NEXT BEST HOPE (The Revelation Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

high up in the Sandia Mountains outside Albuquerque. An old soldier hopped out of the driver’s seat and trotted towards the cabin’s door.
    “Not so fast there, friend,” a man said as he stepped out on the porch with a Glock 9 mm pointed at the stranger. “You need to identify yourself in a hurry, or your day is going to take a sudden turn for the worse.”
    The soldier smiled and extended his hand. “I’m sorry for my bad manners. I’m General Sherman Aloysius. I’m looking for Quanah Parker Brown.”
    The man never took his eyes off Aloysius but raised his gun and scratched the back of his head with it. “I don’t suppose Ert and Leadoff had anything to do with this, did they?” he said as he shook the general’s hand. “I’m Brown.”
    “They said they knew somebody who wasn’t afraid of a fight and knew how to get things done. They also said you fought too many battles for the wrong reasons and might want to make up for some of that.”
    “No offense, general, but it would have to be an awful good cause to bring me back into action,” Brown said. He walked over to a handmade rocking chair on the porch and sat down. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
    Sherman Aloysius arranged his chair so that he faced Brown head on and sat down.
    “Have you been keeping up with what has happened in the world the last month?” Sherman asked.
    “I’m in seclusion because I wanted to be alone for awhile. I haven’t cut off communication with the world. I know about the assassinations, the race riots, and yesterday’s arrest of a guy in Nashville on conspiracy to kill the President charges. When I saw your car coming up the hill, I figured it had something to do with some or all of those things,” Brown said.
    Aloysius’ regard for Ert and Leadoff went up with every word that came out of Brown’s mouth. He had spent a lot of time with men who were fighting for their lives. He knew Brown was the sort of man he would want next to him in a firefight.
    “Have you ever heard of Ithurial Finis?” the general asked.
    “Who hasn’t? All pro middle linebacker; left the NFL at the pinnacle of his football career to join the Secret Service; became head of the White House Secret Service attachment. I heard about him when I was with Homeland Security but never had the pleasure of meeting him, although I heard he was one bad sumbitch, if you’ll pardon my language,” Brown said.
    “He is one bad sumbitch for sure,” Aloysius said. “The evidence points to him as the President’s killer. Yesterday, he stood next to the man in Nashville you mentioned earlier as he made a speech about his group, the Christian Militants. That group is positioning itself to make a play against the federal government.”
    “You’re talking Civil War type stuff?” Brown asked.
    “Maybe.”
    “So what it is you want me to do, general?”
    “Finis walked right out of our grasp yesterday. The FBI arrested Westmoreland, hoping he would cave under the pressure and give him up. I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon, and I want Finis now, not a year from now. So your assignment would be to find him and bring him in by any means necessary.”
    Brown didn’t answer, but rose from his chair and walked down the three wooden steps from the porch to the rock-paved parking lot. He strolled to the edge of the woods where he could smell the spring freshness of the spruce branches. He picked up a rock and hurled it down the side of the mountain, listening to it ricocheting off the boulders in the long drop. He pulled his billfold from his pocket and carefully extracted an old photograph that he studied for a minute or two before gently inserting it back in its place. He bowed his head and thought about things he had done in anger, in service to his country, or for revenge or redemption. After about ten minutes, he re-joined Aloysius, who had never moved from his chair or spoken a word.
    “Ithurial Finis is the sort of man who