PROLOGUE #2
He turned his attention to the central part of his kit.
Four point eight ounces of precision-milled tungsten carbide, from the Japanese island of Okushiri, where they’d been making bladed tools and weapons since the middle of the eleventh century.
Sushi and sashimi chefs, yakuza warlords, virtuoso facial-reconstructive surgeons, world-renowned luthiers and cordwainers…
the client list of the Okushiri No. 1 Knife it was so eye-wateringly foul, with a tendency to linger for so long, that he had to keep everything inside a succession of zip-lock baggies.
In order to sharpen the blade prior to use, as he was about to do now, it was necessary for him to paint his upper lip with a thick layer of Vick’s eucalyptus and menthol gel. And he still wanted to retch.
He wanted vomit at the whale fat. But the prospect of killing a man gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Like the painkillers they’d given him in the hospital, after the I.E.D.
blew the jeep sky-high. Strange, the way the mind worked.
Even his own. But if Jakes was strange, he was also good.
He knew that. Good inside, and fighting on the side of goodness.
He began slowly to sharpen the instrument on the whetstone, stroking the blade downwards and upwards with a gentle, sweeping motion.
As he worked, he prayed for a clear mind and unflagging courage and skill.
He didn’t pray for guidance. Because there was no doubt as to the rightness of what he was doing.
Men like Whitfield made a mockery of the third commandment; by claiming to speak for God, by claiming that He wanted them to participate in this gigantic act of fraud, they surely took His name in vain.
Jakes had no crisis of confidence regarding this; it was hateful to the Lord, and he was fulfilling the Lord’s word and wishes by exacting justice for this most brazen and blatant breach of His will.
At the same time, none of it was going to be easy, especially not the final stage.
He’d studied the anatomy on youtube, practiced on a couple of sheep, but the architecture of the human mouth and throat was very different, more compact, but also thicker and tougher, more coarse.
Still, that was the right way round. If he’d trained on organs that were lighter, easier, he could be in for a shock.
At least the rehearsals had showed him how hard it could be.
He’d scoped out the monstrous lakeside castle where his victim lived, and thanks to a cocktail party due to take place there this evening, he had the perfect means of gaining access.
Black pants, black lace-up shoes, black shirt and hey presto!
He was a bartender-unit, a human attached to a tray of vol au vents, his hair slicked back, a trace of a Latino accent, anonymous to the point of invisibility.
There was a whole new set of clothes in a tiny backpack, an electric bike hidden in the woods at the edge of the golf course, half a mile from the house.
He’d thought of everything. Except of course, he knew that he hadn’t.
He couldn’t have thought of everything. And the detail that screwed you, that was the one fricken detail you’d missed, the one you hadn’t got a plan for, because you didn’t think of it.
In that sense, a house party could be a poor choice of venue for this murder.
Parties meant an assortment of unknowables and uncontrollables; extra hazards, drunken guests wandering about the grounds and the house, more eyes to witness, more ears to hear.
Pastor Whitfield adored the company of the famous; he seemed to feed off the nectar of their heat and their light, and no episode of his twice-weekly tv show and podcast was complete without a visit from a film star or a sporting legend.
For all Jakes knew, there would be people like that at the party.
And maybe they’d have their own security people with them…
He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the thought.
It was unrealistic that they’d turn up to a party with a whole outfit of bodyguards in tow.
Only the President got that sort of treatment.
Besides which, you only had to sit through a single episode of Whitfield’s show to realise that his connections were considerably less dazzling than they’d initially seemed.
That Hollywood ‘star’ hadn’t actually been in a movie since 1992, and she was only recognizable now because she featured in a long-running tv commercial for auto insurance.
As for the sporting ‘legend’, well, people remembered the DUI, the cocaine with intent and the battery charges more readily than his brief flash of magic on the basketball court.
But, de nada, everything was going to work out fine.
He knew that from the silent voice inside, the one he now knew to be God’s.
The Prophet had told him that. And that his time was now.
That he’d been chosen, by the Almighty Himself, to exact justice and vengeance.
Him. Chosen. He’d been overlooked for so much of his life.
Overlooked or pushed around, ignored or taunted, dismissed or despised.
All of those people would be shocked when they saw what he had become.
He started to pack the knife away, his hands trembling slightly. With anticipation now, excitement. A face came back to him across the decades. Emmy Lou, all sweaty in her farm clothes. The smells in the barn. You told me you knew what to do. Come here.
A verse from Revelation bubbled up without effort. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
It was so, so simple. You took all the hurt that had been done to you, all the pain and rage and humiliation, and you threw it at the people who hate God. Hurt gone. God praised. Man blessed.