ever a contingency. If you do as I say there shouldn't be any need to use them.'
'I understand.'
'Then do your duty. Earn your redemption.'
'I will.'
The radio went dead and Torino peered through the gap. Bazin was partially visible but the others were now out of view. He held his gun in his right hand while gesticulating angrily with the left. He appeared to be shouting.
Then Torino heard three shots in quick succession. He craned his neck but Bazin had walked out of sight. The next three shots were more spaced out, deliberate. Torino imagined him walking from body to body delivering the coup de grace. Bazin reappeared, held the radio to his mouth and walked towards him.
Torino's set crackled.
'It's done,' said Bazin.
79
Torino heard but couldn't see Bazin pulling the rocks away from the far end of the collapsed entrance where the cliff face still provided support. He tried to help but most of the internal rocks seemed to support those on the outside. Alone, with his bare hands, Bazin worked with impressive speed. Within minutes he had cleared a narrow passage, and wriggled through. When his face appeared it was streaked with sweat and dirt. He stood up and dusted himself down.
'You okay, Father General?'
'Fine. But I need to get out of here.'
As Torino headed for the gap, Bazin placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Give me your pack. You won't squeeze out with that on your back.'
'I'll push it in front of me.'
Bazin looked pained. 'I want the detonator control.'
'Why?'
'You promised me that if I killed them you wouldn't need to destroy the garden.'
'I promised you nothing. I said it was a contingency.'
Bazin held out his hand. 'I've done everything you demanded of me since I came to you seeking absolution. Do this one thing for me, Leo.'
'Why, Marco? I owe you nothing. When you came to me you were a killer, a base assassin, the left hand of the Devil. I gave you purpose and showed you the path to redemption. I turned you into a crusader for God and the Holy Mother Church. I did you a favour.'
'I'm still a killer. I've killed for you.'
'Not for me. Everything I've asked you to do has been for the Church, for God, and for your own salvation.'
Bazin released a long, sad sigh. 'Ever since we were at the orphanage I've looked up to you, Leo. I didn't care that the Jesuits dismissed me as a thug. I took pride in how they nurtured you, my brother. I idolized you and wanted your approval. That was why I trusted you to help me and that was why I've done everything you asked of me. Now do this one thing for me. Give me the detonator box. Not as the Superior General, but as Leo, my brother.'
'I can't do that. I serve the Church, not you.'
'So you did lie to me. The incendiaries aren't just a contingency.'
'I didn't lie. I just didn't think you'd understand the truth. Enemies of the Church will twist what they find here. They'll talk about evolution and creation and undermine the scriptures, sowing doubt in the minds of the faithful. Only by destroying the garden and all its mutant life, then building a new Vatican over the ashes, will we harness the power of the Source and save the souls of mankind.'
'But this is the Garden of God. How can we destroy it?'
Torino groaned impatiently. 'I knew you'd be too stupid to understand, Marco.'
'Too stupid to understand? Or stupid enough to trust you?' He pulled a gun from his belt. 'Give me the detonator box, Leo.'
Torino glared at his brother. He had feared this might happen. He took the pack off his shoulders and reached in with both hands. 'As you wish.' While his left hand pulled out the detonator box, the right felt for Petersen's pistol, aimed it through the canvas and pulled the trigger three times.
Bazin's face showed more shock than pain when the bullets punched into him, knocking him to the floor. As he fell, he dropped his gun, which clattered across the hard rock into the shadows. Torino walked over to him and shook his head contemptuously. 'I offered you redemption, Marco, and you threw it away. For what? To save a worthless garden.' He held out the detonator and raised the safety catch, exposing the button and turning the light green. 'You haven't saved it. You've saved nothing.'
'You're wrong, Leo,' said Bazin. 'I have saved something.' A movement in the passage to the garden made Torino turn. Kelly was crawling into the antechamber. Now Torino saw why Bazin had been able to burrow so quickly through the fallen rocks. He hadn't been working alone. He had only pretended to shoot Kelly. The others were probably outside, too. Torino grabbed the gun from his pack, aimed it and pulled the trigger.
Click. No more bullets.
Kelly was almost inside now, rising to his feet. Torino threw the gun down with his backpack and clutched the detonator. His first priority must be to protect the Church. He glanced through the gap into the garden.
Then he pressed the detonator button.
The resultant firestorm sounded more like a hurricane than a bomb blast. It raced round the eye-shaped crater, gathering momentum, sucking up all the oxygen and incinerating everything in its path. When the fire reached the soldiers' stored ammunition, there were more explosions. From inside the cave it sounded as if a war had broken out. A plume of flame shot through the narrow passage Bazin had made in the fallen rocks, knocking Kelly to the floor. Torino's chest felt tight as oxygen was sucked out of the antechamber into the garden. There was a loud whoosh of displaced air, and black dust and smoke swirled through the opening.
Suddenly, it was over. What evolution had taken billions of years to create had been destroyed in minutes.
'What have you done?' groaned Bazin from the floor.
Peering through the acrid, smoke-filled air, Torino saw that the garden was no more. In its place was a charcoal wasteland, surrounded by the bare granite walls of the crater. The stream had mostly evaporated and the lake was black with ash. Small fires still raged where there was anything left to burn but the destruction was total. Despite Torino's satisfaction, the desolation saddened him. Doing one's duty was never easy.
Kelly lay on his back on the rock floor, blood pouring from a gash on his forehead. One side of his clothes had been blackened where the plume of flame had scorched him. He appeared unconscious or dead.
Torino saw Bazin's pistol glinting in the shadows beyond his body and moved to claim it. He would return with more incendiaries and purge these caves of any remaining abominations: the hydra, the nymphs and the worms. Only the Source, which brought glory to Rome, would remain. The Holy Mother Church would build a new Vatican here. Leaving his backpack on the floor by the entrance, he stepped into the shadows to retrieve the gun.
80
Bazin groaned as Torino passed him. It was now painfully clear to him that his half-brother had not led him to salvation but to damnation. When he had been the Left Hand of the Devil, Bazin had sinned against man, but when he had killed for Leo, in the name of the Church, he had sinned directly against God. This pained him more than the bullets embedded in his gut.
