- FIFTY-SEVEN -
On Sunday, Mormon families in Salt Lake City woke up and ate breakfast. They all said a blessing over the meal and ate quickly. Often on Sundays they ate cereal, since it was easier to get going and out the door that way. After they ate, they dressed in their Sunday clothes: dresses for the girls; slacks, white shirts, and ties for the boys. The young boys wore clip-on ties, but boys who held the Aaronic priesthood (those 12 years and older), had real ties. Often, these ties had been given to them as gifts for Christmas or birthdays, or else as ordination gifts.
When they were ready, they all piled into the car and drove to the local ward house. Sometimes, the dad had to leave early in order to attend meetings. Less often, it was the woman who left early, so as to prepare for primary or relief society or some other auxiliary function. Boys who were in the 16-18 year range—priests—were expected to arrive early enough to begin preparing the sacrament. In a back room, they filled up the little paper or plastic cups with tap water, and they tore the slices of Wonder Bread into bite-sized pieces. Inevitably, there were jokes and questions about the kind of bread used. In some wards the priests wondered if wealthier wards used better bread. Some of the boys laughingly reminisced about the time that the elder in charge had forgotten to bring the loaves of bread, and so they were forced to use cake instead. When they passed out the sacrament, you could hear the congregants smacking their lips, and the kids made noises of approval: “Mmmm!” One time, they snuck and put Sprite into the sacrament cups of the deacons who were to pass the trays to the rest of the congregation. But these were divergent acts of silliness. Usually, sacrament meeting for them was a time of peace, worship, and reflection.
The Mormon families filed into the chapel, which was filled with the low rumble of conversation, and with the soaring noise of the organ. Families tended to sit in the same general area from week to week. Latecomers were often forced to sit towards the front, closer to the podium and the bishopric. At 9:00 a.m. sharp, the service began. The bishop welcomed everyone, and sacrament meeting got underway.
All the people sang hymns. There were prayers and talks. The speakers testified of their belief in the church, and in the General Authorities. They shared stories about the ways that their testimonies were strengthened, whether it be through sacrifice, or challenges to their faith, or through commitment to the teachings of the church. Meanwhile, the people in the pews sat and listened. Some felt moved. Some were bored. A few fell asleep. Occasionally, a baby began to cry, and its mother or father would get up to take it out. Halfway through, the deacons and teachers passed the sacrament, and everyone in the chapel was quiet as they did this. Everyone felt together in the chapel. They were all Latter-day Saints. Each had his or her own individual struggles, feelings, sense of faith, but on this day—on Sunday, they were a community. They were saints. Each of them knew with a surety that they could, on any given Sunday, appear in a totally different ward-house and be welcomed with open arms by the brothers and sisters there. In the old days, the Saints had been pursued, chased, attacked, persecuted, and murdered for their beliefs. The survival and perpetuation of the faith was therefore something to be treasured. But this wasn’t what most people thought about as they sat through the peaceful hour of sacrament meeting. Most people simply drifted into a somewhat meditative state, where the worries of the past week slipped away, and where God felt a little bit closer than He normally did.
After sacrament meeting, people split up for the remaining two hours of Sunday school—off to their various quorum meetings, or else to gospel doctrine class, or relief society, or primary. Though the stillness of sacrament meeting gave way to a more interactive sense of communion, a feeling of reverence pervaded everything they did. They prayed together, and learned lessons, and made small jokes. They sat in small, plainly furnished and decorated rooms, listening sometimes as the central heating kicked on, buffeting them against the bitter cold outside the frosted windows.
When church was over, the families climbed back into their station wagons and minivans, and they drove back home. They changed out of their church clothes and into more comfortable outfits, though frequently these were still somewhat nicer clothes, since Sunday was a day for spending time with the extended family, too. Often, the night before, mother put a turkey or a ham into the fridge to defrost, so that she could just slide it into the oven when they got home from church. In other families, the meal was made in a crockpot. If there was to be a larger get-together, they often treated the Sunday dinner like a potlock: one person brought the funeral potatoes, another brought a green salad, and another brought the jello salad. Usually grandmother would bring a couple of pies, or a sheet cake. It was, inevitably, a lot of food, and it was good and nourishing and they were thankful for it.
Outside, the temperature was in the 20s and dropping, and nightfall came in the afternoon, as it was mere days away from the winter solstice. Inside, though, the atmosphere was warm, glowing, and cozy. Some families lit fires in the fireplaces. Others gathered together on the sofa to watch television, whereas in other families it was thought to be inappropriate to watch TV on the Sabbath. Some families played board games. Others listened to music as they read. Others gathered around the piano to sing songs, especially Christmas songs, given the time of year. In some houses, they all sat in the kitchen, talking with one another, listening to grandpa tell stories. Many of them, with this being Sunday, expressed thanks—either internally or outwardly—for the happiness that the Church had brought into their lives and families. For the sense of holiness and togetherness that the Church afforded them. For the knowledge and blessing that these precious family bonds would be preserved in the next life, too.
Eventually, they all sat down to eat. Some houses had tables long enough to accommodate everyone. Others had to add extensions to the nice table in the family room, or else additional folding tables had to be set up. Sometimes there was a kids’ table. Often there was a highchair set up near one corner. Always they said a blessing before anyone began eating. Most everyone drank milk with the meal, though if the occasion was special enough, they would break out bottles of Martinelli sparkling cider. They ate and talked about various things—plans for the Christmas holiday, or else gossip and stories having to do with church: who was planning to go on a mission soon, or who was engaged to be married. Whose dwindling attendance at church was cause for concern. The funny joke someone had told in the high priests’ meeting.
When the meal was over, some of the women would begin clearing away the dishes while the others continued to sit and chat. After the dishes were cleared away, some of the kids would help serve dessert: apple, pecan, pumpkin, or banana cream pie, with or without ice cream or whipped cream.
Their bellies were full. They were warm and happy and glad to be in one another’s company. The concerns of the world, of the country, of the city, seemed a million miles away. They loved each other, and they wanted the moment, the feeling, the togetherness, to carry on into the night and into eternity.
In other words, none of these LDS families in Salt Lake City had the slightest idea what was playing out near Little Cottonwood Canyon, though they would hear about it soon enough. In their cozy houses, with the windows lit up against the deep dark of the December night, they had no thoughts of the Book of Abraham and the papyri, or of the Book of Mormon and its historical veracity. They didn’t think about Joseph Smith’s plural wives, or about the doctrine of blood atonement, or of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. They didn’t dwell on the priesthood ban against blacks, or the Brethren’s exhortations against praying to Heavenly Mother. Many of them, in fact, had never even heard about any of these things during their entire time in the Church. Who was to say what their impressions might be? Other people had heard of these issues, and in one way or another, had arrived at some conclusion that allowed their faith to remain intact. For them, these things simply didn’t represent the fundamental core of the church they knew and loved. For them, the Church was about being part of something larger. It was about participation in a community, and about preserving your family. It was about being together, and striving to maintain that togetherness beyond the veil of death. The Church was about sealing for time and all eternity, and about saying a blessing over the small, blanket-wrapped body of a newborn baby. It was about baptism and the remission of sins, and about redemption and forgiveness. It was about charity, and the baking of cookies for your neighbors. It was about boy scouts, and the pinewood derby, and church basketball, and ward potlucks. It was about girls’ camp, and classes at the Y, and going on a mission. It was about funerals, and knowing where you were headed. It was about singing “I am a Child of God,” and about kneeling down beside your bed and unburdening your heart to Heavenly Father. It was about turning your face skywards and feeling the presence of God, and of knowing that He loved you.
