The Apocalypse Codex

7. COMMUNION

PERSEPHONE HAZARD AND JOHNNY MCTAVISH ENTERED THE United States on Wednesday, twenty-four hours ahead of me. Their reception was somewhat different. Flying into JFK on the pin-stripe express from London City Airport, they bypassed the Immigration queue entirely: they had their passports stamped by an obsequious immigration officer during the refueling stop at Shannon, along with a dozen bankers and discreetly ultra-rich fellow-travelers.

At the arrivals terminal, they checked their bags onto a flight bound for Denver, paused long enough to shower and freshen up after the trans-atlantic leg of their journey, then headed to the gate for their five-hour onward connection.

Uneventful. Boring. Tedious. All good adjectives to apply to long-haul travel; much better than exciting, unexpected, and abrupt. With Johnny sacked out in the window seat to her right, Persephone leaned back in her chair and plowed determinedly through the bundle of documents she’d compiled before the trip. Homework. Everything her staff had been able to find about the Golden Promise Ministries. Everything about other organizations that members of GPM’s board of trustees held seats on. The whole intricate interlocking machinery of religious lobbying and fund-raising that wheeled around the person of Raymond Schiller.

Schiller was not an isolated phenomenon, Persephone noted. He had connections. Connections with John Rhodes III, a scion of Washingtonian blue-bloods and a pillar of The Fellowship—Abraham Vereide’s C Street prayer breakfast and power broker mission to the Gentile Kings. Rhodes had a visiting fellowship at the Institute for American Values, and sat on the board on the National Organization for Marriage. One of NOM’s board members, Chuck Parker—CEO of a Christian textbook publisher—also sat on GPM’s board. GPM was a sponsor of NOM, and Schiller had run pledge drives on his TV show, urging his flock to “stand tall and defend marriage.” Parker was a shareholder in Stone Industries, an arms manufacturer, and—

Persephone blinked. Uneventful. Boring. Sleepy. That was the problem with trying to cram while leaning back in a recliner with a tumbler of Wild Turkey at forty thousand feet: it was too easy to doze off. Johnny found this stuff interesting (his upbringing had, if nothing else, exposed him to some of the wilder reaches of fundamentalist Christianity) but she was making heavy weather of it, finding their feuds and arguments as arcane and recondite as Trotskyite ontogeny or cultist schismatics. Pay attention now. This stuff was—would be—important. Golden Promise Ministries, the Fellowship, National Organization for Marriage, True Path Publishing, Stone Industries Small Arms, Pillar of Fire International, the Purity Path Pledge League—they were all merging into a whirling tattered spiderweb of Christian Dominionist pressure groups and fund-raising organizations. Deeper connections to shadowy ultra-conservative billionaire sponsors were hinted at but coyly elided—nobody wanted to speak truth to the power to launch a million libel lawsuits.

Johnny honked, a sluggish bass. Persephone reached out and poked his shoulder.

“Yes? Duchess.”

“You were snoring.”

“Was I? Oh bugger.” He stabbed at the power button on his seat, then waited until it tilted up to Persephone’s level. “Something come up?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She closed the folder. Quietly, she added: “I make a sky marshal two rows ahead, over to the left, aisle seat. Dead-heading pilot to his right. Four businessmen, a retired couple, one woman and child. Am I missing anyone?”

By way of reply, Johnny stood up clumsily and stepped across her legs, then walked aft towards the toilets. A couple of minutes later he returned. “I match your count. We’re green.”

Over the years, Persephone and Johnny had frequently needed to discuss confidential matters in public, so they’d long since worked out a protocol to improvised security. A first-class airliner cabin was pretty good—lots of background white noise, little opportunity for adversaries to plant bugging devices (especially after they’d arranged last-minute seat changes with the cabin crew), an easy environment to monitor for eavesdroppers. By color-coding it green Johnny was agreeing that it was—conditionally—safe to talk.

Persephone relaxed infinitesimally. “Do we know any forensic accountants on this side of the pond?”

“Accountants?” Johnny frowned. “We’re going to Denver. If you wanted to pick up an accountant, couldn’t we have stopped on Wall Street?”

“I didn’t know we’d need one until…” She gestured irritably at the folder. “It’s a real mess. As bad as mafia money laundering, all barter and back-scratching.”

“You’re assuming this is about cash, Duchess.”

