The Tower

106

Shepherd woke to the vibration and hum of an engine. He opened his eyes and found a dark-eyed angel staring down at him. Hevva’s face instantly exploded into a smile; he smiled back and noticed that the nick in her ear was hidden behind a fresh Band-Aid and she was wearing different clothes. He was lying in the back of a jeep that was bouncing over very rough ground.

“Hi,” he croaked, his voice dry and raw.

“Ah, the sleeping beauty awakes,” Kinderman piped up from the driver’s seat. “Just in time for our arrival.”

“Arrival?”

“Yes. We’re here.”

Shepherd tried to sit up and pain shot through his side. He reached down to discover thick bandages bound tightly across his chest.

“I’d take it easy if I were you. The bullet grazed your side pretty badly. Fortunately it hit a rib, which deflected it around your body so it passed out the other side without causing too much damage. Your rib’s probably cracked, which is why it hurts so much. Pretty apt though, don’t you think, being saved by a rib, considering where we’re headed?”

Shepherd struggled upright, feeling every bounce of the jeep jarring in his side as if someone was repeatedly stabbing him. Outside, the sun was hanging low in a burnt sky above a world bleached almost white; there was nothing to see but broken land and brittle earth all around them. The only sign of life at all lay directly in front of them.

And what life it was.

The oasis shone in the sunlight like a bright jewel, deep and green, like a chunk of rain forest that had been dropped in the middle of this nowhere. “How long have I been out?”

“About twenty-four hours.”

Shepherd tried to process this fact along with the growing vision of lushness that was gradually filling the windshield. “You drove all the way?”

Kinderman picked up a bottle of pills and rattled it. “Caffeine capsules. A truck driver gave me some at the crossing into Iraq. You missed quite a party back there. So many migrants are responding to the homing instinct now that they’ve effectively thrown open the borders.”

The jeep hit another pothole, drawing a grunt of pain from Shepherd. “Here,” Hevva said, handing him a lozenge from a different bottle. “Place one under your tongue. It will take the pain away.”

He did as he was told. “She’s quite the nurse,” Kinderman said. “She dressed your wound, then bandaged you up.”

Hevva shrugged. “I used to help Mama with her work. I don’t mind blood, I’m used to it.”

Shepherd felt the soothing numbness of the pill spreading through his body, melting away his discomfort. Kinderman spotted a track leading into the heart of the green and headed for it. Hundreds of different tire marks converged on the spot, showing that many people had traveled this way before. There was a sign by the side of the road with an arrow painted on it pointing onward into the heart of the jungle. The road followed the contours of the land, through groves of young palm trees and ferns that grew so thick it became harder and harder to see the way ahead.

They had been driving for almost ten minutes when they saw the first people. They were down by the bank of a river, washing clothes in the clear water, their children playing in the shallows. A cluster of tents was set up a little way back from the bank with more laundry drying on lines stretched out between them. One of the people looked up as they passed and raised an arm in greeting. Hevva waved back.

They followed the track along the side of the river, more arrows urging them forward. More buildings emerged from the green, mostly huts made from salvage, until they rounded a final bend and saw what looked like a small town, the outskirts made up of the same temporary buildings they had seen on their way in. At the heart of it were several solid-looking buildings constructed around a pool with a fountain of water at its center.

“It’s pretty,” Hevva said, watching the rainbows drift down in the spray.

“It’s paradise,” Kinderman said, easing the jeep to a stop by the largest of the buildings. He switched the engine off and got out. Shepherd did the same, his whole body aching. He took a deep breath of the thick, perfumed air and groaned quietly as his ribs complained. There was something primordial about the place, almost womblike, with the shushing sound of the water and the moist, warm air all around them. It was so verdant and alive.

“Welcome.”

They turned to see two figures emerging from the door of one of the main buildings. The man was tall and looked Iraqi, the woman was slight with blond hair pulled into a ponytail and eyes as green as the backdrop. She waddled as she moved toward them, her hands bracing her back against the counterweight of her ripe belly.

Shepherd stared at her, her American accent triggering a memory. “You’re Liv Adamsen,” he said.

She turned the blaze of her green eyes on him. “That’s right. Do I know you?”

