The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (31 page)

“I did, Father Bertrand,” Monsignor Green answers. “It is a strange sight indeed.”

The priest on the left is taller, paler, broad of shoulder and muscular. He slips the ends of a wooden hanger into the sleeves of the trench coat. “They’re protecting the Altar, Monsignor and they’ve even pushed back the Maxist lines.”

“I noticed that as well, Father Rowland.”

“I talked to a couple of them,” says another priest near them. “They told me that we’re not to worry about anything tonight. They are here to make certain the Mass is celebrated without incident.”

“I was told the same by the pair I stopped to talk to,” Father Green says. “But that’s all they would tell me.”

“Imagine that!” A fourth priest exclaims from across the tent.

“It’s a miracle!” declares a fifth priest.

Monsignor Francis Green smiles at the thought. He pulls the Missal card he received earlier in the evening out of his cassock pocket.

“It could be a miracle,” Monsignor Green concedes, looking at the holographic card held between his thumb and forefinger. Saint Michael stares up at him, regarding him through the laminate. The eyes of Satan are also fixed on the priest. He puts the card away into his pocket and looks up to see the eyes of his fellow clerics turned expectantly his way. “It’s likelier however that we’re dealing with something more mundane, I think, something very much human.”

“It’s got something to do with the President’s kidnapping, doesn’t it Monsignor?” The portly and dark skinned priest asks.

“And with the satellite failings?” Offers another.

“I’m afraid so,” Father Green answers. “It has got to be connected, all of it.”

A middle-aged Asian priest approaches the Monsignor with vestments in a neatly folded pile. Father Green picks up the folded white linen sheet sitting on top by the strings on its end. The sheet unfolds and the Monsignor kisses its sole ornament, a small cross stitched into a corner. The sheet is called an amice and it symbolizes the helmet of salvation, the trust a priest has in Jesus Christ. The Monsignor folds the square cloth in half, making a triangle of it and wraps it around the back of his head and shoulders while he prays, “Place O Lord, on my head, the helmet of salvation, that I may resist the assaults of the devil.”

Father Rowland tucks the amice around the Monsignor’s collar.

Father Green then takes the alb off of the pile of vestments. The long, white, linen garment unfolds in his hands, reaching to the ankles. It symbolizes the
innocence that should adorn the soul of a priest who ascends the altar. With the aid of the priests Rowland and Bertrand, the monsignor slips his arms into the sleeves. The two priests then straighten it front and back while Father Green prays under his breath, “Purify me O Lord, and cleanse my heart, that purified in the blood of the Lamb, I may deserve everlasting joys.”

“It’s a coup,” says a priest from the back of the tent. His brothers look from one to the other nervously.

Father Green grabs a tasseled, white cord off the pile. It is the cincture, an emblem of purity for the priesthood. Tying it around his waist he prays, “Gird me O Lord with the cincture of purity and suppress in my members every inordinate desire that the virtues of continence and chastity may ever abide in me.”

“A coup?” asks one of the younger priests. “Here in America?”

“Why not?”

The young priest doesn’t have an answer. He looks to Father Green.

“I would have to agree,” Monsignor Francis says.

The room goes quiet to consider the implications,

“Do you think Catholics would get mixed up in something like that?” The question is posed by another priest in the rear of the tent.

“It does appear so, does it not?” answers Father Green. “They’re protecting the altar. Father Randall and I were both told that we would be allowed to celebrate Mass unmolested. And to boot, no one has seen hide or hair of the Mayor.”

Father Bertrand shakes his head. “That’s hard to believe, Monsignor.”

“Two words,” says Father Green. “Guy Fawkes.”

“And you think something like that is happening out there?”

“It would appear that some of our faithful, outraged by the government, may have taken things into their own hands,” says the Monsignor.

While his brother priests consider the possibilities, Monsignor Francis takes the long and narrow piece of embroidered cloth called the stole, the symbol of the dignity and spiritual powers of the priesthood into his hands. He kisses the stole, then hangs it around his neck and prays, “Restore to me O Lord the stole of immortality which I lost through the sin of my first parents; and although I am unworthy to approach your sacred mysteries, may I be found deserving of everlasting joy.”

