by Ethan Cross
Either way, Marcus didn’t like it. Why would Jansen have been guarding the elevator if he’d been supposed to start the fires?
Marcus moved cautiously through the sanctuary. In the center of the pentagram, he saw the boy bound by the feet and arms with leather restraints and lying flat on a bench. A black cloth covered the bench and hung all the way to the floor, making it look like some dark sacrificial altar. Benjamin’s gaze was distant and was fixed on the recessed ceiling.
The smell of lighter fluid was strong in the air, and there was more than had been found at the other scenes. The room was soaked in it, and the quantity of accelerant had turned the entire chapel into a tinderbox. When the fire was set, it would burn anyone inside to ash.
It didn’t make sense. Conlan would kill the boy as well. But then again, none of what Conlan did was supposed to make sense to a normal, sane person. Such was the nature of insanity.
Marcus thought of Conlan’s elegant antiques shop with the torture chamber in the basement. It was just like the man himself: charismatic and charming on the outside with a darkness at the core.
Then he suddenly realized the significance of the items he had found in the basement of Conlan’s shop. He pictured the cardboard box and the spool of wire.
The box had read AlphaFire 1Q – Wireless Radio Firing System – For Fireworks Pyrotechnical Display. It was a remote igniter triggered by a hand-held radio-control unit designed for use in commercial fireworks displays.
The spool of wire had been labeled as Resistance heating wire, Nichrome, 32 awg, 50ft. Nichrome was the material that lit up inside a toaster. When electric current passed through it, the wire would glow and burn extremely hot.
Hot enough to ignite the lighter fluid.
Which meant that by linking the igniter and the wire, the Prophet could start the fire from anywhere that was in range at any moment.
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Schofield had tugged at his restraints until his wrists were chafed and bleeding. But he hadn’t made any headway with brute force and had ultimately given up. He would have to trust Marcus to save his family. The man definitely seemed capable.
And a part of Schofield was glad. He wanted to be the hero for his family, to stand up against the Prophet and save them. But he also feared that confrontation. He felt powerless and hollow. His head fell against the window, and he wept against the glass, the cold surface at least making him feel something other than pain and regret.
Opening his eyes, he wiped the tears on the sleeve of his blue coveralls and then looked across the road at Daley Plaza. He had always found the design of the red and brown building strange because its support pylons were on its exterior.
As he examined the building’s facade, he squinted through the snow into a protected recess in front of the center’s lobby. There was someone standing there. He looked closer, and he felt his stomach climb into his throat.
The man was looking up expectantly at the Chicago Temple Building. Schofield could just barely see the bandages covering the man’s face. It could only have been one person. The Prophet.
The man who had destroyed his life—the man who might have been his real father—was just across the courtyard. And Schofield knew what he had to do. Maybe he’d get to be the hero after all.
But he was still restrained and powerless.
Schofield tried to calculate the variables. If he couldn’t break free by force, maybe he could by other means. Examining the yellow plastic cuffs, he noted their similarity to zip ties. They operated using the same roller-locking mechanism. He had once seen his wife unlock a zip tie using a straight pin. He examined the retention block of the cuffs. It looked like there would be just enough room to fit something small between the roller lock and the straps. That would block the roller lock from contacting the teeth on the straps and allow him to pull slack into the restraints and slide his hands free.
But he would need something small to slide between the straps and the lock.
He checked the time on the Yukon’s dashboard. Less than three minutes until three a.m.—the devil’s hour.
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With his tungsten-coated knife in the closed position, Marcus tossed it to Andrew and said, “Cut the women free, and get them out of here. I’ll find the igniter.”
He checked his watch. If Schofield was right about the timing, Conlan would be sparking the fire in less than two minutes. His gaze traveled over their surroundings. If he could find the device, it would be easy to disarm. After all, it was just a cheap remote fire-starter designed for firework displays. It didn’t have fail-safes or sophisticated circuitry like a bomb. But it would also be fairly small, and there were a lot of places to hide such a device.
Marcus’s heart was pounding, and his stomach was churning in knots. He needed to find the detonator, but something else was bothering him and clouding his thoughts. Maggie wasn’t there in the sanctuary. The two abducted women, Schofield’s wife, and his two daughters were all bound in place around the pentagram, but Maggie wasn’t among them.
Did the Prophet kill her? Is she a hostage?
But he couldn’t afford to worry about that. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand and attack the problem logically and methodically.
First, he scanned the areas he could see. Nothing.
Then he ran around to every recess, nook, and cranny. He checked behind the X-shaped support pillars that surrounded the chapel. He checked behind and around the altar and behind a small electronic piano shoved against one wall.
But there was nothing there.
His breathing was quick and ragged. The adrenaline pumped through his system at high speed and made his muscles shake. He resisted the urge to check his watch. The Prophet could be igniting the fire at any second.
Andrew had freed the first two girls, but he couldn’t just undo the harnesses that held them in place. And so he had been forced to saw through them with the knife. It wouldn’t be fast enough to get them all out.
