Not the End of the World (31 page)

‘Calm down?’ she asked, incredulously. Her voice didn’t rise, but the pH in it took a sharp dip. ‘I’d say I’m pretty calm, under the circumstances. I was blown up this morning, Agent Brisko, don’t know whether you caught that. I saw someone vaporised in front of me by the blast. I fell into a swimming‐
pool with one hell of a wave machine, and I’d either have drowned or been flushed straight down into Bloodworld theme park if Stephen here hadn’t intervened. I escaped from that only to be driven over here and told my own death is the sole bargaining chip against the lives of eighty‐
eight more people. And in response to all of this, I have remained, in my opinion, admirably composed. So please indulge me if I want to let off steam at the fact that all over America right now there are people who think I deserve all this because I fucked a few guys in front of a video camera.’

Whatever attempt Brisko might have made at reparation was lost as his mobile phone rang. His voice remained steady as he answered it but Larry could tell he was praying for good news, so that he wouldn’t have to turn around and face the scared, angry girl with the admission that he couldn’t help her.

It didn’t sound much like his prayers were being answered. Lots of ‘Ah, shit’ and ‘You gotta be kidding,’ and ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and ‘But what about—’

He finished his call and sighed, facing a silent, expectant room.

‘That was Ginsler at the Vista,’ he said resignedly. ‘They got the guy planting the bomb on videotape, but they don’t have a face. The tape came from a camera on a stairwell leading to the roof from the lift – timecode says yesterday afternoon, about two forty. Guy’s got his back to camera going upstairs, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, carrying a metal case. There’s an access panel in the wall, underneath the stairs, for regulating the pool’s water supply, chlorination, all that stuff. The panel’s barely in the edge of the shot, but Ginsler says he’s pretty sure they can make out the guy crouching down and screwing around with it. Guy comes back, hood up and head down. It’s useless. Wouldn’t even be much good as evidence that he did it, never mind for finding the guy.’

Witherson rolled her eyes and tried to concentrate on just looking pissed off, but Larry could tell she was fighting back tears. Her companion swallowed and grimaced, but he didn’t say anything – no dumb cracks, no vacuous reassurances, no useless platitudes; even his smartass remarks had so far all been relevant. He might have a pretty weird sense of humour, but Kennedy didn’t seem to talk unless he had something to contribute. Larry thought he should be giving lessons.

‘And the security staff didn’t react to this at the time?’ Steel asked, nominating himself as a first pupil.

‘Ginsler says it was nothing to look twice at,’ Brisko stated evenly, a man calling on everything he had to hold it together. ‘Hotel security are mainly about monitoring what’s going on in the lobby or in the corridors, checking nobody’s trying to bust into one of the rooms. They see a guy go upstairs towards the swimming pool, that’s nothing to worry about, they’d look at the next screen. Besides, they’re mainly on the lookout for theft, not terrorism. This is a hotel on Santa Monica beach, for God’s sake, not the Israeli embassy. Nobody was ready for this.’

‘Except him,’ Larry said. ‘He was very ready. I mean, mad bombers aside, security was pretty tight for this AFFM deal. They’ve got a bead on everybody coming through the door, and you don’t get in unless you got a cute plastic laminate with your picture on it. The only people who get through the doors without are couriers, and they get escorted all the way: make their delivery, get a signature then straight back out – do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.’

‘So what are you saying?’ Brisko asked.

‘I’m saying he had ID. He didn’t just need to get in, he needed to move freely, come and go, check the place out. He knew in advance there was a security camera close to where he wanted to plant his bomb. This guy didn’t just happen to be wearing his jogging outfit yesterday.’

‘So how do you get one of these IDs?’ Brisko asked.

Larry looked to Witherson and Kennedy.

‘You have to be accredited by AFFMA,’ Witherson said. ‘The companies pay a participation fee and supply a list of attendees. My accreditation was done through Line Arts. Stephen’s was presumably through Scope.’

He nodded. ‘That was only because they were paying. If I’d wanted to do it strictly off my own bat I could apply as a freelance and pay the fee myself. It’s not that much, because the AFFM want the coverage, but they still have to charge to deter time‐
wasters. But basically the guy would only need to supply a name and the money and he’s in.’

