The Gates of Babylon (24 page)

“Why look, it’s the governor of our fine state,” the man said in a loud voice. “Together with our resident dictator, General
La Crow.
How long till you swing, General? Your time is coming, Crow.”

Lacroix, who had passed through the camp without expression or comment to this point, turned with a frown, as if only now noticing the protest. He pointed. “You, come here.”

The restless anger of the crowd was growing and Jim licked his lips, becoming increasingly anxious about the vibe. “Forget it,” he said. “Keep going.”

“I said come here!”

The man edged backward. “I’m exercising free speech, dude. You can’t stop me.”

“Damn your free speech,” Lacroix said. “It ends the moment you accept my food.”

“
Your
food? Who the hell are you now, the pharaoh?”

“Come here!”

“The hell I will.”

The general pointed. “Get that man.”

Inez and Jones sprang after the protestor, who dropped his sign and fled. When someone reached out a hand to slow the soldiers, Inez swung his rifle butt and drove the man back. Before the agitator could escape into the crowd, the two soldiers collared him and dragged him back to the Jeep. Angry shouts followed and the crowd closed around the vehicles. One of the drivers reached beneath the dash and pulled out a black military-grade shotgun.

Jim drew in his breath. “General…”

Lacroix hopped out of the Jeep, grabbed the man by the hair, and dragged him up to the vehicle.

“Ow! Let go of me, you fascist. Get him off me!”

“People like you make me sick,” Lacroix said. “I ought to throw you naked into the desert and see how you like it.”

“Let me go!”

“Not a chance. You’re spending the next month on work duty. Earning your keep, you ungrateful sonofabitch.”

“General!” Jim said in a sharper tone.

The crowd was surging now, throwing down signs and punching their fists in the air. The women had faded from the group, as had the older men and adolescent children. It was all men now—
young
men—like a vision from some violent protest in the Middle East. Jim had seen it so many times on TV, that a part of his mind tried to pick words from the mob and half expected to hear cries of “Allahu Akbar!”

What is happening? This is America.

Lacroix threw the man to the ground, drew his sidearm, and pointed it at the crowd. Inez and Jones leveled their assault rifles,
and both drivers and the general’s adjutant had either shotguns or sidearms. Inez pointed his gun into the air and fired a warning shot, but the mass of people edged closer. Couldn’t they see the hard expressions on the soldiers’ faces? Or maybe they were too caught up in the frustration of the crowd, under scalding pressure like a boiler about to explode.

The soldiers were screaming now, the crowd closing to ten feet, then five, then reaching out with grabbing hands. More warning shots in the air. The general steadied his sidearm, and something changed in his posture. Lacroix’s pistol barked twice. A man fell.

Shouts turned to screams. The people at the front tried to retreat, even as the crowd shoved them forward, and then people were falling, there were more gunshots, and within seconds hundreds of people scattered, throwing signs, falling, trampling those who fell.

It was over in seconds. The street was clear. Three civilians lay in the road, caught in the lights of the lead Jeep, and bleeding into the dirt.

General Lacroix calmly flipped the safety and holstered his gun.

“Jesus,” Inez said. “That was just like Yemen.”

Jones still held his rifle at his shoulder, but his arms were trembling. One of the drivers looked stunned, and the other had already put away his gun and was scrambling into the Jeep, making urgent pleas for the others to get in.

Jim stared at the three men on the ground. One of them was still moving, but blood bubbles formed at his lips and his eyes rolled back to show whites.

Moments later they were rolling back down a road suddenly empty of civilians.

“Damn troublemakers,” Lacroix muttered.

“How are you going to handle this?” Jim asked. “There will be an investigation.”

“You believe that? With open rebellion on the Great Plains? With our artillery leveling Tehran, and Japan and China firing rockets across the Sea of Japan? Do I need to go on?” The general grunted. “Nothing we do tonight will make the news.”

Jim rubbed his eyes, trying to erase the afterimage of men dying. Bloody bubbles at that man’s lips.

The worst part was that Lacroix was probably right. In a few short months, the world had come to the point where you could gun down American refugees and face no consequences.

Survive. That’s all you have to do. Survive the winter.

And to do that, he needed that grain from Blister Creek to keep Salt Lake fed, which meant an unholy alliance with this mad general, the head of a criminal gang, and his own power-hungry brother.

“God help me,” he muttered under his breath as they pulled into the warehouse compound.

And it would only get worse before the night ended. Soon, Chip Malloy would arrive, and the true crimes of the evening would begin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Sister Miriam didn’t show her inner turmoil as she stuffed spare clips and boxes of ammunition into her pockets. She never did, not even to her husband. She could barely admit her weakness to herself, let alone to David or anyone else. If they found out, they’d have never let her come on this mission.

If anyone could see it, it was Jacob, and he had been eyeing her suspiciously since the four of them—Miriam, Krantz, Jacob, and Alfred Christianson—climbed out of the basement with flashlights to rummage through supplies in the truck. David and Officer Trost stayed behind. The Lord had anointed Jacob prophet, and he was blessed with the gift of discernment. He had the power to see directly into her heart, if he would ever trust the Lord enough to use it.

This was one time when she was glad he didn’t.

“Miriam, Steve, what’s the plan?” Jacob asked.

She looked at her watch. How long did they need? An hour to get out, maybe half an hour to set up. “We’ll aim for eleven thirty. You listen. As soon as you hear gunfire, come roaring up the road. We’ll clear the bridge for you.”

“And how will you do that?”

“Nothing too crazy,” Miriam said as she strapped a KA-BAR knife and sheath to her thigh. “Go out there and start killing. Quietly if we can. With a bit of noise if we can’t. Krantz, you got the grenades?”

