“T and I studied one.”
“Then you know.”
“I sure do.”
“That was the most horrible thing I had ever seen. I didn’t get as close a look at these, but they’re monstrous. I could tell they were near the horizon, but they were so big I could see every detail. Are they not allowed to hurt us?”
“Tsion says they have the power to kill a third of the population.”
“But not believers?”
Rayford shook his head. “They kill those who have not repented of their sin.”
“If I didn’t repent before, I do now!” she said.
With the cook, his helpers, Fortunato, and his two aides aboard, Mac taxied out of the hangar and onto the airstrip south of the Global Community palace. Once airborne, he greeted the passengers over the intercom, informing them of the brief stop in Kuwait, then the four-thousand-plus mile flight to Johannesburg. Within seconds there came a loud rapping on the cockpit door.
“That would be Leon,” Mac said, nodding for Abdullah to unlock the door. “It’s time you met him anyway.”
Leon ignored Abdullah. “What’s with the stop in Kuwait, Captain? I have a schedule!”
“Good morning, Commander,” Mac said. “Our new first officer assures me we will land in plenty of time for your meeting, sir. Abdullah Smith, meet Supreme C—”
“In due time,” Fortunato said. “What’s in Kuwait?”
“Two birds with one stone, sir,” Mac said. “Director Hassid found a bargain on fuel, and our new cargo chief combined some deliveries, as long as we were headed that way. All told we’ve saved the administration thousands.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And your name again, young man?”
“Abdullah Smith, sir.”
“I’m hungry anyway. Could you use some eggs Benedict this morning, Officer Smith?”
“No, thank you, sir. I ate earlier.”
“Captain McCullum, I would have appreciated knowing of the schedule change in advance.”
“As I said, sir, it’s really not a schedule change per se. Just a bit of a route ch—”
The door slapped shut. Abdullah looked at Mac with his brows raised. “Charming man,” he said.
Mac depressed the button beneath his chair and listened to the cabin. “Karl, how are my eggs coming? Enough for all of us, yourself included?”
“Yes, sir, Supreme Commander, sir. I shall serve them on the ground—well, let me rephrase that. I shall serve them when we’re on the ground temporarily in Kuwait.”
“I’m hungry now, Karl.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I was led to understand that you preferred the quiet and lack of bouncing around that might be afforded while we’re refueling.”
“Who told you that?”
“The first officer, sir.”
“The new man? He doesn’t even know me!”
“Well—”
“We’ll see about this.”
Mac clicked the button and turned a switch so he could speak directly from his mouthpiece to Abdullah’s headset. In one breath he repeated what he had just heard.
“Thank you,” Abdullah said as the door resounded yet again.
“Your name again, officer?” Leon said.
“Smith, sir.”
“You told the cook to serve breakfast in Kuwait rather than in the air?”
“I merely informed him of our slight route change and suggested that you might appreciate it more if—”
“So it was your idea. You told him what you thought I’d like, yet you and I had never met.”
“I take responsibility, sir. If I was out of order, I—”
“You were only exactly right there, Smith. I just wondered how you knew how much I hate trying to eat, especially a dish like that, while bouncing around up here. No offense, Mac—er, Captain.”
Mac was tempted to call him Leon and tell him no offense taken. But he just waved. The Condor virtually flew itself, but Mac liked to give the impression, as Rayford liked to say, “of keepin’ my eye on the road and my hand on the wheel.”
“So, how did you know that, Officer Smith?” Leon said.
“I only assumed,” he said. “I would not want egg yolk or hollandaise on my shirt in an important meeting.”
At the ensuing silence, Mac turned to see if Fortunato had left. He had not. He looked overcome. He rocked back with his mouth open so wide his eyes were shut. He lurched forward with a hacking, coughing laugh and a slap on the shoulder that drove Abdullah back into his seat. “Now that’s good!” Fortunato roared. “I like that!” And as he backed out of the cockpit, pulling the door shut behind him, he repeated, “Yolk or hollandaise on my shirt!”
