Warren Murphy: Prophet Of Doom

"You all realize that you must suspend your belief in the rational. For to become one with truth is to that is false. Beyond those walls—" with

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her staff she indicated the high hurricane fence and gun towers surrounding the ranch "—lies falsehood. Within these walls you will find safety and contentment. And spiritual knowledge. When the world as you know it has turned to ash, only those of us inside this fortress will be spared the ravages of the Dark Times." Her voice became a husky threat. "And you can only pass through to salvation when you have been stripped of all worldly trappings." With that she beckoned with her staff and, with a solemn bow of the head, backed through the open door behind her.

When she was gone, some of the older faithful, the few who had been around since Esther Clear-Seer had founded the Truth Church, descended like pack animals and began the inevitable shake-down of the new recruits. Cash was taken, credit cards impounded, bank books signed over, personal belongings searched. It only took a matter of minutes before the worldly trappings of the newly converted became the worldly trappings of Esther Clear-Seer.

Esther sighed inwardly as she watched the scene through the large bay window in the air-conditioned coolness of her Meditation Chapel.

Just another day in the God game.

Of course, the line she had fed this group was nothing new. She had predicted the whole "mountain, fire, burning valley, stampeding death" scenario before. In fact, she had given this particular prediction to every new arrival since Day One.

And when these events failed to come to pass, she reminded the skeptical that she had never mentioned what mountain or which valley, and if someone had the temerity to press further, she invariably ducked the

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question and accused the questioner of heresy in shrill, demanding terms.

Heresy was always a good dodge, Esther Clear-Seer held. You could get away with nearly anything by calling someone a heretic.

But Esther didn't much care for heresy. She felt it was a sign of personal failure when she had to cast out one of her own flock, for when Esther Clear-Seer excommunicated someone, he or she remained excommunicated. There were about two dozen mounds of overturned earth baking in the Wyoming sun to attest to that fact.

No, maintaining faith was the real challenge, and no doubt about it: when choosing between either faith or heresy, faith was the far more lucrative.

All this Esther considered as she poured herself a tumbler of Scotch—a drink that was forbidden, as was all liquor, to her faithful acolytes—and slumped back into the tension-relieving vibrating recliner she had bought with proceeds donated by an unemployed auto mechanic from Duluth. She took a sip of the amber liquid from the heavy, hand-etched crystal and watched through drooping blue eyelids the activity outside her window.

There was some kind of problem out there.

It seemed that one of the new recruits was arguing with her acolytes.

She had noticed the funny little man, a Mediterranean type, when the rest of the group had descended from the rickety old bus that now sat in an overgrown patch of weeds near the gate.

He was older than the others, perhaps in his late forties, and he had a much younger girl with him who

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seemed to follow him, step by step, wherever he went. When Esther had first seen him, he was in his shirtsleeves, having doffed his suit jacket, draping it over his forearms. But his clasped hands rested too far from his body, as if he was hiding something. Esther assumed that he was carrying something of personal value underneath the suit jacket. Whatever it was, her men would strip him of it when the time came.

Esther had dismissed the man from her thoughts. Now, watching with increasing concern, she hoped her Truth Church acolytes would resolve the situation peacefully. Unfortunately it seemed as though they were paralyzed with inaction.

The man barked something at them but Esther didn't catch it through the window.

The acolytes hesitated. This was not good. Why were they just standing there? Where was Truth Church discipline?

Quickly Esther Clear-Seer pressed the button that stopped the vibrating motion of her recliner.

The man snapped again. Even if Esther couldn't hear what he was saying, she could see her men backing off. The new recruits looked at the guards and at one another fearfully, faces confused.

"Damn!" Esther cursed. "This is my damn fault." Almost a year before, her acolytes had administered ultimate chastisement against a young man who had refused to surrender his wallet upon arrival. As a result, the rest of the group he had arrived with, who were not yet fully indoctrinated into the ways of the Truth Church and capable of talking to the authorities, were stricken from church rolls, as well. No one ever asked about them.

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Since then, there had been a standing order, issued by the Prophetess herself, that no one was to be shot in the presence of any recruit still in the six-month initiation program.

That order came back to haunt her as she watched the small wiry man shove his way through the group of armed guards and gesture boldly toward the sprawling split-log ranch house. His hand snaked back under his rumpled jacket tail. His young companion followed, zombie like, in his wake.

The guards almost drew down on him, but the man was talking reasonably now. He gestured crisply toward the ranch. He had a definite way about him. Commanding.

The guards looked to one another in confusion.

The little man took this indecision as an opening and marched boldly past the guards, the girl following dutifully behind.

"Shit," spake Her Beatific Oneness.

She got up and went to the door.

The guards were behind him when she opened the door on the strange little man and his hidden package. Their confusion had already given way to alarm at his disturbing their divine leader. Their weapons were trained directly at the man's back.

He spoke without preamble. "A small biotechnical firm in Massachusetts has gone public as of 9:00 a.m. today," he said. "I have placed an order in your name. Your holdings have by now tripled in price. By closing today, you will have made a profit of 78,000 dollars on a ten-thousand-dollar initial investment, and by noon tomorrow it will pass the hundred-thousand-dollar mark. You may check with your broker to verify

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this information. Until then, I would recommend that you instruct your followers to refrain from shooting me.

The man smiled a tight-lipped smile, told Esther the name of the company and took a seat on the small wooden bench beside her door. The girl stood dutifully beside him.

Esther was at a loss for words. The other recruits had seen all of what was going on and were watching for a reaction. The little man just calmly sat there. He tucked his coattails around the top of whatever he was holding in his lap. His eyes were black and unblinking, and his unwavering gaze reminded Esther of a dead-eyed reptile.

That decided Esther Clear-Seer.

She called her broker.

Yes, the information was true. Yes, if she had invested ten thousand when the exchange opened, she would have tripled her investment by this time. And did Esther want to sink some money into Biotechnics, Inc.?

Esther hung up the phone and went out to her porch. The man was wearing his jacket now, and there was something on the bench beside him.

"What's your game?" she asked the strange little man.

"You are rich?" he asked, standing.

Esther glanced at her acolytes. "I am rich in the things that matter," she pronounced boldly. She dismissed the guards, ordering them to deal with the other recruits. When the guards were gone, she leaned over to the little man, whispering, "What's your game? Insider trading?"