Soon (9 page)

9

PAUL HEADED DOWN THE HALL
to observe, curious about Stephen Lloyd. Maybe he was a hero, maybe a troublemaker. If Lloyd had intervened in a good cause, assailing an armed guard was still reckless, considering all the help at hand right down the hall. Standing fearlessly on principle could be noble or hot-headed, but it was also typical extremist behavior.

Jefferson sat behind a table, facing the door, nearly hidden by Stephen Lloyd’s broad back. Paul guessed Lloyd at six-foot-three and at least 250 pounds. He wore a white T-shirt and light-colored jeans over high-laced tan boots. His yellow helmet lay on his stomach with his hands folded on top of it. He had longish blond hair and was, of course, deeply tanned.

Paul nodded at Jefferson over Lloyd’s shoulder and leaned back against the doorjamb.

Jefferson checked a paper. “Mr. Lloyd, you are from Childress?”

“Like I told you folks yesterday.”

“Long way from home.”

“Over four hundred miles. You go where the work is.”

“And you’re how old?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Athlete?”

“High school football.”

“Didn’t play college ball?”

Lloyd shook his head. “Grades.”

“Stephen, why did you attack the guard?”

“He was beating on the Mexicans.”

“And why do you suppose he was doing that?”

“Probably thinks they had something to do with the fire.”

“Why do people think that?”

“Got me. Guess everybody needs somebody to pick on. Nobody wants to think this could be anything an American would do. But I don’t think the Mexicans had anything to do with it.”

“Who then?”

“Nobody I know.”

“You’re an oilman. What do you make of this fire? How does it happen?”

“I’m not an oilman. I’m a roughneck. Do what I’m told. Stuff below the ground is beyond me.”

“You must have an opinion.”

Stephen sighed. “It won’t help you much. I think it’s something natural. Something in nature.”

Jefferson cocked his head. “Something that’s never happened before in recorded history.”

“You asked.”

Jefferson emptied an envelope onto the table. “This your wallet?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your keys?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how about this? What’s this?” Jefferson held up a dull gray coin attached to a leather strap.

Stephen shrugged, but Paul saw the muscles tense in his back. “Call it a good-luck charm.”

“You carry it for luck?”

“You could say that.”

An old-fashioned book was engraved on it, and Jefferson peered at it. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid. What’s that about?”

“Just a book.”

“You’re not old enough to remember books. You a reader?”

“Not much.”

Jefferson riffled through the wallet, then slid all three items back into the envelope. Stephen relaxed again.

“Let me see that,” Paul said.

Stephen seemed to stiffen as Paul took the envelope. Paul pulled out the medallion and turned it over. The engraved book was open. What was that behind it? A quill?
No, that would be in
front of the book, not in the background.
Then Paul recognized it—a palm frond—and knew what it meant.

“Why don’t you and I take a walk, Mr. Lloyd.”

The afternoon shadows were lengthening. Paul led Stephen away from the building to the skids of leftover cinder blocks and beams. “I recognize that medallion,” Paul said.

Stephen jammed his hands into his pockets and shrugged.

“I think it identifies you.”

Stephen rubbed his face with both hands, but still the color seemed to drain from him.

“You know, it’s not unique,” Paul pressed, “carrying some token so people like you can recognize one another.”

Stephen put his hands on his hips and closed his eyes, turning his face toward the sun.

“And when you told Jefferson he could say you carried the medallion for luck, you meant that in an entirely different way than he meant it, didn’t you?”

Stephen lowered his face and opened his eyes, staring at Paul.

“And when you said the oil phenomenon was something natural, you meant supernatural, didn’t you?”

The big man grimaced, as if unsure how to respond.

“Word is it’s a sign,” Paul said. “A miracle.”

Paul felt like a hunter circling his prey. He flashed back angrily on the Christian service in San Francisco, the widow speaking of “signs that the coming of the Lord draws nigh” and the “tasks we must perform—despite the law, despite the danger.” And he thought of the greeting—the password—of the believers.

“Listen to me, Stephen. He is risen.”

Sweat broke out on the big man’s brow. “Who is risen?” Lloyd whispered.

Paul felt they were both teetering on a precipice now.
Will he
deny it?
“Christ is risen.”

Lloyd covered his mouth with a hand, then pulled it away just enough to whisper hoarsely, “Who did you say?”

Paul parroted the phrases that he could call to mind from the service. “The one who says ‘I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.’ The one who says ‘Let him who is thirsty come.’”

