Kristin Read online

Xavier Mendez tapped the tip of his stem microphone. ‘We believe, Mr President, that the attack pre-empts the attempted takeover of Western society.’

  ‘Takeover?’

  ‘The enforced conversion of Christianity to Islam ... the creation of a worldwide state of Islam.’

  Bathurst stared at him. ‘ ... And you think this would explain the backlash against Christianity we’re witnessing — the destruction of places of worship, the perversion, the murder and mayhem?’

  ‘Yes, but it still doesn’t explain everything. Christianity, and its values, are at the core of the majority of Western cultures, but a similar pattern of behaviour is also emerging from the Middle East. What we’re seeing is the termination of human values, the breaking of the human spirit.’

  ‘Could it be a naturally occurring disease, something humanity hasn’t encountered before?’

  ‘We’ve discounted that possibility, Sir.’

  ‘If we’re talking about a drug, such a thing is unknown to modern science,’ Ibrahim Arzanah, temporary represent-ative of the United Arab Emirates, said. ‘And in any case, it could never have been deployed widely enough to have caused such a universal effect. Its formulation and use would conflict with the ethics of Islamic teaching.’

  ‘I don’t think we are talking about a drug, Mr Arzanah,’ Bathurst answered. ‘I think we’re talking about the siren ... the flash of light.’

  Mendez nodded.

  ‘That is also impossible,’ Arzanah frowned.

  ‘Mr President, Mr Secretary General, my distinguished colleagues,’ Brazilian representative Paulo Di Faria began. ‘You will, I’m sure, be aware of the status quo in my country, of events in Rio de Janeiro — the bastardization of our most sacred monument, the Cristo Redentor?’

  ‘Yes, we’re aware of it — the transformation, but it was surely just visual trickery?’ Bathurst responded.

  ‘Rio is finished, sir, its populace are deranged, mothers have burned their infants alive, children have hacked their parents to pieces, cannibalism is rife, scores have thrown themselves from the roofs of skyscrapers in the business district, tens of thousands have flocked to the new idol of death where they have been ritually butchered by no apparent means. I have seen it with my own eyes, it is no illusion but hell on Earth. The girl is to blame.’

  Bathurst sipped some water, ashen-faced. Breaking the rules, he reached into his inside breast pocket, pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and slipped one between dry lips, lighting it with a trembling hand. He glanced at Mendez, Wise, around the circle of representatives. ‘This administration cannot accept the theory that a human being, however potent, however possessed, could be the cause of this apocalyptic situation … ’

  ‘Mr President,’ Monique Lombard, the French representative interjected. ‘May I ask if you can name any force on Earth capable of replacing millions of gallons of freshwater with sulphuric acid in the blinking of an eye? This is what happened at Lourdes. Humanity has been beset by something wholly unnatural, something with power outside our realm of understanding.’

  The president inhaled deeply and let the smoke out slowly through his open mouth. He leaned forward. ‘Mr Secretary General, Mr Wise, you will agree that these two cases — countless others, can’t be explained by control of the human mind, nor understood by any stretch of human logic?’

  ‘No, they can’t,’ Mendez agreed. ‘Unless they haven’t happened.’

  Bathurst fixed his eyes on him. ‘ ... Are you suggesting that everything we’ve seen and experienced could be part of the brainwashing process, that it’s all been an illusion, a global deception?’

  ‘Maybe there is no girl, no madness, no killing. Perhaps it is all in our heads?’

  ‘But if we’re all deluded, how will we ever know?’ the president replied, frowning deeply. ‘How can we separate fact from fiction, how can we reach a resolution?’

  ‘The terrorists don’t expect us to reach a resolution, that’s their plan,’ Mendez continued. ‘They expect we’ll wrestle what little collective conscience we still possess, delay until our minds resemble porridge. Then they’ll be wiped clean like school blackboards and seeded with new beliefs, new ethics: re-educated according to the teachings of the Koran, probably through a second siren.’

