Blasphemy

A shot rang out and Doerfler was punched back, surprised; he fell, rolled, and began to rise, drawing his own sidearm. He’d obviously been wearing body armor.

A second shot from the revolver blew the top of his head off.

Wolf threw himself to the ground, scrambling on his hands and knees and huddling against the cover of the rough rock. A roar like the end of the world erupted around him: automatic fire, explosions, screaming. He wrapped himself up in fetal position, burying his head in his hands, trying to shrink into the rock itself, while gunfire pounded and blasted all around, the snick and thud of bullets showering him with chips. The din went on for what seemed like an eternity, with terrible death-screaming and the wet, ripping sounds of bullets tearing people apart. He clamped his hands over his ears, trying to block it out.

The furor subsided, and in a moment all was still, except for his ringing ears.

He remained in a ball, stunned senseless.

A hand rested on his shoulder. He jerked away.

“Take it easy. It’s all right now. Get up.”

He kept his eyes tightly shut. A hand grabbed his shirt, pulled him roughly to his feet, popping off half his buttons.

“Look at me.”

Wolf raised his face and opened his eyes. It was dark—the lights had been shot out. Bodies lay everywhere, a scene out of hell, worse than hell, people cut in half, body parts strewn about. There were horribly wounded people, some making strange sounds, gurgling, coughing, a few screaming. Already the mob was dragging bodies to the cliff edge and rolling them off.

He recognized the man holding him: the same Pastor Eddy who had started the firefight by shooting down Doerfler. He was splattered with the blood of others.

“Who are you?” Eddy asked.

“I’m . . . I’m just the computer guy.”

Eddy looked at him, not unkindly. “Are you with us?” he asked quietly. “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”

Wolf opened his mouth, but only a croak came out.

“Pastor,” a voice said, “we don’t have a lot of time.”

“There’s always time to save a soul.” Eddy stared, his eyes dark. “I repeat: Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior? The time has come to choose sides. The Day of Judgment is come.”

Wolf finally managed to nod.

“Down on your knees, brother. We’re going to pray.”

Wolf hardly knew what he was doing. It was like something out of the Middle Ages, a forced conversion. He tried to kneel on shaking legs but wasn’t fast enough and someone pushed him down. He lost his balance and fell to his side, his shirt falling open.

“Let us pray,” said Eddy, falling to his knees beside Wolf and grasping both his hands in his own, bowing his forehead until it was touching Wolf’s hands, wrapped in his own. “Heavenly Father, do you accept this sinner now in his hour of need? And do you, sinner, accept the Word of Truth that you might be born again?”

“Do I . . . what?” Wolf tried to concentrate.

“I repeat: Do you accept Jesus as your personal savior?”

Wolf felt sick. “Yes,” he said hastily. “Yes, I do . . . I do.”

“Praise God! Let us pray.”

Wolf bowed his head and closed his eyes tightly. What the hell am I doing?

Eddy’s voice intruded. “Let us pray out loud,” he said. “Ask Jesus into your heart. If you do it freely and sincerely, you will see the kingdom of heaven. It’s that simple.” He clasped his hands and began to pray loudly.

Wolf mumbled along with him for a moment and then felt his throat close up.

“You have to pray with me,” said Eddy.

“I . . . no,” said Wolf.

“But to receive Jesus, you have to pray. You must ask—”

“No. I won’t.”

“My friend—my dear friend—this is your last chance. The Judgment is upon us. The Rapture is at hand. I speak to you not as your enemy, but as one who loves you.”

“We love you,” said voices from the crowd. “ We love you.”

“I suppose you also loved the soldiers you murdered,” Wolf said. He was horrified at what he was doing. Where did this sudden, insane courage come from?

He felt the barrel of a gun lightly touch his temple. “Your last chance,” came Eddy’s gentle voice. He could feel how steady the barrel was in the man’s hand.

Wolf closed his eyes and said nothing. He felt the faint tremble as the hand tightened, the finger depressing the trigger. A wrenching boom—and then nothing.

66

EVERY SCREEN IN THE SITUATION ROOM was now alive with videoconference attendees, some on split screens. The Joint Chiefs, the heads of DHS, FBI, NSA, the DCI, and DOE. The vice president had joined them in the situation room at three. It was now 3:20 A.M. A lot had happened in the last twenty minutes, when they first got the news of the fire at the Red Mesa airstrip.

Stanton Lockwood felt like he was trapped in some kind of television show. It was hard to believe that this could be happening in America. It was as if he’d woken up and found himself in a different country.

“We’ve heard nothing from the Hostage Rescue Team since they blew up the helicopter,” the FBI Director was saying. His face was white and the handkerchief he kept mopping his face with was crumpled in his hand, unnoticed. “They attacked with overwhelming numbers. This is not some mob—they’re organized. They know what they’re doing.”

“Are they taken hostage?” the president asked.

“I fear most of them may be incapacitated—or dead.”

Someone handed him a piece of paper from off screen. He scanned it. “I’ve just gotten a report . . . .” His hand shook every so slightly. “They’ve managed to take down one of the three main powerlines to Isabella. It triggered a grid failure. We’ve got blackouts across northern Arizona and parts of Colorado and New Mexico.”

“My National Guard troops,” the president said, turning to the Joint Chiefs. “Where the hell are they?”

“They’re being briefed as we speak, Mr. President. We’re still on schedule for that four forty-five A.M. operation.”

“They’re still on the ground?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get them up in the air! Brief them in the air!”

“With the equipment shortages and now the blackout—”

“Fly with what you’ve got.”

“Mr. President, our latest intelligence indicates there are between one and two thousand armed people on Red Mesa. They think this is Armageddon. The Second Coming. As a result, they have no regard for human life, their own or others. We can’t throw underequipped or underbriefed men into that situation. Fires and a large explosion have been reported on the top of Red Mesa. There are still hundreds of people evading our roadblocks and streaming toward the mesa cross-country, many in all-terrain vehicles. The airstrip has been rendered inoperable to fixed-wing aircraft. A Predator drone should be over there taking pictures in . . . less than twenty minutes. We’ve got to implement a strategic, well-organized assault on the mesa—otherwise we’ll be throwing more lives away.”

“I understand that. But we’ve also got a forty-billion-dollar machine, eleven FBI agents, and a dozen scientists whose lives are also on the line—”

“Excuse me, Mr. President?” The Department of Energy Director spoke. “Isabella is still running at full power but is destabilizing. According to our remote monitoring system, the proton–antiproton beams have decollimated and—”

“Speak English.”