and walked away. He had to keep moving, for one thing; a child with no adult guardian within sight drew attention, and remaining too long in one place guaranteed that would become a problem. Likewise, he soon found that hitchhiking was risky and more than once escaped by the skin of his teeth from both predatory truck drivers and those good Samaritans who wondered why a little boy was all alone.
He would realize later that God had, clearly, watched over him during those early years, but at the time he saw nothing especially remarkable in his ability to take care of himself. He had taken care of himself for most of his life. If he had depended on his mother to feed and clothe him he would have gone hungry and worn rags more often than not.
He kept moving. He didn't really have an ultimate destination other than Survival and remained in any one place only until his instinctsor some eventtold him it was time to move on. The money that had seemed a fortune didn't last very long, even though he was careful, but he was able to pick up a day's work here or there by skillfully convincing this shopkeeper or that farmer that his mother was sick, the baby needed diapers, and his father had disappeared on them.
He developed a sure eye and ear for the more gullible or, some would say, more compassionate souls he encountered. And he managed to get what he needed, what was necessary for lifeeven if that life was hardscrabble and lonely.
He wandered. He managed, somehow, to mostly stay out of trouble so that the law was never interested in him. It was a matter of self-preservation; he knew records existed of petty thievery charges incurred while he was still with his mother, and despite the lack of convictions (because they'd always skipped town), he knew those charges would surface if he were to be picked up.
So he was careful. Very careful. Not that he never committed an illegal act, but he took pains to make sure to not get caught.
Samuel shifted uneasily in his chair, disturbed as always by the unpleasant memories. Because there had been times, when decent work was impossible to come by and thievery untenable, that he had resorted to using the only commodity he knew he could sell. His body.
Soul-shriveling, those times.
And maybe that was why he had so often paused during his wanderings at this or that church. Sometimes they offered a meal and a cot, but even if they didn't, they were at least warm and dry inside. He would find a dim corner and settle there, sometimes dozing and sometimes listening if there was an especially passionate preacher delivering an interesting sermon.
Somewhere along the way, he was given a Bible, and though his first inclination was to sell it, he tucked it inside the increasingly worn duffel bag instead. He had taught himself to read, and eventually he began to read the Bible.
There was a lot he thought was good.
There was a lot he didn't understand.
But, somehow, it spoke to him, that book. He read it and reread it. He spent hours and hours thinking about it. And he began to spend more time in churches of all denominations, listening to sermons. Watching how the congregation didor did notrespond. Making mental note of what obviously worked and what failed to move people.
Within a few years, he was preaching himself, in small churches and on street corners and in bus stations.
He found God.
Or, more accurately, God found him. On a scorching hot July day when he was thirteen years old, God reached down and touched him.
And his whole life changed.
He was very good at eluding electronic security. Any kind of security, really, but especially the electronic kind. He called it his own personal stealth technology, and as far as he knew it was unique to him.
Part of what made him special.
Getting past the fence and into the Compound would be easy. They did not, after all, want to look like they were an armed camp bristling with weaponry or technology. They did not want to appear threatening or even especially unwelcoming. The surface had to be peaceful and calm.
Simple folk, that's what they were supposed to be.
What most of them were, probably.
At any rate, they didn't electrify the pretty wrought iron and brick fence, they merely set up an electronic detection zone just inside it, so they knew who was coming into the Compound.
Usually.
He made certain he was far enough away from the gatehouse that no guard with infrared binoculars might be able to pick up what the security cameras would never see, but otherwise he didn't worry about being detected. It was late, and he was reasonably sure that most of them were tucked safe and sound in their beds.
It helped that there were no longer any dogs acting as alert and faithful guards in the night. He wondered if they had thought of that. If they might have regretted that. If they had even guessed it might happen.
Ah, well. Hardly his fault if they were unable to think like soldiers.
It was what happened when amateurs tried to make war.
Things got sloppy.
With a shrug, he slipped over the fence and into the Compound. There was virtually no moonlight tonight, with the full moon ten days in the past and overcast skies to boot. He didn't mind. He adapted easily to the night and preferred darkness. He worked his way across the fields and through the woods and the undergrowth that also provided something of a barrier, at least for a casual intruder: big, prickly holly bushes.
Not fun, but also not unbreachable.
Within minutes, he was through the woods and into the clear fields on the other side, in the central area of the Compound.
Where all the homes lay.
Where the church lay.
He had a set pattern in mind, a definite plan, and followed it methodically, moving from house to house in utter silence. At each small, neat cottage, he probed the exterior of the building, pinpointing every piece of electronic security and then tagging it with a very tiny electronic device of his own. An electronics expert would have been hard-pressed to spot it; he didn't expect any of these amateurs to.
No one would discover his handiwork.
He began at the outer edges of the Compound and circled his way in, moving house to house, toward the church itself, keeping an eye to that direction all the way. But the church was still and silent. No one came or went; only a few lights on the upper floors illuminated two or three of the stained-glass windows.
There was an almost eerie quiet out here, he acknowledged.
In January there weren't even crickets, or bullfrogs calling from the river, and without summer sounds or dogs barking, it was silent.
Strange and uncomfortable, that realization. He who enjoyed silence had finally found a place where it screamed at him.
Shaking off the decidedly unpleasant sensation, he went on, keeping to his schedule. By the time he reached the main building, even the few lights on the upper floors had gone out, and the interior was dark and silent. It would have been a peaceful sight, if not for the security lights casting pools of bright, harsh light around each entrance.
He didn't worry about those.
It took him more than half an hour to slowly work his way around the very large church. He was more careful now, efficient, less inclined to assume he was dealing with amateurs.
Because not all of them were.
He found and tagged more than two dozen cameras and an equal number of motion detectors, and by the
