"Come on," Samantha said, stuffing the bills back into the strongbox and locking it. "Here's where we make our connection."
Artemis shambled to his feet, weaving slightly. "Just another town along the highway, another crowd of strangers," he lamented, holding back his tears.
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'"Quiet down," Samantha said, gingerly picking up the strongbox. "Here comes somebody."
A short, swarthy man sausaged into a lieutenant's uniform entered the trailer.
"Ah. A worshipper," Artemis said. "At least the soldiers treat me with respect. They don't nag me. To them, I'm God."
"Move it, turkey," the lieutenant said to Artemis. His words were thickly accented, and his breath gusted clouds of curry and kibbe.
"What kind of soldier are you?" Artemis demanded, letting the edge in his voice show that he didn't approve of rudeness toward his person. The lieutenant slapped him across the face and spewed out a stream of guttural foreign-sounding words.
Outside, a black Lineóla limousine waited. As the lieutenant pushed Artemis and Samantha out onto the roadway, he squeezed one of Samantha's breasts energetically, expressing his delight in a high-pitched giggle.
"Now wait a minute," Artemis said. "You can't treat my wife this way."
"My apologies, O divine Artemis," the officer said, still chuckling. He bowed in mock obedience, withdrawing a billy club from his belt as he did. He whirled the club in his hand before bringing it forward with a crack on Artemis's kneecaps. Thwill buckled under the pain and sank to the ground.
"Get in," the lieutenant commanded. He opened the door to the limo and roughly pushed Artemis inside. "At Vadassar you are not God, white-skinned imperialist American," the officer spat. He slammed the door.
In the corner of the back seat, Randy Nooner
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looked up from her newspaper. "Nice trip?" she asked.
"Did you see what your driver did to me?" Thwill asked, gesturing toward the lieutenant in the front seat.
Randy pushed a button and the locks on the doors clamped shut. "You probably irritated him." From the front seat came a stream of angry, incomprehensible monologue. "Drive," she said, and slammed the partition between the front and back seats. They sped off into the night.
"How can that man be an officer in the United States Army?" Artemis continued. "He hardly speaks English."
Randy Nooner jabbed Artemis in the knee, sending sparks of pain blazing up his leg. "I'd say he gets his message across," she said. "Besides, there are more like him where we're going."
"Where's that? Dante's Inferno?"
"I thought you'd never ask." She tossed him the newspaper in her lap. On the front page was a photograph of the bloodied grounds at Fort Wheeler with the banner headline: UNEXPLAINED MASSACRES AT ARMY BASES.
"What do you think?" she asked.
Artemis gazed at the wirephoto for a long moment before realizing that a thin stream of saliva had dribbled down his chin. "It's beautiful," he said.
"Magnificent. All those recruits you've been preaching to at Fort Antwerth, Fort Beson, Fort Tannehill, and Fort Wheeler held a little revolution today. They've killed the officers and deserted the bases."
Artemis pointed to the story. "It says here that it happened at all four bases at the same time."
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"We had recruits of our own planted to time the whole operation. An ingenious coup, don't you think?" She went on without waiting for an answer. "Now all the deserters are in one place, waiting for you to appear."
"Where's that?"
She spoke her words reverently. "The culmination of all our efforts. The beginning of a new army, Fort Vadassar."
"You mean the place that I've been telling those zombie soldiers all these months is the Promised Land? That Vadassar? A fortT
Randy smiled. The limo rolled over mile after mile of highway and onto a series of dirt roads leading deep into the Texas heartland.
"I thought you made that name up. I didn't know there was a real Vadassar," Artemis said.
Randy smiled. "Of course not, dear. It didn't exist until today. Originally, Vadassar was private property, built by private funds."
"Whose?"
Randy smiled. "Don't ask so many questions, Art. You'll live longer."
They drove in silence the rest of the way.
Fort Vadassar was a miracle of modern engineering, gleaming under its acres of electric lighting like a star in the Texas wasteland. Its pristine buildings were magnificently designed with sojar panels. Its •grounds were lush, with oases around deep lagoons that were carved into the dry earth and irrigated by underwater pipes. On the banks around the lagoons sprouted wild tropical flowers. In the recreation compound, an Olympic-sized swimming pool shim- '
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mered in the moonlight, next to a row of perfectly kept tennis courts and a football stadium.
"Holy Moses," Samantha said. She shook Artemis awake. "Get up, Artie. Look at this."
Artemis's eyes rolled groggily. "Wha—we there?" He spotted the tennis courts and the pool. "Where the hell are we?"
"Vadassar," Randy Nooner- said- breathlessly. "The headquarters for the new army of the United States of America."
The car pulled in noiselessly beside a smallish ultra-modern building constructed from steel and mirrored glass. "These are the guest quarters, where you'll be staying," Randy said.
"How long?" Artemis asked warily.
"Well, let's see." Randy ticked off the agenda on her fingers. "First, there's the address to the troops. Then tomorrow we're holding a press conference—"
"I thought you said nobody knew this place existed."
"No," she said. "I didn't say that. I said Fort Vadassar didn't exist. It still doesn't, in fact. It won't exist officially for another four hours or so."
"How do you arrange that?" Samantha asked eagerly. ¦'
Randy chucked her under the chin. "I already told your husband not to ask so many questions. It's bad for your face, honey."