CHAPTER 7
Buck pulled the Hummer out of the garage under the Strong Building after dark, lights off. He had spent the afternoon rigging up a special connection to the brake lights and backup lights. Once in regular traffic outside Chicago, he didn’t want to risk getting stopped for malfunctioning rear lights, but neither did he want those lights coming on when he braked at Zeke’s place.
Zeke himself was an expert at this and walked Buck through it by phone. It would be great when Zeke was tucked away at the new safe house, available to help with just those kinds of details. The brake lights were now disengaged, so with his lights on or off, Buck would have to manually illuminate them when applying the brake. A thin wire led from the back, through the backseat and up to the driver’s side. If he could just remember to use it.
No one knew how frequently, if ever, the GC invested the time, equipment, and manpower to overfly the quarantined city their own databases told them was heavily radioactive. It didn’t make sense that anyone would be near the place. If the readings were true—which David Hassid and the Tribulation Force knew was not the case—no one could live there long.
Still, Rayford’s plan was to come and go in his helicopter from the tower in the dark of night. And Buck, or anyone else coming or going, would do the same from the garage. It was tricky going, because no light sources—outside the Strong Building—were engaged in the city. Unless the moon was bright, seeing anything in the dark was almost impossible on what used to be those miles of city streets.
Buck pulled away slowly, the gigantic Hummer propelling itself easily over the jagged terrain. He wanted to get used to the vehicle, the largest he had ever driven. It was surprisingly comfortable, predictably powerful, and—to his delight—amazingly quiet. He had feared it would sound like a tank.
Driving around Chicago in the dark was no way to familiarize himself with the car. He needed open road and the confidence that no one was paying attention. Half an hour later he hit the city limits and took the deserted frontage road that would deliver him into the suburbs without detection. He turned on his lights and set the manual brake light switch where he could reach it with his left hand.
Near Park Ridge a rebuilt section actually had a few miles of new pavement and a couple of working traffic lights. The rest of northern Illinois seemed to have regressed to the earliest days of the automobile. Cars made their own trails through rubble, and rain sometimes made those routes impassable.
Buck saw a couple of GC squad cars, but traffic was light. When he felt safe, he tested the power of the Hummer and practiced several turns at varying speeds. The faster he went and the sharper he turned, the more violently his body was pressed against the safety belt. But it seemed nothing would make the Hummer tip. Buck found a deserted area where he was sure no one could see him and tried a couple of fast turns even on inclines. The Hummer seemed to ask for more. With its superwide stance, its weight, and its power, it had unmatched maneuverability. Buck felt as if he were starring in a commercial.
He floored the vehicle, got it up to near eighty on packed dirt, slammed on the brakes, and turned the wheel. The antilock system kept him from skidding or even hinting at going over. He couldn’t wait to compete with whatever toy the GC was using in its stakeout in Des Plaines.
Buck had to calm himself. The idea was to pick up Zeke undetected. He considered stopping at the station like a normal customer and ramming the GC as they came to investigate. But they had phones and radios and a communications network that would hem him in. If he could find a way to approach the station from the back, lights out, they might never see him, even after he pulled away with his quarry.
His phone chirped. It was Zeke. “You close by?” the young man said.
“Not far. What’s up?”
“We’re gonna hafta torch this place.”
“Why?”
“Once they figure they’ve busted every rebel that used to gas up here, they’re going to torch it anyway, right?”
“Maybe,” Buck said. “So why not let them?”
“They might search it first.”
“And find what?”
“The underground, of course. I can’t even think about gettin’ all the stuff outta here that could give my dad away.”
“What more can they do to him?”
“All they got him on now is sellin’ gas without GC approval. They fine him or make him sit a month or two. If they find out me and him was runnin’ a rebel forgery biz outta here, he becomes an enemy of the state.”
“Good thinking.” Buck never failed to be amazed at the street wisdom of the unlikely looking Zeke. Who would have guessed that the former druggie-biker-tattoo artist would be the best phony credentials man in the business?
“And remember, Mr. Williams. We were feedin’ people outta here too. Groceries, you name it. Well, you know. You bought a bunch of ’em. OK, here’s what I’m thinkin’. I rig up a timer to a sparking device. You know, it ain’t the gas that burns anyway.”
