“Where is he?”
“In a holding room at the armory.”
“I’ll go now.”
“He’s not going anywhere. Finish eating and relax.”
“No, I’d better get over there before Balaam decides this guy is armed and dangerous and makes him kill himself.”
Ranold stared. “The people who have been killed deserved it, Paul, starting with your friend Pass, and you know it. Chief Balaam almost single-handedly cut the legs off the subversive sects in Washington, some especially virulent ones responsible for major sabotage. Killing the cherry trees on the mall—destroying a national symbol and disrupting the city’s economy—that was as much an act of war as if they’d blown up the Statue of Liberty. It was out-and-out terrorism, and that’s the same fire we’ve been putting out here in L.A.”
“No one proved anyone killed the cherry trees, Ranold, remember? And we still have due process in this country.”
Ranold shook his head. “I swear, Paul, I’m starting to believe you’re jealous of Balaam. All this criticism, when we’ve managed to crush two major terrorist cells, eliminate the billboard saboteur, and grab this insurrectionist last night. I didn’t get it at first, but it’s killing you that she’s running the show and doing it well. You may be a hero who’s suffered for the cause, but this is bigger than any one ego—even yours. Balaam’s in charge because she gets results, so get a grip and do your job before second-guessing your superiors.
“Make that kid tell you where these people are head-quartered. Let us root ’em out and eradicate ’em like we’re paid to.”
At the armory, Paul was taken to a wing where army guards were smoking and shooting the breeze at the entrance to a long hallway. “Tough case down there, sir,” one said, standing when Paul identified himself. “Doubt you’ll get a thing out of him.”
When he got to the interrogation room, Paul found Barton in a fetal position on the floor, still in his bulky jacket and hands cuffed behind him. His breath came in labored rasps.
“Get this man back in the chair,” Paul said to the guard. “And uncuff him.”
“He attacked us, sir. I wouldn’t advise that.”
“Get the cuffs off him and leave us. He attacks me, I’ll shoot him dead.”
“I like your style.”
When Barton was back in the chair, hands in his lap, Paul shooed the guard out and locked the door.
“You attack those men, Barton?”
“Of course not.” One of his teeth had been knocked out, and he also bled from the nose. He had a gash above one eye, and blood oozed from the back of his head.
“Want to take off your jacket?”
He nodded and Paul helped him wriggle out of it.
“Talk to me.”
“You turned on me?” Barton said. “Ratted me out?”
“Of course not. Nobody squealed on anybody. Now keep your voice down. I got here as soon as I heard. Tell me what’s been going on.”
“Can’t you tell? They aren’t going to lock me up. They’ll kill me like they have all the others.”
“That’s a very real possibility,” Paul said. “I won’t lie to you. I’m trying to figure out how to keep you safe. What have you told them?”
“Nothing about our operation. They haven’t been nosing around there, have they?”
“Not that I know of.”
Barton pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. “There’s going to be no escaping, sir. What have they got, a couple thousand troops lodging here?”
“That’s about right. The best I can do right now is give you better odds. I’m going to get you out of army custody and have them transport you to the NPO bureau downtown. No guarantees, but at least you won’t be their trophy prisoner. And maybe there I can help you find an opportunity to escape.”
“Sounds like a long shot.”
“Not as long as if you stay here.”
“Well, I knew the odds. Hey, Doc, how long you been a believer?”
“Not long, actually.”
“Long enough to pray for me?”
“You bet your life,” Paul said.
He put a hand on Barton’s shoulder and prayed God’s will would be done in his life. He thought of the juxtaposition of the prayer and the location and had to wonder what in the world anyone outside the door would think if they could see this.
When he left Barton, Paul called Harriet Johns and told her to expect a suspect he wanted held for questioning.
“I’ll watch for him, Paul. It will be good to get some of the action back in our ballpark. Your suspect will be here whenever you’re ready to interrogate him.”
Paul filled out the paperwork, then waited to make sure the transfer got under way. He watched the guards lead Barton, shackled at the wrists and ankles, across the parking lot and put him into a jeep, praying Barton would make it downtown in one piece.
As a cover, Paul stopped to canvass a few of the sites on the task force list before making his way, circuitously, to Sapiens Fisheries. It was late afternoon by the time he arrived. The group there held an immediate prayer meeting for Barton.
“It was such a risk,” Lois said, weeping.
“Barton’s young and bold,” Carl said. “Now we have to have faith.”
“I have an idea how to stop the killings,” Paul said, “but we’ll need a hydrologist.”
“A water expert?”
“Do you know any? Anyone here or in another group?”
Lois said a woman who worked for the county public works department belonged to an underground group off the 405 near the Stone Canyon Reservoir. “Oh, Dr. Stepola, these are a wonderful bunch, mostly older, highly educated types. I know they’d want to help.”
“Tell me about this woman.”
“She works for the Los Angeles County Water and Sewer District.”
“This is too good to be true.”
“Her name’s Grace Dean, and she’s a tough old bird.”
“You know her well enough to invite her here?”
“Now?”
“As soon as possible.”
