Not the End of the World (42 page)

The reaction was far from euphoric. Everyone was feeling the same thing: a tentative, cautious relief, and equal shame at whatever comfort it gave them. Some of them couldn’t bear to look each other in the eye, although that might have had as much to do with what had gone before as what was about to happen. Suffice it to say, dignity had been the first casualty when night fell and the fear really set in.

The illuminated decks became surrounded by a thick blackness, sparsely punctuated by the lights of the surrounding vessels, all of which seemed further away now that their lamps were all you could see. That was when tough talk made way for desperation, and that in turn for abject stupidity.

First, several of the execs decided that this was a problem their lawyers darn well should be able to sort out for them, and started punching away at their mobiles while the batteries still held out. The world and his dog were going to be sued, by the sound of it. Luther St John first, for making threatening speeches, which was ‘incitement to something or other, I ain’t sure what yet, but I want his ass in court’. Pretty soon they moved on to the cops and the FBI for not having caught the bad guy yet, which led inexorably to asking ‘how shitty the security must have been for this asshole to have got on board and planted not just his holy hand‐
grenade of Antioch, but all his gadgets too’.

Phones were dispensed with as a grumbling group moved in on Veltman and Baird, the latter as representative of the charter firm, the former for having organised the whole thing and invited them on board his floating Pinto.

‘What you got lined up for Cannes, Linus?’ one shouted. ‘A re‐
enactment of the Challenger disaster maybe?’

A potentially very ugly development was defused by the distraction of a fight breaking out on the aft sun‐
deck, where Nova Image’s Jack Ritchie and EyeCandy’s CEO Saul Fleder were rolling around on the floor. It was only when Jo noticed a surplus to the regular number of arms and legs that it became apparent they were not in fact duking it out, but teaming up to restrain the surgically sculpted action‐
Aryan Max Michaels. Michaels had committed himself to EyeCandy for three pictures in the ‘fifteen‐
to‐
twenty‐
million‐
dollar budget range’ (actually five‐
to‐
seven), but as this was before their CEO sat on his head, Jo hoped they had it all down on paper.

Michaels had evidently reasoned that there was little chance the bomber would notice one person slipping over the side and swimming across to the safety of the police launches. Fleder had spotted him taking off his shoes and socks and reasoned differently. ‘We’re not gonna be the stake for your bet, asshole,’ Saul had explained, as Baird helped tie the muscleman’s hands together to discourage any further excursions. Jo was faintly concerned that she had seen Michaels extricate himself from just such a knot in Vendetta II, but then in that movie he had also beaten the shit out of several guys a lot bigger than the five‐
foot Saul Fleder or the sixty‐
two‐
year‐
old Jack Ritchie.

But the worst hideousness of that longest, darkest night of the (ass) soul had to be Paul Silver’s fevered and insistent orchestration of a Christian prayer ceremony. Jo thought Silver had flipped into catatonia earlier, having burned himself out in a relentless, turbo‐
boosted stream‐
of‐
consciousness. Any time she’d met him he’d struck her as a vessel of concentrated nervous energy, which made him real useful when there was a job to do, but the last person you wanted near you at a time like this. Truth was – and you could ask anyone – Paul Silver was regarded as a good man in a crisis, because he’d do whatever and as much as he could to alleviate it. But in a situation where there was nothing anyone could do, well, all that nervous energy had to find an outlet somewhere. The high‐
octane head‐
rant had merely been the overture; the period of catatonia time for the orchestra to rest and retune.

A small group of execs with predominantly Irish and Italian surnames had gathered in Silver’s quiet vicinity to say a few prayers that everything was going to work out. Observing this Catholic pow‐
wow, he hit upon an idea that was less than inspired, and even further from divine. Silver figured it might stay the bomber’s hand if they all made a show of reverent Christian prayer for his cameras; there was no sound link, so hopefully he would interpret it as an act of penitence or even just as evidence that they were all a whole lot more God‐
fearin’ than he had assumed.

Convinced that this could be their salvation, Silver had embarked upon a frenetic campaign of evangelism to amass a devout host of head‐
bowed Christians on the main deck. What made it worse was that there were so many takers, many of whom were equally Jewish.

