GODS OF WAR

CHAPTER ONE

The circle of light traveled endlessly in time.  Like a giant sphere, energy beams moved at the speed of thought.  Timeless guardians of war moved effortlessly in and out of the sphere absorbing the very energy as if it were their sole lifeblood.  A vast, dark presence moved near the sphere and seemed to cast its shadow as a small moth sometimes dances its final death around the spotlight.  From the shadows emerged a figure larger than the guardians but feared by no one.  His gloating eyes seemed to beg for worship.  His glance found only pity which his pride loathed beyond reason.

Then he was gone.  The presence on the throne, a light beyond brightness with no equal swallowed the very darkness and began yet another discourse in what seemed to be a nearly endless debate.

"What brings you to my sphere this time, Santero?"

"I only seek what is mine - no more.  You cannot lie.  You live by your own words and now your words demand that your hedge come down."

"How much greater your demands come knowing that time is so short.  Yet each moment you seek to gather more with you for the fiery bowels of the earth."

Santero, obviously uncomfortable with the image of his final destiny, quickly moved to change the subject.

"Did you not say that whatsoever a man sowed, he would also reap?"

"You know quite well each promise I have made.  Yet, in each case, you miss the nature of the One who made the promise.  You equate my love as a weakness, yet it was my weakness of love that motivated my greatest gift to mankind - MYSELF."

"Come to it, Santero.  You have not come before me today for any other reason than to drag some unwitting soul into the bowels of the Hell created for you and your minions.  What is it you are demanding?"

"San Francisco and the entire Bay area.  There is prostitution, homosexuality, human sacrifices, greed and pride like nowhere else on the planet.  I would like to destroy it in one moment.  Even your followers there are weak.  They neglect the homeless, ignore the hungry, and welcome the sinners in requiring not even a token repentance or change in lifestyle.  It's time you allowed me to execute your judgment on the city."

"I need you, not Santero, to execute my judgment on any city.  You still are ignorant of the reason that you are even allowed to go where you wish.  It's simply this -those who choose not me automatically choose you.  But you have well made your point about San Francisco.  Barring a response from my followers there in tears, prayer and fasting for the unredeemed, you may proceed with your plans to destroy the city.  It has long been on my heart and truly its wickedness exceeds all others."

Rising from his throne, the Almighty pointed his hand.  "Go now, you shall not see my plans, for it is my intention that not one should perish."

Santero found himself sprawled on his butt back in his cavern surrounded by a horde of belching eel-skinned beings, each one grotesque in a unique fashion - some whose eyes simply hung from their sockets, others whose hands were larger than palm fronds.

"Damn Him," he spoke, sending a shudder into the core of his demented followers, "whisking me away without even so much as a goodbye.  Well, it will be a pleasure exterminating so many in one moment.  Cadaver, I have a special assignment for you."

"Excellent, your lordship.  How great will be the toll of human suffering?"   His eyes glistened with excitement as he spoke.

"It will be immense.  And best of all, I feel this time we will not be thwarted.  The Mighty One knows that my request for San Francisco is well within his own boundaries.  He could not deny my flawless logic.  Even his followers are weak and self-serving.  No one will rise to the aid of the inhabitants of that peninsula.  It will be greater than the destruction of Rome, and this time the pain will be immense."

"Lord Santero, your excellency, have you a plan?" he cowered away in benighted supplication.

As Santero strutted about the room, each of his footsteps shook the walls.  His voice rang out with supreme authority.

"You fool!  A plan?  I have plans for all those weak humans.  I will see them burning, I will see them maimed, I will listen to their plaintive cries for mercy and it will bring joy to my ears.  My plan is for their destruction, their annihilation, and for their souls to be fuel for our everlasting fires that grow hotter every moment."

"The Mighty One thinks they can be won by love and his eternal offer of forgiveness, but I know differently.  It will not be his love they will know but my fury."

As he spoke his final word, those in attendance were blown through the cavern walls as they imploded in a volcanic vortex.  He vanished, returning to his human carrier.

