She made it through easily. The steps beyond the door were cluttered with debris. Bits of broken masonry and pulverized tile covered the stairway in a rough, unstable blanket.
'I was here once,' Ann whispered like a kid in church, 'before they blew it up.'
I nodded in the darkness and took a tentative step downward. It was like tiptoeing on castanets. I took the next step even slower.
'Why'd they do it?'
'Huh?' I tried to keep the torch beam steady for both of us. The steps were part of a broken escalator-we walked down it as slowly as debutantes at a coming-out party. I grasped the handrail just as the little sign on my left commanded. Gritty dust covered everything. A dank, sickening smell soaked the air, like the odor of dead lilacs in a forgotten tenement where someone lonely had died. Water dripped in a corner.
'The terrorists.' She guided her feet carefully between mounds of rubble. 'Why'd they blow up the towers?'
'Why ask me? I'm no expert.' We'd made it halfway down the escalator. The air grew even thicker-a humid presence that clung like stale fog.
'Aren't you part of the whole terrorist scene?'
My foot jerked, sending a blue square of tile skittering down the steps. It ended its clattering descent with a weak splash.
I wasn't considering that problem at the moment. I didn't want to be down there, with or without Ann, and she'd just hit a sore spot.
'What I do is the exact opposite of terrorism.' If a whisperer can snarl, I almost snarled. 'Terrorists kill innocents and noncombatants to create fear. They hope to use that fear to gain or keep power. They're always wrong. That's where I come in. Sure, I take pay from ruling class statists and secret conspiracies-yet I've managed to interrupt the careers of far more ambitious generals and would-be tyrants than anyone else in the business. I've never killed anyone who didn't clearly demonstrate that he'd had it coming. I've kept the world safe for... well, for whatever. I've stopped a dozen wars before they reached the shooting stage. And
,' I hissed, 'I've assassinated
of every political stripe. I've even taken the trouble to determine the consequences of my actions.'
I paused to fume silently. At the bottom of the stairs, something splashed and slithered. Ann said nothing.
'I can say that I've consistently been on the right side, because killing tyrants for any reason is always a net good.'
She smiled without mirth. 'Is that why you took the contract on god?'
A shadow drifted at the base of the escalator. I wasn't sure whether it was the result of my wavering light beam or not. I stopped. My hand reached out to squeeze Ann's wrist for silence.
The shadow moved again, even though I held the beam as steady as a corpse's smile. Slowly I lifted it, playing the ellipse of white across the first level of the Plaza. A thin layer of water covered the floor. The blast years ago had imparted a distinct tilt to the mall, dropping it away from us in a gradual slope. I wondered how deep it might be a few hundred yards ahead.
I'd worry about that later. It was the thing a few feet in front of us that occupied my immediate concern.
The shadow stopped moving, even though my Magna-Lite hadn't. It took a deep, rattling breath as the pool of light approached. I flicked my wrist up-it didn't look as if it would scare easily. The thing stood in the clear white light.
A thing that had once been human.
8
Red Mass
It grasped a piece of metal as twisted and scarred as it was. I suppose it was a man.
He stared into the beam with squinting, dull eyes, his right hand clutching the contorted piece of steel as if it were a club.
I eased the Colt out of my waistband. I had the advantage, hiding behind the flashlight's glare.
We stood there, frozen, like a couple of mismatched gunslingers in some cheap gothic western. I waved the beam