He shook his head, slightly embarrassed that he had spoken her name out loud. “Your name cropped up in an investigation I was involved with. You were listed as a missing person.”

She smiled. “Well, I guess you found me, Mr.…?” She held her hand out.

“Shepherd. Joe Shepherd.” He shook her hand. “This is Dr. Kinderman.”

“Bill,” he corrected.

Liv shook his hand. “I’ve heard of you.”

Kinderman smiled and cocked his head to the side. “Then you really should get out more.”

“And this is Hevva,” Shepherd said.

Hevva stepped forward and held up her hand, but instead of shaking Liv’s she placed it flat on her tummy. She pressed her fingers gently in at the sides then raised her left hand and did the same on the other. Her face turned serious. “When’s the baby due?” she asked in the quiet, grown-up way she had about her.

“Not for another month.”

Hevva continued to run her hands over the dome of Liv’s belly, her frown deepening. If any other stranger had done this it would have seemed like a gross intrusion, but because it was this serious, small girl, somehow it seemed okay. She finished her examination and looked up at Liv, shaking her head slowly.

“The baby’s coming now,” she said.

107

Sweat pricked his skin, the salt irritating the ritual wounds hidden beneath his shirt as warm air blew through the open taxi window.

The Novus Sancti was tired after the flight and the heat was making him more so. But there would be no chance for sleep, there was too much to do and so little time. He checked his phone, tapping the icon to bring the countdown up on its screen. Tonight. Everything would happen tonight.

He had spent the long flight poring over the latest FBI reports, leaked to him as soon as they were updated. They didn’t tell him much he didn’t already know but the appearance of the Hubble images on the mala.org Web site had. They made him realize that it was too late now to make an example of Dr. Kinderman. There was something happening out in the desert, something momentous that was tied in to the myths and beliefs of the old enemy, the Mala.

He had studied their legends and beliefs until he knew all their heresies. He was aware of the prophecy they clung to, predicting their return to power. It had always seemed fanciful to him before, but not anymore, not now that the established Church had been so discredited and the holy bastion at Ruin had fallen. They were preparing for their new beginning out in the desert, in their new Eden — the end of days. But the days of the true Church were not over yet, not while faithful servants of the true God like himself, and all the others like him, were ready to take up the sword.

The taxi pulled up in the middle of the street and he told the driver to wait. He would not be long and he had a helicopter to catch that would fly him into Iraq for the final part of his journey. He pressed one of the bells at the side of the door and waited. It was even hotter on the street and the cuts on his skin had become distinctly uncomfortable. But it would not be long before all earthly concerns were behind him and he would take his place with the martyrs at God’s right hand. He had spent his life gazing up into heaven and imagining what it would be like, and soon he would be there.

A lock sounded inside the door and it opened wide enough for a round, moonlike face to look out. Restless, bloodshot eyes surveyed the street for a few seconds then the door opened a little wider to let the Sanctus pass.

108

Liv’s water broke an hour after dusk.

She was walking by the edge of the central pool, trying to cool down a little after the heat of the day, when she felt a small pop followed by an incredible, breath-snatching pain. Liquid gushed down her thighs as she crumpled to the ground, ending up on all fours, trying to breathe and calling out for help between breaths.

People came running and she was helped up and toward the main building.

“No,” she said, feeling a sudden panic as the yawning door approached. “I don’t want to be inside. I want to stay out here.”

Dr. Giambanco appeared. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll get you lying down and take a look at you.”

“I don’t want to lie down.”

“I need to examine you.”

“Then bring a bed outside — it’s cooler out here.”

Panic continued to flutter madly in her chest. She couldn’t bear the idea of being confined, not now. There was a sail strung up for shade over a table on the beach area by the pool. “I want to go there,” she said, walking stiffly toward it. She had a sudden flashback to a natural birth she’d once witnessed a lifetime ago when she was writing a story. Her panic rose a few notches higher as she recalled the screaming agony of it all.

I’m going to be fine—she said to herself—women have been giving birth forever. It’s just pain — and you get a baby at the end of it.

