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65
The Tour Unfolds

Lee awoke to Lor Lu's hand on her arm. "You may want to freshen up," he told her, then walked forward to his "office."

The bus was moving down a city street. She looked at her watch—7:08 a.m., Central Time. The town, she supposed, was still Davenport. Getting up, she started back toward the women's restroom. Dove sat upright in the back seat, as before, and she wondered if he'd slept at all—or moved at all—during the night.

She washed, tidied her hair and fixed her face, skipping the shower. The water pressure was too weak to enjoy, and the space a bit tight for dressing and undressing. She might, she thought, try it out when she had more time and greater need.

At an interstate exchange they pulled into a restaurant parking lot. It wasn't a publicized stop, and there was no crowd. The phoned-in orders were waiting—mostly assorted omelets, ranging from spicy Mexican to American cheese, with buttered toast and half-pint cartons of juices and milk. The bus had its own hot drink and cold drink stations.

The tour crew's service team went in to pick them up, and Lee went with them to handle the charges. The bus stayed in the lot for nearly thirty minutes, long enough for the TV crews to get their orders, then they all pulled out together. By that time a number of people had come outside to stare at the bus.

Their first healing stop of the day was at a mall parking lot on the fringe of Galesburg, Illinois. West of Galesburg they left the four-lane, and by noon had made scheduled stops at a truckstop outside Monmouth, the village park in Roseville, and outside the high school at Macomb. Here and there along the way, people stood at country crossroads, or on the roadside in front of farmhouses. Once, one of the watchers sat waiting in a wheelchair. On another occasion, one watched propped on wrist crutches. In each instance, Bar Stool had stopped. Dove had gotten out, walked back and healed the person. The network cameras captured all of it.

* * *

During that day and the next three, they wove their intermittent way generally southward. They meandered as far west as Hannibal and Bowling Green, in Missouri, then eastward again, headed for Springfield, Illinois, then southward, with what to Lee was a blur of stops. Meanwhile they'd acquired an ever-lengthening train of companion vehicles that began with the TV trucks. And of course there were the highway patrol escorts, their identity changing with the jurisdiction. More and more other vehicles attached themselves: cars, vans, pickups, retired school buses, a truck with a canvas cover . . . vehicles filled with passengers who wanted to "be in the presence," as one had said to a TV news anchor.

* * *

Now and then, one of the tour group would sit next to Dove and they'd talk, briefly and quietly. Mostly, though, he sat alone, erect but relaxed, smiling. Lor Lu told Lee that what Dove was doing was restful; physically equivalent to meditation. Bodies were subject to physical limitations, he said, even when the occupant was the Infinite Soul, and the energy flows involved in mass healings and levitation were hard on Dove's body.

Lee herself felt remarkably good—strong—despite not having slept in a proper bed. As Lor Lu's assistant, she dealt with a lot of details, and was pleased at how well things worked out. She depended almost entirely on people she didn't know, and would never meet except on the Web or the phone, asking them to improvise. Her past experience had been that in situations requiring constructive improvisation, people were likely to screw up—bog down or self-destruct or drop the ball. You had to work out the details for them, break things down into easy steps. Here there was limited opportunity for that, but mostly things went well anyway.

Shortly after leaving McLeansboro, Illinois, the tour crew was eating carry-out lunches while watching CNN's NewsStand. Clips of the healings at East St. Louis and Mt. Vernon were shown. At both, Dove had healed while levitating. After the clips, a physicist from Penn State University was questioned about Dove's levitations. "They're faked," he said, "the result of technology, not holiness. During the last year," he went on, "two different research projects have been closing in on a practical anti-gravity device. And one of Millennium's supporters is Harlan Springer, president and CEO of Leading Echelon, one of the world's major high-tech development firms."

"How do you explain the auras?"

The professor snorted. "That one's easy. They're wearing generators."

"Can these generators be bought in stores or on the Web?"

The professor paused, looking confused. "On the Web, possibly," he said at last. "You can find anything on the Web. Or Springer could provide them."

On the Web possibly? He's not a very good liar, Lee told herself. Now if he'd said Motorola's model 6X-B at $84.95—something like that—he might have been believable. 

"What about the people in the crowd who show auras?"

"Shills. People Millennium inserted in the crowd to add to the effect."

It surprised Lee that she didn't feel angry at the professor. The realization was spooky. Looking around, the most evident emotion on the bus seemed to be amusement. Dove himself was chuckling.

* * *

She had slack time now and then, and spent some of it reading a book of Ngunda's dialogues. A month earlier she couldn't have imagined doing something like that.

