“And, He expects no less from you.
He doesn’t need an audience.
He doesn’t need a billion witnesses.
God is not a rock star.
He is a general.
And a general needs an army.
He needs you!
And you! And you! And you!”
Burgess whirled across the stage as he stabbed his accusing finger repeatedly toward different sections of the audience.
“He needs you!
To fight next to Him! To fight for God!
Fight for Him! To fight!
Fight! Fight!
Fight!
And keep fighting.
Because the work is never done.
The battle is never finished.
Oh, maybe eventually…when Judgment Day arrives.
But not today.
Not in our lifetime.”
Burgess then froze in his walk back across the stage.
He focused on the camera again and lowered his voice into a loud, dramatic whisper as he concluded his sermon: “The battle goes on.
And on.
And on.
It
never
ends.”
He spun around and walked quickly to the back of the stage and through the illuminated panels behind him.
He went down a set of stairs and continued walking through the back of the hall and past a set of doors.
Daggart left his seat and raced down the aisle before the stunned audience could get to its feet.
He walked around the stage and followed Burgess’ route.
Past the doors and a short way down a hallway, Daggart came to an inner room.
Inside, one table held mirrors and Burgess’ makeup.
On another were fruit baskets and bottles of water and juice in tubs filled with ice.
A half dozen people – senior church officials and organizers of the event – surrounded Burgess who wiped sweat from his face and neck with a small white towel and drank from a small bottle of water.
“Jim.
You were great,” said Daggart as the group parted for him.
He patted the tall preacher on the upper arm.
“Best ever.
You had them in the palm of your hand.”
“It’s not hard,” said Burgess.
“Not when you’ve got a great script.
Thanks partner.”
* * *
In the dream, there was blood everywhere.
He looked down at himself, at the people between his legs, stuffing gauze in and trying to staunch the flow.
No use.
He was bleeding out.
He stared up into the night sky and prayed.
It was a prayer both to God and the U.S. Army.
“Don’t leave me here,” he said. “Save me.
Don’t leave me here to die.”
When Steve Walberg awoke, he was clutching his balls with both hands and he had tears in his eyes.
He knew he’d had the dream again.
The first version of the dream had started soon after his medical discharge and return home to Bliss.
After a few months, it went away only to return again seven years later with a strange twist.
Initially, the dream had been the way it really happened with him trying to stop his best friend from dying.
The groin shot had evaded Ron’s body armor and there was nowhere to apply a tourniquet.
With the medics, Walberg had desperately tried to apply direct pressure.
But it was hopeless.
The gauze pads were soaked as soon as they were placed on the wound.
The femoral artery had been hit.
Ron’s only hope was the operating room, a surgeon to patch the artery somehow.
But the army had deserted them.
They’d gone in on personnel carriers.
Some 150 Rangers to rescue the dozen survivors of two downed helicopters.
Then, when they were pinned down by God knows how many urban guerrillas – the entire army of a major Somali warlord – the U.S. Army had left them taking fire the entire night.
With daybreak, an armored column fought through the city to rescue them.
But by then, 18 were dead and another 60 wounded.
Walberg touched his forehead and felt the thin 2-inch scar.
In the panicked effort to save Ron, he hadn’t even noticed the shrapnel from the rocket-propelled grenade.
The explosion had thrown dirt and debris over everyone.
He thought the sharp pain and small amount of blood on his forehead beneath the rim of his helmet were just from a cut.
When he had headaches and a seizure two days later, they found and removed the metal shard that had pierced his skull and lodged in the front of his brain.
The scar was a reminder of everything.
Ron.
The entire night.
How much he hated the army for letting Ron die and, then, throwing him out because of the seizures and what they said were his uncontrollable mood swings.
Mood swings!
How would those mother-fucking pinheads like to have their best friend die in their arms while the mother-fucking army sat on its butt because it was afraid of the mother-fucking dark?
See how that would change your mother-fucking mood!
Every time he thought about it – and it was dozens of times a day – it enraged him.
It made him just as angry now as he had been at the time.
In some ways, it felt worse now.
His life sucked.
He’d given up on trying to change it.
He and Ron had given themselves to the country and nothing good came back.
Just humiliation and insults.
