All Fall Down (41 page)

‘No,’ Paul said, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. ‘I have to keep moving. I need to make sure Kate is all right.’

‘But, Paul, you’re not well. You need to rest.’

‘Resting isn’t going to do me any good. If you don’t come with me, I’ll go on my own.’

‘Don’t be foolish.’

Paul stepped towards Harley, acting much harder than he felt. ‘Listen – you brought Kate and me over here.
It’s your fault we’re in this mess. And I am not going
to sit
here while we wait for back-up that might never arrive.’

‘You never want to sit tight, do you, Paul? If you hadn’t run off in the first—’

‘What? If I hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have found Camilo. We wouldn’t have a clue where Kate or Mangold or his granddaughter were.’

Harley sighed. ‘OK, OK. Let’s take a closer look. Just hold on one minute.’

He got back into the car and opened the glove compartment. A few moments later he reappeared and handed Paul a small black pistol. Paul took it, felt its weight in his hand. Harley produced another gun from inside his jacket.

‘This is against every procedure in the book, but … I guess these are extraordinary circumstances. Do you know how to use a gun?’

Paul nodded.

‘Got one for me, young man?’ Diaz said.

‘No way,’ said Harley. ‘You wait here, in the car.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I came all this way to see Mangold. You’re not leaving me here now.’ He folded his arms and Harley sighed again.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘What a team. Me, the walking dead and a cast-off from
Dad’s Army
. Come on.’

Harley set off down the hill towards the ranch, Paul and Diaz following close behind. Paul sneezed. Every step hurt.
The walking dead
. You said it, Agent Harley, he thought, stroking the trigger of his gun with a fingertip. But if I can stay upright long enough, maybe I can take a few of the bastards with me.

They stood at the gates of the ranch, looking in. The gates were black wrought iron, fifteen feet high and surrounded by an equally high fence, with a brick wall running along its base. Beyond the gate, a path led past some stables towards a magnificent ranch house. Behind where the three of them stood now was a wood, the trees standing like sentries, watching them.

‘Now what?’ said Paul. On a post beside the gate was an intercom with a keypad. Above the intercom button was a small camera lens.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Harley. ‘Hang on, what’s that?’

All three of them turned. It took Paul a moment to realise the sounds he could hear were those of a horse’s hooves on the road. It was coming from somewhere just beyond where they’d left the car, and getting closer.

‘Quick,’ whispered Harley, dashing across the road into the trees.

As they watched, the horse came into view, ridden by an Asian woman wearing black leather. She pulled the creature up beside the post, pressed a few buttons
on the
keypad and waited while the gate opened. She rode through and directed the horse towards the stable on the right, vanishing from view. A couple of minutes later, they watched her go into the house and shut the door behind her.

Paul, Harley and Diaz emerged from the trees.

‘We have to get in there,’ said Paul. His head was swimming and his eyes were so sore he could barely see. But he felt desperate to find Kate. They were so close.

‘One-three-seven-six-E,’ said Diaz.

Harley turned to him. ‘What?’

‘That’s the code to open the gate.’

Paul was astonished. ‘You could see that from where we were standing?’

Diaz shrugged. ‘I may be an old man, but I have the eyes of an eagle. And I could see the pattern of her fingers as she pressed the buttons.’

‘Amazing.’

Harley pushed the buttons on the keypad. The gate opened and the three of them slipped through, the gate automatically shutting behind them. There was a white Porsche parked in front of the house, and they ducked behind it, peering through the vehicle’s windows at the front door.

‘OK,’ said Harley. ‘You two wait here. I’m going to go see what I can see.’

Keeping low, Harley jogged off down the left side of the house, his gun in his right hand.

He’d no sooner disappeared from sight than the front door of the house opened. Paul and Diaz shrank down; then Paul carefully raised himself into a crouching position so he could see through the rear window of the Porsche. He almost lost his balance, but steadied himself against the door, his head throbbing, white light pulsing at the edges of his vision.

The Asian woman came out of the house, followed by a stunning woman with hair the colour of wheat.

‘That’s Angelica,’ Diaz said calmly in Paul’s ear.

