***
Chapter 20
12.00 p.m. Jerusalem time. Dina and her father had spent most of the morning working their way slowly and painfully through the crowd towards the St Luke’s Hospital. They managed to get within sight of the side entrance before the density of the people was too great for them to progress further. Twenty metres away the security at the door were not permitting any access to the hospital.
“Baba, we need to go inside.”
In desperation Dina’s father tried calling Mariam for help from within but because of the size of the crowd it was impossible to obtain a cell phone signal.
“Baba, we need to go inside.”
“I know my darling, but it’s difficult. There are too many people to get closer and even if we did we can’t get past the security. I’m sorry this is as far as we can go.”
Dina held her arms out above her head. “Pick me up, Baba.” Her father instantly stooped to retrieve her. Dina nestled into his neck. “Baba, I need to tell you something important.”
He nodded.
Dina cupped her hands and whispered almost inaudibly into her father’s ear. “The Pestilence is coming. Everybody here is going to die.”
Her father felt a shiver surging up his spine. The look of fear once more haunted his eyes. “When my darling?”
“Soon Baba. They say if we go inside we will be safe.”
Her father thought quickly. “Okay, my darling. Do you know where to go after you are inside? Will they help you find the way?”
Dina nodded.
“Then I want you to pretend to be sick. Pretend to be asleep. Think of your prayers and say them in your head. Shut your eyes and no matter what happens keep your eyes shut. Can you do that for me? Do you promise?”
Another vigorous nod and then Dina closed her eyes and fell limp into her father’s arms.
“Good girl.” He held his daughter tightly for the last time. He smelt her hair, trying to drive her smell permanently into his memories. He revelled in the warmth of her skin and planted a last loving kiss onto her forehead. “Help, help, out of my way.” Elbows flaring he tried in vain to jostle his way through the crowd. “My daughter has collapsed, she needs a doctor. Please, please give me some space. I need to get her to the hospital.” The anxiety in his voice was real but the people around him were packed in too tight. They tried to let them pass but there was simply nowhere for them to go. Dina’s father cried out in frustration and once more pressed forward then sideways but made little ground. He spun round searching in vain for a clear way through the crowd but all routes were barred. It was useless. They were trapped.
***
12.00 p.m. Jerusalem time. Celine had packed a rather bizarre black trilby in with Victor’s casual clothes. It was supposed to provide Victor with a measure of anonymity but given he was the only person wearing a black trilby in the 150,000-strong crowd, it wasn’t really working. Victor had no difficulty in easing through the throng encircling the St Luke’s Hospital. He simply touched the back of the head of the person in front of him and that person immediately made way. With every touch, every flexing of his power Victor grew stronger and he would need all his gathered strength for what was to come.
Before today Victor had never encountered a Healed and he marvelled at the strength and vitality of each Healed aura. They were gloriously flawless, not riddled with disease and suffering like the others. Victor was admiring the wealth of the Healed around him when a few hundred metres away he saw an aura of such magnificence that it stole his breath and he was drawn irresistibly towards it.
The little girl was with her father and they were struggling through the crowd, trying fruitlessly to reach the hospital. Her aura was resplendent, angelic in nature, dwarfing all the Healed around her with its dazzling luminescence. With his daughter in his arms, her father fought against the heaving masses trying desperately to create a route to safety. Victor touched half a dozen of the weak-minded around him and they converged on the girl’s father, swarming him, hemming him in. The girl’s father was helpless as Victor reached for the little girl.
Victor touched the child’s aura and instantly knew that he would never be able to conquer it. She was a special child and he shrank back from the two of them lest he be revealed. The taste of fear was on his lips and for the first time Victor began to doubt that the power he was quietly, freely reaping would be enough.
