The Exterminators

by Bill Fitzhugh

  And before he got to the punch line, all Hell broke loose.

  Divided by their common belief, skirmishes broke out along the borders of the camps. The fight for possession of absolute truth was joined as moderate Episcopalians took offense at the First Church of Divine Prosperity, whose members were passing the plate among the crowd, promising big returns in this life instead of the next. Punches were thrown, coins spilled.

  Further up San Vicente, some eco-vegan-Christians were taking a beating from a group of dispensationalists who, while roundly rejecting Darwin’s theory of evolution, warmly embraced the whole notion of survival of the fittest.

  The troubles continued into the night as a contingent from First Church of Christ Holiness raged against members of the New Testament Church Apostolic over the issue of day care, the former promoting the notion that it was a way to help single, working mothers, the latter citing scripture to support their argument that single, working mothers deserved what they got.

  Around midnight, as a gang of orthodox Lutherans got into a good old fashioned brawl with some Roman Catholics over the terms of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, there came a sound so awful and ungodly, that even Elijah looked surprised.

  Chapter Ninety-two

  It started as a strange and ominous rumbling resonating in the streets. It grew into a divine and resounding noise, rending the air, and giving the combatants pause. Fists stopped in mid-flight as the frightful sound began to vibrate the earth itself, a thunderous low frequency that could be felt for a mile in all directions.

  A hellish fear swept through the crowd and all eyes turned to the Prophet Elijah.

  Father Paul, standing on his stage, held both hands up to the heavens and said, “For you know that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

  As if on cue, fire began to rain down from the skies. Vast, roiling fireballs of orange, gold, and black exploded from the tops of the skyscrapers lining Wilshire Boulevard drawing fearful eyes upward in time to witness bolts of silver-blue lightning arcing between the buildings and the night sky. The air filled with a blaring chorus of trumpets and what was assumed to be Gabriel’s horn, followed by what sounded like the screams of all those who had died in His name. The unearthly sounds were terrifying and shook windows to breaking.

  As glass rained down on the sidewalks, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Rending of clothes. Fainting. Screaming. Testifying. Weeping and praising. Skeptical eyes were covered to hide the fear of exposure. Tears flowed as if to wash away any remaining doubt. Some ran for cover, begging forgiveness, while others were so deeply stunned they simply stared slack jawed at the awesome and fiery display of His coming.

  Here and there in the windows of the office towers all around them appeared the ghostly iridescent figures of seraphim and cherubim in fine twined linen of blue, purple, and scarlet.

  Perched like three vulturous judges on the ledge of one of the buildings were the Archangels Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael.

  Then, between the two tallest buildings, there rose a mushrooming cloud, thick and white as a billowing field of bleached cotton. The cloud soon filled with a blinding golden light out of which Jesus appeared, fifty feet tall, His eyes burning with His magnificence.

  Suddenly, all sound ceased. All motion stopped. Not an eye blinked.

  After a moment hovering in the cloud, he spoke. “Look, I’ve got to make this quick,” he said. “I’m really not even supposed to be here. There are a lot of rules about coming back and I had to bend a few to make this trip. So real fast, this isn’t ‘The Second Coming,’” he said, using his fingers for quotation marks. “Okay? Think of this as version one-point-five. Like an update.” He paused to let that sink in.

  He pointed at the crowd and added a disapproving tone when he said, “Now, would you take a look at yourselves? You’re at each other’s throats.” He shook his head and switched to light sarcasm, saying, “Are the rules too complicated? Is that the problem?” He counted them on his fingers as he said, “Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet, love your neighbor. Pretty simple, right? Nothing to interpret. No hidden meanings. Yet you’ve managed to argue your way into thirty thousand different denominations—and that’s just the Protestants. And each one superior to the other. And don’t try to sell me the ‘invisible unity’ nonsense either. I’m not buying. I know how you think.”

