Symbols that had once given him comfort and a sense of belonging to a community of infinite continuity now evoked in him opposite emotions, reminding him of his loss and his isolation from all the people, places, and things that had permeated his soul and defined his being until five years ago, when he had been banished from this world.
Flanked by the plastic statuary of the Stations of the cross in their shadowy alcoves, feeling like a naked, vulnerable runner in a gauntlet set up to test his spirit, Brendan Furie, his footsteps muffled by thick maroon carpeting, strode quickly down the center aisle of the dimly lighted cathedral. He had not been inside a church in the five years since his excommunication, the amputation of his soul from the body of the church engineered by the figure in black who was kneeling, head bowed in prayer, at the railing before the white-draped altar at the front of the sanctuary.
Brendan had the distinct feeling that he was being watched, and he wondered if this might not be a kind of vestigial sense of the eyes of God, a psychological reaction to this return after a long absence to physical surroundings that had once meant everything to him but now seemed only a distant memory from another life, perhaps one only dreamed.
He reached the front of the sanctuary, but the frail, kneeling figure remained still, and Brendan was not certain the other man was even aware of his presence. For a moment he felt the old, virtually instinctive, urge to genuflect before the altar, but he knew he no longer had either the obligation or the right, and so he simply sat down at the end of the first pew and waited for Henry Cardinal Farrell to finish his prayers.
Almost five minutes went by before the old man, without raising his head or unclasping his hands, said in a low voice, “Thank you for coming, Father.”
“I’m here because you asked me to come, Eminence,” Brendan replied evenly. He swallowed, added softly, “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me ‘Father.’ Frankly, it sounds rather odd when you say it. You, of all people, know that I’m no longer a priest.”
There was a prolonged silence, and Brendan began to wonder if the cardinal had heard him. But then the kneeling figure said, “Other people still call you that.”
“No.”
“You’ve become famous.”
“Have I?”
“I’ve seen it in the newspapers. They call you ‘the priest,’ or sometimes just ‘priest.’”
“It’s not the same thing, Eminence.
“No,” the old man replied, and then shuddered slightly, as if he had suddenly experienced a chill. “And I’d prefer you not to address me as ‘Eminence.’ It’s been some time since I felt eminent. I appreciate your courtesy, but it isn’t necessary.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Brendan, are you … carrying a gun?”
It seemed a decidedly odd question in this stone house of worship, and Brendan stared at the old man’s back for a few moments. But the kneeling figure remained inscrutable, old bones and flesh draped in black. Finally he replied, “No.”
“I thought you might be. The stories …”
“Sometimes I carry a gun, but not often. In my business, a gun doesn’t do much good. I’ve yet to meet the superstition, ignorance, obsession, or hatred that I could kill with a bullet.”
Now the cardinal raised his head, unclasped his bony hands, and straightened his back. He put both hands on the rail in front of him and struggled to rise. Brendan got to his feet and started forward to assist the other man, but stopped when the cardinal vigorously shook his head in protest, Brendan resumed his seat, waited. Finally the cardinal managed to stand. He turned, walked unsteadily to the pew across from Brendan, and eased himself down. Brendan gazed into the eyes of the man sitting across the maroon-carpeted aisle, and was shocked by the stark gauntness of the features, the parchment-colored flesh that seemed almost translucent, the dark rings around the eyes. Henry Cardinal Farrell looked, Brendan thought, like a piece of fruit that had shriveled, or been cored.
The old man’s lips drew back in a kind of bemused smile, and emotions Brendan could not decipher moved like moon shadows in the watery gray eyes. “Danger, the world, and good works seem to have served you well, priest. You look very well.”
“You do not.”
“I shall die … shortly.”
“I’m sorry.”
The frail Prince of the Church made a dismissive gesture with a trembling hand, and once again he smiled. “God really does work in mysterious ways, doesn’t He?”
“I’ve heard it said, Father.”
“I suppose it could be said that in a certain way I created you.”
“How so, father?”
“I created this ‘priest’ that you’ve become, this man of such fame—or notoriety, as some would have it—who is now a private investigator, of all things, specializing in religious and spiritual matters, a fierce defender of children and their rights. Before, you were just a priest. I have heard it argued again and again that you are a far more effective avatar for Christ in your state of disgrace than you ever were before your … career change. The implications of this for the church are a subject of some heated debate among certain theologians. My name is almost never mentioned. I actually believe my role in it all has been forgotten.”
Brendan said nothing. He felt oddly distanced, separated from this old enemy and the institution he represented by an unbreachable wall of betrayal, loss, pain, and death.
“You were never a good priest, Brendan,” the cardinal continued in a voice that seemed to be growing stronger with a passion born of either anger or regret. “You were always a rebel, never at ease with the church. You were always questioning things you had no right to question.”
“I questioned things you didn’t want me to question, Eminence, but I always obeyed you, didn’t I?” Brendan paused as he felt waves of his old resentment and anger rise in him, waiting for them to recede. When they were gone, he continued, “I went into retreat to do penance when you ordered me to, and I came out to do your errand when you ordered me to. It was not the church that made me ill at ease.”
The cardinal stiffened. “Errand?”
“That’s what I said.”
“It was God’s business.”
“It was your business.”
“The reason you were sent to retreat in the first place was to teach you that it wasn’t your place to make such judgments.”
Brendan suppressed a sigh. “Why did you ask me to come here, Father?”
The old man looked away from Brendan, toward the altar and beyond at the huge, painted wood figure of Christ nailed to a cross. “I’ve told you I shall die shortly. I have my secular affairs in order, and now I am trying to do the same for my soul.”
“What is it you want from me, Father?” Brendan asked in a neutral tone.
“I want you to hear my confession.”
Brendan could not believe he had heard the other man correctly; if he had, it could only mean that his being asked to come here was the sad joke of a dying old man, or that the mind of that dying old man was deteriorating. Brendan said nothing.
“You would refuse the request of a man who is so close to death?”
“I don’t understand the request.”
“I don’t ask you to understand it, only to grant it.’
“I’m not exactly qualified to hear your confession, am I? Why should you wish to participate in a heretical act? Some of your more conservative colleagues might say you’ve committed heresy merely by making the request—that’s assuming you’re serious.”
The old man opened his mouth and made a strange, rasping sound. It took Brendan a few moments to realize that the other man was laughing. “Since when have you concerned yourself with what the church did or did not consider heresy? I don’t think you much cared even before they defrocked you.”
“What concerns me is my business, father,” Brendan replied evenly. “Forgive me for saying that you’ve played games with me before, and I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t just part of some other game.”
The cardinal abruptly looked away; when he looked back at Brendan, his pale, watery eyes seemed unnaturally bright. “This is not a game, Brendan,” he said forcefully.
“Your sins have nothing to do with me.”
“You know that isn’t so.” He paused, leaned forward in the pew, added: “Some sins have a way of coming back to punish you in this life. Listen to me.”
“I won’t hear your confession.”