She reached the table and lowered herself onto one of the benches, gritting her teeth against the pain that shot up her back. It hurt so much already and yet it had only just started. She couldn’t imagine how it could possibly get any worse and the thought that it would frightened her.

“Better to walk around,” said a small voice at her side. She turned, and saw the little girl who had arrived that afternoon. “It helps the baby come and stops your back from hurting so much.”

Liv stared at her as if she was a small angel sent to look after her. “How did you know the baby was coming?”

Hevva shrugged. “I’ve seen a lot of babies being born.”

“Her mother was a midwife.” Liv looked up and saw the man the girl had arrived with.

“Do you mind if she stays nearby?” she asked him, smiling down at the girl. “Can you stay? I’m a bit scared and I think you might make me brave.”

The girl nodded, looking up at her father for approval.

“If you want,” the man said. “I’ll stay close by — in case you need me.”

More people arrived carrying a mattress and sheets taken from one of the dorms inside the building. All around there was a hum of activity as stakes were found and driven in the ground to hold up privacy screens while others brought battery-powered lights on stands and set them up. They laid the mattress on the table and the doctor took Liv’s arm. “Let’s get you up here and take a look at you,” he said. But Liv didn’t hear him as sudden pain exploded inside her, blotting everything else out.

109

Shepherd walked away feeling anxious.

After what had happened at Göbekli Tepe he didn’t like letting Hevva out of his sight. They had only just arrived here; everybody had been very kind and welcoming, but even so. He stopped by the water’s edge, close enough for comfort but far enough so that the hiss of the fountain drowned out some of the noise coming from the makeshift maternity ward.

The stars were out already, millions of points of light speckling the night. He turned to face east where Taurus was rising and saw the new star shining between Zeta Tauri and Nath. He’d missed it the night before because he’d been sleeping like a dead man in the back of a moving car. It was odd seeing a new thing in something so familiar.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Kinderman joined him, his eyes tilted up to the same patch of sky. “I thought you were asleep,” Shepherd said.

“After all those caffeine pills, chance would be a fine thing. Besides, I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

Shepherd looked back up at the bright new speck in the sky. “Miss what — what did Hubble see exactly?”

“What do you think it saw?”

“I don’t know. A dark star maybe?”

“Now wouldn’t that be something! Interesting that you naturally assume it has to be something destructive.”

“It’s not an assumption, it’s based on the evidence of what I’ve seen. And you did write ‘end of days’ in your diary.”

“Ah yes, so I did. You’re being very literal though, don’t you think? You’re ignoring the universal law that tells us energy never dies, it just turns into something else. Therefore, the end of one thing must also be the beginning of another. In point of fact you already know what Hubble saw, because you have seen it for yourself.” Shepherd thought back through all the things he had come across since the investigation had begun but nothing came to mind that might answer his question. “You might want to start with the one thing you are sure is connected to the question,” Kinderman prompted, ever the teacher.

“The countdown?”

“Exactly. Now in order to answer your own question you need to take a tip from Marcus Aurelius and ask, ‘What is it of itself?’—and don’t fall into your usual trap of making assumptions.”

Shepherd thought hard. What was a countdown? It was a steadily reducing measure of time, a prelude to something, like the start of a race or the launch of a rocket. Or was it? Kinderman’s question seemed to suggest it wasn’t the prelude to anything at all — it was actually the thing itself.

“The countdown is what Hubble saw.”

“Bravo, Agent Shepherd.”

Shepherd reached into his pocket, looking for his phone but his hand found something else. He pulled out the small, hard object — the woman’s small gun.

Shepherd dropped it back into the jacket and found his phone in another pocket. The countdown was still running, the numbers now almost at zero.

“Not long now,” Kinderman said, glancing at the screen.

Shepherd shook his head, confused all over again. “Not long to what? If the countdown is the thing itself, then what can come after?”