  Jesus shook his head, folded his arms and said, “But you’ll be glad to know that’s not why I’m here. I came about the bugs that started this mess. The thing is, they’re not a plague. They’re not a Biblical thing at all. They’re a government thing. Actually they’re an example of what can happen when you don’t separate church and state. A few knuckleheads using your tax dollars and their interpretation of scripture to justify killing people they disapprove of.”

  He shook his head. “Anyway, I saw how the media was hyping things the way they do with all their ‘terrifying updates’ and ‘shocking developments’,” again using his fingers for quotations. “And of course I couldn’t help but notice you guys getting all worked up about the whole ‘Judgment Day’ thing and, well, I figured the best idea was to drop by and tell you to get back to your lives. The bugs are under control. The End, ‘capital E,’ isn’t here just yet. And, by the way, it’s not up to you to choose the time of my return. I’ll be back when I’m good and ready. M-kay?” He gazed upon the crowd for anyone who might want to argue. “Well, all right then, ’nuff said.” He flashed the peace sign and said, “Pax vobiscum.”

  What followed looked and sounded like a tear in the space-time continuum. Vast fluid sheets of sea-green plasma appeared from nowhere, floating and rolling mysteriously over the crowd before soaring to the heavens and disappearing. Hellish explosions billowed again from the rooftops as jagged fingers of electricity bolted across the sky accompanied by a deafening soundtrack of unearthly origins, scale, and fortissimo.

  The crowd covered their ears and their eyes until one final thundering roar was sucked into a black hole and the sensory spectacle was replaced by void and He was gone.

  Chapter Ninety-three

  The silence that followed didn’t linger. First came the growing hum of mumbled prayers punctuated now and again with increasingly obstreperous ejaculations for the Holy Name of Jesus. After a few moments, as the prayer continued, one could hear the narrow voices as they resumed their rancorous debate.

  But even that didn’t last long, being quickly trumped by a frightening and unmistakable sound coming from the east.

  And spiritual it wasn’t.

  It was steel-belted squealing and the growl of V-8 engines. Automatic weapon fire and police sirens wailing straight for the crowd like an action picture that had jumped its tracks. The faithful, already aroused, scattered like crickets to the sidewalks as the flashing lights and gunplay careened toward them.

  First they saw a three-segmented beast riding the roof of a truck. Four feet long, eyes glowing red. Six legs clutching an Uzi that sparked and smoked and hooked the eye. Bob was at the wheel, a tightly wound bundle of wild-eyed determination. Klaus was leaning out the passenger side like Machine Gun Kelly firing at the LAPD cruisers that were giving chase.

  Cameras from around the world trained their polished lenses on the high-speed drama as it unfolded in front of them. From the inky skies, a black Bell 206 III helicopter swooped down and hovered like a huge violet-tail dragonfly (Argia violacea) with an SX16 Nite-sun floodlight mounted on its abdomen. Its beam shone down like God’s light pouring into the dark soul of a dirty city.

  It was too late when the crowd’s parting revealed the concrete barriers police had set up for crowd control. Bob jumped on the brakes, skidding grill-first into the roadblock. The impact ripped the fiberglass bug from its mooring, launching it through a department store window where it came to rest among a family o
f mannequins having a picnic. None of them looked particularly surprised at this turn of events.

  Bob and Klaus felt like they’d been punched in the face. When the air bags deflated, Bob and Klaus saw that the black-and-whites had pulled up short in a semicircle, trapping them in the perfect position for Ronnie to capture everything that happened. Traci was there too, posturing like a war correspondent in the midst of a firefight. She peeked over one of the concrete barriers then looked back over her shoulder at the camera, shouting to be heard over the helicopter. “This is the most remarkable thing I’ve seen in all my years of broadcasting.” She paused, thinking about how that comment would play after recent events. Then she said, “With the obvious exception of the Second Coming.”

  Just then a black SUV came skidding to a stop behind the LAPD cars. Windows as dark as the paint.

