NEXT BEST HOPE (The Revelation Trilogy) (21 page)

Flash put the keys in his pocket and waived a halfhearted goodbye to Ralph. Then he turned his back on him and walked on the fine pebble walkway to the front step of the cabin, sat his large ass in the porch swing, and began to rock back and forth as his gaze settled on the mountains.

Ralph watched Flash on the porch for a minute, started the car, and pulled out the driveway. When he got back to the gate, he paused before he turned on to the lane and sent a text on his phone.

“It may be a good time, but it won’t be a long time,” Ralph said as he pulled out onto the road. “I hope you enjoy the view, Flash.”

CONGRESSMAN FARRAGUT KNEW
how to capitalize on an opportunity. Link Jefferson’s attack on him had provided an opening for him to advance his political agenda, and he struck while the iron was hot. Polls showed a strong national sentiment in Farragut’s favor, so his caucus had more than tripled in size, swelled by voracious opportunism among a Congress desperate for a cause that would distract the American public from months of unrelenting bad news.

Three days after the assault, Farragut convened a meeting of interested members of Congress and presented his plan.

“President Whitfield’s handling of the assassination investigations, most notably epitomized by the escape of Ithurial Finis from federal custody, which also resulted in the attempted assassination of Judge McNeil, is far more than an act of negligence or gross carelessness,” he began. “It is nothing short of an intentional criminal obstruction of justice. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why he would not want the truth about the 4/11 murders to come out.”

The members applauded as he built his case against the president.

“The American people want us to get to the bottom of this national disgrace. If Bass expects them to follow him as he leads them down the path to war with their brothers and sisters, he needs to come clean. If he has nothing to hide, let him stand before the United States Senate and plead his case. If he is behind these events, let him suffer a just punishment,” Farragut said.

One member after another rose to speak in favor of the proposed articles of impeachment until Arceneau Thibodeaux stood and asked to address the group. Farragut counted him one of his staunchest allies, so he quieted the crowd. “The chair recognizes the senior Congressman from Louisiana, a man whose impeccable character and Solomonic wisdom are known to us all.”

The members sat down and moved to the edges of their seats as they waited for their venerable colleague to rally them with one of the stem-winding orations for which he had become famous. The old lawmaker, dressed in an Andrew Jackson style long coat, moved from the spot where he had stood and deliberately made his way to the microphone, his heavy Sam Houston walking stick sounding a dull cadence on the bare oak floor. He carried no notes. He propped his cane against the lectern and grabbed it with both hands before he ever looked up at the crowd.

“Let us pray,” he said.

The members bowed their heads, but many of them kept their eyes on the old man.

“Almighty God, grant us now the wisdom to know thy will, and the courage to do it. Amen,” Thiboeaux said.

“Amen,” the crowd echoed.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are at the point of no return,” he started. “Tonight we either embark on a path of impeachment, or we fortify ourselves and resolve to ride out the present tempest. Either path may lead us to destruction, but only one, in my view, can set our feet again on solid ground.”

Everyone held his breath, waiting for the congressman’s verdict. The look of elation on Farragut’s face had dissolved into a death mask of consternation.

The old man turned toward Farragut and pointed a bony finger right at him.

“This man’s way is the way of treachery, the rush to judgment that sweeps aside loyalty and honor and replaces them with ambition and self-righteousness,” he said.

“How dare you,” Farragut said as he jumped to his feet. “Relinquish the floor, or I’ll take it from you myself.”

Thibodeaux reached and took his cane in his hand. “Come on, if you think you are man enough,” he said.

Farragut sat back down.

“If we show the American people that we are not behind Bass Whitfield, a man who did not ask to be put in his position, they will lose all confidence in our government. Many of them will think our enemies in the CM camp are better fit to lead than we are. And I wouldn’t blame them. Who would want to follow a group of legislators who think about nothing but their own self-interest when the country stands on the brink of war? If we throw out President Whitfield, a good man who is doing his best, they will say we would throw out the next president and the next.

