Shaughnessy’s lips moved a couple of times before anything came out, as if he was talking to himself. “Any of your people coming down with second thoughts?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m following protocol. Are there?”
The man half-laughed his answer. “Hell no!”
“Let’s get on with it then,” Shaughnessy said. He stepped to his truck’s rear door, unlocked it, raised the latch and lifted. The door slid up almost soundlessly on its tracks. There were men inside. They handed out two large canvas bags. Two of the van driver’s men took them, and the driver signed Shaughnessy’s receipt book. When the transfer was complete, he offered his hand to Shaughnessy. “Wish us luck,” he said.
Shaughnessy looked at the hand but did not take it. He did say “good luck” however, as if it hurt, then turned away and climbed into the rental truck’s cab.
The van’s driver got into his own vehicle. Feeb asshole, he thought, and laughed. He’d neither wanted nor expected a handshake—in his profession he was used to assholes—he’d simply wanted to see if he’d get one. The guy had struck him as a rogue Feeb, and for him, the refusal to shake hands confirmed it. Starting the motor, he swung the van past the rental truck, then drove to the I-64 on-ramp and out of sight.
* * *
At the edge of Evansville, the parking lot of the “Cornbelt Super Multiplex” was a mob scene. The sheriff’s department estimated the crowd at 12,000—some from at least as far as Cincinnati—and for the umpteenth time, Dove had levitated to do his healing.
It was the first place they’d been exposed to open hostility—an angry man waving a pistol, shouting obscenities about the antichrist. But he hadn’t fired. People around him had disarmed him—taken him down and held him for the police. To Lee, watching from a window, it was a sobering sight. If someone shot Dove, would he heal himself? Christ had died, and so had Buddha.
* * *
More sobering to Art Knowles had been a report from the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Department. A State Patrol cruiser had stopped a delivery van, and been struck by a storm of automatic weapons fire that killed both officers. An unmarked backup car, two hundred feet away, had seen it happen, and reported by radio. Before the van could leave the scene, a patrolman jumped out of the backup cruiser and hit the van with an antiarmor rocket. The rocket, and the brief firefight that followed, killed four of the six occupants and critically wounded the other two. Only the driver carried identification, probably false.
Knowles suggested to Lor Lu they discontinue the tour. It had been a huge success already. He wasn’t surprised, though, when Lor Lu said they’d continue. He even thought he knew why.
* * *
On the road to Louisville, the farthest east they’d go, Dove called Lee over to sit by him. “Your duties here are demanding,” he said, “and you do them well.”
“Thank you.”
“You will do more, before you have finished. The vectors are unequivocal on that. And if any further evidence were needed, you are the mother of your daughters.” He paused. “Tell me what attracted you to Ben.”
She supposed he knew, and wanted her to look at it. But she missed what he was after, so he led her.
“What body type had always attracted you?”
She looked at that. Not dark-complexioned men, nor tall gangly men. She’d favored football types, particularly blonds. But when she’d met Ben, she’d never even thought about that. He was the one. Dove nodded as if he read her mind. “Remarkable, isn’t it. Despite your parents and their pressures, and the acculturation of your adolescent coterie, you recognized Ben when you saw him. Your purpose and your agreement were strong. Congratulations!”
When her goose flesh had settled down, she thanked him and left.
* * *
After Mount Vernon, Illinois, they traveled divided highways almost exclusively. The train of vehicles following them formed an unacceptable traffic problem on lesser roads. Even on the interstates, from time to time the police stopped the entire train except the TV trucks, holding them until the bus was miles ahead. But the train soon reconstituted itself from those who caught up again, plus newcomers.