Michael heard it first. Virga saw him lean forward almost imperceptibly, and then he also heard the loud static-garbled Arabic voice:
“…impossible to accurately count this mass of people…also members of the press from the United States, the Soviet Union, England, Germany, and Japan…the officials cannot maintain order. Already the ambulances have been…but the medical centers that have been set up here are being ravaged by those in search of drugs. I don’t know if transmission is getting through…”
Michael swung the jeep to the curb and cut the engine. In the broken window of a housewares store, amid shattered goods and displays, were three televisions. Two of them were overturned and useless but the third was still operating, though the picture faded in and out. The volume had been turned up to full. The voice of a man on the brink of panic blared out into the street.
“…but we’ll try to keep you informed.” The newsman, a slim sunglassed Arab, stood on a platform over what appeared to be an endless sea of heads. As he spoke into a microphone he kept looking over his shoulder at the mass of humanity beneath him. Virga saw that the platform shook as bodies crushed around its base.
The newsman said, “…some call him the living Muhammad, some call him devil, but there is no mistaking the strength of this man. He has declared himself the unreachable, the untouchable savior of man and hundreds of thousands have gathered here to pay him homage. Even now I can look across and see… I can see the fires of the old city. On this site he has proclaimed the beginnings of the new age of Baal and the Baalians gathered here will soon strike the first stone into the foundations of his city. Now he…” Static overpowered the voice and Virga put his hands to his ears. When the picture had cleared the camera was panning and he saw the horrible mass of them, some groveling in the sand and others dancing wildly, both clothed and nude. In the distance there were trucks with emblems of both Middle Eastern and foreign television networks. The camera towers rose up like derricks.
“…I have never witnessed anything like this,” the newsman said. The platform shook. He put a hand to the railing for support. “I feel a mixture of elation and fear. I can’t describe it. I only pray that what is happening here is indeed for the good of all mankind…”
Michael sat rigid in his seat. He was motionless, staring at the television. Behind the two men, across the street, flames burst along the roof of a building and timbers cracked.
“There are people here from around the world,” the Arab was saying. “This is totally without parallel. There are those who say that Baal was born with the mark of heaven. From birth, they say, he was destined to lead men to the gates of greatness. It is only for the future to decide. This is without a doubt the beginning of a new age…” He touched his earphones and listened for a moment. The picture became unfocused as tubes cracked suddenly, then regained its sharpness. “Yes…yes. It’s been verified now. Yes. He is walking among the crowd now! Look at them! You can see them falling to their knees, wave after wave of them, as he passes into their midst! I can see him!” The camera panned, jerking crazily, until it had picked up the tableau of kneeling figures. People were lifting up their faces for his touch as he passed. Virga recognized the tall frame of the man who had faced him over the chessboard. Baal, though still in the distance and almost obscured, touched his fingertip to upturned faces and Virga saw the forms collapse in a writhing ecstasy.
“He’s out there among the masses now!” the newsman said. “This is the first time we’ve been able to get a good picture, though we still can’t quite see—” The platform suddenly shook violently. The newsman shouted, “Watch that boom! Get away from there!” Someone in the background, a technician, shouted, “Move away from the platform!”
The newsman was still trying to regain his composure. “The officials cannot control this crowd,” he was saying, “and to move among them is a great risk… I saw someone fall a moment ago and he was trampled; the power of the crowd is too much…” He swung around and watched the moving figures as the camera photographed over his shoulder.
Suddenly Michael leaned forward. His eyes had caught something Virga had not seen.
“What was that?” the newsman shrieked. The platform shook. The crowd was pushing forward and Virga heard something like a low moan, growing in intensity. “I’ve just heard something!” said the newsman. “I don’t know what it was!” He tapped on his earphones. “Hey! What was that? Hassan! Do you hear me?”
He listened through the earphones. Behind him the crowd surged forward. Screams and moans drowned out the voice of the newsman as he frantically shouted into his microphone. His face had suddenly become gaunt and ashen.
Virga was only peripherally aware that the row of buildings on the opposite side of the street were completely afire and smoking timbers were crashing down onto the pavement all around.
“…a few moments ago. We still don’t know who or why…” The newsman looked up as if he were not certain he was still on the air. He nodded at someone. “Hassan is out there with an audio unit but he’s having trouble communicating… I can’t hear very well. Right now… I think only two bullets were fired… The crowd is still moving forward. GRAB THAT EQUIPMENT!” The platform shuddered and swayed. Something crashed. “IT’S GOING OVER!”
Behind Michael and Virga one of the buildings exploded in a belch of black smoke. Bits of concrete skittered along the broken sidewalk. Virga ducked his head instinctively.
The newsman was leaning over the railing. “THEY’RE TEARING HIM TO PIECES! THE MAN IS BEGGING FOR MERCY BUT THEY’RE TEARING HIM TO PIECES!” He put his hand to the headset. “What? Get out of there! Those people will tear you apart!” Then, directed back into the microphone, “Someone, a Jew, has fired two bullets into Baal at point-blank range! They’re lifting Baal…they’re taking him somewhere… I can’t see for the people crowded around him… They’re putting him in a car but the people are still crowded around. GET AWAY FROM HIM! GIVE HIM ROOM!” The Arab stopped to catch his breath. Tears of either rage or frustration were glittering on his cheeks. Static blurred his voice when he spoke again.
