“That old memory was just the tiniest shadow of this new experience. The sense of being so close to Him made me feel like I’d been somewhat of a recluse all my life, a hermit who’d never even been in the company of another being. And unlike being forced unpleasantly close to others like the way you feel on elevators, this was an extreme closeness that I craved. In fact, I desired it beyond any longing I’ve ever felt.
“You have to understand: His person was radiating—all at the same time—unthinkable power, vast wisdom and knowledge, a solemn and kingly sensation I can only call majesty, along with this incredible love I’ve been talking about. If I could have crawled up inside this personality somehow, I would have. I wanted it as close to me as I could get.
“It’s taking me this long to describe it, but I have to say again that the actual experience didn’t take any time at all. This was all one very rich and complex sensation. Because in like no time at all, we’d left the earth behind and were flying over the shores of something new. Something beyond the experience of any living human.”
NEARBY ROOFTOP
The tiny receiver in Dylan’s ear buzzed with the vibration of an incoming voice. He winced, feeling his grip on the rifle barrel waver slightly. The crosshairs poised on the young woman’s chest barely trembled—but at this distance, it was easily enough of a deviation to throw his shot far off course, his trajectory magnified by 324 yards of rising air, a fitful morning breeze, and the impact of shattering vinyl glass on a descending bullet.
“Can you make it?”
“Eighty percent chance. But you gotta know—the camera’s aimed straight in my direction. If I take it, I’m blown.”
“Aren’t you in good cover?”
“Excellent. But it’s not that. There’ll still be a whale of a muzzle flash. As soon as I take the shot, I’ll have to egress within seconds. Expose myself. Everything about me—my weapon, uniform, my body, my direction of escape. I’ll be identified by NSA within an hour.”
“Can you take out the camera first?”
He breathed out and hesitated, thinking. “Much harder. The angles, the margins, they’re all much tighter. I’d have to hit straight on.”
“Can you disrupt in some other way? Cut the building’s power maybe? My brothers are climbing all over me to shut her up.”
“Their video camera will be battery driven. I suppose a warning shot through the window would make them stop and seek cover. But I doubt that it would be a complete guarantee. Look, I’m using the scope mostly for recon. I wasn’t really considering a shot. My verdict is, if you want the interruption to look benign, you’ll have to wait. My only options will be high profile, high impact. Impossible to conceal.”
A vicious oath buzzed through the earpiece.
“Then wait. She’s already done the damage, anyhow. But you hear me good. This has to happen soon. Very soon.”
CHAPTER
_ 17
ABBY'S HOSPITAL ROOM
Mara McQueen now sat beside Abby’s bed in a hospital chair whisked over after a glare and an imperious gesture at her assistants, demanding something in which to sit. Comfortable in her bed nearby, Abby stared ahead, fully immersed now in the account and oblivious to anything physical happening around her. Just a moment before, technicians had removed the distraction of the late afternoon sunlight by pulling shut the shades and curtains.
“I guess I should have known that actually seeing heaven would blow off their hinges every notion or fantasy I’d ever dreamed of. I mean, my friends accuse me of having an overactive imagination anyhow. But now, having seen it for myself, it’s like my mind never even touched on it before. Like I’d never even pictured it at all, although I had so many times.
“But the real experience was so much more intense, more vivid, more joyful, more comforting, and more ecstatic than I ever allowed myself to imagine. And of course that in itself is unbelievable. I mean think about it: When’s the last time something you’d fantasized and dreamed of since childhood turned out to be not only as great as you’d imagined, but a thousand times better? I’m not very old, but I’m already used to the familiar pattern of having everything I’d fawned over as a girl turn less shiny and glorious than I’d always pictured it. I’d kind of accepted that that’s how life is. Making the most of unmet expectations.
“Heaven was the radical opposite of that. Now, when I think about it, I should have known. I mean God is infinitely creative and resourceful. A bit of a showman, I might add. He never misses a chance to knock our socks off with an outrageous display of beauty in His creation.
“But this was the ultimate. The greatest example of all.
“The first landmark was this huge gate. I don’t know how large it was, because I didn’t know how high I was flying above it. But if you think the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is a big arch, well, this one dwarfed it. And I have no idea what it was made of—it looked as solid as stone, but it shined so brightly that it almost seemed to glow from the inside. And it was probably the most intricately shaped structure I’ve ever seen, just crawling with carvings of angels and beautiful faces and these long, flowing shapes.
“As I passed above it, I saw three groups of people in pretty much identical formations. In each case, a single person walked alone toward the gate from the same direction I’d flown. And just beyond the arch stood this crowd of people, awaiting the one walker. I could hear calls of greeting and these kind of touching outbursts that seemed drenched in love, even if you’re too far away to hear individual words. I heard snatches of delight and welcome. The sounds of people who’ve missed each other terribly and are being reunited at last.
