"Your wild card gave you a false belief in your own immortality, and the Lord has seen a way to warn you of its falsity, remind you whence true immortality lies, and spare you to do His work."

There was a knock on the door. As the sound pulled him out of his track, Barnett seemed to jolt slightly. He looked at the door.

"Come in."

Fleur entered with a Bloody Mary in a one frigid hand. "Mr. Braun's drink."

Jack smiled at her. "Call me Jack. Please."

She glared at him while Jack took the drink from her hand and looked into it under the rims of his shades to see if perhaps she'd spit in it.

"Thank-you so much, Fleur." Barnett didn't smile quite as warmly this time. His words were a dismissal, and Fleur obeyed.

Jack sipped his drink. It was excellent: apparently someone in the press room knew how to keep the journalists happy. "Is it good?" Barnett seemed genuinely curious.

"It's fine." Jack took a bigger swallow.

"I've never…" Barnett waved a hand. "Well, that doesn't matter." Surprise rang through Jack at Barnett's wistful tone, precisely that of a small boy whose mother. won't let him outside to play in the rain.

Maybe, Jack thought, Barnett really hadn't had any choice in his life.: Maybe they'd all been made for him. Maybe the only time he ever did anything he wasn't supposed to was when he ran away to the Marine Corps.

Hell, he thought savagely. Nobody makes you run for president.

Barnett leaned back in his armchair, steepling his fingertips under his chin. His attention had returned fully to Jack. Jack looked at the preacher carefully from behind his big shades.

"I'd like to tell you about a dream of mine, Jack," Barnett said. His voice was soft, gentle. "The Lord put it into my mind some years ago. In this dream, I found myself in a giant orchard. Everywhere I looked there were fruit trees, all rich with God's abundance. There were all sorts of fruit in the orchard, Jack, cherries and oranges and apples and persimmons and plums-every conceivable variety all filling God's vast cornucopia. The orchard was so beautiful that my heart just swelled up with joy and gladness. And then-" Barnett looked up to the ceiling, as if he was seeing something there. Jack found his eyes following the preacher's, then caught himself. Stage craft, he thought. He took a healthy swallow of his Bloody Mary.

"And then a cloud came over the sun," Barnett continued, and a dark rain began to fall from the cloud. The rain fell here and there in the orchard, and wherever it touched, the fruit was blighted. I could see all the oranges and lemons turning black and falling from the tree; I could see leaves withering and dying. And more than that, I could see the blight growing even after the rain passed, I could see the darkness reaching out to try to taint the healthy trees. And then I heard a voice.

The preacher's voice changed, deepened, became stern. A chill surged up Jack's spine at the completeness of the transformation. "'I give this orchard into thy keeping. Unto thee I give the task of destroying this blight."'

Barnett's voice and manner changed again. He was fervent, exultant. His powerful voice rang in the small room. "I knew the fruits of the orchard were God's children, made in His image. I knew the rain cloud was Satan. I knew the blight was the wild card. And I threw myself down on my face. `Lord!' I prayed. `Lord, I am not strong enough. I am not worthy for this task.' And the Lord said, `I will give thee strength!"' Barnett was screaming now. "`I will make thy heart as steel! I will make thy tongue as sharp as a sword, and of thy breath a whirlwind!' And I knew I had to do as the Lord asked of me."

Barnett jumped out of his chair, paced back and forth as he talked. Like God was jerking his chain, Jack thought.

"I knew I had the power to heal the wild card! I knew that the Lord's work had to be done, that His orchard had to be pruned!" He waved a finger at Jack. "Not as my critics would charge!" he said. "I would not prune wickedly, or arbitrarily, or maliciously. My critics say I want to put jokers in concentration camps!" He gave a laugh. "I want to put them in hospitals. I want to cure their affliction, and keep it from spreading to their children. I think it is sinful of the government to keep wild card research at such a low level of funding-I would multiply it tenfold! I would wipe this plague from the Earth!"

Barnett turned to Jack. To Jack's amazement there were tears in his eyes. "You're old enough to remember when tuberculosis was a plague upon the land," Barnett said. "You remember all the hundreds and thousands of tubercular sanatoriums that sprang up all over Arizona and New Mexico, where victims were kept from infecting others while science worked on a cure. That's what I want to do for the wild card."

"Jack!" Barnett was pleading. "The Lord has prolonged your life! The Lord has spared you from death! This can only be because He has a place for you in His plan. He wants you to lead the victims of this plague to their salvation. `He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.' Healed, Jack!" Barnett's face was joyful, rapturous. He stood in front of Jack, raised his hands triumphantly. "Won't you help me, Jack! Help me bring the cure to God's afflicted! Pray with me now, Jack! `Verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God-but as many received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name.",

Jack, to his astonishment, felt as if a giant hand had gripped him by the neck and flung him out of his chair. Suddenly he was on his knees in front of the preacher, his two hands raised and clasped between the hands of the Reverend Leo Barnett. Tears streamed down Barnett's face as he lifted his head and cried out in prayer.

"`Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things become new. "' The man's power was almost palpable, Jack thought. This couldn't be all good showmanship and razzle-dazzle. Jack knew about showmanship; he'd never seen anything like this.

He's an ace, Jack thought. My god, he really is an ace. Maybe he'd never really believed it till this minute. Barnett was an ace, and Jack was going to bring him down.

Cal Redken sounded like the acne-scarred junk-food addict he was. In the background of all his conversations was the rustle of plastic wrappers; his words were slurred by the effort of sneaking around wads of Twinkies, Snickers, and Fritos. He sounded fat and slow and lazy.

Only the first of those was true.

Gregg had taken him as a puppet long ago, more from reflex than desire. He'd played with Redken's voracious appetite, mildly amused that he could make a man eat until he was literally, sickeningly, stuffed. But that had not fed Puppetman particularly well, and Gregg had rarely utilized his link. Redken was not Hiram-an ace with peculiar abilities and tastes. Redken was a competent, if sedentary, investigator. There was no one better at following the confusing labyrinth of bureaucracy. It had been Redken who'd put together overnight-the unproved web of conjecture with which Gregg had confronted Tachyon.

Now, he'd make sure the conjecture became fact.

The phone rang twice at the other end, followed by an audible gulp and "Redken."

"Cal, Gregg Hartmann here."

"Senator." Cellophane tore in the background; a new snack being opened. "You get my package all right?"

"Early this morning, Cal. Thanks."

"No sweat, Senator. Interesting stuff you had me looking up," he added reflectively. He took a bite of something, chewing noisily.