I left Silverman and Angel at the motel. I got into the car and drove a few miles till I found a back road, with no neighbors to complain. Then I stopped, checked out the generator, topped it up and set it going.
I wanted a full battery. Whatever we did, and however we did it, I wanted the best chance we could get. And I was curious. Maybe it wasn’t such a long shot, after all.
If I’d been on my own, then I’d have done it, no question.
The generator chugged and rumbled. I used blankets to pad it, then I walked away some sixty feet. It was still loud. The tent meeting might drown it out, if we went early. But then, if we went early, we’d be seen.
And late at night, with the generator, we’d be heard.
It was a puzzle, all right.
Either way, we’d take about an hour setting up. And that had to be undercover, in the dark.
No early start.
The battery might work. It looked as though we’d have to try. But I was hoping, too, there’d be a get-out, some nice, easy stopper on the whole deal: people near, watchmen, guards, police—it didn’t matter who. If we couldn’t lay the cables then we couldn’t catch the god, and that was that. Angel wouldn’t blame me for denying her the chance. And after that, we’d get the next job, and move on.
The trouble was, I sympathized. I knew where she was coming from. Back during my own training, I’d wanted to try anything, whatever came along. Fredericks had a nice little routine with that. “You want this job?” he’d say. I’d tell him, “Yes!” He’d nod. “You want the next one, too? And the next?” “You bet!” I was young, and I was keen. “Do this one,” he’d say, “chances are, you won’t be here to do the next. Or anything else.” He’d taught me discretion. He’d taught me to protect myself, even when the company said otherwise. He’d shown me how to have a family and a relatively normal life while still working Field Ops, though those were lessons I had yet to profit by.
So I started thinking about Angel, and how I ought to take her out and make a night of it, once we hit a fair-sized town. A fancy restaurant, some good wine . . . Act like we were on holiday. Maybe that would compensate for calling off the mission, which I was still convinced we’d have to do.
The battery was full. I did some calculations—at least, my phone did them. If everything was as it seemed to be, and the god was no more powerful than my readings showed, then we could do it. We’d have to move fast, and there wouldn’t be much margin, but when it came to plans, Angel got top marks for this one.
I only wish she’d had it in her theory paper, not real life.
An ambulance wailed by along the highway, and I watched it go. Sometimes I dreamed of doing a more useful job—nurse, firefighter, or paramedic. Too late now, probably. Strange, the way you went into a walk of life, thinking you’d try it for a few years. And then the years became a lifetime . . .
Chapter 30
The Empty Square
“So there’s this thing called div . . .”
We drove back into town. Silverman had his camera, catching little, thirty-second shots out of the window—“milestones,” he called them: an old house, a group of bikers resting by the roadside; a billboard, looming like a skyscraper, a huge and muscular attorney grinning down (“In a wreck? Need a check?”).
And in between, he’d talk.
“Div—divinity, divine, I guess. I never saw it. It was gone before I got there, but people were still talking. I thought it was some new kind of crack or meth, but . . .”
“Where’s this?”
“Well, I interviewed some guys in Baltimore. New York. Kentucky. I’ve got a plan. It’s like, the next great Silverman unfinished documentary: Homeless in America. But I never linked it up with you guys. Not then.”
“You still don’t know that there’s a link.”
“The old lady. That night. You said she swallowed—”
“Yeah.”
He trained the camera on a chain-link fence where dogs prowled, sniffing at the air.
“So,” he said, “there is a drug that kills people. Or makes them better. And maybe it’s a kind of god.”
“I’ve only seen it kill.”
“My AIDS guy . . .”
“Could be crazy.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’d considered that. Which is kind of interesting in itself . . .”
“You didn’t follow up on this?”
“I wanted to! Believe me. Tricky, though. Anything with drugs. Back when I was starting out, I was going to do a piece on meth, how it was taking over all these small towns, changing the economy, the social structure, and—well. I got warned off. Pretty badly warned off, too.”
I turned for the town center. There was no traffic. We slipped downhill towards the square and I could see the tents, peeping up over the trees. We’d been gone for just a few hours, but the place had changed. There was a stillness there. Abandonment. The rows of cars were gone. The kitchen, the barbecue, the Bible quiz. The crowds of people . . .
I slowed, looking around.
A cop stepped out and flagged me down.
“Got business here, sir?”
“We’re trying to find a place to eat,” I said.
I have been told never to lie to cops, but sometimes it’s just easier than telling the truth.