for days now so the first thing she did when

she fired up the laptop and got online was call up some news sites. She scanned the headlines feeling the buzz of an addict

getting a fresh hit. Since her brother had fallen to his death from the summit of the Citadel, Ruin and the story that had

unfolded in the wake of his sacrifice had never been far from the news. It was her story too – and also Gabriel’s. She did a

News search on Google with GABRIEL in the subject line. Pages of results came back, all several days old and just retelling

stories she already knew: his arrest at the hospital for suspected terrorist acts and homicide; his subsequent escape from

custody; the manhunt that ensued with her picture and name next to his. After that there was nothing. The only more recent stories

relating to Ruin were medical ones concerning an outbreak of what some of the more tabloidy sites were calling ‘a plague’.

Liv clicked on the top result, her heart racing at the implications of this. She remembered the symbol she had seen on the

Starmap, the circle with the cross through it that made her think of disease and suffering. Was this what it predicted – the

event that would result in the end of days?

The article opened and she speed-read it, her mind pulling out the facts as her eyes skimmed the words: outbreak centred around

the Citadel – eighteen dead, eighty-six in isolation – the whole city of Ruin in quarantine and under police control.

She opened another window and searched for RUIN POLICE. Skype was already installed on the desktop and she opened this too,

logging in through her own account that thankfully still had some credit on it. She copied the number of the switchboard into the

keypad, adding the international dialling codes for Turkey then hit the key to boost the speakers as the number dialled and

started to ring.

It rang for a long time, long enough for her to read another article about how the infected had been transferred from the Public

Church into the Citadel itself. There was a link to a news clip but someone answered before she could play it.

‘Ruin Police,’ a voice said, with chaos sounding in the background.

‘Hi,’ Liv said in fluent Turkish, ‘could you connect me to Inspector Arkadian?’

‘Name please?’

‘Liv Adamsen.’

‘One moment.’

The line switched to musak and Liv flipped back to the news site, scrolling through another article about the outbreak. It

featured apocalyptic photos of empty streets and people standing by the public gate to the Old Town wearing full contamination

suits. The Citadel soared up in the background, so terrible and familiar. Seeing it in this context made something click in Liv’s

head and she pulled the folded piece of paper from her pocket and smoothed it flat on the desk while the tinny hold tune continued

to play. She scanned the symbols again, her eyes settling on the beginning of the second line.



The symbol for disease followed by …

She looked back at the photo on the screen, the man in the contagion suit with the sharp outline of the mountain behind him.

… of course …

The second symbol represented the Citadel and the disease had started there and was now spreading. The next part of the prophecy

was coming to pass.

The musak cut out.

‘Liv?’

‘Arkadian.’ More noise in the background, like he was on a street full of children. ‘Are you OK? I just saw the news about the

outbreak.’

‘It’s chaos here. People are scared. I’m scared. We’re evacuating the children from the city. Where are you?’

She looked out of the window at the distant movement of people working on the hill as they dug the new grave. ‘Still in the

desert,’ she said. ‘We found it.’

‘I know. Gabriel told me.’

Liv felt the world shift. ‘Gabriel! You spoke to him?’

‘Yes.’ Another pause filled with the babble of children. ‘Just before he was taken into the Citadel.’

Liv felt like all the air had been sucked from the room.

‘He was sick, Liv, he had the virus – but he was not as sick as the others.’ She gripped the sides of her chair and reminded

herself to breathe. ‘Most of them go mad when the disease takes them, but not Gabriel. He rode all the way back here because he

knew he had it. He didn’t want it to spread. It was Gabriel who insisted the disease be contained inside the Citadel. He wanted

to take it back where it came from. He wanted to beat it. And if anyone can do it, it’s him.’

Liv tried to speak but couldn’t. In her ear she could hear Arkadian still speaking but she didn’t hear his words. Her eyes

dropped down to the red stained piece of paper and scanned the second line again, a terrible new meaning emerging from it in the

light of Arkadian’s revelation.



Disease

Citadel

A knight on horseback – Gabriel

She remembered the words on the note he had left her, telling her that leaving her was the hardest thing he had ever done. And now

she knew why. He must have known he was infected. He’d known that and had still ridden all the way back to the Citadel, just to

protect her.

She looked at the remaining symbols on the second line of the prophecy, hoping she might find something hopeful in them, but all

she saw was more misery.



She knew what it meant now. The T was her, the circle confinement and the moon and chevron told her how long it would all last.

Nine moons – Eight months.

She clicked on the video clip embedded in the news article. It had been filmed from a news helicopter at night so the quality wasn

’t great. A bright searchlight picked out a procession of patients strapped to stretchers and being carried to the mountain. She

studied the faces, all looking straight up into the sky. Even through the grainy images she could see the masks of pain their

faces had become. Tears started to run down her cheeks then the light swung away, settling again on the last stretcher to emerge

from the church. She hit the space bar to pause it just as Gabriel looked straight up at the camera. It was like he was staring

straight at her, like he was saying goodbye. Her love. Her life – being carried away on a stretcher, and into the heart of the

hateful mountain.





