*
Jason looked at Nick and knew. There was that resolution in Nick’s face, that hard resolve that Jason had seen before on the river when he was trying to get to Arlette and Manon ahead of the people who had killed Gros-Papa. Nick was going to try something desperate, jump onto Magnusson and his gun maybe. Do whatever he could to save his family, and probably die.
Jason’s head whirled. He needed to do something, he knew. Something ...
“No way!” he yelled. He waved his arms and jumped from the foredeck down into the cockpit. The boat rocked under him. He had wanted just to distract Magnusson, to break the thread of tension he’d seen running from Magnusson to Nick. That, and maybe give Nick a chance to come up with a plan that wasn’t based on getting himself killed
And then his eye lit on the red plastic case of the telescope, tucked behind the passenger seat. Wild inspiration seized him. He grabbed the Astroscan in both hands and held it over his head.
“This is a nuclear reactor!” he yelled. “You hit this with a bullet, and we’re all blown to bits!”
There was a long, astonished silence broken only by the pounding of Jason’s heart. Magnusson’s eyes were wide and staring. Muscles worked on his unshaven jaw.
“Nick,” Jason said, still glaring at Magnusson, “let’s get this boat out of here.”
Nick slowly lowered himself into the driver’s seat and pushed the throttle forward. The Johnson rumbled and the bass boat began to move.
Looking over his shoulder, Nick saw Magnusson step forward, one foot on the gunwale. Then saw one of the others put a restraining hand on his arm.
The boat rolled from the broken forest into the bright sunlight. Jason faced aft, the telescope still held over his head. Nick felt a laugh rising like a bubble through his astonishment.
“Goodbye-o!” Jason howled over the stern as he waved the Astroscan over his head. “Goodbye-o!”
He turned to the others. “Who’s the genius?” he demanded. “Who’s the genius? Who’s got his own atomic bomb?” He gave a whoop.
And then Jason looked down at Nick, at the man’s trembling hands clenched on the wheel, and he felt the silent passage between them.
I was this close, he read in Nick’s face.
I know, Jason answered silently. I know how close we were.
*
The hunt lasted most of the morning. Frankland and his people, traveling across country in pickup trucks and four-wheel-drive vehicles, in pursuit of Olson, who had his whole family piled onto one little beat-up ATV that wouldn’t go twenty miles an hour.
Olson first of all tried to make for the piney woods to the northwest of town. Frankland knew that once Olson got his family into that dense wreckage, they might well die of starvation or frustration, but would be perfectly safe as far as pursuit was concerned. So Frankland first sent a column of hunters under Sheriff Gorton zooming down the highway to get to the woods first. They succeeded, and when Olson’s ATV appeared, in a soy field south of the piney woods, he found Gorton’s people waiting, behind the cover of their vehicles with their weapons pointing across their hoods.
Olson should have known, Frankland thought, that you can’t fight the angels.
Olson slowed his vehicle, peered for a moment at the reception party ready for him, then turned the ATV around and buzzed away to the south. Gorton mounted his people and pursued cross country, careful to keep out of range of Olson’s scoped rifle. Frankland was in touch with Gorton by radio, and had another posse under Garb waiting for Olson when he came. So Olson turned again, heading in about the only direction left, to the northeast. There wasn’t much there for him, not unless he planned to descend the bluff and wade out into the flooded country below, but Frankland hadn’t left him much choice.
Frankland himself waited there, between Olson and the bluff, with six trucks spread out and twelve guards under good cover. And when Olson saw that, and looked over his shoulder at the patient vehicles slowly following him, he turned again and went to ground, in a partially collapsed farm building belonging to a family called the Swansons.
Angels sang their triumph in Frankland’s mind. The rebel Olson was in his power.
“Heaven-o!” Frankland called out, standing in the back of a truck and bellowing over the cab through cupped hands. He called for Olson to surrender, but there was no answer. So Frankland and Gorton sent in their posse. Frankland gave the advancing men cover, blasting away at the wrecked farmhouse with his Winchester from behind the cover of his truck. Angels cried their triumph at every shot.
The angels’ song turned to a lament. Olson blew up one of the advancing trucks with a shot that hit the gas tank, almost roasting the three men inside. Olson killed one man sheltering behind another vehicle, and wounded two others. After that Frankland’s people beat a retreat despite the reverend urging them on.
Then a siege began, with Frankland’s people lying under cover at what they hoped was a safe distance and firing into the Swanson house in hopes of hitting their invisible enemy. Occasionally Olson would fire a round back to tell everyone to keep their distance.
