by Dan Simmons
“Is she dead?” gasped Justin.
Tara had her knuckles in her mouth. “No. I don’t think so. I don’t know. I’ll go and get Daddy.” She turned and ran for the house. Allison hesitated a second and then turned and followed her older sister.
Justin knelt in the rose bed and pulled the unconscious lady’s head onto his knees. He lifted her hand. It was cold as ice.
When the others emerged from the house, they found Justin kneeling there, patting her hand gently and saying over and over, “Don’t die, nice lady, OK? Please don’t die, nice lady. OK?”
BOOK THREE
End Game
“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.”
—GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
THIRTY-SIX
Dothan, Alabama Wednesday,
April 1, 1981
The World Bible Outreach Center, five miles south of Dothan, Alabama, consisted of twenty-three glaringly white buildings spread over 160 acres. The center of the complex was the huge granite and glass Palace of Worship, a carpeted and curtained amphitheater that could seat six thousand of the faithful in air-conditioned comfort. Along the half mile curve of the Boulevard of Faith, each gold brick represented a five-thousand-dollar pledge, each silver brick a one-thousand-dollar pledge, and each white brick a five-hundred-dollar pledge. Coming in from the air, perhaps in one of the Center’s three Lear executive jets, visitors often looked down at the Boulevard of Faith and thought of a huge white grin emphasized by several gold teeth and a row of silver fillings. Each year the grin grew wider and more golden.
Across the Boulevard of Faith from the Palace of Worship, the long, low Bible Outreach Communications Center might have been mistaken for a large computer factory or research facility except for the presence of six huge GTE satellite broadcast dishes on the roof. The Center claimed that its twenty-four-hour television broadcasting, relayed through one or more of three communications satellites to cable companies, television stations, and church-owned earth stations, reached more than ninety countries and a hundred million viewers. The Communications Center also contained a computerized printing plant, the press for records, recording studio, and four mainframe computers hooked into the Worldwide Evangelist Information Network.
Just where the white, gold, and silver grin ended, where the Boulevard of Faith passed out of the high security area and became County Road 251, were the Jimmy Wayne Sutter Bible College and the Sutter School of Christian Business. Eight hundred students attended the two nonaccredited institutions, 650 of them living on campus in rigidly segregated dormitories such as Roy Rogers West, Dale Evans East, and Adam Smith South.
Other buildings, concrete-columned, granite-facade, looking like a cross between modern Baptist churches and mausoleums with windows, provided office space for the legions of workers carrying out duties of administration, security, transportation, communications, and finances. The World Bible Outreach Center kept its specific income and expenses secret, but it was public knowledge that the Center complex, completed in 1978, had cost more than forty-five million dollars and it was rumored that current donations brought in around a million and a half dollars a week.
In anticipation of rapid financial growth in the 1980s, the World Bible Outreach Center was preparing to diversify into the Dothan Christian Shopping Mall, a chain of Christian Rest motels, and the 165-million-dollar Bible World amusement park under construction in Georgia.
The World Bible Outreach Center was a nonprofit religious organization. Faith Enterprises was the taxable corporate entity created to handle future commercial expansion and to coordinate franchising. The Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter was the president of the Outreach Center and currently the chairman and sole member of the board of directors for Faith Enterprises.
The Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter put on his gold-rimmed bifocals and smiled into camera three. “I’m just a country preacher,” he said, “all this highfalutin financial and legal stuff just passes me by . . .”
“Jimmy,” said his second banana, an overweight man with horn-rimmed glasses and jowls that quivered when he got excited as he was now, “the whole thing . . . the IRS investigation, the FCC persecution . . . is just so transparently the work of the Enemy . . .”
“. . . but I know persecution when I see it,” continued Sutter, his voice rising, smiling ever so slightly as he noticed that the camera had stayed on him. He saw the lens extend as three moved in for an E.C.U. The director up in the booth, Tim McIntosh, knew Sutter well after eight years and more than ten thousand shows. “And I know the stench of the Devil when I smell it. And this stinks of the Devil’s work. The Devil would like nothing better than to block the Word of God . . . the Devil would like nothing better than to use Big Gov’ment to keep the Word of Jesus from reaching those who cry out for His help, for His forgiveness, and for His salvation . . .”