One of the service team was Jenny Buckels, who'd guided Lee through Life Healing. The procedure had involved communication at a level Lee had never consciously experienced before; thus Lee had bonded to her strongly. Riding through the rural Illinois night, after the long second day, Lee sat down beside Jenny, and they talked quietly for half an hour. As her facilitator, Jenny had learned a lot about Lee's past. Now Lee began to learn something of Jenny's. She left impressed; this was a strong young woman.

* * *

The truck stop was an oasis of lights in the night blackness of rural Posey County, Indiana. A large Rent & Haul truck was parked in the dimness near a back corner of the lot. The only other vehicles within two hundred feet were semis parked for sleeping. A delivery van drew up only yards from the rental truck, behind it and to one side. It bore the name of a major restaurant supply company. The driver of the van got out, followed by two others.   

Matthew Shaughnessy got out from the cab of the rental truck and met them in the darkness, peering closely at the driver's face, making sure of his identity. "Any problems?" Shaughnessy asked. "Anything suspicious?"  

"No. Surprised?"  

Shaughnessy didn't answer. Instead he said, "You've heard Unit Three's report."  

The man nodded. His van had a security band radio with descrambler. His was a highly demanding and unforgiving business, with clients that included African warlords, foreign drug lords. . . . "The local yokels aren't on top of it at all," he said. "Sounds like a gimme."  

Shaughnessy's lips moved a couple of times before anything came out, as if he was talking to himself. "Any of your people coming down with second thoughts?"  

"You've got to be kidding."  

"I'm following protocol. Are there?"  

The man half-laughed his answer. "Hell no!"  

"Let's get on with it then," Shaughnessy said. He stepped to his truck's rear door, unlocked it, raised the latch and lifted. The door slid up almost soundlessly on its tracks. There were men inside. They handed out two large canvas bags. Two of the van driver's men took them, and the driver signed Shaughnessy's receipt book. When the transfer was complete, he offered his hand to Shaughnessy. "Wish us luck," he said.  

Shaughnessy looked at the hand but did not take it. He did say "good luck" however, as if it hurt, then turned away and climbed into the rental truck's cab.  

The van's driver got into his own vehicle. Feeb asshole, he thought, and laughed. He'd neither wanted nor expected a handshake—in his profession he was used to assholes—he'd simply wanted to see if he'd get one. The guy had struck him as a rogue Feeb, and for him, the refusal to shake hands confirmed it. Starting the motor, he swung the van past the rental truck, then drove to the I-64 on-ramp and out of sight. 

* * *

At the edge of Evansville, the parking lot of the "Cornbelt Super Multiplex" was a mob scene. The sheriff's department estimated the crowd at 12,000—some from at least as far as Cincinnati—and for the umpteenth time, Dove had levitated to do his healing.

It was the first place they'd been exposed to open hostility—an angry man waving a pistol, shouting obscenities about the antichrist. But he hadn't fired. People around him had disarmed him—taken him down and held him for the police. To Lee, watching from a window, it was a sobering sight. If someone shot Dove, would he heal himself? Christ had died, and so had Buddha.

* * *

More sobering to Art Knowles had been a report from the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Department. A State Patrol cruiser had stopped a delivery van, and been struck by a storm of automatic weapons fire that killed both officers. An unmarked backup car, two hundred feet away, had seen it happen, and reported by radio. Before the van could leave the scene, a patrolman jumped out of the backup cruiser and hit the van with an antiarmor rocket. The rocket, and the brief firefight that followed, killed four of the six occupants and critically wounded the other two. Only the driver carried identification, probably false.

Knowles suggested to Lor Lu they discontinue the tour. It had been a huge success already. He wasn't surprised, though, when Lor Lu said they'd continue. He even thought he knew why.

* * *

On the road to Louisville, the farthest east they'd go, Dove called Lee over to sit by him. "Your duties here are demanding," he said, "and you do them well."

"Thank you."

"You will do more, before you have finished. The vectors are unequivocal on that. And if any further evidence were needed, you are the mother of your daughters." He paused. "Tell me what attracted you to Ben."

She supposed he knew, and wanted her to look at it. But she missed what he was after, so he led her.

"What body type had always attracted you?"

She looked at that. Not dark-complexioned men, nor tall gangly men. She'd favored football types, particularly blonds. But when she'd met Ben, she'd never even thought about that. He was the one. Dove nodded as if he read her mind. "Remarkable, isn't it. Despite your parents and their pressures, and the acculturation of your adolescent coterie, you recognized Ben when you saw him. Your purpose and your agreement were strong. Congratulations!"

