A star. The Star of David. The crowd flinched with surprise, roiled by the change, confused and scared and caught off-balance—but the sign wasn’t done yet. It held that shape, then changed again. It didn’t stop. It kept going, shape-shifting into a rotating sequence of symbols associated with other religions—Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Bahaism—and kept going, reaching back into history, assuming representations of all kinds of religious movements stretching back through the spider cults of Peru to the sun gods of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and all the way back to the very dawn of civilization.
The changes sped up, the symbol spinning from one shape to the other, faster and faster, a haphazard and dizzying light show. It sped up until the symbols became almost indistinguishable, the intensity almost blinding— and then, all of a sudden, it just vanished. Just died out. In the blink of an eye, and without any sound or warning, it was just gone.
The crowd went silent, as if they were all robots and someone had hit a mute button. The stunned onlookers just stared around at each other, mystified, not knowing what to think—then the sign burst out in its former glory, assuming its familiar pattern, the shape that was first seen over the ice shelf, and just held it and shimmered above the priest’s head.
“INTERESTING LIGHT SHOW YOU’RE PUTTING ON,” the voice rasped from behind them.
Danny and Rydell turned and froze at the sight of Maddox approaching them from behind. He had a long, black case slung over his shoulder and held a gun in his left hand, his uninjured hand. A curious mix of anger and confusion lined his weary face.
He stepped closer until he was about ten feet away from them and stopped. He guided his gaze above their heads, at the massive sign lighting up the sky a couple of hundred yards farther away, by the monumental arch.
It hadn’t been that hard for him to find them. Not for someone who knew what to look for. A vantage point, within a certain range, somewhere where they could work and watch and not be seen. There hadn’t been that many options. The third spot on his sweep turned out to be the right one.
“I’m feeling all warm and cuddly inside,” he chortled, gesturing for them to raise their hands. “Love and peace and goodwill to all men. Is that what you’re selling them?”
“It’s working,” Rydell told him, glancing across at Danny as he set down his cell phone without killing the line. He raised his hands slightly. “They’re listening.”
“And you think that’s going to make a difference?” His voice rose with his anger. “You think our enemies are going to buy into that horse shit too? Wake the fuck up, Larry. They may be listening, but it’s not going to change anything.”
“It could. Look, I don’t know what you and Keenan have in mind, but I don’t want them to stop believing in God,” Rydell said, raising his voice and volleying the anger back at Maddox. “I’d just like them to use their own minds a bit more. Just listen to Father Jerome. Listen to what he’s saying.”
“It’s an admirable thought,” Maddox said mockingly. “We are the world, we are the children, right? It’s great. Everything he’s saying out there, it’s just great—but you know what it’s going to do?” He set his pack down on the ground, reached into it, and pulled out a sniper rifle. “It’s going to get him killed.”
GRACIE STIFFENED the second the words echoed through the headset of her cell phone.
Maddox was alive—and there. And by the sounds of it, he’d taken them by surprise.
An icy panic stabbed the back of her neck. She turned to Dalton in alarm and said, “I need to call Matt. We’ve got trouble.”
Chapter 84
The crowd was thoroughly rattled and exploded with awe at the appearance of the familiar sign before Father Jerome raised his hands to calm them and his voice burst out, cutting through the confusion.
“Many of us have preached the same message, the only message that counts,” he bellowed as they quieted to listen to his words. “A message of humility. And charity. And kindness and compassion. That’s all that matters. And yet it hasn’t worked. All these religions we’ve built have been around for hundreds, for thousands of years. And yet the world is angrier and more divided than ever. And we need to do something about that.”
“MATT.” Gracie’s voice burst through his earpiece. “It’s Maddox. He’s got Danny and Rydell.”
Matt’s feet froze for a beat—he missed one step, maybe two—then he was suddenly weaving through the crowd, hurtling toward the Miller Outdoor Theatre, a tangle of horrific images tumbling through his mind.
MADDOX SWUNG THE RIFLE at Rydell and Danny. “As soon as he’s done talking, he’s going to get his head blown off. We’ll make it look like some towelhead nutjob took him out, we’ve got a bunch of them on watch. ’Cause that’s how all good prophets end up, isn’t it? They have to die for their cause.”
Rydell started to say something, but Maddox cut him off sharply.
He mocked him loudly. “Come on. You can’t do these things half-assed. You’ve got to go all the way. You’ve got to close the deal. If you really want people to believe his words, if you really want his words to be seared into the minds of all those millions of people out there, he needs to die. He has to. To become a martyr. ’Cause martyrs . . . they’re so much harder to ignore, aren’t they?”
Danny studied him for a beat, then said, “And after he’s dead . . .”
Maddox nodded casually. “Yep. With you both out of the picture, it’ll clean things up, nice and tidy. They won’t find you. They will find the Iranian whacko who shot Jerome, though. A card-carrying fanatic with a great CV, someone we’ve been watching for quite a while. He’ll have his head blown off, of course. Self-inflicted. One for the team.”
“You weren’t planning to expose Father Jerome?” Rydell asked.
Maddox shook his head. “Nope.”
“But Keenan . . .” Rydell got it. “He didn’t know.”
Maddox flashed him an icy smile. “Of course not.”
“So the Iranians, the Muslim world,” Danny said. “They’ll get the blame?”
“Of course,” Maddox smiled. “Beautiful, isn’t it? The prophet who wanted to set us free, shot by an agent of intolerance.”
“You’ll start a war,” Danny blurted. “The people who’ve bought into Father Jerome—they’re going to be mad as hell.”
“I’m counting on it,” Maddox replied coolly.
Rydell took a step forward. “Think about what you’re doing here, Brad—”
“I’ve thought about it, Larry,” Maddox hissed, anger flaring across his face. “I’ve done nothing but think about it while I’ve watched us pussyfoot around and let these savages slaughter us. ‘Rules of engagement, ’ ” he spat out indignantly. “Geneva Conventions. Senate hearings the minute you try and bitch-slap the truth out of some kamikaze who doesn’t think his life’s worth anything anyway. We’re just too weak. We don’t have the balls to get things done. We’re playing by the rules against an enemy who knows wars don’t have rules. They’re laughing at us out there; we’re getting our asses handed to us and you know why? Because they get it. They know how to get things done. They know that if someone slaps you, you don’t turn the other cheek. You rip their fucking arm off. And the only way we’re going to win this thing is to get people really angry, so angry that they’ll be baying for
