Piercing the Darkness

by Frank E. Peretti

  GORING GLARED AT Steele. “Not exactly a prudent line of questioning.”

  Mr. Steele tried not to look embarrassed. “Mr. Goring, we can rehash our slip-ups or we can talk about what we’re going to do.”

  Goring moved on, but unhappily. “Mrs. Denning is now a liability. You and I both know she’s suspicious that Sally Roe is still alive—and we both know why.”

  “No,” said Tisen, “I wouldn’t worry about that. She has a marvelous and deep loyalty to the leadership here.”

  Mr. Steele turned away from that issue. “She’s not a problem. What I’m wondering is where will Roe turn up next, and should we forewarn anyone before she can get to them and milk them for information as she did Mrs. Denning?”

  DESTROYER STOOD BACK and glared at Mr. Steele. Bungler! Fool! Idiot!

  GORING ROLLED HIS eyes. “Do you actually propose that we forewarn everyone to be looking out for a woman who is supposed to be dead? Just how far down the ranks should that information go? Don’t be a fool, Steele! Once such information leaves this room, it will be beyond our control. Besides that, whom would we tell? How do we choose which direction Roe will go? We don’t know what she’s thinking, and obviously you had no idea she would appear here!”

  BARQUIT STOOD BETWEEN Mr. Steele and Destroyer before the angry predator did something rash. “I remind you, great warrior, that we received no warning! You could have foreseen she would be here, and we would have been spared this difficulty and embarrassment!”

  Destroyer calmed just a little. “All right. Granted. For a time, the Host of Heaven hid her from us, responding to the prayers of the saints of God. The saints in Bacon’s Corner do have quite an interest in this battle. But their prayers are weakening now. They are preoccupied with other things.” Just the thought of that cheered Destroyer, and he became more pleasant. “We will find her, Barquit, but by stealth and craftiness rather than force.” Destroyer could see someone approaching the room. “Ah! Behold this! We’ve just gained another advantage the Heavenly Host have not thought to contain.”

  “An advantage?”

  Destroyer only smirked and looked toward the door.

  THERE WAS A knock.

  “Who could that be?” Mr. Steele wondered.

  “We weren’t to be disturbed,” said Tisen.

  “Who is it?” Mr. Steele demanded.

  The door opened a crack, and a young student assistant stuck his head in. “Excuse me, Mr. Steele. I have a special item for Mr. Goring.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Goring.

  The young man entered the room with a manila envelope.

  TWO SPIRITS ENTERED as well, quite gleeful, trying not to cackle too loudly. Destroyer ordered them to stand just behind him. They obeyed instantly.

  “Very punctual,” he said to them.

  They tittered and cackled their delight at such a compliment.

  As Destroyer and Barquit watched the young man hand the envelope to Mr. Goring, Destroyer explained, “These two messengers happened upon an interesting development back at the Bacon’s Corner Post Office. I decided to reward them and secure their future services.”

  THE YOUNG MAN exited. Mr. Goring opened the envelope and pulled out the contents with a puzzled expression. A small letter-envelope and a three-page cover letter fell to the table.

  Almost at the same time, all four men saw the name on the upper-left corner of the envelope: Sally Beth Roe.

  Goring read the cover letter. “It’s from Summit. This letter from Sally Roe arrived last week at the Bacon’s Corner Post Office. Lucy Brandon discovered it and referred it to the peace officer Mulligan. He checked with LifeCircle and Ames and Jefferson, the lawyers on the case. They sent it on to Summit. The people at Summit opened it and thought I should see it immediately.”

  Goring picked up the much-traveled letter from Sally Roe, addressed to Tom Harris. All four men looked at it with shock, awe, and then a steadily increasing jubilation.

  Goring spoke first. “So . . . Sally Roe is writing letters!”

  Mr. Steele was almost smiling widely. “To . . . to Tom Harris?”

