“So you just thought you could make a big score all by yourself? You thought you had to go an extra hundred miles because you failed in San Francisco and Gulfland? I can understand that, Paul. But we all have missions that go belly-up. A real soldier accepts it and moves on. Or was it your bleeding heart? You disapproved of our tactics and thought you’d bring in these renegades in cuffs instead of coffins. Well, that’s not how it works with terrorists.” He shook his head. “You’re self-righteous and naive. It makes me sick—and it could have cost you more than just your job. You’d deserve to rot in jail if these maniacs had sabotaged the water and you had let them slip through our fingers.
“Fortunately, Grace said she told you there was no way they could do it without a miracle. She had no reason to lie by then.”
“Then why was she murdered?”
“You think she could have told us more? Anyway, reluctant as she was, she was part of them. And I told you, it was clearly a suicide.”
“With one arm slit from elbow to wrist she managed to slice the other too?”
“We left no tracks, Paul. Don’t worry. Some may wonder how she managed it, but no one will suspect us.”
“What about the cell at the port?”
“Took forever to find it, but we raided the place, of course. No one was there, but we found an ancient printing press, computers, lots of contraband books and tracts. Think about this, Paul: Had you been there with those people, trying to pull your big lone-wolf ruse on them when the raid went down, you might have been killed. At the very least, you’d have some explaining to do.
“We’ll watch who comes and goes there tomorrow. Then on Sunday it will be the first target of a major strike. Intelligence uncovered seven other large cells, and we’ll see if Grace’s friends have anything to add. Sunday is these people’s big meeting day, so we can likely catch all of them at once. Even if massive simultaneous strikes don’t knock out the underground, they will certainly cripple it.
“The question now, Paul, is what I should do with you.”
“Whatever you see fit.”
“It’s hard to assess the degree of harm you’ve actually done. Your meddling did put us onto a new target and give us insight into the kind of attacks the terrorists might plan. Only Balaam and I know what a fool you made of yourself. It would appear a conflict of interest if I were the one to discipline you. I won’t humiliate you further by letting Chief Balaam mete out your fate. Rather, I am going to report you to your superior, Chief Koontz, and place your punishment in his hands.”
Paul felt as if he could melt into a heap. “Seems fair,” he said.
“I’ll give you a chance to redeem yourself Sunday. You will stay at my side during the raids and, I hope, acquit yourself enough to mitigate the severity of my report to Koontz. Until then, you’re suspended. You may not use an agency car. Perhaps if Tiny is kind enough to help you with transportation, you can take Jae out for a little sight-seeing tomorrow.
“Now I’m going to bed, and I suggest you do the same.”
Sleep was the last thing Paul could imagine. He was horrified at what had happened to Grace, frantic to warn the Fishers of Men to stay away from the port tomorrow, and desperate to alert the rest of the L.A. underground to avoid their usual meeting places Sunday. Further down the list—but terrifying, he had to admit—was the realization of how close he’d come to being caught. It could have happened so easily.
Paul felt unaccountably blessed that Ranold had been so wrong. It wasn’t like his father-in-law to jump to conclusions. If he’d had my father’s letter, he would have read the situation differently. Jae must have taken it.
What time had she called? Was it possible Ranold had her phone to try to pull him out of Sapiens before the raid—not to save Paul so much as to spare himself the embarrassment?
Ranold said he’d gotten home at ten, which might or might not be true. Grace had left the port just before seven. If they had extracted the information from her by nine, Ranold could have set the raid in motion and then put Jae up to calling. He could have sent her to the airport. The rest of her story might even be true, but Ranold could have flown her in earlier in the day.
How long were we there talking about Barton and the manifesto? Then how long was I on the road?
With everything else going on, the timing was too much for Paul to work out right then. Warning the others was his priority.
Paul stepped outside. He might be under surveillance, but he had to call Straight. The fountain was gushing, as always, so Paul positioned himself as close to it as possible. He’d get soaked by the spray, but the burbling and splashing would cover the sound of his call. To avoid rousing more suspicion by going back indoors dripping wet, he slipped off his shirt and pants and tossed them to safety where they’d stay dry.
