The Blessed and the Damned (Righteous Series #4)

by Michael Wallace

  But by now, Elder Kimball was already pulling the wheel and they overcorrected. They hit the shoulder. The tires spit up gravel, the truck shimmied, and Kimball slammed on the brakes. They came to a stop on the side of the road.

  “What are you thinking?” Taylor Junior demanded.

  Sweat poured down Kimball’s face. “I…I don’t know. I fell asleep,” he lied. “I—”

  “Get out!” Taylor Junior grabbed his father’s shirt as they met in front of the headlights and gave him a shake. “I told you to you wake me up if you started to fall asleep.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened. I just—”

  “Shut up and get in the truck.”

  Back in the truck, Elder Kimball caught a glimpse of Aaron and Eric glaring from the backseat before he shut the door and plunged them into darkness again. Taylor Junior accelerated rapidly and nobody spoke.

  Taylor Junior slowed to thirty-five as they passed the hotel, restaurant, and gas station before entering Capitol Reef, then accelerated back to fifty-five as they entered the national park itself. Inside the park, they slowed twice for mule deer stopping in the road to stare at the car lights, bewildered, before the animals turned and bounded into the darkness.

  A set of headlights came up behind them. Taylor Junior didn’t speed up, and the car didn’t pass. It followed them until Loa, where streetlights lined Main Street. Taylor Junior let out his breath in a hiss.

  “What is it?” Aaron asked.

  “Don’t turn around and look.” He came to a full stop at the stop sign and then pulled slowly across the intersection.

  Elder Kimball let his glance slide to the side mirror. The white car had a black metal bumper rail, lights, and a beehive in the middle of the license plate. Utah Highway Patrol.

  Taylor Junior said, “I don’t know if it’s coincidence or that damn fool way you almost got us killed. Someone might have reported a drunk driver. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you did it on purpose.”

  “But what are we going to do?” Kimball asked his son, perhaps a little too quickly.

  “We’re almost out of town. If he flips his lights, we’ll keep going a block or two like we didn’t see him, then pull over. When I hand him my license and registration, you’ll shoot him.”

  “Me?” Kimball asked.

  “I’ll do it,” Aaron said. “I’ve got a gun under the seat. I’ll just reach around and shoot him in the face.”

  “We can’t do that,” Elder Kimball protested. “Then we’ll have half the state looking for us. Everyone act normal—he’ll check the license, see we haven’t been drinking, and let us go.”

  His mind was racing. What had he been thinking? Of course they’d want to kill the trooper. What, did he think they’d sit still and let themselves be handcuffed? He had to pass the man a warning somehow, then hope he called in backup. Then, even if Aaron killed the man, they’d send out more troopers.

  Taylor Junior said, “There are four chemical warheads in the back. He’ll ask what’s under the blanket. He won’t like the answer, and he’ll take a look.”

  “The cops can’t search our truck,” Kimball said. “They have to get a warrant or something.”

  “We can’t take that chance. Aaron, if he stops us, kill him. We’ll throw him in the back. Eric, you’ll drive the cop car until we find a place to ditch it. Look, we’re out of town. Everyone get ready to go.”

  But then the trooper stopped his car and made a U-turn back into town, apparently deciding the newer truck, driving at perfect speed, following all laws, and not deviating from a straight line, was no threat. The tension evaporated.

  “Even better,” Taylor Junior said, voice calm. He glanced at the dashboard. “Two thirty now. Eric, call your brother. Tell him we’ll be at Zarahemla in two hours and we’ll need the ladder. Do you understand, the ladder? Not the gates. The gates must remain closed.”

  “I got it.” A light glowed from the backseat as Eric powered up his cell phone. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. Tell him to get his wife and children out or they will die with everyone else.”

  * * *

  Elder Kimball stared up at the walls of Zarahemla. He’d heard it was fortresslike, with tall, forbidding walls, but this was only part of the truth. The exterior of the compound wasn’t guarded by a moat or a hill, but had been lined with raised vegetable beds, fenced-in chicken coops, and even a recently planted orchard of peach and cherry trees. Decorative shrubbery and flowerbeds lined the wall itself.

