The Sign (57 page)

He paused, breathing in short, ragged bursts now, sensing the unease spreading among the crowd. He frowned and redoubled his concentration, pushing the conflicting thoughts back, and said, “We have to try and fix that.”

Just then, the sphere of light spread out, growing outward until it dwarfed the piazza below it. The audience gasped, staring in wonderment as the sign pulsed and rippled with life before morphing into the sequence of geometric patterns it had previously displayed—only this time, it ended up settling on a different image. A cross. A large, blazing cross, burning in the sky over Hermann Park.

A loud cheer and shouts of “Praise the Lord” and “Amen” burst through the throng of onlookers as the cross just held there—but their joy was cut short when the sign started morphing again. The crowd gasped once more as the sign seemed to ripple and stretch outward and around before settling into another sign. Not a cross, this time. A star. The Star of David. The crowd flinched with surprise, roiled by the change, confused and scared and caught off-balance—but the sign wasn’t done yet. It held that shape, then changed again. It didn’t stop. It kept going, shape-shifting into a rotating sequence of symbols associated with other religions—Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Bahaism—and kept going, reaching back into history, assuming representations of all kinds of religious movements stretching back through the spider cults of Peru to the sun gods of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and all the way back to the very dawn of civilization.

The changes sped up, the symbol spinning from one shape to the other, faster and faster, a haphazard and dizzying light show. It sped up until the symbols became almost indistinguishable, the intensity almost blinding—and then, all of a sudden, it just vanished. Just died out. In the blink of an eye, and without any sound or warning, it was just gone.

The crowd went silent, as if they were all robots and someone had hit a mute button. The stunned onlookers just stared around at each other, mystified, not knowing what to think—then the sign burst out in its former glory, assuming its familiar pattern, the shape that was first seen over the ice shelf, and just held it and shimmered above the priest’s head.

“
INTERESTING
LIGHT
SHOW
YOU’RE
PUTTING
ON,” the voice rasped from behind them.

Danny and Rydell turned and froze at the sight of Maddox approaching them from behind. He had a long, black case slung over his shoulder and held a gun in his left hand, his uninjured hand. A curious mix of anger and confusion lined his weary face.

He stepped closer until he was about ten feet away from them and stopped. He guided his gaze above their heads, at the massive sign lighting up the sky a couple of hundred yards farther away, by the monumental arch.

It hadn’t been that hard for him to find them. Not for someone who knew what to look for. A vantage point, within a certain range, somewhere where they could work and watch and not be seen. There hadn’t been that many options. The third spot on his sweep turned out to be the right one.

“I’m feeling all warm and cuddly inside,” he chortled, gesturing for them to raise their hands. “Love and peace and goodwill to all men. Is that what you’re selling them?”

“It’s working,” Rydell told him, glancing across at Danny as he set down his cell phone without killing the line. He raised his hands slightly. “They’re listening.”

“And you think that’s going to make a difference?” His voice rose with his anger. “You think our enemies are going to buy into that horse shit too? Wake the fuck up, Larry. They may be listening, but it’s not going to change anything.”

“It could. Look, I don’t know what you and Keenan have in mind, but I don’t want them to stop believing in God,” Rydell said, raising his voice and volleying the anger back at Maddox. “I’d just like them to use their own minds a bit more. Just listen to Father Jerome. Listen to what he’s saying.”

“It’s an admirable thought,” Maddox said mockingly. “We are the world, we are the children, right? It’s great. Everything he’s saying out there, it’s just great—but you know what it’s going to do?” He set his pack down on the ground, reached into it, and pulled out a sniper rifle. “It’s going to get him killed.”

GRACIE
STIFFENED
the second the words echoed through the headset of her cell phone.

Maddox was alive—and there. And by the sounds of it, he’d taken them by surprise.

An icy panic stabbed the back of her neck. She turned to Dalton in alarm and said, “I need to call Matt. We’ve got trouble.”

The crowd was thoroughly rattled and exploded with awe at the appearance of the familiar sign before Father Jerome raised his hands to calm them and his voice burst out, cutting through the confusion.