In Half Moon Bay south of the main city of San Francisco, Santero and his legion once again convened.  They had shed their demonic attire and were comfortably lounging around the pool in human bodies.  Santero, attended upon by a supple young female, shouted into his portable phone while being massaged.

"Damn you, get it done or it will be your head.  That's right, I want them here tomorrow.  Don't worry about your supply.  It will never be disrupted."  He menacingly motioned the girl away.  "Cad, come over here.  You, I'll send for you later."

"Yes, Mr. Santero?"  All had changed about Cadaver except the gleam in his eyes.  It was an eternal pool of misery.  Where most humans had hearts, his was like a black hole absorbing all light around it and giving none back.

"How easy it is to control these humans.  It no longer even remains amusing to me.  A few truckloads of cocaine, alcohol and sexual favors and they'll do whatever you say.  It's as if they will their own destruction.  What a fool the Mighty One was for allowing them a free will.  Free indeed!  It's as if a channel was cut through their brains with the path to our kingdom.  Tell me, have my plans been carried out?"

Shifting uneasily and knowing that one slip-up could easily send him back to round-the-clock duty in the underworld, Cad spoke hesitatingly.  "We have arranged a deal with a large munitions black marketeer."

"Yes," Santero spoke, his eyes all the more penetrating.

"Well, the price these humans want for their own destruction, it's beyond what lies in our accounts.  Furthermore, their weapons are unreliable and will only wreak a small percentage of the impact we wish to make."

"Who is this man that dares to price me out of the market?  Bring him here.  We will see how long he dares to defy me."

Late into the night guests began to arrive.  Santero's parties had become legendary: nude men and women swimming in the pools, large screen pornographic movies, mountains of cocaine, XTC, hashish and every type of stimulant known to man.  People openly engaged in sex, men with men, women with women, one man with several women and one woman servicing several men.  Entranced, they walked through the large estate serving their every physical desire.  Several of the old guard had heart attacks and were carried out by medical personnel.  No one seemed to pay any mind when the bodies were carried out on stretchers.  Instead, it seemed to only add to the mystique.  One whole area of the estate was reserved for the wealthy gay community who wished to mingle with the myriads of young teenage male prostitutes brought in drugged and used mercilessly.  Young boys were tied up in the air where they were routinely fisted and beat.  Their cries were drowned out by the most overbearing music.  Cots were set up in an outdoor tent divided into different sections where other boys were tied in various positions and forced to perform unimaginable sexual favors.

Santero's estate had rapidly developed a reputation among the demented jet-setters who had been bored with normal (one partner) sex.  Drug traffickers arrived in their private planes from Caracas, Lima and Bogota.  Security was no problem.  Cameras were strictly forbidden and no one was allowed to exchange more than first names.  There were some faces well known to all: a U.S. congressman who held office even after admitting to sexual affairs, movie stars with appetites for the unusual, and even presidents of several small countries were there.  They all came to indulge their fantasies and to pay homage to a man that held the most sought after party invitation in the world.  Young hopeful actresses sent their bios and nude shots by the hundreds, hoping to be seen and land a part that would launch them to stardom.  Instead, when they came, they were drugged and so abused that oftentimes they never recovered.  After being forced to have sex with multiple partners, they withdrew, and many committed suicide.

None of it bothered Santero.  He reveled and enjoyed the misfortune of others.  As for the local authorities, Santero had seen to it that they got the cream of the crop - private catered suites with video displays of potential sexual partners that they just had to dial up.  Anyone with even a shred of morality saw it disappear under the avalanche of continual sensory bombardment.  Once sensitive hearts quickly became calloused.  Ministers routinely came to associate with the "swingers" and found themselves in compromising positions, having fueled a fire that they were powerless to put out.

