John Dalmas: excerpts of The Second Coming

Prolog

The apartment was small, its furnishings expensive and conservative. As usual its occupant ate alone—a TV supper in a plastic tray. Meat, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables and a brownie, the portions meager for so tall a man, and there weren't even salt and pepper shakers on the table. His appearance had been likened to Lincoln's, before Lincoln grew the beard, but the resemblance was strictly skeletal. His mouth was nearly lipless, his hair disciplined and straight. Creases bracketed his mouth from nose to chin, curving sourly at the bottom, reflecting the absence of humor.

Just now he was eating to television, to the Authors Channel, waiting for a scheduled interview. An unauthorized biography of General Rodney Beauchamp had been published. Beauchamp had reoriented and reorganized the army for 21st century problems, then been forced to retire for publicly criticizing foreign policy. The diner knew the general, and approved of him.

Meanwhile several minutes remained for a book on someone of whom the diner did not approve at all. While he watched, his fork transferred small bites of food to his mouth. He chewed them thoroughly, as he'd been taught when a child.

On the screen, two men sat half facing each other, half facing the camera. "I've read a number of Ngunda Aran's columns," the host said, "and heard him lecture on TV. I find his viewpoints interesting."

"Actually," the author said, "I find them interesting too, but you need to consider them in context. Before Ngunda the writer and lecturer, there was Ngunda the philanthropist, whose good works brought him broad notoriety. Now he uses that base, that foundation of respect, as a public platform from which to expound his beliefs, if that's what they actually are."

The host interrupted. "But most columnists expound on their beliefs. And he hasn't proposed crimes, hasn't recommended civil disobedience, hasn't even been discourteous. What exactly is your complaint with him?"

"First let me point out that the bonds holding society together are stretched thin today, and fraying. And the ideas he expounds are foreign to the American social psyche. They add seriously to the strain. People admire him or they hate him, and polarization is something we don't need more of.

"Meanwhile, his Millennium Foundation has become a public relations organization for his self-image and metaphysical philosophy..."

The tall man pressed the mute switch. Idiot, he thought grimacing. He's got something worthwhile to say, and clothes it in liberal-humanist babble. His fork pierced a cut bean, some peas, and a fragment of diced carrot, raising them to his thin lips as the two men mouthed soundlessly on the screen. Ngunda Aran. Again he grimaced. Satan smiling, garbed in good works.

He would, he decided, explore some possibilities.
_________________________

.... Ngunda Elija Aran is one of the more dangerous men in the world today. He is far more dangerous than E. David Hilliard was, not because he appears more plausible—he doesn’t—but because he has emerged in a much more dangerous time, when an increasingly large part of the population is suceptible to such fraud.

Charles Heilemann, D.Sc.
Emeritus Professor of Physics
California State University, Northridge
Letters page, San Francisco Chronicle
_________________________

It even began oddly, the door chimes startling Lee, making her jump. Ben was downstairs doing laundry, so she put aside the Times business section, went to the door, and after a moment's hesitation, opened it.

A brown, brightly cheerful face confronted her, topping a small wiry body wearing jeans and a black tee-shirt. The tee-shirt was decorated with a running, space-suited figure pursued by a unicorn.

White teeth flashed. "Mrs. Shoreff, I've come to talk with you and Ben. My name is Lor Lu." The figure bowed, palms pressed together in front of him. "Holy man extraordinary," he added, eyes laughing. When she simply stared, he spoke again. "He's in the basement, doing laundry. Would you get him please?"

The strange introduction had deranged her usual poise. "Was—he expecting you?"

"No. We met in the WebWorld."

"Come in," she said uncertainly. "I'll get him."

Turning, she strode through the house, disturbed at her state of mind. It occurred to her she hadn't asked what he wanted to talk to them about. He might, she thought, be a salesman. Or a collection agent! The thought alarmed her.

At the head of the basement stairs, she closed the door behind her and called down. "Ben?"

"Yes?"

"There's someone to see you. Us."

Ben Shoreff came out of the laundry room, sleeves rolled to the elbows, forearms thick with dark curly hair. "Did he say who he is?"

Lee frowned. It was unlike her not to remember; she was good with names. "Lou someone." She lowered her voice. "And Ben, he knew where you were: downstairs, doing laundry!"

