Warhol's Prophecy

‘You decide,’ Walker said evenly. ‘Your daughter or your husband? Which one dies?’

118

‘ADAM, PLEASE,’ HAILEY said, the colour draining from her cheeks. ‘For God’s sake, don’t make me choose. I’ll do anything. but, please God, don’t kill them.’

‘God has very little to do with this, Hailey,’ said Walker flatly. ‘He’s had very little to do with anything in my life. Now choose.’

‘Shoot me, you mad fuck,’ snarled Rob.

‘Shut up,’ Walker snapped, pushing the barrel hard against the back of his head.

‘Come on, do it,’ Rob insisted, raising his voice.

‘Perhaps I should start with Becky,’ Walker announced, trailing the barrel of the Scorpion over her silken hair.

‘Please,’ Hailey begged.

‘Put the gun down,’ Walker ordered.

‘Come on, shoot me – or are you too gutless?’ Rob persisted, half turning to look at his captor.

Hailey felt the Steyr wavering in her grip. Its weight seemed to increase by the second.

‘Choose, Hailey,’ Walker said again.

‘I can’t,’ she said, her voice a whisper.

‘Choose,’ he said loudly. There was anger in his tone.

Becky was crying uncontrollably now, seeing the anguish on her mother’s face.

‘I need you as my witness, Hailey,’ Walker told her. ‘I need you to tell people what happened here tonight. I need you to tell them my name.’

Hailey felt faint. She looked from one face to another.

Her daughter?

Her husband?

The guns at their heads.

No, this wasn’t right. No one should have to make a decision like this. Madness lay along that road.

Rob avoided her gaze.

Was he trying to make it easier for her?

Hailey could feel tears running down her cheeks as she continued looking from face to face.

Becky was crying. ‘Mum,’ she whined, that plaintive agonized call for help more devastating than all the furious blasts of fire that had gone before.

Again Hailey felt faint.

‘Choose,’ Walker told her.

She raised the Steyr so that it was pointing at his face.

Walker merely shook his head.

Hailey looked at Rob.

I love you!

He met her gaze. Nodded almost imperceptibly.

He wants Walker to shoot him. Save Becky. Save your daughter. Save our daughter.

There was an unearthly calmness in Rob’s eyes. A resignation.

It said, ‘I understand.’

She studied his ravaged features. The cuts on his face. The blood on his jacket. The wound in his shoulder.

Some of his red fluid had splashed onto Becky’s little party dress.

Becky?

The Scorpion machine-pistol pressed against her skull.

So much love.

‘You know what?’ Walker observed. ‘You’re right: no one should have to make a decision like that, should they? How would you choose?’ He shook his head. ‘Let me decide for you.’

He pulled both triggers simultaneously.

119

GUNFIRE.

Screams.

Sounds welded together to form one monstrous cacophony.

Hailey’s eyes bulged madly in their sockets as she saw her child and her husband shot down.

She could hear screams, but she was barely aware they were hers. And yet they rose like the gunsmoke – screams torn raw from the base of her spine.

Screams of complete abject devastation.

She was still screaming as she pumped the trigger of the Steyr.

Once. Twice. Three times. More.

The recoil was massive.

The pistol slammed back against the heel of her hand. The muzzle-flash blinded her. Pieces of lead and fragments of carbon flew out. Some struck her cheeks. The spent cartridge cases spun into the air and bounced off the floor.

The first bullet missed.

The second caught Walker in the chest.

It tore through his lung, erupted from his back, and sent him toppling.

The third hit him in the left forearm, shattered bone, caused him to drop the Scorpion.

The fourth hit him in the thigh.

Severed the femoral artery.

Massive gouts of blood began to spurt high into the air as he hit the floor. Some of the crimson fluid struck Hailey in the face, but she continued to advance. Continued to pump the trigger.

From such close range it was difficult to miss.

Another hit him in the stomach.

Green bile mingled with the dark blood as his spleen and gall bladder were lacerated by a high-calibre slug travelling at over 1,500 feet a second.

He was lying on his back, the Sig still gripped in his right hand.

Hailey stopped firing.

She stood over him. Between the bodies of her husband and her child.

She knew there was no point checking to see if they were still alive.

Was there?

Do you believe in miracles?

Her hearing was practically gone. It felt as if she’d been struck repeatedly with a hammer.

Numbness.

Her throat was dry. Clogged, like her nostrils, with the stench of cordite and gunpowder.

And blood.

Her husband’s blood.

Her daughter’s blood.

Walker was smiling slightly, blood dribbling over his lips.

He was trying to speak, but the effort seemed too great.

Somewhere in the distance Hailey heard sirens. Drawing closer.

‘Tell them,’ Walker managed to gasp, and the effort caused him to vomit. Bloodied matter gushed from his