Chapter 12

Blue Creek, June 22, 2:15 AM

Richard awoke with a start.  Something urgent demanded his attention.  He could almost feel the adrenaline coursing in through his veins.  Then it came to him.  He stole stealthily from bed and went outside barefoot, wearing only boxer shorts.  As isolated as the cabin was, the only danger of exposing so much skin was from the mosquitoes.  He got a plastic bag from his cruiser, and then popped Jill's trunk.  What he was looking for lay atop the jumper cables.  After carefully placing it in the bag, he secured it the trunk of his cruiser.

"I heard the door open," said Jill when he came back to bed.  "Where have you been?"

"Down to the cars.  I'm dusting that can of fix-a-flat in the morning.  If Paget's prints are on it we'll give your friend, Shane another chance to confirm that he's been at the camp.  Then we can get a warrant to search the place."  He sighed heavily.  If I had thought of this earlier we could already be rolling.  No sense in rousting people from bed.  I've got to lift prints if there are any, and then send them to the FBI to confirm they're Paget's, and unless we get the Sanders kid to change his story it looks like we're just playing a hunch."

"You will not go back to sleep, will you?"

"Probably not.  If I have to get up I'll be quiet."

"I don't think I can sleep alone," she said.  "It is not selfish.  It is the baby.  I cannot let myself get rundown.  Could you try to stay in bed?"

"Let me hold you," he said as he gathered her to him.

"Do you think I am being silly?" she asked.

"You're never that," he replied, adjusting his position.

"Do I feel pregnant?" she asked.

"You mean ‘bigger?'  Not yet."

"Do I act pregnant?  You know, moody?"

"No.  You're still your on-top-of-it self."

"I do not feel on top of it.

Suddenly he realized that she was crying.  "What's wrong, Babe?"

"I do not know how to be pregnant,"

"You're doing a great job," he assured her.  "A great job."

Canaan Camp, 11:00 AM

Paget squinted at the sunlight slanting through the blinds, and then glanced at the clock.  Only eleven.  He hated getting up early.  On his way to the bathroom, he looked in to see if Joshua had died during the night---which would have been about right considering the way things were going.  The bed was empty!

The old fool left the house, he thought as he rushed in.

But he found him on his knees at the far side of the bed.  Approaching silently, he gazed at the bowed head, noticing the shiny scalp beneath a tangle of sparse, wispy hair.  The old man's incoherent muttering made him cringe in revulsion.  Of all the irritating things the old man did, he hated his interminable praying the most.  He wanted to batter the old man senseless, to smash his skull to a pulp, to swing until he was too tired to swing anymore like he had done with Peppy Pearson.

He calmed himself with thoughts of what was about to happen.  His original plan would have been nice.  He pictured again the scene that would have resulted.

Someone finally gets curious about the lack of activity at the camp.  When they go up they find the meetinghouse full of rotting corpses.  They think it's cult suicide at first.  Then they find out that Bobby Lee Paget has been here!  Soon everyone in the country knows the name of Bobby Lee!

St. Louis will be even better if the kid doesn't screw it up.  There'll be tape.  The media will run it over and over.  There'll be crocodile tears.  News anchors will warn their audience of "horrible images" that they are about to show.  It'll all be done in the name of the ‘people's right to know,' but everyone at the networks will be getting their rocks off the whole time.

Suddenly it occurred to him that they might give Joshua and the Wilderness Church the credit.

No.  It'll be like that Jones guy, he assured himself.  They'll have to give me credit.  They can't cheat me out of it.  The whole thing is too big---too masterful.  Only Bobby Lee could do something like this.

Half an hour later Paget lay sprawled on the couch, listening to the old man's intermittent snoring and watching dust motes drift through the sun illuminated stale air while he tried to picture the kid releasing the gas.

He opens the valve on the first container, and maybe even has time to open the second before the gas gets him.  Then it gets to someone up on the stand.  First one, then another, and then a dozen wilt to the floor.  The crowd wonders what's going on, and then they start collapsing.  Finally they realize something's going on.  Somebody screams, and then all hell breaks loose.

He imagined them rushing for the exits, falling, clawing, screeching, and trampling each other in their terror.

They'll probably crush more to death in the stampede than the gas will get.  Who knows what can happen after that?  There'll be hell to pay when the coons find out that a white church was behind it. 

Paget daydreamed of a nation-wide holy war.  White and black congregations blowing up each other's churches, ambushing church buses, assassinating each other's preachers.  It was funnier than hell, but too good to be true.

"It's almost as good as doing it myself," he mumbled to himself.

He decided to stay at the camp just long enough to catch the TV news when it broke.  It would take time before anyone connected the slaughter in St. Louis with Canaan Camp.

Once they do, there'll be more feds around here than squirrels.  Hell, they might come in here with guns blazing, he thought with a smile.  Start killing niggers, especially church niggers, and Uncle Sambo goes ape.  But all that will be in Bobby Lee's rearview mirror.

The muffled thud of the air conditioner's compressor kicking off pulled him from his reverie.  Then a hacking cough followed by a creaking floorboard told him Joshua was up again.  He looked at the clock on the mantel.

Not even noon yet!  I've got to put up with the old faggot for another hour, he thought.  Ought to just slit his throat and be through with it.

The sight of the old man tottering through the doorway brought the tingling anticipation of violence.  He hated Joshua from his shadow to his smell.  He took a deep breath, flexed his fingers, flared his nostrils, and pushed up from the couch.  He wanted to do it immediately, longed to feel nose cartilage crack against his knuckles, to feel the warm blood spurt as he beat the old fool senseless.

I could do that with a near miss, he thought humorously.

"Caleb, my dear friend.  I'm glad you're already up.  Fetch me some coffee like a good lad.  I'm sure you have it ready," said Joshua, collapsing into a chair near the sofa.

Bobby Lee stared at the grinning old man in silence, and then nodded slowly.

"Yeah.  I'll just go fetch your coffee---like good lad."

In the filthy kitchen amid the cluttered of encrusted dishes and accumulated debris on the counter he found a dirty cup.  He sloshed it full from a cold carafe half filled with two-day old coffee, and left it in the microwave until it boiled over.  Walking back into the living room, he took a perverse satisfaction from the pain as the handle burned his fingers.

"You're such a good boy," said Joshua, with a yellow, long-toothed smile, looking more than anything like a reanimated cadaver.  You're my true son."

The remark made Paget tremble with rage.

"I hope it's hot," fretted the doddering old man as he reached for his coffee.

"It's hot enough," said Paget softly.

Then he flung the coffee into the old man's face.

Joshua screamed and reeled backward, toppling his chair.  Paget cried out in his own pain as the scalding liquid bit into his right hand and wrist.  Cursing, he threw the heavy porcelain cup at Joshua's head.  It bounced harmlessly off the rug and clattered across the hardwood into the corner.

"You son of bitch!" he bellowed, clutching his throbbing thumb to his chest.

Clenching his teeth, he rushed forward, landing kick after kick into the old man's stomach and back.  The old man curled into a ball, gasping for air.  Consumed with fury, Paget kicked him again and again.  Joshua rolled to his back to escape.  Paget aimed a stomp at the old man's face, but his shoe slid off the side of Joshua's temple and he turned his ankle.  He collapsed to the floor and pummeled the old man with both fists until Joshua stopped moving.

Breathing heavily, Paget got to his feet.  The ankle hurt, but it didn't seem badly sprained.  Blood frothed from the old man's nostrils and the corner of his mouth.  A broken rib had punctured one of the lungs.  He raised his foot to stomp the old man's exposed throat to finish him off, but restrained himself at the last moment for fear that he might do more damage to his ankle.

"You'll probably die before they get here anyway," he said, still breathing heavily.  "Hope you liked the coffee I fetched you."

A glint from outside drew him to the window.  It was sunlight glinting from the windshield of a car at the gate.  He drew aside the curtains to peer through the half open blinds.  A lean man in uniform got out and went to the gatekeeper's shed.  Paget stared gape-mouthed when he recognized the man in uniform.