“It usually is.” She looked pensive. “Except when it’s about power.”

“What about religion?”

“Religion is power, to these people. And power is religion, of course. If you’re a humble believer set on doing your deity’s will, then what are you doing spending the take on Lamborghinis and single malt? The real believers are running soup kitchens and emptying bedpans, trying to do good while the televangelists preaching the prosperity gospel are doing it to keep up the payments on the McMansion and the Roller.”

She spoke with quiet vehemence, fingers whitening on the spine of the folder. “Power and money. It’s about all of those things, otherwise why is Schiller trying to gain access to the highest levels of government? He’s a fraud and a dabbler, and Mr. Lockhart shall have his evidence.”

Johnny thought for a while. Then he shook his head slowly. “You’re wrong this time, Duchess. Snark or Boojum. What if he is a true believer, have you thought about that?”

“A true believer in what? The prosperity gospel? New Republican Jesus who rewards his faithful flock for their faith with the ability to make money fast? That’s self-serving cant, and you know it. Wish-fulfillment as religion.” A twitch of the cheek: Persephone unamused. “Don’t get me started on the gap between the Vatican and their flock.”

“I know the church I grew up in.” McTavish is silent for a few seconds. “I could smell it on him. He’s one of the unconditionally elect, Duchess, and it’s quite probable that he holds to the old rites.”

“If it’s a shell, what’s going on under cover of the church?”

“Well.” Johnny shuffles uncomfortably. “You know about the five points of Calvinism, yes? Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. Up in the western isles they take it all too damn seriously. That, and the, uh, cousins under the sea. They hold that they’re unconditionally elect; and that the bloodline of the elect are going to usher in the new age and summon Jesus back to earth—but only when he’s good and ready, you understand. Pay no attention to the gill slits and fins, they’re signs of grace. It’s come to a pretty pass when the bastard spawn of the Deep Ones turn into Presbyterian fundamentalists, hasn’t it? But anyway, that’s what we could be looking at, worst case.”

“So you think they’re a cover for a cell of cultists who are planning on raising something?”

“If you pray to Jesus on the cosmic party line and something at the other end picks up the receiver, because you happen to have an affinity for the uncanny and your prayers attract attention, what are you going to assume?” Johnny shuffles again. “But they’re not cultists in the regular sense, Duchess. Quite possibly they’re just your regular prosperity gospel preaching televangelists. There’s a certain point beyond which any sufficiently extreme Calvinist sect becomes semiotically indistinguishable from the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. But even though their eschatology is insane, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they’re trying to summon up the elder gods.”

“In which case we’re back to money again.” She smiles triumphantly.

“Some of these Pentecostalists, Duchess, they’re not all con men. From 3 John: ‘I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.’ Suppose rather than passing the plate in church, they get a radio show and pass the plate and half a million listeners donate. Isn’t that going to convince a preacher that it’s all true? Wealth comes to the faithful, that’s the message they’re going to take. An’ I never yet met a con man who wasn’t the better at the job for believing his own spiel.”

“That’s not…untrue. But money corrupts. Almost invariably, powers that arise around money are corrupted by it. He might have started out as a true believer, but money has a way of taking over. A church is a business, after all, and those employees or executives who are good at raising money are promoted by their fellows.”

Johnny shrugged, helpless in the face of her conviction. “I still reckon you shouldn’t discount belief, Duchess. They may be after the money as well, but they’re motivated primarily by faith. I know Schiller’s kind: I was born and raised to be one of the elect.”

“But you broke out,” she observed. “And that was a couple of decades ago, and you don’t know Schiller personally. He’s an American cousin, not one of your relatives.”

“All true.”

“So. We’ve got a situation to investigate. Is Schiller fronting a cult or merely making money? That’s worth knowing, but what we really want to find out is why he’s putting so much effort into getting in deep in the UK. Recruiting hands and doing breakfast with VIPs.”

“So you’ve got a plan?”

“Not much of one.” Persephone’s lips wrinkled. “The provisional plan is that there is no plan. First we scope the site and designate accessible dead-letter drops. Then I go in, I do the course, and I come out. You’ll be sitting on the outside monitoring the message drops—I won’t make contact directly unless I want to abort. Gerry’s little helper will make contact with you while I’m inside; if I learn anything, pass it on to him. I think it’d be useful to customize a penetration toolkit for the job, and have two escape routes planned in case things go really off the rails. But I’m not expecting any trouble. It’s a residential retreat and bible study course aimed at recruiting new blood, not a Gulag or an army base.”

