The God Hunter (20 page)

 

CHAPTER 45

ENTRY TO THE COMPOUND

“ ‘I
saw a white horse, and the name of its rider was Faithful and True . . . and the armies of Heaven followed him, each man in clean white linen on a spotless steed,' yadda yadda yadda. And I'll tell you how I know that this is true. Because I
saw
it. Yes, I did. Woke up one morning—­I was young then—­an' I saw 'em, ridin' down my face. Down my face, from here”—­he pressed the top of his skull—­“down, down,” a finger traced his nose, his lips, his chin, “rank on rank an' row on row, white horsemen ridin' eight abreast, in thousands and in tens o' thousands, like the Good Book says. And I watched 'em till the sun came up, and even then, I could still see 'em, just a little, riding down my belly, and in between my thighs. Like ghosts, fadin' an' fadin' . . . And since that day, I been waitin' for these times. The end times. 'Cause that is where we're at now. That is what we come to. You know it, an' I know it, an' everyone, deep down in their sinful hearts, they all know it. This is the Gathering, the start of it. Beginning of the end.” He put his arms across his chest, he looked from me to Anna and then back again. “So whadya think of that then?”

“Mr. Hayes,” said Anna. “You can get into the compound, yes? Or help us to get in?”

“I tell ya—­tell ya, there's mornings even now, I wake up an' I feel 'em. The army of the Lord. They care not where they go, for all in Earth and Heaven is their jurisdiction.” He pressed a hand against his forehead. “Guess I'll feel 'em there forever, till the good Lord takes me home . . .”

“The compound, Mr. Hayes. I ask you. Now I ask again. You understand?”

He shrugged. “Well—­might be doable. There's ­people tried, for sure. You want some reading 'sides your Bible, ma'am?” He pulled a sheaf of dog-­eared magazines out of his shoulder bag—­
Sports Illustrated, Harper's, Golf,
a bunch of
Reader's Digest
s.

“Dollar each. Fifty cents to you.” He grinned, offered them around.

“Mr. Hayes. The compound—­”

“What happened to the ­people who tried getting in?” I said.

“Them? Well. Fair to say they got discouraged, that's the truth. Most powerfully discouraged, too. But one day, it's gonna happen. Mark my words. Too many of us now. Can't shoot us all. The army's gatherin' now, soldiers of the Lord, we're here, we're strong—­”

“Was someone shot?”

“No, no. That's just a story. Least, I think it is. You hear it, but it's different every time. Nah. Gas is what they use. CS. I took a whiff once, don't care to take another.” He looked me up and down, a wry smile on his face. “So how you gonna do it, Mr. English? Gonna climb the fence? Dig under? 'Cause it's all been tried, some day or other. All of it.”

“I've got a plan.”

“Better be smart.”

“It's smart.”

“Real smart?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna share? I'll trade.” He offered me a battered
Family Circle,
but I waved it off.

“I'm going to walk up to the gate,” I said. “And then I'm going to ask someone to let me in. Sound smart enough to you?”

I
t didn't go that easily, as things turned out.

A road ran through the front gates. High wire, intercom, CCTV. So far, so good. I'd hoped to meet a real live sentry, but clearly that was not about to happen. I talked into the mic. I waved my Registry ID and held it up towards the lens.

No one gassed me. No one shot me. In fact, nothing whatsoever happened for a long, long time. Except that Anna kept on working through her final pack of smokes.

“I die of boredom or I die of these. Some choice.”

Presently, however, an electric car, like a golf cart, emerged from one of the outbuildings and, ignoring the road, began to bump and jolt its way across the grass towards us.

The man inside wore a military-­style shirt with an insignia on the breast pocket. He did not look like a Registry man. He looked more like a hired thug.

He parked, opened the inner gate, and walked towards us. He was short and muscly. Short ­people should not do so much upper body work. He was nearly as wide as he was high. Before he reached the wire, he glanced back and signaled with his arm to somebody I couldn't see. Then he stopped. Not too close, I noticed. “Name,” he said. I told him. “ID.” He flicked his fingers for me to pass it through the wire, which I did. He took it, stepped back quickly. Glanced at it, then put it in his pocket. I said, “Hey—­” and, without response, he walked back to the cart and drove away.

“It goes well, yes?” said Anna.

“Wonderfully well. Absolutely wonderfully.”

“That is sarcasm, I think.”

“Irony,” I said. “Similar, but less proactive.”

