Hector sat in silence for a minute or two, his hands ready on the steering wheel, before he said, “Do all private detectives carry big guns?”
“No, sir. Most don’t carry guns. Neither do I, a lot of the time. But my client in this case . . . Well, there’s a sad abundance of people who hate him because of his money or for no reason.”
“Does this situation here”—Hector gestured at the deer—“does it worry you some?”
“Should it?”
“You haven’t put your gun away.”
The Heckler & Koch was in Wyatt’s right hand, with the muzzle directed toward the floorboard between his feet. He didn’t think he needed the weapon right now, but he wondered if he would be glad to have it ready when they returned to the Alvarez house. Joanna had said that Jimmy was harmless, an angel, but maybe the only angels that looked like him were those who had been cast into the Pit and transformed there.
He couldn’t share that ungenerous thought with Jimmy’s father, so he said, “It’s just that the threat against my client is serious, so anything unusual gets my hackles up.”
“Has Joanna somehow been threatened, too?”
“No, no. It’s just . . .” A satisfactory lie occurred to him. “She knows the history of the house. We thought she might be of help. And once she was here, she wanted to see you and Jimmy. You understand, I’m not at liberty to discuss my client’s affairs or what the threat is.”
“Wouldn’t want you to. My own problems are enough for me.”
As one, the four deer raised their heads high, and their ears twitched. They bolted off the roadway, into the grassland.
53
In his left hand, Asher Optime holds the 12-gauge shotgun once belonging to Dr. Steven Fielding, muzzle pointed at the sky. With his right hand, he takes a selfie with the small digital camera that he uses to document his journey for posterity. He is standing beside the sign that bears the faded word ZIPPORAH, at the entrance to the abandoned town.
The late-afternoon light is dramatic, and Asher is singularly photogenic; therefore, this should be an excellent addition to the photographic record that will be attached to his world-changing manifesto. He might never have undertaken this epic task if he had not been exceptionally good-looking. People are so shallow that they throw themselves fully into a great cause only if the leader is an imposing, romantic figure. Led by a man of ordinary appearance, this crusade would surely fail; but he has the face, the eyes, the hair, the stature, the animal grace of one who is destined to succeed.
The symbolism of him standing here with the historian’s shotgun will profoundly influence those enlightened apostles who eventually will follow him on his mission. He is a revolutionary unlike any other, for he is in revolt not merely against a political system or a ruling class, but against all of humanity, and not only all of humanity, but against all of human history. Killing one historian is an important step toward killing them all. Xanthus Toller is a fine mentor, but he is an inadequate revolutionary because he’s content if it takes a hundred years—two hundred, even longer—to eradicate humankind. Asher intends to inspire ardent legions of more impatient and aggressive true believers. There are numerous tools with which dedicated agents of universal genocide can achieve their goal: pandemics, contamination of the food supply, nerve gas . . .
He pockets the camera and steps back from the sign and brings the shotgun to bear on the name of the town. The weapon is loaded with slugs, not buckshot. The recoil nearly rocks him off his feet, the buttstock hammering his shoulder, and the report echoes through the trees like the roar of a dragon with seven heads announcing Armageddon. A portion of the sign is missing. Ears ringing, he squeezes off a second round. No letters remain except the Z.
He shoulders the 12-gauge and retrieves his camera and takes another selfie with the sign. He finds it meaningful that nothing but the Z survives the shooting. Z is the symbol in mathematics that represents an unknown quantity. At the moment, with Asher’s manifesto not yet completed, he isn’t recognized as the monumental figure that he will become. To the rest of the world, he remains an unknown quantity, but not for long.
When his manifesto is released and his testamentary necropolis proves his righteous commitment, he will gain passionate followers, but there will also be enemies, despoilers of the Earth intent on stopping him. At some point, he might have to go underground. If one day he needs to use a nom de guerre, something as stark as Z is just right for the leader of the greatest and last revolution, a slash of a name that suggests power and mystery.