Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(39)

A tower of fluid seemed to fall towards us, like somebody had tipped the world on edge. It poised, leaning, roiling, balloons waving and shivering across its surface. We were chasing the god out. We were driving it into the flask. She fired the next line. It was like a mine going off. Curtains of water blew into the air, and the lights sent rainbows shooting through them, colors flaring in the air.

I heard Silverman’s voice. I couldn’t catch the words but something in it made me turn. Someone was running, straight at Angel. I threw myself between them. He was big. He hurtled into me and sent me flying. I hit the ground and at the same time turned, flailing with my arms, and grabbed the guy’s leg, rolling into him. He went down too. Someone else was standing over me and I kicked at him. People were yelling. There was a flash, a crack like a gunshot—and silence. Stillness.

I stood up slowly. I took a few steps back, away from the crowd of strangers who had gathered at the pond’s edge. I heard sobbing, wailing. I looked around for Angel.

She was on the ground. She was ten feet from the control box, and my first thought was that she’d been thrown there, that there had been some kind of blast, which I had somehow missed. I ran across to her. She was conscious, but dazed. I helped her to her feet.

The big tent was still standing. It dominated the scene, flanked by the lights. One of the rowboats lay upon the grass, its stern up in the air. The pond was as calm as glass. About a dozen helium balloons still wobbled over it. As I watched, something shiny broke the surface. Then another, and another.

“Oh, shit.”

I hadn’t even thought about the fish.

There were dozens of them.

Dead fish.

I felt really, really bad about the fish.



“You OK?”

She was groggy. I showed her the flask. “You did it,” I said.

I wasn’t getting a reaction from her.

“Angel.”

“Give me—” She raised her hands as if to fend me off. “Give me a minute . . .”

Richard Cleary, in a white shirt that caught the light, was shouting, jabbing his finger in the air.

He knew exactly what we’d done.

Which meant he knew exactly what manner of hokum he’d been perpetrating on his followers.

And he wasn’t yelling at me. He was yelling at his congregation. Talking about blasphemy. Sacrilege. Ungodliness . . .

It could have all got very nasty then. He had his heavies there, backed by a bunch of the congregation. There was a lot of talk about the law and the police and still more about settling things right then and there.

One thing saved us.

Silverman kept filming. And as long as he kept filming, everyone behaved.

They say that cameras can inflame a riot, that everyone will play up for the lens. But sometimes, they can calm things down.

It was a standoff, for the moment. I guided Angel to the car. She was lucid but unsteady. I wanted her out of there. I started to dismantle the equipment. I didn’t answer Cleary’s demands. I didn’t even look at him. When one guy moved towards me, Silverman stepped forward, too, making clear that he was going for a close-up.

“I will have justice,” Cleary warned. “I’ll find where you live, each every one of you—”

“I have sound, as well,” said Silverman.

I started reeling in the cables. We lost some—caught on something in the pond, connections snapped—and I had to walk out on the jetty to reel in the last few lengths.

I think it was the fastest cleanup that I’ve ever done.

There were bits of wet, shredded balloon still clinging to the wires, and strands of weed.

Everything stank of mud.

I threw it all in the back of the car.

Far off, I heard a siren.

I nodded to Silverman. He moved towards us, camera raised.

As we drove off, someone threw something—a rock, maybe—and it smacked on the rear door and Angel jumped, like a woken sleepwalker.

“What the hell?” she said.

By then we were out of the trees, bouncing down onto the street.

And we were gone.

The cop car passed us, heading back the way we’d come.





Chapter 36

Heading South




“You’re all right?”

“I’m good.”

We’d dropped off Silverman at his van. Now Angel and I were back at the Gemini, collecting our possessions, packing our bags.

It was time to leave town.

I watched her from the corner of my eye. She worked fast, efficiently, but now and then she’d pause, and cock her head to one side, like something had distracted her. It probably shouldn’t have bothered me, only it did.

“You want to see the doc, or something?”

“I’m fine.”

“You fell. You ought to get a CT, check for concussion.”

“I’m fine! Besides,” she grinned, “doc’s too busy, dealing with the TB. Right?”

“That’s a thing I’d definitely like to know some more about,” I said.

I settled with the night clerk. Told him we were heading for Chicago, which we weren’t, and wanted to make an early start.

The air outside was fresh and warm. The sky was just starting to lighten, up above the Taco Bell.

She stood there, one hand on the car door, and her head tipped back.