“What kind of penetration toolkit do you want? You planning on worming their computers?”

“Yes. You can research the religious angle if you want, but I think we’ll have difficulty getting access and working out what they’re trying to do if Schiller really is running an inner circle. We’re under time pressure here, so I’m aiming for the low-hanging fruit: if it’s about money or power there’ll be an audit trail. So I’m thinking in terms of installing a back door, and after the course is over and I’m out of the zone we will use it to take a look inside Schiller’s email inbox.”

“Hmm.” Johnny thought for a moment. “I think there’s an updated release of the Zeus toolkit I can use to knock something suitable up with. We’ll need to buy a new zero-day exploit, but that’s affordable. What’s your level one cover story if they catch you?”

“I keep my email on a memory stick. There’ll be an infected message in my inbox, so when I plug it into one of their computers it’ll auto-run. If I’m caught, I’m just an ignorant, technically illiterate socialite with an infected email set-up—the security trail can lead back to a spear phishing attack on my bank account. Victim not perp, in other words.”

“That sounds very good. So…you go in, read your email, finish the course, leave, then we have a party with his email. Hmm. Exit strategies?”

“I want you to buy three cars and locate two safe houses downtown. If I need to run I’ll signal you, then drive out, swap plates and wheels, pick up new ID, and keep driving. I’ll charge up the NetJets account to cover seats on standby and we can prepare an evac plan via the nearest airports—but that’s conspicuous. Much better to just drop off the map and turn up in Utah or New Mexico twenty-four hours later. Then revert to regular ID and fly commercial.”

“Okay, three cars, two pads. One escape car, plus a remount and a decoy? We’ll be sourcing proper motors, for appearances sake?”

“Perfect: you read my mind.”

“Okay. So let’s make that a hot four-by-four with off-road capability for the escape car, then two boring mom taxis with tuned-up engines. Why not a bike?”

“Too conspicuous. Also, hard to ride one in heels and a skirt. I’m a well-dressed society matron in this scenario, don’t forget.”

“Noted. You’re going to do this unarmed?”

“Johnny—” She smiled. “I’m a foreign VIP guest; they’d smell a rat if I went with concealed carry.”

“Okay, field-expedient gear only. May I say that I don’t like this, Duchess? Whether or not you trust Gerry, you don’t know what these cults can be like—you’ve never been in one. You’re going to be totally exposed if anything goes wrong—”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong.” Her self-assurance was complete. “I’m a VIP guest on a study retreat week, not an armed intruder, and you’ll just be a lonely foreign tourist taking in some church services. The deadliest thing I’ll be carrying will be a corrupted email box on a memory stick. Unless they turn out to be a front for the Red Skull Cult or the Malaysian Presidential Guard, it should be a walk in the park.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Johnny said gloomily.

“So we’ll just have to liven things up in round two.” Persephone grinned, impishly: “Once we know for sure who we’re dealing with.”

HOTELSPACE IS A PARTICULAR SUBSPECIES OF HYPERSPACE that links the service corridors and bland, beige-carpeted halls of chain hotels. I’ve always had an uneasy feeling that if I open the wrong Staff Only door and turn a corner, I could find myself stepping out of the vending machine room on the seventh floor of a Hilton in Munich or a Sheraton in Osaka. At about 8 p.m. local time—or three in the morning back home—I find myself padding along one of the aforementioned dim, soundproofed corridors in the center of Denver, this time on the thirtieth floor, towing a suitcase behind me and clutching my room keycard in my other hand. (All arranged by the concierge service on my magic credit card, of course.)

Along the way I have a minor flash of déjà vu, echoing a check-in in Darmstadt many years ago that segued into a near-disastrous encounter in the hotel bar. My collisions with the Black Chamber over the years have not been happy; luckily the odds of me running into certain past acquaintances are low. Nevertheless, I’m as awake as I can be with my hindbrain telling my eyelids it’s half past sleepy time.

Approaching my room’s door, I haul out my phone and poke tiredly at it. OFCUT works like a charm. There’s no sign of tampering anywhere up or down the corridor, and the lock’s clean: no wards, no geases, no nasty little hidden surprises. Relieved, I stick my card in the lock, shove the door open, and tow my bag after me. Welcome to slumberland.

