Patterson stood on weakened legs and shook the senator’s hand, barely hearing his words and trying to ignore the nausea twisting his throat. He turned, leaving the suite and closing the door behind him to stand in the corridor outside.
I know nothing of God. Nothing. He closed his eyes. I must learn of God. I must learn of God. If ever he had been at a crossroads in his life, then this was it. For the first time in history man had the chance to reach out and touch the divine, and he, Kelvin Patterson, had the power to do so in his hands. Now was the time. There would be no other, ever. Lives were being lost in order to achieve a greater good.
Patterson looked at his watch, straightened his tie, and lifted his chin in defiance of himself. There would be no further delays, no further hubris or doubt.
“If you can’t find your way to God, Isaiah, then I’ll make sure God finds His way to you.”
EVANGELICAL COMMUNITY INSTITUTE
IVY CITY, WASHINGTON DC
Officer Leon Gomez sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair at the end of a long corridor, staring at the featureless white wall before him and cursing silently, as he had done for the past three hours.
Assigned to guard a goddamn mental case. He had been given some tough assignments in his time, scouting through the District’s meanest neighborhoods in the dead of night for gang leaders and homicide suspects, but he’d have taken any one of them over sitting on his ass waiting for nothing to happen. Like most all cops, boredom was Gomez’s worst enemy. No doubt he’d been stuck with this shit because he was a Latino. Wouldn’t have seen the lily-whites sending one of their own down here with his thumb shoved up his ass to sit around and—
Gomez broke his reverie to smile at a cute nurse who glided past into an office to his left. To his right, the corridor extended down to a dead end and housed twelve private rooms in which the patients spent their lives painting, drawing, licking windows, or doing whatever the hell it was they did. Jesus, he could have been on patrol. The weather was good and it made the girls get their long legs out, strutting around in shorts and miniskirts or power suits, depending on where you were patrolling.
A movement caught his eye as a tall, loping, blond-haired man appeared, carrying a tray with a dozen foam cups of juice. Gomez glanced him over, recognizing him as an orderly he’d seen earlier leaving for his lunch break. As he strolled past he looked down at Gomez.
“Evening, Officer.”
Gomez nodded and smiled dutifully, watching as the orderly walked down the corridor to pause at each door and knock politely. The patients usually dropped a small latch on their doors for some semblance of privacy, although all of the doors were paneled with a plastic window through which an observer could maintain a watchful eye on the patient within. Most all of them were low risk, which made Gomez wonder why he was being asked to guard them. One by one, the doors would open and a patient’s furtive hand would appear to take the juice from the blond man, and then he would move on.
Gomez, bored already, turned to look back at the nearby office where the cute nurse was chatting with a colleague. Something about a local restaurant. Gomez focused on the conversation, trying to catch the name of the place. Benson’s Grill? Barnie’s? He leaned forward in his chair to hear better.
A crash from the corridor caused him to whirl to see the tray of drinks on the floor, the blond orderly pointing and shouting at him.
“Fetch the nurse! Fetch the nurse!”
Gomez leaped up, shouting for the nurse as he dashed down the corridor toward where the blond man was trying to force open one of the patient’s doors. As Gomez ran, the man leaned back and swung one thickly bunched fist, smashing it through the plastic window of the door. The plastic snapped in half and the orderly reached in and yanked open the latch from the inside. Gomez skidded alongside the orderly as he bolted into the room and then came to an abrupt halt.
Inside, a young man lay flat on his back on the bed, a slick of vomit across his vein-laced face, his jet-black eyes staring wide and empty at the ceiling. A waft of putrefaction choked Gomez’s throat as