It was about all of these things for them, and much more, and it was, they all believed, impossible to summarize the full meaning of the Church.
A Great and Dreadful Day, Part VI: The Third Nephite
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_Bob Bobberson
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 6:39 pm
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_Bob Bobberson
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 6:39 pm
Re: A Great and Dreadful Day, Part VI: The Third Nephite
- FIFTY-EIGHT -
“Hello?”
“Hi, Elder Steele. It’s Counselor Walker. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“What is it?”
His voice wavered slightly. “Earlier this afternoon, President Baylor passed away.”
“Oh, my.” He could hear Walker’s slow breathing across the line. “I suppose we can be grateful that he’s no longer in pain. The Lord has summoned him back across the veil.”
“Yes,” said Walker. “Counselor Marshall and myself have been phoning people this evening. The Brethren will need to reconvene.”
“Of course. We’ll need to ordain and confirm Elder Pitt.”
“Well, that’s the other part of my news.”
A pause.
“Elder Pitt has been noticeably docile in the wake of our meeting on Thursday.”
“He has been persuaded, then?”
“Perhaps it is more a function of resignation than persuasion. It remains to be seen whether or not he will pursue this so-called ‘revelation’ once he himself assumes the mantel of prophethood.”
“That’s good. It seems that, apart from what happened in Reno, we can begin to put all of this behind us.”
“Well, not quite.”
“Did Elder Swift not do as he was asked?”
“No, he did. He followed through, but he was not obeyed. What I mean to tell you, Tal, is that we cannot locate Elders Cook and Higbee.”
“Were they told to stand down?”
“They were. They are willfully ignoring our commandments.”
“Damn them. Damn him.”
“Watch yourself. This is our new prophet, and you mustn’t speak ill of him.”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Steel hung up the phone and thought about what needed to be done next. He feared the fallout that would inevitably come, and yet in the midst of all of this, the thing that came back to him was the plain, simple and strange fact that he could not remember the last time that Walker had addressed him by his first name.
...Next time: The final chapter in Part VI - What Awaits Inside the Vault?
“Hello?”
“Hi, Elder Steele. It’s Counselor Walker. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“What is it?”
His voice wavered slightly. “Earlier this afternoon, President Baylor passed away.”
“Oh, my.” He could hear Walker’s slow breathing across the line. “I suppose we can be grateful that he’s no longer in pain. The Lord has summoned him back across the veil.”
“Yes,” said Walker. “Counselor Marshall and myself have been phoning people this evening. The Brethren will need to reconvene.”
“Of course. We’ll need to ordain and confirm Elder Pitt.”
“Well, that’s the other part of my news.”
A pause.
“Elder Pitt has been noticeably docile in the wake of our meeting on Thursday.”
“He has been persuaded, then?”
“Perhaps it is more a function of resignation than persuasion. It remains to be seen whether or not he will pursue this so-called ‘revelation’ once he himself assumes the mantel of prophethood.”
“That’s good. It seems that, apart from what happened in Reno, we can begin to put all of this behind us.”
“Well, not quite.”
“Did Elder Swift not do as he was asked?”
“No, he did. He followed through, but he was not obeyed. What I mean to tell you, Tal, is that we cannot locate Elders Cook and Higbee.”
“Were they told to stand down?”
“They were. They are willfully ignoring our commandments.”
“Damn them. Damn him.”
“Watch yourself. This is our new prophet, and you mustn’t speak ill of him.”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Steel hung up the phone and thought about what needed to be done next. He feared the fallout that would inevitably come, and yet in the midst of all of this, the thing that came back to him was the plain, simple and strange fact that he could not remember the last time that Walker had addressed him by his first name.
...Next time: The final chapter in Part VI - What Awaits Inside the Vault?
Twitter: @robert_oberson
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_Dr. Shades
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Re: A Great and Dreadful Day, Part VI: The Third Nephite
Bob Bobberson wrote:...Next time: The final chapter in Part VI - What Awaits Inside the Vault?
Odd. I thought the main "MacGuffin" was the thing that was wheeled OUT of the vault.
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"
--Louis Midgley
--Louis Midgley
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_Bob Bobberson
- _Emeritus
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Re: A Great and Dreadful Day, Part VI: The Third Nephite
- FIFTY-NINE -
When night fell, they moved out. Sam drove; Bennett sat in the passenger’s seat. They had been instructed by Reed Woodruff to drive carefully, especially over bumps. It wasn’t that the bomb was likely to go off, he said; it’s just that it was best to take precautions. They made their way through the grid of Salt Lake City and began the climb into Little Cottonwood Canyon. All the while, Sam kept his eyes simultaneously on the road—which, it being Sunday, was mostly empty—and the rearview mirror. Earlier in the day, Bennett had reported that there was something of a buzz among their various sources for information. Something was up. Something was brewing both with the Brethren, and with Church Security, though it wasn’t clear what was happening. Not that it mattered. They were going to proceed no matter what the Church tried to do.
In the passenger seat, Bennett said very little, apart from occasionally barking orders into the walkie-talkie he’d brought along. Up ahead of them was the minivan with Christian, Lawrence, and Albert. The plan was both simple and brutal: they would force their way into the vault, take whatever they could, and flee with the materials. Ideally, they would make it back into Salt Lake before they were stopped or caught, though if not, it didn’t matter, because Bennett had managed to establish enough connections and to plant enough loyalists in various places that at least some of the documents would be leaked out into the public domain. Even if the police caught them and confiscated the stolen goods, there were people ready to make things disappear from the evidence room. So the goal was thus very simple: wrest the materials from F Vault.
The highway leading up into the canyon was dark, and it felt even more so on account of the steep mountains lining the road. The radio was turned down low and tuned to an AM talk radio program. Small, fluffy flakes of snow began to fall, in spite of the fact that there had been nothing in the weather forecast about snow.
Eventually, they came to the turnoff, and Sam followed the minivan as it turned off and began to climb up towards Granite Mountain. The road wasn’t paved, and it was slow going. Sam was careful to avoid running over any potholes or ruts in the road. Eventually, they arrived at a smoothed out area than had been leveled off on the face of the mountain. Out his window, Sam could see the Salt Lake Valley, where the grid of the city was lit up in perfectly organized, twinkling squares. Christian and company drove up ahead and Sam hung back as he watched an armed guard approach the van. He scanned the area near the entrance to the vaults, but they were deserted. The guard moved over to the passenger side of the van, and Sam watched his head snap back violently as someone—either Lawrence or Albert—shot him in the face. He saw the guard crumple before he heard the pop of the gunshot. He kept watching to see if anyone else would emerge from the entrance area, and he hung back as Christian drove on and parked the van off at a distance. Then Sam drove the truck closer to the vault. Cut into the pale, sloping granite of the mountainside were four illuminated, arched entryways. In the truck’s headlights, Sam could see a grate pulled down over the entryways.
