Faith Defiled (Gray Spear Society Book 14) (12 page)

"Not necessarily, ma'am. I just need a quick favor. Are you near a copy of the
tabella
?"

The
tabella
was the official record of the Gray Spear Society. Every mission going back 1500 years was documented in the 300 volumes.

"Yes. Why?"

Marina relayed the story she had just heard. Ethel went off to see if there was any mention of those events in the
tabella
.

Marina heard her boss flipping through pages and whispering in Latin. All the records were in a particular dialect of Latin that Marina was supposed to learn as part of her duties as a commander. She had managed to put off that task because her headquarters still didn't have a copy of the
tabella
. When the team moved into a permanent facility and received their copy, she wouldn't have that excuse.

"By the way, ma'am, where are you?"

"In Chicago," Ethel said.

"Huh? Why?"

"All hell is breaking loose here. It's one of the ugliest situations I've ever seen. Somebody has to make sure the twins are safe while Aaron deals with all the other shit."

Marina furrowed her brow. The legate had thirty years of experience in the Society and wouldn't make such statements lightly.

"I think this is all about the twins," Ethel added. "God's enemies are desperate to stop the project, and they're almost out of time. The thing will be activated in just a few days. Then everything will change."

"The thing?" Marina said. "Aaron has been extremely vague about what exactly the twins are doing."

"With good reason. Nothing is more important. There is no bigger secret in existence. Ah! I found the passage. In August of 1998, there was a mission in Fairfield. Somebody was using a kind of energy ray to blind people. The technology had come from God's enemies."

"What about the woman who saved Kelly's life?"

Ethel paused. "She was a
legionnaire
. Her gift was the ability to create a protective barrier around herself or one other person. She could bestow invulnerability for a few seconds."

"She protected his body but not his mind."

"Yes. Whenever we get involved in the lives of ordinary people, there are always unintended consequences. Let that be a lesson to you."

"Yes, ma'am," Marina said. "Thank you for your help."

"My pleasure, and Marina, be safe."

The legate sounded afraid, and that rattled Marina. Ethel had won hundreds of battles and was the most powerful person on the continent. She wasn't afraid of anything.

"Yes, ma'am. Bye." Marina put away her phone.

She returned to the room with the others.

"Who were you talking to, ma'am?" Hanley said.

"My boss. I'll tell you about it later. Give Kelly the money he was promised and drop him off someplace safe. We're done with him. Meet me back at headquarters."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Come." Marina beckoned to Olivia.

The two of them went back to the car. Marina looked around again before getting in and driving off.

When they were safely on the road, Olivia said, "You talked to Ethel?"

"Yes," Marina said.

"I like her."

"There are very few people who can say that with a straight face. She's pretty terrifying."

"You're worse," Olivia said.

Marina was surprised. "Oh?"

"I've touched your mind. All you think about is death."

"That's my job."

"It's not a nice job," Olivia said.

Marina let that comment go. She drove onwards towards home.

Chapter Seven

Marina walked into headquarters. "What's the latest news?"

She headed straight over to Min Ho's workstation. The hacker was wearing plaid today, and the green-red combination made her eyes cross. She had long since given up trying to understand his strange sense of style. Some days, he looked more like a clown than a professional.

Ipo and Yang joined her to hear the report. They were wearing karate uniforms and were flushed from working out.

"Today's angel message was translated," Min Ho said. "The rapture will happen tomorrow at noon local time."

"That's nice and specific," Marina said.

"Yes, ma'am. To get into Heaven, people will have to make a leap of faith. Anybody who doesn't will be stuck on Earth for the Great Tribulation. That's when Satan takes over."

"What do you mean by a 'leap of faith'?"

"Unknown," he said, "but there a million theories on the internet. Do you want to hear some?"

"Not really. What I want to hear about are those green trucks."

"That was the other thing. When we went back and looked at the surveillance video from the second event, we saw the same kind of green trucks. We also saw them on the latest footage from Union Square."