“Many of us have preached the same message, the only message that counts,” he bellowed as they quieted to listen to his words. “A message of humility. And charity. And kindness and compassion. That’s all that matters. And yet it hasn’t worked. All these religions we’ve built have been around for hundreds, for thousands of years. And yet the world is angrier and more divided than ever. And we need to do something about that.”

“
MATT
.” Gracie’s voice burst through his earpiece. “It’s Maddox. He’s got Danny and Rydell.”

Matt’s feet froze for a beat—he missed one step, maybe two—then he was suddenly weaving through the crowd, hurtling toward the Miller Outdoor Theatre, a tangle of horrific images tumbling through his mind.

MADDOX
SWUNG
THE
RIFLE
at Rydell and Danny. “As soon as he’s done talking, he’s going to get his head blown off. We’ll make it look like some towelhead nutjob took him out, we’ve got a bunch of them on watch. ’Cause that’s how all good prophets end up, isn’t it? They have to die for their cause.”

Rydell started to say something, but Maddox cut him off sharply.

He mocked him loudly. “Come on. You can’t do these things half-assed. You’ve got to go all the way. You’ve got to close the deal. If you really want people to believe his words, if you really want his words to be seared into the minds of all those millions of people out there, he needs to die. He has to. To become a martyr. ’Cause martyrs . . . they’re so much harder to ignore, aren’t they?”

Danny studied him for a beat, then said, “And after he’s dead . . .”

Maddox nodded casually. “Yep. With you both out of the picture, it’ll clean things up, nice and tidy. They won’t find you. They will find the Iranian whacko who shot Jerome, though. A card-carrying fanatic with a great CV, someone we’ve been watching for quite a while. He’ll have his head blown off, of course. Self-inflicted. One for the team.”

“You weren’t planning to expose Father Jerome?” Rydell asked.

Maddox shook his head. “Nope.”

“But Keenan . . .” Rydell got it. “He didn’t know.”

Maddox flashed him an icy smile. “Of course not.”

“So the Iranians, the Muslim world,” Danny said. “They’ll get the blame?”

“Of course,” Maddox smiled. “Beautiful, isn’t it? The prophet who wanted to set us free, shot by an agent of intolerance.”

“You’ll start a war,” Danny blurted. “The people who’ve bought into Father Jerome—they’re going to be mad as hell.”

“I’m counting on it,” Maddox replied coolly.

Rydell took a step forward. “Think about what you’re doing here, Brad—”

“I’ve thought about it, Larry,” Maddox hissed, anger flaring across his face. “I’ve done nothing but think about it while I’ve watched us pussyfoot around and let these savages slaughter us. ‘Rules of engagement, ’ ” he spat out indignantly. “Geneva Conventions. Senate hearings the minute you try and bitch-slap the truth out of some kamikaze who doesn’t think his life’s worth anything anyway. We’re just too weak. We don’t have the balls to get things done. We’re playing by the rules against an enemy who knows wars don’t have rules. They’re laughing at us out there; we’re getting our asses handed to us and you know why? Because they get it. They know how to get things done. They know that if someone slaps you, you don’t turn the other cheek. You rip their fucking arm off. And the only way we’re going to win this thing is to get people really angry, so angry that they’ll be baying for blood.”

“You’ll be dragging millions of innocent people into a war just to punish a few extremists—”

“It’s not just a few extremists, Larry. It’s all of them. It’s the whole fucking region. You weren’t out there. You haven’t lived among them. You haven’t seen the hatred in their eyes. Your ‘we are all one’ bullshit won’t work. We can’t live together. It’s just not going to happen. There’s a fundamental difference between us and them on every level. They know it. We know it. We’re just too gutless to face up to it. And they’re coming after us. They’re not going to give up. Make no mistake, they’re our enemies, plain and simple. They want to destroy us. They want to conquer us, and it’s not a land grab. It’s a holy war. And to win a holy war, you need a crusade. We have to go after them with everything we’ve got, no holds barred. Once and for all. We need to wipe them off the face of the earth. And the death of your fake prophet will make it happen. It’ll be one hell of a call to arms, one that’ll be heard around the world.” He leveled the gun at them. “So you just keep that sign up there and settle back until he’s done. Then we’ll finish this.”

FATHER
JEROME
FIXED
his eyes fervently on the massed onlookers and jabbed a stern finger in their direction.

