Three Hours(77)
Shots to his medulla oblongata, so there’s no involuntary muscle movement, so his finger won’t press the trigger.
‘Will they know we’ve seen this?’ Bronze Commander asks Lysander.
‘No, there was an alarm on it, but the ghost— the person who found it lives in a totalitarian regime, she’s good at not tripping alarms and hiding what she’s up to. Though I very much doubt Alton thought anyone would get close to accessing it with that level of encryption.’
Rose thinks again about the timing of the announcement: 12.20 p.m. UK time is 7.20 a.m. on the east coast of America – timed to grab headlines on US primetime breakfast shows.
‘Anything more on a third terrorist?’ Bronze Commander asks.
No one in the briefing speaks, which is good, Rose thinks, because hopefully he doesn’t exist and Rafi and Basi are safe.
*
Beth Alton sits in the Portakabin, waiting in a six metre by three metre hell for her son to be killed. Because of her.
‘They’ll shoot him, Beth, if we can’t talk to him.’
She needs Mike to know about the children in the pottery room, their parents waiting; needs him to see these photos; to catch up with her to the point where you know that your son is already dead; that there are ways of being killed and remaining alive; that you want him to be killed so that he can still be loved.
She is aware of the jeans she put on this morning, the socks and the bra and pants and shirt and jumper, which belong to a different woman, as if she is wearing a dead woman’s clothes.
She woke up this morning loving Jamie more than anyone else on this earth, would gladly have died for him, still would. She has a physical yearning for him, back to when he was little and wanted her as only a mother can be wanted; such a physical thing, parts of you that aren’t loved by a husband or lover; small arms around your leg, your waist, your hair stroked and tugged, your lap climbed into. She wants to kiss his cheek, stroke his forehead, gather him up into her arms.
She looks down at her lap, at the enlarged picture of Jamie’s face, covered in the balaclava, looking at his eyes in the cut-out holes.
Who is this person?
I don’t know, Mum.
He doesn’t even look like you, not when you look really closely.
The mask makes things a bit difficult, Mum.
But I can see the eyes. They’ve blown the photo up really big. The eyes are the right colour and shape, I can see the eyelashes too. You’ve always had such beautiful thick eyelashes. But they’re not your eyes.
No.
He’s talking to her again and his voice in her head isn’t delusional; imagined, yes, but not mad. It’s the Jamie he was six months ago, her son that she loves, the teenager he should be now.
This man is going to shoot children, Jamie.
I could never do that. Never.
I know that. It’s like you were possessed. Like the devil came into your body and took it over.
Mum, that’s really crazy talk.
Yes. Bit crazy. But it’s true. In the old days—
The olden times …
Yes, people believed you could be possessed by the devil. It wasn’t a person’s fault that the devil got inside them.
And you could have an exorcism?
Yes. And the devil was cast out.
And you’d be back to your old self again.
Some countries still do believe that.
But not in the UK in the third millennium.
No. They’re going to shoot you. Because of what I said.
It’s not me they’re shooting, Mum. You know that, right? You keep telling yourself that but you really need to know that. You must tell Theo and Dad too. You’re crying.
Yes.
Heart soft as a baby bird.
I lost you, Jamie, and I didn’t even know.
I was getting lost too.
Didn’t even know to look for you.
Have you found me now?
*
Will they let her hold him when they’ve killed him? She imagines his soul free again.
*
The library is shrinking around Frank. They’ve made a toilet area in one of the library alcoves, with two waste bins for pee, one for vomit, and the smell is putrid. He and Ed with their backs shoring up the books barricade, and Hannah by Mr Marr, have a bin liner because they cannot get to the toilet alcove. The gunman – they long ago stopped calling him by a name, because it’s wrong for him to be allowed a name that was on a class list and a rehearsal schedule and a locker, he doesn’t deserve a name – the gunman hasn’t tried pushing the door again, not yet. His footsteps have remained outside Mrs Kale’s classroom, having a cigarette outside their door now. Desks as barricades. They’ll be okay. Please let them be okay.
Hannah is just a foot or so away, in touching distance. Mr Marr keeps losing consciousness but then his eyelids jerk open again, staying with them.
There has been a spate of emails from people in the theatre, all outraged that white supremacists have come into their school and attacked them, because of Rafi who is their friend, because of his little brother. There’s so much spirit in their anger, Frank heard it in their emails and he envies it. They are still rehearsing Macbeth, taking a stand against people who they call ‘cretinous fuckers’ and liken to witches. No one in here has called them ‘cretinous fuckers’ or likened them to witches; fear has tired them out too much to come up with such energetic words and analogies.