Blasphemy

by Douglas Preston

  A restless silence fell.

  “I am Pastor Russell Eddy!” he cried. “I am the man who exposed the Antichrist!”

  The crowd, electrified by the violence, surged toward him in waves, like the ocean reaching for the shore.

  Eddy grasped Doke’s hand and raised it. “The kings, the politicians, the liberal secularists, and the humanists of this corrupt world will hide in the caves and the mountain’s rocks. They will call to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of His wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?’ ”

  A roar filled the night and the swelling crowd surged.

  Eddy turned, pointed, and thundered: “There, three miles to the east, is a fence. Beyond that fence is a cliff. Down the cliff lies Isabella. And inside Isabella is the Antichrist. He goes by the name of Gregory North Hazelius.”

  The roar reverberated as shots rang out into the sky.

  “Go!” Eddy cried, shaking his pointing hand. “Go as one people led by the flaming sword of Zion! Go, and find the Antichrist! Destroy him and the Beast! The battle of the great God Almighty is joined! ‘The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven!’ ”

  He stepped back and the teeming throng turned and undulated eastward across the moonlit mesa, the flashlights and torches bobbing in the darkness like a thousand glowing eyes.

  “Well done,” said Doke. “You really fired ‘em up.”

  Still grasping Doke’s powerful arm, Eddy turned to go with them. He glanced back and glimpsed Bia, a crumpled rag in the dust—and the woman, weeping and cradling her dead husband.

  The first casualties of Armageddon.

  60

  A FRESH-FACED BOY IN HIS EARLY twenties, Agent Miller drove Bern Wolf from the airstrip to the fenced security area in a Humvee. They passed through a series of smashed gates and pulled up in the center of the parking lot, amid a scattering of civilian cars. Everything was bathed in the harsh glow of powerful lights.

  Wolf looked around. Soldiers converged at the edge of the mesa, fixing ropes to rappel down the cliffs to Isabella.

  “We wait in the vehicle until called, sir,” said Miller.

  “Terrific.” Wolf was sweating. He was a computer scientist, he wasn’t cut out for this kind of shit. The knot in his stomach was taut and heavy. Wolf figured to stay close to Agent Miller and his twenty-two-inch arms that could bench-press Buicks. His back and shoulders were so massive, they made the 7.62 NATO assault rifle slung under his armpit look like a kid’s plastic gun.

  He watched the men working at the edge of the mesa. One by one, they roped up and jumped backward off the lip, carrying bulky packs. Even though Wolf hadn’t visited Isabella, he knew it like the back of his hand, he’d planned some of the layouts and he’d pored over the construction diagrams. He also knew the software, and the DOE had given him an envelope with all the shutdown and security codes. Turning off Isabella would not be a problem.

  The problem, for him, would be getting down the three hundred feet of cliff face.

  “I gotta take a piss,” he said.

  “Do it next to the vehicle and hurry up, sir.”

  Wolf did his business and returned.

  Miller was just getting off the radio.

  “Our turn, sir.”

  “They’re already in?”

  “No. They want you down there before they effect penetration.”

  Effect penetration? Did these guys know how ridiculous they sounded?

  Miller nodded. “After you.”

  Feeling as if every muscle in his body were resisting, Wolf hefted his pack. Despite the harsh lights, he could see an amazing number of stars overhead. The air was crisp and smelled of woodsmoke. As he walked away from the idling Humvee, he realized just how quiet the night was. The loudest sound came from the crackling power lines—clearly, Isabella was running at full power. He doubted anything was seriously wrong underground. Probably a computer glitch had crashed the communications system. Some bureaucratic hack had gone nuts and called in commandos. Maybe the scientists in the Bunker didn’t even know they were causing a furor.

  Then, at the edge of audibility, he heard a couple of faint noises, like shots, then two more.

  “You hear that?” he asked Miller.

  “Yeah.” He paused, his head cocked. “About three miles off.”

  They listened a moment longer, but there was nothing.

  “Probably just an Indian shooting a coyote,” said Miller.

  Wolf’s legs felt wobbly as he followed Miller to the edge of the cliffs. He’d been expecting them to lower him in a cage or something, but there was no cage to be seen.

  “Sir? I’ll take your pack. We’ll lower it down after you.”

  Wolf shrugged out of his pack and handed it over. “Careful, there’s a laptop in there.”

  “We’ll be careful, sir. And now, could you step this way?”

  “Hold on here,” Wolf said. “You don’t really expect me to... go down one of those ropes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll show you in a minute. Please stand there.”

  Wolf waited. The other soldiers had gone down, leaving them alone at the edge. The power lines hummed and crackled. The soldier’s radio hissed, and he spoke into it. Wolf half listened. State troopers were reporting some kind of problem on the road leading to the mesa. Wolf tuned it out. He was thinking of the cliff.

  More conversation, then Miller said, “Step this way, sir. We’re going to put you in this sling. Ever rappelled?”

  “No.”

  “It’s perfectly safe. Just lean back a little, plant your feet on the rock face, and give gentle hops. You can’t fall, even if you let go of the rope.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “It’s perfectly safe, sir.”