  This was Jacob’s doing, Kimball guessed. Upon taking over the Church of the Last Days, he had gone about de-castling his castle. That had been a mistake. The old regime wouldn’t have planted cover right next to the walls. Someone would have been up top, patrolling. There would be a warning system in place for alerting and arming the saints against attack.

  According to Lowell Froud, Eric’s brother, Jacob had left no such precautions. Instead, he told people not to be so paranoid, that if they wanted to live in a fortress, they could leave Zarahemla and dig a bomb shelter in the desert. Did Jacob think his enemies would respect him for letting down his guard? Didn’t he know that weakness, not vigilance, inspired attacks?

  Lowell stood in the shadows next to the wall, whispering with Taylor Junior. Elder Kimball waited with Eric and Aaron, who held two of the four backpacks. The other two packs remained in the truck. Kimball couldn’t hear what Lowell was saying, but every once in a while Taylor Junior nodded as if he liked what he was hearing.

  When they’d finished, Taylor Junior sent the man away. Lowell disappeared around the far side of the compound and a moment later drove down the road in a car. Taylor Junior came to the other three and said, “A small change of plans. We’ve got a new target.”

  “Does that mean we’re leaving these people alone?” Kimball asked.

  “No, it means Lowell gave us a new target for the fourth shell. It changes nothing here. This place must be destroyed, its apostates cleansed from the earth. Let’s go.”

  Lowell had left the ladder tucked against the wall, lying down behind the shrubbery. Aaron and Eric maneuvered it into position to scale the walls, and the four men climbed up, one after another. Aaron and Eric carried the two shells in their backpacks. They reached the top and looked into the heart of the enemy camp.

  Zarahemla stretched below, a series of enclosed squares and arcades that led from one part of the compound to another. The roofs angled in from the outer wall to channel water into gutters, which emptied into cisterns. There were more gardens inside, together with climbing roses on trellises and even a fountain that gurgled in the center of one courtyard. Clothing hung from clotheslines and swayed in the breeze. Everything was clean and beautiful and orderly. A contrast to Taylor Junior’s filthy camp in the mountains.

  Taylor Junior spoke in a low voice. “Eric and Aaron will take one of the shells to the far side. Find a place to roll the shell down the roof before it falls. Give a shout when you let go, and then we’ll let ours go. They should explode within seconds of each other, covering both sides of the compound.”

  “Should we go back for the rifles?” Aaron asked.

  “Whatever for?” Taylor Junior asked.

  “To shoot them as they come out of their rooms.”

  “There won’t be any need for that. And you don’t want to stick around once those shells go off. I don’t know how high the cloud will go, but it might reach the roof. And then we’re dead.”

  Elder Kimball wondered if either of the other two men were twisting with doubt and fear as he was. He heard nobody moving below, not so much as a baby crying or a dog barking, but they would be down there by the hundreds, innocent people sleeping in their beds. Four women for every man. Four children for every woman. They would die in horrible pain, like Brother Stanley, but with nobody to pull the trigger and put them out of their misery. This was why Taylor Junior was sending two men to roll one shell, he realized. If one man balked, the other could complete th
e task.

  Taylor Junior said, “Now let us pray to the Holy One of Israel.” They formed a prayer circle, exposed on the walls above the compound. Taylor Junior opened his prayer and then said, “As thou sent the destroying angel to free the Children of Israel from bondage in Egypt, so we call on thee to destroy thine enemies. Those who have enslaved thy saints, those who are apostates, those who mock us from the great and spacious building. Let the wicked be destroyed—thrust their damned souls into hell. Send thy angel, yeah, even the Angel of Death, to guide our hands this night. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

  “Amen,” the other three men said.

  Taylor Junior grabbed Aaron and Eric by the shoulders. “It is time. Go!”

  Aaron and Eric ran at a crouch along the roof. Every few seconds, Kimball would catch a glimpse of them in the moonlight. Below, the compound slept, peaceful in the last few moments before its destruction.

  Taylor Junior unlatched the backpack and handed a pair of leather gloves to his father. Kimball took the gloves fearfully. “What? Me?”