“And this . . . this persecution is so obviously the work of . . .” began the second banana.
“But Jesus does not abandon His People in time of need!” shouted Jimmy Wayne Sutter. He was standing and moving now, whipping the traveling mike cord behind him as if he were tweaking Satan’s tail. “Jesus is on the home team . . . Jesus is calling our plays and confounding the Enemy and the Enemy’s players . . .”
“Amen!” cried the overweight ex-TV actress in the interview chair. Jesus had cured her of breast cancer during a live television crusade broadcast from Houston a year earlier.
“Praise Jesus!” said the mustached man on the couch. In the past sixteen years he had written nine books about the imminent end of the world.
“Jesus takes no more notice of these . . . Big Gov’ment bureaucrats . . .” Sutter almost spit the phrase, “than a noble lion notices the bite of an itty bitty flea!”
“Yes, Jesus!” sighed the male singing star who had not had a hit record since 1957. The three guests appeared to use the same brand hair spray and to shop in the same section of Sears for double-knit bargains.
Sutter stopped, tugged on the microphone cord, and swiveled to stare at the audience. The set was huge by television standards— larger than most Broadway stages— three levels, carpeted in red and blue, picked up here and there by arrays of fresh, white flowers. The upper level, used primarily for song numbers, resembled a carpeted terrace backed by three cathedral-style windows through which an eternal sunset— or sunrise— glowed. The middle level held a crackling fireplace— crackling even on days where the temperature in Dothan was 100 degrees in the shade— and was centered around a conversation/interview area with imitation-antique, gold-filigreed couch and chairs, as well as a Louis XIV writing table behind which the Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter usually sat in an ornamented, high-backed chair only slightly more imposing than the throne of a Bogie pope.
Now the Reverend Sutter hopped down to the lowest set level, a series of carpeted ramps and semicircular extensions of the main set that allowed the director to use angles from the recessed camera positions to show Sutter in the same shot as the six hundred members of the audience. This studio was used for the daily “Bible Breakfast Hour Show” as well as the longer “Bible Outreach Program with Jimmy Wayne Sutter” now being taped. Shows requiring the larger cast or bigger audience were taped in the Palace of Worship or on location.
“I’m only a modest, backwoods preacher,” Sutter said in a sudden shift to a conversational tone, “but with God’s help and your help, we’ll put these trials and tribulations behind us. With God’s help and your help, we will pass through these times of persecution so that God’s Word will come through LOUDER and STRONGER and CLEARER than ever before.”
Sutter mopped his sweaty brow with a silk handkerchief. “But if we are to stay on the air, dear friends . . . if we are to continue bringing you the Lord’s message through His gospels . . . we need your help. We need your prayers, we need your defiant letters to those Big Gov’ment bureaucrats who hound us, and we need your love offerings . . . we need what ever you can give in Christ’s name to help us keep the Word of God comi
ng to you. We know that you will not let us down. And while you are calling in those pledges— addressing those love-offering envelopes that Kris and Kay and brother Lyle have sent to you this month— let’s hear Gail and the Gospel Guitars along with our own Bible Outreach Singers reminding you that— ‘You Don’t Need To Understand, You Just Need To Hold His Hand.’ ”
The floor director gave Sutter a four-fingered countdown and cued him with a flick of his baton when it was time to come back from the pledge break. The Reverend was seated at his writing table; the chair next to it was empty. The couch was beginning to look crowded.
Sutter, looking relaxed and somewhat buoyant, smiled into the lens of camera two. “Friends, speaking of the power of God’s love, speaking of the power of eternal salvation, speaking of the gift of being born again in Jesus’ name . . . it gives me very great plea sure to introduce our next guest. For years our next guest was lost in that west coast web of sin we have all heard about . . . for years this good soul wandered far from Christ’s light into the dark forest of fear and fornication that lies in wait for those who fail to heed God’s Word . . . but here to night to witness to Jesus’ infinite mercy and power, His infinite love that allows no one wishing to be found to remain lost . . . here is the famed filmmaker, Hollywood director and producer . . . Anthony Harod!”