Tonight, however, everything was a little different.  Santero, busy with his plans to destroy San Francisco, had decided on using a nuclear weapon.  The thought of accompanying radiation poisoning and long-term effects as well as the instantaneous death by the nuclear winds and tremendous explosion gave him a special type of pleasure.  Never had he enjoyed any type of death as he enjoyed nuclear death.  Only one obstacle stood in his way.  No one directly under his authority had access to nuclear weapons.  The only way to get them was through the black market.  He had tried black marketeers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila, Libya and Bogota.  Every one of them had the same answer.  To destroy a city the size of San Francisco from ground level took far more than any of them could have hoped to supply him.  The best they could sell him was a low level power bomb that at most would take out a few square miles, nothing at all like the destruction he had planned.  He knew he had to get access somehow to the military supply of nuclear weapons.  Only then would he be able to wreak the mayhem he had planned.

As the Sea Hawk Trident class submarine pulled out of the San Francisco Bay and into the Pacific, Commander Jerry Hauser felt the bile rise from his stomach leaving a foul taste in his mouth as he reflected about his missing daughter.

At fifteen, Pamela Hauser had decided to leave home.  She was at odds with her overbearing mother and hardly knew her father who was away at sea six months of every year.  Fifteen years of moving from base to base had left her without friends and without any sense of a real home.  She was convinced that San Francisco was the place to be.  She thought with the few hundred dollars she had managed to save up from her birthday gifts and occasional babysitting jobs, she'd get her own place and make her own way.  She would show her mom she didn't need her.  She would show everybody.  

The Greyhound ride across country and the restaurant food made a big dent in her savings.  She felt sorry for the girl next to her who was skinnier than a broom handle and looked at her pathetically every time she took a bite of food.  By the time she got off the bus on Market Street, she had a total of $187.50 left plus the lint in the bottom of her coin purse.  She felt a little uncomfortable walking with all of her belongings on her back, so she looked around for a place to rent.  The man in the glass cage surrounded by bars spoke to her through his microphone.

"What do you need, little girl?"

"A room just for a while until I can get my own place."

"Sure," he chuckled.  He'd seen it all before.  Full of hope, young boys and girls from all across the country coming to the town of the Golden Gate Bridge, the end of the rainbow, where the illusive pot of gold seemed to beckon them.  This one was no different, he surmised.  Only a matter of weeks before all her innocence would be gone and her high hopes replaced with the stark reality of despair.  All this went through his mind before he even told her the amount.

"One hundred twenty dollars.  And a ten dollar deposit for the sheets.  We do them once a week.  If you need a towel for the shower, it's another $10 deposit."

"How much altogether?"

"With tax, one hundred forty-seven dollars and ninety-three cents.  How long will you be staying?"

"Just a week.  I'll be getting a job and moving into my own place."

"How old are you, little girl?"

Pamela tried to hide her surprise at being asked such a direct question.  She found her skills at lying far undeveloped.

"I'm old enough.  I'm eighteen."

"Sure, sure, that's what they all say.  My advice to you is to take your money and buy yourself a ticket back to wherever you came from.  Forget this place.  It's a cesspool of filth that swallows up people like you everyday.  Without a trace, without a tear."

"Mister, I got no home to go back to.  Here, just give me a room.  I don't want to sound rude, but I don't want a lecture either.  That's what I'm trying to get away from."

As the week quickly passed by, Pamela found out fifteen year-old girls with no typing skills had very little hope in the job market.  After the third day, she gave up even looking.  With her last few dollars, she stopped in a diner not far from her room.  She sat herself at the counter and counted the few bills she had left.  She ordered the blue plate special - meat loaf with mashed potatoes and gravy.

Some men have eyes for women and some are natural predators, preying on the lonely and vulnerable.  Dave Gleason was of the latter type.  Although he sported an expensive wristwatch by Piaget and an elegant suit by Armani, he was about as close of a case you could make for the human race having evolved from a lower species.  His specialty was switch and bait.  He offered young girls glamorous jobs doing a few fashion shots in negligees, and then switched them into hard core porn films.  After their innocence and youth was spent, they joined the ranks of the other working girls, pumping flesh at fancy hotels like the Mark Hopkins and through various other escort services, with names like Wonder Women and Young and Innocent.  His percentage of the cut for recruiting new flesh was high.  He kept roughly one-half of their salary plus nearly all the residuals received.  He was immediately struck by Pamela's talent and potential.

