Inevitably someone screamed the ‘B’ word and the frozen tableau of confusion turned into a flood of shop staff emerging from the entrances of their respective stores, spilling on to the upper concourse. Suddenly it seemed like a very busy mall.
Liam and the other two joined the press of bodies heading towards the escalators at the end that would take them down to the front entrance and out into the car park.
Sal and Rashim had found a different way out of the toystore on the lower floor, a door marked STAFF ONLY that led to a stockroom piled high with cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. From there they found a door at the back that gave access to a service corridor of dull grey breeze-block walls.
‘Which way now?’ asked Rashim.
‘I don’t know.’ Her guess was left. Left would take them towards the entrance they came in, she figured. She led the way. Muted by two closed doors, they heard the faintest crackle of gunfire behind them.
‘This is insane,’ gasped Rashim. ‘Who in God’s name wants you lot dead so badly?’
‘Jahulla!’ she whispered. ‘Wish I knew.’ It felt to her like they’d been running non-stop for weeks. In added-up time for her, it was almost that. Just after sending Liam and Bob back to Rome, that’s when they’d been jumped in Times Square. Ambushed and pursued all the way back to the archway, and there, attacked yet again — one of the units even managing to dive through the portal right behind them and join them back in Ancient Rome.
Pandora. It was asking about Pandora that had set this off. Sal was almost certain of that. That and perhaps, somehow, it was linked to that poor, poor man who’d jumped back to 1831 to warn her about something.
But what was that warning? ‘ The bear ’. ‘ You’re not who you think you are.’ What the pinchudda was that supposed to mean?
I think I’m Sal. I’m Saleena Vikram. I’m a schoolgirl from Ajmeera Independent Academy in Mumbai. I used to play Pikodu pretty well. And listen to bhangra-metal. I’m the daughter of Sanjay and Abeer Vikram. And I used to live in a small apartment in Mumbai. Papaji used to buy and sell computer chips. Mamaji used to be an accountant. What part of all of that isn’t right?
They turned a corner.
‘Yo! Hey!’
Ahead of them, a black mall security guard. ‘Stop right there!’ He had a handgun pointed at them. ‘Hands where I can see them!’
‘We’re trying to get — ’
‘SHUT UP!’ A hand fumbled for the radio on his belt; he kept his eyes on them. ‘This is Kent. I got two of ’em right here. Service Access 5b.’
The radio squawked static and an unintelligible voice.
The mall guard replied. ‘Asian. One male, approximately mid-twenties. One female, mid-teens.’
Another squirt of static and voice.
‘Uh… yeah, he’s got a bit of a beard. They were both running from the gunfire.’
Static and voice.
‘Copy that!’ He hung the radio back on his belt. ‘You two raghead terrorist sons of…’ He bit his lip. ‘You gonna see a whole bunch of prison time.’
‘We are not terrorists!’ said Rashim.
‘You put a bomb in this mall somewhere? Huh? That it? You gonna blow up some more innocent people?’
‘Shadd-yah!’ Sal cursed. ‘We’re not terrorists!’
‘ Shallah? What’s that? Some Ay-rab raghead-talk or something?’
‘She’s Indian,’ said Rashim. ‘I’m Persian. That makes a total of zero “Ay-rabs” here.’
‘SHUT UP!’ He jerked his gun at them. ‘Put your goddamn hands on the wall, Abu-Babu!’
Sal shook her head, pointing over her shoulder. ‘The bad guys’re back there! They’ve got guns and — ’
‘You put your goddamn hands against the wall, miss, or I swear I’ll put a bullet in both of you right now!’
She could see the knuckle of his trigger finger bulging, the skin paler, drawn over tendon and bone. There were already several pounds of pressure resting on that trigger.
‘OK… OK…’ She placed her palms up against the rough breeze blocks. ‘Rashim…’ Silently, she urged him to do likewise.
‘ Rashim, is it, eh?’ The mall guard shook his head as he approached. Then as Sal and Rashim adopted the legs-apart-hands-against-the-wall pose, the guard began to pat Sal down one-handed.
‘What is it with you goddamned Moslems? Uh?’ he huffed as he frisked them. ‘What the hell is it you hate so much ’bout America? What is it, the Big Macs? The freedom? The rap music?’
‘Look, please… we’re not actually terrorists — ’
‘Or even Muslims,’ added Sal.
‘I lost a cousin in what you people did yesterday. Good man. Worked up in the top of the north tower in the restaurant. Took care of his folks, worked real hard.’
He began to frisk Rashim. ‘But that ain’t enough, is it? He’s gotta live your way, hasn’t he? Got to grow a goddamn Santa-beard and wear them stupid pyjama-suits. Gotta go an’ worship Buddha five times a day — ’
‘It’s Allah actually.’
The guard pushed Rashim’s head hard against the wall. ‘You shut your goddamn raghead mouth!’
Chapter 23
7.34 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, Branford
They regarded the body of the old man lying on the floor in front of them in silence. Beside him a young female was cowering on the floor, her hands clasped to a wound.
‘P-please… d-don’t kill me…’ she whimpered.
Both support units ignored her. She was irrelevant. Back to the dead man.
‘It is an older version of the one called Liam O’Connor,’ said Faith, studying the old man’s face. ‘A valid target.’
Abel nodded. ‘Good.’ He looked up. ‘The others will be nearby.’ They’d spotted the group heading into this store and briefly picked up the idents of the two support units with them. Those signals were gone now. Switched off.
Other than sneaking past them out of the store’s main entrance, he noted only two other possible exits for them.
‘We must separate.’
Faith looked at the escalator leading to the store’s upper floor. ‘I will go that way.’
Abel nodded and immediately strode towards the staff only door at the rear of the store.
› Locate and kill. We have six remaining targets, he added wirelessly.
› Affirmative, she replied.
Faith jogged up the escalator as another tannoy announcement reverberated throughout the mall. ‘Attention, attention… this is an emergency announcement. All customers and staff are asked to immediately leave the mall. This is an emergency and not a drill. Please leave the…’
The escalator jerked to a halt beneath her feet. She hurried up the rest of the way and at the top she scanned the shop floor. She spotted thirteen people, seven of them wearing the same pink shirts as the dying girl downstairs — she assumed the shirt was some sort of a uniform. None of them, or the others, bore any resemblance to the mission briefing images she’d started with, nor the library of fleeting shutter-frame images, glimpses of her quarry, that she’d managed to build up during the mission so far.
Faith emerged quickly from the store, tucking the gun away into the waistband of her jogging bottoms and hiding the gun’s protruding handle beneath her hoody. No need to attract any unwanted attention. They’d already done enough of that with the gunfight downstairs.
She joined the throng of people on the upper floor, emerging from store fronts. So many of them sluggish, uncertain: seemingly unsure whether this was a real emergency or a drill, unsure whether the exchange of gunfire minutes ago might have been stupid kids letting off some firecrackers.
She scanned the backs of heads, necks, shoulders. She had a comparison image of that particular view of one of the targets called Madelaine. From back in Times Square, when she’d crossed the street and chased them into the building. Madelaine: tall, slim. Long, light-coloured curly hair pulled into a ponytail. Jeans. Checked shirt. The other girl, Saleena: short, slim. Black hair. Dark leggings, black hooded top. Of course they could be wearing different clothes by now.