“It is high time that we set aside petty politics and showed the people of this great land what we are made of. There is only one way for us, the way of unity. We will be tried as no group before us. Heaven help us if we fail the American people now.”

He looked around the room slowly, turned and strode away from the microphone. He walked through the middle of the crowd, his gaze set on the back door, his glistening eyes shining with an inward light. The thump of his cane grew softer as he passed through the back door, down the hall and out into the night.

The members of Congress waited until they could no longer hear Thibodeaux, then one by one gathered their coats and briefcases and filed out of the room without speaking to each other or glancing back at Farragut who sat frozen in his chair.

Farragut was left alone in the room. When he was sure no one would see him, he took the draft articles of impeachment, threw them on the floor, scattering them like yesterday’s newspapers, and then buried his head in his hands and cried like a spoiled three-year-old child who hadn’t gotten what he wanted for Christmas.

FLASH GREENWALD SPENT
most of his adult life running from solitude, afraid of what he might find if he examined himself too closely. So for the first two days of his mountain getaway vacation, he numbed himself with daily cocktails of liquor and pills. He kept the TV on and toggled between sports events and political talk shows, hoping to pick up a few tidbits he could use when he went back on the air.

But the third morning, for no reason he could understand, he awoke with a clear head and the urge to explore the countryside. He laced up a pair of hiking boots he found in the closet, put on an old fishing hat a former guest left on the hall tree, and headed out the door along a trail that led into the deep woods. Along the way, he came upon a stream that cut a shallow, rocky ditch through the forest. He left the trail and descended to the edge of the creek where he got down on both knees and reached his hand into the water. The cold water reminded him of the icy ponds where his mother took him as a child. He remembered the first time he tested his balance on a frozen lake of ice, his feet wrapped in four layers of rags that turned him into a human sled. His mother called for him to come in off the ice as he twirled and slid and fell. But he got up again and again, oblivious to the cold, somehow free from the constraints of ordinary human existence.

He cupped his hand full of water and started to drink but turned his hand over and watched the frigid water re-unite with the stream and run away from him on its way to some unknown river, some boundless sea.

He took hold of a sapling and helped himself up from the ground. On his way back to the trail, he held his head up, straining to see the birds whose songs echoed through the canopy of branches. After he walked a while, he came to a low spot on the trail where he found a boulder with a hollowed out place big enough for him to sit. He closed his eyes and napped for fifteen minutes without dreaming. He woke ready to tackle the hike back up the path to the cabin, but he found the uphill trek more difficult than he had anticipated.

Winded, he stopped to catch his breath.

“How are you today, Mr. Greenwald?” a voice said.

Flash turned to see who was talking to him, but could only make out a dark form in the edge of the woods. The voice didn’t sound like anyone’s he knew.

“Is that you, Ralph? I wasn’t expecting you today,” Flash said.

“No, Flash. Ralph won’t be here until tomorrow. I came a day early so we would have some time to visit. Allow me to introduce myself,” a large black man said as he stepped into the light. “My name is Ithurial Finis. I come here from time to time to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation.”

Finis wore a camouflage outfit. In the crook of his left arm, he carried an olive drab rifle with a matching scope. He had a Smith and Wesson Model 686 .357-caliber revolver with a six-inch barrel holstered on his right hip.

In that split second, Greenwald knew with the utmost certainty that he was talking to the angel of death.

Greenwald did what he always did under pressure, he started talking.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agent Finis,” Flash said as he extended his hand to shake with Finis.

Finis made no attempt to take his hand.

“I hear on the news that a lot of people would like to find you,” Flash jabbered.

“I tend to be found only when I’m ready to be found,” Finis said. “I’m not ready just yet.”

“I certainly have no plans to divulge your whereabouts,” Flash said.

“Mr. Greenwald, do you think I’m worried about what you might be able to do to me?” Finis said as he took one step towards Flash.

