The Messiah Page 3

  Fifteen minutes after Constantine’s arrival, Renata Singh exited Pantera’s RV, followed closely by Pantera himself and two other members of his inner circle. Constantine would later learn these were Nick Amato and Richard Avery. Amato was the most noticeable: a hulking fellow in his late thirties with a sullen expression, wearing a worn leather biker’s jacket. Constantine surmised that he was Pantera’s bodyguard.

  Pantera eventually took the lead, and the others fell in behind him as they headed toward the parking lot. Constantine ducked under the steering wheel and went unnoticed as the group climbed into an old, rusted Ford Taurus parked several rows away from Constantine’s car. Avery drove, with Amato taking the front passenger seat while Pantera and Singh settled into the back. After the Taurus drove out of the lot, Constantine followed them. They headed to the nearby town of Walterboro, parking near the small-town park with a large gazebo where Pantera had been giving sermons all that week.

  Cristos Pantera certainly looked the part of an eccentric evangelist preaching a radical message that essentially involved replacing the present world order with a new one that he called “the Kingdom of God.” He stood an imposing six-foot-three, and his signature full-length white robe highlighted his slender, athletic frame. A mane of glistening brown hair cascaded to his shoulders, framing a long, thoughtful, handsome face. He had a well-kept goatee and, no matter his expression, his searing blue eyes stared out like accusatory beacons. In his initial report, Constantine commented that Pantera reminded him of Jesus in the 1960s movie King of Kings, played by actor Jeffrey Hunter.

  Constantine stayed at the periphery of the sparse crowd listening to the sermon in the park that chilly afternoon. As Pantera got into his speech, whirling and pointing at the gathering around him in an accusatory way, Constantine noticed a few more stragglers joining the group. It was difficult not to come check out the guy with the persuasive voice to have a quick look-see and listen to what he had to say. While a few people separated themselves from that message after a time, most remained, their expressions going from quizzical to serious. They could not stop watching him—could not stop listening, would not be pulled away. Even Constantine got caught up in it. As he listened, his purpose for being there went forgotten for a time.

  Finally, after no more than half an hour, Pantera ended this sermon the way he ended all his sermons, with the statement: “Enter the Kingdom of God and be saved.” He bowed his head for a moment as if in silent congress with God, then looked heavenward, stepped back with a sigh, turned, and abruptly departed. Constantine noted that Pantera appeared shaken in those moments following the sermon, as if stating his message had drained him of all his mental and emotional vigor.

  Constantine didn’t know what to think right then. It seemed ridiculous that this itinerant preacher with so few followers could become a serious threat to the formidable power of the Supremacy—that his sermons to tiny audiences here and there along the East Coast of the United States might result in a revolution transforming the beliefs of the masses. But, his superiors were concerned enough, backed up by analysts, to feel the need to monitor Pantera’s progress.

  Following the sermon that afternoon, Constantine was surprised to note that neither Pantera nor his disciples did much recruiting among the audience. Despite the obvious impact the sermon had on the psyches of some among the small audience that had gathered to listen, Pantera had not continued imploring them to do what he said would bring about their salvation: renounce their lifestyles, abandon the lives they were leading, and join him and his caravan of followers on their quest for ultimate change.

  During Pantera’s sermon, Renata Singh, Nick Amato, and Richard Avery had stood unobtrusively behind him, staring out at the crowd with grim expressions. They circulated no literature that might leave a lasting effect on those who had heard Pantera speak. They handed out no flyers to tell people how to participate in the preacher’s revolutionary movement, or even how to donate money.

  Amato remained behind as Pantera started walking away from the park with Renata and Avery. In a gravelly voice, he announced that if anyone wanted to learn more about the preacher and his movement, or hear more of his sermons, they were welcome to come down to the New Green Acres RV Campground. He gruffly added that they had better get there by this evening, because the group was leaving in the morning to head north. Amato then trotted off to catch up with Pantera, Renata, and Avery as they strolled to where the Taurus had been parked on a side street a block away.

  Constantine lingered behind, struck by the lowered heads, troubled expressions, thoughtful countenances, and deep scowls of some members of the crowd as they slowly dispersed to get on with their lives. For these few, it was as if Pantera had awakened an ugly idea that unsettled them to the core, rattling their semblance of balance and self-esteem. It was an idea that perhaps had been lurking deep within them for some time, only they had never known what it meant until now. Oddly enough, Constantine felt something stirring within himself as well.

  A handful of these people would visit the campground that evening, as Amato had suggested, to hear more. Maybe one or two would drop everything, hop on one of the buses, and leave with Pantera’s caravan in the morning. They might become his followers, heading north to wherever.

  Most, however, would remain home and forever wonder whether they should have gone that afternoon to the preacher’s campground to hear more of what he had to say, fearing that they had missed their only chance to find salvation.

  Chapter Five

  Sons Against Fathers

  “He’s something else, huh?”

  Constantine turned and looked into the eyes of a middle-aged man, wearing blue jeans and a light blue golf shirt, standing about a foot behind his right shoulder.

