heavy Thorazine. Think of it as a safety measure; these things are HAZMAT for the brain.”
“CJCS,” the NSA said.
“Agreement with NORTHCOM,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said. “Order will be promulgated to all briefed personnel. Query: How high can we go on the weaponry hierarchy?”
“Non-nuclear,” the NSA said. “If we have to go nuclear…we might as well go public.”
“To be avoided,” Germaine said.
Janea started at a jerk from Barb and looked over at her. The housewife had a strange, wide-eyed expression. Janea had seen it before, though, and cringed at what was about to happen.
Barb reached out with a strangely uncoordinated hand and pressed the alert button.
“SC on-site,” the NSA said, then frowned at the picture of Barb and Janea.
Janea spun in her chair to look at the screen with Augustus on it. He had his head in his hands, but she could see the grimace on his face.
“The nations of the world shall be tested,” Barb said in a deep, resonant tone. Her eyes were still focused forward, wide and unseeing, and even her face had changed, becoming more solid, squarer, mannish. If the man was a triathlete. “The faith of this nation shall be its salvation or its doom. The great battle looms. May this be a sign of the end times, the ending of all things. This battle shall be but the beginning as the vanguard of Satan readies its panoply. You have this time to prepare.”
Barb closed her eyes and shook her head, then looked around.
“Sorry,” she whispered to Janea, closing her hand over the microphone. “Long night. I think I sort of drifted off there. Anything important happen?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I just got a call from the Director,” Randell said.
After the meeting had rapidly broken up, Barb, Janea, Randell and a team of Delta Force commandoes had started checking out the slaughterhouses.
There were three in the region, but only one, Conner Farm and Slaughter, that was near the site of the attacks. And its position made something like an equilateral triangle with all the encounters.
Barb and Janea had chosen to ride with one of the Delta platoons, all of them squeezed into an Expedition, while Randell had ridden with the other.
“And what did the Director have to say?” Barb asked as she got out of the Expedition.
“There’s a debate about whether you should be pulled off the mission,” Randell said, grimacing.
“Why?” Barb asked, angrily.
“It’s mostly for good reasons,” Randell said, sourly. “For values of good, as you said one time. Basically, one side of the debate is that you’re clearly too important to lose. I got the feeling that a couple of the flag guys got Jesus after your little communication.”
“Seeing someone actually channeling tends to do that,” Janea said. “That’s just the most public one I’ve ever seen.”
“It wasn’t public, though,” Barb said. “God doesn’t want worshippers that only worship because of miracles. The Lord wants Believers, people who believe without miracles. If the Lord had wanted to be public, He would have channeled through someone on national TV. You said that was one side of the debate. What’s the other?”
“Apparently members of the administration who were not present feel you are ‘compromised’ by your position,” Randell said, shaking his head.
“I am a warrior of God,” Barb said, confused. “What did they think I was before? Open-minded? Sort of agnostic on the subject?”
“This is probably taking a long time to sink in with some people,” Janea said, shrugging. “With this…incident, a lot of people who had, they thought, a pretty firm understanding of the world are suddenly having that worldview challenged, and challenged in a very big way. People, especially powerful people, don’t handle that well.”
“I take it I’m not pulled off the case,” Barb said.
“Your boss pointed out that he had authority over who does what,” Randell said. “Unless he says otherwise, you’re the mission commander. Speaking of which. Major Chap?”
“Sir?” the Delta platoon commander said.
“Normally I do this sort of thing with FBI,” Randell said. “They know the drill. The way this goes is, I serve the warrant, we clear the area of personnel, secure them away from the building and perform a search. Absent finding anything, we apologize and we leave. If we find the Gar, we detain the personnel as suspects, fall back and call for support.”
“Roger, sir,” the Delta said.
“My point being, and I’m not being sarcastic or humorous, that this is not a situation where we kill everyone in the building,” Randell said. “Detain for questioning.”
“We do that most of the time, sir,” the Delta said, nodding. “Rather more than the other way.”
“Very good,” Randell said, squaring his shoulders. “Ladies, if you get a sniff of the Gar…”
“We’re out of there,” Barb said, looking at the facility. “But, frankly, it’s here. Somewhere.”
“Really?” Randell said, puzzled. “Mystic vibes?”
“That,” Barb said, nodding. “Janea and I have both been getting Sendings in dreams and the…feeling is very strong now. But more than that. Smell.”
The suggestion was not so much hard as impossible to ignore. The entire area just stank. Most of it was the smell of cattle manure and urine, a heavy, thick tang of feces and ammonia. Overlaid on it, under it, behind it, was a very thick smell of rot. Not normal garbage, but a smell like gangrene and pus.
“Got it,” Randell said, nodding. “Smells like…Old One. And cattle shit. Time to serve the warrant.”
The front offices of the slaughterhouse were an old, two-story farmhouse from, probably, the twenties. It had been fixed up with nice landscaping and a manicured front lawn. Over the porch was a large sign that said Conner Farm and Slaughter.
Barb had figured that, given there were cars in the parking lot indicating people were around, someone would have been curious enough to come out front and see why a group of heavily armed strangers had pulled up in a couple of Expeditions. But nobody had so much as moved a curtain.
One platoon of Delta moved to the rear of the building while the second took up position on the porch flanking the front door. Which Randell walked up to and opened without knocking. He held the warrant over his head.
“FBI search warrant,” he called, loudly. “If everyone could please stand up and keep your hands in the open!”
The door opened on a large great room with smaller rooms to either side and a staircase to the rear. There were doors at the back of the room leading to the rest of the ground floor. It had been set up as a reception area, with a receptionist’s desk and comfortable chairs. On the wall were posters of happy cows ready for the slaughter and glossily unreal pieces of meat.
It was also empty of humans.
“Well, they were only keeping a skeleton crew,” Randell said as cries of “Clear” could be heard from the rear of the building.
“This doesn’t look good,” Janea said, walking over to the receptionist’s desk. There was a mug of tea on it, and she cupped it with her hand. “Warm.”
“Building clear,” Major Chap said as a pair of Deltas came down the stairs shaking their heads. “No occupants.”
“That leaves the slaughterhouse,” Randell said, waving to the rear of the building.
“I’m getting that shivery feeling,” Janea said, following him out.
The slaughterhouse was a massive structure, five stories high and nearly a football field long. To either side were equally massive covered stock pens. Which were totally empty.
