Servant of the Bones (51 page)

He laughed sincerely and like a child. “But that’s just it, my tactless and impulsive one, I am a moral genius.” He pointed to the maps:

“They are ready within two hours of confirmation of my death to destroy two-thirds of the world’s population completely. Now, before you object, let me explain that this will be done by a filovirus perfected here by us which is already in place in those various temples. Don’t interrupt.”

He raised his hand and went on.

“It is a virus which kills within five minutes or less; it is airborne only as long as its host breathes, which is no more than five minutes; its first immediate action is to fog the brain and to fill the victim with a feeling of peace and ecstasy.”

He smiled gently, his eyes glazed suddenly, as though he were listening to grand and majestic music.

“No one will suffer, Azriel, at least not more than a few moments. Oh, it is such perfection compared to the hideous, bumbling stupidity of Hitler when he bludgeoned, shot, and tormented the Jews. What a crude, cruel monster he was. A digger of graves, a ragman, a fiend who tinkered with the gold in the mouths of his millions of victims.” He shrugged. “Ah, maybe it simply wasn’t the time. We didn’t have the technology.”

He resumed:

“The virus will be dropped along with a lethal gas that tends to dissipate within four hours. These combined should kill everything living and human in the area. My planes and helicopters are ready worldwide to perform the annihilations.

They will go over and over the territories involved until all people in them are exterminated.

“Foot battalions have been organized in some densely populated cities, like Baghdad and Cairo and Calcutta. They will insert the gas and the virus into large buildings through their air systems. Some of these people are themselves willing to die. Others will wear protective clothing.”

“Good God, how many cities, countries, people, are you talking about?”

“Most of the world, Azriel. I told you. Two-thirds of the world’s population. Think of it as an inevitable plague, if you will, a plague which comes in angelic form, to clear the planet of the debris as other plagues have done in the past. Do you know what the Black Death did to Europe?”

“How could I not?” I thought of Samuel and the burning houses of Strasbourg.

“What you don’t know is that Europe would be a desert now were it not for that plague. You don’t know how many died in the flu epidemic early in our century. You don’t know that AIDS was meant. You don’t know that it takes courage to learn from nature and rise above it, rather than simply tamper with it, and make chaos out of it as you destroy it.”

“What countries of the world; you speak of Asia?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Definitely. Asia, the Orient, all of those people will be wiped off the face of the earth. All of northern Russia. Only some of eastern Russia will be saved, and even on that score I haven’t entirely made up my mind. There will be no more Japan.”

He didn’t want to stop for breath, he went right on, excited now. I could swear that a light emanated from him.

“You haven’t been here long enough to know the logic of it. First and foremost, everything in populated areas on the African continent will be wiped out. Think of it. Emptying Africa. Villages have been targeted, all areas where men and women live. The only animals who will survive are those which are far from populated areas. It’s brilliant. You see, the filovirus won’t affect most animals anyway, and the gas will dissipate soon enough for most animals to survive it. Oh, it’s
very complex. It has stages. But everything has been done to avoid panic or pain or knowledge among those who are dying. They will not suffer, no, they will not endure the absolute agony of our parents and others in the German camps. That was hideous, beastly.”

I didn’t dare interrupt him. But, Jonathan, you can imagine my feelings at this moment. Panic rose in me, but something harder overcame it: a determination that this madness was not going to happen! Absolutely not going to happen! I kept a mask of a face:

“You truly have an immense vision, Gregory.”

“Every living person in India and Pakistan will be wiped out,” he continued with rapturous enthusiasm. “In fact, almost every living person in Nepal, too, and up into the mountains. Of course Israel will be destroyed because Palestine has to be destroyed, and Iraq and Iran. In fact, all of that world will go—the Armenians, the Turks…the Greeks, the Balkans, where the war goes on, Saudi Arabia, Yemen…”

“The Third World, as you call it,” I said. “The poor world. That’s what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the world that is fatally diseased, always at war, courting famine, and dragging us all down with it. The great unsalvageable world—the world that Alexander couldn’t save, or Rome, or Constantine, or the President of this country, or the United Nations, or all the weak fumbling liberal kindhearted peacemakers of today who do nothing but preside over massacres!”

