by Lyle Howard
7:40 PM
Cory’s wheelchair was lowered to the sidewalk. She spun around in time to see that the driver had shed her top coat and was now wearing the blue-gray uniform of a private security company. The woman tossed her Dodgers cap onto the passenger’s seat and checked herself out in the van’s side-view mirror, adjusting a new official-looking uniform hat onto her head. “Official enough?”
Weber leaned in through the driver’s window. “Looks like the real McCoy to me!”
The bogus security guard took one last look around to make sure she left nothing behind in the vehicle she would never be returning to. “You two had better get rolling.”
The crowd already seated inside the amphitheater buzzed with anticipation. Already the Reverend’s purple-robed minions combed the aisles, plates in hand, scavenging for donations, as if the unconscionable sum of $35 each follower had already plunked down for each admission ticket weren't alms enough.
What was it about the mystique of a scandal that could focus the attention of so many people, to attract them in droves to a stone stadium in the middle of the Arizona desert?
Virgil Dawson, head of security, watched the throng of people continue to fork over their $35 admission fees and pass single-file through the metal detector. As the crowd slowly moved through the gate, the warning light remained green and the German Shepherd tethered nearby seemed more interested in scratching his haunches than paying heed to anyone in line.
Anytime the buzzer sounded above the metal detector, Dawson moved in to supervise the inspection. One of the guards would pass his wand around the person in question and, as usual, their search would turn up a set of car keys or a surgical pin as the culprit.
“Virgil? Are you there? Over.” Dawson recognized the voice belonging to Charlie Rumson, one of his sentries. “I think we’ve got a real situation over here, Virgil. Over.”
Dawson looked on as one of the guards frisked yet another annoyed patron. An oversized tin belt buckle turned out to be the offender this time around. He was almost afraid to ask. “What’ve you got, Charlie?”
“Our sniffer is going crazy, Virgil. I think you should get over here! Over.”
If Rumson hadn’t mentioned the dog, Dawson would have just chalked his partner’s hysteria up to his overzealous imagination. “Repeat, Charlie! Did you say your dog was picking up something?”
“At the East gate, Virgil. Like garlic in a pizzeria! You’d better get your butt over here—and I mean now! Over!”
Before he could even acknowledge his partner, Dawson was slashing his way through the crowd. “Out of my way!” he screamed, gruffly barreling his way across the periphery of the amphitheater grounds. “Look out! Coming through! Move it! Look out!”
“Where are you, Virgil? Over.”
Dawson nearly dropped the radio as he tried to answer and keep up his blistering pace at the same time. “I’m almost there! I can already hear the dog barking!”
When Dawson finally reached the second entrance, he was startled by the scene that unfolded before him.
“You can’t take away my wheelchair!” the pretty young woman sitting before a very agitated and barking German Shepherd was saying as her frustrated, older male companion looked on.
Bent over, with his hands on his knees, Dawson fought to catch his breath. “What the hell … is … this all about … Charlie?”
Rumson was standing over him, as nervous as he sounded over the radio. “I told you the dog was going crazy, Virgil!”
Dawson looked up to see the Shepherd showing his fangs and growling at the young woman. Dawson pulled off his gloves and slipped them in his coat pocket. He waved to the dog’s handler, observing curiously that he needed both hands to restrain his animal. The dog was up on his hind legs, barking and snapping as the wheelchair rolled past. This was not the behavior of a flustered canine; no, this animal was performing as he was trained to do!
Dawson turned to Rumson. “Did you check their ID?”
Rumson nodded. “I was just about to explain to Ms. Flannery and Mr. Whitlock that our dog is trained to detect explosives, and is acting mighty strange around this wheelchair.”
“Explosives!” the young woman exclaimed incredulously. “Why would you think we had explosives? Because your dog gets a flea up his nose, all of a sudden I’m a mad bomber in a wheelchair? Do you think that this chair is some kind of elaborate ruse? Do you want to jab your penknife into my thigh and see if I scream? This is an insult! I want your name and your supervisor’s phone number!”
