Not the End of the World (50 page)

‘Sergeant,’ she said, her eyes flitting back and forth from the book to the monitor, ‘I’d like you to shut down the file you’ve got on screen and call up the data on Wegener’s Guyot.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘What?’ Steel demanded.

‘This has to be it.’

‘Why “oh dear”?’

‘Because I didn’t think worst‐
case scenarios got quite as bad as this.’ She pointed at the map. ‘This thing here, like an anthill, this is Wegener’s Guyot, seventy‐
five miles out. It’s comparatively small, not a real textbook guyot, not like these giant things out in the deep ocean basin. It’s right on the edge of Patten Escarpment, on the continental slope, and it’s where a prevailing undersea current runs out of steam, so it’s like a giant silt‐
dumping ground all around here. There’s deep, deep layers of stratified matter before you get to impervious crustal rock. Any kind of nuclear blast is going to leave a very big crater. Two hundred kilotons, even half that, less … Jesus.’

Larry and Steel looked at her, confused and impatient.

‘See, it’s all about the water’s equilibrium,’ she explained. ‘You disturb it and it doesn’t just compensate, it overreacts. The forces pulling billions of gallons of sea‐
water into a newly dug hole don’t stop when it’s full. The water at the back of the queue is still pushing to get in, you know? And then it all comes back out again, which is when you get a wave.

‘The wave’s only a few feet high on the open sea, but then it hits the continental shelf, and that’s where the trouble starts. It meets shoal‐
water and the friction slows it down, like fifty per cent every two miles, so as that wave‐
front slows and the depth gets shallower and shallower, you get millions of tons of water piling up behind it. And incidentally, the continental shelf is particularly wide west of the LA conurbation.’

Arazon breathed out. Larry and Steel breathed in.

‘A wave hit Hilo, Hawaii, in nineteen sixty. It drove entire buildings through one another, and I’m not talking about straw huts, here. These were steel‐
reinforced concrete office blocks, and they were smashed like matchwood. The wave was approximately thirty‐
five feet high. According to the computer, two hundred kilotons at Wegener’s Guyot could give us a wave five times that size when it hits LA.’

‘Fuck me,’ Steel gasped.

‘Even half or a quarter of that and the devastation would still be incredible. Not just on the coast, either. LA’s flat as a pool table – with such volume behind it, the sea would flood in for miles. The sewage system and water supplies would be crippled, so apart from the initial damage, you’d have drought and disease to contend with too … And if all that isn’t scary enough, seismic waves don’t travel alone. The water would pull back out, then forty minutes later surf’s up again. There were three waves at Krakatoa; the maximum recorded is nine.’

The Gazes Also pulled slowly away from the CalORI pier, Arazon at the helm, striking out for the ocean in defiance of those who’d ended its last voyage. Steel had said he wouldn’t blame her if she jumped in her Ford and headed literally for the hills, long as she kept her mouth shut, but she’d been adamant: it wasn’t a matter of sailing to the right co‐
ordinates, sticking your head under the water and spotting a bomb – the FBI divers needed someone to direct the search from the surface. Not only could Arazon operate sonar to map out the submerged landscape, she was also the one best able to estimate where the nukes might be placed for maximum effect.

Larry knew nobody could have kept her off the boat anyway. There was nothing worse than feeling everything is out of your hands at a time like this, a sensation he was about to be harshly reacquainted with.

He stood beside Steel on the pier, the darkness lit by a three‐
quarter moon and a priol of floodlights. Arazon had been joined on the GA by another field agent, a young, bright‐
looking Oriental guy, and they were to rendezvous at the guyot with a team of divers travelling on a fast‐
picket Navy launch out of San Diego.

‘You should go home, catch some shut‐
eye,’ Steel said. ‘It’s gonna take them a few hours to get there, and a few more before we’ll know anything … either way.’