‘A guy like this could also have just hacked himself into the accreditation lists,’ Larry suggested. ‘But either way, he’d still need to give them an address to send the laminate out to, which would be on AFFMA’s files.’

‘He’s bound to have used a false name,’ Brisko said. ‘And no doubt a box number for the address, or some empty place he rents.’

‘Plus,’ added Steel gloomily, ‘if he could hack his name on to the list, he could sure hack it off again after he received the ID.’

‘He couldn’t use a false photograph, though,’ said Kennedy.

‘What?’

‘You have to supply two passport‐
size shots. One’s for going on the laminate, the other one goes on file somewhere. He could hack his name off a computer, ay, but he couldnae disappear the second pic, and the name and details he supplied will be attached to it in a filing cabinet somewhere.’

‘I’ll get on to Paul Silver at AFFMA, if he didn’t get blown up this morning,’ Larry said, getting to his feet. ‘Got his mobile number in my Rolodex.’

‘You can’t,’ Witherson told him. ‘He’s on the boat. At least, he was meant to be. I spoke to him yesterday before my press conference. Call AFFMA HQ in Century City. That’s where the files’ll be.’

‘Okay, but I also need someone in the know to go through them and eliminate everyone they know to be legit.’

‘There’ll be people at AFFMA who can do that,’ Witherson assured him.

The senior FBI bloke, Brisko, was running a hand through his thinning hair, holding a notebook in the other. He was recapping the various investigative lines the police and the Feds were pursuing, trying to make it sound likely that a couple of them would soon intersect at the location they needed. He wasn’t glib or removed, Steff had to give him that; he wasn’t offering complacent reassurance, though he was definitely trying to encourage a wee bit of hope. But basically this was the ‘we’re doing everything we can, fingers crossed, time will tell, all bases covered’ routine. Any second now he was going to say ‘smoke ’em if you got ’em’.

Except, not all the bases were covered. There was something no one had covered, something nobody was talking about, and the longer nobody talked about it, the louder not talking about it got. Steff wanted to say something, but didn’t know whether he should pre‐
empt Maddy. It wasn’t likely it had slipped her mind. She looked across at him from her chair, less than three feet away, like he was the only friend she had in the world. Why couldn’t wonderful women ever look at him that way when they weren’t in fear of death?

Then she reached a hand over and took gentle hold of his T-shirt sleeve, just pinching at the material, a light pressure on his arm. He realised he had just become a human security blanket. It had never been a vocation of his, but for her he’d make a career of it.

She spoke, holding on to him for support, comfort, reassurance or whatever. ‘I appreciate that you’re all being very polite and sensitive right now, and will continue to be very polite and sensitive until the last possible moment,’ she said, ‘but there is something kind of important that we have to discuss.’

‘What’s that, Miss Witherson?’ Brisko asked in his sincerest ‘I’m listening’ voice, probably wanting to jump out the window because, like everybody else in the room, he already knew the answer.

‘Well, I realise that you’re doing all you can, and that you’ve got all this manpower and technology and expertise at your disposal, but what you don’t have is a lead, and what else you don’t have is time. Now I know you don’t want to think about this but believe me, I have to think about this.’ She swallowed. ‘What happens fifteen, sixteen hours from now if you’ve still got nothing? Because let’s not pretend we don’t know the eventualities here, Agent Brisko. And let’s not pretend that you – or your boss on the end of that phone – don’t have a timetable for how you’re going to play this thing, with a specified point of no return at which you are authorised or required to address the zero option. When is that, exactly? When are you officially required to start talking about trading my life for eighty‐
eight others? One hour before dawn? Two?’

‘Miss Witherson,’ Steel said, trying to help out his boss, an obvious admission that she had hit the spot, ‘it is not going to come to that.’

‘Oh bullshit. Yeah, sure, you guys might pull the goddamn rabbit out of the hat, but I don’t think I’d like to hear the odds, and neither would the people on that boat. Even if you do find him, how are you planning to stop him? You think you can talk him out of it? Because let’s face the truth here, this guy will press the button. If he doesn’t get what he’s asking for, or if he thinks you’re trying to screw him, he will press the goddamn button. Might even be rigged up so that if you kill him the bomb goes off anyway.’

