Salvation Boulevard (15 page)

“They use the universities,” he said, anger slowly seeping into his voice from where it simmered on some back burner, over the steady
flame of his sense that we were being betrayed, “to set the agenda of what we're allowed to think. They get to say what science is, what human nature is, what history is, what law is—and then force it on the rest of us.

“The college that you see down there, that's merely the seed.” From anger, to hope. He was, indeed, a man out to save the world. Though the question kept nagging, why was he working so hard to recruit a foot soldier like me? “Soon it will blossom into a university, a great university,” he said. “With a medical school, based on Christian ethics, and with a law school to develop Christian lawyers to fight the ACLU and the activist judges, lawyers who will fight for the rights of believers and free speech for Christians. We will have computer engineering and software design schools.” Then he added with a thin smile, “God has got to be able to make better software than Microsoft.”

I laughed at his punch line. “Those are impressive goals,” I said.

He looked at me, studying my face, as if to determine if he could trust me. Then he nodded slightly. “This is not yet for publication or even discussion. This is just between us.”

“I understand.”

“They're not goals. They're plans. Solid, concrete plans that will go into effect very soon. In fact, they're even bigger than what I've already told you.” Now we had gotten to something new. He went on, “The only thing I worry about is having good people around me.

“You're very good at what you do. As a husband and a father, as the provider for your family, I'm sure you have ambitions. To turn what you do into a real business, with employees and retainers and long-range contracts. Or you might want to be part of a company, an executive with a serious salary and benefits, so you don't have to worry, month to month, if there's money coming in. Those opportunities are here. Safety and security are essential requirements of a successful community. Great opportunities. I need people like you, Carl.”

“Thank you. I'm glad to hear it.”

“That's why you don't want to be on the wrong side of this thing.”

We had come to the crunch that I'd feared.

“Pastor,” I said respectfully, “I'm not on anyone's side.”

“Do you agree that we're in a War on Terror?” he asked, trying to box me in.

“Yes, of course we are.”

“And which side are you on?”

“I'm just in the information business,” I said, trying to stay out of the trap. “The prosecutors have the cops. So I work for defense attorneys. That means sometimes I'm working for the bad guys. That's just the way it is. The lawyers present the information. Then a judge and jury sort it out. That's the system.” I'd seen the expression on his face any number of times on irritable judges, impatient to overrule an objection they didn't like. So I reached a little higher. “That's the way it's set up in the Constitution.”

“‘The Constitution is not a suicide pact,'” he snapped back. “Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, the Supreme Court, anyone with any sense understands, if we don't survive, there is no Constitution. Survival comes first. This is war time.”

“I'm sure that's true,” I said. “But look, I've met this kid . . . ”

“Kid?”

“Frankly, he seems like a scared college kid, hardly the type . . . ”

“Like the British doctors? They were hardly the type to set off car bombs in the middle of crowded airports. That's how they play it. How can you be so damn naïve?” He stood up. “Come here,” he said, marching toward the middle of the room.

I followed as he'd demanded. His desk was about eight feet wide, custom cut from some exotic hardwood in a shape that mimicked the inner and outer arcs of the room. There was a flat-screen monitor, keyboard, and a printer on top, along with the books and papers he was currently working with. He picked up two pages that had been marked with yellow highlighter.

“This is from the
Kuwait Times
.” Emphasizing the source, he said, “An
Arab
newspaper. About how they indoctrinate children in their madrassas
.
It quotes from their textbooks and their teacher's manuals.

“They teach them that Islam is the only true religion. All the rest of us are infidels. That Jews are monkeys and Christians are swine. A Muslim's true loyalty, wherever he is, is only to other Muslims, no matter how far from home he is, like right here. And under Islamic law, it's perfectly fine to kill infidels. Also adulterers and slaves. Yes, they believe in slavery. Fathers can kill members of their own family without penalty. Grandfathers too. Those are the savages that we're dealing with.

“For them, the Crusades never ended, and their war on us,
the swine,
will continue until judgment day.

“That's what their
kids
are indoctrinated into.”

He shoved the pages at me so I could look for myself. “The truth is,” I said, being conciliatory, “that I've been trying to get out of this, almost since I took it on. But Manny was a good client. And I can't say to clients, ‘I'll take this case, but not that.'”

“Well”—he figured he had me and calmed down—“then you have a way out,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. There's power in his touch. I don't know how or where it comes from, but it's there. He lays his hands on people, and they come to Jesus. They throw down their crutches and throw off their sins. “With Mr. Goldfarb's
unfortunate death, your business obligation is effectively over.” The hand on my shoulder opened with a slight push, as if he had just released me from this new, pernicious bondage, the way he'd once released me from a life of sin.

With a contented nod, he added, “It'll go to some court-appointed attorney. Let him sort it out.”

“I don't know about the court-appointed,” I said, to let him know it might not go that way, but not mentioning that I had some obligation to Ahmad's new council. “Obviously, he wants the best defense money can buy.”

“He doesn't have any money.”

“Sure he does,” I said. “His family, and then there's a group backing them up, helping them out.”

“I think you're misinformed. Goldfarb was doing the case pro bono.”

“No,” I said, “I asked him and he said, no, he wasn't, that there was plenty of money.”

“Feel free to check,” Plowright said. “But you'll find that I'm right, and for some reason—who knows why—your ‘friend' misinformed you.”

There's faith certain, and there's fact certain. Plowright was fact certain. It felt like the world was sliding out from under me.

“Who knows, maybe he had some other interest?” Plowright went on. “Maybe he was really working for the ACLU and was using your good name and good faith as a cover, a front. I happen to know that the ACLU wants this case to explode, to make a mess, to embarrass people, and to make it harder to fight the War on Terror.”