"They got caught!" he gasped.

No.  If something went wrong in St. Louis they wouldn't send just one car.  This isn't a raid.  What the hell brought you back?

Whatever it was, Paget knew that it was time to go.  He'd have to catch the news on reruns.

Canaan Camp, 12:02 PM

"You can't come in unless you got a search warrant," objected the young man at the gate.

"You're wrong.  I don't need a warrant," Richard informed him tersely while making sure to keep his voice steady and unthreatening.  "I'm here to talk to people, not execute a search.  Your camp is part of the county.  The sheriff's department can go anywhere in the county.  If you interfere you're committing a crime."

Canaan had no protocol for keeping visitors out or admitting them.  The guard, like the lockless gate was primarily symbolic.  The worried young man opened the gate and stood aside.

Richard took the winding graveled drive.  A small house sat on a drought-browned yard at the base of a hill crowned by a house not quite large enough to be called a mansion.  A young woman in loose fitting shorts and short-sleeved white blouse knelt at a galvanized washtub in the shade of a large box elder tree.  She looked up from her work with a neutral expression.  Except for the clothes, she could have stepped from a previous century.

She brushed dark hair from her forehead when he stopped.  She put down the canning jar she had been scrubbing and stood as he approached.  He judged her at just shy of twenty, and despite his preoccupation, was struck by her beauty.  In the split second he allowed himself to dwell on that, she picked up on it the way women used to unwanted attention seem to do almost instinctively.  She reacted with a barely noticeable weariness, preparing to deal with a minor irritation, as if she would shoo a gnat from her eyes.  Yet, she smiled politely---not warmly, an invitation to state his business.

"I'm a deputy sheriff," he began, surprised that he found himself a bit daunted by her manner.  "Mind if I ask some questions?"

"Why?  Is something wrong?"

"We're looking for a fugitive," he said.  "A man called Bobby Lee Paget."

"I don't know the name."

"I doubt he'll be using it.  His name has been in the news for over a month.  You haven't heard about him?"

"We're not much for listening to the outside world," she said.  "It's one of our many peculiarities."

The off-hand remark gave him pause, but he didn't have time to think about.

"Then could you tell me if a stranger has come to the camp, say since early May?"

"People join from time to time," she answered, seemingly preoccupied.  "What kind of person is this man you are looking for?"

"A rather bad kind, I'm afraid.  He's killed at least five people down in Arkansas and three out in Oregon."

"What makes you think he'd come here?"

Richard looked into her eyes.  "Because people who don't pay attention to what goes on in the world are good people to stay with if you're hiding from the law."

"We came here because we thought we could escape the evil," she said.

Her utter lack of self-righteousness surprised him.

"I don't know anything about your church, ma'am.  And I can't imagine that you all would deliberately protect a man like this.  But I think he's here.  So I'm going to ask you again, has a stranger come here in the last couple of months?  Please be specific this time."

She hesitated.  "Tell me about him."

"He killed a family down in Marked Tree and then . . ."

"No." she interrupted, "Tell me what he looks like."

Richard's pulse quickened.  He fumbled the sketch from his shirt pocket.  As he unfolded it, he cursed silently.  In his haste he had picked up only one of the photocopies.  He handed her the old mug shot.

"He looks different now," he began.  "Imagine him clean shaven and with shorter hair.  He's a little taller than medium height, and he's more muscular now."

She squinted at the picture, but didn't say anything.

"That's what he looked like five years ago."

She nodded.  "Tell me again what he did," she said softly.

"He killed a family of three back in April---including a seventeen-year-old girl.  He tortured her.  Then he killed two more people."

She absently fingered the oval pendant of a small necklace handing around her neck.

"He also killed two men in Oregon, but his favorite victims are young women.  If you can think of anyone---"

"I think he's here," she said suddenly.  "A man calling himself Cal Hodges came here in May or early June.  This picture---it's him, I think.  He doesn't look like that now, but I've seen that look.  Yes.  It's him."

"He's here now?"

"I don't think so.  He was staying with Father Joshua up there," she said, nodding toward the large house at the crest of the hill.  "They left last night I think."

"Left?"  Richard asked, thinking that he had he finally tracked Paget down only to arrive too late.  "You mean him and this Father Joshua?"

"No.  He and a friend of mine left for St. Louis last night---or I think they did.  There may have been others.  There's some sort of religious meeting they plan to disrupt."

"What are you talking about?"

"They plan to disrupt some church gathering.  Something has happened to Father Joshua, because he would never have done something like that."

Richard had no idea as to what she was saying meant.

"A religious meeting?  And they're going to disrupt it?"

"A revival or something.  Shane says some big minister has been attacking the Church.  He said they were going to make him look bad on television.  I told him that it wasn't right, but---"

"Shane?  You mean Shane Sanders?"

"You know him?"

"My wife was his teacher at the junior college," he said, deciding not to tell her that her boyfriend had lied to him about Paget.

"We had a fight before he left," she said.  "This wasn't his idea.  This is all Cal Hodges doing."

He had no what she was talking about, nor did he particularly care.

"Miss, where exactly are they going in St. Louis?"

"Shane didn't say.  Is he going to be in a lot of trouble?"

"It depends," he said.  "Is there anyone who might be able to tell me where Shane and this ‘Cal Hodges' went?"

"Father Joshua.  At least I think he can, but he's not himself lately.  He's not thinking clearly anymore."

Richard turned back toward his car.  "He's up at the house, right?"

"Yes.  I'll go up with you," she said moving to follow him.

If Paget was there he didn't want to have to worry about her.

"No.  But stay here.  I want to talk to you again later.  Your friend, Shane is in danger as well as trouble if this Hodges guy is Paget.  While I'm gone you see if there's anything else you need to tell me."

She nodded mutely.

Paget watched warily from inside the small house.  When Raven nodded and inclined her head toward the house on the hill, he swore.

"You're not going to do this to me," he hissed.  "You're going to get what you deserve now, you slut.  You're going to get exactly what you deserve."

He fingered the car keys as he peered through the curtains, waiting for the deputy to disappear through the door of the house at the top of the hill.  A footfall on the porch outside made his heart race.  He slipped the butterfly knife from his pocket and flicked it open, the blade locking into place with satisfying click.  He tiptoed to the side of the door.  Raven stepped in.  He clamped a hand over her mouth, pulled her roughly against him, and kicked shut the door.

A knife! she thought as she felt the blade at her throat.

"Do you want to die?" Paget whispered harshly as he squeezed the lower half of her face and brutally jerked her head back.

Raven shook her head tremulously, not in answer to the question, but in denial of what was happening.  Her knees gave way.  Paget cursed and jerked her back upright.  She felt no pain.  She felt nothing, only a hopelessness so beyond words that no thought was possible.

Paget's mind, however, was racing.

I've got to get the hell out of here.  The damned deputy's probably called it in already.  Just slit her throat and leave.

Then she trembled in his grasp, her shuddering like a bird in the clutches of a predator being eaten alive, and it was too much.  She was the essence of what he had lived, breathed, and dreamt of for years.

I've got to have her.  She's perfect. 

"Make a sound, and I'll cut your throat," he said as he took his hand from her mouth.

He grasped her hair while keeping the knife just below her jaw and walked her to the table.

"Open that bag."

He had to repeat it twice and shake her before Raven bent forward to unzip the carry bag at her feet.

"Take out the duct tape and tear off a piece about four inches long," he said, twisting the hair tangled in his fingers.

12:13 PM

The elements of the scene came to him one at a time:  the smell of stale garbage, dark stains on the hardwood floor, then a gurgling snuffle coming from a darkened room ahead.  With his .357 at cheek, Richard went warily toward the sound.  He ducked in quickly---and saw no one.  Then a wet, sucking noise coming from the far side of the disheveled bed slid into a frothy gurgle.  Alert for sudden movement, he held the pistol at the ready and felt the wall for the light switch.  He flipped on the light, but got no reaction.  Still wary, he went around the bed and found an old man dressed only in pajama bottoms lying prone, face swollen, blood streaking his face and chest.  His temple oozed blood, and pink froth came from both nostrils.

