Had known?
How could he be sure that she was dead?
Because she was.
Wishful thinking. No part of a bug’s existence.
Vogelaar’s jaw worked back and forth. Platoons of tourists thronged the stairway to the colonnade, many sitting on the steps as though planning to have lunch there. Vogelaar spotted a younger group all armed with sketch pads and pencils, their faces fixed in concentration, rapt in their struggle with immortal art. A few curious passers-by were peering over their shoulders. He swept his eyes across the students, one by one, and stopped at a pale girl with a sharp nose who had gathered no admirers around her. He walked up to her, unhurried. On the white sheet of paper, Zeus fought the giant Porphyrion, and the two of them together fought the girl’s artistic ineptitude, her inability to breathe life into the scene. She must have had a good twenty pencils in the case next to her, and the number was obviously inversely proportional to her talent. Clearly every euro of tip money from the evening job waiting tables went on her art supplies. She was throwing money away in the deluded belief that in art, having the right kit is half the struggle.
He leaned down to her and said in his friendliest voice, ‘Could you perhaps – excuse me! – lend me one of your pencils?’
She blinked up at him, startled.
‘Just for a moment,’ he added quickly. ‘I want to jot something down. Forgot my pen, as always.’
‘Hmm, ye-e-es,’ she said, slowly, obviously upset at the thought that pencils might be used for writing as well. In the next moment she seemed to have come to terms with the idea. ‘Yes, of course! Pick any one.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
He chose a long, neatly sharpened pencil which looked sturdier than the rest, and straightened up. Xin was watching him at this moment, he had no doubt. Xin saw everything and would draw his own conclusions from whatever Vogelaar did, meaning that he only had seconds.
He turned round, lightning-fast.
Mickey was only a few steps behind him, and stared at him like a surprised mastiff, then half-heartedly tried to hide behind a group of Spanish-speaking pensioners. Vogelaar was at his side with just a few brisk paces. The Irishman fumbled at his hip with his right hand. Obviously Xin had never given him instructions in the event anything like this should happen, since he seemed absolutely flummoxed. His jowls wobbled with fury, his eyes darted hectically to and fro, sweat broke out on his pate.
Vogelaar put a hand to the back of his head, pulled him in close, and rammed the pencil into his right eye.
The Irishman gave a blood-curdling scream. He twitched, and blood spouted from the entry wound. Vogelaar pushed the flat of his hand more firmly against the end of the pencil, drove it deeper into the eye socket, felt the tip break through bone and enter the brain. Mickey slumped, his bowels and bladder emptying. Vogelaar felt for the killer’s gun and tore it from the holster.
‘Jericho!’ he yelled.
Stampede
Jericho had chosen to wait for the South African on the other side of the temple, hidden behind a phalanx of free-standing sculpture exhibits, uncomfortably aware that Vogelaar could get the drop on him. He was even more frightened by what he saw now. It was worse than any of the scenarios his overheated imagination had dreamed up over the past couple of hours, since it meant that the handover had failed. No doubt about it.
Everything was going horribly wrong. With his Glock in his right hand, he broke cover. Shock-waves of horror and revulsion were spreading out from the scene of the attack; he could hear screams, shrieks, groans, noises that defied description. The immediate eyewitnesses had reeled back to form a kind of small arena, with Vogelaar and the bald man in the middle, like a pair of modern-day gladiators. Others had frozen with terror as though struck by a Gorgon’s gaze, as motionless as the gods and giants all around. Pencils dropped from the art students’ nerveless fingers. The girl with the sharp nose leapt up, bouncing on the balls of her feet like a rubber ball, and held her hands in front of her mouth as though trying to stop herself squeaking. Little yelps of fear slipped through her half-open lips, as regular as an alarm. Everywhere heads turned, eyes went wide with shock, people walked faster, groups broke apart. The fight-or-flight response was beginning to set in.
All structures were breaking down. And in the midst of it all, Jericho saw the angel of death.
He was running towards Vogelaar, who was buckling under his victim’s weight. The dying man fell to the ground, dragging the South African with him. The angel was closing in from the northern wing, white-haired, ferociously moustached, his eyes hidden by tinted glasses, but the way he moved left no doubt as to his identity. Nor did the pistol that seemed to leap into his hand as he ran.
Vogelaar saw him coming as well.
Yelling, he managed to heave the bald man back up. The next moment the leather jacket covering his torso exploded, as the shots that had been meant for Vogelaar smacked into him. Jericho threw himself to the ground. Vogelaar struggled to shove the dead man aside and opened fire in turn on Xin, who took cover among the screaming, running crowd. A woman was hit in the shoulder and dropped to the ground.
‘No point!’ Jericho yelled. ‘Get out of here.’
The South African kicked at the corpse, trying to get free. Jericho dragged him to his feet. With a sound like meat slapping down onto a butcher’s block, Vogel-aar’s upper thigh burst open. He collapsed against Jericho and clutched him tight.
‘Get to the restaurant,’ he gasped. ‘Nyela—’
Jericho grabbed him under the arms without letting go of the Glock. He was heavy, much too heavy. All hell was breaking loose around them.
‘Pull yourself together,’ he grunted. ‘You’ve got to—’
Vogelaar stared at him. He sank slowly to the ground, and Jericho realised that Xin had shot him again. Panic swept over him. He scanned the crowd for the killer, spotted his shock of white hair. He only had moments before Xin would have another clear line of sight.
‘Get up,’ he screamed. ‘Get going!’
Vogelaar slipped from his grasp. His face was going waxen, mask-like, horribly fast. He fell on his back, and a gout of bright red blood gushed from his mouth.
‘Nyela – don’t know if – probably dead, but – perhaps—’
‘No,’ Jericho whispered. ‘You can’t die on me…’
A few metres away, a man was lifted up and flung forward as though by a giant fist. He flew through the air and then crashed to the ground, spread-eagled.
Xin was clearing his way through.
Vogelaar, Jericho thought desperately, you can’t just croak on me now, where’s the dossier, you’re our last hope, get up, for goodness’ sake. Get up. Get up!
Then he turned and ran as fast as he could.
Vogelaar stared into the light.
He had never been a religious man, and even now he found that the promise of heaven sounded tawdry and hollow. Why should every fool who’d ever drawn breath find their way to the Other Side? Religion was just one of those cracks this bug had never scuttled into. He couldn’t understand a character like Cyrano de Bergerac, who had spent a lifetime scoffing at religion and then felt a pang of fear at the last moment, humbly seeking forgiveness on his deathbed in case there was a God after all. Life ended. Why waste what time was left to him believing in some paradise? This was only the neon white light streaming down onto him from the ceiling, the artificial daylight of the museum hall. The white light that people spoke of after near-death experiences. The Hereafter, supposedly. In truth it was nothing but hallucinogenic tryptamine alkaloids flooding the brain.