* * *
Now and then, one of the tour group would sit next to Dove and they’d talk, briefly and quietly. Mostly, though, he sat alone, erect but relaxed, smiling. Lor Lu told Lee that what Dove was doing was restful; physically equivalent to meditation. Bodies were subject to physical limitations, he said, even when the occupant was the Infinite Soul, and the energy flows involved in mass healings and levitation were hard on Dove’s body.
Lee herself felt remarkably good—strong—despite not having slept in a proper bed. As Lor Lu’s assistant, she dealt with a lot of details, and was pleased at how well things worked out. She depended almost entirely on people she didn’t know, and would never meet except on the Web or the phone, asking them to improvise. Her past experience had been that in situations requiring constructive improvisation, people were likely to screw up—bog down or self-destruct or drop the ball. You had to work out the details for them, break things down into easy steps. Here there was limited opportunity for that, but mostly things went well anyway.
Shortly after leaving McLeansboro, Illinois, the tour crew was eating carry-out lunches while watching CNN’s NewsStand. Clips of the healings at East St. Louis and Mt. Vernon were shown. At both, Dove had healed while levitating. After the clips, a physicist from Penn State University was questioned about Dove’s levitations. “They’re faked,” he said, “the result of technology, not holiness. During the last year,” he went on, “two different research projects have been closing in on a practical anti-gravity device. And one of Millennium’s supporters is Harlan Springer, president and CEO of Leading Echelon, one of the world’s major high-tech development firms.”
“How do you explain the auras?”
The professor snorted. “That one’s easy. They’re wearing generators.”
“Can these generators be bought in stores or on the Web?”
The professor paused, looking confused. “On the Web, possibly,” he said at last. “You can find anything on the Web. Or Springer could provide them.”
On the Web possibly? He’s not a very good liar, Lee told herself. Now if he’d said Motorola’s model 6X-B at $84.95—something like that—he might have been believable.
“What about the people in the crowd who show auras?”
“Shills. People Millennium inserted in the crowd to add to the effect.”
It surprised Lee that she didn’t feel angry at the professor. The realization was spooky. Looking around, the most evident emotion on the bus seemed to be amusement. Dove himself was chuckling.
* * *
She had slack time now and then, and spent some of it reading a book of Ngunda’s dialogues. A month earlier she couldn’t have imagined doing something like that.
One of the service team was Jenny Buckels, who’d guided Lee through Life Healing. The procedure had involved communication at a level Lee had never consciously experienced before; thus Lee had bonded to her strongly. Riding through the rural Illinois night, after the long second day, Lee sat down beside Jenny, and they talked quietly for half an hour. As her facilitator, Jenny had learned a lot about Lee’s past. Now Lee began to learn something of Jenny’s. She left impressed; this was a strong young woman.
* * *
The truck stop was an oasis of lights in the night blackness of rural Posey County, Indiana. A large Rent & Haul truck was parked in the dimness near a back corner of the lot. The only other vehicles within two hundred feet were semis parked for sleeping. A delivery van drew up only yards from the rental truck, behind it and to one side. It bore the name of a major restaurant supply company. The driver of the van got out, followed by two others.
Matthew Shaughnessy got out from the cab of the rental truck and met them in the darkness, peering closely at the driver’s face, making sure of his identity. “Any problems?” Shaughnessy asked. “Anything suspicious?”
“No. Surprised?”
Shaughnessy didn’t answer. Instead he said, “You’ve heard Unit Three’s report.”
The man nodded. His van had a security band radio with descrambler. His was a highly demanding and unforgiving business, with clients that included African warlords, foreign drug lords. . . . “The local yokels aren’t on top of it at all,” he said. “Sounds like a gimme.”