Stephen Lloyd seemed hardly able to stand still. Paul drew on the words of the letter from his own father, which were etched on his brain: “ ‘He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe away all their tears.’ ”

Lloyd was gasping. Paul moved to the clincher. “The one who reminds us, in Revelation, ‘I am coming soon.’”

“He is risen indeed,” Lloyd croaked.

Bingo!

Lloyd clutched at Paul, almost sobbing. “Man oh man, brother, I’ve never been tested that way. You never know if you’ll have the courage . . . I almost didn’t make it. . . .” He wiped his eyes with his wrist.

“It’s tough being isolated,” Paul said. “Stuck out here, bearing witness to such an awesome sign . . . I hope you haven’t been completely alone.”

“Thank God, no,” Lloyd whispered.

“There are others like us?”

“Some. Mexicans, mostly. They tend to keep to the old ways. But the rest of these people. Can you believe ’em? Trying to blame this on Mexicans, Arabs, sabotage. I mean, are you kiddin’ me? A pillar of fire, man! If that’s not God, who is it?”

They were interrupted by the approach of a limousine.

“Hey there,” Donny Johnson called, unfolding his big body from the backseat. In his cowboy hat he towered over even Stephen Lloyd. “How’s it goin’?”

“Fine,” Paul said. “I’m making an arrest.”

Stephen Lloyd jerked back.

“Who? You?” Johnson demanded. He grabbed Stephen’s arms. “You’re the arsonist?”

“No, no, I—”

“He’s a Christian,” Paul spat. “I want him in custody—”

“Why, you scum—” Johnson drew back and slugged Lloyd in the gut, doubling him over. He yanked him up by the hair, cursing and pummeling him with his free hand. At the commotion, Tick and Jefferson came running out of the barracks.

“Johnson, stop!” Tick shouted, jumping to grab his arm. Johnson wrenched free, his hat flying, and again set upon Lloyd, pushing him back into the cinder blocks. Before Tick could stop him, Johnson had snatched up a block and started brutally blud-geoning the roughneck.

“You’ll kill him!” Jefferson flung himself at Johnson, trying to wrestle him away. “Help me!” he yelled at Paul, who had been watching with satisfaction. Johnson was only doing what Paul wished he could do without losing his job. Paul moved in slowly just as Johnson, finally out of steam, dropped the cinder block.

“What’s wrong with you, man?” Jefferson demanded, panting, aiming the question as much at Paul as at Johnson.

Tick knelt in the dust to examine the still figure on the ground, his T-shirt and jeans dark with dirt and blood. He looked up. “I can’t get a pulse, Donny. I’m going to have to place you under arrest.”

Johnson snorted and his body went slack. He had popped the armhole seams of his expensive shirt. “Lost my head. A Christian, rabble-rousin’, sabotagin’—”

“Who told you that?” Tick said.

“Lloyd confessed to me,” Paul said. “That gives the Zealot Underground task force jurisdiction. Leave Johnson to me. I want his help. Round up every Mexican on this oil field for interrogation. And march that group in the barracks out here now.”

Seven Mexicans stood shoulder to shoulder in two rows, hemmed in by four large guards.

“Where’s the one with the busted foot?” Paul said.

A guard pushed him from the back row, and he stumbled, limping on a newly molded plastic-foam cast.

Paul grabbed his arm and hustled him over to Stephen’s bloodied body. “You see your friend here?”

The man nodded.

“You know what killed him? His alliances. And he told me that he had a lot of company on the Mexican crew. You a Christian?”

No answer.

“You don’t deny it? Think you’re brave? It’s a simple question. Are you a Christian?”

Silence.

“Tough guy, huh? Stephen was tough too, but look at him now. I know—and you know—who’s behind the fire.”

Paul shoved the man to his knees. “I want names.” He pressed his gun to the back of the man’s head. “You’ve got five seconds.”

One of the Mexicans behind them sobbed.

“Do I hear a name?” Paul called out. “Your man is about to die.”

A Klaxon blasted. They all spun toward the sound, and Paul saw an eruption of smoke in the distance.

Johnson cursed. “Not another one!”

He whirled and bounded toward the limo. Paul sprinted after him, grabbing the back-door handle just as Johnson was sliding into the front seat beside the driver. Diving onto the floor, Paul clawed the back door shut as the limo sped off. He pitched and rolled until the car cleared the rough terrain and reached the road, and then he managed to get settled on the seat.

