The president had been right when he said at some point "damn soon" they were going to have to trust somebody and despite his concern about trusting anyone, if he had to choose someone here and now it would be Woody, if for no other reason than his flying skills. He could come in over those treetops, set the chopper down in that small parking lot behind the church and get them the hell out of there faster and more safely than anyone he knew. In the worst-case scenario afterward, if he tried to fly them to the CIA jet, both Hap and Marten were armed and could force him to set the aircraft down wherever they chose.

The situation here was more immediate. One way or another they would soon be trying to get out to that parking lot and text-messaging Woody for rescue. By cutting the building's power, which he agreed would most probably release the electronic door locks, it would let them set their own timetable for when they would go out instead of having to wait for the ceremony to end and be at the mercy of whatever else might happen then.

Added to that was the fact that Marten's attempt to rescue the women would cause a major disruption in the church. Whatever Marten did when he went in would happen fast and mostly in the dark. Because of it the vice president, Beck, Luciana, the monks, everyone, would be taken wholly by surprise. Maybe Marten and the women would escape, maybe not, but either way confusion would rule. It was just that upheaval that Hap saw as giving him the best opportunity yet to get the president out alive.

"Me." Abruptly José stepped forward. He looked at the president and spoke in Spanish, "I understand a little of what you are saying. I will go with Mr. Marten. Together we will be Hap's 'team.' "

The president stared at him, then smiled. "Gracias," he said and quickly translated.

"What the hell is he going to do but get in the way?" Hap said.

"Be a diversion," Marten said quickly. "He's Spanish. He's dressed in a maintenance uniform. He becomes the front guy out there on the stage with a flashlight. Somebody asks him a question, he answers something like the power went out and he was told to see if he could fix it." Marten paused. "It gives me time, Hap. Thirty seconds, a minute when everyone's looking at him and I'm on the back part of the stage going for the women."

"Right," Hap agreed. It was one more card for them to play in the darkened church, giving them that much more of a complication and that much more of a chance to get the president out.

Immediately the president nodded toward the locked narrow door in the wall. "Open that up and let's look at the electrical panels. Shoot the locks off-there's no time for anything else."

Marten slid the Sig Sauer from his belt, then took off his shirt and wrapped it around the muzzle for a makeshift silencer.

At the same moment the chant of the monks rose. It was strong and deliberate and powerful, as if the immediate precursor to some event. Suddenly a wall of blue-red flame erupted through the fog. A great cry went up from the congregation as, in an instant, the flame encircled first Demi and then Cristina.

"Oh God, no!" the president breathed, his eyes locked on the monitors.

They saw Demi on a dozen screens as she fought wildly against the bonds that held her firmly to the Aldebaran cross but her struggle was impossible and she knew it. Wide-eyed in terror, she stared at the flames surrounding her then looked to Cristina.

"The ox was a lie!" she yelled. "A trick! You were betrayed! Your family was betrayed! All the families through the centuries have been betrayed! You thought this was part of a deep sacred religion! It is!" Her eyes shifted to congregation. "But it's theirs, not yours!"

They saw Luciana smile jubilantly, then step to the front of the stage and, like the grand actress she was, throw her arms wide to the congregation and call out something in their ritual tongue. En masse they repeated it. Again she spoke, her eyes luminous, her phrasing distinct and powerful, as if she were calling forth ancient gods. Then without warning she drew her arms around her and stepped back, vanishing into the fog.

Seconds later an apparition in a hooded black robe appeared from the very same spot. It crossed to the front of the stage and raised its head.

Beck.

Slowly he raised his arms to the gathering, and in his great melodious voice and in the same unknown tongue Luciana had used, he unleashed what sounded like a mighty oration. At length he finished and the congregation answered back. Again Beck preached. Again the congregation answered back. Then Beck gave them more. And then more still. With every breath intensifying his blistering salutation as if to draw down the heavens.

Each time the congregation responded. Each time Beck increased his delivery. His passion, momentum, and fervor bellowing forth like some unstoppable hell-bound train. It was a colossal, highly orchestrated performance designed to boil the blood and make unforgettable the emotion of this heavily guarded, closely shared experience. And Beck kept it going until the entire building threatened to collapse under the sheer force of it.

It might well have been ancient Rome.

Or Nazi Germany.

Pop! Pop!

Marten fired the Sig Sauer. The locks on the electrical-room door blasted apart. In an instant Hap ripped it open and then he and Marten and the president moved into the small room. Directly in front of them was a massive electrical panel with two dozen large circuit breakers, with an indication in Spanish of what area of the church each circuit was for. At the top were two larger switches with the words Alimentación Exterior-Outside Feed-lettered in bold black directly above them. Those were the ones the president wanted.

"There may be other panels in the building but those two should shut down everything."

"That door we just came through," Hap was suddenly looking around, "is not an emergency access to this room. It's the only access. Somebody wanted complete control over who got in here."

"Foxx," Marten said. Then something caught his eye: a second narrow steel door mounted into yet another solid concrete wall at the far end of the room. This door, like the first, had flush-mounted hinges but no noticeable hardware, no knob and no apparent lock. What it did have was centered in the wall just above it-the same kind of infrared sensor that had been mounted alongside the monstrous steel door at the end of the monorail tunnel.

Marten took a step closer, looking from that wall to the one next to it that separated the electrical room from the video room. The walls met at right angles, as they should. The difference was the wall here was set a good three feet farther into the room than the same wall in the room where the monitors were mounted.

Suddenly every hair stood up on his neck. He turned to the president. "All those monitors, all those cameras, the automated moves and cutaways that seem preprogrammed. I'll bet that on the other side of that door is some kind of electronic copying device, a computer, maybe something else. They're recording the whole thing: the names of the attendees, places and dates of birth, the close-ups of their faces, their DNA samples, as well the show itself. Putting everything onto a master disc or hard drive or both. Whatever it is amounts to a contemporary version of their ancient 'heavily guarded journal.' It's their protection against themselves.

"These two secured rooms are built side by side like military bunkers. This, like everything else, is Foxx's work, his brain trust. Fireproof, probably even bombproof, set up so no one would get in here without his knowledge or supervision. All the electronics are impeccably designed to make a permanent record of the proceedings without anyone ever touching it and at the same time making certain no one could get anywhere near the master controls to corrupt them. You said you had no proof, Mr. President. If I'm right, there's a treasure of information on the other side of that door."