And then, side by side, two more people emerged from the house, handcuffed. One was a beautiful black woman who looked like she’d just been told she had a terminal illness. The other was Kate, looking pale and strained, but defiant.

Paul had to clasp his hand over his mouth to stop himself from crying out her name. Behind Kate and her handcuffed companion came a fierce-looking white woman with short hair, who had a gun trained on their backs. Apart from Kate, they were all clad in long robes of either gold or white. Kate was wearing unfamiliar pale brown clothes and, oddly, her shirt only had one sleeve. The sight of her bare arm touched Paul deeply. There was a bloody bandage tied around her forearm. What had happened?

The blonde spoke: ‘Bring them round here, Sister Heather.’ She gestured to the right, the opposite side of the house to the one Harley had gone down. ‘Sister Preeti, you decided to join us after all, I see. Give me your gun.’

‘Yes, Dadi Angelica … I want to prove to you that I am your humble servant. I am not afraid. It is Sekhmet’s will.’ But Paul saw that the Indian girl, Preeti, was shaking like a leaf.

‘I’m not going to harm
you
. Only the traitor Simone and the English bitch.’

From his position twenty feet away, Paul could see that Angelica’s face was twisted with anger and hatred, but she appeared to be trying to look serene. It was as if her face was fighting a battle with itself. The calm side was losing. She looked completely mad, and the madness disfigured her beautiful face as dramatically as scar tissue would have done.

The party went round the corner of the house, the short-haired woman, Heather, jabbing a gun periodically between the prisoners’ shoulders.

Paul gestured for Diaz to wait. To his surprise, the old scientist assented. Leaving the cover of the Porsche, he jogged slowly towards the house, throwing himself against the wall and peering round the corner. His fever was getting worse by the minute and he felt as if he was trying to run through storm waves rather than across flat ground. The wall rippled and undulated against his body, and he had to grip on to it to stay upright. Sweat trickled into his eyes and he blinked away the stinging sensation.

At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing: Kate and Simone, as he had heard Angelica call her, were on their knees on the grass. Angelica and Heather were standing behind them, guns pointed at the backs of their heads. Heather was grinning. Angelica looked insane.

It was an execution.

Paul pressed himself against the wall, heart thumping so fast he thought he might have a cardiac arrest, sweat pouring off him. He raised the gun Harley had given him and released the safety.

He could hear Angelica chanting in a sing-song voice: ‘Oh, great Sekhmet, Goddess of Pestilence, lady of the plague, who has guided and sustained us, who has blessed us with her love and her light, we, your humble servants, offer to you a sacrifice. The traitor, Simone, who like Judas was sent to betray us, and your enemy, Kate Maddox, who would undo your great work. Sekhmet, please accept this—’

Paul stepped round the corner, holding the gun out with both hands. His vision was blurred but he somehow managed to keep the gun steady.

‘Put the guns down,’ he shouted, hoping Harley would hear.

Several things happened at once: Kate looked up and gasped, ‘Paul!’ Preeti reached inside her robe and produced another gun. She squeezed off a shot at Paul. The bullet struck the wall beside his head, and he threw himself behind the corner, the sudden movement causing the world around him to explode in a burst of stars.

‘Kill her now,’ Angelica screamed, and another shot went off.

Paul roared, ‘No!’ and thrust his head back round the corner, expecting to see Kate lying dead on the ground. But at the same moment Kate had also cried out, the same word: ‘No!’

It was the other woman, Simone, who had been shot.

She was on her side, blood pooling around her, her dead eyes open and staring right at him, piercing his heart. He couldn’t see Kate’s face, but her shoulders were heaving as if she was crying. He retreated behind the wall again. His hands shook and nausea swept over him. The air swam around him, but he forced himself to step out from behind the corner, heart pounding when he saw Preeti running towards him. Behind her, Angelica had her gun against the back of Kate’s head while Heather was close to the wall of the house, moving swiftly towards him, that malevolent grin still etched on her face.

Paul raised the gun, his arms shaking, pure adrenaline keeping him going.

Preeti raised her gun too, her fear gone, her face twisted with hatred.

He shot her in the chest. Blood bloomed across the front of her white robe and she dropped to the ground.

