Shadowed

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  C.C. pointed to a chair at a side table and sat directly across from Ranold. A strange emotion and temptation came over the visitor. Ranold found himself having to bite his tongue to keep from saying something cheeky about C.C.’s holding down the top job in an organization that had become a sham. There was no war. Why did anyone need an army?

  And yet Ranold believed that very issue would excite an old warhorse like C.C. After they had teased each other and brought each other up to date on their families, Creighton, as was his nature, cut to the chase. “So you want to drop a bomb on the Columbia zealot underground. You sure it’s not revenge over the loss of half your family?”

  That had not even crossed Ranold’s mind, and it must have showed.

  “You must know that I am aware who’s down there, Dece,” Creighton said. “What’re you going to do, get your daughter and her family out somehow?”

  Decenti looked away. “Not on your life,” he said. “They’ve chosen sides. They’re the enemy.”

  Creighton seemed to freeze. His stare made Ranold uncomfortable. He looked at his old friend, then looked away again.

  “What?” Ranold said.

  “You take me for a nincompoop, Dece? This army may not be what you remember, but don’t even suggest that we’re not still one of the finest intelligence agencies in the world, and that includes your shop.”

  What was C.C. saying? Was he casting aspersion on the NPO? Ranold wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I didn’t intend to insult—”

  “Well, you did, Dece! You implied that the General of the Army wouldn’t know that you have two grandkids under the age of ten in that underground.”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t say that.”

  Creighton cocked his head. “You’ve become an old fool.”

  “What’re you, serious?” Decenti said.

  “First you deny any revenge motive when your son and your wife were lost two weeks ago, and—”

  “You must know my own daughter murdered my wife.”

  “I’d heard that, but frankly I find it hard to believe. Her autopsy showed no neck trauma consistent with—”

  “Autopsy?” Ranold thundered. “There was no autopsy! I would have had to have been consulted.”

  “Dece! It’s me you’re talking to. You dump the body in a mass morgue, then—”

  “They were all mass morgues, C.C.!”

  “—then you tell them there’ll be no service, to just cremate her and let you know when it happens.”

  “Where are you getting all this?”

  Creighton shook his head. “You’re coming off pretty naive for a man in your position, Dece. You think I’m not as well-placed in this government as you are? You went public with this charge that your son-in-law brainwashed your daughter into murdering your wife. Did you think that would go unchallenged or at least not investigated?”

  Ranold had never had a fleeing instinct in his life. But this was going badly. His old friend—his old, trusted friend, the man he assumed would thrill at the chance to launch a real military attack on an enemy—had somehow turned on him.

  “I was doubted?” Ranold said. “Promoted to head of the NPO while being invest—”

  “Interim head,” Creighton said with a disdain so obvious that Ranold wanted to stand and accuse him of holding down a paper-tiger job. “C’mon, old buddy. Your wife exhibited cranial trauma consistent with a blow to the head or striking something while falling, but a heart attack killed her.”

  “You’re telling me I didn’t walk in on my own daughter strangling her mother to death, arms around her throat and thrashing her side to side, bashing her head in the process?”

  “I’m not telling you anything but what the autopsy showed.”

  “An illegal autopsy! An autopsy not sanctioned by the next of kin let alone even revealed to the next of kin.”

  “Cool your jets, Dece. The only thing that surprised me was that there was enough personnel to get to it with all the other deaths. But you know an autopsy is standard operating procedure in a suspected homicide. Did it never strike you odd that your daughter was not immediately put on a wanted list?”

  “My son-in-law was.”

  “Dr. Paul Stepola disappeared after The Incident, and from what we can determine from your own testimony, he’s a firstborn son still alive. That pretty much establishes his status.”

  “Turncoat.”

  “Granted. But there’s no evidence his wife is also—”

  “She’s with him, C.C.!”

  “And you’re so bound and determined to win this family squabble that you’re willing to bomb your own grandchildren?”

  35

  “WE’RE LESS THAN SEVENTY-TWO HOURS from D-day,” Greenie Macintosh said, “and I say it’s time to get everybody on board.”

  That was hard for Paul to argue with, but he looked to Jack Pass, frankly hoping for some reason to delay. “What if we spark a panic?” he said.

  “C’mon, Paul,” Jack said. “The time has come. I can’t believe the NPO would go through with this, given how the public is responding to The Incident. But if your father-in-law starts thinking he’s in the minority, might he even move ahead of schedule?”

  Paul nodded. “Unfortunately, I do know how the old man thinks. I believe he sees himself as the last defender of the atheistic regime.”

  “Oh, he’s not alone,” Greenie said. “I agree most people are turning, but there are still angry pockets here and there in Decenti’s camp.”

  “He’s got access to vigilantes, mercenaries, and revolutionaries,” Paul said. “For one thing, he’s prosecuted them in the past, but he always spoke glowingly of them as patriots. I never understood that. I fear the general if he comes to the realization that his own government is loath to eradicate us zealots.”

