“What if the tumbler is melted from the heat?”
“It won’t be. Come on.”
Neither of them could tell if the study had been looted before the fire, but both assumed it had been. At her instructions, they pushed the remains of the desk to one side, then Ruth took the pry bar and inserted the sharp tip into a tiny notch in the expensive tile. She levered a thick concrete square away and smiled. “Come see,” she said.
The front of a safe gleamed up at Jim.
“Step back, Jim,” Ruth warned. “If the combination isn’t worked correctly, the person standing over it gets a face full of some very nasty gas. It isn’t lethal, but it will make you very sick.”
Ruth carefully worked the dial, then inserted two keys and turned them both at the same time. She pulled open the heavy safe door, removed a long flat box, then looked up at Jim. “I can manage the diamonds and other stones. Now, I’ll stand guard outside with Bev, while you men carry the gold out. The sacks are very heavy. The cash is in that box.”
“I gather,” Jim said drily, “the gold and so forth were not ever reported to the IRS?”
“Of course it wasn’t, love. I don’t like the IRS anymore than you do.”
“Ruth?”
“Yes?”
“What are you going to do with this small fortune?”
“It isn’t small, dear. It’s quite large actually. What am I going to do with it? Well, were you serious about your feelings toward me, or was that just postcoital depression talking the other night?”
Jim smiled. “You know I meant everything I said, Ruth.”
“Then this wealth is to help all of us make a new start. Somewhere.”
“Cole and Katti are talking about the west. The mountains.”
“And you?”
“It might not be a bad idea.”
Ruth smiled. “Are we going to homestead the land, dear?”
Jim laughed at that. “Somehow, Ruth, I just can’t work up a mental picture of you plowing behind a mule.”
Nine
The President had decided not to issue emergency currency. That would have only added misery on top of misery for the beleaguered citizens . . . and would have screwed up the international money market to the point of chaos. While thousands of stores and homes had been looted by human vermin, bank vaults had remained locked and secure. United States currency was still good.
“You guys thought of it all, didn’t you?” Cindy Callander said, after eyeballing the thousands and thousands of dollars the group had between them.
“When we sensed that conditions were going from bad to worse, we emptied our bank accounts,” Cole replied. “As far as we can tell, several million other people across the country did the same thing.”
The group had grown by three: Carol Swift, Henry Pettey, and Jules Von Housen, all broadcast reporters who had been caught out in the flyover zone when Hell opened up. To a person they did not believe that supernatural forces had anything to do with the events of the past few months.
Cole could just barely abide the three, for they were arrogant in their reporting and ultraliberal politically. The three had rubbed the military the wrong away for years, and now they were learning that what goes around, comes around. The military refused to give them passes, refused to allow them on any military flights leaving Memphis (there were no civilian airlines operating), and, theoretically speaking, had cut the reporters off at the knees.
The three had learned about Cindy and Laura, and had shown up at Katti’s property several weeks after the group had set up their tents behind the burned-out house. Cole had found an eighteen-wheeler parked alongside a county road just north of the interstate, the driver lying dead in the ditch. The truck had been pulling a load of building materials. Cole drove the truck over to the property, and the men started knocking together a building that would provide them all better shelter against the rapidly approaching winter. Gary and Jim went scrounging and “found” other building materials and equipment, including a dozer, a backhoe, and a front-loader.
It didn’t take the group long to put up a long, barracks-type building, with sleeping compartments separated by partitions, and move in.
The men installed new septic systems and hooked up a bigger pump for the well (Katti’s land was located outside of city water and sewerage).
When the group had elected to stay close to Memphis until spring, hoping conditions would stabilize somewhat, members of the group went out every day, searching for food. Looters and other types of human garbage looked for booze, dope, money, and luxury items. The group looked for food, fuel, clothing, generators, and other articles of survival. They brought it back by the truckload and stored it behind the stone walls of Katti’s house. Cole, Jim, Gary, and Hank spent one entire day driving huge tanker trucks filled with gasoline and diesel fuel, parking them some distance from the living area.
While the nation was slowly settling down, the reported incidents of rioting and looting gradually growing fewer with each day, the country was split into hundreds of small areas under the control of various factions. Travel was extremely dangerous and not likely to get better any time soon.
Satellites were still up and functioning, but on the ground, the big networks were struggling to get back on the air. The headquarters and broadcasting facilities of the networks, on the East and West Coasts, had been destroyed during the weeks of violence. For the most part, news was being provided by the government on shortwave. And while it was better, it was still lousy.
Winter was just around the corner, and hundreds of thousands of people around the nation (perhaps millions, still, no one really knew for sure) were without electricity or fuel oil to heat their homes.
“You don’t like me very much, do you, Mr. Younger?” Jules asked one cool, gray afternoon, just after Cole had pulled in with another pickup truck of canned goods he’d “found.”
“I can’t say that I do, Mr. Von Housen.”
“Just another damn liberal who lives in a dream world, that’s me, right, Mr. Younger?”
