“We have work to do,” the man in the Packers jersey said to Ruppert. “Look, this is a risk for me, too. As far as I know you’re working for Terror. But Sully believed in you, and I believe in Sully.”
“What is it you want from me?”
The choir began to sing, dozens of beautifully trained female voices:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
When they reached the first “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” a square platform near the top of the Tree of Justice dropped, swinging inward on hinges, and the prisoner standing on it fell until the noose snatched up taut. His legs splayed out, kicking, as he was hanged.
The crowd surged forward, roaring. They’d sat indifferently through the first half of the game, but now they were electrified. Ruppert imagined how they might look from above, a mass of thousands of people contracting inward to view the action at the center. On the giant digital billboards throughout the stadium, the crimes of the condemned rolled past: murder, arson, drugs, sedition, prostitution, immorality, sodomy, terrorism-related activities (details classified for national security), production of propaganda…
“It’s dangerous,” the young man said. “Your career will be over. Your life will be ruined. You’ll be on the run, in hiding, until you die. That’s if we succeed.”
“And if we don’t?”
The young man nodded towards the Tree. More of the platforms dropped away, leaving blindfolded prisoners dangling and choking and kicking and swinging. The pace of hangings accelerated as the song continued.
I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My condemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah…
Ruppert watched.
“Sully thought you had his disease,” the young man said.
“What do you mean?”
“The same a lot of us have. You don’t adjust. You remember all kinds of inconvenient things that don’t fit with today’s version of the truth. You almost want to scream it out at times. In front of a huge crowd, maybe.”
“Sully’s right. I do have that disease.”
“He had a good sense about people.” The young man wiped at his eyes. “He was ready to give up everything. Then it was just going to be me and him, going up to Canada…” He shook his head, looked Ruppert in the eyes. “Sully picked you to take his place. What if you had your chance to speak the truth, an important piece of the truth, out to the world?”
“I don’t control content. The shows are prerecorded, they’re edited-we even have a Terror agent on site.”
“Forget the newscast. We have our own distribution. What we need is your face.”
“I don’t understand.”
The young man took Ruppert’s jaw in one hand. “Your face, man. The trusted face of the news from San Diego up to Fresno, right? Millions of people. They’ll believe it when you tell them.”
“What am I telling them?”
“Not yet. But I promise you, if you care about the truth, if you hate what’s happening out here, it will be worth sacrificing everything to let the people know what we’ve discovered.”
The man let go of him, but his eyes were locked onto Ruppert’s.
“What do you want me to do?” Ruppert asked.
“Go home.”
Ruppert shook his head. “I want to know more.”
“You’ll know more, man, but not today. Do you trust Sully?”
Ruppert thought the question over. As the choir sang the final verse, the last row of prisoners dropped two at a time.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.
“I trust Sully as much as I could trust anyone.”
“Are you in or not? This is your only chance to say no. You can go home and forget you met me. If we go any further, then change your mind-I hate it, but we have to be as ruthless as Terror sometimes. Too much at risk.”
“I understand.”
“Think it over. Your own life against the truth. Sully thought it was worth dying for.”
Ruppert remembered his old journalism teacher, Professor Gorski, one of Terror’s early victims. What had he said? Power fears truth above all things-more than bullets, more than bombs, more than death itself, because truth can destroy powerful men even as they lie in their graves.
A battery of cannons fired at the final note of the hymn, and the crowd screamed and howled and cheered, their bulging, hungering eyes transfixed by the grisly ornaments jerking and twitching on the Tree of Justice. All over the stadium they waved pointing foam fingers, giant New America flags, and small golden flags stamped with the Archangel team logo.
“I’m with you,” Ruppert said. “Somebody has show the world what it’s become.”
FIFTEEN
The room was gleaming white and extremely long, like a corridor stretching away into eternity. Ruppert sat alone in a chair. He had the impression that the room extended a long way behind him, but he did not turn to look.
Far in front of him, though it was difficult to judge distance in any meaningful sense, George Baldwin sat behind his black slab of a desk, which had somehow been transported into this strange, elongated room.
Ruppert felt comfortable and relaxed. He felt good. There were no secrets here, nothing to hide. He could get up and leave anytime he wanted. He was so sure of this that he had no need to prove it.
“You met him at Nixon Stadium?” Baldwin asked. His tone was pleasant and friendly.
“Yes.”
“What was his name?”
“He never said.”
“Describe him.”
Ruppert painted a verbal portrait of the young man in the green Packers jersey, noting the hazel color of his eyes, the slightly snubby nose, the ragged tennis shoes the man had worn. He mind functioned with extreme clarity, offering pristine, photographic memories.
As he spoke, Ruppert noticed dark, smoky curls wavering in and out of the space next to Baldwin, forming a suggestion of a shape, something like another man in an all-black suit like Baldwin’s.
“Who’s there with you, George?” Ruppert asked.
“Nobody’s here, Daniel. It’s just you and me.” At Baldwin’s words, the dark traces hovering beside him vanished. “What did the man in the Packers jersey say to you?”
“He had a secret to share.” Ruppert’s voice dropped to a childish whisper.
“What kind of secret?” Baldwin leaned forward, smiling, eager to play along. They were just boys playing war games.
