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CHAPTER ELEVEN

In spite of the fact that he wasn't sure about taking the kid's paranoia seriously, Frank found himself calling in a few tags, some out of state, on vehicles he didn't immediately recognize. He told himself that he did have to admit he'd seen more strange faces lately. But there were always a certain number of strangers around, especially around race-time down at Hallet. He'd never made any connection with the Chosen Ones—if that was really who they were. What surveillance the PCSO had done indicated this group pretty much stayed on their own land, with only a few of them going out for supplies.

While he'd been trying to dig up information, he'd even questioned the trash collection agency that went out there and turned up nothing. One or two men went in with a single truck at night when the place was dark, passed a guard on the way in and out, and that was it. The guys on the truck never saw anything but a parking lot, the guard and the dumpsters. He'd come to the conclusion a while back that if anything suspicious was going on, it was either kept out of sight of watchers from the edge of the area and from above, or it was happening down below, in the bunkers.

Every tag he called was clean, but that didn't do much to calm his jitters. Shoot, now he was getting paranoid! Too much coffee, Frank diagnosed. Too much coffee and not enough sleep. It's enough to make any man jumpy. 

He pulled in the parking lot of Granny's Kitchen, a quaint little restaurant he remembered fondly, though he hadn't been there in some time. I've been with the department now for what, ten years? Where has all the time gone? 

Nothing that he'd ever been through or been trained for had prepared him for what waited for him inside. What am I walking into here? Trap—or hoax—or the break he'd prayed for?

The diner was exactly as he remembered it; not a stick of furniture had been moved. The old formica and vinyl booths still lined the walls, each with their own remote-jukebox selector dating back to 1957. The floor was worn through to the concrete foundation in places; the scent was of home-cooking, with an aftertaste of Lysol. The cash register sat atop a wood and glass case, which enclosed candy and cheap, locally made trinkets.

The place was oddly silent for the time of day. From the kitchen came the sounds of an ancient Hobart dishwasher, the tinkle-clank of glasses and coffee cups being placed in racks, plates being stacked, silverware being sorted.

On duty at the open grill, Old George flipped hamburgers; when he saw Frank he smiled a toothless grin and waved, a greeting that hadn't altered since the deputy was fifteen.

And there was someone else on duty who knew him almost as well as Old George.

"Good God, you look like hell," Peggy said, putting an order pad away in the pocket of an immaculate bleached apron. The waitress looked like she'd walked off the cover of a 1955 issue of Life, complete with blond bouffant. Like the diner, she hadn't changed since the fifties.

Frank had dated her briefly in high school, but the romance never advanced past petting, and Peggy had married a real estate agent the same month Frank went into the academy.

She's the kind of girl who can be your best friend, Frank had once observed. Too damn few of them around. 

She frowned at him, hand on one hip. "Don't you believe in sleep anymore? Or are you too busy catting around at night?"

"Have pity on me, Peggy. It's been one helluva long week," he said awkwardly, glancing around the diner to see who else was there. Two high school girls, one of the locals, named Russ, and a National Guardsman he didn't immediately identify. But no young man. He took a seat at his usual booth. "Coffee, please. For now."

Maybe the kid's waiting outside, he thought, hoping this wasn't a wild-goose chase.

"You looking for someone?" Peggy asked, pouring a cup of coffee, and dropping a plastic-covered menu on the formica table beside him.

He decided to play it cautious. No point in setting himself up to look like a fool to more people than just himself. "Not sure yet. Have you seen a boy—a teen-ager—hanging around here lately? Not one of the local kids, a stranger." Peggy knew every kid that hung around here—and their parents and home phone numbers. God help them if they acted up when she was on shift. Mom and Dad would hear about it before they cleared the door.

She pursed her lips. "Well, yes I have. Early this morning. Saw him walking along the road. Just thought he was passing through, but he showed up again and made a phone call over at that pay-phone." Peggy pointed to a gas station with a phone booth, across the highway. "He looks kind of like a runaway. That who you're looking for?"

"It likely is," Frank said. Has to be. "What did he look like?"

"Blond, looked like a jock. About eighteen, nineteen. Holes in his jeans, wearing a white t-shirt. If it weren't for the military haircut he'd look pretty scruffy. Like you did when you were that age." She grinned. "Or can you remember that far back?"