What can I say about the generic American hotel room? External Assets punch well above the usual Laundry expenses budget: I’ve got a decent king-sized room rather than the usual broom closet. The bed is the size of a small aircraft carrier, piled invitingly high with pillows, and pulses in my travel-stressed vision like some kind of carnivorous cotton plant. There’s a desk, a clinically tiled bathroom, a TV set, an ethernet jack—

Ethernet.

Even before the door has swung shut behind me I’m into my travel bag to haul out the small and rather naff Dell that Facilities issued me with. The contents of the hard disk are carefully designed to look as if the laptop belongs to a mid-ranking idiot with a heavy Plants v. Zombies habit, and there is nothing remotely confidential about the machine. Laptops are an inherent security risk—they’re too easy to steal—so the classified stuff all sits on a thumb drive. It has a fingerprint reader, the contents are encrypted, and if someone who isn’t me tries to use my severed thumb to log in, then may dead alien gods have mercy on their soul (because the guardians of the Laundry email system won’t).

I dash off a quick “arrived alive” message to Lockhart’s publicly visible email address, then catch myself yawning. A quick glance at the bedside alarm radio tells me it’s only half past eight. Shit. If I succumb to sleep before 10 o’clock I’ll be up with the birds, which is not exactly my kind of lark—I should really go downstairs and get some food and hang out in the bar. Except both food and alcohol, in my current condition, will make me sleepy. If I want to stay awake, I need company. It’s way too late to phone Mo, but—

Aha.

My IronKey is loaded with an address book. I send a quick email to Johnny McTavish, attaching my US phone number and hotel room: Are you on site yet? Need to meet stat. It’s the tattoos: I should have passed them over before they left—but he and BASHFUL INCENDIARY lit out for the Golden Promise Ministries’ bible study and brainwashing B&B too soon. But there’s still a chance he can get one to her before she checks in, if I get them to him immediately.

Clearly McTavish is on the ball, because I’m listening to the coffee maker gurgling and choking into a mug five minutes later when my phone rings.

“McTavish here.” He sounds alert.

“Howard.”

“I’m in Denver.”

“You are? Me, too. We need to meet up as soon as possible.”

“Huh.” A pause. “Meet me at the corner of Colfax and Fourteenth. Half an hour?”

“I’ll do my best.” Luckily I have Google Maps on the JesusPhone…

“Over and out.”

He cuts the call. I guess I’m not the only one around here who finds jet lag eats away at the social veneer.

Colfax turns out to be the main east-west drag in town—the nearest thing to a high street in central Denver, all wall-to-wall shops and daytime diners. My hotel in the central business district is only about half a kilometer away, and while the weather’s a bit chilly by my standards it’s moving out of the depths of winter—the sidewalks are scraped bare of snow, and there’s only the odd grimy mound in the gutters to remind me that I’m in the middle of a continental deep-freeze. So I pull the overcoat out of my suitcase, drag my shoes and jacket back on, stuff the book of tats and Pinky’s funky little camera in my jacket pockets, and head downstairs to pound pavement.

We’re on a plateau halfway up a mountain range, and I can feel it on my chest before I’ve gone three blocks. It’s dusk: the cloud base overhead is low, and a lazy wind cuts through the streets, working its way through my coat. I’m wishing for a hat by the time I pass Thirteenth and start looking for Johnny. There aren’t many people out, and traffic is light: either the center of Denver on a spring evening with a smell of snow in the air isn’t the best place to hang out, or I’m missing a big ball game.

“Wotcher, Bob.” I nearly jump out of my skin; for someone who’s most of two meters tall and built like a brick shithouse Johnny is surprisingly hard to notice.

“Yo,” I manage, glancing round quickly. I see no sign of anyone tailing us, and relax slightly. “There’s something I need to fill you in on. Got ten minutes for a coffee?”

“This way,” he says, and disappears into the murk between street lights. I do my best to follow him.

He leads me to a small indie coffee shop that, for a miracle, is both open and hasn’t turned itself into a restaurant in time for dinner. We find a booth with padded vinyl seats and a good view of the doorway and slide in. I unzip my coat and rub my hands together. I’m cold; I didn’t realize it until we got indoors. A waitress ambles over while I’m still shivering. “What’ll it be?”

“Mug of Joe,” grunts Johnny.