‘If we find him – and we will find him,’ Steel said, convincing no‐
one, ‘we can stop the clock. We’ve got trained negotiators standing by for whenever we can establish a dialogue.’

‘He’s taken steps to avoid establishing a dialogue,’ she countered. ‘He’s set up a codeword so that if he has to say more, you’ll know it’s him, but it’s still one way. He doesn’t want to negotiate. He knows negotiators are just there to buy time and psych out how far you can push him, estimate whether he’s got the balls to execute his threat. Well he’s got the balls, and this guy isn’t looking for money, or the release of comrades‐
in‐
arms, or any of the other shit you’re used to dealing with.

‘Look at the codeword: Matthew chapter twenty‐
one, verses twelve to sixteen. It’s Christ throwing the money‐
changers out of the temple. It’s the bit where Jesus kicks ass, where he loses patience with the sinners and resorts to violence and rage. This guy wants to teach the world a lesson: he wants an ultimate act of repentance from what he sees as the ultimate sinner. Otherwise the whole class gets punished. So you guys can go play detective if you want, but before the night’s through, it’s me who’s gonna have to come up with an answer.’

She stood up, lifting her bag from the floor in front of her.

‘Where are you going?’ Bannon enquired.

The G‐
men didn’t look like they could meet her eyes, far less ask her anything. Only the big cop, Freeman, had given the impression of genuinely appreciating what she was going through.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But this is gonna be a shitty enough day without me spending it in a police station. I was supposed to be taking Stephen here to lunch. Maybe I’ll do that. And don’t worry, I’ll stay in touch.’

She slapped a card down on Bannon’s desk with her mobile phone number on it, then walked to the door and gripped the handle.

‘You coming?’ she asked.

Steff was no longer quite sure what planet he was on today. The only place that felt remotely familiar was a close gravitational orbit around Maddy, and he feared if he was removed from her company for too long he’d just fall to pieces. Thousands of miles from home, blown up, alienated and pissed off, she was the only anchor he had to the reality of what was going on – whatever the fuck was going on.

‘Excuse me gentlemen,’ he told them, and followed her out the door.

‘I’ll check it out,’ Larry said, in response to the six eyes that had fixed themselves rather helplessly upon him.

He found the pair of them standing near the exit leading through the corridor to the front desk, or (Hostile) Reception as the precinct smartasses called it. Their progress was being obstructed by Arguello, looking almost as beat as they did, the diminutive Pedro standing up admirably in the face of Witherson’s distressed determination and Kennedy’s distressing height. All three of them looked plaintively at Larry as he approached, each believing his intercession would assist them.

‘More good news, huh?’ Larry asked. ‘What is it now?’

‘Reporters,’ Arguello explained. ‘Dozens of them. They know she’s … They know Miss Witherson’s here. At least they think she’s here. Gleason’s out bullshitting them at the front desk, but they ain’t buying it. There’s more vans pulling up every minute, man. They must have sussed that the cops had Miss Witherson when the new message went out. Look.’

Arguello pointed to a nearby TV screen, on which Larry could see the outside of the building, but it wasn’t closed circuit – it was network news. A patrolio came through the swing doors in front of him and for the moment they were open Larry could hear the babble of voices echoing down the hallway.

Full‐
on media siege. He’d always known this would be among today’s trials, but that didn’t make it any easier when it happened. Larry felt sure the Bible would have been a role‐
model short had Job been faced with suffering an infestation of these assholes:

And verily Job didst freak, and didst smite his tormentor most terribly, yea, threatening even to lodge his microphone in his fundament.

Witherson’s eyes were red. She was a brave lady, but she was fast running out of juice.

‘She cannae stay here, Sergeant,’ Kennedy said. It was his first presumption to speak on her behalf, which Larry figured was significant, like he’d switched on the siren. ‘Her head’s nippin’. She needs some space.’

‘Where can you go?’ Larry asked. ‘Miss Witherson’s place will have even more of these lice crawling around it.’

‘His place,’ Witherson said tiredly. ‘He’s at the Armada in West Hollywood. Nobody knows who he is and nobody knows he’s with me.’

‘They’ll follow you out of here, man,’ Arguello warned. ‘They got choppers and everything.’

‘Christ.’ She put her hand to her forehead, her eyes filling up.