  ‘This is insanity!’ Arzanah yelled, launching his papers through the air towards the Secretary General. ‘Islam does not advocate indoctrination!’

  ‘It will catapult the West back into the dark ages, Mr President.’

  Bathurst turned to the Mexican. ‘Will our minds degenerate, Mr Mendez? Will we eventually lose our mastery of them?’

  ‘It’s impossible to predict. We’ve got this far. We seem to have escaped the effects of the siren, and the flash of light. Some repel the madness, others succumb and cannot recover. Your own government in the United Kingdom is a case in question. You know what your prime Prime Minis-

  ter did to his family?’

  Bathurst didn’t wish to be reminded. His head spun with confusion and pain. But in his heart he felt glad his friend, Anthony Glenister, had taken his own life three days after the tragedy and he prayed that his soul was now at peace, although he doubted it was.

  ‘Are there any other steps we can take, Mr Mendez, any alternative options open to us? Do we have any license with regards to time?’

  Mendez shook his head. ‘The governments of Afghan-istan and North Korea have each rejected three demands to permit UN disarmament teams to enter their territory. The Islamic terrorists have refused to negotiate further, and have released a statement through Saudi television denying the existence of brainwashing weapons, describing the suggestion of their creation and deployment as “Having its basis in the neurosis of a decadent, immoral society that knows its day of reckoning is approaching”. There is no more time, Mr President. We must act.’

  Bathurst finished his cigarette and stubbed it out on the heel of his shoe. ‘I’m sorry for smoking, ladies and gentlemen,’ he smiled. ‘It’s a habit I thought I’d kicked into touch a long time ago. Does anybody have anything else they would like to say?’ The silence prickled his flesh.

  ‘ … In that case I suggest a recess of one hour. We shall reconvene at twelve noon. Please do not be late, we have an important decision to make.’

  At eleven fifty-seven the five permanent, and ten temporary members of the United Nations Security Council took their seats. Bathurst was the last to settle, and cut a gaunt figure as he shuffled sheets of documentation endlessly, reluctant to commence proceedings. Eventually he took a sip of water, blew out his cheeks and began.

  ‘Mr Secretary General, distinguished colleagues. I won’t beat about the bush. You’re all aware of the gravity of the current situation, of the threat mass psychological manip-ulation poses to the free world. The acquisition of nuclear arms by the Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and the development of the North Korean nuclear arms programme was always likely to culminate in the necessity to make a decision having far-reaching consequences for the human race, however difficult, however disturbing that judgement may prove to be.

  ‘As we heard before the recess, the Islamic terrorists and the administrations of Afghanistan and North Korea have rejected all UN overtures to resolve the crisis, whilst their threat to world peace has remained.

  ‘After discussion with the Secretariat, It is with regret that I propose the following resolutions for your consider-ation. Our understanding of the enigma, Kristin, our comprehension of her involvement in things, is limited. Maybe we’ll never know who, or what she is, but what we can see is that she has become a deity to all those unfortunate enough to have fallen under her control and at the very least she serves as a figurehead, as their object of worship. I propose that appropriate steps be taken with regards to her, as a precautionary measure.’

  ‘Appropriate steps?’ Arzanah frowned. ‘Mr President, are you suggesting ... assassination?’

  ‘ ... Yes,’ he swallowed. ‘ ... That’s what I’m suggesting.�
�

  ‘ ... But that’s monstrous!’

  ‘Mr President, this council has never advocated viol- ence!’ Lombard protested.

  ‘No, but it has supported action when action is justifiable and if we don’t act now it will be too late. Secondly, I propose that the government of North Korea be given a period not exceeding seventy two hours to allow a UN team into their country to locate and disarm their weapons of mass destruction, and that the government of Afghanistan be given a period not exceeding seventy two hours to allow a UN team into their country to locate and disarm the weapons of mass destruction held in its northern territories by the Islamic terrorists, who will be instructed to reveal the whereabouts of any psychological weaponry in their possession. All parties will be issued with a final warning that failure to comply with these demands will be met with action of the utmost severity.’