Marcus knew it was up to him. He had to find the igniter before time ran out. But there was nowhere else that it could be hidden.
He scanned the room again. Then a third time. Still nothing. No obvious hiding spots. But it had to be there. He just wasn’t seeing it.
Willing himself to stay calm and logical, he asked himself where he would have hidden it. He forced himself to think like Conlan. He thought of the words in Conlan’s writings that he had found in the Wisconsin compound. Words like The Chosen and The Great Fire.
The boy was the center. The key. The spark.
Conlan would want the fire to originate from Benjamin.
Marcus rushed forward to the center of the pentagram and slid to the ground beside the boy. Benjamin’s eyes now looked frightened and confused. Marcus couldn’t imagine what the boy had been through. Benjamin would need extensive counseling, but first he would have to survive beyond this night.
The lighter fluid saturating the floor soaked up into Marcus’s jeans. It felt slick and oily and cold.
He pulled up the black cloth that had been draped over the bench beneath the boy’s bound form. And there, beneath the shroud, he saw it. The igniter was a simple black box with a silver antenna and a few buttons and switches on its face. A small LED light was shining bright green. Below that Marcus found a switch with three positions marked Test, Off, Fire. It was in the Fire position.
Marcus switched the unit to Off. And, just to be sure, he pulled out the length of nichrome wire from the device’s black and red electrical ports and snapped off the receiver’s antenna.
Then, for the first time in several hours, he allowed himself a deep sigh of relief.
But the sensation was short-lived as his worry for Maggie crept back over him. Where was she? And where was the Prophet?
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Protected from the elements inside a recess in front of Daley Center, the Prophet watched the highest place, awaiting the proper moment. The anticipation had caused his heart to race and sweat to form on h
is body despite the cold. The Work would finally be completed tonight, and in the new world that rose up from the ashes of the old, he would be a god.
He checked his watch. The hour of reckoning had come, and it was time to spark The Great Fire. From his jacket pocket, he removed the remote for the igniter system. It was a simple device made from hard black plastic with a silver extendable antenna and a sliding plate that covered the ignition button.
The Prophet used his thumb to guide the protective cover gently back, revealing a bright red button. He stepped into the falling snow and stretched his arms out reverently at his sides. He dropped to his knees on the cold ground and raised his gaze to the highest place. Then he pushed the button.
But nothing happened.
He hadn’t expected an explosion, but he had imagined that he would see the fire burst to life within the chapel’s windows. But there was nothing there. No fire. No sign of anything out of the ordinary.
He heard the sound of approaching police sirens and knew that he had failed. Somehow the slaves had discovered the site of the ritual and had ruined everything.
A wave of sadness so abysmal that it made him consider taking his own life on that very spot swept over him. The Colt Anaconda .44 Magnum pistol resting in his jacket pocket felt heavy against his side. He imagined putting the cold barrel of the gun against his temple and squeezing the trigger.
But he couldn’t do that. This was just another test. He had come so far, but he had failed again. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. He would do The Work until the last breath of life was torn from him by the slaves and their false deity.
The Prophet would never give up. He would find a new Chosen and start again.
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Rage driving him, Harrison Schofield searched for a way to free himself from the restraints. He needed a small piece of metal like a pin, but with his hands bound above the dashboard, he couldn’t even search for one.
He checked the clock. It was time.
He looked across the courtyard at his father. The Prophet was on his knees, his head hanging low. Something must have gone wrong. Marcus must have succeeded.
Schofield wished that he could feel joy, because in that moment he knew that it would have been a marvelous explosion of relief and happiness. But those emotions couldn’t penetrate his damaged heart and tainted soul. He felt a sense of relief but no joy, just the same hollowness. He realized now who was responsible for placing that sickness inside him, and it was his job to ensure that the man atoned for his many sins.
Schofield raised his right foot to the dashboard and pulled off his shoe and sock. Then he used his toe to pull back the release on the glove box directly in front of him. The compartment fell open, and he scanned inside for anything that he could use. It contained only a few papers and vehicle manuals. But there was one stack of registration documents bound together by a small silver paperclip.
Contorting his body to its limits, he slid his foot inside the dashboard and pushed the stack of papers out onto the floor mat. Then his feet fumbled over the papers until he reached the stack containing the paperclip. It took a few seconds of his toes groping blindly over the papers until they could find a hold. But he was able to maintain a tenuous grasp on them and slowly bring the stack up to the dashboard where he could reach it with his hands.
He quickly removed the paperclip and straightened it. With some effort, the small piece of metal slipped between the roller lock and the straps, and when he tugged the straps against the grain, he found that the locking teeth had lost their grip. He pulled his right hand free and didn’t bother with the left. Time was running out. The Prophet would soon realize that the ritual had failed and would slip into the night to destroy the lives of some other family.
He couldn’t allow that to happen.
Earlier in the evening, he had seen Marcus retrieve ammunition from a set of hard plastic boxes in the back of the Yukon. Schofield’s hope was that there would be weapons within the boxes as well.