“I already told you,” Kinderman said, “a new beginning. Let me try and frame it a little. We are all effectively made of stardust: same atomic material, same physical properties, all linked by an energy and common origin, whether you call it faith or physics. For nearly fourteen billion years the universe has been expanding, from the Big Bang onward, always heading out, always seeking the new. Everything in the universe has mirrored this inherent nature — stars, planets, even humans. As a species we have spread, conquered, always looking beyond what we already have to what we might attain, even if we risk destroying ourselves in the process: it runs through everything, from an overreaching emperor destroying his empire for the sake of one more conquered land, to the happily married family man risking his happiness for the sake of an affair. Ours is a destructive nature, often a violent one, but it’s not really our fault, we are merely exhibiting the same nature as everything else, the universal urge to expand and ultimately pull ourselves apart.

“In many ways the Hubble project was no different. We have astonishing levels of child poverty on our planet and there are species beneath the deep oceans we have never laid eyes on. Yet rather than look inward so that we might know ourselves we think the answers always lie out there somewhere, past the edge of what we can see. I was as guilty of it as any. Through Hubble I was able to see farther than any man had ever done before. I was gazing upon the ultimate horizon, the one beyond which nothing existed — except maybe God, if that’s the way your beliefs lie — taking measurements of the very first things ever created at the instant of the Big Bang.

“I had been observing radiation and light at the very edge of the universe, taking measurements of its speed and rate of expansion. Then, just over eight months ago, there was a change. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing, it was so — immense. At first I thought I must have made a mistake so I asked Professor Douglas to check what I was seeing and he concurred. The universe, the constantly expanding universe that has been exploding outward at ever-increasing speeds since the dawn of time, was slowing down.

“We decided to keep our findings to ourselves, partly to prevent unnecessary hysteria and speculation and partly to buy ourselves time to try and work out what was happening. At about the same time we both started getting the postcards, which suggested someone was monitoring our work. This made us play our cards even closer to our chest.

“We classified the data and kept monitoring the farthest edge of the universe as it continued to slow. And the more things slowed down on the farthest edge of space the more we noticed things changing here on earth. All these migrations of people heading home, the birds flying to nesting grounds out of season, this increasing urge to head back to a point of origin, it’s all just an echo of the changing universe. So there is no great conspiracy or alien mind control at work. Nor is it the harbinger of some terrible divine judgment in the shape of God’s wrath or a rogue planet on a collision course with earth. It is merely the linked consciousness and impulses that drive us all, fueled by the energy of the universe, once rushing out to ultimately tear itself apart, now rushing inward, toward where it originally came from. Back home. To some this is the place they were born, to others it is a person rather than a place, and to others it is somewhere much further back, the place we originally came from as a species.” He opened his arms and gestured at the garden. “Eden.”

110

Liv felt she was drowning in pain.

“There’s something wrong. You’re almost ten centimeters dilated already and the head is presenting. This baby should be coming.” Dr. Giambanco looked up from beneath the sheet draped over Liv’s legs. “Try pushing now.”

Liv was lying on the bed, sweat sheening her skin. She bore down, focusing her energy on her pelvic floor like she had once written about. The pain inside was so intense and total that it literally took her breath away. “I can’t,” she said. “It hurts too much.”

She felt the girl’s small hand grip hers, surprisingly strong for such a tiny thing. “Can I see?” she asked.

Liv nodded, not caring who looked so long as they could make the pain go away. Hevva moved to the bottom of the bed, squirting antiseptic gel on her hands as she went. She rubbed it between her fingers and worked it to the tips in a way that spoke of much practice, then she pressed one hand on Liv’s tummy and swept the other around the top of the baby’s head. “It’s a stargazer,” she said. “It’s facing up instead of down. That’s why it’s hard to push out. The head is bending the wrong way, so when you push it just gets stuck.”

Dr. Giambanco peered around Hevva’s narrow shoulders. “I think she’s right. We might have to do an emergency C-section.”

Liv felt sick at the thought, but the pain was so all encompassing she would do almost anything to make it stop.

“I could try and turn it,” Hevva said. “My hands are small. I’ve done it before.”

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t think we should risk—”

“Yes,” Liv cut in. “Let her try.”

Dr. Giambanco nodded and moved aside.

“Could you push against the leg,” Hevva said, her serious face angled up at the doctor. “And you,” she turned to the other medic, “you push against the other, but only when I say.”

She turned back to Liv, squirting more gel on her hands, making them as slippery as she could while she waited for the next contraction. Time stretched and the sounds of the night and rush of the fountain filled it.