The cardinal sighed, leaned back in the pew. “Why do you accuse me of having played games with you? You were asked to perform an exorcism. As a result of your miscalculations, the mother of the young girl in question committed a mortal sin by killing herself. Church authorities determined that the suicide of this woman was a direct result of your malfeasance—your lack of proper preparation and perhaps even your lack of faith and purpose; the sin, it was decided, was yours, not hers, and the punishment was your excommunication. That judgment may have been harsh, but it was influenced by your past attitudes and writings and your reputation and actions as a dissident priest. You were consistently involved with organizations, social and political causes that the Holy See deemed inappropriate. You were warned more than once. Those are the facts. Do you dispute them?”
“I do not. Those are the facts. But the truth lies someplace else.”
“Oh? Just what is the truth?”
“You sent me out to perform a rite for which you knew I wasn’t prepared and in which you strongly suspected I didn’t believe.”
“You don’t believe in demonic possession?”
“I believe in obsession founded on greed, lust, hatred, or a dozen other human evils. But it’s hard enough to get people to take responsibility for their actions without providing them with the potential excuse that the devil made them do it.”
“It’s not like you to be flippant or disrespectful of ideas other people take very seriously, Brendan.”
“I’m telling you the truth you claimed to want to hear. If you think I’m being flippant, you still don’t understand me and you can never understand what happened. Lisa Vanderklaven wasn’t possessed by demons; her erratic behavior was, under the circumstances, rational and healthy. She had a very good reason for defying her father and continually running away from home, namely that she was being persistently and brutally abused by the same man who had made her mother his mistress and who was her father’s close business associate. When Lisa told her father about the abuse, he refused to believe her. Henry Vanderklaven preferred to believe that his daughter was possessed by demons, for to accept that she was being molested by Werner Pale would have interfered with his business interests and cast considerable doubt on his ability to judge character. Lisa Vanderklaven needed protection, not exorcism.
“In my initial interview with Lisa, she broke down; she couldn’t believe that her father could actually believe she was possessed. That was when she told me that Pale had not only been molesting her, but had been involved in a sexual relationship with her mother for some time; Pale had bragged about it to her. At the time, I didn’t feel I had any choice but to talk with Olga Vanderklaven, not only to try to confirm Lisa’s story but to offer the mother my help, if she wanted it. That was my mistake. Faced with the fact that Lisa and I knew about her lover, and that the lover was molesting her daughter, she committed suicide.
“If anybody in that family could have been described as possessed, it was Lisa’s father, and he’d created his own hell out of a deadly combination of greed and self-righteousness. Vanderklaven’s greed was what led him to employ a man like Werner Pale in the first place. Vanderklaven was an arms dealer, as you well know. What you might not have known was that Werner Pale was a murderous soldier of fortune whom Vanderklaven employed to train provocateurs. Those provocateurs were kept busy whipping up brush wars in various parts of the world in order to keep up the volume of sales of the arms Vanderklaven manufactured. He saw nothing wrong with what he did; he was an impossibly self-righteous man who could not see the evil around him that he’d created. He was a zealous Catholic with powerful friends in Rome, a church benefactor who gave millions to various church causes. He was so assured of his reservation in heaven that he could destroy his family and be blissfully unaware of the cause, the evil he had brought home with him, the man he considered a friend as well as a business associate. When Lisa told him that his friend was raping her, Vanderklaven demanded that she see a psychiatrist; when she ran away, he sent Werner Pale to find her and bring her back. When she ran away again he went to his golf buddy—you, Eminence—and asked you to arrange for an exorcism to free his daughter from her demons. Demonic possession was the only explanation he could think of for her behavior.
“I believe, Eminence, that when you heard the story you knew it would not withstand the scrutiny and investigation Rome requires before declaring officially that someone is demonically possessed, and that it was highly unlikely you would be able to get a trained exorcist to intervene in the affairs of this very troubled family. But you were afraid to offend Henry Vanderklaven by telling him the truth; you were afraid he might tighten his purse strings to the detriment of the church’s interest, perhaps even afraid he might complain to his friends in the Vatican about your lack of sensitivity. And so you looked around for another solution to the problem he’d handed you, and I was it. You would send this young priest you were trying to break to go through the motions of performing an exorcism; once again you would force me to submit to your will while at the same time making Vanderklaven happy. I failed, Father, yes, and because of my failure as a human being to fully perceive and deal with Olga Vanderklaven’s torment, she committed suicide as a direct result of my inquiries. Well, Rome was not about to declare that the soul of the wife of this important lay pillar of the church would burn in hell; in their view, and perhaps yours, it was preferable to consign my soul to burn in hell, and I was subsequently excommunicated. I didn’t disagree with their action then, and I don’t now. I was responsible for the woman’s death because I should have ignored your machinations, scrapped the whole idea of an exorcism, and referred the case to social workers. Olga Vanderklaven died because of my failure as a priest, Eminence, but she also died because you sent someone you knew to be spiritually unequipped for the task of performing a rite that wasn’t even called for to meddle in an incredibly raw emotional situation. That, Eminence, is the truth.”
Brendan waited, anticipating defense or denial. Instead, the Cardinal simply said, “You are right, priest. That is the truth.”
“If you understand that, it seems to me that you have confessed all you need to.”
The old man slowly turned to face Brendan, and his pale eyes went wide. “Understand this, Brendan,” he said in a trembling voice. “Satan himself was there. It was Satan himself you were battling against.”
Brendan studied the other man’s face, saw real fear there—as well as something else he could not read. “I assume you’re speaking metaphorically, Father.” He paused, frowned when the cardinal responded by shaking his head. “Werner Pale?”
Now the cardinal nodded. Brendan ran his hands back through his black hair, looked down at the floor as he resisted the impulse to say something flippant or sarcastic that he knew he would regret. Finally he looked up, said, “No, Father. Pale was a murderous psychotic and a totally useless human being, not Satan. Believing that is just your way of avoiding taking personal responsibility for what happened. That’s what Henry Vanderklaven did, and it’s what killed his wife.”
The cardinal’s eyes went even wider, and his hands began to shake along with his voice. “But what if I’m right, Brendan? What if it was Satan?”
“What you believe is none of my business, Eminence,” Brendan replied evenly. “Believe what makes you at peace, but don’t then ask me to help resolve the conflicts that remain.
The old man took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. His trembling eased, and he sank back wearily in the pew. “I would very much like to know what happened afterward,” he said in a voice so low Brendan could barely make out the words.
“Didn’t Vanderklaven tell you?”
The old man sighed, producing an odd rattling sound in his lungs. “Henry Vanderklaven put a bullet in his brain soon after returning here from Europe, which was about three months after the events we have been discussing transpired. I believe it was because of something you said or did to him.”
Brendan searched inside himself for some feeling of pity for Henry Vanderklaven, a man who, according to his belief system, had sentenced himself to eternal damnation. He felt nothing. He believed the man had done nothing to himself except end his life. He found he no longer believed in hells or heavens save for those created by living human consciousness and deeds, and perhaps never had. His faith had always been about living each day as a human trying to live up to the example set by Christ, not eternal rewards or punishments. What he did believe, what he knew, was that Henry Vanderklaven had created a hell for others that still tormented them, and he was glad the man was no longer alive.