“What now?” said Sam.
“We go in,” said Bennett.
“What about you know what?” He pointed with his thumb at the tarpaulin-covered bed of the pickup.
“I’m hoping we won’t need to use it,” Bennett said. “It was insurance.”
They climbed out of the truck, and Sam stuffed his 9 mm into the shoulder holster he’d gotten back in American Fork. Christian, Lawrence, and Albert were more heavily armed, and they came quickly over to where Bennett and Sam were waiting, just outside the third, mouth-like entrance. Albert, who was a somewhat short, stocky man, knelt down beside the grate, which was like the pull-down grates that came down when stores at the mall began to close. Albert had a mallet, and he used this to break the lock on the grate. Then he and Christian hoisted it up, and walked deeper into the mountain. At the end of the passageway was a set of doors. These, too, were locked, and once again, Albert forced them open.
Christian cocked his head, listening: “No alarm?”
“That’s not really surprising,” said Bennett. “Who would hear it? If there was an alarm, it went out to somewhere else.”
The five of them went through the doors, and though a front room and into a long hallway. There were naked fluorescent light bulbs overhead, along with ductwork and tubing of some kind, and it emitted a low whirring sound. There were also framed pictures hanging from rods, so that they stood out slightly from the wall. They were pictures of Church leaders and the temple—the sort of thing Sam had seen in Mormons’ homes, or hanging on the walls of the ward house halls and classrooms. At the end of the long hall they came to a heavy vault door.
“Well,” said Christian, “here’s where we see whether our intel paid off or not.” He punched a series of numbers into the keypad at the right of the door, and then he ran a keycard through the slot. The light at the top of the keypad turned green, and they could hear the sound of large metal gears and pistons moving and unlocking, and then, very slowly, the door began to open.
“Welcome to F Vault,” said Albert.
Lawrence, with his wide-set eyes, was consulting a slip of paper. “I guess we should split up in here, eh, Bennett?”
“That’s right,” he said. “You guys head to the right, and Sam and I will go left.”
The big, heavy vault door had opened wide enough for them to enter, and they slipped inside, pushing quickly past the double doors. Lawrence hung back to keep guard; in spite of this, Sam felt a twinge of paranoia that the vault door would automatically close behind them, leaving them stranded inside the mountain.
It was cool inside the tunnels, but not cold, and there seemed to be a very slight draft in the air. Sam followed Bennett through another set of doors and then they were moving through a darkened laboratory. There were files of glass slides stacked up against the wall, and a bank of microfiche readers lining another wall. There were magnifying glasses and a Xerox machine and other tools and objects that Sam didn’t recognize.
“What is all this?” he asked.
“Processing equipment,” said Bennett. “The bulk of the materials in the vault are for genealogical work. You know: baptisms for the dead. That sort of thing.”
They pushed through yet more doors and found themselves in another hallway, this one with a much higher ceiling. There were filing cabinets that stretched from one end of the hall some 30 yards down to the end. Sam paused to open one of them: it was packed with small white boxes, each of which had been affixed with a long number and a barcode. He pulled one of the boxes out and opened it. There was some kind of filmstrip inside.
“Leave that be, Sam,” said Bennett. “That’s just genealogical stuff.”
He stuffed the box back into its spot in the neatly organized drawer and moved quickly to catch up with Bennett. Something strange had come over Bennett, Sam noticed. He seemed to be recalling something, or to be smelling the air, almost. They came to a circular room with three doors leading ever deeper into the vault.
“I believe it’s this way,” said Bennett, and he tried the door, but it was locked.
“Here,” said Sam, and he withdrew his pistol and shot it at the lock. He turned the handle and the door opened.
Beyond was a curving corridor with bare stone walls. The hallway was dim and cave-like and filled with a smell like wet stones. Their footsteps echoed softly off the floor, and still, there seemed to be a light draft blowing through the air. They came around the curve and found themselves in a large, open room that was filled with storage racks. Towards the back of the room was a sound like running water.
“This is it,” said Bennett. He pointed to a set of boxes at the far corner of the room. “Start there,” he said.
“What am I looking for?”
“Diaries,” said Bennett. “Letters from Brigham Young or Joseph Smith. Anything pertaining to Mountain Meadows.”
“Okay.” He walked over to the set of white storage boxes sitting on the far rack, and he glanced over his shoulder to see what Bennett was doing, but he couldn’t see where he’d gone. Sam got to the boxes and hauled the first one down and opened the lid. There were a series of manila folders inside, and inside the folders were old sheets of paper that were yellow with age. He pulled one out and looked at it, but he couldn’t read the cursive script. He took down another box. This one contained books with cracked, leather-bound covers. He flipped through one of them and again encountered script that was unintelligible to him, and as he looked, he felt a breath of wind across his neck. He stood back up and looked down at the boxes. There was no way to determine which materials were worth taking. Which would be the most damaging to the Church? Bennett had said that it didn’t entirely matter. Simply the fact of them gaining access to the depths of the vault was enough to strike a blow of fear into both Church leadership and the rank-and-file. It would make them feel violated, and it would show that the Church was vulnerable—that it was hiding embarrassing truths.
“Bennett?” Sam called out.
“Come over here, Sam,” came the reply.
Sam moved off in the direction of Bennett’s voice, towards the darkened back of the cavern, where the sound of water grew louder.
“Come look at this. I’m back here.”
Around a corner, Sam could see the beam of Bennett’s flashlight. He went and stood next to Bennett. The flashlight shone down on a pool of flowing, perfectly clear water, and thanks to the beam of light, Sam could see the stone at the bottom, and he half expected to see fish.
“It’s natural mountain spring water,” said Bennett, his voice disembodied in the darkness. “Go ahead,” he went on. “You can drink it. There’s a folk legend that it will give you eternal life.”
Sam wasn’t sure if Bennett was joking or not. He knelt down, cupped his hands, and scooped up some of the ice cold water, and he drank. It was bracing and refreshing, but apart from that, it was simply water.
“Have you been here before or something?” said Sam, looking up in the direction of Bennett’s face.
“No, this is my first time inside the vault. But someone very close to me has been inside.”
“That’s why you seem to know your way around.”
“Yes, that’s why.”
“What is it that you want, exactly, Bennett?”
“To set things right.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what you think it means, Sam. You know in your heart what it means. Now come on. We need to finish up doing what we came to do.” The beam of the flashlight darted away and Sam was left in the darkness, with beads of cold water still clinging to the stubble on this chin. He stayed there crouching beside the pool for a moment longer, until he began to feel that someone was watching him from the darkness at the edge of the water. He crouched there motionless, peering into the blackness, watching for some fleeting bit of motion. Was it a person? An animal? Some faint play of shadows on the cave wall? He leaned forward more and more, squinting in the low light, until he was about to topple into the water.