Did Manny have a hidden agenda?

“He certainly didn't have your interests at heart when he involved you in defending a terrorist. You can only hurt yourself, which is a large part of why I'm talking to you. Hurt yourself and Gwen and Angie.

“Anyway, let whoever catches it, handle it. Nazami did it, he confessed, and he's going to be convicted. If he's smart, he'll plead.”

“I have doubts about the confession,” I said, while I tried to think things through. “He said he was coerced. I don't mean yelled at; I mean tortured.”

“Yes, I've heard the rumor,” he said. “And I was very, very concerned, because if it were true, it would be appalling. So I checked, and it looks like the only thing he was tortured by was guilt. People do have consciences. Even Islamics, I guess. Or maybe he wanted to take credit for it, so his family could be proud of him. He wandered into the Wolvern District precinct, ran into a police detective, and said he wanted to confess to a murder. Which he promptly did. The detective took it down. And put him under arrest.”

“Which detective?” I asked, since I still knew a lot people on the force, especially down in Wolvern.

Plowright shrugged that he didn't know, and he went on, “When he said that he was commanded to commit the murder by the Koran, the detective figured it was a terrorism issue and called Homeland Security instead of the DA. Then it came in front of a judge who was drunk, so now it's back in criminal court. Still, leave it alone. It will work out, and justice will be done. Too leniently, I'm sure, but at least they won't get to make a circus out of it.” He sounded satisfied.

How had Plowright come to know so much? Things that I hadn't been able to find out? Maybe he was right that Manny had hidden motives. Maybe I was all wrong. I was confused and still stuck.

Maybe he had the answer to the real question. Maybe he could figure it out.

“Pastor,” I said, “help me out here. I owe you. I owe you my life, and I want to do whatever you want. But here's the problem. When Manny was dying, when I was holding him and calling for the ambulance and his blood was on my hands”—the moment still haunted me, and I could almost feel the wet heat of it on my palms—“he asked me to promise him that I would do this case. I gave my word. I gave my word to a man on his deathbed.”

“That's how Satan works,” Plowright said, the anger that simmers deep inside starting to rise up. “He takes advantage of what's good
in us. We're tolerant, and we believe in freedom. So what does he do? He gets people like those people at that university down there,” he pointed furiously out the window to USW, “to twist freedom around so that we're not free to pray in public places. They churn out books, atheist books, to undermine us. Books that say that the way we respond to religion is mindless button pushing, like the way people respond to pornography.

“Oh, but when it comes to pornography, that's something they love and protect. That's what they want free speech for. So that they can produce endless streams of pornography, their new secret weapon.” The lid he kept over his rage at all these things had cracked. It was boiling out of him, faster and faster, with more and more force.

“It comes up right into your life through machines,” he pointed at his computer, “that are in everybody's home. A secret plague. Addictive as crack cocaine. Nobody's immune. A poll from ChristiaNet found that fifty percent of Christian men and twenty percent of Christian women are addicted to pornography. It creeps in, destroys families, corrupts children. Sex is God's gift to make marriage joyous, and Satan comes and twists it, twists our people around with it. That's how he does his evil work.”

He was sermonizing at full power, and I was his congregation of one. I couldn't tell if it was because he wanted to move me or his passions had risen up and seized control of him. Up this close, instead of in a vast hall among six thousand, was as different as seeing a video of a suspect being subdued on
Cops
and being out there doing it in the street, with the fists and batons, the twisting muscles, the grunting, and the sweat-drenched fear.

“One of . . . one of our counselors came to me just this morning with still another tragic story. About a man who was trying to protect his children, so he went on their computer and checked and saw what they were looking at. And he got hooked.”

“We're in a race,” he announced. In his passion he was bouncing from one thing to another. Each was said with force and conviction,
but they connected in some subterranean place within himself. “A race to save this country, to save civilization. He wants to trip us up. Slow us down. Because he knows we're close to winning. That's what this Nazami thing is about. His servants want to trip us up.

“Satan looks at you, and he sees a man who wants to keep his word.” He was perspiring as he does when his preaching grows hot, and his face was shiny. “That's a good thing. Yes, yes, of course it is. So
he
sees that's how he can get to you.

“You were there, at the courthouse, when your so-called friend made his rabble-rousing speech. What was he doing? He was dividing us. You saw your wife on one side, and the liberals on the other, the side that hates America. Out of your goodness, you were tricked into being on the wrong side. Do you see that?”

I didn't answer, but he didn't need me to. He went on, “America is strong. We have the strongest army in the world. We have nuclear weapons. We stay our hand. Our own goodness holds us back. There is no enemy in the world that can defeat America.” He stopped and looked at me, directly into my eyes. “Only the enemy within. Just as there is no enemy that can defeat Jesus Christ, except”—he tapped me hard, with a single finger on my chest, near to my heart—“the enemy within.”

Then he gathered himself. He took a white handkerchief from his jacket pocket. He wiped the sweat off his face, from his brow on down. When the swipe was done, his regular face, the always composed, in-charge, businesslike CEO, had returned. It was if he were a stage magician, and behind the sweep of the cloth he'd performed some sleight of hand and slipped his mask on.

“You asked me a question,” he said in a vastly calmer way, caring, but moral and stern, like an old-fashioned father speaking to a wayward, prodigal son.

“Ask yourself these questions. Are you committed to a promise made under false pretenses? In law? In your heart? Or do you owe your allegiance to the higher good?

“I don't want you to choose what you may think I want. I don't want you to choose what you think is the most profitable thing to do. I don't want you to choose out of fear,” he said. Then he proceeded to list his threats. “That you'll lose business, that you'll be ostracized. I don't want you to choose because you're afraid that your choice will harm your relationship with your wife.