Not the End of the World (37 page)

‘You don’t actually want me to answer that, Sergeant, do you?’

‘No, not really. Look, I’m just callin’ to tell you where things are at with the investigations. You probably already guessed there ain’t nothing that’s gonna make you jump for joy, but I knew you’d want to hear it straight.’

‘Correct. If I want bullshit and speculation, there’s a TV right here.’

‘Ain’t that the truth. Okay. First of all, bad news on the market‐
pass thing. We had someone from AFFMA check the list of names that they hold accreditation forms and photos for. She was able to eliminate all the names of company personnel against their files, which left a couple of dozen outstanding, but they all checked out. Photographers, reporters, agents, whatever, they’re all legit. In every case, we’ve found someone to vouch that the person was supposed to be there. The only other option is actually to go through the photos and check against the names supplied, but this lady said even the head of AFFMA wouldn’t be able to ID half these faces, so that’s useless too.’

‘What about the Communion of the Saved?’

‘Well, your friend Mr Kennedy called it right. The Reverend St john’s having to make with some fancy footwork to keep his balance up there on the moral high ground, so he coughed us up a list pretty quick. Unfortunately, the only names that cross‐
matched FBI records were a couple of guys under investigation for corporate financial shenanigans. Seems they spent so much money trying to buy their ticket to heaven that they didn’t have much change left for the IRS.

‘However, we did get something on a cross‐
check of Christian fundamentalists against computer nuts. It was a few years ago now, but there was a group of anti‐
abortion activists here in California who used to hack into clinics’ computers so they could harass the women scheduled to have terminations. The group called itself Life Guard, something like that. Problem is, the only names we have are of the people who were caught when one of their stunts got ambushed by the LAPD. We’re checking them out, obviously, but because it was all an Internet deal we don’t know who else might have been involved with the group. But it is something, believe me. Put it this way, if we had a week I’d call it a great lead. As it is …’

‘What would you call it, Sergeant? A lottery ticket?’

‘I’d call it a chance.’

She disconnected the call and put the phone down on the tray, next to the crusts and crumbs and empty cans.

A chance. The words ‘snowball’ and ‘hell’ kept leaping to mind. Even in the unlikely event that one of these pro‐
Life nuts was the bomber, or told them who the bomber was, what were the authorities going to be able to do anyway? The minute he saw a badge this guy was liable to press the button, and the cops knew that. He’d nothing to lose, no line still to cross: he’d already killed several people today. If he got caught, they could only fry him once.

She’d known from the start that there was only one way to save the hostages on that boat, and neither the FBI nor the LAPD could do anything to change that.

Stephen came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped tightly around his waist. She stood up and went towards him before he could speak, feeling herself conveyed there rather than consciously moving. She felt so alone, so scared and alone.

‘I need to hold you,’ she said. ‘I need someone to hold me.’

She put her arms around his chest and felt his close around her shoulders. She shut her eyes, enveloped by his fresh smell and the warmth and softness of his touch. Madeleine had heard a thousand dumb song lyrics about wanting to hold someone for ever – she might have been the first person they’d ever accurately applied to. Every second there in his arms was a second of preciousness that she didn’t want to end. She felt his lips descend and gently kiss the hair on the top of her head. It sent a wave through her body that began as rapture but turned to anguish in the same moment.

Don’t kiss me. Don’t hold me. Don’t make me love you.

Not now.

‘Freeman called,’ she managed to say, gulping back air, her words half muffled against his chest. She had no tears left now. ‘It isn’t happening. They aren’t going to find him. Stephen, I don’t see any way out of this. I don’t want to die, I really don’t want to die. But if I let all those people die, I don’t think I’ll want to live.’ She squeezed him, gripping him tightly as though she’d fall off the planet if she lost her hold. ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.’

He kissed the top of her head again and began talking, softly, a half‐
whisper around her left ear. ‘Well Madeleine, I was thinking about it in the shower, funnily enough,’ he said. ‘And to be honest it seems pretty clear‐
cut to me.’