“Sam? What is it?” said Bennett, shining the flashlight into his face from across the way.
Sam blinked and shielded his eyes with his hand. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing. I just thought I saw something over there.” He pointed and Bennett swung the light over, exposing bare stone and nothing else. “I’m just imagining things,” said Sam.
“Let’s wrap things up,” said Bennett, and Sam stood up and followed Bennett back over to the racks.
They spent a bit more time rummaging through the boxes, with Bennett looking over the various materials. Occasionally he instructed Sam to extract a folder, or to take a diary. In one of the boxes Sam found a gold medallion with a strange inscription on one side, and an image on the other side. It was of an eye with a crown hovering halo-like above the eye. He turned it over in his hand and then stuffed it into his pocket.
They collected a few more items and then Bennett said, “All right, then. That ought to do it. This is a pretty good haul, I think.” Sam took another box off the shelving racks and dumped its contents out onto the floor, and then he piled all the things they’d selected into the box. What he couldn’t fit into the box, he slipped inside his jacket. Bennett took out the walkie-talkie and spoke into it: “Christian, can you hear me?” All that came back was static. “Let’s go,” he said, and he gave the walkie-talkie to Sam.
They made their way back through the various tunnels, past the long rows of filing cabinets, and into the laboratory. As they moved past the bank of microscopes, they heard a deep, resonant, rumbling noise, and the breeze flowing through the air ceased. Bennett held up his hand.
“That’s the main vault door,” he said. “They’re trying to seal us in.”
“Who is?”
“Come on—this way.” He pointed to a door at the side of the lab. When they’d first passed it, Sam had assumed it was a closet. Still carrying the box of items, Sam pushed through and followed Bennett into yet another set of tunnels. They moved to the left, down a completely blank and dimly lit passageway with rough-hewn stone walls. The air was growing noticeably colder. At the end of the hall was a dead end: a deserted granite alcove with a single, naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a moth fluttering near the light, and it cast strange shadows on the crags in the upper wall.
“Did we go the wrong way?” said Sam.
“Here, give that walkie-talkie back to me,” said Bennett.
It was deadly quiet; Sam’s ears almost hurt in an effort to hear something more than the noises of his own body: his breathing, the blood flowing past his ears, the sound of his clothes rustling. The dusty flit of the moth as it fluttered near the light. If Sam titled his head to the side just so, he thought he could make out the muffled sound of gunfire. Then the walkie-talkie crackled to life:
“Looks all clear,” came the voice.
“Christian, is it safe?” asked Bennett, but there was no reply. “Well, Sam, I believe we should head back. Unless I’m mistaken, there is no way out of this side of F Vault. We’ll have to go back and hope that Lawrence can re-open the main vault door.”
“What about that pool?” said Sam.
“What about it?”
“I thought I saw a path running along the back of it.”
“That would only take us deeper into the mountain, Sam. We’re trying to get this stuff out of here, and not to entomb ourselves in this place.”
“All right,” he said.
Bennett turned to look into Sam’s face: “We don’t want to go back there. Just make sure to stay on your toes. There’s a good chance that we’re not alone in here.”
Cautiously, they made their way back into the lab. Then, towards the back of the room, through the square window in the door facing the long tunnel that led to the pool of water and the racks of boxes, there was a bright flash of light, and a spiderwebbed crack appeared in the glass of the window. Bennett’s back stiffened.
“Go,” he said. “Run. Get out of here as fast as you can. Get that box out to the others; I’ll cover you.”
There was a roar of wind beyond the door, and Sam turned and sprinted out of the laboratory as another bullet shattered one of the flasks on the table. Behind him, Bennett returned fire through the door. Sam moved awkwardly, with the box in his hands, making his way down the hall, glancing backwards once to make sure that Bennett was following. When he made it back to the main entryway, he found that the big, heavy, hydraulic vault door was open. So had it never been sealed in the first place? Or had Christian and company re-opened it? He looked back, but Bennett was nowhere to be seen. Sam stepped over the rim of the vault, and Christian, gun drawn, peered out at him from the shadows. Beyond him, Lawrence was dragging a limp figure across the ground.
“Come on,” said Christian. “Get that box out here. We need to get the “F” out of here pronto. Where’s Bennett?”
“Back there,” said Sam. “What happened?”
“Arnold took a hit,” said Christian. “There was another guard patrolling that side of the vaults. He caught us off guard. What the hell’s happening here?”
“There’s someone else in there,” said Sam, and he set the box down and pulled his gun. Down at the other end of the hall, the door opened, and Bennett came sprinting towards them.
“Shut it!” he yelled, and Christian stepped to the side and punched numbers on the keypad, and the massive door began to swing back into place. Bennett came closer and closer, and Sam kept waiting for the door at the far end of the hall to open, so that he could get a look at their attacker, and all the while, the vault inched shut. Bennett squeezed through just barely and then it sank back into place with a heavy, metallic sigh. They could hear the mechanisms whirring and clanking as it re-locked and sealed itself.
“Who was following you?” asked Christian.
Bennett was slightly out of breath. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We need to move out.” He nodded in the direction of Arnold. “Can he walk?”
Christian shook his head. “He lost a lot of blood.”
Bennett nodded distractedly. “We’ll carry what we can, then. Did you get what you hoped to inside?”
“I did,” said Christian.
“They we’re all set. Let’s go.”
They continued out of the vault, with Lawrence carrying Arnold’s limp body over his shoulder, fireman style, and with Christian, Sam, and Bennett carrying boxes of documents. They hustled down the long, initial hallway, until they reached the very first set of double doors. Here they paused, and Christian set his box down so that he could peek through the rectangles of glass set into the door.
“I don’t see anyone out there, but—” He began to push open one of the doors, and then, with his gun drawn, he stopped short. “What the “F” is this?” Sam went up alongside him and looked out the open door. “God damn me,” said Christian. “I should have parked closer. “F”.”
Coming up the mountain was a pair of headlights. The car slowed as it crested the hill onto the open area facing the vaults. It wasn’t a police car; it was an unmarked, black town car. It drove up several feet more and parked. The passenger side door opened and a man in a dark suit stepped out.
“How in the hell do they know we’re here?”
Behind them, Lawrence said, “Do you hear that?”
“What is it?”
Bennett moved back to look through one of the windows in the double doors. “The vault is opening,” he said. Sam turned to listen, and for a moment, he thought he could hear a voice within, calling after them. He glanced over at Bennett, who had turned very pale.
“We need to get out of here now,” he said.
“Which way do we go?” said Lawrence.
“We’ll have to make a run for it,” said Bennett. “You all go. I’ll cover you. Here—give me that.” He traded weapons with Christian.
Sam glanced back out at the black town car. The man was still standing there behind the ajar passenger-side door. Waiting, apparently. He looked off to the right. The pickup with the bomb in the back was perhaps 30 yards away. The van was much further along—down near B Vault. “Christian, can you carry two boxes?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Here—you take this box. I’ll take out these idiots in the car,” he said.
