Blasphemy (39 page)

“We’ll send in a team through the hole to secure the Bunker and a second team to breach the inner door to the Bridge. We’ll secure the Bridge, deal with any bad guys, and take the scientists into custody. There may be shooting. We don’t know. As soon as the Bridge’s been fully secured, I take you in. Personally. You shut Isabella down.”

“It takes three hours to shut down the system,” Wolf said.

“You’ll run that operation.”

“What about Dr. Hazelius and the other scientists?”

“Our men will escort them off the premises for debriefing.”

Wolf folded his arms. It looked good on paper, no doubt.

STANTON LOCKWOOD SHIFTED AGAIN IN THE cheap wooden chair, trying to find comfort where none existed. The mood around the mahogany table in the Situation Room was one of mounting incredulity. At 3:00 A.M.—1:00 A.M. at Red Mesa—the news was bad.

Lockwood had grown up in the Bay area, gone to schools on the West and East coasts, and lived in Washington for the past twelve years. He’d had TV glimpses of another America out there, the America of the Creationists and Christian-nationists, the televangelists and glitzy megachurches. That America had always seemed remote, relegated to places like Kansas and Oklahoma.

It was no longer remote.

The FBI Director asked, “Mr. President?”

“Yes, Jack?”

“The Arizona Highway Patrol reports disturbances at the roadblocks on Route 89 at Grey Mountain, Route 160 at Tuba City and also at Tes Nez Iah.”

“What kind of disturbances?”

“Several state troopers have been injured in scattered melees. Traffic is heavy and a lot of people are evading the road blocks, taking off cross-country. Trouble is, the Navajo Reservation is crisscrossed with hundreds of improvised dirt roads, most of which aren’t even on the maps. Our roadblocks are leaking like a sieve.”

The president turned the monitor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who sat in his wood-paneled office in the Pentagon, the American flag hung behind him on the wall. “General Crisp, where’s the National Guard?”

“Two hours from deployment.”

“We don’t
have
two hours.”

“Finding the requisite choppers, pilots, and trained troops has been a challenge, Mr. President.”

“I’ve got state troopers out there getting their butts kicked. Not in some sorry-ass corner of Afghanistan, but right here in the United States of America. And you’re telling me
two hours
?”

“Most of our choppers are in the Middle East.”

The FBI Director spoke. “Mr. President?”

The president turned. “What?”

“I’ve just gotten a report . . .” He accepted a piece of paper from someone offscreen. “. . . an emergency communication from a Navajo Tribal policeman who went up to Red Mesa to investigate—”

“By himself?”

“He went up unawares, like all of us at that time, of the true situation. Sent out an emergency call, which was cut off. I’ve got a transcription.” He read from a piece of paper. “‘
Send backup . . . a violent mob . . . they’re going to kill me . .
.’ That’s all we got. You can hear the mob noise in the background.”

“Jesus God.”

“The GPS beacon in the squad car went dead a few minutes later. Which usually happens only if the car’s been torched.”

“What’s the news from the Hostage Rescue Team up there? Are they safe?”

“My last report, just ten minutes ago, indicated the operation was going like clockwork. We did have an unconfirmed report of gunfire in the direction of the Dugway, two and a half miles from the airstrip. We’re contacting the team now, as we speak. But let me just assure you, Mr. President, that no disorganized mob is going to take down a crack FBI Hostage Rescue Team.”

“Is that so?” came the president’s skeptical reply. “Are they trained to fire on civilians?”

The FBI Director shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “They’re trained to respond to all contingencies.”

The president turned to the head of the Joint Chiefs. “Is there
any way
to get troops out there sooner than in two hours?”

“Excuse me, sir?” the FBI Director interrupted, his face pale. “I’m just now getting reports of an explosion and fire . . . a very large fire . . . at the Red Mesa airstrip.”

The president stared silently at the director.

“What do these people want?” Lockwood burst out. “What in God’s name do they
want
?”

Galdone spoke for the first time since they had arrived in the Situation Room. “You know what they want.”

Lockwood stared at the odious man. Soft and fat, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded as if asleep, he sat in his chair studying them placidly.