He crosses the two arms of the stole across his chest and secures their ends in place by slipping them under the cincture. Father Green is then handed the
maniple. He drapes the long narrow and ornately stitched cloth over his left forearm. Father Bertrand then secures it to his sleeve with a small pin. Originally a handkerchief carried in the left hand, the maniple symbolizes the ardent labor and hardship the priest must expect in his apostolate.

“Grant me O Lord,” the Monsignor prays. “To bear faithfully the maniple of weeping and sorrow in order that I may joyfully reap the rewards of my labors.”

The chasuble is the last vestment. It is the sleeveless outer garment, symbol of charity and the yoke of selfless devotion for the Lord which every priest assumes at ordination. In celebration of Christmas, it too is white. He picks it up, kisses it and prays as Rowland and Bertrand place it over him “O Lord who said, ‘My yoke is sweet and my burden is light;’ Grant that I may so carry it as to win your favor and grace.”

“My brothers in Christ,” Monsignor Francis Green addresses the tent full of clerics. “I know you all have a great many questions. I do too. We must put them aside for now and clear our heads and our hearts of everything but the service of our Lord through the Mass. Whatever happens tonight remember that you are priests and servants of God. From Peter, the Rock, unto this day, it has been our sacred duty to promote and defend the faith. We never do that so purely as when we celebrate the holy Mass. It is why we’re here. So long as we carry out our mission, our Lord will be with us now and unto the ending of the world. With His promise in our hearts, let us now pray.”

The priests gather in rough, concentric circles around the Monsignor. They cross themselves and link up in a huddle, arms across shoulders. Their heads bow.

Father Green begins the prayer to the Holy Spirit.

“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of thy love. Send forth Thy spirit and they shall be created.”

The fifty priests respond:

“And Thou shall renew the face of the earth.”

“Let us pray,” Father Green continues. “O God, who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen,” echo the fifty.

Monsignor Francis Green takes a deep breath and with a clap of his hands, exhales. “Alright boys, let’s go get our Mass on!”

Outside the tent, church bells start ringing!

18:00:00

Church bells toll around the globe. Simultaneously, power grids are shut down. The Western hemisphere is plunged into darkness. In Washington, DC, a hush falls on the crowds gathered in and around the National Mall.

Elmer Kidd can feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. Iron and brass, gold and silver tongues call and answer each other in thousands of voices. The ringing, the gongs and the clanging are incredible and nearly deafening. Elmer had no idea there were so many bells in Washington. He marvels at the sound but not without trepidation. Kidd is afraid that despite the bells, the sudden loss of lights will start a panic. Memories of his near death-by-stampede flood his mind. He reaches into his coat and pulls out his pair of Vision-Squared goggles. With a trembling hand, he slips them over his glasses. Through the V-2’s night-vision lenses, the darkness lifts and the world around him glows green. Elmer is relieved to find no signs of panic in the throngs of demonstrators. Few people are moving. They seem instead, transfixed by the ringing. Even the normally rowdy counter-demonstrators across Independence Avenue are frozen in place, stilled by the tolling of the bells.

Kidd allows himself to relax a little. Only a little however, for Elmer is still worried about the beefed up military presence. The city is under siege. The troops began pouring into DC when the satellites failed. The first batch seemed to materialize out of thin air. Kidd figured they were already in the city, camouflaged in civilian dress, just waiting for the right moment to put on their uniforms and riot gear. It was only a guess, because the soldiers weren’t talking to anyone. They only opened their mouths to order the curious to stay out of reach of their Stun-Rods. Those who ignored their warnings were zapped, ziptied and loaded onto waiting trucks that hauled them away. It was mostly the more confrontational of the Maxists that were taken away, but Kidd witnessed a reporter and her camera man like-wise tazered and tossed into the back of a truck for insisting that their questions be answered.