Harod crossed the wide set to the sound of enthusiastic applause from six hundred Christians who had not the faintest idea of who he was. He held out his hand, but Jimmy Wayne Sutter jumped to his feet, embraced Harod, and waved him to the guest’s chair. Harod sat down and crossed his legs nervous ly. The singer grinned at him from his place on the couch, the apocalyptic writer looked coolly at him, and the overweight actress made a cute face and blew him a kiss. Harod was wearing jeans, his favorite snakeskin cowboy boots, an open red silk shirt, and his R2-D2 belt buckle.
Jimmy Wayne Sutter leaned closer and folded his hands. “Well, Anthony, Anthony, Anthony.”
Harod smiled uncertainly and squinted out toward the audience. Because of the bright television lights, only an occasional glint of glasses was visible.
“Anthony, you have been a fixture on the tinsel town scene for . . . how many years now?”
“Ah . . . sixteen years,” said Harod and cleared his throat. “I started there in 1964 . . . uh . . . I was nineteen. Started as a screenwriter.”
“And Anthony . . .” Sutter leaned forward, his voice managing to be both jovial and conspiratorial, “is it true what we hear . . . about the sinfulness of Hollywood . . . not all of Hollywood, mind you, not everyone there . . . Kay and I have several good Christian friends there, yourself included, Anthony . . . but generally speaking, is it as sinful as they say?”
“It’s pretty sinful,” said Harod and uncrossed his legs. “It’s . . . ah . . . it’s pretty bad.”
“Divorce?” said Sutter. “Everywhere.”
“Drugs?”
“Everyone does them.”
“Hard stuff?”
“Oh yes.”
“Cocaine?”
“Common as candy.”
“Heroin?”
“Even the stars have track marks, Jimmy.”
“People taking the name of the Lord God in vain?”
“Constantly.”
“Blaspheming?”
“It’s the in thing to do.”
“Satan worship?”
“So the rumors say.”
“Worship of the Almighty Dollar?”
“No doubt of that.”
“And what about the Seventh Commandment, Anthony?”
“Uh . . .”
“Thou shalt not commit adultery?”
“Ah . . . ignored completely, I’d say . . .”
“You’ve seen those wild Hollywood parties, Anthony?”
“I’ve gone to my share . . .”
“Drug abuse, fornication, blatant adultery, pursuit of the Almighty Dollar, worship of the Evil One, defiance of God’s Laws . . .”
“Yeah,” said Harod, “and that’s at just one of the duller parties.” The audience emitted a sound that was somewhere between a cough and a stifled gasp.
The Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter steepled his fingers. “And Anthony, tell us your story, your history, your descent and ultimate elevation from this . . . this . . . mink-lined pit.”
Harod smiled slightly, the corners of his mouth flicking up. “Well, Jimmy, I was young . . . impressionable . . . willing to be led. I confess that the lure of that life-style led me down the dark path for some time. Years.”
“And there were worldly compensations . . .” prompted Sutter.
Harod nodded and found the camera with the red light on. He gave the lens a look both sincere and slightly sad. “As you’ve said here, Jimmy, the Devil has his levers. Money . . . more money than I knew what to do with, Jimmy. Fast cars. Big houses. Women . . . beautiful women . . . famous stars with famous faces and beautiful bodies . . . all I had to do was pick up the telephone, Jimmy. There was a sense of false power. There was the false sense of status. There was the drinking and drugs. The road to hell can run straight through a hot tub, Jimmy.”
“Amen!” cried the overweight TV actress.
Sutter nodded, looked earnest and concerned. “But, Anthony, the really frightening part . . . the fact we have most to fear . . . is that these are the people who are producing films, movies, so-called entertainments for our children. Isn’t that right?”
“Exactly right, Jimmy. And the movies they make are ruled by only one consideration . . . profit.”