Old George yelled, "Order up." Peggy winked mischievously and trotted off to the counter, pink uniform skirt swishing.

Military haircut. Could be, though most of those guys were shaved bald. I'll have to ask him about that. If it's him. If he shows. 

The door opened, jingling the little bell fixed to it. Frank looked up as he took his first sip of coffee.

Son-of-a-gun. Looks like I've got my chance now. 

He came into the restaurant slowly, a predator moving into new territory, feeling his way with all senses alert for trouble. Coolly, professionally, he scanned the patrons sitting at the booths, apparently deciding after a cursory examination that they were not a threat. And that they were not who he was looking for.

His eyes alighted on Frank. Frank nodded, warily, and the boy returned the nod. Just as warily.

"You must be Frank," the boy said, walking over to the booth. "I'm Joe. We spoke on the phone just now?"

The boy kept his voice low, just barely audible. Frank followed his example. "Yes, son. Have a seat."

Joe carefully set his pack down on the bench and deposited himself opposite Frank. They regarded each other uncomfortably for a moment before the deputy suggested, "Would you like something to eat? I'm buying."

Indecision passed over the young face, as if the boy was afraid to ask for a handout. "No thanks. I'm not hungry," he replied, in a tone that wasn't very convincing. Then suddenly the boy's stomach growled, loudly; people in the booth next to them gave them a sideways glance.

Frank couldn't suppress a grin of amusement. "Are you sure?"

The youngster shifted, uncomfortably. "Well, sir, I am hungry, but I don't want any handouts. I was raised funny that way."

No handouts? If his father really is Brother Joseph, why would that be a problem? That's how the entire circus over there was financed. But then, the boy probably has a pretty distorted viewpoint. 

Frank shrugged. "Consider it a loan, then. We can work it out, somehow."

Relief washed over the youngster's face. "Okay then," he said, reaching eagerly for a menu. As Joe studied the selection, Frank was impressed with the boy's fine physique. It took work and dedication to get a body built up that way. Muscles bulged from under the tight shirt, with thick, meaty arms that suggested years of free weight training. Frank's eyebrows raised when he saw the crude swastika tattooed on Joe's forearm, though the boy was deep in the menu and didn't notice. From the symbol's location on the youngster's arm, though, Frank had a shrewd idea that it had been done a few years earlier, before a rapid spurt of growth.

For the rest, Joe was shaving, but just barely. A fine blond stubble was visible on his upper lip and chin, but nowhere else. He was dirty and smelled, and looked like someone on the run, right enough. But this was no teenybopper runaway; for all Joe's apparent youth, this was a full-grown man. And one who, from the dark circles under his eyes, was having a serious crisis.

Peggy appeared with two glasses of ice water, raising an eyebrow at Frank. A silent response from his eyes asked her to save her questions for later. She nodded knowingly and said only, "What will you have, sugar?"

Joe looked up at her and licked his lips, his hunger showing. "How 'bout the chicken fried steak with fries, a hamburger—you got a chef salad? Yeah, I'll take the salad with a side of cole slaw, a large milk. . . ."

"You have quite an appetite," Peggy noted with a grin, continuing the order on another ticket. "How about you, Frank?"

"Just a hamburger and a ginger ale," he replied. "Put it on one ticket. I'll pick it up."

Peggy left with the order. Joe drained his ice water in one gulp. Frank edged his glass over. "Have it. I'm not thirsty. When was the last time you ate, anyway?"

"Yesterday—yesterday morning, actually," Joe replied. "I've been moving ever since this morning around four."

Interesting. Either the Chosen Ones were keeping their folks on short rations, or something had happened to kill the kid's appetite for a while. Maybe the same thing that had caused his defection? "You waited a while before calling the office. You almost missed me."

Joe toyed with the glass of ice water. "I had to lay low today. I knew they were going to be out looking for me as soon as they knew I was gone—by breakfast at the latest. There's always an early Praise Meeting around noon, so I figured now would be the best time to get in touch." He looked up, under eyebrows drawn together in a frown. "I wasn't kidding when I said they were going to kill me."

"Don't worry, you're safe here," Frank said placatingly, still not altogether certain there was anything to really worry about from the Chosen Ones. So far all he had evidence for was an overactive imagination. "Would you like to tell me what this is all about?"