Like Paul, Straight was stunned at what had happened.
“The big problem is how to reach any of these people,” Paul said. “They’ve got to be warned to stay away from Sapiens Fisheries tomorrow and told to get the word out to every other cell in Los Angeles. And Grace Dean’s friends from the Stone Canyon group are about to get snatched for interrogation if they haven’t been already.
“And here I am, totally out of commission—certainly being watched by Ranold and possibly by Jae.”
“She didn’t plant a bug on you, did she?”
“I didn’t even think of that with all this madness. Luckily—”Paul burst out laughing—“even if she did, I’m standing here in my shorts, sopping wet, with my head stuck in a fountain.”
“I wondered what that sound was,” Straight said.
36
TINY ALLENDO OOZED CHARM in the morning and acted as if Jae’s presence made his month. “Your timing is impeccable,” he said. “This evening at poolside I am hosting an elegant prestrike dinner, to which you are invited. The governor of Sunterra and his wife and some major players in town will be here, along with Chief Balaam and your father. Oh, and Juliet Peters.”
“The movie star?”
“The same,” Tiny said. “I’m thinking of casting her as Chief Balaam in the movie. You know, beautiful blonde fights her way up the ranks of the NPO, finally gets her big break leading a crack strike force. I’m not sure about the love angle yet—maybe the handsome leader of the zealots, whom she takes prisoner. Maybe a jail-cell seduction . . . she comes in wearing a gold cat-suit and stiletto-heel boots to show she’s all woman doing a man’s job . . . but it’s a triangle. The real Mr. Right is the wise old agency chairman. He’s thirty-five years her senior, but he’s a tiger—a silver fox. Seasoned. Tough. Rich as King Midas.
“At the end the zealot turns out to be a brute. The silver fox saves the blonde, and she sees he’s so much stronger and better than the cute young muscle man. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and it’s really the old guy who’s evil. It all depends on which costars Juliet wants.”
Paul could barely hide his revulsion. “Thank you for your hospitality to Jae,” he said.
“Until this evening then,” Tiny said, bowing.
Tiny had offered Paul and Jae the use of his car and chauffeur for the day. Ranold must have engineered it because Paul hadn’t asked, and he declined to tell Jae that the reason they were imposing on Tiny was that her father had suspended him. Paul had barely slept, anguishing over the fates of Fishers of Men, Grace Dean’s three friends from the Stone Canyon group, and the other groups targeted Sunday. Had Straight and the others been able to warn them? Somehow Paul had to connect with Straight that morning, but what would he do about Jae?
He had been genuinely happy, if confused, to see Jae, but he still hadn’t talked to her about his father’s letter, and she had volunteered nothing. He had no idea whether she had found the letter and, if she had, what she might make of it. On top of that was her call last night, which might well have been timed to yank him out of Sapiens one step ahead of the army.
Even without those suspicions, no way could Paul risk telling Jae he had flipped
to the other side and was now working to rescue the very people her father was bent on exterminating. The news would shatter not just her image of him but also the bedrock values of her upbringing. With so many innocent lives at stake, he didn’t dare gamble on her understanding.
The day had broken hot, and by ten the temperature was already flirting with ninety degrees. Paul was soaking but not just from the heat.
Jae needed an evening gown for the party that night. Tiny’s chauffeur took them to the famous Rodeo Drive, now a ten-story mall of exclusive stores for those who enjoyed actual shopping more than online virtual try-ons.
“This is wild,” Jae said. “I never thought I’d actually see it in person. But I doubt we can afford anything here.”
“Let’s splurge. How often do you get to have dinner with Juliet Peters?”
“A gold catsuit and stiletto-heel boots . . . that movie sounds beneath her. But, Paul, I know how much you hate shopping. . . .”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“So why don’t you have the chauffeur take you somewhere? This is my one big chance at Rodeo Drive, and I don’t want to worry that you’re miserable.”