Mac depressed the button again. “I did not intend to implicate the first officer,” Karl was saying.
“Nonsense! Good idea! Serve us in Kuwait. How long will that be?”
“Just minutes actually, sir, is my understanding.”
“Good. This way I’ll go into my meeting with a clean shirt. You should have thought of that, Karl.”
CHAPTER 8
Leah’s safe was hidden behind her sons’ moldy pup tent high on a deck. Rayford helped her climb a perfectly vertical board ladder to it, then waited until she had pushed aside the tent and other junk. He followed and crouched behind her, aiming the light over her shoulder at the combination lock.
“How’d you get this thing up here?” he whispered. “It must weigh a ton.”
“We didn’t want the neighbors to know,” she said, her voice still shaky. “We were in here late, like now. My husband, Shannon, had had the safe delivered in a plain box, and he rented a hydraulic scaffold. One neighbor asked what it was for, and Shannon told him it was for roof repairs in the garage. Seemed to satisfy him.”
“So, once you got it up here, what, you two wrestled it into place?”
She nodded. “We worried the deck wouldn’t hold it.”
The safe was about three feet high and two feet wide, and Leah had not been joking when she said it was stuffed with cash. As she opened the door, she said, “We had to keep our other valuables at the bank.”
The safe was crammed with bundles of twenties. “We could use this at the safe house,” Rayford said.
“That’s why we’re here.”
“I mean the safe itself. We could never accept all this cash. There aren’t enough years left to spend it.”
“Nonsense. You’re going to need more vehicles, and you never know how many people might have to live with you.”
They quickly stuffed the bag with the cash. “This is going to be too heavy to carry,” he said. “Help me push it over the side.”
They duckwalked and grunted and dragged the bag to the edge of the deck. The bundles shifted, but they were finally able to push the bag free. It plopped to the floor, with a thud, sending up a cloud of dust. Rayford turned off the flashlight and held his breath, listening. “Can you see me?” he whispered.
“Barely.”
He signaled her to follow, and it was as difficult going down the boards as up. When he reached the floor he helped her the rest of the way.
“I suppose you think that makes you a gentleman,” she whispered.
“Only if you’re a lady.”
They bent over the bag, feeling the edges in the dark for the best grip. A bright beam shined in their faces.
“Are you Mrs. Leah Rose?” a voice demanded.
She sighed and looked at Rayford. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry, R—”
“Don’t say my name!” he hissed. “And you shouldn’t claim to be someone you’re not.”
“Are you Mrs. Rose or not?” came the voice again.
“I said I was, didn’t I?” she said, suddenly sounding as if she were lying. Rayford was impressed she had caught on so quickly.
“And you, sir?”
“Me, what?” Rayford said.
“Your name.”
“Who’
s asking?”
“GC Peacekeeping Forces.”
“Oh, that’s a relief,” Rayford said. “Us too. I was asked by Commander Sullivan to mop up here. Looters ransacked the house after your boys finished up. He wanted us to secure the garage.”
Someone flipped a switch and the bare bulb just above Rayford’s head came on. He squinted before four armed GC officers, three men and a woman. “What were you doing in the dark?” the leader said. He wore lieutenant’s bars.
Rayford looked up. The bulb was within an arm’s length. “We heard something outside and doused the light.”
“Mm-hm,” the young man said, approaching. “I need to see some ID.” Behind him the woman eyed Rayford with uncertainty. One of the other men looked up at the deck.
“I’m Pafko,” Rayford said, desperately trying to remember which pocket he used for his phony ID. “Andrew. Here it is.”
“And you, ma’am?”
“She’s Fitzgerald.”
“And my papers are in the car,” she said.
“Lieutenant,” the other guard said. “There’s an open safe up there.”
The lieutenant handed Rayford his ID. “You weren’t planning on a little looting yourself, were you, Pafko?”
“Every penny will be accounted for.”
“Mm-hm.” He turned to the woman. “Double-check with Central. Pafko, Andrew, assigned out of Des Plaines. And Fitzgerald. First name, ma’am, and assignment city?”
