Chapter 3

Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.

—Paul, Epistle to the Romans

 

Major Ezra Hodge of the Defense Intelligence Agency fielded the heat for the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in La Libertad because everybody was short-handed and fielding heat was part of his job. No one at the embassy or on the damage control team knew what happened, and Ezra the Invisible wasn’t telling. Hodge, himself, had planted the bomb in Colonel Toledo’s car. He had done it under orders, but these orders arose from a Higher Authority than the Defense Intelligence Agency. The New Prophet of the Apocalypse, the Angel of Eden himself, laid out the scenario and Ezra the Invisible pulled it off.

The children were all that mattered. Eden would be worthless without Adam and Eve, and it was wise of the Angel to gather them in while Revelation ran its course.

Dajaj Mishwe’s part of the operation had been mightily screwed, but Hodge activated a contingency plan that might yet see him alive on the far side of the Apocalypse. His was a sweet dream of a plan that included an elegant sailboat and the perfect companion.

This companion was not yet a Gardener, but Hodge had faith that Rena Scholz would see the light when the flaming sword fell. She had been a nun, but abandoned Catholicism when she joined the Army. He’d done his research—she didn’t drink, didn’t date and read voraciously in theology. Hodge imagined that in her gratitude for saving her life, Major Scholz would love him, that they would let the Apocalypse run its course and then sail back with Adam and Eve to populate a fresh, new Eden based on the Angel’s plan.

Hodge fanned his face with a fistful of papers. His tiny office was a sweat-trap across the street from the U.S. Embassy. The pea-green cubicles around him were jammed with tacticians, logisticians and propagandists of every stripe. The noise level was high, but not high enough to drown out the single word that followed the tone on his Sidekick.

“Revelation,” his Sidekick said, and it repeated “Revelation” in its pseudobiologic voice until Major Hodge reluctantly replied, “Revelation. Acknowledge.”

The GenoVax delivery to Mexico City is secure, he thought. The last EdenSprings shipments went out today, as did the great sword that hangs over the Sanhedrin tonight. We will take off the heads of many serpents, the nearest one first.

The Angel’s Artificial Viral Agents floated in the ritual ice water of the Gardeners, in the bottled waters of nearly every market, vending machine, cafeteria and airline. Similar AVAs slept in the communion wafers of the idolators. God would sort them out.

Hodge’s job was to stir up the serpent, first, and get it to focus on the flute in front of it rather than the sword poised above. With the Master dead, confusion among the Children of Eden was already a strong ally. The Master’s myocardial implant already had triggered its coded signal, verifying his heart’s failure to Central Command. It was, perhaps, fortunate that it had to fail here in Costa Brava. Now that ViraVax was off-line, it fell to Hodge to verify the signal. Hodge took his time with this, thereby adding to the confusion.

He had no word from the Angel at ViraVax. Their backup communications ran four redundancies deep, and all were silent. Hodge could only imagine the madness of the final scene at ViraVax, with hundreds of bodies melting from their bones, and it was possible that someone or something had, indeed, killed Dajaj Mishwe. Flaming Sword was designed to unfold on its own even if he, Hodge, died, but Hodge preferred to live.

Major Ezra Hodge and Dajaj Mishwe had worked together before, in certain private experiments on the nature of death that the two of them ran while they were in EdenWood together. Hodge was fully prepared to carry on the mandate of Revelation and the Apocalypse without the Angel Mishwe.

Hodge would permit, even encourage, the Defense Intelligence Agency to investigate the ViraVax site immediately. They could find nothing that would save them, and any GenoVax residue that remained would eliminate the investigators soon enough. There was nothing to lose even if the Agency sealed the site in concrete, and Hodge might even gain a little more time.

Hodge did not care, now, whether ViraVax came to the attention of the outside world. In a few short weeks, the outside world—the human world—wouldn’t even exist. The Angel of Eden had the right plan: “Destroy the believers and the unbelievers alike, let the Lord Our God sort them out.”

Hodge himself intended to be sorted no sooner than absolutely necessary. The Angel had promised him immunity, and Ezra the Invisible held firm to the dream of the sailboat, to joining Adam and Eve in Eden with the beautiful, blonde Rena Scholz at his side.

Hodge prepared the first in a series of slapshots from a kit that Mishwe provided for him. He unfolded the text accompanying his first shot and read it aloud: “I have the keys of Death and of Hell,” then he injected himself on schedule.

The series promised immunity from GenoVax and a doubling of his life span. He had a backup kit stored safely away to protect Major Scholz, the companion of his dreams.

Hodge performed a couple of data diversions on his console, then waited for acknowledgment from the Sanhedrin in Texas. The shutdown signal at ViraVax triggered an automatic computer feed into the Agency’s file, which Hodge had already shunted. While it probably wouldn’t matter much in the long run, Hodge didn’t want to give too many heathens and idolators the chance to dig in. He might have to fight them later.