She was physically fit, had her long blonde hair tied into a ponytail, small pouty lips, slender waist and ample bosom.  With that in mind, he grabbed the seat next to her.

"Hey, Amanda, bring me whatever this young lady's having."

"Sure, sure, Dave."

He turned to greet her.  "Say, my name's Dave Gleason.  I'm in the entertainment business.  What's yours?"

Pamela eyed him warily, but having had almost no personal contact with anyone since leaving home, she thought this might be a potential friend.

"Pamela Hauser."  The potatoes dribbled out of the side of her mouth.  Dave seized the opportunity and reached over and wiped them off.  "I'm not such a horrible eater.  I must have put too much in my mouth."

"What do you do, Pamela?  I'm sort of a regular here and have never seen you here before."

"Nothing at the moment.  I guess I'm just in the looking stage.  I just moved here this week."

"What kind of work you looking for?"

"Anything."

Pamela never imagined the horrors that would come from the initial meeting with Dave Gleason.  Even while it was happening to her, it was stranger than any version of Nightmare on Elm Street she had ever seen.  It was great at first: the extra money, everyone making such a fuss over her, until she found out what they really wanted her to do.  She was caught like a moth in a spider's web and it was just a matter of time until her life fluids were all depleted.

First, they brought in Gorgeous Gary, a rancher type from Stockton.  He took no time in showing her the ropes.  Not that she was a virgin, but neither was she used to an audience of ten people with lights and cameras going.  The scenes were shot over and over: closeups, head shots, overhead shots, pans to the left, pans to the right.  Once they had even stuck the camera down at her knees and instructed her to "do herself."  It was the first step in a long emotional breakdown.

The distributors loved her: fresh, perfect skin, firm, taut breasts, and her first check was for $2,500.  She didn't realize that the film company made at least one hundred times that amount.  She got her own place and told herself that with the money she'd find a real job.  The heavy eye shadow and leather fringe jacket didn't establish her as a nine to five type.  She went from appointment to appointment being turned down.  She even tried to get a department store job at May Company as a fragrance model.  Though it only paid $6 per hour, even that door closed on her.

Dave kept after her, sending her flowers and candy.  He had a three-way act he wanted her to do with Gorgeous Gary and Dan Snider, an old timer who also performed in some of the local live sex palaces.  With her money running out, she reluctantly agreed.

The script called for both of them to have sex with her.  They put her in between them while one had intercourse in the front and the other had intercourse in the rear.  The pain was excruciating, and when she complained, they gave her valium.  Slipping into a drugged stupor, she didn't remember what happened next.  For two straight hours they went on filming her from every conceivable angle doing every conceivable type of thing.  They left her naked on the bed.  The camera man felt sorry for her and threw a blanket over her.  Upon getting up in the near empty studio, she went to the bathroom where she spent the better part of an hour with the dry heaves.  That was the beginning of her constant struggle with uppers and downers.  Like the tides of the sea, the drugs took their toll on her face.  Her eyes, once full of joy and light, began to look like grey pools of polluted water.  Her skin, once clear as a baby's bottom, began to get spotted and show signs of wear.  Each shot took more and more makeup until she no longer looked like a fresh schoolgirl being picked up by the policeman or the repairman or the hundreds of other situations they put her in, but she began to look like a seasoned pro.