Frowning, Ben started up the stairs, rolling his sleeves down as he came. At the top he paused to button them. His attention was on who the visitor might be, rather than on Lee's odd comment. Lou was a common enough name; he must, he thought, know someone named Lou. Together they went to the living room, where he found an Asian he didn't recall seeing before. Asian-American, he corrected. He stands like an American, holds himself like one.

"I'm Ben Shoreff," Ben said. "Have we met?"

"On the WebWorld. I'm Lor Lu. From Millennium. We chatted."

Ben frowned, not recalling. "And you came here to...?"

The grin reappeared. "I had asked to speak with Mrs. Shoreff. I'd read her business posting." He paused to grin at Lee, then turned back to Ben. "She wasn't at home, but you seemed interesting, so I asked you some questions. We need to expand our accounting office, and I like your skills and experience."

The Asian paused, turning again to Lee. "But it was your business posting I was actually following up on. I'd contacted the references you'd posted, and liked what they said about you."

Lee Shoreff stared, on the edge of being horrified, but interested in spite of herself. From Millennium! A cult! She had an automatic fear of cults, but economic depression had struck worldwide, and her young consulting business was clinically dead. Ben had posted résumés of his own, but meanwhile they were seriously in debt, and the mortgage company had sent a foreclosure notice.

"What—would I be expected to do?" she asked.

"Millennium is expanding rapidly, and our operations chart just sort of grew; we need something a lot better. We've tried adapting generic O.C.s, but they haven't been adequate, so Dove said to get someone who can come in and do the job right. I showed him your posting and the comments I'd gotten, and he told me to hire you."

Lee licked her lips. What in the world did a cult need an operations chart for? And Millennium was out west somewhere: Oregon or Colorado. Why hadn't they talked to her by Web, instead of sending someone all the way across the country?

"I suppose I can handle that," she heard herself saying. "The principles apply to anything. If you saw my posting, you know my fees. I'll give you a questionnaire, so you'll know what information to fax."

Lor Lu shook his head. "That's not how we want it done. We want you on site. Our operations and services are unlike any you've had experience with, and you'll need to be personally familiar with them to handle the job. Get to know the people."

She cast a quick glance at Ben. She was, she realized, afraid of this job. "I—How long on site? I have a husband and two school-age daughters."

Lor Lu gestured. "No problem. Bring them. We'll provide a three-bedroom house, furnished, and we have a state-licensed school on the premises. Our employees consider the school better than average, and you can take your meals in our dining room if you'd like. The cost is nominal." He laughed. "Cheaper than buying groceries, and the kitchen staff takes care of the cooking and cleanup."

Inwardly Lee squirmed, feeling somehow trapped, vaguely desperate. "But—how long?"

"I can write the contract for two months, with extensions as necessary. And we pay transportation, of course, including freight for belongings up to 1500 pounds."

"Two months? I'm sure it won't take that long. One at most."

"Two months. We'll want you there to debug it, and groove our people in on it. And we are, after all, an international operation, so there will be some travel. Two months, with extensions as necessary. Then, if you like us and we like you, we may want your expertise on other things.

"Your rates are reasonable enough for short-term jobs of the sort you usually do, but because of the length of the contract, we'll want to pay you by the month. We were thinking in terms of $6,500, with credit transfers on the 15th and 30th."

He stopped, arms folded now, but the grin was still there. Again she looked at Ben, interested in spite of herself. At Mertens, Loftus, and Hurst, her salary had reached $7,500 a month, but in the fourteen months since she'd quit, she hadn't come close to that. She'd topped three thousand only three times. In the month previous, she'd grossed just $375, and that by cutting her rate drastically. She was good at what she did, the best, but in times like these, businesses weren't hiring consultants or anyone else. And effective promotion would cost more than she could borrow, especially now, with their credit rating down the drain.

Ben spoke then, his tone diffident, but his words to the point. "You said you were interested in hiring me, too. What would I be doing?"

"You'll be in our accounting office, helping set up procedures that will work efficiently in Mrs. Shoreff's new system."

Ben gestured. "Have a seat, Mr. Lu."

They sat. My God, Lee thought, I never asked him to sit down! He's offering us jobs, and I never asked him to sit down!

"What would my job pay?" Ben asked.

"It would start at $3,500."

"On the basis of my posting and a WebWorld chat?"

"I did other research. On both of you." The Asian gestured casually. "And of course, there are your auras."

Our auras?! Lee thought. Our auras?!!

Ben glanced at his wife, then turned to Lor Lu again. "How soon do you need a commitment?"