Before Christian could respond, Sam set his box atop the one that Christian was already carrying, and then he spun and sprinted out the door, hunched over somewhat. He saw a flash near the town car and a bullet screamed past the side of his head. He dove and crawled the rest of the way over to the edge of the pickup, and he slithered his way up along the truck until he could open up the door. He stole a look back towards his comrades, and saw that they’d begun to make their way over to the van, with Bennett exchanging fire with the men in the town car. Sam hurriedly climbed into the driver’s seat and reached numbly for the keys. The keys! A bullet punctured the windshield as he crouched down below the dashboard and patted his pockets until he felt the keys in his left breast pocket. He fumblingly undid the button and got them out, still crouching, and put them into the ignition. Off to the right, Christian and Lawrence were perhaps half the distance to the van. Sam turned the key and the truck stirred to life. He sat up just enough to see through the windshield, and he stepped on the gas. By now, both dark-suited men had emerged from the town car, and they had taken up protective positions behind the open doors. It was probably a Church Security car, with bullet-proof glass and metal in the siding. They were firing upon Christian and Lawrence (and where was Bennett?), but they quickly noticed that the pickup was driving in their direction. Sam saw them hesitate: Do we run, or get back in the car? At this point, it was really too late to decide. Sam floored the accelerator, put the truck into neutral, and then shoved the door open and dove out. He felt the rocks tear into his shoulder as he hit, and then he was on his feet, running, scrambling to get away. When he reached the edge of the road, he jumped, falling for a while, twisting his ankle when he landed, and he curled himself into a tight ball, with his hands covering his ears.
He could feel the displacement of air when the bomb exploded, and he saw an orange burst of fire extend into the air. The boom of it echoed off the mountainside. Sam took his hands away from his ears, and he could hear someone crying out in pain, and he knew that he had to move quickly to find Bennett and the others. He scrambled around the hillside towards the road, and as he neared it, he saw that the some of the trees further along had caught fire from the explosion. The tongues of flame were lapping up in the dry needles towards the top of the trees. It would spread quickly, and he would have no means of getting out if he didn’t hurry.
He ran back up to the clearing near the vault entrances, wincing from the pain in his ankle, and when he reached the top, he saw the white van driving away from the scene, circling back around the far side of what was left of the town car. Was Christian just going to leave him here? Then he saw something moving. Through the smoke he could see Bennett silhouetted against the burning wreckage of the pickup and the other car. Bennett was aiming his gun at a figure on the ground. Sam watched as Bennett shot the person in the head.
“Bennett!” he yelled.
There was a terrific roar, and the fire swooped downwards, as if it was alive, and Sam flinched from the heat. Bennett looked up, and Sam beckoned him over. Again the fire surged, and Sam began to retreat back down the road. There wasn’t much time. Already the flames had engulfed one side of the trees lining the way out. “Bennett!” he screamed again, and there was another explosion, and it knocked him to the ground.
He lifted himself up and found that he was looking in the direction of the arched vault entrances, and through the wreaths of smoke he saw someone emerge from the arch on the far left, and break into a sprint. The fire raged on, and Sam heard the sound of cracking, splintering wood, and he scrambled away as a fiery tree came crashing down across the upper portion of the road. He ran, trying to make his way around to the other side of the road, so that he could get closer to Bennett and the molten remains of the two cars. He tried to get his bearings: he paused, turning and shielding his face from the heat with his hand. Through the burning branches of the tree and the billowing smoke, just up the slope some twenty or thirty yards away, he could see two figures grappling. They both had neck-length hair, and he was certain one of them was Bennett, but he wasn’t sure which. They were twisting and turning, arms flailing at each other, like two men locked in an angry, violent embrace, as if they were trying to tear each other to pieces, and then the fire surged again, and they were gone.
“Bennett!” Sam bellowed a final time, and then, with the heat growing, he turned and ran.
He ran and ran and ran, his breath growing ragged in the cold, and a taste of metal rising in his throat. The slope of the mountain bore him along. He ran until the fire no longer illuminated his way, and then he slowed down so as to avoid falling. His ankle still hurt as he moved. All the while, he kept looking for any sign of Christian and the van.
He came around a bend in the road, and there, further down towards the highway, he could see the van, its headlights slicing through the night. The van had been flipped onto its side. And there was someone—Lawrence, probably, hanging from the open passenger-side window. He was limp and dead, or so it seemed at this distance. Sam moved to the right, where there was more cover from the rocks and the trees and the brush. There was no sign of another car. Sam wondered if anyone had managed to escape the van, and just then he heard sirens, and he moved further away from the road. He sat crouched up against a boulder, peeking around every so often as police cars and firetrucks rumbled past. Before long, a helicopter was circling overhead, shining its spotlight down on the mountainside.
Sam knew he had to move. He waited for the spotlight to swing to the other side of the road, and then, stepping gingerly on his sprained ankle, he began shuffling down the slope. Off near the flipped van were a pair of police cars, their lights flashing red and blue. As Sam continued climbing down, an ambulance arrived and pulled up beside the police cars.
Then Sam felt the cold white illumination of the helicopter’s spotlight on his head and shoulders. The blackness of the night seemed to vanish, and he was trapped in a cone of blinding light. He could hear a man’s static-distorted voice booming over the bullhorn, barking orders at him. He couldn’t make out the words, but didn’t need to. He knew what to do. He laced his fingers together, put them behind his head, and dropped to his knees. And then he waited. Before long he could hear footsteps. What struck him as he waited for them to slam him to the ground was the smell of smoke, which permeated the entire area.
Soon he was face-down in the dirt, with the barrel of a service weapon digging into the back of his skull and some officer’s knee pressing into his back. Someone pulled the gun from his holster and his hands were put into handcuffs. Then he was yanked to his feet, still blinking in the harsh light.
He was awash in adrenaline as they led him to the police car, but even so he wondered if Bennett or any of the others had managed to get away on foot.
- THE END OF PART VI -
...Next time: The story comes to a conclusion in PART VII: THE TWILIGHT OF THE PROPHETS...
When night fell, they moved out. Sam drove; Bennett sat in the passenger’s seat. They had been instructed by Reed Woodruff to drive carefully, especially over bumps. It wasn’t that the bomb was likely to go off, he said; it’s just that it was best to take precautions. They made their way through the grid of Salt Lake City and began the climb into Little Cottonwood Canyon. All the while, Sam kept his eyes simultaneously on the road—which, it being Sunday, was mostly empty—and the rearview mirror. Earlier in the day, Bennett had reported that there was something of a buzz among their various sources for information. Something was up. Something was brewing both with the Brethren, and with Church Security, though it wasn’t clear what was happening. Not that it mattered. They were going to proceed no matter what the Church tried to do.
In the passenger seat, Bennett said very little, apart from occasionally barking orders into the walkie-talkie he’d brought along. Up ahead of them was the minivan with Christian, Lawrence, and Albert. The plan was both simple and brutal: they would force their way into the vault, take whatever they could, and flee with the materials. Ideally, they would make it back into Salt Lake before they were stopped or caught, though if not, it didn’t matter, because Bennett had managed to establish enough connections and to plant enough loyalists in various places that at least some of the documents would be leaked out into the public domain. Even if the police caught them and confiscated the stolen goods, there were people ready to make things disappear from the evidence room. So the goal was thus very simple: wrest the materials from F Vault.