“I’m sorry?” Buck felt stupid. He had been a globe-trotting journalist, and a virtual illiterate was trying to tell him gasoline fires aren’t what they seem?
“Yeah, it’s not the gas that burns. When I was workin’ above ground, helpin’ Dad in the station when it was legal and all, I used to toss my cigarettes in a bucket of gas we kept in the service bay.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I swear.”
“Lit cigarettes?”
“Swear to—I mean, honest. That was how we put ’em out. They’d hiss like you was tossin’ ’em into a bucket o’ water.”
“I’m confused.”
“We kept gas in there to clean our hands on. Cuts grease, you know. Like if you just did an axle job and now you gotta go fill a tank or write on a credit card receipt or something.”
“I mean I’m confused about how you could throw a cigarette into a container of gasoline.”
“Lots of people don’t know that or don’t believe it.”
“How’d you keep from blowing yourselves to kingdom come?”
“Well, if the bucket of gas was fresh, you had to wait awhile. If you saw any of that shimmerin’ of the fumes over it, like when you first pour it in there, or when you’re fillin’ your tank, well, you don’t want any open flame of any kind near that.”
“But once it sat and the, uh, shimmering fumes were gone?”
“Then we tossed our cigarette butts in there.”
“So, it’s the fumes.”
“Yeah, it’s the fumes what burns.”
“I get it. So, your thoughts?”
“See, Mr. Williams, it works the same in an engine. Like a fuel-injected engine shoots a fine spray of gas into the cylinders and the spark plugs spark and burn it, but they’re not burning the spray.”
“The spray is emitting fumes and that’s what’s, in essence, exploding in the cylinder,” Buck said.
“Now you’ve got it.”
“Good. I’m heading your way, so cut to the chase.”
“OK. I moved two huge boxes of stuff out by the pile of dirt in the back, and I got one big canvas bag. All my files, my equipment, everything is there. Even had room for some food.”
“We have plenty of food, Zeke.”
“Never have enough food. Anyway, the stuff’s out there waitin’. I figure if you don’t get seen comin’, I can be waitin’ for ya and load my stuff in there real quick before I jump in.”
“Sounds like a plan. Back to the torching.”
“Yeah. I’ve got auto parts down here. I cut a feed from the pipe that leads to the storage tank, which runs right by the wall we dug out here, and I hook a fuel injector to it. When I leave, I turn the spigot, the gas runs through the fuel injector and starts sprayin’ gasoline.”
“And pretty soon the underground is filled with gas.”
“Fumes.”
“Right. And you, what, toss a match down the stairs on your way out to the car?”
Zeke laughed.
“Shh.”
“Yeah, they can’t hear me. But no, tossing a flame down here then would blow me all the way to Chicago. Save you a trip, eh?”
“So how do you ignite it?”
“Put a spark plug on a timer. Give myself five minutes or so, just in case. At the right time, kaboom.”
“Kaboom.”
“Bingo.”
“Zeke, even if I agreed, you’d never have time to rig that all up. I’m not ten minutes away.”
“I figured you’d agree.”
“And so—?”
“It’s all done.”
“You’re kiddin’ me.”
“Nope. If you’re ten minutes away, I’ll set the timer for fifteen, and when I leave I’ll open the spigot.”
“Hoo, boy, you’re resourceful.”
“I know how to do stuff.”
“You sure do, but do me a favor.”
“Name it.”
“Set the timer for five, but don’t start it until after you’ve turned the spigot on your way out. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Oh, and one more thing. Make sure I’m there before you open that spigot.”
“Oh, yeah, right. That would be important.”
“Kaboom, Zeke.”
“Bingo.”
“Call you when I get there.”
“Her name is not in our system, David,” Nurse Palemoon said. He tried to sit up and she shushed him. “That doesn’t have to mean the worst.”
“How can you say that? The sun is coming up, and I haven’t heard from her. She’d communicate with me if she could!”
“David, you must calm down. This room is empty but not secure. Your friends are on their way, but you can’t trust anyone else.”
“Tell me about it. Hannah, you have got to get me out of here. I can’t stay here another few days. There is so much I have to do before leaving New Babylon.”
