with a wet-lipped mindless grin to Stavers.

  Stavers knew then, despite the silence of the mo-

  ment, that all hell was breaking loose about him. He

  backhanded Harlow with a terrible impact, splitting

  open the side of his face and his lips. Blood spurted;

  Harlow was hurled back from the blow against the side

  of the cabin. Still grinning, drooling blood, he slumped

  to the floor.

  1. Cover him!" Stavers shouted to Marden. Instantly

  Marden went forward, one hand clamping down on

  "James' " eyes, the other squeezing his skull with a

  crushing vise of powerful fingers.

  "Goddan-mit, I didn't want to use the etorphin-"

  Weinstein was pale. "You'll have to. Immediately,"

  She grasped his arm. "Doug, I've never seen such

  power. He's dangerous. Terribly dangerous. More than

  I ever dreamed. I-"

  "Do it.!" Stavers shook off her hand. "Do it now or I'll

  'Kill him! 11

  Weinstein moved smoothly, quickly. The needle

  slipped into James' jugular. A carefully prepared mix-

  ture of etorphin. Enough to make a slave out of any inan.

  "He'll be under in a moment," she said, straightening.

  "The, hell he will " --1-1 -1-;- 1- --

  DARK MESSIAH

  359

  other dose. He's too goddamned strong." Stavers felt a

  sixth sense of dread he hadn't known in years. - Hit him

  again," he repeated. I want him out cold, understand?

  And before he comes around I want blinders on his

  eyes until we can get to him. And you're going to do

  it. "

  ,'me?" she echoed.

  P11

  "You've used bypDotism in surgery, remember, Doc@

  Stavers said coldly, his impatience rising as swiftly as

  his dissatisfaction with the moment. "You've used mes-

  merisin right on down through the ages, revwmber?

  Now, goddamnit, there's no one else strong enough,

  who we can get quickly enough, or who we can trust.

  From this moment on YOU stick like glue to this blue-

  eyed shaman or whatever the hell lie is. -

  Stavers moved to within inches of Weinstein. "You

  don't let him out of this fog he's in. 1 don't give a damn

  if you pump etorphin and daffodils up his ass until they

  come out of his ears. And you start now with the

  routine. HeI s not James. He's Jesus. Fuck what's wrong

  or right with the bible. We're not talking to the histori-

  ans any more. We're going to be dealing with the

  public. You lead ine, Rebecca? The big, dewy-eyed,

  fanatical. crazy, suck-ass public; that's who we're after.

  And you talk to him in Italian. I know you speak all the

  languages and 1 know he does. He I s been in that fuck-

  ing rocVpile all his life and lie's brilliant but I want him

  talking in Italian wben he talks. Or Laiin. -1 don't care

  just as long as it's one or the other."

  Stavers gripped both her wrists. "But wher, he comes

  back to the world of reality he's still under our control.

  Not even God or the Devil himself can fight off etorpbin,

  and Little Boy Blue, here, isn't nearly up in that league.

  When he comes out of it, Rebecca, I want him believ-

  ing, I want him knowing that he is.lesus Christ. The

  original article, the one-and-only just stumbled in from

  the desert and all full of parables and homilies and the

  rest of that crap. He is Jesus. This is the Second Com-

  ing. I want him wearing sandals and that flour sack or

  toga or whatever the fuck it is he wore when he ram-

  kl.rl a@rltll@d lonivqiPin and I want him vreachinLy,"

  360

  Martin Caidin

  Stavers took a deep breath. "When we get to South,

  Carolina everything's supposed to be ready for the big

  show, Skip," Stavers turned to Marden, "you stick with

  the doe and old blue eyes. You get them anything and

  everything they want and you don't let anybody or

  anything interefere with them. You have the routine of

  how we move when showtime is over?"

  Marden nodded. "I have it here," he tapped the side

  of his head, "and I have it down on paper, and before

  we leave Carolina I want you to confirm what's on the

  paper.

  "Good," Stavers said. "Don't worry about that Con-

  corde. I'll make sure Diaz has it set up as a charter

  flight and with a light load aboard and extra fuel we'll

  make it direct from Carolina to Rome."

  "What about bubble-mouth, here?" Marden asked,

  looking with disgust at the whining figure of Dr. Harlow.

  " That piss-ant," Stavers grunted. "Use the jettison

  tube. In fact, do it now. I'll wait here. 11

  Several minutes later they felt and heard a distant,

  muffled thump as air pressure changed drastically in an

  airlock chute. Marden came back, grinning. "It's twelve

  miles straight down. He ought to be bitting the water

  just about now."

  Stavers: nodded, turning back to Weinstein. "You got

  it all, Rebecca?"

  "Yes. 11

  That's what he loved about this woman. No bullshit,

  She did wonders with that one Yes. "Good. We don't

  have the room or the time for fuckups. "

  Stavers went forward alone. Rebecca Weinstein smiled

  with pleasure. Doug Stavers was in full control again.

