Not the End of the World (26 page)

He would call Ballistics, tell them to start checking that shell against the DEA and the Coast Guard’s spent cartridge collections. He reached for the phone, but it rang as his hand gripped the receiver.

It was a weird shoot. Occasionally you got subjects who were edgy and uncomfortable, depending on how used they were to this sort of thing. It was less normal for the photographer to be self‐
conscious.

At the start there was a faint air of embarrassment about the proceedings. Steff’s problem was that he had lost the protective barrier of just being the man with the camera, there to do a job. He wore a security laminate with his name on it, which had meant nothing to most of the people he’d snapped that week; to them he was still anonymous. But not to Maddy. She asked if she could call him Stephen rather than Steff, saying she liked the name. From a professional point of view, he wished she hadn’t said that. The rest of him, however, shivered with pleasure every time the word fell from her lips.

Maddy, who of all people he thought should be used to the camera, was a bag of nerves too, enough even to seem oblivious to Steff’s feeling like a shambling amateur.

‘I’m sorry I’m so self‐
conscious today,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what it is. You must be wondering how someone who’s had my career can suddenly be camera‐
shy. I guess it’s like you said, it’s easier when you’re playing a part. I’m trying to be me today, and it’s making me feel a lot more naked than I did on any set.’

‘That’s okay. We can take a wee break.’

‘No. I’ll be fine. Wait, I know,’ she said, and jumped backwards into the pool.

Steff was doubled up for a few seconds with surprise and laughter, recovering enough to start shooting as she swam to retrieve her cap and put it back on her soaking‐
wet head.

‘Yeah, that’s much better,’ she shouted, giggling. ‘I was nervous because I was worried about looking stupid. Now I don’t have to worry.’

Steff clicked away as she trod water and smiled up from the pool, changing film as she climbed out. He shot her sitting on the far edge of the pool, arms around her knees, dripping with water, then standing up, her back to the ocean, arms out, looking skywards. He could make out every excruciatingly desirable curve and contour of her small breasts through the wet and flimsy material, and suddenly felt an unaccustomed desire to keep them out of the frame to spare her modesty. He realised this was as hypocritical as it was patronising (as well as probably being sexist in some hideously complicated ideological way), and made the best of the shot.

She jumped back into the water, this time giving him notice, and splashed down, laughing as she surfaced, shouting things at him, smiling and smiling and smiling.

And she was taking him to lunch.

Steff was smiling too, fearful of doing anything that might break whatever spell was making all this happen. He tried not to hope, tried just to enjoy what he was doing.

He tried not to think about the celebrities the press had linked her with, as confirmed when Jo asked her yesterday about who she’d been ‘seeing’. Seth Kolbeck, lead guitarist with Death Head, currently off on a stadium tour of Europe. Mike MacAvoy, star of TV ratings sensation There Goes the Neighborhood, currently shooting Close Action, his first above‐
the‐
line‐
credit, big‐
budget thriller for Warner Bros. Apparently neither of these relationships had worked out, but Steff feared it was long odds that this was because what the lassie really needed in her life was a big skinnymalink from Lanarkshire.

However, if he wanted to indulge the daydream, it was worth remembering why the above hadn’t worked out. Who knew whether she needed big skinnymalinks from Lanarkshire, but she definitely didn’t need rock stars and adolescent sitcom actors.

‘We “went out” inasmuch as we attended a few movie premieres and launch parties together, but these were not dates,’ she told Jo. ‘I can barely remember having a conversation with either one of those guys. I was little more than a walking photo‐
opportunity. Mike MacAvoy invited me out to a couple of things because he wanted to be seen with me on his arm. He was in the frame for Close Action, but the director wasn’t sold on him because of his boy‐
next‐
door image on TV. I was just part of his makeover. Instant notoriety: just add Maddy. Seth was merely maintaining his image. They wanted to be seen in the company of me the media phenomenon. Me the person wasn’t invited. I think they also both reckoned that with me having been a porn star I’d be an easy lay. I’m not.’

She was taking him out to lunch. Him, not Seth Kolbeck or Mike MacAvoy. But then she did say that it was to make up for yesterday – the good little networker routine. And then again, Steff reminded himself, she didn’t have to, and nobody he shot had ever done it before. He looked at her smile up at him again, giggling girlishly, a million miles from affectation or concerns about deportment. He thought of the way she’d responded when he said she looked prettiest in her civvies.