It was Steel who looked like he could really use the sleep. Larry felt for him, in such a shitty Catch‐
22 position: he’d called the situation up to Brisko and beyond to get the nod for the assistance he needed, but at this stage it was still his show. If it was proved that there was indeed a nuclear threat to a US city, then heaven and earth would be mobilised in response. But when all you got is a computer program and a bunch of theories, then you can only do the good lawman’s job: pursue the line of enquiry to the best of your abilities and available resources. Steel confided that he was relieved even to get the dive‐
team and the Navy launch; despite what they said officially, the Feds were still reluctant to be seen going in like gangbusters since the Jewell fiasco in Atlanta in ’96. And with undercover colleagues having been lost to the Southland Militia, questions had been asked of Steel about his judgement with regard to that organisation.

Larry remembered how crazy he’d thought Steel sounded less than twelve hours ago; then he thought of his own increasing fatigue and wondered whether he wasn’t in the process of flipping out too.

Steff was awake again, standing in the half‐
light drinking water from a bottle as the clock mocked his disorientation. He looked down at Madeleine’s coiled figure on the bed, naked beneath a single cotton sheet, undisturbed in her repose since they’d finally been sufficiently sated to leave each other’s genitals alone long enough to nod off. An old Mutton Birds number played in his head, and he would have been content to sit and watch her sleep in some lyrical lovestruck daze, but for the hollow feeling in his stomach that kept telling him they were still a long way short of sailing off into any sunset together.

He pulled the curtains back a little and looked down at the swimming pool, where work was continuing through the night to clear the debris. Everyone else seemed to think the show was over – why couldn’t he? He knew what it meant to Madeleine, but couldn’t escape feeling there was something of entering the lions’ den about their impending trip to Chateau Luther. Everything was going to be on the preacherman’s terms, everything was going to be under his control, but Madeleine didn’t seem to care – she just wanted her shot at the guy. Steff, having seen a few away fixtures at Ibrox, had a more vivid understanding of the phrase ‘home advantage’, and was far less confident that she wouldn’t get hurt – one way or another.

She’d told him all about her childhood, or lack thereof. All about her father.

He’d taken her apart, there and then. Dismembered her and scattered the parts; hidden them, buried them. Her whole life since had been an attempt to find them all and put herself back together again. She explained how it was only now that she’d done that that she could take her father on and make him face what he had done before the eyes of the public. And she made Steff understand why she had to face St John also. But she seemed so consumed by finally exorcising these ghosts of her past that he was afraid she’d be oblivious to the threats of here and now.

Which was why while Madeleine had been phoning Tony Pia and talking terms with St John’s representatives, Steff had gone back to find Brisko. The gentle G-man filled him in a little more honestly than when he’d been in Senator Witherson’s company, admitting apologetically that pressure had been brought to bear on him to make going underground sound Madeleine’s best option.

It turned out the bomber was some sad wee wank called Daniel Corby, and all evidence so far suggested he’d acted alone. As far as they knew, he wasn’t a member of the Southland Militia, but with two of them barbecuing alongside him in Glendale, there was obviously some kind of connection. Brisko told him the FBI’s biggest concern was that the whole carry‐
on could have been a diversion to distract attention from something else the Militia was up to, but wouldn’t share his fears or suspicions of what that something else might be. He tried to reassure Steff that Madeleine Witherson was under no greater direct threat from the Southland Militia than any other individual, as these bampots probably had bigger fish to fry. However, Steff remained very concerned that if the Militia had any involvement in what had happened at the Vista, he and Madeleine had effectively given them all a very public two fingers that morning, something they might yet wish to reply to.

He finished his water and climbed back under the sheets beside her. Her smell was exquisite, the feel of her still electrifying. Maybe he was just going a wee bit crazy, and after the past few days, who could blame him? But suddenly, maybe even for the first time in his life, he had something he was very, very scared to lose. It wasn’t just how he felt about her; it was also how she made him feel about himself.

He was terrified of someone or something taking that away, and he was prepared to do anything to protect it.

Larry still couldn’t sleep. He’d climbed quietly into bed beside Sophie, who mumbled dopily, rolled over so that her head was on his chest, then flaked out again. He lay there in the semi‐
darkness, aware of the lightening against the curtains as morning approached. He stroked his wife’s soft blonde hair, breathed in her smell, wondering whether it would be for the last time. He thought of the son they had lost, of the child growing in Sophie’s womb, and of those who would steal its life away too.