The major was only slightly disturbed that the feed stopped abruptly right after it started. The Angel had a backup plan, just in case, and Hodge was that plan. The world would be a lonelier place without the Angel, but Hodge was already far too busy to give it much thought.

In one sense, the breakoff of the feed was a relief to Hodge.

It feeds into the Sanhedrin’s Central Security and Communications, too, he thought. The Sanhedrin doesn’t need to see their fellows melting down into sludge quite yet.

Less information meant more time to spread the series of AVAs that the Angel called “GenoVax.” Hodge preferred “Flaming Sword.”

Major Hodge knew, by the messages flowing into his own Sidekick, that phones were ringing in the homes of Children of Eden all over the world. They would be told that their Master was dead and a successor must be chosen. The Sabbath and their grief would keep them occupied just long enough for everything to be set into motion. They would meet, share bread and ice water, and they would die, successor or no.

Only Commander Noas and a few of his Operations staff in the Jesus Rangers knew the truth about ViraVax. They were too few and too far away to do anything about it. And they would never suspect that their own company had produced the catalytic agent of the Apocalypse, and used their own people to seed it into the rest of the world.

Lines also buzzed in the offices of the DIA and, by now, perhaps the White House itself. The White House had its own distraction—water wars in the countryside and turf wars in the cities. He had a few surprises in store for the administration, too. That had been easier for Hodge to arrange than the bomb in Toledo’s car.

The purest, most contagious version of Flaming Sword was in a warehouse in Mexico City, this Hodge had confirmed, and it would be distributed as vaccine to the World Health Organization as planned. Special shipments were in place already—one each for China, India, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Everyone else would burn in the fallout.

Even if Colonel Rico Toledo were found alive, he was already discredited and he wouldn’t make it for long. If nothing else, Hodge would see to that himself. The two children that the Angel called Adam and Eve must be brought safely into his own custody eventually, but he had all the time in the world to locate them. Hodge didn’t worry about the children; the Angel guaranteed him that they had been created immune.

Any virologist who survived at ViraVax would be no help to anyone. Flaming Sword was swift and deadly, too swift and too deadly for anyone to produce an effective defense. In the short time they had left, anything any virologist knew was moot. Besides, if there were survivors, Hodge would take care of them, too.

Hodge was proud of the stroke of genius that got his dummy corporation, a Catholic corporation, the contract for the Catholics’ communion wafers. Easter Masses throughout the world would precipitate a great flambé over the next couple of weeks. The viral agents in the wafers were the slowest of the lot, taking up to twenty-four hours to hit critical mass.

The Gardeners, as the Children of Eden called themselves, would fall to the Sabbath water, swift and shocking, but painless. Or so he was told. The Gardener holocaust would provide the proper diversion while Flaming Sword did its work in clinics, churches, refugee centers, cafeterias and airlines throughout the world.

Hodge wondered about the inevitable mess, the billions of suppurating bodies, but he supposed the earth itself would clean that up, in time. The Angel had assured him that this would be no problem. He felt bad about all the animals that would starve in their pens, and worried about whether or not vermin would thrive in the aftermath. Ezra Hodge hated rodents of all kinds, but especially rats. He had asked the Angel Mishwe to eliminate them, too, but was told that, of all God’s creatures, only this sinful pack of humans offended Him. Flaming Sword would spare the rats.

Hodge had to admit the possibility that he himself might not be there to see it, but his faith was so strong that this was something he did not regret. He had, in fact, no regrets and was eager to play such an important role in God’s plan. Still, when he fingered his sidearm and imagined its cold steel in his mouth, his heart raced and his sweaty palms turned cold.

Major Hodge turned his attention to the closed-circuit view of the emergency communications center that he had provided at the embassy. He studied Nancy Bartlett as she spoke with her father, the United States Secretary of State, via satlink.

Nancy Bartlett, mother of the new Eve, stood behind the desk of the U.S. ambassador to the Confederation of Costa Brava while her aide finished the link to Washington, D.C. Nancy’s blue eyes were red from crying and from the smoke. She kept her hands on the desktop in an obvious attempt to control their trembling. The clock on the console in front of her chimed once to announce the six o’clock hour. The office was a madhouse of people and makeshift electronics in the aftermath of the embassy bombing. In just a couple of hours, Hodge had converted the ambassador’s personal quarters into the new embassy command center. He didn’t care that they didn’t thank him; it gave him the chance to install certain monitoring devices like the one he was viewing.

“Mrs. Bartlett,” the aide said, “your call to the Secretary of State is ready. Go ahead.”

