"They are," he replied.
"Do a systems double-check. Make sure we get those pictures back here."
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "And Yogi Mom?" he added, timidly.
"What is it?"
"Is this an agent of the Old Evil One?"
Her reply hissed angrily over the line. "Don't bother me with that crap now. I'm trying to save my ass."
With that she severed the connection.
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The others glanced at Raccoon Eyes during the awkward silence that ensued.
"The intruder must be in league with the Antichrist," he said with a solemn grimace.
The others nodded, and returned to their stations.
Buffy's eyes hadn't strayed far from her own monitors. Only the two screens were out, and she watched the others in concern as the ghostly images of Truth Church patrols trekked back toward the ranch. Esther must have given the recall command over their radio headsets.
The intruder didn't appear on any of her monitors, but Buffy assumed he was heading toward the ranch, as well. The acolytes were closing in behind him, sealing off his escape route like so much living caulk.
She chewed her lip nervously as she watched for the mysterious man to reappear on her monitor screens.
Beside her, Raccoon Eyes turned his attention to the digital clock mounted at his monitor station.
The toggle switches to the two dormant cameras, as well as a third scarlet switch, sat enticingly within his reach.
Remo paused at the edge of the forest.
The patrols were concentrating in the woods behind him. Nothing stood between him and the Ranch Rag-narok perimeter fence except one hundred yards of Wyoming greasewood prairie.
From high atop the nearest guard tower, halogen flood lamps raked the barren ground. While the beams played back and forth along the forest's edge with earnest diligence, they never quite managed to pin Remo.
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He spotted four other towers, two to the south, the other due west. The lights from these moved relentlessly back and forth, as if searching for someone. For him, Remo understood.
He felt more than heard the hum from the electrified fence and Remo decided that he had better think of an alternate route into the compound. While a defense of this nature wasn't generally a major obstacle, he was in an unusual position. Those inside were alerted to his presence and he couldn't afford the few vulnerable seconds he would have to spend working on the electrified metal.
Remo waited until the spotlight beams broke at their farthest point in opposite directions before he emerged from the protective concealment of the forest. He slipped quickly across the small expanse of prairie to the nearest guard tower.
The tower exterior was rough and chalky. The structure had been built out of cinder blocks skimmed over with several coats of concrete to eliminate any hand-or toeholds between the heavy bricks.
Remo pressed his palms flat against the concrete surface and flexed his fingers. His loafers left the dry earth as he established a kind of suction and repeated the motion with his hands, pushing both inward and upward simultaneously. Spiderlike, he began ascending the tower.
There was a nest of razor wire encircling the concrete silo some three feet below the railed upper platform. Remo paused for a second, letting the pressure of his right hand and toes hold him in place. He snaked out his free hand and took a pinch of wire between thumb and middle finger, making a snapping motion.
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With a tiny pop, the wire sprang apart, falling limply in two neat sections.
Remo moved up between the dangling wires and oozed over the tower rail like so much black smoke.
He was met by the startled eyes of four Truth Church acolytes. Two were operating the spotlights, and the other pair had been peering out toward the woods where the first Ragnarok patrols had already begun moving in a parody of stealth from out of the forest.
The two guards on lookout duty hastily trained their rifles on Remo. Unfortunately for them, Remo had positioned himself in such a way that the guards found themselves standing on either side of their target, so that to open fire each guard would be forced to mow down the other.
Sure enough, that gave them pause.
While they were puzzling over how to proceed, Remo snatched a rifle barrel in each hand and, with a quick, jerking movement, crossed his forearms. Each man lurched forward. The force Remo exerted was enough to drive the business end of each extended rifle into the face of the man opposite.
Both men looked as if they had suddenly and inexplicably sprouted a shiny new AR-15 from the bridges of their noses. The bodies collapsed in two khaki heaps.
The guard manning the nearest spotlight made a move to unholster his side arm. With a casual backhand slap Remo fused the chunk of metal into his pelvis.
To stifle any outcry, Remo then took him by the back of his British-style ribbed black combat sweater
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and jammed his head into the center of the spotlight lens. The glass beneath the outer cage of wire mesh cracked, along with the guard's skull. The body twitched its last as the beam from the broken spotlight faded from bright white to a timid orange glow.
The remaining guard recoiled from the bodies of his fallen comrades and, reflecting on his situation, did the only sensible thing he could think to do. He jumped.
Unfortunately for him, his pants snagged on the broken strand of razor wire. He hung upside down, flailing. As he struggled to free himself, he unwittingly swung into the electrified hurricane fence.
Zzzzappp!
"Yarrrghh!"
When his charred remains dropped from the smoking fence moments later, his horrified scream trailed off into a gurgling hiss.
Remo glanced over his shoulder. About forty armed Truth Church guards were skulking across the grease-wood toward the electrified fence.
Cursing inwardly, he hopped the three stories from the tower into the Ragnarok compound.
"What's happening out there?" demanded the voice of a Truth Church security monitor. His video screens had just captured the carnage at the guard tower. In the strange green twilight of the cameras, he saw the smoking pile of garbage at the base of the three-story block of concrete. Only when he spied a pair of combat boots sticking from the glowing mass did he recognize the charred lump as one of his fellow monitors. "It's him," Raccoon Eyes said with horror-filled
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certainty. "It is the Evil One himself. He's coming for all of us."
As he watched the hordes of silent green guards swarm out of the woods, he swallowed hard. On another screen he saw a guard deactivating the gate near the burned remains of the tower guard. The other soldiers nearby covered their mouths to ward off the stench.
Raccoon Eyes could almost smell the sickly stench himself. The cameras captured several guards vomiting as they caught their first whiff of burned body.
"This is the end," Raccoon Eyes said to himself. His weary eyes seemed to recede farther back in their sockets as he glanced sickeningly at the remaining dormant toggle switches. He knew he didn't want to see that deadly face again, but he had a responsibility to his church.
With weakened resolve, he refocused his attention on the digital clock. Wouldn't be long now, he told himself.
Beside him Buffy Brand watched her monitors in silence.
Remo sensed the presence of electronic-surveillance equipment within the compound. There were heat sensors and motion detectors immediately beyond the perimeter fence, but those were not placed beyond a twenty-yard distance from the guard tower. The subtle vibrations Remo felt now came from additional security cameras.
From the number of cameras he counted in this zone of the compound alone, it was pretty clear that Yogi Mom didn't put a lot of faith in her own disciples. He