Simon Gardiner was silent as he walked a pace ahead of his
parents. They reached the bottom of the stairs leading out
of the police station as the last rays of the setting sun broke
through the distant palms lining the freeway. They could see
the black silhouettes of cars and the haze of headlights.
'Your lack of smugness is irritating, son,' Marty said, half-seriously.
Nancy nudged her husband and gave him a withering
look.
'Oh, don't worry, Dad, I feel
very
smug. Let's just view my
callout fee as a down payment to cover putting me through
Law School.'
'I suppose it had to come in useful some day!' his father
retorted.
Simon led them to his Mercedes saloon.
'I'm pissed they won't let us have our bikes,' Marty
snapped. 'Really pissed.'
'Oh, come on, Pa! What did you expect?'
'It's an infringement of our civil liberties. Why didn't you
do something about it?'
'You forfeited your civil liberties when you decided to
take your protest onto the city's freeways,' Simon replied
tartly. 'You can have the bikes tomorrow. Now let's get home.
Maureen's making a blackberry pie, apparently.'
Marty and Nancy looked at each other. 'We're going on,'
Nancy Gardiner said.
Simon gave them both a frosty look. 'So what are you
going to do this time? Walk along the freeway?' He suddenly
felt furious. He loathed all this green nonsense. It was for
hippies and layabouts. Somehow, though, his parents – of
all people – had been corrupted by the 'pinkos' and troublemakers.
Marty was about to snap back when Nancy raised a hand
to stop him. 'It's not far, Simon. There'll be a bus on 6th
Avenue.'
'Oh, for Christ's sake! Why? Why are you being so, so . . .
pig-headed? What's gotten into you two?'
The elderly couple said nothing as their son glared at them,
pulled the keys from his pocket and pushed the remote to
unlock the car. 'Fine! Catch a freakin' bus. Have fun.' And
he spun on his heel.
Simon Gardiner sat in his car for several minutes, trying to
calm himself. His doc had told him not to get overexcited, to
watch his blood pressure. Ever since his parents had turned
up he'd done the exact opposite. He hit the steering wheel
and filled the air with expletives. After a moment, he felt a
little better for letting off steam. They had their hearts in
the right place – he knew that. They were good people, just
misguided.
Perhaps they're going a little senile
, Simon thought, and
suddenly an image of his mother and father 30 years
younger flashed into his mind. They were going out for
the evening and he had been left with his brother and a
babysitter. His parents were dressed in their best and looked
incredibly elegant – they were wealthy high-fliers, and very
good-looking. He remembered thinking how he wanted to
be just like his father when he was older, and how he would
have a beautiful wife too – if not as beautiful as his mom,
then close.
He took a deep breath, turned the key in the ignition and
pulled out of the lot.
He saw them twenty yards ahead, walking arm-in-arm
along the sidewalk. For a few moments they remained
oblivious of him. He could tell from their body language
that they were perfectly happy. It was almost as though
they were enjoying the adventure. Then Nancy laughed
suddenly, looked at Marty's profile, kissed him on the cheek
and settled her head on his shoulder.
They heard the car and turned. He pulled up beside them,
lowered the window and stuck his head out.
'You don't need to,' Marty said.
'I know that. But if you don't get in, I promise I will drive
right around Los Angeles revving the engine at every stop
sign until I drain the tank. My carbon footprint will be so
big you'll see it from space.'
The nerves kicked in right on cue, 45 minutes before his
appearance. Kyle Foreman knew the routine well and was
pacing his room in anticipation. Three minutes later came
a knock on the door. His personal assistant stuck his head
into the room.
'Okay,' Foreman said, and straightened his tie in the
mirror. 'Let's go.'
There was a uniformed cop with the CIA bodyguards in
the corridor. One of the CIA men led, the other trailed at
the back. After years in the spotlight Senator Foreman was
used to security, but it never made him feel entirely safe.
Like everyone else, he had seen the film of Kennedy having
his head blown off from at least two directions. Years later,
Ronald Reagan had almost bought it when John Hinckley,
Jr, tried to make his day. There was only so much humans
could do to protect him from other humans.