“I can supply you with extra meds and dressings and try to make sure you’re set, but you’re going to be sore.”
“I’m not worried about that. Will you—” His throat caught and he couldn’t say it. “Ah, would you—”
“You want me to check the morgue?” She said it with such compassion that he nearly broke down.
He nodded.
“I’ll be right back. If your friends get here while I’m gone, remind them there are ears everywhere.”
Rayford and Albie and their human cargo from Colorado put down at a tiny airstrip near Bozeman, Montana, rather than try to get back to Kankakee without sleep. Albie bluffed and blustered the tiny GC contingent at the strip, who bought his story of transporting a criminal and let the three of them borrow a jeep to get into town.
Such as it was. Bozeman had been left with few amenities, but one was a nearly deserted motel where they rented two rooms. “I don’t guess we have to worry about you bolting,” Rayford told Hattie.
“Compared to Buffer,” she said, “the new safe house sounds like heaven.”
“You’ll be in for the pitches of your life,” he said. “There are more of us, and you’re going to be our prime target.”
“I might just listen for once,” she said.
“Don’t say that lightly.”
“I don’t say anything lightly anymore.”
Hattie had a million questions about Pinkerton Stephens, but Rayford and Albie told her only that “he is one of us.” Then she wanted Albie’s story, and he told of becoming a believer after a lifetime as a Muslim. “You know who I mean when I mention Tsion Ben-Judah then?” he said.
“Do I know?” she said. “I know him personally. Talk about a man who loves the unlovable . . .”
“Are you speaking of yourself, young lady?”
She snorted and nodded. “Who else?”
“Let me tell you something. I was unlovable. I was no kind of husband or father. My whole family is dead now. I was a criminal, and the only people who cared about me paid me well to get what they needed for illegal acts. I began to justify my existence when my black marketing was used to oppose the new evil world ruler. But I would not have called him Antichrist, would not even have known the term. I was in the same business when the world was merely chaotic, not so evil. My god was cash, and I knew how to get it.
“When Mac and Rayford needed my services, I took some comfort in the fact that they seemed to be good people. I was no longer just helping criminals. I watched them, listened to them. They were outlaws in the eyes of the Global Community, but to me that was a badge of honor.
“When all the predictions Mac and Rayford had told me began coming true, I could not admit to them I was intrigued. More than that, I was scared. If this were all true, then I was an outsider. I was not a believer. I began monitoring the Internet messages of Dr. Ben-Judah without telling my friends. I was full of pride still. What struck me hardest was that Dr. Ben-Judah made it so clear that God was the lover of sinners. Oh, I knew I was that. I just could hardly accept that anyone would love me.
“I downloaded a Bible to my computer and would switch back and forth between it and Dr. Ben-Judah. I was able to see where he was getting his information, but his insights! Those had to come from God alone. What I was learning went against everything I had ever heard or been taught. My first prayer was so childish that I would never have prayed it aloud in front of another living soul.
“I told God I knew I was a sinner and that I wanted to believe that he loved me and would forgive me. I told him that the Western religion—for that is what it sounded like to me—was so foreign to me that I did not know if I could ever understand it. But I said to the Lord, ‘If you are really the true and living God, please make it plain to me.’ I told him I was sorry for my whole life and that he was my only hope. That was all. I felt nothing, maybe a little foolish. But I slept that night as I had not slept in years.
“Oh, do not misunderstand me. I was not sure I had gotten through to God. I was not sure that he was, in fact, who Dr. Ben-Judah and the others believed him to be. But I knew I had done all I could. I had been honest with myself and honest with him, and if he was who I hoped he was, he would have heard me. That was the best I could expect.”
Albie sat back and inhaled deeply.
“That’s it?” Hattie said. “That’s all?”
He smiled. “I thought I would pause and see if I had bored you to sleep yet.”
“You two are the ones who were up all night. Tell me what happened.”
“Well, I awoke the next morning with a feeling of expectancy. I didn’t know what to make of it. Before I could even eat, I felt a deep hunger and thirsting—there is no other word for it—for the Bible. I believed with my whole being that it was the Word of God, and I had to read it. I pulled it up on my computer and read and read and read and read. I cannot tell you how it filled me. I understood it! I wanted more of it! I could not get enough. Only after midday, when I was weak from hunger, did I realize I had not eaten yet.
