Empire of Dust (40 page)

"We didn't even kill him, did we?" Laika said. "One of your people shot him down." LaPierre only pursed his lips. "And you rigged it with Miriam Dominick so that we'd stumble across your book."

"Eventually, we had to," LaPierre said. "No offense, but we thought you'd have cracked the book code much sooner than you did." He smiled. "I suppose I shouldn't expect
everyone
to be familiar with my work. Pride again, you see. I struggle against it."

"Doesn't put up much of a fight, does it?" said Joseph. LaPierre shook his head. "Sassiness. There should be a commandment against it."

"Maybe you can write one," said Laika.

The man smiled automatically. "But you are right, Agent Harris. We knew that you would be investigating Miss Dominick, so we placed the book in her backpack. We chose her well, don't you think? Right in line with Agent Luciano's weaknesses. Vibrant, attractive, and a good Catholic girl, to boot."

"Why did you follow us when we came west?" Laika asked. "You couldn't have known there was a link between the mummified body and . . . the Antichrist."

LaPierre shook his head. "No. We didn't know anything about the body. You see, we learned from our informants within the papist church that the Antichrist would stay in the United States for the time being, but was being moved west. That was as much as we were able to get. His location has always had top-secret status. So when the three of you went west, we naturally assumed you were on his trail, and followed."

"And Daly eventually told you about the body?"

"That's right. When we learned you weren't specifically after the Antichrist again, we decided to bait the trail, as it were, to keep you in the area, in case this mummified corpse turned out to have a natural explanation. We thought that eventually Agent Stein would be 'contacted' by the Antichrist again, if he remained in the west long enough. That was when we began to stage the sand drawings. At night, of course, and using infrared lights. This is a desolate land, you know. Even near the roads, the chances of actually being seen were slim. And even if we had been, what would they have reported? Large, dark shapes moving through the night sky—what UFO sightings are made of."

"An expensive prank," Joseph said. "But I guess you don't have to worry about money."

"I don't worry at all. The Lord is my shield. And if you want further proof that He is on our side, just look at the splendid coincidence of your dried corpses appearing near the places where we did our drawings."

"Who decided where the drawings were going to be?" Laika asked, a half-formed idea eating at her mind.

"Miss Dominick made the suggestions."

"Any particular reason?"

LaPierre shrugged. "She was closest to you. She knew your thoughts and your plans. We followed her advice, and it seemed to work. Uncanny, isn't it? But in her choices, she seems to have followed the very trail of the Antichrist itself, as though she were guided by the Lord."

"Or," said Laika, "as though she were guided by someone else. Did you ever think that she might be a . . . minion, too?"

LaPierre looked uncomfortable, but just for a moment. "No. Never."

"That's debatable," Laika said. "But the sand drawings had another purpose, didn't they? They added to the illusion that Miriam Dominick was psychic, and that was your trump card."

"Yes. Her 'psychic abilities' would entice you, of course, draw her closer to you. But it also set you up for the final blow—or what was to have
been
the final blow."

"Our near-fatal mountain trip."

"Correct. Once we knew where the Antichrist was, you three had served your purpose, and it was time for you to meet the Lord. That time has been pushed back just a bit, so that you may behold the destruction of the Antichrist."

"One little problem with your timeline," Joseph said. "The first sand design was found before we were even assigned to come out west. You couldn't have done that one."

"No, we didn't. But it gave us the idea to do the others."

"Then who did the first one?"

"You don't know?" LaPierre laughed as if at an ignorant child. "The Lord God Himself, of course. It was a true sign from heaven, sent to give us the idea and show us the way."

"Silly me," Joseph said. "I thought it was some high school kids with a Harley."

LaPierre shrugged. "Maybe it was, but if so, the students were tools in God's hands. It doesn't really matter, though, does it? All that matters is my final goal, not how we get there."

"Shades of the Thousand-Year Reich," said Joseph.

"Don't try and bait
me
, Jew. This is no political crusade. Everything that I do I do to glorify the Lord God almighty and His son, Jesus Christ. We're going to make this country a land ruled by God, not man. We have millions of people ready to rise up and take this country back for God. All they need is a leader."

"And that's you," said Laika.

"That's me. I have been called, and I will serve." LaPierre stood up and walked a few steps toward the sandstone cliffs, looking high above their red rims. "This was not of my choosing. But God gave me the money and the talent and the energy and the power to pull believers together. The current rulers of this country are hand in hand with the Antichrist. And with him destroyed, we shall rise up and take America and lead it into a revival of faith such as the world has never seen."

"And what about the existing government? What about the Constitution?" asked Joseph.

LaPierre whirled and looked at him with intense, almost mad eyes. "The only law any country requires is the law of the Lord as proclaimed in the Bible."

"Reconstructionism," Joseph said. "Old Testament law. Where you execute gays and adulterers and disobedient children. And I believe the method of choice is public stoning?"

LaPierre's face took on a grim and puritanical cast. "It an entire nation back to God," he said.

"What about all those annoying dietary laws?" Joseph said. "And what about not cutting your hair or your beards? I couldn't help but notice that so many of you have moustaches. Is that dictated in the book of Leviticus, or do you all just think it looks macho?"

"The blood of Christ did away with the need for many of those Jewish laws," LaPierre said.

