Authors: James F. David
If you want a taste of hell, try prison—more scum per square foot you won't find anywhere this side of death.
-GEORGE PROCTOR
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
T
he interrogation lasted hours and Mark stumbled through it, confused, mumbling answers, unsure of what he said or whose name he mentioned. The detectives took turns twisting his words until he began to doubt whether he could trust his own memories. As the hours wore on his fatigue grew, as did his hunger. He realized it was morning when Detective Sitz entered with a box of donuts, sharing them with Detective Harney—they didn't offer him one. When they finished the donuts, they stopped the questioning. Then Harney called another officer who took him by the arm and led him back to the cell block. The officer pulled him past his cell.
"Where are we going?" Mark asked.
"We're moving you," was all the officer would say.
The officer stopped him in front of a large cell, crowded with prisoners, calling to have the door opened. Mark was pushed inside.
The other prisoners ranged from large and hulking to wiry and tough-looking. Most were black or Hispanic and all were battle-scarred.
Mark was out of his element and frightened. This wasn't his world—he didn't know the rules. Standing there Mark felt naked, the men inside sizing him up. He wanted to hide but all four corners were occupied, as were the bunks. He spotted an empty piece of wall and headed toward it. Two steps from the wall a hulking white man with bad teeth stepped in his path.
"Where you going?"
"I was just . . . " Mark stammered.
Mark started to back away, bumping into another man behind him. A powerful arm shoved him forward only to be slammed back by the man in front. Mark tried to step sideways out of harm's way.
Now they backed him toward a set of bunks, the men sitting there scurrying away. A stiff arm in the chest staggered him. Now other prisoners gathered, interested in the show. Another shove and Mark fell against the bunks.
The one with rotten teeth stepped closer. Closing his eyes, Mark prayed for God's protection. A blow to his solar plexus buckled him in half, cutting off his silent prayer. A shove on his head sent him back onto the lower bunk.
"What you doing to the preacher?" a new voice demanded.
Gasping for breath, Mark opened his eyes to see a black man behind his tormentors. He was taller than them by half a head. They turned, sizing him up.
"This ain't your business," the one with bad teeth said.
"I'm making it my business. You got to decide how bad you want him because it's a two-fer. Him and me."
Mark's protector was thick-chested with arms like an NFL lineman and a face deeply creased around the mouth and eyes. After a long stare, the two men gave way, bumping shoulders with his protector as they retreated. On the street Mark doubted the men would have backed down but in this cell the white men were outnumbered two to one.
Mark tried to stand but the black man pushed him back down.
"Bunks are hard to come by. Might as well keep it."
"Thanks," Mark said. "You're an answer to my prayer."
The black man chuckled.
"Me an answer to prayer?"
"Well, I prayed for help and you're the one that helped me," Mark said.
"If you say so, Preacher. I seen you on TV! You're the man that built those spaceships, aren't you? I'm Nick."
"Mark Shepherd," he responded, shaking a big hand. Grateful to the man, now Mark found himself warming to him. "As far as I'm concerned you're the most important man in the world right now, Nick."
The man chuckled.
"Yeah, I expect I seem that way to you." Then his face turned serious. "Of course out on the street you'd go a different direction if you saw me coming."
"I wouldn't," Mark protested.
"Don't lie to yourself, Preacher. How many black people you got in that church of yours?"
Embarrassed, Mark didn't respond.
"Figures, but it don't bother me none. When I was growing up the only white face in my grandma's church was a picture of Jesus and that got replaced by a black Jesus five years ago."
He laughed then, a deep rumbling chuckle that relieved Mark's guilt. Maybe it was gratitude that made him feel this way, but it mattered to Mark what Nick thought of him.
"Anyone can join the Fellowship," Mark said.
Nick chuckled again.
"That's what people always say but somehow it seems black churches stay black and white churches stay white. Sometimes I think heaven's gonna have a coloreds-only section."
Nick wasn't laughing now; he was somber, thinking. The creases in his face deepened.
"Preacher, you ought to know something. Those two that came after you—they were talking to a guard before you came."
Now Mark frowned. The police were using the prisoners to terrorize him.