“I thanked God over and over for his Word, for his truth, for answering my prayer and revealing himself to me. Occasionally I would break from my Bible reading and check to see if Dr. Ben-Judah had posted anything new. He had not, but I followed some of his links to a site that walked the reader through what the rabbi calls the sinner’s prayer. I prayed it, but I realized that it was what I had already done. I was a believer, a child of God, a forgiven, loved sinner.”
Hattie appeared unable to speak, but Rayford had seen her this way before. Many had told her their stories of coming to faith. She knew the truth and the way. She simply had never accepted the life.
“There is a reason I wanted to tell you that story,” Albie said. “Not just because I want to persuade you, which I do. Those among us who have found the truth long for everyone else to have it. But it was because of what you said about yourself. You said Dr. Ben-Judah was one who loved the unlovable. He does, of course. This is a Christlike quality, a Jesus characteristic. But then you referred to yourself as unlovable, and I identified with you.
“But more than that, Ms. Durham, if I may use a phrase of Dr. Ben-Judah’s. Often he will say that this or that truth ‘gives the lie’ to certain false claims. Have you heard him say that, and do you know what it means?”
She nodded.
“Well, it applies to you, dear woman. I have just met you, and yet God has given me a love for you. Rayford and his family and friends speak often of you and their love for you. That gives the lie to your claim that you are unlovable.”
“They shouldn’t love me,” she said, just above a whisper.
“Of course they shouldn’t. You know yourself. You know your selfishness, your sin. God should not love us either, and yet he does. And it is only because of him that we can love each other. There is no human explanation for it.”
Rayford sat praying silently, desperately, for Hattie. Was it possible she was one who had for so long rejected Christ that God had turned her over to her own stubbornness? Was she unable to see the truth, to change her mind? If that were true, why did God plague Rayford and his friends with such a concern for her?
Suddenly she rose and stepped to Rayford. She bent and kissed the top of his head. She turned and did the same to Albie, cupping his face in her hands. “Don’t worry about me tonight,” she said. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
“You have no reason not to be,” Albie said. “You are not really in our custody. In fact, you are dead.”
“Anyway,” Rayford said, standing and stretching, “where would you bolt to? Where would you be safer than where we’re taking you?”
“Thanks for saving my life,” she said as she turned to head for her room.
When she shut the door, Rayford said, “I just hope this wasn’t for nothing.”
They heard her door open and shut and her moving about in her room.
“It wasn’t,” Albie said.
Rayford was bone weary, but as he disrobed for bed he thought he heard something over the sound of Albie’s shower. From the adjoining room he thought he heard voices. He moved closer to the wall. Not voices, just one. Crying. Sobbing. Wailing. Hattie, muffled, apparently with her face buried in a pillow or blanket.
As he drifted off to sleep half an hour later in the bed across from Albie’s, Hattie’s laments still wafted through the wall. Rayford heard Albie turn and pat his pillow, then settle back. “God,” the little man whispered, “save that girl.”
Buck drove straight past the little filling station, pretending to not notice the GC stakeout car amidst a small grove of trees across the road. He didn’t even slow, so as not to attract attention. If he had to guess, he thought just two GC guards were in the car.
He phoned Zeke. “Any more activity?”
“Nope. Was that you what just passed? Nice rig.”
“I’m going to circle way around and see if I can come in from the back with my lights off. Might take ten minutes. I’ll call you when I’m in position.”
Buck drove until he couldn’t see even the outline of the station in his rearview mirror, assuming the GC could no longer see him either. He cut his lights and took a right, slowly feeling his way over rough ground. He was a couple of miles from the station, and he wanted to be sure he didn’t find a hidden fence or culvert that would mess up the Hummer.
At one point, after taking two more rights and thus heading in the general direction of the back of the station, he felt the vehicle dip and hoped he hadn’t found a hole too deep to pull out of. When the front grille hit something solid, he hit the brakes and briefly turned on the headlights. He shut them off again quickly, hoping the GC hadn’t seen anything in the distance. Buck saw that he needed to back up and swing left around a five-foot-high or so mound of dirt and boards.
