The Sign (51 page)

“What?” he asked.

She peered out, then slipped out of view behind him again. “Ogilvy,” she said. “He’s right there.”

Matt’s fists clenched. “Which one?”

“Slick guy, by the concession stand. Graying hair, rimless glasses. He’s in a light-colored suit.”

Matt scanned the crowd. The concourse was filled with wall-to-wall people. A couple of heads parted and he caught a glimpse of someone fitting Gracie’s description. “Come on,” he said in a low voice as he took Gracie’s hand and cut through the crowd behind Ogilvy. He lost him, then saw him appear again, about fifteen yards ahead, heading for the suites. The fact that Ogilvy was about five-six wasn’t helping. Matt tried to press ahead, but the crush of people was like quicksand. He saw a small opening in the crowd and nosed into it, only to slam into a couple of tall rancher types who were cutting across him on their way back from the concession stands. One of them spilled his beer all over his shirt and shoved Matt back angrily.

“Watch your step, doofus,” the man snapped. “What’s your rush?”

Matt’s arm tightened and his eyes narrowed and he was about to pounce, but Gracie held him back and subdued him with a forced smile.

“Easy, big guy.” She turned to the angry rancher and cranked her flirt look up to eleven. “No damage done, boys. What do you say we just forgive and forget and go back to enjoying the sermons. It
is
Christmas, right?”

Matt held back and waited for the other guy to nod. The rancher scowled, thinking about it, then grudgingly gave him a tiny bob of the head. Matt nodded back, took Gracie’s hand, and pulled her into the throng of people, but he couldn’t see Ogilvy anywhere. He craned his neck and hoisted himself on the tips of his toes and scanned around intently.

There was no sign of him.

OUT
AT
THE
EDGE
of the red lot, Rydell and Dalton watched with awe as the crowd rose into song and settled down again. Some of them had brought small 12-volt-powered TV sets with them, and clusters of people were massed around each set, listening to the sermons and responding with the occasional “Amen.”

Rydell cast his gaze across the plain of cars, then looked up at the sky. The last glints of daylight had dipped down behind the horizon. “Let’s send it up,” he said. “We can’t wait much longer.”

Dalton brought the Draganflyer out of the Lincoln and set it down on the ground. He checked the light and flicked the HD video camera under its belly to night-vision mode. He then switched the Draganflyer’s engines on, glanced around, and guided it up. It rose quickly with the silent whirr of a high-powered household cooling fan and disappeared in the night sky.

Rydell studied the area around them, trying to divine where he would put the launchers. To their right were some low-lying structures, on the other side of Kirby Drive. “Let’s send it out over those buildings over there,” he said, pointing in that direction. Then he seemed to have second thoughts. He shifted his gaze over to the stadium. Something about its north-south axis was tugging at his mind. His eyes narrowed a touch, and he said, “Actually, send it up there,” pointing behind them, north of the stadium. He checked the image the skycam was sending back onto Dalton’s laptop. It had that ghostly, pale-green night-vision look, but the high-definition processor was doing its job and the detail was surprisingly clear. “And keep your eyes on that screen.”

“
DAMMIT
,” Matt hissed. “We’ve lost him.”

His eyes scoured the concourse around him. Ogilvy had vanished into the crowd.

“The network,” Gracie blurted. “Maybe they wrangled a suite here. Maybe that’s how they brought the transmitter in.”

“Makes sense. But how do we find out where it is? I didn’t see any guest lists. It’s all a big mess in here.”

They also had another problem. There were two banks of suites on level two, but they were at opposite ends of the stadium. One was to the east, facing the Astrodome. The other faced west. Getting across from one to the other meant they’d have to get through another human swamp.

“We won’t have time to check both banks,” Gracie said.

Just then, the music changed into a deep, heraldic burst of brass and the lights across the stadium dimmed again. The crowd hushed to a bone-chilling silence. The air was thick with nervous expectation. And Darby reappeared on stage, welcomed by a thunderous uproar. He milked it for almost a minute before raising a calming hand and asking the crowd, “Are you ready?”

The answer was a thunderous “Yes.”