On the floor in the back lay the gritty dusters they had worn that morning, along with the hat Johnson had loaned Paul. Despite the acrid soot on the coats, Paul put one on. He found the one he’d worn, his mask and goggles stuffed in the pocket. Smoke filled the air as they neared the site.

The car paused at a gate, which was flung open by masked sentries streaked with soot. “Turn off that alarm,” Johnson bellowed out the window. “No one lets in the fire crew till I say so! Get a roll call and search everyone right now!”

Already, out along the perimeter fence, guards rounded up the roughnecks—some masked, others bare-chested, shirts tied over their faces. The crew was apparently moving too slowly for one guard, so he whipped out a Laser Taser that fired thin strands of barbed wire in an arc of about twenty feet. When the barbs caught clothing or skin, they transmitted an electrical charge that made the men scream and scramble into position.

The driver shot forward but soon had to slow when the windows clouded over. Windshield airjets could do only so much against oily grit. Johnson didn’t seem daunted. He slipped on goggles and a mask and borrowed the chauffeur’s cap.

The driver lowered the interior window.

“Give me one of those coats, Stepola,” Johnson said. “The biggest one.”

“What are you doing, Johnson?” Paul said. “Just call out the fire crew and wait in the car. You’re under arrest.”

“I’m the law out here, mister, not the NPO.” He brandished a Walther Stealth. “Try to stop me, I’ll kill you.”

Paul held up his hands. “You’re insane, walking into a fire.”

Johnson opened his window a crack. “There’s an updraft. Just wait five minutes,” he told the chauffeur. “I’m gonna catch me a terrorist.”

Smoke rushed into the car when Johnson opened the door. The chauffeur buried his head in his arm and coughed. Paul, his own goggles around his neck, put on his mask
.

“We’ve got to stop him,” he told the driver. He flicked the tip of his thumb against his pinkie repeatedly, trying to activate his molar implants. No signal. Something was scrambling the frequencies. “Can you call for help?”

The chauffeur was putting on a mask. He tried to raise a signal on the car phone. Nothing.

“I’m going after him,” Paul said.

“Mister, I’d give him the five minutes. He knows this field like the back of his hand. You get lost, we’ll get killed chasing after you.”

Paul hesitated, then stayed where he was.
Tick and the others
saw the explosion. They had to have called the fire crew.

Long minutes passed. Paul and the chauffeur, mouths and noses shrouded, sat in silence.

After ten minutes Paul couldn’t stand to wait any longer. “Johnson is a rancher. Would he have a rope in the car?”

“In the trunk.”

Goggles on, draped in the coat, mask tight over his mouth and nose, Paul made his way to the trunk. He found a large coil of emergency-orange rope, tied one end around his waist, and handed the rest to the chauffeur. “Keep the window open a little so you can spool this out as I go. I’ll yank every other minute or so. If you don’t feel a yank after more than a couple of minutes, pull me back.”

Near the car the smoke was relatively thin, just an oily haze. “Johnson!” Paul called out, scanning the ground. Up ahead the air looked denser. The well had to be that direction. Paul wondered how effective his mask would be in heavy smoke.

The car was soon hidden as Paul penetrated deeper into the cloud. He swiped at his goggles with his sleeve. He cut a zigzag path straight ahead on the road, then cut an arc to the left, swung back to the road, and cut an arc to the right—sweeping the ground in search of a fallen man.

“Johnson!” he yelled, voice muffled.

Paul kept stopping, trying to get his bearings, peering into the fog. Even his sense of time was distorted.
Count out loud
. He chanted numbers, pausing each time he reached one hundred to yank the rope.

“
John
son!”

On one of his zigzags, he discovered a wider apron of concrete. He had to be getting closer to the well.

The wind picked up and smoke swirled around Paul. In the distance he heard a growing whir. He yanked his hat tighter and resecured his mask, tugging at the rope to reassure himself of his tether. His vision dimmed as the mounting winds caked oily soot on his goggles. He tried to rub it off, leaving them so smeared he could hardly see at all.

The whirring grew louder, faster.
That tornado sound.

A hint of light, a flare, a sputter.
What’s going on?

Paul frantically scrubbed his goggles with his sleeve, fighting panic. The winds began to wail.
What is it?

Finally, he had to see it. Shielding his eyes with his arms, he yanked his goggles down.

A blaze of light blasted away the smoke. A white jet of flame shot to the sky. Searing heat. A pillar of fire. Pain.
Awhite gusher.