Not the End of the World (29 page)

So it was, as Steff had suspected, all for God. One more needless atrocity in a long history of needless atrocities perpetrated in the name of something that didn’t even exist. Well halle‐
fucking‐
lujah.

Steff wouldn’t say he knew there wasn’t a God, for the simple quantum reason that he couldn’t prove it; equally he wouldn’t say he knew there weren’t invisible pink flying armadilloes buzzing around the ionosphere, undetectable by human instrumentation, for exactly the same reason. But if you asked him to take a side, he’d fall the same way on both issues. No, Steff didn’t know there wasn’t a God, he was merely one hundred per cent fucking certain.

Neither was he going to be eating much humble pie if he got to the other side and found out he was wrong. Never mind getting prostrate and making good with the big apology: if there turned out to be an omnipotent beardy in charge, Steff Kennedy would be demanding a few straight answers. And it wouldn’t be about how He could tolerate starving kids in Africa or torture and mutilation in Saudi Arabia, or England winning the fucking World Cup in ’66, or any other of the usual ‘if a tree fell in a forest’ philosophical chestnuts. Steff would be ready to go fifteen rounds arguing why he had still been right – on the basis of all available evidence – not to believe. But first he’d want a quiet word with this God cunt about His fuckwit followers blowing a big hole in the roof he had been standing on, and filling Him in at length about the overall discomfort and inconvenience of being at the sharp end of Christian fundamentalism.

‘Well fuck me up the arse with an epileptic hedgehog,’ he announced. ‘There’s me getting all upset about what happened this morning, and it actually turns out it’s all for a good cause. We’re saving the world, here. Thank fuck for that.’

‘I have no idea what to say to this,’ Maddy mumbled. Her face registered fear and anger, but mainly a more profound disgust than Steff had ever seen before. He guessed this was because neither had he encountered such a profound insult before. It wasn’t like the guy had just called her “smelly” or something.

‘No, don’t be like that,’ he told her. ‘Get into the spirit of it. Don’t think of it as death – see it more as a kind of sponsored suicide. It’s all for God, remember.’

‘This is not fucking funny,’ she told him. ‘I think I’m gonna puke.’

The cop, Freeman, looked at Maddy and gestured towards the door.

‘The restrooms are down …’

She waved her hand. ‘Figure of speech, Sergeant, but I appreciate the concern. I appreciate the coffee, the privacy, and the soft tones too. But I guess you have to be real sweet to me, don’t you, before you try and convince me to do the right thing? That’s why you were in such a rush to bring me in, isn’t it?’

Freeman shook his head. ‘Miss Witherson, I was in a rush to get you out of reach of the cameras before the media got their little messages this morning. I’m sure there’s a few issues they’d be real keen to ask your opinion on right now. My principal concern is for your safety. That’s what I get paid for. That’s my professional position. If you want my personal position, I’ll give you that too, which is that I’d rather cut my own goddamn throat than see this mother fucker get what he wants.’

‘That’s very generous,’ she said, her voice bearing an uneasy sarcasm, ‘but no offence, I don’t think you’d cut it as my body double. Right now it’s me or … what? Close to a hundred people on that boat. At least twenty of whom I know; some of them I even like.’

‘Jo Mooney’s on it,’ Steff added. ‘Supposed to be, anyway.’

‘Oh terrific. Let’s up the ante. Why don’t you both tell me your mothers are on it too? Jesus. Whoever planted that bomb must hate me off the scale. Either I die a horrible death or become the most loathed person on Earth. Forget the bomber – the fucking public will, anyway. He’s just a nutcase, but she—’

‘We’re gonna do whatever it takes to make sure it never comes to that,’ Freeman interrupted. ‘Either outcome. We’ve got about eighteen hours. We can find this guy, Miss Witherson.’

‘But you’re hanging on to me as a last resort in case you can’t, or in case whatever stunts you pull don’t come off.’

‘Believe me, we won’t have a last resort. If we try anything that doesn’t come off, that’s it. Eighty‐
eight more funerals. This guy killed eight people this morning – and counting – just to let us know he ain’t bluffing. If he thinks we’re fucking him around, he’ll blow the boat. So yes, we do need you to be here, and we need him to know that, to keep his finger off the goddamn button until the clock runs out at dawn.’

‘You’ve told him I’m in police custody?’ She sounded livid.