She pulled away slightly and looked up at him.

He looked back down at her and shrugged. ‘With eighty‐
eight lives at risk, I don’t think you’ve got any choice but to give the bomber what he wants.’

She stared at his face in shock, unable to believe he could have suddenly delivered these pitiless words. Madeleine would admit that she was way short of getting her head round this guy, and not least of understanding his fucked‐
up sense of humour.

But she was still sure he shouldn’t be grinning like that.

‘Reverend, will you hear my confession?’

Many voices, many faces, rising and falling from before his eyes like the visions conjured by the witches in Macbeth. But the one that kept recurring was not rising from the electronic cauldron, nor could it be dismissed with the magic wand of his remote control.

… toll is currently standing at nine, but that is expected to rise, with reports of eleven people listed by doctors as “seriously injured”, three of them described as “critical”. Hospitals in the Southland are requesting that blood donors come forward as soon as possible, and although they aren’t saying as much right now, the medical authorities are clearly preparing themselves for the possibility of many more casualties tomorrow if the bomber carries out his threat of …

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… believed to still be in protective custody at a Santa Monica police station. There has been as yet no response from Miss Witherson as to her intentions, but what has emerged is that the senator’s daughter attempted to commit suicide in nineteen ninety‐
seven …

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… drawing parallels with the hit movie Speed from the summer of ninety‐
four, in which Dennis Hopper played an embittered ex‐
cop who put a bomb on a Santa Monica bus and demanded a cash ransom from the city of Los Angeles. The question some people are beginning to ask themselves today is whether, after years of criticism over violence in movies and the effects of that violence on society, Hollywood is now reaping what it has sown …

Click.

… am not condoning vigilantism, and would never condone vigilantism, Suzie. But what I am saying is that perhaps something like this was inevitable. There’s a lot of Christian people out there who’ve been offended by what’s been coming out of Hollywood for a long, long time, and their protests have always been ignored. Every once in a while there’s a ground swell, like with Michael Medved’s book a few years back, but the movie‐
makers just pay lip‐
service to the idea of cleaning up their act, then once the fuss has died down they’re back bad as ever. If you ignore people when they’re talking politely, Suzie, sooner or later they’re gonna start shouting a little louder, and I think that’s what has happened today …

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… were singled out for extremely harsh criticism by the Reverend St John in a speech made at last week’s Festival of Light event – across the street from the Pacific Vista hotel – reiterating statements made on his Christian Family Channel over recent months. The bomber echoes St John’s words in calling Madeleine Witherson the Whore of Babylon and referring to the AFFM as the UnAmerican Festering Filth Market. There has been no word yet from the Reverend St John himself, but a spokesman for his organisation said the Reverend was “extremely disturbed” by today’s events. The spokesman acknowledged the parallels and told reporters that Luther St John would not issue any statement on the matter without very careful consideration and possibly consultation with the authorities, as the effect of his words on the bomber could be highly unpredictable. It is not known whether …

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… producer Charles Geisler, who earlier spoke to us from the Ugly Duckling on his mobile phone. ‘We’re all doing our best to hold it together here. Everybody’s trying to be strong, trying to be here for each other, but it’s real hard, you know? Everybody’s on their phones, talking to their kids, talking to their wives and husbands. Because they’re in this too. They might not be here on the boat, but they’re going through this too.’

Click.

… appalling tragedy that has claimed nine lives and could claim as many as eighty‐
eight more, but isn’t it too often the case that something dreadful has to happen before we are motivated to do anything about a situation? You have to reflect that maybe it was going to take a disaster like this to give America a moral wake‐
up call, forcing us all to look again at certain things we had come to accept but which we never should have accepted. There are people in this country who have been hiding behind the First Amendment because it saved them from justifying their conduct and their motives in any kind of open debate. But that debate’s sure going to start now, because people are going to be asking questions about what’s in our movies and on our TV screens that they should have been asking long ago. And it’s a sad indictment of our society that it has required …

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… our telephone poll, which found sixty‐
eight per cent of callers thought Madeleine Witherson should make the ultimate sacrifice to save the people on the Ugly Duckling, so let’s get a sample of the mood among our studio audience. Martina, do you agree with the poll?

