The Sign (41 page)

“I don’t know. But it’s just weird,” she explained, “to be living it. To be there, watching it happen, to see it going out live, on TV, around the world. To actually have documented proof of this unexplained phenomenon, this miracle I guess, not just some,” she hesitated at which words to use, then went with “questionable writings from a couple of thousand years ago.”

Father Jerome’s brow furrowed with curiosity as he tilted his head slightly to one side. “ ‘ Questionable’ ? ”

Gracie glanced away before her eyes came back to Father Jerome. “I have to be honest with you, Father. I don’t believe in God. And I’m not just talking about the Bible or about the church,” she added, somewhat defensively, as if that made it potentially less offensive to him, “although I never bought into that either.”

He didn’t seem offended or perturbed at all. “Why not?”

“I guess I got that from my parents. They didn’t buy into it, so I never had it drummed into me when I was a kid. Which is where it usually comes from, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“The thing is—again, no offense, Father—on the few occasions I did go to church, I never met a preacher I felt I could trust. I never felt they were in it for the right reasons, and none of the ones I met could ever give me an honest, intelligent, or convincing answer to the simplest questions I put to them.”

“Like what?”

“How much time have you got?” she joked. He smiled back, inviting her to continue. “Anyway, once I was old enough to think for myself, I agreed with my parents and their take on the whole thing. I mean, again, no offense, Father, but historically? It doesn’t stand up, does it? Let’s be honest here. All those stories, from the Garden of Eden to the Resurrection . . . they’re myths. Archetypal, clever, resonant—but still myths. I mean, I tried. I wanted to believe. I wanted that comfort, that crutch. But the more I read, the more I researched it, the more I saw what a primitive masquerade it all was, the more I realized that the faith I saw all around me was really nothing more than a bunch of old tales cobbled together a couple of thousand years ago by some very savvy guys to try and turn a superstitious world into a better place—and one they could control better. We’re talking about a seriously primitive bunch of people here. One and a half thousand years later, people were still burning witches. So, to believe in it back then . . . that’s one thing. But today? With everything we know? When we’ve mapped the human genome and sent space probes out to the very edge of our solar system?” She sighed, then added, “And then this happens and suddenly I’m not so sure anymore.” She looked at him with a sheepish, defeated expression.

Father Jerome nodded studiously, allowing her words to sink in more thoroughly. “Not to believe in one religion or another, that’s entirely understandable,” he told her. “Especially for a well-educated woman like you. Besides, they can’t all be right, can they?” He spread his palms out questioningly and smiled, then his expression turned more serious. “But you’re saying something very different. Something much more fundamental. You’re saying you don’t believe in God.”

Gracie held his gaze, and nodded. “I don’t. I didn’t. At least, not until these last few days. Now I don’t know what to believe. Or not to believe.”

“But before all this. Why not believe in God, outside religion? The idea of something wondrous and unknowable—and putting aside all the associations the word
God
has in the minds of religious people.”

“Logic. You can boil it all down to the basic ‘chicken and egg’ question. The only reason—the only need—to believe in God is to try and explain where this all came from, right? Where we came from. Where we’re headed. But it doesn’t work. If there was a creator, a designer who created all this, well then there had to be a creator to create that creator, right? And one to create him. And so on. It doesn’t hold water.” She paused, thinking further, about something closer to heart. A deep-seated sadness seemed to emerge from within her. “And then my mom died. I was thirteen at the time. Breast cancer. She’d been clear for five years, then it just came back and took her away in ten days. It was . . . brutal. And I couldn’t see why anyone would create something that nasty or take away someone so wonderful.” Even all these years later, her eyes glistened at the memory.

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.” She studied him and hesitated, as if unsure about whether to mention something, then decided she would. “You know, back at the monastery. When you leaned down beside Finch. For a moment there, I . . .”

“You thought I was going to bring him back?”

She was taken aback by his insight. “Yes.”

He nodded to himself, as if he had wondered about the same thing. “I have to say . . . I wasn’t sure myself. Of what would happen. Of what I could do.” He looked up at her, his expression foggy.