The highway leading up into the canyon was dark, and it felt even more so on account of the steep mountains lining the road. The radio was turned down low and tuned to an AM talk radio program. Small, fluffy flakes of snow began to fall, in spite of the fact that there had been nothing in the weather forecast about snow.
Eventually, they came to the turnoff, and Sam followed the minivan as it turned off and began to climb up towards Granite Mountain. The road wasn’t paved, and it was slow going. Sam was careful to avoid running over any potholes or ruts in the road. Eventually, they arrived at a smoothed out area than had been leveled off on the face of the mountain. Out his window, Sam could see the Salt Lake Valley, where the grid of the city was lit up in perfectly organized, twinkling squares. Christian and company drove up ahead and Sam hung back as he watched an armed guard approach the van. He scanned the area near the entrance to the vaults, but they were deserted. The guard moved over to the passenger side of the van, and Sam watched his head snap back violently as someone—either Lawrence or Albert—shot him in the face. He saw the guard crumple before he heard the pop of the gunshot. He kept watching to see if anyone else would emerge from the entrance area, and he hung back as Christian drove on and parked the van off at a distance. Then Sam drove the truck closer to the vault. Cut into the pale, sloping granite of the mountainside were four illuminated, arched entryways. In the truck’s headlights, Sam could see a grate pulled down over the entryways.
“What now?” said Sam.
“We go in,” said Bennett.
“What about you know what?” He pointed with his thumb at the tarpaulin-covered bed of the pickup.
“I’m hoping we won’t need to use it,” Bennett said. “It was insurance.”
They climbed out of the truck, and Sam stuffed his 9 mm into the shoulder holster he’d gotten back in American Fork. Christian, Lawrence, and Albert were more heavily armed, and they came quickly over to where Bennett and Sam were waiting, just outside the third, mouth-like entrance. Albert, who was a somewhat short, stocky man, knelt down beside the grate, which was like the pull-down grates that came down when stores at the mall began to close. Albert had a mallet, and he used this to break the lock on the grate. Then he and Christian hoisted it up, and walked deeper into the mountain. At the end of the passageway was a set of doors. These, too, were locked, and once again, Albert forced them open.
Christian cocked his head, listening: “No alarm?”
“That’s not really surprising,” said Bennett. “Who would hear it? If there was an alarm, it went out to somewhere else.”
The five of them went through the doors, and though a front room and into a long hallway. There were naked fluorescent light bulbs overhead, along with ductwork and tubing of some kind, and it emitted a low whirring sound. There were also framed pictures hanging from rods, so that they stood out slightly from the wall. They were pictures of Church leaders and the temple—the sort of thing Sam had seen in Mormons’ homes, or hanging on the walls of the ward house halls and classrooms. At the end of the long hall they came to a heavy vault door.
“Well,” said Christian, “here’s where we see whether our intel paid off or not.” He punched a series of numbers into the keypad at the right of the door, and then he ran a keycard through the slot. The light at the top of the keypad turned green, and they could hear the sound of large metal gears and pistons moving and unlocking, and then, very slowly, the door began to open.
“Welcome to F Vault,” said Albert.
Lawrence, with his wide-set eyes, was consulting a slip of paper. “I guess we should split up in here, eh, Bennett?”
“That’s right,” he said. “You guys head to the right, and Sam and I will go left.”
The big, heavy vault door had opened wide enough for them to enter, and they slipped inside, pushing quickly past the double doors. Lawrence hung back to keep guard; in spite of this, Sam felt a twinge of paranoia that the vault door would automatically close behind them, leaving them stranded inside the mountain.
It was cool inside the tunnels, but not cold, and there seemed to be a very slight draft in the air. Sam followed Bennett through another set of doors and then they were moving through a darkened laboratory. There were files of glass slides stacked up against the wall, and a bank of microfiche readers lining another wall. There were magnifying glasses and a Xerox machine and other tools and objects that Sam didn’t recognize.
“What is all this?” he asked.
“Processing equipment,” said Bennett. “The bulk of the materials in the vault are for genealogical work. You know: baptisms for the dead. That sort of thing.”
They pushed through yet more doors and found themselves in another hallway, this one with a much higher ceiling. There were filing cabinets that stretched from one end of the hall some 30 yards down to the end. Sam paused to open one of them: it was packed with small white boxes, each of which had been affixed with a long number and a barcode. He pulled one of the boxes out and opened it. There was some kind of filmstrip inside.
“Leave that be, Sam,” said Bennett. “That’s just genealogical stuff.”
He stuffed the box back into its spot in the neatly organized drawer and moved quickly to catch up with Bennett. Something strange had come over Bennett, Sam noticed. He seemed to be recalling something, or to be smelling the air, almost. They came to a circular room with three doors leading ever deeper into the vault.
“I believe it’s this way,” said Bennett, and he tried the door, but it was locked.
“Here,” said Sam, and he withdrew his pistol and shot it at the lock. He turned the handle and the door opened.
Beyond was a curving corridor with bare stone walls. The hallway was dim and cave-like and filled with a smell like wet stones. Their footsteps echoed softly off the floor, and still, there seemed to be a light draft blowing through the air. They came around the curve and found themselves in a large, open room that was filled with storage racks. Towards the back of the room was a sound like running water.
“This is it,” said Bennett. He pointed to a set of boxes at the far corner of the room. “Start there,” he said.
“What am I looking for?”
“Diaries,” said Bennett. “Letters from Brigham Young or Joseph Smith. Anything pertaining to Mountain Meadows.”
“Okay.” He walked over to the set of white storage boxes sitting on the far rack, and he glanced over his shoulder to see what Bennett was doing, but he couldn’t see where he’d gone. Sam got to the boxes and hauled the first one down and opened the lid. There were a series of manila folders inside, and inside the folders were old sheets of paper that were yellow with age. He pulled one out and looked at it, but he couldn’t read the cursive script. He took down another box. This one contained books with cracked, leather-bound covers. He flipped through one of them and again encountered script that was unintelligible to him, and as he looked, he felt a breath of wind across his neck. He stood back up and looked down at the boxes. There was no way to determine which materials were worth taking. Which would be the most damaging to the Church? Bennett had said that it didn’t entirely matter. Simply the fact of them gaining access to the depths of the vault was enough to strike a blow of fear into both Church leadership and the rank-and-file. It would make them feel violated, and it would show that the Church was vulnerable—that it was hiding embarrassing truths.
“Bennett?” Sam called out.
“Come over here, Sam,” came the reply.
Sam moved off in the direction of Bennett’s voice, towards the darkened back of the cavern, where the sound of water grew louder.
“Come look at this. I’m back here.”
Around a corner, Sam could see the beam of Bennett’s flashlight. He went and stood next to Bennett. The flashlight shone down on a pool of flowing, perfectly clear water, and thanks to the beam of light, Sam could see the stone at the bottom, and he half expected to see fish.
