Blasphemy

lights, most of which were red or yellow. At the far end was a single steel door.

Hazelius joined them. “Dolby won’t come.”

“We’ve got three problems,” Wardlaw said. “One: Isabella’s going to blow. Two: we’ve got an armed mob out there. And three: we can’t call for help.”

“What do we do?” Thibodeaux wailed.

“That steel door in the back leads into the old coal tunnels. We’ve got to get out of here. We need to put a big piece of that mountain between us and Isabella before she blows.”

“How do we get out of the coal tunnels?” Ford asked.

“At the far end,” Wardlaw said, “there’s an old vertical shaft that was turned into a gobshaft to pull methane out of the far end of the mine. There’s still an old hoist in there. It’s probably not usable. We’ll have to rig something.”

“Is that the best we can do?”

“It’s either that or go out the front door—into that mob.”

A silence.

The explosion that shook the computer room knocked Ford and the rest to their knees like they were pebbles in a tin can. The sound reverberated back and forth, the detonation rolling like thunder through the mountain. The lights in the room flickered and electrical arcs seared across the consoles. Ford struggled to his feet and helped Kate up.

“Was that Isabella?” Hazelius cried.

“If that was Isabella, we’d be dead,” said Wardlaw. “The mob just blew the titanium door.”

“Impossible!”

“Not if they used those military demolition charges.”

The Bridge door suddenly reverberated with the pummeling of fists. Ford listened. He could see Dolby in the Bridge laboring like a ghost in the smoke, hunched over his workstation.

“Hazelius!” came a muffled, high-pitched voice through the door. “You hear me, Antichrist? We’re coming to get you!”

PASTOR RUSSELL EDDY SCREAMED AT THE steel door. “Hazelius, you have blasphemed against God, against His name and them that dwell in heaven!”

The door was thick steel, and they had no more explosives. Firing into the lock with his revolver in this closed space would be ineffective and even insane.

The mob surged up against the door, pounding and screaming,

“Christians!” Eddy’s voice boomed out in the vast, cavernous space. “Listen to me, Christians!” The crowd fell into a restless silence, filled by the infernal wailing of the machine in the tunnel beyond. “Stand back from the door! We need to organize our attack!” He pointed. “On the other side of this cavern, there’s a stack of steel I-beams. I want the strongest men—and men only!—to hoist up one of those beams and batter this door down with it. The rest of you have an equally important task. Divide yourselves into two groups. I want the first group to go into the long circular tunnel, back there.” He pointed to the oval opening, awash in condensation. “Cut and sledgehammer the pipes, cables, and conduits feeding the supercomputer, the Beast!” He held up a piece of paper he had printed off the Internet. “Here’s a map of the Beast.” He pointed to a man who seemed calmer than the rest, who carried his weapon with ease, and who had an air of leadership. “This is yours. You lead them.”

“Yes, Pastor.”

“Once we break down this door, I want the second group to follow me into the control room, seize the Antichrist, and destroy the equipment in there!”

A roar of approval. Already twenty men were manhandling an I-beam off the stack. The crowd parted as they came lumbering back, the I-beam aimed at the door.

“Go!” cried Eddy, standing aside. “Batter it down!”

“Batter it! Destroy it!”

The crowd parted and, at a slow jog, the men closed in on the door. The beam struck it with a massive thud, warping it inward. The beam was thrown back by the impact and the men staggered to hold it up.

“Again!” Eddy cried.

70

A MUFFLED CLANG SHOOK THE ROOM and the metal door reverberated from a massive blow. Ford struggled into the smoke, found Dolby, and grabbed his shoulder. “Ken, please,” he said, “for God’s sake come with us.”

“No. I’m sorry, Wyman,” Dolby said. “I’m staying here. I can . . . I can save Isabella.”

Ford could hear the shouts and screams of the mob outside the door. They were ramming it with something heavy. Buckling, it popped one of its hinge pins.

“You won’t make it. There’s no time.”

Through the door came the mob’s roar: “Hazeliuuus! Antichriiist!”

Dolby resumed his frantic work.

Kate came up behind Ford. “We’ve got to go.”

Ford turned and followed Kate into the back computer room. The others were crowding around the emergency exit while Wardlaw struggled to activate the security panel. He typed and retyped the code, his hand on the hand-reader next to the exit. The reader was dead.

Boom! The door to the Bridge smacked down and tumbled across the floor. The roar of the mob swelled as they poured into the smoky Bridge.

A fusillade of shots followed, and Dolby screamed as he was cut down at his workstation.

“Where’s the Antichrist?” a man screamed. Ford rushed to the computer room door, shut it and locked it.

Wardlaw pulled out a regular key and yanked open a panel next to the door, exposing a second keyboard. He punched in a code. Nothing.

“They’re in the back room!”

“Batter down that door!”

On Wardlaw’s second try, the exit door opened with a smooth click. They piled through it into the damp, moldy darkness of the coal mine. Ford was the last out, pushing Kate ahead of him. A long, broad tunnel stretched out ahead, cribbed with rusting steel beams that held up a sagging, cracked ceiling. It smelled clammy and putrescent, like the petrified swamp it once was. Water dripped from the ceiling.

Wardlaw slammed the rear door and tried to lock it. But the locks were electronic and, with no power, dead.

A crashing boom thundered in the computer room, and the noise of the mob mounted. The battering ram had breached the computer door.

Wardlaw struggled to engage the locks, first using his magnetic card and then stabbing a code into the keypad.

“Ford, over here!”

Wardlaw pulled a second sidearm out of his waistband and handed it to Ford. It was a SIG-Sauer P229. “I’m going to try to hold them here. The mines back there are room-and-pillar construction. Everything connects. Keep going and bear to the left, bypassing the dead ends, until you hit the big room where the coal seam played out. It’s about three miles in. The gobshaft is in the far left corner. You can escape through it. Don’t wait for me—just get everyone the hell out. And take this, too.”

He shoved a Maglite into his hand.

“You can’t fight them off alone,” said Ford. “It’s suicide.”

“I can buy you time. It’s our only chance.”

“Tony—,” began Hazelius.

“Save yourself!”

“Kill the Antichrist!” came the muffled wail from behind the door. “ Kill him!”

“Run!” Wardlaw roared.

They ran down the dark tunnel, Ford taking up the rear, splashing through puddles of water on the mine floor, the Maglite illuminating the way. He could hear pounding on the door, the screams of the mob, and the word “Antichriiiist” echoing down the tunnels. After a moment, several shots sounded. There