  He ran the whole operation with all the power for

  which he was known. Hard, tough, mighty, unstoppa-

  ble. Everything his own way.

  Precisely as Dr. Reherca Weinstein had so carefully

  planned.

  Chapter 26

  "I thought I'd seen it all," Al Templin said slowly,

  shaking his head with disbelief at the sights displayed

  on the multiscreen video monitors of the control roOln

  of the Grail. Even the name was a stroke of genius,

  They'd tossed names about like feathers in a verbal

  windstorm. The Bowl. The Crater. The Cup of God;

  those and a hundred others. And then Stavers snapped

  his fingers as remembered thoughts reached him. "Grail,"

  he told Templiri and the others with him, "Call it the

  Grail. The crowd will flesh it out and this whole thing

  will become the 'Holy Grail."

  He was right, Templin mused, as his eyes ran from

  one monitor to another to give him full coverage of the

  incredible niassirig of the devout in the South Carolina

  countryside. What had been a perfect setting filro a

  movie about man's undersea encounter with ap alier)

  race, not necessarily extraterrestrial, had become even

  more suited to, this holy tholy shit is rnore like it,

  Templin chuckled to himself., assemblage.

  More than one million men, women and children bad

  gathered and still more were pouring in. Cars, motor-

  cycles, bievcles, trailers, trucks, motor hornes, buses,

  anything that could roll, lay scattered amidst the packed

  throngs. The promised "deliverance" would take place

  soon after dark. They needed nightfall for the event.

  Templin checked the weather. Terrific; a low and solid

  cloud deck at twelve hundred feet. Sounds would bounce

  back and light would reflect gloriously and there'd be

  virtually no way for aerial interference except through

  362

  Martin Caidin

  mechanical-electronic means such as radar imagery or

  extremely sensitive infra-red. And why would anyone

  bother to do that, when they were televising the whole

  thing?

  The appearance of the Reverend Doug Stavers, al-

  ready being acclaimed as the only true new messiah-

  here we go again, Templin laughed to himself-was a

  marvel of coordination, orchestration and exquisite tim-

  ing to bend minds and stun brains, and sunder normal

  caution on the part of the true believers. If all went as

  planned a million people-perhaps twice that number-

  would leave here finally to disperse to their homes

  throughout the country, and even to other lands, to

  carry the message of the faithful.

  This couldn't be your old-fashioned and melodra-

  matic evangelistic bullshit. This time they needed more

  than organs and loudspeakers, pretty girls, flowers and

  a man condemnina the sinners in the crowd and exhort-

  ing them to some dalliance with either God or his true

  son. This time their belief had to be down, down deep

  and rock-solid. This time these people must be brought

  to the point of yielding their lives if that was what the

  Reverend Stavers ordained. If he pointed his hand and

  a steel finger, turning in a slow circle from the center of

  The Grail, and commanded his faithful to surge forward

  and immerse themselves in the baptismal waters (all

  seventy-five million gallons worth) of The Grail, then

  the crowd must do so, even if a half-baked idiot realized

  that such a move would quickly drown most of the

  blindly-obeying faithful.

  They didn't need a lemming-inspired crush to drown

  hundreds of thousands of people. The faithful dead

  were useless. So, for that matter, was this mob when

  the show ended. Because by the time the show was

  over, and it was a show, Ternplin reminded himself,

  they would have served their purpose.

  Hold their attention while the Concorde 11 raced for

  the Eternal City, while the enormous sleek jet sliced at

  supersonic speeds for a rendezvous with the Vatican.

  And an ernotional- bate-fren7iPrI nrolv w-W --

  DARK MESSIAH

  363

  No; Templin corrected himself That would explode in

  its fury. in laughed aloud. So many of the world's

  Templ reli-

  =

  small or great, had emerged from deliberate,

  1 hokum. The crowd is always anxious to be pleased,

  and to be pleased they'll snatch at anything that smacks

  of a message "from the beyond." in the middle 1850s,

  he recalled a bitter religious war sending blood cascad-

  ing down Mexican hills and slopes, The infamous Caste

  War, vicious, murderous, brutal and a slaughterhouse

  of women and children as much as fighting men, erupted

  when the Maya assaulted Europeans and mixed castes

  alike. For eight years they savaged one another, often

  obliterating entire towns and villages. Then came the

  " wonder" of the times. The new Mexican Republic

  hatefully rejected and tried to oust every element of the

  Catholic Church from the land. They failed to reckon

  with the Maya, so long before converted to the fiercely

  devout. But something new was needed, and in a stroke

  of genius Jose Maria Barrera convinced one of the Mayas

  that his special talent was needed to bring together the

  fighting men of all the Maya. Manuel Nabuat was an

  accomplished ventriloquist. Together Barrera and Nahuat

  traveled the countryside with a "taiking cross." And to

  the superstitious natives, the cross talked. It talked on

  and on and from its flowery speech rose the cult of the

  Cruzob. They were tough and they were mean and

  they carved out their own Empire of the Cross, and not

  until 1901 when a powerful new Mexican army de-

  scended against them with modern weapons did the

  Cruzob finally fall before steel and shot.