Wait till night, thought Frankland. At night I can get close enough to burn them out.
This went on for hours, as the sun mounted hot into the sky and the land baked beneath them. Frankland’s people hadn’t even had breakfast, so he called the camp and arranged for food and water to be brought.
“Honey bear,” Sheryl told him over the walkie-talkie, “I think you better get back here with some of those men of yours. Things here are going all to blazes.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t leave enough guards to keep order here,” Sheryl said. “People are wandering around outside the boundaries like they’re not supposed to. A lot of folks ran off during the incident this morning and haven’t come back. When you sent the dead and wounded back, that shot down the morale of the people who would have helped me. Some of the folks took some of our stored food and wandered away.”
“Tell those people that the angels guard them,” Frankland said.
“What was that, honey bear?” Sharply.
“If there is mutiny in the camp,” Frankland said, “you have my authority to enforce discipline.”
“How?” Sheryl demanded. “Nobody’s paying attention to me.”
“Shoot somebody,” Frankland said. “Shoot ten somebodies. The angels will acquit you.” And then he added, “When Satan rageth, surely he must be put down.”
“I’m not shooting anybody till you come back,” Sheryl said. “I want an army to back me up.”
“Just send food and water,” Frankland said.
“I’ll bring it myself.”
Sheryl brought supplies and somber warnings about what was happening in the camp. Before she left Frankland assured her that the angels were guarding them all.
All through the afternoon Frankland’s people continued to fire randomly into the ruin. It was nearing twilight when Frankland finally heard a shout from the Swanson place.
“Stop shooting!” Olson’s high-pitched screech. “You hit my girl!”
“Throw down your guns and come out!” Frankland said. “All of you!”
“Just take my girl!”
“No! All of you or none!”
“She’s hurt bad! Someone come and take her!”
Frankland shouted “Open fire!” leveled his Winchester over the hood of his truck, and let fly. A regular volley rang out. Frankland heard screaming from Olson’s wife, then shouts from Olson, then a shot from the farmhouse that cracked air right over Frankland’s head. The screaming stopped.
The firing went on for a while. And then Frankland heard a strange throbbing in the air, and looked up to see a helicopter banking into a lazy turn over the bluff to the north. The helicopter was a small one, dark in color, but it had clearly seen something of interest below, because it finished its turn and began a shallow dive toward Frankland and the Swanson cabin.
“No,” Frankland gasped. He could see it all too clearly. The Devil was coming to save his own. Flying through the air like the wicked angel he was.
“No!” he shouted, rising from his crouch behind his truck. “Shoot! Black helicopter! Government black helicopter! Shoot!”
“It’s green, Brother Frankland,” one of Frankland’s men pointed out, but Frankland raised his Winchester, aimed at the oncoming helicopter, and pulled the trigger. He cranked another round into the rifle, fired, then fired again. Then he thumbed on his walkie-talkie.
“Black helicopter!” he shouted. “It’s coming to rescue Olson! Shoot it down!”
More shots crackled out from the circle of trucks, along with a few cries of surprise or protest. Frankland fired twice more. The helicopter roared low over Frankland’s head, close enough so that Frankland could see the government markings and helmeted pilot peering out of the slablike cockpit window. Frankland’s rifle clicked on empty, and he frantically reached for fresh rounds in his vest and began to reload.
The helicopter passed over the area and began a steep climb. Shots dwindled away as the chopper passed out of range. “Brother Frankland!” someone called on the radio. “That was an Army helicopter! We can’t—”
Frankland finished reloading and snatched the walkie-talkie from the hood of his truck. Angels chanted their anger in his ears. “Smite them!” he cried. “Let their tears be as ashes and let cinders be their end!”
“Brother Frankland!” Another voice. “You don’t understand!”
“Heaven or Hell!” Frankland raged. Angels roared in his ears. “You go to Heaven or Hell! Choose now!”
Frankland dropped the walkie-talkie back onto the hood of the truck, then readied his rifle. The chopper reached the top of its climb, then spun in a lazy turn, the setting sun gleaming red off its rotor.
Frankland shouldered his rifle, wiped sweat from the pit of his eye. He put his eye to the scope and lined up the copter in the crosshairs.
The helicopter began another dive. Frankland could hear the whine of its jet engines above the throb of rotors, above the chant of the angels in his ears. He tracked the helicopter through his scope, saw sunlight etch shadows of the crewmen behind the smoked cockpit glass.
“I choose Heaven,” he said, and pulled the trigger.