The two of them walked out onto the pool deck, suspended thousands of feet above the fertile valley floor. They stood on the grates and looked out at the breathtaking view.
"Come on, Dad, I'll show you the way." Then Mike took Buddy's hand and led him off the deck. They floated there like angels, above the rich green valley, bathed in a soft white light.
Chapter 50
Fannon had been preaching from Revelation. They were under a bridge abutment near the rail track, about fifteen miles south of the Harrisburg switching yard, where they had left four men dead, including Randall Rader, the Angel in the Church of Per-ga-mos. Now, Dexter sat licking an open cut on his hand that he'd received from a flying piece of shrapnel.
44 4He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces,' " Fannon recited from Revelation 2:27. He had been ranting against the U. S. Government for almost an hour.
The members of the Choir sat in the dirt under the railroad bridge and listened quietly, lost in their own thoughts.
Dexter had begun to accept his own death as inevitable. He was seeing the end of his life in vivid images. With this acceptance came a rush of pent-up anger and resentment; he was sucking on his wounded knuckle and seething.
Finally, Fannon closed the Bible and put it back in his pack. He removed the rimless glasses, then stowed them carefully in his breast pocket. He looked up at his battered Choir.
"We have failed to poison the Niggers and Jews, but we are not without options. We have one final act of war to commit. We must now attack the Great Satan in Washington."
"I'm sorry… what?" Dexter asked, looking up from the open wound on his hand.
"You heard me, sinner," Fannon said sharply.
"Attack Washington, D. C.? Is that what you just said?" Dexter couldn't believe his ears.
"That's right, bub," Fannon said. "You have been my greatest instrument of failure, but our course is written down. We need only follow the map drawn by the Lord." Then, from Revelation: " 'And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations.' "
"I hate to bring up relevant information, but there are more police officers and armed military personnel in Washington, D. C., than in any other city in the world. I think, at last count, there were over nineteen police and military agencies, ranging from the U. S. Army and the FBI to the Park Police and everything in between."
"This victory has been promised to me in Revelation," Fannon ranted on.
"Revelation? That's the only chapter assholes like you and David Koresh ever read." Dexter was going over the edge now. His voice was shrill. He was losing it. "This whole plan to poison Jews and Blacks was insane. That guy with the machine gun back there in Harrisburg ruined it, thank God. All the Prions are either on the ground or leaking out of bullet holes from those milk cars. The cops and Admiral Zoll will surely figure out what you were up to. That guy, whoever he was, ended your revolution, Mr. Kincaid!"
"Reverend Kincaid!" Fannon shouted. He seemed very different, flapping badly, like the tattered remnants of a torn flag.
"If I'm not a doctor, you're not a reverend. I don't see any Certificate of Ordination."
It was as if they had both snapped. All consequences forgotten, insanity shone from both sets of eyes.
Now Fannon stood slowly and pulled out his gun, pointing it at Dexter.
"That's your answer to everything, isn't it?" Dexter raged. "Shoot, kill, destroy anything or anyone who disagrees with you." The members of the Choir watched in awestruck silence. "Revelation! Did you know that book was written three hundred years after the death of Christ? Did you know that?" Dexter was too far gone to stop. "Most theologians can't stand that book. It's insanity!"
Fannon was looking at Dexter with a pinpoint stare. His maniacal gray eyes contained the frightening madness of evil and intellectual corruption.
"Revelation isn't even part of the Bible. It's madness, written by madmen," Dexter screamed.
Fannon pulled back the hammer.
"Go ahead, do it!" Dexter dared. "Anything is better than this."
" 'And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according to his work.' " Fannon's eyes were burning. " 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.' "
Then, without another word, he pulled the trigger and the nine-millimeter Beretta in his hand kicked, throwing Fannon's fist up over his head.
Dexter flew backward, off the rock he was sitting on, and landed on his back in the dust, a huge hole in his right cheek where the bullet had hit him. The left side of his head appeared to be missing.
" 'And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life.' Revelation Twenty-two, Nineteen." Fannon turned and faced the children of the Choir, violent men who were stunned by the violence they had just witnessed. Nobody moved or looked at the body of Dexter DeMille. "Pack up," Fannon said. "We're moving out. We have God's work to do."
Chapter 51
The motel was called the Blue Frog. It was on the outskirts of Frederick, Maryland, and was a bungalow-type motor lodge run by a middle-aged couple. Cris and Stacy were in a one-bedroom unit at the end of the paved area next to a dry riverbed. The room was clean, but small. They had taken turns in the shower. Both had washed their clothes in the tub, with soap and water, and they were now in wet underwear, waiting for the rest of their things to dry under the heat lamps in the bathroom.
The TV was an old Yamaha with a sensitive vertical hold, which needed constant tuning. They were watching the news to get updates on the situation at Fort Detrick when another breaking story interrupted the network anchor:
"We're switching you to our affiliate station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania," the anchor said, and then they were suddenly looking at a tall man with gray hair and a bloodhound's sagging expression. The name on the screen identified him as Harrisburg Police Chief Wilton Pierce. He cleared his throat, then started reading from a typed sheet: "Hollywood producer Buddy Brazil has been shot to death in a gunfight that took place an hour ago at the Harrisburg switching yard. Apparently, he had traveled here with members of his production company in a reported attempt to stop a bio-weapons attack. Mr. Brazil died on the scene along with three unidentified men, who appear to be members of a vicious rail-riding cult known as 'Freight Train Riders of America.' A fourth member of the cult was pronounced dead at the Harrisburg County Hospital shortly thereafter. An associate of Mr. Brazil's, Rayce Walker, a movie stuntman, was badly wounded in the gun-fight, and was also taken to the Harrisburg Hospital. According to members of his staff, Mr. Brazil came here after the bizarre kidnapping of his dead son's body from the morgue in Santa Monica, California. The body was stolen during an autopsy to determine if Michael Brazil had been exposed to a deadly toxic bio-agent. It appears that Mr. Brazil was attempting to stop the F. T. R. A. S from putting this infectious bio-agent into milk container cars headed to Detroit and New York. Until members of the C. D. C. and the U. S. bio-weapons defense team from Fort Detrick, Maryland, can fully analyze the milk, it will not be known exactly what the toxic agent was. Before he died, the fourth member of the F. T. R. A. told police they were about to attack the Great Satan. From this point the FBI will be spearheading the investigation, and further questions should be directed to them. That's it," he said, and turned away.
Cris turned down the volume and stood there looking at the screen as the vertical hold began to roll. "Jesus," he finally said. "Poor Buddy. How did he even find out where they were?"