"There's more, Preacher," Nick continued. "Most of the men in here are being transferred to the state prison in the morning—me included. Those two are going along, so you'll be all right for a while. But you get your lawyer to get you out of here fast. You ain't cut out for prison life."
Mark nodded, knowing Stephen was somewhere working frantically. When breakfast came, Mark was asleep on the bunk. Nick brought him a tray of runny eggs and burned toast. Mark took a cup of coffee, but passed the tray back, explaining he was fasting.
"Good, more for me," Nick said, scraping Mark's plate onto his. Nick dug into the eggs, eating ravenously. "I've never tried fasting, as you can tell," he said, patting his ample stomach and chuckling. "If I was you, Preacher, I wouldn't fast long. You gotta be strong in prison."
An hour later guards came, removing men one at a time and shackling them. Nick was the sixth shackled and then led off with the first group, smiling through the bars as he shuffled along behind the others. The two men who had terrorized Mark remained against the wall, staring.
Mark kept his head down, avoiding eye contact. The guards came back and took a second group of six men, again his attackers remained. Only four men remained, including the man with rotten teeth and his friend.
Mark's hands began trembling and he shrank back on the bunk, pulling his knees to his chest. He stole a glance at the men. They were watching him. Suddenly the bunk felt claustrophobic and he stepped to the bars, vainly looking for the returning guards. When he turned around the men were behind him.
"Looking for your friend?" the one with rotten teeth asked, stepping close. "He ain't here."
The remaining prisoners retreated to corners. Mark spun to shout for help but a fist slammed into his lower back and his kidney felt as if it had exploded. Gasping with pain, he grabbed the bars to hold himself up. A blow to his other side doubled his pain and he crumpled. Beefy arms snaked around his chest, holding him up and turning him. Held tight now, the one with bad teeth went to work, punching Mark repeatedly in the solar plexus. Mark's breath exploded from his lungs with the first blow and the next two were pure pain. Now the man with bad teeth took a step back. Mark's hopes rose—maybe it was over. Suddenly he took a half step forward, swinging one leg up and into Mark's groin. The strength of the kick lifted Mark off his feet. The agony of that kick brought tears and soon streams were running down his cheeks. He hung limp, trying to speak, to beg for mercy. Another kick and the pain reached a new level. Now his attacker stepped forward, working over other parts of his body. The blows came fast, pounding his stomach and chest. Mark managed a soft plea for mercy. A bone-shattering fist to his jaw was the reply. He slid into blackness, the beating continuing long after he lost consciousness.
Whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished.
—PROVERBS 17:5
WASHINGTON, D.C.
C
rrow hung up the phone, satisfaction spreading across his face.
"Good news?" Rachel prodded.
Rachel stood in Crow's congressional office, dressed in navy blue, her skirt fashionably short.
"Your police friend came through," Crow said, leaning back in his desk chair, arms folded behind his head. "Shepherd's in the hospital."
"Will he die?" Rachel asked hopefully.
"No," Crow said, disappointed.
"Pity."
"It's better this way," Crow said. "If he had died his followers would have made a martyr out of him."
"But without Shepherd they would have lost their rudder," Rachel said.
"Members would drift away. The cult would die."
"You overestimate Shepherd," Crow said. "He's the front man but the key is Breitling. He's the brains behind their technology. He's the one to kill."
Crow opened a walnut box on his desktop, removing a Cuban cigar. Crow clipped the end from the cigar with a silver cigar cutter, then lit it with a matching silver lighter. Inhaling deeply, he leaned back, listening to Rachel.
"I disagree," Rachel said. "They already have the technology, Breitling's only refining it now—many people can do that. Breitling's genius gave the cult its technology, but it's Shepherd that keeps them together."
Crow puffed his cigar, thinking, finding he agreed with Rachel. Breitling might have been behind the original breakthrough but once the theoretical leap had been made, less creative underlings could develop the technology. Killing Breitling would be satisfying but to hurt the cult you needed to take out the leader, Shepherd.
"Perhaps you're right, Rachel," Crow said. "Still, we have Shepherd on the run for now. Even if he gets out of jail alive, his reputation is in ruins. Disney won't make a deal with a child molester and that should put off other potential partners. Even so it would be better to have both of them in jail. I would dearly love to know where Breitling is and what he's up to."
