Blasphemy wf-2 Read online

  Hazelius’s even breathing was his only response.

  “You gathered around you twelve scientists—handpicked by you. When I read their dossiers, I was struck that every one of them had been hurt by life, every one seeking meaning in their lives. I wondered why that was. And now I know. You handpicked them because you knew they were susceptible—ripe for conversion.”

  “But I couldn’t convert you, huh?”

  “You came close.”

  They paused. The faint sound of voices reverberated down the tunnels. The mob was returning.

  Hazelius let out a long sigh. “We’re both going to die—I hope you realize that, Wyman. We’re both to be . . . martyred .”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “Yes, my intention was to start a religion. But I don’t know what the hell happened back there. It got away from me. I had this plan . . . it just got away from me.” He sighed again, moaned. “Eddy. That was the wild card that blew my hand. A foolish oversight on my part: martyrdom is the way of all prophets.”

  “How did you do it? I mean, hack the computer?”

  Hazelius slipped the old rabbit’s foot out of his pocket. “I hollowed out the cork stuffing, replaced it with a sixty-four-gig flash drive, processor, microphone, and wireless transmitter—voice recognition and data. I could connect it to any one of a thousand high-speed wireless processors scattered about Isabella, all slaved to the supercomputer. It’s got a lovely little AI program I wrote in LISP, or rather helped write, since much of it’s self-generated. It’s the most beautiful computer program ever written. It was simple to operate, just sitting in my pocket. Although the program itself was anything but simple—I’m not sure even I understand it. Strange, though, it said a lot of things I never intended—things that I never dreamed of. You might say it performed beyond specs.”

  “You manipulative bastard.”

  Hazelius slipped the rabbit’s foot back into his pocket. “You’re wrong about that, Wyman. I’m not a bad man at all. I did what I did for the highest, most altruistic reasons.”

  “Sure. Look at the violence, all the death. You’re responsible for it.”

  “Eddy and his people chose the violence, not me.” He winced with momentary pain.

  “And you either murdered Volkonsky or had Wardlaw do it.”

  “No. Volkonsky was a smart man. He guessed what I was up to. When he really thought it through, he realized he couldn’t stop me. He couldn’t bear to see himself made a fool of, his life’s work manipulated and disgraced like that. So he killed himself, making it look like a suicide, but with a few anomalous details so they’d end up thinking it was murder. Double-reverse psychology, typical Volkonsky. He had a uniquely devious mind.”

  “Why make it look like murder?”

  “He hoped the investigation would eventually engulf the Isabella project, shut us down before I could pull my coup. Didn’t work, though. Events moved too fast. I accept responsibility for his death. But I didn’t kill him.”

  “What a futile damn waste.”

  “You’re not thinking it through, Wyman . . . .” He breathed heavily for a moment, and resumed. “This story is just beginning. You can’t stop it. Les jeux sont faites, as Sartre once said. The great irony is that they are going to make it happen.”

  “They?”

  “That fundamentalist mob. They’re going to supply a far more powerful end to this story than the one I had devised.”

  “Your story will end in futility,” said Ford.

  “Wyman, I can see you don’t understand the full dimensions of what is happening. Eddy’s unwashed masses . . .” He paused and Ford, to his dismay, could hear the faint sounds of the mob getting closer. “. . . They will kill me, martyr me. And you. In so doing, they’ll anoint my name . . . forever.”

  “I’ll anoint you a madman, forever.”

  “I grant you that is how most normal people would perceive me.”

  The voices became more distinct.

  “We have to hide,” said Ford.

  “Where? There’s no place to go and I can’t move.” Hazelius shook his head and, in a low, hoarse voice, quoted the Bible. “‘They will call to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us . . .’ Just as Revelation says, we’re trapped.”

  The voices were getting closer. Ford removed his pistol, but Hazelius placed a clammy, trembling hand on his arm. “Acquiesce with dignity.”

  Bobbing lights flashed from the darkness. The voices swelled as a dozen filthy, heavily armed men surged around a curve in the tunnel.

  “There they are! Two of them!”

  The crowd emerged from the murk, black and ghoulish as coal miners, with guns drawn, white streaks of sweat like bars down their grimacing faces.

