Field of Blood by Wilson, Eric (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📕

Nothing to fear. The black gun powder was in the old plumbing pipe, and the nails were going into position now, each one a messenger of wrath.

Beside him, on his bedroll, his pager waited. He had pulled it from his belt so that he would not be startled in his task.

The call to duty would come, though probably not tonight.

True, too true, he had served in Uncle Sam’s army—prior to being discharged. Uncle Sammy had spurned him, the same way others had mis-judged and overlooked him in his thirty-plus years on this earth.

This nation, it paraded its lewd behaviors through the streets and tossed the by-products of its immoral couplings into alleyway Dumpsters. Just as Mr. Rudolph had done with his bomb at the Olympics, he, too, had tried to get their attention, hoping to expose their shame before the world.

But did they listen? No.

True, too true, he was in the Army of God now, winnowing out tar-gets for maximum impact. A few more nails. A fuse. See? And when that was done, he would make another bomb to add to this precious package. Three, maybe four, would do the trick, with a timer and detonator added for the final touches.

He would hit the trail, a conscript on a mission. He would gather lives. That’s what the instincts in his gut told him to do, his internal guides.

He was collecting souls for the eternal damnation they deserved.

He spent the rest of the night in the basement, finding release in his work. He had a stack of books about outdoor survival skills, which he pored over. He made notes on a legal pad. He liked these quiet hours—the alone, not-to-be-disturbed hours.

At last he grew too tired to go on, and he reached for his bedroll. That’s when he realized the pager’s beeper had been muted the entire time. There was a message from last evening.

From Erota.

He pushed aside thoughts of her toned form. He knew too well the weakness of man, and that’s why he knew to stay fixed on his assignment. To punish. To teach. To purge the evil from others that he felt even now coiling within.

The text of the message caught him by surprise, though.

Chattanooga? So soon?

According to earlier discussions with Erota, the date for the bombing should’ve still been a few weeks from now.

Daylight was already feeding through the squares of cardboard taped across the basement windows. At this time of the morning, he would hit gridlock on his northbound journey through Atlanta. I-75 became a bottleneck, and it could be three hours, even four, before he reached the clinic and its birthing area.

Not to mention that Erota wanted him to pick her up along the way.

His exhausted body sparked into action, ignited by thoughts of media coverage and further embarrassment for those who called them-selves leaders. These politicians and doctors, all of these fat cats purring with contentment while sin abounded.

He taped his supplies into a compact bundle, then set them in the bottom of his new pack—the one Erota had specified for this mission.

He was a soldier. Time to unleash the dogs of war.

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

Chattanooga

Gina stood with weak legs at the nursery window. Jed was at her side, his hand covering hers on the sill. The morning was sunny, the sky a robin’s-egg blue scarred by thin gray clouds. The colors matched her initial joy and the intermittent concerns that cut through it.

Why had her baby come now? Why so suddenly?

Would he survive? Was he healthy, with all fingers and toes in place?

Count ’em: one, two, three, four, five. Same on both hands, both feet. A plastic clothespin still clung to the spot where Jed had cut the umbilical cord.

With the child out and the endorphins subsiding, she realized that her husband wasn’t the criminally negligent madman she had seen at her bedside last night. He’d stuck by her through the whole thing and never even fainted—though that had been a real concern of his.

“Just look at him,” Jed was saying. “You did that.”

She twined her fingers in his. “We did it.”

In an incubator behind the glass, their frail boy squirmed in a snugly wrapped blanket. There were two infants to his left, one to his right, but Gina and Jed had eyes for him alone. His head was covered by a cap the size of a teacup, his little fists working the air in tiny mittens. In the name slot: Jacob Lazarescu Turney.

“Don’t you dare call him Jake,” Gina said.

“J. L.?”

“Just Jacob.”

“Kidding, of course,” Jed said. “I’ll call him anything you want.”

“See how he never stops moving? That’s how he was inside. No wonder he came early.”

“A go-getter. Like his mama.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“A very good thing.” Jed’s blue eyes turned watery. “He’s perfect.”

“He’s amazing.”

“Definitely. And as far as I’m concerned, you’re Wonder Woman.”

“Thanks, Jed.” She touched his cheek. “I sure don’t feel like it.”

By birthing standards, things had gone well. Still, her body was depleted, her hip bones made of wax and ready to melt, her lower section a knot of abused muscle. Contractions had rippled with insuppressible force along either side of her spine, seeming to push and pull through her very bones, as though the gravity of the earth’s own mass was calling forth life with travailing groans.

Much later, Gina had requested an apple juice. Almost apologetically.

“Don’t you be afraid to speak up if you need anything,” the nurse told her. “You did as much work as anyone does here. Just packed it into a shorter period.”

The delivery had lasted ninety-seven minutes, from the time she drove herself from the job and checked in at the clinic to the moment of Jacob’s arrival in a gush of fluids and blood. He was almost a month early, small enough to fit in both palms, too weak to suckle at her breast. No one had expected him so soon, not even the doctor who’d examined Gina four days ago.

“Did your mother have a quick birth?” the nurse had asked.

“Don’t know.