“Mocha venti with an extra shot for me, no cream,” I add.

“Anything else?”

I shake my head and she wanders off. Johnny looks suspicious. “Since when do you speak Starbucks?”

I shrug. “It’s not as if I can help it; they’ve got our office surrounded, and they don’t like it if you try to order in English.”

We wait in silence until our coffees arrive and the waitress departs again. Then Johnny asks, “What’s the problem?”

“A little something for the weekend.” I pull out the tat book. “You guys left before I could hand these over.” I slide it towards him.

“Not our fault, the travel agent was most insistent…” Johnny opens the book. “Hmm.” He squints at the contents. “That’s neat. Are these what I think they are?”

I sip my coffee. “I don’t know. What do you think they are?”

Johnny slides one of a pair of matching stabbed love-hearts out of its transparent sleeve. “Sympathy and contagion. If I wear one of these and you wear the other, we get a private walkie-talkie channel, right?” His gaze flickers back to me. “Whose bright idea was it?”

I shrug. “Don’t ask me, Lockhart just thought they might come in useful. Dead-letter drops are so twentieth century, don’t you think?”

“Huh.” Johnny is looking thoughtful. “Yes, I should think the Duchess will be most interested in these. Thank you kindly.” He raises his mug and takes what is clearly a throat-burning swig of coffee. “Well, I’d better be going.”

“Wait!” I stop. “Firstly,” I take the book and leaf through it, removing the control tattoos, “I need to keep these. Secondly—what are you guys planning?”

“We’re going to get Mr. Lockhart exactly what he wants,” Johnny says blandly. “Tomorrow, the Duchess is driving down to the Ministries’ compound to start the Omega Course. It runs three days, Friday through Sunday, and she’ll be there the whole while. Don’t expect to hear from us—I’m moving on as well. I’ll get in touch afterwards. In emergency”—he flips to a control tat—“I’ll page you. Okay?”

Great. So just when Lockhart expects me to report back, all I can say is, They’ve dropped off the map. “And if I need to get in touch with you?”

He taps the book with a thick, stubby finger: “Use the force.” Then he finishes off his coffee and vanishes, leaving me to pick up the bill.

YR. HMBL. CRSPNDNT. DOES NOT HAVE EYES IN THE BACK OF his head. Also, he’s pretty shit at the whole spy tradecraft shtick.

Which is why what I’m about to relate came to me at third hand, some time after the event.

PERSEPHONE WATCHED THE DOORWAY OF THE COFFEE HOUSE from the far side of the road until she was sure the Laundry bureaucrat wasn’t following Johnny. Then she slid the Flex into gear and circled the block slowly, keeping a weather eye open for any sign of company. Half a block past the coffee house she pulled over and popped the passenger door. Johnny clambered aboard, a stray snowflake preceding him. “Drive.”

Persephone headed south, sticking to the speed limit. Traffic was light; she hung a left, then a right, checking her mirrors each time. “We’re clear.”

“Good.” Johnny slumped slightly in his seat. “Save us from innocents, Duchess, they’ve stuck us with a bloody amateur.”

“You think?” Persephone’s lips peeled back from her teeth in a humorless grin.

“Bubblegum sympathy tats and a trench coat. What is the world coming to?”

“Never attribute to incompetence that which can be adequately explained by jet lag, my dear. So, these tats. What do you think?”

“I think you’d be mad to wear one,” said Johnny. “They’re too big, and these fundie nutjobs got some whacky ideas about real tattoos—mark of Cain, stuff in Leviticus, that kind of thing—and if they strip-search you—”

“They won’t.”

“Or if they lift Mr. Chinless-Wonder and find his tat—”

“They won’t.” Persephone spoke with complete assurance. “You underestimate Mr. Howard, his rap sheet’s nearly as questionable as yours. People underestimate him: that’s his game. Probably why it’s taken Mahogany Row so long to notice him, at a guess. If we’d met him, back in our Network days…Well. I’m going to, let’s see, burn myself on a steam iron? Blistered heel from running? Yes, that should explain the gel plaster. I’ll keep the tattoo covered. You don’t need to be so twitchy.”

“But—”

Persephone turned to stare at him. “We are trying to get word out to Lockhart, aren’t we? It’s their preferred channel—and it’s a lot harder to eavesdrop on than a phone call or a dead drop.”

