Swan Song (63 page)

“A few.”

“How about Captain Hewlitt? Sergeant Oldfield? Lieutenant Vann? Any of those?”

“I guess.” She shrugged, and her mouth curled into a faint smile through the haze of smoke. “They come and go.”

“I’ve heard things,” Macklin said. “It seems that some of my officers-I don’t know who-aren’t very pleased with the way I’m running the Army of Excellence. They think we should plant roots, start a settlement of our own. They don’t understand why we’re moving east, or why we have to stamp out the mark of Cam. They can’t see the grand scheme, Sheila. Especially the young ones-like Hewlitt and Vann. I made them officers against my better judgment. I should have waited to see what they were made of. Well, I know now. I believe they want to take my command away from me.”

She was silent. Tonight there would be no screwing, just one of the colonel’s sessions of raving. But that was fine with Sheila; at least Rudy couldn’t find her here.

“Look at this,” he said, and he turned one of the maps that he’d been working on toward her. It was an old, creased and stained map of the United States, torn from an atlas. The names of the states had been marked through, and large areas were outlined heavily in pencil. Substitute names had been scrawled in: “Summerland” for the area of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana; “Industrial Park” for Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee; “Port Complex” for the Carolinas and Virginia; “Military Training” for the southwest, and also for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming were marked “Prison Area.”

And across the entire map Macklin had written “AOE-America of Enlightenment.”

“This is the grand scheme,” he told her. “But to make it come true, we have to destroy the people who don’t think like us. We have to wipe out the mark of Cain.” He turned the map around and grazed the nails across it. “We have to stamp it out so we can forget what happened and put it behind us. But we’ve got to get ready for the Russians, too! They’re going to be dropping paratroopers and landing invasion barges. They think we’re dead and finished, but they’re wrong.” He leaned forward, the nails digging into the scarred desktop. “We’ll pay them back. We’ll pay the bastards back a thousand times!”

He blinked. The Shadow Soldier was smiling thinly, his face streaked with camouflage paint under the brow of his helmet. Macklin’s heart was hammering, and he had to wait for it to settle down before he could speak again. “They don’t see the grand scheme,” he said quietly. “The AOE has almost five thousand soldiers now. We have to move to survive, and we have to take what we need. We’re not farmers-we’re warriors! That’s why I need you, Sheila.”

“Need me? For what?”

“You get around. You hear things. You know most of the other RLs. I want you to find out whom I can trust among my officers-and who needs to be disposed of. Like I say, I don’t trust Hewlitt, Oldfield or Vann, but it’s nothing I can prove before a court-martial. And the cancer might run deep, very deep. They think that just because of this”-and he touched the black leather mask-“I’m not fit for command anymore. But this isn’t the mark of Cain. This is different. This’ll go away when the air gets clean again and the sun comes out. The mark of Cain won’t go away until we destroy it.” He angled his head to one side, watching her carefully. “For every name you can put on an execution list-and verify-I’ll give you a carton of cigarettes and two bottles of liquor. How about it?”

It was a generous offer. She already had a name in mind; it started with an L and ended with a Y. But she didn’t know if Lawry was loyal or not. Anyway, she sure would like to see him in front of a firing squad-but only if she could smash his brains out first. She was about to answer when someone knocked at the door.

“Colonel?” It was Roland Croninger’s voice. “I’ve got a couple of presents for you.”

Macklin strode to the door and opened it. Outside, illuminated by the firelight, was the armored truck that Captain Croninger and the others had gone out in. And chained to the rear fender were two men, both bloody and battered, one on his knees and the other standing straight and staring defiantly.

“We found them about twelve miles east, along Highway 6,” Roland said. He was wearing his long coat, with the hood pulled up over his head. An automatic rifle was slung over his shoulder, and at his waist was a holstered.45. The dirty bandages still covered most of his face, but growths protruded like gnarled knuckles through spaces between them. The firelight burned red in the lenses of his goggles. “There were four of them at first. They wanted to fight. Captain Braden bought it; we brought back his clothes and guns. Anyway, that’s what left of them.” Roland’s growth-knotted lips parted in a slick smile. “We decided to see if they could keep up with the truck.”

