The Stolen Gospels (29 page)

Chapter 38

A woman is a rock, and a man a reed swayed by the wind.

—Sign posted in council chamber, UWW headquarters

“Get inside!” Dixie Lou exhorted. “Hurry!” Wearing a dun-colored robe with a pants suit under it, she stood in the entry hatch of a black helicopter, waving frantically to the evacuees, shouting orders. Three helicopters and a vertical takeoff and landing craft were in an underground hangar beneath the main plaza. A stream of robed women hurried aboard the command helicopter, some of them carrying the she-apostle babies and toddlers.

On the pavement at the base of the entry ramp, a youthful guard pushed Lori forward. Lori wore khaki jeans and a heavy knit sweater. “Where does this one go?” the guard asked, looking up at the Chairwoman. The guard, who looked as young as her teenage prisoner, carried a sleek, silver-colored assault rifle.

“’Copter Three,” Dixie Lou said, pointing to another craft. “I want all the she-apostles with me.”

Glaring up at Dixie Lou, Lori said, “You shouldn’t risk all of the she-apostles on one craft. You should split them up.”

“Split them up?” Dixie Lou exclaimed. “You don’t give the orders here!”

Pausing beside Lori, Deborah Marvel held a baby in her arms. “Maybe she has a point,” Deborah said. “You did put computer copies of the holy book on every aircraft. We don’t want to risk killing all of the children in a crash.”

“Our She-God will not allow my personal helicopter to crash,” Dixie Lou said, indignantly. “The apostles are safest with me.” Explosions sounded from somewhere in the mountain complex, causing people to look around nervously and shout to each other.

Large hangar doors opened, and rain blew inside the enclosure, borne on strong gusts of wind that buffeted the hair and clothing of the people. The storm was picking up again.

“I beg of you,” Lori said, “Think of the best interests of these children, and of the UWW.” Gently, she reached out and touched the baby in Deborah’s arms, the Apostle Martha.

Dixie Lou glowered. “I always do!”

Curiously, Lori didn’t detect any extrasensory sensation from touching this she-apostle, not like she’d felt earlier with Veronica. But beyond that, something seemed ineffably different about this child, something that troubled her.

“Even our She-God cannot protect you all of the time,” Lori said, meeting Dixie Lou’s glare. “With all due respect, I must remind you that powerful demons are aligned against you.” Staring hard at the black woman, Lori thought she saw fear flicker in her eyes.

“This is no time for a debate!”

“There
are
demons all around,” Lori insisted.

“I agree with her,” Deborah said.

Exasperated, Dixie Lou said, “All right.” She waved an arm. “Put four children in each ’copter. Quickly!”

“And Martha?” Deborah asked.

Another explosion sounded, closer.

Hesitation. “She goes with me. And so do you. Bring her inside!”

“As you wish, Chairwoman.”

Women hurried to distribute the children as ordered. Shots rang out, causing some of the adults to duck for cover and protect the children. A matron tripped, carrying a toddler with pale, flaxen hair, sending both of them sprawling. Apparently uninjured, the child stood straight up and looked in the direction of the shots, as if she had no fear.

Lori saw men in silver-and-black uniforms at the top of a stairway, firing automatic weapons. An older woman, one of the Scriptorium translators, fell near a service vehicle, half her head blown off. UWW guards, stationed around the aircraft (including hers), fired back. Two BOI soldiers tumbled down the stairs.

To Lori’s horror, the flaxen-haired she-apostle walked directly toward the attackers.

“Candace!” the matron shouted, struggling to get up. She ran to get the child.

Just then, a volley of shots rang out. In horror, Lori thought she saw bullets flying through the air, toward the tiny, brave girl. Lori didn’t see how this could be possible, but the bullets looked as if they were moving slowly, almost floating.

Calmly, the toddler stood in the path of the deadly projectiles, with a slight smile on her cherubic face.

Lori heard a soft click, and what felt like a pressure change around her.

Just as a hail of bullets was about to hit Candace, the toddler vanished. The bullets passed through the space where she had been, and thudded into a wall.

Unable to believe her eyes, Lori squinted.