He wanted to turn on his brights and be able to see if anything else obstructed his path to the back of the station, but he didn’t dare. By the time he could make out the shape of the place, he slowed to just a few miles an hour and crept along in the uneven dirt, bouncing, jostling, and—he hoped—not sending up too much dust. It was a starry night, and if the GC noticed anything blocking the sky, they were sure to come nosing around the back.
Buck phoned Zeke.
“I hear you,” Zeke said.
“You hear me? From inside? That can’t be good.”
“That’s what I was thinking. You ready for me?”
“Better come quick. Carrying anything?”
“Yeah, one more bag. Figured I might as well not leave anything I could bring.”
“Good thinking. Come on.”
“Gotta open the spigot and turn on the timer.”
“For how long?”
“Five minutes.”
“Anything on the monitor?”
“They’re just sittin’.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Buck knew he could come back the way he came, and though the ride would be pretty rugged, he estimated he could do as much as 40 mph. But in case the GC could hear the Hummer as well as Zeke could, he jumped out and started loading the car to save time.
The inside light stayed dark as he opened the door to get out, and he left it open. He opened the back door on the far side and crept around to start lifting. The first box was almost too heavy, and it was all he could do to not cry out under the weight. He heard Zeke coming up the stairs.
Buck lugged the box onto the backseat from the car door farthest from the station’s back door, feeling every sore fiber from his recent ordeal. When he got back around the car to grab the other box, figuring Zeke could load the bag he was carrying and the one on the ground at the same time, he nearly ran into the young man, startling him.
Zeke grunted. Buck tried to shush him, but Zeke dropped his bag and lurched back inside, slamming the door. Buck heard him lumbering down the stairs. Now they were making way too much noise.
Buck yanked open the station door and called out desperately, as quietly as he could, “Zeke, it’s just me! C’mon, man! Now!”
“Oh, man!” Zeke hollered. “I thought it was them! The timer’s goin’, the gas is spittin’. And they’re comin’, Buck! I can see ’em on the monitor!”
Buck turned and opened the back door nearest the station. He picked up the bag that had been waiting and the one Zeke had dropped and hurled them across the backseat. He left the door open and jumped behind the wheel, slamming his door and putting the Hummer in gear. Zeke barreled out and dove into the backseat, knocking one of the bags out the other side, where Buck had left the door open.
Buck floored the accelerator, but Zeke yelled, “We can’t leave that bag! It’s got lots of stuff we need!”
The door had started to close when Buck took off, but when he hit the brakes, it swung the other way and creaked against the hinges. “Get it!” he screamed, and Zeke scrambled over the stuff and out onto the ground, his foot dragging a bag out too. And here came the GC mobile around the station in front of Buck.
“Go! Go!” Zeke yelled, forcing himself into the backseat with both heavy bags tucked under his arms.
The door was still open, but Buck had to move. He gunned the engine and slammed into the GC car, driving it back against the station as his back door shut. The guards had weapons out and appeared to be reaching for door handles. Buck knew he couldn’t outrace bullets, so he threw the Hummer into Reverse, floored it, and the monstrous vehicle climbed the hill of debris near the door.
Buck stopped at the top as they teetered some twelve feet above their pursuers. He shifted into Drive, and when the GC saw the vehicle start to move, they lowered their weapons and dove out of the way. The Hummer dropped almost vertically, ramming the hood of the little car and blowing both of its front tires. The engine gushed water and steam, and Buck could tell he had rendered the GC vehicle useless.
Rather than look for the guards, he merely backed up six feet, whipped the wheel right, and sped off into the night. Zeke had somehow gotten the door shut, but neither he nor Buck had time to buckle in. As the Hummer lurched across the plains at high speed, both men were thrown around like rag dolls, their heads hitting the ceiling, their shoulders banging the doors.
Buck skidded to a stop.
“What?” Zeke demanded.
“Buckle up!”
They both did and off he flew again. Fewer than five minutes later, as Buck found a route that would lead them back to Chicago, the sky behind them went from night to day in a massive orange ball of flame. A few seconds later the sound and the shock rocked the car anew. Buck, high from the adrenaline, knew how close they had come to dying.
Zeke, laughing like a child, kept turning in his seat and looking back at the flaming horizon. “Well,” he said, cackling, “so much for that job!”