Her personal hopes about starting a family were gone as well as her innocence.  Men only meant one thing to her: money and pain.  After a shoot when she stood in front of the mirror at home removing the makeup with cold cream, she got to where she couldn't stand the sight of herself.  The faces of her father and mother would float across her mind almost phantasms.  Their warnings about her life haunted her.  Having attended Sunday school as a little girl, she tried to think what Jesus, who'd rescued the adulteress from being stoned, would think of her now.  She had not only had sex hundreds of times, but on film.  She didn't even feel safe walking through the beautiful Golden Gate Park.  Every time a stranger looked at her, she wondered if they'd seen her in one of the tapes.  She knew they were sold everywhere.  Even the Japanese tourists that aimed their cameras at her, she was sure must have recognized her.  She'd wait until the evenings to venture out.  Gradually, the calls for films came less frequently.  She was no longer a fresh, inexperienced face.  The freshness that had made her marketable had vanished at sixteen.  She was a worn-out porn star.  One time she showed up in a warehouse for a film and they expected her to have sex with a German Shepherd.  She walked out in tears.  She needed the money too.  Even her modest one bedroom flat was costing her $1,200 a month.  She knew the dream was over.  She'd have to find real work.  There was no way she could ever return home.  After the films she'd done, she'd never be able to be in normal society again.

Her father had been diligently searching for her.  He'd sent her picture to every missing person's bureau in the United States.  Several times he'd even hired private detectives.  There was no sign of her anywhere.  Times were tense between him and his wife.  The emptiness that was in their house seemed larger than even the emptiness from the fifty yard line the day after the Super Bowl when only the wind remained blowing through the stadium.  Neither of them blamed the other, but both were consumed with their own guilt and the thought of "if only . . ."

Both of them knew the chances of seeing her again were at best slim.  Then, as if it were a message from God, he walked into a crewman's party and stopped to watch the porno movie they had on.  The closeup of his daughter performing oral sex on a man twice her age sent him into a state of shock.  He grabbed the empty video cassette shell, and sure enough, there was the name Pamela Houseman, Golden Gate Films.  He didn't know what his chances were of finding her through the film company and he didn't know what he'd say once he did find her.  He just knew he was going to find her.  Out on maneuvers, it would be six weeks before he could get back.  He'd already hired a private investigator to track down the film company and its owners.  The search for his daughter had intensified.

AIDS is one of those diseases everyone thinks they are immune to.  Pamela had hardly given the matter a second thought.  When she applied for work at Sex Acts Live, they'd asked her to do a routine AIDS screening.  She'd tested positive.  It was only after she found out more about it that she realized the death sentence she was under.  After about twenty calls, she managed to get hold of Dave Gleason and told him the news.  He told her he was sorry.  He said he heard that Dan Snider, one of her earlier partners, was in intensive care at San Francisco County Hospital with AIDS.  He had taken a turn for the worse.

Even though she bore no great love for Snider, he had always tried to be kind to her.  She wanted to find out more about what she had and went to visit him.  His health insurance had long run out and he was on the fourth floor with about twenty other terminal AIDS cases.  From six foot one, two hundred twenty pounds, he had shrunk down to about one hundred thirty.  The only reason she recognized him was the handlebar moustache, his trademark.  His eyes were glossed over from the drugs, but when she grabbed his hand, he nodded like he recognized her.  IVs were connected into his body and dripped morphine continually.  His internal organs were being destroyed by bacteria that swarmed unchallenged by his body's defense systems.  Like the U.S. Armada sitting without protection in Pearl Harbor, all he could do was sit back and die a slow, agonizing death.  He had still been able to recognize a few faces, but all in all, he was living death.  Several purple splotches had spread from his chest and covered most of his neck.  His gums had nearly rotted away causing even his breath to have a foul odor.  After a minute she let his hand go and sought out a nurse to discuss what she had.

The news of no cure, no hope of one, and dying in agony was a dirge to her.  She knew she didn't have the courage to wait around and die like a bad concentration camp experiment.  She knew she'd have to end it herself.  She had read of all the people who jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge.  Those who didn't die immediately became victims of the rushing currents and the hungry sharks that lurked in the depths below.  She didn't romanticize suicide as many others did.  She saw it as her only solution, the final solution to what she believed was her final problem.

Her father's search for her address had led the private investigator to a loft in the marina section of San Francisco.  He had missed her by about two weeks and really didn't seem to have much of a chance of even finding her trail.  He sent the commander an updated progress report which he knew wasn't going to be received with any great joy.  He'd had these cases before and knew the type, overbearing arrogant S.O.B.s who couldn't believe it when their own daughter went A.W.O.L. from home, preferring life in the streets.