As she did so, Candace reappeared, in the same place, in the same posture. It was if the eye of time had blinked, shifting the child into an alternate dimension for a moment and then returning her to this one.

Suddenly, everything was going quickly again. The matron scooped Candace up and ran with her into a helicopter. UWW guards fired on the enemy soldiers and they dropped, splattering blood and torn flesh.

Glancing over, Lori also noticed Dixie Lou staring, seemingly transfixed, toward the hatch where Candace had entered the aircraft.

Did she see what I saw?

In apparent answer to her question, Dixie Lou met the teenager’s gaze, and Lori knew that they both understood. They had seen the same thing.

Abruptly, as if snapping to awareness, Dixie Lou ordered Alex and several guards into the VTOL, and again told Lori’s guard to put her in the third helicopter. Lori thought the Chairwoman wanted to keep away from her in order to avoid touching her, after what had happened to them before.

She’s afraid of me
.

After Lori boarded and took a seat beside her guard, she watched four she-apostles and their caretakers taking seats. Two of the children, Mary Magdalene and Veronica, had councilwomen with them—the diminutive Fujiko Harui and the much larger Wendy Zepeda. The other two children were attended by wiry-thin matrons.

Lori looked out a porthole. In the adjacent VTOL, she saw Alex looking back at her, through a wide window. They waved to each other nervously. She wasn’t sure why, but she sensed that he was trustworthy, that he had her best interests in mind. She was sorry she had ever doubted him, and hoped he made it to safety. Lori also noticed Liz Torrence and Siana Harui in the aircraft, at portholes on the same side as Alex.

Lori’s aircraft rose into the darkness third, with two companion vessels above hers and one below, fast-rising shadow shapes illuminated by the explosion-wracked monastery below. Strong winds buffeted her vessel, giving her a sick feeling in the stomach. She didn’t like to fly, and always felt edgy whenever she had to do so. In the present circumstances it was far worse.

She saw flames below, and angry red streaks of tracer fire in the air. One of the monastery buildings—the Refectory—was consumed by flames.

Beside her, the female guard did not look like she was feeling well, with her eyelids hovering just above the lower lids. Through slits, she peered over at Lori for a moment before looking away, her eyes dull, as if she had taken a drug. Across the aisle, another guard sat, not paying any attention to Lori. Both of the uniformed young women looked like high school students to Lori, and she wondered how they had gotten into such a dangerous profession at their ages.

These were the only two guards aboard. The other passengers were councilwomen, matrons, a translator, and four of the she-apostles.

Lori’s guard wore a sidearm that was only centimeters from Lori’s hip, and she thought it might be possible to release the flap of the holster and grab the handle of the weapon. The guard’s eyes were closed, and as moments passed, she began to snore softly.

This may be my only chance
, Lori thought, remembering the shooting lessons her mother had given her the year before. Camilla Vale, always concerned about the danger of attacks—particularly from men—had taken her teenage daughter out in the woods for target practice one day, using a handgun and a rifle. Curiously, it had been one of the few times in recent memory when the two of them had gotten along well. They’d spent hours lining up pine cones on a log and shooting them off.

The following morning, Lori had commented about how masculine their day had been, in contrast to the feminine ideals Camilla professed to hold. With a sharp glance, Lori’s mother had said, “It is necessary to know the art of violence in order to defend ourselves against men.”

And maybe I can use those skills now
, Lori thought.

Carefully, moving centimeter by centimeter, Lori’s hand drew closer to the guard’s holster flap. Ever so slowly, she lifted the flap. For a moment the snap stuck, then released. The guard stirred. Her eyelids fluttered.

Lori pulled away.

Presently, she heard the gentle snoring resume. Looking peripherally, she saw the black handle of the gun, exposed and ready for her to take. She hesitated. If she failed at this, it could mean her death. Probably would, in fact, in the flurry of a few seconds, if the guard across the aisle lifted her automatic rifle and started firing. If Lori didn’t do this right, the children aboard could be injured or killed, too.

And the teenager felt something else as well, a sudden spark of awareness deep in her soul. She had something important to live for, something significant to do with her life. It was her life, and she deserved to direct it herself, to success or failure. She would not be controlled by others any longer.

