Letitia Potorac @metaevolve
#NASA $8bn space telescope sabotaged? fb.me/1B49ZI2yW
Ira Upinski @eyeupinsky
#NASA #HUBBLE Space Telescope knocked out of orbit, several sources confirm: bit.ly/wRNi0c
“It appears my prayers have been answered and the good Lord has once again confounded the vain attempts of mankind to know His mystery. Your prompt appearance here and the nature of your questions merely confirms to me that these rumors must be true. They are true, I take it — the Hubble telescope has been disabled and its successor destroyed?”
“Yes,” Shepherd said.
“Well, how about that. Thank you, gentlemen, thank you kindly. You have just given me the theme for the second part of today’s show. Now if you have no further questions I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to take your coffee elsewhere. I am in the middle of a live broadcast here.” He began to rise.
“I have a question,” Shepherd said. “Why didn’t you sign the cards?”
“Because I was quoting the Bible; I would not presume to sign my name after the words of the Lord.”
Shepherd nodded. “Also I’m wondering why the cards all have different postmarks?”
Cooper shrugged. “I travel a lot. I guess I must have posted them wherever I found myself to be.”
“Could we see a copy of your schedule going back to May?”
“For what purpose exactly?”
“It would help us match your whereabouts with the postmarks and confirm your story.”
Cooper hesitated. “I’ll get the office to send you over a copy.” Franklin produced a card and handed it to him. The reverend took it and flipped it over in his soft, manicured hands then fixed the smile back in place and gestured toward the door.
“It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen. I’m sorry I could not be more helpful.”
The gate clanged shut behind them on the snow-covered street. “You think he sent the letter?” Shepherd asked.
Franklin reached into his pocket, pulled out his rumpled packet of Marlboros and tapped out a cigarette. He cupped his hand against the cold and fired up a battered Zippo that looked like it had been rescued from a car wreck, sucked the flame into the cigarette then let out a long stream of smoke. Despite everything they had been through in the last twelve hours or so this was the first time Shepherd had seen him smoke. “If it wasn’t him then he knows who did.” Franklin took another deep draw, the cherry glowing bright and red against the soft, silent white of the street. “I got an instinct for these things. That’s why I wanted to come here and look the man in the eye. That was a nice touch at the end there, by the way, asking him about the cards.”
Shepherd shrugged. “I was just yanking his chain a little.”
“It showed good instincts. Pushing a man’s buttons, knocking him off center, sometimes that’s all it takes to start cracks forming, and the cracks show you where the weaknesses are.”
Shepherd looked out into the street. “Didn’t get us anywhere though, did it?”
Franklin took a final deep pull on his cigarette then dropped it to the ground, crushing it with his shoe. “Not yet.” He studied the building, spotted a gap between the mailbox and the wall and crammed his empty pack of cigarettes into it. “But you can’t just toss in a line and expect to haul out a fish right away. You need to learn a little patience, Agent Shepherd.” He stepped into the snow, heading for the corner.
Shepherd followed, tilting his head down against the weather. “Where we headed now?”
“Police station up on Westside, but we’ll need a ride there. You got your phone handy?” Shepherd pulled it out of his jacket pocket. “Call a cab and get it to pick us up at the Fast and French on Broad Street in twenty minutes.”
“What’s that?”
“The nearest place we can get some goddamn coffee.”
Reverend Cooper watched them leave, following them with his eyes until they disappeared in the snow. Behind him he heard the door to his private office open and he listened to the approaching footsteps. He waited until they were close enough then turned suddenly, shooting out his arm to catch Miss Boerman’s face hard with the back of his hand. She was knocked sideways by the force, crashing against his desk and knocking a phone to the floor as she scrambled to recover. Cooper was already on her, grabbing her throat with one hand and pulling the other back to strike her once more.
“Don’t you EVER do something like that again.”
She closed her eyes but made no move to get away. Cooper’s hand curled into a fist as his rage balled up inside him. He wanted to break her nose and see her spitting teeth through split lips. He wanted to hear the snap of her fingers and her cries of pain. He wanted to…
He stepped away, breathing heavily as he fought to master the demons that used to be the master of him. Now was not the time to let the devil back in.
“Get out,” he said. She stood up, straightening her suit jacket, the red marks of his fingers already rising up on her white cheek. “Tell the studio to be ready to broadcast in five minutes and close the door on your way out.”
He waited until she had gone, then picked the phone up off the floor and dialed a number from memory. Outside in the street the footprints of the FBI agents were already being filled in by the steady fall of snow. If only the men who had made them and the threat they posed were as easy to erase. Then again — maybe they were.
The phone clicked as it connected. Then Carrie’s brittle, little-girl voice answered.
45
Gabriel was one of the last to be evacuated from the Public Church. Arkadian had stood by his bed the whole time, a guardian angel in a space suit, giving a running commentary on what was happening: equipment being packed up and shipped out, patients being transferred from beds to stretchers so they would fit on the ascension platform and be easier to carry through the narrow tunnels once they were inside the mountain. He kept laying his gloved hand on Gabriel’s chest, like a father reassuring his son, finding the one spot where there were no electrodes or tubes coming in or out of him.
And then it was Gabriel’s turn to go.
Arkadian stepped back as four suited orderlies got to work on him. They gave him a shot to settle him and undid the straps that bound him to the bed, clearly in a rush to get this thing over with. Gabriel felt himself slipping into a half slumber.
“You hang in there, okay.” Arkadian’s face appeared over him, his voice muffled by his contamination suit. “I’ll buy you lunch when you come out.”
Gabriel tried to respond, say something flippant and brave like they did in the movies but his mouth was no longer working and his eyes flickered shut.
He felt and heard the clatter of wheels over the flagstoned floor as they moved him, then the air cooling as he neared the door. He forced his eyes open and saw the vaulted ceiling and ecclesiastical paintings slide away above him, to be replaced by night skies and stars. He picked out Draco, the constellation that had led him and Liv to the lost place in the desert, the place where he had last seen her. He wondered if she was still there, waiting for him, looking up at the same stars. As he stared up he spotted something else, a new star, brighter than all the rest, traveling across the sky. He watched it sliding across the night then a beam shot out from it, blinding him, and making his stretcher bearers turn their heads away. It held on them for a few seconds, long enough for the news cameraman in the helicopter to get a good shot, then it moved away, the sound of the rotors chopping the air and sending cold air down onto Gabriel’s burning skin.