The inside of the church was untouched. The pews in place, the hymn-books in their holders, the candles ready. Someone had dropped a small paper fan with a picture of Adam and Eve printed on it. Most images he had seen of the first couple showed them shamed by their nakedness, cast out of the Garden by an angry God, but in this depiction they seemed more like young lovers, a girdle of leaves around their nakedness, holding hands-they looked as though they were embarking on some risky but exciting adventure, a honeymoon even. Rakkim wished he could have gone to this church when it was filled with people, would have liked to have heard them lift their voices in song. He walked over to the organ, pressed one of the keys-the sound echoed. The church smelled like sandalwood, still no trace of the acrid smoke that he had been trudging through for hours. He flexed the fingers on his right hand, saw the crucifix move. No pain. A stained-glass image of Jesus beamed down from above the pulpit. Jesus smiling, a lamb beside him. No fire and brimstone for this Jesus. No smiting the wicked. Forgiveness reigned. No wonder they crucified him.
He checked out the back windows, saw another wall of fire. The church truly was surrounded by fire, unburned among the burning. He knelt down in the aisle. Said a prayer of thanksgiving for his arrival at this holy place. Said another prayer asking to be delivered back to Winthrop’s store. He offered still another prayer, this one for Sarah and Michael, asked God that they be kept safe until his return to Seattle. Rakkim could take it from there. He almost pressed his forehead against the cool stone floor, but stayed on his knees, eyes closed, as he prayed.
He awoke to the sound of thunder, awoke curled on the floor. Up quickly now. Glanced at his watch. Six o’clock! He had slept for two hours. He looked at his right hand, touched it. No pain. The brand was part of him now. He gingerly reached the doorknob, found it cool to the touch. Which made as little sense as anything else about the church.
He stepped outside as the flame wall started its down cycle, ran straight through the guttering fire and into the smoke beyond. Tripped on some loose rocks, landed hard on his arm, and scooted up. Didn’t look back.
The rain started as he walked quickly back the way he thought he had come, the clouds opening up as he ran through the perpetual twilight. Steam rose where the rain landed on the hot rocks, made breathing even harder, but the cool rain soaked his clothes too, and that was a blessing. The storm brought high winds, thinning out the smoke a little, and soon he was seeing familiar landmarks, slabs of rock he had passed on the way in, a discarded camera, a broken water bottle…the crushed skull. He hurried on, slipping on the wet ground, splashing through mud, hurrying faster, not sure he would ever find his way out when night fell.
Faster now as the smoke eddied around him. No ghosts, no whispers on the wind. He was sure-footed, effortlessly dodging the flames that still rose all around him. Faster, faster, faster.
He burst out from the smoldering coal fields, rain beating down as he staggered onto the streets of Addington. Through the haze, he saw Winthrop’s store in the distance, lights on, the generator thumping away. He ran a hand through his wet hair, wiped at his face, walking slower now. His muddy shoes squished with every step. No one was on the street. The other storefronts were deserted, windows spiderwebbed from the heat.
Leo and Winthrop were drinking coffee when Rakkim walked through the door. Leo knocked over his chair and ran to him, hugged him, crying.
“What’s his problem?” Rakkim said to Winthrop as Leo clung to him.
“He’s got sense, that’s his problem,” said Winthrop.
“O ye of little faith,” chided Rakkim, squeezing Leo until he yelped.
Chapter 30
“I still can’t believe I was asleep in there for fourteen hours,” said Rakkim, driving with one hand. “I looked at my watch in the church and thought it was six in the evening.”
“Mr. Winthrop…Clyde and I stayed up all night waiting for you to come back,” said Leo. “Every half hour one of us would walk along the edge of the coal field with a searchlight, calling your name. Clyde gave up on you, said no one could survive that long in the smoke, but I knew if anybody could…Well, I figured you might have gotten lucky.”
“Thanks, Leo.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, you did.”
Leo blushed, the red rising from his neck into his cheeks.
They had left Addington after breakfast, had been driving for almost two hours, right into the Tennessee mountains, the rugged terrain rising steadily as the day wore on, the road hemmed in by pine trees now.
“I read all the briefing notes on the Belt before we left Seattle,” said Leo. “Classified and unclassified. Never heard of this Malcolm Crews and the End-Times Army.”
“If it’s in a briefing paper, it’s old news, out-of-date and unreliable. You’re going to be fine, just do what we talked about.”
Leo shifted in his seat. “Clyde said Malcolm Crews is a total psycho.”
“Malcolm Crews believes he’s been touched by the hand of God.” Rakkim grinned. “I can work with that. I think so, anyway.”
“Tell me again about what the church was like.” Leo sensed Rakkim’s resistance. “Please?”
“It was…quiet. No time, no fear. Just an overwhelming sense of peace. Maybe it was because of all the smoke and fire outside, but it was this perfect…oasis, this refuge. It smelled good too. I’ve been in a lot of churches. Lot of mosques. They’re filled with talk of God, but it’s just talk. God’s nowhere around. This church, though…this little church…it was like, this is where God goes when he can’t bear what’s become of the world.”
Leo nodded. “What about-”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Could I see your hand?”
Rakkim showed him. Even with his rapid Fedayeen healing, the burn should have been red and inflamed for a few days. Instead, a raised white scar crossed his palm, the image of the crucifixion clear.
“Did it hurt?”
Rakkim ignored him.
“Before we got to Addington, you said a big lie needed three parts,” said Leo. “The Judas coin is one part, and that brand on your palm is the second. So…what’s the third part you’re going to use to convince Crews? I think you started to tell me, but I fell asleep.”
“My charm and sparkling personality.”
Leo massaged his temples like he had a headache.
Rakkim passed a family van with Georgia plates, the kids in the back-seat waving to them until their mother raised the privacy screens. He watched the father pull off onto a side road, the rough-cut eye in the pyramid spinning slowly from Rakkim’s rearview.
“Clyde and I looked over some geologic maps of Addington while we waited for you last night,” said Leo. “Addington sits on some interesting terrain. Full of fault lines and pockets of natural gas. Probably never should have mined coal there.”
“Little late for that.”
The road wound along the foothills. Far below, Rakkim could see a ribbon of blue water rushing over the rocks. In the distance an entire forest had been clear-cut, one whole side of the mountain stripped bare of trees; it was the third one he had seen since leaving Addington. Mountains of stubble now. Shipped to India probably, or South Africa. Mandela City’s burgeoning middle class had fallen in love with the dense grain of hickory and ash and hemlock, just as they had fallen in love with lush green lawns and rose gardens; vast tracts of homes now spread across the veldt, each one with hardwood floors and cabinets, their lawns and gardens irrigated from the last of Lake Tanganyika. That great lake might be drying up, but there were still vast swatches of the Belt’s natural resources available-Appalachian timber, natural gas from Louisiana and Texas, opals from Arkansas. So much white limestone had been shipped out of southern Georgia that miles of the landscape were uninhabitable, riddled with sinkholes. Dozens of indigenous songbirds were virtually extinct, thanks to a sudden craze for them by the Chinese ten years ago. Everything was for sale.