Joe took a deep breath, let it go. "Not sure where to start."

"Why don't we start with your father," Frank urged.

"Yeah. My father." He made a face, as if the words tasted bitter. "It took a while to figure him out."

I bet it did. "So tell me about it. And just for the record, how old are you?"

Joe sighed. "I just turned eighteen. I've been training in paramilitary since I could walk, it seems. Guess what I need to do now is go into the army or something."

Frank nodded, slowly. "Not a lotta call for Pizza Hut delivery guys that handle AK-47s." That was a test, to see by the youngster's response—or lack of it—if what Cindy Chase and her backup band had told him was true.

The kid didn't even flinch, and that made him one very unhappy cop.

"I guess so." He sighed again. "But there are some things I need to take care of first. Will you give me the protection I need?"

"Of course we will," Frank said smoothly. "We've got assault weapons, too."

The deputy let that last statement dangle in the air, like bait. The question was, would he take it? 

"Yeah I bet you do," Joe replied levelly. "But not as much as what we've got down there."

Frank was now a profoundly unhappy cop. "Would you care to expand on that?"

Joe shook his head, but not in denial. "I guess it's not `we' anymore. I don't know, its just that a lot of weird stuff has been happening to me lately. Things you wouldn't believe. Things I'm not sure I believe."

"Start from the beginning," Frank advised.

Joe nodded. "As long as I can remember, Daddy was a preacher. He kept talking about the second coming of Christ, the Armageddon, the Sword of God—and this direct phone line he had to God Almighty. Like a Heavenly Hotline or something. Only thing is, he never told me why he could hear God, and I couldn't."

"Well, I'm not too surprised about that," Frank said cautiously. "We gotta lot of guys like that out here in the Bible Belt. Not real big on explanations."

Joe grimaced. "Yeah. I just took it for granted that he was right and I was wrong, as usual, and the only right thing I could possibly do was to obey him and serve whatever church he had created that day. I didn't dare contradict him, even when the contradictions were so obvious that any fool could see he was making this stuff up as he went along. I kinda got to the point where it didn't matter, you know? Like as long as he was handing down the line, I'd swallow it and not even think about it. Then he started the Sacred Heart. Sacred Heart of the Chosen Ones, he called it. God's chosen people. And the only chosen people."

Peggy showed up with a pitcher of water and filled both empty glasses.

Joe emptied his for the third time. "Hot day. Nothing to drink, either," he offered.

Frank let him take his time. It was obvious that this wasn't comfortable for him.

Joe took up the thread again, in a softer voice now. "Funny. From the time I was thirteen I dreamed of being Rambo. I only saw First Blood one time, but I remember every line in the movie. I worshipped Rambo, I guess. I kind of felt like I knew where he was at, because I was an outcast, too. But I never told Father that, since I was only allowed to worship two people, him and his Jesus. So when he sent me to a military academy, I was happy. The other kids, they saw the academy as some kind of punishment. Not me. I thought it was great. Like summer camp, training for the Olympics and getting to join the army all in one. I did pretty good, too, until one day they just pulled me out of class and sent me home. Father had a disagreement with the dean over the religious part of our training, wasn't to his liking or something, so I went back to Atlanta."

That much could be checked. Frank nodded, and Joe took that as encouragement to continue.

"I got a big surprise, though. After only six months, the Chosen Ones had grown. There were ten congregations in the south and east, instead of just the one I remembered. And everybody had started wearing guns everywhere." He grinned, disarmingly. "I started thinking that coming back to Atlanta wasn't that bad a deal after all."

"So you could play Rambo?" Frank said cynically. Joe flushed, but nodded.

"Father changed some time while I was gone. He was always crazy and weird anyway, but now it looked like something else was pulling his strings." The kid leaned forward, earnestly. "He would talk to himself when he didn't think anyone could hear him, and he would have these conversations with something, only it was like overhearing someone on the phone. You only heard one side of the conversation. He started calling this other thing the `Holy Fire,' and he said it was telling him the direction the church would go. Like, it told him to begin all the other congregations. It told him to begin the Guard, and then it told him to start training for the war of all wars. Armageddon, with the forces of God toting assault rifles, you know?"

"Excuse me," Frank interrupted. "The Guard? Is that what you call your army?"

"The Guard of the Sacred Heart," Joe supplemented. "Then there's the Junior Guard, which I used to be in charge of."