***
DINA’S father felt a hand on his shoulder and a stranger then gently lifted Dina from his arms. The stranger holding Dina high above his head turned and passed her on to the person next to him. Dina’s head lolled convincingly as she was handed gently from person to person surfing above the sea of humanity. The shape of Dina’s inert body naturally formed a cross hovering above the crowd. By a considered collective effort Dina was inched towards security at the doors of the hospital. Dina’s father watched as she was carried away from him. Dina, with her eyes tightly shut offered a silent prayer for her father’s soul.
At the side entrance a female guard stepped into the multitude to retrieve Dina. She carried the little girl with the greatest of care through the doors of St Luke’s. Dina’s father, for a fleeting moment, managed to glimpse his daughter being borne into the hospital. For a second his daughter was there and then she was gone.
***
VICTOR was now directly outside the hospital and above him the clear skies overhead began to darken. It was as if a veil had been drawn over the sun, throwing a shadow of sorrow across the Earth. The candles held all around him by the assembled masses suddenly seemed to increase in brightness as the natural light faded. Sensors triggered the street lighting to switch on and people in the crowd looked at each other in confusion. This was it, thought Victor. It was time.
***
9.04 a.m. London time. Bill Irons was squaring away the remains of breakfast. Before darting away to school, Miranda had wolfed down a fried egg with buttered toast that Bill had prepared for her. She was going to be staying a few nights a week and Bill had agreed with his ex-wife that he would also see Miranda on alternate weekends. Bill was glad of her lively company and enjoyed fitting into the rhythm of her life. They had an awful lot of catching up to do.
With the dishwasher humming, Bill flicked on the television. Rayaan Khan was once again reporting from outside St Luke’s Hospital in Jerusalem. Bill settled down to watch. Rayaan was doing a decent job filling in for him. Bill channel-surfed, but the rolling news coverage was virtually the same on the other news networks; loops of the Electrical Phenomenon, library images of Samuel healing, the Healed camp and finally the horror of the attack on the Teddy Stadium. Simply time-filling until the real story broke. The eyes of the world were on St Luke’s, waiting for the announcement that signalled the Srour family had made their decision and in all likelihood the machines sustaining Samuel’s life had been switched off.
Bill flicked back to the BBC. Rayaan Khan was delivering another piece to camera. The sky behind the reporter began to darken. Strange black clouds streamed in from the horizon. Rayaan swayed on his feet and the camera began to shake. In the background, screaming had started.
***
12.04 p.m. Jerusalem time. Rami Hussein was clearing the breakfast service at the Healed camp. Between the contractors, the volunteers and the permanent residents he had fed nearly 2,000 people that morning. Most were transitory visitors to the camp, passing through before embarking on their individual onward journeys.
Rami checked his watch, his thoughts were with Dalia and Mariam in Jerusalem. Dalia had told him the previous night that they would be making the decision around this time. She seemed certain of her intended course of action; she just couldn’t bear to see her son stumble on like this. Rami disliked the feeling of uncertainty that clouded everything from here on. What would this mean for the organisation that they were building? While Samuel was never the titular head and had only very briefly visited the camp, all that had followed stemmed from his healing. Rami
just couldn’t feel Dalia’s cautious optimism about a future without Samuel. He gave up worrying about it. They would all know soon enough.
It had been at least seven years since he last set eyes on her but Rami recognised her immediately. She was a little fuller than he remembered and her initial creases of worry had become etched across her face. The boy was with her, taller and no less skinny than Rami had remembered. He was clasping her hand, glancing nervously about him, looking studious and fierce as ever.
Rami saw her approach one of the waiting staff and the man pointed her in Rami’s direction. He could see she was taken aback by his healthy appearance. She nodded a greeting, gesturing towards him for the benefit of the boy. Rami hesitantly nodded one in return. He wondered what could have brought his ex-wife and son here, after so long, to the Haran camp kitchens.
***
9.04 a.m. London time. Hazel still hadn’t roused herself from her bed. She had hardly slept the previous night. Every few hours she had needed to use the bathroom, her bladder seemingly out of control. She felt miserable; her breasts were sore, her stomach bloated and she was hungry, ravenously hungry.