Min Ho clicked on his keyboard, and a video appeared on one of his monitors. Marina immediately recognized Union Square. There seemed to be a normal amount of traffic, and clearly, she was looking at events before the angels had appeared.

Two lime-green trucks drove down the street adjacent to the park. Seconds after they passed, Marina saw the effect on the pedestrians. They swayed on their feet, and their eyes rolled back. A few seconds later, bright white light came down from the sky.

"That's interesting," she said.

Min Ho backed up the recording and froze it. She saw an opening in a back door of one van, and a thin brass pipe was sticking out.

"That's a gas nozzle!" Marina said.

He nodded. "We believe so, ma'am. The wind was blowing the right way. What happened with Brian Kelly?"

"We found out what made him crazy about angels. His life was saved by a
legionnaire
back in 1998 during a mission, but he mistook her for an angel. His wife was killed."

"Oh." He frowned.

"What matters is God's enemies didn't inspire him to write that book. If anything, it's our fault."

"Then the angels aren't a mission?" Min Ho said.

"We don't know. We must continue to investigate."

Marina stared at the gas nozzle frozen on his screen. Clearly, the technology behind the angel illusion involved spraying gas in the area. Also, equipment had to be placed in a high spot with a clear line of sight. Jockel had talked about a source of light and a screen. The clues were coming together.

She had no idea of the purpose though. Somehow, the enemy had to turn religious fervor and chaos into a useful outcome. Otherwise, the exercise was an expensive waste of time.

"I assume you looked up the license plates," Marina said.

Min Ho nodded. "All fake. Trucks matching that description aren't registered anywhere, at least not with that color."

"We need to find them."

"Yes, ma'am." He looked at her expectantly.

She rubbed her fingernails as she tried to come up with a plan. Sometimes being a commander was a heavy responsibility.

Yang came to her rescue when he said, "I have an idea, ma'am. That color can be seen from the air very easily. If we flew a reconnaissance drone over the Bay Area..."

"Yes!" Min Ho said. "Jia and I could write software to automate the search. It's a simple visual match. I bet we'll find those trucks within a couple of hours if they're out in the open. We just need a drone."

"How big a drone?" Marina said. "Like a model airplane?"

"It needs to have enough endurance to carry a camera back and forth across the Bay Area while being invisible to radar. It will have to pass through controlled airspace."

"Sounds like we need to borrow one from the military."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "A Predator or a Reaper."

She frowned. She had extensive contacts in local law enforcement agencies and even the FBI, but she fell short when it came to the military. There was nobody she could call for a favor like this.

"Do you think you can hack into the Army's computers and generate fake orders to send up a drone?"

"I can try," Min Ho said. "I believe I have the right access codes."

"Get on it," Marina said.

"Yes, ma'am."

She turned to Ipo and Yang. Seeing them in their karate uniforms reminded her she had fallen behind on her training during the last couple of days. She was due for a vigorous workout.

"It's curious," Ipo said. "Why would the bad guys drive such distinctive trucks? It seems kind of stupid to call attention to themselves."

"I don't know." Marina shrugged. "Maybe the color has some kind of religious significance. We'll ask them when we find them. In the meantime, I need to work off some aggressive energy. I'm going to spar with both of you. Let's go."

The two
legionnaires
gave each other uneasy looks.

* * *

"A leap of faith," Hanley said. "There are so many ways to interpret that phrase."

"It could be very literal," Katie said.

They were driving up Interstate 280. It was a very wide highway with lush landscape on both sides. There was a reservoir on the left and mountains beyond. Some recent rains had turned the grass green. The scenic route could make a person forget he was in a dense urban area.

Min Ho had sent them a text message containing the latest information. Hanley had really liked Yang's idea of using a drone.

"The bad guys can't want people to make an actual leap," Hanley said. "Where would they leap from or to? How many people are we talking about? The idea has to be more ceremonial."

