Triskellion 3: The Gathering (12 page)

“Who?”

Rachel knew that Adam understood exactly who she was talking about, but equally she knew that it was not the easiest thing to talk about. “The Hope Project. Van der Zee’s cronies,” she prompted.

Even saying the name made her shudder. Clay Van der Zee had been the American doctor who had kept the two of them captive in a secret research laboratory in the English countryside; who had given the instruction to have them killed. Under his orders Rachel and Adam had been chased across Europe until he had finally perished when one of his own attack helicopters had crashed into his boat off the coast of Morocco.

Just after they had found the second Triskellion.

“They must have taken him,” Adam said. “Why else wouldn’t he be around? They must have got to the people he works with at the university, too … made them pretend they’d never heard of him. It’s like he just … never existed.”

“They’ll try and use him to get to us,” Rachel said. “Just like they did with Mom.”

“But he doesn’t know anything.”

“
They
don’t know that.”

Adam nodded grimly, fighting to dispel the image of his father suffering simply because of them.

Being tortured for information he didn’t have.

“Dad’s pretty tough,” he said, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “Isn’t he…?”

On the other side of the room, Gabriel was still channel-surfing, fascinated by the bizarre array of contrasting images that flashed in front of his eyes every few seconds. Cartoons, sports and adverts. Lots of adverts. He stopped flicking when he saw a face he recognized, heard a lilting voice. A caption appeared on the screen:
THE GATHERING IS ONLY DAYS AWAY
!

He turned towards the twins. “Hey, it’s those people we saw at the airport.”

But Rachel and Adam were not listening.

“We need to find him,” Rachel was saying. “We need to get Dad.”

“Find him where?”

“Wherever they are.”

“Go looking for them?” Adam sounded horrified.

“You heard what Gabriel said. Aren’t you sick of running and hiding?”

Gabriel was on his feet now, throwing open drawers: looking for something.

“We’re going to find Dad,” Rachel said firmly to Adam. “And we’re going to end this.”

Adam sat on the edge of the bed. His features settled, hardened themselves into an expression of determination. He nodded at Rachel. “So where do we start?”

Rachel gathered up the letter and photograph from the bed in front of her. “She left us these for a reason,” she said, waving them. She read part of the letter again. “Like she said; we need to go back to where it all began.”

Gabriel had found what he was looking for. “Move over,” he said, pushing between them and laying the huge map he had found in a drawer out on the bed.

He ran his finger slowly across it until he came to the place he was searching for. A small town in the middle of the desert that was home to an air force base in New Mexico. “There,” he said.

Rachel nodded. “Alamogordo…”

Eighteen thousand kilometres away it was early morning in Australia, and at Perth Airport Brett Harkness was starting to sweat. Laura Sullivan’s oldest friend, a man she had known since high school, was shaking his head and wondering aloud why he always did whatever she asked him to do; how he always let himself get badgered into doing such crazy things. An hour before it had sounded like a reasonable enough idea, like it would be a good laugh, but now…

“Relax,” Laura said, seeing the worry on his face. “If we get caught, just tell them we talked you into it.”

“You
did
talk me into it.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be such a pushover.”

Kate laughed, but she was every bit as terrified as Brett was. Only Laura seemed truly calm, sizing up the cops and airport staff that seemed to outnumber the passengers lining up to go through the security checks by about three to one.

“We’re just a couple of girls off to Europe on holiday.” She touched Kate’s arm. “OK?”

“OK,” Kate said. She caught the eye of a cop near the metal detector and looked away quickly. Had he recognized her? She knew that by now her details would have been circulated to every force in the country and perhaps beyond. She was a wanted murderer and the first thing the police did when they were on the lookout for a killer on the run was to watch the ports.

She was doing just what they expected her to do.

Laura handed Kate her passport. She could see how worried her friend was. “Firstly they’re looking for ‘Debbie Crocker’ and you’re travelling on Kate Newman’s passport. And even if they have got a picture, your new look’s bound to fool them. So don’t worry.”

Kate nodded and ran her fingers through the hair that Laura had cut and dyed blonde the night before. She knew the risk she was running – the risk that Brett and Laura were running on her behalf – but if there was the smallest chance of getting Rachel and Adam back, it was worth it.

“You ready, mate?” Laura said, turning to Brett.

“As I’ll ever be.” Brett took a deep breath. “You owe me one, Sullivan.”

“Let’s go,” Laura said.

The line of passengers moved forward, and they walked casually towards the metal detector. Ahead of them a family began loading their hand luggage on to the conveyor belt, moaning all the while about taking off their shoes and belts and arguing about whether the wife had any liquids in her handbag.

Laura leaned close to Brett and whispered, “Time to check if
you’ve
got anything dangerous in your bag.”

Brett nodded and carefully lowered his small backpack to the floor. He checked to see that no one was looking and then reached inside and slowly drew something out. Pretending to tie his shoelace, he laid the object down at the feet of the woman behind him. She was too busy brushing her hair to notice – when she
did
notice, the scream made Brett jump, even though he knew it was coming.

“Snake!” she screeched, pointing and trying to push her way out of the line.

Brett stepped back theatrically and made sure his voice carried: “Bloody hell; that’s a taipan!”

The name of the most venomous snake in Australia was enough to get everybody’s attention, and the panic spread quickly. Passengers scattered and screamed, and half a dozen cops came running towards Brett, who had begun trying to pick the snake up.