“Then the gate was past and I was flying into the face of this energy I’ll just call light, because that’s the easiest way to describe it. Problem was, it was far more than just brightness or warmth or brilliance itself. I mean, for sheer intensity I’m sure it rivaled the sun, but it was far more. First of all, like a rainbow it seemed to hold every color in existence, in such a richness and intensity that I felt for a second like someone who’d worn dim, crusty old sunglasses her whole life and had just now gotten permission to tear them off. I wondered for a moment if someone had replaced my world with a shinier, brighter, younger version of itself. Everything around me was crisp and colorful beyond any standard of measurement. I even remember seeing colors I’d never seen before, which seems impossible now, because I know what the spectrum is and I’ve seen my share of rainbows. But still, there they were. I was just . . . stupefied.
“I laughed out loud, in part out of wonder at everything I was seeing, but also because it seemed that joy, even love, was just infused in the air around me. See, as awesome as the colors were, this light contained more than color. Its bandwidth, if you want to use tired-out Internet language for something like this, was much broader than that. It was also made up of emotions. Good ones, that is. Great ones.
“Mara, I just don’t know if I’m conveying this in a way that sounds halfway coherent or makes any sense. The problem is, there are just no words for what I’m trying to describe. . . .”
NEARBY ROOF TOP, DYLAN'S OBSERVATION PERIMETER — ONE MINUTE LATER
No reply had come back in the thirteen minutes since the Manhattan boss had asked for a pause. Dylan closed his eyes and innately realized that, despite Manhattan’s indecision and his clear orders to wait, this was the kind of tunnel-visioned client who would irrationally turn around an hour from now and blame him for the consequences of delayed action.
He rose from kneeling and slapped a holstered handgun onto his belt. He pulled out his wallet and sifted through a small stack of business cards. Selecting one, he crammed the others into a front pocket.
“Listen, you watch all you want,” he spoke into his radio mouthpiece. “I’m going in, and I have an idea. Please, no voice traffic. Listen in if you want, but I’ll call you later to check in.”
Without waiting for an acknowledgment, Dylan flipped the frequency dial on his belt radio, stood
to his full height and began running straight for the shadowed hulk of the hospital wing.
ABBY'S HOSPITAL ROOM —THE NEXT SECOND
“And so I found myself responding without even thinking about it—laughing out loud for no reason. If I’d been on earth, you’d have thought I was bipolar or in need of some serious tranquilizer. But I was just fine. In fact, just fine in a truer way than ever before. I felt like I’d come home, to a home I never even knew I’d left.
“And that’s not even the best part of moving forward into this light. Probably the most amazing thing I experienced just then was the music.
“Song was everywhere.
“I say song because just calling it music seems to oversimplify, even trivialize it somehow. It was so much more than just a sound or a melody. I even wonder if it can be called sound, it was so complete an experience. Part of it was breathy, like a million harmonized voices in total ecstasy. You might have mistaken it at first for some awesome melody being pumped in from someplace.
“First of all, this music was everywhere. I felt like I was inside it, rather than just a front-row hearer. My whole body was part of the instrument. I felt every part of me resonate like some tuning fork that’s waited its whole life to give out just the perfect pitch. Inside me, even. Not only did it penetrate every inch of me, I was music.
“The only way I remembered that it came from other places was that every few seconds, just barely in hearing range, I’d hear a word, or part of one that I couldn’t quite make out but I just knew was praise to God. It was an expression of adoration so perfect and exquisite that it took me a second to realize it was actually a nearly infinite number of layers of praise. Then I found that I could tell each song from the others. A few of the melodies came from classic hymns I remembered as a young girl. Some of the words were those of popular choruses from church days. Others were straight from the Bible—psalms and words of Jesus. Once or twice I heard hallelujah or praise God, although they were just a few words among millions.
“Still, this let me know that the music was coming from the mouths and lungs of real people, all around me. In fact, since the singers of these songs were somewhere just beyond my sight, it came to me that the reason I could even hear these songs was because they were praise. As though the adoration inside them was the force that powered them, made them strong enough to be heard, broadcasting them into the air.
“And you know how, sometimes in the best earthly songs, sometimes there’s rhythms and melodies that barely belong together, and then at the song’s peak they seem to bend toward each other and resolve in a harmony that’s so poignant, it just snaps this little string in your heart? Well, these songs were like an ocean of those. As if all these people were singing their own individual, very different praise tunes, very serenely, very softly, except that instead of clashing with each other, a soft current was lifting each one up and mixing everything together into a blend that was so much more beautiful than the sum of its parts. Those kinds of exquisite resolutions kept weaving into each other, over and over again. And my heart kept aching at the sweetness of each one.
“I kept wondering if this music was being lifted toward me and my companion as we flew over. I was never sure exactly. But I was highly aware that the presence behind me was the object of all this adoration. Again, it’s so hard to describe how, except I sensed almost physically that all this love was gathering, concentrating, on a point just behind my back. And what flowed out from Him in return—in some ways I couldn’t even look at that emotion through any of my new ethereal senses. It was so powerful, so pure. But just let me say that it was joy—joy more intense than an industrial-strength spotlight, pouring into my face.
“Would you believe that wasn’t even the coolest part?
“There was something else about this music that’s maybe the hardest of all to describe. I suppose it would be best just to say it outright.
