The Rapture (35 page)

'Drive one kilometre to destination,' says the sat-nav.

'Did you know your father would be at the stadium?' I ask as levelly as I can manage when Bethany wakes, her face plastic with sweat. Despite the huge bruise and her tied wrists, she looks oddly serene, as though she has slept for hours rather than minutes. She inhales deeply and breathes out slowly, as though somehow, along the journey, she has studied yoga and it has nourished her.

'Sure,' she smiles. Her voice is measured, almost thoughtful. 'Along with thousands of other people. All expecting the Rapture. I saw it.'

A current of fury sweeps through me. Frazer Melville swings round, his face red. 'So you led us - deliberately - to the worst place we could possibly go!' he yells. 'And we can't change the plan because we can't get hold of Ned!' He thumps the wheel.

'The helicopter's landing there,' I say quietly. My mouth is dry: I have to force the words past my tongue. 'Right in the middle of it. And there's nothing we can do but go there. Did you see that, too, Bethany?'

She smiles sweetly. 'Yup. Into the lion's den.'

I'm remembering my calamitous meeting with the Reverend Leonard Krall. Paranoia is like a fast-growing crystal. Blink and it has sprouted a whole new section.

You're being manipulated, Ms Fox, he said. And you can't even see it.

'Hey, there it is!' yells Bethany. She is pointing ahead, her whole face alight with excitement. She looks almost innocent. '0 come all ye faithful, for the Lord himself will descend from Heaven with a shout! Halle-fucking-lujah!'

I stare.

It's like contemplating a mirage.

The colossal ziggurat rears up from its man-made island, the shiny, tilted cliff of its outer wall dwarfing the crowds that swarm across the footbridges and filter inside, sucked through the porous skin of its flank.

We have arrived.

Chapter Sixteen

I'd forgotten its epic scale, its amalgam of practicality and grandeur, its seemingly endless capacity for absorption. A stadium is a shell into which human flesh must be poured before it can spring to life. Fathoming that complex, unassailable dynamic was part of what shocked me out of my misery when I watched some of the Para-lympics in rehab with a group of fellow-patients, all of us spinal injured, all in mourning for what we had lost. The neuropathic pain that racked my lower back and my dead limbs was so violent I knew it would tip me over the edge if I didn't get a grip. That, and the open wound of my grief - for Alex, for Max, and for my legs - was vivid enough to turn every day into an inner conference on suicide. But during the few hours I spent watching other wheelchair-users barrelling along the track in a shining spin of metal, something happened to eject the pain from my consciousness. Afterwards there was a cruel reflux of anguish, and the days returned to their routine. But the experience led to an inner shift. Those athletes had offered some kind of hope, an idea to aspire to, concrete proof that the unimaginable was possible and that life could continue in some wholly different form. That the spirit might thrive. I knew enough to grab it like someone drowning, and cling on.

Somehow, that day changed me.

As for this one -

If I believed in God, I would request his help at this juncture.

As we enter the East car park, thin shafts of sunlight pierce the clouds and glitter on the roofs and bonnets of a thousand vehicles, refracting off them in kaleidoscopic fragments. From the distance, the acoustic thrum of prayer-music emanates from the stadium's deep cradle, relayed on the giant screens illuminating its exterior walls. Droves of smartly dressed worshippers are surging towards the wide footbridges that cross the waterways encircling the island, their chatter lending the atmosphere the geniality of a friendly sports tournament. There are smiles and winks, whoops and waves, shouted blessings. A pretty woman in a yellow uniform with navy epaulettes directs us to follow a line of cars to a distant bay of the car park, and calls out after us, 'May Christ be with you!'

We park, and I glance back at the concourse: the screen shows the banked tiers of seats within the stadium are filling steadily while five or six white-clad preachers, working as a team, are engaged in a vigorous warm-up on a raised white stage at one end of the stadium. On another screen nearby, BBC News 24 is running images under the heading
Britain in Chaos
, scenes which are duplicated in miniature on our car's dashboard TV. I pass Frazer Melville the bottle of water. He takes a slug and hands it back.

'If we want the helicopter to reach us, we have to go in,' I say. The sensation of confinement has been building like a slow torture. If I don't get out of the car soon, claustrophobia will win. Frazer Melville is still pale. I can see the journey has taken its toll on him too.

'Our names and faces and crimes have been broadcast to the whole nation. With your wheelchair, and the size of that news screen over there, I don't imagine we'll stay unnoticed for long.'

'So let's stay here and drown!' offers Bethany cheerily. 'We could all die together, like a family!'

I snap open the mobile. 'I'll try Ned again. If we can get a connection, we'll know where they are, at least. And we can tell them we've arrived. They'll have left the press conference by now, right?' Frazer Melville nods. I dial but can't get through. All around us, yellow-uniformed ushers are shepherding people towards the footbridge that leads to the wide concourse and the stadium. As I punch at the phone again, the TV shows more images of traffic and air chaos, then rejoins a live link to Buried Hope Alpha. In the pitch darkness of a North Sea afternoon the platform stands in a pool of light, its brightness pulsing outwards into the sky and across the churning ocean. An enchanted stronghold. The site controller, Lars Axelsen, is taking questions from a cluster of anoraked journalists who have flown out for a hastily arranged press briefing. It's clearly freezing out there. Far below them, the sea shifts blackly. I dial again: still no connection. Axelsen and another Traxorac official say there is no indication of unusual activity on or below the seabed. The questions continue. I turn the volume down and leave the men goldfishing, the phone clamped hard against my ear. I'm failing to connect, but I can't accept it. Lars Axelsen is showing the sub-sea robot Traxorac used to bring up underwater pictures of the drill-pipe, and indicating that the pictures it took show everything to be normal.