"My plane leaves tomorrow morning at 8:57."

"When would we have to be there?"

"There's a degree of urgency. We need a new O.C. in place as soon as reasonably possible. We want both of you there by the first of next month."

"Have you got a number we could call today? This evening? My wife and I need to talk about this."

The man was grinning again. Like a cat with a mouse under its paw, Lee thought. "I'm at the Veldrome Hotel, at the airport. The number is 614-555-7100, Room 312." He spelled his name for them. "Call me any time before eleven."

He left copies of Millennium's standard employment contract for them to read, then shook their hands and left. It seemed to Lee his grip had some sort of electrical charge.

....Many people accept only physical phenomena as real. To them we are born, live awhile, then die, and with death cease to exist. Believing that, the prospect of death can be especially frightening. But you are, in fact, an undying soul, and your loved ones are undying souls. Death ends neither your existence nor theirs. Each of us survives as a soul, despite war, murder and plague. We would survive collision with a 5-gigaton asteroid that killed every human body on our planet.

While incarnate on Earth, we are a soul united with a primate, in a very close relationship, and the primate has its own reactions to dangers. Because the body does die, and regardless of Church doctrine, is not resurrected. Thus being convinced of one's soulhood, one's immortality, does not automatically exempt us from fear.

From The Collected Public Lectures of Ngunda Aran
_________________________

The room was dark, except for flickering light from an aged television. Near one side of the room stood a stove made of a 35-gallon oil drum standing horizontally on two skids. Its draft was closed, its damper nearly so. An occasional muted "pop" sounded from its interior, and around its door a red line glowed, thin and dull. To one side lay a small pile of split pine, on the other a shaggy cattle dog, head on forepaws. In the weak light, it might easily be overlooked. Its eyes were not on the screen, but on two men, seated. Footsteps sounded on the front porch. The door opened and closed, a brief chill wind blowing in. There was a smell of barn boots. The two men did not turn.

"What ya watching?"

The younger of them, large in the darkness, answered from the sofa. "The son of God."

"Shit!"

"Careful now, Carl," the third man said. "God'll get ya."

Carl grunted, stepped to the set, and squinted farsightedly at the digital display on the satellite tuner. Then he sat down on an easy chair and watched. Now and again he cursed. The program had been two-thirds over when he'd entered. When it finished, he got up and turned the sound off.

"Goddamn jigaboo!"

The large, younger man grinned. "That's gigaton. Five gigatons."

"What the hell you talking about?"

"That 5-gigaton rock he's going to call down to land on your roof. Drive you clear down to hell if you're not careful."

Carl swore again. "Lute, you listen to that Un-gunda enough, your brain'll rot. It's like smoking dope."

Lute laughed outright. "Like that snoose'll rot out your jaw? When dope comes in a bottle, I may get interested." He got to his feet. "Right now, though, I'm going to freshen up my coffee and listen to you tell me why it's worth my time and somebody's money to kill the guru."

He went to the kitchen. It was lit by a kerosene lamp, despite the generator humming in an add-on behind the house. The firebox in a hybrid wood and propane stove kept the coffee pot hot on the backburner. Luther Koskela poured from it into a mug, and sat down at the table. His uncles followed, the eldest hunched and limping, and sat down across from him.

"When he's dead," Carl answered, "people won't have to listen to him anymore."

"That's it? Jesus Christ, Carl, it's a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to change the channel."

Carl's voice was implacable. "It's reason enough. The man's an abomination to God. God'll be glad when the sonofabitch is dead."

"Huh! When he's dead, people will declare him the second coming of Christ, and he'll be on television from then on. They'll replay every word he ever said! Every Sunday! That's what makes someone a messiah. Leave him alive. After while, people'll get tired of him. Then he'll die out on his own." Lute paused, grinning hugely. "Leave be, Carl, and listen to him. Maybe he'll save your soul."

Carl swore at greater length, this time more angry than surly. Lute laughed. "Well, never let it be said I turned down $50,000."

The swearing stopped. Carl stared. "Fifty thousand?!"

"A hundred maybe. I'll have to pick my team and pitch it to them. Fifty might not be enough."

"Why goddamn it, that's robbery! I'd rather do it myself!"

Lute snapped his fingers. "Sounds like a winner. Go down there, knock on his door, and when he answers, shoot him. Come on, Carl, get real! This is a job for trained professionals."