"And who's going to decide which to obey and which to ignore, Mr. LaPierre? You and your . . . minions? You'll be the ones to do the interpreting."

"No.
God
will show us the way.
He
will tell us what laws still remain."

"Ah," said Joseph, nodding. "With a little help from his friends, no doubt. And how are you going to bring about this overthrow—by appealing to reason nationwide?"

"You know that's not possible. Most in this country are still allied with Satan. It isn't the liberal atheistic scum who have the weapons, Agent Stein. They believe too much in the danger of guns to own them. But you'd be surprised how many good, right-thinking Christians have access to firearms."

"No," said Joseph. "I don't believe I would."

Laika cocked her head at LaPierre. The man was crazier than she thought. "Are you telling me that after—or
if
—you kill this so-called Antichrist, you intend to take over the U.S. government by force of arms?"

LaPierre nodded. "We have leaders in every area of this country, 144 sections altogether—the number of cubits in the wall of the New Jerusalem; 144,000 is the number of the Lamb of God's faithful followers. But there are far more than 144,000. These men have hundreds more under their control, and each of those, more hundreds. When the call comes from the Lord, the people of the Lord will respond, believe me. Millions of them, men, women, and youth. They will overtake every government office, every police station, and every military installation in this country."

"And what are the police and soldiers going to say about that?" Joseph asked.

"For all your seeming sophistication, Agent Stein, you are really very simple." LaPierre's voice softened so that they could barely hear him. "Do you have any idea of how many policemen and soldiers are already ours?"

The thought stifled any quick comeback. Laika felt sick to her stomach. It wasn't the thought of dying that frightened her, but the all too real possibility of the country—
her
country—under the control of this fanatic and his followers. She had always thought that the extreme religious right wing had been very vocal, but that the numbers just weren't there to affect much other than local school board elections.

But what if LaPierre was right? What if these reconstructionists who followed the Bible literally had the numbers and the weaponry to take over the country at the local level? It was a damned scary thought, but not an impossible one.

She knew that fundamentalists, be they Islamic or Christian, often had a passion and a fury that the more liberal and tolerant Christians and Muslims did not. For most of them, there was no middle ground, no compromise. That was what made them dangerous, whether they were bombing school buses in Israel or abortion clinics in New Jersey. And that was what made Michael LaPierre's scenario all too conceivable.

But what the hell could Laika or her team do about it?

Her reverie was startled by the sudden movement of the guards as they pointed their weapons at Tony, who had moved his hand to his right pocket. "Don't shoot," Tony said in a calm voice tinged with sarcasm. "I'm just getting out something you all know and love." From his pocket he withdrew Miriam's gold cross on its chain. He put it around his neck and let the cross slip down into his shirt.

"This belonged to a friend of mine," he said. His voice was soft now. "Somebody whose mind you took and screwed up. You've made this cross, and who it represents, very ugly to a lot of people. But you're not going to do it to me. I know what this cross really stands for. Its message is love, not hate. Tolerance instead of bigotry. Not judgment, but forgiveness. That's what
my
God offers. This is
his
symbol. And if you want to use it, Mr. LaPierre, I suggest you bend and twist it the way you bend and twist its message. Bend it into the
crooked
cross, the swastika. That's the cross that suits you."

LaPierre met Tony's gaze for a long moment, then slowly clapped his hands together three times. "A very nice sermon, Agent Luciano. But by making it you only prove yourself aligned with the Antichrist."

LaPierre stood and slowly paced back and forth. "The meanings in the scriptures are all too clear. But you haven't read them, have you? You haven't studied them the way you should. Because if you had, you would know who it is that contends with the Devil himself, who it is that defeats the great dragon in the Book of Revelation. It is the archangel. . . ." He stopped pacing and turned toward them, spreading his arms wide as if inviting them to behold him. "The archangel
Michael
."

"And what," said Joseph, "if your mother had named you
Herbie
?"

"Mock on, Agent Stein," said LaPierre. "We'll see if you mock tomorrow, once you witness the destruction of the Antichrist."

"From what we've heard from Father Alexander," Laika said, "others have tried and failed."

"Old legends perpetrated by a blasphemous church that kept the Antichrist alive when it could have destroyed him. The Book of Revelation tells how the Devil may be destroyed. Do none of you know?"

"I hate pop quizzes," said Joseph.

Tony cleared his throat. "He's cast down into a lake of fire."

"A-plus, Agent Luciano," said LaPierre, beaming. "The 'eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' Fire will destroy him, and it will be the fire of Michael that shall help to light tomorrow's dawn, a dawn that will signal a new beginning, a new age for America, and eventually for the world."

T
he man is definitely on a power trip," said Joseph, after they were taken back to the basement of the mission.

"He's crazy," said Tony. "Absolutely insane. What do we do about it?"

"What happen?" Ezekiel Swain, still sitting against the wall, rumbled. "Where Divine?"

So Laika told him, as she might tell a child, what Michael LaPierre had done, and that on the following day, he intended to destroy Swain's "Divine."

But Swain only laughed, and said one word: "Won't."

It seemed to Laika that he had shrunk somewhat in stature, and they tightened his bonds reluctantly, dreading any contact between his flesh and theirs. "For our own safety, you understand," Laika said, by way of apology, though why she should apologize to this monster, she had no idea. Even as disgusting as he was, there was still something charismatic about him, something that commanded respect.