Liv breathed. Tried to relax, then the burn of the pain started rising again.

“Now. Push now,” Hevva said and everybody obeyed. Then her hands slid forward and around the crown of the baby’s head.

The numbers on Shepherd’s phone continued their steady tick down. “What do you think will happen when it hits zero?”

“Nothing, at least not immediately. I think the changes we have already felt and witnessed will continue. The stardust in everything will respond in exactly the same way as before, only the effect will be different. I imagine we will no longer seek to conquer and discover, but become more reflective instead, our eyes will turn inward, just as Hubble had turned its gaze toward the earth. I hope that after an entire history blighted by war and violence — manifestations of the destructive imperatives of an expansive universe — we can look forward to an equally long period of peace and calm.

“On a fundamental level, everything is bound to change: human nature, politics, science, even religion. The end of days may be upon us, but only the end of the old days; the new ones will number the same as those that have gone before as the universe contracts — fourteen billion years, the exact same time frame as its expansion.”

The number on Shepherd’s phone got smaller and he could almost feel a calm flowing from it. Smaller was good. Smaller was simpler and much more comforting somehow than the concept of the infinite.

A noise made him look up, the sound of a diesel engine, approaching low and heavy, like a truck. It got louder and the wash of headlights cut through the trees, bouncing up and down as the wheels caught the ruts in the road. It swung directly toward them, the light blinding them, before slowing to a stop behind the parked jeep.

The engine shuddered to a standstill and silence flooded back. The rear canvas flaps of the truck peeled back and people started to drop to the ground, stretching their backs and looking in wonder at their new surroundings.

“More people answering the siren call of the changing universe,” Kinderman said. “And just in time too.”

Shepherd looked down at the countdown again just as the numbers tumbled to zero and immediately started to build again with a minus sign in front. At the same moment two things happened: the ambient light levels jumped slightly as all the stars became a little brighter; and a deep, almost animal cry split the night as Liv gave one long, final push. Then there was the tiny mewl of a newborn.

111

The first thing Gabriel heard when he climbed stiffly from the back of the truck after the long journey was the cry of a woman.

He was naturally conditioned to respond to signs of distress and cries of pain but there was something in the sound that he recognized. His senses snapped to attention and he reacted quickly, moving along the side of the truck, heading to the source. The sound had come from a screened-off area by the water’s edge, with light coming from behind the screens.

He pushed past a staked sheet of canvas and squinted against the sudden brightness of the stand lights.

Liv was lying on a makeshift bed in the center of a group of people. She looked tired and drawn but was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She seemed to glow in the lights. A young girl was at her feet holding a newborn baby that squirmed and cried. She wrapped it in a towel and handed it to Liv.

A baby — Liv’s baby.

Shepherd saw the man get down from the truck — and head straight for the canvas screens. Hevva was in there, he couldn’t see what was happening, he was too far away. The man disappeared behind the screens and Shepherd broke into a run, his feet slipping in the soft earth of the shore.

Over by the truck someone else started to move with the same sense of purpose the first man had displayed. He was wearing a bulky jacket, like a soldier’s tunic, and there was something about it and the stiff way he walked that set alarms ringing in Shepherd’s head. The man reached the screens and turned briefly before disappearing behind them, the light from the truck’s headlights catching his face. Shepherd stared, shocked.

It was the Hubble control technician from Goddard. It was Merriweather.

112

Liv saw Gabriel appear at the edge of the light and walk toward her. She thought it must be some kind of hallucination brought on by hormones or pheromones or endorphins or any combination of the three.

She felt the weight of the baby as it was placed on her chest and she looked down at it — this tiny, perfect being. She had never really believed in love at first sight but in that first moment she saw her baby she loved it more than she had ever loved anything else in her life. She would die for it right now if she had to.

She looked back up, expecting the vision of Gabriel to have gone but he was still there, solid and real. He too had tears in his eyes and he was looking down at her and the baby.

Liv smiled and wept all at once, holding the baby’s velvety head close to her mouth. “It’s your daddy,” she whispered. “He came back.”

Then she saw movement, directly behind Gabriel.