  There was absolute silence.

  ‘ ... Mr President ... could you clarify what you mean by utmost severity?’ Arzanah asked.

  ‘ ... I move that simultaneous nuclear strikes be ... ’

  ‘THIS IS MADNESS!’

  ‘Your minds are already lost!’ exclaimed Wu Chong, the Chinese representative.

  ‘ ... be co-ordinated. The targets will be Kabul, the location of the missile silo in northern Afghanistan, Pyongyang, and the missile base in the Kangwon Province on the eastern seaboard of North Korea.’

  ‘This council was formed to protect the world, not to destroy it!’ Lombard exploded.

  ‘If it becomes necessary to execute the second proposal, it will be for the survival of humanity, to stop those who would corrupt our minds or kill us all — it will be for the greater good!’

  ‘I’m sure a child, his flesh ripped from his bones, lying next the blackened carcasses of his parents would agree with you if he were able to.’

  ‘We in this council know that decision making is sometimes agonisingly difficult, Mademoiselle Lombard, and that the consequences of our resolutions may be hard to live with, but we’ve been charged with the safeguard of society. If we cannot make the right decision, if we don’t act on that decision, the repercussions could be truly grave.’

  Arzanah, Lombard and Wu Chong rose to leave.

  ‘Will you please sit down!’ Bathurst shouted. ‘You are members of this council and your votes are required ... if you don’t agree with the resolutions, then vote against them.’

  ‘Would the council please consider its stance on the two proposed resolutions laid down before it? We shall break for one hour and reassemble at ten past one. Time is of the essence, so I would ask you to be sure of your vote by that time.’ He cleared his throat as he gathered his papers together, pushed back his chair and left the room.

  Precisely one hour later, hands were raised or kept down, and the consensus of the council taken.

  The first resolution, to dispose of the enigma, Kristin, was passed by twelve votes to three. The second resolution, to unleash four long-range, three megaton weapons upon the Islamic terrorists and the people of Afghanistan and North Korea was approved by nine votes to six — the narrowest margin possible, and the recommendations of the Security Council handed to the General Assembly for authorization, a process that was little more than academic.

  Eighteen

  The body of the flaxen-haired woman inflated. He heard the gut-wrenching sound of tearing flesh. Blood gushed from her nose, her open mouth. Her skin blackened, smouldered, peeled ... she was aflame.

  Thom awoke with a spasmodic jerk, doubled over the hard, wooden table. The surreal happenings of the day drowned his brain; the repellent odour of Greta Johansson’s incinerated flesh still lingered, and he felt like sicking up. It was bitterly cold in the lounge and frost had sketched austere, alien patterns on the inside of the windows.

  The image of Kristin’s crazed, porcelain-white face, eyes like portals to the underworld, descended upon him from the darkness. Was she still alive? He was sure she was, he could feel her presence in the room, her love and her hatred. She left her mark wherever she went, like a cat left its scent. She wouldn’t have tolerated captivity for long and her captors would almost certainly be dead by now, leaving her to roam the violent, everlasting night, all the time moving humanity inexorably towards extinction, driven by the unholy entity that had exploited and engulfed her.

  Gagging, he stood and felt movement around his feet. Something was flowing across the floor darkly, peaks in its surface picked out by the blue moonlight. He moved his foot — it was tacky, like tar, but less viscous. Bending, he probed it with his index finger; it was cold ... freezing, and skinned the tip.

  He waded out onto the landing. The black substance cascaded down the stairs like a raven waterfall in hell. There was a distinct current — it was flowing from the bedroom. He flicked a light switch, but darkness held sway. Breathlessly, he progressed to the bedroom.

  Three separate streams exuded from beneath the bed. The first passed between and around his feet, out through the door. The second poured silently into the old brick fireplace and the third defied gravity, running vertically up the wall, exiting through the smashed window.

