searched. He could imagine him, sprinting to the hospital to protect his mother — getting here too late.
‘How do you know they’re Gabriel’s prints if the databases are all down?’
‘Petersen recognized them. If he says they belong to Gabriel Mann, that’s good enough for me — for now, at least.’
Henrik Petersen was Ruin police force’s top prints guy. He displayed an artistry with his brushes and graphite powder few could match. He could lift a print off almost anything and had a photographic memory. Less than two weeks ago he had applied his skills in the city morgue after the body of Liv Adamsen’s brother had been stolen. He had found Gabriel’s prints then. So if he said he’d found another print that matched then there was no doubt about it — Gabriel had been here.
‘Mind if I go and have a look?’
‘Be my guest.’ Bulut turned back to the glowing tent. ‘Plenty to keep me busy right here.’
As he made his way to the car park entrance, Arkadian glanced over at the press pack straining behind the police barriers. A news camera pointed his way and he turned his head away until he’d entered the quiet of the underground car park.
At the bottom of the ramp he stopped and pulled his phone from his pocket. Still no service. He needed to contact Gabriel. There was something rotten at the heart of the police department, something that went so deep that assassins could apparently be spirited into police cells and hospital rooms. It made him sick to think of it. He wanted to warn Gabriel that he had a murder warrant hanging over him now, but he had no way of contacting him. He had to hope that Gabriel would call him when the phones came back on. Until then, he would do what he had come to do: make sure the crime scene was processed properly, ensure that nothing was missed. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and walked over to the stairs that would take him up to the fourth floor and his own personal act of remembrance to the woman he had failed.
43
Gabriel stumbled through the broken city, tears streaking the stone dust that had ghosted his face, still clutching the book his mother had given him.
He could already feel the pain of her loss inside him, gnawing away at the part already worn thin by the death of his father. When John Mann had been killed, Gabriel had been consumed with anger. It had raged inside him, burning first for the murderers and then for himself. He felt guilty because he hadn’t been there, fantasizing about how he could have made a difference if he had. It had caused deep cracks to appear in him and his pain and rage had bled into them and coloured the life that followed. The courses he had been studying seemed suddenly worthless, so he quit and joined the army, hoping to channel his anger and learn different skills. He wanted to equip himself with the practical tools that would enable him to bring the fight to those who had killed his father and armour himself so that, if danger ever came calling again, he could protect his family from it.
And danger had come.
And this time he had been right there.
But still he had been powerless to stop it.
All his combat training had proved unequal to the simple task of defending and protecting those he loved. Because his enemy was vast and intangible: it didn’t stand up in front of him and level a weapon, it was everywhere, embedded in the faith of millions and the fabric of the very city he was stumbling through. It was the city.
Blinded by grief, he kept moving without knowing where he was going, intent on just putting one foot in front of the other and distance between himself and the hospital while avoiding the fire crews and anyone else in a uniform.
In the end, his survivor’s instinct brought him to Melek Avenue, a wide, tree-lined street on the edge of the Garden District. It was an address unconnected to him and therefore unlikely to be visited by anyone seeking him out. It was also the home of the one person who knew more about the Citadel and its secrets than anyone outside the mountain. If the book his mother had pressed into his hands could be employed against the Citadel, then she would know how to use it.
Gabriel counted the houses until he reached the one he was looking for. He moved up the steps to the door, checking the street to make sure it was empty, then knocked loudly.
A siren was wailing at the far end of the street, one of the many burglar alarms the quake had triggered, but no one was coming to check. He heard footsteps inside the house and the sound of a drawer being opened in the hallway. The footsteps came nearer, a key twisted in a lock then the door opened sharply and he found himself staring into the beam of a handheld torch and the cold, black eye of a gun barrel. He turned away from the brutal light, and started to raise his hands when a strident voice boomed from behind the light.
‘Gabriel!’ The gun vanished and the torch pulled back to reveal the owner of the voice. Even in the turmoil of the earthquake Dr Miriam Anata was impeccably dressed in her usual pinstriped suit with plain T-shirt. Her straight silver hair, cut in an asymmetric bob, gave her a stern appearance but her eyes were full of concern. Looking into them now made something inside Gabriel give way and he turned from her as his face crumpled in grief.
‘What is it?’ she asked, taking him by the arm and leading him inside. ‘What has happened?’
‘Kathryn,’ he managed. ‘My mother.’
He felt her arms around him, patting his back and shushing in his ear as though he were a child again. He was touched by this act of compassion, coming as it did from such a conventional and reserved person as Dr Anata. He tried to thank her and form words of explanation but none came. Grief had stolen his voice.
44
The Citadel hummed with noise and echoed with urgent voices in the aftermath of the quake. Most of the monks had been asleep when the tremors hit, shaking them out of their beds and into the corridors where they had ridden the worst of it out. Athanasius was one of them and he had spent much of his time since reassuring other monks that what they had experienced had been a tremor and not another bomb. The lingering smell of smoke from the garden had not helped his cause.
Some of the power had stayed on at least, so there had been enough working lights to quickly assess how much damage had been done. The answer was surprisingly little. It was as if the explosion ten days earlier had already pruned away the weaker parts of the mountain and the earthquake had merely shaken what was left to test how strong it was. A few rockfalls had been discovered here and there, and the library was being checked again to make sure no books had been damaged, but other than that the Citadel seemed sound and was getting back to normal. The rock piles were already being cleared away and many of the monks were returning to the dorms and chapels to continue sleeping or praying.
Athanasius was heading to his cell when he encountered Brother Axel coming down the tunnel towards him, fizzing like a lit fuse. ‘This is your fault,’ he said, pointing a finger at him. ‘First the garden and now this. None of it would have happened if the Sancti were still here and the Sacrament safe.’
Athanasius checked behind him to make sure the tunnel was empty then lowered his voice so it would not carry. ‘This is superstitious talk and does you no credit as a leader of men. You of all people should be instilling calm at a time like this, not fear. We need order, not chaos.’
‘We had order. For thousands of years we had it. And now it is gone in the space of a few weeks.’
‘Order will return,’ Athanasius said. ‘Order is returning.’
‘Indeed. You fancy that everyone sees things your way, but I think you are in for a surprise. In times of uncertainty people cling to tradition. And that is what I aim to offer. The elections will soon reveal which way opinion lies.’
Athanasius was about to respond when a sound made them both stop.
It was the Angelus bell echoing up from the tribute cave in the depths of the mountain.
Someone was outside, summoning the Ascension platform so they could be admitted.