  Goring was skimming the letter from Summit. “Brandon is reasonably sure that this is the first letter.” He dug Sally’s letter from its already opened envelope; it was a document handwritten on three-ring spiral notebook paper. He quickly perused it. “Yes. This sounds like the very first letter. She’s introducing herself . . . Oh no! She’s describing her encounter with Von Bauer!”

  At that, they all gathered to look over Goring’s shoulder.

  Mr. Steele read the account, taking great interest in how Von Bauer suddenly died. He then recalled what happened in the Log Cabin Cafe. He looked at Khull. “She is into some kind of tremendous psychic power. Something’s protecting her!”

  Goring wasn’t entirely impressed. “And yet she still seems lost, confused. Look at her here, going on and on about morality, meaning, despair. The woman is a mess!”

  Mr. Steele read ahead. “Mm. ‘I’m going to retrace some old steps and find some things out.’ That’s why she was here. She’s hunting for information.”

  “And she found it,” said Goring in disgust.

  Another thought was sobering. “If Tom Harris had actually received this letter . . .”

  Goring looked up. “Of course. It could have spelled the end of everything, including Brandon’s lawsuit.” But Goring’s mood began to lighten. “But as it now stands . . . Sally Roe has virtually betrayed herself to us. See here? She plans to write more of these letters, and that could be the key to finding her, predicting where she’ll be, finding out what she knows, and just what she has planned!”

  The four men looked at each other. It just might be that.

  “If we can continue to intercept these letters, observe the postmarks, derive clues from their content, I would say we would have a remarkable advantage,” Goring summarized.

  “But can we trust Brandon to intercept the letters?” asked Mr. Steele. “Won’t she buckle under the legalities?”

  Goring smiled. “No, not Brandon. She has too much to lose by not cooperating, what with the lawsuit now in progress. Besides, if we can persuade her that it would be in her best interests to cooperate with us, then . . . we will have all the more leverage for controlling her with each letter she tampers with.”

  The men exchanged glances and nodded. It sounded like a workable plan.

  Goring concluded, “We’ll consult with Santinelli when he gets here. If he’s agreeable, we’ll send word back to LifeCircle to persuade Brandon to continue intercepting the letters and sending them to Summit. Eventually, most certainly, Sally Roe will tell us where she is, and . . . you, Mr. Khull, will then be of value to us.”

  Khull smiled, relishing the thought.

  The two messengers behind Destroyer cackled and slobbered in delight.

  “A Judas,” said Destroyer. “Someone who will betray Sally Roe into our hands: Sally Roe herself!”

  CLAIRE JOHANSON AND her live-in boyfriend Jon Schmidt shared a large, white house on the outskirts of town. The house was once the center of a large ranch, but the ranch had been divided into several smaller farms, and now the house remained as a comfortable, manageable estate for Claire and Jon’s purposes. She was, of course, a legal assistant for Ames, Jefferson, and Morris; Jon was an architect and painter.

  But most of all, they were the founders and facilitators of a movement, a fellowship, a gathering known to its members as LifeCircle.

  Today was a LifeCircle meeting, not too formal an occasion, but rather a time to share, to combine interests, to discuss new discoveries and insights. There were plenty of cars parked on both sides of the road that ran in front of the house, and the house was full of people, not only from the immediate Bacon’s Corner area, but from other communities as well.

  In the living room, the fine arts enthusiasts enjoyed a miniconcert of mind-expanding music by a popular instrumental trio consisting of flute, guitar, and string bass. The preside
nt of the local grange was there, in a strange daze as he listened; Mr. Woodard, the elementary school principal, was also there with his wife, relaxing to the lilting sounds. Some young farmers were in attendance as well, some enjoying the music, and some thinking of moving on to another activity elsewhere on the grounds.

  Upstairs, in a bedroom that was totally empty except for cushions everywhere on the floor, young men and women participated in a yoga workshop, humming and droning like a beehive, sitting in the lotus position. They were everyday people—a rancher, a carpenter, a UPS truck driver, a teacher of “special needs” children, a couple who ran a day-care center, and Miss Brewer, who taught fourth grade at the Bacon’s Corner Elementary School.