‘We got the captain of the Ugly Duckling to write it on a card and hold it up to one of the cameras. We were afraid he’d detonate when he found out you weren’t on board where he was expecting you, especially if he found out second‐
hand through the media. We had to pre‐
empt that.’

‘So what are you planning to do?’

‘There’ll be a co‐
ordinated operation: LAPD, the FBI—’

‘Oh, I feel better already. The Feds arrested any security guards yet? Anyone talked to Richard Jewell? Jesus Christ.’

Freeman couldn’t conceal a smile. Steff didn’t get the joke, but he could at least work out that the cop shared Maddy’s low opinion.

‘All right, I ain’t gonna pretend I’m any more confident about this than you,’ he said, ‘but we’re stuck with it. And I can’t do anything to improve the situation if I’m sitting here arguing with you. So why don’t you and your boyfriend sit tight while us cops go “pull some stunts”?’

‘Oh no,’ she said, standing up. ‘I’m not sitting in here like I’m waiting for the doc to come out and tell me whether it’s terminal. Whatever you and your buddies are planning, I want to hear about it. I think I’m entitled to that much.’

Freeman seemed to think about this for a moment, then nodded. ‘Can’t hurt. Follow me.’

He opened the door and gestured for Maddy to exit. She walked towards it then stopped and turned around, shooting Steff an insistent glance which he interpreted to mean ‘Come on, then’. He didn’t know why he felt surprised that she kept asking him to tail along. They might not have known each other for very long, but after what they’d just come through together, even the ex‐
Catholic and nervous ’Well fan inside him couldn’t discount a certain element of bonding.

‘I’m not her boyfriend, by the way,’ he said to Freeman, going through the door. ‘I’m just this bloke she met hangin’ around.’

Maddy gave as close to a smile as she was likely to manage that day.

Larry escorted them into Bannon’s office, another niche of comparative calm cordoned off from the cacophony of the precinct‐
house’s open area. Bannon was standing by the window, in conversation with two be suited men sitting by his desk, a silenced TV showing helicopter shots of the devastated Pacific Vista. They all turned around at the intrusion.

‘Captain, gentlemen, this is Madeleine Witherson and her companion, Steff Kennedy. Miss Witherson has requested that she be brought up to speed on the current situation, and I’d kind of like to know the latest myself.’

‘Sure, sure,’ Bannon said, walking over to them. ‘There’s more chairs in the corner there. I’m Captain Pat Bannon. This is Special Agent Tom Brisko and this is Agent Peter Steel of the FBI.’

The agents stood up, offering handshakes and assistance with chairs.

‘Peter Steel,’ Larry said. ‘You didn’t just happen to be one of the guys they sent down here, did you? You figure this—’

‘It’s not a coincidence,’ Steel confirmed. He was a slight but athletic white man with blond hair and a boyish face, probably late thirties, who gave the impression of wearing his suit under protest. Larry pictured him with a surfboard under his arm and a long‐
neck in the other hand. Must have filled in the wrong order code in the vocations catalogue.

‘But it doesn’t mean we know anything either,’ added Brisko, a black forty‐
something with grey hair and so many worry‐
lines his face looked like you were seeing it through a bathroom window. He was nervous now, which Larry found paradoxically reassuring. A lot of Feds gave off an impression of impervious confidence, and it was usually because they didn’t give a fuck: they were playing good guys and bad guys while the civilians were just points on the scoreboard.

‘So what do we know?’ Larry asked.

Bannon moved around and leaned against the wall behind his desk. He was a guy who never seemed comfortable sitting down. Larry hadn’t known him long enough to ask whether it was because he missed the streets or just suffered from piles.

‘Well, first thing to tell you: regards the media, the pin’s been pulled. They know.’ He indicated the TV on his desk, where a photograph of Madeleine Witherson was now occupying the right‐
hand corner of the screen above the on‐
the‐
spot reporter’s head. Fortunately, the spot remained the Pacific Vista, as opposed to the station, so they didn’t know where she was yet at least.

‘Oh terrific,’ Witherson said.

‘The captain of the boat, Micky Baird, and the Moonstar CEO, Linus Veltman, are doing their best to keep everybody from freaking out, but that’s about as much control as they can reasonably exercise. Suffice it to say, it’s lucky for Miss Witherson that she wasn’t on board or she might be involved in some real high‐
pressure negotiations right now. We’ve got police launches alongside the Ugly Duckling, but apart from shouting through megaphones, there’s not a hell of a lot they can do, as we’re not allowed to put anybody on the boat. Not that the megaphones’ll be much good once the fucking news choppers start circling.