He sighed.

“Yes,” he said, “the disease ridden, the uncontrollable, and the unredeemable. It’s absolutely essential. They will all die. By midnight tonight most will be dead. But the Temples are ready for a renewed gas attack on all areas again tomorrow. Our vans, our planes, our helicopters—all are disguised as medical vehicles. Our people are clothed as medical people. Anyone seeing them will think they are trying to help. People will come to them for help and shelter, and they will kill these people without torturing them or frightening them. It’s going
to work brilliantly. We have worked out our estimates. All of Cairo will be dead in two hours. Calcutta will take longer.” He looked sad as he continued:

“The third day will be the worst, because we have to hunt down those who might have somehow survived and it will be difficult. People will know fear. But it will be brief. There may be bullets used then, even bombs, but we hope not. We envision a beautiful and silent world by the end of the third day.”

His hand fell warm and firm on mine, his eyes glowed.

“Imagine it, Azriel, all of the African continent still and quiet, the beautiful pyramids of Egypt standing in silence, the smog and filth of Cairo settled down like so much sand. Imagine Zaire with no more epidemics and secret filoviruses brewing to destroy the world. Imagine the starving put to sleep in silence. Imagine the great rain forests allowed once again to grow, the dense jungle blooming without intrusion, the wild animals of the interior allowed to multiply as God planned for them to do.

“Oh, Azriel, my dream is as great as Yahweh’s dream when he told Noah to build the ark. I have even sheltered critical species. Very talented geniuses and scientists have already been lured here for a convention so that they might be saved as their people die. This, my country, is my ark. But the rest must die. There is absolutely no other beautiful or elegant or merciful way out of our present state.”

“Israel must die, you would do this to your own people?”

“Have to, no way around it. Besides…We must reclaim the Holy Places in peace and stillness. But don’t you see, many Jews here will survive. Everyone in the United States and Canada will survive. No one in this country will be hurt at all.

“The attacks in this hemisphere will wipe out only the southern lands—all of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. All those islands peaceful again and beautiful, where the poinsettia can bloom a deep red, and the palms can blow in the wind.

“But everything that is in our country and Canada will survive. The filovirus dies quickly. We’ve perfected our formula
out of all three strains of Ebola and some we’ve found ourselves. The gas dissipates. I told you. It breaks down utterly. You don’t know the lengths we’ve gone to to perfect our formula so that horses and cattle will be immune. You don’t know how we have worked to make this merciful.”

He sighed, with a little shake of his head, then said:

“There will be spot exterminations of villages in the Amazon jungle—yes, that will happen—but in general the wildlife will rebound. It won’t be hurt by these clever poisons. Azriel, do you realize the geniuses I have working for me, men who worked in government germ-warfare programs for years, men who know things you and I know nothing of?”

“And Europe?” I asked. “You will kill Asia Minor? You will kill the Balkan countries. What will you do with Europe?”

“That is our biggest problem strategically. Because we must wipe out the Germans, we must do that on account of what they did with Hitler to the Jews. The Germans have to die. They have to. All of them. Absolutely.

“But we want to spare all other European countries. Except Spain. I just don’t like Spain, and Spain has had too much Moslem influence. But the extermination in Germany will be very stealthy, involve more foot workers than anyplace else, and there may be some unavoidable casualties among the French and the English, especially those traveling in Germany at the time.”

He stood up and he walked to the map. “It’s all prepared. It’s all in place. The final chemicals have been shipped. What remains here in the building can be used to attack anyone who enters the building. There are areas that can be sealed off where police and authorities can be gassed.

“You realize of course,” he said, “that from most of these condemned areas, we will be the only broadcast that the United States receives. We will have the advantage in describing this gentle plague. We have written our poetry, which is worthy to be remembered, like the story of the battles of Darius carved in rock.”

