Empire of Dust (22 page)

Just as he turned the horse, it began to get skittish. It snorted, jerked its head, and then reared up so that Gary almost toppled from the saddle. "Hey!" he shouted. "Easy! Easy, boy!"

They were his last words. Suddenly he felt something leap onto the horse behind him, and the old animal gave a shriek of terror, twisting like a rodeo mount, then rearing up again.

What felt like claws dug into Gary's shoulders from behind, and he found himself falling backward, losing the reins, his feet slipping from the stirrups. He waved his arms once, in panic, and the horse galloped madly away into the darkness, as Gary's back struck the ground.

Or was it the ground? It felt as though he were lying on something brittle, a construction of sticks, but when he tried to push himself up, he found that whatever he was on was clinging to his back like a suction cup to a wall.

Then the thing's arms came around him from beneath, and he felt one clawlike hand over his heart and saw the outline of the other coming down upon his face, blotting out the stars, and then everything.

T
ony Luciano awoke instantly, as he always did. There was none of that "slowly coming out of sleep" for him. If he was awake, there was a reason, a sound, a bit of unexpected light, an unwelcome visitor. And if it were none of these, if he had slept just enough that he was rested and then woke up, what the hell, he might as well be awake.

Immediately he realized that what had awakened him was Miriam. She was moaning in her sleep, and her breath was coming in quick, panting gasps. He touched her forehead with his fingertips, hoping it would gently wake her, but she remained immersed in her nightmare. His fingers came away damp from her perspiration.

Then he said her name softly in the dark. The second time she seemed to hear him, and she hitched in a deeper breath. He felt her stiffen, and in the dim glow of the night light he saw her eyes open. She looked at him for a moment as though she did not understand where she was. Then, as she recognized him, she let her breath out slowly and melted into him with a shudder.

"Bad dream?" he asked.

She didn't answer for a moment, and when she did, her voice was a rough whisper. "I saw it again. The drawings in the sand. And this time I saw . . . what made them." She drew away from him again, just far enough to look into his face. Her breath was as fresh as if she hadn't been asleep at all. One more point in her favor, Tony thought.

"What did you see?" he asked her. "Tell me."

"It was the most realistic dream of the three," she said, turning on her back and looking up at the dark ceiling as though it were a screen on which she was playing back the images. "I was standing high on a ledge, and off in the distance there were two stone towers."

"You mean, towers that were built of stone? Or natural towers?"

"Natural. They were weathered, like sandstone. Chunks had broken off them, and I remember, one was taller than the other. And then . . . it wasn't like it was happening at the towers, but
near
them, like I was seeing two different places at once? Anyway, it was night, and I looked up in the sky and saw something moving, like a huge white cloud lit by the moon. And it was getting bigger and bigger, as though it was dropping toward me.

"Then it broke apart, and I saw that the cloud wasn't a cloud at all, but a flock of white birds, like doves. And they dived to the earth below me, so that they were just hovering over it, and they began to fly over the sand in patterns, weaving and twisting all around. I kept thinking that they were all going to collide with one another, but they never did.

"Finally, they rose, back into the sky, going up so fast that I could barely follow them, until they looked just like a cloud again. It drifted up and up, higher and higher, until it was gone. Then I looked down and saw what they had done.

"It was . . . an animal in profile. Crude, almost like a cave drawing, you know? I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. Maybe a bear, or something. But the weird part was that there was a line from its mouth to its chest or stomach; again, I couldn't really tell. But at the place where the line touched its body, it looked like an arrowhead."

"An arrowhead?" Tony said. "So was this line like a . . . a curved arrow?"

"I don't think so . . . I don't really know."

"What frightened you so badly then? Just the dream itself?"

"At the end, the animal . . . it started to move. The whole desert began to shift, like this gigantic beast was starting to rise right out of the sand." She pressed against him again. "That was what frightened me awake."

Tony put his arm around her and held her closely. "Well, you're not the only one with bad dreams," he whispered.

"You?"

"No. Dr. Tompkins. He's gotten what seem to be prophetic dreams now and then."

"What are his about? Monsters in the sand?"

"No. A prisoner. A man in . . . in a cell who wants to speak to him." Tony stopped himself from saying more. "It's okay. They're just dreams, whatever they're about. You're here with me now, and there's nothing that can hurt you. No animals, nothing." He kissed her forehead gently. "Just go back to sleep."

For a moment she looked up at him, and her eyes gleamed in the dim light. "I'm so glad I'm here with you," she said, then closed her eyes and nestled her head back against him.

It had been 1:30 in the morning when Miriam had awakened Tony. An hour later, Tony was still awake, looking at the glowing red numerals on the clock radio bolted to the bed table. Next to him Miriam was sleeping soundly, a soft snore coming from her slightly open mouth. Far from being disturbing, it was a rhythmic, soothing little sound that would have lulled him to sleep had his mind not been so busy.

He had not comforted her with the old saw that it was only a dream, because he did not believe that it was. With the other evidence of the girl's power of prophecy or out of body experiences, he thought it very possible that her dream had been another vision of reality. If another sand drawing was found that matched her dream, even Joseph would have to admit there was certainly something going on here that was inexplicable to science.

However, there was something else besides Miriam's psychic abilities that was keeping Tony awake, and that was the realization that he had fallen in love with her. Miriam Dominick seemed to be everything he had ever wanted in a woman. She was self-reliant and independent, yet also devout and compassionate. She was one of the easiest people to talk to that he had ever met, and to add to the mix, she was very lovely.