“They want to destroy Isabella,” he said, “and kill the Antichrist.”

FORD, GRIPPING THE EDGE OF A table, read the new message on the Visualizer. Isabella was running flat out, at full power, and he could feel the entire Bridge trembling and keening like the cockpit of a jet plane locked in a death spiral.

Religion arose as an effort to explicate the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable, make bearable the unbearable. Belief in a higher power became the most powerful innovation in late human evolution. Tribes with religion had an advantage over those without. They had direction and purpose, motivation and a mission. The survival value of religion was so spectacular that the thirst for belief became embedded in the human genome
.

Ford had moved away from the others. Kate, with a quizzical and, it seemed to him, somewhat regretful glance at him, was now helping Dolby at his workstation. The team running Isabella—Dolby, Chen, Edelstein, Corcoran, and St. Vincent—were intensely focused on their jobs. The rest stared at the Visualizer, transfixed by the words appearing there.

What religion tried, science has finally achieved. You now have a way to explain the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable. You no longer need “revealed” religion. The human race has finally grown up
.

Wardlaw spoke quietly from his security station. “They’ve sent in a demolition team with wall-breaching kits. They’re going to blow the door.”

“How many?” Hazelius asked sharply.

“Eight.”

“Armed?”

“Heavily.”

A ripple of panic swept the group. “What are we going to do?” Innes cried.

“We’re going to keep listening,” said Hazelius, his firm voice raised over the humming of Isabella. He pointed at the screen.

Religion is as essential to human survival as food and water. If you try to replace religion with science, you will fail. You will, instead, offer science as religion. For I say to you, science is religion. The one, true religion
.

A sob escaped from Julie Thibodeaux, standing next to Hazelius. “This is wonderful.” She rocked, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “This is so wonderful . . . and I’m so frightened.”

Hazelius put a steadying arm around her.

It was incredible, Ford thought: he had witnessed their conversion right before his eyes. They believed.

Instead of offering a book of truth, science offers a method of truth. Science is a search for truth, not the revelation of truth. It is a means, not a dogma. It is a journey, not a destination
.

Ford could keep silent no longer. “Yes, but what of human suffering? How can science make ‘bearable the unbearable,’ as you put it?”

“The magnetic coil’s redlining,” said Dolby quietly.

“Juice it,” murmured Hazelius.

In the last century, medicine and technology have alleviated more human suffering than have all the priests in the last millennium
.

“You’re speaking of physical suffering,” said Ford. “But what about the suffering of the soul? What about spiritual suffering?”

Have I not said that all is one? Is it not a comfort to know that your suffering shudders the very cosmos? No one suffers alone and suffering has a purpose—even the sparrow’s fall is essential to the whole. The universe never forgets
.

“I can’t hold it without more power,” Dolby cried. “Harlan, you’ve
got
to give me five percent more.”

“I’m tapped out,” St. Vincent said. “Push it any more, and it’ll cascade the grid.”

The machine was now screaming so loudly that Ford could hardly hear himself think. He read the words on the Visualizer, his mind in turmoil. Twelve of the most intelligent people in the country thought this was God. That had to mean something.

Do not stoop to diffidence! You are my disciples. You have the power to upend the world. In one day, science accumulates more evidence of its truths than religion in all its existence. People cling to faith because they
must
have it. They hunger for it. You will not deny people faith; you will offer them a new faith. I have not come to replace the Judeo-Christian God, but to complete him
.

“Wait!” Wardlaw barked out. “Something else is going on up top!”

“What is it?” Hazelius asked.

Wardlaw peered urgently at his wall of screens. “We’ve got—a whole bunch more perimeter alarms going off. There are people coming out of nowhere . . . some kind of mob . . . What the
hell
?”

“A
mob
?” Hazelius half turned, his eye still on the Visualizer. “What are you talking about?”

“No shit, a mob . . . Jesus, you won’t believe this . . . . They’re assaulting the security fence . . . tearing it down . . . We’ve got some kind of riot going on up there. Unbelievable—a full-blown riot—out of nowhere.”

