any particular notice of Cork and the others.
“Quite a place you have here,” Cork said.
“The Lord has guided us well,” Hornett replied. “We call it the Citadel.”
“And your church is the Church of the Seven Trumpets, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Interesting name. Where does it come from?”
“Read your Revelation, Cork. The Apocalypse is coming, make no mistake. We’re preparing ourselves and our souls here.” He gave Cork and Stephen a sidelong glance and added, “We open our arms to anyone wanting to accept Jesus before it’s too late.”
“You’re talking End Times?” Cork said.
“You say that with a smirk, sir, which I’m sorry to see.”
Cork thought the man was way too sensitive, but in his experience, a lot of deeply religious people were. In his own mind, there was often a profound difference between those who thought of themselves as religious people and those who preferred to think of themselves as spiritual. Given a choice, he’d go with the latter every time.
The community hall was a new structure, large and simple, a great room with high ceilings and thick rafters of dark wood. Half the area inside was taken up with tables. The other half held chairs arranged in rows that faced a simple altar. The wall behind the altar was dominated by an enormous banner that held the image of a man with black hair and a black beard and crystal-blue eyes that, no matter where you stood in the great hall, seemed to follow you.
“One of the prophets?” Cork asked.
“In a way. The Reverend Jerusalem Hornett, founder of the Church of the Seven Trumpets.”
“Any relation?”
“My father,” Hornett said.
Because of the severe blue eyes in both men, Cork wasn’t surprised in the least.
“The hall serves two purposes,” Hornett explained. “We gather here for our communal meals, and this is where we worship together. We think of it like the upper room of the Last Supper, a place where we nourish both our bodies and our souls.”
“I don’t know what you’re having for dinner tonight,” Bascombe said, “but it smells like heaven.”
“Esther’s in charge of that. My wife,” he said for the benefit of Cork and Stephen. “Why don’t we all sit down so that we can talk?”
Gabriel Hornett leaned his rifle against the wall next to the front door, walked to one of the dining tables, pulled out a chair, and sat down. The others joined him, all except his younger brother, who stayed near the door, rifle still in hand, as if on guard duty. Gabriel Hornett folded his arms on the table, leaned toward Cork, and said, “Tell me about your trouble with Smalldog.”
Cork recounted the story of the ordeal on the remote island. Hornett listened without comment but clearly looked disturbed. At the end, Cork said, “Seth and Tom think the dead girl might have been Lily Smalldog and the man who shot at me her brother, Noah.”
“No,” the younger Hornett said from the door. “That couldn’t be Lily.”
Cork had paid no attention to Joshua Hornett when telling his story, but now he saw how stricken the young man looked at the news.
“Why?” Cork asked.
“Lily drowned,” he insisted.
“Or,” the elder Hornett said, “someone made it look that way, Josh. And my guess would be Noah Smalldog.” He frowned and shook his head. “That poor girl, that poor tortured soul. Dear Lord.” Then he eyed Cork and Stephen and Kretsch, each in turn, with a look of profound solemnity. “This barbarism is just further proof. End Times, gentlemen. You understand now why we see so clearly that the Apocalypse is upon us. Everywhere we look, the signs are there.”
“The signs?” Stephen said.
“Eighteen signs, Stephen,” Hornett replied with evangelistic fervor. “Five given by our Lord Jesus Christ himself to indicate his coming and the end of the age.” He lifted his right hand and began counting off on his fingers.
“One, Matthew twenty-four, eleven: ‘And many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.’ Think about it for a moment, Stephen. Jim Jones, David Koresh, Osama bin Laden, the Dalai Lama. All falsely using the name of God to lead masses away from the true path shown to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Two, Matthew twenty-four, six: ‘And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.’ Stephen, when was the last time you turned on your television or radio or connected to your Internet and didn’t see some report of war somewhere in this world? The death toll rises daily, and everywhere nations are preparing weapons of mass destruction.
“Three, Matthew twenty-four, seven: ‘For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.’ When we were in Zimbabwe, Stephen, we saw the good Christian farmers there being driven out and replaced by godless men growing poppies that supply twenty-five percent of the world’s drug trade. Now Africa hungers. There’s famine in Pakistan and India and China, and mark my words, very soon there will even be famine here in America as the climate begins to change because of God’s wrathful hand. As for earthquakes, there have been more recorded in the past one hundred years than in all history before that. Soon the whole earth will shake so badly that people will tremble for fear it’s falling apart.
“Four, Matthew twenty-four, nine: ‘Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.’ Christians are scorned today, Stephen, under attack around the world. The Muslim nations would love nothing better than to wipe Christianity from the face of the earth. It has been bad, but it will get far worse.
“And the last sign, Stephen, Matthew twenty-four, fourteen: ‘And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.’ You saw the tower we’re building out there? That’s a radio tower and will have a powerful signal. When we’re finished, we’ll be able to broadcast the word of God for a thousand miles. We already have an Internet site, and every year here we train men and women to travel to the darkest places imaginable to preach the holy word. Make no mistake, Stephen, the end is almost upon us. And those who haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as their savior will suffer torment you can’t even begin to imagine.”
When he’d finished, Hornett looked hard at Stephen, as if trying to melt the young man’s flesh with the fire in his eyes.
Stephen didn’t reply for a moment. Then he said, “Do you have a bathroom?”
“A bathroom?” Hornett seemed caught by surprise.
“Yes, sir. I have to pee.”
A flicker of irritation crossed the man’s face, and he pointed toward a door at the far end of the great hall. “Over there.”
“Thank you.”
Stephen left the table, and Hornett followed him with a cold, disappointed stare.
“Long boat ride,” Cork said. “You told me Noah Smalldog trespassed last night and did some shooting. What time?”
“Shortly after midnight,” Hornett replied. “Everyone was sleeping.”
“What woke you up to his presence? Did he shoot first?”
“I happened to be up. Some nights I can’t sleep, and so I come here to pray. I was on my way to the hall when I spotted him.”
“Where exactly?”
Hornett looked at Cork with the same irritation Stephen seemed to have engendered. “Does all this really matter?”
“Cork’s got a long background in law enforcement, Gabe,” Kretsch said. “Just where did you spot Smalldog?”
“Sneaking around Josh and Mary’s cabin.”
“Mary?”
“Joshua’s wife.”