“Have you questioned them?”

“No, sir. We were saving that.”

Macklin walked past him, down the carved staircase. Roland followed, and Sheila Fontana watched from the doorway.

The soldiers who stood around the two men parted to make way for Colonel Macklin. He stood face to face with the prisoner who refused to fall in defeat, even though the man’s knees were shredded and he had a bullet wound in his left shoulder. “What’s your name?” Macklin asked him.

The man closed his eyes. “The Savior is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters, He restoreth my-”

Macklin interrupted him with a swipe of the nail-studded palm across the side of his face.

The man dropped to his knees, his slashed face lowered to the ground.

Macklin prodded the second man in the side with his boot. “You. Up.”

“My legs. Please. Oh, God… my legs.”

“Get up!”

The prisoner struggled to his feet. Blood streamed down both his legs. He looked at Macklin through horrified, dazed eyes. “Please,” he begged. “Give me something for the pain… please…”

“You give me information first. What’s your name?”

The man blinked. “Brother Gary,” he said. “Gary Cates.”

“That’s good, Gary.” Macklin patted his shoulder with his left hand. “Now: Where were you going?”

“Don’t tell him anything!” the man on the ground shouted. “Don’t tell the heathen!”

“You want to be a good boy, don’t you, Gary?” Macklin asked, his masked face about four inches away from Cates’s. “You want something to take your mind off the pain, don’t you? Tell me what I want to know.”

“Don’t… don’t…” the other man sobbed.

“It’s over for you,” Macklin stated. “It’s finished. There’s no need to make things more difficult than they have to be. Isn’t that right, Gary? I’ll ask you once more: Where were you going?”

Cates hunched his shoulders, as if afraid he might be struck down from above. He shivered, and then he said, “We were… trying to catch up with them. Brother Ray got shot. He couldn’t make it on his own. I didn’t want to leave him. Brother Nick’s eyes were burned, and he was blind. The Savior says to leave the wounded… but they were my friends.”

“The Savior? Who’s that?”

“Him. The Savior. The true Lord and Master. He leads the American Allegiance. That’s who we were trying to catch up with.”

“No…” the other man said. “Please… don’t tell…”

“The American Allegiance,” Macklin repeated. He’d heard of them before, from wanderers who’d joined the AOE’s fold. They were led, as he understood it, by an ex-minister from California who had had a cable television program. Macklin had been looking forward to meeting him. “So he calls himself the Savior? How many are traveling with him, and where are they headed?”

The fallen man sat up on his knees and began shrieking crazily, “The Savior is my shepherd, I shall not want! He maketh me to lie down in green pas-” He heard the click of Roland’s.45 as its barrel pressed against his skull.

Roland did not hesitate. He squeezed the trigger.

The noise of the gun made Sheila jump. The man toppled over.

“Gary?” Macklin asked. Cates was staring down at the corpse, his eyes wide and one corner of his mouth twitching in a hysterical grin. “How many are traveling with the Savior, and where are they headed?”

“Uh… uh… uh,” Cates stammered. “Uh… uh… three thousand,” he managed to say. “Maybe four. I don’t know for sure.”

“They have armored vehicles?” Roland inquired. “Automatic weapons? Grenades?”

“All those. We found an Army supply center up in South Dakota. There were trucks, armored cars, machine guns, flamethrowers, grenades… everything, for the taking. Even… six tanks and crates of heavy ammunition.”

Colonel Macklin and Roland looked at each other. The same thought flashed through their minds: Six tanks and crates of heavy ammunition.

“What kind of tanks?” The blood was pounding through Macklin’s veins.

“I don’t know. Big tanks, with big guns. But one of them wouldn’t run right from the first. We left three others, because they broke down and the mechanics couldn’t get them started again.”

“So they’ve still got two?”

