MacDonald drove over to U.S. 101, then down to San Rafael and across the bridge to connect with Interstate 80 East. He kept a citizen’s band radio on, but very low. It was crowded with jerks and lonesome truckers, but it would tell him if there was a backup or roadblock going up ahead.
“I had an attack of nerves driving past San Quentin Penitentiary back there,” he told them, “but I feel a little better now.”
“Indeed so,” Lord Frawley responded. “This is going to be a close one. Poor things. Don’t you ladies blame yourselves for this. Something was bound to crack sooner or later.’’
Maria translated and Angelique gave a wan smile. It didn’t really help to be absolved in a case like this.
Still, the further they got from San Francisco and the closer to Sacramento, the more they relaxed.
“I say, old boy, I think I’ve worked out the rest of their nasty little plot,” said the Bishop almost casually.
“Huh? I’m all ears,” MacDonald responded.
“It helped to get into their head, and also to get information on the type of cult Sir Reginald’s brother had been involved in back home. What sort of beliefs and practices they had and so on. Pretty unimaginative stuff, it turns out, centering on your basic Black Mass. Still, that was a key. You know, of course, that the Black Mass is a regular mass turned inside out and upside down? Even the cross is there, only inverted, and, of course, they pray to Satan. Cults like that tend to follow the game of opposites to extremes, and that gave me the link.’’
“Yes, yes, go on,” Frawley urged. “Do we always have to get a lesson in superstitious nonsense before you get to the point?”
“Yes, you do,” replied the Bishop coolly. “Besides, what else have you got to do? At any rate, the Bible’s none too specific on the nature of the Antichrist, which allows both sides a lot of latitude. The initial beast, Satan incarnate, is a water elemental—that is, it rises out of the water. Nice touch for a computer atop a tiny island, eh? The second beast, though, our Antichrist, is an earth elemental, and that means human, since humans were made from the dust of the Earth. It supposedly has two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. Since the lamb is a recognized symbol of Christ, it stands to reason that this person will be a sort of Christ-like figure, at least to the masses. Pure and without blemish and probably claiming to speak in God’s name. The dragon, of course, is Satan, so we’re really seeing someone who seems to be divine but is actually the commander of evil. Eventually, says their dogma, everyone will worship the beast under a brutal and absolute totalitarian dictatorship with the Antichrist as its leader, able to perform miracles to get the power and the following. The end result might be a lot of ravings or code to ancient churches as you will, but could also be taken as foretelling an atomic holocaust—and its terrible aftermath.”
“So how does all this tie in with all of us?” Greg wanted to know.
“Well, think on it. They need someone who will serve and be obedient to the beast, yet be a human symbol to the world. This takes a great deal of power. This human must already occupy a place so exalted and be so well recognized that the face and identity will be known to all and they can get all the media coverage they want, and audiences with world leaders. Now, think again of the Black Mass, the opposites, and the requirement to already be in the center of worldwide wealth and power and you will see where they’re going.”
And Greg MacDonald did see. “Angelique! If Christ was male, then the Antichirst will be female. The head of Magellan. A recognized face, but someone known to be a helpless cripple. She’s pure, still somewhat innocent in spite of what’s happened, and even still a virgin. Considering Magellan’s activities, she could get an invitation to the White House and the Kremlin.”
“Indeed,” interjected Lord Frawley. “Western intelligence has been trying to prove for years that several great advances in computer science and technology in the Soviet and Chinese blocs were the result of deliberate capitalist espionage. Magellan. They’ve already built or maintained master computers for defense and international finance in most of the western world, and what they maintain they can modify. Now, if they secretly sold the same sort of thing to the Soviets and the Chinese…”
“Exactly,” the Bishop agreed. “At the right moment, when Angelique assumes complete control, so, too, will the Beast be in control, not just of one computer but of almost all the vital ones. A tyranny by computer.”
“But both the Russian and American launch computers aren’t on any sort of network like that,” Frawley pointed out. “Without the codes, which are changed daily, what can they do to start Armageddon?”
“Even I can answer that,” Greg responded. “You don’t need the codes, if you can create a crisis so intense that you will cause one or the other side to push the button. Starvation, revolution, mutiny—it’s all one and the same. That dictatorship isn’t national, it’s multinational—Magellan. A multinational corporation of slaves. She’ll take it, build it, and mold it until it’s just right, and then it will cause conditions that will force one side or the other to World War III. Oh, my god!”
Whitely turned and looked at Maria. “Do you think you can get the gist of that through to Angelique, my dear? She should know, after all.”
“I—I’ll try. I’m not sure I understand it myself, but I’ll try.” And she did.
“They say that the Dark Man will make you the daughter of the Great Deceiver, the Father of Lies, as the one who died on the cross was the son of the Supreme God. You will assume the trade of your father and with it control the whole world. You will have miraculous power and people will worship you as a god yourself and do as you command, and you will command them in the future to wage a great, last war against themselves so that they may then wage war against Heaven. Do you understand what they say?”
That was the trouble, Angelique thought sadly. She did understand. They would corrupt her utterly and then control her, making her not only better than she was but almost Christ-like. The Antichrist! They want to make me the Antichrist! God protect and defend me!
They were through Sacramento now, and going up into the mountains. He had elected to go via the twisting, winding little road leading to the pass at Lake Tahoe, and from there over to Carson City. It wasn’t a well used route, particularly in the middle of the week and at this time of year, and it was the road on which they were least likely to encounter trouble.
“Well, she can’t be their jolly little Antichrist if we’ve got her,” Lord Frawley pointed out.
“Indeed. But for how long do we have her? A close shave tonight, old boy,” the Bishop retorted. “I’m certain that for symmetry’s sake they’d like to have it done on October thirty-first of this year, but so long as she is around it can be done almost any time. We can’t keep running forever, and their resources are enormous now and getting greater every day. We fed the problem into our little computer, with some help at Stanford, and we came up with some answers, although not cheering ones.”
“Yes? You mean short of doing her in outright?” Frawley asked, and heard Maria give a little shocked gasp.
“Oh, yes. Put it all together and it’s correct. They are quite fanatical in their own way. They require a sexually pure woman. That was the point of the quadriplegia. An impure Antichrist might fit in well with our notion of opposites, but they’re playing by their own rules.”
Lord Frawley was agog at the idea. He was having trouble rationalizing all this occultism with his nuts and bolts universe as it was, and he accepted it only in terms of the beliefs of madmen—a company in which he included Bishop Whitely. “You mean—all we have to do is get someone to knock her up?”