A stroke of true inventiveness saved face for the most exalted guests in a subtly brilliant tactic, an en masse appearance of all guests with the highest profiles. And so, when a virtual tsunami of cheers and screams rocked the foundation of the Palladium, it was impossible to know if the audience was losing its collective mind over Freemason Cooper, or Amahl Sulamein, or Bandi Mansammatman, or Father Peter Carenza, or even the Pope himself.
The processional music of the opening ceremonies reached a majestic crescendo, and the thousand-member choir voices peaked at just the right moment. If Targeno had been a particularly religious man, he would have thought that a typical day in heaven might start like this. In the gulf of silence that followed the break in the music, he could feel the entire arena seeming to catch its breath. As all the dignitaries, some sixty strong, took their seats, the huge round platform began its almost imperceptible rotation.
Freemason Cooper, the nominal host of the proceedings, stood up and approached the central podium. Flanked by monolithic towers of speakers, he looked like a high priest standing among the pillars of a great, ancient temple.
Windsor
The noise of the crowd set up vibrations in the concrete beneath their feet. The glare of the midday California sun was nothing compared to the stare of a half-million eyes. Even though Marion’s rational mind told her the mass gaze was trained upon the dais, she could feel the power of that baleful, burning stare. Everyone was watching and waiting for something uncharacteristic to happen.
As she took her seat, the music died and a vacuum of expectant silence rushed into her head. Peter had been seated between the Archbishop of the Lutheran Church and Father Peterakis from the Turkish Archdiocese of the Greek Orthodox Church. Freemason Cooper, she noted, was seated at the antipodal point of the great circle of seats, which all faced a central podium-cum-altar. Cooper stood, smoothed out his designer apparel, and strode toward the center of the dais.
Marion’s mind seemed frozen on a single thought:
If Billy’s right, and something is wrong, then what is going to happen?
And when?
Targeno
It might be a very long day.
Unable to simply sit and listen to the endless droning, he had left his original perch and begun a systematic, patterned movement around the rim of the stadium. He paused at various points to check his scanning equipment, but found nothing. This was pretty much as he’d expected. In addition to the normal problems with picking up the kinds of electromagnetic disturbance which might indicate weaponry or surveillance, he had to contend with an electronic stew cooked up by the gigawatts of power generated and broadcast from the mixing bowl of the Palladium.
One thing in his favor—the area was as warm with security types. Plainclothes, uniforms, private organizations, and even the hapless rent-a-cops had blanketed the Palladium with a net of support and protection that would be tough to penetrate and even tougher to strike from.
Targeno’s trained eye told him that, all around him, others were watching. Watching for the odd move, the strange lump in a jacket, the inappropriate piece of luggage or shoulder bag. Not to mention the metal detectors at every access point.
And because of this, Targeno had almost ruled out a single man with a gun. The possibility of a bomb was also remote because of security’s extreme awareness of terrorist tactics.
He figured Bevins would wait until Carenza’s turn at the podium. The most logical and most dramatic times were the entrance ceremony and spotlight time. Carenza’s moment in the sun was drawing near.
So what would it be?
He was hedging his bets toward something extremely sophisticated: microwaves, ultrasonics, maser or laser technology. All these remained definite threat modes.
He moved to his next checkpoint. As he climbed to the uplink platform, he knew the security types were watching him. Pausing next to an uplink dish, he pretended to plug his diagnostic black box into the array’s base coupler. He opened his toolbox and acted as though trying to decide which instrument might best suit his current task. As long as he appeared to be performing normal activities, they wouldn’t bother him. He calmly assessed his equipment, nodding as he silently approved his selections. What appeared to be innocuous instruments and light power-tools could be snapped together to create weapons of extreme accuracy and lethality.
Targeno smiled. Now there was a great agency buzz-word for you: lethality.
He wondered where governments found those guys who sat around thinking up all the snappy phrases like with extreme prejudice and conciliatory invasion.
But for now, he thought, let’s try the KA band…
Windsor
God, this was getting boring!
She almost smiled as she realized the prayerful aspect to her last thought. Her video crew had been dutifully recording everything and she had been making some notes on what might prove useful when she sat down to do the edits, but in general, Freemason Cooper’s Convocation was a thundering bore.
Marion had been carefully watching the various participants, almost more than she’d been listening to the prayers and speeches. After a while, everybody started to sound alike, and it was more interesting to read the diverse facial expressions. She saw a mixture of ennui, anticipation, and a little enjoyment.
Until she studied the face of the Pope.
The old man’s attention seemed fixed upon Peter. In fact, Marion noticed, the Holy Father’s gaze never strayed from Peter’s position on the dais. He did not seem fascinated or admiring, but Marion couldn’t accurately identify his emotions. The Pope seemed to be simultaneously puzzled, suspicious, and at times philosophical.
Why was he so wrapped up in Peter? Jealousy? Fear? Wonderment as to the true nature of this man who brought miracles to the modern world? She kept checking on Peter, to see if he was aware of the Pope’s obsession, but Peter gave no indication he noticed or cared.
Freemason Cooper moved again to the podium. It was time to announce the next speaker. Marion didn’t need to check her schedule—she knew it was Peter Carenza.
