Part 10 (1/2)

And that was what I was counting on.

As it fell, it fell towards the centre, and I prayed it would hold, prayed Eldershott would keep up the contact for just a little while longer.

And it did. And he did.

The heavy structure of the gate came cras.h.i.+ng down on Raphael and on the thing that was once Sophie Stockard and was now more, or less, G.o.d.

And when the circle pa.s.sed over them, it swallowed them, and they disappeared.

Then, with a gun I had picked up from a dead soldier, I put a bullet through Eldershott's head.

Chapter Twenty-Six.

I was running through the corridor pursued by confusion.

The ice was melting.

Behind me, swearing and screaming; German words mingling with angelic screeching.

They would die.

I ran until I reached the ladder I had first come through.

I climbed it.

Behind me, faint explosions. I had set the remainder of the grenades well.

I came out into glaring sunlight and the brightness of ice.

And ran.

No-one tried to stop me. No sniper-shot cut through my brain as through pliant water. I ran.

When I stopped and turned, I was far away and breathing hard. Behind me the research facility, that icy, enchanted castle, was beginning, slowly, to collapse.

Mengele would die in this way. A bullet would have been too merciful for him.

I watched the place fall down. Cracks in the ice, blocks falling down. Somewhere, the snow would be stained red.

The ice was settling. The earth shook. After a while, when I looked at it, all I could see was one more natural hill covered in snow.

It could almost have been peaceful.

The target had been reached and eliminated.