The monitor was showing a white dot, expanding and contracting towards the top of the screen. There was no other information. The wire-frame lines sketching the skeletal outlines of streets had gone. He was off the map. Without any points of reference he would have to use it as a simple direction finder, following the signal from the transponder in Samuel’s body. He was pretty sure that wherever they’d taken him would be where they’d now take Liv.
He closed the bag and gritted his teeth against the pain as he pulled the hood of the russet-coloured cassock over his arms and head. Through the trees he could see the faint glow of a light behind a window cut high in the wall. He watched it while he reached into the backpack to remove the gun and PDA, listening for the rumble of the explosion. It should have happened by now. He was counting on the shock of the blast and the smoke that followed to cause enough confusion for him to get safely lost in the mountain. But he couldn’t wait for ever. Someone might miss the monk he’d just killed and come looking for him, or sound an alarm and put the whole mountain on alert. He couldn’t afford to let that happen. Not if he wanted to get Liv out alive. His mind drifted to thoughts of what might have happened to his mother but he quickly shut them down. Speculation wouldn’t get the job done.
He waited for a few more seconds, flexing his stiff left hand to test it. It hurt like hell but it would have to do. The light in the window shifted slightly as someone moved behind it and he rose from the ground, his hands buried in the sleeves of the cassock — the good one holding his gun, the other gripping the PDA as best he could. He headed across the grass, following the line of the pathway that would lead to a door and into the Citadel.
Kathryn could feel panic rising inside her like whistling steam.
She had no idea how long she had left before the van exploded. She scanned the passage frantically for a way out, her mind screaming with her desire to survive.
The tunnel was curved. It was possible the shape of it would protect her from the direct force of the blast. She pictured the shock wave travelling down the narrow space, throwing her against the steel shutter like a hammer on an anvil. She needed to get down, tuck into the wall as tightly as she could, and offer the smallest possible area for the blast to act upon. She hopped over the bike and dropped to the ground, noticed the helmet still hooked over the handlebars, yanked it free and jammed it on to her head as she rolled to the left where the curve of the tunnel might deflect some of the blast. She hit the smooth upright of the wall and tucked herself into the gap where it met the floor, her frantic mind casting about for anything else she should do. In the confines of the helmet her breathing was deafening.
She snatched a quick breath.
Pinched her nose.
Blew hard into her sinuses.
Chapter 138
The boom echoed through the mountain like thunder shaking free from the ground. In the darkness of the great library it sent books tumbling from shelves and dust drifting down from the vaulted roof. Athanasius looked up in a numbed daze. It was as if the mountain had read the words over his shoulder and shuddered at what it discovered there.
He reached out, folded the waxy pages back inside the volume of Nietzsche and rose from his seat. He needed to know if what he had found buried in the smudged words of the dead language was true. His faith depended on it. Everybody’s faith depended on it. He walked down the passageway towards the central corridor, stepping over all the books that had been shaken to the floor, oblivious of the chaos around him and the raised voices puncturing the deadness as he approached the entrance. He felt detached from himself, like he had become pure spirit unfettered by the constraints of his physical self. He passed into the entrance chamber and drifted across the hallway towards the airlock, barely aware of the wailing librarians tearing their hair as they surveyed their ruined library.
The smell of smoke hit him the moment he stepped out of the airlock and into the corridor. It had an acrid, bitter quality — like sulphur — and mingled with the clamour of confusion and fear echoing up from the lower corridors. Two monks wearing the brown cassocks of the guilds hurried past, heading down into the mountain towards the source of the smoke. In his mind Athanasius imagined them scurrying towards a crack in the rock from which the foul smoke now poured: A crack filled with brimstone and fire.
He turned and walked in the opposite direction, heading up the mountain towards his own revelation. He knew this path was forbidden and would probably lead to his death, but somehow this did not frighten him. He could not live in the cold shadow cast by the words he had just read. He would rather die discovering they were not true than live suspecting they were.
He ducked into a stairwell and followed the steps as they curved towards the upper landing of the lower mountain. At the top he turned into a cramped hallway with several other passageways leading off it. At the far end the red-coloured cassock of a guard stood by the doorway that led to the upper part of the mountain. He had no idea how he was going to get past him, but in his heart he felt sure that, somehow, he would.
He realized he still had the book in his hand containing the stolen pages of the Heretic Bible and raised it to his chest now like a talisman. He took a couple of steps towards the guard and saw him look in his direction just as another doorway opened halfway down the landing. Another guard emerged into the narrow hallway, his hood pulled low over his face.
Then the lights went out, plunging the hallway into total and impenetrable darkness.
Chapter 139
Liv woke thinking of thunder.
She opened her eyes.
Hundreds of pin-points of light quivered before her in the liquid darkness. She focused. Felt the cold hard ground tremble and settle beneath her. Saw candle flames reflected in lines of mirrored blades shivering to stillness against a dark, stone wall. Then she saw something else, lying on the floor. A body, naked from the waist up, familiar lines standing proud and grotesque on the surface of its faintly glowing skin.
She reached out for him, ignoring the pain in her head that came with the movement. Her outstretched hand touched a face as cold as the mountain and rolled it towards her. A low animal moan escaped from her throat. Despite the violence of his death, and the brutal medical enquiries that had followed, Samuel looked serene. She pulled herself across the floor towards him, hot tears scalding her eyes, and rose up to kiss his face. She pressed her lips against his cold skin and felt something shift inside her. Then everything lurched as she was grabbed from behind and pulled violently away from her brother.
Gabriel spotted the guard moments before the lights went out.
He dropped down in the sudden darkness, jarring his arm and sending pain screaming through his body. He choked it down and forced himself to move silently across the black corridor, towards the far wall, reaching out with his good hand but careful to shield the gun so it didn’t clatter against the stone when he found it. His left hand remained buried in his sleeve, throbbing with pain but still clutching the PDA. He had stolen a glance at it just before entering the corridor. The signal from the transponder was coming from somewhere beyond the door at the end of the corridor, the one the guard had been standing by.
The back of his hand touched the cold, stone wall and he dropped lower, levelling his gun at a spot ahead of him in the black where he had last seen the guard. Behind him a rising confusion of voices echoed up from the depths of the Citadel: some calling for lamps, some for help, others for hoses to feed water down to where the mountain was burning. He could feel the panic. Nothing unsettled people like the smell of smoke.
He kept the gun steady and with his free hand held the PDA out towards the centre of the corridor and slightly in front of him. His arm screamed as he willed his thumb to search for the button to turn on the display. He found it. Pressed it. And the cold glow of the screen lit up the corridor as the PDA tumbled from his hand to the floor. The guard was not by the door. He was crouched over to the left, his gun pointing down the corridor. He fired