The men were no more than ten feet from each other in the tree-shrouded clearing. Flash patted his coat pocket but felt no cell phone. He remembered he had left it in the cabin so he could walk in the woods without interruption. His eyes darted from right to left as he searched for any avenue of escape. He knew no one could hear him if he cried out.

“Of course not,” Flash said. “But the reporter in me sees a tremendous opportunity for both of us. I just wanted you to know I was on your side.”

“What opportunity would that be?” Finis asked, toying with his prey.

“You could come on my show, for a tidy sum, I might add, and I could interview you about the assassinations and why you did it to save the country from wickedness, to pave the way for CM to set up God’s kingdom,” Flash said. He knew he sounded desperate, but he couldn’t make himself slow down. “We could do a remote hookup and your location could remain secret. After we were through with the interview, you could take the money and disappear to a life of ease anywhere you wanted to go.”

“Mr. Greenwald, you don’t understand anything about me. I didn’t kill the President to line my pockets,” Finis said.

Flash paused for a minute before he asked what he felt was probably the last question of his career and his life. “Why did you do it?”

“To obey God’s will,” Finis said. “I have pledged to follow God in all my actions. I know he has guided me to this point for his own reasons, reasons I don’t pretend to understand. I do what He says without questioning Him.”

“I pray to God myself,” Flash said. “I’m one of the good guys.”

Finis shifted the rifle to his right arm and stuck out his left arm at eye level with his palm turned towards Greenwald. He moved it up and down a couple of times, like a man cranking the handle on a water well pump. Greenwald stared at him and knelt down on the moist dirt.

“Mr. Greenwald, I take no pleasure in killing, only in obeying God,” Finis said. “You may close your eyes and pray for a second if you like. You will soon stand before your Maker.”

“Give me just a second,” Flash said as he bent his head all the way to the ground, closed his eyes and pressed his fists against the sides of his head. In a few seconds, he pulled himself upright on the ground, still kneeling, relaxed his arms at his side and looked Finis in the eye. “I’m ready,” he said.

Finis shifted the rifle back to his left arm and in one motion grabbed the revolver, cocked the hammer and put his finger on the trigger. Just before the pistol fired, Flash heard an explosion from the woods behind him and Finis jerked his head to the right as a bullet grazed his temple. Finis’s pistol discharged, striking Greenwald on the left side of his chest. Greenwald fell backwards and grabbed his chest and saw Finis run down the trail towards the ravine where the creek widened out into shallow rapids.

Flash was starting to get dizzy when a man spoke to him, “Stay down. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Thank you,” was all Flash could think to say.

Agent Brown raced down the trail after Finis.

Brown could see Finis as he dodged and feinted along the ridge that led down to the water. When Finis paused for a split second on the brink of the cliff, Brown fired his .45 and winged him again. Finis lost his footing, tried to grab a rock at the top of the rise, but slid down the steep embankment out of Brown’s sight.

When Brown reached the point where Finis went over the side of the cliff, he dropped to his stomach and crawled to a position near the edge of the ridge. He took off his cap, stuck it on the blade of his field knife and slowly nudged it out into the open. He expected a shot but none came. He crawled along the ridgeline for ten yards or so, listened for any movement and peered over the edge with one eye.

Below him pinned between a boulder and a scraggly cedar tree lay Ithurial Finis. He was on his back, and his rifle had fallen just out of reach. His arms were wedged so that he couldn’t even reach his pistol. He looked Brown straight in the eye.

Brown drew his .45-caliber pistol and pointed it at Finis’ head.

“Finish it, Brown,” Finis said. “I am ready to see my God face to face.”

Just then Brown heard what he thought were the death cries of Flash Greenwald.

“Help me, please!” he yelled. “I’m dying.”

“I’ll be back,” Brown yelled at Finis. “I’m ready for God to use me, too.”

With that, Brown withdrew from the bank of the stream and rushed to Flash, who lay bleeding where he left him.

“Hold on, Flash. We’re going to get out of this alive,” Brown said.

Brown took a good look at Greenwald’s three-hundred-pound frame and knew he couldn’t carry him up a steep, rocky path.