Merriweather stepped into the blaze of light and beheld the bizarre nativity: the woman on the bed, holding the false prophet in her arms — the undoer of everything, the Antichrist.

He stepped forward, unbuttoning his tunic and letting it fall to the floor, no longer Merriweather, now revealed as his true self — the Novus Sancti. He opened his arms to form the cross with his body, revealing the ritualized cuts in his flesh, and the packs of explosives strapped to his chest. In one hand he held a gun, in the other, a wire connected to the explosives.

Now he could complete his transformation and become the instrument of mankind’s delivery, the first martyr of the reborn Church, ending this Satanic rebellion before it had even begun.

Gabriel saw the fear in Liv’s eyes and turned to see what had put it there.

He saw the bomb, the outstretched arms, the ritual cuts of a Sanctus.

His instinct was to just hurl himself forward and knock him away from Liv and the baby. But the Sanctus was too far back. Gabriel would be shot before he covered the distance. But he was also too far away from Liv and the baby and he could see by the look in his eyes that they were his target. He would move closer, to try and close the gap between himself and everyone else to make sure the bomb blast was effective. That was when Gabriel would do it.

Then someone stepped into view, and the Sanctus reacted, spinning around to point the gun at the newcomer. The gunshot was like thunder. The man fell back, thrown by the impact of the bullet. Gabriel threw himself at the Sanctus, hitting him hard and sending them both to the floor. He pinned his gun hand down beneath the weight of his body and grabbed for the hand holding the wire, digging his thumb hard into the wrist tendons, seeking the pressure point that would weaken the man’s grip. In a detached part of his mind he remembered his grandfather doing something similar to save him and his mother from a grenade. He had smothered the blast with his body, giving his life in exchange for theirs, and now he must do the same.

The Sanctus roared in pain as the thumb dug deeper. He tried to twist away and brought his arm down hard on the top of Gabriel’s head. Once, twice, the elbow driving the full force of the blow into his skull.

Gabriel held on, weathering the blows as best he could, unable to raise an arm to protect himself. He had to keep hold of the Sanctus, if he let go then they were all lost. The blows continued to rain down and the jarring movement of them caused Gabriel’s hand to slip. The Sanctus pulled his wrist free and the button fell from his numbed hand.

Gabriel kicked hard with his legs, digging into the earth and pushing them both a few inches farther from the bed and the precious people on it.

He reached for the hand again but the Sanctus had twisted it away far enough to keep it out of reach. The hand found the button and Gabriel kicked again to try and jar it free or gain a few more precious inches.

But it was not enough.

He saw the hand close around the button and he shut his eyes, bracing himself, hoping the ground and his own body would absorb enough of the blast to protect Liv and his child.

Shepherd came through the canvas screens on the opposite side from where the others had entered. The rider who had greeted them was lying on the floor, a gunshot wound bleeding in his chest. Hevva was by the bed, her eyes fixed on the violent struggle taking place on the floor. He stepped forward. Saw the hate burning in Merriweather’s face, saw the bomb, the newborn baby, the mattress out of place, even the light on the stand burning like the sun had burned from the poster — all of it so familiar from Hogan’s Alley and the other dark basement.

He raised the small gun he had taken from the woman and aimed it at Merriweather’s head, trying to put all that had happened before from his mind.

The bullets are real—he told himself—and so is the bomb.

And Hevva is standing right by it.

His finger tightened on the trigger but Merriweather jerked away, swinging his other hand around. Shepherd saw the gun in it, saw it angle down toward the man he was struggling with. He took a step forward, not caring about getting shot, only about narrowing the gap and improving the accuracy of this tiny gun he had never fired.

The explosion was so loud Gabriel thought he must be dead. Even so he still clung on. He felt that if he could brace himself against death, even for an extra few microseconds, it might make a difference to the living.

So much flashed though his mind in that moment, fragments of the life he was about to lose. He saw the baby he had barely glimpsed growing into a — what? He didn’t even know if he had a son or a daughter and he would die not knowing. He would have liked to have known his child and spent his life with Liv by his side. But this was not such a bad death, if his death meant life for them.

Then the echo of the gunshot rang away into the night.

And Gabriel opened his eyes.

