by Conlan Brown
Devin took a seat across the aisle from her. Hannah looked him over, then spoke without thinking. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
He buckled himself into his seat and looked absentmindedly out the window. “So do I,” he said with a nod. “So do I.”
John Temple walked along the outside of the hotel pool next to Dalton Waters. The area was a courtyard, the sun searing down on the people from above—all trying to cool off in the pool. Palm trees surrounded the long meandering pool that snaked around the trees, teeming with people. Children squealed and splashed, sending a nearly unending series of droplets cascading into the air. Adults chatted at the bars. The smell of chlorine hung in the air. Women wearing virtually nothing seemed somehow ubiquitous.
“Las Vegas,” Dalton said, hands in his pockets, “is not a place for a moral man.”
John pulled his eyes away from a twenty-something redhead in a bikini. “True,” he agreed.
“Strip clubs, showgirls, escort services, and legal brothels.” Dalton scoffed. “They hand porno out in the streets—folks on street corners just passing it out, leaving it everywhere. This country used to be great. Founded on Christian ideals with the Bible as our true guiding star—and now look at us.” He waved a hand through the air. “We’re falling apart. The value of the dollar is dropping like a rock, our economy is tanked, our enemies are walking all over us. Seriously,” he asked, “where did we go wrong?”
John sidestepped an incoming splash of water, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you where we went wrong,” Dalton said firmly. “The children of God are no longer in control—and the children of Satan have taken over.”
“Children of Satan?” John asked, confused.
“That’s right,” Dalton said. “The Bible tells us that God made His children, but the Bible is also very clear—Satan has his children too. And they are among us; they are…” Dalton stopped himself, muttering something inaudible. “Well, there are some of us who believe very firmly that what the Bible is saying is that God made His race of people here on Earth, and the spiritual war we fight is against Satan’s children.”
“Who are also a race of people here on Earth?” John asked before he’d really thought it through.
Dalton nodded, unable to make eye contact—as if what he were saying might cause trouble. Then the weight of it came over John. “Do you mean like actual ethnic races? You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Dalton stopped walking, smiled awkwardly, and turned to John, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I never said that,” he declared jovially, flashing big sparkling teeth with a charismatic smile. “The only thing that matters is that the Almighty Lord demands excellence—proof of a life transformed by grace—and that means you can’t hold out on Him any longer. Do you understand?” He squeezed John’s shoulder and bowed his head. “Let’s pray.”
John automatically lowered his head.
“Lord,” Dalton said quickly, “grant my brother in Christ, John, the heart to follow You more closely and to make greater sacrifices and commitments to You with each new day. In Jesus’s precious name—”
The amen came in unison as they lifted their heads. Dalton let go of John’s shoulder, giving it a manly smack. The sounds of children playing in the pool seemed to rush back.
Dalton looked at his watch. “Now, I’ve a meeting I need to get to, but I’ll be praying for you—OK?”
John nodded, strangely thrown by everything.
“I’d give you my card,” Dalton smiled, “but all my information is about to change—so there wouldn’t be much point. Regardless—quit giving God your table scraps. Got it?”
John nodded again, traded farewells, then watched Dalton Waters walk away, heading back into the hotel.
Everything seemed so confused. And something seemed very wrong.
Chapter 15
THE ENGINES ON the charter jet droned. Hannah sat at the laptop, looking for whatever she could find. For the most part it appeared that the computer was used for building the Web site. It all seemed distant somehow. Perhaps that was the only way to deal with the fact that human beings—young people, minors—were being held against their will, forced to do unspeakable things.
She closed the laptop, unable to continue, and slid it into the seat beside her. Outside the window the sky slipped past—an ethereal thing with no shape or boundaries, only possible to see the clouds that floated lazily by, defying intuition, marking the distance traveled like yellow dotted lines on the highway. Her attention stayed on the sky for several minutes more before looking across the aisle to her traveling companion—Devin.
It took her a moment to realize his eyes were closed. He sat perfectly still in his seat, good posture, head only tipped back a few degrees, if even that much. His eyes opened, and he turned his head toward her. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.” She turned back to the window.
“You put the laptop away,” he noted. “You haven’t done that since we left the ground.”
She watched a puffy cloud, so wispy that she could nearly see the water droplets that made up its shape. “How does this happen?” she asked quietly.
“Flight?”
“No.” She looked back at him, pointing to the laptop. “This kind of exploitation.”
“Greed,” he said without hesitation. “Where there’s a demand for something, people will do horrible things to profit off that demand.”
Hannah unbuckled herself, pulling her bare feet onto the seat with her, hugging her legs. “I mean the demand—why do people…?” She trailed off.
Devin’s eyes closed again, staying shut. “Anomie. The feeling of isolation—cut off from others and the feeling that we can’t really connect with true relationships.”
“The inability to connect?” she asked, confused. “How does this—?”
“Anomie,” he said again. “That’s where it starts at least. Then it gets worse.”
Her mind worked through his words. “How?”
