“You have nothing to fear from me or our military.” She stressed the commonality. They had to be united.
He grunted, then checked his watch. “I understand there are four of your trucks packed with armed soldiers standing by.”
Mavis unzipped her jacket and flashed her Kevlar vest. Its weight rubbed her shoulders and cut across her nape. In the Humvee it had been comforting, now it hung from her like a millstone. “I nearly faced mutiny leaving them to talk to you. But the trucks were left to take anyone who wants to leave.”
“And if no one does?” Brother Bob rubbed at the damp spots on his navy blazer. “Will we be rounded up like cattle and forced on board?”
So the threat of the grenade launchers had swayed them into listening to her. Ah, well. If they feared those, wait until she told them about the real ticking time bomb. “If anyone wishes to stay after my speech, we will continue on our way without you.”
She glanced at the crowd. Some would stay. The decision etched their faces in lines and grooves. Ah, well, perhaps they would help others on their path to Colorado.
Brother Bob steepled his fingers under his chin and pursed his lips. “I suppose I must trust you to keep your word.”
She inclined her head. From his tone, he didn’t trust her as far as he could spit.
“Shall we begin?” He clapped his hands and walked toward the center of the stage.
Silence rippled over the crowd until it stifled the flow of air.
Mavis waited in the wings behind the frayed red curtains. Gold tassels dripped from the edges in gossamer threads. The floor creaked behind her. She caught the whiff of spice above the damp and cold. David.
His fingers skimmed her spine before he removed his touch. “You ready?”
“No.” She shook her hands, hoping to break loose of the tension gripping her. “I don’t have a speech or anything prepared.”
“You’ll be fine.”
Maybe if she prepared for a week. Or a month.
Brother Bob raised his hands, palms forward a gesture of nothing to hide and openness. “Brothers and sisters.”
Mavis stopped her shaking. God, now they were his family and she was the invader at their barricade. “He’s good.”
“You’re better.” David nudged her shoulder.
Not even in her dreams.
“We have stood together, with the Grace of God and faced down the Horseman called Pestilence.” Brother Bob raised his hands higher, catching a sunbeam that strayed in through the cutout windows over the door. “We have beaten his Horseman called Death by sharing our meager stores and taking care of our neighbors.”
Oh, Lord. “He’s a preacher.”
And not the evil Trent Powers kind. A true believer. It rang in the power of his voice and echoed off the ceiling. She swallowed the lump in her throat. She was the opening act to a superstar and the superstar had gone first.
David rested his hand on the small of her back. “Must be why I’ve got the urge to say a few Hallelujahs.”
“And now a new Horseman rides across our meadows and hills, marking the pines surrounding us. War has been brought to our shores and is carried on the wind, into our homes.” Brother Bob clasped his hands in prayer and bowed his head. “The herald of such bad news has joined us today.”
Hostility bubbled from the crowd like lava in a volcanic vent.
Great. Now she was going to be condemned for being the messenger. Divine messenger, true, but she didn’t plan on being a martyr today.
Brother Bob shook his head. “Nay, brothers and sisters. We cannot condemn Doctor Spanner any more than Mary condemned Gabriel for bringing news of the savior growing within her womb.”
Mavis blinked. What? Had she missed something? Was the preacher actually comparing her to an archangel?
“Doctor Spanner warned us of the coming apocalypse. She delivered unto us medicine, food, supplies and other brothers and sisters in need.” He pointed a finger at her.
Was it her imagination or was there an accusation in there? She stepped out from behind the curtain and faced the congregation. If any one of them picked up a stone or lit a torch, she was outta here. Fortunately only a few remained hostile. Of course, a few could quickly turn this gathering into a riot.
“And now, Doctor Spanner has arrived with the world’s most powerful army at her back.” Mutters rippled through the crowd. Two men in the doorway dissolved in the falling snow. “And although she brings tidings of war, she walks in peace.”
Well…shoot. She changed the swear word. Mental or not, Brother Bob’s sermon had turned this lowly auditorium into a church.
“Brothers and sisters, open your heart and minds to Doctor Spanner’s message.” Backing away from center stage, Brother Bob opened his arms to her.
Great. She’d been invited to be the guest speaker at a ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting.
“I have faith in you.” With a little pressure, David pushed her toward center stage.
Hundreds of eyes tracked her progress. She stepped to the right of where the Reverend stood and touched her hand to her chest. “Thank you Brother Bob, but I’m no archangel sent from God.”
A few twittered among the stony silence.
She splayed her fingers wide and opened her arms to the crowd. Nothing to hide here. “What I am is a scientist, well versed in how men kill each other en masse. I speak the language of war, hatred and intolerance.”
In the front row, skepticism replaced set jaws and narrowed eyes. Here and there, crossed arms relaxed.
“I tell you these things so you can understand how it was that I recognized the anthrax attack.”
“And we thank you for that, Doctor Spanner,” Brother Bob shouted from the wings.
A few heads nodded.
She swallowed her apologies for failing to do so sooner. Now was not the time. “But I was remiss in my broadcast for not warning you of another threat. One greater than anthrax and the Redaction combined.”
Her audience glanced at each other as if the answer was written on their neighbor’s face.
“In 1945, brilliant men, with the best intentions, unleashed the power of the atom upon the face of this planet.”
Their attention returned to her. Hostility fled in the wave of confusion and interest.
“They brought a horrible war to an equally horrible end but from those ashes came the hope of something new. A peaceful atom, one that would provide us with clean energy.”
“Nuclear power!” a man in the back shouted as if on a game show.
“Yes. Nuclear power. The United States and many other nations embraced this new energy source. For more than sixty years, we have lived with these generating stations humming on our doorsteps. Palo Verde just outside of Phoenix has three such reactors.”
“Don’t they power down in an emergency?” a voice on the left piped up.
“Yes.” She nodded. Fear crackled in the air. “But the spent fuel rods are stored in pools of water. Water that will evaporate then boil off, leaving the rods to burn freely and pollute our atmosphere with radiation.”
A woman in red fainted. Hands lifted her until a burly man carried her away.
“But we’re safe here. Phoenix is nearly a hundred miles away.”
Heads nodded.
Mavis sighed. Now she had to shatter their illusions, destroy what for many of them had become a sanctuary. “These hills are filled with metal and might protect you a little. But we’re not looking at the meltdown of just Palo Verde, but the thousands around the globe. There is no one left to man the cooling pools, to keep the rods covered.”
She waited for her words to blanket the crowd, to smother their hope.
“It took seven days for the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl to circle the globe. Eleven days for the radiation to reach Los Angeles from Fukishima.” She hit them with the stuff of nightmares. “And we don’t know how long the Chinese reactors have been abandoned, but I can tell you that the Japanese have abandoned their homeland. Boats are heading for Australia, planes landed on the west coast hours ago and are now moving to safe havens in the mountains.”