He looked away first, helpless before her confidence. “I got a bad feeling about this whole deal, Duchess. Very bad.”

Coming up on the intersection with North Speer that would carry them out to the interstate, Persephone floored the accelerator. Gas gurgled into the huge V8 as the big mom-wagon accelerated. “Your opinion is noted. So doesn’t reducing our risk of exposure help?”

Johnny shivered, a surprisingly delicate gesture for one so outwardly stolid. “Yeah, but I’ve still got a feeling there is something wrong with the picture. We’re missing a piece. Something enormous.”

“Very likely.” Her fingers whitened on the steering wheel. “But it’s our job to find out, isn’t it? That’s what we do.”

MEANWHILE, SIXTY KILOMETERS AWAY…

Off US85, about seven kilometers north of the Air Force Academy in the vicinity of Palmer Lake, there’s a road leading due west into Pike National Forest. It looks like a dirt track, winding around the wooded hillsides, but once it’s out of sight of the township there’s a fence, and a gate bearing the sign of the cross, and then single-track blacktop hugging the hillside above the Lower Reservoir until it reaches another discreet fence, and turns into a proper road, with driveways leading off either side to landscaped car parks and low buildings. One building is surmounted by a trio of large satellite dishes; another cluster is backed by a complex of specialized gas supplies and air conditioning units that would do justice to a small hospital. There’s a mansion, a motel, a 7-Eleven, and a surprisingly small church.

Welcome to the Golden Promise Ministries compound.

Whenever the gates down near Palmer Lake open to admit a vehicle, eyes up in the security center track them on closed-circuit TV screens, check their registration plates online on license databases. Golden Promise Ministries has its own fire service, ambulance, and police force. Golden Promise Ministries has its own kindergartens and schools. It’s the hub of an entire town, in miniature: a gated community with its own rules and regulations.

And the prophet is coming to town.

A black stretched Lincoln with mirror-tinted windows is rumbling up the blacktop path, preceded and trailed by a pair of black Explorers, also with mirrored windows. A police department cruiser leads the way, lights flashing in lazy salute. It’s been a long day’s journey, chasing the terminator around the spinning globe, but Raymond Schiller is finally coming home.

It’s late in the evening when the Lincoln draws up outside his combination office and residence, a neoclassical-styled mansion fronted by a horseshoe-shaped drive at the end of the road; but his people are there, waiting for him. Here are his secretarial and administrative staff hoping for an audience at this late hour, a Judgment of Solomon in some cases. Next to them are a gaggle of trimly uniformed nursemaids and teachers from the crèche and kindergarten, vital handmaids to the progress of Project Quiver; a small group of visiting cadets from the Air Force Academy, doubtless here for one of the workshops the junior outreach ministry run in his absence; and a double-handful of other onlookers, well-wishers and members of the flock come to welcome him home.

Raymond musters up a broad smile as he climbs out of the limo and stretches his travel-stiffened muscles. He raises his hands: “What a welcome! Thank you, my friends. Let us pray together. Oh Lord, we thank thee for this safe homecoming…”

It’s what they’re here for, and he appreciates their thoughtful welcome, although a bath and his bed would be more welcome at this point. Benediction complete, he strides towards the front door. As he does so Alex Lockey slides into place at his side, a slim attaché case clamped under his elbow; to his other side, Doctor Jensen waits impatiently. “Can it wait?” Schiller asks quietly.

“No, sir.” Alex matches stride as the door opens; Jensen echoes him. They move in convoy towards Schiller’s office, leading a comet-trail of followers: his handmaiden Roseanne, Sheriff’s Deputy Stewart, one of the senior teachers. “We’ve had a heads-up from the FBI in Denver…”

“And I need a moment of your time, too,” Jensen says snippily. “Clinics don’t run on air and promises, you know. We’re getting an earful from a busybody at the Joint Commission over our accreditation and they’re threatening to send an audit team.”

“Intolerable.” Schiller keeps his voice low. “Unless they are fellow travelers.”

“Well yes.” Jensen’s gaze flickers to Brooks: “That would be Alex’s department, but in the meantime what do I tell them? They’re threatening to revoke our certification.”

Schiller suppresses the urge to utter a profanity. “Can these items wait for two hours? I need to compose myself for the midnight communion; these are temporal matters, are they not? I’ll see you both after the service.”

Alex takes a deep breath, then nods. “Sir. It can’t wait. It’s critical.”