“Oh, that’s certainly part of it, Mr. Von Housen.”
“What’s the rest of it, Mr. Younger?”
Cole looked at him. “Let’s try Cole and Jules. How about it? This mister business is getting sort of stuffy.”
“Fine, Cole. What is the rest of it?”
“You want to help me off-load these cases?”
“Certainly.”
As the men worked, unloading and stacking the cases of canned food behind the stone walls of the burned-out house, the other reporters wandered over to lend a hand. With six people working, the job did not take long. Cole sat down on the tailgate of the pickup and looked at the men and women.
Jules said, “I had just asked Cole why he disliked reporters in general, and me in particular.”
Cole smiled. “Were you working with a camera and sound crew when everything fell apart, Jules?”
“Certainly.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know, Cole. But I didn’t run off and leave them to fend for themselves, if that’s what you’re suggesting. If you are, I resent the implication. We simply got separated and couldn’t find each other. I pray they’re all right.”
Cole nodded his head. “I wasn’t implying anything. Just curious.”
“The crew working with me was killed,” Carol Swift said. It was the first time she had spoken of it, and it was obvious to Cole that it was painful for her. “Some crazy bunch of religious nuts started yelling about faggots and queers and Godless heathens and charged us, waving guns and clubs and knives. Jimmy pushed me into a building and yelled for me to run. I saw him go down under the crush of the mob. They beat him to death.”
“Not that it matters,” Cole said, “but was he homosexual?”
“Yes. He was also a very nice person.” She blistered him with a look. “Not that you would ever knowingly associate yourself with a gay person.”
Cole smiled sadly. “One o
f my closest friends was gay, Ms. Swift. We went all through school together. First grade through twelfth. I used to stand up and fight for him until the other kids decided the teasing wasn’t worth getting a busted lip and a bloody nose and a black eye. I had been on the sheriffs department for about two years when I answered a call to check on Dennis. No one had seen him for a couple of days. I was the first officer at the scene. He had taken a twelve-gauge shotgun, loaded with three-inch magnums, stuck the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. There wasn’t much of his head left, Ms Swift. Most of it was stuck to the wall behind him . . .”
“I didn’t—” Carol started to say.
“Shut up, Ms. Swift,” Cole said savagely. “We had a kid in our outfit who was gay. We all knew it. But he never hit on any of us. He was a good soldier. We were in the middle of our second tour in Nam. Working a search and destroy. We got pinned down by VC; it was shaping up to be a slaughter—with us getting slaughtered. Joey had somehow worked his way up to high ground, with an M-60 and dragging several ammo cans. And he wasn’t a very big person. Just a hell of a nice guy, one of the nicest guys I ever met in my life. He covered our escape and managed to kill a lot of VC before they swarmed all over him. We went back later to get the body. What was left of it. They had mutilated him. Sliced off his dick and his balls, jammed them in his mouth, cut off his head, and stuck the head up on a pole. Joey got the Silver Star . . . posthumously. You suffer from what I call the reporters’ syndrome, Ms. Swift: you don’t know what in the fuck you’re talking about.”
Cole got off the tailgate and walked away. The reporters wisely did not follow him.
Gene Rockland had been leaning up against one side of the burned-out house, listening. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “Tina had him pegged right all along. The man is a hell of a lot more complex than he looks.”
* * *
The approaching winter, according to NOAA weather prognosticators (matters may have gone to Hell on earth, but the satellites were still up and working, thousands of miles above the earth, something that amused Hank Milam), was going to be a brutal one, maybe the worst in decades.
“We’d better get ready,” Jim said, after hearing the forecast on shortwave.
The reporters exchanged glances. “What do you mean?” Jules Von Housen asked. “We have thousands of gallons of fuel. We’ve been cutting firewood for weeks. We have food enough to last for several years. We have shelter. Aren’t we ready?”
“That’s the point,” Cole said. “We are ready. But the human predators out there,” he waved his hand, “haven’t been thinking about the weather. They haven’t been stockpiling food and fuel and warm clothing. They’ve been too busy looting stores looking for dope or money. They’ve been raping and assaulting and doing all the other things that punks and human vermin and street slime do. They’ve been occupying their time stealing stereos and TVs and fancy cars. But now, with the cold winds about to start blowing, they’ll be looking for food and shelter and warmth. In other words, they’ll be looking for what we have.” Cole smiled, very thinly, very coldly. “And I don’t intend to let them have it.”
“I wonder if counseling centers have been set up to help these poor unfortunate people?” network reporter Carol Swift asked, then could not understand why the original group began laughing at her.
* * *
“The . . . madness is spreading worldwide now,” President Mason was informed. “Full scale rioting in England, France, Germany, and a dozen other countries. Australia just blew up, as did New Zealand. This, well, Temple of the Apocrypha thing is much larger than we originally thought. Apparently the movement has been around for a long time—years. They’re worldwide.”
“Why in the hell didn’t our intelligence people pick up on this movement?” the President asked.