“It’s natural mountain spring water,” said Bennett, his voice disembodied in the darkness. “Go ahead,” he went on. “You can drink it. There’s a folk legend that it will give you eternal life.”
Sam wasn’t sure if Bennett was joking or not. He knelt down, cupped his hands, and scooped up some of the ice cold water, and he drank. It was bracing and refreshing, but apart from that, it was simply water.
“Have you been here before or something?” said Sam, looking up in the direction of Bennett’s face.
“No, this is my first time inside the vault. But someone very close to me has been inside.”
“That’s why you seem to know your way around.”
“Yes, that’s why.”
“What is it that you want, exactly, Bennett?”
“To set things right.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what you think it means, Sam. You know in your heart what it means. Now come on. We need to finish up doing what we came to do.” The beam of the flashlight darted away and Sam was left in the darkness, with beads of cold water still clinging to the stubble on this chin. He stayed there crouching beside the pool for a moment longer, until he began to feel that someone was watching him from the darkness at the edge of the water. He crouched there motionless, peering into the blackness, watching for some fleeting bit of motion. Was it a person? An animal? Some faint play of shadows on the cave wall? He leaned forward more and more, squinting in the low light, until he was about to topple into the water.
“Sam? What is it?” said Bennett, shining the flashlight into his face from across the way.
Sam blinked and shielded his eyes with his hand. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing. I just thought I saw something over there.” He pointed and Bennett swung the light over, exposing bare stone and nothing else. “I’m just imagining things,” said Sam.
“Let’s wrap things up,” said Bennett, and Sam stood up and followed Bennett back over to the racks.
They spent a bit more time rummaging through the boxes, with Bennett looking over the various materials. Occasionally he instructed Sam to extract a folder, or to take a diary. In one of the boxes Sam found a gold medallion with a strange inscription on one side, and an image on the other side. It was of an eye with a crown hovering halo-like above the eye. He turned it over in his hand and then stuffed it into his pocket.
They collected a few more items and then Bennett said, “All right, then. That ought to do it. This is a pretty good haul, I think.” Sam took another box off the shelving racks and dumped its contents out onto the floor, and then he piled all the things they’d selected into the box. What he couldn’t fit into the box, he slipped inside his jacket. Bennett took out the walkie-talkie and spoke into it: “Christian, can you hear me?” All that came back was static. “Let’s go,” he said, and he gave the walkie-talkie to Sam.
They made their way back through the various tunnels, past the long rows of filing cabinets, and into the laboratory. As they moved past the bank of microscopes, they heard a deep, resonant, rumbling noise, and the breeze flowing through the air ceased. Bennett held up his hand.
“That’s the main vault door,” he said. “They’re trying to seal us in.”
“Who is?”
“Come on—this way.” He pointed to a door at the side of the lab. When they’d first passed it, Sam had assumed it was a closet. Still carrying the box of items, Sam pushed through and followed Bennett into yet another set of tunnels. They moved to the left, down a completely blank and dimly lit passageway with rough-hewn stone walls. The air was growing noticeably colder. At the end of the hall was a dead end: a deserted granite alcove with a single, naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a moth fluttering near the light, and it cast strange shadows on the crags in the upper wall.
“Did we go the wrong way?” said Sam.
“Here, give that walkie-talkie back to me,” said Bennett.
It was deadly quiet; Sam’s ears almost hurt in an effort to hear something more than the noises of his own body: his breathing, the blood flowing past his ears, the sound of his clothes rustling. The dusty flit of the moth as it fluttered near the light. If Sam titled his head to the side just so, he thought he could make out the muffled sound of gunfire. Then the walkie-talkie crackled to life:
“Looks all clear,” came the voice.
“Christian, is it safe?” asked Bennett, but there was no reply. “Well, Sam, I believe we should head back. Unless I’m mistaken, there is no way out of this side of F Vault. We’ll have to go back and hope that Lawrence can re-open the main vault door.”
“What about that pool?” said Sam.
“What about it?”
“I thought I saw a path running along the back of it.”
“That would only take us deeper into the mountain, Sam. We’re trying to get this stuff out of here, and not to entomb ourselves in this place.”
“All right,” he said.
Bennett turned to look into Sam’s face: “We don’t want to go back there. Just make sure to stay on your toes. There’s a good chance that we’re not alone in here.”
Cautiously, they made their way back into the lab. Then, towards the back of the room, through the square window in the door facing the long tunnel that led to the pool of water and the racks of boxes, there was a bright flash of light, and a spiderwebbed crack appeared in the glass of the window. Bennett’s back stiffened.
“Go,” he said. “Run. Get out of here as fast as you can. Get that box out to the others; I’ll cover you.”
There was a roar of wind beyond the door, and Sam turned and sprinted out of the laboratory as another bullet shattered one of the flasks on the table. Behind him, Bennett returned fire through the door. Sam moved awkwardly, with the box in his hands, making his way down the hall, glancing backwards once to make sure that Bennett was following. When he made it back to the main entryway, he found that the big, heavy, hydraulic vault door was open. So had it never been sealed in the first place? Or had Christian and company re-opened it? He looked back, but Bennett was nowhere to be seen. Sam stepped over the rim of the vault, and Christian, gun drawn, peered out at him from the shadows. Beyond him, Lawrence was dragging a limp figure across the ground.
“Come on,” said Christian. “Get that box out here. We need to get the “F” out of here pronto. Where’s Bennett?”
“Back there,” said Sam. “What happened?”
“Arnold took a hit,” said Christian. “There was another guard patrolling that side of the vaults. He caught us off guard. What the hell’s happening here?”
“There’s someone else in there,” said Sam, and he set the box down and pulled his gun. Down at the other end of the hall, the door opened, and Bennett came sprinting towards them.
“Shut it!” he yelled, and Christian stepped to the side and punched numbers on the keypad, and the massive door began to swing back into place. Bennett came closer and closer, and Sam kept waiting for the door at the far end of the hall to open, so that he could get a look at their attacker, and all the while, the vault inched shut. Bennett squeezed through just barely and then it sank back into place with a heavy, metallic sigh. They could hear the mechanisms whirring and clanking as it re-locked and sealed itself.
“Who was following you?” asked Christian.
Bennett was slightly out of breath. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We need to move out.” He nodded in the direction of Arnold. “Can he walk?”
Christian shook his head. “He lost a lot of blood.”
Bennett nodded distractedly. “We’ll carry what we can, then. Did you get what you hoped to inside?”
“I did,” said Christian.
“They we’re all set. Let’s go.”
They continued out of the vault, with Lawrence carrying Arnold’s limp body over his shoulder, fireman style, and with Christian, Sam, and Bennett carrying boxes of documents. They hustled down the long, initial hallway, until they reached the very first set of double doors. Here they paused, and Christian set his box down so that he could peek through the rectangles of glass set into the door.
“I don’t see anyone out there, but—” He began to push open one of the doors, and then, with his gun drawn, he stopped short. “What the “F” is this?” Sam went up alongside him and looked out the open door. “God damn me,” said Christian. “I should have parked closer. “F”.”
