Newton’s Fire

Bray grunted. He was under no illusions why he was paid so well. ‘It’s a bugger at thirty thousand,’ he said. ‘Puts too much stress on the fuselage. Best to drop to twenty.’

‘Won’t that get us noticed?’

‘Not if we wait until we’ve started our descent.’

‘I need it dark and over water.’

‘It’ll still be dark enough, trust me; and we’ll be coming in from due west, so we’ll be over the Med until the last couple of minutes.’

‘Okay. Good.’ He went back out. There was still nothing on the news. He went through to the cargo hold to check on Kohen, found him trimming a wooden panel with a plane. ‘How’s it coming along?’ he asked.

Kohen didn’t even bother to look up. ‘It would be coming along better if I didn’t keep having to answer silly questions.’

‘Fine,’ said Croke. Until that moment, despite what he’d said to Walters, he hadn’t fully resolved to kill Kohen. But this show of disrespect made up his mind for him. He returned to the main cabin, fixed himself a drink, then checked the news on one of the screens there. Still nothing.

‘Maybe they’ve been caught,’ said Luke.

Croke squinted around at him. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

‘Jay’s uncle and his Third Temple friends. Maybe they were caught on their way to the Dome.’

Croke glanced towards the hold. ‘Your friend’s been shooting his mouth off, has he?’

‘He told us nothing,’ said Luke. ‘It’s the only way this makes sense. Though there’s one thing we can’t work out.’

‘What?’

‘We get why they’re doing it,’ said Luke. ‘They want a Third Temple. But what’s in it for you?’

‘You’re the ones with the letters after your names,’ said Croke. ‘Surely you must have some ideas.’

It was the girl who answered. ‘Money,’ she said.

The contempt in her voice nettled Croke. And he was curious, too, about how much they’d deduced, how much others might deduce. ‘Who’d pay me for such a thing?’ he asked, sitting down opposite them.

‘Whoever benefits from Armageddon, I’d guess,’ said Luke. ‘Arms manufacturers. Oil companies with reserves outside the Middle East.’

‘Why pick on oil?’ asked Croke. ‘Nobody benefits from Middle Eastern wars like renewable energy. Being green isn’t the same as being ethical. Then there are the logistics suppliers and communications companies and mercenary groups — or security subcontractors, as I believe they like to call themselves these days.’

‘Well? Which?’

Croke shrugged. ‘All of them. None of them. Does it matter?’

‘And they hired you to recruit fanatics to bring down the Dome?’

‘The fanatics were already there, believe me. They’ve been there forever. Trouble is, while they talked a good game, nothing ever happened. And it’s not will they lack. It’s resources. Skills. Professionalism, you might say. My clients found that … intensely frustrating.’

‘So that’s your job?’ snorted Luke. ‘Project manager?’

‘If you like.’

‘And how much does an apocalypse cost these days? Fifty million? A hundred? What does that work out as? A dollar a life?’ He turned to Rachel. ‘You want to know who to blame for your brother? You’re looking at him.’

‘I didn’t make the world this way,’ said Croke tightly. ‘I just live in it.’

‘Is that how you sleep at night? By telling yourself that?’

‘You want me to be ashamed? Is that it? Well, I’m not. There are finite resources in the world. There’s only so much land and gold and oil. Every time someone takes a larger share for themselves, someone else goes short. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with other people going short. But here’s the thing: so are you. You’re fine with other people going short, you’re fine with starvation, mutilation and massacre, just so long as it happens off-screen, just so long as you don’t have to watch.’

‘That’s some philosophy,’ said Rachel.

‘It’s called realism.’

‘It’s called narcissism,’ said Luke. ‘Caring about nothing but yourself. Though I do admire you for one thing.’

‘I’m flattered. What?’

‘Your sort usually leave the dangerous work to the flunkies. Yet here you are.’

‘I like to see a project through,’ nodded Croke. ‘Besides …’

‘Besides what?’

Croke hesitated. The truth had been eating away at him for two days now. He hankered to tell someone, even if only these two. ‘You think me a narcissist,’ he said. ‘But it’s just possible that someone way more important than me wants me here. That they’ve been planning on my being here for a very long time.’

‘Like who?’ frowned Luke.

Croke smiled as he leaned back in his seat. ‘Like God,’ he said.

II

The moment Avram saw the Jerusalem sky turn orange, he gave the order to go. His own legs were too old to lead the assault itself, so he left that to Danel and Shlomo. They had charges ready to blow the al-Haddad Gate, but the Waqf guards fled through it at the first sight of them, leaving it open behind them. They poured on through as the second volley of Predators struck, making silhouettes and easy targets of the Waqf guards. No point making martyrs of them, so they aimed bursts at their legs until they tumbled prostrate before their precious Dome. They raced up the steps onto the plaza. The generator annexe and the Golden Gate were ablaze, and guards were running about like termites from a scattered mound, blinded and deafened by the explosions, crying out in pain, outrage and terror.

The third and final volley struck. The east lit up like sunrise, engulfing a man in its flames like some primeval sacrifice. The shockwave buffeted Avram and he stumbled and went down. Heat scorched his cheek, but with only rock to feast on, the flames died quickly. Danel set charges and blew open the Dome’s northern door. They hurried inside. A few old men were cowering in the shadows, but it was the work of a moment to round them up and send them on their way.

Everyone knew their role. Shlomo and his men took the doors and windows, securing them and establishing lines of fire over the whole Mount. Danel and the others collected the packs and made a mound of them beneath the Dome. For his part, Avram took a bullhorn to the door. He was about to speak when a group of young Arab men armed with pickaxe handles and the like yelled out and charged. Avram watched in satisfaction as Shlomo and his comrades scythed them down. They writhed on the ground, weeping and wailing, before dragging themselves back into cover, their crippling agony certain to give other potential heroes pause for thought.

He turned the bullhorn to maximum, spoke in Arabic and English. The Dome, he vowed, would be surrendered intact once their demands were met in full. But it would be destroyed instantly at any attempts to retake it. He repeated the message until satisfied it had got through. He set a satellite modem on a ledge, acquired a signal, tuned three laptops to the news, and arranged them so that everyone could watch or at least listen. He photographed the explosives being strapped to the Dome’s pillars, then copied the images onto his own laptop. He checked Croke’s current location on a flight-tracker website. He wouldn’t be landing for a while yet, so he opened the Word document he’d written earlier, the one with the demands for the prisoner releases and for the military escort for Croke and his cargo. He cut the second demand and pasted it into a new Word document for sending out later. He made a few final tweaks to the prisoner list, composed an email to all the recipients in his address book, then attached the photographs and the prisoner list and sent it on its way.

He allowed himself a private smile. That should keep them on their toes.