With the plastic cuffs still dangling from his left hand, he threw open the passenger door and ran to the back of the black SUV. Inside the rear compartment, he found the containers and searched inside them.
Schofield was shocked at what he found. It was a veritable smorgasbord of weaponry and ammunition. There were thousands of rounds and several handguns, but the weapon that caught his eye was a compact and futuristic-looking automatic rifle.
Quickly loading a long magazine with thirty rounds of .45 ACP ammunition, he slammed it into the weapon and took off after the Prophet.
He could see Conlan moving away from Daley Center, heading north on Dearborn Street. Schofield could guess where the man was headed. One block north and one block east and the Prophet could slip into the Red Line subway station on State Street.
The air was cold and felt heavy in his lungs as he ran down Dearborn. The snow stung his cheeks. The Prophet was walking slowly and calmly, trying not to arouse suspicion. Schofield could hear the sirens coming. Police would be swarming over the Temple Building and Daley Center in just a few seconds.
Willing his legs to pump harder and faster, he fought to close the gap between himself and the Prophet. The older man was only a hundred feet away.
Then Conlan glanced over his shoulder and saw Schofield. Their eyes locked.
But Schofield didn’t slow down. He pressed forward even faster, closing the distance to seventy-five feet.
Conlan pulled a massive pistol from his coat. Its long stainless-steel barrel shimmered under the street lamps.
Fifty feet.
Conlan raised the pistol and fired. The powerful handgun roared and bucked and shot flame from its tip. Due to the late hour and the blizzard, the Chicago streets were as quiet as Schofield had ever heard them. The crack of the gun filled the silence and echoed off the glass of the neighboring buildings.
The first bullet sailed wide, just over Schofield’s shoulder. He heard it strike a car that he had just passed. He didn’t allow himself to stop or even hesitate.
Thirty feet.
He watched as Conlan aimed the .44 magnum.
Schofield aimed too and squeezed back on the the trigger of the rifle. He saw Conlan’s gun buck in his bandaged hand. Schofield’s weapon thundered to life. It was in fully automatic mode, and within just two seconds, the entire magazine of .45 ACP rounds had been exhausted.
Not all the rounds struck their mark, but enough of them did. Conlan’s body shook from the trauma, and he wailed in pain as the bullets pierced his flesh.
Schofield watched events unfold, even as he fell to the ground himself. He felt warm and confused and nauseous. It took a few seconds for the pain to register in his abdomen. But, for some reason, he couldn’t feel the snow stinging his cheeks anymore. He felt light-headed, and a numb floating feeling spread through his legs and penetrated his core.
He knew what was happening. Death had its cold fingers around him, probing his body, searching for a soul to carry away. And it was for the best. The circle was complete. He had ensured that the Prophet would never harm another person. It was as happy an ending as he could have ever hoped for.
A part of him wished that he could have seen his family one last time. Telling them that he loved them. Holding them close. Saying he was sorry.
But another part of him knew that they were better off without him. Their lives would continue. Eleanor would remarry. The kids would grow up. They would be happy. He wouldn’t be there to see it, but in that moment, he knew that it would come to pass.
As Schofield thought of those happy memories yet to be created, he felt strangely at peace.
He looked up into the night sky. The snow falling through the darkness seemed to glow in the light of the street lamps and looked like a million shooting stars.
He wondered if God was looking down at him. He asked for forgiveness and was reminded of a story from the Bible. He had never read the book himself, but he was familiar with the story of the thi
ef on the cross. As Jesus was being crucified, a thief sharing the same fate asked the Lord to remember him. Jesus told the man that he would be with him in paradise.
Schofield wondered if God could also forgive him or if he would be cast down with the devil.
With that question still hanging anxiously in his mind, the numb feeling overtook him, and he slipped away.
Day Eight – December 22 Morning
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The disorientation swirling in Maggie’s mind from the drugs that Ackerman had administered made her surroundings seem vague and blurry. She floated in and out of consciousness, but images penetrated the haze in small flashes. She saw the inside of a car, felt the bumps of a road, heard the tires sloshing through the snow and the engine humming.
Then it seemed as if she blinked and was somewhere else, on a sidewalk. But she wasn’t walking. She was moving forward, but not by her own volition. She looked down and saw a red and orange afghan blanket covering her body and wheels moving across the sidewalk. A wheelchair?
The world seemed dark and brown, and she realized absently that she must be wearing sunglasses. There was a heavy weight on her lap beneath the blanket. It felt cold and metallic. She tried to move her arms but found them paralyzed and held in place, either by the drugs or some kind of restraints.
A nauseous fluttering burned in her guts, and she opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. There were several people passing by on the sidewalk and cars were zooming down the street, but no one paid her any attention.
Maggie blinked again, and more time slipped away. Now she was in a building, riding on an elevator and then moving through some kind of atrium. People packed the space. There were hundreds of them, all moving quickly and holding shopping bags. She tried to call out to them, but no sound could penetrate the fog enveloping her mind. The atrium was tall and open and surrounded with glass and storefronts. A shopping center? A mall?