Jo refused any part of the dismal pantomime, and hoped fervently that the bomber wasn’t watching too closely. It was unlikely enough he’d be buying any of this wholesale Damascene conversion bullshit, but the flapping attempts at a sign of the Cross proliferating around the deck were less a giveaway than an act of provocation.

‘Dumb schmucks,’ muttered a guy beside her, Lenny Weiskov, one of the few who had resisted Silver’s entreaties. ‘What do they think, the bomber’s gonna believe this was some gentiles’ day out? It’s the movie business, for cryin’ out loud. Jews pretending to be Christians – pah! Jews in the movie business shouldn’t even pretend to be religious. It’s incompatible from an early age – kids’ matinee’s always been on the same day as schule.’

It had been a long night for Daniel Corby too. Everything had gone off without a hitch, but none of it had made him feel quite the way he’d hoped or expected, and darkness had brought its demons. The sense of purpose, the feeling of control, had been surging through him throughout the scheming and preparation, and had grown in its intensity right up until he triggered the detonator at the Pacific Vista. Nothing seemed quite so certain after that moment as it had before; not even his own conviction.

Filth‐
peddlers and pornographers bled, he had learned, just like anyone else. Copiously, in fact, according to the collage of TV images. Their flesh yielded also to flame and steel and glass. And however damned their souls, their bodies were nonetheless a pitiful sight as they staggered or were carried from the hotel. Blood‐
spattered and tearful faces filled every lens. Stretchers with sheets covering faces. Dead people. Murdered people.

Murdered by him.

He hadn’t meant it to be so big. He’d learned plenty more about bombs and explosives since Pocoima, but his judgement as regards quantity was still way out, especially as he knew so little about the fabrics and construction of such a weird edifice as the Pacific Vista’s landmark canopy. It was supposed to be a firm, even shocking declaration of intent; he hadn’t meant to total the place.

Daniel tried to re‐
summon up all his hatred, concentrating on his greater mission, and thought hard about Luther St John’s powerful words. But while St John remained in the realm of words, Daniel had moved into the world of deeds, and the two were a long way apart. He had stuck to his schedule and continued with the plan, sending over a new venue for the sacrifice, but he feared this might have been because he didn’t know what else to do. As events unfolded, he found himself praying that Witherson would go through with it – not for all the reasons he’d intended, but so that he could feel that something had been achieved, that it had all been worth it.

He hadn’t been ready for those TV images. He’d thought only of his plan, of Witherson, of God, and planting his bombs had been like playing cards, a matter of strategy. It was almost as though he’d forgotten what those things actually did. The pictures reminded him of the World Trade Center and, inevitably, of Oklahoma City, which prompted an even more urgent concern, regarding electric chairs and lethal injections. Until then, he hadn’t given a second’s thought to the consequences for himself of getting caught, only of the consequences for the success of his mission.

He watched the famous faces on his TV screens, faces he saw every day, every night, faces who had always seemed a world away behind desks, under studio lights, surrounded by captions and logos and talking heads. Tonight they were all talking about what had happened today; what he had done today. And the more they talked, the more the enormity of what he had unleashed seemed to grow.

It took serious nerve not to panic. Crazy, desperate thoughts began flitting into his head, and sometimes not flitting out again too quickly. It would do no good to give himself up, he knew. Charged with killing eight (or did they say nine now?) people, it wasn’t going to be much of a mitigation to point out that he had held off killing eighty‐
eight more. His thoughts turned to flight. Blow the house up behind him, obliterating all the evidence. But then maybe such an explosion would only lead them to discover that the place’s occupant had been the bomber, and his name and picture would top America’s Most Wanted within hours. Maybe he should just pack a bag, disengage the failsafe, get in the car and split, come back when they had busted some other guy for it all.

But weakened as it was, he still couldn’t completely shake off the belief that had brought him to this juncture. Inside, he still knew that he had to make this happen, that America had to get that wake‐
up call through Witherson’s death. He had to stay strong, resist the allures of ease and security, as the Lord had done in the desert. After all, if God didn’t want this to happen, He could stop it, couldn’t he? And yet it was all running smoothly. Maybe it was all going to be worth it, he pondered. Maybe he just needed to have faith.