Cates nodded. He lowered his head in shame, could feel the Savior’s eyes burning on the back of his neck. The Savior had three commandments: Disobey and Die; To Kill Is Merciful; and Love Me.

“All right, Gary.” Macklin traced the other man’s jawline with his finger. “Where are they going?” Cates mumbled something, and Macklin wrenched his head up. “I didn’t hear you.”

Cates’s gaze skittered to the.45 Roland was holding, then back to the black-masked face with its single, cold blue eye. “To West Virginia,” he said. “They’re going to West Virginia. A place called Warwick Mountain. I don’t know exactly where it is.”

“West Virginia? Why there?”

“Because-” He trembled; he could feel the man with the bandaged face and the.45 just aching to kill him. “If I tell you, will you let me live?” he asked Macklin.

“We won’t kill you,” the colonel promised. “Tell me, Gary. Tell me.”

“They’re going to West Virginia… because God lives there,” the other man said, and his face folded with agony at betraying the Savior. “God lives on top of Warwick Mountain. Brother Timothy saw God up there, a long time ago. God showed him the black box and the silver key and told him how the world will end. And now Brother Timothy’s leading the Savior to find God.”

Macklin paused for a few seconds. Then he laughed out loud, its sound like the grunting of an animal. When he’d stopped laughing, he grasped the collar of Cates’s shirt with his left hand and pressed the nails of his right against the man’s cheek. “You’re not among crazy religious fanatics now, my friend. You’re among warriors. So stop the bullshitting and tell me the truth. Now.”

“I swear it! I swear it!” Tears rolled from Cates’s eyes and through the grime on his face. “God lives on Warwick Mountain! Brother Timothy’s leading the Savior to find him! I swear it!”

“Let me have him,” Roland said.

There was a moment of silence. Macklin stared into Gary Cates’s eyes and then drew his right hand away. Little dots of blood were rising from the man’s cheek.

“I’ll take good care of him.” Roland holstered his.45. “I’ll make him forget that pain in his legs. Then we’ll have a nice talk.”

“Yes.” Macklin nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”

“Unshackle him,” Roland told the soldiers. They obeyed at once. His eyes gleamed with excitement behind the goggles. He was a happy young man. It was a hard life, yes, and sometimes he wished for a Pepsi and a Baby Ruth candy bar, or he craved a hot shower and then a good late-night war movie on TV-but those were all things that belonged to a past life. He was Sir Roland now, and he lived to serve the King in this never-ending game of King’s Knight. He missed his computer, though; that was the only really bad thing about not having electricity. And sometimes he had a strange dream in which he seemed to be in an underground maze, at the King’s side, and in that maze there were two tunnel trolls-a man and a woman-who had familiar faces. Their faces disturbed him and always brought him awake in a cold sweat. But those faces were not real; they were just dreams, and Roland was always able to go back to sleep again. He could sleep like the dead when his mind was clear.

“Help him walk,” Roland ordered two of the soldiers. “This way,” he said, and he led them in the direction of the black trailer.

Macklin prodded the corpse at his feet. “Clean it up,” he told one of the guards, and then he stood facing the eastern horizon. The American Allegiance couldn’t be very far ahead of them-maybe only twenty or thirty miles. They’d be loaded down with supplies from what had been a thriving community at Sutton. And they had plenty of guns, ammunition-and two tanks.

We can catch them, Macklin thought. We can catch them and take what they have. And I’ll grind the Savior’s face under my boot. Because nothing can stand before the Army of Excellence, and nothing can stop the grand scheme.

“God lives on Warwick Mountain,” the man had said. “God showed him the black box and the silver key and told him how the world will end.”

The crazy religious fanatics had to be destroyed. There was no room for their kind in the grand scheme.

He turned back toward the trailer. Sheila Fontana was standing in the doorway, and suddenly Macklin realized that all this excitement had given him an erection. It was a good erection, too. It promised to stay around awhile. He walked up the carved staircase with its bannister of demon faces, entered the trailer and shut the door.