  Outside the back door, sitting in comfortable chairs under a vast grape arbor, a discussion group of some dozen people was taking time to share ideas and hear the opinions of a visiting author regarding the application of Zen to farming.

  In a corner of the backyard, not too far from a swing set, several young children cavorted on the grass, pretending to be ponies. Leading them all was Amber, now Amethyst, jumping, prancing, and spouting words of wisdom.

  “It is as you see it to be,” she was saying. “If you see yourself as a black horse, that is what you are. If you see before you an open prairie, that is where you are. Create your own world, and run free in it!”

  So, the kids created their own world and ran free in it—as far as the back fence, anyway.

  In Claire’s office on the main floor, behind closed doors, a meeting of great importance was in progress. Claire sat regally behind her desk; Gordon Jefferson, the ACFA attorney, sat at one end of the desk, his briefcase at his side; opposite them sat Lucy Brandon. Next to the door, in a neutral position, sat Jon, Claire’s live-in. He was blond and handsome, like a male model for running shoes, and had a quiet, confident demeanor.

  Another woman was present, a short-haired, thin, female attorney from Sacramento, who’d brought a brief from another case the ACFA had finished there.

  “You’ll find a lot of useful parallels in this case,” she said, handing it to Jefferson. “If you have any questions, Mr. James will be happy to offer his time and services.”

  “Splendid!” Jefferson replied, taking the materials. “I understand Mr. James was able to uncover some persuasive case law in this one.”

  “And it’s yours to use as well.”

  Claire smiled with gratitude. “Thank you, Lenore. I suppose you know the people in Chicago are watching this one?”

  The woman named Lenore smiled. “Oh, of course. So if you find yourselves in any need at all, we’re ready and waiting to send you more manpower, more documents, anything.”

  Jon chuckled and clapped his hands. “We’re off and running!”

  “And that reminds me,” said Claire, “we’ve been getting a little low on news items; John Ziegler and the folks at KBZT are always open for more news if we can find it.”

  Jefferson responded, “Well . . . the case is pretty much in limbo until the trial.”

  Jon asked, “What about Harris’s troubles with the child welfare people?”

  Claire shook her head. “We can’t go near that, not yet. The judge ordered the press to stay away from that, and if they try to dig anything up it will look too much like a violation of her order.”

  “Well,” Jefferson thought out loud, “if we could find something outside that order, it would help. We need to keep the Christians on the run, keep them hiding.”

  Jon joked, “Maybe we could use the child abuse hotline again and get Harris in trouble with someone else’s kids.”

  “No . . .” said Claire, though she knew Jon wasn’t serious. “We don’t want to start looking obvious, and Irene Bledsoe’s under enough of a load as it is.”

  “Well, be patient,” said Lenore. “It’s a gradual process, one case at a time. The consolation is that once we gain the ground, we never lose it again.”

  “So time is on our side,” said Jon.

  There was a lull in the conversation. All eyes began to drift toward Lucy Brandon, who sat silently, listening to them all.

  She returned their gaze, and smiled nervously. “You’re asking me to do a lot.”

  Claire chuckled disarmingly. “Oh, it’s not as serious as all that.”

  Jon patted her hand. “Don’t worry. There’s too much power represented here for you to be in any real jeopardy. Isn’t that right, Gordon?”

  Gordon Jefferson jumped right in. “Of course. Listen, Lucy: these letters are not legitimate mail. They’re from some crank, some sick person who’s been following the case in the media. It happens all the time. Letters like that shouldn’t be delivered anyway.”

  Claire added, “But in the meantime, we never know just what or who might be behind them, and we can’t afford to take any risks.”

  “That’s right,” said Jefferson. “We don’t know what the letters contain, but we can be sure that your case will not be helped in any way if Tom Harris should ever receive them.”

  Lucy sat there thinking about it, but still seemed unconvinced.

