Armageddon Crazy

"I don't know."

Carlisle looked at him coldly. "What don't you know?"

"I'd need an AC-19."

"So get one. There's the terminal."

Access to the Virginia Beach data banks was one of the deacons' most jealously guarded secrets. The Virginia Beach computers contained the files of God. With great reluctance, he sat down in front of the lieutenant's terminal. He did not have to be told that this tenuous lead was all they had, but it still went against the grain to have to access into Virginia Beach for a mere PD. He menued up an AC-19 application and started to respond to the lengthy questio

He slowly shook his head. "Booth seven could be cash activated."

"Go further. He or she must have been the last person to use the booth before the explosion."

"You think it might be a woman?"

"It's a fifty-fifty chance. There's plenty of broads with no cause to love the regime."

"How do you know the bomber was the last one to use the booth?"

"He would have had to have been. He couldn't risk anyone finding the bomb. The placing of it must have been coordinated with the phone call and an intelligent guess at our response time."

"Or he just listened for the sirens."

"Maybe. It's still a pretty slick setup."

"You think so?"

"This ain't no bunch of pinhead Satanists. These people are classic terrorists. If they weren't pretty slick, we'd know something about them by now."

"They do keep themselves well hidden."

"What we want to do now is to get the tape of the last session in the booth. If it was a cash payment our bomber would still have at least to enter some kind of name. Can you do that?"

"Sure."

Winters went further in.

"I've got it," he said a short time later. "I'll run it on audio."

There was the sound of the booth cover closing. Then there was a voice. It was that of a robot.

Carlisle and Winters looked at each other.

"He's talking through one of those kid's toys," Winters said. "They completely distort the voice print."

"Shut up and listen."

"… and by the time you hear this, you'll know all about why we were here. We are the Lefthand Path and we will not cease our actions until the Faithful tyra

Carlisle was half smiling. "Definitely slick."

Winters looked carefully at the lieutenant. It was almost as if Carlisle admired those si

TWO

Mansard

Charlie Mansard had a killer hangover. The cigarette was all but burning his fingers, and he was on his third cup of coffee. He glowered at his secretary. "I've got to have some speed. I can't do Arlen Proverb at the Garden without speed."

Rita Webb shook her head. "I told you after the last time. I don't get drugs for you anymore."

"I could fire you."

"You won't fire me. I'm the only one who'll tolerate you."

"Damn it, woman, I'm dying here. I need medication."

"The last thing you need is an amphetamine. It turns you into a psychotic, and you're quite likely to have a heart attack."

"How am I supposed to work when everyone is against me?"

"Just go to work. You always feel better once you get started, and anyway, Jimmy Gadd is waiting to talk to you. Proverb's people have sent over a preliminary script, and he wants to go through it with you."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him you'd be ready for him once you'd stopped groaning about your hangover."

"Thanks for covering for me."

"Jimmy knows you as well as I do. What do I need to lie to him for?"

"Seems like everybody knows about me."

"You adhere to a pretty repetitive pattern."

Mansard regarded his secretary with bleary venom. "You don't take any prisoners, do you?"

"Shall I tell Jimmy to come on in?"

Charlie Mansard sighed. "Yeah, wheel him in. Don't worry about my pain."

Jimmy Gadd was Mansard's strong right arm and, along with Rita, he bore the brunt of his boss's erratic and generally self-destructive behavior. In the old days, he had worked for a major rock-and-roll act. Indeed, most of the older technical staff at Miraco Productions had come out of rock and roll. They had the experience of arena special effects, and since rock and roll had been replaced by pop acts that sang about Jesus in stupid chipmunk voices, the technicians had to find work wherever they could. Jimmy Gadd was a short, wiry man with a full beard and unfashionably long hair. The worn blue jeans and nylon bomber jacket were something straight out of the '70s or '80s. He had a bulky, bound printout under his arm.

Mansard raised a weary eyebrow. "So what do we have there? The usual hellfire and blood?"

"The boy seems to be going for broke."

"Oh, yeah?"

"He wants a sky walker."

"Does he, by God?"

"A hundred-foot hologram figure on top of the Garden."

"No shit. What does he want? A figure of himself?"

Jimmy Gadd shook his head. "Uh-uh."

"Not another Jesus?"

"Nope."

"I'm not in any condition to play guessing games."

"He wants us to do the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse charging the Empire State Building."

Mansard whistled. His hangover was temporarily forgotten. "Does Proverb have any idea what something like that is going to cost?"

Gadd nodded. "I checked with Jason, his controller. They seem prepared to go the distance as far as the money is concerned. Proverb seems to have something to prove."

Mansard started making calculations on a pad. "Can we put up an image that big?"

Gadd ran a hand through his hair. "In theory we can, if we get something of an overcast and rent every fog generator in town. The real problem is the multiple imaging. We've only done single figures. This is four horsemen. Count them. Four. Four horsemen and four horses. For all practical purposes, it's eight figures. Nobody's ever attempted anything close to it. Not even Visioninc."

Despite himself, Mansard gri

"If we get the hardware that we need."

"So what would we need?"

"With those new DL-70s from Sony, it'd be a breeze, but we don't have the DL-70s yet."

"I thought that it was all arranged. Didn't we have the tithe barriers beaten?" Mansard asked.

"On paper we did. We had the stuff ordered through a Chilean purchasing agent. It's the usual way of getting around the Japanese embargo. Everyone does it."

"So where are they?"

"Last I heard they were still sitting in a warehouse at Santiago airport. You know what the Chileans are like."

"Can we get them in time?"

"I sure as hell hope so. Marty's on the phone right now."

Mansard started flipping through the script. "The interior effects seem well within our capabilities."

Gadd nodded. "No problem. Although Proverb does seem to be going for the edge."

Mansard continued to examine the script. "He does, doesn't he? But, then again, Arlen Proverb has never been your run-of-the-mill preacher."

Arlen Proverb had never been anything like a run-of-the-mill preacher. In the tight power frame of the theocracy, Arlen Proverb was the rebel, the pere