Hauser reacted to the news with disappointment.  He could hardly blame the investigator and he was only two days out from port after a fairly long month of maneuvers in the Pacific.  He vowed to continue the search himself when he got to San Francisco.  He had several weeks of leave time coming and could take more if he needed to.  Oh well, he thought, you can't pay somebody to do something you should do yourself.

The chief petty officer walked into his room to announce that they were only two hours out from the harbor.  That meant they would be docking sometime around 4:00 a.m.  He rubbed his eyes trying to shake himself back into consciousness.  An uneasy feeling grabbed him that he might be too late.  No one can truly understand the mind of a father whose daughter has run away.  A thousand times he torments himself wondering what he's done wrong.  He thought of a hundred wrong decisions he made.  He only hoped for one chance to make it all up.  He'd swallow his anger and his pride and remember the girl in the porno movie was first and foremost his lost daughter, who needed his love and support now more than ever.

Pamela didn't have the faintest idea anyone was looking for her or that anyone even cared.  For all she knew, her parents had long ago forgotten about her.  All she knew is that she had AIDS.  The sooner she ended her living nightmare, the better.  Access to the bridge was more difficult than ever for potential suicide victims.  They had chained off a considerable portion of it.  She drove over to the Sausalito side of the bridge and parked her white '78 Toyota Corrolla under a mulberry tree.  She took her driver's license, video card and everything else that could possibly identify her and burned them.  She didn't really figure her body would ever wash up, but she didn't want her parents knowing she killed herself either.  She had no hatred for them - just hollow apathy.

The mist had made the bridge a bit slippery, but still she wanted to get far enough up so that she would not hit the steel girders on the way over.  The wind seemed to be blowing in her favor.  Several times she thought of how sick her cat would be without her, and she almost turned back.  Her mind flashed back to when she was twelve and her parents had a party for her with many of the other young people from the base feasting on a chocolate marble cake and French vanilla ice cream.  Her eyes filled with tears of self-pity, and suicide didn't seem like all that good of a choice.

She couldn't see how she could ever return home, especially now that her body was ridden with AIDS, the incurable leprosy.  She hoped that when she jumped, maybe an angel would catch her in his arms and take her away from the hell in which she was living.  Angels of a different kind were there.  They were filling her mind with suicidal thoughts, telling her there was no hope and nobody loved her.  It was not to be, but there was no turning back.

In the great room surrounded by flames of light, the Mighty One watched another earthy drama unfold.  Knowing he was powerless to change her mind, he was sorrowed at the oblivion she was committing herself to for eternity.  He inquired again of her angels if anyone's prayer for her had been registered anywhere or if even in the back of her mind she was calling out for His help.  Raphael looked at him knowing the pain He felt when they had to respond "no."  Nobody cares for her soul.  Maybe Santero had been right.  Maybe the city itself was beyond hope.  He had seen it happen with Sodom and Gomorrah, He had seen it happen to Rome, and in countless other areas he'd been forced by His own principles to abandon protection over.  The angel who had protected Pamela from birth was forced to draw back from her; she had made her choice.  Raphael knew that AIDS wasn't incurable, only unbelief was incurable.  He knew that Pamela didn't believe.  She had despaired and she would indeed die.  Powerlessly, he turned away as Santero's agent cast her headlong into the sea below.

The very speed at which her body travelled caused her to lose her breath.  Moments before she hit the water, she cried out, "Jesus, save me."  She didn't know where it came from, but Raphael heard.  He was there when her body hit the water and her spirit ascended.  She serenely glanced into his face and shuddered in terror at the sight of Prothesus and Dahalla whose gaping death and claw-like hands seemed to reach out to her.  Raphael's sword was out.

"You've no right.  Her body is yours but her spirit is mine.  She cried out the name of the Lord and she now belongs to the Mighty One.  Be gone or you will receive a thrashing."