“Brendan?” the cardinal continued softly. “What happened?”
“After Lisa ran away for the second time and came to the children’s shelter, I promised her she would be protected from any kind of demons, human or otherwise, until I had investigated to try to determine the truth,” Brendan said in an even tone that belied the turmoil once again building inside him. “I failed her. Not only did her mother commit suicide as a result of my bungling questions, but Werner Pale, acting on the father’s orders, kidnapped her a second time while I was otherwise occupied trying to defend myself against excommunication. Then father, daughter, and Werner Pale left for Europe. As far as law enforcement and social welfare agencies here were concerned, the matter was out of their jurisdiction. But it wasn’t a situation I could live with. I’d promised Lisa she wouldn’t be harmed. I searched for them, and I found them. The details aren’t important. What matters is that I finally found a way to make Henry Vanderklaven face up to the fact that the friend he relied on to stir up his business of death had cuckolded him and raped his daughter repeatedly. He saw, finally, how his own greed had blinded him, destroyed his wife, and caused his daughter to hate him. I didn’t know he’d killed himself. For all his outward zealotry, he apparently didn’t believe in forgiveness, not even for himself, and he certainly must not have believed in redemption.”
“And where … is the girl now?”
“In New York. She’s happily married, with a child. She works for a private children’s social service agency.
Now the old man again slowly turned to look at Brendan, studied his face for some time. Finally he said, “Ah, yes. It’s the same agency, I presume, for which you have done such good work, the one operated by the former nun with whom you are rumored to have a … relationship?”
“I don’t think that’s really a part of this story, Eminence, is it? The point is that Lisa is safe now, with her own life to lead. She still has nightmares, but those will pass with time.”
The cardinal nodded slightly. “And Werner Pale?”
“He’s dead. I killed him
Brendan watched the other man react with what could have been surprise, but also with something else Brendan could not quite determine. “You, priest, killed this professional soldier?”
“He was trying to kill me. We fought, and I was lucky. He’d planned to burn me to death, but he was the one who fell into the fire.”
Once again the old cardinal, apparently lost in his own thoughts, was silent for some time. At last, he said, “I’ve heard it said that you’ve killed a number of men since you left us. Can you have changed so much, priest?”
“How much I have changed is not for me to say, Eminence. I’ve harmed no one who was not trying to harm me, or sometimes a child. I’ve told you what you wanted to know. Are you satisfied?”
“Would you care to hear what has happened to me over the past five years?”
“If you feel the need to tell me, I will listen.”
“God has turned his face from me, Brendan. I wronged you, and I’ve been punished. While it’s true that the decision to excommunicate you came from Rome, the same people ultimately blamed me, for they knew the truth you spoke of. I often feel as if I have been excommunicated along with you. There has been no peace for me during the past five years.’”
“It sounds to me as if you’ve been busy punishing yourself, Eminence. You made a mistake, and God will forgive you. Where is your faith?”
The cardinal shook his head impatiently, with renewed vigor. “It was more than just a mistake. It’s true that I never believed the girl was possessed, and yet I sent you to perform a sacred ritual simply to mollify her father. That is blasphemy, sacrilege. I need not only God’s forgiveness, but yours as well, Brendan.”
“You have it.”
“Hear my confession.”
“I believe I already have.”
“In the confessional. Please.”
“I don’t think so, Eminence. This is the second time you have asked me to perform a sacred rite under inappropriate circumstances. The—”
“Precisely!”
“—first time neither of us believed in what we were doing, and death and my excommunication were the results; now that I have been excommunicated, church authorities would not recognize the sanctity of any confession you made to me. I don’t understand what it is you really want, but I do know that it can’t be the sacrament of confession.”
The old cardinal slowly rose to his feet, turned to face Brendan, and then drew himself up very straight. Suddenly his eyes were very bright. “If you do not understand, priest, then you have not been listening to my words carefully, as I asked you to. I need to confess to you so that I can hear you say the Hail Mary.”
Suddenly Brendan felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck, and he resisted the impulse to make any sudden movement. “As you wish, Eminence,” he replied in an even tone, bowing his head slightly.
“The confessor will come to you,” the cardinal said in the same strong voice, and then turned away.
Brendan forced himself to remain still, to breathe evenly, as he watched the old man hobble across the sanctuary and disappear through a door to the right of the altar. He waited a few seconds, then rose and walked toward the ornately carved wood confessional stalls to his left. He hesitated just a moment before entering the priest’s section of the confessional and sitting down.
Sins have a way of coming back to punish you in this life. Listen to me.
Almost five minutes passed, and then Brendan heard the door in the section on the other side of the wood screen open. Brendan glanced through the screen and watched as a stooped figure wearing a white robe with a cowl entered.
Even without the Cardinal’s cryptic request to hear him speak Hail Mary, which was a reversal of the rite and all wrong, he would have sensed danger now, for this robed and hooded figure wore the white sash, the alb, around his neck, and that was wrong; a priest wore the alb to receive confession, not to enter the box as a penitent.
His earlier sensation of being watched had not been a fantasy, Brendan thought, but the eyes watching him had definitely not been those of God.
Are you carrying a gun?
Brendan stood and hurled himself at the screen, hitting the wood with his right shoulder and placing his left forearm across his face to protect his eyes from splinters. He hurtled through the fragile latticework, landing against the robed figure, and they both fell to the floor of the stall. Brendan used his left hand to grab the wrist of the man’s right hand, which had emerged from the robe holding a .22 caliber pistol, while he drove his right fist into the man’s midsection.
The cowl slipped back, revealing a face that was a nightmare mass of milk-colored, puckered scar tissue and lines of pink scars that could only have been the results of a series of failed operations. Werner Pale writhed beneath Brendan with the strength born of bottomless hatred and rage, swung at his head with the steel hook that had been used to replace his left hand. Brendan ducked under the blow but felt the sharp tip against his back as the steel began to dig its way through his leather jacket toward his flesh. He reached out with his free hand, found a shard of wood from the shattered screen, and wrapped his fingers around it. As the steel tip sliced through his jacket and touched skin, he raised the stake in the air, and then drove the tip down into Werner Pale’s throat.
Blood spurted from the pierced jugular. The scarred O of the man’s mouth opened in a silent scream, but almost immediately the one Seeing Eye began to glaze over. The body beneath Brendan twitched violently for a few moments, and then was still.
Brendan rose from the corpse, threw open the door to the confessional and, wiping blood from his face, ran through a labyrinth of narrow stone and wood corridors toward the Cardinal’s private chambers.
He found the old man, looking even paler and with pain clearly evident in the watery eyes, sitting at the desk in his study, seemingly holding himself upright with his palms on the polished oak surface before him.
