‘Take my hand.’
The policeman struggled upright. He did not release his grip on her and, for a moment, the two stood like dancers on the brink of a tango. His glasses were designer, she noted. He was furious.
‘You’re not called Nancy Drew.’
‘And?’
‘Both of you are under arrest.’
‘Good luck with that,’ said Danny. ‘You tried to attack my sister.’
‘I am an officer of the police.’
‘How the fuck should we know?’
The man twisted his neck. The cartilage clicked. He withdrew a wallet and flapped it open. ‘Karel Duczyński, Inspector, Bundeskriminalamt – the Federal Criminal Police Office.’
‘Your mother must be very proud. I’m Danny. This is Jem.’
Jem’s phone rang again. She looked at the inspector, who nodded.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘Hello, Jem.’ It was Cory. ‘Good location for a meeting. Plenty of radio interference, and people.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I see you’ve met the inspector.’
Jem cupped the handset and said to Duczyński, ‘He can see us. The man you should really arrest.’
‘Who?’ He looked at her with suspicion, but there was clearly something truthful in her expression—fear, perhaps—and she was relieved when he opened the holster of his sidearm.
She turned back to the phone and said, ‘What now?’
‘I don’t know where you found an Ego-class computer, but I want you to put it on the observation deck and leave. It will have the information I want. Forget about me and Saskia. Do you understand?’
‘Perfectly.’
As she cut the call, the three men looked at her with expectant expressions, but she ignored them, looking vainly for Cory in the crowd.
‘Well?’ asked Danny.
Jem’s phone buzzed again. She looked down at it. Another text message from Ego.
I’ve thought of something.
Abruptly, a siren split the air and sprinklers opened, dropping icy water on all. Some people hunched and swore. Others shouted urgent questions about fire exits at the barman, who shouted back and waved his arms towards the stairwells. Two waiters hurried down from the restaurant and directed people into lines. Meanwhile, the water continued to fall from the sprinklers with such energy that it seemed to reflect from the floor.
Jem shaded her eyes and tried to take a breath without swallowing water. Her focus remained on the faces in the crowd. Which one was Cory? Was he even here? Intuitively, she was certain that he had been on the observation deck when he made the phone call.
‘We should go,’ shouted the inspector.
‘Agreed,’ Danny called back.
Someone took Jem by the arm, but she was not sure who. All her attention was on the left archway. Cory was standing there, easy on his cane, wearing a light-grey suit and expression whose subtleties, at this distance, Jem could not make out.
‘What are you waiting for, Jem?’ said Danny. ‘Move.’
‘It’s him.’
‘What?’ said the inspector, leaning toward her.
Jem said her next words quietly: ‘I think he’s going to kill us.’ There was no panic in her tone; she had moved beyond it. Perhaps it was this sobriety that truly spoke to the inspector. He raised his gun—left hand cupping the butt, right hand gripping the handle—and his words
‘Polizei!’
barked out
‘Keine Bewegung!’
while the slow, bulky shape of Danny moved towards her—swooping like the hawk coming to her arm. And equal slowness characterised Cory’s face as he frowned.
Screaming.
Screaming from those people in the path of the inspector’s gun. Bodies twisted aside. Fathers cuffed their sons away and reached out for pushchairs. Children looked on with open mouths. Arms were flung protectively over heads. Crouching.
Cory was raising his white cane. Slowly. Slowly.
‘Get her out of here!’ shouted the inspector.
Danny collided with her and–
(But it was not a cane. It was a gun. A gun the colour of old marble.)
–Danny and Jem tumbled down, down.
Something puffed from the nozzle of Cory’s gun and at the same time the air above her head split with a sharp, hot flash. The inspector had fired.
Her nightmarishly slowed perception ended as Jem struck the floor and Danny rolled across her. Suddenly, she was winded, alive, and deafened. Jem saw the queues break apart as people surged into the stairwells. Some were crushed. Still the water came down and Jem brushed her slick hair aside to see what had happened to Cory. Before she could stand, she was lifted bodily towards the open lift.
‘Danny, let go of me!’
Lifts were not meant to work during a fire—this she knew—but when Danny punched the panel, the doors closed on her and she dropped, alone, filling the silence with calls for her brother.
A few metres from the ground, her phone rang.
‘Ego? Ego?’
‘Turn right when you leave the lift, Jem, and don’t look back. Hurry now.’
Inspector Duczyński could not move anything other than his eyes, which slid around uselessly, failing to focus in the falling water. His shoulder burned with the most terrific pain he could remember. Did I get him? I think I got him. He pressed down on thoughts of failure and bad luck. He redrew his next decision draft upon draft. Reach for his radio. No, turn his head. No, stanch the bleeding.
I think I got him.
God, my shoulder.
Maybe I killed him.
He spat out the water that had collected in his mouth.
Move, Duczyński. Now.
Someone seized his chest.
‘Come on.’
It was Jem’s brother, Danny.
‘Danny?’
‘Move.’
The ceiling passed through his vision as though he were flying. Fountains of water chilled him. ‘Ist er tot?’
‘Shut up. I think you got him, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Habe… habe ich unseren Mann erschossen?’
The floor slid beneath his back, tugging on his belt.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. For fuck’s sake hold on. We’re almost at the lift.’
A second man began to shout—an official?—but was cut off by Danny.
‘Get out of my way. I’m serious. He’s injured and we’re using the lift. No question.’
Duczyński thought about the thousands who could see the TV tower from their apartment, café, or aeroplane. He considered their indifference. The rain battered his knuckles and warped his vision through his glasses.
‘Notarzt zum Fernsehturm!’ he shouted, sure that his police radio was at his mouth, and this was his last chance. ‘Zwei Männer wurden angeschossen!’
‘Easy, tiger. You’ll get a medal. Think how proud your mother will be.’
Blackness, marked by red numbers counting down.
To the Ghost, the four words were written in fire across the darkness:
Emergency neurotransmitter augmentation successful.
He was immobilised. No breath passed his lips. The message disappeared. Then:
I-Core has been forced to restart in safe mode. Full restart in one minute.
No, thought the Ghost. Restart basic…
He died.
Then sensation grew again from his fingertips: the factor had slid home to his hand, adding enough resources to raise him above the threshold of consciousness.
Restart now and establish basic life support, he thought.