“But that’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “That’s what I can’t understand. One minute, something we can’t understand—something that could well be what we call God—is sending us some kind of message, showing itself, and it’s hopeful and inspiring and wonderful . . . and then, the next minute, a perfectly good man’s life is taken away, just like that.” Her whole face was questioning him. “It’s like when my mom died. There wasn’t a better, kinder soul on this planet. And I couldn’t understand why something like that could be allowed to happen if there was any kind of super-being watching over us. There was no way that could be justified. I talked to a couple of pastors at the time. They just gave me the standard sound bites about her ‘being with God’ and his ‘testing us’ and all kinds of other platitudes that, frankly, sounded like complete nonsense. Their words meant nothing to me.”

Father Jerome nodded thoughtfully. “The reason your preacher couldn’t help you is he’s lost. He’s still using the same words preachers used to try and comfort people five hundred years ago. But we’re a bit more sophisticated than that now.” He paused, as if pained by his own words. “That’s the problem with religion right now. It hasn’t evolved. And instead of being open and looking for ways to be relevant in today’s world, it’s gone all defensive and protective and it’s regressed into lowest-common-denominator sound bites—and fundamentalism.”

“But you can’t reconcile religion with modern life, with all the knowledge we have, with science,” Gracie said. “I mean, let me ask you this. Do you believe in evolution? Or do you think men and dinosaurs wandered around the planet together six thousand years ago . . . after it was created in six days?”

Father Jerome smiled. “I’ve lived in Africa for many years, Miss Logan—”

“Please, call me Gracie,” she interjected.

He nodded. “I’ve been to the digs, I’ve seen the fossils, I’ve studied the science. Of course I believe in evolution. You’d have to be a blinkered halfwit not to.” He studied her reaction as she flinched. “Does that surprise you?”

“You could say that,” she laughed, still stunned.

He shrugged. “It shouldn’t. But then, religion in your country is so focused on fighting science and all these compelling atheist voices that your preachers have lost track of what religion is really about. In our church—the Eastern Church—and in Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, religion isn’t there to offer theories or explanations. We accept that the divine is unknowable. But for you and for a lot of rational people like you, it’s become a choice. Fact or faith. Science or religion.” He paused, then added, “You shouldn’t have to choose.”

“But they’re not compatible,” Gracie insisted.

“Of course they are. They shouldn’t be in competition. The problem is with your preachers—and your scientists. They’re stepping on each other’s toes. With big, heavy boots. They don’t understand that religion and science are there to serve different purposes. We need science to understand how everything on this planet and beyond works—us, nature, everything we see around us. That’s fact, no one with a working brain can question that. But we also need religion. Not for ridiculous counter-theories about things that science can prove. We need it for something else, to fill a different kind of need. The need for meaning. It’s a basic need we have, as humans. And it’s a need that’s beyond the realm of science. Your scientists don’t understand that it’s a need they can’t fulfill no matter how many Hadron colliders and Hubble telescopes they build—and your preachers don’t understand that their job is to help you discover a personal, inner sense of meaning and not behave like a bunch of zealots intent on converting the rest of the planet to their rigid, literalist view of how everyone should live their lives. In your country and in the Muslim countries, religion has become a political movement, not a spiritual one. ‘God is on our side’—that’s all I hear coming out of your churches. But that’s not what they should be preaching.”

“It didn’t exactly work for the Confederacy, did it?” Gracie joked.

“It’s very effective at rallying the masses. And at winning elections, of course,” Father Jerome sighed. “Everyone claims Him at one point or another.”

“The way they’re now claiming you,” she pointed out.

“Are they?” he asked, curiously.

“We’re in this plane, aren’t we?”

Her comment seemed to strike a nerve, and he pondered it for a beat.

“Although,” she mused, “they might be in for a bit of a surprise.
I’m
surprised. You’re much less dogmatic than I imagined. Much more open-minded. Shockingly open-minded, in fact.”