"Tell me a little more about that," Frank said. "The Guard, the Junior Guard. I'm curious. How many are there? What kind of weapons do you have back there?"

For a moment Frank was afraid pushing for that kind of information might have been premature, but apparently Joe had warmed up enough to be willing to talk. Poor kid, Frank found himself thinking. All these years, and he never really had someone to talk to. Already he feels comfortable enough around me to unload. 

It surprised him to feel pity for the boy. It surprised him more that he wanted to.

Joe frowned, absently, his lips moving a little as if he was adding up numbers in his head. "There's around two hundred fifty foot soldiers. Everyone has an AK-47; Father and General Plunket like them a lot. We have stockpiles of ammo, fourteen thousand rounds per rifle last I counted. Grenades, launchers, AR-15s, M2A2s, six .50-cals."

Frank couldn't help but utter a low whistle. "You're not pulling my leg, are you? That's an army down there."

"You bet it is," Joe replied brightly, but the sudden pride in the Guard seemed to embarrass him. "But—it's bad. I know that now. I don't hold with any of it anymore. Ever since . . ."

The boy looked away, evidently struggling with what he had to say. "Ever since my father killed Sarah. She was just a little girl."

Killed a little girl? Jesus—Frank waited in stunned silence for him to continue. When Joe didn't, he prompted, "What little girl?" Let him be wrong. Let this be hearsay, God, please. . . . 

Joe swallowed and turned pale. "I—I saw him do it. I helped bury her."

Well, so much for it being hearsay. 

"It had to do with that Holy Fire thing. It told him to do it, I think. Her parents were part of the church. They disappeared, and I don't know what ever happened to them."

They're probably dead, too, Frank thought, still in shock, but he didn't say anything. Likely the boy knew it, but was just hoping it wasn't true. Look, you've dealt with murders before. People die. People kill. It happens. The important thing now is to get the damn evidence that'll put this bastard away. 

Joe shook his head and traced patterns on the formica with the water that had run down the side of his glass. "The church began to center around that Holy Fire thing more and more. It began calling the shots. First we'd train ten men to use a gun, then it would tell us to train fifty. And when that was done we'd get the orders to train a hundred."

Frank didn't like any of this. It sounded like some kind of carnival sideshow—except that people with high-powered firearms were taking it seriously. "And you never actually saw this `thing,' did you?"

Joe shook his head again, emphatically. "It all came through Father. But then the thing wanted to talk to us directly. The little girl, Sarah. She was used to talk to it at first, and what came out of her would scare anyone. Ugly sounds. Grunts. Then it would talk. Like something out of a movie."

Frank nodded, wondering where reality ended and fantasy began. He had to act as if he was taking it seriously, or he'd lose the boy. He sure thought it was real. We should be getting this on tape, he thought. There's time for depositions later, but I wish I had a recorder going now. This Brother Joseph guy must be one hell of a con artist to convince a little girl to play along with this little parlor show, not to mention the rest of this group. There must be hundreds more down there. And they're all under his thumb. 

Correction. All except his son, now. I've never seen anyone spill their guts like this. He sings like a cage full of canaries. Or like someone with a guilty conscious. 

Joe raised his eyes to Frank's again, and the earnestness on his face could not be mistaken. "This wasn't just my father playing like a ventriloquist or something, you've gotta believe me. This thing, this Holy Fire, it's the real thing! It ain't—isn't—anything I've ever seen before. But it's real, real as you or me. . . ."

Frank nodded, but his skepticism must have shown a little. The boy frowned.

"I bet you'd like to know where we get our money, right? The Holy Fire, it would give us information on the horse races and the bingo games in Tulsa. And the information would always be right. But we couldn't attract attention by scoring big every time we went out there, so the `luck' was sort of spread around." He swallowed, hard. Frank tensed. Something big was coming. "That wasn't where the real money came from. That was just seed money."

Here we go. Time for the nitty-gritty. 

"Drugs. That's where the real money comes from. I never got involved in the sales, but I knew what they were doing. They used the money from the horse races and stuff to buy coke from the big guys in South America. It got delivered at night about three times a week. Then they would have to move it the next day, out into the street."

Frank cleared his throat. "What kind of large quantities? How much are we talking about here?"