The third man spoke now. "Where do you recommend we get that much money?"

"The last time, if I recall the newspaper story, it came from SeaFirst Bank in Spokane."

"That wasn't us. You ought to know that."

"Not you personally, I don't suppose. And then there was that armored car heist down in Denver. A million something."

Carl couldn't restrain himself. "We don't even know who did that one! Probably the Mexican Mafia."

Lute laughed again. "And you want to kill him just because some stupid shits say he's the second coming. What makes you so sure there was ever a first coming?"

"Don't talk like that, Lute! You're our nephew. Don't embarrass your mother's soul. She cringes when you say things like that."

Lute stopped laughing, and the grin disappeared. His eyes gleamed in the lamplight. "When's the last time you were in church?"

"Damn churches don't know a thing. They're all nigger lovers."

Again Lute laughed. "That's what really gripes your ass, isn't it Carl? Ngunda's a nigger, a sharp brainy nigger with lots of money." He paused. "I'm not aryan, you know."

Carl's answer snapped. "Watch your mouth! Your mother's our big sister!"

"And my dad's a Finn."

"Finns are aryans!"

"You ever hear Finnish? It's kin to Mongol. Finns are Asiatic."

"I don't give a shit about the language! I've seen Finns. Used to work in the woods with 'em. Worked with your dad. He was blond, blonder than Anna, and when you were little, you had hair the color of cotton. That's aryan!"

He paused, waiting for Lute's comeback. When all he got was another grin, he asked "How come 50,000?"

"How many people do you think would like to kill Ngunda Aran?"

"God! There's got to be millions! I know a hundred myself."

"And he's still running around breathing and talking. Why do you suppose that is?" When neither of his uncles replied, Lute answered his own question. "To him, $50,000 is nothing. He wipes his ass with hundred-dollar bills. He's living on a big ranch in Colorado, farther out in nowhere than you are, and you can bet your ass he's got protection. High-powered, expensive, professional protection."

He paused for effect. "Tell you what. You give me—3,000 ought to cover it—and I'll drive down to Colorado. Go to the Soil Conservation Service and buy the aerial photos for Huerfano County. Then I'll rent a plane and fly over the place. Learn the terrain. There's a squatters' camp full of hippies on the property; I'll go there and see what I can learn. Snoop around in the dark with night binoculars, sketch out a map. If it looks doable, I'll talk to some guys I know. Old buddies from my merc days; best pros you can find. Then come back and talk business. If it doesn't look doable, you're out three big ones, and I've wasted three, four weeks of my time."

He raised the mug and sipped boiled coffee. There was a long silence before Carl spoke again. "Three thousand's a lot of money for no guarantee."

Lute grunted. "You ought to be used to that. You put in a crop every spring without knowing if you'll get diddly out of it. And I drove nine hundred miles from Portland with no guarantee, because you asked me to."

"Shit. Three thousand dollars." This time Carl's voice was pensive. "Well—" He turned to his older brother. "What do you say, Axel?"

It was Lute that Axel spoke to. "You'll have to stay around a day or two. Carl will talk to some folks. Get the 3,000. You can help me with the chores."

Lute's eyes gleamed as he studied his uncles. He wondered what they'd say if they knew who he planned to pitch to. Sarge was bigger than he was, and tougher, maybe even smarter. And black. The grin reappeared, grew. "Sounds good," he said cheerfully. Abruptly his face turned hard. "But be goddamn careful who you talk to about this, and what you tell them, 'cause with that Anti-Terrorism Act, I'll be putting my life on the line."

At the same time Luther Koskela was drinking tea from a mug in the Espinosa's wigwam, the Shoreff family had been sitting around their dining table, two miles away. They'd begun eating supper at home, instead of in the staff dining room. Lee wanted to get away from Millennium in the evenings, and just be with family.

Ben had not only agreed; as the family's best cook, he'd volunteered to prepare the suppers. Meals that could be reheated—casseroles, meat loaf, pastas—and things that were quick, like omelettes and frozen pizza. They'd eat "out" at the staff dining room twice a week, for variety and to give him a break.

Over dessert, Becca and Raquel began to argue about a friend. "It's natural for her to act like that," Becca said. "She's a mature artisan in the caution mode."

"She's not either! She's an artisan-cast scholar in the observation mode, with an attitude of skeptic. She spends half her time reading the encyclopedia!"

Lee frowned, half afraid to ask. "What are you girls talking about?"