“My fellow children of Christ, please give a warm Houston welcome and open your hearts to our special guest, Father Jerome.” Every single person in the stadium was standing up, clapping and cheering rapturously as the slight figure of Father Jerome appeared. He looked unimaginably small on the huge stage, shuffling forward slowly, looking around at the crowd in awe, dwarfed by his own image on the overhead video displays. A blinding fusillade of flashbulbs accompanied him as he padded across to the center of the stage and gave Darby a small, courteous bow. Darby ushered him over to a microphone stand and waved him on before retreating a few steps into the shadows.

Matt and Gracie stood there, rooted to the floor, transfixed by the crowd’s reaction. The entire stadium reverberated with an air of majesty. Gracie watched the close-up of Father Jerome’s face on the screens. He was looking up, taking in the scene, clearly overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all. Droplets of sweat were sliding down his forehead. He didn’t seem to know what to say. The whole crowd was on its feet and just stood there, silent, hanging on what God’s messenger would proclaim. He cleared his throat with a small cough, looking around slightly fearfully—and then his expression changed, as if he’d been mildly startled by something. He cocked his head a little and his eyes blinked, then he swallowed and said, “Thank you all for being here and for welcoming me here tonight.”

The crowd responded exuberantly with “Amens” and applause.

As Father Jerome embarked on his sermon down below, an idea burst through the chaos in Matt’s mind. “I need to call Rydell,” he told Gracie. “Quick.”

Gracie had Dalton’s cell phone with her. Rydell still had his. She speed-dialed him and passed the phone to Matt.

RYDELL
PICKED
UP on the first ring.

“Do you have the skycam up?” Matt asked, his tone urgent.

Rydell was eyeing the screen on Dalton’s laptop closely. “It’s over the medical center, just north of here,” he informed him. “Nothing so far.”

“What happens to its video downlink if it crosses into the transmitter’s signal?” Matt asked breathlessly.

“It would interrupt it, for sure,” Rydell speculated.

“It wouldn’t mess it up so it couldn’t fly, would it?”

Rydell thought about it for a beat, then said, “It might. The laser signal could override the signal from the skycam’s remote controller. We could lose control of it while it’s in the beam’s path. Might fry it altogether.”

Dalton flashed him a concerned look.

Matt’s voice shot back. “We’ve got to risk it. Send it over to us, inside the stadium. It’s the only way we’re going to find out where their signal’s coming from.”

“Okay,” Rydell said, spinning a finger horizontally in the air to Dalton and gesturing at the stadium. “Let’s just hope it gets there in one piece.” He turned to Dalton, and told him, “We’re going in.”

Dalton used the screen to guide him and fingered the joysticks to turn the black skycam around. Rydell was huddled behind him, his attention riveted to the screen. As Dalton banked the Draganflyer around, he flinched and exclaimed, “Did you see that?” He jabbed a finger at the screen, but the Draganflyer was zooming back and whatever he was pointing at was gone.

“What?” Dalton asked.

“There was something, back there.” He pointed at the top left-hand corner of the screen. “On the roof. Can you flip the camera around so it’s pointing backward?”

Dalton’s face was tight with concentration as his fingers made micro-adjustments to the joysticks. “Can’t do a full one-eighty, it’s just a forward sweep. I can spin it around and fly it backward, but it’s gonna reach the stadium any second now and I don’t want to risk it and fly blind.”

Rydell frowned and nodded. “Okay, keep going. We’ll come back to it.”

“If it’s still flying by then,” Dalton worried.

MATT
AND
GRACIE
scanned the rectangular opening of black sky and waited as Father Jerome finished his sermon.

“Matt, he’s doing it,” she told him, pointing at the stage.

Matt looked down, the cell phone still on his ear. “Come on, guys.”

“It’s almost there,” Rydell said, clearly tense.

Down on the stage, Father Jerome tilted his head back and slowly raised his arms outward from his sides until they were slightly above the horizontal, as if he were about to catch a massive beach ball. The crowd shuddered and all eyes turned to the empty air under the stadium’s open roof.

“Pray with me,” Father Jerome beseeched his followers. “Pray with me that God gives us a sign and guides our thoughts and helps us do his will.”