“…I have a report…he is seriously injured… I repeat, Baal is seriously injured. There is no controlling this crowd now… They’re ripping at each other… The Jew who held the gun is—he’s been torn and scattered… We’re going to have to radio a helicopter to get us out of here! The car is pulling away… I don’t know where they’re going to take him, I don’t know who fired the shots, I don’t know…” He suddenly pitched forward and caught the handrail again. Beneath him fights were erupting; the screaming of the crowd was loud and bloodthirsty. The newsman cried out, “GET AWAY FROM THE PLATFORM! WATCH THAT CABLE! GET AWAY FROM THE—” and the television screen was suddenly a solid blank, cracked occasionally with a black line of static.
Michael started the engine and jammed it into gear. Across the street another building exploded. Ashes were raining down. Virga had to grab hold of the dash with his good hand to steady himself. Michael drove through the holocaust as if pursuing something, or as if something were pursuing him. He drove over curbs and down narrow stinking side streets and across the charred remains of elegant homes. Virga gritted his teeth and held on for life. The jeep plunged through the ruins of the modern section into the ancient section of the city, where already the ashes were cold and only occasional red flames lit the way in a morass of black earth and gray sky. Virga glimpsed, for an instant, the scorched walls and towers of Musallim’s palace in the distance, above the burned remains of other dwellings.
They swerved onto a long street paved with rough, broken squares of stone. On both sides were high walls, veined with cracks and bearing painted Arabic slogans. Doorways were cut directly into the stone; here and there Virga saw sprawled corpses.
The engine suddenly screamed. Michael was ramming his foot down on the accelerator. Virga cried out, “What the hell are you doing?”
Ahead of them was a gleaming black limousine with closed blinds across the
rear window. It was racing across the rough stones, its wheels trembling from the impact of crashing down again and again. Michael was bearing down on the limousine; his eyes were purposeful, his jaw clenched. They roared up on the left side of the car and Virga saw that closed blinds obscured the rear seat. The driver of the limousine had been unaware of their presence; he looked over and his eyes widened.
And Virga saw it was the man named Olivier.
Michael swerved the jeep to the right. Metal crashed against metal. Rubber burned. Virga shouted out, realizing that Michael was deliberately trying to run them into a wall. Virga saw fingers pull down a blind. The eyes that stared through were black, something from a nightmare. The fingers let go and the blind snapped back.
Michael wrenched at the wheel over Virga’s shouted protests. This time Olivier met him in the middle of the street and the two vehicles, like bulls with locked horns, roared together. Something, a small piece of metal like a hubcap, flew up from beneath the limousine and went spinning past Virga’s head. He crouched down, hearing the wail of metal beside his ear.
Olivier was trying to drive the jeep into the wall now. The limousine was screaming, forcing the other vehicle closer and closer to those stones. They were going so fast that the handwritten slogans on the ancient walls were now only a solid smear of primary colors. Metal crashed again; the jeep shuddered and Michael’s hands were bone-white on the wheel. The limousine was driving them toward the wall. A headlamp smashed and glass went flying. Virga caught a glimpse of Olivier’s face, grinning like a bleached skull. The jeep hit the far wall and the noise of rending metal sounded like the shrieking of a man’s voice. And Virga realized it was his own.
Michael slammed on the brakes. The limousine scraped along the side of the jeep, then regained the middle of the street and roared away. The veins in his neck throbbing, Michael fought the wheel to stave off a headlong crash; he pulled the jeep away from the wall with only a slight reduction of speed, then he too had reached the middle of the street. Far ahead the limousine swerved sharply and disappeared around a corner.
They followed, seeing the limousine as it turned into a side street ahead. They lost sight of it again as it made another sharp turn.
In another few moments they came into full view of Musallim’s palace. Masonry had crumbled until the place looked unused and decrepit; ashes had settled everywhere like a layer of dust. It seemed to be deserted; Virga could see neither guards nor dogs. The gate had been torn from its hinges. The jeep raced through into the courtyard. Michael skidded the vehicle up across the driveway and onto the scorched ground where it spun in a fishtail circle. The engine died.
He took the key from the ignition and looked around. There was no sign that anyone had ever been here. It could have been a mass of charred brick and shattered glass a thousand years before and no one would have known the difference. Virga saw that the huge door of the palace had been wrenched open. Now the entrance yawned obscenely.
Michael stepped out of the jeep. Before he could move there came a whine of engines gathering power and in another moment, before either Michael or Virga could cross the grounds to the private airstrip, a gleaming white aircraft burst along the black tarmac and took to the sky. A last correction of the rudder, a minor shudder along the tail, and the banshee wail of the engines had lifted, along with the aircraft, toward the northwest.
Michael stared at its slipstream. Then he said, as quietly as if he were speaking to himself, “I’m too late.”
“What did you expect to find here,” Virga asked. “This place has been destroyed. They’ve all gone.”
“Yes. Now they’ve all gone.”