Paul was a hairsbreadth from taking her up on it, desperate to see what was going on at the port, when it struck him: This is a test. Maybe Jae was in cahoots with Ranold and maybe she wasn’t. But Ranold had arranged for the limo and driver right after stripping Paul of his agency car. If the man behind the wheel wasn’t an operative assigned to check on him, Paul would be shocked.
“You know, Jae, I’m pretty sick of driving around. I’ve been stuck in a car all week. It’ll feel good to be in an airconditioned mall on a day like this. If I get bored, I’ll wander off on my own.”
The mall was an architectural marvel of curved copper beams and gold-tinted glass. Jae checked the registry of stores, oohing and ahing over the famous names. “I’m going to start at the top and work my way down,” she said. “Think you can stand that?”
“Lead on.”
Over her shoulder Paul spotted a tenth-floor store that looked like an oasis: Cicero’s Games. They got off the jetvator and Jae headed for an interesting shop. Paul left her at the door and headed over to Cicero’s. Inside, beyond the usual banks of life-size interactive games, was an entire section devoted to old-fashioned board games like Scrabble and chess. No clerks or customers around. Pretending to examine the merchandise, Paul called Straight.
Straight led off with good news. Someone in the salt mines knew Carl and Lois because of their letterpress-printed tracts and had been able to warn them away from Sapiens. They in turn had provided leads to many of the other Los Angeles groups. The bad news was that the three friends of Grace Dean from the Stone Canyon Reservoir group had yet to be found.
“It’s hopeless by now,” Paul said. “They may have already been tortured to death.”
“Nothing is hopeless,” Straight said. “Last I heard, God was still on His throne.”
Straight reported that underground factions in every state were fervently praying for God’s judgment on Los Angeles and the protection of its believers. “Your contacts are paying off,” Straight said. “From Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac in the Detroit underground to Arthur Demetrius in New York, the word is being spread. San Francisco and Washington are hopping, eager for God to avenge their martyrs. And get this: The media is starting to pick up on that Christian manifesto. The whole country is going to be watching L.A., Paul.”
Thank You, Lord.
Paul went to collect Jae, and they made their way down to the ninth and then the eighth floor, where Jae stopped off twice to see evening gowns with Paul gamely looking on. On the seventh floor, Paul homed in on an electronics store with state-of-the-art video players in the window. All were tuned to a breaking-news network.
“Let’s check this a second,” he said.
The Christian manifesto was splashed across every screen. Police spokesmen claimed the warning was a hoax and urged citizens to ignore it. But talk-show hosts took calls from all over, and the warning was all anyone wanted to discuss. The underground’s threat to cut off L.A.’s water had frightened many and also had become fodder for jokes, giving pundits no end of fun spinning and laughing at outrageous scenarios.
“What in the world . . . ?” Jae said.
By the time Paul and Jae reached the ground floor, the manifesto had become a nationwide phenomenon.
They arrived at the Allendo estate a few hours before dinner and strolled the grounds in the sweltering heat. Jae kept her distance from the fountain so it wouldn’t ruin her hair, but she stared at it from inside the fence that separated the pool from the rest of the grounds.
“Who are all the young women?” she said.
“Party favors,” Paul said.
“And did you—”
“No.”
“And Daddy?”
“Don’t ask.”
Paul found himself silently praying at every spare moment. Now that the warnings had reached the Sapiens group and were, ideally, rippling through the rest of the L.A. underground, he finally felt able to concentrate on his own situation. If the targets were empty when the army came storming in Sunday morning, he knew full well heads were going to roll. They would look for the leak, and someone would pay. Paul was relieved that Ranold had never told him which specific groups were in the crosshairs, but he still worried the breach might easily be traced to him. He had wanted to remain a mole in the agency until he chose to leave. Something like this would make his decision for him. He would have to be gone before they caught on.