The bulk of the troops, thousands of them, are positioned around the park, forming a human barrier five-deep. Their lines are buttressed by a ring of army
trucks, every fifth one mounted with both water cannon and machine gun. Many more troops are spread throughout the capital, patrolling or guarding churches, monuments and Federal buildings. Most of the soldiers are arrayed in regular issue olive drab army uniforms and riot gear. But there are others, decked out in black, cross-emblazoned, battle plate armor. These are the soldiers that have everyone nervous. They make up the outside three lines ringing the park. Elmer sweeps his gaze at the nearest ones strung across Independence Avenue. They are standing at ease, riot shields at their sides, Stun-Rods lowered, and yet they still manage to project great menace.

At the end of a very long minute, the ringing begins to die down, the sound dwindling, it seems, one bell at a time. When the last bell’s last peal echoes away, an eerie silence follows. Elmer finds it as unnerving as the dark. He imagines it is the deepest silence to ever befall a crowd over a quarter of a million strong. Nobody moves. Every breath seems held in dread anticipation. Just when Kidd thinks the silence will deepen so much that it will implode and suck the world down into a soundless abyss, a frosty wind sweeps across the park. Its’ whistling and the soft rustle of trembling tree limbs gently break the silence. The wind then suddenly picks up. It whips through the trees, blowing the garlands of yesterday’s snow into misty clouds that glitter with the moonlight.

A small red glare in his goggles grabs Kidd’s attention away from the trees. He turns to his right and sees that the Jumbotrons have come on line again. He is not the only one to notice. The pinpoints of light at the screens’ center draw the eyes of all to the giant televisions. He removes his V-2’s and plucks his PalmPal from its sheath. The same image is playing on its small screen.

“Ernie?”

The computer does not respond.

Kidd returns the PalmPal to its sheath and looks back up at the nearest Jumbotron. The pinpoint of light pulses as it travels through a cosmos of streaking stars. After a minute it comes to a rest, the biggest, brightest burning star in a cloudless night sky. Milky white light cascades from it, falling in rippling waves to the earth below. The stream of luminescence bathes a lonely hill in a rocky waste. The hill looms closer and closer until a cave appears at its base. In the center of the cave a mother and swaddled child, horseshoed by farm animals, stare out at the world. The image of mother and babe grows, filling the
screen. The child raises His right hand, thumb, fore and index fingers raised in the ancient Christian salute.

A sudden, sustained chord, played on what sounds like a thousand pipe organs, shatters the stillness. Elmer, like most of the crowd, is startled by it. He hears it through the tiny speakers in his earrings and through the massive ones in the Jumbotrons; the sound, in fact, comes at him from everywhere at once. The volume swells, crescendos and then begins to fade. The picture of Mary and the Holy Infant grows faint with the sound, gradually disappearing into the background. As it does, the earth appears on the screens, spinning on its axis. The revolutions of the planet slow as the orbital view narrows, zooming in closer and closer. The chord dies out and music, a slowly lilting melody, begins playing on a single pipe organ. On the giant televisions a swirl of cloudbanks, continents and oceans fly across the screens, the surface looming closer with every turn of the planet. The birds-eye view of the world swoops through a layer of clouds in its downward spiral to the ground. Beneath the clouds, North America rolls from west coast to east. Voices join in the music, weaving Latin chant through the melody. After another tightening orbit around the planet, Washington DC fills the screens of the Jumbotrons. It is a live shot. The city is dark but for a dim light on the east end of the National Mall.

The darkness lifts suddenly as streetlamps come on again. The aerial shot zooms in over the east end of the park, its focus fixed on two columns of priests exiting a tent. Each one of the lead priests carries a large Crucifix. The next half-dozen sprinkle the crowd with Holy Water. Another six swing golden thuribles in wide arcs, leaving a trail of smoky incense in their wake. The others hoist banners with saints drawn upon them. Children walk out of two other tents and solemnly join up with the clerics, girls on one side and boys on the other. Each of them carries a ciborium, the large, golden cup which holds the Hosts to be distributed at Holy Communion. A lone priest follows at the end of the procession, carrying a large, covered chalice.

Everyone watches the solemn parade make its way to the steps of the Supreme Court Building. Over the procession, the lyrics of the
asperges,
the ritual sprinkling of holy water, scroll up the screens, Latin on the left and English on the right.