Rachel looked thoughtful, running her finger back and forth across her lower lip. The lip moistened with each pass, developing a high-gloss sheen.
"We don't know where he is," she said, "but we do know where his wife is." Rachel pursed her lips, moistening the top one with her tongue, then smiled at Crow. "If we took her, Ira Breitling would surface."
Crow tapped ashes from his cigar into a silver ashtray given to him by a tobacco lobbyist. He was considering Rachel's idea. Rachel was deliciously devious and he knew why the Master had sent her to him.
"Just watch her for now," Crow said. "But begin working on a plan to take her."
I know prison and it's no place for a good man. A sense of fair play will get you killed.
-GEORGE PROCTOR
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
O
ne eye was swollen shut, and the other was thick with sleep. He forced his sleep-encrusted eye open, looking around the dimly lit hospital room. He willed his mouth to open but his jaws were wired shut. He could move his arms and legs, but found he was handcuffed to the bed. There was a needle in his arm, attached to an IV drip. He hurt from so many places, individual injuries were indistinguishable. He found a call button and shortly a nurse appeared.
"I'll bet you're ready for your pain medication," she said before he tried to speak.
He nodded vigorously, aggravating his pain. She smiled, then left and returned with a syringe, injecting the contents into the IV line. Seconds later the pain ebbed and he felt a warm rush, followed by a dreamy half-conscious state. The nurse recorded receipt of his medication on a chart, then lifted a plastic bag at the end of his bed. He realized they had inserted a catheter. Soon he fell into a dreamless sleep.
His pain woke him again, the room dark this time. He rang for the nurse, a different woman responding. There was no smile this time but she brought the medication. He was asleep as soon as the warm rush washed out his pain.
The next time he was conscious a doctor visited, telling him he would live, but they had to remove one of his kidneys. Before he could absorb that news he learned it would be four weeks before his jaw would be ready for soft food. The doctor's manner was brusque and his descriptions of Mark's injuries blunt. It was the doctor's way of telling a child molester he got what he deserved.
Stephen was there when he next woke, dressed impeccably in a gray suit.
"Thank God," Stephen said. "Everyone was worried about you, Mark. The Fellowship has been in continuous prayer."
Mark tried to smile but one of his lips was stitched and it hurt.
"Just lie still," Stephen said, mothering him. "You're going to recover but they hurt you badly."
Mark used his free hand to signal he wanted to write. Stephen dug a pen and legal pad out of his briefcase, then held the pad while Mark wrote "THE
POLICE ARRANGED IT."
Stephen frowned. "How do you know this?"
"ONE OF THE OTHER PRISONERS TOLD ME," he Wrote.
"Prisoners don't make good defense witnesses, Mark," Stephen said. "Unless we can corroborate his story we don't have a case."
Mark frowned, hurting his lip.
"Some good did come out of this," Stephen said. "Their plan backfired. They wanted to scare you into a confession but because you were beaten so badly I was able to get you designated as a 'prisoner-at-risk.' As long as you're in custody you'll have a cell to yourself."
Mark wasn't reassured. Stephen might have a court order, but once in the system it would be easy for the guards to make another "mistake."
"They've raided all our properties in the state looking for Ira," Stephen said. "Whenever they served a warrant Proctor's people showed up making sure they didn't get into anything they shouldn't. It was pretty tense but Proctor kept his people under control.
"Ira wanted me to tell you that things are going well and they can accelerate the project, if they have the money."
Mark frowned again. They had a cash-flow problem and the legal bills would worsen the problem. He needed to be with the Fellowship, problem solving, but instead he was facing prison.
"Sally and the others knew this would worry you, so they prepared a list of options for increasing revenue," Stephen said. "First, the millionaire's option."
Mark expected this one. Since the first flight of the
Rising Savior
, they had been bombarded with requests from wealthy people to purchase flights into space—Conrad Watson the first—some offering millions for a single trip into orbit.
"We could sell twenty-five flights tomorrow and fifty within a year."
Mark disliked the option, since it made the cult look mercenary.
"Option two we call 'Eternal Flight.' Our research indicates there is a strong market for burial in space. The deceased person would be sealed in a capsule—an airtight coffin—and then launched on a trajectory that would take them out of the solar system and into deep space. We could also offer funerals in space on New Hope station."