60





Franklin finished his cigarette and flicked it out of the window. ‘You ever been married, Shepherd?’

‘No.’

‘And you don’t have kids, do you?’

‘No, I don’t.’

They were on the outskirts of the town now with widely spaced houses emerging from the trees, a general store with lights burning

in the windows and a sign outside saying St Matthews Piggly Wiggly. There was a gas station on the other side of the road, also

open for business. Franklin drove past them both, all pretence of getting food and gas now abandoned.

‘When you have kids, everything changes. It’s like taking your heart out of your chest and watching it walk around. You’d do

anything for them, anything at all. And if you have a daughter,’ he shook his head, ‘well that’s a whole other ball game. The

world suddenly seems ten times more dangerous than it did before, a hundred times, and she is so vulnerable and fragile in it.’

He slowed down and took a right into a one-lane street lined with neat, single-storey houses with wooden porches and brick

chimneys, their front lawns all blanketed in white.

‘So you work your ass off to put a roof over her head, give her a good life, protect her from all the crap that you know is out

there, the stuff that you see every day. Everything you do takes on new meaning, every bad guy I ever put away was dedicated in

some way to my daughter. I did it for her, to make the world a safer place for her, and for her mother.’

He took another left onto a road lined with bigger houses, some with four-car drives.

‘And you try so hard to shut off the darkness you have to deal with but it’s always there, like a stain. So you keep it from

your kids by keeping yourself from them, because, in a way, you are the thing you want to protect them from.’

He brought the car to a halt outside a house with a long sloping roof like a ski jump. Franklin fixed his eyes on it and killed

the engine.

‘Then one day you realize you don’t know who they are any more, either of them. You’ve spent so long working to give your

family a better life that you’re no longer a part of it. You’ve become a stranger in your own home. You can’t talk to them, you

can’t understand them, you’re only aware of the distance between you where once there was no gap at all.’ He looked away and

Shepherd wondered if the tough old bastard was actually crying.

‘I’m sorry I dragged you all the way out here,’ Franklin said, turning back and looking him square in the eye. ‘I kind of

convinced myself it was all about the investigation but in the end it looks like it’s all about me.’ He nodded at the sideways

house. ‘And you were right about the homing instinct.’

‘You don’t have to explain it.’

Franklin turned to him. ‘You said you didn’t have a home.’

‘I don’t, at least not like this. But home means different things to different people.’ He took a breath ready to tell him …

about Melisa, about his missing two years, even about how he was using the MPD files to try and find her again. But just then the

door of the house opened and a girl of about twenty stepped out.

Cold air flooded in as Franklin got out of the car. Shepherd watched him walk up the drive towards her, like he was being pulled

by an invisible thread. He stopped a few feet short of her and they stared at each other. Then she stepped forward and wrapped her

slender arms round his neck and buried her face in his chest. Behind them another woman, an older version of the girl, stepped

onto the porch and stared at them for a moment. Then she too came forward, a smile breaking on her face like a sunrise, and

Shepherd looked away, feeling uncomfortable about sharing such a private moment even from a distance.

He stared down the street at the other houses. Some were empty and dark, the drives showing the fading tyre tracks of cars no

longer there. Other houses glowed, their festive decorations lighting up the snow like Christmas cards.

Witnessing the power of the homing instinct and its effect even on someone like Franklin made him realize that the pull to find

Melisa and the reckless things it was making him do was simply the same thing working in him.

The rap of a knuckle on his window snapped him back to the present.

Franklin was standing outside the car. Shepherd got out, snow crunching beneath his shoes and cold air on his skin.

‘You want to come in, grab some lunch?’

Shepherd looked over at the porch where the two women were standing watching them. ‘I don’t think so. I’d just be in the way.’

Franklin nodded. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘When I drove here I thought … well, I don’t know what I thought, but now I’m here I don

’t think I can leave again, not for a while at least.’

‘It’s OK, I understand. I’ll go on to Cherokee alone, see if I can find Douglas’s place. It’s probably a waste of time

anyway, I only ever went there once.’

‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Franklin said, his brow creasing with the difficulty of what he was doing. ‘And if you do find

him, don’t approach him on your own. Call me first, OK?’

‘He’s my old teacher – what’s he going to do, give me a tough assignment?’

‘He’s a wanted terrorist who nearly got you killed in an explosion this morning. Don’t forget that.’

‘OK, if I find him I’ll call – I promise. Now get inside that house, Agent Franklin, and spend some time with your family.’

‘Ben.’

‘What?’

‘Name’s Ben, short for Benjamin: it’s not my bureau name, it’s my real one. My old man won a hundred-dollar bill for calling

me it when I was born, a*shole that he was. He’d probably have called me George if our name had been Washington, just to win a

dollar.’