Zipping herself into a fleece top, Hazel padded into the kitchen making a beeline for the refrigerator. She popped two slices of bread in the toaster, switched on the kettle for her English breakfast tea and slipped a brace of bacon into the frying pan. The instant the bacon hit the hot fat Hazel was overwhelmed by a vicious wave of nausea. The smell of frying bacon was one of life’s small pleasures, but today the sickly sweet odour made her sprint from the kitchen covering her nose and mouth. Last night’s curry came swirling back to greet her. Hazel didn’t make it to the bathroom, falling to all fours and splashing out the curry on the hallway floor. Hazel wretched until she had nothing left to give, then she wretched some more. The half-digested curry splattered up the hallway walls and back onto Hazel’s fleece, but she was past caring. Her stomach heaved and clawed for what felt like an eternity. When it finally settled she flipped onto her back lying half in her own vomit clutching her cramping abdomen.
Hazel lay looking at the plasterwork on her ceiling, vomit trickling into her hair. She was Healed for goodness’ sake and was supposed to be immune to viruses. Then in the swirling confusion a disturbing thought occurred to her. Hazel fished her phone out of her fleece pocket, called up the calendar and checked the date. Her hands trembled and the phone almost slipped from her fingers into the pooling sick. Feeding off the energy driving her panic Hazel jumped up, grabbed her keys and wallet pushing her feet into her trainers. She quickly wiped the vomit from her hair and off her fleece, left the frying pan on hoping she would be back before her flat burned down and ran hard to the convenience store on the corner.
Hazel was back within ten minutes. Before rushing to the bathroom she threw her charring breakfast into the kitchen sink. She must have peed twenty times the previous night but when she needed it, her bladder steadfastly refused to comply. It took her fifteen minutes and a dash into the kitchen to down an enormous glass of water before she was able to go. The calendar on her cell phone had showed that it had been seven weeks since her last period and the blue smiley face on the pregnancy test confirmed her initial fears. Hazel reached for the second test but the thin blue line definitively underlined the results of the first. She dropped the test onto the bathroom floor and propped her chin in her hands. She didn’t understand; how could this be happening to her?
***
12.04 p.m. Jerusalem time. Stefano sat outside Samuel’s hospital room. Samuel’s family were clustered inside with the doctors. It was time and Stefano wanted to stay on post until the end. Ultimately, the security breach had been his failing but the family were too decent to point the finger of blame in his direction. Short of shooting down the copters on sight, he wasn’t sure what more he or his agents could have done. His mind had cycled through the possibilities; perhaps a second escape car or a venue with a roof but the speculation was pointless now. It was done. Stefano had lost and he had lost big. Forcing Dressler’s 357 into Ashen’s mouth and pulling the trigger had brought Stefano some small semblance of satisfaction but it was a raindrop set against an ocean of his despair. Stefano was adrift staring at the drab grey wall waiting for the inevitable. He felt a light tap on his shoulder, a child’s hand. Stefano turned to face her.
***
10.04 a.m. Central European Time. The Bishop of Rome was kneeling at his private altar. He was a simple man from humble origins and his bare cedar altar reflected that simplicity. He was praying for a soul on the verge of making its final journey to the Holy Father. He lamented on what could have been had Samuel been graced with more time on Earth. He gave thanks for the lives Samuel had touched including, of course, his own.
***
12.04 p.m. Jerusalem time. Dr Shimon Biram was seated at his desk finishing his review of Mariam’s draft paper. He had already made extensive annotations and suggestions in the margin of the work. It was a solid, competent piece reflecting completely the intelligence and personality of its author. Dr Biram reached across his desk and flicked through the messages on his cell phone; nothing from Mariam. He had tried calling but her phone had been off since the attack. Idly he scrolled to the stored camera photos; they were mostly of his kids, a collage of their changing, growing faces. He stopped at the image he was searching for. It was the only one he had of the two of them together. Dr Biram and his colleague, Dr Fara, stood together on a mountain top in Chile, clear blue skies above and a domed shadow of an astronomical observatory behind. They leant towards each other smiling, comfortable and relaxed.