Dawson couldn’t argue with Rumson but he heard the crowd behind the woman muttering and bore their glares as impatience and irritation grew around him. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Ms. Flannery, but we are going to have to check out your chair.” He flagged over the dog handler again.
“This is an outrage!” the girl in the wheelchair protested. “Just you wait until my lawyer hears about this! You won’t be able get work as a school crossing guard. This is discrimination!”
Her male companion stepped forward. “Just let them check out the chair again, so we can be done with this already. The show is about to start any minute!”
“But—”
“Everything will be fine, Carla,” the companion said, trying to defuse the situation. “Just let them examine the darned chair!”
Every inch of the wheelchair was given a thorough going-over with Dawson’s watchful supervision and the dog’s energetic nose. Rumson ripped open every storage pocket, unlocked the battery case, and removed the battery. The Shepherd sniffed at the energy cell, but quickly returned his attention to the chair itself.
“How much longer is this going to take?” the young woman asked, impatiently. “I think I saw the houselights starting to flash!”
Rumson, who was down on his knees examining beneath the leather seat, looked up over his shoulder at Dawson with a baffled expression. “There’s nothing down here either, Virgil!”
The dog was relentless.
“We’re going to need to frisk you both,” Dawson said.
The young woman’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t mean to make this third degree any more humiliating for you jokers, but you’ll understand if I don’t get up!”
The guard pulled back the dog and Rumson gingerly began to feel his way around the young woman’s inanimate body. “Hey, your hands are like ice!” she yelled, which made Rumson draw back until he realized she couldn’t feel a thing.
She smiled devilishly. “That’ll teach you!”
A physical examination of the male companion came up empty as well. Even the Shepherd sniffed at him, huffed, and turned his attention back to the chair.
“Can we go now?” the companion griped.
Dawson stepped a few feet away and waved his partner over to join him. “I just don’t understand this, Charlie. Why would the dog be acting like that?”
Rumson nodded. “It’s got me baffled too, Virgil. I’ve examined every square inch of that damned chair! Which is why…”
“Why what?”
Rumson scratched his head thoughtfully. “I think there’s something in the chair!”
Dawson eyed his partner skeptically. “You mean in the steel tubing itself?”
Rumson nodded. “I was going to confiscate it when you arrived. What else could it be?”
Dawson shook his head. “Charlie, do you know what you’re suggesting?”
Rumson shrugged. “It’s your show, Virgil. You gotta make the call.”
Dawson rubbed his forehead in frustration. “You’re suggesting that we cut into a paraplegic’s wheelchair, Charlie? For God’s sake, isn’t there some other way?”
“Unless you happen to have an x-ray machine handy, I don’t think so.”
The houselights flashed again, signaling five minutes until the Reverend was to take the stage. This whole fiasco was turning into a comedy of errors. There had to be another way.
It is said that invention is born out of necessity, and this tim
e the adage held true. It might have been degrading and perhaps it would open his firm up to one hell of a lawsuit, but Dawson saw no other choice. He tapped his partner on the shoulder and motioned for him to accompany him back to where the couple was waiting. “Ms. Flannery, I’m really very sorry for all this fuss and hassle, but because of our dog’s unusual reaction to your wheelchair, I’m afraid I’m going to have to confiscate it until the event is over.”
“You can’t take away my wheelchair!” the young woman cried. “I’ve never been so insulted and ill-treated in my entire life!”
Dawson put up his hands defenselessly. “I’m sorry, Ms. Flannery, and I fully understand your indignation, but it’s either take your chair until the show is over, or I will have to refuse you and Mr. Whitlock admission. It says right there on the reverse side of your tickets that it’s management’s prerogative to refuse admission to anyone at their sole discretion.” If Virgil Dawson didn’t feel like a banker who had foreclosed on a widow’s farm, then he didn’t know what he felt like. Taking away a paralyzed woman’s lone means of independence, on the questionable nostrils of a rented German Shepherd? Surely he had just bought himself and his partner a couple of one-way tickets on the express train to hell.