  Ronnie panned over just in time to catch Agent Parker getting out of the driver’s side. He had the radio mike in one hand and a Brugger & Thomet MP 9 tactical machine pistol with the thirty-round magazine in the other. Standing in plain view, Agent Parker keyed the mic and said, “This is Agent Nick Parker, C.I.A.,” his voice boomed from a bullhorn mounted behind the SUV’s grill. “Repeat, this is the C.I.A. Everyone hold your fire.” A few military hand signals had the cops lowering their weapons. Parker keyed the mike again and said, “Bob, Klaus, this is the end of the road. Nowhere to go, and we have you outgunned. What do you say we make this easy on everybody? Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up.”

  The crowd was too large to control. Their morbid curiosity trumped any semblance of common sense, and they crept slowly closer for a better view. After so many years of seeing the news packaged as entertainment, they’d come to believe it was true. This wasn’t some potentially deadly situation, this was nothing more than a literal version of eyewitness action news shown on the biggest screen they’d ever seen. The crowd reacted to the sequence of events like it was a mere change of the channel. One minute Jesus was entertaining them, the next a high-speed chase commanded their attention. Now it was a hostage drama. And with no commercials.

  Agent Parker said, “Bob? Klaus? Let’s go. Nobody’s been hurt yet, let’s keep it that way.”

  Bob looked at Klaus. “What do you think? Should we just get out now?”

  Klaus seemed mildly disappointed in his friend. “You have no sense of drama,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “We have to string this out. Increase the tension as much as possible. Give the press time to do background stories on who we are, what we have done, that sort of thing.”

  “We haven’t done anything,” Bob said.

  “We have to leave that conclusion to the press.”

  Bob nodded, thinking on it. “Maybe we should negotiate for something.”

  Klaus seemed to like the idea. “All right. Like what?”

  “I don’t know. You hungry?”

  “Not really.” Klaus looked across the street and gestured at the Starbucks. “But coffee would be nice.”

  Bob pointed at Klaus. “Okay, good.” He turned to yelled to Agent Parker. “We want coffee.”

  “What?” Somewhat surprised.

  “Coffee!”

  “What kind?” A little exasperated.

  “Uh, hang on.” Bob looked at Klaus and they both nearly giggled at the absurdity of the moment. After a moment, Bob composed himself and said, “Okay, I want a tall affogato-style java chip Frappuccino wet double shot.”

  “That it?” Something else was creeping into Parker’s voice now.

  “No, Klaus wants a double split shot iced soy milk caramel latte.”

  “He want whipped cream with that?” It was sarcasm.

  Bob, stifling a laugh, turned to Klaus. “You want whipped cream?”

  Klaus had to bite his lip to say, with a straight face, “No, thanks.”

  “No whipped cream,” Bob yelled. “Also, see if they have the crumbly coffee cake. No, wait, the walnut sticky buns.”

  A few minutes later, Ronnie framed his shot with the barista delivering coffee to the truck in the background, while Traci was in the foreground saying, “In a stunning development, sources at the State Department tell me the men in that truck are Bob Dillon and Klaus Müller, the former Defense Department employees wanted for questioning in connection with the release of the transgenic assassin bugs. A highly place FBI official confirms that Dillon was once employed by the CIA as an assassin known as the Exterminator. He is alleged to have killed Bolivian drug lord Ronaldo DeJesus Riviera, brother of Miguel DeJesus Riviera, who currently runs the cartel bearing the family name. Müller is also said to have been an assassin. He is credited with the killing of African dictator Ooganda Namidii, among many others.”

  Back at the center of attention, Agent Parker sipped his Grande Banana Coconut Frappacino, then checked his watch. He set the drink on the hood of the SUV and keyed the mike again. “Time’s running out, you two. What’s it going to be?”

  Inside the cab of the truck, Bob wiggled his cup to see how much Frappuccino was left. “What do you think,” he said, looking at Klaus. “You ready to do this?”

  Klaus brushed some crumbs from his lap. He looked out at the sea of people and said, “I have my doubts that anyone could be ready to do this.”

  Bob laughed. “You may be right, but we’ve sort of limited our options at this point.”