A few minutes later Lois told Paul, “Grace isn’t sure she wants to break the law, but I reminded her she’s been doing that for more than two years since she joined that little band.”
“How’d she know I wanted her to break the law?”
“She’s not stupid, Doctor. She’ll be here within the hour, soon as she gets off work.”
Grace Dean arrived with three others from her group. She was in her midforties, diminutive, and stocky with short, black hair. She proved fast-talking and blunt, and she clearly knew her stuff.
Meeting with her and her people and Carl and Lois, Paul cut to the chase. “If I wanted to shut off the water to the whole city and bring Los Angeles and the army to its knees, how would I do that?”
Grace pursed her lips and studied the ceiling. “For almost 200 years,” she said, “L.A. has had to get its water from far away. About 135 years ago the California Aqueduct was finally finished, and it’s been bringing a lot of our water here from almost 700 miles north in the Sacramento Valley. Of course, once it gets here, it is redirected to various parts of the county through a huge network of pipes and channels.”
“So,” Paul said, “if we wanted to cut off the supply?”
“You could make mischief with the aqueduct, but what’re you going to do with all that water? It has to go somewhere. You redirect it, you’re going to flood somewhere else.”
“Where would the best place to flood be, without hurting other people?”
“Oh, there are places,” Grace said, “many between here and there. But you’d have to do it in one of the places that’s not carefully guarded, which has been an issue ever since terrorists got the idea of poisoning the water supply. But you know, water is such a precious commodity that the city, the county, the whole Sunterra region, and the federal government would train all its resources on the problem. You’ve seen what they’re doing. How long do you
think you could get away with vandalizing the water supply? Would you really bring L.A. to its knees, or would you just be a one- or two-day nuisance?”
“I don’t know,” Paul said. “You’re the expert.”
“Seems to me,” she said, “you’d be better off to have God do something.”
“Sometimes I wonder if God has abandoned us,” a man said. “Is His hand still on us? Have we gone too far ahead of Him and sped past His reach of blessing? I don’t blame all these deaths on Him, of course, but if He was still with us, would He allow His people to be cut down like vermin?”
Carl raised a hand. “I make no apologies for being a man of the Word.” He leafed through a well-worn Bible. “Listen to this from Isaiah fifty and verse two. God is speaking. He says, ‘Was I too weak to save you? Is that why the house is silent and empty when I come home? Is it because I have no power to rescue? No, that is not the reason! For I can speak to the sea and make it dry! I can turn rivers into deserts covered with dying fish.’
“And then in verses seven and eight the prophet says, ‘Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be dismayed. Therefore, I have set my face like a stone, determined to do His will. And I know that I will triumph. He who gives me justice is near. Who will dare oppose me now? Where are my enemies? Let them appear!’
“And in the next chapter, verses twelve through sixteen, God Himself makes this promise: ‘I, even I, am the one who comforts you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear? Yet you have forgotten the Lord, your Creator, the one who put the stars in the sky and established the earth. Will you remain in constant dread of human oppression? Will you continue to fear the anger of your enemies from morning till night? Soon all you captives will be released! Imprisonment, starvation, and death will not be your fate!’”
Paul was thrilled and could see on the faces and in the body language of the others that they were coming to life.
“Now hear this, my Christian brothers and sisters of Los Angeles. ‘For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea, causing its waves to roar. My name is the Lord Almighty. And I have put My words in your mouth and hidden you safely within My hand. I set all the stars in space and established the earth. I am the one who says to Israel, “You are Mine!”‘”
Carl sat only briefly, then pitched forward to his knees and lay prostrate on the floor. Suddenly others were doing the same, and Paul found himself weeping. It was as if God Himself had spoken aloud, and Paul did not feel worthy to stand or sit.
“You are God,” Carl prayed. “We worship You.”
And from the others came murmurings of assent. “Yes, Lord. Thank You, God. We believe in You. We trust You, Lord. Help us remember You.”
Paul haltingly and fearfully approached God aloud, asking for a miracle. “God,” he said, “we’re asking that You shut the mouths of the atheists, that You reclaim ground won by our enemies. We pray You will act in such a powerful and supernatural way that even the armies of the United Seven States will know it’s You and that they will cower. God, we need You to do something.”
As others prayed, Paul felt closer to God than he ever had. He silently thanked Him for the miracle of his own sight and asked God to show him what he was to do next. He couldn’t long continue to work both sides of the street. How could he do the most, make a real impact, best serve the cause before he was found out and executed for treason?
Paul lay there, waiting on God, praying for an answer, some nudge, some leading, some word. He knew that merely railing against his father-in-law and Balaam would serve little more than to see him found out and exposed. He wanted to be through with driving throughout Los Angeles, finding and meeting fellow believers, only to share in their frustration and dismay as their colleagues were attacked and killed by the enemy.
Paul was moved to hear the others praying, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with a view of what God could do. It was as if he had a leading from the Lord Himself to mobilize the believers from all the seven states—and especially Sunterra, specifically in greater Los Angeles. He heard no audible voice, but it seemed he could sense the mind of God, that if all the underground Christians would unite as one and devote themselves wholly to God, He would act on their behalf.