  Greenie was pacing. “We’ve got to quit talking and start acting. We can do this logistically. It won’t be easy, but the salt miners are expecting us, we have transportation in place, and it’s a matter of starting to move out. We don’t intend to draw attention to ourselves by doing it all at once, so we ought to start moving by tonight.”

  “Who goes first?” Paul said.

  He caught Greenie and Jack glancing at each other.

  “What?”

  “Seniority,” Jack said. “I know this affects you and your family, Paul, but—”

  “Hey, that’s fair,” Paul said. “The ones who were here first ought to leave first, and vice versa. I understand.”

  “Leadership would stay to the end anyway,” Jack said. “Someone has to turn out the lights.”

  * * *

  “My grandchildren are not your concern, C.C.,” Ranold said.

  “They are if they’re not your concern, Ranold. They’re innocent civilians, and I for one want nothing to do with attacking a nonmilitary site.”

  “What’re you saying, C.C.? You’re not going to give me the firepower I need, after all the planning we’ve done? You can see the tide of public opinion turning on this. If we don’t strike on schedule, we’ll lose all kinds of momentum and popular support.”

  “You have no public support, Dece. Don’t you read the papers? watch the news?”

  “Don’t insult me.”

  “I could say the same. You sit here and tell me you have popular support for retaliating against The Incident by wiping out a thousand or more underground zealots? You’ll be the most hated man in America.”

  “I’ll be a hero!”

  It was out before Decenti could take it back. The fact was, he really believed it. Sure, people were scared. They didn’t want to further agitate the monster they had awakened. But if he won this small battle, they’d have to see that God couldn’t or didn’t choose to control everything.

  Ranold could tell he had alarmed C.C. even more. He had to salvage this meeting. “C.C., listen, let’s grab a jet to Georgia and talk to the Third—”

  “Talk to Central Command? About what?”

  “Say I conced
e you’re right and that this is a nonwar situation. Fort McPherson can provide land forces.”

  “What for?”

  “To follow up the air attack. Make sure we round up survivors.”

  Chester Creighton stood and leaned on the table. “Old buddy, let me tell you something. You have lost your mind. For one thing, if I was crazy enough to give you the firepower you’re asking for, there would not only be no survivors, but there would also probably be further widespread casualties. Is that what you want? Because I want none of it.”

  “You’re as yellow as Dengler was.”

  Creighton straightened and stomped to his desk, dropping into his chair. “Those are fighting words, Ranold, and you know better. You would call the General of the Army a coward? I ought to have you written up.”

  Ranold sat back and folded his arms. “You have no jurisdiction over me.”

  “We both report to the governor, and he would bring charges.”

  “He’s no better than Dengler was.”

  “What’s your beef with Dengler, Ranold? I saw you on the news praising him to high heaven.”

  “What else was I going to do?”

  “Did you go over there to assassinate him, Dece?”

  “What? No! But I’ll admit it didn’t break my heart. What’s come over you, C.C.? Where’s the soldier I knew? The zealot underground is the enemy and has been for years. We take one setback and now you want to go soft on ’em?”

  “Setback? That’s like saying Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered setbacks a hundred years ago.”

  “So that’s it,” Ranold said, moving to a chair across from Creighton. “You want to do like the Japanese did. You want to unconditionally surrender. Shall we do it on a battleship and ask God to attend?”

  Creighton looked at his watch. “Your time is up, Dece.”

  “No it isn’t, C.C. Now come on. Let’s go to Space and Missile Defense. It’s just a short drive.”

  “You don’t get it, Ranold. I don’t want you to have that kind of access or support.”

  “You don’t believe the lawbreakers are the enemy.”

  “They may be, but who knows if or when that might change, based on public opinion?”

  “Since when have we allowed public opinion to shape the law?”

  “Since we were founded as a democratic republic, Dece.”

  Decenti sighed and looked away. “You’re not going to let me even visit Materiel Command, are you?”

  “I might.”

  “You might?”

  “If you would change your approach. These are likely unarmed people—”

  “Now see, that’s where you’re wrong, C.C. They found two of our plants and murdered them, one of them while he was reporting in.”

  “Why do you lie to me, Dece?”

  Ranold squinted at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t realize yet that I know as much as you do? If you believe both your men were killed in there, you’re out of touch. Your younger man—the one playing the son—died in The Incident because he was a firstborn. But don’t be so sure your main mole is gone.”

  Ranold fought for composure. If there was an ounce of truth to what C.C. was saying, that was strike two against Bia Balaam. And there was no strike three in this game. She told him Roscoe Wipers was dead, and if it wasn’t true, she had to go.

  The question, of course, if she had misled him on that, was whether she had already incriminated him by his connection to the talisman found on Dick Aikman.

  “Now hear me,” Creighton was saying. “If you’re looking for military support for a standard roundup of dissidents, I could get behind that.”

  “What?”

  “The Columbia chapter of the underground zealots clearly consists of lawbreakers, based on how the law reads now. Why not take your intelligence, if you have the location pinpointed, and commandeer the entrances? Inform the people inside that they are surrounded and without recourse and that if they surrender peaceably, no one will be harmed?”