“Brendan,” Henry Cardinal Farrell breathed as Brendan came through the door, stopped. “Thank God. My prayers have been answered.” He paused and squinted, as if he was having trouble seeing. “You’re hurt.”
“The blood is Werner Pale’s, eminence, not mine.
“Thank God.”
“Thank you for your warning. It saved my life.”
“I couldn’t warn you outright, priest. He was listening.”
“I understand,” Brendan said and again started forward. He stopped a few feet from the desk when the Cardinal raised one ling hand with the palm outward, as if to push him back.
“He came to me … to kill me, of course, since I was responsible for sending you into his life. He wanted to know where to find you and the girl, and he said that he would kill me quickly if I told him. There is nothing he could have done to make me tell him, Brendan. Believe me.”
“I do, Eminence. You don’t have to explain.”
“But I want to,” the old man said in a voice that was growing progressively weaker.
“I believe he spent most of the past five years in hospitals, or he would have known how famous you’ve become. He would have had no trouble finding you, and you would have had no warning. He might also have traced the girl, Lisa. I decided to gamble for your life and the girl’s; you had defeated him once efore, and perhaps you could do it again. I sensed that he was afraid of you. But I also sensed that he badly wanted to make you suffer, and that shooting you down from some rooftop would not be satisfying for him. I acted well, Brendan. I got down on my knees before him and begged him for my life. I told him I would bring you to him and extract the information he wanted, if only he would spare my life. I also told him I would help trap you in a closed space, where you would be at his mercy. He was very pleased with the idea of killing you in the confessional booth, positively delighted when I suggested that he could pretend to be me. He said he was going to shoot you in the belly or kneecaps first, and then carve you up. He couldn’t stop laughing when I showed him the robe and sash he could wear. He loved the idea of dressing up like a priest to kill you.” The old man paused, and the broad smile that suddenly appeared on his face seemed to belong to a much younger and less troubled man. “That’s when I knew we had a chance, priest, for you, of all people, would find it rather odd that I, of all people, would ask you to join me in an act of heresy.”
Then the cardinal coughed blood and pitched forward on the desk. Brendan rushed forward, lifted the old man by the shoulders, saw the blood, and the handle of the stiletto that was protruding from the other man’s stomach. He also saw that it was too late.
“Pray for me, priest. God listens to you. Pray for me. Help my soul find its way to heaven.”
“I will.”
“Do you … understand what I … mean?”
“Yes. I will.”
And then the old man was gone. Brendan walked to the wardrobe in a corner of the office, removed a robe, and put it on. He removed the crucifix from the cardinal’s neck, put it around his own. Then he knelt beside the old man’s body and began performing the last rites, his last rite. For the first time in five years he prayed in the old way, as if it mattered.
The sign crudely painted on the stained and pitted concrete foundation of the house read, “This Way To Hell”, and the excommunicated priest with the widow’s peak, raven-black hair and eyes followed the arrow down At the bottom of the trash-littered stairwell he knocked once on the door of the basement apartment; when there was no answer, he knocked again. The door was suddenly yanked open and Brendan Furie found himself staring into a deadly Cyclops eye that was the bore of an AR-15 assault rifle. The face at the other end of the weapon was that of a young man who had perhaps just left his teens. His pale green eyes were filmed with suspicion and not a little fear. Perspiration glistened on the pink scalp visible beneath stubble of blond hair on his shaved head. He was dressed in camouflage fatigues that were too big for him. At that moment Brendan feared as much for the young man’s life as he did his own, for he could feel Marla’s presence close by; Marla always seemed to be close by when there was danger present. When he had first met the woman he had been struck by her physical presence and beauty, but he had quickly become even more impressed by the fact that she could move more quickly and quietly than any person he had ever known.
“Who the hell are you?!” the boy with the pale eyes snapped. He was obviously trying to sound intimidating, but his voice squeaked.
“My name is Brendan Furie,” the defrocked priest relied evenly. “I’m a private investigator. You’re Jack Kellerman. I’d like to speak with you and your brother. I’ll pay for your time.”
“How the hell do you know who I am?!”
“Your father showed me your picture and told me where to find you.”
Jack Kellerman blinked in surprise, and then nervously licked his lips. “You talked to my father?”
And mother.”
“Liar! You’re a goddamn federal agent come here to spy on us!”
“Hardly, Jack. It’s a bit difficult talking with a rifle pointed at my nose. Would you put down the gun?”
“Admit you’re working for the feds!”
“But I’m not working for the feds, Jack. I don’t have the slightest interest in your militia membership or your activities. I’m here to talk with you and your brother, if you’ll agree, about what the doctors did to you and your parents.”
Once again the boy blinked rapidly in surprise, and then shadows that could have been shame, guilt or remorse passed over his sea-colored eyes. He looked away, and then abruptly lowered the gun before turning and walking back into the dingy, windowless room that was his home. Furie followed, glancing around the basement of the home of Floyd Kuhns, leader of the Patriot Militia. There were two cots, only one of which was made, a shower stall, toilet, and washstand. A battered cardboard wardrobe propped up against one pitted wall served as a closet. On the floor next to the unmade cot were a mug, a half-empty jar of instant coffee, and an electric heating element.
Jack Kellerman had set aside the assault rifle and was leaning on the washstand staring at himself in a mirror that was hung above the stand. The glass was spiderwebbed with cracks.
“Is Robby around?” Furie said to the boy’s back.
“No,” Kellerman answered, his voice muffled by the wall. “He ain’t here. How come you want to talk to me about that doctor business?”
“Seven years ago your mother went to a psychiatrist seeking help for mild but persistent depression. She was promptly diagnosed by the man as having a multiple personality disorder. Not long after that the good doctor and two of his colleagues managed to persuade your mother that she was not only a victim of ritual Satanic abuse, but that she was actually the high priestess of an ancient Satanic cult that was responsible for the murders of dozens of infants in a seven-state region. They made your mother believe it, and then she voluntarily admitted herself to the first psychiatrist’s clinic to be ‘cleansed’ of her demons. For a time they had your father believing that he was also a member of this cult, but he dropped out of the program after a couple of months. Then the psychiatrists convinced your mother that she should divorce him. And then they came after you and your brother. Somehow, probably with your mother’s help, they managed to convince a court that the two of you had repressed memories, were victims of Satanic abuse, and required long-term care in another facility they owned. It was all nonsense; none of the cult activity or abuse ever happened. Yet the two of you were put away, and then simply released when you turned eighteen. Neither the doctors who diagnosed you nor the judge who put you away even offered so much as an apology.
The boy with the shaved head, who continued to stare into the mirror, asked in a small voice, “You don’t believe in Satanic possession?”
Furie felt a whisper of cold at the base of his spine. He could tell Jack Kellerman a thing or two about the consequences of belief in Satanic possession, he thought, but he simply said, “No.” He paused, smiled grimly, continued, “The doctors who did this to you and your family and dozens of other victims will have to take responsibility for their own actions. It wasn’t the Devil who made them do it. It was an elaborate insurance scam; all of the victims targeted by those crackpot therapists had very rich health insurance benefit plans. Your mother’s insurance company paid out more than three million dollars for the so-called ‘treatment’ of your mother and the two of you.”
