The door of the church was open. Inside it was clean and smartly kept, lit by natural light alone. An attractive young woman in jeans and a white T-shirt stepped out of the shadows by the vestry, making him start.
'I'm Lisa Farrell,' she said, brushing her hair from her eyes and shaking his hand. Her voice surprised him. She had a middle-class English accent. 'I know who you are. We all do. Come in back, I'm making some tea.
'I only recently joined the Phoenix,' she explained as they sat across from each other, sipping from hot mugs. 'I have to get this tea sent out from London. You can't buy it here, and it still doesn't taste right because of the water.'
'I heard what happened to Elias.'
'It's a terrible world, Mr Ellis.' She shook her head in bewilderment and sipped. 'The police say they have some leads, but I'll be very surprised if they do.'
'Aren't you rather a long way from home?'
'My father invited me over. He lives here with his new wife. Originally I had only planned to study Phoenix for a sociology project, but I came to believe in quite a bit of what they were teaching.'
'And what is that, exactly?'
'Elias and his followers believe in the eventual heavenly redemption of mankind. From their own "scriptures" and other archive sources, they've selected a group of people who are somehow going to lead the world into a new dawn of enlightenment.'
'How convenient. Just in time for the new millennium.'
'That's right,' she said, missing the irony in his voice, 'commencing in this year of 2000. They have dates for each of the big events, worked out accurately to the hour.'
'I guess they failed to predict the murder of one of their members. Tell me something I'd like to know, Lisa. Why have I been selected for a part in all of this? I'm an advertising executive, not a politician. Even if such a crackpot theory had some grain of truth, how could I have any influence on world events? I met Mel Gibson once at a premiere. That's about as far as I go in the "six degrees of separation" chain.'
'Well, there you have me. Elias didn't tell his congregation everything.' If she didn't know, she didn't seem particularly curious, either. 'Your future has already been decided for you, Mr Ellis, just as it has been decided for me and everyone else. All you have to do is go along with it. Decisions will be made for you that are entirely beyond your control.'
Lisa did not look or sound crazy. Despite his scepticism at her blind faith, he found himself drawn to her. She was very attractive. She replaced her mug and rose, holding out her hand once more. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, it's been a long day, what with the police…'
As he left, looking back at the shabby little church from his car, he noticed the iron phoenix on the roof that acted as a weather vane. He did not expect to see it, or Lisa, again.
But the strands of a strange fate were shaping themselves around Brett.
For some time he had been thinking of moving the family out of Los Angeles and starting afresh elsewhere. His company had a vacancy in their Chicago office. The move would force Mara into a decision about their relationship. Brett discussed the possibility of a transfer with his boss, and two weeks later was in the middle of making all the appropriate arrangements when his son suffered an odd accident. Davey was kicking a football around in Griffith Park when a bird became trapped in a wire-mesh compound where leaves were being burned.
Trying to rescue the panicked creature, whose wings were alight, the boy's face and arms were seared. His nanny, who had only stepped away from his side for a moment, managed to drag him clear of the fire, saving his life.
The doctors told Brett that his son could not be moved from his hospital bed. The family's relocation would have to be delayed, or possibly even cancelled. Brett resigned himself to staying in LA, at least for the immediate future.
It was an odd feeling, that his life was somehow no longer his own. He could find no way to explain it, nor his decision to contact Lisa Farrell and ask her about Elias. Specifically, he wanted to know what the old man foresaw that made him locate Brett in the first place.
Lisa asked if they could meet at her apartment; she had something to show him. She lived in a rented mock-Tudor Santa Monica condo of astonishing ugliness just behind the freeway. Here they knelt on the kitchen floor going through stacks of Elias's documents and hardcopy computer files. Brett was amazed that the old-timer had even known how to switch on a computer.
'All churches are on-line these days,' Lisa explained. 'You should take a look at the fringes of cult worship on the internet some time. Talk about scary. There's a group of obsessives who translate prophecies, supposed "seers" who monitor signs of the coming cataclysmic change. They mostly preach new age gobbledygook, but there's this one priest among them who refers to the Book of Daniel, the only book of the apocalypse in the Old Testament – Revelations is in the New – and he points out that Daniel dreamed of four beasts who came to lay waste to the peoples of the earth. He and Elias found corroborative evidence from a variety of independent sources pointing to four people who will eventually change the fate of the modern world. Not by healing or restoring faith, though, but by "a cleansing test of righteous fire".'
'Are you trying to tell me…'
'That's right, Mr Ellis,' said Lisa with a smile. 'You're one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.'
'The sixth chapter of the last book of the New Testament, The Revelation of St John the Divine, tells of the seven-sealed scroll held in God's right hand. When the first seal is opened the four horsemen will appear, and represent the hardships the world must face before judgement, specifically conquest (pestilence), famine, war and death. The horses are white, red, black and yellow-green.
'The world as we know it will then cease, wiped free from the poisonous effects of humanity so that life has a chance to grow anew. That's why nature has been reacting so favourably to you, Mr Ellis.' Father Matthew paused before a bush of English tea roses and checked the buds for damage. The manicured emerald lawns behind the church seemed to be the only green life left in this part of the San Bernadino Valley. The priest was clearly ill, and walked with difficulty. His skin was the colour of the pale dead petals that littered his rose beds. 'The final cataclysm will be triggered by events occurring to four people in four different locations,' he continued. 'We know that one of those locations is Los Angeles. Even the stars foretell this. The area is pinpointed by everything from ancient biblical scrolls to NASA maps.' He paused for breath, leaning on Lisa's arm. 'Any one of the acts occurring around the world could lead to a catastrophic disaster, but all four deeds must occur in order for the conditions of the Apocalypse to be fulfilled. The writings are most specific on this point.'
Brett tried to tell himself that this was absurd, insane. But facts fitted with a terrible inevitability. This was the news the priest had broken to Elias that had led to his death; that he was not guarding a latter-day saint but protecting someone destined to participate in the world's destruction.
'If you and Elias knew about me, who are the other three chosen "horsemen"?'
'One is a woman working for the World Health Organisation in Africa. Another is a European minister of trade, currently residing in Brussels. The third is a Chinese military leader.'
'Then I'm the odd one out.'
'It would appear so.'
'Who do you think killed Elias?'
'When I told him the truth, that he was protecting a man who would eventually be instrumental in destroying civilisation, he was horrified by his misunderstanding of events. Obviously he was murdered by someone who wants to protect you.'