Mack's eyes were steady and unafraid. He was calculating odds, David could see that.

"All right," he said, "I'll go upstairs. Just don't G.o.dd.a.m.n well lock me down."

"Do it now."

At last he left, moving with exaggerated casualness, as if unconcerned about a thing.

When they were alone, David kissed Caroline's hair. There was such a strange combination of newness and old, a.s.sured love in the way he felt now about her, as if she was a settled lover who had mysteriously appeared in a fresh and sensual new body. It was all he could do not to embrace her, but she was working and he did not dare disturb a single line. He wanted to explore with her the wonder of adult love, in the innocence of childhood memory.

"How long will it take?" he asked.

"Too long."

"Then what happens?"

"Don't interrupt me!"

He stepped away from her. His stomach felt as if it would turn inside out. He laid an encouraging hand on his painter's slim shoulder.

She worked on, the steady whisper of her brush the only sound in the great room.

DAVID FORD'S JOURNAL: SEVEN The substance they injected changed me profoundly. They were right to force me and I'm glad they did. In a sense, I suppose, it was my scientific education that made me so resistant-but it is this same education that has also enabled me to understand what we are trying to do.

For me, our hope is lodged in that woman hunched over the easel, in her concentrated face and long hands, and the ocean of love that hides behind her harsh exterior.

She is creating a true hyperdimensional object-the first one, I think, that has been created in a long time. The icons of the Russians are a degenerated memory of such paintings, in the sense that it is believed that they contain the actual, living consciousness of the saints they depict.

This is more than an icon, though, far more powerful. It is a bridge between art and science, fashioned out of the artist's love and creativity, and the scientist's patient attention to the laws of nature.

It is true alchemy, the transformation of base metal into gold-that is to say, the transformation of paint and canvas into a hyperdimensional portal.

I am humble before the alchemists, and especially before that one with her paints and the hyperdimensional colors out of which they have been made. For those are not mere oil paints that she applies to that canvas.

I don't know who mixed them or how, but I know this about those paints: they are a machine of the very highest order. The light reflected from the surface of paint she is applying not only penetrates this reality, it is visible in all realities.

I think one of those great physicists-was it Stephen Hawking, or possibly Roger Penrose?-said that a time machine would be the most visible thing in the world because it would necessarily exist in every moment. Well, that's true, for this painting, as she paints it, at once takes on the appearance of an old master, an ancient encaustic, a cave painting, and in every respect of line, it is perfect.

It is not meant to save just an elite few. It is meant to save all who need saving. The elect are rising, the judged sinking into the dark center of the earth. But the rest of us, we have to escape and we have to do it in our physical bodies. Of course, many of us won't make it. But many will, and I know this: when she is finished-when the moment is exactly right-this device will enter hypers.p.a.ce and thus become visible to everybody with eyes to see it and the goodness of heart to use it.

It won't save just a few hundred here at the clinic. No, it is part of a much larger plan. When it is finished, it will indeed be the most visible thing on earth.

This thing being shuffled onto that fragile canvas is nothing less than light in a very dark time, our great chance and great hope.

And now I know that I am here not only to use it and guide others through it but to protect it.

We are few around her, and the enemy is very many-in fact, so many that he is legion and will certainly destroy us if he can.

I can sense the edges of a great plan that surrounds us with love and hope, but also another plan, equally powerful, that seeks the ruin of the world.

18.

GENERAL WYLIE.

In Hanc.o.c.k, Virginia, the convoy stopped to refuel, then reroute around the Hagerstown, Maryland, area. Recce ahead had identified an active uprising in Hagerstown, so they were going to need to bypa.s.s in order to reach Raleigh and the Acton Clinic fast, and speed was probably essential.

General Wylie had a small muster consisting of his command vehicle, a Stryker Mobile Gun System, three squad Humvees, and a fuel truck. He did not see the light defenses at the clinic as being able to stand up against twenty-one soldiers and the MGS, which could deliver a pretty fair punch, and he intended to take the place out and obtain whatever of value his agent was signaling him was located there.

He had received an urgent and promising communication from Mack Graham, which had convinced him that immediate action was essential. It had said, "Device located and understood."

That could not be more clear. There was a device and he knew where it was and he understood it.

So, fine. General Wylie was going to get it and take it back to Blue Ridge.

Over the past few days, one after another of the redoubts had reported over the fiberoptic network that the local situation was becoming critical. A number of them had since gone silent. Colonia Dignidad, with its reputation in Chile as having been founded by war-refugee Germans, had been an immediate target of the locals. Its last report was that the Chilean air force was overhead using deep-penetrating bunker buster bombs. The center in England had simply gone silent. Destroyed? Overrun? No way to know.