‘It’s a fine name, Ben. You wear it well.’ Shepherd held out his hand.

And Franklin shook it.





61





Rosie Andrews crunched through the snow towards the ATM. It was out of service, just like all the others. Nothing was working.

Everything was falling apart. She felt tears bubbling up through her growing panic. She had about fifteen dollars in her purse,

two maxed-out credit cards, a quarter of a tank of gas and at least a three-hour journey ahead of her. The gas would get her maybe

fifty miles out of Asheville, about a third of the way down to her mom’s in Atlanta, maybe even less the way her station wagon

was loaded up.

From somewhere across the parking lot she heard glass shatter followed by a roar of voices that made the hairs bristle on the back

of her neck. She turned and hurried back to where she had left the car, parked behind a dumpster on the far side of the lot, away

from the large angry-looking crowd she had seen outside the big Petro Express when she had driven in. It all added to the sick

feeling that had been growing inside her that made her feel something was terribly wrong. The crowd had been arguing with security

staff who were allowing only a few people in at a time to control numbers.

There was another crash and the roar got louder.

Sounded like the security guys had lost the argument.

The noise frightened her. It was the sound of violence and chaos and it made her feel small and vulnerable. She just wanted to get

some money and get out of here. She just wanted to get home.

She rounded the edge of the dumpster, fretting in her pocket for her keys, and saw the man leaning down by the side of the car,

his face pressed against the rear window. Rosie felt blood singing in her ears and her vision started to tunnel.

‘What are you … you get away from there.’

The man looked up but didn’t move – he just kept looking at her in a way she didn’t like.

Another crash of glass behind her. Another roar.

She pulled her hand from her coat and pointed it at him. ‘You step away from the car, you hear me?’

The man looked down and registered the gun she was holding, but still he didn’t move.

‘Is this man bothering you, sweetie?’

The voice made her jump. Rosie’s head jerked round to discover a birdlike woman standing next to her, so small she was almost

like a child. She was looking up at her, her blue eyes cold against the snow. In her peripheral vision she saw movement, the man

moving forward, using the distraction to close the gap between them.

She stepped backwards, slipping on the ice a little but holding the gun steady in a good grip like she’d practised on the range.

She was going to shoot him. If he took one step closer she would fire without hesitation. She had often wondered if she would be

able to do it if she found herself in a situation like this but now there was no question in her mind that she could. It was a

nature thing. A primal instinct to protect what was yours. She took another step back, opened her mouth to warn the man one last

time, then an object banged against her side.

The movement was so fast she didn’t even feel the pain until the blade was sliding back out from between her ribs, so sharp and

sudden that it snatched the breath from her mouth as quickly as the man took the gun from her hand.

She felt confused, like everything was happening to someone else and she was just watching. Warmth spread out from the burning

pain in her side and she looked down at the red bloom spreading over the white of her coat.

Blood. Her blood.

The sight of it shocked some sense back into her and she took a ragged breath ready to scream but a strong hand clamped over her

mouth and dragged her further back into the shadows behind the dumpster.

Carrie watched Eli holding the woman tightly, making sure her blood spilled away from him and onto the snow and not his boots.

When her body went limp he laid her gently on the ground and patted down her pockets until he found the keys.

‘Shame,’ he said, standing up and moving over to the car.

‘Just bad timing I guess,’ Carrie said, inspecting the blade of her knife and wiping it with a handful of snow.

‘I didn’t mean her,’ Eli pressed the button on the keyfob and the car thunked as the central locking disengaged. He opened the

back door and nodded towards the interior. ‘I meant her.’

The backseat was crammed with boxes of groceries, rolls of bedding and a couple of laundry bags overflowing with baby-girl

clothes. The owner of the clothes was wrapped up tight in a quilted snowsuit and strapped into a kiddie car-seat, asleep, a single

strand of blonde hair escaping from beneath a hand-knitted woollen hat.

Carrie moved over and watched the tiny chest rise and fall, eyes moving beneath the lids as she dreamed her little-girl dreams.

Carrie's hand found Eli’s and she wrapped all of her fingers round one of his but he pulled away, reaching across the tiny

sleeping form to pick up a pillow from the pile of bedding. ‘Look away, honey,’ he said, ‘you don’t need to see this.’

She opened her mouth to speak but then thought better of it. Eli was right. This was no world for a little girl to go through

without a mother by her side, she knew that much herself, and this little poppet was sweet and innocent enough to pass straight

into heaven, no questions asked. Eli was doing her a favour, a great favour, by doing this thing for her. He was so kind and

strong where it really counted, in the heart – and that was why she loved him.

‘Suffer the little children to come unto me,’ she said, reaching out to gently tuck the lock of hair back under the woollen hat.

Then she kissed Eli on the cheek and turned away.