  “Inspiring,” the man added, with a touch of sarcasm, “in a sad, misguided way. Renounce your beliefs and throw away your life and enter the Kingdom of God. Become a son of man, whatever.” He laughed. “Yada, yada, yada. The last of the prophet romantics.”

  He was a good-looking man with a square jaw and short-cropped silver hair. Constantine guessed him to be in his early fifties.

  “You into this?” the man asked him.

  “I don’t know,” Constantine said with a shrug. “Just curious, I guess.”

  He’d been trying to look that way—just curious—standing near the crowd that had gathered around Pantera, just at the periphery of it all, taking it in. The man stuck out his right hand, and Constantine shook it.

  “Dick Avery,” he said. He nodded toward the small park with the gazebo in the center, where Pantera had been preaching only minutes ago. “My son’s part of that. He was down there, with him.”

  “Don Summers,” Constantine said. “So, your son is a disciple or something?”

  “Yep.” Dick Avery nodded glumly. “A disciple.” He frowned at Constantine and asked more pointedly, “So what about you? What brings you here?”

  “I don’t really know,” Constantine said with a laugh, falling into his role as the disaffected Don Summers. “Like I said, just curious.”

  “Really,” Dick Avery said. “You see something in that guy, more than unadulterated bullshit?”

  “I…”

  “And what’s with that white fucking robe?”

  A moment later, another man hurried over to Dick Avery. He was a few years older and heavier, with a pasty, jowly face.

  “You saw him, right?” he said to Avery. “I told you.”

  By now, the crowd had dispersed and the three men were standing alone at the edge of the park. It was closing in on six o’clock, and the Sun was getting low in the sky.

  “Yeah, I saw him,” Avery sighed. “It was damn difficult, too. Looks born again or something. And to think all we did for that boy. My namesake. All our hopes and dreams.”

  “Sorry about that, Mister Avery,” the other man said. He nodded to Constantine. “Help you?”

  “I was just leaving,” Constantine responded with a shrug,
though interested in what the two men were doing there.

  “He’s all right, Pete,” Avery said. “I approached him, actually.”

  Pete flashed Constantine an unfriendly grin.

  After a moment, Avery turned to Constantine and said, “Richard…that’s my son…he quit law school in his third year to follow this guy. Called us once, told us he was leaving school to follow this holy man, something like that. I couldn’t believe it. He threw it all away. To listen to that.”

  So that was it. Dick Avery had come for his son, one of the inner-circle members who’d accompanied Pantera that afternoon. Constantine suspected that the other man was a private investigator the elder Avery had hired to find him.

  “So what is it, Don, you mixed up too?” Avery asked. “Thinking of joining up with this hippie snake-oil salesman?”

  “Let’s just say,” Constantine told him, “my life hasn’t been going well lately.”

  Avery made a face, snarling almost, and waved a hand at him. “Get a grip,” he said. “Joining this is not the answer.”

  “Well,” Constantine. “I still want to hear more of what he’s saying. No harm in that.”

  “What’s to hear?” Avery asked. “That drop-out-of-society bullshit. They tried that in the sixties.” He laughed. “Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Communes and Charley Manson. Didn’t work then, won’t work now.”

  “I don’t think that’s all it is,” Constantine said.

  Avery shook his head and said, “To each his own. But what’s the world coming to?” After a moment, he grimaced and added, “Sons against fathers, that’s what it is. Isn’t that some kind of scripture?”

  Constantine shrugged indicating he didn’t know. That night, he used his smartphone to look up the passage on the Internet and found in the Gospel of Matthew:

  For I am come to set a man at variance against his father,

  and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-

  law against her mother-in-law.

  “It’s a goddamn cult is what it is,” Pete said. “Just like that Tom Jones.”

  “Jimmie Jones,” Avery corrected. He looked at Pete. “And yeah, it is. A cult. Like Jonestown. In no time, his followers’ll be drinking Kool-Aid.” He turned back to Constantine. “You’d be into that?” he asked. “Drinking poison-laced Kool-Aid for this preacher?”

  “I don’t think he has that in mind,” Constantine said. “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Well, what does he have in mind, then?” Avery asked.

  “Like you said,” Constantine said, “to change everyone, what they believe. Change the world. That’s what I heard.” Thinking that he’d said enough, Constantine wished Avery good luck and said goodbye. In the next moment, he turned and walked away.

  “Think twice about it, friend,” Avery called after him. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing is what he is.”

  Constantine hurried to his car and headed back to the Green Acres RV Campground. Not long into the drive, he glanced up into the rearview mirror and saw that Avery and Pete were in a car a few lengths behind him. They were all going to the same place, but for different reasons.

  Constantine parked his car in the small lot adjacent to the campground. After exiting the vehicle, he started walking toward Pantera’s RV and bus caravan. Dick Avery and Pete had found a spot a few rows down and were also walking toward the assembly.

  Pantera’s followers had settled into the area between the RVs and coach buses, parked on four separate driveways. Each of the vehicles had been hooked up to electric, water, and sewer lines.

  As they walked toward the camp, Avery approached Constantine. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he reminded him.

  “I heard you,” Constantine said. “I’m still checking it out. Like I said.”

