“True, Hayes, but it’s like it’s … different with Andy. He never wants anything back. I think Amos looks at Andy like he’s a clean spirit”. They’re confidants, they pray together. Uttleman paused. “Maybe it’s what’s holding Amos together.”

Johnson leaned the porch rail, arms crossed and looking down a head’s-height to Uttleman. “You think singer-boy can keep Amos together another four days?”

“Four days?” The physician’s eyes widened. “It’s happening that soon?”

“It’s what Eliot wants, no way around it. He’s pouring money into the project like water, had the fabricators working three shifts. The bottom assembly’s arriving tomorrow, the last piece. It’ll take two days of crane work to fit everything together.”

“And Owsley?”

“Our Mobile pastor’s come to, uh, understand Eliot. And conform himself to that understanding. In return, he’s the newest member of the COG family, soon to receive a daily show in mid-afternoon. I expect much of our new brother.”

Uttleman cleared his throat. “Pastor Owsley’s wife seems kind of … chilly. Think he might be one to join our little—”

Johnson raised his hand. “Plenty of time to gauge the man’s needs. But that aspect is going to be curtailed for a while.”

“Because of the police questions?”

Johnson nodded, unconcerned. “Best we take a hiatus of a couple months, Roland. Rid ourselves of the current choices. A clean start come fall.”

Uttleman sighed dramatically and falsely. “Just when I thought Greta was starting to like me.”

Johnson smiled and gave Uttleman a reassuring pat on his shoulder. “We’ll have a final party, Roland. The night of the event. When the roof is drawn back on the tower and the stars are shining down on the event, we’ll be miles away, savoring our own, uh, spiritual moments. When Amos’s rash promise becomes reality and he’s free, he’ll become the Amos of old. Can you imagine what his second escape from death will do to attendance at Hallelujah Jubilee?”

“You said Eliot needs it to happen in four days …” Uttleman said. “Any special reason?”

“You’ve been out here too long, Roland,” Johnson grinned. “You’ve lost track of time. What’s special about that day? And why will it please Eliot?”

Uttleman ran the calendar in his head. He slapped his forehead in an Aha! moment.

“Damn, Hayes. It’s Pentecost.”

Harry Nautilus dropped Ryder at the airstrip, shooting a thumbs-up as the noisy gizmo shivered improbably into the sky. He hated choppers, damn things had the glide path of a brick. Bird and bees had wings, not rotors, which was the design nature intended.

Feeling an odd sense of renewal, he headed back to the motel to formulate a plan. He could be Carson’s eyes up here, but given the deadly events in Miami, he’d have to look close and fast.

His return path took him near the structure and he felt its gravity pulling him close. Just another look … see if anything new is up. Owsley was there and working, whatever the hell he did, and though he’d been brought back to his digs by someone from the crew on the structure, Nautilus had an excuse to visit.

He turned on to the rutted lane to the building. Rounding the first bend he saw a crew of three guys bolting a heavy steel gate to freshly installed stanchions. It was a natural choke point, scrub forest crowding one side, a steep drop-off into the drainage ditch on the other. One of the men glared and waved for Nautilus to stop, but he smiled and waved nonchalantly as he blew by, a cloud of dust and cursing in his wake.

The first thing he noticed on his approach was two bright new Chevy Suburbans – black and cobalt – parked by the guardhouse instead of the beater truck driven by the yokel Nautilus had lured from his post. The second was an empty semi rig parked beside the fuel and water tanks. Seemed another big piece had been delivered. Nautilus looked past the semi and saw a Towne Car with a trailer. The cranky old fart was here.

A hard-eyed block of meat and muscle was out of the guardhouse before Nautilus was in Park. Gone was the forest-ranger outfit, the new guy wearing a suit as black as his scowl. The breeze caught his jacket and displayed a shoulder rig carrying a Glock 17, major firepower.

“How’d you get past the gate?” Black Suit said. “The road is closed.”

“Gate?” Nautilus said. “I saw some guys working when I drove in.”

“What’s your business?”

“I’m Pastor Owsley’s driver. I wanted to see if he needed a ride back to his lodging.”

“Don’t leave the vehicle,” Black Suit said. “I’ll phone inside and ask.”

It took a few seconds before he returned. “He’s coming out. Stay inside your vehicle.”

Two stay-in-your-vehicles within a minute and spoken like a mantra. Black Suit had been rehearsed, Nautilus knew, and all cordiality had disappeared.

“Where’s the regular guy?” Nautilus asked. “With the Ranger Rick uniform?”

“Not your business.”

Owsley exited the building, tie off, shirt sleeves rolled up, a man distracted from his work. Behind Owsley the old guy in the wheelchair rolled to the main opening, beside him a pair of security types, more meat packed into suits. The old groper scowled at Nautilus as he side-mouthed words to security. All three squinted toward the Hummer like staring down a rifle sight.

Owsley arrived. There was no smile. “What is it you need, Mister Nautilus?”

“It’s about the time you usually get done, so I thought I’d see if you needed a ride back to—”

“I told you my return is taken care of. Please stop disregarding my instructions and go back in case Celeste or Rebecca need you.”

“I checked before I left and they didn’t—”

But Owsley was already walking away. Seized by a thought, he turned. “I heard that you were here last night, Mr Nautilus. Why?”

“I was bored at the motel and took a drive. When I came down the main road I saw smoke and thought I’d alert the guard.”

A long stare. “That’s all?”

“What else is there?”

“I don’t think you need to be here any more, Mr Nautilus.”

It was almost a dismissal. Back in the Hummer and driving away, Nautilus came to the road crew, one of them shaking his fist. He stopped beside three men, two young and skinny guys who looked straight from the turnip truck, and a man in his mid-thirties with square shoulders, thick arms and a black sweat-drenched sleeveless T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson logo. He strode to the Hummer with thick fists clenched.

“I fuckin’ told you to stop. You got dust all over me.”

“It’s a dusty road. And you’re not a stop sign.”

The man brandished his fist at the window line, his spit spraying Nautilus’s face. “I’m gonna bust your goddamn black—”

Nautilus grabbed the man’s fist in an iron grip and dove to the passenger side, pulling his assailant’s face into the roofline, Thump. Nautilus released the arm and it followed its owner to the ground. Nautilus resumed the driver’s seat and shot And? looks at the other two laborers.

“We ain’t lookin’ for no trouble, mister,” one said, staring at his prostrate companion. “Gabe’s just a hothead is all. An’ he’s hung over.”

Contemplating the various natures of idiocy, Nautilus retreated to his motel room, sat on the balcony with a brew, contemplating the sudden change in tone in the security staff and the unhappy looks aimed in his direction. He ran a potential conversation in his mind, the former guard talking to his superiors …

“I had to run out last night and chase some kids off the prop’ty.”

“You left the guardhouse?”

“That guy drives Pastor Owsley around, Harry Nautilus? He showed up and pointed where a fire was, some burning tires and shit. I wouldna left the guardhouse ’cept Nautilus said he’d watch things while I took a quick look. He’s a cop an’ all so I figured it’d be fine.”

Did they suspect a ruse? Or had the event simply revealed a breach in security resolved by putting hardcore gunslingers in charge. Or, the most interesting possibility, did Nautilus’s history as a cop mark him as more than just a guy who turned a wheel … and somehow a threat?