The hotel room was on the seventh floor of the Hilton,
to the rear of the CCC. It was a twenty-storey structure that
was always full. The elevator took them down to the third
floor where the hospitality area was located. From there, he
would be picked up in precisely 29 minutes and escorted
across a glass-ceilinged bridge on the first level, to the CCC
building itself. Another elevator would take him down
one floor to the ground level, and from there, he would
arrive backstage exactly three minutes before he was due to
walk on.
In the hospitality suite Foreman found a small group
awaiting him. The general manager of the CCC/Hilton
complex shook his hand and a young woman in a tight black
skirt and white blouse offered him a glass of champagne. He
declined and asked for a Perrier with ice and lemon.
'No need for Dutch courage?' the general manager joked,
taking a sip of champagne.
'Never before the show,' Foreman replied. 'But after . . .
that's another matter.'
Foreman took a seat and thanked the waitress as she
deposited his drink on a side table. The CIA guys stood by
the door, while the cop paced the corridor outside. A black
LAPD helicopter flew past the window and heads turned to
watch it swoop away.
'Certainly looks like they're taking care of me,' Foreman
said. He lifted his glass. 'To the security services!' He was
smiling, but beneath the surface he felt uncomfortable, even
more uncomfortable than normal just before an appearance.
'Now, ladies and gentlemen,' he added. 'If you don't mind,
I have a few final checks to make on my speech.'
Foreman's assistant placed a gentle hand on the general
manager's arm. The man got the message, handed his empty
glass to the waitress and led his little group out into the
corridor. 'Good luck, Senator,' he called back. Foreman
glanced up and mouthed a silent 'Thank you' as his assistant
handed him his speech and a red pen.
The best way to quell the nerves, he knew from experience,
was simply to keep busy. But there was something extra
tonight. Something he couldn't put his finger on.
Perhaps
I'm just anxious about Sandy
, he tried to convince himself.
But he knew that this was not the sum of it. What he was
feeling ran deeper than mere anxiety. He had no idea where
it had come from, and he was certainly no believer in any
form of sixth sense, but the feeling was inescapable. The
only word for it was 'foreboding'.
Nancy and Marty Gardiner made it to the CCC with just
minutes to spare. At the door, an assistant saw them and
bumped them up the queue, ahead of a group of three young
guys. One of the kids, a tall young man with long hair tucked
behind his ears, was about to protest, but his friend, a kid
in very baggy jeans and a 49ers sweatshirt, kicked his ankle
and he held his tongue.
They found their seats easily enough. Marty pulled a
pair of ancient opera glasses from his backpack and handed
them to Nancy. She put them on her lap for a moment as
she extricated a plastic container from her shoulder bag.
She removed the lid and fished around inside. Pulling out
a sandwich wrapped in silver foil, she handed it to her
husband. Then she replaced the lid, put the box back in the
bag and picked up the opera glasses. All she could see was a
black curtain across the stage.
Marty checked his watch. 'They don't look terribly
organised,' he said matter-of-factly. 'They're bound to start
late.'
'Relax, honey,' Nancy replied. 'It's not the army . . . and
at least we made it on time.'
Marty smiled and patted her hand. 'Fantastic PB and J,'
he said, and took another bite.
Precisely 338 feet away, the Dragon had also taken his seat,
but he was considerably less comfortable. He was perched
on a crate and was covered in camouflage netting. In front
of him stood his two M60 7.62 mm machine guns. On the
floor to his right he had placed his ammunition box. To his
left was a leather box containing the six M67 fragmentation
hand grenades. In the waistband of his trousers he had his
trusty Magnum and the Mark XIX Desert Eagle .50 AE. In
his jacket pocket he carried the Yarygin PYa.
He removed a small plastic unit from the pocket of his
pants – a remote control. Between his feet was a squat metal
box, on the top face of which was a row of lights. One of the
lights was green, the others red. The Dragon ran his fingers
over the keypad of the remote, punching in a numeric
code sequence. One of the red lights turned green. He then
depressed the 'enter' key and the remaining red lights turned
green. He was ready.