  “Hazelius! The Antichrist!”

  “The Antichrist!”

  “We’ve got him!”

  Another distant explosion shook the room. The hanging rock of the ceiling loosened and let loose a storm of pebbles, which clattered to the floor, hailstones from hell. Coal smoke drifted in tendrils through the dead air. The mountain quaked again and another cave-in down the line growled and rumbled, coughing smoke through the shafts.

  The crowd parted and Pastor Eddy walked up to Hazelius. Standing over the stricken scientist, his hollow, bony face grinned in triumph. “We meet again.”

  Hazelius shrugged and averted his eyes.

  “Only now, Antichrist,” Eddy said, “I’m in control. God’s at my right, Jesus on my left, and the Holy Spirit has my back. And you—where’s your protector? He’s fled—Satan, the coward—fled to the rocks! ‘ Hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb!’ ”

  Eddy bent over Hazelius until his face was inches from the scientist’s. And then he laughed.

  “Go to hell, germ,” Hazelius said softly.

  Eddy exploded with rage. “Search them for weapons!”

  A group of men approached Ford. He let them come, decked the first one, kicked the second in the stomach, and slammed the third into a rock wall. The others converged with a roar of fury, and a small army of fists and feet finally drove him to the wall and then to the ground. Eddy pulled the SIG-Sauer out of Ford’s waist band.

  During the melee one enthusiastic worshipper kicked Hazelius in his broken leg. With a sobbing gasp, the scientist passed out.

  “Good work, Eddy,” said Ford, pinned to the ground. “Your Savior would be proud.”

  Eddy glared at Ford, his face red with fury, as if he might strike the man, but then he seemed to have second thoughts. “Enough!” Eddy shouted at the crowd. “ Enough! Give us room! We’ll take care of them in our own way, the right way. Get them on their feet!”

  Ford was dragged to his feet and pushed forward, and the group began to move. Two burly men hauled the comatose Hazelius along by his armpits, his nose streaming blood, one eye swollen shut, his crooked leg with the broken bone dragging.

  They reached another large, cavernous stope. Lights arrived from a side tunnel, bobbing in the murk. There was a burst of excited talk.

  “Frost? Is that you?” Eddy called.

  A beefy man dressed in camo with a tight blond crew cut, massive neck, and closely set eyes pushed through. “Pastor Eddy? We found more of them, hiding downshaft.”

  Ford watched a dozen armed men herd Kate and the others at gunpoint. “Kate . . . Kate!” He wrenched himself free and struggled toward her.

  “Stop him!”

  Ford felt a massive blow to his back, which sent him to his knees. A second blow knocked him on his side, and punches and kicks laid him flat. He was hauled back to his feet so roughly it almost dislocated his shoulders. A sweaty man, his face streaked with coal dust, his eyes white and rolling like a horse’s, struck him across the face. “Stay in line!”

  Another distant rumble and the ground convulsed. Dust jumped up from the floor, billowing through the tunnels. Layers of smoke collected in layers along the ceilings.

  “
Listen to me!” Eddy cried. “We can’t stay down here! The whole mountain’s on fire! We’ve got to get out!”

  “I saw a way up top back there,” said the man called Frost. “A drift-shaft was opened up in the explosion. I could see the moon at the tunnel’s end.”

  “Lead the way,” said Eddy.

  Armed men shoved and prodded them with guns through dark, dust-choked tunnels. Two of Eddy’s followers hauled the unconscious Hazelius by the armpits. Moving through the murk, they crossed another massive stope. The lights played through the gray dust, revealing a huge cave-in, with a mountain of rubble leading up into a long, dark hole in the ceiling. Ford gulped down the fresh, cool air streaming from above.

  “This way!”

  They started up the pile, staggering up the loose, sliding scree, rocks rattling down around them.

  “Up from the Bottomless Pit of Abaddon!” Eddy cried triumphantly. “The Beast is yoked!”