‘We have to accept that news management is not an option,’ Bannon continued. ‘It’s an information free‐
for‐
all. We know there are TVs on the boat, radios too, and we have to assume that with all those mobile telephones, the passengers are in two‐
way contact with the mainland. Plus we have to bear in mind the close relations between many of the passengers and media personnel. There’s gonna be very few secrets today, folks. We can’t play bluff because everybody’s hands are gonna be on the table at all times. The bomber wanted the eyes of the world – he’s got ’em.’

‘Miss Witherson,’ said Brisko, leaning across the desk and talking as softly as if he was asking her to pass the salt while the head of the table was speaking. ‘The FBI informed your father of the situation before the media broke it.’

The girl’s tired eyes burst into angry life. ‘My father? What the hell did you talk to him for? Did you tell him where am?’

‘No, we didn’t. But we had to ask him whether anyone had been in contact with him regarding the bombing or the demands. It was possible someone was trying to get to him through this thing.’

‘Kind of a roundabout way to lean on someone, don’t you think?’ she snapped. ‘Blow up a building and hold eighty‐
eight people hostage on a floating bomb to the ransom of a suicide sacrifice? You think someone would do that just to intimidate a political mediocrity with his head up his ass?’

‘He’s a United States Senator, Miss Witherson. We had to investigate. He’d heard nothing. He wanted to talk to you, though, make sure you’re okay, see if there was anything he could do. This is his mobile number.’

He handed her a sheet of paper. She ripped it in two and dropped the pieces on the floor.

‘He wants a quote for the fucking TV cameras when they arrive, that’s what he wants. So he can tell them all how his unruly daughter turned to him for a comforting word in her time of need. Well, I’ll give him a quote. Tell him if I have to kill myself I’ll be consoled by the thought that I’ll never see his fucking face again.’

‘Miss Witherson,’ Brisko appealed, ‘your father—’

‘Has nothing to do with this. This isn’t about him, okay? And it’s not even about me. This is about a religious lunatic with a big bomb and a remote‐
control. Let’s talk about that guy for a minute, huh?’

‘Okay,’ Brisko said, sitting back to concede ground to her. Larry could see the guy hadn’t meant any harm, he just – like everyone else – had no idea how poisoned the waters must be between the girl and her old man. ‘Let’s talk about him, as you say. Agent Steel?’

‘Well, first of all, we are merely assuming this is one guy, and we are talking about “he” or one guy for purposes of convenience. We don’t know whether anyone else is involved. The computer message doesn’t identify any group or faction, but as in this case the motive is to further the greater glory of God rather than of an organisation, that may not mean anything.’

‘You must figure the Southland Militia are involved, otherwise you wouldn’t be here,’ Larry opined. ‘Am I right?’

‘The Southland Militia?’ Witherson asked Steel. ‘Those Rambo needle‐
dicks? You think they did this?’

‘I was sent here in case evidence pointed to militia involvement, not because we yet have tangible reason to suspect it. And I’m not going to be disappointed if the facts point the other way. Believe me, I would much prefer this to be the work of a lone nutcase.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Larry agreed, thinking of the shell found on the Gazes Also. ‘So what do we know about whoever did this?’

Steel sighed. ‘So far, not much. We’ve got agents at the marina where the Ugly Duckling was moored, interviewing the security guards there, but our best hope is the hotel. Unlike the marina, the Vista’s got security cameras. Our agents are going through the tapes, but they only started a short while ago. We may get lucky, though. A face would sure speed things up. Obviously we couldn’t release it for a public appeal because he’d blow the bomb, but we could run it through the computers. We could have a name and possibly an address in a matter of hours.’

‘Well that would be nice, Agent Steel,’ said Witherson, ‘but right now let’s stick to what we do have, which I believe at the last count was jack‐
shit, am I right?’

‘We’re trying to construct a profile of the guy,’ said Brisko. Witherson rolled her eyes, which he ignored. ‘We know he’s a Christian fundamentalist. We start with that, feed it into the system and cross‐
check it against whatever else comes up.’

‘And what if he isn’t on your system?’ she demanded.