“How critical?” Schiller focusses on his security coordinator.

“Our sources in the FBI passed on a warning while you were en route: apparently during your time in London you were being monitored by a deep black intel organization, and now MI5—the British counter-intelligence agency—are asking questions on behalf of another department. The FBI don’t know who, which is worrying in itself. And then they got a tip-off from the DHS, that at least one British intelligence agent was tracked through JFK, en route to Denver.”

“Didn’t they arrest him? Forget that, son, that wasn’t a question.” Schiller thinks for a moment. “You’re saying they’re on to us?”

Alex nods. “It looks likely.” Time to give Schiller a nudge: “Almost certain, sir.”

“But the hour cometh, and now is,” Schiller mutters under his breath. “Well, it’s earlier than I wanted, but I see no reason to delay; we’ll just have to bring everything forward as fast as we can. Schedule a meeting of the inner circle for tomorrow morning. Operation Multitude will simply have to go into effect as soon as possible.” He turns to Pastor Dawes: “I assume you have blessed the hosts?”

“They’re in Stephen’s keeping. Tonight’s communicants are being prepared.”

“Good.” Schiller unwinds slightly. “Doctor Jensen, I assume the certification matter will not actually impact your existing patients? It will merely hold up the admission of new cases?”

Jensen nods reluctantly. “Yes, but the audit—”

“Need not concern us; by the time they get around to sending someone, we shall have completed phase one of Operation Multitude and nothing short of the Antichrist in the White House ordering a nuclear strike on Colorado will be able to stop us.” Then he turns back to Alex. “As for your British agent—if you find him—” He smiled thinly. “I am innocent of the blood of this person: see ye to it.”

AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, IN THE CHAPEL ATTACHED TO the back of the residence, Raymond Schiller conducts a service of midnight communion.

It’s a small chapel, and windowless, as befits its unusual purpose; the congregation is equally small, and not entirely willing. Schiller is slightly late, red-eyed and tired, but his vestments are nevertheless immaculate. Pastors Dawes and Holt conduct the service, leading the confession. Ray enters from the rear of the chapel, climbing the steps to take his place behind the altar, just in time for the climax: “The Lord Jesus Christ is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness; therefore you are forgiven!”

He scans the upturned faces before him, the ecstatic joy of the Saved, the apprehension and fear of the new members attending their first communion. “You are cleansed of all unrighteousness, and you are worthy to participate in this holy meal!” A wave of fear so clear and cold he can feel it in his marrow sweeps through the twelve unshriven, kneeling in the two front rows between their guards. He smiles, beatific with the knowledge of their coming salvation. Then he leads off: “The Lord be with you!”

The congregants—those who are Saved—answer: “And also with you.” The others, the Unsaved, have a harder task of making their voices heard, for they are gagged: Who needs to hear the cries of the damned? They will be Saved soon enough, willing or no. “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ is coming again!”

And finally it is time. Schiller licks his lips, shaking with emotion. “As Paul said to the Corinthians, I say to you: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Let us keep the feast!” He gestures at the front row. “Let our new brethren be brought forward to join us…”

At the other side of the altar, Brother Stephen lifts back the silver-trimmed white linen cover from the incubator that holds the supply of hosts for tonight’s ritual. The cymothoans are torpid, legs rippling along their pale flanks. Schiller accepts a pair of silver tongs from Pastor Holt and reaches for one of the divine isopods as two deputies frog-march the first of the unshriven up to the altar. A healthy young male hipster, now handcuffed, gagged, and robed as befits a first-time communicant, his eyes bulge with terror. Schiller feels for him, a keen stab of compassion and empathy: the poor fellow seems to think he is about to be murdered! Which is anything but the truth. Raymond leans forward and makes the sign of the cross. “May the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you unto eternal life,” he says, and, as Pastor Dawes pushes the fellow’s head back and unhooks the ball gag, he shoves the host into its new home.

The man convulses silently, choking in the grip of involuntary communion as the host goes to work, eager to save his soul. He’s unconscious already as the deputies carry him back to his pew. Then the next communicant is kneeling before Schiller, a young African-American woman with dreadlocks and scared-deer eyes.

Raymond reaches out with his tongs for the next slowly writhing host and thanks the Lord from the depths of his heart, for giving him these souls to save and the means whereby to do His holy work.