Triskellion 3: The Gathering (13 page)

The TV presenter gave Ezekiel Crane the kind of patronizing introduction he was becoming used to.

“We’re live here today on Channel Six, and we’d like to welcome Pastor Ezekiel Crane, who thinks that the world as we know it is about to end in just a few days…” The presenter turned to the camera and gave a barely perceptible wink and a cynical smile to the TV audience – just enough to let them know that he thought Crane was a crank. He turned back to Ezekiel Crane.

“So, Pastor Crane, what should we be looking out for? A big explosion? An invasion of little green men?”

Crane swivelled in his chair. He crossed his legs and made a temple of his fingers, pressing them to his lips. He said nothing, and the dead air on TV was torture to the presenter for whom a nanosecond of silence was too long.

“Perhaps we’re going to see flying saucers in Central Park?” the presenter continued.

Silence.

“Or is this more of a religious cult? The second coming?”

Silence.

The presenter was losing his composure. Live broadcasts were always risky, but you could usually rely on guests to
speak
. He was perspiring under the hot studio lights and his deep tan make-up was beginning to run, leaving marks on his white collar. Crane’s unwavering stare made him wriggle in his seat. He tried another tack.

“Well, maybe Pastor Crane is trying to communicate with us using his thoughts. I read in your book,
The Triple Wheel,
that in the future we will all be able to communicate without speaking. Is that right?”

Silence.

The presenter thumbed through the book, looking for something else to say, but in his panic he could find nothing. He looked stumped.

And then Crane spoke.

“Thank you for your kind introduction, and now you have got your prejudices out of the way, perhaps you will listen to what I have to say.”

There was a whoop from the studio audience and one or two “Amens” from the Triple Wheelers among the crowd. Crane had them all in the palm of his hand. He got up from his seat and, walking over to the camera, put his face close to the lens so it would fill the screen of the viewer at home. He wagged his finger from side to side.

“Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock. The time approaches,” he said. “For those of you with a brain, listen to what I have to say. Believe and follow, for that way salvation lies. Touch the screen of your TV and repeat after me… Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock…”

The studio audience repeated the mantra while, across the country, people in their thousands found themselves touching their screens and repeating Crane’s words.

“The hive hears my voice and I know each one of them. They follow me. This will be your last chance not to be left behind and be a martyr of the tribulation,” Crane continued. “When the trumpet sounds and the swarming happens the Gathering will have begun, and those that follow me will be saved.”

There were more shouts and whoops from the audience. The director was telling the presenter through his earpiece to let Crane continue. And all across the country people were switching to Channel Six, as if guided by some collective hysteria.

Crane grabbed the edges of the camera and spoke close, sweat beading on his upper lip. His voice began to tremble a little with fervour. “I am calling the faithful remnant out of the lying corrupted cities and false TV ministries. Only the hive will escape when the swarming begins. Where will you be for the Gathering? Your time is running out. Ezekiel One. Amen.”

Crane was pouring with sweat. There were screams of “Amen” and “Hallelujah” as he dropped to his knees, and a woman collapsed, her body racked with spasms, foam drooling from her mouth.

Crane grabbed the camera and pulled it to him. “Tick…” he said in a trembling voice. “Tock.”

The director of the Hope Project shook his head at the mass hysteria developing in the TV studio. He watched as Crane was led away by his faithful sidekick and the presenter tried hopelessly to bring the studio back to order.

He switched the screen off. This Crane guy certainly had some good tricks. The director had become quite mesmerized himself from the comfort of his own office. He recognized some of the basic hypnosis tricks – but the way Crane put himself across and hijacked TV shows to his own ends was masterful.

And there was another thing; something that gnawed away at the back of his mind. A familiarity about Crane that he couldn’t put his finger on. Nothing specific, but something in the man’s gestures and his walk and his tone of voice… However, there were more pressing concerns at the forefront of the director’s mind. Strange data was flooding in from the Astronomical Research centre in Alamogordo…

Meredith came in from the next office, interrupting his thoughts. Her smile told him she had good news. “The kids are here,” she said.

“What – here in New York?” the director snapped sarcastically. “Here in the building?”

Meredith reddened. “Er … not right here, right now, but they’ve
been
in New York. They’ve just taken a train to Cincinnati, Ohio, sir. We’re on it.”

“Excellent,” the director said. “Make sure there’s a welcoming committee for them.”

T
heir train pulled into Cincinnati, Ohio, just after three in the afternoon. It was a typical spring day in Midwest America, bright and crisp, and although Gabriel showed no sign of feeling the cold, Rachel and Adam pulled on the hooded fleeces and leather jackets they had bought in New York. They shivered in unison as they walked from the train along the platform and out into the vast brightly lit concourse.

They had spent the long train journey planning out their route: a more or less straight line that ran through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, on through the central states of Missouri and Oklahoma and finally into New Mexico itself. They had decided that they needed to break the journey up and, more importantly, to vary the methods by which they moved from state to state. They would use rail and road and travel alternately by day and night in an effort to stay one step ahead of the forces they felt sure would be on their tails every step of the way.

“Keep them guessing,” Gabriel had said. “Plus it’s more fun and I’ve always wanted to see America.”

Thinking about her father and what he might already be going through, Rachel had been in no mood to be light-hearted. “We’re not on vacation…” she’d said.

Cincinnati station was busy.

For some the rush hour seemed to have begun early with commuters moving purposefully towards platforms – in a hurry to catch trains home to the suburbs. Meanwhile, those who had enjoyed a long lunch in one of the station’s many restaurants hurried the other way, out on to the street. Students hung around near the exit, and a gaggle of tourists gathered in the centre of the main concourse, looking around and taking pictures, while their guide struggled to be heard above the noise of announcements and a busker singing operatic arias over a backing tape.

