soldier gave the narrow plateau another search, this time through small field glasses he switched to infrared. As he panned the wooded perimeter around the compound, he felt the combined weight of his walking arsenal hung from webbing, slotted in a combat vest. Given what little he knew, the soldier wondered if the mixed assortment of grenades, twenty pounds of C-4 with radio-remote primers, the spare clips for his subgun, the shoulder-holstered Beretta 93-R and the .44 Desert Eagle Magnum hung on his hip in quickdraw leather would prove sufficient.
So far, the EM scanner hadn’t turned up any sensors and cameras. In truth, Bolan knew a den of Goliaths may be on hand, waiting for his special brand of scorched earth, but the Executioner wasn’t about to take any man for granted.
The living ghost in black spied a narrow trail that snaked northward, marked it on the personal digital assistant, and set out to ring in the new day for the Sons of Revelation.
CHAPTER THREE
It was beyond insanity. And, he decided, when he weighed the truth and the rediscovered precepts of his own faith against the present, he now knew, beyond a morsel of doubt, that he no longer belonged, no longer fit.
That he was living a lie.
Or was he now simply donning the disguise of wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Whatever the case, the strange state of utter and miserable aloneness he now found himself submerged, Mitch Kramer braced for the coming events. If the past proved true to form—and he had little doubt it would—the floorshow would be one part briefing, laced with the usual fire and brimstone about the ills of America and the coming Apocalypse, one part initiation. The latter already had him squirming in his seat, even as he tried to will away the first onslaught of revulsion.
They were gathered in what was called the Council of the Living Creatures. He was seated at the knight’s table with the other so-called High Sons, while the regular army—just over thirty strong—was forced to take its place in the rows of metal chairs at the back of the hall, reserved for the grunts. Two of the big chairs were empty, and about twelve seats from the grunt gallery were vacant, but he had his suspicions, based on what little he knew about the Day of Judgment. Dear God, he heard his mind groan, what had he done? What had he involved himself in?
As he felt the anticipation build from without and the blazing furnace of disturbance heat up from within, he felt himself on the verge of a sudden and frightening revelation. For the first time since day one—when he’d allowed himself to become entangled through what he reasoned was the sheer loneliness and maddening isolation that was alcoholism and the final dirty vestiges of every vice attached to his old ways he had sought so desperately to shed—Mitch Kramer saw it all in a new and blinding light.
He had begun to pull himself together a few short hours ago and then the call had come from the First High Son, demanding his immediate presence. Reporting, then, to the SOR compound, he felt trapped, surrounded by living evil. In truth, his very participation in the events about to unfold would find him condemned by his faith, both in this world and the next.
From the far end of the knight’s table, he watched as their leader took his chair, a mahogany throne, rather, with gold trim around the arms, on which protruded white marble cherubim and seraphim. Jeremiah Grant cleared his throat in a rumble that called them all to order.
The lingering silence seemed to carry a living force all by itself, as Grant sat, unmoving, glaring down the table, with the coat of arms of the Four Living Creatures seeming to roll out of the wall directly behind the man. With smoke clouds swelling the air from one end of the hall to the other, Kramer stole the dramatic pause to search each face in turn, and wonder about the madness of it all.
“Soldiers and Sons of Revelation, we are the chosen converts of the Almighty. As such, we are no longer ‘of’ the world, but are simply ‘in’ the world, a world, we all know, that is quickly succumbing to the dominion of the adversary. Our own country, once the land of the free and the brave, is being devoured with each passing minute by an army of infernal spirits who masquerade among us as human beings in the present day American society.”
And thus Grant began, but in a slightly altered version of his usual preamble. It was all Kramer could do to stifle the groan. Suddenly, the vision wanted to flame back to mind, and he wondered why the .45 Glock grew heavy in its shoulder rigging beneath his sheepskin coat. He glanced at the leader, fearing he might be singled out for lack of rapt attention. He was pretty sure that sparkle in Grant’s eyes was owed more to a shot or two of whiskey-spiked-coffee than any fire of fanaticism, though there was no question in Kramer’s mind the man was deadly serious.
“In the name of God, we are prepared at what is the most critical juncture in the history of democracy to carry out His justice. We are at war, my friends, make no mistake, and we must stop the sons of Cain—the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex of the United States shadow government and who uses the mass media as its propaganda puppet-slaves, but who control what was once a great and God-fearing nation. Yes, we know well who the sons of Cain are, my friends. They are the devil’s vanguard. They dwell and claim seats of power and influence from the nation’s capital to Wall Street, from the scattered and numerous classified military bases around the West and Southwest to the whoremongers and purveyors of filth of Hollywood, but this is our supreme hour. We must, therefore, take courage. And since we are on the side of God—and if God is for us, then who can be against us?—we will unleash what will be the breath of divine wrath on all those not of the elect and who would trample us to dust with every outrage, every vice, every blasphemy, every abomination. Nothing short of a vengeance that far exceeds anything that annihilated Sodom and Gomorrah in the blink of an eye is demanded.”
And there it was, Kramer decided. For all of his next spiel about all of them renouncing their former ways, how there were no deathbed conversions among them and which was what made them all so real and heroic, doing what was right and true in the name of God’s work without the terror of impending death forcing them to answer the call to divine arms, Kramer knew the very rottenness of their former lives and transgressions was what had led them all to this room.
To this moment in their lives where eternity would be decided.
“Before I get to the heart of our mission, I would like to remind you men of the simple facts of life, lest you feel your backbone begin to lose some of its iron.”
Kramer glanced at the small black file in front of him. Each of them had been given their marching orders, detailed, more or less, on the CD-ROM inside each packet. He reached out and picked his intel package up, then spotted the tremble in his hand. He realized the other hand had suddenly somehow moved toward his coat lapel, just inches below the hidden semiautomatic pistol. Quickly, he dropped both his hands in his lap, one ear tuned to Grant, as his own voice seemed frozen in the blackest of midthought, shocked at what he realized he was prepared to do.
By slow degrees, he became aware of the doors opening, a shabby naked figure being marched forth, hustled toward the shower stall near the east wall, midway down. He heard the snickers from the grunt gallery, as one of the soldiers twisted the knob and water hissed from the nozzle. It was just about all Kramer could endure. As they held the plebe by the arms and whose hands covered his crotch and who wore the despair and horror of a condemned man he recalled his own agonizing rite of passage into the Sons of Revelation.
It was Grant’s version of baptism, only these waters were scalding hot, and the only stain they purified was the surface dirt and grime.
With the concrete walls spaced just far enough apart to allow a man to squeeze between, there was no escaping even a few drops.
Kramer
