The Fire In The Swamp

John Barry and John Pendygraft: GAINESVILLE — Pastor Terry Jones stayed holed up in his Dove World Outreach Center most of Tuesday. His center is a large prefab warehouse on a treeless field in a rural neighborhood. It has a large neon cross over the entrance that someone shattered with a rock.

The field outside looked like an RV park, TV news trucks parked everywhere. They parked in front of a sign with red letters that read: "International Burn a Koran Day."

Camera operators waited for Jones to come out and talk about burning Korans on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, but he declined to leave his office. His wife, Sylvia, chased a trespassing newswoman out of the building and threw her off the property.

Other than his wife, Jones seemed to be alone. Two associate pastors, husband and wife Wayne and Stephanie Sapp, roamed the lawn, talking to media. They wore .40-caliber semiautomatic pistols in holsters on their hips. They said they'd had hundreds of threats.

Inside, Jones, 58, remained behind his plain desk, most of his face masked by a thick, sculpted gray mustache that rose almost to his sideburns. If he was armed, the gun wasn't showing.

Behind him on the wall was a gun range target. Next to it was a head of death in a Middle Eastern headdress. The target's bull's-eye focused on the figure's chest.