by Jon Land
“I was thinking more of your private stock.”
Carson’s smile vanished. “Huh?”
T.J. pulled a crumpled slip of paper from his pocket and read it off like a shopping list. “Five LAW rockets, a dozen M16s, an M79 grenade launcher and ammo, two dozen hand grenades. Oh, and did I forget to mention an M60 machine gun?”
Carson’s eyes shifted frantically to make sure no one else was nearby to overhear. “Are you out of your fucking mind, man? You want that kind of hardware, I got to check references. Cash or not, I never move the big stuff without knowing who I’m moving it to.”
T.J.’s .45 was out of his pants and against the proprietor’s forehead before he could blink. “We’re friends now, Car. Make an exception.”
CHAPTER 37
The Future Faith network’s number one program, “Sunday Morning Service,” was scheduled to be broadcast this week from the wastewater treatment facility in Boerne, thirty miles northwest of San Antonio. Since the day the cameras had caught his sermon atop the rubble of that school in Dixonville, Virginia, the Reverend Harlan Frye had made a practice of holding his service live in places least expected. The commercials advertising the fact that Boerne was next on the list had begun running throughout Texas Saturday afternoon, and Harlan Frye knew, as always, he’d be turning away more people than he could seat. By the time the Reverend got there thirty minutes prior to the 11:00 A.M. live broadcast, several thousand unfortunate but placid faithful who’d arrived too late to be seated were waiting outside the complex’s chain-link fence. The crowd cheered Frye and parted respectfully to allow his limousine to snail through them up to the front gate.
The Reverend shook a few of their outstretched hands on the way in and tousled the hair of children near his path. A touch on the shoulder soothed those who were crying, hands clasped in pleading prayer before him. They all wanted something, and Harlan Frye today was fully prepared to give them what they needed.
“Praise the Lord!” someone shouted.
“You’re the greatest, Reverend!”
“Love you, Reverend!”
Before entering the complex, Frye turned and spread his arms before them triumphantly. A swell of applause and cheers rose from his followers.
His director, Stu Allison, was waiting just inside the gate alongside a short man wearing a name tag and a white hard hat.
“Everything is all set, I trust,” Frye greeted, after he had stepped through the gate.
Allison shrugged. “As much as can be expected under the circumstances.”
“Circumstances?” Frye raised.
The short man slid in between them. “This place wasn’t exactly built with Sunday school in mind.”
“Sunday service, Mr., er …” Frye read the name off the tag. “Randall.”
“Nice to meet ya. I’m the plant manager, case you didn’t figure that out.”
The Reverend noticed Randall’s nose was mashed in the center and bent to one side, like a boxer’s. He seemed to be favoring his right shoulder.
“You ask me, Father, the city park ’cross the street’d be a better place to hold your service.”
“It’s Reverend,” Frye corrected. “And I have my reasons.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you do,” said Sal Belamo. “I guess we better get to it.”
The Daughters of the Republic of Texas have been custodians of the Alamo since 1905, responsible for the shrine’s maintenance, upkeep, and day-to-day operations. The four-and-a-half-acre plat lies between two major San Antonio streets, much of it enclosed by a combination of fully restored walls and black wrought-iron fences. The chapel shrine and the long barrack share the grounds with a combination museum and souvenir shop and a library that have been constructed to blend perfectly with their neighboring structures.
The chief of Alamo maintenance, Lantz Lecolt, was on the premises fifteen minutes after Bob Martinez’s call had come in the night before. The repair job was under way half an hour later, but by dawn it was obvious the Alamo would not be able to open today, much to Lecolt’s dismay. Christmas and Christmas Eve were the only days it was traditionally closed, and Lecolt had long prided himself on keeping the Alamo open through flood conditions, air-conditioning failures that ballooned the temperature in the chapel to a sweltering 110 degrees, and other crises.
This, though, was different.
“How bad?” asked Clara Marshall, head of the Daughters, upon returning just after ten-thirty Sunday morning.
Lecolt looked down from his perch on the recently erected scaffolding thirty feet above her. The chasm in the roof started a yard back from the chapel’s front facade and ran in jagged fashion virtually its entire length.
“Bad,” Lecolt shouted back, his reply drowned out by the sudden swirling of a circular saw. “But we can handle it.”
In the scant few hours since he had been called, the head of maintenance and his men had already begun the process of erecting a wooden restraining structure, essentially a truss placed under the imperiled section of the roof for support. One of his crews had put the scaffolding together, while another set about constructing the individual components of the truss under bright floodlights trucked in to permit work in the dark chapel. From where he was standing, Lecolt could reach up through the chasm. He crept along, his hand exploring the jagged remnants of the ceiling. They’d have to be neatly filed down before the patching process could begin. Lecolt had already obtained the specialized equipment he was going to need before the day was out, including a sandblaster, a portable cement mixer, and commercial-strength heat lamps to quicken the drying process.
“What caused it?” Clara yelled up to him, walking at his pace to keep up.
“Can’t be sure.” Lecolt stopped and leaned over. “Could be the weight of those damn air-conditioning compressors.”