  Avery shook his head. By now, Pete had caught up to them. After a few more steps, they stopped at the periphery of the camp and watched for a time. Not much appeared to be happening right then. Like before, most of the followers were back in their respective RVs or in the buses—probably reading, listening to music on their iPods, or sleeping something off. A few milled about outside the buses and RVs, chatting and laughing among themselves, telling stories or jokes or interpreting Pantera’s sermons. Pantera and his inner circle were likely holed up in the main RV, and Constantine wondered what they might be doing. Discussing strategy? Smoking pot? Mixing up a batch of poison Kool-Aid?

  “This reminds me of those outdoor rock concert days,” Pete blurted out. “Watkins Glen, nineteen sixty-nine. Braless girls in loose dresses. Hippies with hair down to their ass cracks, dropping acid and spouting idiot philosophy. You know, flower children.”

  He looked over and grinned at Constantine. “Know where I was during all that, pal?”

  Constantine shrugged.

  “US Army,” he said. “Nam. Two fucking tours.”

  Just then, Avery’s son came striding toward them.

  “Dad? What you doing here?” he asked. He stood before them and looked at Pete, then at Constantine, with a curious frown. “What the hell do you want?”

  “What do I want?” the elder Avery huffed. “Jesus, how can you ask me that? Your mother and I have been worried sick. You leave home, call us once, then nothing.”

  “I knew what you’d think,” the younger Avery said.

  “Damn right, you knew,” Dick said. He took a breath and looked around a moment.

  Constantine thought of stepping away just then, but he couldn’t make himself do it and break this moment. Pete was standing on the other side of Dick, tensed-up and glaring at the disagreeable scene.

  “You need to quit this and come home,” Dick told his son.

  “No, Dad,” Richard said. “I’m not coming home. I’m twenty-three years old. You need to let me live my life. Believe what I want to believe.”

  “As a fool? Following some fake? I’m your father. I can’t just stand by and watch you throw your life away.”

  “That’s your opinion,” Richard said. “Not mine.”

  “Well, you’ve been brainwashed or something, then,” the elder Avery insisted.

  “Look, I’m not brainwashed,” Richard said. “I simply believe what the preacher is saying. He’s teaching me the key to salvation, to everlasting happiness.”

  Pete reached out and grabbed hold of Richard’s left arm. “That’s crazy talk,” he told the younger man. “You need to listen to your father.”

  After a moment, Richard said, “Let go of me,” and pulled free.

  “Let’s just take him,” Pete told the elder Avery. “Get him into treatment. I’ve done this before. Moonie kids.”

  “I’m no Moonie kid,” Richard snapped.

  As Pete reached out to grab hold of him again, Constantine stepped forward and seized Pete’s upper arm. “The kid said to keep your hands off,” Constantine told him.

  Pete swung around and stood face-to-face with him. Constantine saw the private investigator reach a hand into his pants pocket, presumably where he kept a small pistol or other weapon.

  “Ease up, Pete,” Dick Avery said.

  Pete glared at Avery for a moment, sighed, then yanked away from Constantine. He stepped back and shook out his arms. Constantine stood there glaring back at him. He had been thinking through possible ways to disarm the fat investigator without blowing his cover.

  “Richard,” Avery said to his son, “don’t you understand what this has done to me, to your mother?”

  Richard turned to him, saying, “What do you want from me? I don’t want to go home, lead the life you want for me. I’m here escaping that lie.”

  Dick sighed and gave his son a sad, desperate look. The next moment, he turned to Constantine and said, “See? Just like scripture. Sons against fathers.”

  Richard looked at Constantine, as if to ask, “Who’s this?” Then, he turned back to his father.

  “Look, Dad,” he said. “I’m sorry for not calling. I should have. But, now you’ve found me and you
know I’m okay. In fact, better than okay. For too long, I suffered doing something I didn’t care about. The only reason I did it was for you, to gain your approval. None of it was for me. I hated it.

  “Anyway, then the preacher came along,” he went on. “He looked into my eyes and invited me to find salvation through his message. And I’ve accepted that invitation.” He smiled and held up his arms. “And like him, my mission now is to spread the word to others. To spread it to all mankind. To bring down the present system and build a new one.”

  “He’s too far gone,” Pete mumbled from the side.

  “What can I say to change your mind, Richard?” Avery asked. “What?”

  “Nothing, Dad,” Richard said. “Nothing. Just go home.” He nodded toward Pete. “And take him with you.” He turned around and slowly headed back to Pantera’s RV.

  As the kid walked away, Pete came over to Avery. “You’ll just have to take matters into your own hands, Mister Avery,” he whispered. In the next moment, he glanced over at Constantine, not sure if he had overheard him.

  Constantine stared forward, pretending he had not.

  Chapter Six

  Mingling

  Minutes after Richard Avery had stalked away, Amato and three other scowling biker types strolled over. Looking like they had partied their fair share over the years, each of the three wore threadbare black leather biker jackets with the name “Road Warriors” inscribed on the back. All three had scruffy long hair and their thick arms were covered with faded tattoos of motorcycles, dragons, and women. Constantine later learned that the four bikers had joined up with Pantera at the same time and were now part of a makeshift security detail for the caravan headed by Amato.