  Klaus smiled, thinking about what was about to happen. He said, “You know, there are times when I am sorry I ever met you.”

  “That’s a fine thing to say to somebody who saved your life.”

  “Hey, I saved yours several times,” Klaus said.

  “Oh, right,” Bob said, “throw that in my face.”

  Klaus smiled again. “But you know, most of the time, I am glad we met.” He held out his hand to Bob. They shook on it. Klaus gave a nod and said, “Let’s do it.”

  “All right,” Bob turned and yelled out the window. “Hold your fire. We’re getting out.”

  “Guns first,” Parker said.

  When she saw the activity, Traci’s voice pitched up a notch. “Wait a second, something’s happening,” she said. “Bob and Klaus have dropped their guns onto the street and appear to be getting out of the truck. Their hands are raised. For those of you watching, Klaus Müller is the man on the left, wearing the white cotton dress shirt and khakis. The man on the right, wearing the light tan crew and jeans is Bob Dillon, also known as Javier Martinez.

  “Nice and easy,” Agent Parker said. “Just walk toward me and keep the hands up.”

  Traci narrated as Ronnie kept his camera trained on Bob and Klaus. “It looks like they’ve negotiated a peaceful ending to this potentially bloody stand-off, with the two alleged assassins— wait a—ohmigod!”

  Bob and Klaus suddenly reached to the small of their backs, drawing guns.

  Agent Parker yelled, “No!” He raised the MP 9 and squeezed off two rapid bursts. He used all thirty rounds in half a second. His aim was perfect.

  Bob and Klaus felt the sting of each hit. They jerked and twitched like electrocuted puppets. Blood immediately sponged into the fabric of their shirts, forming irregular circles at the entry wounds. From the back, television cameras picked up the bloody, tissue-filled spray as the bullets made their exit. Lenses zoomed in on Bob clutching his chest, staggering backwards into the truck where he slid down to his knees, leaving a red trail on the door before he collapsed sideways. Klaus stood where he was shot, stunned and unblinking. He wobbled for a moment before crumbling to the ground.

  They both ended face-up on the street.

  There was a moment of calm before the chaos broke out. Where some had screamed and scrambled for cover, others pressed in for a closer look at the carnage. The police linked arms to block the advancing gawkers.

  Ronnie and Traci were allowed to sne
ak past them. Ronnie rushed in for a close-up of the wounds and the death masks before Traci pulled him toward Agent Parker for a reaction shot. “Agent Parker, I’m Traci Taylor, Eyewitness Action News. What can you tell us about—”

  He pushed her aside. “Get back,” he barked. “Get her away from me. Somebody get some tape around this scene, now!” He made his face available to Ronnie’s camera as he shouted, “Keep the press back! This ain’t family entertainment.”

  Two ambulances were on the scene immediately, forcing their way through the crowd with urgent squawks from their sirens. The EMTs rushed in to attend to the wounded. Ronnie captured the whole frantic opera for all the world to see.

  Agent Parker signaled something to the black helicopter. The pilot killed the Nite-sun, banked to the right and disappeared into the darkness. Ronnie kept the camera on Agent Parker as he conferred with the EMTs, nodding, grim faced, at what they said.

  From off camera you could hear Traci yell, “Agent Parker, what is it? For the record, what did they say?”

  Ronnie zoomed in on Parker’s face as he said, “They’re dead. You happy? They’re both dead!”

  Chapter Ninety-four

  Lauren had fallen asleep in the chair, the script resting in her lap.

  Leon’s gnawing infection kept him awake, his face washed in the blue-gray glow of the television. He couldn’t tell if he was hallucinating as he watched the televised Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It seemed real enough and, for a moment, he wondered what Hell was like and if that was his fate.

  Before he could wade too deeply into existential dread, Leon found himself watching the CIA capture and kill two men. And not just any two men, but the targets he had come to Los Angeles looking for. What happened, he wondered. What happened?

  He slipped away quietly an hour later without ever finding an answer to the question.