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The principal reason for thinking Koresh really might surrender soon is that for the first time, he says, he has received the "message" he was awaiting from God concerning the seven seals. Phillip Arnold, one of the experts in apocalyptic theology whom Koresh wants to examine his manuscript, and Koresh himself have provided some clues to his interpretation. In the Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse, the breaking of the first four seals by the Lamb of God (which Koresh now calls himself) unlooses the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: conquest, war, famine and death. Arnold thinks Koresh relates them to events in his leadership of the Davidian cult. The opening of the fifth seal discloses "the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God," which to Koresh might seem an obvious reference to the Feb. 28 gun battle. The breaking of the sixth seal produces an earthquake, and Koresh has predicted one soon in the Waco area. Behind the seventh seal are seven angels who blow successively on trumpets, signaling all manner of calamities: a rain of hail, fire and blood; locusts arising from a bottomless pit to bite men, who wish for death to end their torment. Koresh, in a letter dictated to DeGuerin last Wednesday, said his writing "will cause the winds of God's wrath to be held back a little longer."
But will a ninth-grade dropout who plainly relishes the glare of world publicity relinquish it all to lead his followers into prison? "Koresh is blowing smoke," says Wayman Mullins, a criminal-justice professor and hostage-negotiations trainer at Southwest Texas State University. "It's notoriety and grandstanding."
Increasingly frustrated, federal authorities are talking of forcible ways to end the siege. They are believed to be considering using tear gas and other nonlethal chemicals, trying to shoot Koresh by sniper fire through a window, or crumbling a corner of the building by ramming tanks or other armored vehicles into it. But they worry about harming the 17 children thought to be inside. In practice, any use of force would have to be approved by the White House, which has let it be known that it is watching closely and hopes for a nonviolent solution. So the feds probably will continue waiting out the Davidians -- for how long, nobody knows. At Satellite City, the press encampment out near the compound, mailboxes have gone up, garbage is regularly collected, an Easter service was held, and there is an unelected mayor. The latest gag among a press corps going quietly mad with boredom is that Waco has become an acronym for We Ain't Coming Out.