“Because our first parents were tested and failed. We are their fallen children. We need to prove that we won’t repeat their sin.”

“The choice ought to be clearer,” Edward persisted. “The story only tells me that it’s hard to know the difference. If Christ showed the apostles a vision of heaven, shouldn’t it have been so wonderful that he’d have urged them to spread the word? Why did he tell them to keep it a secret?”

“That passage isn’t clear.”

“How’s this for a theory, Reverend? What if heaven’s so radiant that it’s terrifying? Maybe people shouldn’t know what it’s really like until they finally get there and it’s too late to back out.”

“I’ll pray for your soul.”

Now the brilliance of the lights made Edward as frightened as the apostles had been at the sight of Christ’s heavenly radiance. He told himself that his reaction was wrong, that he ought to be entranced by the shimmering beauty he was finally seeing.

I came all this way and tried so hard to see you.

You’re glorious. I ought to feel awestruck.

Maybe his fear was a sign of how truly good the lights were, he thought. But then he was struck by something more than awe.

The lights changed. Clouds of the darkest thunderstorm suddenly churned within them. Lightning flashed at their core. As thunder punished his ears, he saw a figure amid the clouds, a young man in a uniform who looked like the photographs Edward had seen of his father. The man held out his hand, beckoning for Edward to step into the clouds and join him.

Edward screamed. Turning, he ran.

Without realizing it, he charged along the airstrip that his father had built and had flown from countless times, years ago. He stumbled, falling on stones, scraping his jaw. He scrambled to his feet and ran harder.

He heard a wail and realized that it was coming from him, that he couldn’t stop screaming.

The next thing he knew, people were all around him, grabbing him, trying to calm him. He’d raced all the way back to town and had been so frenzied that he hadn’t realized how far he’d gone. Standing in the middle of the main street, he was surrounded by townspeople, most of whom wore nightclothes and held lanterns or flashlights.

“Edward, what’s the matter?” his grandfather asked in alarm. “What happened to you?”

“Clouds. Lightning,” Edward blurted.

“What’s he talking about?” someone asked. “Look at the stars. The sky’s perfectly clear.”

“Lights. Clouds in the lights.”

“I smell whiskey.”

“Thunder. Saw a man in the clouds.”

“… reeks of it.”

“My father.”

“Look at the blood on his chin. He’s so drunk he fell down.”

“Edward, where’d you get the whiskey?” his grandfather demanded.

“Good’s terrifying,” Edward blurted. “So bright…”

“Too drunk to make sense.”

“Where’s my truck, Edward? Did you wreck my truck?” his grand- father asked sternly.

“Evil feels welcoming,” Edward raved.

His grandfather shook him. “Answer me, Edward. Where’s my truck?”

“Well, I’ve got better things to do than waste a good night’s sleep on a drunk,” someone said. “Come on, Sarah. Let’s go back to bed.”

“Saw my father,” Edward persisted.

“Damn it, Edward, just be honest and tell me if you wrecked my truck.”

The next morning, Edward walked to where he’d left the truck, near the old airstrip. For a long time, he stared toward the southern horizon. Had he been so drunk that he’d hallucinated?

No, he didn’t believe that. He was convinced that the whiskey had long since worn off by the time he’d seen the lights.

I wasn’t drunk when it happened. I know it! I know what I saw.

He started the truck, drove back to town, left it outside the dry- goods store, and hitchhiked two hundred miles to El Paso, where he joined the Army.

From that moment he had one ambition-to read the reports his father had written about the lights. Edward had no doubt that those reports would be hard to obtain, but he was certain of something else-that the son of a revered World War I ace would advance quickly in his military career.

He judged correctly. It turned out that many officers of importance had served with his father during the expedition into Mexico, and later in France and Germany. By 1942, after Pearl Harbor and America’s en- try into World War II, Edward had risen quickly to the rank of captain in Military Intelligence, a branch he’d pursued because it gave him the best chance of learning where his father’s reports were located.

On a rainy October afternoon, after having searched in Washing- ton, D.C., and at the Presidio in San Francisco, Edward uncovered hints that took him back to El Paso’s Fort Bliss. From a disintegrating box in a musty Quonset hut filled with hundreds of similar long- forgotten boxes, he withdrew documents that his father had written twenty-four years earlier.

They were yellow with age. The words looked painfully typed. The ink on his father’s signature had turned from blue to brown.

Edward read the reports, then read them again. And again. The text was revealing, especially the section in which his father maintained that the lights had somehow caused his student pilots to at- tack one another in night training. His father had become convinced that somehow the lights could be used as a weapon.

64

Anita had an IV line leading into her right arm. Prongs from an oxy- gen tube filled her nostrils. Behind her, a beeping monitor indicated her pulse, blood pressure, and heart rhythm.

“The doctor says you need surgery, but you’re going to be okay,” Brent told her, sitting next to her bed.

She managed to nod and raise her eyelids slightly, groggily at- tempting to see him. Her dark skin was only slightly less pale.

“The bullet broke your arm,” Brent continued. “The doctor says that’s why the pain feels so deep. The bone needs to be set.”

Again Anita managed a slight nod.

“They’re going to take you to the operating room now,” Brent said. “When you wake up, I’ll be here. That might not be the most thrilling promise. Maybe I’m the last person you want to see. All the same, like it or not, when you wake up, I’ll be here.”

Anita tried to raise her uninjured arm.

“Save your strength,” Brent said.

She reached weakly for his hand.

Brent held it.

“You did damned good today,” he told her. “You never stopped trying. You never gave up. I promise-you’ll win an Emmy. You deserve it.”

Her hand drooped. After easing it onto the bed, Brent heard foot- steps behind him. Two nurses entered, ready to wheel her to the operating room.

He went out to the echoing corridor, where hospital visitors gave him troubled looks as they passed him. His torn coat sleeve flopped at his side. His hair was rumpled and dusty. Dirt and blood smeared his suit.

His producer waited for him. “You really want to go on the air looking like that? You’ll scare the hell out of some of your viewers.”

“Good. Let them realize what it takes to get a story.”

They walked quickly toward the elevator.

“Did you see the video I got on that camera?” Brent asked.

“Dynamite. We’re editing it now.”

“I’ll do a commentary. We could use sections of it tonight, then run all the footage as a one-hour special.” Brent pressed the elevator’s down button. “The other stations won’t come near us in the ratings.”

“How are we going to connect the lights with what the guard did?”

“We don’t need to. Run the stories back to back. Viewers will make the connection on their own. We won’t be accused of misrepresenting. Get me to the viewing area. I have a feeling this story’s about to become even more sensational.”

“Sharon’s anchoring the show at the moment.” The producer braced himself as if he expected an outburst.

Brent nodded. “Why not? I’ve been hogging the camera. She deserves more airtime.”