“Structural engineers assured us the roof could hold them.”
“Hold them, sure. But the vibrations they make mighta damaged its structural integrity enough for the heavy rains to finally split it.”
“You check the rest?”
Lecolt nodded. “Sound for now.”
“When can we reopen?” Clara asked, dreading the answer.
“Tomorrow, if you don’t mind my people livening up the place and …”
Another whirling saw drowned out the rest of his words. Clara Marshall waited until the sound had ceased before responding.
“Awful lot of noise to put up with.”
“In two days I can have the hole patched.”
Clara breathed easier. “I guess the tourists can live with it.”
“Sure,” Lantz Lecolt agreed. “Just tell them the hole was made by cannon fire.”
As in the case of all “Sunday Morning Service” broadcasts, the logistics for today’s program had been worked out by Stu Allison in advance, based on the parameters Harlan Frye gave him. This morning that meant broadcasting from inside the plant where the third and final treatment stage took place, which disinfected the aerated water with chlorine. From there the resulting purified water would be discharged into the underground casements of Civolo Falls, which drained directly into the Edwards Aquifer.
“Where have we got the congregation set up?” Frye asked, ignoring the plant manager.
“A field around to the side,” Allison told him. He gestured in the field’s direction, and the Reverend glimpsed the rows and rows of his faithful waiting patiently before a platform that held tower speakers in lieu of his personal presence.
“Hey,” the plant manager interrupted, “you really need this many people on the grounds?”
Frye followed his gaze to the dozens of casually dressed Fifth Generation soldiers who had taken posts around and within the entire complex, according to Major Osborne Vandal’s specifications. Though none of their weapons were in evidence, their presence was nonetheless noticeable and intimidating.
“We’ve had problems crop up at some of our other services,” Frye explained. “Those men are a deterrent against anything unpl
easant happening on these grounds, Mr. Randall.”
“Hey, Father, I’m all for that.”
Frye’s face reddened as he fumed silently. “I think we can go inside now.”
“Whatever you say.”
The inside of the plant was more open than Frye had been expecting, a labyrinth of pipes running in all directions connecting tanks of varying sizes to each other. A glassed-in control room that looked like something more fit for NASA lay in the center of it all. Since it was Sunday, a crew of only three was at work inside, monitoring gauges and adjusting knobs and buttons. Along with the pug-nosed Bob Randall, these were the only men who seemed to be here other than his own. This surprised Harlan Frye. After all, he had the county and city of Boerne’s permission in writing for this shoot and had been expecting the usual bevy of local officials desiring to partake in the festivities.
“Over here,” Harlan Frye heard the plant manager say, as he led the way to the plant’s largest tank, located close to the right-hand wall.
The tank rose three of the four-story height of the building, rimmed at the top and across the center by dual catwalks accessible by a steel ladder. The only place Frye could conduct his service was high atop a semicircular platform at the tank’s south end where the ladder was positioned. Allison had done the best he could with the dim lighting by setting up some powerful floods upon the platform.
“Reverend.”
Frye turned away from the ladder and watched Major Osborne Vandal approach him. Vandal had had the premises thoroughly searched prior to his arrival to insure that McCracken and his cohorts were not lying in wait.
“The grounds are clear, sir,” he reported confidently.
“Keep the men on their guard, Major,” Frye cautioned. “McCracken will be here—I know it. I know his tricks, how he’s overcome comparable challenges before. The men posted are all in visual contact?”
“Of course, sir.”
“They are required to check in at regular intervals?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll need men in the surrounding fields, woods, and buildings—atop the buildings as well.”
“Already taken care of, sir.”
Frye looked away from Osborne Vandal and spoke to his director.
“Let’s get up there, Stu.”
The Reverend Harlan Frye completed his sound check at three minutes to eleven. He stood uneasily atop the grated steel platform adjacent to the chlorine-rich disinfection tank, barely able to gaze over into the clear water churning within it. The Reverend had been advised to wear goggles to prevent his eyes from being burned by the chlorine, but had discarded them because they made him look foolish and played hell with the lighting. People wanted to see his eyes, people needed to see his eyes. Otherwise, how could he expect them to believe? Every week the live broadcast of “Sunday Morning Service” was watched by eight million Americans, and Harlan Frye wanted them all to believe.
“On my mark,” said Stu Allison, eyes on his watch. “Ten, nine, eight, seven …”
“ … six, five, four, three …”
Outside, the assistant director cued the congregation seated in the makeshift pews set in the plant’s field that they were about to go on, just as Allison was cuing Harlan Frye. There would be no applause at the eleven-o’clock mark when the six cameras set up around the audience began their sweep. The participants had been told to simply do what came naturally; and since all were devoted followers of the Reverend Harlan Frye, this meant looking intently reverent and worshipful.
Allison pointed to Frye.
The assistant director pointed to the audience.
At the signal a sober, well-modulated voice filled the airwaves of America, emanating at the same time from the tower speakers set before the congregation in the field.