None of the blood's caked, he realized with ears tingling and hair at his nape standing up.  The beating had taken place minutes, not hours ago.

Richard whirled toward the door off to his right, certain that Paget was drawing down on him.  No one was there.  He crept stealthily from room to room until he had cleared the house.  His relief was mixed with regret.  He had just missed Paget, but he was still at the camp.  He ran to his cruiser and called in, requesting an ambulance and was about to call for backup.

"What are you doing at Canaan Camp, Carter" demanded Shug, breaking in on the communication.

"I got a positive ID on Paget from one of the people out here.  He beat up their leader.  The old man is in bad shape.  I'll give him what first aid I can until the EMT's get here, but tell them to hurry.  I need to get after Paget."

"They always hurry, Carter.  Are you sure Paget's out there?"

"I'm sure, boss---one hundred per cent sure.  He beat up the old fellow not more than a half hour ago."

Richard dampened a bathroom washcloth with cold water and removed enough blood to determine there were no serious cuts.  The old fellow probably had a concussion, but none of his outward wounds seemed life threatening.  Most worrisome was the internal damage.  Richard suspected that a broken rib had punctured a lung.

12:20 PM

"Paget's there?"  Tanner's voice rose in disbelief.  "You're sure of that?" 

"He was until a few minutes ago I think," said Richard.  "And I know he was here until last night,  I've got a witness.  A girl here identified him.  Right now I'm baby-sitting an old man here that's just taken a pretty severe beating.  If Paget didn't do it, I can't imagine who did.  So I'm pretty sure he's still here."

"Carter, there's something you should know---"

"There's something you should know too," interrupted Richard.  "You may have another problem.  These fools seem to have cooked up some kind of . . . I don't know what---maybe a bomb or something."

"It's worse than a bomb, Carter.  You need to keep those people from assembling.  Paget could---"

Richard interrupted again.

"I don't think they're going to do it here.  Last night some of them went to St. Louis.  A girl here says they plan to disrupt some big religious meeting up there."

"Oh my God!"

"What?"

"They've got nerve gas, Carter.  Paget brought it back from that militia compound.  That's why I wanted you to prevent any kind of a meeting there.  Look, I've got to get your news up the line.  Find out as much as you can, and stay where I can get in touch with you."

"How are you going to stop them?"

"Hell if I know.  Is that girl with you?"

"No."

"Well get her on the line.  Maybe she knows something else.  And hurry.  We're running out of time."

"What about Paget?"

"Concentrate on the gas.  Get me that girl!"

"Wait.  Someone just came in.  Maybe it's---" He turned to see the young gatekeeper gaping at him.  "No it's not her.  I'll go get her."

"Call me back," said Tanner, clicking off.

"Get in here," Richard said sharply to the young man.  "Your leader has been hurt.  You got to take care of him while I try to find the man who did it."

"Father Joshua?" the man stuttered, seeming unable to comprehend what Richard was saying.

"He'll be all right.  An ambulance is on the way.  Now get over here."

The young man came haltingly into the room, his mouth falling open at the sight of the battered old man on the floor struggling to breathe.

"Don't try to move him," said Richard.  "I think he's got some broken ribs."

"Who did this?"

"A man you call Hodges."

"Brother Caleb?  No."

"He did, but I'm not going to argue with you.  Now get over here and take care of him until the ambulance arrives.  If he starts choking, clear his air passage.  Do you know how to do that?"

"Yes.  I've had CPR."

Richard used his cell instead of the radio.  Shively surprised him by taking in his fantastic report in stride.

"I'll get the Patrol and put everyone I can on the roads to seal off the camp.  You think Paget's still there?"

"I'm almost positive, Shug.  I've got to get the girl on the line for Tanner."

"Do it."

12:28

Paget watched the flashing lights from the inside the barn, relaxing momentarily when he saw that it was only an ambulance.  Then a patrol car came, then a second.  Finally a third stopped at the gate sideways to block the drive.  He could hear the girl moving in the trunk.  She was probably trying to find a way to get out, which was ridiculous with her wrists duct taped together at the small of her back.  He decided to put a stop to her nonsense anyway.

When he opened the trunk, her eyes flew open and indrawn breath sucked in the duct tape over her mouth.  He wound his fingers in her hair, pulled her to a sitting position, and slapped her.

"Now be still in there," he said, slinging her back down and slamming the deck lid.

12:29

The car that had been parked outside the house was gone.

"Ma'am," Richard called fearfully as he opened the door and went inside.  "Ma'am, are you here?"

The girl's promise to wait had seemed sincere, but she had apparently run out on him.  Why?  She certainly wasn't in league with Paget or she would never have made the ID or sent him up to find the old man.  Something gleamed on the carpet near the door.  He bent to pick it up, and then called Tanner.

"The girl's gone," he said as soon as the agent answered.  "I think Paget took her.   I just found a necklace with a broken chain on the floor of the cabin where I left her."

"I guess we're on our own," said the agent.  "You get back to me if you find her or anything that can help."

As soon as Tanner cut the connection, Richard radioed in.

"We're looking for a late model, dark blue Ford sedan," he said.  "There are probably two people in it, a male and female, but one or the other may be tucked out of sight.  The car probably has a Wilderness Church emblem, the one with a travel trailer logo."

The road was clearly visible from the house, and, had he looked out the window, he would no doubt have seen the car leaving.  Common sense told him that if it had gone out the main gate deputies already on the road would stand a better chance of catching up with it than he would.  In the other direction the road curved behind the house where the girl had been, and led through trees toward an old barn perched on a hill to his right.  Before signing off, he advised that he was following it.

The girl could have taken the car herself.  He hoped so.  Maybe he'd find it and her at another house down the way, but he was almost certain that Paget had taken her and the car.  He sped down the road billowing dust in his wake.  Just past the barn the road turned into the woods.  But there were no more houses.  A quarter of a mile further, he came to a clearing flanked by sawdust piles and stacks of rough-cut lumber and neatly piled logs.  Half a dozen young men, stripped to the waist, manned the sawmill.  The road had dead-ended.  Beyond were only rough paths hacked through the stump lot leading through the mill yard, terrain too rough for anything smaller than a log skidder.  No car, blue or otherwise, was in sight.

"Carter, where are you," the sheriff's voice erupted from the radio.

Richard keyed the microphone.  "I'm at a sawmill at the end of the road leading west from the house.  He couldn't have gone this way.  Boss, I'm sure Paget's got a woman with him."

"A hostage?"

"My best guess," said Richard, backing around quickly.

He thought that the snap he heard was a stick he had run over.  As pulled forward his whip antenna, which had caught a low limb, fell to the ground.  When the Sheriff respond, Richard wrote it off to Shug's preoccupation with another call, while Shug took Richard's lack of response as an indication that Richard had entered one of the dead spots that plagued the cash-strapped county's antiquated communication system.

St. Louis, 12:40

Agents stood uneasily around the van on Convention Street.

"So that's about it," said the agent in charge.  "It's old technology, but as lethal as anything newer.  It's colorless, odorless---nine seconds exposure is fatal.  You ought to be able to ID Paget, but we have only a cursory description of the other suspect.  He's a white male in his late teens and he has short brown hair.  To complicate matters, there might be other accomplices.  We just don't know.  And we don't know exactly what to look for, but our best bet is to look for gas canisters of some kind."

He smiled grimly.

"They say we should look for someone acting suspiciously or looking out of place.  Sound familiar?  We don't a single detail of their plan, but it's logical that they'll release the gas via the air conditioning.  Unfortunately, we don't have blueprints for the building or time to wait for them.  So we don't know where they are, and we don't have time to wait for a Hazmat team.  We're it."

"We do have these," he said as he handed out the yellow auto-injectors.  "The atropine helps if you don't receive a massive amount of the Sarin.  As far as the masks go, I can't tell you how helpful they'll be.  Keep them on your hip until you know there's a release.  The masks could cause panic."

"How will we know, sir?" asked the youngest agent.