6
The companion stepped forward. “How do you propose that my friend listen to the sermon that she has been looking forward to attending for so long?”
The temperature had plummeted to nearly 45 degrees, yet Dawson found himself sweating. It was time to do a little spin-doctoring. “For all of your understanding and inconvenience, we will be more than happy to set you both up in front row seats, directly in front of the pulpit. How’s that?”
The girl’s waterlogged eyes darted over to her escort.
Dawson looked at the other guard. “Do we have anything—”
Her companion put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. “She can sit on my lap.”
The lights in the arena slowly began to dim, and the buzz of the crowd that had been so pervasive suddenly drew hushed.
“You can’t do that!” the girl argued.
The escort squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve come so far to hear this sermon. I can’t let you miss it.” He looked over at Dawson. “You said directly in front of the pulpit, right?”
The head of security nodded. “Charlie, go clear out two spots for Mr. Whitlock and Ms. Flannery. If the people in the seats give you a hard time, give them a freaking refund and send them packing.”
The girl was speechless as her companion unbuckled her harness and lifted her out of the chair. “And we can come back for the chair when the lecture is done?”
The security chief pulled away the chair as the man cradled the girl’s body in his arms. “It’ll be right here waiting for you when it’s over.”
Dawson accompanied the two to the back row of the amphitheater and pointed down the aisle toward the stage. “My partner has already cleared the seats for you. As I promised, you’ll be less than ten feet from Reverend Hillard! Again, I apologize for the trouble. I hope you both enjoy the sermon!”
The man toted the young woman down the dimly lit aisle like a newlywed groom carrying his wife over the threshold.
* * * * * *
“Why are you doing this?” Cory whispered. “I’ve failed as long as I don’t have the chair! I need my family to get that money! Why are you doing this? You’re not even supposed to be here with me!”
There was a female master of ceremonies making a brief introduction before the Reverend Hillard was scheduled to take the stage. Behind the pulpit, Hillard’s name was spelled out in garish Las Vegas-style flashing lights, turning the normally tranquil venue into a surreal carnival sideshow.
Even at 82 pounds, Cory was quite a load for Weber. The cancer that ran rampant through his body had sapped most of his strength and dexterity. He walked slowly and deliberately down the aisle, not wanting to trip and mess everything up. He had come so far.
“I have something to tell you, Cory,” he whispered.
Her eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness, and now she saw the same sadness and resignation on his face that she had noticed back at the motel. “What’s going on, Weber? What haven’t you told me?” She saw his Adams apple wobble in his throat.
“I have to admit that I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”
Cory wouldn’t turn her head to see the people in the audience pointing at them, but she could feel their eyes like heavy air. “Tell me now! I want to know everything!”
Weber pulled his head away so that he could see her face. “I’ll bet dollars to donuts, you’ve probably been under the assumption that I work for WDI.”
Cory couldn’t believe what he was telling her. “You don’t?”
They had almost reached the stage, so Weber began to talk softer, but also faster. “No, Cory, I don’t. I’m just another person with nothing left to live for … like you.”
“What are you talking about? How can that be?”
In the soft purple light coming off the stage, Cory saw his lips quiver. “Eight months ago, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. So I guess … I’m kind of in the same boat you are. You and I are a team!”
“But everything is so messed up now! We can’t do anything without the wheelchair!”
Weber carried her along the front of the stage, whispering to her out of the corner of his mouth. “They’ve thought out every detail, Cory. The wheelchair was only a distraction and a means to get us past the dog.”
Weber took his seat directly in front of the pulpit and arranged Cory on his lap so that she was facing the stage. Around them, the unsuspecting crowd began to clap their hands in time to the choir singing “This Little Light of Mine,” a raucous gospel tune that was the Reverend Richard Hillard’s trademark opening number.