“Yeah, I think she should do it. I mean, the folks on the boat, a lot of them got kids, you know? She ain’t got no kids. It’s tough on her, I guess, but she’s the one in the position to save all those lives.”

And what about you? Lady in the red sweatshirt.

“I think she’s got very little choice. I mean, if she does nothing and the bomb goes off, she ain’t gonna have much of a life that way either. This is her chance of, I dunno, some kinda redemption, you know? She’s someone who has broken God’s laws in front of anyone perverted enough to be watching these porno tapes. What kind of example has she given society? That’s actually the second part of the Fifth Commandment: avoid scandal and bad example. If she did this it would set a more Christian example: selflessness and repentance.”

“Yeah, that’s right. She’s right. Nobody makes the news for doin’ somethin’ Christian‐
like, not normally. You make the news for doin’ the opposite. She made the news for doin’ the opposite. This could be one time somebody does somethin’ Christian‐
like and the world pays attention. Besides, if she’s suicidal anyway …’

Click.

It had been the same all day. People weren’t talking about terrorism, they were talking about morality. They weren’t discussing the violence at the Pacific Vista, they were discussing violence in the movies. And instead of scrutinising the morality of the anonymous bomber, they were scrutinising the morality of Madeleine Witherson. Sure, there had been the occasional liberal popping up and trying to reroute the agenda, but it was like trying to stop a freight train with a bicycle. That woman in the red sweatshirt had summed it up, talking about the second part of the Fifth Commandment. The first part seemed to have been bypassed way back.

He couldn’t have hoped for such a boon: it was his agenda, Luther St John’s agenda, all over the networks. Neither could he have hoped for such a primer to illustrate how what he was planning was likely to work, how people were quickly going to cast off their modish accoutrements and turn back to God for warmth, shelter and security.

The only worrying aspect about it was that it had absolutely nothing to do with him. He had no more been expecting it than the poor suckers who’d got blown up that morning.

For it to have proven so fortuitously efficacious should have assured him that it was a gift from God, a vote of confidence in what he was about to do. He should have been thanking the Lord for it with a grateful and happy heart. And he should have been asking why he hadn’t thought of it himself.

But what was disturbing him was that he had.

‘Reverend, will you hear my confession?’

A conversation, a crucial, pivotal conversation. The development of logic and ideas. through discourse, like a kind of fertilisation, helping him reach junctures and conclusions within himself that he might never have reached alone, in even the most reflective solitude. A conversation wherein the embryo of his great plan was formed.

Only now he realised it had a dizygotic twin.

‘Reverend, will you hear my confession?’

‘I’m not a Catholic priest, son, but if it would do you good to unburden yourself, go right ahead and shoot.’

If there were two foundation stones on which Luther St John had built his career, they were, firstly, the will and ability to be all things to all faiths, and secondly, a reverent respect for communications media. The second was why Daniel Corby was there. The first was why Luther was listening.

There were just so many denominations of Christianity, you had to widen your definitions or you were restricting your market. There was only so far you could go if you were too vividly identified as a Baptist preacher, or a Methodist preacher, or even more broadly as a Protestant preacher. You had to let all good Christians know that your message was relevant to them, and that you were on their side. Because in the end, it was all the one God, all the same Jesus. The hardest market to break into, obviously, was the Catholics, as they had been brought up to be suspicious of anything not endorsed by their own organisation. However, shows of solidarity with them on the right issues worked well to assure them that whatever theological small‐
print you might disagree on, you were both coming from the same place, and both heading for the same goals.