“Ah, good. I must remember this. Ha, ha.”

There's a limit to the interest you can take in cloud formations and the intermittent flights of local wildfowl. Or the boom and chatter of a sermon, amplified by several hundred watts and bellowed at you from the camp back down the hill.

“Your bluff,” said Anna, “does not work, I think.”

“It's not a bluff. That's genuine ID.”

“They do not want you, then.”

She lit another cigarette. A little pile of butts had steadily collected at her feet.

But then she looked up, past me, frowned a little. She jutted her chin.

“Ah now. Something happens.”

A canvas-­covered truck was motoring out of the barn. It grumbled down the road towards us, vanished for a moment in a dip, then topped the rise and pulled up by the inner fence. Our old friend Mr. Five-­by-­five got out—­he was riding shotgun now—­then swiped the lock and dragged open the inner gate. The truck drove through. He shut the gate, climbed back in the truck, which trundled forwards a few yards and stopped again. He sat there with the driver, shadows in the windshield glare. I don't think they were even talking. Just sitting, watching. Waiting.

This went on far, far longer than it should have done.

Presently, though, he climbed out and came over to us.

“Step back, please.”

We didn't move. It wasn't obstinacy; we just didn't do it.

“Step back!”

His big, stone face looked twitchy now. His mouth was tight, his eyes were on us all the while. He had a cowlick just above his left ear. He also had a very large holster at his belt, and a weapon handy.

We stepped back.

He swiped the lock, tugged the gate a few feet. It rasped against the tarmac.

“Walk forward.”

We were slow. He snapped, “Walk forward!” and we double-­paced. The gate slammed shut behind. A voice yelled, “Go!” and the canvas cover on the truck suddenly billowed and went down.

Three men sprang up, deployed along the cabin roof. They had guns. They all had guns. A half a dozen more leapt down and flanked us.

Guns. Guns everywhere.

I felt my stomach clench. I put my hands up in the air. I tried to smile, said, “Look, you're making a mistake . . .” but nobody was smiling back.

They cuffed me. Herded me towards the truck. And then someone said, “Yeah, yeah, that's him. I mean, I'd almost swear to it. It looks like him. I can't vouch, but . . .”

I knew that voice.

Shailer.

He was way back, behind the guns, behind the guards, and when I spotted him, he offered me a sickly little nod.

“Um . . . hi, Chris,” he said.

Happy reunion.

 

CHAPTER 46

MY ONLY FRIEND

I
had been ambushed. I had been the center of a ring of serious assault weapons you don't see much outside the military or a seriously well-­armed street gang. I had been handcuffed, leg-­ironed, and forcibly separated from Anna, of whose whereabouts I was not informed. Shailer, too, was absent. No loss there, perhaps. I had been taken to the complex, hustled through doorways and through closely guarded rooms into a place that seemed a cross between an ER and a jail. At that point several guys in hazmat suits appeared, seized me in a firm grip, strapped me to a table, and drew out five or six fresh vials of blood from my left arm. I was fingerprinted, photographed, and had my eyes examined. A man in a white bodysuit and duck-­bill face mask told me, “Just relax. We only want to know you're human.” My response was very human, but it didn't get me out of there.

T
hey left me for an hour. I spent it in what seemed to be a broom cupboard, given that industrial premises don't usually have jails. In my experience of prisons, which in the last week had become considerable, it actually wasn't bad.

I even slept some of the time.

Shailer came to let me out. His request, he said; claimed he'd thought I'd like to see a friendly face. And so I would, but certainly not his. He tried to make a joke of it, another big mistake. “Hey, bud! You passed the test!” I didn't answer. The men with guns were gone, and I just thought,
One day, you bastard, I intend to murder you. One day. . .

But not today, it seemed.

“I bet you're hungry, yeah? I'll find you lunch, OK? Something to drink. No liquor, I'm afraid, they're very strict on that. But there's coffee—­decaf—­or we can maybe find some tea, you want to feel at home . . . ?”

He smiled a quick, forced smile. There was a tic in his left eye; the lid would flutter, and he'd raise a hand up to his face to still it, then try to make out he was doing something else—­scratching his cheek, his ear, whatever.

“After that, we'll go see Thoms. He's the director. He's . . . a little difficult, but you should meet him, and—­”

“Where's Anna?”

“Oh, she's fine, she's fine. There wasn't any, you know, any doubt about her. Unlike you. Must have been a bit of a shock, I know, them jumping you like that. Not my plan, I assure you. I'd have thought they'd handle it with more finesse, really. But still . . .”