"Oh, three, four hundred kilos a shot," Joe said casually. "Comes in by private plane, mostly. There's a landing strip and camo-nets out on the land. Or when the plane can't make it, they bring it in by truck."

Christ almighty, Frank thought. All that coke, right under our noses. If what he's saying is true, it's hard to believe that we didn't get a line on any of this. He might be exaggerating the amount. But even if it's one ounce, we can bust them but good. 

Joe caught his attention again. "Now listen for a minute. They never got busted, not even once, because of what the Holy Fire would say right before we went out. Like the other night, it told us about the Oaktree Apartments. That there was going to be a bust, and when. Exactly." 

Frank squirmed. Which, for a man of his size, was not an action easily concealed. "Oaktree Apartments. In Cleveland?" He had been involved in that stakeout. And the resulting raid had produced zilch.

Every residence on their warrants had been sanitized. Not a shred of evidence, not a dust speck of coke. Nothing. And no explanation. One day before the bust, the place was red-hot. Day of the bust, nothing but empty rooms.

"Cleveland? I guess. But there's more, the reason why nobody ever gets busted. The Holy Fire warned us about the police. There was something about a blue Mustang."

Frank knew about the Mustang; he'd driven it once. The Tulsa County sheriff's office had loaned it to Pawnee last winter for a drug bust related to one on their turf. But how in the world did that quack know about it? 

The first thought was that there had to be an informant working from within the department or even the state's attorney's office—

But how could someone cover county cops and Tulsa City stuff? And state busts?

Someone who had access to warrant information right across the state? But that was coming out of a dozen different offices—oh, it could be done, but only after the busts were over and the warrants filed—

More than one informant. It was the only explanation.

And it was the least believable. When a cop goes bad, it's generally an isolated event. A statewide coordinated effort of counter-informers—run from the sticks?—that was too much to believe.

They knew somehow, he thought in shock. There's no denying that. For one moment, he wondered if it was possible this Holy Fire thing was real—

No. It couldn't be. There was some other explanation. Meanwhile, he had to play along, because the kid believed, even if he didn't. . . . "It sounds like this thing needs a medium to talk through," Frank said, thinking quickly. He'd heard of the psychic medium scam, some with a kid hypnotized for good measure.

"A child," Joe corrected. "At least, that's according to my father. That was why Sarah. But Sarah began to resist this medium thing too much, and—"

Frank waited. And waited. "And what?"

"He got angry," Joe said in a soft voice. "He—strangled her. Six months ago or so."

A thin line of ice traveled down Frank's spine. "You did see this?"

Joe nodded, and his haunted eyes begged Frank for forgiveness. "I can show you the grave."

Evidence. "That will help. Is it on Chosen Ones' property?"

"It's hidden, but yeah, it's on our land. Their land." He shook his head. "I'm glad to be out of there, but at the same time I feel sorta lost. Like I don't know where I'm going now."

"Don't worry," Frank assured him. "You're doing the right thing." Damn bet you are, kid. "But if the girl was murdered six months ago, then who's he been using for the go-between since?"

Joe stared at the back of his hand. "That's what I'm getting at. This family started showing up at Praise Meetings in Atlanta, before we moved everything out here. There was this little kid—he was kinda like the way I was when I was that age. I think one of the reasons I liked him from the start, now that I look back, is 'cause he wasn't caught up in all that crazy Sacred Heart stuff like everyone else was. And he liked me, I think he kind of thought I was like a big brother. The kid needed someone to look up to, and I just sort of fell into the role, I guess."

Frank was getting an eerie feeling about this, a sense of déjà vu that he couldn't quite shake. Why does this sound familiar? he wondered, but saved his questions for later.

The back of his hand seemed to fascinate the boy. "The father, this drunk named Jim, got roped into the Sacred Heart real good. My father convinced him to bring his son to the Praise Meeting. The kid turned out to be better than Sarah."

"The man's name was Jim?" Frank asked, knowing now why this all seemed familiar. And he didn't want it to. "Was his last name Chase?"

Joe frowned. "Might have been. Everyone there is on a first-name basis, but it'd be on record somewhere."

Frank knew he had to ask. "What about the boy? What's he called?"

"Jamie," Joe said. "The boy's name is Jamie."

Oh Lord, Frank thought, keeping his face as bland as possible. How do I tell Cindy Chase this? The answer came to him quickly: You don't. At least, not yet. 

