father had given her on her thirteenth birthday when he’d first taken her to Africa. She grabbed them and hurried back across the painted floorboards towards a skylight in the sloping ceiling. A roost of pigeons exploded into flight as she twisted it open and poked out her head. A blur of red roof tiles and blue sky smeared across her vision as she raised the binoculars then settled on the black monolith half a mile away to the west. The TV flickered into life behind her and started broadcasting the end of a story about global warming to the empty room. Kathryn leaned against the window frame to steady her hand and carefully traced a line up the side of the Citadel towards the summit.
Then she saw him.
Arms outstretched. Head tilted down.
It was an image she’d been familiar with all her life, only carved in stone and standing on top of a different mountain halfway across the world. She had been schooled in what it meant from childhood. Now, after generations of collective, proactive struggle attempting to kick-start the chain of events that would change mankind’s destiny, here it was, unfolding right in front of her, the result of one man acting alone. As she tried to steady her shaking hand she heard the newsreader running through the headlines.
‘In the next half-hour we’ll have more from the world summit on climate change; the latest round-up of the world money markets; and we reveal how the ancient fortress in the city of Ruin has finally been conquered this morning – after these messages . . .’
Kathryn took one last look at the extraordinary vision then dipped back through the skylight to find out what the rest of the world was going to make of it.
Chapter 13
A slick car commercial was playing as Kathryn settled into an ancient sofa and glanced at the time signal on the TV screen. Eight twenty-eight; four twenty-eight in the morning in Rio. She pressed a speed-dial button and listened to the rapid beeps racing through a number with many digits, watching the commercial play out until, somewhere in the dark on the other side of the world, someone picked up.
‘¿ Ola ?’ A woman’s voice answered, quiet but alert. It was not, she noted with relief, the voice of someone who had just been woken up.
‘Mariella, it’s Kathryn. Sorry for calling so late . . . or early. I thought he might be awake.’
She knew that her father kept increasingly strange hours.
‘ Sim, Senhora, ’ Mariella replied. ‘He has been for a while. I lit a fire in the study. There is a chill tonight. I left him reading.’
‘Could I talk to him please?’
‘ Certamente, ’ Mariella said.
The swishing of a skirt and the sounds of soft footsteps filtered down the line and Kathryn pictured her father’s housekeeper walking down the dark, parquet-floored hallway towards the soft glow of firelight spilling from the study at the far end of the modest house. The footsteps stopped and she heard a short muffled conversation in Portuguese before the phone was handed over.
‘Kathryn . . .’ Her father’s warm voice drifted across the continents, calming her instantly. She could tell by his tone that he was smiling.
‘Daddy . . .’ She smiled too, despite the weight of the news she carried.
‘And how is the weather in Ruin this morning?’
‘Sunny.’
‘It’s cold here,’ he said. ‘Got a fire going.’
‘I know, Daddy, Mariella told me. Listen, something’s happening here. Turn on your TV and tune it to CNN.’
She heard him ask Mariella to turn on the small television in the corner of his study and her eyes flicked over to her own. The shiny station graphic spun across the screen then cut back to the newsreader. She nudged the volume back up. Down the line she heard the brief babble of a game show, a soap opera and some adverts – all in Portuguese – then the earnest tones of the global news channel.
Kathryn glanced up as the image behind the newsreader became a green figure standing on top of the
Then she saw him.
Arms outstretched. Head tilted down.
It was an image she’d been familiar with all her life, only carved in stone and standing on top of a different mountain halfway across the world. She had been schooled in what it meant from childhood. Now, after generations of collective, proactive struggle attempting to kick-start the chain of events that would change mankind’s destiny, here it was, unfolding right in front of her, the result of one man acting alone. As she tried to steady her shaking hand she heard the newsreader running through the headlines.
‘In the next half-hour we’ll have more from the world summit on climate change; the latest round-up of the world money markets; and we reveal how the ancient fortress in the city of Ruin has finally been conquered this morning – after these messages . . .’
Kathryn took one last look at the extraordinary vision then dipped back through the skylight to find out what the rest of the world was going to make of it.
Chapter 13
A slick car commercial was playing as Kathryn settled into an ancient sofa and glanced at the time signal on the TV screen. Eight twenty-eight; four twenty-eight in the morning in Rio. She pressed a speed-dial button and listened to the rapid beeps racing through a number with many digits, watching the commercial play out until, somewhere in the dark on the other side of the world, someone picked up.
‘¿ Ola ?’ A woman’s voice answered, quiet but alert. It was not, she noted with relief, the voice of someone who had just been woken up.
‘Mariella, it’s Kathryn. Sorry for calling so late . . . or early. I thought he might be awake.’
She knew that her father kept increasingly strange hours.
‘ Sim, Senhora, ’ Mariella replied. ‘He has been for a while. I lit a fire in the study. There is a chill tonight. I left him reading.’
‘Could I talk to him please?’
‘ Certamente, ’ Mariella said.
The swishing of a skirt and the sounds of soft footsteps filtered down the line and Kathryn pictured her father’s housekeeper walking down the dark, parquet-floored hallway towards the soft glow of firelight spilling from the study at the far end of the modest house. The footsteps stopped and she heard a short muffled conversation in Portuguese before the phone was handed over.
‘Kathryn . . .’ Her father’s warm voice drifted across the continents, calming her instantly. She could tell by his tone that he was smiling.
‘Daddy . . .’ She smiled too, despite the weight of the news she carried.
‘And how is the weather in Ruin this morning?’
‘Sunny.’
‘It’s cold here,’ he said. ‘Got a fire going.’
‘I know, Daddy, Mariella told me. Listen, something’s happening here. Turn on your TV and tune it to CNN.’
She heard him ask Mariella to turn on the small television in the corner of his study and her eyes flicked over to her own. The shiny station graphic spun across the screen then cut back to the newsreader. She nudged the volume back up. Down the line she heard the brief babble of a game show, a soap opera and some adverts – all in Portuguese – then the earnest tones of the global news channel.
Kathryn glanced up as the image behind the newsreader became a green figure standing on top of the
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