“So you’re trying to nail those bastards?”
“No. Your parents are suing them, so maybe some good will come of that. In the meantime, the therapists are still trying to drum up business by appearing on talk shows. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of willing victims.”
“If you’re not after them, then why do you want to talk to me and Robby?”
“I work for a private foundation funded by a few wealthy men and women who have some interesting notions of their own. We’re approaching the Millennium. Historically, susceptible people around the world get even more antsy than usual around this time. There’s a general rise in the level of anxiety, and numerology, astrology, and all sorts of other superstitions become growth industries. Large numbers of people become infected, if you will, by some very strange belief systems, and they’re willing to act on their beliefs. Some of these belief systems are lethal. You get lots of people killing each other because God has told them to. In this country you have groups like your own that are absolutely convinced that United Nations troops in black helicopters are coming to take away your guns. There’s an increase in the level of violence; you have more incidents like the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Waco, Ruby Ridge; you have a guy wandering around carrying a cigar box full of enough Ricin, the deadliest poison on earth, to kill upwards of a million people.
“Belief in Satanic possession is potentially lethal because it allows people to shed responsibility for their own actions, and it strangles the intellect and spirit. The difference between this Millennium and the last is that now we have nuclear warheads, nerve gas and biological weapons to sling around instead of rocks and arrows. The people I work for are concerned about this. They believe that this kind of anxiety and random violence could reach a kind of critical mass where civilization explodes into chaos, wars, mass murders and disease on an unprecedented scale. They want to try to stop it. To do this they’re attempting to develop statistical proof that such a global flashpoint could be reached, and then they will try to develop a kind of education program that could be used by governments and world health organizations. At this time they’re trying to understand the process of what might be called socially acceptable insanity, and that’s where I come in. I’ve been hired to research the bizarre. The FBI profiles serial killers; I try to profile serial victims. Your family is the victim of nonsense, Jack. I’ve already interviewed your mother and father, and now I’d like to talk to you and Robby. I’d like to tape record your recollections of how those doctors trashed your family, and then I’d like you to fill out a questionnaire. Some of the questions are highly personal, but I’d like you to answer all of them. I guarantee your anonymity. You’ll be assigned a code number when the data is compiled, and your name will not appear in any final report or literature. I need about two hours of your time, and I can pay you two hundred dollars for your cooperation.”
Now Jack Kellerman finally turned back from the mirror, and Furie could see that he had been crying; tears still welled in his pale green eyes, slid down his cheeks, dripped off his chin. “Hell, why not?” he said in a voice that cracked. “It’ll be the first and probably only time in my life I’ll ever be paid a hundred bucks an hour.”
The boy spoke into Furie’s tape recorder for almost ninety minutes, ending with the account of his release from the therapists’ institute and his aimless wandering with his brother until they both found a home with Floyd Kuhns and the Patriot Militia.
When Jack Kellerman had finished speaking, Furie handed him a five-page questionnaire, a ballpoint pen, and four fifty-dollar bills. The boy, sitting next to Furie on one of the cots, had just completed the first page of the questionnaire when the door slammed open and a huge man stepped into the room. The man, whom Furie immediately recognized from news reports as the obese and bellicose leader of the Patriot Militia, stood well over six feet, with a belly that hung like a flooded awning over the buckle of the belt he wore with his camouflage fatigues. His khaki shirt was open, and the T-shirt he wore beneath it was stained with sweat and spaghetti sauce. His huge hand, which he raised to point a finger at Furie, was shaking, and the muddy eyes in his bearded, doughy face glittered with rage and suspicion.
“Jack, who the hell is this guy?!” Kuhns bellowed.
Furie rose, said, “My name is Brendan Furie, and—”
“Shut up! I didn’t ask you! Jack, what’s this guy doing in my house?!”
The young man, thoroughly intimidated, put the clipboard with the questionnaire aside, stood up, then stepped away from Furie. His voice quavered slightly when he spoke. “He ain’t nobody who wants to hurt us, Floyd. He’s just a guy come to talk to me about what the doctors did to me and my family.”
Kuhns, face flushed, slammed the door shut behind him, and then abruptly began to pace back and forth across the opposite side of the cramped space, slapping the palm of his hand against the side of the stained porcelain washbasin each time he passed it. Finally he stopped and shouted at the boy, “How could you have been so stupid?! You think anybody is really interested in how your mother swallowed all that Satan crap, Jack? You really think this guy wants to know about you and that bunch of weirdo doctors? I thought you’d put that behind you and could think straight now. The only devil around here is this guy you let into the house! He’s a fed, you idiot! I can smell ’em a mile away! He’s here to spy on us!”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Furie said evenly, “I—”
“It’s General to you, fed!”
“What Jack has told you is true, General. I’m involved in a private research project. I don’t work for the government.”
The big man suddenly stopped pacing and walked over to Furie, coming so close that the ex-priest could smell his sweat and the beer on his breath. “The reason you and your people are going down is because you underestimate people like me,” Kuhns said in a low, rasping voice that issued from him against a background of wheezing that sounded like static. “You think we’re stupid. You think we don’t know what you and your pud-pounding, kike paymasters are up to. You think we don’t know how you’re letting the UN bring in niggers from Africa to help American niggers take away our guns and kill us? You think I’m blind? You think I haven’t seen your black helicopters?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen fleets of black helicopters,” Furie replied quietly, meeting the other man’s gaze. “But I wasn’t flying in any one of them, and neither were the people I work for. Your political beliefs, and what you do with your friends and followers, doesn’t interest me at the moment; I’ve already interviewed a dozen people like you, and you all sound the same. It’s not the fault of government, blacks or Jews that life has disappointed you.”
“You’re a wise guy,” Kuhns rasped, his murky eyes narrowing. Suddenly he reached around Furie and snatched the clipboard and questionnaire off the bed. “Let’s see what you’ve got this other idiot writing about. Jack Kellerman flushed in embarrassment and shifted his feet slightly. “Floyd, please …”
“Hey, kiddo! You let a fed spy into the house, and then you start whining to me because I want to know what he’s been asking you?!”
“He didn’t ask me any questions about the group, Floyd, and I didn’t talk about it.”
Kuhns grunted as he scanned the questionnaire. After a few moments he tore the papers in half, dropped them and the clipboard on the floor. “Gee, I’m really glad you’re not a bed wetter, Jack,” the big man said sarcastically, and then abruptly shoved Furie aside and reached for the tape recorder laying on the cot. “I want to hear for myself what you’ve been talking about.”
Furie stepped back between Kuhns and the cot, placed his right hand on the man’s barrel chest, blocking his way. “I think not,” he said softly.
Floyd Kuhns seemed genuinely bewildered to find Furie’s hand on him. He stared down at it for a few moments in disbelief, his mouth opening and closing to reveal rotting teeth, and then suddenly slapped the hand away. “You think not?!” He shouted in Furie’s face. “Why not?!”