There were no longer any satellites operational so it wasn't possible to get lookdowns. Also, there was no chance of deploying any sort of air power. That was all down due to electronics failures. How the Chilean air force had gotten up was anybody's guess. Old planes, probably, without sensitive electronics. But that had been three days ago. Because of the tremendous electromagnetic loading of all wiring, not even the simplest aircraft were going to be viable now. The only reason his own vehicles were operational was that they were diesel and they had been started inside the redoubt. They'd keep going as long as they weren't turned off and once again required their electronics.

General George Wylie sat in his command vehicle staring at an empty computer screen. He was back to Civil Warlevel intelligence. No eyes, no ears, except what a guy in a dusty diesel Jetta could bring back from his travels ahead.

"Device located and understood." After that, no further reports. Probably, Mack the Cat was dead. Mack took the extreme chance, always.

They'd put Mack in the Acton Clinic last year because it had become clear that the group who, as children, had been taught Acton's secrets by the son of his a.s.sociate Bartholomew Light were a.s.sembling there.

A number of these children had been DNA profiled, and curious things were found, things that not even the most advanced genetics laboratories could decipher. Something-and it was extensive-had been added to their DNA. It was as if some sort of artificial evolution had been induced in them.

The redoubts around the world were full of members of important and very private societies, members of various fraternal orders and religious organizations, all of them devoted to the same thing: maintaining and increasing the wealth of those who had it and deserved it.

But not even the most secret of them was as well concealed as Acton's group. They'd had their memories wiped, then experienced some kind of temporary psychotic induction process that was far in advance of any brainwashing technique ever developed. It had been this that had caused them to be so hard to find. Who would think to look among a bunch of psychotics? To all appearances, Mrs. Acton had left the estate to a favorite charity when she died, and it had used the money to found the clinic.

All very straightforward, and all a big, fat lie.

One of Mack's messages from last week had said, "group leaders now present."

So they were ready and whatever they were going to do, it was going to be going down p.r.o.nto.

He tapped his driver's shoulder. "Get under way."

"Still fueling."

They had to antic.i.p.ate fuel needs carefully. If a vehicle were to stop running, it might never be able to be started again.

"Snap it up!"

"Yeah, okay."

That sleazy response made his blood boil, but he sucked it in. The U.S. military had disintegrated. Who had ever imagined that regular soldiers like these would protect the redoubts effectively?

"We're rolling," his driver finally said as he increased power. Good. The sun was well up and that d.a.m.n weird thing thing had set. What in G.o.d's name was that? Nothing good, no question there. had set. What in G.o.d's name was that? Nothing good, no question there.

The convoy moved on, turning onto a side road. To the north, he could see tall columns of smoke rising from Hagerstown. Here and there along the road were burned-out cars, stripped cars, some kind of a cattle truck with half-butchered carca.s.ses and flies around it, and bodies, always bodies, bloating, hacked, shot, burned, you name it.

The United States was gone. Long gone. All countries were gone. That whole thing was over.

He drove on through the slow morning and afternoon, stopping far too frequently to clear the road, or, where that wasn't possible, to do a slow workaround through the countryside.

At about two some a.s.shole came running toward them with some kind of rifle in his hands. Before he could fire it, the general ordered him blown away. Then they moved on. The order of the day was, if it shows a gun it is hostile, and if it is hostile, kill it.

Here and there, you saw families on the road. Looked like Iraq during the invasion, or newsreel footage of World War II. Some of them even waved. Jerks. One time, incredibly, a Greyhound bus had pa.s.sed going in the opposite direction. Now, that was amazing, but it was an old unit, looked like something from the sixties. No electronics, so all they needed was gas and they were in motion. There was a lot of gasoline around, too, if you could get to it. But pumps are electric and gas stations don't have generators. A bus company, though, probably would have some way of pulling up its fuel in the event of a power failure.

He liked to think about stuff like this. Keeping the world working. But the G.o.dd.a.m.n WORLD WAS NOT WORKING, WAS IT? G.o.dd.a.m.n them, fine! FINE! What if this happened: this thing kept up until all the human garbage, the ragheads, the c.h.i.n.ks, the spics, the Mexes, the blacks, you name it, all of that trash perished? A few good Americans and Englishmen and Germans, too, of course, couldn't be helped. But ALL of that garbage-and then suddenly they opened the redoubts and here was a whole new world ready to start over again.

Except it wasn't going to be like that, was it? It wasn't going to be like that AT ALL.

Oh, he'd taken the f.u.c.king white powder gold. And he was a good man. Churchgoing. You had to be a good little boy, they said, to make that s.h.i.t work. He'd G.o.dd.a.m.n well drunk it like a milkshake for days, and all he'd gotten out of it was b.l.o.o.d.y p.i.s.s. Plus now there was this frigging black spot on his stomach that he could not get rid of. He tried sc.r.a.ping it, he'd even tried packing it in bleach. Would not go away. Cut at it with a razor. Whatever it was, the sucker went deep.

"General, we have an escort."

"What the f.u.c.k?"

"There's one'a them UFOs up there."