The priest smiled. “I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen good, kind, generous people do the most charitable things. And I’ve seen others do the most horrific things you could imagine. And that’s what makes us human. We have minds. We make our own choices and live by them. We shape our own lives with how we behave toward others. And God—whatever the word means—is just that. We feel his presence every time we make a choice. It’s something that’s inside us. Everything else is just . . . artifice.”

“But you’re a priest of the Church. You wear that,” she said, pointing at a cross that hung from a leather strap around his neck. “How can you say that?”

She thought she detected some nervousness inside him, some uncertainty, as if it was something that had been troubling him too. He looked at her thoughtfully, then asked, “When the sign appeared . . . did you see a cross up there?”

Gracie wasn’t sure what he meant. “No.”

He smiled, somewhat uncomfortably, and his eyebrows rose as he opened out his palms in a silent gesture that said, “Exactly.”

Framingham, Massachusetts

A
t around midnight, the Chrysler 300C swung into the front lot of the Comfort Inn. Two men got out. Dark suits, white shirts, no ties. Lean, hard men, with flat glares and purposeful steps. A third man stayed in the car, behind the wheel. He kept the engine running. They weren’t planning on staying long.

The two men entered the austere lobby. It was deserted, which was expected. Framingham wasn’t exactly a hotbed of late-night merriment. They strode up to the reception desk. Behind it, a lone man of Latin origin and advancing years was huddled in a corner chair, watching a soccer match on a fuzzy screen. The lead man beckoned him over. His dark suit, surly expression, and sharp tone of voice got the receptionist on his feet in no time. The man reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out three items, which he spread out on the desk under the receptionist’s nose: two photographs—headshots of Matt and Jabba—and a fifty-dollar bill.

The receptionist scanned the items, looked up at the man, looked back down, and nodded. He then reached out and, with a trembling hand, swept back the fifty and pocketed it. Then the man got his answer, but it wasn’t the answer he wanted. They had checked in earlier that evening. Taken a room. Occupied it for a couple of hours. Then they’d paid and left. The guy behind the counter had figured something of a carnal nature was going down, and the mental picture it had inspired clearly wasn’t one he was comfortable with.

They’d just missed them.

The man from the 300C frowned. He studied the receptionist for a beat, decided there was nothing more to be gained, and walked out. They’d paid, which meant they weren’t coming back. Something about it didn’t sit well with him. Why take a room for just a couple of hours? He figured something unexpected must have come up. Something that didn’t come through on the fat guy’s cell phone. Which wasn’t good news. It meant they had some other way of communicating with the outside world, one that his own side wasn’t aware of.

He led the other man back out, paused by the car, and gave the parking lot an instinctive once-over. Nothing suspicious caught his eye. He pulled out his phone and made the call. Informed his boss what he’d been told. Heard the irritation and anger in his boss’s voice. And was ordered to head back to the safe house and wait for further instructions.

The two men climbed back into the 300C. Their driver waited for a passing car, then slid the beefy Chrysler onto the road and drove off, oblivious to the dark polo-green Pontiac Bonneville that pulled out a safe distance back and was now tailing them.

MATT
AND
JABBA
kept their eyes peeled on the taillights of the 300C and didn’t say much. It was late, the traffic was sparse, the cars few and far between. It all made the risk of them being spotted that much greater. They had to be extra vigilant. No mouthing off or second-guessing their plan. No superfluous chitchat. Just total focus.

They’d baited them by lighting up Jabba’s iPhone. The Chrysler’s appearance had confirmed Matt’s suspicion that Maddox and his goons had been able to track them, despite Jabba’s precautions, what with the phone being switched on for such short bursts. Somehow, they had been doing it. Which gave Matt an opening to draw them in. And wait.

The 300C hung a right on Cochituate and curled around to meet the turnpike, which they rode east. There were more cars there, which ramped down the tension of getting spotted, but ramped it up as far as losing the 300C was concerned. Still, Matt had significantly better-than-average driving skills and a keen eye when it came to spotting subtle changes in the attitude of cars, which helped keep them in the game.