“Where would they take Baal? With the hospitals afire there would be no one to treat the wounds.”
Michael seemed not to be listening. He ran a hand along his forehead and then looked at the black ash his fingers had accumulated.
“Did you hear me? We’ve got to find where they’ve taken Baal.”
“What?” he asked, then seemed to remember what Virga had said. “Baal was on board that aircraft. Probably they’re leaving the country. Even the continent.”
“What? How do you know?”
“I know,” Michael said.
“Surely he’ll bleed to death without medical attention. Where are they taking him?”
Michael turned away without answering. He walked back across the barren grounds to the open entrance with Virga following. Michael stopped just short of the doorway and stood peering into the dank, filth-walled interior. “Something is wrong,” he said quietly.
“A trap?”
“I’m not sure. It seems that no one is here…and yet… Follow directly behind me and walk quietly. All right?”
“Yes,” Virga said. “All right.”
Michael stepped through and Virga followed, minding his footing on shards of broken glass and burned tapestries. The interior was ruined. The walls were scarred and burned black, carpets torn to pieces, huge mirrors shattered, exquisitely ornamented furniture ripped apart as if by axes. There was the heavy pall of smoke, the thick garbage stench of it; this place had been murdered and already smelled of decaying flesh. Michael turned to him to make certain he could go on and then they continued together through the corridors past huge rooms and marble staircases. Beneath them their feet slipped on human excrement and glass.
There was no sound. They’re all gone, Virga thought. All of them. The disciples as well as their wounded master had vanished. They moved silently through the darkness; the corridors wound about them as if they crawled in the intestines of a burned carcass.
And then there was the sharp noise of glass breaking from behind closed doors on one side of the corridor. Michael tensed and waited, his hand gripping Virga’s forearm to prevent him from moving, but the noise did not repeat itself.
Michael set himself and kicked through into the room beyond. The doors collapsed from their battered hinges and fell with a resounding crash to a floor of cracked stone.
They stood in the remains of what had been a dining hall. Chairs were overturned, scattered wildly about a charred, ash-topped table. There were still food-smeared dishes and pewter goblets arranged as if for a banquet. Three of the goblets had overturned and the liquid had collected in slimy puddles. Blue clouds of smoke still wafted about the room, swirling like spirits of the dead. Above the odors of smoke and decay there was something else, something that made Virga grind his teeth against its presence. It was the sickly sweet smell of the burial vault. He felt Michael tense beside him.
Someone sat at the table.
Someone who had slumped forward, overturning a crystal decanter, and whose face was now hidden in shadows. The figure, dressed in a man’s ragged clothes, was emaciated and pale-fleshed. Virga gasped as he saw the terrible dark blotches on one of the exposed arms. The figure stirred, turning his face toward the muddy light that streamed through shattered doors.
“My God,” Virga said. “It’s Naughton.”
But he knew immediately it was also not Naughton. The man who sat there perhaps resembled Naughton, in a high fine forehead now covered with festering sores, in the shape of a nose now partially eaten away by some cancerous disease, in fair hair that had been ripped away in spots to expose bloody scalp, but this was also not Donald Naughton.
The man’s eyes glittered with a savage ferocity. He scooped up a goblet and, shouting out in incomprehensible rage, threw it directly at the two men.
Michael ducked. The goblet clattered against the far wall. Naughton struggled to his feet. He lifted a chair high and threw it at them; the effort made him stagger back and he fell to all fours. He growled and scurried into a corner, where his eyes glowed red in the midst of shadows.
“My God,” Virga said. “They’ve made him into some sort of animal! Oh Jesus Christ!”
“Stay back!” Michael commanded. He stepped forward and Naughton howled like a maddened dog.
Naughton reached out for dinnerware and pieces of glass
scattered about him, throwing them at the men. Michael asked Virga quietly, “What was his first name?”
“Donald,” Virga said. ‘Was’? Had the man said ‘was’?
Naughton settled down on his haunches.
When Michael took another step forward Naughton bared his teeth.
“Be quiet,” Michael said in a voice that resounded with calm authority. “Be quiet. Your name is Donald Naughton. Do you remember that name?”
Naughton cocked his head to one side, listening. He put both hands to his ears and sank his chin down against his chest.
“Donald Naughton, listen to me,” Michael said. “You’re still a man. You can still fight this; I want you to fight it. FIGHT IT!”
Naughton growled and looked for something else to throw.
Michael stepped forward again and bent to look across into the man’s eyes. “Fight it,” he commanded. He thrust his arm out, offered his palm. “Trust me. Trust me. You can fight it.”
Naughton seemed confused. He shook his head back and forth in a mindless frenzy. He turned and scratched at the walls, seeking some kind of escape.
“DONALD NAUGHTON!” Michael said.
“NOOOOOO!” moaned the animal on the floor. “NOT DONALD NAUGHTON ANYMORE!”
“Jesus Christ,” Virga said under his breath.
Michael sprang up from his bent position. As the diseased figure turned from the wall he was upon him. Naughton screamed, a wild cry of rage and fear. Michael clapped both hands to Naughton’s temples. Virga could see the veins stand out in Michael’s hands. “DONALD NAUGHTON!” he said.