What in h.e.l.l was this? He'd seen video of these things. They were kidnapping people all over the world. Well, h.e.l.l, he had d.a.m.n few soldiers in this unit and probably half of them would take off the second the sun set, so he did not need this. He popped the overhead hatch and saw this big G.o.dd.a.m.n thing up there. Should he shoot it? No f.u.c.kin' way, G.o.d only knew what kind of ordinance it had. These things had been around for years and n.o.body knew what they were. NASA maybe, the president maybe, but not this soldier. "Increase speed. Let's see if we can get out from under this sucker."

The radios didn't work, so they used hand signals, and it was about a minute before a signal came back from the fuel truck. If they increased speed, they would need to load more diesel fuel before they reached Raleigh. "Maintain speed!" And, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, what next?

One radio that was functional was the single sideband unit that was used for contacting Mack. It was kept powered down except when in use, and so far it was fine. In fact, he could hear his communications officer sending a burst right now. He did that every fifteen minutes.

But then, a screech of brakes, the screaming of tires.

"What the h.e.l.l?"

One of the Humvees veered off the road and went over on its side in a cloud of dust and a crash of a kind he hadn't heard since Iraq-the sound of a whole lot of metal taking a h.e.l.l of a beating.

A second later, a column of light as white as powder came down from the thing overhead, and two young soldiers floated out of the Humvee, their arms raised to the sky, and went up in it and were d.a.m.n well gone. And so was the thing-whoosh, just like that. Steel-white sky, end of story.

He threw open the access hatch and ran to the Humvee. n.o.body else had moved except one soldier, who had taken off across country and was going like h.e.l.l. He was tempted to order the man shot, but that might bring outright rebellion, so he ignored the desertion.

When he looked inside the Humvee, he had a h.e.l.l of a shock. What was in there was the driver, and he had literally ripped his own clothes off. His body was as red as a tomato and there was heat coming off it, a lot of heat. The eyes were open and staring and they were not glazed like the eyes of dead men, they were sharp with horror, like he was suffering somewhere deep inside himself. They were not dead eyes, and that was weird.

Whatever was happening to the guy, it was horrible and it just plain hit George Wylie right between the eyes. He was U.S. Army to the core, though, and the U.S. Army saved the lives of its soldiers. You got a man down, you did what was necessary to get all that training and that skill back to medical support. You did that. But here? "Hey, soldier, you hear me?"

Nothing.

Then he noticed on the kid's bare chest and around his side, one of those d.a.m.n spots, black and gleaming. So what in s.h.i.t's name was this stuff then, cancer caused by the f.u.c.ked-up sun?

He went back to the Stryker.

"One KIA," he called out. "Driver. The other three are gone." He pulled himself into the vehicle and commanded them to get moving.

As they went on down the road the general found himself feeling kind of sick. There was something about the two guys who had gone up in that thing that he didn't like. Not the fact that he'd lost men, although that was a pain, for sure, but the way they had looked as they ascended, like saints or some d.a.m.n thing. That was it, a couple of beautiful young saints. He was a Christian and all that. d.a.m.n right, and screw the opposition. You weren't with Jesus, you needed your heart cut out.

But he didn't like saints. You weren't gonna win a war with d.a.m.n saints in your army.

He hit his driver on the shoulder. "What's our ETA?"

"We don't have any holdups, three hours."

That would be well after dark, such as it was with that violet thing, if it came back.

As the vehicle sped along, he found his mind going to his most recent wife, to Sally. Pretty, not beautiful, so why had he married her? Couldn't tell her no, was the main reason.

She went on and on, wanted this, wanted that. Expert in one thing: being disappointed.

He just got so d.a.m.n mad sometimes, and leave it to a woman to bring out the worst in you.

So what happens when you're isolated in a survival redoubt and you command the security force and you off your wife? They put her in the freezer is what happens, and good-bye.

Too bad he hadn't brought a bottle on this little frolic. He needed a bottle. He always needed a G.o.dd.a.m.n bottle. Essential carry, soldier, forget it again, just blow your own head off.

One thing, the Acton Clinic meant maybe getting something that would get him out of this mess, and maybe the whole Blue Ridge group. Too late for the rest, probably. But the Seven Families were at Blue Ridge, plus the cream of America, so they were first in line, anyway.

"Any response from Mack?"

"No, Sir."

Never mind, they'd be there soon enough. If those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had offed Mack, though, there was going to be a slight change in plans. He would still kill them, of course, but slow. d.a.m.n slow.

19.

STEALING PEOPLE.

Mack had thought that he would kidnap Caroline Light and possibly David Ford, but he had not antic.i.p.ated that Caroline would start re-creating the portal as immediately as she had, or move nearly so fast. And he had not understood, until he saw them together, that they were so tender toward one another. Now, he would definitely take Ford. Torture is a reliable form of interrogation in only one instance: when you torture the lover and question the subject.