October skies

She looked up at him. ‘What he has was not gifted to him, it was taken.’

He held out a hand to comfort her. But she shied away.

‘What? What is it he has, Mrs Dreyton?’

‘God will punish him for that,’ she cried. ‘God will punish him, and punish us all for following him.’

‘What is it that he has?’

She ignored him. ‘We have to leave here, Mr Lambert. We have to leave soon, before it’s too late. My children trust you. I trust you. Will you help us?’

‘What? We can’t leave here now. We’ll freeze, or starve, or-’

‘God’s vengeance will come down on us.’ She reached out and grabbed his arm tightly. He could feel the steel grip of her hand through three layers of clothing. ‘Do you believe in eternal torment, Mr Lambert?’

‘What? No… no I can’t say I-’

‘Because that’s what awaits Preston, in the very depths of hell.’ She looked back at the other camp. ‘Or maybe it’ll come to us… here in this forsaken place.’

‘Mrs Dreyton, you’re not making much sense to me.’

She shook her head. ‘Maybe… maybe, if I tell the others, warn the others,’ she muttered, turning away from Ben, ‘I’ll be forgiven.’ She stepped away from him, crunching back across the snow.

‘Mrs Dreyton?’ he called to her softly, but she was gone.

Had she really accused Preston of being a liar and thief?

Ben wondered for a moment how Preston would react to his most devoted follower denouncing him as a false prophet. And realised, with a shiver of unease, that it would lead nowhere good. Not for anyone.

CHAPTER 32

Monday

Munston, Utah

Shepherd smiled at the people out in the basketball court, waving to them as a rousing rendition of ‘Abide With Me’ was being belted out by the Munston Homes Choir for God, stepping as one from side to side and clapping their hands to the infectious rhythm.

Booking them had been a good idea. His campaign co-ordinator, Duncan, had said, ‘You can’t beat a good ol’ Baptist choir for feel-good factor.’

He was right, of course. The rally had gone spectacularly well. Originally it had been booked into a local school. But support was growing for the campaign so fast that Duncan’s team had quickly needed to upgrade the venue to the sports hall of a nearby college.

Shepherd noted, with satisfaction, a bank of cameras at the back. Not just local press photographers, but some network camera crews too. The town of Munster, home to one college, a cereal processing and packing plant, one shopping mall and at least seventy churches of different denominations, was just the third stop in his tour of Utah.

The state was easy territory. Everyone knew him now, and it was obvious already that neither Republicans nor Democrats were going to get their foot in here. His message was a fresh message that was coming right out of the blue and wasn’t tainted with the tit-for-tat baggage that the other two parties were burdened with. His message didn’t have the shrill sound of a party frantically hanging onto power, nor the hectoring ‘Doubting Thomas’ tone of a party impatient to get into power.

Shepherd knew that he didn’t sound like the other candidates, and more and more polls were beginning to show that was going to be just about enough to cajole tentative support from the soft conservative centre.

Shepherd bowed again to the ecstatic audience’s delight, and then strode defiantly off the podium, flanked by a pair of security men from his ministry. They walked him briskly through changing rooms that reeked of body odour and the sort of cheap aftershave that young men like to douse a little too liberally. They led him out of a rear door to where a dark-windowed Humvee waited patiently for him, engine already idling.

The door was opened for him and Shepherd slid inside. One of his minders slipped into the front passenger seat; the other climbed into the limousine waiting behind.

Alone, Shepherd opened the laptop on the seat beside him and accessed his mail.