The idea was bizarre and slightly offensive to Mark, but if Sally said it would be a significant source of revenue, it would be.
"Option three is to begin an airline. If we took a two-year hiatus from our development plans, we could build enough passenger ships to acquire twenty to thirty percent of the passenger air business. With our lift capacity, all weather capability, and safety advantages, it would be a guaranteed success. With the revenue it generated we could be back on schedule in five years."
Mark and the Fellowship's management team had discussed this option in the strategic planning stages. However, passenger carriers were heavily regulated and they didn't want that kind of government entanglement. Besides, the major airlines would fight tooth and nail to stop them, in the courts, in Congress, and through government regulators. As long as the Fellowship limited itself to moving passengers to and from orbit, the airlines would concede them this niche.
"Option four is to return to the moon," Stephen said. "It's been suggested we retrace the route of the
Apollo 11
moon landing and revisit the landing site. We would sell it to a network or cable. At the same time we would shoot digital footage of the moon and put it together for theater showing."
The moon option worried Mark, and he wrote, "WE DON'T WANT TO
REVEAL THE EXTENT OF OUR TECHNOLOGY TOO SOON."
"Of course," Stephen said. "But you told us to accelerate the timetable and soon they'll know anyway."
Stephen was right. It was likely anyone who had given it serious thought would know that their vehicles weren't limited to Earth orbit.
"Option five is to incorporate and sell stock to investors."
"NO!" Mark wrote vigorously.
"We would keep fifty-one percent for ourselves," Stephen said.
Mark pointed at the "NO!" he had written and stabbed it with his finger.
Stephen nodded, moving on.
"Sixth," Stephen said, watching Mark closely now, "open the membership."
Mark frowned, his stitched lip hurting. He and Ira had argued over this repeatedly. Ira believed they were to be like Lot, leading all who would follow out of the city of Sodom—no one who would turn from wickedness was to be turned away. Mark believed that God would direct believers to them, much as Mark and Ira were brought together. After the flight of the
Rising Savior
they had been flooded with people wanting to join the Fellowship, some sincere, many others attracted to their technology. Mark's opposition to opening the membership had been tested when Ira had argued there were many who had never had the opportunity to hear of Mark's vision before the launch and thus never been able to choose whether to answer God's call.
"That's the list for now," Stephen said.
Mark knew their financial situation was desperate, and getting worse, and their enemies organizing, becoming more effective in their attacks. His arrest had been a masterful step. Somehow the Fellowship had to recover from this blow.
"EXERCISE ALL THE OPTIONS EXCEPT SELLING STOCK AND BEGINNING AN AIRLINE," Mark wrote.
Stephen nodded. "We thought that might be your response. We've selected deacons to implement each of the options you approved."
"WHY DO YOU NEED A LEADER?" Mark wrote, "YOU ALREADY DECIDED WHAT
TO DO."
Stephen smiled.
Mark wrote, "WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?"
"None have been returned, yet, but I can get some of them released if their fathers move out and we agree to regular visits by social workers. Unless you disagree, I think we should consent to those conditions."
Mark thought briefly. He had studiously avoided any government regulation of the Fellowship. Most of his followers had a similar distaste for the secular government, and bringing social workers into contact with his followers was like bringing a match to gasoline. He only hoped the love of their children would help them hold their tempers. Nodding to Stephen he gave him the go-ahead.
"I'm afraid a few of the children may get placed in foster care," Stephen said. "These are children they claim were most severely abused and will be key witnesses against you. Floyd's children are among those."
Mark frowned, ignoring the pain in his lip. Floyd and Evelyn would be heartsick, and there was nothing he could do to help them.
"Mark, you should know the court has ordered that some of the children see a clinical social worker. It's supposed to be for recovery therapy, but they'll use the visits to fish for evidence."
Like most of the Fellowship, Mark distrusted psychotherapists. The psychological solution to most problems was to learn to love yourself, ignoring the immoral behavior that was the source of your guilt. Mark worried about their children being subjected to psychotherapy and what might happen to the way they viewed the world. Were the Christian values their parents had taught them well enough ingrained to withstand a therapeutic assault? Children were easily confused, and in the hands of a professional therapist they would be as malleable as clay.