“Yeah, well. Finesse is more your style.”

“Oh Chris . . .” He dropped his voice. “You should know, there's—­well, there's a bit of a thing about you at the moment. Just dropping off the map like that. And, plus, well, the fact you look like him. Like Seven B. That's what they call him here, Seven B. Seven is, you know, the original. The Esztergom entity. The resemblance between the two of you, it's, well, it's striking. Really.”

“I'm aware of that.”

“So is everyone, believe me. So is everyone.”

He led me through a hallway from one building to the next; we were now in one of the prefabricated structures I'd seen earlier, in a large room that seemed to have been designated as a gym but never quite got started. There were wall bars and a row of weight machines, lined up but still in plastic wrappers. ­People sat at tables, at desks, working computers, talking in muted, cagey tones, though several were just sitting, doing nothing. A man I first took to be on the phone proved to be talking to himself, making occasional, impassioned gestures with his fists.

Shailer steered me through them. Registry types in white coats, guys in overalls, security in light brown shirts. Nobody I knew. Man with a broom. Man with a toolbox. Woman with a trolley full of duct tape and electrical gear.

“Chris, don't trust them. No matter what they say. Don't tell them anything. They talk to you, just smile and nod your head. All right?”

I looked back at the man who'd been talking to himself. His right hand rose and fell, a ferocious, pumping action, but only tiny, strangled noises crept out of his mouth.

“I'm your only friend here, Chris. Remember that. It doesn't matter what you think of me, what's happened in the past. This is serious. It's life or death. We've got to work together—­got to. The two of us. Say you're with me, Chris. Just say it. Tell me that you are.”

He stared me in the face. His eyelid fluttered like a bee's wing.

“They're crazy,” he said, “the bunch of 'em. Batshit crazy.” He clutched my arm, a drowning man seizing a lifeline. “You've got to get me out of here. You've
got
to. I can count on you, Chris, can't I? Chris?”

I looked at him. I looked at him and then, because I couldn't think what else to do, I nodded.

After that, I peeled his fingers off my arm.

“They sent me here, Chris. After I saw you in New York. Right after, straight on a plane, I never even got a chance to pack a bag or, or, change my suit or anything! It's like a
punishment,
Chris, like I've done something wrong, only I haven't.
Go and sort it out,
they said.
Go and fix things
. But I can't. It's much too late for that. And if I don't get out—­”

Adam Shailer, it appeared, was not a happy man.

 

CHAPTER 47

THE CAPTAIN'S NAME

A
voice said, “You will stand when I address you. You will
stand,
is that clear?”

But I didn't stand.

And the voice went on.

“I asked you, soldier.
Is that clear
?”

“Um.”

It was a poor meal Shailer had found us—­an omelet and a few diced peppers, probably tinned—­but I was hungry, and in no mood to be interrupted. Besides, I'd had too many ­people messing me around of late. You get tired of it; you get intolerant. So when this big toy soldier marched up to our table in his pale brown shirt and started bellowing, my patience was already thin.

I cut another forkful, stuffed it in my mouth, and chewed. The thing seemed to unravel just like tissue paper, blobs of it sticking to my teeth, my tongue.

“Soldier.” He bent down, pushed his face up close to mine. “Lest there be any doubt here. Any doubt at all, you hear? I am Captain Willis, and this place is mine, and that lunch you are eating, that is mine, and
you
are mine. Now:
is that clear
?”

I felt my pulse rate rise.

“Yeah, all right. Fine.”

Shailer was already on his feet, making furtive little moves for me to join him. One more reason to stay down, I thought.

“Busy,” I said, speared another forkful, raised it to my lips.

The guy was fast. One moment, I'd a meal in front of me. Next, the plate was two yards off, clattering onto the floor.

And I was up.

The fury just erupted in me. It came without a thought, without a warning. All the idiotic tests. All the threats. The way that I'd been pushed around, treated like a criminal, an animal, a specimen. I balled my fists, hunched my shoulders. Glared at him. Stared straight at the insignia upon his breast pocket.

Then slowly, slowly, raised my eyes.

He could have been a basketballer. He'd got that rangy build. Muscles in his arms like hawsers and a glimpse of a tattoo: scrollwork, shield and dagger,
semper fi
. Pale brown shirt, pale brown face, military moustache twisting in a sneer.

