Second Horseman Out of Eden

defense contract work. When I found myself tied up here with that thing behind me for company, I put the rest together. What I didn't know, Velazian, Rokan, and the big guy who was originally driving the car that was tailing me were happy to provide. They're all higher than a kite on this religious ecstasy kick of theirs, and they like to talk about what's going to happen. They were really quite chatty.'

I licked my lips, which were now dry and cracked, as I felt a chill go through me. 'When was Tanker Thompson around here?'

'Oh, not too long before you got here. When I saw he was missing his ears, I assumed you had something to do with it. What did you do to him, and while you were at it why didn't you kill the son-of-a-bitch?'

'Oh, Jesus, Garth,'I said in a haunted voice that sounded like a stranger's. 'I thought I had.'

'Yeah?' Garth said dryly. 'Well, not quite. I must say, though, that he didn't look too chipper, and he sounded like he had a bad cold.' He paused, studied me. 'So do you, as a matter of fact.'

'The man's a great advertisement for resurrection, and that's for sure,' I said, still unable to comprehend how Tanker Thompson could be not only alive, but walking around. In a way, I was as afraid of Thompson as I was of the bomb at my back; the pain, death, and inexorable force he represented was more personal. 'I ambushed him-or thought I ambushed him-Sunday morning; I was going to force him to tell me where you were being held. We both took a dunking in the Hudson. The last time I saw him, he looked at most a minute or two away from freezing to death.'

'How'd you take his ears off?'

'Krazy Glue; he took them off himself.'

Garth shook his head. 'He's insane.'

'Sure; they all are. Incidentally, Thompson killed Kenecky, and as an afterthought he killed Patton. I don't think there's anybody left in charge of this operation.'

Garth grunted. 'Blaisdel and Kenecky found each other under some rock years ago. Both heard voices, and both agreed that God was urging them to join forces to bring on Armageddon. This New Year's Eve was the date that was chosen.'

'Thompson told you all this?'

'The three of them took turns. I told you, they were all really chatty. They can't wait to die-or for just about everybody else to die-because they think they're going to wake up in a world containing nothing but white, born- again Christians, with Jesus as a kind of kindly Big Brother who'll make sure the trains run on time. There are more Jews in New York than there are in Israel, so that's how we get to be tied to this particular bomb. The bomb in or near Israel is to nail those Jews they don't nail here.'

'And the one in Detroit is for the blacks they don't nail here?'

Garth nodded. 'Thompson wasn't sure exactly how many bombs there are around the world. Blaisdel and Kenecky were working on this little project for a lot of years.'

'Where the hell did Thompson, Velazian, and Rokan go to? They hung around here long enough to form a reception committee for me.'

'You were the last bit of business to be taken care of, if you'll pardon the expression. I can't say I'm an expert on their theology, but it seems that not everyone who deserves to be Raptured can be, so God told Blaisdel to build a biosphere to house those deserving few-Blaisdel's and Kenecky's people, naturally-until Armageddon blows over. They believe that radiation and demons can't get in because it's been blessed by God. That's where they are now, I suppose.'

'Eden? I saw the model downstairs. So something like that actually does exist, life-size?'

'Yeah. According to my informants, it's somewhere in the desert west of Boise, Idaho. That's where Vicky Brown is; her father's part of the caretaking staff.'

'And the signal that will set off the bombs. .?'

'Blaisdel Industries has its own satellite-two of them, as a matter of fact. The radio signal that will trigger all the bombs will be relayed from one of those satellites, and the transmitter that will send the signal is somewhere inside Eden, which is better than ten acres.'

'Somewhere?'

'Somewhere. None of those ex-jocks knew where it was, and they didn't seem to care. It's set to automatically transmit at the appropriate time.'

'Maybe it won't work.'

'Right; maybe it won't work.'

Again, I started flopping around on the steel frame, desperately trying to free myself, but I managed only to irritate the chafed, cut flesh on my wrists and ankles even more. I glanced around, looking for something-anything- that at least might give me some idea for how we might get loose. There was nothing- and if there had been, I wouldn't have been able to reach it. Except for the raised platform which we shared with a hydrogen bomb, the large room was empty. A single door, which I assumed opened on to the central corridor on the third floor, was directly across from me. To our left, perhaps fifteen yards away, heavy gray floor-to-ceiling drapes across the windows blocked out any light except for the faint, ghostly illumination radiated by small, recessed lights in the ceiling. It was impossible to tell whether it was day or night.

'What day is it?' I asked, gasping for breath.

'I'm not sure. I was kept in another room until they nabbed you, and there were no windows. I've lost track of time.'

'It was a little before noon on Monday when I started up here. How long was I out?'

Garth thought about it, shrugged slightly. 'Not too long-I think; you were already strapped up here when they brought me in. It's probably Monday night, maybe Tuesday morning.'

'Then, at the outside, we've got three days to find the transmitter and deactivate it.'

Garth didn't say anything. He didn't have to. If we couldn't find a way to get free, we weren't going to have to worry about deactivating the transmitter. We didn't even have to worry about being vaporized by the exploding bomb, because it was going to take a lot less than seventy-two hours for us to die of suffocation or heart attacks induced by our hanging, crucifixion-style positions; before too many more hours had passed, the blood would begin to pool in our legs and refuse to be pumped back up to our lungs, hearts, brains. There would be a lot of initial discomfort, then unconsciousness, and finally death. Already, It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe.

'Garth?' I continued hoarsely. 'What are we going to do?'

My brother was silent for some time, and I didn't think fie was going to answer. When he did finally speak, I was almost sorry he had.

'I don't think there's anything we can do, Mongo,' Garth said in a matter-of-fact tone. His voice was growing weaker. 'I can't break or slip out of these straps, and we've seen that you can't; we'll only break our bones trying. For a time, I thought I'd broken my left wrist; now I think it's only sprained. As long as you were still free …'

'I'm sorry, Garth.'

'Don't be ridiculous. What could you have done differently?'

'Not got caught.'

'They were waiting for you. And if you hadn't come up here, they'd have probably hunted you down and killed you anyway. Alone, there was just nothing you could do.'

'You're saying we're just going to hang around here, alive or dead, until this bomb goes off and kills a few million people?'

Garth looked away. 'We gave it our best shot, Mongo,' he said in a voice so low I could hardly hear him.

'I've never known you to give up hope, Garth.'

When Garth turned his head back toward me, I could see that there were tears in his eyes-but the tears were not for himself. 'You asked me what I thought, Mongo, and I told you. You think I've given up hope? I haven't. But hope and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee in Times Square. There are times when hope is irrelevant, and this is one of them.'

I went into a fit of coughing that was punctuated by a sneeze. It occurred to me, not without some amusement, that I could be coming down with something serious. 'That fucking McCloskey,' I wheezed. 'He cut us loose on this thing, and he's been dragging his feet from day one because he's worried about his pension, which goes into effect at precisely the time this thing is supposed to go off. He's certainly going to start off his retirement with a bang, isn't he?'

'That's terrible, Mongo,' Garth said, and grinned. 'Really terrible.'