“Sorry I got to dump you,” the PO said, like a cabdriver desperate to get rid of his last fare before home. “Just bad timing with all the craziness.”
“Don’t worry about it and thanks for the ride.” They got out of the car and Shepherd felt the cold wrap itself around him as it drove off, the snow swallowing the sound of its engine and leaving them in crystal silence. Franklin pressed a button by the side of the locked gate, but if it made a sound inside the house the snow swallowed that too. “You think we should sing Christmas carols?” he said.
The sound of a bolt cracked through the silence, making Shepherd jump.
Halfway along the side of the house a door opened and a woman stepped out and started making her way toward them. She looked to be about thirty or so, her black hair cut short and matched by a black two-piece trouser suit worn over a gray turtleneck sweater. She didn’t smile as she covered the ten or so feet between them, merely looked at them both, sizing them up, her breath clouding in the cold air. Shepherd noticed she had a slight limp and, as she drew closer, he saw a thin pale scar cutting across her left cheek. She stopped a foot short of the closed gate and regarded them through the bars. “Can I help you, gentlemen?” The scar puckered a little when she spoke.
“Yes, I think you probably can,” Franklin held up his ID. “Is the good reverend at home?”
Her gray eyes flicked to the badge then back again.
“The Reverend Cooper is on air at the moment.”
“That’s okay, we can wait.” Franklin smiled. The woman did not. Neither did she make any move to open the gate.
“What’s your name, miss?”
“Boerman. Caroline Boerman.”
“Well, Miss Caroline from the Carolinas we can wait out here if you’d like.” He kicked his shoe against the wall to clear the snow from it. “But I should tell you I’m a southern boy and the cold makes me awful grouchy.”
A small smile finally cracked the mask of her face, puckering the scar even more but going nowhere near her eyes. “Of course,” she said, unlocking the gate and stepping back to allow them past. “Where are my manners?”
42
The front door of the Church of Christ’s Salvation opened into a warm, high-ceilinged entrance hall running the entire width of the building. It was plainly decorated in white that caught the glare from the tall windows looking out onto the snow-covered street. Three sofas, also white, were arranged in a horseshoe around a low coffee table with leaflets and small booklets on the surface next to a jar filled with multicolored plastic key rings. The only real clue as to what went on in the building was coming from the television fixed above the bare brick fireplace.
Now you have watched me on TV today.
The Reverend Fulton Cooper said, his eyes burning from the screen.
I’ve taken my own step of faith to come in front of the camera and talk to you across America. But now you need to take a step of your own. YOU need to do something for Him.
“Please take a seat,” Miss Caroline said, “the reverend will be with you soon. Can I get you some coffee?”
“That would be fine.” Franklin said, settling into the sofa opposite the TV.
I want you to look out of your window. Do it right now and see what is happening in the world. I know you have terrible floods out there in Texas and in New Mexico. I know you have drought in Illinois and Indiana. These are the signs of His coming.
The reverend moved across the screen to a window and the camera followed, showing the swirling blizzard over the rooftops and the distant ships in the bay.
Here in the holy city of Charleston we have snow where no snow ought to be. Maybe hell has frozen over too, my friends, because Carolina sure has. And so has Florida. And so has Georgia. Is this not evidence that mankind’s sins have sorely displeased the Lord and that His great reckoning is upon us?
The camera swept back to him, eyes still blazing down the lens, challenging the viewer.
You need to make a vow of faith to make your peace with the Lord and you need to make it fast. If you have wandered from the flock then now is the time to return. Be reconciled with your Lord and do it now, for time is running out. The true Church will always welcome you. Call the number on the screen right now. Salvation is waiting.
A graphic of a dove flew across the screen, wiping the reverend from view and dragging an infomercial in on its tail.
Franklin reached forward and fished a key ring from the jar. It had a phone number stamped on it next to a Web site address, the same ones that were now scrolling across the screen beneath images of American soldiers marching on dry foreign soil. The picture changed to a group of wounded servicemen and — women gathering together in a field hospital, some with bandages around their heads, others with limbs missing — all of them praying.
A caption crashed onto the screen:
OPERATION SAVIOR
Saving the souls and rebuilding the lives of those destroyed in the Holy wars
The door opened behind them and Miss Boerman reappeared. “Reverend Cooper can see you now if you’d like to follow me.”
The first room they passed through was divided into small cubicles, each containing a computer terminal, a phone and an operator. There must have been twenty of them, all fairly young, all talking and tapping, filling the room with the hum of overlapping conversations.
The next room contained two parallel lines of people stuffing envelopes with the same books and key rings they had seen on the coffee table. One was in a wheelchair, another had a prosthetic hand and Shepherd put it all together — the youthful demographic, the discipline and order, even the limp and the scar on Miss Caroline’s face — these must be some of Cooper’s Christian soldiers, rescued from wherever they’d been fighting and now doing the Lord’s work for the Church that had saved them.
They followed Miss Boerman up some narrow stairs and through a heavy door into a different world. Gone were the utility desks and bare brick walls. Everything on the upper floor was plush and expensive. They were in some kind of salon with deep red velvet furniture and wood paneling on the walls that had been painted a soft, expensive, chalky gray. There was a fire in the hearth and split logs were piled neatly to one side of a carved marble surround.
“Let me see if he’s ready,” Miss Boerman said, disappearing through a hidden door in the paneling.
Franklin leaned in to Shepherd, keeping his voice low. “Looks like the good reverend lives above the shop; you know why he does that?” Shepherd shook his head. “Because in the state of South Carolina religious organizations are exempt from property tax. It means he can live in all this luxury, right in the heart of town, without paying a dime to do it.”
He stood back up as Miss Boerman stuck her head around the edge of the hidden door.
“Reverend Cooper will see you now,” she said.
43
By the time the sun dipped low enough to touch the horizon, Liv and Tariq were ready to leave. Following the discovery of Kasim’s theft everyone had decided they should try and get to Al-Hillah as planned, food or no food. They didn’t really have much choice.
They filled as many canteens as they could carry and drank freely from the pool to fully hydrate themselves before the long march ahead. One small consolation of Kasim’s clandestine departure was that he had not been able to take much water, as filling the canteens at the pool would have been too obvious. As a result Liv and Tariq had plenty of spare water containers for their journey. They were heavy but Liv consoled herself with the thought that the more they drank, the lighter they would become.