Dr Biram stared at the image for a long moment. He then placed his phone back on his desk and continued marking up Mariam’s paper.
***
12.04 p.m. Jerusalem time. The Scientist took a long sip of his red wine. It had a lovely fruity aroma he found highly agreeable. His lunch of poached venison, however, was only fair to middling, the meat overdone, the jus bland. Alone, he cut a reflective figure. He had escaped the carnage of the stadium by doing what any self-respecting person would have done which was to flee at the first sign of trouble. He believed that his and Samuel’s fortunes were closely tied together but he had never finished his pitch and with Samuel close to death in the St Luke’s Hospital he probably never would. The Scientist had a prime window table overlooking a medieval square. The tinkling sound of jarred cutlery rose throughout the restaurant and he felt his table move under the force of a small tremor. Outside the light levels fell dramatically; it was as if someone had thrown a sackcloth over the sun.
***
12.04 p.m. Jerusalem time. They had made the journey early that morning in the captain’s battered pick-up truck. From the Healed camp across the border and into Jerusalem took them just over three hours. They had to abandon the pick-up two miles from the hospital. The roads were thronged with people. They lined all the routes to the hospital, standing shoulder to shoulder. Waiting for news.
The veterans had come to stand with them, to light a candle and say farewell to the man who helped the captain walk again, removed the shrapnel from the lieutenant’s spine and freed the corporal from his coma.
They held each other as the ground moved beneath their feet and when day turned to night, they knew their end had come.
***
12.04 p.m. Jerusalem time. Samuel lay inert, eyes permanently shut. The rise and fall of his chest was artificial, driven by the ventilator and the air being forced through the breathing tube into his lungs. The Srour family were gathered to say goodbye. Khalid sat with his elder brother beside the windows. He had spared his wife and children the heartache, leaving them in Haifa. By Samuel’s bed Dalia and Mariam interlocked arms.
The Senior Registrar was holding court. Had Samuel been conscious he would have remembered the doctor who, under orders, refused to allow him into this hospital to heal. The Senior Registrar spoke with an air of confidence and assurance stemming from decades of practical experience. “I
know this is a difficult time, but it is important that I make a few things very clear. The patient’s body is incapable of supporting respiration by itself. The ventilator is simply an artificial pair of lungs we are using in order to keep the patient’s body oxygenated. Disconnecting the patient from the machine at your request constitutes voluntary passive euthanasia. I know it sounds macabre but we need to be very clear on what we are discussing.”
The Senior Registrar spoke slowly, measuring the impact of each word before delivery. “The ventilator itself is classed as extraordinary treatment. You are here to decide whether or not to continue this extraordinary treatment. We never seek to withhold ordinary treatments such as food and water, but discontinuing this extraordinary treatment is legally and in my opinion given the condition of the patient, medically acceptable. The moral judgement on this course of action is yours alone.”
“With all due respect Doctor, I’m also an MD and I have a different perspective.” Khalid stood and addressed the group. Despite the softness of his voice he communicated with an air of quiet authority. “I want to counsel my mother against this action. By attaching Samuel to the ventilator, it has become part of him in the same way that implanting a pacemaker becomes part of a heart patient. If Samuel wore a pacemaker we wouldn’t dream of switching that off, would we?” Khalid looked into the silent faces of his family before continuing. “Whether labelled artificial or natural it’s our disruption of Samuel’s pulmonary system that prevents him from getting air. By removing Samuel from the ventilator, we will kill him. I will play no part in killing my baby brother.”
It was left to Mariam to break the heavy silence that followed Khalid’s words. “Khalid, they attached this machine in the hospital. It’s not part of him. Without it he would be dead already.”
“Son,” said Dalia, “I don’t want to see him like this. From the man he was to this.” Dalia touched the intravenous bag. “This is how they feed him, a tube goes in and other tubes go out.”
The Pestilence Page 25