"He grabbed the kid—actually, he got Jim to grab him and bring him here. He had Jim kidnap the kid out of school, and lie to him, told him that the compound was a summer camp or something. Then they started using Jamie all the time as the medium thing, and they started starving him to keep him quiet, make it easier for the Holy Fire to talk through him. All he gets is juice—" Joe faltered, then picked up the narrative again. "That was when I started to feel bad about my position in the Guard, the whole Sacred Heart thing. Last night—Father made me a lieutenant with a new promotion, head of Internal Security. He must have figured something was wrong, 'cause all of a sudden he started dangling all this stuff in front of me. New apartment, new rank. But—I just can't take it anymore."

"You couldn't take what happened with the little girl?" Frank asked.

Joe shook his head, guiltily. "No, I mean, I know that sounds bad, but I didn't know her. She was kind of a puppet for Father, and it was like what was happening wasn't real. No, it's what he's doing to the kid. For weeks they've been starving him, to be a better channel for this Holy Fire, and he keeps getting weaker and thinner—he can't hardly stand anymore. It's torture. I got some food through to him, but it's not enough to save him. I was up against too much in that place. I had to go get help."

Joe shuddered. "Sir, you've got to go in there before it's too late. Father's been putting him in a sensory deprivation tank for some godawful reason, which is just hurting him more. It's something I don't understand at all, it's like he does it just 'cause he can. And whatever else happens, Jamie can't go on much longer!"

Joe's eyes were pleading, glistened over with tears not yet ready to fall. "I'm responsible, too. Arrest me if you want to, but go in and save him."

Suddenly all the barriers broke, and Joe put his head down on his arms and sobbed—tiny, strangled sobs that sounded horrible, as if the boy was choking.

Frank was amazed. After all that control, he hadn't expected the boy to break down and cry. The other patrons in the restaurant had already left; now it was just them and Peggy, who turned the front door sign to "Closed," then came over with a box of tissue.

"Sorry," Joe said, after composing himself in the face of a strange female. "I didn't mean to—lose it like that."

"Its okay," Frank told him, feeling a little better now that he knew the kid still had some real emotions. "Cry as much as you want to. We'll figure this mess out somehow."

But the control was back, at least for the moment. After a while, Peggy began bringing their food over. Old George was watching, covertly, his face lined with concern.

"Hope you're still hungry," Frank said. "There's a lot of food here."

Joe's appetite did not seem to be dampened at all by grief; the boy devoured everything in front of him.

"Don't worry, son, we're not going to arrest you," Frank assured him, between mouthfuls of his own hamburger. "For one thing, I don't see evidence yet of any wrongdoing on your part. I doubt any judge in the country would hold you responsible for what happened to the little girl or to the boy, either, as long as you're willing to turn state's evidence. Would you be willing to testify against your father?"

Joe didn't answer right away. He seemed to mull over it, but only briefly. "Yes. I—I know I shouldn't think twice about it, but my father scares me, sir. He has too much power, and what he says goes. If you haven't got a bulletproof jacket lying around, I think maybe you should find one, if you want me alive long enough to testify. Even then it might not make any difference."

"I'll see what I can come up with," Frank said. Now it seemed like a pretty good idea. Assault weapons. I guess death squads and assassins is a logical next step. After all, this Brother Joseph has killed at least once. . . . 

"Surely he left something behind?" Brother Joseph said carefully.

He had been eating lunch alone in his private dining room, when Luke had interrupted the meal. He didn't like being interrupted at meals. Especially not with news like this.

Joe. Gone. No—not possible. 

"No note?" he persisted. "No clues? Nothing at all to tell you about where he went?"

"Nothing," Luke said simply, his eyes staring at the wall over Brother Joseph's head. "He left nothing behind, sir. Some clothing appears to have been taken, but none of the Chosen Ones' uniforms. He vanished, apparently, as a civilian. No one really knows where he is."

The preacher's eyes narrowed at the news. I knew the boy was up to something, he thought coldly, a slow rage building. The devil must have had his claws in him for a long time now. Why else would he turn against me? Haven't I shown him the way? Didn't I give him more than any other father would? I gave him one of the most prestigious honors he could ever hope to achieve. And this is how he repays me? How dare he? 

