There they were, the followers of Hauhau. Osborne sent a message of confirmation to Culhane and advanced to the edge of the bush. He stopped thinking. Around him, even the crickets had fallen silent. He thought he felt a presence behind him. He turned, but didn’t see anything but darkness. Fear. He gripped his gun in his palm. It felt as dry as wood. He glided in the shadow of the moon.
The Maoris had grouped at the foot of the hill, a whole side of which had already been devastated by dynamite. In anticipation of the coming destruction, the workers had dug a gallery that plunged deep into the heart of the ancient pas. Osborne stopped about a hundred yards away, separated from the group by the prefabricated huts and the first foundations of the hotel complex. He made out the sea to his left and the forest to his right, a black island in the darkness. The circle of the Maoris parted suddenly, and six men appeared in the light of the torches. In spite of his stooped shoulders, Osborne recognized the mayor’s silvery hair. Melrose was next, with a nasty cut on his head. Long, O’Brian, Timu, they were all there, their hands tied behind their backs, terrified.
They were thrust into the middle of the circle. The tattooed men were waiting beneath the crackling torches. Nepia intoned a somber chant, soon taken up by his disciples. He was holding a bowl in his hand, which he presented to the initiates. They kneeled, threw their heads back, and waited for the brown powder to be blown into their nostrils. Timu and the others were watching the ceremony, aghast. Seized with convulsions, the Maoris with oiled torsos vomited on the ground. A murmur rose from the small crowd when Nepia also inhaled the hallucinatory powder. The six initiates were helped to straighten up, and bowed to the tohunga. In their collective trance, Nepia had become the prophet reincarnated.
“Come and gather for the great supper of God!”
Nepia’s voice thundered in the night. Phrases drawn from the Apocalypse, which the followers chanted after him. The prisoners huddled together in the middle of the circle which, as the trance took over, was getting larger. It was then that Osborne saw the heads placed around them, human heads stuck on spears at eye level, seemingly mocking the unfortunates. There were the mokomokais of Zinzan Bee and the warriors killed by Fitzgerald, those hideous faces with sewed-up lips he had already seen in the hut on Great Barrier, but there were also newly cut heads: the men who had been working on the site, the bodyguards, the head of Josie, the tutor. And a smaller head: Amelia’s. Osborne gritted his teeth in the shrubs, the two .38s in his hands.
At the foot of the hill, Nepia was calling on the divine, the spirits populating his insane imagination. Shouts punctuated his death chant. Horrified by the Maoris’ rolled-up eyes, the prisoners huddled together on the sand, like samples in an experiment being teased by a scalpel. One of them was imploring their captors, the others were moaning. Only Timu remained standing, his eyes glassy in the torchlight. At last, Nepia brandished his weapon at the starless sky: Tu-Nuia-Ranga, the ancestors’ war hatchet.
“Here is the bloodstained gown! The gown in which the Word of God, coming from my mouth, will strike the nations! With a rod of iron! For we shall not die! At least not alone! Come! Come and gather for the great supper of God! For we shall not die, at least not alone!”
The warriors went wild with joy. They weren’t going to demand a huge ransom in return for their prisoners. They were going to execute them.
Looking away from Amelia’s bloodless face at the end of the spear, Osborne peered around the site. Hana wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He was sure, though, that she was here, somewhere. He saw a pile of planks across the foundations, then the workers’ huts in a row along the shore. One of them was dimly lit. A man in black coveralls with a submachine gun over his shoulder was guarding the door, his eyes fixed on the beach as if some danger might come from the sea.
Osborne screwed the silencer to the barrel of his gun and crept across the cool sand.
An excellent shot, Timu had said. Holding his breath, he held himself in position and lodged a bullet between the sentry’s shoulder blades. The man immediately fell to his knees on the sand. The second bullet pierced his heart.
* * *
Mark was going around in circles, increasingly anxious as night fell. The hut was cramped, it smelled of moved earth and cold sweat, and the boy was tired, you just had to look at his face to see that, but the tranquilizers were still having no effect.
“Where’s my father?” he asked for the hundredth time, his eyes distorted with anger. “I want to see him! And Josie too! I’m fed up! Fed up!”
Hana felt nervously in the pockets of her jacket. Where had she put those damned tablets? Mark might not have all his faculties, but he had known for a while now that something was wrong. The excursion to the sea with Josie had been cut short, he hadn’t seen Josie since, and his new tutor scared him. The poor boy had no way of knowing that he owed her his life and that without her intervention he would have been decapitated, like the others. It was just a brief reprieve, though. Nepia would eliminate him too, when all the enemy heads were planted at the top of the sacred hill for everyone to see.
The nightmare was nearly at an end. Only Mark had nothing to do with any of this. The son of a kupapa or not, the only thing he was interested in was his damned TV shows.
Hana was wondering how she could possibly take him with her when she heard a kind of hissing noise outside, followed by the sound of something falling. For a moment she took her mind off the boy, gestured to him to shut up, and opened the door of the hut.
A body lay on the sand, completely still. Hana bent and saw the two high-caliber bullet holes in the man’s back. The guard.
Then she felt the cold touch of a weapon on her temple.
“Scream and you’re dead.”
Osborne grabbed Hana by the throat and pushed her back inside the hut. She caught her breath. Paul. Paul Osborne. A .38 with a silencer in his hand and eyes like two balls of fire.
“I heard you’d come back,” she said without any bitterness. “I should have been more careful.”
The hut was dimly lit by a single oil lamp, and all he could see was her, her and the black tattoos adorning her beautiful lips. But there wasn’t time.
“Fitzgerald. What happened to him?”
“Nothing,” Hana replied. “He killed himself.”
“Why?”
“No idea.”
Osborne’s throat was dry. “And Amelia?”
“I don’t know who you mean and I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.”
“I’m fed up!” a strange voice piped up at this point.
Shit! There was a boy in here, a boy of about twelve with Down’s syndrome, scowling as if he’d only just arrived. Osborne cursed—this wasn’t part of his plan.
“Who’s he?”
“Timu’s son.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I’m taking care of him.”
Curiously, Osborne’s presence seemed to reassure the boy, who took a few steps toward him, as if seeking refuge.
“These idiots are scaring me!” he said, in an urgent, high-pitched voice. “I’m fed up! I want to see Josie! And my father too! I’m fed up!”