“Because it’s confidential. If you want to hear what’s on this tape, you have to get Jack’s permission, in writing. Or you can simply ask him what we talked about.”
A scarlet cloud spread across the pasty flesh of Kuhns’ cheekbones. “Ask his permission?! I’m going to bust your ass, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“I have resources, General.”
Kuhns swung a wide, roundhouse right toward Furie’s head. Furie ducked, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet as the fist sailed harmlessly over his head, then came up fast, driving his weight with his legs and using the stiffened fingers of his right hand to jab Kuhns just above his enormous gut and below the sternum directly into the man’s solar plexus. Kuhns’ breath burst from his wheezing lungs in an explosive gasp. His eyes widened and his face turned purple as first he doubled over, and then dropped onto the cot and bounced off it to the floor. Furie waited a few moments while the other man made desperate, sucking sounds, and then knelt on the floor beside him, intending to loosen the man’s belt in an effort to help him breath. Then he straightened up and jumped back as Kuhns slashed at him with a huge combat knife that had suddenly appeared in his hand.
“You sucker-punched me,” the big man wheezed. He was still gasping for breath, but he managed to get to his feet. “We’ll see how good … you fight … when I cut off your fingers.”
Furie crouched slightly and backed away, keeping his gaze focused on the other man’s chest as Kuhns waved the knife in the air and lurched toward him. Then the militia leader stopped and spun around as the basement door crashed open. The sharp, clean sound of a hammer being cocked was amplified in the small, enclosed space. What Kuhn saw was a stunningly beautiful woman, six feet tall, with short-cut blond hair, finely chiseled features, and velvety brown eyes that displayed no emotion whatsoever. The woman was dressed in white tennis sneakers and a loose-fitting, blue nylon running suit. Her right arm was fully extended, and in her hand was a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver that was aimed directly at the startled man’s head.
“What the-?!”
“The resources I mentioned, General,” Furie said in a flat tone. “My employers insist that she tag along with me because they think I might run into dangerous people from time to time. I can’t imagine where they got that idea. I assure you that Marla is as deadly as she is attractive. If I were you, I’d drop the knife and back off.”
Floyd Kuhns’ response was to raise the knife even higher and move toward the woman. The report of the gun was thunderous in the small room. Kuhns grunted as he stopped and put a hand to his left ear. There was a look of almost childlike amazement on his face as he took his hand away from his ear and stared at the blood on it. “She shot me,” he said in a high-pitched nasal tone. “My God, that woman shot me.”
“It looks to me like she just nicked your ear. Be thankful your ear’s still there, not to mention your head to keep it hanging on. Your brain may be not much larger than a peanut, but she could still have put a bullet in it. Now drop your knife and back off. My business here is finished.”
This time Kuhns did as he was told, but as soon as Marla put her gun in the pocket of her nylon jacket he spread out his arms and rushed at her, spittle flying from his mouth as he bellowed with rage. Marla barely moved—a small step to her left as she turned slightly and arched her back like a matador preparing to meet the charge of a bull. There was a blur of movement as Kuhns reached the spot where she had been standing only a moment before. Then, like the judo master Furie knew her to be, Marla assisted Kuhns in using the combined forces of his weight and charge to drive the big man into the concrete wall directly behind her. Furie winced at the sound, which he imagined was not unlike the crunch a sack of potatoes would make if it were dropped to the sidewalk from the roof of a tall building.
Furie shook his head as he walked over to the heap of smelly flesh sprawled unconscious on the floor. He felt for a pulse, and when he was satisfied that the militia leader was still alive he straightened up to find that Marla had already retrieved the pieces of the questionnaire and tape recorder, and she was holding the door open for him. Jack Kellerman was still standing where he had been, his hands clasped tightly in front of him. He looked astonished and very lost.
“We’ll be going now, Jack,” Furie continued. “Thank you for your cooperation. The information you gave me may help save others from the kind of abuse suffered by you and your family. I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any trouble. Good luck.”
“Mr. Furie…?”
Furie was already halfway out the door, but now he turned back. “What is it, Jack?”
“I’d like to go with you,” the boy said in a small voice.
Furie frowned slightly. “Have these people been holding you prisoner?”
Kellerman shook his head.
“Then I think it’s best we travel our separate ways. We don’t have time to wait for you to pack.”
“I don’t have anything to pack. I’ve got the two hundred dollars you gave me, and I’d be grateful if you’d just give me a lift to the next town where I can catch a bus or maybe hitch a ride.” He paused, and then added, “The fact of the matter is, I’d like to talk to you some more.”
Furie felt Marla’s hand on his shoulder. He turned to look into her deep brown eyes and she slowly shook her head.
Normally Furie would defer to Marla’s judgment, for he had learned to trust her instincts, but as he looked back at the forlorn figure standing in the room he felt the powerful pull of his past. He’d found the social work he’d done as a priest extremely satisfying, and he’d been happy with his life before he had been forced by his Cardinal, for political reasons, to perform an exorcism he hadn’t been trained for and in which he didn’t believe on a young girl who had been clearly possessed by nothing more than a well-founded terror of one of her wealthy father’s business associates who had been sleeping with her mother as well as occasionally raping her. Death had followed in the wake of that lapse in his judgment and moral courage, the truth had come out, and he had been made the scapegoat for an extremely embarrassed and embattled church hierarchy. In fact, he no longer missed the priesthood; he was no longer sure he even believed in God, and he had found new satisfaction and purpose in a second career as a private investigator specializing in searching for young people who were lost, physically or emotionally. Then he had reluctantly signed on to work exclusively for this band of dreamers who believed it possible to somehow educate away evil, poke a finger in the massive, cracked dike of human irrationality and stupidity, save a world perhaps beyond saving by saving from themselves people who had no interest in being saved. It was at times like these, after encounters with men like Floyd Kuhns or after hearing reports on the almost unbelievably cruel and greedy actions of the predator psychiatrists, that Furie felt dangerously close to being overwhelmed by bitterness and a sense that he was wasting his time trying to help paint a big picture when what he should be doing was tending to the needs of the dark little splotches of people spattered across the canvas.
“Come on,” Furie said, motioning for the boy to follow them. “We’ll drop you off at a train or bus station.
As they left the basement room, Marla walked backward, gun in hand, guarding their rear. When they reached the car she got behind the wheel, as she always did. Furie slid into the back seat next to Jack Kellerman.
They rode in silence down dusty roads and through orchards for almost five minutes before the young man spoke again. “Talking to you made me feel better,” he said to Furie.
Furie nodded. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“The people you work for are really serious about their thinking that the world is in really big trouble?”
“Not the world, Jack. Just humans. And yes, they are very serious.”
“Is it some kind of religious thing?”
“No. What they believe in is a mathematical model.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s complicated.”
Kellerman stiffened. “You’re saying I’m too stupid to understand?”