Bevins
All right, this was it.
Freddie moved slowly from his post near the entrance to the base of the elevated section of VIP seats. He’d activated the laser’s A’n’A (aiming and arming) buss just as Freemason Cooper announced Carenza. The only trouble was the goddamned rotating platform. As the target reached the podium to shake hands with the plasticly smiling Reverend, he was a little less than 180 degrees opposite the weapon.
That meant it would not lock onto the target—Carenza’s ID badge, with the built-in homing beacon—until the rotation of the platform brought Father Peter around to face the disguised uplink dish. Half an hour max, depending on the angles. Carenza had been allotted forty-five minutes to speak; even though the scheduling was tight, there was still plenty of time for him to catch a good burn.
Bevins stood up, pretending to scan the faces in the crowd, pretending to be doing his job. In the center of B-Section, he caught the eye of Billy Clemmons and nodded. He was thankful the boy had been so conscientious with that badge.
Bevins checked his watch. Pretty soon, now, this place would be jumpin’.
Windsor
The funny thing was, bored as she was by the general tenor of the ceremonies, she found herself captivated by Peter’s words. In spite of the months she’d spent listening to his messages and observations, she found his speech inspiring, trenchant, and insightful.
So, apparently, did the other quarter million attendees.
For the first time since the ceremonies had begun, Marion was aware of an almost total absence of noise. Turning in her seat, but trying not to be obvious, she studied the crowd. They were silent, attentive, focused on Peter. She wanted to get their reaction on tape, but was aware of the need to remain unobtrusive.
“Phil…?” she whispered into her lapel-mike. “Can you and Gary get some reaction shots and sound-bites?”
“Of what?” asked he
r cameraman.
“That’s just it,” she said softly. “I want to catch the silence, the total attention of this place.”
“Okay, I gotcha…”
She watched her crew mobilize but keep a low profile as they taped the rapt faces and consummate silence of the crowd. It seemed like everyone in the Palladium had become as quiet as stone. No one stirred, and Marion thought she could hear everyone breathing simultaneously, as though the crowd were one great living thing.
It was eerie. She could feel goosebumps freckling her arms and the back of her neck.
Peter’s words soared like a flock of doves. He was soothing and disturbing, beautiful yet fearful. His fertile, deep voice rippled outward through the crowd in concentric, echo-free rings of wisdom. Even skeptics and the outright enemies of his position could not keep from being carried aloft by his message. His theme was the universality of belief, the need for a single, coherent faith in the power and purpose of God. He downplayed the differences between the great number of religions represented; he called for a commingling of spirits so that the prayer which rose up from the Palladium would truly be a single voice. A strong voice. A voice united in faith and power and love.
Despite her role as a journalist, Marion kept being drawn into the mystical experience. She’d been with him from the beginning, had believed he couldn’t top the majesty or the failure of Colorado, but he was leaving all past appearances far behind.
A quarter of a million people sat still, beguiled by the young, handsome man. Marion quickly scanned the dais, surprised to see Freemason Cooper and Gerard Goodrop unconsciously nodding their heads. Everyone felt the enchantment.
No, not quite everyone, she thought, as her gaze rested upon the Pope.
The look in the old prelate’s eyes reminded her of a rabbit’s black fear as it stared into the eyes of its predator. But there was a glaze of defiance there too, intense suspicion and suppressed rage. This was not jealousy. Marion recognized the Pope’s bottomless gaze for what it was—a perception of true horror.
There was understanding in the old man’s eyes, a knife-edge clarity honed by a sudden and single revelation. She had no idea what the Pope saw. She didn’t want to know.
Targeno
His instrument spoke.
He had been telling himself he had to get up, to change positions, but had found himself listening to Carenza speak. Almost against his will, he allowed the man’s words to touch him. Between glances at his equipment, Targeno had studied the others on the dais. Everyone seemed enraptured, except perhaps the Pope. Targeno raised his binoculars to study the Pope’s face.
Then the scanner registered a transmission and shattered the spell. The signal was weak but steady and rhythmic. Highly directional, it was an ultrasonic beacon, pulsing regularly at 112,000 cycles per second.
The signature was unmistakable to any high-tech weapons expert. The beacon operated at a high frequency to ensure great reflectivity over large distances, which would ensure accurate target-locking. Targeno recalibrated his instrument, which automatically triangulated the position of the beacon.
Targeno swallowed with difficulty. The device confirmed what he already suspected. The beacon had been planted on Carenza’s body. The signal grew progressively stronger—which meant the dais was slowly bringing the directional beam into line with Targeno’s position.
All right, he thought, as he keyed in a new command-set for the scanner, we’ve found the transmitter. Find the receiver, and we’ve got the weapon. His mind ticked off the possibilities, trying to eliminate anything that would not fit the pattern for a sophisticated ultrasonic receiver/reflector. That would rule out anyone moving about in the crowd, or even a single man with a hand weapon. The best kill-method employed a stationary receiver…
Of course. The uplinks.
The configuration of a satellite dish was the perfect disguise for the sound receiver and the parabolic focusing characteristics of a laser or microwave weapon.