  They rigged him into the sling, which went around his legs, seat, and lower back, locking the rope in a system of carabiners and brake bars. Then they positioned him at the edge of the cliff with his back facing out. He could feel the wind coming up from below.

  “Lean out and step over backward.”

  Are they crazy?

  “Lean back, sir. Take a step. Keep the tension on the rope. We’ll lower you, sir.”

  Wolf stared at Miller, incredulous. The agent’s voice was so studiously polite that it seemed tinged with contempt.

  “I just can’t do this,” he said.

  The rope slackened, and he felt a sudden rush of panic.

  “Lean back.” Miller said firmly.

  “Get me a cage or something to lower me in.”

  Miller leaned him back, almost cradling him in his arms.

  “That’s it. Just like that. Very good, Dr. Wolf.”

  Wolf’s heart hammered. Again he could feel, on his back, a cool movement of air from below. The soldier released him, and his feet slipped and he banged sideways into the cliff face.

  “Lean back and plant your feet on the rock.”

  His heart pounding like mad, he scrabbled his feet on the rock, looking for a purchase. He found it, forced himself to lean back. It seemed to work. As he took little light steps, always leaning out, the rope slipped through the brake bar, lowering him. Once he was below the ledge, darkness descended, but he could still see the rim overhead, limned in light. As he continued, the rim grew more and more distant. He didn’t dare look down.

  Unbelievably he was doing it, bouncing and hopping down the cliff, his whole being swallowed in darkness. At last, soldiers grasped his legs and lowered him to a stone floor. When he stood up, his legs trembled. The soldiers helped him out of the sling. His pack swung down on a rope a moment later, and the soldiers snagged it. Miller arrived next.

  “Well done, sir.” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  A large area had been carved into the side of the mountain. At the far
end, a massive titanium door was set into the rock. The area was already strung out with harsh lights, looking like the entrance to the island of Dr. No. Wolf felt Isabella’s deep humming vibrating out of the mountain. It was very strange that they had lost all communication with the inside. There were too many backup systems. And the SIO would see them on the security screens—unless those, too, were down.

  Very strange.

  The soldiers were setting up three conical metal dishes on tripods and pointing them toward the door, like stubby mortars. One man started packing the cones with what looked like C-4.

  Doerfler stood to one side, giving orders.

  “What are those?” Wolf asked.

  “Rapid wall-breaching demolition devices,” said Miller. “Ganged charges, there, converge at a single point and blow a hole big enough to crawl through.”

  “And then?”

  “We’ll send in a team through the hole to secure the Bunker and a second team to breach the inner door to the Bridge. We’ll secure the Bridge, deal with any bad guys, and take the scientists into custody. There may be shooting. We don’t know. As soon as the Bridge’s been fully secured, I take you in. Personally. You shut Isabella down.”

  “It takes three hours to shut down the system,” Wolf said.

  “You’ll run that operation.”

  “What about Dr. Hazelius and the other scientists?”

  “Our men will escort them off the premises for debriefing.”

  Wolf folded his arms. It looked good on paper, no doubt.

  61

  STANTON LOCKWOOD SHIFTED AGAIN IN THE cheap wooden chair, trying to find comfort where none existed. The mood around the mahogany table in the Situation Room was one of mounting incredulity. At 3:00 A.M.—1:00 A.M. at Red Mesa—the news was bad.

  Lockwood had grown up in the Bay area, gone to schools on the West and East coasts, and lived in Washington for the past twelve years. He’d had TV glimpses of another America out there, the America of the Creationists and Christian-nationists, the televangelists and glitzy megachurches. That America had always seemed remote, relegated to places like Kansas and Oklahoma.

  It was no longer remote.

  The FBI Director asked, “Mr. President?”

  “Yes, Jack?”

  “The Arizona Highway Patrol reports disturbances at the roadblocks on Route 89 at Grey Mountain, Route 160 at Tuba City and also at Tes Nez Iah.”

  “What kind of disturbances?”

  “Several state troopers have been injured in scattered melees. Traffic is heavy and a lot of people are evading the road blocks, taking off cross-country. Trouble is, the Navajo Reservation is crisscrossed with hundreds of improvised dirt roads, most of which aren’t even on the maps. Our roadblocks are leaking like a sieve.”

  The president turned the monitor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who sat in his wood-paneled office in the Pentagon, the American flag hung behind him on the wall. “General Crisp, where’s the National Guard?”

  “Two hours from deployment.”

  “We don’t have two hours.”

  “Finding the requisite choppers, pilots, and trained troops has been a challenge, Mr. President.”

  “I’ve got state troopers out there getting their butts kicked. Not in some sorry-ass corner of Afghanistan, but right here in the United States of America. And you’re telling me two hours?”

  “Most of our choppers are in the Middle East.”

  The FBI Director spoke. “Mr. President?”

  The president turned. “What?”

  “I’ve just gotten a report...” He accepted a piece of paper from someone offscreen. “... an emergency communication from a Navajo Tribal policeman who went up to Red Mesa to investigate—”

  “By himself?”

  “He went up unawares, like all of us at that time, of the true situation. Sent out an emergency call, which was cut off. I’ve got a transcription.” He read from a piece of paper. “‘Send backup... a violent mob... they’re going to kill me...’ That’s all we got. You can hear the mob noise in the background.”