  At the head of the mob the two followers dragged Hazelius up, through the jagged hole in the ceiling rock, the rest being pushed along by men with guns. The hole led to a higher stope and, from there into another shaft, at the end of which Ford saw a momentary light—the gleam, quickly extinguished, of a single star shining in the night sky. They emerged into the night of the mesa through a long diagonal crevasse. The air stank of burning gasoline and smoke. The entire eastward horizon was ablaze. Reddish-black clouds of smoke rolled across the sky, obscuring the moon. The ground rumbled continuously, and now and then a flame leapt up a hundred or more feet like a blood-orange banner fluttering into the night sky.

  “Over there!” Eddy shouted. “Into that open area!”

  Crossing a dry wash, they stopped in a broad, sandy depression, dominated by a giant, dead piñon tree. Ford at least got close enough to Kate to ask: “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but Julie and Alan are dead — caught in the cave-in.”

  “Silence!” Eddy shouted. He stepped into the open area. Ford was amazed at his transformation from the high-strung preacher he had first met. Calm and self-assured, his movements were now deliberate. A .44 Super Blackhawk revolver was shoved into his belt. He paced and turned before the crowd, raised a hand. “The Lord delivered us from bondage out of Egypt. Blessed be the Lord!.”

  His flock, a few dozen worshippers, thundered back: “Blessed be the Lord”

  Eddy bent over the supine scientist, who opened his eyes, coming to.

  “Stand him up,” Eddy said quietly. He pointed to Ford, Innes, and Cecchini. “Hold him tight.”

  They reached down and, as gently as possible, raised Hazelius to his one good leg. Ford was astounded the man was still alive, let alone conscious.

  Eddy turned to the crowd. “Look into his face—the face of the Antichrist.” He walked in a circle and his voice throbbed out, “‘And the Beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.’ ”

  A muffled boom threw a distant ball of fire into the air, casting a lurid glow over the proceedings. Eddy’s gaunt face was briefly silhouetted by the orange light, which highlighted his blackened, hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes. “‘Rejoice, for God hath avenged you!’ ”

  The crowd cheered but Eddy raised his hands. “Soldiers in Christ, this is a solemn moment. We have taken the Antichrist and his disciples, and now the judgment of God awaits all of us.”

  Hazelius raised his head. To Ford’s surprise, the scientist fixed Eddy with a supercilious sneer—half grin, half grimace—and said, “Pardon my interruption, Preacher, but the Antichrist has a few anticlimactic words for your illustrious flock.”

  Eddy held up his hands. “The Antichrist speaks.” He took a bold step closer. “What blasphemy comes from thy lips now, Antichrist?”

  Hazelius raised his head, his voice strengthening. “Brace me,” he said to Ford. “Don’t let me slip.”

  “I’m not sure this is wise,” Ford murmured in Hazelius’s ear.

  “Why not?” Hazelius whispered grimly. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  “Listen, soldiers in Christ, to the words of the false prophet,” Eddy said, his voice tinged with irony.

  74

  FROM A PILE OF SANDSTONE BOULDERS, Begay scanned the darkened horizon with his binoculars. It was 2:30 A.M.

  “There they are. Huddled up in that grassy flat, scared shitless.” The horses milled about, dark silhouettes against a red sky.

  “Let’s go get ‘em,” said Becenti.

  But Begay didn’t move. He had trained the glasses eastward. The eastern point of the mesa was gone—blown away. Below the blasted notch lay a huge scree slope of rubble, burning coal, tangled metal, and rivers of burning fluid that spread out and ran down the gullies like lava from a volcano. The entire eastern side of the mesa was on fire, smoke and flame pouring out of holes in the ground and leaping into the air. Once in a while a piñon tree or juniper would flare on top of the mesa, lighting up like a lone Christmas tree. Despite a wind blowing the smoke away from them, the fires were spreading rapidly in their direction. There were occasional explosions, with dust and flames shooting up, the ground sagging, then collapsing with an upwash of black dust and smoke. Nakai Valley itself had caught fire, the trading post and houses in flames, along with the beautiful grove of cottonwoods.

  Before the explosion, at least a thousand people had gathered in that place. Now Begay, scanning the hellish mesa with his binoculars, could see only a few scattered people wandering shell-shocked among the smoke and flames, crying out, or simply stumbling about silently, like zombies. The flow of cars up the Dugway had ceased and some of the parked cars had caught on fire, the gas tanks exploding.