Eyes still closed, he spoke as if it were all obvious. “Human beings aren’t designed to be alone—not really, not forever. We need to connect. When our real relationships fail us, we turn to alternatives—things that aren’t real. The more we grasp at the emptiness, the less real it feels. And then comes abuse, the desperate hope that we’ve made some impact, some kind of impression. And then it really starts to get ugly.”
Hannah thought about the hundreds of people out in the world whom he was alluding to, all searching feverishly to find some sense of connection. “And that drives people?”
“That only explains it on one level. At the end of the day, you’re dealing with a black-market commodity. People want something, whatever the reason, that they can’t get legally. An illegal supplier will always arrive to make money off that demand.” He adjusted his head and closed his eyes again.
Hannah sat quietly. The cabin of the small private jet was silent, except for the hum of the engines. She evaluated herself, her feelings. The sensation that Devin was talking about made sense. The feeling of needing to reach out and really, truly connect. “Do you feel isolated?” she asked, wondering if the question might be too personal.
“I like being alone,” he said softly, putting no effort into speaking. “There’s a difference between being alone and feeling isolated.”
She took a long breath, relaxing into her seat. “I don’t like being alone,” she mused, wondering if she was going to stay alone for the rest of her life. It was something she had found herself thinking about more and more in the past months, the possibility of getting so caught up in her life as one of the Firstborn that she would never find someone to share it with. “Can I ask a personal question?”
“Certainly.” Devin nodded without opening his eyes.
Hannah took a moment, trying to think of how to ask. “Are you ever sorry that you never got married?”
His eyes didn’t open. “I’ve been married,” he st
ated casually.
“Really?” Hannah asked, surprised. “I mean, I’m sorry to hear that,” she backpedaled. “Did she pass away?”
“She left,” Devin said, detached. “I came home from a weekend exercise when I was in the army to find a note.”
“Oh my gosh,” Hannah stammered, feeling invasive. “That must have been horrible.”
Devin shrugged. “She didn’t like being alone either, it turns out. So she married someone more exciting than me, a minorleague baseball player. Someone who wasn’t so structured and serious all the time. Someone reckless like….” He didn’t finish.
Hannah listened to the engines for several moments more. “Where is she now?”
“Alone,” he said quietly. “It turns out that reckless and exciting aren’t everything either.” He was quiet, shifting in his seat. “She confused excitement and stimulation for connection and relationship. As a result she got neither.”
Hannah watched him sit in silence, eyes closed. “Do you miss having someone?”
Devin opened his eyes and looked out the window for a moment, then tipped back his seat and closed his eyes again. “I’d rather not talk about this anymore.”
Hannah turned to her own window and looked out, thinking about what they must look like to those on the ground—if they could see them at all. Just a tiny speck in a cloudy sky.
Still chattering with his associates, Dalton got up from the table. He patted his full stomach, and someone made a joke about him having a paunch. Ribbing aside, Dalton was in great shape for a man of his age, but the famous Vegas buffets could fill him full enough to think he might blimp any day. He had always been a sucker for a good steak—which he’d had in abundance over dinner, avoiding all those foreign foods like the plague. Chinese food, in particular, had always smelled like a latrine to him.
The seven men followed him out of the restaurant and into elevators. They stepped in and the doors closed.
“When is the press conference?” one of the men asked.
“Ten a.m.” Dalton watched the floor numbers climb. “I’ll cover the details in the room.”
The doors opened, and he led his entourage into the hall, walking in a loose herd.
“You’re sure of the time and the place?” another man asked.
“Yeah,” Dalton assured him. “My visions were backed up by some reliable sources. I’m not alone on this; it’s been covered in prayer.” Dalton looked up toward the door of his hotel room and saw someone coming his direction. “John Temple?” he said with a smile. “What are you doing here?”
John seemed equally surprised to see him. “Dalton?”
“That’s right,” Dalton smiled, reaching out and shaking John’s hand. “These are my associates.” He motioned behind him to the seven other men. “We’re just heading back to my room for a meeting.”
A look of amusement. “This room?” John motioned to the correct door.
“That’s right.”
John laughed. “I’m right next door,” he said, pointing to the adjacent room.
“Well,” Dalton grinned, “isn’t that a coincidence? I told you God brought you to me, didn’t I?”
John nodded sheepishly. “You sure did. So what kind of work are you guys discussing?”
Dalton paused—thinking of Senator Foster and the next day’s press conference. And the things that they needed to do. Dalton shrugged. “Nothing interesting.”
The smile seemed to fall from John’s face as Dalton spoke, as if the young man could read Dalton’s thoughts. “Hmm,” John murmured, distracted. He stared at them for several awkward seconds. “Well, I should let you get to it then.”
“Yeah,” Dalton agreed. “We’ve got a lot to discuss. But it was good to see you again.”
“You too.” John nodded and turned to his own hotel room door.
“I’ll be praying for you,” Dalton assured with his usual pastoral warmth.
John’s expression had a kind of seriousness to it that Dalton hadn’t seen before. “I’ll be praying for you too.”