  “That’s disgusting, C.C., and you know it. We retaliate for a billion dead men by arresting a thousand men, women, and children?”

  “Better to slaughter them?”

  “Yes!”

  C.C. shook his head and looked sad. “The suppression of the practice of religion was intended to eradicate war. What you’re suggesting is a holy war. If you really believe it’s better to slaughter these people than arrest and try them, Dece, you’re guilty of egregious incompetence to lead.”

  36

  BIA BALAAM HAD NEVER BEEN the kind of a woman who took a break at work. She held nothing against people who did. It simply wasn’t her way. And yet today she was so distracted she needed time to herself. Where did one go for that? There weren’t many private nooks or crannies at NPO headquarters.

  She grabbed her leather portfolio containing the Stepola notes and asked her secretary where she went when she just wanted to be alone.

  The young woman flushed and spoke softly. “That’s easy. My car.”

  “I don’t want to leave the premises. I just want—”

  “No, I never leave either, ma’am. I just go sit in my car.”

  “In the parking garage?”

  It was a concept.

  Bia’s car sat in the shadows, backed against the wall. Would she feel conspicuous? No one was around, and unless someone parked next to her, they would not likely see her. Sitting there in the silent darkness was like having a delicious secret. Even more intriguing was the idea of talking to God in a concrete structure that interfered with cell-phone communications. It would be a true test.

  Paul made a lot of sense. If God was who He was supposed to be, she ought to be able to talk to Him in any manner she felt comfortable, and He ought to be able to hear and understand her. For some reason it seemed appropriate to whisper.

  “God, I feel so strange,” she began. “I don’t know where to start. I believe in You; I know that, and I suppose You know it too, because You know everything. I don’t understand You. I don’t know why You had to do what You did, but I’m smart enough to see that it was You and only You. It couldn’t have been a trick or some human effort. Your followers said there was a record of Your doing the same thing thousands of years ago, but most people—me included—thought that was a fairy tale. When they said they were praying You’d do it again, nobody believed them.

  “Well, maybe some did because of what happened in Los Angeles. Now, see, that I thought was something else. I didn’t know what, and it sure was coincidental that what happened was what the zealot underground warned would happen. But You know what I made of that? Of course You do. I thought some of their very bright scientific minds knew some freak of nature was coming and then predicted it and gave You the credit. It had its desired effect; I gave them that. But divine intervention? No, I wasn’t falling for it.”

  Bia stopped and looked around every time she heard a noise. All she needed was someone seeing her alone in her car talking to herself.

  “God, I miss my son, and I hurt so bad I can hardly stand it. I don’t know why I’m telling You. You’re the one who took him, so am I supposed to ask You to make it better, to give him back, or to promise me he somehow made it to heaven?

  “Okay, here’s where I am. I’m hurt. I’m mad. I’m ashamed. I blame myself for his death because it seems I should have been able to recognize You long before something this awful had to happen. But I know myself, and I doubt anything short of that would have gotten my attention. I’m sorry. I’m unworthy. I believe. I don’t know what else to say or do.”

  Bia found herself suddenly emotional. What was this? She had not even wept at the loss of her son. And now, making a decision like this brought out feelings in her she had fought since childhood. The monumental significance of the about-face in her life overwhelmed her. She cradled her face in her hands and felt the tears cascading through her fingers. It was as if she had come home to a place she didn’t even realize was there.
>
  Strangely, she felt different physically too. It was as if tension poured from her body. Bia felt she could dissolve into a puddle. Her limbs felt heavy, logy, without definition. Had she been ordered out of her car right then, she wasn’t sure she had the legs to stand.

  What was this slow blinking, this head bobbing? Was it possible she could actually fall asleep, after having seemed to be on autopilot for two weeks? She didn’t recall sleeping during that time, though she knew she must have. That had been more like passing out, and even then she had never been far from consciousness.

  If God’s response to her awkward prayer was even just this, an ability to shut her eyes and finally drift off, it struck her as a gift so sublime she could hardly frame it in words. Did this mean she was in, part of His family after all she had done, after the person she had been her whole life? What sweet mercy this represented!

  She let her chin rest on her chest and felt her breathing even out and grow rhythmic. “Thank You, God,” she said as she fell limp. “Thank You. Thank You.”

  * * *

  Ranold B. Decenti wasn’t sure why, but before he left Chester Creighton’s office—under much different circumstances than when he had been invited in—he was compelled to somehow try to right the ship. He and his buddy had gotten off on the wrong foot. That part was okay; it wasn’t unusual for Ranold to disagree with people. But the terminology C.C. had used seemed to have a legal bent to it. Would the General of the Army undermine Ranold by going to the governor?

  As C.C. had said, they both reported to Haywood Hale, and nothing of the nature of what Ranold had in mind could be initiated without Hale’s blessing anyway. He would never get that if Creighton got to Hale and used words like innocent civilians, nonmilitary site, widespread casualties, have you written up, incompetence. For that matter, Creighton could tell Hale Ranold said he would be a hero, that he called Creighton and Chancellor Dengler yellow, and that he said Hale was no better than Dengler.