He pointed to the various monitors whose cameras remained
fixed on corridors or empty rooms or elevators. “All killing traps. We are a fortress here.

“On the third day,” he said, “as the United States weeps in confusion for the rest of the world, while secretly sighing in relief to be rid of it, I will rise from the Dead, and I will tell what I have seen of these deaths everywhere, and that this plague was inevitable and the will of God. All the members of my Temple are prepared to take positions of leadership.”

“Do they know it’s a hoax!” I demanded. “Your own idiot followers? Do they know it’s Nathan, an identical twin, who will be killed?”

He smiled patiently at me, his back to the map, his arms folded.

“You tricked him into the hospital to acquire the DNA you need to verify your own death,” I said. “How many know about the fraud? How many are there involved in exchanging the DNA records at the key moments in order to verify your resurrection?”

“Enough key people know. Of course the great mass of my followers don’t know. They know who I am, and when I appear they will know it’s Gregory. I take the responsibility for this on my own shoulders. I take the guilt of the murder of the world, and the burden of a new myth of my journey to hell and back. I am the new Messiah. I am the anointed one. And my secret things are mine, as Yahweh’s secrets were His.”

He took the time to calm himself. His eyes were wet with emotion. “You’re beautiful, Azriel. I need you. You’ve been sent to be at my side. You’ve been sent.”

“Get on with this plan. Who knows what?” I demanded.

“Only a few in this location know that the death and the resurrection are a trick. Isn’t that how it probably happened the first time?”

“The first time,” I whispered. “And what was the first time? Was it Calvary? Is that what you think?”

“Even the people distributing the gas throughout India do not really know what it will do. Only those in charge know. There are levels of knowledge. Mine is a world of zealots
willing to die for me, don’t you see, die for me and for a new world. Now listen to what I say. Listen!

“Imagine the relief when people realize what has taken place. I mean it. Think of the relief in the minds of all intelligent Americans and Europeans, all Westerners, or whatever you want to call us.”

He sat down again and leaned towards me. “Azriel, people will be overjoyed when the Great Death has passed. They will be overjoyed! Only the West with all its resources will remain, that’s all. All the poverty, the disease, the tribal war, gone. Gone from the earth. A new beginning.

“We, the Temple of the Mind, will take control. We outnumber those in Washington who might at first resist us. We will have no problem in other places. We know what has happened. We have the knowledge. We will go on the airwaves describing that the will of God has been done, and that the earth is now at peace, and free of millions who covered it like termites and parasites.”

“And you think the President of this country is going to take your hand for this?”

“Well, we’ll probably have to kill him. But at least we’ll give him a chance. At the moment he is an extremely brilliant man and rather beautiful. But our Temple people in Washington are ready. There are three thousand of them within blocks of the White House, and the nearby Pentagon. I presume you know these are our important buildings. We can gas everyone in those buildings. If necessary the entire population of Washington can be gassed. I’ve agonized over this. I believe that we should not do this to our own people.”

“How merciful.”

“Just wise. We want the government to realize it has been spared by the prophet Gregory at the will of the Lord to help rebuild a new and bountiful world order. At least, we want to give the President and our congressmen time to visualize these empty continents where the lilies of the field can bloom again in all their glory.”

He implored me with his eyes. He was truly moved. When he trembled it wasn’t fear, but a great anticipation.

“Don’t you see, my friend?” he asked. “This is what everybody wants. When a man turns on television at night and sees the war in the Balkans, it fills him with despair. Well, there won’t be any more war. Bosnians and Serbs alike will be dead.

“Imagine never having to worry again about the naked millions, the hunger, the floods, the disasters in India. All gone. All of those beautiful cities and temples lying virgin and ready to be reawakened. No one wants to hear any more about petty genocide in Iraq, or street riots in Tel Aviv, or massacres in Cambodia. We’re all sick of watching the Third World struggle, while we remain impotent, castrated by our superiority and refined values.