Moving quickly, her fingers darted toward the gun, grabbed the prize and withdrew it. No reaction from either guard.

She released the safety and cocked the weapon.

At the click, her guard jerked her eyes open. Lori shoved her into the aisle and shouted to the other one, “Get on the floor with her!
Now
!”

When the two young guards were down, Lori ordered a matron to give her their weapons, and to tie the women with electrical cord. Just ahead of Lori, Wendy Zepeda sat with the she-apostle Veronica, “This will not please Dixie Lou,” Zepeda said. The toddler with her was crying.

“I didn’t do it to please her,” Lori said, standing in the aisle. “I’m in charge of this helicopter now. Now take care of that child.”

As Zepeda did as she was told, the other councilwoman onboard, Fujiko Harui, made her way along the aisle toward Lori, coming from the rear.

“That’s close enough,” Lori said, waving the handgun at her. She had the other guns beside her.

“I want to help you,” the tiny Japanese woman said. “But watch out for Wendy.” Hearing another child cry in the rear of the cabin, Lori glanced back. One of the matrons was trying to calm her.

“I already know about Wendy,” Lori said. “The way she always votes with Dixie Lou Jackson.”

“Have you heard how I vote?” Her voice had an edge of anger.

Lori nodded. “You switched to Dixie Lou, but not until she threatened to harm your daughter.”

“That’s right. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must tend to Mary Magdalene.” The diminutive woman made her way back along the aisleway.

* * *

Inside Dixie Lou’s command helicopter, the seats were arranged two on each side of a narrow aisle. The ceiling was mirrorlike, enabling the Chairwoman to look down on the other passengers through reflections. She sat alone at the rear, watching everyone, trusting none of them . . . and still excited about the harrowing escape from Monte Konos. She still couldn’t believe that Candace had not been hit by those bullets. Under other circumstances, she might have thought her eyes had played tricks on her. People didn’t vanish into thin air and then reappear. But since the discovery of the she-apostles, strange events had been occurring, and she worried about being able to keep things under control.

Just ahead of her, a baby fussed, and Bobbi Torrence spoke to her in a soothing tone that immediately caused her to quiet down.

On her lap, Dixie Lou held a laptop computer, the screen casting pale gray light. It was time to disseminate the
Holy Women’s Bible
via the worldwide net. The first editions to reach the public would be in the form of free, downloadable e-books in more than a hundred languages, and she would also transmit the manuscript to secret UWW printing establishments all over the world, so that that bound editions could be assembled on a rush basis and given away.

But now, as she tried to connect with the Internet on their encrypted line, she couldn’t get the system working. It was extremely frustrating to her.

Presently Dixie Lou gave up the effort and stared glumly out a porthole on her left. In the Scriptorium Building that was fading into the distance, UWW military information was being erased from the computer system, an automated security procedure. Somewhat similar to Lori Vale’s line of thinking concerning the children, micro-cylinder copies and printouts of the
Holy Women’s Bible
were aboard the Chairwoman’s vessel and the VTOL, so that all UWW assets were not in one basket. The teenager was highly intelligent. No question about that.

All four of the aircraft in her squadron had long-range fuel tanks, enabling them to fly for great distances without refueling . . . more than three thousand kilometers if necessary. They were also stealth, constructed in the last year with the latest materials and designs, but this gave her only small comfort. She’d heard that stealth capability was a continually evolving technology, one that kept becoming obsolete and then changing as a result of new detection equipment. There had, in fact, been a disturbing incident only three months before, in which a stealth UWW plane had been shot down over the Mediterranean Sea.

That was roughly where they were headed now, on a southwesterly course that would take them out over the Mediterranean, heading for a secret UWW base in Tunisia, on the north coast of Africa.

Dixie Lou wished she’d been able to get off an Internet broadcast of the book, and wondered if the storm had anything to do with her difficulties. Strapped to a wall bracket beside her was the sacred Sword of She-God, with the inlaid emeralds and fire opals of its hilt dancing in reflected light.

Unfortunately, the two guards aboard this craft, and some of the other guards as well, were not the ones she’d specified in her evacuation list. Most of them were only the greenest of trainees, but they would have to suffice. In the confusion of the surprise attack, there had been little choice.