Hari’s heart sank. That’s not armed, he thought. That’s pretending to be armed.
The two officers jerked their weapons between the assailants but the gap between them kept closing.
Is that all you have?
The black officer fired first, quickly followed by her uniformed white colleague. The electrodes hit. Kamran and Teeth fell, Binici lunged. The black officer took a knife to her side and fell, the white officer smashed her baton on to Binici’s arm.
She was moving in for a second strike when a man pulled Hari away from the pillar, grabbing his shoulders. The man in the kurta. Fifty, maybe older. Shaved head, light brown skin, a trimmed, short white beard. Pained eyes. He stepped back, wary of the Böhler. He took in the twins, the old woman and the dead man.
‘Who are you with?’ he said. A hoarse, urgent whisper.
‘I’m with my family,’ said Hari. ‘And I’m with you.’
Another look at the girls. The despairing eyes of the old woman. ‘Then come with me. All of you.’ And he ran, looping back around the choir stalls.
Hari stuck the knife in his belt, grabbed his grandmother’s hand, then Millie’s. Amara took her grandmother’s other hand. One more look at Binici fighting the white policewoman and they followed the man in the kurta. They dropped a step. They were beyond the altar, at the foot of the tapestry. A small chapel had been constructed behind three-metre-high black steel bars. Another altar, lower, smaller, more humble. Twenty chairs and piles of kneelers. A bronze statue of Mary. A sign in a wooden frame that said ‘Lady Chapel’. A small gate to allow access. And behind the bars, at least fifty terrified, silent souls.
Those that could, sat or lay on the floor. Standing, you could look over the high altar, through the nave and out to the glass wall and steps. See and be seen. Sitting, you saw bars. You disappeared.
Three women instantly recognized Hari. Pointing. Stage whispers. ‘He’s one of them! Keep him out!’ They pushed back from the bars. ‘He still has a knife!’
Hari raised his hands. ‘I came with them, but I am not with them. I am here to protect my family.’
The man in the kurta pushed the gate open, ushered them all inside, then turned a large brass key. ‘He killed one of them. Maybe he can protect us.’
‘Or maybe he’ll kill us all!’ said a woman, her voice straining.
‘I am with you!’ Hari urged again. Then, to a sceptical-looking couple in his path, ‘You must believe me!’
They held on to each other, kept their distance as well as they could.
The rabbi and his helpers were there, sitting on the embroidered cushions, praying. Around them, agitated men and women listened. Any silence managed to be both encouraging and ominous. Cries and crashes were all greeted with fear and flinching. Others were on phones, whispering teary messages. One of the women who had hissed at Hari was now saying goodbye on hers. All of them looked at him with troubled, fearful faces. Millie, Amara and the old woman were pushed straight to the back. Here the tapestry reached the floor, its thick weave in blocks of green and yellow, divided by a crucified Christ in greys and blacks. There was a small gap between tapestry wall and the altar. They sat with their backs to the tapestry, their feet against the concrete altar.
Hari glanced at the bars. They were wider at the base, tapering to an elegant, flattened top. Decorative certainly but strong. Bolted together. A surprising sanctuary. They were climbable but the assailants, when they came, would have to work together. He knew Kamran and Teeth were down, Hussain obviously, Binici possibly. They all knew he had a Böhler. Maybe they wouldn’t bother with these people in their cage.
He found the man in the kurta. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘When we’re out of here, I’ll tell you what happened.’
The man almost smiled. ‘One day then,’ he said.
There were shots. Deafening in the confined space.
Not a taser, thought Hari. Not this time. Come and get us.
But the running steps and shouted instructions that followed did not belong to the police. Hari gripped the knife again, stepped back from the bars. He knew he should drop to the floor or hide behind the altar but for a crazy second he thought it cowardly, and then it was too late. The voice he recognized was Gregor’s, and seconds later he and Collins ran in front of the bars. They pulled up fast, saw Hari immediately. Gregor looked momentarily confused but Collins got it straight away. Her eyes narrowed, her blood-splattered face turned predatory.
‘So it was you,’ she said.
Hari couldn’t hear what she said next over the rolling accumulation of echoing gunfire and shouting, but he didn’t need to. Collins leapt for the bars, hauled her way to the top in seconds. The tapering gave her all the space she needed to squeeze through and she dropped into the cage. She landed legs apart, balanced, glowering. She pulled her Böhler from the back of her waistband and grabbed the nearest body to her, backing against the bars. Collins now held her knife against the neck of a freckled girl in a jumpsuit.
‘I want your knife and then I want you, Hari Roy,’ said Collins. ‘You fucking traitorous piece of shit.’
86
THE SECOND POLICE unit hesitated between the west-side fourth and third pillars, Famie hung on to the fifth. She was close, but not so close they’d turn on her. In a war zone, accidents happened. She’d seen it before. The MP5s were aimed at the altar and choir stalls, occasionally snapping to new positions. The acoustics of the cathedral were confusing. Echo and reverberation hampered any ability to locate the source of any sound. A cry, a shout or a crash – any sudden noise – could appear to be coming