“Yeah, I got ’em.” He didn’t sound pleased. He slung the vinyl bag holding his rifle over one shoulder.

“You’re not out there to rack up a body count,” Jacob said. “There are no points assigned for extra kills.”

“I got that,” she said. She took a plastic camouflage poncho from Krantz and slipped it over her head. “But we’re fighting for our lives.” Her mind searched for something these men would understand. “So if I have to be Teancum and shove my spear through Amalikiah’s throat, I’ll do it. And I won’t feel bad.”

Teancum was a hero from the Book of Mormon who had assassinated an evil general in his sleep and saved the righteous army of Nephites from destruction. Alfred nodded grimly, while Krantz only looked confused. The skepticism spread across Jacob’s face.

“Come here for a moment,” he said.

Miriam followed him away from the others, heart pounding. Could he see? Did he know?

“Come on, Jacob. We don’t have time for this.”

He turned off the flashlight and stood in the darkness for a few seconds before speaking. “Something is going on with you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I want you to tell me,” he said, “because if I guess, it’s not going to sound very pretty.”

“It’s cold and it’s starting to rain, and we’re wasting time. If you have something to say, why don’t you spit it out and get it over with?”

Miriam dreaded Jacob’s answer. If he knew, if he pushed, she would have to answer truthfully. And what
was
the truth?

I’m terrified. I don’t think I can do this.

Even thinking those words sent a sick feeling to her gut, and churned with her fear to make her lightheaded and nauseated.

What was wrong with her? What had changed that night outside the Taylor Junior compound a few months earlier, when Eliza had coaxed her into the tunnels to save those women and children from suffocating? Oh, Miriam had done it. She’d helped Eliza, Krantz, and Lillian rescue all those people, had fought through her terror, even shot and killed one cult member who tried to stop them at the last minute.

But she’d been afraid that day in the desert. And not the usual, tense feeling she recognized from her FBI days, like a rubber band stretched too far, but actual fear. That had never happened to her before.

And as the summer continued, and the global food crisis turned into a Middle Eastern war over agricultural and oil trade, as Blister Creek hunkered down to prepare for the end, her fear spread. Became terror. She kept replaying those moments in the tunnels, and in her dreams faced starving children and piles of dead bodies. Sometimes she woke in the night, sweating, heart pounding, while David slept next to her, oblivious.

Miriam had always been the one to keep her head when others
were running around screaming and waving their hands. In a crisis, things slowed down and she could look around, pick out threats, coolly decide how and where to react. That was who she was. That was
what
she was. No longer. She didn’t recognize this frightened, trembling woman.

She put her hand on her belly before she could think about it. It couldn’t be pregnancy hormones, could it? No, she thought. That was ridiculous. But what, then?

Jacob didn’t speak, and she felt the urge to fill the silence. To explain. She had almost surrendered to that need when he let out a long, slow sigh.

“I don’t know what to do with you, Miriam. We’ve had our differences—we’re both so damn stubborn. But I thought that was behind us. You’re good for my brother, you’re good for Blister Creek. I feel safer when you’re around. Or I used to, anyway.”

“Is that what this is about?” she asked. “You don’t trust me anymore to get the job done? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“You’re way off base. You can get the job done. I’ve never doubted that. It’s knowing when to
start
the job that’s the problem. I didn’t want you to blow up that tanker, and then you almost killed Chip Malloy.”

“So?”

“So that scares me. You’re going to go kill a bunch of people and that’s blood on my hands, because I’m sending you to do it.”

“The Holy Ghost will guide my hand.” She slid the knife halfway out of its sheath and then pushed it down again. “And if a few extra men die, the Lord will fix it on the other side.”

“Kill them all and let God sort it out? That’s your plan?”

“Jacob, we’re standing in a ghost town in the middle of the desert, surrounded by enemies. If you want to have a theological discussion you’re barking up the wrong cactus. Save it for your sister, she likes that sort of thing. Me, I’m a problem solver.”

“Give me the night vision goggles. And the knife. I’ll go instead.”

“You’re not leaving me behind,” she said.

“If I’m willing to kill, I’d better be willing to pull the trigger myself.”

“Go to Krantz and take his goggles if you want. I’m going.”

“Miriam…”

“Forget it.” Miriam glanced back to the shadows of Krantz and Alfred, where the men were talking in low voices. “Come on, I have some questions to put to your cousin about how to get to this ravine without being spotted.”

Jacob had one last chance to call her out, but didn’t. Instead he turned on his heel and walked back to the trucks. Miriam followed, relieved.

You can do this. You have to.

Miriam and Krantz cut through the block on foot, opening fences and passing through yards. Alfred had sent orders ahead of them, to the snipers in attics and men watching from filthy cellar windows, but it wasn’t until they reached the deserted, trash-strewn street on the other side that Miriam stopped worrying about friendly fire.

“What was all that arguing?” Krantz asked.

He loomed next to her shoulder, eight inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier. A former hammer thrower in college before his stints in the army rangers and the FBI, he still carried all his bulk and most of his muscle and Miriam found his presence comforting, not oppressive.

“Jacob thinks I’m a loose cannon.”

“You are, of course.”

“Don’t you start, too.”

“Nothing new there,” he said. “You’ve always been trouble. Like when you joined these polygamists in the first place. You went underground so deep you never came out.”

“Something about pots and kettles comes to mind.”

“My motives are shallow, I admit it. I’m in love with a pretty girl—that’s what keeps me here. The minute Eliza is ready to go, we’re gone. Well, assuming there’s anywhere to go
to,
when this is all over. But you, you’re a true believer, and that’s dangerous. To you and to your partners.”

“Whatever.”

“But that’s not what’s bugging me,” Krantz said.