I'm dialling again when there's a gasp from the back seat. I swing round. Bethany is shuddering, her eyes and nostrils flared wide. 'It's started!' she whispers. 'I can feel it!' Her breathing is odd: laboured and ragged. She's struggling to gulp huge mouthfuls of air.

'Bethany?' But she's elsewhere. She has doubled up sharply as though something has jabbed her in the stomach. Her wrists are still tied together, but she grabs her head in both hands as if to protect it while her body bucks in frantic spasms. 'Oh God,' I murmur. 'Please, Bethany. Not now.'

'I'll get her,' says Frazer Melville. He leaps out. Bethany's head jack-knifes back and she emits a high unworldly scream, like the hiss of a pressure cooker, her eyes rolling upward to reveal the bloodshot whites. Then she buckles again, rocking the whole car with her convulsions. I'm aware that Frazer Melville has pulled open the back door and is trying to pin her down with his weight. That they're struggling on the back seat, half in and half out of the car. From the corner of my eye I see one of the ushers noticing the car's movement. Signalling to his colleague, he points in our direction, then starts making his way over, weaving his narrow body between the parked vehicles. He's young and big-boned, but as skinny as a colt: his uniform hangs loose. By now Frazer Melville has somehow managed to push Bethany's feet to the floor and wrench her into a sitting position, then shove himself in next to her and slam the car door so they are trapped together on the back seat.

'Quick, undo her wrists,' I urge. The young usher is closing in. Swiftly, Frazer Melville frees them.

Peering into the car, the youth calls anxiously: 'Everything OK there?'

Bethany's spasms have now quietened to a tremble. Opening her mouth in a wide 0, she takes a huge gasp of air and swallows it down.

'Fine,' I say, rolling the window down a fraction. 'Just one excited girl!' But he looks wary. He can see something's wrong. Maybe he's recognised us from the news.

Bethany's lips, which have turned completely grey, start to move. She's trying to say something. She coughs. 'I felt it start,' she chokes. Her voice is so faint and distant it could be a ghost's.

Frazer Melville is staring past her, at one of the huge TV screens on the stadium's outer concourse. 'She's right,' he says, almost to himself. 'Look.'

On Buried Hope Alpha, the journalists are getting to their feet and shouting in alarm. Something has unsettled them. Something we can't see.

'I'm Calum. I'm on the stadium team,' says the young usher. He isn't giving up. 'Do you need a doctor?'

'She's fine, thanks, Calum. We're just watching the news,' I say weakly, pointing at the screen. 'Something's happening.'

And it is. Suddenly, the whole picture trembles, as though being vibrated. Lars Axelsen grabs a chair to steady himself, but he's jolted viciously in the other direction, hurled out of view like a flung cushion. The camera zooms out to a wide-shot, judders epileptically, then somersaults. It must have crashed to the floor. You see inverted feet, running. There are incoherent shouts. Then there's a thud. Calum's eyes widen.

'A pre-shock,' murmurs Frazer Melville.

A new image, taken from the air, now shows the entire lit-up rig bouncing furiously from left to right. Then it's motionless again. But a second later, slowly and languorously, the angle of the whole edifice shifts, tilting sideways until it's at an impossible, gravity-defying pitch. Then with the delicate, almost balletic elegance of a camel getting to its knees, the huge structure begins to sink into the surrounding sea. There's a fierce flare of orange and then the lights extinguish one by one. After that everything happens almost too rapidly to register. Within the space of two seconds the entire rig has vanished, sucked silently beneath the waves.

Then darkness. It's as if it had never been.

'I told you,' whispers Bethany. 'I told you. It's started.'

The link lost, the screen flutters and goes blank. Before I can stop her, Bethany has seen her opportunity. She grabs Calum's uniformed arm through the window and pulls him close, bringing his ear up to her mouth. He recoils from her grip, but she clings on to his sleeve. 'Your big day's arrived!' she croaks hoarsely. 'Are you
Rapture ready?
' And she breaks into a foul laugh.

In that instant, I can see he has recognised her. Wrenching himself away, the young usher darts off through the parked cars, shouting into his headset.

'Well, thank you, Bethany,' sighs Frazer Melville. 'I guess there is no plan B.'

He's right. Yellow-clad ushers are appearing from all directions but there's nowhere to run. Especially for someone who can't even walk. It isn't even worth discussing.

'If that was a pre-shock, how long have we got left?' I ask him, trying to keep my voice level. The pins and needles seethe in my legs.