"We're sorry, mom," Becca said. "It's nothing."

Lee shot a glance at Ben, who pretended not to have heard. Inexplicable fear and anger rose in her. "Nothing or not," she said, "I expect you to tell me, young lady!"

Becca looked at her stepfather apologetically, then back at her mother. "It's about overleaves. Basic personality traits, that is. Each month, each study group is given a book we're supposed to read and discuss. This month's is The Michael Primer. That's all."

"Yeah!" said Raquel. "It's neat! Between lives you decide the kinds of lessons you want to learn in your next life, and pick overleaves that will help. They give you personality tendencies"—she said the words as easily as an adult might have—"to help you experience those lessons. Each set of..."

With a stricken expression Lee jerked to her feet, bumping the table and knocking over two water glasses, then turned and fled to her bedroom. Becca gave Raquel a dirty look. "And you're a young sage with a mode of big mouth and an attitude of stupid," she muttered.

"Okay, girls," Ben said getting up, "enough of that. Help me take things to the kitchen. Then you can finish the cleanup."

"Yes dad."

"Sorry dad."

With the table cleared and the girls wiping up the spillage, Ben went into the bedroom. Lee lay on her back with a forearm across her eyes.

"Hi, kiddo," he said. "Want to talk?"

"Oh Ben, talk is useless. I just want to leave this place. The girls! They're being turned into cultists!"

"Because they talked about overleaves?"

She nodded. After a moment she spoke again, coldly, with a tinge of sneer. "I suppose that's part of Life Healing."

"No, it's part of the Michael teaching."

"Michael who?"

He didn't answer at once. She wondered if he was trying to compose one or avoid one.

"I think of Michael as—possibly the source of stories of an Archangel Michael, but that's just a notion that occurred to me."

"Archangel!? Are you serious!?"

"I was then."

"Good grief!" She paused. "Where did you run into that?"

"The Michael teachings? I heard about the books maybe twenty years ago...Read them and reread them. They were one of my New Age interests."

Lee sighed—perhaps in resignation—and sitting up, turned on her reading lamp. "Go check on the girls. I need to be alone awhile. To read something; clear my RAM. I can't deal with this stuff right now."

Ben nodded. "You produced a marvelous pair of daughters," he said. "As you know. I'll check the mail; maybe browse the web . Let them work things out on their own. They're good at that."

Today the Vatican announced that next July, Pope John XXIV will convene the Third Vatican Council, to be titled "Transition to a New Era of Human Spirituality.

Headline News
October 19
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In certain circles, Jack Russell was a man of importance. Until a few years earlier, he'd been a "captain" in the Irish Republican Army's long-disowned terrorist wing. He'd been responsible for planning and overseeing a number of bombings and assassinations, notably in England. Finally he'd left Ireland, partly because of the good work of Joseph Cardinal Flannery, now John XXIV. For despite the Cardinal's hard-won amnesty for such as Jack Russell, the captain refused to live in an Ireland containing an autonomous Ulster, even under the constitution of Eire. Each night in his prayers, he cursed Joseph Stephen Flannery for his interference, and Gerry Adams for his perfidy.

In Canada, Russell had found a new cause and a new group—the (at most) loosely organized Catholic Soldiers in America. Most, like himself, were from Ireland, while of the rest, most were Canadians and Americans of Irish descent. (Poles, Italians etc. need not apply, though a few token Québecois had been accepted.) Their cause was the salvation of Catholicism as they considered it should be, a Catholicism partly of the past, and partly of their various imaginings.

They had no real working plan. They brooded darkly in apartments and flats in Montreal, where the RCMP could not molest them, and plotted to murder "enemies" whose prominence would earn their deaths publicity. So far they'd bagged two liberal bishops and a senator, as well as less prominent Catholics who'd offended them. None in Quebec, of course.

In his physical habits, Jack Russell was an orderly man, and believed everyone should be. It was that, he considered, which made him a superior planner and superior person. Thus he looked around Thomas Corkery's Boston efficiency apartment with evident distaste.

Disgraceful! he thought. It was nearly noon, and the bed remained unmade, a lumpy quilt simply thrown across it. Books were stacked on a window sill, most with library labels on their spines. Probably overdue. Newspaper sections and separate pages lay on sofa and table as if scattered by the wind. A banana peel lay black and curling on the kitchenette counter, making Russell's nose wrinkle, while on the table sat a saucer with a dozen cigarette butts. He could see three different coffee cups sitting about the room, all undoubtedly dirty and perhaps half full. For all that Russell knew, still others could be hiding beneath newspapers. All no doubt used by Corkery himself. The man would hardly be having guests, for who would come there, short of necessity?

