Diema said nothing, pretending to check Ber Lusim’s greying body for signs of life.
It wasn’t over yet.
‘Do you feel up to moving?’ she asked Rush.
He tried to get upright, but every movement hurt him. It took the two of them, finally, Diema bearing the boy’s weight whenever a twinge of agony froze his muscles. She raised him like a banner — a flag of surrender, because that was how it felt. As though she were giving in, suddenly but far too late, to the logic of an argument that had first been put to her three years before, when her hands were around the throat of Ronald Stephen Pinkus and the light disappeared from his eyes.
‘Ready?’ she asked Rush.
‘Ready for what?’ he panted. ‘You want to dance?’
‘I need you to walk.’
‘Okay.’
It took an eternity for them to get up the stairs. Kennedy met them at the top, her face grim.
‘Leo’s just about awake,’ she told Diema, ‘but I think some of the wounds on his chest have opened up. I’m scared of moving him.’
‘We don’t have any choice,’ Diema said.
They both looked towards Tillman. He was on his feet in the corner of the grease pit, his two arms stretched out along its edge to either side. His head was sagging onto his chest. He looked like a boxer who’d only just made it through the previous round.
Diema turned back to Kennedy.
‘Heather, we have to go,’ she said. ‘This is—’
‘I know what it is.’
‘It was part of the plan, always. You take the stick out of the fire, you beat your enemies, and then you throw it back. You let it be burned.’
‘I got that, Diema. I got that the first time.’
‘I can walk,’ Tillman said. His voice was a ghastly, gallows thing.
‘Prove it,’ Diema said.
But first they had to get out of the pit, which was so protracted an agony that Diema felt nostalgic for the stairs. She and Kennedy had to prop Tillman up against the side of the pit, then drag and push at his limbs one at a time as though they were trying to reassemble the faces of a Rubik cube. When they were done, he was lying on his back at the edge of the drop, exhausted by agony, drawing breaths so shallow that the front of his shirt, stiff with fresh blood, didn’t even move.
Then they had to do the same thing with Rush.
Finally they had both men up and moving, Diema supporting Tillman because she was the stronger of the two, Kennedy following with Rush.
They made their way, like the last teams standing in a marathon three-legged race, out onto the factory floor and across the obstacle course towards the main doors.
They passed Desh Nahir along the way, lying unconscious in his blood. Diema murmured a blessing, but didn’t stop or slow. The doors were in sight now, and she could see the tailgate of the truck. Tillman slipped in the algae-slick of a dried-up puddle, almost fell, but Diema held him upright by getting her weight under him and pushing him upward — the tsukuri part of a judo throw, with the follow-through indefinitely suspended.
The doors were directly ahead of them. Her eyes on the ground, because she was forced now to treat each step, each shifting of her weight, as an exercise in logistics, Diema saw her feet, and Tillman’s feet, enter the slanting beam of sunlight that spilled across the grimed cement. They were emerging into the world outside in tortuous slow motion.
Kuutma stepped through the doors, with Alus and Taria to either side of him, and met them there. Other Messengers were standing on the asphalt outside, still and silent, awaiting Kuutma’s order.
He stared at Diema, who had stumbled to a halt. His expression was complex and unreadable.
‘Report,’ he suggested to her, with dangerous mildness.
Diema tried to speak, but the words fled away from her flailing mind.
‘I … we …’ she tried.
‘Ber Lusim is dead,’ Kennedy said. ‘It’s over. But you need to dismantle the bomb. And your man, Nahir, needs medical attention.’
Kuutma’s gaze flicked to her for the smallest fraction of a second, then back to Diema. ‘Is this true?’ he asked.
Diema nodded, still mute.
‘Then the threat is removed? There’s no longer any danger?’
‘There is …’ Diema tried again. ‘The bomb. As Kennedy says. We removed the detonator, but the bomb needs to be dismantled. And Nahir …’
Kuutma turned to Alus and Taria. ‘See to him,’ he ordered, and they were gone from his side in an instant.
‘Dan cheira hu meircha!’ Kuutma shouted. Obedient to his command, the Messengers filed in through the doors to surround the small party.
With Rush leaning on her right arm, Kennedy tried to get her left hand inside her jacket to reach her shoulder holster. Diema reached out, snake-swift, to grip her wrist and keep the hand in plain sight. If Kennedy succeeded in drawing the gun, she’d be dead before she drew another breath.
Kuutma had been staring at Diema throughout these manoeuvres. ‘It was well done,’ he said to her. ‘It was very well done. You may stand down, Diema Beit Evrom. What remains to be done here, others will do.’
Diema made no move. The muscles of her chest seemed to be squeezing her lungs, so that it was a great effort even to draw a breath. ‘Tannanu,’ she said, ‘I need to speak with you.’
‘No,’ Kuutma said. ‘You don’t.’
‘Yes,’ Diema insisted. ‘To report.’
‘I’ve heard your report, Diema. And now this is in my hands. Step outside. I’ve deliberated, in the matter of your pregnancy, and I’ve reached a verdict. The only verdict possible, if you’re to escape censure. The boy’s death protects your honour. The other deaths were already agreed on before you ever left Ginat’Dania. But there’s no need for you to be present for this. I understand that it might distress you to see these people, who’ve fought at your side, lose their lives. Go. Go to the gates of the compound and wait for me there.’
Sour bile rose in Diema’s mouth and she swallowed it down again.
‘Tannanu,’ she said, the words scouring her throat like gravel, ‘I wish to speak. My testimony is pertinent to these matters. Hear me out.’
They held the tableau for some seconds. If Kuutma saw the tension in her posture, and if he understood what it meant, he gave no sign.
‘Very well,’ he said at last.
He gave clipped commands. Messengers came forward to remove Tillman from her grasp and to take hold of Kennedy and Rush.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Kennedy yelled. She threw a wild glance at Diema, who ignored it. Their fates rested with Kuutma now.
He walked aside a little way, beckoning her to follow him. Diema obeyed.
‘I’m listening,’ Kuutma said, dropping the mantle of formality. ‘But there’s no way of stopping this, little sister. You must know that.’
‘Brother,’ Diema said, staring full into his eyes, ‘there is. You’re Kuutma, the Brand, and what you say will happen here is what will happen. Nobody will argue with you.’
Kuutma shrugged brusquely. ‘That’s irrelevant. I can’t gainsay what I’ve already said. They’re going to die.’ He breathed out slowly, a breath that was almost a sigh. ‘I can see that these three have come to mean something to you — I saw that back in Budapest. And I grieve for you. You’ve known enough loss in your life already. But Kennedy’s death, and Tillman’s, were part of the task you accepted. Be strong, now, and see it through. As for the boy, even if you love him, you’ll forget him soon enough. Take another lover. Take a husband, even. Desh Nahir would embrace you in an instant.’
Diema ignored this grotesque suggestion, and stuck remorselessly to her point. ‘Tannanu, Leo Tillman is my father.’