The cops began to shout. “Don’t be stupid!” “Get away!” “That thing’ll kill you…”

The fact that the reptile in question was Brett’s own pet, a harmless grass snake called Kevin, was just about the only thing keeping Brett calm. He continued shouting, while all around him cops drew their weapons and told people not to panic. All this caused enough of a distraction for Kate and Laura to slip, unseen, through the security cordon and begin walking quickly towards the gate.

A woman fainted when Brett finally picked up the snake and held it aloft. “Hang on,” he shouted. “My mistake! Crikey, the bugger
looks
like a taipan, though…”

The cops holstered their guns and turned away, muttering and shaking their heads. Passengers began to shuffle back into line around him, and through the sea of faces staring disapprovingly at him, he could just make out the figures of Laura and Kate disappearing around a corner towards their plane.

He saw Laura turn back and nod her thanks.

“Yeah, you owe me big time,” he said.

A
giant white statue of a man stretched his arms out as if to welcome them to Pennsylvania Station. It was a simple sculpture, primitive and bold, yet somehow it diminished the fussy classical façade of Penn Station behind.

It was a bright morning, and Rachel and Adam felt rested after spending the night in one of New York’s plushest hotels. They were also very full, having eaten a breakfast that would have fed a family of four for a week. Gabriel had grudgingly enjoyed the surroundings at the Waldorf, but had been relatively uninterested in sleep or food.

He walked into the crowded ticket office at the station and up to the front of the queue without anyone noticing that he had jumped a line some twenty people long.

He came back with tickets for Rachel and Adam as far as Cincinnati, Ohio: the first leg of their journey out of New York.

Voices echoed across the vast atrium of the main station, fighting with electronic announcements. Above the cacophony, one announcement was coming through clearly: “Ezekiel One! The time is now! Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock. Prepare yourselves for the day…”

Rachel, Adam and Gabriel pushed through the crowds to find a group of people similar to the ones they had seen at the airport. They were gathered around a stand with the banner of the Triple Wheel over their heads.

“It’s those Triple Wheel guys again,” Adam said. “They give me the creeps.”

Rachel was approached by a woman with a leaflet.

“Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock,” she said, wagging a finger from side to side like a pendulum. “Are you prepared for the Gathering, young lady?”

“I’m not sure,” Rachel said.

Gabriel stood next to her protectively, and a man from the group of Triple Wheelers, seeing the potential for a couple of converts, came and joined them. Gabriel took the leaflet the man was holding and read it.

“Do we have some converts to the Triple Wheel, Sister Sarah?” the man asked.

“I hope so, Brother John,” the woman said, smiling blandly.

“Tell me about the Triple Wheel,” Gabriel said.

“Glad you asked, young man,” Brother John said, with a greasy smile. “The Triple Wheel is what the prophet Ezekiel saw come to earth. Pastor Crane likes to think of it as three hoops of energy that spin across one another like a gyroscope, creating a greater energy than can be found anywhere on earth. And it was in the Triple Wheel – what some call Ezekiel’s Wheel – that the first Travellers came to earth. Isn’t that right, Sister Sarah?”

“Amen, Brother John,” Sarah said.

“And who do you think these Travellers were?” Gabriel asked.

“Pastor Crane says they are the ancestors who came to help humankind,” John said, “and make us greater than the apes. The pastor is a direct descendant of those ancestors.”

“But Pastor Crane says that we are a disappointment to them,” Sarah added; “that we have messed with the world they helped us create, and so they are coming back… Coming back for the Gathering.”

“And what will they do when they get here?” Rachel asked.

“Pastor Crane says we will be saved. They will know him as their leader on earth, and the bad will be destroyed.” Sarah clasped the Triple Wheel brooch on her cardigan. “Amen.”

Adam was starting to get impatient. He tugged at Rachel’s sleeve. “C’mon; we don’t have time for this… We’ve got a train to catch.”

The man called John saw an opening. “You’re right. We don’t have time. Where will you be at the Gathering, young sir? Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock. The time is now.”

Adam pulled Rachel away, and Gabriel followed.

“What a load of bunk,” Adam said.

Gabriel shrugged and smiled. “I don’t know. I think they may be on to something.”

“Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock.”

Pastor Crane wagged his finger at the make-up girl.

“The pastor likes to do his own make-up,” Brother Jedediah said. “And only
I
am allowed to touch his hair.” He wrung his hands and gave her a humourless smile.

Crane waved away the girl who was trying to dust him with powder. Her displeasure was clear. She went off to speak to the director of the TV show, to complain about their guest who was compromising her professional status.

Brother Jedediah closed the dressing-room door behind her and locked it. “Hair’s looking good, Pastor,” he said.

He teased a few candyfloss strands across the scar tissue at the side of Crane’s ear and primped up the front to give it more volume. In another life Jedediah had been a hairdresser, and Ezekiel Crane’s wig was his greatest achievement.

Crane poured a good slug from a bottle of vodka into his Dr Pepper and took a swig while Brother Jedediah snapped the top off a vial and filled a syringe with a clear liquid. Crane took the syringe from him and stabbed it into his own neck, just above the collar of his silk shirt. He made a grunt and then let out a long breath.

“Let’s get this show on the road, Jed,” he said.