But the minarets and domes and walls dissolve, and the Kaaba too fades away, leaving only the participants in the last Hadj.
IN THE PACIFIC
24o N, 120o W
Reconnaissance flight 705 out of San Diego is buffeted by tornadic winds and blinding torrents as it fights its way toward the center of the huge, mysterious Pacific storm that shows up on satellite photos but not radar. An unclassifiable, logic-defying storm with the combined properties of an Atlantic hurricane, a Pacific typhoon, and a Midwestern supercell. All that can be said of it from orbit photos and fly-by observation is that a towering colossus of violent weather topping out at fifty-thousand feet is crossing the Pacific in the general direction of northern Mexico.
Reconnaissance 705’s mission is to classify it, but right now, hemmed in by roiling clouds and radar that shows clear, calm, open sea ahead of them, they are truly flying blind. The pilot, Captain Harry Densmore, has never experienced anything like this. The barometric readings are in the mid-twenties as he approaches what should be the center of the storm. He wants to turn back but needs to know what’s at the heart of this monstrosity. There’s no eye visible from orbit, but all indications point to an organized center. One look, one reading, and he’ll turn tail and run. This monster hasn’t killed anybody yet but he’s afraid he and his crew might change all that. He’ll count himself lucky if he sees San Diego again.
Just a little farther...
Suddenly the plane is buffeted by a gust that knocks it 45 degrees off line. Metal shrieks in Densmore’s ears and he’s sure she’s going to come apart when suddenly they’re in still air.
“It’s got an eye!” he shouts. “We’re through the eye wall!”
But an eye should be clear. And in an eye this size, blue sky should be visible above. Not here. It’s dark in this eye. Very dark. And raining.
Maybe it’ll clear up ahead.
The copilot calls out the barometric reading: Twenty-three.
“Twenty-
three
? Check that again. That’s got to be wrong!”
Then lightning flashes and Densmore sees something through the rain ahead. Something huge. Something dark. The far side of the eye wall? Maybe this eye isn’t as big as he thought. Maybe—
“Oh, Christ!”
He turns the wheel and kicks the rudder hard, all but standing the plane on its wing-tip as he banks sharply to the left. The shouts of alarm and surprise from his copilot and navigator choke off as they see it too.
He finishes the turn and levels off on a circular course around the center of the eye, catching lightning-strobed glimpses of the cyclopean thing in the heart of the storm. His copilot’s and navigator’s hushed, awed voices fill the cabin.
“What in God’s name
is
that?”
“I don’t know.”
They are at 20,000 feet and whatever it is reaches from the ocean below and disappears into the clouds miles above them.
Densmore realizes that what he sees before him is impossible. He knows his physics, and something that big breaks all natural laws. Just like the storm itself.
Which means something else is driving this storm that breaks all the rules and defies the world’s most sophisticated radar tracking system.
And God help whoever is in its way when it makes landfall.
Suddenly he wants to be as far away as possible from this unnatural phenomenon.
“Take some pictures so people won’t think we’re all crazy, and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Moments later, reconnaissance flight 705 re-enters the eye wall but instead of flying through, it is tossed back by the hellish fury of the tornadic winds. Densmore tries again and again to pierce the wall but each time his craft is rejected like an unwanted toy.
The storm won’t let them leave. They’re trapped...in the eye...with that thing...
Densmore resumes a circular path along the wall, staying as far as possible from its center. They’re safe here in the relative calm of the eye—safe at least from the winds—as long as their fuel holds out.
But they’ve got only a few hours’ worth left.
TWENTY-TWO
HURRICANE WATCH
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A HURRICANE WATCH FOR SANTA BARBARA, VENTURA, LOS ANGELES, ORANGE AND SAN DIEGO COUNTIES. BRING IN LOOSE OUTDOOR OBJECTS, FILL UP YOUR CAR WITH GAS AND STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS.
(The Weather Channel)
‡
Manhattan
They sat in the front room of the rectory. Neither Father Brenner nor Mr. Kesev of the Shin Bet wanted a drink, but Dan didn’t let that stop him. Monsignor Riccio had come by to offer his condolences. He seemed to know Kesev—apparently they’d met on the street a while back.
The Monsignor didn’t say, “This is what you get for recklessly going public with the Virgin,” but Dan guessed he was thinking it. He was gracious, however, and wished sincerely for the speedy capture of the killers, then he left. Father Brenner had sat up with him awhile, then he went back to his room to watch TV.
TV…all the world was watching TV. The streets, even the ones outside the church—relocked until the blood could be cleaned from the floor—were empty. Everyone was inside watching the wave of destruction as it wiped out of places worship across the globe. If there was panic, it wasn’t in the street, it was quiet and private. Dan figured more prayers were being said across the globe right now than at any other time in history. And no doubt fewer atheists and agnostics now than at any other time in history a well.
Yet he felt strangely aloof from it all.
“What do you think it means?” he asked Kesev. “The destruction of all these churches and temples, I mean.”
“He is coming.”
“Who? The Antichrist?”
Kesev looked at him. “There is no such person. It is a fiction concocted by crazy men. The Master is coming.”
“You mean Jesus?”
Kesev nodded.
“But why now?”
Kesev shrugged. “Because He has decided it is time.”
No straight answers from this one. If Kesev was right, it was the End of Days. Dan found he didn’t care. He did care that his glass was empty. He rose to pour himself a third Dewar’s.
“Sure you won’t have one?”
“No, and I do wish you would not drink too much.”
Dan stopped in mid-pour. Kesev was right. This wouldn’t do him any good. Wouldn’t ease the pain, even a little. The wound was too wide, too deep, too fresh.
“This is my last. But what’s it to you? What do you care about me or how much I drink?”
“I’m sorry for you and for that poor dead woman. But I’m concerned for my own sake as well. You see...for many years I have been the Mother’s guardian.”
“ ‘The Mother,’ “ Dan said softly. “The Virgin. How Carrie loved her.” Then the rest of Kesev’s words sank in. “Guardian? We had a fake scroll supposedly written by the Virgin’s guardian back in the first century.”