The Director of Central Intelligence sighed patiently, cut his eyes Heavenward, and shook his head.
Mason looked at him. “Well?” he demanded.
“Mr. President,” the DCI replied, “I was not aware that spying on churches was part of our mission. Nothing ever changes: the Agency is damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.”
Mason waved that off impatiently. “Speaking of missions, what is the objective of this, ah, Temple of Apocrypha? Does anybody know? Have they made any demands?”
“None so far that we are aware of,” the Director of the FBI said.
“Are they the same as the Believers?” Mason asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” the Bureau man said. “But we don’t think so.”
Pres. James Edward Mason scowled and muttered something under his breath.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” the DCI asked, leaning forward in his chair.
“I said, shit!” the President shouted.
* * *
CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN were working frantically to build new facilities and get back on the air. But it was a slow process. Nearly all of their equipment had been destroyed, and warehouses containing new equipment had been looted. Many of their personnel were still unaccounted for, and skilled electricians and engineers and sound technicians and camera people and the dozens of others needed to get back on the air were in short supply. Much of the equipment needed was located in major cities, and the major cities—what was left of them—were under the control of gangs.
The networks went back to the basics: they began broadcasting the news by radio.
* * *
“If you people want to report in,” Cole told the five broadcast journalists, “feel free to use our equipment.” He smiled and added with a straight face, “The general public does have the right to unbiased news, now, don’t they?”
“Asshole,” Von Housen muttered, but not loud enough for Cole to hear him.
The reporters each found a tape recorder and, in two borrowed vehicles, headed for Memphis in search of a story. The first story they each filed was that Memphis International Airport was now open for commercial flights. That delighted the reporters, for each felt that their networks would pull them out and send them to a more exciting place, such as New York City, or Chicago, or even L.A.
Their networks told them to stay put.
Special Agents Frey and Steckler returned to Memphis the first week in December, just in time for the wedding of Jim Deaton and Ruth Pearson, Hank Milam officiating.
Jim and Ruth were married at seven o’clock in the evening. At seven-thirty, during the reception, as if on some hidden signal, the violence began anew, all over the nation.
Ten
The first attack shut down the newly opened Memphis International Airport. Several rockets were fired into the tower, killing the controllers and destroying all the equipment. Several more blew up two jets on the taxiway. Rockets were fired into the power station that supplied the airport with electricity, plunging the facility into darkness. Then the attackers faded into the night, their part in the operation concluded.
The second wave of attackers, much larger than the first, struck at the troops stationed around the airport, hitting them before the echo of the rockets had faded. The attack was concentrated at one end of the complex, and the bulk of the federal troops shifted to meet the assault.
The attackers began dropping 81 mm mortar rounds in, landing them on the runways and knocking holes in the surface. It took only a few minutes of sustained mortar fire to render the airport completely inoperable. With a range of nearly fifty-one-hundred yards, pinpointing the location of the mortar crews was very nearly impossible, for after five minutes of fire, during which almost a hundred rounds landed on the runways, the crews broke down the mortars—barrel, baseplate, mount, and sight—and vanished.
All over the nation, airports were being attacked, the towers destroyed, and runways left with great smoking holes gouged in them from the impacting of HE rounds.
But airports weren’t the only targets on this soon to be bloody night.
In California, a gay bar had reopened in a small city and it was packed. Som
eone in the back of a passing pickup truck tossed a suitcase through the window. The suitcase contained ten pounds of C-4. Packed around the plastic explosive were twenty pounds of nails. It was carnage.
One of the few survivors said that a few seconds before the explosion, he heard someone yell, “Death to all perverts!”
That was only the beginning. Before the night would end, over a hundred gay bars, private homes, and clinics would be bombed nationwide.
All supposedly in the name of religion.
People who were dying of AIDS got a little extra push toward the end that night. Dozens of AIDS patients in hospitals all over the nation were found dead the next morning. Dozens of orderlies, maintenance workers, nurses, and a few doctors never reported back for work the next night.
It was a night of bloody madness from coast to coast, border to border. And, as it had long been predicted, even had the government been whole, they could not have prevented it. For once several million armed and dedicated people come together, whatever their cause, be it right or wrong, the revolution is on.
* * *
“Hank is awfully quiet today,” Katti said to Bev, the day after the bloody night had paled into light.
They had all heard the news broadcasts, several of them staying up most of the night listening to shortwave.
“He hasn’t said two words all morning,” Bev replied. “Something is really eating at him.”
The dawn had brought rain and cold temperatures, unusually cold for the time of year.
Hank was sitting alone in a pickup truck, smoking a cigarette and watching the rain. His face was a study in emotion. Cole opened the door on the passenger side and got in. “What’s wrong, Hank? You coming down with something?”
“I’m coming down with the illogics.”
Cole stared at him. “The what?”
Hank snubbed out his cigarette. Twisted in the seat. “Cole, I am now firmly convinced that neither God nor Satan has much to do with what is happening.”
Cole was silent for a time, staring at his friend. “You would maybe like to explain that?”
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