‘They want to know the exact layout of the rooms, you got that information?’

‘Sure. But how long till we got some backup here?’

‘They’re caught in the fucking chaos. They’ve left the truck but they’ll be maybe another five minutes.’

‘I could take a shot.’

‘This is an order, Detective. Do not, I repeat, do not attempt a rescue.’

‘Okay. I’ll hold off.’

Inside the room, the terrified hostages were on their hands and knees. When the device blew, the explosion would savage them all.

Harper watched Carney stand back.

‘Look at you go. Terrified to die, my little goats?’ Carney wiped his mouth. Spit was forming on his lips. He looked tired. The adrenalin must have hit him in fits and starts — rising up and then falling like a wave.

Carney approached Jeb Rosenbaum.

‘You want to know what’s going to happen? You’re going to crawl out into the street.’

Carney laughed.

Jeb dared not look up. Carney took out a small black device that looked like a cell phone. He held it up.

‘You know what? I’m going to see how far you all get to. I shall let you go, just so long as you don’t squeal. But if they touch you, I press this number; it dials, connects to the little receiver next to that dynamite and what it will do, Jeb, what it will do… is explode.’

Jeb started to shake.

‘The idea is that it will rip your head clean off. Your head will go flying into the crowds. It’s up to you. You keep them off you, you’ll live. For a time. I want the TV crews to see you Jews as you should be seen.’

Harper listened and turned to the security guard. ‘If he gets that hostage into the street, that fucks up the whole idea of a rescue. Any other way into that room?’

The security guard pointed to the stairs. ‘You can get into it from the other side.’

Harper nodded. ‘Keep watching through the keyhole. Soon as you see me on the far side, knock three times on the door. He’ll look up and I’ll… well, I’ll do something.’ Harper stood and shot up the stairs.

The security guard waited in terrified silence. He didn’t hear someone coming up the stairs until she was right there. He turned and saw a blond-haired woman. ‘Who are you?’

‘Denise Levene. I’m with Harper. Where’s Dr Goldenberg?’

The security guard shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Harper’s gone round the other side.’

‘What’s his plan?’ asked Denise.

‘I don’t think he has one.’

Inside the foyer of the museum, Aaron Goldenberg stared down at the dead and injured. The cops had taken the worst to the ambulances. He saw one of his security guards lying on his back, a bloody bandage pressed to his shoulder. He approached the man and knelt at his side.

‘What happened, Bill?’ he said.

‘Dr Goldenberg. God, Dr Goldenberg. A bomb, that’s what happened.’

‘I know there was a bomb. The alarm went off in here. Why?’

‘They think he’s in here, the 88 Killer. The cops just went up. I’d like to go up with them. Some lady is looking for you, too. I sent her up to the exhibition room.’

‘The 88 Killer?’ said Dr Goldenberg.

‘Detective took the other guard. They went upstairs. Exhibition Room.’

Aaron Goldenberg let the pain emerge. He could think of just one thing. He reached down to the security guard’s side and opened the plastic holster.

‘What are you doing, sir?’

‘Shh,’ said Aaron. ‘He’s got my daughter.’ He pulled the gun out and held it in his hand. He looked at it. ‘How do I work it?’

‘You can’t do it, Dr Goldenberg. You got to leave it to the police.’

‘I have — for seventeen days. Now I’ve got to do something. He’s here. Where’s the safety?’

The guard nodded to the side of the gun. Aaron pushed down the small button. ‘This ready now?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the guard.

Aaron touched his cheek. ‘I took it without your knowledge. And thank you, Bill.’

Aaron Goldenberg stood, held the handgun by his side and walked across to the stairs.

Two floors up, Carney circled his hostages and continued to speak in a slow drawl. ‘The problem with you guys is that you think you have a right to own the fucking world. Everyone’s got to feel sorry for you. Who feels sorry for guys like me? Guys who want the world back, guys getting destroyed by your conspiracies.’

‘I don’t understand what that has to do with me.’

Carney looked up. ‘It’s because…’

Carney stopped a moment, the little black phone in his hand. His mind seemed to miss a beat, as if the usual connection wasn’t available and he didn’t know what else to say.

The hostage went on: ‘You know no one’s to blame here. We’re all just trying to make a living like you.’

The words dragged Carney back to life.

‘Like me? You don’t fucking know what being like me is. You people… you’ve bled us fucking dry. This is America.’

‘I’m American.’

‘That right? You can be American when it suits but you only care about your own kind.’

Aaron Goldenberg walked up the stairs through broken glass. His heart had been walking through broken glass for days.

The 88 Killer. The man who had his daughter, Abby — who had her imprisoned somewhere — was in his building. He reached the first floor and then started up to the second. He wanted his daughter. He wanted revenge. The purpose focused him.

‘Abby,’ he said to himself. ‘Abby, Abby, Abby.’ In his heart, he felt she was dead. That was all he’d learned to expect, that there was only worse to come — a broken, beaten corpse, his daughter’s magnificent life reduced to nothing. Tears were streaming down his face, a burning agony in his chest. He had never known feelings like these. Suicides and murders hadn’t ever come within his world, but now his purpose was clear. He could not live without his daughter. He would not live without her. Not another day.

He would not walk alone on earth without love. And the killer would not walk on the earth another day either. Let this be the end.

He knew what he had to do.

Inside the exhibition room, Carney stood up. ‘They’re here. Time to take you all for a walk.’

He took the cell phone and brought up the number of the receiver hanging around Jeb’s neck.

‘Time to go, goat-boy. Crawl forward.’

Carney moved to the door and pulled it wide open.

The security guard and Denise Levene stared in horror at the hostages on their hands and knees.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Carney demanded.

‘Security.’

Carney laughed. ‘Fuck you.’ He pulled out his gun and shot the security guard without a thought. The gunshot reverberated throughout the building. Denise felt a wave of shock and nausea. She stepped backwards.

Carney stood at the entrance to the exhibition room. ‘Ah, Dr Levene — you made it.’

‘I understand you, Jack,’ she said, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. ‘You need help. We can get you help. This isn’t the end of the line. There’s a way out here.’

‘What do you mean? This is it. The media is all run by Jews. No one tells the truth, that’s why I’ve got to splash the truth all over the front page.’

‘Is that why you’re doing this, for attention?’

‘American soldiers die every day, we report that, but every day, Americans here in America are being destroyed by the Jews running the country.’

‘How?’

Carney walked across to the stairwell and leaned over. There was a solitary man walking up the stairs, but Carney could see all the way down into the foyer.

‘I represent true American interests,’ he shouted. Down in the foyer, horrified people stared up at the killer, paralyzed with fear. ‘I am fighting to free America from the insidious influence of the Jew and his kind. These here are the Jewish scapegoats. These poor Jews are going to die for the sins of their brothers and sisters. They are going to be sacrificed.’

He turned to Denise. ‘In my hand here, you can see the detonator. One move and I blow them, and the rest of us, sky-high. If my thumb presses dial, this little goat will erupt, splattering his offal all over you. So back right off, Dr Levene, and watch the show.’