The Cold Smell Of Sacred Stone

effect. Suddenly it was still in the hall, except for the moans of the injured. I kept crawling, found another slab, cut out the primer.

'Everyone remain calm and do as I say! Right now, wherever you' re standing, look around you. If you're close to an exit, walk out of it. Those of you in the middle of the hall, lie down right now and curl into a ball. If you're near a chair that's in one piece, try to get at least your head under it. Cover the injured. Do it now!'

Out of the corner of my eye I watched as the two Mossad agents hurried across the stage to Garth, flanking him and wrapping their arms around his body, forming a protective shield of their flesh between Garth and any more bullets that might be fired.

But there were no more shots. The woman was gone-which meant that the remaining charges might go off at any moment, raining broken glass and steel down on the helpless people below.

I had lost all feeling in my wounded leg, and I knew that I could lose it to gangrene even if I survived. But there was no time to loosen the tourniquet; I kept crawling.

After disarming two more charges, I reached the apogee of the curved girder. From there it was literally all downhill. I pulled myself down the girder at a pretty good clip, carving away the primers on the last three remaining charges. I reached the end of the girder, fell off the top of the support footing and landed hard on my side. I immediately reached down to the belt on my leg, loosened it. More blood rushed out over my already soaked pants leg.

'You meddling little son-of-a-bitch,' a woman's voice rasped.

I looked up as Sister Kate stepped out of the shadows in one of the corridors that radiated off the balcony. The rifle she was holding was aimed at my chest. Her finger on the trigger was just beginning to tighten when a brawny arm reached out of the same shadows. A hand cupped her chin, jerked her head to one side, snapping her neck. Her shot whistled over my head, the rifle fell from her hands, and she slumped to the cold stone of the balcony as a familiar figure stepped over the body, reached down, helped me to my feet.

All along, I'd been looking for help from Mr. Lippitt's man inside the organization. Only now did I realize what I should have realized before; Lippitt's man was undoubtedly dead-discovered and executed earlier. But the guardian angel who'd shown up was more than an adequate substitute.

'Mr. Lippitt sends his regards, Mongo,' Veil said evenly.

'Jesus Christ,' I managed to say when I recovered from my initial shock at finding myself still alive. 'Where the hell did you come from?'

'Oh, I've been around all along doing the best I could to keep an eye on you. Lippitt asked me to ride shotgun, remember? But I had to stay way in the background, or they'd have made me. I lost you when you came in here, and I couldn't get in until they started letting everybody in.' He paused, removed his false beard, nodded at Sister Kate's corpse. 'Sorry I couldn't manage to put that bitch out of commission sooner. I got caught in traffic down on the floor.'

'Believe me, you're forgiven,' I said, shaking my head, leaning on the balcony railing for support. In the distance I could hear the wail of many sirens, approaching from all directions. I waved to Garth to signal that I was all right, then picked up the fallen rifle, leaned on it.

'You'd better lie down right there, Mongo,' Veil said. 'From the looks of that leg, you've lost a lot of blood. Ambulances will be here soon.'

'There are people down there in a lot worse shape than I am,' I said as I shook off Veil's hand and began hobbling across the balcony. 'I want to help-and I want to be with Garth.'

I'd gone a few steps when I felt Veil's hand clutch the back of my shirt, helping to hold me up as I struggled toward the stairs.

22.

USING Sister Kate's rifle as a crutch, and with Veil holding me up from behind, I made it down the stairs, hobbled into the meeting hall from a stairwell just below and to the right of the stage. I stopped, lowered my head, and groaned inwardly at the legacy of pandemonium, the sight of dead and broken bodies.

'You've done your job, Mongo,' Veil said quietly but firmly. 'Now you've got to get off that leg, or you're going to lose it.'

'I have to help,' I said in a hollow voice, looking around me in horror.

'There's nothing more you can do, except wait with the rest of the injured for the ambulances.'

The people still standing on their feet seemed to be slowly milling about in separate knots of varying sizes, and all seemed to be suffering from various degrees of shock-including Harry August, whom I glimpsed wandering through the chaos as if in a daze. I sensed clearly that the initial calming influence of Garth's appearance and words was wearing off, and there was a sick, moist smell and feel of renewed mass hysteria in the air. A man in the back began to scream mindlessly, and after a few moments a woman off to my left joined him in an eerie, chilling duet of terror and horror.

Unable to go on any farther, I simply released my grip on the rifle barrel and slumped to the floor. Veil removed the belt tourniquet from my thigh, then used Whisper to cut away my pants leg, which he rolled up into a ball and applied to my wound as a pressure bandage. A lost, whimpering, terrified small child crawled close by; I picked her up in my arms, held her to my chest.

'You must stay calm,' Garth said into the microphone from his place at the front of the stage, above me. 'The police and ambulances will be here to help everybody very soon. For now, stay still-or try to help anybody nearby who's injured. The greatest danger has passed, and now we have to try and make certain that no more people are hurt.'

From somewhere in the middle of the hall, a woman shouted: 'What's happened, Garth?!'

'This isn't the time for explanations, ma'am. Just try to remain calm until help arrives.'

A man shouted: 'What have you done to us, Master?! How could you have let this happen?!'

Garth didn't answer. Feeling a growing sense of unease, I glanced up at the stage. The Mossad agents had jumped off the stage into the audience to help the injured, and now Garth stood alone in the spotlight. I wished the Israelis had stayed where they were.

'Master?! Tell us what's happened! What have you done?!'

'My name is Garth,' my brother said in a low, even tone which nonetheless echoed throughout the hall as it was amplified through the loudspeakers, 'and it always has been. I'm not anybody's master, and I never was. I've been very sick as a result of being poisoned. Certain people took advantage of me-and you-for their own purposes. They used me to manipulate you.'

That was not exactly what his audience had come to hear from Garth, and angry shouts erupted all over the hall.

'You were supposed to announce that you were the son of God! The Messiah!'

'That's not true; I've told you from the beginning that it was nonsense to think I was some sort of messiah, and I never planned any announcement. I've been held a prisoner for the past week by the same people who've been manipulating you and me. All of us were brought here so that we could be killed. Now, thanks to my brother, that isn't going to happen. Try to understand that I'm very proud to be my parents' son, not God's. I am what I am; just Garth Frederickson.'

More shouts of anger and confusion arose from around the hall.

'Blasphemer! You've brought the wrath of God down on us! We've been tricked and this is God's punishment!'

It was clearly beginning to look like an argument my brother couldn't possibly win, and I motioned rather urgently for him to get down off the stage. He ignored me.

'Stay calm! You deserve to be told the truth, and that's what I'm telling you. During the months we've worked together, you've shown to yourselves and to the world how good you are-how good people can be. It's you people who've done the work that needs to be done, not God. God doesn't feed hungry people; other people do. You don't need gods, or the sons or daughters of gods, to show you what's right. Your reward has been the good feeling you've had in your hearts about yourselves, and about other people. Continue to do what you've been doing, and you'll continue to feel good about yourselves. Do it with or without God, as you please, but you have to do it now without me. You don't need either of us.'