Pierced by a Sword (45 page)

Nathan said nothing in reply.

"What's going on, son?" Tom Wheat asked Denny.

"We're going to North Caldwell to get Greg's family," Denny said bravely.

"Who's going?" Tom asked.

"Not you, Joe!" Becky shouted before Denny could answer, awkwardly running over to her man, grabbing him around
the waist.

The television droned on about collapsed buildings and bridges...

Suddenly, everyone in the room except Chet and Anne started shouting at once, raising the overall noise level.

"Shut Up!" Chet hollered above the din in a thick New Jersey accent. That did the trick.

"Let's pray one Hail Mary and Our Father for Greg and Mindy and the kids. Hold hands."

Everyone, including Anne, prayed
with Father Chet.

"Thank you, Father. I'm sorry I lost control," Anne said, a sniffle escaping between words. "Now, what's going on, Denny?"

Denny looked at Nathan.

It was Nathan who spoke up, "We'll help them. We'll bring them back. Nobody knows how bad it's going to get over there. There could be looting. Or worse. Somebody's got to go. Nobody's going to get in on commercial airlines. Denny
and I are going," Nathan spoke calmly, but with steely determination and a fierce look in his eyes.

Joanie gasped.

"I'm going too," Joe added.

"No!" Becky shouted again.

"No, you're not," Nathan said evenly.

"Now hold on a minute–" Tom ordered quickly.

"Joe, you can't go," Father Chet interrupted.

"Why not?" Joe asked defiantly.

"Because
I'm
going," Chet replied. "My parishioners are there. I've
got family there, too. And a Catholic priest can come in handy in tight spots–"

"–besides, you weigh too much, Joe, and I'll need to load supplies in your seat and–" Denny added reasonably.

"But–" Joe started.

"–But nothing!" Chet interjected, "your wife is due any minute now. For God's sake, take a look at her!"

That got Joe's attention.

Joe looked at Becky. Her arms were folded. She squinted
in studied anticipation. The wheels began turning in his head.

"Go if you want to go," she said with pristine contempt. "But don't expect me to say God bless you and kiss you good-bye.
I
don't want you to go–but that doesn't mean anything to you, does it?"

Father Chet winced.

Everyone waited while Joe thought.

"Okay, I'll stay. I'll do what I can from here," he said finally in his regular soft
voice. Becky hugged him, awkwardly negotiating her embrace around her full womb–but she was still angry.

"Now it's my turn to raise a few objections, Mister," Joanie said. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about her. She had stood watching her husband during the entire, absurd conversation while still holding Anne. She carefully let go of her mother and put her hands on her hips.

"What?" Nathan
asked, his expression softening. Somehow he was never able to work his will on his wife. Not ever.

"What if I don't want you to go, either? What if I
forbid
you to go, Mr. Hero?" she asked, tilting her head. Her tone had an almost academic quality.

"Then I wouldn't go," Nathan answered with that odd calm he had exhibited during the entire conversation. He nonchalantly pulled another Parliament
from Becky's pack and lit it. He inhaled deeply and leaned against the wall. "Remember what you told me this morning?"

Time seemed to stop as everyone else in the room watched Nathan and Joanie conduct their conversation without the tension that infused everyone else. Wheat felt particularly powerless, as if his entire generation had been passed to younger, stronger men and women. In Korea,
he
had been the warrior, ever ready to move with determined confidence toward the enemy.

"What did I tell you?" Joanie asked, honestly uncertain where Nathan was leading.

"You said I was a cool one in a crisis. Well it's true, I am. It might be dangerous–extremely dangerous–over there. Or everyone might be doing fine and we'll drop off some supplies and fly back before tomorrow afternoon. Either
way, it's perfectly reasonable for me to tag along. Denny and Greg are going to need me. It's as simple as that. It's my old stomping grounds, too. Don't you think Denny could use someone who knows the neighborhood to guide him around?

"Just remember, no matter how hairy it gets,
nothing
is going to stop me from coming back here to you and our baby." His tone made the trip sound so–ordinary.