Furie sighed, shook his head. “I don’t understand the math; but I believe their projections may be accurate, which is why I agreed to work for them. They’ve come up with a mathematical model, which they call the Triage Parabola. You might compare it to the computer programs meteorologists use to predict the weather, except that this program predicts human behavior and its consequences. There are a series of very complex equations. Historical data is transformed into numbers, and the numbers are plugged into the equations to get predictions of future events. The news isn’t good.”
“The world is going to end?”
“Not the world, Jack. Just our species.”
“Nuclear war?”
“The model can’t predict things that precisely. What it does predict is a sharp increase in mass paranoia, anxiety and hysteria in the decade ahead. A kind of psychological critical mass is reached, and then things start to fall apart. You have the rise of Messianic movements all over the planet. A lot of these competing groups start throwing things at each other—nerve gas, biological weapons, and nuclear weapons when they can get hold of them. There are no rules of engagement because each group believes it is acting on God’s will. Whole governments begin to break down, and with them go hospitals and medical research facilities. In the American Civil War, two thirds of the casualties died from disease, not combat wounds. That could happen again—will happen again, if the model is accurate. The computer program takes into account not only manmade viruses and bacteria, but also new, natural diseases that are released as the rain forests are destroyed. The model predicts that a new Black Plague—actually, a whole series of them—is coming, and this time up to ninety percent of the human population on earth could die. The survivors would be too few and too scattered to form a viable gene pool. The Triage Parabola predicts that we could be extinct as early as the year 2035.”
“Jesus,” Jack Kellerman whispered.
“Don’t blame Jesus.”
“You don’t seem all that concerned.”
Furie turned in his seat to face Kellerman. “Look, Jack,” he said in an even tone, “it’s only a theory, so don’t waste your time worrying about it. In the end you can only be responsible for your own behavior, so do what you can to clean up and polish your life every day. Live smart and forget everything else I’ve told you. Those divided-memory quacks ruined your family and your childhood, and those militia maniacs were getting ready to ruin the rest of your life. I have contacts with a number of organizations that will give you a place to rest and counsel you, help you get your own life back on track. If you’d like, I’ll make some calls when we reach the next town.”
“Yes,” Kellerman said. “I’d like that.” There was a prolonged silence, and then he continued, “If I’m going to start fresh, then I have to clean up the past. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“What’s that, Jack?”
“I was at Oklahoma City.”
Furie saw Marla’s shoulders tense slightly, and she glanced quickly in the side and rear view mirrors. His mouth had suddenly gone dry.
“The Murrah Building?”
Kellerman looked away from Furie, slowly nodded. “I was in on the planning. We all were. We had to show we were committed to the cause. The bombs weren’t supposed to go off when they did. My brother was inside the building checking a charge when they blew, and he was killed along with the others. Next week I was supposed to plant another bomb in the county courthouse.”
Furie took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, then turned around and glanced out the rear window. The road behind them was empty. For now. “This changes things, Jack.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to have to make some other calls besides the ones I mentioned.”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea to talk to any of the local cops, Mr. Furie.”
“I’ll be calling the FBI. The fact that you’re coming forward will carry a lot of weight in the courts, and those organizations I mentioned may still be able to help you.”
“Will you wait with me until they come to pick me up?”
“Yes.”
Marla suddenly braked hard, throwing both Furie and the young man beside him up against the front seat. Furie recovered, then glanced up and felt his stomach muscles knot. Parked across the road, blocking their way, was a police cruiser with its rack of red and white lights flashing. Emblazoned across the side of the cruiser were the words, SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. Standing in the middle of the road was a trim, broad-shouldered man in a deputy sheriffs uniform. He wore a stiff-brimmed trooper’s hat low on his forehead, and his mouth was set in a grim line. In his hands was a double-barreled shotgun that was aimed at their windshield.
“Oh, Jesus,” Jack Kellerman whispered.
“Is he a member of the militia?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay here,” Furie said as he opened his door and got out. Marla was already out of the car.
“Won’t do no good,” Kellerman said, getting out and following after Furie. “He wants me.”
Furie stepped into the middle of the road, stopped in front of their car as Marla slowly began to move off to her right. The deputy’s shotgun followed her.
“Stay right where you are, cupcake,” the man said to Marla in a deep, gravelly voice. “I heard all about you. Try any funny stuff with me, and I’ll blow you in half.”
“My name’s Brendan Furie,” the excommunicated priest said to the deputy as Jack Kellerman came up beside him. “There must be some kind of mistake, so there’s no need for you to be pointing that gun at us. What’s the problem?”
“There’s a mistake, all right, mister, and you made it. You damn feds are always making mistakes, just like that rat traitor standing next to you.”
Kellerman took a tentative step forward. “Harry, I never said anything about—”
“Shut up and stand still, rat traitor! You’re a damn liar! It’s written all over your face! You’ve been spilling your guts!” The deputy abruptly swung his gun back on Marla. “What’s your name, cupcake?”
“Her name’s Marla,” Furie said. “She’s mute.” He paused for a few moments, then asked, “What now?”
“We wait.”
Furie looked over his shoulder, saw in the distance a plume of dust that was moving rapidly toward them. He turned back to the man with the shotgun. “You look like a smart man, Deputy. There are two very big reasons why you should let us go on our way before General Fruitcake gets here. He wasn’t in a good mood when we left him, and things could get out of hand when he gets here.”
The deputy grunted. “That right? Give me one good reason, you lousy Communist loving fed bastard.”
“There’s no good end for you in keeping us. I’m not a federal agent; I’m a private investigator, and Marla and I work for some very powerful people. If you kill us, I assure you we’ll be missed. There’ll be media coverage.”
“You’re full of crap, fed. And the Commie-loving media can go to hell.”
“It’s not the newspapers and television you’re going to have to worry about, Deputy. Our employers know exactly where Marla and I are, and why we came. They know all about your organization. If I don’t report in six hours, you and General Fruitcake are going to be swimming in real federal agents right up to your eyeballs. Harm us, and you’ll get exactly what you’re most afraid of.”
“We’re not afraid of the feds,” the deputy said, but now there was a tinge of uncertainty in his tone. “What’s the second reason?”
Furie again glanced behind him. The plume of dust was much closer, perhaps only two or three miles away. He turned back, pointed to the plastic figure of Jesus mounted on the cruiser’s dashboard. “Are you a Christian?”
The deputy spat. “Of course I’m a Christian. What, do I look to you like a Jew? I never met anybody in my whole life who wasn’t a Christian.”
“Roman Catholic?”
The man narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. So what?”
“I’m a priest—or I used to be. I’m a man of God. Kill me, or anybody under my protection, and you’ll be committing the worst kind of mortal sin. You’ll be condemned to hell.”
“Used-to-be doesn’t count,” the deputy said uncertainly.
“Are you so certain that in God’s eyes I’m not a priest that you’re willing to risk your immortal soul? Think about it: What you do in the next minute or two could determine whether you spend eternity in heaven with God or suffering the fire of hell with Satan. Eternal agony or ecstasy. Which is it going to be, Deputy? Remember that it’s you God will hold responsible if General Fruitcake harms us.”