When her goose flesh had settled down, she thanked him and left.

* * *

After Mount Vernon, Illinois, they traveled divided highways almost exclusively. The train of vehicles following them formed an unacceptable traffic problem on lesser roads. Even on the interstates, from time to time the police stopped the entire train except the TV trucks, holding them until the bus was miles ahead. But the train soon reconstituted itself from those who caught up again, plus newcomers.

On a number of occasions the "messiah followers" had informed the police of vehicles whose occupants were behaving "suspiciously." Mostly the drivers proved to be high, but on three occasions the passengers had been armed with sniper rifles or automatic weapons, and there'd been another shoot-out, with casualties. Art Knowles and Lor Lu were kept informed, and Lor Lu told the crew.

* * *

Lee had arranged with a national supermarket chain to meet the cavalcade at prearranged points with "deli trucks," providing a considerable selection of sandwiches, salads, hot soup, pizza. . . . Before arranging a meeting with one of them, she'd ask the police escort how long the train was. Then she'd inform the supermarket chain headquarters. For the most part, the police let her know in advance of plans to chop the train off.

Every healing stop had become more or less like the one at Evansville: a huge mass of cars and people, with hundreds waiting to be healed. And the whole country witnessed it. Seldom had so many people followed an event so closely, in America and internationally.

* * *

Matthew Shaughnessy had two strike teams of his own. The problem was positioning them. In the cab of his headquarters truck, he could monitor Millennium's "Tour News" on the WebWorld, and generally knew when the bus was scheduled to be somewhere. But those somewheres were always loaded with cruisers and police, while a hit attempt along the highway was high risk. Any vehicle waiting beside the road was quickly investigated, and there was always at least one police chopper overhead, with more standing by, ready to act.  

He was also monitoring the police channels, but there was so damned much radio traffic on them, a lot of it pulse traffic that had to be descrambled. And for the most part he never knew which call units were which, and which were important. He felt like a blind man groping through a heap of chocolates, hunting for the raspberry creme centers. Finally he'd settled on command channels, which greatly reduced the radio traffic to sort through, but mostly lacked needed details.  

Obviously Forsberg hadn't foreseen the amount of police resources the states and counties would invest in protecting these Millennium sonsofbitches. And one thing about Forsberg you could rely on: he was a tightwad, never willing to assign adequate backup units for contingencies.   

Now, of course, Forsberg didn't have anything remotely like the resources he'd had as director, not in quantity and sure as hell not in quality. And he'd failed to realize that mercenaries lacked the brains and discipline for a mission like this. If that strike force in Indiana had been driving within eight miles per hour of the speed limit, they wouldn't have been stopped. And if they'd been paying attention, they'd have seen the backup cruiser, for crissake, and taken it out when they took out the first one.

He'd have to rely on his own wits, and improvise. It was what he did best. Probably, he told himself, that's why Forsberg had sought him out. That and his perseverence.  

* * *

On the twelfth evening, the tour bus pulled up to a small motel on I-40, at the east edge of Memphis. Lor Lu had reserved it for Millennium and its media entourage. National guardsmen had kept the parking lot clear, and people well away. Their pitch was, "Stay back, folks. Even messiahs have to get their rest." It seemed to work.

Lee had showered and was getting ready for bed when someone knocked. "Who is it?" she asked.

"Security, Miz Shoreff."

Security? It wasn't a voice she knew. Motel security, she decided.

"Just a minute," she said. "I just got out of the shower." After wrapping herself in her bathrobe, she set the safety chain on the door, and opened it a few inches. Through the gap she saw a uniformed man with a star on his shirt. "You Miz Shoreff?" he asked.

"Yes, I am."

He handed her a folded paper. "Sorry, ma'am," he said, and waited while she unfolded it, scanned it, then braced herself on the doorpost. The Shelby County Sheriff's sergeant repeated himself. "I really am sorry, ma'am," he said quietly, then turned and left.

The words she'd read, the operative words, filled her mind, blocking out everything else. Monroe County District Court—appear on July 16—in three days!—to give reason why your daughters, Rebecca and Raquel Kramer, should not be remanded to the court for disposition to their father.

After closing the door, she sat down heavily on a chair, and for a moment stared at nothing. Then she straightened. "You have resources, Lee," she muttered. "Use them." She'd gotten up and started for the phone, when it rang. She answered.

"Lee, this is Art. Something urgent has come up. Everyone needs to be on the bus, with their bags, by eleven. Not a minute later, because that's when we leave."

She hung up frowning, then moving quickly, began to dress and pack. She'd talk to Lor Lu on the bus.

 

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