He stood there. And he let me take it in. Reading my face, watching the shift from rage, to doubt, to fear.

If I hit him, I would end up in the same place as the omelet. I knew it, and he saw I knew it.

He began to smile.

Then he did something I did not expect.

He clapped his hands around my upper arms, threw his head back, and howled.

“Weeeeell
done,
soldier! You have learned a lesson here today. What have you learned? What
have you learned
?”

I didn't want to answer. But I could guess what he wanted me to say.

“Stand,” I muttered.

“Right! Right
on
! When I say stand, you
stand,
is that correct?”

I nodded, half angry at my own subservience, half grateful at the get-­out that he'd given me.

“He's new,” said Shailer, babbling. “I was going to tell him, was going to, I hadn't had the chance . . .”

“I
know
he's new. Idiot. He is new, and if he wants to stay alive, he will stay on my good side. That right, new boy?”

There were ­people watching. All across the room, ­people were watching.

“Um . . . right,” I said.

“Right what?”

The grip around my arms closed like a vice.

“Right . . .”

Shailer mouthed at me.

“ . . . sir,” I finished.

“My name,” he said, “is Captain Willis. First name, Captain. Second name, you will not need to use. I head security, which means that I head
everything
. We clear? You will call me ‘sir' or ‘Captain.' You will address all other security officers by rank or as ‘sir' or ‘ma'am,' whichever is appropriate. Clear? Clear and co-­
rect
?”

I nodded.

“What's my name?”

“Sir . . .”

My voice was small.

“You will stand up when approached. You will show respect at all times. You will
stand up
. Clear?”

“Clear. Sir. Yes.”

“If a security officer gives you a command, you will obey at once, without pause, hesitance, or query. Orders from security staff directly supersede all other orders or directions, including those from all other facility personnel. Orders of higher-­ranking officers supersede orders of lower-­ranking officers. Sergeants supersede privates, and so forth. Meaning
I
am at the top of this tree, and
my
word is the law. Now is that
fully
understood?”

I glanced around. There was amusement on a number of faces—­all Security. They looked like ­people short of entertainment. Too bad I was filling in.

“You will refrain from all intoxicants. If any person offers you intoxicants, you will immediately report to me or one of my staff, naming the individual in question. Do you agree to do this thing?”

“Uh.”

He repeated the line, at treble volume, so I said I did, sir, yes.

“Do you sleep well?”

“Not recently.”

“You will endeavor to get eight hours of sleep a night.”

I said I understood and looked forward to it. Shailer coughed. I added, “Sir.”

“We are at war here, soldier. We are under siege.”

“Sir . . .”

“Do you have any information that may be of use to the facility or to any members of the security staff, either professionally or in a personal manner?” He rattled this off like a machine gun. “Are you prepared to divulge that information?”

“I've said what I know. I don't know what else I can do . . .”

“They say you look like him.”

Slower, more considered.

“Yes. Sir.”

“They say you're not him.”

“No.”

“I don't believe them.”

“No . . . ?”

“I don't believe them. What don't I believe?”

Jesus Christ,
I thought.

“That . . . I'm not him. Which I'm not,” I added. But he scowled at me.

“I don't believe because I don't trust anyone I have not personally and by myself handpicked. And I will tell you now, I will serve you notice: if you ever give me reason to believe you are in any way allied with hostile forces, or in opposition to the aims of this facility's Security team, you will not live long enough to hear about it. Got that?”

“Yeah. I think that's pretty clear, yeah.”

“What do you call me?”

“Uh?”

“What is my name, boy? My
name
?”

“Captain Willis . . . ?”

“My name,” he said, “is
Sir
. Do not forget.”

It was a show; a little morale boost for the troops. This dawned on me after a while. I was a ringer for the monster. So he would face me down before them all. A small, symbolic victory. A little piece of home theater.

I picked my lunch up off the floor.

“Lunch,” said Willis as he walked away, “is on the house.”

“Lunch,” I said, “is all over the house.”

“What I mean,
soldier
—­is go get yourself another one! You hear?”

Shailer crouched beside me, vaguely attentive to the mess. But he didn't help clean it up, just leaned close and whispered in my ear.

“See what I'm up against. You see?” He spoke too fast, too urgently. His spittle flecked my cheek. “Don't let on. Smile, nod. Look pleased. Don't let them see you know.” He pulled his lips back from his perfect, capped white teeth. “Smile,” he muttered through the grimace. “Come on, Chris. Do it for me, huh?”