113

Shepherd sat on the edge of the water, tossing in stones. They sank beneath the surface, leaving no ripples, a tiny marker of the new universal order.

After everything Kinderman had said about the new age of peace, killing Merriweather had seemed like a particularly obscene and revolting act. He knew it had been unavoidable, but still…

He had drifted through the aftermath of the shooting on autopilot, clearing the area as if it was just a normal crime scene and backup was on its way. But he was on his own out here and he felt the sadness settle on him like his darkest depressions had done in the past. But there was one bright shaft of light shining through it all. Hevva was okay. He had saved his daughter.

Once the bomb was made safe he had called Franklin, old habits dying hard, and told him everything, using his partner like an old-time priest who might hear his confession and forgive him his sins. And when Franklin hung up, promising to call back with more news, he felt as if he was all talked out and empty. He had handed on the baton of responsibility. He was free.

He stared out across the pool, the mirror of its surface reflecting the night sky. The night was cold, but he didn’t mind. He had taken his jacket off and draped it over Hevva when she had curled up and fallen asleep in his lap. He sat like this for a long time, just holding her until the phone buzzed again and he answered it quickly so as not to wake her.

“It’s Franklin. I’m standing in Merriweather’s apartment looking at plans of Marshall, fake IDs, and a whole directory of names that includes our good friend Fulton Cooper. Seems Merriweather was something of an archiver — you should see the collection of old 45s he’s got here — he recorded everything; you couldn’t ask for a more smoking gun. There’s also some kind of shrine in his basement, like an altar or something with a big T-shaped cross hanging on the wall — it’s a proper fanatic’s home away from home.”

Shepherd nodded but said nothing.

“Listen, Shepherd, if you want me to arrange transport back, I can do that. Just tell me where you are and I’ll set the wheels in motion.”

Shepherd looked up at the sky. “I think I’ll stay here awhile,” he said, watching Hubble twinkling like a new star. “It is Christmas after all. Isn’t that when you spend time with family?”

“I didn’t know you had a family.”

Shepherd felt Hevva stir in his arms, her head nuzzling him as she slept. “Neither did I. You should go home too, Ben — spend some time with your family.”

“I will, just as soon as I’ve arrested the guy behind the explosion at Marshall that nearly got us killed.”

Shepherd frowned. “Not Merriweather?”

“No. He couldn’t possibly have gotten there before we did and set all that up in time.”

“Who then?”

114

Chief Ellery looked up from his desk as the door opened and a man wearing a black suit came in. He didn’t recognize him, but he knew the sheriff who walked in with him, a kid called Rogers, someone he’d known from back when he was still in uniform.

The suit showed him his FBI credentials, read the charges, then Sheriff Rogers stepped forward to read him his rights, looking slightly embarrassed about the whole thing. Ellery looked up at the photograph of his younger self. He’d never really wanted to quit being a cop, but the Church had wanted to keep a close eye on NASA, maintaining its long tradition of suspicion regarding science in general and astronomers in particular.

Sheriff Rogers finished Mirandizing him and stepped forward, reaching for the cuffs on his belt clip.

“You don’t need to do that, son,” Ellery said, rising from his chair. “I’m too old to make a run for it or try anything stupid.” He turned to the agent. “I’m surprised Agent Franklin didn’t come here to do this himself. I imagine he would have enjoyed it.”

The agent shot him a cold smile. “Agent Franklin’s got bigger fish to fry.”

Franklin pulled up outside the large Colonial-style house, took a breath then got out of the car. He waited for the two-man arrest team to join him on the porch before knocking loudly and smoothing his hand down over his tie. He smiled at the surprised-looking woman who answered the door and turned down the offer of coffee as he walked across the hallway to where a news station could be heard playing behind a door.

He rapped once out of courtesy then pushed the door wide without waiting for an answer.

Assistant Director O’Halloran looked up from the TV. Franklin saw surprise flash across his face, but he recovered quickly. “I was expecting your report, Agent Franklin, not a house call.”

“A draft version of my report has already been filed, sir. I sent it to Assistant Director Murray.”

The surprise returned but this time it stayed. “Might I ask why?”