Then John slipped into his room.
“John,” Trista said to him as he entered the room, “where have you been?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head, “but I can’t talk.” He walked to the wall, put a hand to it, and rested his forehead on the back of the same hand. Eyes closed, he listened, murmuring an almost silent petition to God.
“What is it?” Trista asked, coming up beside him.
He hushed her gently, listening, focusing on the thought of Dalton Waters and what might be happening in the next room.
“What do you hear?” Trista prodded.
He stopped. Stepped back from the wall. Blinked. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing at all.”
She was beside him. “What is it? What do you think you’ve found?”
His face turned to her, concerned. “Something connected to the Foster assassination, I think.” He turned back to the wall, resting his forehead against the back of his hand again. Thoughts strained to hear whatever it was that he thought he might hear.
It was like trying to push back a curtain of thorns. There was nothing but a thicket of his own ignorance, nothing to hear or see. Darkness in the mind’s eye. “Please, God,” he begged, “please show me something…anything.”
Whatever was happening in the next room was continuing on without him. Whatever window there had been was closing; whatever opportunity there had been was slipping. Every second there was something new, he thought, something that might save lives, that he couldn’t hear or see. He snarled to himself, pressing his forehead harder into his hand until it hurt.
Something touched his hand.
He didn’t look. He knew the feeling, the touch, the sensation of another hand touching his own. He knew the hand, the feel of her skin and the smell of her hair as she came closer.
Trista.
She held his hand with one of her own, holding on to his arm with the other.
His body relaxed. His mind quieted. His words silenced. And he felt them. A room of them.
“M14 rifles,” Dalton was saying, pointing to the bag. “Fully automatic, American made.” His finger pointing to a map. “Three crews. The van crew—here, then two other crews, shotguns and M14s. I want you in the bathrooms. When the shooting starts, Foster’s security will bring him in off the curb—their first destination will almost certainly be the security station…here. We need to cut off that route, cut off the exits, encircle, and kill.
“If we get him and you’re still breathing, then the getaway cars are going to be here and here. Worst-case scenario—there is the monorail that leads through Vegas and an access to it through the back of the hotel lobby. But we all know that this is a suicide mission.”
Nods of understanding and approval.
“We are very blessed to have been offered this chance by such well-connected people.”
More agreement.
“Gentlemen, we’re going to make America safe for decent white folks again.”
Hannah stretched as the charter jet touched down. It was time to get up and move around again. The wheels dragged with the usual screech, rubber and runways tearing at one another. It took several minutes for the plane to slow and taxi to its destination. The plane stopped, and there was a sudden sensation of loss as the tiny vibrations of the vehicle stopped and the engines went quiet.
Devin stood, took his cell phone from his pocket, and set it on his seat. He rubbed the back of his neck, then disappeared to the back of the plane, presumably into the lavatory. Hannah stretched again, and the phone chirped. She looked to the back of the plane—Devin was nowhere to be seen. The ringer sounded again, the vibrate function causing the tiny device to glide across the seat toward the edge. She reached for the phone, picked it up, and looked at the incoming caller: John Temple.
Hannah opened the phone. “Hello?”
“Hannah?” John asked, obviously confused.
“Devin is
busy. What’s up?”
“I think I’ve found our assassins.”
Hannah’s heart hopped. “Where?”
“They’re in the room next door.”
She scoffed, incredulous. “You’re kidding.”
“No. I even went for a walk with the leader before I realized what was going on.”
Hannah shook her head. It was surprising how normal horrible people with horrible plans could be. Or seem, at least. It always made her wonder if she was the strange one. “What are you going to do?”
“They make their move at ten a.m. tomorrow morning. I have an address and everything.”
The door opened, letting bright yellow light into the plane’s cabin in a vibrant splash. A man in a dark suit with a mustardcolored tie stepped up into the plan. “Miss,” he said without emoting, “you need to put down the phone. Mr. Goldstein would like to see you both.”
She nodded. “Just a second.” Devin returned from the back of the plane and Hannah reached out, handing the phone to him. “It’s John. He has a lead.” Devin took the phone and began to talk. Hannah turned to the man in the suit, following him down the steps of the small jet.
The Nevada heat—dry and blistering hot—hit her like a wall. The sky was blue, the searing sun getting low in the sky. Yellow sun bounced off of everything in globular swells of light, making it virtually impossible to see anything until her eyes adjusted.
Their jet had been parked twenty feet from another jet that looked nearly identical, noses pointed toward one another. Men in dark suits, sunglasses, and mustard-yellow ties seemed to swarm around her—ten of them? They were security, that was certain.
“This way,” one of the security guards said, leading her to a folding table two-thirds of the way to the next plane. “Please put your personal belongings on the table.”
Hannah unshouldered her bag, setting it on the table. “Are you security for the airport?” she asked.
“We’re Mr. Goldstein’s personal security,” the man said with a nod. “Please empty the contents of your pockets and turn them out for me,” he continued.