"People start dropping," he said simply.

"Why not just evacuate the building?"

"They think that an evacuation would trigger an immediate release.  Finding them before a release is our best bet.  That's the thinking."

"Why not have the maintenance people help us?"

"They're afraid that someone on the staff might be involved too.  We're really short on good information."

The truth was that no one had had the time to think the operation through.  So, armed only with the maintenance supervisor's verbal description and hastily scrawled diagram of the building, six brave (and terrified) men went into the stadium hoping to avert disaster.  Each knew the risks, and had his own reason for volunteering.  Who knows why heroes run toward the danger instead of away?

Because they were so few, they couldn't even form two-man teams.  Each agent would be isolated, armed only with his sidearm, personal communication device, a bulky gas mask beneath his suit jacket, and two atropine syrettes.  The plan was simple.  Identify the targets, get close, and take them down before they could release the nerve gas.

The Dome, 12:45

Dressed in the same coveralls he had worn during reconnaissance of the building, Shane wheeled the tanks, now labeled "C02" toward the arena, as the singing of thousands of voices echoed faintly, providing a backdrop to his footsteps.  Still looking for a good place to release the gas, he expected to be challenged at any moment.  Now that he was alone, what he was doing had an unpleasantly familiar feel to it.  It reminded him of the school arson when crazy James had actually set a fire when none of the rest of them really expected him to.

Raven's words echoed in his mind.  "You can't do a ‘wrong' thing for a ‘right' reason"

But Father Joshua says the deceivers have to be stopped.  Besides, the laughing gas won't really hurt anyone.  Caleb says it will only disinhibit them so that they would act like they naturally do when white people aren't around.

Growing up, Shane's only exposure to blacks was from the movies and television.  Prior to his humiliation at the Sears Center, he had cast them in stereotypical but benign roles in his thinking.  While in juvenile, however, the shy country boy had been intimidated by the tough inner city kids who had immediately sensed his weakness.  He came away from the experience with burning shame that nurtured his nascent prejudice.  The nagging feeling that what he was about to do was wrong was not because he recognized it as racist, but because it seemed sneaky and underhanded.

No.  Caleb's right, he told himself, thrusting aside his uneasiness.  This is war!  We're doing God's work.  We're defending the faith.

His first view of the arena dismayed him.  The dais seemed even further from the entrance than during the reconnaissance.  He could feel a slight breeze in his face.  If he released the gas where he stood, it would be swept out into the corridor, but if he took the canisters down onto the floor, he'd be in plain sight.  Someone would be sure to get suspicious.  Then he remembered what he had seen out in the big hallway.  He turned around and wheeled the canisters back up the service ramp.

12:48

Special Agent Hicks walked along the concourse, checking for unlocked doors and looking for "anything out of place," although he had no idea what that might be.  If Paget showed, he felt reasonably sure he could spot him.  The others were amateurs, and that might help.  He had been trained to home in on furtive glances and hesitant behavior.  His hand unconsciously wandered repeatedly from the pouch containing his gas mask to the syrettes in his pocket and back again.  He could think of a lot of places he'd rather be at the moment.

A janitor in light blue coveralls walked past wheeling a large plastic trashcan.  He thought momentarily that trash shouldn't be heavy enough to require the use of a dolly, but then decided that if a man had to handle them alone all day it would make sense to do it that way.  It might even be in the work rules to guard against workmen's comp claims.

They had been told to look for common looking gas bottles, although it was possible the terrorists might have booby-trapped the original artillery rounds.  In any event, the device (or devices) wouldn't be small, like the lunch box dispersers the Japanese subway terrorists had used, so they should be easy to spot.

The problem comes, he thought as he continued toward the arena, if there are two perps with two separate devices.  If so, they won't be together, so if we catch one, we gotta make sure he doesn't communicate with the other.

It called for a headshot.  That meant getting close---close to the nerve gas.

Hicks comforted himself with the thought that the roof should be secured by now.  The main air intakes for the arena were located up there, inaccessible for anyone without the appropriate keys, but easily accessible by the team coming in by helicopter.  His mind drifted again to the totally useless regret that there hadn't been time to call in an appropriately trained anti-terrorist unit.

Why in the world did I volunteer for this?  Janie'll never speak to me again if I go and get myself killed.

The joke, as lame as it was, helped.  He put aside thoughts of mortality and scanned the floor of the arena.

12:52

Shane hefted the second canister into the trash container, and then stuffed trash bags into the space between and around the canisters to prevent them from shifting.

Okay, that's step one, he said to himself.  Now let's find a place close.

Checking his watch he saw that he had eight minutes until the show began.  Caleb said not to open the valves until after the sermon started.  He remembered how they had all cracked up thinking about what it would look like on television.  Somehow it didn't seem quite so funny now.  He tried to push away thoughts of Raven's disapproval.

It'll serve you right for making fun of the Church, he said, addressing the black preacher mentally.

Unease and exhilaration battled for control of his nerves.  Raven's objections had brought back the qualms he'd had before Father Joshua had justified the mission by citing scripture.

"Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal, Shane.  When they were deceiving the children of Israel, he first showed everyone that they had no power, and then he ridiculed them for their misplaced enthusiasm.  They howled and cut themselves, thinking their idiocy and emotion would awaken their false god.  Afterwards, Elijah hacked them all to death.  All we're doing is making fun of them."

That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't.  Shane wondered why he had to keep reminding himself that he wasn't really doing anything wrong.

But Raven thinks it's wrong.

She's just a woman, and women are the weaker vessel.  Soldiers can't have second thoughts.  You've got to put the mission first. 

He glanced at his watch again, a queasy sensation stirring in his gut.  It was almost time.

Why couldn't she support me?  I wouldn't even care if I got caught.

"Women don't understand combat, Shane," Brother Caleb had explained.  "They're weak and easily deceived."

The way Caleb talked about Raven irritated him.

She might be wrong about this, but Caleb's wrong about her.  Raven isn't weak.  What I was scared of at Sears really did happen to her, and despite all that, look at what she is.

Caleb's right about one thing, he imagined himself saying to her.  You can't get much done without getting your hands dirty.

Unbidden, her words came again, as clearly as if she were standing next to him.

"You can't do a ‘wrong' thing for a ‘right' reason."

In an effort to brush aside his misgivings, he grasped one of the valves and tried to twist it counter clockwise.

"They must have tightened it with a monkey wrench," he muttered.

Caleb had warned him that trying to open the valves too soon could break the seal and cause the gas to bleed away prematurely, but he needed to make sure the valves would open when the time came.  He extracted the lock-grip pliers from his coverall pocket and grasped the balky valve in its jaws.  Pulling hard, he felt it give way and heard a satisfying hiss.  Shane reclosed the valve, and then broke the seal on the second container, pleased with himself for anticipating a potential problem.

Too late for second thoughts, he said to himself.  Let's do it.

Bus boneyard near Canaan Camp, 1:00

Paget swore, repeating himself as he ran out of ways to describe the idiots who had sealed the junkyard.

"Who the hell is going to steal a broken down bus?" he screamed as he battered the gatepost with a tire tool.

Sweat beaded on his red face, and he had raised blisters working to pry out the numerous oversized staples.  It infuriated him that the owners of the property had installed the waist high cable to keep people from driving in while leaving the gate on the other side wide open.

"What the hell kind of sense does that make?" he said, stopping to catch his breath.

He looked at the heat shimmering off the dark blue trunk of the car.

"I should have left you in there, you dumb whore," he hissed at the girl sitting mutely in the ditch and shaded by the overgrown ragweeds.  "I ought to put you in there and let you suffocate."

He glared at the cable.  He had managed to batter apart the huge staples holding the it, and had managed to pry the cable loop near the top of post, but now it would go no further.  A mere quarter of an inch from the top, and the damned thing wouldn't budge another fraction.  Paget loosed another volley of cursing as he swung the tire iron in frenzied frustration.  Finally spent, he hurled it into the lot beyond the gate, hitting his hand on the taut cable with his follow through.  Wincing in pain, he scowled at the girl sitting in the ditch.