That was when the phone rang. He feared the worst initially, but then it struck him that if he’d been fingered, they wouldn’t just call him up.

It was Nate, the nearest thing the Southland Militia had to a tech‐
head, whom Daniel had dealt with when he was setting up their Internet sites. To his shock, Nate informed Daniel that they knew he was the bomber, but this was eased by the qualification that it was St John who’d worked it out and told them, and eased further by the hearty assurance that they were all right behind him.

‘The Reverend would like us to bring you in for a little chat when it’s all over,’ Nate added. ‘So we can talk about where we all go from here. He’s real impressed, let me tell you. Mind if I come over right now to catch the big finale?’

‘Do I mind? Hey, bring a six‐
pack!’

When Daniel put down the phone it took admirable restraint not to physically jump for joy. This was surely God’s way of telling him he had passed the test of temptation, and his faith was about to receive fitting reward.

If Jo was embarrassed by the antics of her fellow hostages, they seemed models of solemn propriety compared to the circus sideshow going on all around them. The TV news ’copters had often been compared to vultures, but seldom had the parallel been so close; they had deserted the Ugly Duckling and headed for the Pacific Vista when they learned that was where the fresh blood would be.

Jo felt the tight grip she’d kept on her outrage loosening as she saw what an infotainment spectacle this was all being turned into. She saw shots of the crowds gathering on the beach, the camera picking out the placards being held up. ‘The wages of sin is death,’ said one. ‘Bleed for your sins Witherson,’ said another, while a third opted simply for ‘Burn baby burn’.

There seemed little doubt that the networks were going to broadcast the event itself, ostensibly for the eyes of the bomber, but Jo couldn’t help choking on the irony. These were the same terrestrial channels on which you couldn’t use the word ‘fuck’ or show some bare tits.

Like the guy who’d shouted, Jo wished they could turn it off. She wished she could take a walk around to part of the boat where there wasn’t a TV screen. But she couldn’t, no more than any of the eighty‐
seven others on the Ugly Duckling. Because whatever assurances they had been given, they knew they weren’t getting off the bomb‐
rigged hulk until they saw Maddy Witherson actually do this.

‘A Worldwide TV special in suicide‐
vision, courtesy of Daaahn‐
yeeeel Corbeee! Wooh!’ Vern said, clapping his hands. ‘Hey, c’mon man, you’re missin’ your own show,’ he added. Nate glanced up and rolled his eyes. Vern was slapping Corby on the back and pointing to the TV screens, but Corby wasn’t watching, having limited his activities to dangling limply from a rope tied over one of the basement’s ceiling beams.

Liskey had commissioned Nate for the hit because Corby knew him. They figured he wasn’t going to be in much of a mind to open the door to strangers, and that night he was unlikely even to answer the doorbell, so Nate had phoned ahead. Corby was happy for Nate to come round and enjoy the show; in fact happy wasn’t even close. It must have been eating Corby alive that he had pulled all this shit off but couldn’t tell anyone about it. Showing off his handiwork to sympathetic Militia members had probably made him come in his shorts. And if what they say is true, he’d have come in them again when Vern suddenly slung a noose around his neck and hauled him up.

‘Shit, this is for real,’ Vern said, staring at the identical images on the six TV screens set up around the desk. Add the three computer monitors and they were probably getting more radiation off this gig than Liskey would planting the nukes. ‘The porno broad’s really goin’ through with it, look.’

‘Well, I’m kinda busy right now, Vern, but I’m sure it’s real exciting,’ Nate told him, his fingers rattling impatiently across the keyboard. The guy’s set‐
up was a nightmare of mutated technology: self‐
customised boards, chips and cards all wired up to each other like they had been built by the fucking Borg. It served as a worrying reminder that Corby had probably forgotten more about computers than Nate had ever learned – and much of what he had learned he had learned from Corby. Nate was supposed to be wiping anything that could connect the guy to the Militia or St John, but it was almost literally like walking through a minefield: Corby himself had told him the system was booby‐
trapped. If you tried screwing around with the detonator control programme, you’d set off the bomb on the Ugly Duckling. Same went if the computer detected a change in the signals coming from his TV cameras, so the cops couldn’t loop in a fake shot while they evacuated the boat. Same went if you shut down the system or if you wiped the whole thing.