In for routine repairs and shore leaves, the Sea Hawk was to be docked for at least three months.  Even though the hour was early, hundreds of waiting wives and girlfriends were gathered at dock.  Nothing on the planet was as impressive as a nuclear submarine, especially one up close.  Jerry looked around when he got off.  No one was there waiting for him.  He took a taxi downtown.

Pamela traveled beyond the speed of thought and instantly was bathed in white light.  She looked at her body and noticed that even though it appeared whole, she was able to see right through it, like it was a shadow only - a shadow of life.  She saw her reflection on the soft, golden floor and almost couldn't bring herself to believe the changes her face had taken.  A softness and perfection had bathed her entire countenance.  It was if she had never lived or suffered the ravages of earth.  She understood that she had been taken to heaven.  She couldn't quite remember the circumstances that led up to it, but still she knew that she was finally at peace.  Traces of another life, a life of hardship, heartbreak, and anguish seemed to call to her from another world.  They were forgotten even before the memories could take hold.

As she was swept with the multitudes before the Mighty One, she felt an enormous burning in every fiber of her spirit.  Her gratitude at being in front and surrounded by such an awesome presence filled every substance of her being with an overwhelming awe and respect.  She opened her mouth and found herself singing.  She was able to move in front of the throne and gaze into the eyes of the Mighty One and saw The Son seated at His right hand and knew beyond doubt, while looking at the nail-pierced hands and feet, that indeed a heavy price had been paid for her entrance into the royal court.

Above her, the very firmament opened and a multitude of angels piped the most complex and intrinsically harmonious sounds her ears had ever heard.  She found herself joining in the praise as her very being reflected the honor at being in this presence - a presence she had sought her whole life but had not been able to attain except the moment before her death.  She had no memories of what had happened to her.  She had no sorrow.  All she had was inexplicable joy, inexplicable and inexhaustible.

A small group of believers gathered in San Mateo in a converted convenience store driven out of business after the new freeway off-ramp had made the location all but impossible to find.  They had no idea of the type of singing going on before the throne.  All fifty of them held their songsheets and sang the choruses from rote with barely a trace of inspiration.  After what seemed to be hours, but in actuality was only fifteen minutes of lifeless singing, they stopped for the announcements.  Their leader, Bruce Wainright, was a graduate of the Assembly of God Bible College in Santa Cruz.  He tried his hardest to pump his life into this assignment - his first.  After being there for three months, he began to wonder if he had correctly heard God's voice calling him away from a successful career with American Express Corporate Services to go into the ministry.  Twenty-eight, single, and a congregation full of middle-aged people and senior citizens, he knew something had to change quickly.

He stepped to the podium and addressed the congregation.  "This week the Johnsons are having an open house on Thursday.  Check with Gladys after the service to see what dish you should bring.  Tonight the prayer meeting is at seven o'clock.  For the last several weeks, only two of you have even showed up for the prayer meeting.  God's not going to bless this church until He sees we are serious about winning souls.  So please enjoy your afternoon, have a great supper together, and by all means, come out for tonight's prayer service."

What Bruce didn't know was that the Mighty One had sent him to San Mateo.  The Mighty One had known all along of Santero's intention to destroy the Bay area and He looked for someone He knew would be willing to pay the price.  Bruce was the most serious person he had heard from.  Day after day, Bruce was beseeching the Mighty One to use him, send him.  Everyday he was up at six studying his Bible and singing songs and praying.  Gradually, the enemy's attacks on him, offers of beautiful women and job promotions began to mean even less to Bruce as he concentrated on finding out what God wanted him to do.

It was during a service at Bruce's church in Phoenix that the Mighty One had sent an evangelist from New Zealand to confirm what he had been telling Bruce - to leave American Express and go to Bible College.  Youthful zeal unhampered by doubt was the best atmosphere in which the Mighty One could outpour His faith and favor.