Allendo was resplendent in his usual black on black, gold-mir-rored shades in place. Tiny didn’t seem to sweat, while Paul felt as if he were swimming. The governor’s entourage arrived at ten to six, when Ranold also made his appearance for pictures and handshakes. He proudly introduced Jae to all the dignitaries. The governor’s wife appeared relieved to see Jae and insisted on staying at her side and sitting next to the Stepolas at dinner.
Bia Balaam arrived preening in another silver gown—this one satin and skintight, clinging awkwardly to her angular body—with matching stiletto heels. Jae nudged Paul. “You’d think she overheard Tiny’s ideas for Juliet Peters. I can’t believe that woman is NPO.”
Balaam snubbed Paul and Jae, apparently disgusted by Paul’s connection to Sapiens Fisheries. You don’t know the half of it. Paul was gratified that Jae had evidently taken an instant dislike to the woman.
Giddiness was in the air, as if everyone was in on a delicious secret. Ranold laughed quietly with Balaam, the military men, the governor, and Tiny and his friends.
Jae whispered, “There’s sure a lot of laughter for what should be a sober day. You’d think they were planning a surprise party.”
“Peculiar, considering people might die,” Paul said.
The governor’s wife agreed. “I know we’re targeting terrorists, but I find it hard to approve of jocularity at a time like this.”
Suddenly everyone’s attention shifted to the French doors leading from the house, where Juliet Peters shyly entered with none of the apparent ego one might expect. She was a curvaceous blonde in a white strapless gown, her trademark platinum mane reaching to her impossibly tiny waist.
“Juliet, dearest,” Tiny said, “at last. Now let’s all be seated for dinner.”
Offering Juliet his arm, Tiny escorted her to a place at the table between his own and Bia Balaam’s.
Paul and Jae were at the far end of the table, nearest the pool. Tiny’s “party favors” continued to cavort in the water during dinner, and Paul envied them, longing to plunge in and cool off. The servers kept the wine flowing, but Paul concentrated on his tall glass of ice water.
What if there were more targets than Straight’s people had been able to reach? What if he had to go along and see his brothers and sisters killed? He fought to hold fast to his faith. He had to believe God would heed an entire nation’s prayers and make Himself known.
“So,�
� Juliet Peters said, as the waiters came around with dessert, “have we all been sufficiently warned of the judgment of God?”
She smiled and sipped water from her glass.
The others laughed.
“Yes,” Ranold said, sounding on the verge of a guffaw, “better stock up on water!”
“Indeed,” Allendo said. “I bought extra-long straws so we can drink out of the pool if necessary.”
Paul could hear the rush of the fountain from the front of the house, which showed high above the roof, and the splashing of the young women in the pool. Spare us, he prayed.
Bia Balaam locked eyes with Paul, but he tore his gaze away, fearing she could read his thoughts. As if sensing his anxiety, Jae grabbed Paul’s hand under the table.
Juliet Peters coughed. Someone cried out, and Paul looked up just in time to see one of the women at the pool plunge down a slide and slam into the dry bottom with a sickening thud. Her friends screamed.
The fountain had ceased.
The water glasses on the table were not only empty but also dry. Even the sweat on the glass serving pitchers was gone.
Tiny Allendo jumped up so quickly his chair pitched backward. He stared at the pool, then whirled and looked at the fountain.
Paul studied the table. Even the liquid in the food had evaporated. The fruit tart had shriveled. The sorbet was colored powder. The wineglasses held a gooey residue.
Tiny’s voice sounded weak and timid. “Bottled water!” he croaked.
Waiters ran into the house, then came out, looking stricken. “The bottles are unopened, sir, but empty.”
Paul looked at the grass on the beautiful sprawling lawn under the lights. It was withering. By tomorrow it would be brown.
Balaam was on her feet, tottering out to her vehicle in her heels. Ranold stood, fingers fluttering, lips trembling. Tiny called out to his people, “Get to the store! Bring back all the water you can!”
But Paul knew what they would find. More empty bottles. God had more than answered the prayers of the faithful. He had done more than shut off the water supply to Los Angeles.
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