"You're gonna pay for this," he growled between clenched teeth.

She didn't respond or even look up.  Her eyes focused past him in the middle distance.

"You're gonna pay real good!"

He yanked her to her feet, grabbed her by the neck, and propelled her toward the car.  Stumbling headlong, she somehow maintained her balance despite the fact that her wrists were taped together at the small of her back.  She turned just enough to absorb the impact with her shoulder instead of ramming her face into the car.  Paget wrenched open the door, thrust her roughly inside, and then slammed it shut.

He started the car and eased it forward.  The cable cleared the hood, but hit the windshield a little better than half way up.  He backed down the road some fifty feet and stopped.  Then he shifted into drive and sped forward, cutting to the right and hitting the cable at a forty-five degree angle.  Raven ducked reflexively as the cable slammed into the windshield.  With a loud screech and a muffled pop, they slewed through the gate barely missing the huge railroad tie gateposts.

She rocked forward with the impact, hitting her head on the dash.  When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see the windshield still intact.  A large crack ran diagonally across it, but it hadn't shattered.

"About damned time!" said Paget, barely slowing as he drove across the field.

Soon they were out of sight from the road.  Raven saw row after row of busses parked end to end in lines stretching to the far off woods at the end of the field.

"Alone at last, Miss Dusky," said Paget with grim satisfaction as they bumped over the uneven ground.  "Guess what happens now."

The Dome, St. Louis, 1:03

Hicks passed a man in off-white coveralls.  Idly, he thought that a facility like the Dome should have consistent worker uniforms for security reasons.  Then he thought that they probably did, perhaps color coded such as blue for custodial and white for skilled maintenance like electricians, plumbers, and heating and cooling people.

It would have been nice to know that before we came in.

He had reached the end of the corridor so he keyed the walkie-talkie, "Hicks, Chief.  Nothing unusual on the east side."

"Good.  The roof's been secured, so our perps are inside if they're here.

"How about the ductwork?  Could they have gotten in there?"

"Don't know, but that would be a suicide job, which doesn't seem likely.  Besides, there's probably no way to check on that in time.  Our best bet is to just keep looking inside the building."

"How about just evacuate?"

"What happens if we clog up the corridors and then they release it?  Our one advantage is that they don't know we're here.  Besides we need to keep the building relatively free of hall traffic so we can all get around when we spot them."

"Right," said Hicks as he folded the communication device and stuck it back in his pocket.  He tried not to dwell on the consequences not finding the terrorists.  He reversed direction, walking a little too rapidly to appear nonchalant.  Popping some gum into his mouth to work off a little of his edginess, he veered toward a heavy faux-stone trash receptacle to dispose of the wrapper through the flapper lid.  He tipped the heavy-looking container experimentally, surprised at it's lightness.  Looking inside he saw only a plastic liner holding a few scraps of paper.  Intrigued, he went to the next one and examined it, finding that it too was nearly empty.

Of course they're all empty.  That's what the janitor was doing earlier.

1:15

Shane maneuvered the canisters over cables and through scaffolding beneath the dais until only a curtain separated him from the first row of floor seating some ten yards away.  Above him, the preacher began his opening remarks almost conversationally.

Shane looked at his watch.  You'll crank up the volume in a few minutes, he thought, anticipating an imminent singsong tirade punctuated with shouted questions to stir up the crowd.  Instead the preacher continued in the same comfortable tone, his deep voice mellow compelling.  Shane waited impatiently for the fake song and dance.  What he really wanted to hear was some derogatory reference to Father Joshua or the Wilderness Church, something to justify what he was about to do.

"As I look at all of you out there," said the preacher.  "I see expectant faces, not black faces or white faces or any other hue of face.  Oh, they're out there.  But what I see are the faces of the children of God, and the faces of people who want to be children of God.  Now you might think it strange for me to say that I don't see the color of your skin.  Some would think it preposterous for me to say that.  Our enemy wants us to see and emphasize the differences between us.  He wants us to make distinctions.  He wants us to forget that we are all the sons of Adam, all the sons of Noah.  He wants us to make divisions and then to judge those divisions so that we see "them" and "us."  He wants us to judge so that we will think that "we" are better than "them."  The fact is that it is not true and wouldn't matter if it were true.  None of us is good enough.  God is no respecter of persons.  He sees only our hearts and our actions.  And friends, none of us measure up nor can we measure up without His help."

Shane listened impatiently.  He needed for the man to say something that he could seize on---something outlandish or mean-spirited, something to rouse his anger.

"I'm not real comfortable talking to such a big crowd," said the preacher pausing before continuing.  "So I tell you what I'm going to do.  I'm going to talk to just one of you.  The rest can listen.  I suppose that whoever what I'm about to say applies to will know it.  I certainly won't.  The rest of you all bear with me.  The message will go out today, and it will accomplish its purpose because God will direct it to the heart He has prepared to receive it."

As the auditorium fell unnaturally silent, Shane had the irrational thought that the preacher knew where he was hiding, that the sermon was, in fact, directed at him.

Just imagination, he tried to assure himself.  It's silly.

"Friend, what you see here today---what you think you see, is a gathering of America in all its diversity---white folks, and black folks, and folks of Asian heritage.  You think you see old folks, young folks, and middle-aged folks.  Do you know what's wrong with that, friend?  These plural things don't exist---not really.  Races, nations, even families, these are just collections of individuals.  God created man in His own image, so you are Adam, Friend.  Whether you are a man or a woman, you are Adam in the sense that you are guilty of Adam's sin . . . and you are devoid of holiness.  And you cannot make yourself right, or clean---much less holy."

"So, friend, you stand before your God alone.  Being part of a family, a nation, a race---these things mean nothing.  You stand alone before your Creator.  He gave you a free will to choose between right and wrong.  It may be unfashionable to say nowadays, but all---and that means you and me---all have come short of the glory of God.  To will to do well is in us, but we are incapable of doing it because of Adam's sin.  Ask yourself how long it has been since you did something wrong, had an evil thought, were angry without cause, wished ill of someone, were jealous, envious, or lustful."

"It hasn't been very long, has it?"

"Friend, the Devil didn't make you do it.  Neither did God tempt you by bringing temptation within your reach.  When we---notice I said, we.  Whenever we are tempted to evil it is because we are led by our own evil lusts."

What I'm doing is not evil, Shane insisted.  Father Joshua says the Devil works with words.  He seduces our imaginations.  Don't listen to that man.

"Beware of the excuses you make.  They come easily.  Have you noticed that you don't want to think about these things?  Friend, have you noticed that you want to forget the deeds that tell you what you are like?  Are you angry with me for accusing you of these things?"

Yes, thought Shane.

"Well, I'm neither condemning you nor accusing you.  Your own thoughts have done so.  When the light shines into our darkness, we get angry at the light.  If we do perhaps it is because we love the darkness because our deeds are evil and we don't want anyone, least of all ourselves to see them."

Shane sat alone in his darkness and placed his hands on both valves.

"I'm not evil, you deceiver," he said under his breath.  "Pretty soon everyone is going to see you for what you are."

"Now you may think that Brother Jones has just called you a sinner.  Well, Brother Jones knows one great sinner in this auditorium, all right---a sinner deserving of Hell fire.  That sinner is Brother Jones, himself.  I stand here before you, friend, a sinner justified not by anything that I have done.  I stand justified by what the Lord has done.  Like you, I stand here alone before my God, without excuse.  How He could love a man like me, I don't know, but He does.  And He loves you too."

"Now I wish I could tell you, friend, just exactly what you need to do in order to repent of your sins and believe to the saving of your soul.  But I can't, because, you see, that is between you and your Creator.  But I do know that race won't save you.  Nationality won't do it.  Your family can't help.  And neither can belonging to this church or that church.  And having faith in what I tell you can't help either.  You stand alone before your God---absolutely alone."

"The good news is that He loves you already.  Seek Him.  Do you really think He will hide from you?  Or not tell you what you need to do?"

Don't listen to him, Shane told himself.  He's trying to confuse you.