Bruce's enthusiasm was contagious and unbridled.  The Mighty One put it on his heart to speak to prisoners.  Bruce would go into the County Jail week after week and see the men and boys responding to the message of hope.  He was able to paint an accurate enough picture of the Mighty One that after he spoke, people weren't afraid of Him but embraced Him as their friend.  Untold lives were changed, and it was with sadness that John Malcomb in charge of the prison outreach had to say goodbye and let Bruce go off to Bible college.  The Sunday before he left, the preacher, no more than thirty himself, had called Bruce up to the platform and the entire church gathered around praying for him.

It had only taken him eighteen months to get his Master's in pastoral studies, and the assignment to San Mateo had seemed to jump out to him from the bulletin board where he had first seen the notice.  He'd met several girls while at school but had not met the one he figured he would know immediately upon meeting that he should marry.  Consequently, by not seriously dating, he had saved himself a lot of emotional stress and was able to be the big brother to many broken-hearted fellow students.

The night he left for San Mateo, only about an hour and a half from Santa Cruz, they had thrown him a party.  He had taken several trips to San Francisco and knew the whole Bay area suffered greatly from spiritual lethargy.  He didn't care; he knew the Mighty One could change it and he was going to be there to help Him.  Still, the loneliness, the apathy, all these things began to eat away at him taking one piece at a time out of his heart.  He yearned for a real friend, or even better, a wife.  So far the prospects looked pretty dismal.  Once he'd responded to a singles ad in the Examiner, but the girl had turned out to be into New Age and had queried him extensively on his past lives.  He told her you only come around once, and after that, God judges you for the deeds you do in your body.  He decided after that, singles ads weren't too good of a spot to find your future mate.  Lately, he'd found most of his prayers were focused on his own needs and that troubled him.  Tonight at the prayer meeting, he vowed it would be different.

Jerry Hauser didn't know that the body of his daughter had washed to shore and was found by an elderly couple walking on the beach.  The currents had taken it away.  It was barely recognizable as a human body.  Portions had been eaten by the fish and the smell, after it sat in the sun all morning was nearly unbearable.  The local fire department had picked it up, carried it up the steep cliff and taken it to the county mortuary where it received a quiet pauper's burial.

Going from club to club and theater to theater, Hauser quickly became a regular in the porno district.  He had called his wife to let her know what he was doing, but he was drawn more and more to the steamy underworld of exotic pleasure that lay open before his barren heart.  At first he justified to himself that he just needed a back rub, so when he went in to the Asian Massage Parlor and paid their fifty dollar massage fee, he really didn't know what to expect.  The girls were experts at sexual manipulations, and after the usual hot oil treatment, they asked him if he wanted his genitals massaged.  It was only an extra $25.  Hauser, lying naked on the table and already aroused, quickly agreed.

They say every journey begins with the first step.  It was Hauser's first step to sexual addiction.  He'd built up quite a bank account and many investments in his years serving in the Navy.  An extra thousand a week for sexual favors didn't make any immediate difference to his financial well being.  He found himself gradually searching for young girls that resembled his daughter and bringing them back to his hotel room where he would subject them to degrading sex acts, always hating himself for it afterwards.

Santero was running the entire red light and porno district of San Francisco.  He made it a point to personally review the files of the big spenders and to lead people to their destruction.  Several times Hauser had paid for the escorts with his platinum card.  Of course, being proud of his title with the Navy, it read Commander Jerry Hauser.  Don Kasen, who ran the largest string of girls at the Purple Balloux, contacted him.

"We got a live one, thirty years service in the Navy.  This looks like his first time out." 

"I saw his receipts.  He's dropping quite a bit of money," Santero gloated.

"Word is his daughter was a porno star and he's looking for her.  He shows everyone her picture."

"Yeah, I know her.  She committed suicide," Santero commented.  "Look, tell him about my place and invite him down.  Tell him you know someone that might know something about his daughter.  Bring him down tonight.  We'll have those new girls in from Miami.  It'll be awesome - something even I am looking forward to."

Kasen knew any favor he did for Santero was never forgotten.  Even the leftovers from Santero's plate were enough to make him a very wealthy man.  And that's what he loved - money.