"You're pregnant?" Tom Wheat asked his daughter. She just nodded without taking her eyes away from Nathan.

Tom looked at Anne, who raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders.

"Promise me you'll steer clear of danger," Joanie demanded.

He considered lying but found, as usual, that he couldn't lie to his wife. "No, I can't promise that," Nathan answered, taking another puff. "But I'll try. How's
that?"

"Deal." Joanie gave in. In her heart of hearts she knew that Nathan could be the difference between life or death for her brothers in a bad situation. Nothing bothered him.
It's not that you're complex, darling,
she thought rather distantly,
it's that you're simple.

"Joe?" Nathan turned to his friend.

"Yeah, little buddy?"

"Call my broker in Chicago tomorrow–his home number is on the computer.
When the bell rings on the Nikkei on Monday, Tokyo time, tell him to sell everything in my B and C files and put it into the A file. All of it. He'll know what it means. Got it?"

"Yeah, got it," Joe replied. "B and C into A."

"You guys are out of your minds," Joanie observed to no one in particular.

"Tell me about it, Joanie," Becky agreed. "I feel like I'm in a bad war movie or something."

Anne
Wheat, failing to see any humor in the situation, went to the refrigerator to pack food for the plane trip.

"May I use your phone, Professor Wheat?" Chet asked politely. "I want to see if I can get through to my folks. Dad has a cellular phone in his car."

"Sure, Chet. Help yourself," Wheat replied. The old man pulled his rosary beads from his pocket.
Time to pray.
That reminded him of Karl Slinger.
Karl'll pray, too.
"Chet, if you can't get through, let me have the phone so I can call Karl."

"Sure thing, Professor Wheat," Chet answered, punching numbers into the phone.

Nathan looked back at the television screen. A devastating earthquake in one of the information centers of the world could not long keep images of carnage from rolling onto the screen in waves. The most gruesome images were
already starting to transfer from newsrooms into living rooms around the country.

Nathan knew, however, that within a few days images of wreckage and bloodied bodies would be replaced with graphics portraying numbers. New York was the financial center of the world. He had worked with its numbers for many years. They were
his
numbers. European banks, racked by recession, would surely call in the
incomprehensibly massive notes borrowed by the United States Government over the past thirty years. Only God knew how the Japanese would react. The house of cards was finally going to come down.

He shook his head and took a long lazy drag off his cigarette.
So it begins,
Nathan thought.
So it begins.

5

Saturday Morning
15 June
Salt Lake City, Utah

John Lanning, Dottie Slinger, and Karl Slinger
knelt in silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in the Cathedral of the Madeleine. They met each day at eleven to make a Holy Hour with Jesus, followed by noon Mass to receive His Body and Blood. The routine set well with the three senior citizens. They all felt at peace with themselves and the world. It seemed as if Lanning had always been a Catholic, though he had only been one for seven months.
His highly publicized conversion in January had turned the city on its ear for several weeks.

Lanning had carefully planned his coming out of Mormonism to have the largest possible impact. The first press conference had been on January ninth. He told Elena about his conversion thirty minutes before he spoke to the cameras, and faxed his resignation to the LDS office building fifteen minutes later.
Except for some of the Kolbe Foundation leaders in South Bend, only Karl, Dottie, and Lee knew about his conversion to Catholicism. Every weekend, Slinger had flown Lanning to Saint George in southern Utah to enable him to attend Sunday Mass without exposure.

With Slinger's help, Lanning had carefully timed the dissemination of press releases. The very minute the press conference began, they were
faxed simultaneously to the most influential news desks around the country. The local television, radio, and print media in Utah did not know the nature of the press conference–but they all knew and respected John Lanning. The headline read:

TOP MORMON OFFICIAL BECOMES CATHOLIC.
CLAIMS HE CONDUCTED MISLEADING PUBLIC
RELATIONS CAMPAIGNS FOR DECADES.

The facts revealed in the press release were
all available in the public domain and could be garnered from numerous sources with careful research. The genius was in the presentation. All sources were verifiable. Many of them came from Christians who were former Mormons. Some of these Christians had written books and had produced exceptional videos–but few of these materials were widely circulated.