“Welcome to the ‘Sunday Morning Service,’ a presentation of the Future Faith television network. Today’s service is being broadcast live from Boerne, Texas. And now, speaking for the Lord, the Reverend Harlan Frye.”
Stu Allison cued Frye again, while his surrogate in the truck chose the proper close-up of the Reverend upon the platform, using the disinfection tank as a backdrop.
“Good morning, brothers and sisters, and I hope this as all Sundays finds you reflecting with family and loved ones on the successes and failures of the past week as we begin the next one. Each week is its own journey, friends, and we must strive not to submerge ourselves in regret over ground lost or become complacent over ground gained. A fresh start must be made with the coming of every Sunday, and fresh starts is what today’s service is all about.”
Frye started deliberately forward, Stu Allison ordering his surrogate in the truck to use the pause for a series of crowd shots. As planned, the sequence would finish with a full view of the treatment center itself that slowly pulled in on the single sign posted just outside the fence announcing what this site was. He cued the Reverend again when the sequence was complete.
“Every Sunday, brothers and sisters, the Church of the Redeemer takes its service and its message outside the walls of a traditional chapel into the world of people like yourselves. Today I speak to you from a place that symbolizes renewal; the renewal of hope out of hopelessness, of something from nothing.”
Television screens across America filled with various angles and shots of the treatment center’s interior, as the Reverend Harlan Frye continued.
“This facility, brothers and sisters, exists to salvage water from waste—the very essence of life from what has been discarded as refuse.” He smiled slightly, confidently. “What no one wants anymore, what no one sees any need for. How symbolic, friends, for does not this describe so many of our lives? …”
“Amen,” the congregation outside chanted, hands ringing the air, and cameras cutting to shots of it all.
“Are we not forever burdened by the wasted hours and wasted opportunities that weigh upon our lives every day?”
“Amen!” Louder.
“And so many of us never seek to salvage any part of what we have lost. We give up, we concede, convinced that nothing good can be gained from something bad.”
“Amen!” The loudest yet.
Televisions across the country were now filled with close-ups of congregation members, as the Reverend Harlan Frye continued to speak.
“And yet this facility takes what has been discarded and returns it to life. This facility takes what is ugly and revolting and squeezes, I say squeezes, something wondrous and life-giving from it.”
Stu Allison cut back to Harlan Frye, who had squeezed his fingers so tight that his fists were trembling. He stepped closer to the camera.
“On this Sunday, at today’s service, I come before you to say we must take heart in what happens in this place that is as holy as any I have ever stood inside of.”
Crowd shots again, the emotion beginning to show on the congregation members’ faces, many kneeling now at their seats in positions of prayer.
“Instead of accepting our mistakes and our misjudgments, we must recognize them and seek to take from them, to—” back to Frye squeezing his hands once more “—squeeze from them what we can so our own happiness may be salvaged and we might find meaning where we had thought there was none.”
Harlan Frye took a deep breath and withdrew from his pocket a test tube measuring nine inches long by one inch in diameter and filled with a clear liquid. Knowing congregation pans and close shots were being featured, he scanned the treatment plant’s interior, still half expecting Blaine McCracken to appear at any moment. The Reverend held the specially formulated test tube up to the camera when the focus returned to him. Minutes after sinking into the darkness of the tank, its contents would be released to mix with the chlorine injected into the system. By the time the water was discharged back into the system through another section of the plant, his poison would be spreading rampantly. Expanding until in a few days not a single faucet in San Antonio would be spared unleashing it.
“Brothers a
nd sisters, this is a simple chemical called chlorine,” he lied, grasp tightened on his test tube. “Simple and yet, when dropped into the tank behind me, it purifies the soiled water within so it can mix again in the world that tossed it aside. Purified once more, it gives life and sustains life.” The Reverend took two steps closer to the camera before him on the platform. “How many who have given up on life, who have become the spiritual equivalents of the sludge the soon-to-be-cleansed water in this tank was born from, cannot believe their lives can be made clean and pure again? How many would not gulp down a magic fluid such as this were it placed within their grasp?
“But there is no magic fluid for our lives as there is for the contents of this tank.” The Reverend Harlan Frye backpedaled until he was nearly against it. “There is no magic potion we can drink to soothe our ills and the wrongs of our lives.” His eyes fell on the test tube grasped in his hand, the camera zooming in on it. “And yet there is a way we can do for our lives what the contents of this does for the water.”
And with that, Harlan Frye reached over the edge of the holding tank and dropped the test tube in. He kept talking, barely able to discern his own words, which were spoken with a fire and intensity that represented new heights even for him. He did not lack for motivation today.
Judgment Day had dawned. The camera had recorded the precise instant for the Reverend to replay as often as he desired.
But no camera captured the moment when one of Frye’s Fifth Generation soldiers forced open the door to a storage shed on the outer rim of the complex to find six fully bound and gagged shapes inside. He had passed off the incessant tapping as the sound of water draining from a leaky pipe, until he drew close enough to realize it sounded like someone inside was trying to get his attention. The tapping, it turned out, was the result of one of the captives managing to work a hammer into his bound hands and rap it against the shed’s frame. He removed this man’s gag first.