  “Jesus God.”

  “The GPS beacon in the squad car went dead a few minutes later. Which usually happens only if the car’s been torched.”

  “What’s the news from the Hostage Rescue Team up there? Are they safe?”

  “My last report, just ten minutes ago, indicated the operation was going like clockwork. We did have an unconfirmed report of gunfire in the direction of the Dugway, two and a half miles from the airstrip. We’re contacting the team now, as we speak. But let me just assure you, Mr. President, that no disorganized mob is going to take down a crack FBI Hostage Rescue Team.”

  “Is that so?” came the president’s skeptical reply. “Are they trained to fire on civilians?”

  The FBI Director shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “They’re trained to respond to all contingencies.”

  The president turned to the head of the Joint Chiefs. “Is there any way to get troops out there sooner than in two hours?”

  “Excuse me, sir?” the FBI Director interrupted, his face pale. “I’m just now getting reports of an explosion and fire... a very large fire... at the Red Mesa airstrip.”

  The president stared silently at the director.

  “What do these people want?” Lockwood burst out. “What in God’s name do they want?”

  Galdone spoke for the first time since they had arrived in the Situation Room. “You know what they want.”

  Lockwood stared at the odious man. Soft and fat, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded as if asleep, he sat in his chair studying them placidly.

  “They want to destroy Isabella,” he said, “and kill the Antichrist.”

  62

  FORD, GRIPPING THE EDGE OF A table, read the new message on the Visualizer. Isabella was running flat out, at full power, and he could feel the entire Bridge trembling and keening like the cockpit of a jet plane locked in a death spiral.

  Religion arose as an effort to explicate the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable, make bearable the unbearable. Belief in a higher power became the most powerful innovation in late human evolution. Tribes with religion had an advantage over those without. They had direction and purpose, motivation and a mission. The survival value of religion was so spectacular that the thirst for belief became embedded in the human genome.

  Ford had moved away from the others. Kate, with a quizzical and, it seemed to him, somewhat regretful glance at him, was now helping Dolby at his workstation. The team running Isabella—Dolby, Chen, Edelstein, Corcoran, and St. Vincent—were intensely focused on their jobs. The rest stared at the Visualizer, transfixed by the words appearing there.

  What religion tried, science has finally achieved. You now have a way to explain the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable. You no longer need “revealed” religion. The human race has finally grown up.

  Wardlaw spoke quietly from his security station. “They’ve sent in a demolition team with wall-breaching kits. They’re going to blow the door.”

  “How many?” Hazelius asked sharply.

  “Eight.”

  “Armed?”

  “Heavily.”

  A ripple of panic swept the group. “What are we going to do?” Innes cried.

  “We’re going to keep listening,” said Hazelius, his firm voice raised over the humming of Isabella. He pointed at the screen.

  Religion is as essential to human survival as food and water. If you try to replace religion with science, you will fail. You will, instead, offer science as religion. For I say to you, science is religion. The one, true religion.

  A sob escaped from Julie Thibodeaux, standing next to Hazelius. “This is wonderful.” She rocked, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “This is so wonderful... and I’m so frightened.”

  Hazelius put a steadying arm around her.

  It was incredible, Ford thought: he had witnessed their conversion right before his eyes. They believed.

  Inst
ead of offering a book of truth, science offers a method of truth. Science is a search for truth, not the revelation of truth. It is a means, not a dogma. It is a journey, not a destination.

  Ford could keep silent no longer. “Yes, but what of human suffering? How can science make ‘bearable the unbearable,’ as you put it?”

  “The magnetic coil’s redlining,” said Dolby quietly.

  “Juice it,” murmured Hazelius.

  In the last century, medicine and technology have alleviated more human suffering than have all the priests in the last millennium.

  “You’re speaking of physical suffering,” said Ford. “But what about the suffering of the soul? What about spiritual suffering?”

  Have I not said that all is one? Is it not a comfort to know that your suffering shudders the very cosmos? No one suffers alone and suffering has a purpose—even the sparrow’s fall is essential to the whole. The universe never forgets.

  “I can’t hold it without more power,” Dolby cried. “Harlan, you’ve got to give me five percent more.”

  “I’m tapped out,” St. Vincent said. “Push it any more, and it’ll cascade the grid.”

  The machine was now screaming so loudly that Ford could hardly hear himself think. He read the words on the Visualizer, his mind in turmoil. Twelve of the most intelligent people in the country thought this was God. That had to mean something.

  Do not stoop to diffidence! You are my disciples. You have the power to upend the world. In one day, science accumulates more evidence of its truths than religion in all its existence. People cling to faith because they must have it. They hunger for it. You will not deny people faith; you will offer them a new faith. I have not come to replace the Judeo-Christian God, but to complete him.

  “Wait!” Wardlaw barked out. “Something else is going on up top!”

  “What is it?” Hazelius asked.

  Wardlaw peered urgently at his wall of screens. “We’ve got—a whole bunch more perimeter alarms going off. There are people coming out of nowhere... some kind of mob... What the hell?”