Behind them, a familiar warm voice said, “Stand aside, men. There is no need for this violence.”
The others shuffled back and Garrison Bevel stepped into view, his face older but familiar from the brochure photo. His thick shock of hair had turned white and stuck up in all directions as if he’d jammed a knife into an electrical socket. His long face was canyoned like a desert landscape marked by eons of erosion. In person, his eyes were large and luminous, and he stared at Peter as though he could see something deep inside him, something essential and unique. Even bound, naked, and seriously pissed, Peter could feel the magnetic force of the man.
Nickels spoke up. “Sir, this man killed my brother. I want justice.”
“Rightly so, my friend. And you shall have it. But not like this.” The Messenger didn’t take his eyes off Peter. He had the same rich and sonorous voice as in the recordings, at once theatrical and utterly natural. Behind him, more people had begun to gather.
“You all signed the Protocols,” he said, playing to the small but growing crowd. “We have a method of justice, do we not? You will have a chance to express your grievance, all of you, when he is taken to the punishment wall.”
“I brought the black-tip ammo,” Peter said. “Release my friends.”
The Messenger smiled. “I have changed my mind. They will stay here. When the Dark Time comes, they’ll be safer with us.”
“Is that how you lead this movement?” Peter asked. “With lies and broken promises? What other promises have you made to these people that you will choose not to fulfill?”
The Messenger’s smile stayed in place, but something hardened in his eyes. “You are mistaken, friend. I am simply thinking of what would be best for young Eleanor and Miss Carlotta. But you are correct in that we had an agreement. So tomorrow, when the Dark Time comes and the Undoing begins, I will give them a choice.” He gesturedat the stunted evergreens and the falling snow. “To be out there in the darkness, in the chaos and hunger and violence, or to remain here, in the light, where they will have food and shelter and safety. A community.”
The group murmured its agreement. They were young and old, men and women, Black and white and shades of brown, but they shared a weather-beaten quality, their cheeks hollowed and their shoulders bent under invisible weights laid there by a hard, uncaring world. Peter could see it in their faces, the need to believe in something. To believe that they mattered.
Peter felt the pull himself. He had his own share of sorrows from his time at war. Good friends dead for reasons that no longer made sense to him. He often felt it had all been for nothing.
How easy it would be to fall under the Messenger’s spell, he thought. To take your hands off the wheel and allow someone else to steer your life. Rather than wrestle with your own doubts and fears, the uncertainties of fate and the relentless economic and social changes that came faster every year.
No matter that the Messenger was driving them off a cliff. Before gravity took over, they would have a brief sensation of flying.
The Messenger watched Peter closely, as if he could hear the thoughts flickering through the naked captive’s mind. His eyes grew soft and kind. “My goodness, you must be freezing. Let’s get some clothes on you.” His voice rose to reach the crowd. “Can anyone spare a garment for our friend Peter? Pants, shoes, a warm coat?”
Behind him, another man appeared, thin under a black hardshell jacket and watchful as a coyote on a bombing range. “Here, sir.” He held out an old Army coat, a pair of cargo pants, and Army surplus boots without laces. “I took the liberty of checking out a few things from inventory.”
The Messenger smiled. “Ah, Hollis. As always, you anticipate everyneed. Vance, please free our friend’s arms and help him dress. Then we can show him to his accommodations.”
“Hollis.” Peter looked at him as if over iron gunsights. “Or do you prefer Circuit Rider? It’s so good to put a face to the name.”
Hollis didn’t speak, just returned the stare with studied indifference. Whatever awful shit the Messenger had planned, Peter was confident that Hollis was the one to make sure it happened.
When the killing started, Peter would do his best to include Hollis among the dead.
50
Durant removed the handcuffs, but because Peter was so cold, he could barely dress himself. His naked body was covered with mud and there was no way to clean it off. His trembling fingers fumbled with the zippers and buttons. The boots were several sizes too small, and he almost fell trying to cram his feet inside. Vance had to hold him up with one arm. The lack of laces was irrelevant because he could never have managed to tie them.
Disappointingly, once he had the coat on, Durant put the cuffs back on, this time with his hands locked in front of him. Still, cuffs or no cuffs, even with the mud coating the inside of the boots and pants and coat, he felt himself beginning to warm under the heavy clothes.
The Messenger looked at him as if pleased with what he saw, then held out his hand like a game show host toward a prize. “Your female friends are this way. Vance, Hollis, Captain Durant, please join us.”
With the others close behind, Peter and the Messenger walked sideby side down a wide gravel path strung with lights between two long rows of simple cabins. The first ones were new and built for the ages with stone walls and metal roofs. The last cabins were older and sinking unevenly into the mud. Raw stumps poked up where big trees had once stood. Every south-facing roof was covered with solar panels. Light blazed from every window.
As they walked, Peter saw people heading toward the cabins, clothes and hands dirty from physical labor. They stopped and lowered their heads. Like the crowd in the parking area, Peter could see the weight they carried.
As the Messenger passed each man or woman, he touched their arms and shoulders, his voice soft and warm and gentle. Something in them eased at his touch. They believed in him, Peter saw. Of course they were willing to believe in him, in anything, for even the thinnest promise of relief from the hard realities of a fast-changing world.
But Peter had known men like the Messenger before. At bottom, they were all the same. They were bullies who talked about fairness but all they really wanted was power for themselves and retribution against their enemies.
They continued on, Vance gripping Peter’s arm again, his hand like a vise. Hollis was silent.
After the cabins came a square field of green grass, perhaps fifty yards across, ringed with pole lights. At the far side, at the end of the path, stood a large log building with a wing on each side, a deep front porch, and a bare patch at the eaves where a sign had been removed. As with the cabins, every window shone brightly.
“This was the lodge for the former Boy Scout camp,” the Messenger said. “Now it’s our main headquarters, with staff offices, rooms for counseling and medical care, and classrooms for the children. Beyond it are the group living facilities and more cabins.” As if Peter hadsigned up for a tour and the Messenger was his guide. Maybe he thought Peter would become an investor.