  But for nearly half a century they endured because

  they knew the cross of Christ "talked" to them, cour-

  tesy of a very clever ventriloquist.

  Now it was time for a modern edition of the Empire

  of the Cross, and their messiah was the Reverend Doug

  Stavers.

  "it's the ultimate circus," Stavers observed, "Al, you've

  done a bell of a job."

  T-1-lin !4clcloti cmirkiv. "That-

  364

  Martin Caidin

  son of a bitch is pure genius when it comes to handling

  crowds, -

  "Well, it's pure genius. And if we keep the timing

  just right we'll pull it off."

  "Let's do a run-through, " Roger Sabbai insisted. "Any

  time you put more than a million of the devout in one

  church, indoor or outside, I get clammy skin."

  Stavers laughed. "You're orchestrating the greatest

  religious gathering of all time and you feel like a lizard?"

  "You bet," Sabbai confirmed. "I got lizards in my

  belly and they're all biting. I'm a wreck. When this is

  over I'm going to be drunk for a month."

  Stavers clapped him on the shoulder. He didn't care

  what would be going on here a month from now, but

  that was none of Sabbai's affair. "You got it. Put it up on

  the computer."

  "Better than that," Sabbai said. "I've run it through

  so we can get a three-dimensional look at what we've

  got here. We'll need those special glasses for the big

  screen. In effect, we've choreographed the whole

  routine. "

  They donned the glasses, Sabbai worked the com-

  puter controls, and before them on a large curving

  screen the great Grail shimmered into tbree-dimen-

  sional reality.

  "The cables are in place," Sabbai began. "See how

  they run crossways along and above the water? They

  have a maximum stretch of two point one percent and

  we I ve already compensated for that. All the cables in-

  tersect a, dead center of the bowl, twenty feet above

  the water surface."

  "Got it," Stavers said. It was a terrific setup. The

  bowl stretched more than 400 feet from one side to the

  other and in dead center there rose a silvered podium

  of glassite with lights that flowed and shimmered from

  within.

  "That platform is thirty feet across," Templin broke

  in. "The glassite is a real eye-twister. It's all mirrored

  and the angles are wild. We use laser reflections so that

  you'll appear to be faciug everybody, no matter where

  tbev're at w-hpn ib,,v wpfok

  DARK MESSIAH

  365

  Stavers nodded slowly. "I didn't think you could

  work that out," he said candidly.

  "Neither did we," Templin told him. "But it was

  good old serendipity at work. See here? We went the

  mirrors and lasers route to increase your security. You

  could be anywhere within this circle of thirty feet, but

  you'll still appear to be in deadeenter. Anyone taking a

  long-range shot at you, if he's dead-on to target, has

  less than one chance in a hundred of actually hitting

  you.

  "Good odds," Stavers grunted.

  "Better than that. If someone has a long gun to use,

  it means they have to bring it through the crowd that

  adores you, and then lift it up and sight the damn

  thing-still with that crowd about them, and, well, uh

  uh. I don't buy that routine. If it's a handgun it better

  be a .357 mag or better, with damned good sights, and

  the user's got to be goddamned good at that kind of

  range, and that's without-"

  "I know," Stavers grimaced. "All those loving, ador-

  ing people."

  "Yessir, by golly," Templin laughed.

  "What about sound?"

  "Well, first, the pickups. Supersen mikes are in your

  clothing and we use tight radio freq. No wires. The

  pickups are in the glassite but we'll also be using micro-

  wave antenna long-range pickup--that stuff they call

  the bionic ear. it can hear you whisper from a thousand

  feet and it zeros right in. We're using eight of them.

  Any one will do, and no matter what means we use for

  transmission, we're going to hear everything you've got

  to say, and we microwave transmit to the speakers

  arrayed about and through the crowd. The best omnidi-

  rectional output, by the way, The reproduction of voice

  is so good it sounds like you're talking to them directly.

  Besides, we've made sure there'll be some extra

  attention. "

  Stavers raised an eyebrow@ "You up to your old tricks,

  AV'

  "Uh huh. I worked this one out with Baxter and

  Qi-A, Irl-, @, --l- AnNm,@kv w@hpn

  366

  Mar-tin Caidin

  you're talking we want the adoring ones to feel uncom-

  fortable. So we're piping in a very thin ultrasonic fre-

  quency. It's too high for them to hear but it will do two

  other things. It'll drive a dog mad, which doesn't mat-

  ter, but it also impinges on the bony system of the ear

  and sends, well, a wire-thin needle into the ear canals

  Of your adoring and faithful. I guarantee it holds their

  attention. "

  "That's for the high Stuff," Stavers acknowledged.

  "And the low?"

  Templin gestured in an offhanded manner to show

  just how easy all this had been handled. "There's the

  usual bass output and the woofers and all that bullshit.

  It works. It moves a lot of air through the speakers, but

 

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