  “I’ll pull the pin on the grenade. You’ll roll the shell.”

  “Just put it on the ground.” Kimball struggled to put on the gloves with his hands shaking. “Then push it over. You don’t need me to roll it. You don’t need me to do anything.”

  “Pick it up, old man, or I’ll throw you over the edge and you can die with the rest of them.”

  Kimball picked up the fearful thing. It was an ugly black shell with a grenade taped to the top, but it felt like something living and malicious in his hands. This thing which had sat for decades, unused, waiting like some evil, sleeping monster, ready to be awakened to kill and maim. And he was about to unleash it upon the innocent people sleeping below.

  Before he could have a chance to say no, this was wrong, he couldn’t do this horrible thing, Taylor Junior was reaching forward to pull the pin. Even then, he had one last chance to yank it away and shout for the others to stop, or to throw it the other direction where it could detonate harmlessly outside the walls. Instead, he sat motionless while Taylor Junior pulled the pin.

  “Go! Now!” Taylor Junior shouted the words, loud enough for the men to hear on the other side.

  Elder Kimball squatted, let the shell roll down the roof. It clanked against the tiles, picking up speed as it rolled, then fell into the darkness. A plunk as it hit the flagstones. Stupidly, Kimball peered over the edge and into the darkness, but then Taylor Junior yanked him back. The two men turned and ran for the ladder.

  For a long moment there was nothing. Maybe the grenades were duds, maybe in the long years since their manufacture the rust had—

  The first shell exploded. It split the air, shook the building, and threw them to the ground. They regained their feet just as the second shell exploded on the far side. And then Kimball and his son reached the ladder and scrambled down to the ground outside the compound. Aaron and Eric arrived a moment later. Eric was coughing and moaning.

  “What happened?” Taylor Junior asked as the other two men reached the ground.

  “The idiot,” Aaron said with a snarl. “He fumbled the shell. It rolled down the roof at an angle. It landed on some sort of—I don’t know—first-floor balcony.”

  Taylor Junior looked like he wanted to tear out Eric’s throat. “You mean it didn’t hit the ground?”

  “Aren’t you listening?” Aaron asked. “I said it didn’t hit. It went off on the balcony and blew back.”

  Taylor Junior turned to Aaron. “Blew back? What do you mean, blew back?”

  “Something hit me,” Eric said. He wiped at his eyes. “On the arm and neck. Bits of stone or something. I’m bleeding.”

  Taylor Junior let out an inarticulate snarl.

  “I’ll get another shell,” Aaron said. “We’ll do it right this time.”

  “What are you talking about?” Taylor Junior said. “We need the last two, didn’t you get that part?”

  “Quit arguing,” Elder Kimball urged. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Even as these words came out of his mouth, the first scream came from the compound. It was a woman, screaming in pain or terror. A moment later, other voices joined. Women, children, a man who sounded like a wounded animal. Their cries formed a wall of sound, and it was all he could do not to clamp his hands over his ears.

  The men shut the doors on the truck and raced away. But even then, Kimball heard the dying people of Zarahemla, a high, screaming wail that carried on and on.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Jacob led the group from the cliff dwelling to the top of the plateau. The next twelve hours passed in a blur. The newly combined group hiked the rest of the afternoon, then traveled by flashlight into the night. Charity fell once, Miriam stumbled, twisting her ankle, and David nearly pitched himself off the cliff when the trail hugged too close to the edge. Finally, Jacob called a halt, exhausted, hungry, but frustrated and wanting to continue. The FBI agents agreed.

  They collapsed for a few hours of sleep, then broke camp at the first gray of predawn, anxious to get out of the canyon, and marching double-time. As they hiked down, Fayer and Krantz made plans. The group would reach Charity’s pickup truck soon, but it wouldn’t carry them all down the hill at once. They would need to shuttle back and forth, which would eat precious time. The agents decided to split the group in two between them and meet up later that day in Blister Creek.

