reverend, dressed in a full hazmat suit, came out alone and without hesitation strode across A1A and through the main gate.
“Okay, showtime,” McGarvey said. He pulled on his hood and stepped outside.
Schlagel pulled up short about ten yards away, maybe sensing that something was wrong. “Who are you?” he shouted.
“I’ll explain inside!” McGarvey shouted back.
“Why here, like this?”
“Privacy, Reverend. No one will bother us here.”
Schlagel didn’t like the situation, it was clear from his suddenly tense body language. He looked back the way he had come, and he half turned.
“Please,” McGarvey said, letting a trace of fear creep into his voice. “Sir, I’m begging you, on behalf of the president. Just hear me out. My God, you can’t begin to realize how important this is.”
“To me?”
“For the entire nation,” McGarvey said. “Only you can help now.”
Schlagel hesitated a moment longer, but then as McGarvey had counted on, his ego got the better of his judgment and he came the rest of the way. “I’m all ears,” he said. “Whoever the hell you are.”
At the steps he turned and waved to his people, and then followed McGarvey inside.
“Thank you, sir,” McGarvey said. “I’ll close the doors, so we’ll have a little more privacy.”
“If you think it’s necessary,” Schalgel said.
When the doors were closed, McGarvey turned around, took off his hood, and dropped it on the floor.
“You’re live,” Otto said.
Schlagel was taken aback at first, but then he took off his hood and smiled, almost in admiration. “You son of a bitch,” he said. “Lord didn’t send you. This is one of your schemes. And what now? Are you going to shoot me?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” McGarvey said.
“Glad to hear it,” Schlagel said, still amused. “But, if you don’t mind, my people are waiting for me.”
“Your choice, Mr. Deutsch, but you might want to stick around for a couple of minutes, just to hear me out.”
Schlagel was suddenly wary, but not concerned. “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard for a very long time.”
“We have your background in Milwaukee, as well as your real service record — cigarettes, gambling, sex.”
“Youthful indiscretions, along with my arrest and incarceration in California. All of which brought me face-to- face with Jesus Christ our Savior, who I took into my soul and to whom I promised my life’s works.”
“Including the Marinaccio Group in Dubai?”
Schlagel said nothing.
“It’s an oil futures hedge and derivative fund and you know the woman who runs it. Anne Marie Marinaccio.”
“Never heard the name.”
“Then you probably don’t know that she and two of her people were assassinated last night,” McGarvey said. “No one knows what’s to become of her holdings.”
“It has nothing to do with me.”
“You’re heavily invested in the fund, to the tune of at least fifty million dollars, probably a lot more. We know that much. We even have your account numbers. Your ministry’s funds. Your church and network are big, but that’ll be a major hit.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Schlagel said. “Nothing but a cheap trick, a smear campaign. And all this time I thought the bastard in the Oval Office was above this kind of crap.”
“I think we can come up with the names of a number of mistresses and whores you’ve been involved with over the past few years.”
Schlagel looked over his shoulder, but then shook his head. “In the past, before I took Jesus into my heart,” he said.
“Offshore accounts in the Caymans and Channel Islands.”
“Liar,” Schlagel said.
“How about the International Bank of Commerce in Dubai? You have money there, too.”
“If you had any proof of that sort of nonsense you would have turned it over to the FBI by now. Lord would have made sure of it.”
“Did you know that the bank funds terrorist groups like al-Quaeda? I wonder what your faithful flock would say if they knew.”
“Listen to me, you prick, if you and your pals in the Bureau had any proof you would have arrested me by now.”
“Maybe you should take a look at this,” McGarvey said and he opened his cell phone and held it up. “Orlando, Mariott, last night.” The prostitute Otto had arranged was twenty-three but she looked sixteen, and the hidden cameras the techs from Special Projects had set up caught everything in high-def living color; including the reverend, the girl, and the sounds of their sex, which at one point had gotten a little rough, almost so much so that Otto had been about to order the girl be rescued.
Schlagel didn’t care. “The recording was fabricated, so go ahead and show it to whoever you want. But let me tell you shit like that is done all the time. Christ, we even have the facilities for parlor tricks like that and a lot more out at McPherson. What do you think we are, a bunch of Kansas Bible Belt hicks? But you did hit the nail on the fucking head when you called them my ‘faithful flock,’ because that’s exactly what they are. Faithful, because I molded them that way, and a flock of sheep because that’s how I lead the dumb bastards.”
“It can’t be easy, being in the spotlight like that.”
“You can’t imagine how easy it is.”
McGarvey nodded. “I have to hand it to you, Reverend, you’re good. But if you mean to get those people out there excited enough to storm this place a lot of them could get hurt.”
“If one hundred die tonight, if one thousand are wounded and horribly maimed either by radiation or by National Guard bullets, it will only advance my cause.”
“Your cause?”
“Prove to the world that I alone have the vision to take us out of this terrible mess we’re in.”
“And you think your flock will believe it?”
“They’ll believe anything I tell them,” Schlagel said.
McGarvey went to the doors and threw them open. “Then go, Reverend, tell them,” he said, and someone had turned one of the loudspeakers around, so his voice echoed off the side of South Service. Along with the moans and cries of the prostitute and Schlagel’s grunts.
“What?” Schlagel said, his voice booming. “You son of a bitch,” he said, his words rolling over the crowd. “Lies!” he shouted, brushing past McGarvey and walking out the door to his waiting flock.
EPILOGUE
