I asked Brother Chuck if there were any old tapes I could hear.
‘Eve don’t keep any around. We’ll show this one
The Green Ripper again tonight, and everybody will want to hear it again. Then I erase it and put it back in the mailer and send it on back. They dupe the ones for the camps from a master they make at headquarters.”
He looked at me with a telltale intentness. It was the game of which hand holds the marble. I got in- stantaneous help from my actress friend of long ago. Tom McGraw would ask.
‘where is headquarters anyway?”
“Classified,” he said, smiling, whacking me on the arm.
“When do we get the next one?”
“There’s no schedule. When she has something to say to us, she makes a tape, and they dupe it and send it out. They cost a lot, those tapes, so they get sent back blank to be reduped.”
I wandered on out. I illed an item in the back of my mind. Somewhere in America, Betamax tapes were being sent in to a central place. If they were saving money on tape, they wouldn’t be wasting it using couriers. If it were my problem, I’d use the mails. And I would have a permanent filler on the first fifteen minutes of each tape. They would be plainly labeled as church property, and they would have some old duck in a backward collar reading a dissertation on the philosophical impact of Martin Luther on political thought in middle Burope. And then the Sister. I would have them sent to a mail drop for courier pickup and delivery to home
197
John MacDonald base. So if I happened to find the mailing address, it would probably give me no help at ale
I sat through it again that evening, and the impact of her was intensified, if anything. She did not fade. She just seemed to get stronger. And it was difficult to shake the illusion that she was looking directly at me. I could not estimate how big a woman she was. There was nothing to compare her to. She was in perfect proportion and could have been three feet tall or seven and a half. Dark-blue velvety dress with lace at the throat. No jewelry.
After it was over, Persival got me aside and said, ‘I want you working out with the group tomorrow. Any objection?”
‘spiel No. No objection. Only, what is being done to locate where my little girl is?”
“They’re trying to find her, and when they do, they’ll let me know immediately. Report to Brother Chuck at eight sharp. Field exercises.” swearing what?”
“Ask him now.”
Chuck told me we weren’t leaving the land the Church owned, one full section of land, mostly up and down and sideways, so we’d wear fatigues, a light pack, and an ammo belt, and carry a weapon. He and Ahman took me over to supply, after Chuck got the key. The biggest fatigues were a little high in the allele and short at the wrist I explained my shoe problem, and they found a pair of size twelve sneakers and some thick nylon-and-wool
The Green Ripper socks. Ahman threw me the weapon, harder than he had to. The light was bad, just the single bulb going inside the warehouse door, and I didn’t grab it close enough to the balance point, so the muzzle end tapped me over the ear, drawing a drop of blood.
“Watch it,” I told him.
‘snatch out for yourself, Brother,” he said.
What is this thing anyway?”
“It’s an Uzi,” Chuck said. ‘made in Israel.”
“Very small and light. Good weapon?”
Ahman shrugged and said, “You won’t be firing it. AU you do is carry it. You’ll be glad it’s light bee fore the day is over. Some friends picked up a couple of trucldoads of these in Lebanon. So we’ve got some. Makes for nice confusion. Remember what Aren’t said after Camp David? He said there hadn’t been any terrorism in the United States, and now they had proved themselves ready for some. For a lot, baby. A big lot. So when they bring down some of the brothers and sisters with Israeli weapons, they’ll wonder what the hell, won’t they?”