  He stood over the bed, staring at the crumpled sheets, her discarded negligé, and rubbed briskly at the tight pain in his chest. Then he breathed deeply and pushed the bed aside with his foot. The black emanated from a splintered hole in the floorboards a few inches in diameter. He squatted and looked down into the well. A tide of constantly rising pitch wafted a freezing draught across his face, turning his eyes to ice. And then he recognized the dreadful sound; it was the same as the siren ... many octaves lower, but the same.

  As he moved backwards through the fluid he was struck by an irrepressible feeling of guilt. Something seminal was happening in the room, a beginning, in which he’d somehow played his part.

  His home had become an asylum. He turned and ran, slipping and tripping down the caustic staircase he would never climb again.

  On the mindless streets he roved without purpose or direction, isolated, friendless, each bloodcurdling scream, each burst of maniacal laughter pushing him closer and closer to the edge and after two hours, instinct alone had carried Thom to the only place on Earth he would find sanctuary.

  Margaret Sharman’s house glowed in the subdued orange of the street lamps. But it was the only light visible and anxiety surged through him. He entered and called out, checked every room, but she wasn’t there; had she panicked and fled?

  The power was still on. He boiled a kettle, made some tea and fell into his father’s old armchair, picking nervously at the loose fabric of the arms. As a young boy he’d been greatly disturbed by a dream in which he’d arrived at his home in the dark, dead of night to find it deserted, his father, mother, and brother gone. Now it seemed that awful imagining had become reality.

  He finished the bitter tea, found his mother’s precious address book and phoned everybody listed, everybody who was contactable, but she’d not been seen or heard from. He took a pen and notepad from a drawer by the phone and wrote her a letter in the hollow silence:

  Mum where are you? Came Tuesday night. The house was dead just like my dream do you remember? Tried everyone. Called the hospitals. You were right when you said I’d meet my destiny sometime. Think that day may be close. Still don’t understand what I am what’s expected of me. Can’t explain this but I don’t think I’ll see you again at least not in this life. Sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me can you forgive me? I believe this will all end soon one way or another. I hope you can be happy again. Thank you for thirty-four years of unconditional love that I never really returned. I will always love you. Thomas.

  He divulged everything he'd experienced, unburdened himself to an aghast, but willing listener, choked when he told her he’d taken the life of another human being. Would she understand what had driven him to such lengths, forgive him? He told her about Nathan, about what the black-eyed girl had done to him, about what he’d done with Nathan’s remains, and
her head dropped. She joined him on the couch and put a consoling arm around him, but he couldn’t feel it. Her face was entirely colourless, as white as her hair. She looked like a ghost.

  ‘Everything Nick said, his prophecy, it’s all become reality,’ he said.

  ‘A prophecy is a vision of the future. If all this was meant to be nothing you could have done would have made any difference.’

  ‘But if I hadn’t stopped to help her, hadn’t let her into my life?’

  ‘She would still have found you.’

  He glanced at her. Her faced had changed, become his father’s.

  ‘You were fated to meet. There’s a reason for everything that’s happened.’

  ‘A reason?’

  ‘You’re its antithesis, its polar opposite. Your coex-istence on this Earth isn’t down to pure chance.’ She left it to her son to decode her words. ‘Remember what Nicholas told you, that you would one day realize your destiny? And remember how I told you I always knew you were special?’

  ‘It happened again. There was a bird, a magpie, that lived near the flat. It died and then flew away after I laid it to rest. She killed a nun, the woman died in my arms. Later that day the hospital phoned to tell me she’d come back to life. The following morning she came to the flat and thanked me for saving her.’

  ‘But you couldn’t save Nathan?’

  ‘No. I accept, now, that I may have God-given powers, but I’m not God. If I was I’d find a way of exorcising the evil inside her.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her, Thom?’

  ‘A girl off the street? What would you have thought?’

  ‘I know you’d do anything to help anyone, that is your nature.’

  ‘I didn’t just help her, I made her my lover.’

  ‘Thom ... I’m sure any human qualities that it possessed are long gone.’

  He shot an angry glance at her. ‘That’s not true. She’s fought it every day of her life.’