It wouldn't wash.

If I release the gas he'll drop all the make believe and tell them what he really thinks.

The valves felt cold in his hands.  He tested the knobs, tensing as he prepared to do it.

It's time to put an end to all this---stuff.

The Bus Boneyard, 1:15

Paget drove past the bus where he had hidden the exiles, knowing that he should just kill the girl, jam her in with them.  He should just take the county road ahead to 63, take it up to Rolla, hit Interstate 44, and get lost in the swarm of traffic heading west.  He went through the north gate and out onto the road.  But before long he started thinking about the girl.  She was perfect---scared senseless, but perfect.  And there would be no reason to waste time trying to hide her afterwards.  In fact it would be better to display her for them.

The last thing they'll expect is for me to stick around.  They think I'm running scared.  They'll never look for me here.  They'll be afraid that I've already slipped away from them again.  I can stay until dark, and tip toe through the back roads or even hijack a house somewhere.  Morning will be soon enough to move.

The logic told him to wrap it up, but he was driven by something far more powerful than mere logic.  A psychiatrist would perhaps term it "anti-social personality disorder coupled with sexual sadism."  Father Joshua might say he had a devil.  Saying that both explanations were correct would come as close to describing what drove him as any theory.  But Paget hadn't remained free by as long as he had by disregarding the warnings ringing in his mind.

They can't have roadblocks up yet.  And they won't set them up very far from the camp.  I should get away from here fast---maybe put fifty miles or so behind me and then hide or switch vehicles.

The girl shifted her position, drawing his attention.  He looked across the seat, and suddenly it was too much.  He had to have her now.  Trembled with anticipation, he spun the wheel, executing a sliding U-turn.  He drove back determined to do what he had initially planned.  Yet his unease would not lie quietly.

Turn back around.  You don't have time for this, it warned.  Just finish her and get out before it's too late.

But she's perfect, said a hungry something inside him.  She's untouched.

Canaan Camp, 1:20 PM

Hawthorn County deputies stood beneath a tree below Joshua's house as the ambulance carrying the old man pulled onto the highway.  They were getting assignments for a search of the camp.  A search of the back roads would follow.  The Highway Patrol was already stopping traffic on 60 both east and west of the Blue Creek as the search for Paget swung into motion.  A description of the missing vehicle, including license number, had been sent to surrounding jurisdictions, including the Arkansas Patrol.

A mile and a half away Richard drove slowly, looking for signs that a vehicle had pulled off the road and driven into the woods.  Every few minutes he checked to see if he could gain radio contact again.  He noticed through his rearview mirror the hazy dust cloud he was throwing up even at his low speed.  What he didn't notice was the absence of his whip antenna.  And what he didn't know was that Paget had stopped moving and was not far ahead.

St Louis, 1:22 PM

Shane felt empty.  He had been trapped in the darkness of his hiding place.  And he had been forced by that circumstance to listen to the black preacher.  It wasn't that he necessarily believed the things that he heard, but suddenly all that Joshua had ever said seemed hollow and somehow cheap.  There was a knot in his throat that wouldn't go away.  He had lost his faith.

If I don't have Father Joshua and the Church, what do I have?

He closed his eyes as a second thought followed.

What will Raven do when she finds out that I don't believe in the church anymore?

The Church is the only real family she ever had.  It had been the only place she has ever belonged.  Yet, it was she that had objected to the mission from the beginning.  And she had even expressed doubts about Joshua.  Suddenly he realized that she had suffered her own loss of faith on the night of the expulsions.  Despite the emptiness within him, Shane wanted to protect her, to make things better for her, to somehow make up for the terrible things that had happened to her.  If he could he would perform some kind of surgery to cut out the thing that tormented her.

He laughed bitterly at the thought.

Physician, heal thyself, he told himself.

He wanted to pray, but didn't know how.  So he did the only thing that he knew for certain was right.  He covered up valves and wheeled the dolly our from under the dais.  Ignoring the surprised stares from some in the congregation he started up the ramp to the corridor.  He would take the canisters back to the van.  He would get the laughing gas out of the building before he caused any real harm.  The people at Canaan Camp were good people, and he didn't want them hurt anymore than he wanted to harm the black preacher and all his people.

He had to get back to Canaan.  He had to get back to Raven.

Hicks saw the young janitor approaching him again, wheeling a plastic trash barrel on a hand truck, evidently taking the filled liner to a disposal area.  As they passed the bulge of his gas mask pouch brushed the loose lid, knocking it to the floor.  Inside the container sat two squat canisters with "CO2" had been stenciled on their collars.  His heart fluttered like a bird trying to break through his ribcage.

Somehow he managed to keep walking as if nothing had happened.  As the young man bent hurriedly to retrieve the top from the floor, Hicks turned to conceal what he was doing as he pulled his sidearm.  There was no time to report.  He had to get close enough that it would be impossible to miss.  He would only get one shot.  Concealing it behind him he quickly closed the distance, his heart racing.

At least an upper body shot if he so much as flinches, he told himself.  No hesitation.

"Hold it right there!" he croaked.

Shane turned to see a man in a shooter's stance leveling a snub nosed pistol from barely an arm's length away.

I'm going to jail, he thought, suddenly deflated.  His hand fell to his sides as he ruefully shook his head.  I wonder what the charges will be.  Unlawful entry?  Malicious mischief? 

"If you so much as flinch, I'll shoot you," said the man in a quavering voice.  "Where are the other canisters?"

"Others?" said Shane  "There aren't any other canisters."

"You're lying!  Tell me where the rest of the nerve gas is or I'll shoot you."

"Nerve gas?  You're kidding," said Shane uneasily.

"We don't have time for this," warned Hicks.  "Now tell me where they are."

Shane was afraid that the man might actually do him.

"Hey.  Don't point that gun at me.  This stuff is harmless.  This was all just a silly prank.  All I was going to do was . . . it's nitrous oxide.  Here let me show you."

The kid moved so fast that Hicks froze in disbelief.

Near Canaan Camp, 1:26 PM

Richard stood atop the ravaged hillock above the sawmill looking vainly for avenues through the standing trees and stumps.  Paget couldn't have driven through the woods, not even with a high clearance RV.  He half-walked, half-slid back down the precipitous slope to his cruiser, deflated by his discovery, but at last satisfied with the elimination of one possibility.  On the way back to the house, he looked up the hill to his left where the old barn stood.  The wide central bay, open at both ends, and was big enough to admit a loaded hay wagon.  He slowed as he passed until he could see daylight coming through the far door.  He backed up and drove up the hill although he was sure the barn had been searched.

On either side of the open bay, the barn was filled from floor to rafters.  The sheet metal roof absorbed the sun, literally baking the upper bales and filling the tightly stacked barn with the smell of curing fescue.  It was immediately obvious that nothing of any size could be hidden inside.

Richard walked out the far side onto a gently sloping and recently bushhogged lot.  Some seventy-five yards to the north and down the hill, he saw an opening in the trees.  Glancing over the contours of the lot, he thought he saw a slight depression leading off in that direction.  Upon closer inspection, he realized that it was an old road, no longer in use.  The drought had baked the soil rock-hard and had withered the grass stubble.  It looked as if a vehicle had recently pressed down the dead grass.  It had probably been the tractor and hay wagon, but it warranted a closer inspection.  He went back for his car to follow the trail into the woods, thinking that it might lead to another barn or even an old homestead.

St. Louis, 1:27 PM

The hiss broke his paralysis.  He rushed forward and clubbed the perp with his revolver, and then lunged for the valve.  He fumbled it closed, snatched one of the auto-injectors, and slammed it into his thigh.

Head spinning and nausea rising, he plunged a second syrette into the unconscious terrorist's thigh.  Then he pulled the gas mask from its pouch and struggled to get it on.  Finally, feeling as if he would pass out at any moment, he called in.

"This is Hicks," he shouted, his voice muffled by the gas mask.  "I've got one of them in custody.  We've had a release---I don't know how much.  Seal off this corridor and don't come in without your masks."

