“Are you implying that there’s been more than one messiah?” the man asked.
Aran stepped around beside the pulpit again. “On Earth, Jesus was the fourth. At last count we have twice that many living claimants or third-party appointees right now. You’ll have to wait and see whether any of them are genuine.”
Tentative laughter rippled through the congregation.
“But there will be another avatar,” Aran went on. “In the near future. It is time.”
He paused, then pointed again. “The young lady with red hair.”
“What will this avatar teach that Jesus didn’t?”
“The man Jesus was born to Galilean peasants, and of course was raised a Jew. And it was the Jews of his time that he taught, speaking in terms and images they understood. At the end, however, Christ, the manifestation of the Infinite Soul, did not teach very much, except to instruct his disciples. He simply manifested by his presence the love and power of God—which is beyond words, deeper and more powerful than any teaching. In that era it was more than many people could deal with, but it was needed.”
Several listeners had gotten to their feet, apparently unhappy with their speaker, and pushed their way out through the crowd standing in the rear. Corkery pressed the trigger one more time, to no avail. Exasperated, he too got up, following them out of the church and into the winter sunlight.
* * *
With the taste of bile in his mouth, Corkery walked toward the bus stop two blocks away. To clear his mind and senses, he looked at the world about him. Winter-naked trees, gray shovel piles of old snow, and large, faded, nineteenth-century houses.
His eyes stopped on one of them, a rundown place with a room to let sign in the yard. They paused on a second-story window, holding there briefly. Someone was peering through the pane. He almost stopped, then thought better of it. Security perhaps? He looked again and saw nothing. Either he’d been mistaken before, or the watcher had moved back from the glass.
Thomas, he told himself, don’t get delusional just because a hit’s misfired.
35
Luther Koskela had cleaned the window the day before, in order to see through it clearly. It was not a time of year to leave it open longer than need be, and for simply watching, clean glass was good enough. Now, wearing a stained, down-filled parka, he sat on the only chair in his room, watching through binoculars. It was 214 yards to the top step of the Bentham Avenue Unitarian Church. He’d measured the distance the day before with his laser rangefinder, and had set the 4X sniper scope accordingly.
The breeze was negligible. Given his marksmanship, and his single-shot Thompson/Center Contender, he could put a bullet through the center of the man’s chest—or his forehead. But the chest was a larger target, and less apt to move out of the way as he touched the hair trigger. The soft-point slug would take care of the rest.
The church’s front doors opened. Quickly Koskela stood, set aside his binoculars and opened the window, then knelt behind the gun rest he’d prepared, rather than use the window sill. It was best to have the muzzle completely inside the room, where it couldn’t be seen. And even with the silencer, there’d be sound. Better it be inside too, the landlady being hard of hearing.
He watched through the scope now, instead of the binocs. It was ill-suited for watching—the field of view was small—but it was best to squeeze the shot off as soon as the guru showed himself, before he started down the steps. Parishioners began filing out, but the preacher hadn’t appeared yet. He was probably doing his goodbyes and handshaking in the vestibule, Koskela decided, where it was warmer, which was unfortunate, because delivering his goodbyes in the doorway would have slowed the flow, providing a better shot.
People moved down the steps and along the walk to the parking lot next door. For one moment he thought he had his target. The color was right, and the height, but the man was older, and walked with a cane. Finally the flow thinned, then stopped. Someone came out, released the doorstops and closed the doors. Maybe, Koskela thought, they’re going to feed the sonofabitch before he leaves. But he didn’t really believe it.
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