The end of the world was nigh.

Yeah, right.

He thought of all the stupid fucks who were acting like they’d be disappointed if the Lord didn’t wrap up the party nine months from now. All the dumb shits who’d already committed suicide over it. All the sad assholes who thought Judgement Day was scheduled for December 31st, when God would come down and vindicate them personally, and all their shitty little beliefs and opinions. When God would punish their enemies and show the world that they were right about everything they ever thought in their entire fucking lives, from religion through politics down to how the ref was wrong when he made that call against the Lakers in ’93. When they’d get their eternal reward for going to church every Sunday and sending off cheques to some redneck televangelist’s box number.

1999. 2000. Whatever. There was no cosmic significance about the year, the decade or the century. The world’s clock was calibrated for aeons; millennia didn’t even register, and certainly not the pitiful few we’d been creeping around for.

It was just a date on a calendar. The West’s calendar. Islam wouldn’t be getting around to the year 2000 for a few centuries yet. In Tibet they’d moved into the third millennium back in the fucking seventies. Awareness that our perception is subjective is what lifts our consciousness above that of the animals: from where you’re sitting, your dick might look taller than that skyscraper out the window, but only from where you’re sitting.

It don’t make it so.

Larry knew that reaching the year 2000 didn’t mean nothing, but it didn’t mean everything either. It was a lap‐
mark, not a finish line. A milestone for Western Judeo‐
Christian civilisation to stop at and take a look around, at where we had come from and where the road ahead might lead. A time of evaluation and assessment – but also of boundless opportunity.

From the end of the twentieth century, the twenty‐
first looked like a Klondike, where there’d be an anxious rush to fight for a slice. But on the periphery of every Klondike there were always con‐
men, gamblers and charlatans, looking to cash in on the climate of uncertainty. Chancers, his friend Jack Parlabane would’ve called them.

And chancer‐
in‐
chief was the Reverend Luther St John.

Steel was right: they couldn’t touch him. Even if they went blazing in there, what was he going to do, what was he going to say? ‘Oh sure guys, I admit it even though you got no proof. And better yet I’ll call the whole thing off, just for you. No hard feelings, huh?’ They couldn’t even squeeze the guy: all he had to do was wait it out until his bombs went off, because they were the only real evidence. Then he’d have his tidal wave and they’d have nothing. Anyway, how do you threaten a man who holds the lives of millions in his grasp? He knows the last thing you can do is kill him.

Larry had heard him on the radio in the car home, ballsy as you like. Little shit had agreed to take on Madeleine Witherson in a TV debate, even though, as the newscaster put it, he’d been given a standing count after the pasting she dished out earlier. But then St John knew she could stick it to him again and he would still have the ultimate come‐
back.

Larry had sacked out eventually, waking to find an empty house and a note from Sophie, obliviously explaining that she had slipped out quietly to let him catch up on his rest. She’d see him around six, how about dinner out so he could unwind and tell her everything that had been going on these crazy few days?

How about it indeed? he thought. If we still got a city left to dine out in.

He pulled on his clothes and hot‐
tailed it to CalORI. If he was needed at the station, they had his mobile number, but he wasn’t going to be worth shit to them until he found out what the hell was going on at sea.

Larry walked back into the now Fed‐
annexed building to find Steel sitting in the lab in front of a big radio set, Brisko and another agent standing nearby drinking coffee.

‘Jesus, couldn’t anybody relieve this guy? What, you got a shortage of agents?’

‘We did offer. Peter ain’t for leaving.’

‘I crashed out on the floor for a few hours,’ Steel said, rubbing horribly bloodshot eyes.

‘So any news?’

‘Nothing from the boat,’ Brisko told him. ‘The divers are under, but …’ He shrugged. ‘Just have to wait it out.’

‘But do you wanna hear the late‐
breaking stories?’ Steel asked.

‘What’s that?’

‘We sent agents to question Arthur Liskey,’ Brisko explained, taking up the exhausted Steel’s cue. ‘He’s nowhere to be found. Neither is William Rooke or Richard Kelloran, who are also part of the Southland Militia’s high command.’