“Murray took over the covert running of Operation Fish, sir — after you tried to shut it down. It was felt that your reasons for ending the investigation into highly placed and potentially influential Christians were not entirely robust.” O’Halloran glanced past Franklin and saw the two uniformed officers waiting in the hall. “I can tell you what’s in the report if you like, though I’m sure you know how most of it goes — foot soldiers recruited and run by the Reverend Fulton Cooper through the Church of Christ’s Salvation to fight the good fight against so-called heretical scientific exploration and the rising tide of ungodliness, Chief Ellery at Marshall keeping his eye on James Webb, Merriweather over at Goddard doing the same for Hubble — all of them controlled centrally by a well-placed puppet master inside the FBI, feeding them information and their mission orders for the greater good of the mother church you all serve.”

“I assume your report contains proof?”

Franklin nodded. “Merriweather kept exceptionally detailed records — I guess it’s the risk you run if you start doing business with paranoid conspiracy theorists. I have all the evidence I need of the how? — the only thing I don’t have is the why?”

O’Halloran steepled his fingers in front of him so it looked as if he was praying but said nothing. Franklin nodded at the arrest team and they moved out of the hallway and into the den. He stayed by the door, ready to move if he had to, remembering how it had gone down with Cooper, but O’Halloran just sat there, staring ahead while they read him his rights. When they had finished he looked up at Franklin. “If you want to know the why?” he said, “just look at what’s happening in the world. A judgment is coming where all shall be held to account. I answer to His law above all others. I am ready to face my Lord, Agent Franklin — are you?”

Franklin stared into his face, hardly recognizing the man before him now that the weird light had crept into his eyes. “I believe in people, sir. If you spend as much time on the streets as I have, it’s hard not to. I used to believe in you, too, but when you chose to partner me with a rookie on a case as important as this, even someone with Shepherd’s science background, I started having my doubts. It was as if you were setting out to hamper the investigation and limit its chances of success. But in the end, sir, that’s where you made your biggest mistake. You underestimated the power of people — and you picked the wrong rookie.”

115

Dawn rose over the compound, lighting up the dew on the grass and the unfurling petals of the waking flowers and fresh blossoms that dripped between the green leaves of the trees.

Two figures emerged from the main building and moved through the morning mist that had drifted across the ground from the central fountain of water. They walked in silence, though the way they were together told their story: he, with his arm around her waist; she, leaning against him, her arms forming a natural cradle for the bundle of a sleeping baby.

They headed up the incline, bare feet leaving tracks in the wet grass that swept up the hill to the graves. The smell of loam and earth rose from the mound of freshly dug dirt where the one who called himself Novus Sancti lay buried next to those he had called his enemy.

The two figures moved higher, to a spot where the grass covered an older grave, now fuzzed with green, a slab of granite at its center.

“Here he is,” the woman said, resting her head on the man’s chest. “I put the Starmap here because I wanted to mark it out in some way. I thought it was something you would do, if you’d been here.”

Gabriel knelt down and wiped his hand across the surface of the Starmap, clearing the dew to reveal the symbols beneath. In the middle of the second line an arrow pointed down, something Liv had always assumed meant “king.” Now, in the light of all that had happened, she saw it was more general than that.

The baby began to stir in her arms as Gabriel hooked his fingers around the edge of the stone and hauled it over to reveal the symbols on the other side.

The star that heralded the end of the old had new meaning for her now. It spoke of opposites coming together and a balance being struck, for it was made up of two other symbols, the ones for the Citadel and for Eden. The symbol below also spoke of reconciliation, though this one was far more personal. When she first saw it Liv thought it must refer to her in some sinister way, the Tau with a line cutting through it. Now she realized what it was. It was the Tau and the sword combined, her symbol and Gabriel’s together, creating something new entirely.

The baby wriggled and stretched in her arms, the hungry mouth searching for its mother. “What shall we call her? I was thinking maybe Kathryn,” Liv said, referring to the wife of the man lying buried beneath the stone — Gabriel’s mother.

Gabriel smiled and kissed the top of Liv’s head. “It’s a good name,” he said. “Do you know what it means?”

The baby girl yawned, unaware of the wonderful new world she had been born into.

“It means pure…”