Gabriel pushed his way through the crowd, then stopped suddenly.

“Danger,” he said.

Rachel and Adam had already stopped a metre or so behind him. They could feel it too. In the short time since Gabriel had come back into their lives and “re-awakened” them, it had become obvious that in the two years since they had last seen him, their powers had strengthened; their intuition had become more finely tuned.

It had never been clearer than at this moment.

The danger was like a current buzzing across the shiny floor, crackling through the walls. People very close meant them harm.

Rachel felt the blood rushing through her; her pulse slowing as she looked from person to person. She took in everyone around her, noting each detail of every face in no more than a few seconds. Gabriel and Adam were also studying the crowd, looking for the danger as closely as she was. It was as though time had slowed and they were the only three people still operating as normal.

A metre or so away Rachel saw a man whispering into a mobile phone. Two men in suits were watching her from the ticket office; a third lowered his paper, raising it again quickly when he saw her looking at him; a fourth, casually dressed and wearing headphones, was smoking a cigarette and adjusting the volume on his iPod.

A kid wheeled his bike in front of her.

A young woman loaded down with luggage tried to hurry along a reluctant toddler.

An old woman shuffled slowly past on a walking frame.

Rachel tried to speak to Gabriel and Adam with her mind, but it was as if the frequency were scrambled. She turned and spoke out loud. “Who?” she said. “It could be any one of a dozen people. There could be any number of them.”

“Walk slowly towards the exit,” Gabriel said.

They began to move.

“There’re too many people,” Adam said. “They wouldn’t try anything in a crowd, would they?”

“Just keep moving,” Gabriel said.

They drifted through the throng of people, who still appeared to be moving in slow motion, their eyes fixed on their destinations. They parted as Gabriel, Rachel and Adam walked towards the exit.

“Almost there,” Adam said. “Maybe we were wrong.”

“No.”

And as Gabriel spoke, Rachel froze, seeing it too late. The hands of the old woman on the metal handle of the walking frame were smooth and unlined; her eyes were cold and dark. Before Rachel could speak, the walking frame was tossed aside and it became clear that the woman was actually young and strong. She reached for the toddler a few metres away, yanking the crying child towards her while at the same moment producing a gun.

“You know what I want, Rachel,” she said. “Just hand over the amulets and there’ll be no need to hurt anyone.”

The child’s mother began to scream. Others who saw the gun did the same, moving quickly away, until only six figures were left alone in the centre of the concourse.

Rachel, Adam and Gabriel.

The terrified mother and her child.

The young woman who was pressing the gun to the child’s head.

“Please,” Rachel said.

“It’s very simple.” The woman’s voice was as calm and cold as her eyes. “Give me the amulets.”

“Don’t!” Gabriel said to Rachel.

The toddler’s mother was hysterical, screaming at Gabriel, then at Rachel: urging them to do what the woman wanted.

Gabriel sighed and let his breath settle. He closed his eyes and focused, and a kilometre outside the station a signal on the line switched from red to green.

“You should listen to her,” the woman said to Rachel. “Do you really want this child’s life on your conscience?”

“Do you want it on
yours
?” Rachel said.

“I don’t have one.”

Rachel was finding it hard to focus. It was hard to think, to talk, above the high-pitched whine that was filling her head. She looked at Gabriel. “We’ve got no choice.” She reached up and unfastened the leather thong round her neck from which one of the Triskellions hung. She gestured to Adam – who was carrying the second Triskellion – to do the same.

“That’s good,” the woman said. “Just hand them over nice and slowly…”

People were still screaming, and in the corner of the station a group of armed police had appeared. Their weapons were levelled – but with the child so close to the gun, nobody would give the order to open fire.

A pair of pigeons swooped low over the heads of the horrified onlookers and the automatic Tannoy system announced the arrival of a train from Washington DC.

“Take a step towards me,” the woman said to the twins. She pressed the gun tighter against the child’s head.

The child’s mother dropped to her knees, saying, “Oh God, oh God, oh God…”

Adam handed his Triskellion to Rachel, and she held the two of them at arm’s length in front of her and moved towards the woman holding the child.

“Nice and slowly,” the woman said again.

“How do we know you won’t shoot us?” Rachel asked.

The woman smiled. “You’ll just have to read my mind.” She put out her hand, beckoning; desperate to get hold of the amulets. Rachel leaned forward to pass them over.

The woman’s eyes, which had been locked on the Triskellions, suddenly flicked away, widening in horror as the roar of an engine became almost deafening.

A second later a huge locomotive smashed through the station wall. Debris exploded across the hall, forcing people to run from cascading rubble and flying rock. Rachel seized her chance to run at the woman with the gun, but she was already tearing away in the opposite direction.

Rachel grabbed the toddler, passing him quickly back to his mother, before starting to run herself.

A few metres away, the engine careered across the floor. Sparks cascading in its wake, it crashed down on to its side before finally stopping, the first of its carriages embedded in the station wall; its wheels were buckled, its sides flayed and twisted like flaps of metal skin.

Rachel looked around, her heart thumping. Adam and Gabriel were right behind her.

“Here!” Adam said.

“We need to get out of here,” Gabriel said. “Now.”

Rachel followed his gaze and felt a stab of panic. Diesel was spilling from the felled engine, pooling out, thick and blue-black, across the marble floor. Near by, the man with the earphones was backing away and, without thinking, he tossed his cigarette on to the floor.