Then the rage—paused for a moment. Or—did he? How could he dare? 

"This is simply not acceptable," he said to Luke. "I think that your conclusion that my son has abandoned us and gone to the authorities is premature. He could be testing us, you know. That would be just about his speed." That made more sense. Surely the boy would never dare run off. He's probably trying to impress me. He smiled as the logical explanation unrolled before him. "I can see it now, flexing his new muscles as the new Internal Security head, hiding in some corner we've forgotten about, waiting to see what precisely our reaction would be to this. If you think about it, our response would be rather revealing. It would emphasize our ability to handle—or not handle—a defection."

Luke shook his head, stubbornly. "No, Brother Joseph, I just don't think so. Haven't you noticed how peculiar he's been lately? Especially around Jamie. If you ask me, it seems he's had a change of heart about the Cause. The devil's in his heart, and he's not listening to the voice of God anymore."

"Well," Brother Joseph said, smiling thinly. Luke's statement touched a raw nerve, and he tried to conceal it as much as possible. "I'm not asking you. Use your head, man! This is my flesh and blood you're talking about! I suggest you organize a thorough search of the complex. If he wants to play this little game with us, we'll show him we can play it better."

"As you wish, sir," Luke said, but it didn't look like he was pleased with the assignment. "We will conduct a thorough search of the complex. Again."

"You do that," the preacher said. "And I suggest you not report back until you find him."

Brother Joseph watched the retreating back, a bit surprised that Luke had actually contradicted him. Nobody in the organization had ever done such a thing.

For that matter, Luke was the only one who could do it and escape serious punishment. His loyalty was unquestioned, and he was totally devoted to his leader and the Cause. But it wasn't like the man to think for himself; usually he just followed blindly, a quality Brother Joseph encouraged in his followers.

But there had always been an unspoken competition between Luke and his son. Competition and animosity. They've tried to conceal it from me, but I saw it anyway. Interesting that Luke seems eager to declare my son a traitor. 

Never mind. It wasn't going to ruin his day. He had much to look forward to tonight. This particular Praise Meeting was going to be special, he knew. The Holy Fire had been restless lately, an anxiety he could feel in his bones, suggesting that a spectacular channeling was in store for them all tonight.

Alas, it would probably be the last one, at least with Jamie. The boy had been pushed to his limits, though for a good reason, the only reason necessary: the Holy Fire desired it. Now the boy was closer to death, which took him closer to God. Brother Joseph had estimated yesterday that the boy had perhaps a week left to him, before starvation and the Holy Fire finished him off. After tonight, he would either be a vegetable or dead, most likely the latter.

The preacher sighed, staring at his unfinished meal. He wished there was some way to do this channeling so that he didn't have to go out and find another host every six months. It was so . . . inconvenient. Jamie in particular had been far better than Sarah, who was, he now saw, a mere container. She had been to Jamie what a hatchback coupe was to an exotic sportscar. The boy was a perfect vehicle, and the only thing that had kept him from disposing of Sarah when she started to resist and substituting the boy immediately had been Jamie's whore of a mother. Cindy had been a nuisance from the very start. It was a good thing she had been left behind in Atlanta.

Why, he wondered now, had Sarah begun to resist? So far Jamie had been quite complacent about the whole thing. Perhaps it had been the girl's age. He noticed that she had begun to mature, a little early, at ten. That has to be it! he decided. As soon as girl children began to mature, they took on the attributes of any whore. This womanhood, this contamination, must be the evil that made her resist the holy touch.

It was all he needed to formulate a brilliant theory. If it weren't for men, all women would be spawn of Satan! Why are most preachers men? Didn't Eve succumb to evil, not Adam? And of the church's staff, how many women fulfill any kind of useful role? The only one that came to mind was Agatha, the retired schoolteacher whom he'd won over years before. And she was old, well past menopause. Sterile. Pure. The rest of the women in the place were cattle. Baby producers. Preferably, boy producers. 

He glanced up at the clock on the wall and frowned when he saw the time. Ten past one. Looks like my wife isn't going to join me. Wonder what's gotten into her? I'm going to have to check into that. This is the fourth meal in a row that she's taken elsewhere. 