“Pauline,” Leah said. “Also Des Plaines.”
The woman reached for the phone strapped to her shoulder.
Rayford almost skated, but the call would expose him. They would both be easily identified, maybe tortured and killed if they didn’t reveal the rest of the Force. He deserved that for not being more careful, but Leah certainly didn’t.
“No need for that, Lieutenant,” Rayford said. “Before letting headquarters know where we are, shouldn’t we have a look-see to find out if maybe all six of us would be better off forgetting we were here tonight? I’m as loyal as you are, but we both know the Rose woman was a rebel sympathizer. If this was her money, it’s ours now, isn’t it?”
The lieutenant hesitated, and the female guard took her hand away from the phone. The lieutenant knelt by the bag.
The woman said, “You’re buying this? You think he’s GC?”
He looked up at her. “How else would he know why we were looking for Mrs. Rose?”
She shrugged and went to peer at the safe. The other two guards moved to the door, apparently to check for curious eyes. Rayford ran a hand through his hair. Was it possible he had four willing accomplices?
He caught Leah’s eye and tried to communicate to follow his lead. She looked as petrified as when she had seen the horses. Rayford casually stepped between the lieutenant and the door. Leah stayed with him.
The lieutenant saw the cash and whistled through his teeth. The men moseyed back in to look, and that brought the woman over too. With their attention on the bag, they allowed Rayford and Leah a step closer to the door than they were. Leah could have slipped out without being noticed, but Rayford couldn’t say anything, and she didn’t move.
“There’s plenty for everybody all right,” one of the men said. The lieutenant nodded, but Rayford noticed the woman staring at Leah. She dug a stack of sheets from her back pocket and riffled through them. She stopped and raised her eyes to Leah.
“Lieutenant,” the woman said.
“Let me show you one thing,” Rayford interrupted, reaching into the bag and pulling out a bundle of twenties. “Figure there’s fifty twenties in each bundle.” He held it at one end and let the stack flop back and forth. The woman reached for her weapon. Rayford raised the bundle. “Wouldn’t it be nice to divide these, and—go! Now!” Rayford smacked the lightbulb with the cash, and the garage went black.
He spun and sprinted after Leah as she raced through the side door. He heard a shot and wood cracking and was aware that the lieutenant’s big flashlight had come back on too. As he and Leah sprinted over the slippery ground, he guessed their odds of reaching the Land Rover at no better than one in five. But he wasn’t about to stand there and be arrested.
Someone hit the automatic door button, and Rayford heard the garage door rise. He sneaked a peek back, and the opener light showed all four guards coming full speed, weapons raised. “Faster!” Rayford shouted as he turned back toward Leah. But she had stopped. He slammed into her, and they both tumbled over and over in the grass.
Something had given way. Had his leg broken, or had he crushed one of hers? Why had she stopped? She had been moving well! They’d had a chance. The Land Rover was in sight. Would the GC shoot? Or would they just arrest them? Rayford would rather be in heaven than endanger his loved ones. “Let’s make them shoot,” he rasped and tried to rise. But Leah had drawn up on all fours and was staring toward the car through strands of hair in her face.
Rayford looked back. The guards were gone. He looked the other way, where Leah’s eyes were transfixed. And there were the horses, not ten feet from him—huge, monstrous, muscular things twice the size of any he had ever seen. Leah was right, their feet were not on the ground, yet they shifted and stepped back and forth, turning, turning.
Flames came from their nostrils and mouths, and thick yellow smoke billowed. The fire illuminated their majestic wide heads, the heads of lions with enormous canines and flowing manes. Rayford slowly, painfully rose, no longer surprised that Leah had been rendered helpless when first she had seen them. “They won’t hurt us,” he said weakly, hopefully, panting.
He trembled, trying to take in the scene. The first flank of steeds was backed by hundreds, skittish and moving in place as if eager to charge and run. The riders were proportioned every bit as large as the animals. They appeared human but each had to be ten feet tall and weigh five hundred pounds.