Sutter looked into camera one as it zoomed in for a close-up. There was no levity in his face now; the strong jaw, dark brows, and long, wavy white hair might have been that of an Old Testament prophet. “And what our children get, dear friends, is dirt. Dirt and garbage. When I was a boy . . . when most of us were children . . . we saved up our quarters and went to the moving picture show . . . if we were allowed to go to the moving picture show . . . and we went to the Saturday matinee and we saw a cartoon . . . What ever happened to cartoons, Anthony? And after the cartoon we saw a Western . . . remember Hoot Gibson? Remember Hopalong Cassidy? Remember Roy Rogers? God bless him . . . Roy was on our show last week . . . a fine man . . . a generous man . . . and then perhaps a John Wayne movie. And we would go home and know that the good guys win and that America was a special place . . . a blessed country. Remember John Wayne in The Fighting Seabees? And we would go home to our families . . . remember Mickey Rooney in Andy Hardy? Go home to our families and know that the family was important . . . that our country was important . . . that goodness and respect and authority and loving one another was important . . . that restraint and discipline and self-control was important . . . that GOD WAS IMPORTANT!”
Sutter took off his bifocals. His forehead and upper lip were sheened with sweat. “And what do our children see NOW?! They see pornography and godlessness and filth and garbage and dirt. You go to a movie now . . . a PG movie mind you, I am not even talking about the filthy R-rated and X-rated movies that are everywhere, spreading like cancers, any child can get in, there is no age limit anymore, though that too is hypocrisy . . . filth is filth . . . what is not good for our sixteen-year-olds is not good for grownup, God-fearing citizens . . . but the children go, oh, how they go! And they see PG movies that show them nakedness and profanity . . . one curse word after the other, one profanity after the other . . . and the movies tear down the family, tear it down, and tear down the country, tear it down, and tear down the Laws of God and laugh at the Word of God and give them sex and violence and filth and excitation. And you say, what can I do? What can we do? And I say this: Get close to God, get full of the Word, get so full of Jesus Christ that this garbage, this trash holds no attraction . . . and get your CHILDREN to accept Jesus, accept Jesus into their HEARTS, accept Jesus as their SAVIOR, their PERSONAL Savior, and then the movie filth will have no attraction, this Hollywood version of Gomorrah will have no appeal . . . ‘The Father hath committed all jud
gment unto the Son . . . the Father hath given him authority to execute judgment . . . the hour is coming . . . all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil . . . they that have done evil . . . will rise to hear their doom’ John 5:22–26–28.”
The crowd shouted hallelujahs. “Praise Jesus!” cried the singer. The apocalyptic writer closed his eyes and nodded. The overweight actress sobbed.
“Anthony,” Sutter said in a low voice that drew attention back to him, “you have accepted the Lord?”
“I have, Jimmy. I found the Lord . . .”
“And accepted him as your personal Savior?”
“Yes, Jimmy. I took Jesus Christ into my life . . .”
“And allowed him to lead you out of the forest of fear and fornication . . . out of the false glare of Hollywood’s sickness into the healing light of God’s Word . . .”
“I have, Jimmy. Christ has renewed the joy in my life, given me purpose to continue living and working in His name . . .”
“God’s name be praised,” breathed Sutter and smiled beatifically. He shook his head as if overcome and turned toward camera three. The floor director was rolling his fingers in an urgent circle. “And our good news . . . in the near future, the very near future, I hope . . . Anthony will be bringing his skills and talents and expertise to a very special Bible Outreach project . . . we can’t say too much about it now, but be assured that we will be using all of the wonderful skills of Hollywood to bring God’s Word to millions of the good Christians who hunger for solid family entertainment.”
The audience and other guests responded with enthusiastic applause. Sutter leaned toward the microphone and spoke over the noise. “Tomorrow, a special Bible Outreach ser vice of Sacred Music . . . our special guests, Pat Boone, Patsy Dillon, the Good News Singers, and our own Gail and the Gospel Guitars . . .”
The applause grew louder as electronic prompters flashed. Camera three came in for an extreme close-up of Sutter. The reverend smiled. “Until next time, remember John 3:16—‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, whosoever believeth in Him shall have everlasting life.’ Good-bye! God bless you all!”