Warren Murphy: Spoils Of War

Remo smiled, but his mind was on something else. As he left the house to retrieve the stolen car from the ditch where he had left it, he thought again of the voice on the tape and of the terror behind it. Instinct told him that the general's death was no suicide. Whatever was going on was serious enough to warrant the murder of three chaplains, a commissioned officer, and a base commander.

And Remo had the feeling that this was just the beginning.

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Three

Father Malcolm McConnell sighed as he stepped up to the pulpit and looked over his congregation.

The army manual on "Chaplains, Unreasonable Expectations Of," had warned him that the churchgoing rate at an army post was in direct proportion to the soldiers' proximity to enemy bullets, but it had not prepared him for this, not even in peacetime.

The Fort Wheeler Army Chapel was not large, but the spare, boxy hall looked as big as a warehouse this Sunday morning. There was no one inside except for McConnell and the grizzled old sergeant who sat in the second pew.

Where had he gone wrong?

In the beginning, when McConnell had first been transferred to Fort Wheeler, the little chapel had been at least half filled every Sunday, even on the Sunday following the opening of the topless go-go bar in the neighboring town. But in the past two months, attendance had dropped so radically that McConnell was beginning to worry that he had lost his touch.

He tried to revitalize his sermons by focusing on

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the zestier episodes of the Bible—the Apocalypse, the Creation of the World, the Song of Solomon— that had always been a hit with his congregations in the past—but he continued to lose his audience despite the racy patter.

He'd practiced his delivery, booming, stage-whispering, pausing for dramatic emphasis. . . . No luck.

In a last-ditch effort, he'd even—God forgive him—hired a pretty 20-year-old folk singer with legs that would stop traffic to play the Meditation on her guitar.

Nothing. The men on the base just weren't interested.

As he watched his flock dwindle from 150 restless recruits to ten reluctant soldiers who'd promised their parents they would go to church come Hell or high water, he became depressed. And when those ten became five, then three, then one, McConnell slipped from depression into despair.

He began to doubt his calling. He had lost his gift. The Lord had entrusted a great many precious souls to him, and he had allowed those souls to drift away. He looked again to the lone soldier occupying his usual spot in the second row, and McConnell's eyes filled with tears. He felt himself an unworthy shepherd, caring for only one lamb.

Struggling to gain control over his emotions, McConnell cleared his throat. The sound echoed through the bare chapel, causing a bird to flutter out of her nest in the rafters and fly chattering over the altar.

"Welcome to the Lord's House, sergeant," He said as cheerfully as he could.

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"Another big day at Prayerville, Padre, huh?" the sergeant said.

"Looks that way."

It had been looking that way for three weeks running. McConnell lifted his head, searching for a shred of divine inspiration to carry him through the next hour. He saw the bird land on a lamp, look around, then spatter an offering into the fourth row of seats. The sergeant settled into his pew, his arms folded across his chest, his head already beginning to nod.

"Today," McConnell began, forcing his voice to oratory level through sheer strength of will, "we will discuss the mystery of ..." His yoice quivered. "God's Will . . ."

The soldier snored loudly, weaving in his seat.

"Oh, what's the use," McConnell said, and ripped into quarters the notes he'd made for today's sermon. He rested his head in his hands.

The old sergeant frightened himself awake with a snort, his lips smacking sleepily. "Amen," he said.

McConnell stepped off the pulpit and down the three steps leading to the pews. "Do you want me to go through with this, sergeant?" he asked.

The soldier shrugged. "Don't make no difference to me, Father. I just come here out of habit, anyhow. I been going to church every Sunday for twenty years."

Suddenly McConnell felt ashamed of himself for denying the soldier his church service.

"It's kind of a deal I made with the Big Guy up there when my wife got in a bad car crash. They didn't think she'd live, so I made a deal that if she pulled through, I'd go to church every week of my

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life." He winked and elbowed McConnell in the ribs. "Even if I was the only guy in the church, hey Padre?" McConnell smiled wanly. "Anyways, it ain't right for you to be preaching all by yourself, Father. Looks like the troops went AWOL on you."

"I'll say." McConnell stroked his chin. "Sergeant—ah—"

"Grimes, Father. Bill Grimes."

"Sergeant Grimes, I know this is a little irregular, but I'd like to ask your opinion about how—that is, why—" He blushed.

"How come there ain't nobody here but me, you mean?"

"Exactly. You see, I've been noticing the diminishing attendance, and I've tried literally everything I could to bring the men back to the Church—"

"Oh, the men are in church all right," Sergeant Grimes said with a smile. "These recruits are the goddamndest bunch of churchgoers I run into in twenty-five years in the military. Sunrise services, evening prayer meeting, Wednesday night testimonials, Sunday night communion, Saturday night spirituals—"

"Saturday night? They go to church on Saturday night?"

"Every night of the week, Father. The bunch of them are always in church. They just ain't going to your church."

Father McConnell was taken aback. "But this is the army chapel!"

"Beats the hell out of me, too," Grimes said. "Every goddamned night they get all spruced up to walk five miles out of camp to hear some preacher in a goddamned tent, for Christ sake."

"Sergeant," McConnell cautioned.

¦ * 32 '

"Sorry, Padre. It's just that it's the god—the weirdest thing I ever seen." He shook his head. "Sometimes they don't even stick around for mess hall, just so's they can shine up their shoes and head for Reverend Artemis. You ought to see 'em, marching on over that hill at sunset like a pack of zombies. Spooky."

"What did you say the Reverend's name was? Artemis? Like the Greek goddess?"

"Hell of a name for a man of the cloth, ain't it?" Grimes said disgustedly. "These here yo-yo recruits are always trying to get me to go along to prayer meeting or some damn thing with them, but hell, Father, it ain't normal."

"I'm not sure I follow you. What's not normal?"

"It ain't normal for a thousand twenty-year-old recruits to get so all-fired excited about going to church. No offense to your profession, now, but there's sure as hell more ways to get a laugh than by going to prayer meeting, if you ask me."

McConnell saw that he had a point. Even divinity students didn't go to church every day and twice on Sunday. At least Protestants didn't. "Why do you suppose they're all going?" he asked.

The old soldier rose slowly to his feet. "Well, it could be the recruits. Not all there." He tapped his left temple with his finger. "You know, this volunteer army is pulling in some characters I wouldn't trust to cross the street. Back in '44, you wouldn't catch regular army soldiers slinkin' off to church every goddamned minute like a bunch of—"

"Now, sergeant ..."

"Zombies, I tell you. You just watch them tonight at sunset, marching over that there hill." He pointed eastward, toward the gates of the army bar-

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racks. "Zombies. Hundreds of them, marching five miles to listen to Reverend Artemis."

"Must be a hell of a preacher," McConnell said, awestruck. "I beg your pardon. A heck of a preacher."