Meanwhile, weirdos and perverts and communists got everything.
Everything!
Walberg fought to regain control of himself.
It was still night.
Maybe 2 or 3 am.
He had to get a couple more hours of sleep.
The recent recurrence of the dream had shifted so that he was Ron in the dream rather than himself.
He was watching himself bleed out…seeing his own death.
But in a strange way it was more peaceful and less frantic.
There was less to do.
Less frustration.
He was more removed.
But it was infused with sadness and death.
It had made him think a lot about dying, about how it could be peaceful and even comforting.
He hoped Ron had died somewhat like his dream.
Gazing at the sky and praying.
Praying was peaceful.
Praying to God and the U.S. Army.
Chapter 6
ENZO LEE STUDIED his computer monitor one last time.
In a bizarre journalistic occurrence, he’d had an incredible run of animal stories the past two weeks that had produced some memorable lines as well as a threatened ban on creature puns.
First,
there was the one about the rare baby seabird rescued from a dog that was being put for adoption.
(“One gold tern deserves a mother…”)
Then, there was the story about the movement to force the Lincoln High School football team (the “Hares”) to release their mascot back into the wild.
(“The school and its bunny were soon parted…”)
And now, he was finishing the piece about a just-approved drug expected to save nearby horse farms from a fatal equine disease.
(“Where there’s a pill, there’s a neigh…”)
With a toss of his head, Lee clicked on the button that would send the last story of the day off to the assistant city editor.
He left the News building and walked up the two blocks to Market where he took the escalator down to the underground Muni train.
After a five-minute wait, he caught a half-full outbound L train.
When he exited at the Van Ness station, the first wisps of ocean fog began breaching Twin Peaks and trickling down into the southwest quadrant of the city.
The sunny spring day would become a breezy overcast evening in another hour.
By nightfall, the temperature would drop 10 degrees but it would feel like 20.
Lee walked the long block down Market Street and into the Zuni Cafe.
The bar was mostly empty so he grabbed a stool, put his elbows on the polished copper and contemplated the draft beer choices.
He thought longingly of ordering his usual Sierra Nevada but finally settled on an iced tea.
The shelves behind the bar were filled with every imaginable liquor and liqueur and the sunlight from Market filtered through the bottles as if the window were a gigantic wall of prisms.
He was taking his first sip of the tea when he felt a hand squeeze his shoulder.
“Hello, baby,” said Bobbie Connors.
Connors wore a dark blue pants suit with a white shirt.
A thin silver necklace with a small cross contrasted against her dark skin.
She had on tinted glasses and her hair was in its usual multitude of long braids.
Lee set his drink down and turned on his stool to give her a hug.
Connors clamped him in a near headlock.
Still seated on the bar stool, Lee’s face was buried in her ample right bosom.
He was about ready to tap her arm a few times, figuring she’d recognize the wrestler signal for, “I give up,” when she relaxed her hold.
Lee adjusted his wire-rim glasses that were now askew.
“Hey.
It’s
good
to see you, too,” he said.
Connors laughed again.
Lee noticed that the bar had quieted with Connors’ entrance.
She had that effect.
With modest heels, she was just a couple of inches shorter than Lee.
Plus, she was big, not in a fat way but in a “I’ll wrestle you to the ground if I have to” way.
Based on the recent squeeze-hug he’d received, Lee figured she could manage it with most people.
“So,” said Connors.
“Thanks for meeting me here. You ready to take a ride?”
“I am,” said Lee.
“Where did you say we’re going?
Manteca?”
“Near there,” said Connors.
“It’s only an hour away…maybe a little farther.
But it will feel different.
The land of nut trees and cattle.”
Lee left a dollar on the bar next to his drink and followed Connors outside.
Her unmarked Ford sat outside Zuni, emergency lights blinking.
Lee had called Connors to get an update on the Scott Truman case, but also just to catch up over a beer, coffee…whatever.
Then, Connors mentioned she was driving out toward the Central Valley to track down someone – supposedly a witness to an unrelated homicide in the city’s Mission district.
He’d leapt at her offer to accompany her.
What better excuse to duck out of the newsroom for a couple of hours, not to mention a chance to catch up with Connors.