'No telling. But I'd say an hour at most. It will move at the speed of a jumbo jet.' His voice is so quiet and calm that it's almost reassuring. 'From what I've seen of the structure of the hydrate layer, and what's beneath, the next landslide will be catastrophic. A tsunami's propagation velocity is equal to the square root of the acceleration of gravity times the depth of the water.'

I swallow. My throat is parched. 'Is that how a physicist says goodbye?'

He shuts his eyes and doesn't speak. I can feel a long desperate howl welling inside me. Seconds later five ushers have formed a ring around the car. From behind them a woman's voice calls out, high and shrill as an alarm system, 'Over there, in the grey Nissan! It's that girl they're looking for! Bethany Krall! She's got the Devil in her, I saw it on TV!'

A throng of people is gathering around us. Most are men, and the expression on their faces covers the full range from fear to disbelief to mistrust to menace to rage. Some are shouting abuse. Swiftly, I clunk the doors locked. Terror makes a clenched fist of my throat: I try to swallow but I can't. Frazer Melville is staring straight ahead. 'This way!' someone yells. More faces peer in, some thrust right up against the front windscreen. Hands hammer on the roof of the car, clamouring for us to open the doors. 'Over here! The girl's in the car!' 'Bethany Krall.' 'Leonard Krall's daughter. Abducted.' A tall security guard with a broad handsome face materialises, and signals to the onlookers to stay clear of the car. Reluctantly, they move back. The guard positions himself in the empty parking space next to us, legs apart, arms braced, but makes no eye contact. It seems he's waiting for backup. He looks confident and professional: a man who enjoys his job because he's good at it. Not that Bethany's aware of him. She has netted her fingers over her stubbled head and she's rocking back and forth like a distraught baby trapped in the prison of its cot, her face and neck sequined with sweat.

Frazer Melville exhales in resignation.

'It was a pit,' murmurs Bethany, uncoiling herself but still clutching her head in her hands. Something about the dreaminess of her voice makes me feel alert to what she's saying. 'They threw him in and put a stone over and sealed it with wax.'

'Who are you talking about?'

'Daniel. They threw him in the pit with the lions. But the next morning he was still alive.'

My heart starts thudding fast. Too fast. Something needs deciphering. I put my hand to my chest to quell it. 'Why, Bethany? Why didn't the lions eat him?'

Her smile is almost languid. 'Because they weren't hungry for meat.'

Outside, I'm aware of a man parting the crowds. He's fifty-ish, silver-haired, dark-suited. Some kind of authority. A stadium official, or a preacher, at a guess. He's flanked by four or five younger men, all black and Asian, in sober suits and bright ties. 'Why weren't they hungry for meat, Bethany?'

'I guess they wanted something else. Something you couldn't eat.'

I'm still watching the man. A preacher, I'm sure. After a brief exchange with Calum, who points in our direction while conveying his story in a hectic rush, he stalls for a second. Then he strides over to the guard and questions him, gesturing at the car.

I look at Bethany urgently. 'What was it the lions wanted, then?'

She shrugs. 'They were all trapped in a pit. Daniel was trapped but the animals were trapped too. What would you want? The lions didn't eat him. He survived.' She coughs and blinks.

'So what are you saying, Bethany? We go into the den, is that it?'

She gives a tiny nod.

'What's happening?' asks Frazer Melville.

'We're putting smiles on our faces,' I say, opening my door. 'And getting out.'

By the time the preacher has finished talking to the guard and is coming over to confront us, I've reclaimed possession of my wheelchair and transferred into it. People stare openly and without shame as I effect the manoeuvre. But I don't care. What the lions wanted was what I want now. And will do anything for.

I roll forward and greet the man with a smile, offering him my hand. He doesn't take it. 'I'm Gabrielle Fox.' But it's not me he's interested in. He wears his revulsion for Bethany on his sleeve, like a badge of honour. His eyes are blue, piercing and oddly triangular. 'We've brought Bethany Krall.'

'So I see,' he says. 'She's a child we've heard a lot about in this community. A child we've prayed for.' Bethany hangs her head, and Frazer Melville puts a fatherly hand on her shoulder.

'In that case I'm sure you can guess why we've brought her here today.' I keep smiling. He lifts his well-groomed face in question. 'As you probably know, I'm her therapist. Bethany and I have done a lot of talking. She's been doing some soul-searching, as you can imagine.' His appraising glance flits between me, Frazer Melville and Bethany. 'She knows what she's done. She isn't denying her past. But she wants to ask her father's forgiveness. We heard that Leonard was praying for Bethany here, so we came.' This seems to throw him. He opens his mouth to speak but thinks better of it. Taking advantage of his confusion I press it further, trying to engage him. 'She wants to come back to God, don't you, Bethany?' She looks blank for a moment. Her pupils are dilated and her eyes unfocused and shuddering, as though the recent convulsions have cauterised the optic nerves. But she nods in affirmation. 'She wants to be part of the Rapture.' I lower my voice. 'She was just telling me the story of Daniel in the lion's den. That's how she's feeling right now. A bit nervous. Aren't you, Bethany?' She inclines her head and I force my smile further. 'Understandable. But she's a brave kid. She's ready to face up to what she's done. I'm proud of her.'