‘Good shot, young man.’

Paul turned round, and Diaz smashed a rock against his forehead.

Camilo Diaz dropped the rock, which landed with a thump next to the unconscious Paul’s head, then stooped and picked up Paul’s gun. Shame this had to happen – he quite liked Paul Wilson. But he would be dead from the virus soon, anyway.

‘High Priest.’ He looked up and saw Angelica’s ugly friend, Heather, the one who had stuck next to her like a shadow her whole life. She walked over and pointed her own gun at Paul, who was already stirring, his eyes flickering, too dazed to move.

‘When the sacrifice is done,’ Heather said, ‘I’m going to torture this motherfucker until he begs for the flu to take him.’

‘Do as you wish,’ Diaz said dismissively.

She bowed to him. ‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t prevent Wilson reaching you at the prison. We were worried that he might have found out that you were working with us.’

‘How could he have known that?’

‘Forgive me. We had no idea how much he had learned in Sagebrush. We didn’t know if he was aware of Angelica, and her visits to the jail. We decided we couldn’t take any risks.’

Diaz nodded. Ugly but thorough. ‘Well, it turns out it was fortunate that Wilson did show up. It was taking longer than expected for everyone at the prison to die.’

‘With respect, perhaps you should have let us break you out of there.’

That had been what Angelica had wanted to do. Bomb the prison or storm in with all guns blazing. But Diaz knew it was too risky. He, or one of the women, could have been injured. Instead, at the same time the Sisters had unleashed the virus, Angelica had visited the prison and sprayed it into the air using a perfume bottle, close to several of the guards. This was to ensure the guards and other prisoners were among the first victims of Watoto. The plan had been that, once they were all dead, or too weak to stop him, Diaz could simply walk out of the prison and join the women here. But in the end, Wilson and Harley had simply given him a ride to the ranch.

‘No. It has all worked out perfectly. There was no need.’

He was tired of talking to this troll because, standing a few metres behind her, wearing ceremonial robes, was his angel, his little beauty. She was holding a gun to the head of an attractive woman with brown hair – Dr Maddox, he presumed – but he only had eyes for Angelica.

He still remembered the first time he had seen her, when she was a baby. She had radiated beauty even then. Mangold was so lucky to have been given such a gift, a granddaughter whose eyes shone with precocious intelligence. As she became a toddler, then a small child, a schoolgirl, her radiance had become even brighter. But Mangold, that fool, never noticed; he was too obsessed with his viruses, his stupid game of trying to create the ultimate virus, played out with his friends around the world, like that walking cadaver Gaunt. And Mangold’s daughter – Angelica’s mother – was a drunken slut who neglected her little darling, the father absent if he was even known.

Camilo had decided to take that precious little creature under his wing. He took Angelica on expeditions to galleries and museums where he introduced her to the Ancient Egyptians, the mythology seizing Angelica’s imagination from the moment she first saw those wonderful relics and heard the stories of the gods and goddesses. He took her to fine restaurants and walked with her through the park. She was the daughter he had always longed for, and he was the father she deserved. He loved her and she worshipped him. Now here she was, all grown up; stunning and so powerful too. Of course, he had seen her numerous times over the years, as she had visited him at the prison, pretending to be his granddaughter. But every time he saw her, he felt a great rush of emotion.

‘Angelica,’ he beamed, walking over to her and leaving Heather to watch Paul.

Angelica bowed and proffered her gun, holding it out towards him on two open palms.

‘Your Holiness – you can carry out the sacrifice.’

He wanted to embrace her, but it would have to wait until after the sacrifice.

‘With pleasure,’ Diaz smiled, sticking Paul’s gun into the waistband of the too-small jeans Paul had lent him. He stroked Angelica’s cheek and she closed her eyes, her face alight with an expression of bliss. She kissed the back of Diaz’s hand as he took her pistol.

He turned his attention to Maddox, who stood straight, a look of defiance on her face. Another attractive woman. Sweet Jesus, he had missed women!

‘Who are you? Angelica’s sugar daddy?’ Kate spat.

Diaz reached out and touched Kate’s hair. ‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘No, don’t worry, Angelica, not as beautiful as you.’