He felt jelly-kneed.  He didn't know if that because of the gas, the atropine, or a combination of the two.  Fearing he would lose consciousness, he knelt and handcuffed himself to the man lying on the floor.

The Bus Boneyard, 1:30

"Get out of there," said Paget harshly as he roughly dragged Raven from the car and slung her forward.

She fell, turning to take the impact with her shoulder.  He was on her immediately, twisted his fingers into her long black hair and hauled her to her feet.  Then he propelled her forward.

"I'm going to do you good," he exulted, drunk with the feeling of power.

He left her wrists taped together at the small of her back, but ripped the tape from her mouth.  He needed to hear her.

He smiled, waiting for the hysterics to begin.  But she neither looked at him nor pled for her life.  He tried to wait her out, but she remained mute.  Paget's frustration grew as she refused to conform to the script.

She should be kneeling before me, begging, pleading, promising, asking "Why?"  Her eyes should be pooled with tears.  She should be whimpering, and shuddering.  What the hell is wrong with her? he wondered.

Suddenly he thought he knew what was going on.

The slut's taunting me.  She thinks she can control me.

Trembling with rage, he slapped Raven to her knees, gripped her head in both hands, and pulled her up, forcing her to look him in the eye.  But something was wrong with her.  Her eyes weren't wide like they were supposed to be.  They were dull as if she were already dead.  He could make her grunt with pain, but she refused to say anything.  He wasn't going to stand for it!

He seized her by the throat and squeezed until her face began to darken and her mouth gaped open.  As she approached unconsciousness he suddenly realized what she was trying to do.

She's trying to cheat me.

"No!  You're not going to get away that easy," he said angrily as he released his grip.

He spun her around, grasped her hair again, and pushed her ahead of him.

"You'll die when I'm good and ready.  I'm not through with you, Miss Dusky---not by a long shot."

Raven didn't want to die, but she knew that she was going to.  Just as it had her whole life, fate had taken her for its own purposes.  He was going to hurt her, kill her, and then throw her away.  The thought left her numb.  She had fled to her familiar hiding place, knowing that it wouldn't save her this time.  The numbness would last.

I'm not brave, she thought.  I'll scream and plead when he hurts me.  I'll promise and I'll do everything he wants.  And it won't make any difference.

She thought of how Shane would react when he found out how she had been killed.  Then she realized how much she wanted the impossible future with him that he had proposed.

It's not fair!  She thought.  Not now!

The path led to a graveled road.  Uncut hay nearby showed signs of a vehicle recently turning out onto the road, going to the left.  He drove for half a mile and came to a fork.  He chose to go left because he thought it led toward a county road.  Two miles further he found that the gravel road did intersect with a black top.  However, four large boulders had been placed across its end, denying highway access.  He turned around.

The road to the right wound around thickets of brush and weeds competing for space on the rocky soil.  Rounding a tight turn and bumping over wallowed out ruts and uneven protrusions of bedrock, he came to two dark railroad ties set into the ground.  The end of a loose cable lay in front of him like a huge sunning snake.  A bloom of nervous tension began to ball in the pit of his stomach, the old familiar aura he first felt in Somalia.

He came this way.

He coasted to a stop, hoping the sound of his tires hadn't betrayed his arrival.  Keying the microphone, he announced his location, using the barn and the fork in the road as reference points.

"A cable blocking entrance to a lane or driveway has been recently broken.  I'm sure it's Paget.  I need backup, but don't have time to wait for it.  I'm preceding on foot."

He waited for acknowledgment but got only static.

A second try got the same results.

He got out and eased the door closed.  Then he noticed his missing antenna.  Shrugging his acceptance of the situation, he drew his pistol and walked through the gate.  Every few meters he stopped, carefully scanning the area ahead and listening.  He was walking his own point.

Some thirty yards up the lane he found a tire tool.  The paint was chipped off one end exposing the bright, rust free metal.  The tool had just been discarded.  With reinforced caution, he rounded an untidy hedge of multiflora roses and emerged onto a movie set vision of the post-apocalyptic world.  Hundreds of dust-covered buses were parked end-to-end in neat rows, forming a huge maze. 

Paget peeled the duct tape from her wrists.  Now that he had her isolated and under control there was no need for it.  Raven's hands had fallen asleep.  Now they tingled.

"Keep your hands at your side," he ordered when she flexed her fingers.

His eyes shone hotly as a crooked smile that was not a smile stretched his lips.  His nostrils flared like some rapacious predator sensing prey.  Intense concentration erased the smile as he stared into her eyes.  He backed her into one of the buses, and then, without taking his eyes from hers, he began to work slowly at the buttons of her blouse.

"What have you got hidden in there?" he mocked, intending to savor the changes in her face as he forced her compliance.

Raven looked at his face, seeing only the first of Starry Dawn's "boyfriends" to hurt her.

Jimmy never takes long, a childish voice in her head said.  It'll be over soon.

Her passiveness puzzled him.

Maybe she's lost it---gone crazy with fear.

But that wasn't it.  She looked perfect except for the eyes.  He didn't like the deadness there.  She was resigned and surrendering, but it was wrong!

Infuriated, he suddenly backhanded her, snapping her head around.  When she looked back at him, blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.  She didn't cry out, only looked down and away.

It wouldn't do!  He pulled her forward by the front of her blouse, grasped her chin, forcing her head up.

"Look at me!" he screamed.

Raven returned him the same blank stare.  He gripped her neck with both hands and tightened until she began struggling for air.  Then he relaxed his grip, allowing her one quick breath.  Pinning her against the bus with one large hand, he leaned in, inches from her face.

"Do you know what I'm going to do to you?" he snarled.

She nodded almost imperceptibly.  "Kill me," she said weakly.

"Not for a while," he crooned, caressing her cheek lightly.  "I like doing this.  I like it a lot.  And I'm going to take you with me . . . if you're a good girl."

Be a good girl like your momma said.  It was Jimmy's voice, but now she knew it wasn't Jimmy who was doing this to her.

My life is over.  Soon all pain will end.  There's nothing to gain by living any longer. 

"I don't believe you," she said, focusing her eyes on his face as she tried to provoke him.

He almost snapped her neck.  But then he realized what she was trying to do.  He trembled, barely able to keep himself from killing her only by remembering that she was trying to cheat him.  She was ruining it.  She was trying to control him.

"What makes you think I care what you believe?" he shouted.  "Here's what you better believe.  I can make it quick."  He squeezed her throat for emphasis.  "Or I can make it last and last and hurt like hell!"

She spit in his face.

He clubbed her with his open hand again, catching her as she started to fall and forcing her back against the bus.  He hit her again and again.

She fled to the hiding place she had discovered as a child.

He saw the dullness come to her eyes again.

I didn't hit her that hard, he thought.  Momentarily he suspected she had taken something.  She looked like heroin addict succumbing to a hit.

Maybe that's what she did, he thought momentarily.  No.  She couldn't have.  She never . . . unless she had it hidden on her somewhere.

He tried to recapture the feeling, but it wouldn't come.  It wasn't supposed to be like this.

It's her eyes!

"Turn around!" he spun her and shoved against the bus again.  "You fall down and I'll stomp you to death," he growled.

His frustration built to an eruption.  No matter what he did, no matter how he had threatened and hurt her, she just deviated further and further from his fantasy.  He had been unable to fool her into thinking he would let her go afterwards, and instead of trembling in fear or scrambling to accommodate him, she was doing this numb thing.

He wound his hand into her hair and pulled, arching her back.

"Do you have any idea of the things I'm going to do to you?" he asked in the crooning voice that terrified them.

The words came through to her, pulling her back to the present.

"Nothing that hasn't been done before, she said."

That explains it, he thought.  Someone beat me to her.

"That's what you think?" he asked pulling her hair painfully.  "I can kill you.  I can make you want me to kill you.  I can make you beg for it."

"Do it then, you pig."

She wanted it to end.  But then something betrayed her.

Irrational hope insisted on being.

"Delay him," it said.  "Someone will come to save you."

Immediately another thought came.

