Agent John Isaacson was a chameleon, able to penetrate an organization and take on not only the desired characteristics of the group, but also its spirit and soul. Spotting the mark, he would analyze their weaknesses then whisper words of sedition in their ear, encouraging it with their favorite stimulant. He was chosen by Winters for this assignment because Isaacson’s talents had led to the collapse of thriving illegal empires on several occasions.
His first evening at a TAOC meeting, Isaacson knew Damion Lazote was the perfect choice. It took him three weeks to cozy up to the mark due to Lazote’s overblown mistrust of people, especially anyone new. Isaacson, dressed in black, drank Lazote’s favorite drink—tequila and vodka—and completely ignored the man until they ‘accidentally’ bumped into each other. He acted just as shocked as Lazote when they discovered they had a lot in common.
It took Isaacson one more week to convince Damion that Mariah Carpenter was the Antichrist. He knew he had made the right choice by the light of righteous fanaticism that lit Damion Lazote’s eyes.
Gabriel Winters’ plan was nearly flawless. It would have been a complete success if two salient details had come up in Lazote’s background check. The first was Damion’s love of handguns.
He messaged Hoppe’s Elite Gun Oil into the barrel of the gun with an expensive cotton cloth sterilized in boiling water. Slamming the loaded clip into the grip was nearly orgasmic for Lazote. He read just about everything the public library had on handguns, but he never subscribed to junk magazines like Soldier of Fortune (the investigation into his background would have turned that up) because to him, his gun was a sacred object and certainly not for hire. If the CIA had uncovered this adoration of firearms, they would have known that Lazote would automatically check the chamber of a gun he had not personally loaded, and realize it held blanks.
The CIA would pay dearly for that blunder. It would be compounded by a second unknown detail.
When Isaacson singled him out for attention, Damion Lazote was automatically suspicious. A loner all his life, so peculiar that even the kids in grade school had given him a wide berth, his paranoia was ingrained into every fiber of his essence.
There was that one boy in the fourth grade who thought he could bully Damion by enlisting the help of his older brother. The bully, accompanied by two of his cronies, had cornered young Damion on his way home from school, with the idea of breaking the little dweeb’s nose. But when the antagonist had looked into Damion’s “wolf eyes” (so called because the whites of the eyeball was completely visible around the iris), he did nothing more than slap the books out of the boy’s hands and run off with his friends.
Lazote remembered them all; the ones who knocked him down, the ones who mocked him, the ones who spat in his face.
His favorite movies featured Charlie Chan because the character’s face was described as “inscrutable.” He liked the sound of the word, so he looked it up in the dictionary. He liked the definition even more than the sound: Impenetrable. A dandy word.
Deciding he needed a motto—“Always Inscrutable”—Damion practiced before the bathroom mirror until he was able to hold a stare without blinking for a minimum of a minute. Armed with this weapon, he faced down his tormentors and earned the nicknames “Creepazoid” and “Scary-Hairy,” and even “The Possessed One.” He loved them all. It made everyone uneasy around him, scared by what they could only imagine he could do.
When he was old enough to buy his own clothes, he dressed in black pants, black turtleneck sweaters or black shirts with long sleeves, the collars buttoned up to the neck even in the summer. Only his hands and face were exposed, and for good reason.
With a sharp pin he sterilized in hydrogen peroxide, Damion etched crosses, crowns of thorns, and other symbols of Christ on every part of his body he could reach, sealing each new mutilation with a wad of tissues soaked in alcohol. The pain was exquisite, his attempt to purge the original sin from his soul. He dyed his stringy, light brown hair black; it hung over his ears and straight across his brow. With his pale face that never spent time in the sun, and his deep-set wolf eyes that made him look unstable, he was a man people instinctively avoided.
The stupid bastard, Damion mused as he stared at the small pistol in his hand. He’s too dumb to know you can’t kill the Antichrist with such a small caliber. The new guy had tried to get chummy with him, had talked to Damion like he actually cared to be his friend. But before Damion could tell him to get lost, the creep gave him something to think about.
Lazote had seen the Tom Brokaw special and was fascinated by the Finding. The interview with Oprah Winfrey just strengthened his opinion of Ms. Mariah Carpenter. He sensed her compassion was genuine, and was sure she would never treat him like a pariah. He, like millions of others, hoped to meet her someday, if only to stand in the presence of one so honored by God.
But this new guy had a point. The bible said that the Antichrist would be a charismatic individual in his thirties whose appearance would be sudden and dramatic. Miracles attributed to him would come from fantastic powers bestowed not by God but by Satan himself.
And he would be a Jew.
So what if all the documents said “he”? It could be a woman. The False Prophet could be anyone Satan wanted it to be. There were other details (like it residing in Israel, proclaiming itself to be God, and demanding to be worshipped) but maybe Lazote had gotten the drop on the Beast before it (she?) had a chance to fulfill the prophecy of annihilation and destruction.
And here was the world in chaos and despair, and here was this woman. She was the right age, had become a celebrity overnight by using psychic powers to find kidnapped children ... surely a miracle. Damion spent several sleepless nights as he pondered the merits of what Isaacson said.
One week after he began this mental gymnastics, he was convinced Isaacson was right. However, the dimwit had given him nothing more than a toy gun. Isaacson was clueless if he thought the Antichrist could be destroyed with such an insignificant weapon that had no firepower. He accepted it with the proper thanks and tossed it into a dumpster on his way home. Damion knew the weapon necessary to cut down the Antichrist had to be special, cleansed in holy water sanctified by the church.
Damion Lazote was ecstatic about performing this service to God. He would assassinate the Beast without anyone’s help, reaping all the glory on Judgment Day that would be his when it died.