  Jacob joined Fayer’s group, which piled into the FBI agents’ car, while Stephen Paul took the pickup truck back up the mountain alone to retrieve Eliza and Agent Krantz, who had started down on foot. Fayer took the wheel without discussion. Jacob sat in the front, pinned between the present and former FBI agents. It was awkward, but not as bad as what his brother faced, sitting between Father and Charity Kimball in the back. Fayer rattled down the mountain backward until she could find a place to turn the car around.

  The awkward silence continued as they reached the highway. It was an open secret in Blister Creek that Charity Kimball had once been engaged to Abraham Christianson. They’d had some sort of falling out and Charity had married Taylor Kimball instead. It was hard to tell how much of the uncomfortable silence in the back came from their history together and how much from Father’s distaste for his drug-addicted son. Jacob wondered how the other group would be getting along. Better, he guessed. Stephen Paul knew how to keep his mouth shut, and Eliza and Krantz were…well, Eliza and Krantz.

  Twenty minutes after hitting the highway, Agent Fayer’s phone chirped. It was six thirty in the morning. She listened to the message as she drove, her face slack and unreadable. At one point she let out a hiss, then clicked to the next message while Jacob wondered what was going on.

  Fayer’s expression was grim when she hung up. “Jacob, I need you to make some calls.”

  Jacob fished out his phone and turned it on. “I don’t have coverage yet.” He glanced into the backseat, where his brother had his own phone out. David shook his head.

  “Use mine,” Fayer said. “Open my address book and—wait, no.” She pulled back her phone as Jacob was about to take it. “I’m in enough trouble already without putting you on my phone.” She screeched to a stop on the side of the highway. “Agent Kite, you drive.” She jumped out and ran around while Miriam slid over Jacob’s lap to get behind the wheel. A moment later and they were on the road again.

  Fayer dialed. “Come on, Krantz, pick up,” she muttered. “He must not have coverage yet.” She glanced over her shoulder, as if expecting to see Charity’s pickup behind them, but Jacob figured they had to be at least an hour behind, maybe more. “Drive faster, Kite, come on.” She fiddled with her phone for a moment before tossing it into the cup holder. “We’re out of range again. Ah, crap.”

  “Talk to us,” Jacob said. “What’s going on?”

  “Forget it. Tell me as soon as someone gets coverage.”

  They turned north toward Hanksville, crossing the bridge over the northern tip of Lake Powell.
The rising sun cast the bluffs in orange and salmon hues. The lake shimmered below, the sandstone that rimmed it red with white streaks that marked high water lines of years past. A single houseboat crept down the middle of the main channel.

  They reached Hanksville roughly an hour later. Finally, cell coverage. Fayer dialed in, said nothing else but her name, and then stayed quiet while a tinny, screaming voice yelled at her from the other end. Jacob tried to call the big house at Blister Creek, but got an answering machine. He tried Zarahemla and got an error message. Frowning, he tried again, but they were already out of town and lost cell coverage. He should have tried the Wayne County Sheriff instead, or maybe the hospital in Panguitch.

  Meanwhile, Fayer still had coverage and finally got in a few words. “I’m aware of that, sir. Yes, of course. Because I was chasing a suspect and there’s no cell—” She stopped and winced. The voice screamed again from the other side. “I’ll tell you,” she said at last. “But you have to listen because I’m in the middle of Buttcrack, Nowhere, and I’m going to lose coverage any…”

  She lifted the phone from her ear and stared at it, grim-faced. “And there goes cell coverage. Zero bars. Dammit.”

  Jacob forced himself to remain calm. “Agent Fayer? What’s going on?”

  Fayer continued to stare at the phone, as if waiting for coverage to return. “I can’t talk about it.”

  “You’re not the only person in this car,” Jacob said. “You either tell us what’s going on, or—”

  “Or what?” Fayer asked.

  “She’s not even driving,” his father said from the backseat. “Sister Miriam, pull over until she tells us what’s going on.”

  Miriam said, “Come on, Fayer, be reasonable.”

  Agent Fayer said nothing. Jacob had a sudden idea. He turned on the radio and spun through the AM stations until he got KSL 1160 out of Salt Lake City. The signal was static-filled, but audible. As he’d hoped, he got the news, but what he heard made his mouth go dry. There was something about an explosion and reports of a hazardous spill near Manti.