Nancy’s blonde hair was disheveled, and she tucked it behind her ears. Her blue power suit was streaked with plaster dust and water. Hodge presumed she hadn’t cleaned up after the bombing because she wanted her father to see her this way. Nancy Bartlett was prepared to use every emotional tool at her disposal to get her daughter back. Hodge respected her for that, and thought maybe the woman would feel better knowing that her daughter had been chosen—no, created—to be Eve.

It didn’t matter. Nancy Bartlett was a Catholic; she wouldn’t live long after Easter Mass, anyway.

The peel-and-peek on the opposite wall lit up, and the Secretary of State appeared—ashen and exhausted.

“. . . Old,” Nancy whispered, involuntarily, but not loud enough for her father to hear.

Hodge knew for a fact that Nancy had not spoken to her father since her husband had been killed over a month ago. He had studied the Bartlett family long enough to know that the Secretary believed that Red Bartlett had stolen his daughter away to the ends of the earth. Staying on in Costa Brava after her husband’s death had been the ultimate betrayal of her father and her native land. At least, that’s how her father saw it.

Nancy Bartlett straightened her shoulders, cleared her throat and faced the video pickup to the right of the screen.

“Dad,” she said, swallowing a sob in a tight throat, “my baby’s missing, and so is Harry Toledo. A farmer saw Sonja’s plane forced down by an unmarked Mongoose up in the Jaguar Mountains. He thinks the kids might be alive. . . .”

Here her voice betrayed her shock and grief by tightening up her throat too much to speak.

“I know, Nancy,” he said. “I got a scramble from Colonel Toledo earlier, via an Agency field linkup. . . .”

“That bastard!” she snapped. “I knew he was behind this. He bombed the embassy and took the kids . . .”

Secretary Mike Mandell raised a hand to calm her down.

“Nancy, listen,” he said. “It’s not like that at all. Let’s take one thing at a time. You and Grace weren’t hurt in that bombing, were you? The wires here say that six people died and a lot of us are worried about you.”

“No, Dad, we’re okay. Physically, anyway. And how very thoughtful of Rico to contact you instead of me, or his ex-wife. Look, I don’t know what he told you, but you know you can’t believe that slimy bastard. President Garcia has troops all over the countryside looking for him. He’s turned to the guerrillas and he’s probably got Sonja and Harry in some hellhole in the mountains.”

“Rico didn’t take the kids.”

Her father said it slowly, to make it clear.

“He didn’t bomb the embassy,” he said. “It was a diversion, to put the heat on Rico.”

Hodge sat forward at this. He had not expected his efforts to be pinpointed so soon.

“But why?” Nancy asked. “Who’s behind this?”

Her father’s gaze faltered for a moment as he listened to someone off-camera.

“It appears that the Gardeners are behind both the bombing and the kidnapping.”

“The Children of Eden? But why, Dad? What could two teenage kids mean to them?”

Mike Mandell sighed, and in that sigh Major Hodge heard the deep wheeze of death in the Secretary’s lungs.

He won’t have to worry about the smoking getting him, Hodge thought with a smirk.

“It’s ViraVax,” Mandell said. “I can’t give it all to you right now, but trust me, we’re on it. We’ve diverted a SEAL team to help out, we believe that Garcia is part of the problem, so we do not want his people to find either Rico or the kids before we do.”

“ViraVax? But that doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does if you think of unauthorized experiments on human beings.”

Nancy dropped heavily into a chair, her expression numb.

“Sonja tried to warn me about ViraVax,” she said. “If I had listened, she wouldn’t have gone out there on her own.”

“Nancy?”

Nancy Bartlett’s face betrayed a dizzying disorientation for a moment. She batted at something in front of her eyes, and Hodge knew what it was. The memory adjustment that he had arranged for her after die incident with her husband was coming unraveled. Right now he imagined that a flood of grotesque images, suppressed memories, crossed her vision—her husband, dead . . . a pistol in her hand . . . his body melting to sludge on the living-room carpet.

It doesn’t matter now, he thought, and caught himself smiling. His part in Nancy Bartlett’s memory adjustment had been a pleasant one. Creative.

Nancy shook her head and cleared the tremble out of her voice.

“Sonja was convinced that ViraVax had something to do with Red’s death,” she said. “She’s been on a one-woman mission to prove it. But these kids are so high profile—American kids from embassy families. What would possess any sane person to take those particular kids to . . . to use as guinea pigs?”

“Nancy, there’s a lot I can’t say right now. But there are two unpleasant possibilities. They’re using the kids as bait to get to Rico, who knows about a few of their experiments—including at least one on your husband.”

“On Red? But he worked for them from the beginning, and it was a guerrilla who killed him. . . .”

“I really don’t want to get into that right now,” Mandell said. “That’s the official embassy line, created by Rico under orders as a cover. . . .”

“But I was there. I remember. . . .”

Major Hodge smiled at this testimony to his handiwork.