“I heard the sound of angels’ wings. And it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.”
CHAPTER
_ 18
At this point, Abby leaned forward and her voice refused to convey any more words. Mara leaned forward too, her face shining with tears, and clasped Abby’s hand. The handheld microphone held so tightly during the introduction was gone now, replaced by an intrusive handheld boom hovering like a bat just out of sight. With Abby’s account halted, tiny sounds could be heard around her like the whirring of a tape recorder, the crew’s breathing, and even an odd sniffle coming from Mara and some of those behind her.
Abby smiled and shook her head, taken aback by the point in the story where her self-control had chosen to run out.
“You all right, honey?”
Abby’s lips moved, but the word yes remained mute upon them.
Determined to regain control, Abby righted her torso in the bed, sighed, and wiped her eyes vigorously.
“Okay, I’m ready. I’m almost through, anyway.
“I realize now how weird it sounds, and I have no idea why, after everything I’ve described, that it’s the brushing of angels’ wings that sets me off like nothing else. But the sound had a haunting, startling, and yet somehow peaceful quality I will never, ever forget. It was faint, and delicate, and it was totally clear in every second of the music. Somehow it formed its own melody and moved in its own soft rhythm. And even though it didn’t stop for a moment, it just went on with the richest variety of any piece of music I’d ever heard. For some reason I never felt compelled to look and see where exactly they were coming from. Maybe I wasn’t convinced I’d ever find their source. You have to remember that just like with the songs and the music, there was such a gentle chaos swirling all around me that I’d given up trying to nail everything down. I decided to just let it all swim over me. Or maybe I didn’t consider the sight of them near as important as hearing their presence confirmed for the very first time.
“Maybe the wings’ motion was my own guardian angels’ way of singing, of giving praise. Maybe it was their way of announcing me in a way, of ushering me into heaven. I’m not sure. Either way, that sound just stays with me. In fact, I just realized why.”
Abby broke away from her eye contact with Mara and looked around her as if she’d just arrived in the room.
“I know. It’s because I’ve started hearing them here. Now. In this world. Just barely out of hearing, but more and more often, and clearer since my first vision. I hear them around those times when I catch one of those eternity moments, you know, one of those rare flashes when from out of the blue you get this mysterious little dose of pure joy or insight or encouragement. One of those little lightning bolts from heaven, when your darkest moment gets obliterated by something you just know comes from outside of you. Just then my ear cocks the slightest bit, all on its own. It does that because I’ve heard the faintest rustle, and my entire soul, my whole body even, leans toward the sound—what’s that word, keening?—for it’s like a good hunting dog leaning toward the sound waves of a silent whistle.
“I do know that right after I became aware of the sound, I started to descend. I’d been flying pretty high above this whole scene, you know. We started to turn back toward the gate. And as we did, I became aware of the actual streets of this city. And I know you’re gonna start to doubt me here, or think I’m being way too literal. But here’s what I saw—”
“No, no, Abby,” Mara interrupted, her eyes scanning a sheet of paper just handed to her by an assistant. The sheet, in fact, bore tracking information from real-time ratings and viewer response sources from all across the country. Mara’s eyebrows rose.
She was impressed.
“Well, we kept moving downward,” Abby continued. “And with every second, each of these things got more vivid and intense. The light, the beauty, the joy. Then I saw the city itself.”
Abby turned straight into Mara’s gaze, startling the diva from one more perusal of the ratings results. “Did you ever think the Bible meant it literally when it said that heaven would h
ave streets of gold?”
Mara scrunched up her face like someone who hadn’t given the subject much thought. “Uh, like most people I guess I always thought it was figurative language,” she replied. “A metaphor for great value, something of high worth.”
“Yeah, and although I’m not sure I ever thought about it directly,” Abby said, “if you’d asked me, I would have probably answered something like that too. But it’s not true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, they’re actually made of gold. I saw them. Paving bricks of solid gold. Only the gold wasn’t this clunky yellow like I saw once in an old Sunday school comic book. It was a rich gold like solid honey, so pure I could see into each stone, and like the arch they glowed so beautifully that I had a hard time figuring if they were lit from some inner source or just reflecting all the light around them.
“And on every side stood these rows of the most incredibly cool, diverse, inviting buildings. Every shape and size and layout you could ever dream up if you went to architecture school for a hundred years.
“On these streets I saw a middle-aged woman walking, and I remember she looked up at me. I’d like to say she gave me a smile, only there was already one on her face. Even all by herself, while walking down the street, she was grinning from ear to ear. Seeing me only made her smile widen a bit more, as if her world was so crammed full of things to be happy about that she only had to turn her head to see another.
“Just fifty feet away stood this family who had just walked through the gate. I knew this because I had seen them greet each other a moment before. They were still celebrating, surrounding the newcomer, a woman in her early forties, clapping and laughing and tossing up praises to God. The young woman was absolutely boo-hooing with joy—I know because I listened hard to see if this would be the first sound of sadness or pain I would encounter here, only to find the weeping was completely blissful and euphoric.
The Watchers Page 11