The Sign (58 page)

He looked across the stunned crowd and smiled. “Enjoy your lives. Look after your loved ones. Help those less fortunate. Make the world a better place for all. And allow me one last humble request. Please don’t allow my words to you here today to be used and abused in the same way.” He cast his gaze across the onlookers again, shut his eyes, and raised his hands. The sign held there for a moment longer—then it dropped down, slowly, until it engulfed the entire platform around Father Jerome in its dazzling light, obscuring him and his protective ring of cops and park patrolmen from view. The massed audience flinched backward, gasping in horror—then the sign split up and divided itself into smaller balls of light that shot outward, over the crowd, spreading themselves evenly all over them. A horizontal field of hundreds of smaller signs, each no more than three feet across, now hovered over the sea of onlookers, almost within reach of their outstretched hands.

It took a couple of seconds for the first gasp and the first shout to draw the crowd’s attention back to the platform at the top of the steps.

The cops and the park patrolmen were looking around in puzzlement. The whole crowd looked on, also bewildered.

Father Jerome was gone.

A
cross town, at his mansion in River Oaks, Reverend Nelson Darby glared at his massive TV. His land line was ringing.

Again.

As was his cell phone.

The preachers he’d invited onto the stage with him were clearly watching the live telecast too. And they weren’t thrilled either.

He sucked in a deep, angry breath.

Grabbed the big phone unit from the limed oak coffee table in his study.

Ripped its power cord out of the wall.

And hurled it straight through his TV screen.

THEY
ALL
WATCHED
the endless replays of the coverage in the executive lounge of the
FBO
at Hobby Airport with relief. They’d pulled it off, and so far, there was no sign of any vicious reaction, not from anywhere around the world. They all knew they’d opened a huge Pandora’s box, opened up a debate that would surely rage on for months and years ahead. But it was an opportunity none of them could resist.

Rydell had booked the
FBO
for their exclusive use. The plane bringing Rebecca from L.A. was due any minute. It would then take them all to their various destinations: D.C. for Gracie and Dalton; Boston for Rydell, Matt, and Danny. Father Jerome would be Rydell’s guest until they figured out how to reintroduce him into public life—if at all.

In the well-stocked lounge, Gracie studied Father Jerome as he watched himself on the TV screen.

“No regrets?” she asked him.

He looked at her with warm, smiling eyes. “None whatsoever. We need this. We need a new level of consciousness to deal with the challenges we’re now facing. And who knows? Maybe it’ll work.”

“You have more faith in human nature than I do, Father,” Rydell commented.

“Do I? You created this.” He pointed a bony finger at Rydell. “You created something wonderful. And you did it with the best intentions. It was a shame to let it all go to waste, when it could be used to do so much good. And you had to think it would work, or you wouldn’t have tried it in the first place. Which tells me you also had some level of faith in mankind heeding its call and doing the right thing, no?”

Rydell smiled, and nodded. “Maybe, Father. And maybe they’ll surprise me and listen and take in one tenth of what you said.” He paused, then told him, “I owe you my life, Father. Anything you want, just name it.”

“I can think of a few places that could use hospitals and orphanages,” Father Jerome said casually.

“Just write me up a list,” Rydell told him. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

Gracie gave Father Jerome a soft pat on the shoulder. She looked over at Dalton, who was listening intently as Danny told him all about the technology behind the sign. She wondered if Dalton would bail on her and join Danny and Rydell in geekland, then spotted Matt over by the coffee machine, walked over and joined him.

“So I guess your Hollywood blockbuster’s not gonna happen, huh?”

Matt crinkled his face in mock pain. “Nah. Just as well, really. I wouldn’t know how to deal with all those groupies.” He paused, then added, “Your Woodward and Bernstein moment’s also gone up in smoke.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” she groaned.

Something in her eyes told him it wasn’t that much of a lighthearted retort. “You okay?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. It just feels weird. Pulling off a big scam like this. It feels a bit, I don’t know, condescending. Like we know better.” She chortled. “I feel like Jack Nicholson on that stand, remember? Barking out, ‘You can’t handle the truth.’ ”

“You’re way hotter,” he ventured.