“Nancy,” the Secretary said, “there’s a lot that neither of us knows at this point, but believe me, Red was not killed by that man they executed. Now, the other possibility is that the kids have already been part of some study, and all this with Rico is to get him out of the way. If he’s killed in a fight, then they can claim he was the only one who knew the whereabouts of the kids, and the search is hopeless.”

Nancy felt sick to her stomach.

“Where is he now?” she whispered.

“He’s gone in after them. And I’m trying to get him some support. The Children of Eden are making any operations in that country very difficult. Garcia is fighting to save his presidency; he doesn’t give a hoot about the kids. I really wish you’d come home. None of this would’ve happened if you’d been here.”

Nancy pulled herself upright and looked her father’s image in the eye. Her voice was steel.

“Dad, that was the kind of low blow I didn’t expect from you. I don’t need a guilt trip right now.”

He sighed, and flicked at the tip of his bulbous nose, something Hodge noted that he always did when saving face.

“You’re right, honey, I apologize. Sonja . . . she’s your only child, but she’s also my only grandchild. With the both of you down there and your mother gone, I’m . . . well, I’m alone. And I don’t like it.” He glanced off-screen again, and sighed. “Listen, Ambassador Simpson is being briefed now, and I want you to stick with her until this is over. What about Grace Toledo? How’s she holding up?”

“She’s here. Worried sick about Harry, of course. Hating Rico even more than ever, if that’s possible. The best thing she ever did was divorce that sonofabitch.”

Her father leaned off-screen to confer with someone, then came back looking even more harried.

“We’ve got our share of problems here, too. Someone managed to burn up two Gardener compounds, in Milwaukee and Tennessee. The President’s sending the Vice-President out for an appearance and assessment. Nobody’s taking credit yet. Gardeners shut up tight for their Sabbath, so we hope they don’t go off half-cocked when they find out.

“I would like for you and Grace to come up here to give some testimony when this is over. Then I’d like to talk you into staying. I’m not getting any younger, you know, and I’d like some time with you and my granddaughter.”

Nancy started to interrupt, but the Secretary of State put up a hand to stop her.

“I’m sorry to cut this short,” he said, “but I have to go. This line will be open for you until this is resolved, okay? We’re mobilizing everything at our disposal to recover those kids.”

Nancy grasped her hands together to keep the trembling from showing.

“Okay,” she said, and sighed. “Thanks, Dad. I love you.”

But the peel was already blank.

Loud shouts from the other side of the room startled her, and Hodge’s screen showed a knot of aides crowded around a communications console. Nancy stood to see what was going on, but suddenly her legs were too wobbly to carry her the half-dozen meters across the room. The aides all talked at once into their headsets. The ambassador, looking hot and wilted, pulled her damp hair back with both hands, closed her eyes and walked away from the group.

“What is it?” Nancy asked. “What’s happening now?”

Ambassador Simpson pinched the bridge of her nose and kept her eyes closed while she answered in a hollow voice.

“Somebody blew the Jaguar Valley Dam,” she said. “ViraVax is gone.”

Hodge leaned into the snoopscreen, his heart pounding.

The final coup, he thought. The Angel carried it off!

“But the kids . . . Sonja and Harry. My dad . . . Secretary Mandell said that’s where they’re being held. What about them?”

The ambassador shook her head.

“We don’t know,” she said. “The Agency office received the ViraVax emergency shutdown signal just before the blast, so this may involve contamination, as well. Garcia’s forces say they shot down a Mongoose trying to get out. We don’t know yet if there are survivors to tell us. . . .”

Nancy’s legs gave out and for the second time she dropped, stunned, into the chair. This time Hodge was sure that her memories were flooding back; shock often overtook his most meticulous work. He watched as her wide, dilated eyes played back horrible images of Red Bartlett’s shattered skull, along with the sensation of a hot pistol in her hand. Someone was screaming, then, and by the expression on her face Hodge saw Nancy realize that she was the screamer, but still she couldn’t stop.

Major Hodge wanted his own team to get to that Mongoose first. If Toledo was on it, he should have an accident as quickly as possible.

“Excuse me, Major,” his aide said. “Your scramble to McAllen is ready in booth A.”

“Thanks, Sergeant. Any news on Colonel Toledo?”

“None, sir. The dam and ViraVax are gone. One plane crash-landed outside the compound, but we have no word on survivors.”

“Get a team on the ground now!” he ordered. “Nobody leaves that crash alive until we’re clear on contamination.”

“Yes, Major.”

Hodge dismissed her with a wave of his hand and proceeded to the ultrasecure transmission booth. Hodge had one last deception to carry off, the perfect theatrical finale that would decapitate the Gardener leadership and infect the United States in one fell swoop. The Angel had done his job; it was time for Ezra the Invisible to give Flaming Sword some breathing room.