“We all pray to the same God,” he told them. “That’s all that matters. Everything else—all these institutions we’ve built in His name, all the rituals and public expressions of faith—we created those. We did. Humans, people like you and me. And maybe we were wrong in creating them and giving them the power they have over us. Because God doesn’t care about what you eat or what you drink. He doesn’t care about how often you pray to him or what words you use or where you go to do that. He doesn’t care who you vote for. He only cares about how you behave toward one another. That’s all that matters. He gave you all great minds, minds that have allowed you to achieve great advances. You sent a man to the moon from this very city. That’s how clever you are. You can create life in test tubes. You can wipe out the planet with the weapons you keep creating. You hold life and death in your hands, and you are all gods. And like it or not, you control your lives with everything you do, with very action you take. What you do. What you buy. Who you vote for. And you have infinite powers stored inside you. You have minds that allow you to achieve the impossible. Minds that allow you to reason. To talk to one another and debate things openly. And those same minds should be enough to tell you how you should treat one another. Every single one of you knows that. You can see that for yourselves. You know that hurting and killing one another is wrong. You know that sitting idly while others die of starvation is wrong. You know that dumping lethal chemicals in rivers is wrong. Every day, each and every one of you is faced with a choice, and it’s how you choose to behave that matters. It’s that simple.”

“
ALMOST
DONE
.” Maddox seethed as he watched Father Jerome from their vantage point.

Rydell watched him inch toward the Navigator and prop the rifle on the SUV’s side mirror. He turned to Danny.

“Run the debunking software.”

“What?” Danny asked.

“Run the damn software,” Rydell yelled. “Better to expose him than get him killed and start a war.”

“Don’t,” Maddox growled, spinning the rifle at them—

“Wait,” Danny blurted, raising his hands. “Just calm the hell down, all right? I’m not doing anything.”

“Danny, listen to me,” Rydell urged him. “He can’t kill us both. He needs the sign to stay up. Run the goddamn software.”

“Don’t even try it, Danny boy,” Maddox warned. “It doesn’t matter to me if the sign dies out right now. It’s done all I needed it to do.”

Rydell turned to Maddox in exasperation. “Listen to me,” he pleaded. “This is good. This can change things. It can make things better for everyone. It’ll achieve what you’re trying to do without—”

“Enough,” Maddox yelled, his voice ripping up the air like a mortar shell. “You know what, Larry? You’re no longer needed here.” He raised the gun, three inches maybe, and squeezed the trigger—

—just as Matt tackled him from the side. The bullet flew wide, missing Rydell and ricocheting against the side of the theater as Maddox and Matt fell against the hard ground. Maddox spun around and lashed out with a fierce kick that caught Matt across the chest and winded him.

Matt recoiled in pain as Danny and Rydell rushed Maddox. The soldier scrambled to push himself off the ground, but he forgot his right arm was mangled as if a dingo had been at it and instinctively used it to right himself, causing a torrent of agony to flood through him. He fell back again and glared at Matt as his left hand dived under his jacket. Matt saw the grip of an automatic sticking out from behind Maddox’s belt, saw the rifle he’d dropped lying a few feet away, and dived for it.

Maddox’s hand had less distance to travel and came up first—but he didn’t count on Danny, who was already there and threw his weight against him and shoved him to one side, hard. Maddox flew sideways and landed on his right arm again, and his scream sliced through the empty lot before Matt shut him up permanently with three high-powered rounds to the chest.

“
YOU
DON’T
NEED
ANYONE
to tell you what to believe or who to worship,” Father Jerome was telling the crowd. “You don’t need to follow any set of rituals. You don’t need to worry about an angry God not allowing you into heaven. You don’t need to march into these great temples of intolerance and be told what is God’s inerrant and infallible word, because the simple truth is that nobody really knows that. I don’t. All I know is that you’re not slaves and you’re not part of any grand master plan. If there is a God, and I believe there is one, then you are all God’s children. Each and every one of you. You create your own destiny. And you need to accept that responsibility and put aside your egocentricity and stop looking for excuses in tired old myths. You make your own fate every single day. You need to look after each other. You need to look after the land that feeds you and gives you the air you breathe. You need to assume your duty toward all of God’s creation. And you need to accept the credit for the good and take the blame for the bad.”