Ford turned to the main security feed. The high-angle camera atop the elevator furnished the main screen with a broad view of the action. A mob, carrying torches, and flashlights and brandishing primitive weapons streamed down the road from the Dugway and piled up against the perimeter fence, forcing it down by sheer weight of numbers. In the direction of the airstrip he heard a dull explosion and saw flames suddenly leaping above the trees.

“They’ve set fire to the hangars at the airstrip,” Wardlaw yelled. “Who
are
these people—and where in hell did they come from?”

WOLF WATCHED THE MEN ALIGN THE demolition kits along the titanium door, then run the wires back to the detonator. They seemed disconcertingly calm, almost confident, as if they blew up mountains every day of their lives

Wolf walked toward the edge of the cliff. A pipe fence, cemented into the rock, ran along the rim. He grasped the cold steel and looked out into the vast deserts, ringed by mountains, ten thousand square miles with hardly a light breaking the undifferentiated dark. A cool wind wafted up from below, bringing with it the smell of dust and the faint scent of some night-flowering plant. He felt preposterously proud of rappelling down the cliffs. This was going to be a hell of a story to tell people back in Los Alamos.

Behind him, he heard the abrupt hiss of radios and a burst of inaudible words. He turned to see what was happening. The men working the charges had stopped. Huddling with Doerfler, they talked urgently on the radios. Wolf listened but made out nothing. Something unusual was going on.

Wolf strolled over. “Hey, what’s up?”

“There’s been an attack up top. No one knows who.”

Terrific
, Wolf thought.

From above, scattered popping sounds echoed down the cliffs and the sky bloomed red above the mesa rim. “What’s going on?”

Miller glanced at Wolf. “They set fire to the hangars at the airfield . . . . They’ve surrounded the chopper.”

“They? Who the hell’s
they
?”

Miller shook his head. The other members of the team were engaged by radio in furious conversation with the team above. The popping sounds became louder—and Wolf realized it was gunfire. He heard a faint cry. Everyone stared up. A moment later something came hurtling down the cliff, accompanied by a long choking scream. It flashed in and out of the lights on its way past them, a figure in uniform. The scream ended abruptly far below in a faint smack and a rattle of loose, falling rocks.

“What the hell was that!” one of the soldiers cried.

“They threw Frankie off the cliff!”

“Look! Coming down the fixed lines!” another soldier yelled.

They all stared upward in uncomprehending horror at the dozens of dark shapes sliding down the ropes.

PASTOR RUSSELL EDDY WATCHED HIS CONGREGATION fling the last soldier over the cliff. While he genuinely deplored violence, the soldier had resisted the will of God. So be it. Perhaps they would find solace and redemption when Christ raised them from the dead and redeemed His flock. Perhaps.

He climbed up on the hood of a Humvee and took stock. The soldiers had fired on his congregation, which had surged forward with tsunami-like force up to the cliff’s edge until most of the soldiers had vanished over the rim into the black void.

His will be done.

Pastor Eddy gazed out over the miracle. The road was packed with people pouring in from the Dugway, torches and flashlights dipping in the darkness. They flowed over the fence into the security area and milled about, waiting for direction. A half mile back, the flames from the burning hangars at the airstrip leapt above the scrubby trees, casting a lurid glow across the mesa top. The acrid smell of gasoline and burnt plastic drifted through the air.

In front of him, people were massing along the edge of the cliff. The soldiers had left a lot of gear at the top of the cliffs, which Doke evidently knew how to use. He had served ten years in the Special Forces, he had told Eddy. He was helping people into rappelling gear, straps and slings with various carabiners and equipment, and showing them how to rappel down the cliff face, convincing them they could do it.

And they were doing it. It was easy with the equipment. It took no special skills. Doke’s people poured over the edge by the score, sliding down the ropes, a human waterfall disappearing into the darkness below. They were sending back up the straps and slings and carabiners to be reused, again and again.

Eddy watched Doke shouting and giving orders. Lifting his radio, Eddy called the group at the airstrip. “I see you torched the hangars. Good work.”