  Willy shook his head. “Man, they did it. Old Bilagaana finally did it.”

  They descended the rockpile, and Begay approached the horses, whistling for Winter. The horse pricked his ears and a moment later trotted over, the others following.

  “Good boy, Winter.” Stroking his neck, Begay clipped a lead rope to his halter. Several of the horses had been saddled in preparation for departure, and Begay was glad to see they hadn’t shucked them. Switching his own saddle from the horse he was riding to Winter, he cinched it tight and swung up. Willy mounted his horse bareback, and they began hazing the nervous horses toward the Midnight Trail, which lay opposite the conflagration. They moved slowly, keeping them calm and on high ground where the footing was sure. As they topped a rise, Becenti, who was in the lead, paused.

  “What the hell’s going on over there?”

  Begay rode up beside him and raised his binoculars. A few hundred yards away, in a sandy area, a group of men had collected. They were filthy, like they had recently emerged from a caved-in area of ground, surrounding a group of what appeared to be ragged, dirty prisoners. Begay could hear jeering.

  “Looks like a lynching,” said Becenti.

  Begay examined the prisoners more closely with the field glasses. With a shock, he recognized the scientist who had visited him, Kate Mercer. And some distance from her was Wyman Ford, holding up what looked like an injured man.

  “I don’t like it,” said Begay. He started to get off his horse.

  “What are you doing? We got to get out of here.”

  Begay tied the horse to a tree. “They might need our help, Willy.”

  With a grin, Willy Becenti swung off his horse. “This is more like it.”

  They crept up to the group, finding cover behind a screen of boulders. They were less than a hundred feet from the assembly and concealed by the darkness. Begay counted twenty-four men, with guns. Everyone was blackened with coal dust. Faces from hell.

  Ford’s face was bloody and it looked like he’d been beaten up. The other prisoners he didn’t know, but he guessed they must also be scientists from the Isabella project, given the lab coats they wore. Ford held one of them up, the man’s arm slung over his shoulder. The man had a badly broken leg. The crowd was spitting a
t them, jeering and cursing. Finally, a man stepped forward and raised his hands, quieting the mob.

  Begay could hardly believe his eyes: it was Pastor Eddy, from the mission down in Blue Gap—except the man was transformed. The Pastor Eddy he knew had been a confused, half-crazy loser who gave away old clothes and owed him sixty bucks. This Eddy had an air of cold command, and the crowd was responding to it.

  Begay hunkered down and watched, Becenti next to him.

  EDDY RAISED HIS HANDS. “ ‘AND THERE was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies!’ My Christian friends, the Antichrist will speak. Witness with me his blasphemy.”

  Hazelius tried to speak. The burning of Isabella flickered in the background, the sheets and pillars of flame leaping up and spreading, and he was drowned out by a series of sharp explosions. He began again, his voice stronger.

  “Pastor Eddy, I have only one comment to make. These people are not my disciples. Do what you want with me, but let them go.”

  “Liar!” someone shouted from the crowd.

  “Blasphemer!”

  Eddy raised a forebearing hand and the crowd fell back into silence. “No one is innocent,” he shouted. “We’re all sinners in the hands of an angry God. Only by God’s grace are we saved.”

  “Leave them alone, you demented bastard.”

  Not much chance of that, thought Ford, looking around at Eddy’s flock, howling for Hazelius’s hide.

  Hazelius weakened, his good leg buckling.

  “Hold him up!” Eddy roared.

  Kate came to Ford’s side and helped hold the scientist up.

  Eddy turned. “The day of God’s wrath has arrived,” he thundered. “Take him!”

  The crowd lunged at Hazelius, crowding around him, pushing him this way and that as if fighting over a rag doll. They struck him, shoved him, spat on him, beat him with sticks. One man slashed him with a piece of cholla cactus.

  “Tie him to that tree.”

  They dragged him toward a massive, gaunt, dead piñon, the crowd struggling with him like a clumsy, hundred-footed beast. They lashed one wrist, threw the rope end over a stout branch and pulled tight, did the same with the other wrist, and tied them off, so that Hazelius was half-hanging, half-standing upright, arms apart. His clothes hung in tatters from his filthy body.