  “Well,” asked Claire, “how many have there been now?”

  “The second one came in just yesterday.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I still have it ‘on hold.’ I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “That was smart.”

  Jefferson concurred. “Real smart. You see, Lucy, we could be dealing with some pretty shady people in this case. You never know what kind of stunt they might try to pull.” Then he added in a slightly quieter voice, “Also, consider the stakes involved. If you should win this case, there would be quite a bundle of money in it for you.”

  “But money aside,” Claire added, “think of all the children this case could affect in the future. If we’re ever going to build a future of peace and world community, we must deal with the Christians; we must remove their influence upon the upcoming generations. It’s for their own good, for the good of humanity.”

  “But what about Amber?” Lucy asked.

  Jefferson was quick with an answer. “You know, Lucy, I don’t think you even have to worry about that. Dr. Mandanhi can present reports and testimony on Amber’s behalf, and she’ll never have to go anywhere near the courtroom. We’ll be able to insulate her from this case altogether.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Well, we’ll just play it that way.”

  Claire spoke with great sincerity in her voice. “Really, if we thought this was going to be harmful to Amber, we wouldn’t pursue it. It’s the children we’re concerned about, after all.”

  “Right, absolutely,” said Jon.

  Lucy finally smiled and nodded. “All right. I just wanted to be sure, that’s all.”

  “No problem,” said Claire.

  “We understand,” said Jon.

  Jefferson doublechecked. “You do have the address for forwarding the letters?”

  Lucy thought she remembered. “The Summit Institute, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I have it in my private files. I’ll send the letters off as soon as I get them.”

  They all nodded their approval. “Excellent, excellent.”

  THE MUSIC PLAYED on, the discussions continued, the humming and chanting made the windows buzz. All in all, LifeCircle was having a fruitful day.

  So was Marshall Hogan. It hadn’t taken him too long to drive slowly by the house and past all those parked cars, chattering into a small tape recorder in his hand. “GHJ 445, HEF 992, BBS 980, CJW 302 . . .”

  In just two passes, he had them all.

  CHAPTER 21

  Dear Tom,

  I want to know something for sure. Right now I don’t.

  Blame it on pride. When I first entered high school I relished what I was taught: that I was the ultimate authority in my life, the final arbiter of all truth, the only decider of my values, and that no prior traditions, notions about God, or value systems had any autho
rity over my will, my spirit, my behavior. “Maximum autonomy,” they called it. Such ideas can be very inviting.

  But there was a catch to all this freedom: I had to accept the idea that I was an accident, a mere product of time plus chance, and not only myself, but everything that exists. Once I bought that idea, it was impossible to believe that anything really mattered, for whatever I could do, or create, or change, or enhance, would be no less an accident than I was. So where was the value of anything? Of what value was my own life?

  So all that “maximum autonomy” wasn’t the great liberation and joy I thought it would be. I felt like a kid let loose to play in an infinitely huge yard—I started to wish there was a fence somewhere. At least then I would know where I was. I could run up against it and tell myself, “I’m in the yard,” and feel right about it. Or I could climb over the fence, and tell myself, “Oh-oh, I’m outside the yard,” and feel wrong about it. Whether right or wrong, and with infinite freedom to run and play, I know I would still stay near the fence.

  At least then I would know where I was. I would know something for sure.

  Sally was in the town of Fairwood, a small burg along a major river, a fairly busy shipping port for that part of the state. Even though the Omega Center was only a half-hour, winding drive into the hills above the town, she had lingered and hidden here for the weekend, getting to know the place again, walking its streets by day and spending the cool nights in the woods down by the river.

  The town had not changed much in ten years. There was a new mall at the north end of the main thoroughfare, but every town has to have a mall sooner or later. As for the city center, all the stores remained the same, and even the Stop Awhile Lunch Counter was still there, with the same jukebox and ugly blue formica-topped counter. The menus were new, but only the prices were different; every page still carried the same logo and the same meals.