He finished his solitary lunch and went directly to Joe's room. The door was open, evidently left that way since the first search. Frowning, he saw the sinister paperback he'd flung across the room the night before, displeased to see that Joe hadn't destroyed it. How dare he defy me? he seethed, poking through the boxes that remained. When I see him again, I will have to punish him severely for this. 

His pager went off at his waist, and when he checked the number saw that he was being summoned to the central security station. Ah! Maybe Joe's decided to report in. Mystery solved. 

When he arrived, however, he could see from the expressions on all assembled that this wasn't the case. There were half a dozen security officers there, immaculate in their uniforms, plus Luke. They jumped up from their consoles and saluted as he entered. But nobody seemed willing to meet his eyes, and that alone was enough to stir his wrath.

"Well?" he said impatiently, when no one offered to explain why he had been paged. "What is it?"

Luke was standing in the middle of the cluster of guards. They glanced covertly at the man, deferring the answer to him. He cleared his throat, and with an effort met his leader's eyes.

"One of our people has seen Joe," he began. "In town."

Then he stopped, and the silence was infuriating. "Yes? And?"

Luke coughed. "He was seen talking to a sheriff's deputy. He was not wearing the uniform of the guard. Apparently, they spoke for a long time."

Brother Joseph stared at him, stunned. He didn't know how to respond. Who saw him? There aren't too many people it could be—only a few of us go out at a time. No one who really knows Joe. . . . It must be a mistake, either that or it's an outright lie! 

"Who says he saw Joe? I want to speak to him personally."

As if on cue, the group parted, revealing a man in the back who looked like he wanted to become invisible. He didn't look well; actually, he was obviously suffering from a hangover. But then, he usually was. Lank blond hair straggled greasily and untidily over his ears; his eyes were so bloodshot you couldn't tell what color they were. His skin was a pasty yellow-white, and his forehead was creased with a frown of pain.

"Jim Chase?" Brother Joseph said. "On your honor, now. Did you see Joe today?"

"Ah, yessir. I sure did," Jim said, though his eyes never quite met the preacher's. He seemed to be studying the wall behind the preacher instead. "Like Luke said, he was talking to this big Indian deputy, there at this diner. I pulled into the parking lot and was going to go in and take a leak, when I saw him through the window with his back turned to me, talking to the cop."

Brother Joseph frowned. "If his back was turned to you how do you know it was him?"

Jim shook, but didn't back down. "I saw his profile a few times, when he looked out the window. It was him."

Brother Joseph stepped closer and examined Jim's disheveled appearance carefully, letting Jim know he was taking note of the state the man was in. He sniffed, once. His nose wrinkled at the reek of bourbon.

"I see," Brother Joseph said, turning away. "You have a strong odor of liquor about you. I've told you before that I don't mind my flock imbibing from time to time. But in your present condition, how can I be certain you weren't, how shall we say, seeing things?"

Jim didn't seem to have an answer to that. "Sir, I wasn't." He shook his head. "I know your son; you know yourself he's spent a lot of time with my—with Jamie. Besides, I saw his tattoo in the window. The swastika."

Brother Joseph felt himself blanche; he'd always wanted his son to have the blasted thing taken off. It just wasn't politic to be brandishing symbols of something that had failed, no matter how noble their cause had been.

"Seems cut and dried to me," Luke said calmly. "That must have been him, then."

Brother Joseph knew that his tranquil facade would dissolve completely if he stopped to think. And he knew that he'd lose some of the power he had over these men if he didn't take back control; in fact, he could feel the power crumbling now.

Get a grip on yourself. And deal with this. "We must consider Joe a renegade and a traitor," he said, emotionlessly. "He is to be shot on sight, provided it can be done anonymously. Luke, would you kindly dispatch an assassin to eliminate him?"

"Yes, sir," Luke said. The preacher thought he saw a smirk forming at the corners of the man's mouth.

You would enjoy that, wouldn't you, you little toady? he thought, but retained his own cold smile. It didn't matter. Command had been reestablished. You see, my followers? The importance of my own flesh and blood pales in comparison to the importance of our mission. I'll sacrifice my own traitorous son without a hint of regret so that we may march on unimpeded! He nodded, offering tacit approval to Luke to do the job himself. The rest of the guardsmen seemed frozen in shock at Brother Joseph's decision.

Saying no more, Brother Joseph left to visit Jamie in his cell.

After all, didn't God sacrifice his own son? 

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