Rayford swallowed, his chest heaving. He wanted to check on Leah, but he could not look away. The horse in front of him, hardly three paces away, stutter-stepped and turned in a circle. Rayford gaped at a tail consisting not of hair but rather a writhing, sinewy serpent with a head twice the size of Rayford’s fist. It writhed and bared its fangs.
The riders seemed to gaze miles into the distance, high over Rayford’s head. Each horseman wore a breastplate that, illumined by the flames, shone iridescent yellow, deep navy, and fiery red. Massive biceps and forearms knotted and rippling, the riders seemed to work to keep the animals from stampeding.
Rayford neither heard nor smelled the horses or the fire and smoke. He only knew they whinnied and snorted because of the flame and clouds. No sound of reins, saddles, breastplates. And yet the lion/horses and their riders were more vivid than anything he had ever seen before.
Rayford finally stole a glance at Leah. She appeared catatonic, unblinking, mouth open. “Breathe,” he told her.
Had God provided these beings to protect them? Surely the guards had run for their lives. Rayford turned again and at first saw nothing between him and the garage. But then he noticed all four guards on the ground, perfectly still.
He heard sirens, saw helicopters with searchlights, heard guards running, shouting. “We have to go, Leah,” he said. “We can walk right through the horses. They’re not physical.”
“You there!”
Rayford whirled. Two guards nudged the fallen four with their boots while shouting at Rayford and Leah, “Stay where you are!”
They approached cautiously, and Leah finally turned from the horses to look over her shoulder. She whispered, “I think I broke a rib.” She squinted at the guards. “Aren’t they afraid of the horses?”
What was wrong with these two? As they drew near—men who appeared in their early twenties—they leveled high-powered weapons at Rayford and Leah. Rayford knew the horses were still behind him because of the reflection of the flames dancing off the guards’ faces.
“What do you know about those dead security guards?” one said.
“Nothing,
” Leah said, still on all fours. “What do you think of our army?”
“Stand up, ma’am.”
“They can’t see them,” Rayford said.
“Can’t see who?” the guard said. “Come with us.”
“You don’t see anything,” Rayford said without inflection.
“I told you to stand up, ma’am!” the other shouted. As he stepped toward her, Rayford stepped in front of him.
“Son, let me warn you. If—”
“Warn me? I could shoot you and never have to answer for it.”
“You’re in danger. We didn’t kill those g—”
The guard burst into flames, his screaming, spinning body lighting the area like day. A horse moved past Rayford and silently spun, its tail striking the other guard on the forehead. He flew like a rag doll, his head crushed, into a tree ten feet away.
Leah slowly came to her feet, sweat dripping from her chin. She reached for Rayford as if in slow motion. “We’re . . . going . . . to . . . die,” she managed.
“Not us,” Rayford said, finding his breath. “Where does it hurt? Press your palm over the pain.”
She held her left rib cage, and Rayford wrapped his arm around her waist, walking toward the car. He squinted against the flames, walking through the horses as if through a hologram. Leah hid her face behind his shoulder.
“Are they in another dimension? What is this?”
“A vision,” he said, knowing for the first time that they would escape. “Tsion was right. They’re not physical.”
They were in the middle of the herd now, Rayford unable to see the end, feeling like a child in a sea of adults. Finally they passed through the last row of horses and saw the Rover a hundred feet away.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Except that I’m dreaming,” she said. “I’ll never believe this tomorrow. I don’t believe it now.”
Rayford pointed half a mile to the west where another cavalry of fiery horses and riders mustered. Leah pointed the other way, where there were yet more. Behind them the hundreds they had just come through seemed to move toward Leah’s town house.
They got into the car and Rayford drove straight down her street, something he had not dared earlier. The horses breathed great clouds of black and yellow smoke that chased GC forces out of the neighborhood, many falling and seemingly dying on the spot. As the smoke billowed through the area, people burst from their homes, gagging, coughing, falling. Here and there the horses snorted enough fire to incinerate homes.