Coming up the mountain was a pair of headlights. The car slowed as it crested the hill onto the open area facing the vaults. It wasn’t a police car; it was an unmarked, black town car. It drove up several feet more and parked. The passenger side door opened and a man in a dark suit stepped out.
“How in the hell do they know we’re here?”
Behind them, Lawrence said, “Do you hear that?”
“What is it?”
Bennett moved back to look through one of the windows in the double doors. “The vault is opening,” he said. Sam turned to listen, and for a moment, he thought he could hear a voice within, calling after them. He glanced over at Bennett, who had turned very pale.
“We need to get out of here now,” he said.
“Which way do we go?” said Lawrence.
“We’ll have to make a run for it,” said Bennett. “You all go. I’ll cover you. Here—give me that.” He traded weapons with Christian.
Sam glanced back out at the black town car. The man was still standing there behind the ajar passenger-side door. Waiting, apparently. He looked off to the right. The pickup with the bomb in the back was perhaps 30 yards away. The van was much further along—down near B Vault. “Christian, can you carry two boxes?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Here—you take this box. I’ll take out these idiots in the car,” he said.
Before Christian could respond, Sam set his box atop the one that Christian was already carrying, and then he spun and sprinted out the door, hunched over somewhat. He saw a flash near the town car and a bullet screamed past the side of his head. He dove and crawled the rest of the way over to the edge of the pickup, and he slithered his way up along the truck until he could open up the door. He stole a look back towards his comrades, and saw that they’d begun to make their way over to the van, with Bennett exchanging fire with the men in the town car. Sam hurriedly climbed into the driver’s seat and reached numbly for the keys. The keys! A bullet punctured the windshield as he crouched down below the dashboard and patted his pockets until he felt the keys in his left breast pocket. He fumblingly undid the button and got them out, still crouching, and put them into the ignition. Off to the right, Christian and Lawrence were perhaps half the distance to the van. Sam turned the key and the truck stirred to life. He sat up just enough to see through the windshield, and he stepped on the gas. By now, both dark-suited men had emerged from the town car, and they had taken up protective positions behind the open doors. It was probably a Church Security car, with bullet-proof glass and metal in the siding. They were firing upon Christian and Lawrence (and where was Bennett?), but they quickly noticed that the pickup was driving in their direction. Sam saw them hesitate: Do we run, or get back in the car? At this point, it was really too late to decide. Sam floored the accelerator, put the truck into neutral, and then shoved the door open and dove out. He felt the rocks tear into his shoulder as he hit, and then he was on his feet, running, scrambling to get away. When he reached the edge of the road, he jumped, falling for a while, twisting his ankle when he landed, and he curled himself into a tight ball, with his hands covering his ears.
He could feel the displacement of air when the bomb exploded, and he saw an orange burst of fire extend into the air. The boom of it echoed off the mountainside. Sam took his hands away from his ears, and he could hear someone crying out in pain, and he knew that he had to move quickly to find Bennett and the others. He scrambled around the hillside towards the road, and as he neared it, he saw that the some of the trees further along had caught fire from the explosion. The tongues of flame were lapping up in the dry needles towards the top of the trees. It would spread quickly, and he would have no means of getting out if he didn’t hurry.
He ran back up to the clearing near the vault entrances, wincing from the pain in his ankle, and when he reached the top, he saw the white van driving away from the scene, circling back around the far side of what was left of the town car. Was Christian just going to leave him here? Then he saw something moving. Through the smoke he could see Bennett silhouetted against the burning wreckage of the pickup and the other car. Bennett was aiming his gun at a figure on the ground. Sam watched as Bennett shot the person in the head.
“Bennett!” he yelled.
There was a terrific roar, and the fire swooped downwards, as if it was alive, and Sam flinched from the heat. Bennett looked up, and Sam beckoned him over. Again the fire surged, and Sam began to retreat back down the road. There wasn’t much time. Already the flames had engulfed one side of the trees lining the way out. “Bennett!” he screamed again, and there was another explosion, and it knocked him to the ground.
He lifted himself up and found that he was looking in the direction of the arched vault entrances, and through the wreaths of smoke he saw someone emerge from the arch on the far left, and break into a sprint. The fire raged on, and Sam heard the sound of cracking, splintering wood, and he scrambled away as a fiery tree came crashing down across the upper portion of the road. He ran, trying to make his way around to the other side of the road, so that he could get closer to Bennett and the molten remains of the two cars. He tried to get his bearings: he paused, turning and shielding his face from the heat with his hand. Through the burning branches of the tree and the billowing smoke, just up the slope some twenty or thirty yards away, he could see two figures grappling. They both had neck-length hair, and he was certain one of them was Bennett, but he wasn’t sure which. They were twisting and turning, arms flailing at each other, like two men locked in an angry, violent embrace, as if they were trying to tear each other to pieces, and then the fire surged again, and they were gone.
“Bennett!” Sam bellowed a final time, and then, with the heat growing, he turned and ran.
He ran and ran and ran, his breath growing ragged in the cold, and a taste of metal rising in his throat. The slope of the mountain bore him along. He ran until the fire no longer illuminated his way, and then he slowed down so as to avoid falling. His ankle still hurt as he moved. All the while, he kept looking for any sign of Christian and the van.
He came around a bend in the road, and there, further down towards the highway, he could see the van, its headlights slicing through the night. The van had been flipped onto its side. And there was someone—Lawrence, probably, hanging from the open passenger-side window. He was limp and dead, or so it seemed at this distance. Sam moved to the right, where there was more cover from the rocks and the trees and the brush. There was no sign of another car. Sam wondered if anyone had managed to escape the van, and just then he heard sirens, and he moved further away from the road. He sat crouched up against a boulder, peeking around every so often as police cars and firetrucks rumbled past. Before long, a helicopter was circling overhead, shining its spotlight down on the mountainside.
Sam knew he had to move. He waited for the spotlight to swing to the other side of the road, and then, stepping gingerly on his sprained ankle, he began shuffling down the slope. Off near the flipped van were a pair of police cars, their lights flashing red and blue. As Sam continued climbing down, an ambulance arrived and pulled up beside the police cars.
Then Sam felt the cold white illumination of the helicopter’s spotlight on his head and shoulders. The blackness of the night seemed to vanish, and he was trapped in a cone of blinding light. He could hear a man’s static-distorted voice booming over the bullhorn, barking orders at him. He couldn’t make out the words, but didn’t need to. He knew what to do. He laced his fingers together, put them behind his head, and dropped to his knees. And then he waited. Before long he could hear footsteps. What struck him as he waited for them to slam him to the ground was the smell of smoke, which permeated the entire area.
Soon he was face-down in the dirt, with the barrel of a service weapon digging into the back of his skull and some officer’s knee pressing into his back. Someone pulled the gun from his holster and his hands were put into handcuffs. Then he was yanked to his feet, still blinking in the harsh light.
He was awash in adrenaline as they led him to the police car, but even so he wondered if Bennett or any of the others had managed to get away on foot.
- THE END OF PART VI -
...Next time: The story comes to a conclusion in PART VII: THE TWILIGHT OF THE PROPHETS...
Twitter: @robert_oberson