“We’re soldiers for Christ,” the man said, licking his lips. “We’re fighting for God’s country, so God’s on our side.”
Furie took a deep breath, fighting against the frustration and desperation that were making him feel nauseous. “What about the Rapture, Deputy?”
The other man frowned slightly. “What’s that?”
“There are a lot of good Christians like yourself in this country who believe we’re in the End Times. The final battle of Armageddon could begin at any moment. Instead of federal agents to worry about, you’re going to be fighting demons from hell—and demons take no prisoners. Christ will return to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, but only after the wicked have been destroyed. What you’re doing here is wicked, Deputy. I can see by the statue of Christ on your dashboard that you’re a devout man, and before you stopped us the chances were probably good that you’d be Raptured off the face of the earth to sit at Christ’s side until the battle is over and Jesus returns. But that isn’t going to happen if you kill a man of God and the people with him. In a single moment, with this one bad decision, you could be throwing away paradise and buying yourself a ticket to hell. Think about it very carefully, Deputy.”
Shadows of doubt, and perhaps even fear, filmed the other man’s eyes, but it was too late to let them go. A battered red pickup truck had skidded to a halt with a squeal of brakes and a shower of pebbles on the shoulder of the road. Floyd Kuhns leaped out of the cab and limped toward them. Blood was still streaming from his bullet-nicked ear, and his face was a patchwork of bruises and cuts. His nose had been pushed to one side of his face, and both eyes had already started to blacken.
“Jesus, Floyd,” the deputy said in a low voice, “what the hell happened to you?”
“Shut up!” Kuhns barked as he raised the .357 Magnum he carried and pointed it at Marla. “Did you get her gun?!”
“I don’t remember you tellin’ me she had a gun.”
“You’re a real cheesebrain, Harry,” the militia leader growled as he slowly advanced on Marla, keeping the gun trained on her chest. “Step over here and put the shotgun to her head. If she so much as hiccups, blow her brains out.”
“Floyd…?”
“Do it!”
The deputy stepped closer to Marla and placed the barrels of his shotgun against her right temple as Kuhns, moving very cautiously, reached into the pocket of her nylon jacket and retrieved the revolver she carried there. Then he hit her in the mouth with his fist. Marla collapsed and lay still, blood dripping from her split lower lip, but Furie did not think she was unconscious, although her eyes were closed. He started toward her, then stopped when both the shotgun and .357 Magnum swung in his direction.
“Listen to me, both of you,” Furie said with quiet intensity. “Stop this now, before you dig yourselves a hole you can’t climb out of. Marla and I aren’t federal agents, and we didn’t come here to spy on you. I came to talk to Jack about his experiences, not about you. Listen to the tape in the car, and you’ll see that what he talks about is personal, about himself and his family. Marla and I don’t give a damn about your militia. Kill us, and your whole organization goes down the toilet right after you. You’ll be caught and executed. If you’ve got something to hide, this isn’t the way to do it.”
“Maybe we should listen to the tape, Floyd,” the deputy said to the other man, watching him out of the corner of his eye. “He could be telling the truth.”
“Like I said, Harry, you’re a cheesebrain. Even if there’s nothing about us on the tape, how do you know what they talked about in the car? How do you know what the rat traitor is going to say if we let them go? There’s too much at stake. Shoot ’em.”
“Remember that this is about your soul, Deputy,” Furie said softly. “Think about where you want to be in the next minute if the End Time comes then.”
“I don’t know about this, Floyd,” the deputy said in an uncertain tone as he shook his head. “Maybe we should talk about it some more.”
“Talk about what?!” Kuhns roared, spraying blood from his broken mouth.
“Maybe we should just let them go like this guy says. He used to be a priest, so he knows things we don’t know. He says Jesus could be coming back soon, and we’ll all be judged. Maybe this isn’t such a good time to be killing people.”
“You are an idiot, Harry! He’s been trying to brainwash you with a bunch of religious crap to try to get your mind off the mission! What God wants is for us to get rid of the federal government so they won’t be messing with our lives and trying to take away our guns! Now, shoot ’em!”
“I … I don’t think I care to do that, Floyd.”
“Then I’ll do it myself!” Kuhns snapped, and aimed his gun at Furie’s chest.
“Floyd, don’t do it!” Jack Kellerman shouted, leaping in front of Furie just as the gun exploded. The Teflon-coated slug passed through the boy’s body, and Furie felt a tug on the right sleeve of his jacket as the bullet sliced through the fabric. A moment later the gun had dropped from Floyd Kuhns’ grip and he was making gurgling sounds as he clutched with both hands at the knife that protruded from his throat. Blood spurted from his jugular vein, ran from his mouth and nose. He turned around once, very slowly, and then his knees buckled and he went down.
Furie glanced down at the young man with the hole in his chest, and knew that Jack Kellerman was dead. He glanced over at Marla, who had risen to her feet. The expression on her face was as impassive as ever. The left sleeve of her jacket was pulled up to her elbow, revealing an empty wrist scabbard. Furie walked over to where Floyd Kuhns lay, his eyes as wide and unseeing in death as they had been unseeing in life.
“Oh, man,” the deputy said in a low, strangled voice. “Oh, man, how am I going to explain this?”
“We’ll explain it to the authorities together,” Furies said carefully. watching the other man. “The important thing is that you haven’t murdered anybody today.”
The deputy grimaced, his mouth twisting in anguish, and shook his head. “Everything’s going to come out. I’ll go to prison. That’s no good for me. I’ve got a wife and kids.”
“Deputy, put down your gun and listen to me. Two people are dead already. That’s enough. Your soul is clean of the sin of what happened here.”
Again the man shook his head. Now his eyes looked vacant. “My life’s going to be hell, priest. I can’t let them make me into a rat traitor and send me to prison. I’ll be killed there. I gotta’ do what I gotta’ do.”
With the deputy distracted by Furie, Marla had been slowly circling around toward his rear, but now the man sensed her presence. He abruptly wheeled and leveled his shotgun on her. Furie snatched the Magnum from the ground beside Floyd Kuhns’ body, aimed and fired. The gun had a tremendous recoil, kicking up in the air, but Furie’s aim had been true. The shotgun discharged into the ground as the bullet hit the deputy in the right cheek, just below his eye, and tore off the top of his skull.
Furie threw the gun to one side, then leaned over and vomited. Gasping for breath and retching, he was only half aware of Marla’s presence as she knelt down beside him and used her jacket to wipe her fingerprints from the handle of the knife sticking out of Kuhn’s throat. Then she did the same to the grip of the Magnum. Furie wiped his mouth, then walked unsteadily toward the police cruiser. He opened the door and reached inside for the radio, but stopped when Marla’s hand firmly gripped his wrist. When he looked at her, she slowly and firmly shook her head, just as she had done back in the basement room when Jack Kellerman had asked to go with them. She wiped his prints from the car’s door handle, and then motioned toward their own car.
This time Furie took her advice.