"Maybe the leap involves showing trust and giving money," Katie said. "It could be part of a big scam."

"Yes. We just have to figure out the scam."

"There must be thousands of hucksters trying to profit from this mess. Only one of them is our real enemy."

"True." He furrowed his brow.

Hanley's phone rang. He handed it to Katie so he could drive safely.

She answered, "Yes? OK. We'll go straight there." She returned the phone. "Something is happening on Gateway Boulevard in South San Francisco. The boss wants us to investigate."

"Got it." He pressed down on the gas pedal.

It took twenty long minutes to reach their destination. As they approached, Hanley saw dozens of flashing red and blue lights. Police cars and fire trucks surrounded a tall office building. News vans had also beaten the
legionnaires
to the scene, and their microwave link masts were up.

"Late again," he said. "You'd think God's special warriors would have the ability to get places quicker. We're always stuck in traffic."

"Yeah," Katie said. "We don't even get to use sirens."

Hanley parked on the street in an illegal spot, but traffic wasn't moving anyway. The two of them got out and ran towards the action.

Alternating bands of glass and white cement went around the cylindrical office building. It was part of an office park which had other oddly shaped buildings. Manicured lawns and parking lots filled the spaces in between. Hanley imagined thousands of people worked there, and he was glad he wasn't one of them. A desk job would've been slow death for him.

Reporters were already standing in front of television cameras and telling the story. He and Katie stopped to listen.

A pretty African-American woman reported, "Six men, seven women, and two children jumped to their deaths a half-hour ago. They leapt from the roof of a twelve-story building in the Gateway Complex in South San Francisco. The authorities are currently treating the incident as a suicide. A note was discovered, but its contents have not been disclosed..."

Hanley turned to Katie. "We're FBI."

She nodded.

The police were wearing dark blue uniforms. He sought out the one who seemed to be in charge, and it was a man with the stripes of a sergeant pinned to his collar. He had gray hair and a sagging face. Hanley guessed the sergeant was close to retirement age.

Hanley took out an FBI badge. "What's going on?"

The sergeant gave him a curious look. "This isn't a federal crime. What is the FBI doing here?"

"We're not trying to step on your jurisdiction. We just happened to be in the area, and we want to help."

"The situation is under control. Thanks, but no thanks."

Hanley had encountered the same kind of resistance many times when he had been a real FBI agent. Local police didn't like it when the feds muscled in on a case. He was sympathetic.

"At least let us see the note. Maybe we can offer some expert analysis."

The sergeant frowned. "I suppose that can't hurt. Go on." He pointed towards a forensics van.

Hanley and Katie hurried over to the dark blue van. Two officers were working there.

Hanley flashed his badge again. "FBI. We need to see the note. The sergeant said it was OK."

One of the officers handed over a clear plastic bag containing a sheet of paper. The note was hand-written in clear, precise letters. Hanley handled it gently and read out loud.

"We are the vanguard of those who will make the leap of faith. We will be the first of the new age to enter Heaven. Millions will follow, and we will welcome them. It is not death, but new life that we seek. Do not grieve for us. We are in a happier place."

With a feeling of gloom, Hanley gave the note to Katie.

After a moment of contemplation, she said, "It looks legit. They took the time to write neatly with proper grammar and spelling, so it wasn't a snap decision."

She returned the note to the police. The
legionnaires
trudged off.

"Idiots," Katie muttered.

Hanley nodded. "And this is just the start. The big day is tomorrow."

"When I get my hands on the people responsible..." She smacked her hand against her fist.

"Stand in line behind me."

* * *

Iris squealed in delight as the cable car crested a hill and went down the other side. She couldn't believe the steep angle was safe for a vehicle packed full of tourists. She heard the tow cable rattling in its guide.

The fact that people lived on the hill was even more incredible. The street was lined with three and four-story homes which shared common walls. Just the idea of climbing up the sidewalk to reach her front door made her legs feel tired. People in San Francisco were crazy.