The setup was as elegant as a mathematical proof. Elusive, yet simple and effective. He had to find a receiver attuned to 112,000 cycles, and he had to do it quickly. The arc of the Palladium’s rim he needed to cover was roughly fifty degrees of the entire circle. In that space loomed at least twenty uplink dishes, all canted at various angles, homed in upon distant orbiting birds.
And all would remain so, save for one.
The problem, he mused, was finding the one that would react to the ultrasonic beacon. And finding it in time.
Scrambling down from his perch, Targeno ran along the uppermost concourse to the uplink platform at the farthest degree of the rim’s arc. Losing precious minutes as he ran, he knew the weapon dish could activate at any moment.
Try not to think about it. Just get the job done.
Despite being in crisp athletic condition, he was breathing hard as he reached the base of the farthest dish and cabled his equipment into the diagnostic serial port at its base. A few seconds of electronic analysis told him all he needed to know—no ultrasonic receiving chip.
Down over the edge of the platform; up and over to the next one. Keep checking. Keep repeating the procedure until either he found the weapon, or until it burned Carenza like a steak on a grill.
Bevins
Checking his watch. Checking his watch. The mannerism was driving him nuts. He was doing it automatically now, and the minutes dragged by with glacial slowness. Carenza was trying to hypnotize him or something like that, but it wouldn’t matter. It wasn’t gonna work because everything was automated.
Not too much longer. Time was running out. It didn’t matter what that guy was saying. Just hurry up and get this crazy fuckin’ show done with. Yeah. All over soon.
Clemmons
It was hard to describe the sensation that had suddenly come over him. No way to deal with it, other than just accept it. Ever since the…the baby died, Billy seemed to be overly sensitive to everything.
Like right now. Here he was listening to Peter and this ugly notion, like a thorn puncturing his thoughts, kept sticking him. That something was wrong. That something was going to happen and that maybe Peter was in danger.
He had absolutely no reason to feel or think this way, but no matter what he did to suppress it, it just kept coming back…
Targeno
Six dishes checked and he was running out of time. The dais continued to rotate Peter Carenza into a direct line with the section of the arena where he worked. The weapon was somewhere in this section, he was sure of it.
Time was running out. Failure had always been life’s most bitter pill to him. I don’t swallow it easily, Targeno thought as he approached the base of the seventh dish.
“Hey, buddy, what do you think you’re doin’?”
The gruff voice broke his thoughts like a hammerblow. Turning, he saw a broad-chested, broad-bellied, black man approaching him. He wore a pair of technician’s coveralls, like Targeno’s, which identified him as an employee of the Church of the Holy Satellite Tabernacle. The man was very large. Larger than most professional footballers or wrestlers.
Where had he come from? The rim of the Palladium and maintenance catwalks had been totally deserted only seconds ago. Targeno watched the man move closer.
“Hey buddy! I’m talkin’ to you!”
“I must adjust the gain on this dish,” said Targeno, gesturing upwards. “The guys in the NorthStar 7 booth said they’re getting a fuzzy signal…”
“Uh-huh. Sorry…but I got to keep everybody away from this one.”
This was it!
The thought danced madly in his head as the big man reached out to grab Targeno’s shoulder with a large, ham-like hand.
“You do not understand,” Targeno said calmly in his best American accent. “It’s broken. If I don’t fix it, it won’t run.”
“Then it ain’ gonna run. I don’ care, man. My orders are to keep everybody off that platform, and that includes you.”
Targeno looked up at the dish, sig
hed, added a resigned, slightly overdramatic shrug. Seconds tripped by in his head. Below, the dais continued to rotate. Carenza was practically facing their position. If he turned his body, just faced this way for an instant, it might be enough. The device could trigger any time now.
“All right,” he said. “You’re the boss.”
He started to amble away and sensed the man’s neck muscles begin to relax.
“But what am I going to do with this?” Targeno turned back and asked as dumbly as he could muster.
“With what, man?”
The man took a step closer. It was a simple stride forward, but it was the instant Targeno needed. His target was off-balance, even if only for the briefest moment.
“This!” he cried as he stepped into the man’s unguarded middle with a swift uppercut. Catching his lower jaw half-open, Targeno’s blow clacked the target’s teeth together with such force that chips of enamel exploded from his mouth. In a quick follow-up, a short knee-kick to his testicles doubled him over for a stunning chop to the back of the neck.
This series of blows, memorized over a lifetime of dispatching larger, unexpectant adversaries, was usually enough to put a man down and out. But the guardian was so huge, so full of meat and impact-absorbing bulk, that he did not go down, didn’t even take his eyes off Targeno.
“Hey, you fucked now, man…” The black man forced out the words as he fought to draw his breath, gaining strength and confidence with every second. He even smiled through his chipped teeth and bleeding lower lip. “Now it’s my turn.”
With the speed of a heavyweight boxer, the man lashed out with a right jab that would have poleaxed Targeno like a slaughterhouse calf had it connected. He dodged the attack, blocking the second half of the combination with a perpendicular forearm.
The Blood of the Lamb Page 40