Murmurs rose and lips quivered across the stadium as the crowd started to pray. And then a gasp reverberated throughout the giant hall as a ball of light appeared over Father Jerome. It was small, perhaps eight or ten feet in diameter, a swirling, cloudy sphere of light. An upwelling of flashbulbs lit up the tiers as the apparition just floated there for a few seconds, then started to rise. It reached the halfway point between Father Jerome’s head and the stadium’s full height and held there for a moment, blazing to a twinkling backdrop of thousands of flashbulbs, then it flared out and expanded into the now-familiar, massive sphere of brilliance.

The crowd was cowed into a nervous silence as the sign rotated before them. Then, like a breaking wave, euphoria rolled across the arena and the crowd erupted into a mighty roar, bigger than anything any touchdown at the stadium had ever generated. Amid wailing “Amens” and “Hallelujahs,” the massed faithful waved their arms and hugged their cheeks in adulation and awe. People were crossing themselves. Some people fainted, others wailed hysterically. Most just stared in disbelief while tears of joy ran down their faces.

Matt’s skin tingled. It was the first time he’d seen it live, and its power blew him away. He had to keep reminding himself that it wasn’t supernatural. That it was Danny’s work. That his brother had played a crucial role in making it possible.

He could sense his presence. More than ever, he had to find him.

He looked up and hissed into the cell phone, “Where is it?”

“It’s in,” Rydell announced. “It just dropped in from the north face of the opening.”

M
att stared up intently, straining to find the tiny black machine—then he spotted it. It was barely visible, its stealthy matte finish blending into the night sky, but it was there. He kept his eyes glued to it and sized up its position relative to the banks of suites. He decided to go for the east bank first.

“Okay, bring it down so it’s by the lower end of the sign and take it around the stadium counterclockwise,” he told Rydell. “And let me know the second you get any interference.”

“Got it,” Rydell acknowledged.

OUT
IN
THE
RED
LOT
, Rydell and Dalton watched the laptop’s screen breathlessly as the Draganflyer dived into the stadium and circled the sign. All around them, clusters of people were huddled around those who’d brought portable TVs with them, watching the sign in breathless awe.

“Here we go,” Dalton mumbled, nervousness catching in his throat.

MATT
STRUGGLED
to keep the tiny contraption in view as it began its wide circular sweep around the inside of the stadium. The cell phone was glued to his ear and he could feel his pulse thumping against his cheek. Gracie was on alert too, scanning the entrance behind them, still wary of Ogilvy, uncomfortable with his presence there.

Across the stadium, the crowd was still enthralled by the sight before them. The sign was just hovering there, a gargantuan ball of shimmering energy. Matt’s gaze kept getting drawn to it. It was incredibly hard to resist staring at it, and as soon as his eyes strayed over to it, he’d pull them away, back to the Draganflyer’s last position, trying to stay focused on the tiny black dot.

The skycam had almost reached the southern tip of the east bank of suites when Rydell’s voice shot into his ear.

“We’ve got something. Shit, we’re losing it,” he shouted.

Matt’s neck flinched forward, as if the extra couple of inches would make a difference. He saw the skycam go into a wobble, then it just arced down violently, as if it had suddenly lost all power or been smacked down by a big invisible swatter, and dropped like a rock.

Matt’s heart skipped a beat as he saw it plummet, but his eyes raced back up and lasered in on the suites that faced its last stable position. They were the very last ones, at the southeast corner of the stadium.

“Come on,” he yelled to Gracie, grabbing her hand and bolting back onto the concourse, racing for the escalators.

“
SHIT
,” Dalton yelled as he lost control of the Draganflyer, his heart pounding, his face clenched in panic, his fingers desperately playing the joysticks in search of a reaction.

The image on the laptop’s screen fizzled out and was replaced by gray static, its accompanying hiss just making things worse.

“It’s gonna fucking kill someone,” he blurted—then the image on the screen suddenly flickered back to life. It was unnerving—a plunging point-of-view from the camera as it dived at a rapidly growing crowd.

“Pull it up,” Rydell yelled.

“I’m trying,” Dalton fired back. The people in the camera’s sights grew bigger, their eyes shot wide as they spotted the alien device hurtling toward them and their faces went taut with alarm—and then it came back to life and swooped away just over their heads, avoiding them and pulling up until it just hovered in place by the stadium’s roof.