Cast Of Shadows

– 8 -

Mickey the Gerund was over three hundred miles away, in a forty-dollar-a-night highway motel room near Alexandria, Minnesota, before he knew Davis Moore had survived.

Moore had left the office a little earlier than he had the past few days, but Mickey was ready, barrel pointed, scope tuned to the proper focal length. He recognized Moore in the shadows of the foyer, disappearing momentarily into a conference room, where, for some reason, he opened the vertical blinds. Mickey thought about taking him out at the window, and even tensed on the trigger when he knew he had the shot, but decided it was better to be patient. They wouldn’t let photographers inside the clinic to see the body, and this was, after all, a media event. He wanted every mad scientist in the world to see Davis Moore bleed out on the ground, and for that he needed to drop the body where the helicopters would have an unobstructed view.

Of the four doctors at New Tech, he’d picked Moore because he was the worst sinner. He was one of the country’s most vocal advocates of reproductive cloning, testifying before Congress and writing papers for the journals, and newspaper editorials. He was handsome and eloquent and he helped give the procedure respectability. One of his colleagues had said, after one heated battle in Congress, that if it hadn’t been for the advocacy of Davis Moore, the cloning procedure would be unavailable to the thousands of parents who needed it. Somewhere in the backseat of the Cutlass was a torn photo from a magazine, mailed to the Hands of God by a sympathetic acquaintance, that celebrated the smiling physician as if he were a movie star. Davis Moore was near the top of the Hands of God hit list.

“Shit,” Mickey spat when the woman on the news said Moore was in stable condition, recovering. The sinner would live to ridicule God another day, and the Gerund’s pride was hurt on top of it. He considered himself a good shot at that distance. Still, Mickey had fired a bullet, the bullet had struck flesh, and news of the event was right now on televisions in Minnesota and California and Washington and probably even Hong Kong. Cameras were showing the yellow-bordered crime scene and reporters were describing to the world the diabolical things Davis Moore did for money and how his assailant clearly wanted him and doctors like him dead. That was the point, after all. There wouldn’t be many “fertility” doctors or researchers or even drug manufacturers getting good, sound sleep tonight.

Mickey liked to be philosophical at moments like this. It might be a while, years even, but someday he’d get another crack at Dr. Davis Moore, God willing.

A twenty-four-hour news network, one of only eight channels beamed into this cheap motel, interviewed a pair of advocates, one pro-cloning and one anti-cloning. Mickey sat at the edge of the queen-sized bed holding a bowl underneath his chin and spooning oatmeal he’d made on a hot plate. The ugly pro-cloning woman was ranting about the radical right wing and terrorism and how even her life had been threatened recently by these fanatics. It sounded like an empty, pathetic cry for sympathy but Mickey knew the claim was true because he had done the threatening, plucking her name and dozens of others off the screen during interviews just like this one.

Mickey had seen the anti-clone pansy before, as well. The liberal networks always brought him out to speak for the opposition because they wanted to make anti-cloners look ineffectual. He had a red beard that covered a weak chin, and he wore bad makeup and sweated a lot. He sent his best wishes to the Moore family and said his organization condemned violence and wished the police would bring the criminals responsible for this shooting to justice. Mickey hated this fellow, who cared more about politics than morality. Mickey wasn’t anti-cloning, he was pro-God, and he wanted to show the world that God’s warriors were strong. He didn’t believe that might made right, but rather that the righteous were mighty and the scientists and the feminists and other soldiers of sin would need more than the backing of the Supreme Court and the complicity of the news media to force the surrender of good people. Mickey had a gun and goodwill and a visa stamped by God’s hand that would allow him free passage anywhere the Lord’s work called him.

Phil and the others would be watching the news back at the church now. Mickey wanted to call them, but they had a rule against that. The feds knew about the Hands of God. They’d be watching the phone traffic. Mickey the Gerund didn’t make stupid mistakes.

He opened an atlas on the bed and began charting his way toward the next target. He’d driven miles out of his way tonight, but that was part of his strategy. Mickey had steered to the expressway, pulled on in a random direction, and driven until he was too tired to stay on the road. If he didn’t plan his getaway ahead of time, it would be harder for any fed profiler who tried to get inside his mind to catch up with him, impossible to predict his next move.

He’d stay another day in Minnesota to relax. Do some reading. Maybe find a place in the woods where he could take some unscheduled target practice. Obviously he needed it.

Then on to Denver.