It was just the disarming comment she needed. “I sure as hell hope so,” she shot back, then beamed a melting smile at him. “But thanks for noticing. Now would you please do me a favor and find something else for us to talk about?”

He studied her smile, basked in it for a moment, then said, “You like classic cars?”

H
ere’s where we are:

“I turn back to your prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if we are the generation that is going to see that come about. I don’t know if you have noted any of those prophecies lately, but, believe me, they describe the times we are going through.”

—Ronald Reagan, speaking in 1983

“If people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected, then we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that certainly isn’t what God intended . . . We need to take back this country . . . And if we don’t get involved as Christians, then how could we possibly take it back? If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin.” And:

“Florida is key with regard to a shift in this nation, and no doubt these elections in Florida are key as well. That is why there is such spiritual warfare . . . Father, once again, once again, we’ll rejoice with Your son and bring this nation into alignment with Your government, with Your Kingdom’s principles and authority.”

—Katherine Harris, secretary of state of Florida, on why she

chose not to allow a recount of the Florida vote despite

the numerous charges of election fraud and irregularity,

and with Al Gore trailing George W. Bush by only several

hundred votes in the contest for Florida’s electoral votes,

thereby handing Bush the 2000 election

“I recall the election in 2004. Hollywood was against us. The media were against us. The universities were against us. And despite them all the church of Jesus Christ put George W. Bush back in the White House. We’re on the winning side. We are going to win because we have the truth. We have the inerrant word of God.”

—Jerry Falwell

“Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime.”

—2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin,

when asked if she believed in the Rapturist theology of

End of Days

And here’s where we were two hundred years ago:

“Merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.”

—Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United

States, writing about the Book of Revelation

“The priests of the different religious sects . . . dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live.”

—Thomas Jefferson again

It’s a good thing Jefferson lived back then. He wouldn’t stand a chance of getting the nomination, let alone winning the election, in the America of the twenty-first century. Which says it all, really . . .

Writing is essentially a solitary effort, and in an effort not to end up typing “All work and no play makes Raymond a dull boy” over and over and looking for the nearest axe, I take every opportunity to pick the brains of my friends and other hapless victims whenever I can muster up a reasonable excuse to call on them. Fortunately, they happen to be a very clever and clear-thinking bunch of people who always manage to find the time to humor me, and for that I’m very grateful to them all. In no particular order, and surely forgetting one or two, my stellar posse on this book included Richard Burston, Bashar Chalabi, Carlos Heneine, Joe and Amanda McManus, Nic Ransome (sorry I couldn’t work in the line “He’s not the messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy!”), Michael Natan, Alex Finkelstein, Wilf Dinnick, Bruce Crowther, Gavin Hewitt, Jill McGivering, Richard Khuri, Tony Mitchell, and my parents.

Hearty thanks go to my editors Ben Sevier and Jon Wood for their advice and their patience. Your insights were, once again, invaluable to me. Big thanks too to Brian Tart, Claire Zion, Rick Willett, and everyone at Dutton and at
NAL
, Susan Lamb and everyone at Orion, and Renaud Bombard and Anne Michel and everyone at Presses de la Cité, for all their hard work and their enthusiasm, and for making it possible for me to hassle all the above mentioned people for so-called research on a continual basis.

A very special and long overdue kudos goes to Ray Lundgren and Richard Hasselberger, who as art directors at Dutton were responsible for the iconic covers, starting with
Templar,
that have made such a powerful impact. Ray, that cross with the Manhattan skyline was pure genius. The success of my books owes a lot to the brilliance of your cover designs. Many, many thanks to you both.

Thanks, too, to Lesley Kelley and to Mona Mourad for generously donating to charities and bidding to have characters named on their behalf.

And finally, a big nod of gratitude to my fabulous consiglieres at the William Morris Agency—Eugenie Furniss, Jay Mandel, Tracy Fisher, and Raffaella De Angelis.

RAYMOND
KHOURY
is the bestselling author of
The Sanctuary
and
The Last Templar,
which topped international bestseller lists at #1 and spent more than three months on
The New York Times
bestseller list in hardcover. An acclaimed screenwriter and producer for both television and film, Khoury lives in London with his wife and two children. For more information, visit his Web site at
www.raymondkhoury.com