At least there was no sign he'd taken to drink again. Russell himself, of course, was a conspicuously sober man, and hated working with drinkers. Unreliable! The habit was especially incompatible with one of Corkery's strongest points, his marksmanship with handguns. It was said he could shoot the spade out of the ace of spades at ten feet without sighting.

"What brings you down from the frozen north?" Corkery asked. "Is it a job you have for me? Some little task—some wetwork you'd rather hire out than do yourself?"

Except for "wetwork," he said it in Gaelic, which he spoke fluently by the standards of the time. Spoke it deliberately here, to put his guest at a disadvantage, for Russell had barely learned it in school. Used carefully, allowing for his limitations, he could understand it, but he spoke it miserably, his tongue clumsy as a peat spade.

Even as Corkery spoke, a great burly tomcat entered through an open window, probably from a fire escape, Russell thought. It jumped from the sill and stalked over to Corkery, followed by Russell's exasperated glare. Leaning, Corkery began to scratch the scarred, nearly earless head, and a deep thrumming rose from the beast's throat. Russell's thin lips compressed. He was allergic to cats, as Corkery undoubtedly recalled, and the petting would make it worse.

Corkery's blue eyes peered across at him mockingly. "I used to call him Cuchulain, but recently I renamed him Pius XIV. In honor of the late lamented, God rest his soul. Would you care to pet him?"

Russell refused to honor the offer by replying. Corkery stood, and Pius XIV, after briefly rubbing at his human's shins, stalked to a bowl in a corner, to lap milk no doubt souring.

"So," Corkery said, "what is it you'd have me do?"

"I've an execution I'd like you to carry out." Russell answered in English, hating Corkery for his one-upmanship. The Gaelic was no proper measure of a man's Irishness, nor any sign of virtue in Corkery. It was circumstance, nothing more. Corkery had grown up in rural Kerry, apparently in a family that still used it at home. As for himself, he'd grown up in Dublin, where one seldom heard it except in school.

"A killing is it?" Corkery sounded interested, speaking English now. "And who would it be?"

"Ngunda Elija Aran, who has presumed the title Messiah. An affront to the Holy Church and to God himself."

"Aran? I've followed him in the papers, and heard him on the telly. I wasn't aware he'd claimed the mantle of Christ."

"Others claim it for him, and he's never rejected it. He'll say it in time, if he lives."

"Ah! A terrible crime." Corkery's tone was mocking. "Well, let's talk about it. After all, Messiahs are supposed to die at the hands of the wicked. Why not mine?" He chuckled, then added, "No doubt you've had thoughts on how it might be done?"

The man is cold, Russell thought. Cold. He kills for money and pleasure; the Cause means nothing to him. "He'll be here in Boston in January, speaking at the Bentham Avenue Unitarian Church. And Thomas, the man's security people are the best. We want no shoot-out, nor anything that could lead to our identification. Use a bomb, not a pistol. If it sends some Unitarians to hell with him, there's little lost."

"It won't be cheap," Corkery said. "Planting bombs of sufficient size, bombs that won't be found, takes arranging and care. Also I'll need information on the church and its services, and we're unlikely to have an insider to work with. I do know someone who custom-makes bombs, excellent bombs, but he has a cause of his own, and always needs money. Then there are costs I can't foresee till I've a plan sketched out." He paused, grinning, rubbing thumb and forefinger together in Jack Russell's face. "And of course there are my own small needs."

Russell's lips twisted sourly. It always came down to that: his specialty, getting the money. "Times are hard," he answered. "I'm prepared to give you $3,000 cash today, for a rough plan in ten days, by mail, and a detailed plan in four weeks. Then we'll see how much more is needed."

Corkery shrugged. "Indeed. And meanwhile, what derring-do will you be up to?"

The question was further mockery, another annoyance atop the others. Russell knew what was said of him—that when it came to killing, he lacked the stomach for it. "I'll be in Rome by December," he answered drily, "disposing of the Anti-Christ with my own hand."

Corkery's eyebrows rose. "With your own hand, you say? I'll believe that when I hear of the old man's murder on the telly." He paused. "And you named as the triggerman."