“So, you like your new outfit?”
Cory looked at him questioningly. “Excuse me?”
Weber smiled. “Very fashionable belt they’ve furnished you with.”
Cory tried to glance down, but her waistband was out of view. “My belt?”
He nodded. “Exactly! That’s why the dog was going berserk, but those security people naturally assumed it was because of something hidden in your wheelchair. You see, if I had come here alone, wearing a similar belt, the dog would have detected me immediately. I don’t mean to sound indelicate, but they knew the guards wouldn’t risk the bad publicity by denying a paraplegic her chance to be healed. No one would have the gall to cross-examine someone in your condition.”
Once again, Cory was awed by the sheer brilliance of their cunning, and the depth of their foresight. “Why don’t you leave me here, Weber? Go back out into the world and enjoy whatever time you have left! I can do this on my own!”
Weber ran his finger along the soft leather of her belt. “There’s a trigger mechanism on the bottom of the buckle. Can you press it?”
Suddenly, Cory understood everything so clearly. “Of course. I can’t.”
Weber smiled warmly, and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You see, Cory? I told you. We’re a team.”
The Reverend Richard Hillard strutted up to the pulpit, his eyes ablaze with renewed fervor—a vindicated man. But before he uttered one syllable of his highly anticipated comeback speech, two fingers held together as one pressed down on Cory’s belt buckle. An instant later, the outdoor arena exploded in a firestorm worthy of hell itself.
Excerpt from the Arizona Republic Newspaper
Explosion rips through packed Red Rock Amphitheater
SEDONA, AZ — A massive explosion ripped through the canyon walls of the Red Rock Amphitheater last night, just outside this normally tranquil town. At the latest count, 15 people were killed, including the Reverend Richard Hillard, 12 of his choir members, and a young disabled woman and her escort who had taken their seats in front of the stage.
The explosion that shook shops and homes as far as 15 miles away erupted in the outdoor venue just as t
he Reverend Hillard’s “comeback revival” was getting underway. Eighty-seven others were seriously injured by the mysterious blast and rushed to nearby St. Luke's Hospital for treatment.
An FBI spokesman says it could be weeks before an official determination is made as to the origin of the fiery explosion. Rescue workers are being hampered by the large amounts of debris and rubble scattered by the tremendous force of the detonation. An unnamed source said there had been numerous threats called in against the Reverend Hillard’s life, but all were investigated by the FBI and none proved serious enough to cancel the event.
This revival was to be Hillard’s first public appearance since his acquittal on murder charges in the beating death of Tempe Junior College Coed Christina Malloy. Hillard was reportedly planning to speak out for the first time about his romantic involvement with the young woman, and his part, if any, in the events leading to her tragic death.
Virgil Dawson, who runs a private security firm hired specifically for the event, was unable to be reached for comment, but sources claim Dawson was contracted because theater management felt an attempt on Hillard’s life was imminent.
The FBI refused to comment until their inquiry is completed.
7
Downtown Miami, Florida
Offices of Worldwide Dispatch Incorporated
15th Floor - Tower of the Americas
Inside an office that would have done any Forbes 500 CEO proud, August Bock scrutinized the satellite linkups that filled his bank of television monitors. The fifteen 32-inch viewing screens that covered an entire wall of his office had become his eyes and ears to the outside world over the past few years. Murder, treason, rape, blackmail, arson, extortion—all on display for him, either through live feeds, or tape-recorded playbacks, like vegetables at a farmer’s market, ripe for the picking. Bock made notes on each incident as he slowly maneuvered his wheelchair along the length of the wall, from one screen to the next.
Milan, Guangzhou, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, Havana, Miami Beach—no quarter of the world was unscathed from its fair share of corruption and turmoil. Political unrest, famous athletes exonerated of murder, dictators who just wouldn’t go away, crackpots seeking vengeance with a rented truck and two tons of fertilizer: Bock’s laundry list detailing the deterioration of the human race grew longer with each passing day.