There's no one to help you, Raven.  There never has been.

Richard couldn't tell if the heat of the hood came from the engine or the mid-afternoon sun, but this was the car from the camp, so Paget and the girl had to be near.  He held his breath and listened.  Off to his left a blue jay crabbed raucously.  As a hunter, he had learned to loathe the birds because their calls alerted every creature in the forest that an intruder was in their midst.  When a second bird took up the call, Richard nodded in acknowledgment.  Only a hawk or human elicit such excitement.  Keeping a wary eye, he went toward the sound, moving quietly from line to line of derelict buses.

At the end of the last line, he got to his belly and inched forward to peer around the tire of the lead bus.  Anyone staring in his direction would be less likely to think it was a man should he notice a movement that low.  To his consternation, there was one more line of vehicles, this one shorter to conform to the irregular configuration of the field.  He saw nothing.  Then he heard an indistinct voice---a man's voice.

Paget slammed her into the bus in frustration.  On the verge of unconsciousness, Raven sought the darkness.  She wanted it to take her away, to be out of his reach, and never awake.  But even now, she wondered if it were a sin.

Paget drove a fist into her abdomen and held her upright as her knees gave way.  He breathed heavily.  The violence helped.  He would skip the preliminaries and go straight to the pay off, straight to the kill---but not yet.  She had to recover her senses first and she had to be exposed.  When she finally drew in a gasping breath, he smiled and then hooked his hand into the front of her blouse, preparing to rip it open.

Something moved!  He jerked his head around.

"You!" he gasped, staring at the man holding the pistol.

Reflexively, he swung the girl around as a shield, took the knife from his pocket, flicked it open expertly, and brought the point up just below her chin.  Richard cursed himself for not shooting while he'd had a clear shot.

"Stay back or I'll slit her throat!" growled Paget.

Richard realized that he had to get closer or nothing he did would matter.  He hesitated for only a moment before continuing his advance.

"I'm warning you!" shouted Paget

"When I see blood you're a dead man," said Richard evenly.

"No.  You don't want to make me cut this pretty little thing.  Stay back or I'll do it!  I'm warning you!"

"Her being alive is the only thing that's keeping you alive," said Richard, inching closer.  "But your luck has run out, Paget."

"Wrong!  I got me one sweet little lucky charm here.  I rip her open ear to ear and she bleeds out no matter what you do."

Richard knew that the standoff couldn't last.  Paget wasn't about to give up the only thing he had left to bargain with.  On the other hand, if he let him leave with the girl, then she was dead.  He couldn't risk a shot at this range.  He'd be as likely to hit her as Paget.  They were all running out of time.

"You know," he said.  "I'm running for sheriff."

"What?  What do I care what you're doing?" spat Paget.

"Well after I take you down there won't be anybody who can beat me."

To any normal person the remark would have been inane, but it resonated with Paget.  It fit his view of his own importance.

"They don't elect guys who get pretty little things like this cut up," said Paget, pushing the point of the knife into the soft skin under Raven's jaw, not yet exerting enough pressure to draw blood.

Richard shrugged.  "This is not about her.  It's about you.  A picture of me standing over your body . . . well, then it's all over but the shoutin.'"

He shuddered to think of the effect he was having on the girl.  If it all went wrong she would die thinking that her death meant nothing to him.  He'd never be able to live with that.  Yet the desperate bluff was all he had.  Paget had to believe him long enough to let him get close enough for a good shot.  But it had to be the shot of his life.

"You know," he said, pausing half a dozen steps away.  "If I could get you and have her come out of this alive, that would really set me up."

"Ain't happening," shouted Paget, tightening his hold on the girl.  "Here's what you're going to do.  You're gonna throw that gun away and let me leave.  I'll let her go as soon as I get to the car.  Then you can run on the brag that you saved her from me."

Richard shook his head.  "Your word isn't worth a damn, Paget.  But mine is, so I'll make you one last offer.  Let her go, and I'll take you into custody instead of blowing your damned head off."

Paget gaped at him.

"You need to think about it?" asked Richard, taking a step closer.  "You're smarter than that."

"You're bluffing!" sneered Paget.  "You want her alive or you would have shot already."

"Don't be an idiot.  She gets killed by you, that's one thing.  Having one of my bullets in her is another."  The purely selfish reasoning was believable to Paget.  Richard could see it on his face.  "You're really lucky that it's me that found you, Bobby Lee."  He laughed.  "In fact you might be the luckiest man alive.  A federal court just overturned the Missouri death penalty yesterday.  Now the most they can give you now is life without parole."

It was an outright lie, but it bought him one more step.

"Think about it.  Ain't jail better than dead?  You're a celebrity.  Imagine all the shrinks and crime writers that will come down to see what makes the monster tick.  That would be a real hoot, wouldn't it?  If there are others you killed that they don't know about you could run them all over the country looking for bodies."

Richard had intentionally avoided locking eyes with the girl face lest something in her face would make him falter.  But now he couldn't help stealing a glance.  Her eyes were fixed on his.  Unbelievably he saw the hint of a nod.

"You're lying," said Paget softly.

The sudden calmness dismayed Richard.

Paget moved the thin blade to the hinge of her jaw, its point angled upward toward her left ear.  "Toss the gun right now or I'm slicing her open," he said.

There was no first aid for a slashed throat.  Only a headshot would do, and the odds were terrible at the present distance.  As if reading his mind, Paget readjusted his hold on the girl, attempting to keep her head between Richard and his own.  Already a thin trickle of blood ran down her neck.

Clammy nausea flooded through Richard at the sight.

The girl slumped.  Reflexively, Paget spread his legs to keep his balance as he pulled his shield back upright.

Suddenly she slammed her head back into his face.  Cursing from the stinging pain of his broken nose, and almost blinded by instant tears, Paget almost lost her as she tried to twist away.  Richard saw the lower half of Paget's body come uncovered for a moment, adjusted his aim, and fired.

Both Paget and the girl went down.  Not knowing if he hit one or both, Richard dove forward clubbing Paget with his magnum.  Then he stomped down on the hand holding the knife, and clubbed the man again.  The girl scrambled away.

He put one cuff on Paget's left wrist, ran them through his belt behind his back, and cuffed the other wrist.  Then he rolled the unconscious man to his back.  Finally he looked at the girl.

She sat on the ground, blood oozing through fingers clutched at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

"Let me see," he said, taking away her hand and wiping his thumb quickly across the wound.

"No arterial spurt.  It's not deep---barely a scratch," he said calmly as he began unbuttoning his shirt.

After he removed it, he pulled his T-shirt over his head, folded it twice, and placed it over her wound.  "Hold that tight," he said.  "You're going to be all right."

She nodded.

"I'm sorry for scaring you, but I had to get close enough for a shot."

Raven noticed his trembling hand.  "I knew what you were doing," she said.

"I'm not so sure I did," he admitted.  "Are you sure you're okay?"

She nodded.  "Put some handcuffs on him please."

"I already did," he said as he examined Paget's wound.

The bullet had caught him square on the hip socket, and the bleeding was profuse.  If he lived to face the death chamber, Paget would probably limp his last mile.  Richard pulled off Paget's shirt to form a compress for the wound.

"My radio's out," he said.  "I'll have to go for help.  Can you hold this in place?"

Raven didn't answer.

"Did you hear me, Miss?"

"I don't care if he dies.  I want him to, I think," she said dreamily.  "But that's wrong, isn't it?"

Richard remembered an "unwrong" thing he had done.  It haunted his nights and some days.

"It's perfectly understandable," he said.  "But help him for your own sake.  He can't hurt you anymore, but letting him die can.  Trust me on that."

Whether she believed him or not, the girl kept pressure on Paget's wound until Richard came back.  When the ambulance arrived, she refused to ride in it with Paget inside.  A female EMT dressed her wound and she walked back to the cruiser with Richard.

"Is Shane in a lot of trouble?" she asked on the way back to town.

All he knew about the situation in St. Louis was that terrorists had been arrest and that nothing deadly had occurred.

"Probably," he said.