She is a lovely person
, he thought, as he lay in the dark with her. He wanted the night to go on forever, thought that he would be content to hold this woman in his arms every night, as the years passed and they grew old together.

Then he remembered what he had never really forgotten, that he was an operative with a job to do, and another to do tomorrow, and another next year, and so on down the years, and that there was a good chance that one of those jobs could kill him and leave Miriam alone. How could he ask a woman to lead a life like that?

But then he realized it was her decision to make, if she felt or would someday feel about him the way he did about her.

Another thought occurred to him then, a less generous one. The fact that he was an operative with a team affected and possibly endangered by his actions and his contacts made it imperative that he know as much about those contacts as possible. And Miriam Dominick was one of them. There was always the chance she was not what she seemed. With Skye at the controls,
nothing
might be what it seemed.

She seemed to be sleeping soundly, and he slowly slid his arm from beneath her neck and got out of bed, thankful it was one of those commercial motel beds that wouldn't have made a squeak if elephants had been mating on it. He stood for a moment, listening to her breathing as it continued undisturbed.

Her backpack lay just inside the door, and he picked it up and took it into the bathroom. He closed the door behind him and turned on the heat lamp. By its reddish glow, he examined the contents of the backpack.

Two cameras were on top, a Pentax K1000, which Tony knew to be a good but older model, and a newer Nikon. There was also an assortment of five lenses, a lead film packet with four rolls of exposed film, and a dozen unexposed loose rolls.

Tony examined the wallet next. There was a Visa card, a social security card, and an Arizona driver's license with Miriam's photo and the address of an apartment in Kingman. The date of birth told Tony that Miriam was twenty-seven. He also found a library card, a prayer card to St. Jude, and several photos of a younger Miriam and a cheerful-looking older couple Tony figured were her parents.

Further down in the backpack was a clean, rolled-up T-shirt and a pair of panties, which made him happily think that she had come intending to spend the night with him. There were also several letters from her mother. They had been addressed to general delivery at different northern Arizona and New Mexico towns, and the envelopes had a Tucson return address and postmark. They were mostly news about family and the neighborhood, with frequent admonitions to be careful when she was "out in the middle of nowhere," and assurances that Father Andrew and all her mother's friends would offer up prayers for her safety.

At the very bottom were three books, a worn Bible, a thick Maeve Binchy paperback novel, and a paperback edition of
My Partnership with Christ
, by Michael LaPierre. Tony examined them all. The small black leather-bound Bible had an inscription from Miriam's grandparents, and the other two books had been stamped by a used bookstore in Flagstaff. Tony looked more closely at the LaPierre autobiography.

Although Tony had not read the book, he had heard a lot about LaPierre. The man was a right-wing populist hero who had contributed millions over the years to a wide assortment of religious-right causes. On the rare occasions when Tony channel surfed, he had come across the man as a guest on various programs on ChristNet, the Reverend Richard O'Brien's cable network. LaPierre had heavily funded O'Brien's unsuccessful presidential bid back in 1992, and the LaPierre Foundation now financed a series of anti-abortion ads that made the DeMoss commercials look positively liberal in comparison.

Though Tony disapproved of abortion personally, he felt that it ought to be left up to the individual. He had seen enough of the effects of tyranny in some of the countries in which he had operated. Though he knew he should obey the church in every way, he still had difficulties resolving some of the tenets of Catholicism with his own fairly liberal social views. Despite his faith, he disliked pronouncements and any language that smacked of self-righteousness, and Michael LaPierre had created a public image founded on those.

Still, there was no denying the man's charisma. He had aged handsomely and was an articulate and persuasive speaker, and his book had sold in the millions over the five years it had been in print. It was the usual rags-to-riches story. LaPierre's father had been a poor fisherman on the Gulf, but his son, through smarts and hard work and, most important, LaPieffe claimed, a close association with Christ, was able to get a scholarship to Tulane. When he was graduated with an MBA, he borrowed money to start a small fleet of shrimpers, which over the next ten years somehow grew into a worldwide trading corporation.

LaPierre had expanded into a dozen other areas, and now LaPieffe International had its hands in everything from computers to banking to media, and Michael LaPierre was the third richest man in the United States, constantly traveling around the globe for both business and spiritual reasons, opening a new factory in Thailand or a new foster care facility in India.

Tony flipped through the book. It was a long one, nearly 500 pages. He saw that Miriam's bookmark was halfway through, on page 250. For some reason, the number gave him pause. Then he remembered. Page 250— "250-17-4." It was the first series of numbers of the book code message that they had taken off the dead body of a member of the group that had nearly killed them in New York City, a group whose primary purpose had seemed to be to locate and free the mysterious prisoner.

The ops had thought that the key book, without which the code was unbreakable, might be a religious book of some kind, since everything about the prisoner seemed steeped in religion, and the dead man was also packing a Bible. According to the numbers, the book had to be at least 452 pages long and have at least 34 lines per page.
My Partnership with Christ
qualified.

The chances were long, but Tony turned off the light, crept back into the room, slipped his wallet from his pants pocket, and went back into the bathroom. There he turned the heat lamp on again and took a reduced copy of the book code from a hidden sleeve in his wallet. Then he began to check.