There had to be something going on.

It was a Catholic thing, this fear, this worry, this I‐
am‐
not‐
worthy pish. You could ditch the beliefs but you couldn’t quite repair the damage. Years of supporting Motherwell FC had been contributory too: he always got nervous when everything seemed to be going right, because that was usually when the roof fell in.

Normally, this was just a figure of speech.

‘Arguello here,’ said a voice – firm, quiet, controlled, direct and totally out of character. ‘Drink your coffee, Sarge, sit down and listen up.’

Pedro Arguello was on babysitting detail at the Pacific Vista for the second week of the market, replacing Tommy Andrews. Pedro had been monitoring the bomb‐
threat phone tap (thirteen hoaxes and counting) among other hand‐
holding duties, such as convincing a Legion of Decency delegation to abandon their lie‐
down blockade protest at the front of the horseshoe drive. He had gone for the practical and diplomatic tactic of pointing out how the glare meant that drivers might not even see the protesters and would just roll right over their fundamentalist asses. That was him all the way: a cool, cheerful, smooth operator. He’d even laughed when one of the protesters said, ‘Never mind your badge, let’s see your Green Card.’

He wasn’t laughing now.

‘S’up Pedro?’

‘Take your all‐
time worst nightmare and multiply it by the biggest number you can think of. We got a situation here, I, eh … Look, power up your computer, man, I’m sending something over. You’ve probably already got it, except you don’t know it yet, though that’s another story, but I’m sendin’ it anyway. We got …’

‘Hey Pedro Pedro Pedro,’ Larry said, switching on the PC that sat against the wall between his desk and Zabriski’s. ‘You ain’t makin’ sense. Take a deep breath and start from the beginning.’

There was a pause.

‘Okay. From the top. Conchita Nunez got a phone call a little while ago. No chance of a trace, voice just said, “There’s a bomb on the Moonstar boat – check your computer now”, then rang off. We recorded it, but he used a disguiser. Nunez looks at her screen, and there’s a bomb icon on the desktop, little black ball with a fuse like in fucking Bugs Bunny or something. She clicks on the bomb and it opens a text file and like a video window. Text says there’s a bomb on the Ugly Duckling. Turns out that’s the boat one of the movie companies is having its booze’n’schmooze cruise on today. Eighty‐
eight people on board. Video window shows the bomb attached to some pipes in what looks like an engine room. That plays for ten seconds, then you get a ten‐
second loop of the upper decks from a vantage‐
point some place at the front, shots of people getting on board to prove it was recorded this morning.

‘But in case that’s not enough, beneath the video window it gives the frequencies these images were transmitted on: there’s two goddamn cameras broadcasting live from that boat, and this pendejo’s looking at ’em. I’m tuned in right now he ain’t kidding. Text says we can have someone go to the engine room to verify that the bomb’s for real, but if anyone tries to screw with it, he’ll see, and he’ll detonate. Same goes if anyone gets off the boat. Same goes if we jam the transmission. Same goes if the boat moves out of transmission range. Same goes if the cameras fail by themselves.’

‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Have you contacted the boat?’

‘Yes sir. Captain verified the position of the device then barfed. This is not a drill, man.’

Larry felt his own guts turn over.

‘So what does this asshole want? Money?’

Arguello sighed. ‘I wish. The bomb’s only half the nightmare. Oh man, this is so fucked up. I never seen shit as sick as this.’

‘Jesus, Pedro, tell me about it.’

‘He wants … he wants a human sacrifice.’

‘What?’

‘I ain’t shittin’ you, man. And worse than that, a suicide. He’s a fucking space‐
case, man, fucking loco. Says everyone on the boat’s a sinner who deserves to die, but they can be saved if one person repents and makes the ultimate … you know.’

‘You gotta be fucking kidding.’

‘No, man. And he don’t mean any one person, neither. He’s made a specific nomination.’

‘Who?’

‘Maddy Witherson. That senator’s daughter who became a porno actress. Calls her the Whore of Babylon, lots of crazy shit, says she’s got until dawn tomorrow to throw a seven or the boat goes bang. Wants her to do it with a knife, on the deck of the boat where his camera can see.