Paul felt his whole purpose coming into focus. That was why he was here. There was no more wondering, trying to decide how best to serve while being a clandestine agent. His job was to motivate every underground believer he could find to pray and plead with God to show Himself to the enemy.
Trembling, all doubt escaping him, Paul stood. He didn’t know whether to announce this or keep it to himself. He had an overpowering feeling that believers all over the country must pray. God could not—would not—ignore the fervent prayers of righteous people.
“I want to get all the underground Christians to agree in prayer that God must do something in Los Angeles to stop this killing,” Paul said. “I believe we are to be specific. Let’s all pray that God will stop the flow of water to Los Angeles. Then we have to somehow communicate to the leadership that it is God who did it and that He can do the same all over the country. The killing of believers must stop, and they must be given the freedom to spread the truth of the Bible. I’ll call Chicago and have my contact there get in touch with as many underground centers as he can. Then let’s expect a miracle.”
34
IT WAS ALMOST SEVEN.
Grace and her companions walked out to their car with Paul, who had offered to pick up dinner for the Sapiens group. The mood in the basement room was so buoyant that none wanted to leave, and there was a lot to discuss.
“Grace, your words were a tremendous inspiration,” Paul said. “I know you were nervous about helping us, so thank you.”
“My commitment is real, but my courage is lukewarm,” she said. “When Lois told me what you wanted, it sounded much more dangerous than our Stone Canyon meetings. I still feel pretty new in the faith.”
“I’m new myself,” Paul said. “I was blind—literally—and God restored my sight before I made the leap. Even then it took me a while.”
“It helped that they—” she gestured toward her friends—“were willing to come. They tell me to keep praying.”
After seeing the group off, Paul called Straight to fill him in. He applauded the plan and promised to marshal prayer troops. Then Paul called Tiny’s to tell them not to expect him for dinner. He heard music in the background—inevitably there’d be guests on a Friday night—and Ranold took command of the phone.
“What were you thinking, transferring a criminal from a secure location to a dicey one?”
“He was my prisoner, Ranold. I saw no reason to leave him in army custody. I’ll finish interrogating him in the morning.”
“No, you won’t. He almost escaped.”
Almost? “So, they caught him, is that what you’re telling me?”
“That’s right, and they made him pay. Appropriately.”
“They already beat him half to death, Dad. What more do you expect to get out of him? I’ll go talk to him.”
“You don’t get it, do you, Paul? He’s not going to be there to talk to. Get yourself back here so I won’t have to suspect you of everything that gets in our way.”
“Suspect me?”
“I told you to check your ego at the door. Balaam was not happy that you took it upon yourself to move her prisoner. She saw it as a direct challenge to her authority. I explained you were a hothead, maybe feeling a little left out—”
“Ranold, what did they do to the guy?”
“Not torture, if that’s what you’re implying. We’re too busy to waste time sweating a leafleteer. That was your job. This afternoon we got a tip that the terrorists are planning something big. So we took the press opportunity your man offered, and that’s that.”
“What does that mean?”
“I said leave it alone, Paul. The last thing you want is more trouble over this. Now are you heading back here?”
&n
bsp; Paul gritted his teeth.
“You there, Paul?”
“I’m losing you,” Paul said. And he disconnected.
Paul flipped on the radio and found an all-news station, but it was in the middle of a sports report. Finally came the news he dreaded.
“Late this afternoon, a car believed to be carrying subversive Christian rebel leader Barton James pitched off a cliff on Peace Canyon Road and burst into flames. James had reportedly escaped incarceration at the downtown headquarters of the Sunterra NPO. He was being held on charges of drug and weapons possession and assault on army personnel. Authorities are trying to extinguish the fire on the cliff and have brought in dogs to recover the body. . . .”
Peace Canyon Road. Paul had noticed it on the map when he was driving around to get oriented. There was nothing on those bluffs but dense foliage and coyotes and the few houses still standing after the earthquake. No reason for any official vehicle to choose that route.
Though Paul could hardly imagine eating, he picked up a selection of fast-food staples for the group and headed back to deliver the news about Barton. Carl and Lois looked especially devastated, but everyone was shocked. “It may be utterly the worst time for this,” Paul said, “but maybe the best way to mourn Barton is to keep planning.”
Paul told about his friend Straight spreading the word among underground believers all over the country. “Every believer will be focused on praying for you here. I’m new at this, and even though I believe God spoke to me, my faith will be tested. In spite of all God has miraculously done for me, sometimes I still doubt.”
“That’s not uncommon,” Carl said. “Remember, Jesus said, ‘Anything is possible if a person believes.’ And a man asking His help said, ‘I do believe, but help me not to doubt!’ ”
It seemed to Paul as he spoke that the grieving little band was growing emboldened. Eyes moist and shining, they were clearly ready to believe God would work—to count on Him to answer their prayers.
“I had started working on something while Paul was gone,” Carl said, “and now I’m going to print it out. Then let’s polish this thing till it shines and thank God for all He’s about to do.”
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