Epilogue

There was nothing I could do for Julie; Andy had much more training than I did, and a small nod told me that he thought that her injuries weren't life-threatening. Instead, I grabbed the Pope and threw him into Bob's study, pausing only to grab the doll that Andy had put on Bob's bookshelves after I'd given it to him, and to snatch a blanket from a closet in Bob's hallway.

"Put her down, sir," I said grimly.

"But she's —" he sobbed.

"Put her down, you fucking asshole," I ordered him. "We've got about three minutes before they break in here. Put her down!"

I threw him the blanket.

"Wrap her up," I screamed at him. "Wrap her up!"

I knelt beside him with the doll.

"Molly Benton," I said. "1027 Brandywine Lane. January 9, 2010. Life-size."

"Hi, master," said the five-year-old girl who appeared between us just as the Pope finished folding the blanket over. She'd be missing a day out of her life, but I wasn't planning on telling her. I imagine the Pope wasn't going to be talking much about it either.

"Mister Thompson," I said with a smile. "You can call me Mister Thompson, sweetie. Never master."

"Okay, Mister Thompson," she said. "Where's my mommy and daddy?"

"Your mommy had to go away with your brother and sisters," I said, "and you hid out here so you could see the Pope when he came to visit your daddy. Your daddy's upstairs. He'll be okay."

She took a long look at the Pope and then ran up to find her dad. The Pope just stared at me, tears running down his face.

"It's a miracle," he said.

"Yeah, maybe so," I agreed.

"Those Opus Christe scum —" he grew angry.

"I don't think so," I said, adding a belated "sir." "They would have been firing out, toward the road. The feds are too good to fire off this many bullets this wildly. You'll find that the injuries in this house come from Opus Dei guns."

He stared at me, and I stared him down.

"Holiness," I excused myself.

I took Molly's body out and put it in the back seat of Bob's rental car as the FCC commandoes approached the house. Andy and I would bury it later, in a beautiful spot on my farm overlooking the Brandywine River.

Bob had begun to revive when Molly reached him, and he and a very shaken Pope spent the rest of the day hammering out an agreement on the future of the Catholic Church. After that, the Pope kind of wandered around the country for the next few weeks, dropping in on little country churches, baptizing children, blessing livestock.

Julie? Julie lost her baby boy shortly after she arrived at the hospital. After two weeks of recovery, during which the doctors continually assured her that she and Andy could have as many babies as they wanted, the three of us buried Andrew Jason Thompson at a Catholic cemetery just outside of Wilmington.