The lights came up and Kyle Foreman strode onto the vast
stage to tumultuous applause. He waved as he walked to
the podium. Half the audience were on their feet. It took a
full minute before he could calm the crowd into silence and
return them to their seats.
'Good evening,' he said. 'I'm simply thrilled to see this
place filled to the rafters, and I know many of you have
travelled a long way to come here tonight. But, you know, it
is yet another show of strength.' He stretched out his arms,
as though he was embracing the audience. They cheered. 'I
like to think of us as crusaders because, make no mistake,
we are fighting a war. A war of ideologies. And I believe with
all my heart that it is a war of right versus wrong. A war in
which no blood will be shed, for sure, but a battle to the
death nevertheless. The only way to save our planet is to
engage in this fight – and to win it.' He hit the podium with
the palm of his hand. 'The wrong-thinkers must not prevail.
Our ideology is stronger.'
A massive cheer. People were on their feet again.
'I've prepared a short film I would like you to see,'
Foreman announced, and suddenly the lights dimmed
again before a huge screen lit up at the back of the stage.
The film began with images of ice shelves falling into the
ocean, and moved on to some dramatic footage of wild
weather. Foreman was speaking over the movie, a scripted
commentary describing how mean temperatures had
increased steadily and how levels of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere were directly responsible. A bar chart in
primary colours appeared.
That was the moment the first bomb exploded.
The first thing anyone felt was the shaking. The room
seemed to judder like a celluloid image caught in a projector.
Many in the CCC thought an earthquake had hit. But then
came the roaring sound, and the doors to the auditorium
blew in, sending great chunks of wood and metal across the
open space. A steel post soared through the air and smashed
into one of three vast chandeliers. Thousands of pieces of
glass cascaded onto the audience like hailstones. The lights
went out and the auditorium erupted, instantly killing half
the people there.
On the podium, Kyle Foreman saw the doors shatter
and debris burst into the room. He dived to the side of the
stage, seeing glass tumbling, blood spraying, severed limbs
flying through the air. He fell from the edge of the stage
and landed on something soft. Pulling himself to his knees,
he looked down. A faint light coming from the nearest
demolished doorway revealed the headless corpse of one
of his bodyguards. Two seconds earlier the man had been
standing at the side of the stage looking out towards the
audience.
When a second explosion hit, Foreman dropped again.
Covering his head with his hands, he scrambled under a
table to the side of the auditorium. This explosion was much
bigger. The room shook so hard he thought the ceiling
would come down. A high-pitched sound came from a few
inches above his head and he risked opening his eyes for a
second. A crack an inch wide had appeared in the wall and
was shooting up towards the ceiling. The room shook again
and the sound of crashing masonry and glass mingled with
the roar of the flames. Foreman heard screams and guttural
moans as hundreds of people were incinerated.
Foreman glanced behind him and saw what he thought
was a metal screen, but then he realised it was a steel sliding
door. He threw himself into a small opening at one side of
the door and tried desperately to slide it shut behind him.
A fireball ripped through the auditorium, and even from
behind the metal door the heat was searing. He was thrown
backwards and slammed into a pile of plastic containers,
sending them flying across the floor. Pain rippled along his
arm.
The senator picked himself up and could just make out
the contours of the space. It was a narrow corridor with a
door at the far end. He stumbled towards it in the gloom,
the heat from the auditorium still scorching his back. In the
dark it was difficult to find the handle. His hand brushed
against metal. He yanked at it. Nothing. It was locked.
His mind racing, Foreman grabbed for his cell phone. He
could see from the illuminated screen that he had a very
weak signal. Desperately, he stabbed at the keypad: 9, 1, 1.
He heard the dial tone, then a click.
Foreman looked at the screen in disbelief.
Connection lost
,
it read.
He dialled again. The words
No signal
appeared on the
screen. He hit the phone with his fist and yelped in pain,
then threw his arms down in despair. The screen light on
the cell went out.
Foreman turned to survey the corridor, his eyes wild in
the dark. He was sweating profusely, his breath coming in
gasps. He could see no other exit. Ahead lay the inferno of
the auditorium. Behind him a locked door. He hammered
on the door in a futile attempt to break through by sheer
willpower. Then he began to scream.