in her arm. The disturbance started to spread and others, tied and bound in the surrounding beds, began to rouse from their chemical slumbers. Then, as quickly as it had started, the thrashing stopped. The woman gave one last howl that sounded like the life was being physically torn from her, then was still.
The three medics stood for a moment, staring down at the body. Then one drifted away to calm another patient, and so did another, leaving only one remaining at her bedside, loosening and unwrapping the tight canvas bindings that were no longer needed.
‘Ten,’ Gabriel said.
Arkadian looked down at him and nodded. ‘Who shall I contact in the Citadel?’
Gabriel closed his eyes, exhausted from the sheer effort of keeping it all together. ‘A monk called Brother Athanasius. He helped me get inside the last time. He is the one who will help us again.’ He opened his bloodshot eyes and stared up at Arkadian. ‘Always assuming he’s still alive.’
35
For the second time that day the propellers of the C-130 clawed their way into the cold air and slung the plane up into the low, buffeting clouds.
Inside, strapped in the same painful jump seat as before, Shepherd’s battered body felt every judder and lurch. He consoled himself with the knowledge that the flight to Charleston would be marginally shorter than the inbound journey had been.
He and Franklin were studying the background files on the Reverend Fulton R. Cooper, fruits of Shepherd’s first real test-drive of the laptop and its ability to probe deeply and effortlessly into the databases of the FBI. He hadn’t had long but even so the speed and range of information it had managed to spit out had been impressive. Of course it didn’t hurt that Fulton Cooper was a public figure.
Shepherd read through the documents chronologically, starting with Cooper’s humble beginnings in the seventies selling bibles on the road alongside his father after his mother ran out on them. It was his father who had encouraged his son to preach at fairs and small town chapels, realizing that his son had a rare gift to engage a crowd and that business was always brisker whenever he spoke. At fifteen, Cooper had already started preaching on TV, first as a guest of other televangelists then on his own show where his lively blend of infomercial techniques, personal appeals and assertion that modern Christianity was exemplified in the American dream caught on so fast he was nationwide in less than three years and pulling in half a million dollars worth of pledges per show. Then it all came tumbling down.
His wife suddenly left him and appeared on a Primetime Live exposé accusing him of being a habitual drunk and wife beater. The file contained copies of photographs and medical records going back years showing the black eyes and broken fingers Cooper had inflicted on her, as well as screen grabs taken from a security camera, which showed him kicking her repeatedly in the driveway of their house after returning home from a fundraiser. She filed criminal charges, his TV shows were immediately cancelled, and he ended up going to jail for criminal assault.
Cooper staged a press conference the day he was released re-pledging his life to Jesus and begging forgiveness for all the sins he had committed while Satan had taken possession of him. He had spent his time in the wilderness, he claimed, and had put the temptations of the devil behind him now the Lord had revealed a new path for him as a modern crusader. The last few pages of the file showed exactly how this had manifested itself. There were extracts from his sermons against other religions, details of his various media campaigns outlining his opposition to the construction of non-Christian places of worship anywhere in America and his call to pass a law making Christianity the only religion that could be legally taught in American schools. But by far the most powerful component of his new mission was a charitable initiative called ‘Operation Saviour’ which, according to the literature, gave ‘spiritual help and healing for warriors on the frontline of the holy wars’. It raised money to send medical help and psychiatric counsellors to servicemen and women fighting in religiously sensitive war zones such as Afghanistan and the Middle East and helped them get jobs when they returned home again. It had won Cooper some very high-powered admirers. There were pictures of Cooper smiling and waving on stage at various political rallies,