Lanning gave the press conference at the
SLG Institute press room with Karl Slinger standing behind him. Lee had flown to Salt Lake City to intercede for John in front of the tabernacle in the cathedral, less than a block away. A digital video copy of the press conference was instantly available to all satellite wire agencies and through them to television news stations across the world. A transcript was uploaded onto the Internet and all
the major computer on-line services. Lanning picked a slow news hour on a slow news day.

The primary purpose of John Lanning's effort was not to attack Mormonism. Revealing the truth about the LDS was a noble but secondary goal. Lanning knew that his sensational conversion–he described his trip to hell during the press conference–would cause a stir but would soon fade away, as all news stories
eventually do. He knew that a hot story usually becomes cold in less than three days.

His primary goal was to reach out to Mormons who had doubts about their faith, just as he himself had doubts for years before his trip to hell. He looked into the cameras and addressed this sizable minority. He urged them to leave a faith they knew in their hearts was not true. He gave them an 800 number to call
to get confidential information on joining a self-help group for ex-Mormons. He announced the establishment of a legal defense fund for ex-Mormons who were subject to economic retribution from Mormon employers.

"The real Jesus is not a spirit child," he explained in his practiced, grandfatherly voice. His gray hair, short stature, and bushy black eyebrows all gave an impression of calm trustworthiness.
He was well aware that he looked and sounded a bit like Walter Cronkite.

"The real Christian Jesus is the Eternal God who called forth the entire universe from nothingness. I believe the real Christian Jesus is calling you and He's waiting for you in the tabernacles of Catholic churches around the world. He's calling you today! Listen to Him as He speaks in your heart! Go! Go and talk to Him.
Ask Him to show you the truth! You will not regret your prayers. You will feel the
authentic
burning in your breast of His real Christian Spirit!"

Mostly, though, Lanning appealed to his isolated brothers by setting a courageous example. Only Mormons trapped in a suffocating faith they didn't believe could truly appreciate the bravery it took for Lanning to publicly denounce the sect in the center
of its power, Salt Lake City.

For several days his face and voice were everywhere in Salt Lake City. A firestorm raged throughout Utah in the papers and on the radio talk shows. Lanning made himself available for interviews twenty-four hours a day. The fact that it became national news prevented local Mormon-controlled media outlets from squelching the story at the outset. For once, he was able
to play to his advantage the dominant national media ambivalence toward religion. The story made CNI and two network news programs–their editors were happy to "bash" a religion–any religion. The fact that Lanning provided only truthful data about the LDS seemed to matter little to these secular program directors. A documentary was independently produced and aired on the show
Newsmakers.
He was
also interviewed by
60 Minutes.

Three days after his press conference, the LDS issued a terse, official written statement branding Lanning a crazed apostate, hinting that he was mentally unstable. Even worse, it was announced that an internal investigation was underway to determine if he had embezzled money from the LDS–an outright lie carefully worded to plant a seed of doubt in the average person's
mind.

The following day he filed a defamation of character lawsuit which had been prepared by Lenny Gold ahead of time. The lawsuit revealed that he had passed an extensive battery of psychological tests with flying colors. The lawsuit gave more media attention to Lanning, who continued to appeal to disillusioned Mormons with every sound bite. The LDS was forced to issue an official apology in
the face of publicity that portrayed them as a big bully attacking a recent heart attack victim.

He knew his "onslaught" was not much more than a simple ten-minute speech and a few sound bites. He let the media do his work for him by creating an "event" and a series of follow-up "events." And the LDS no longer had the formidable John Lanning in
their
public relations department. This exquisitely
rich irony buoyed his resolve as he won one media battle after another. It greatly amused Karl Slinger.

By fighting back intelligently and quickly, Lanning was able to publicly demonstrate that the LDS was not much different from many large institutions. The LDS appeared more imposing than it really was. He graphically proved that one man could stand up to the monolithic organization. This gave
even more courage to disillusioned Mormons.