"So even if they show up, we can't really trust them."

"That's how we have to approach the situation."

Carlisle scowled. "Just great. What about Proverb's own security people?"

"They can deal with the stage and backstage area. That's what they do best. Those two big bodyguards, the Muslim and the cowboy, they can have the honor of shielding their boss with their bodies if anyone opens fire. They can have that all to themselves."

"Can I pick my own men?"

"Sure, as long as you leave me all the sharpshooters."

Carlisle put down his coffee cup and pushed himself away from the desk. "I guess I'll go and get started."

"There'll be a detailed briefing after tomorrow's roll call. I suggest you go over to the Garden and familiarize yourself with the place. Proverb's people are already in there setting up."

"I've worked the Garden before. I know it pretty well."

Carlisle moved to the door. He hesitated before letting himself out. "Can I ask you something?"

"You usually do."

"How does the NYPD feel about Aden Proverb?"

Parnell looked him straight in the eye. "Having a public figure killed in our jurisdiction can't do the department any good at all. Is that what you wanted to know?"

Carlisle nodded. Then he turned and left.

Winters

The theological advisory officer's steel-rimmed glasses were just sufficiently tinted to make it impossible to see his eyes. He could not have been past his early thirties, but his sandy blond hair was already thinning. Hie harsh white lights over the lecture room rostrum were reflected from his bald crown.

"Ostensibly we will be providing security backup to the NYPD, but in reality, we have a much more important mission at the Alien Proverb service at Madison Square Garden."

The TAO carefully placed the flat palm of his hand on the lectern in front of him. It was the ultimately controlled version of slamming down his fist.

"Heresy, gentlemen. We will be there to detect heresy."

He paused for a moment to let his words sink in.

"Shall we think about heresy, gentlemen? Heresy is the worst of crimes, worse even than rape, murder, or terrorism. These others, although they are in themselves sufficiently heinous to warrant the putting to death of the perpetrator, are crimes against person and property and as such are the legitimate province of the secular police. Heresy, on the other hand, is a crime against the Lord our God, and without the Lord, our civilization would fail, and we would be back in the Satanic darkness that we only so recently struggled out of."

There was nodding among the keener of the junior deacons, led off by Rogers and a couple of others. Winters joined in just a little late. The TAO went on.

"We are the defenders of the faith, gentlemen, and the heretic is the greatest enemy of that faith. The heretic is a contagion that must be rooted out wherever it lurks. I repeat, wherever it lurks."

He put particular emphasis on the word 'wherever'.

"We will be at the Proverb service to observe. As of this moment, there is no investigation and no crime. No complaint has been laid, and there are no suspects, but as you all well know, the agents of Satan can reveal themselves anywhere and at any time. We must be constantly on our guard, watching for heretics both among the audience and on the stage."

Although it had not been stated, the message was clean Proverb was wider surveillance. There had been rumors about Aden Proverb's lack of favor in Washington for some time. There ted always been a gulf between him and the Faithful establishment, but recently it had grown visibly wider. It appeared that Proverb was doing everything to maximize the schism. He was appealing more and more to the wild and wooliest of nonconformists and even attracting out-and-out unbelievers. Proverb was still far too powerful to be directly accused, but the oblique instructions were clear. They were to start quietly collecting evidence. It was the first stage to laying a case.

Junior Deacon Milton raised his hand. "What if we detect overt heresy at the service? Do we attempt to make arrests?"

"You do nothing. No matter what the provocation."

The TAO half smiled. On the scarce occasions that he showed an emotion, his face became almost skull-like, with the tinted glasses providing the empty, shadow-filled sockets. It was as if his skin had been stretched too tight by the constant contempt in which he held an imperfect world.

"This is an occasion when the virtue of patience will have to be cultivated."

Winters raised his hand. "Intelligence reports indicate that a large number of the Presley people will be present at the service."

The TAO was no longer smiling. "I have seen the intelligence reports."

"Could this not have the potential of becoming a mass demonstration of heretical behavior?"

"You have touched on a less than well defined area, Junior Deacon… what was your name?"

"Winters, sir." Winters always dreaded what might happen when a superior asked him his name.

The TAO nodded. "Our first problem, Winters, is that there has never been a definite consensus regarding the exact nature of the Elvi. It has never been finally decided whether they are legally heretical or simply an extreme form of nonconformist sect akin to the snake handlers. The confusion is compounded by the fact that attitudes to this kind of extremism differ sharply from region to region. Here in the somewhat better educated North, we seek a certain orthodoxy and tend to be a little appalled by " – his face took on a brief expression of mild distaste – "the idea of worship via reptile. In the South and West, however, they have a much greater traditional tolerance of the bizarre. I have my own opinions about what should be done to the whole pack of them, but these are personal, and I would have no place expressing them here. Until we have specific instructions, we also do nothing about the Elvi."

"Under no circumstances?"

"Under no circumstances whatsoever, Winters. I don't care if they are crawling on the floor and publicly fornicating. We do nothing except remind ourselves that our day will come and we will have everything."

The skull-like half smile came again.

Kline

She drank coffee and tried to pull herself together. She felt awful. If this was what fame was, it might well kill her. She rummaged through her handbag, looking for the piece of paper from the night before, the blue paper that the cocaine had come in. From the moment that she had seen the Lefthand Path symbol on the inside of the packet, fear had tinged her drunken haze. Now it was morning, and all that remained was the hangover and the fear. The apartment looked even more cramped and dingy than it usually did, and the sunlight seemed to be struggling to cut through the smoggy air. Indeed, the whole of life seemed to be a depressing struggle. It was bad enough having a couple of drunken lesbian strangers offer her a drug that could get her five years, but to see the symbol of her secret and highly illegal organization on the inside of the packet had brought her close to hysteria. Fortunately Longstreet had simply assumed that she was drunk and incoherent. He had, in fact, seemed quite amused by her situation. In the cold gray of the morning, she wondered if he thought he was corrupting her.

She found the blue packet where she had hidden it in the lining of her bag. The woman Webster had not wanted the packet back. With a conspiratorial grin she and her companion had gone, leaving Cynthia swaying in the black-glass bathroom, looking Wearily from the packet of coke to the infinite repetitions of her reflection in the multiple mirrors. With about the last shred of her presence of mind, she had sniffed up the remaining powder through the hundred-dollar bill and concealed the paper in the torn lining of her bag. The last thing she needed was to be caught with a quantity of coke.