Larry closed his eyes. ‘Pedro, I’d give real money if you’d tell me this is a joke.’

‘Oh sure, Sarge. You want the punch‐
line? The girl ain’t on the fuckin’ boat. I spoke to the captain over the telephone. She was supposed to be on the trip, she was on the invite list, but she was a no‐
show. Her and about a dozen other lucky folks who overslept or whatever.’

‘So where is she?’

‘I don’t know, man, but we better find out real soon, and get to her before anyone else does. That thing appear on your screen yet?’

‘No. It’s taking its time decompressing the file.’

‘Well, here’s another joke. The text says those little bombs are already inside a ton more computers, but they’re programmed not to show up on the screens until a little bit later.’

‘Which computers? Oh shit,’ Larry said, realising. The number he’d thought of to multiply the nightmare by wasn’t nearly high enough.

‘TV, radio, news agencies. The works, Larry. This guy wants the eyes of the world looking in, and he’ll get ’em. Ever hear the expression “a crowd like for an execution”? We gotta find that girl soon, warn her, get her into protection, some damn thing. Forget the white Bronco chase, man. Every TV on the fucking planet’s gonna be tuned to this. And we better think seriously about how we’re gonna break it to the folks on the boat before the media do it for us. Okay, maybe they ain’t watchin’ TV out there but these are movie people, for Christ’s sake. Every fucking one of them’ll have a mobile phone, man. Plus their buddies back on‐
shore ain’t just gonna hear the story, they’re gonna see the action. The stations’ll be able to pick up these camera signals from the boat same as us, and the air’s gonna be thick with choppers about ten minutes after the news guys see this file.’

‘Which is gonna be when?’

‘He doesn’t say.’

‘I don’t get it. He wants a circus, so why does the hotel – and therefore the cops – get the scoop? What’s he waiting for?’

‘Who knows, man? Maybe a response from us. Who cares? What the fuck are we gonna do?’

‘All right, give me a second here.’ Larry breathed out and tried to detach himself enough for his brain to offer something constructive. ‘Okay. I want you to get on to Bannon – the response call is way over my head. I’ll transfer you right now. And I also want Nunez to call me this second on Zabriski’s line. She’ll be the fastest chance we’ve got of locating the girl.’

‘You got it, man.’

Larry transferred the call, carrying the phone to the door so he could see through the glass partition into Bannon’s office. He waved to get the Captain’s attention, gesticulating to him that it was urgent. There was a click as Bannon picked up.

‘Got Arguello at the PV. There’s a bomb on a boat. Eighty‐
eight people on board. This is for real.’

Larry put down the receiver to connect Bannon to Arguello, then dialled the code to pick up Zabriski’s already ringing phone on his own line.

‘Who can tell us where Maddy Witherson is, Conchita?’

‘I’ve been calling her agent since we found out she wasn’t on the boat,’ she said. ‘Line was busy until about thirty seconds ago. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him anything. He said she was meeting a photographer for a shoot, some movie magazine. He wasn’t totally sure, but he thinks they were hooking up right here at the hotel. You want me to put out a call?’

‘No. Absolutely not. Have someone go look for her, get her into your office and I’ll come pick her up, but don’t do anything that’s gonna attract attention to her or to the fact that she’s there – if she’s there. We don’t know when this whole thing’s gonna go public, but when it does, I don’t want anyone knowing where she is.’

‘Okay. I’ll check the security monitors first. Then I’ll … Wait a second. What the hell?’

‘What is it? Talk to me, Conchita.’

‘Something else just appeared on my screen. The end of the text file extended itself, like there was another part folded behind the page.’

‘What’s it say?’

‘It says “MORAL DILEMMA” in capital letters. Then: “Before anyone would be prepared to sacrifice themselves to save the lives of others, that person would have to be completely convinced of the reality of the threat. I appreciate this, and would now like to remove the element of doubt.”’

‘Then what?’

‘Then nothing. That’s all it says.’

‘So how is he planning— Oh shit shit shit. That’s what he’s waiting for. That’s why he ain’t told the media yet. Jesus, Conchita, get everybody out of the fuckin’ building, right now!’

‘I heard a loud bang.’ That was always what some stupid fucker said on the news after the IRA had passed their latest damning comment on contemporary metropolitan architecture. Like the nation needed to be told bombs went bang.