The Last Day

The restored hope Santorini had previously felt was shaken. “And the voice you heard, Antonio?” he asked. “The voice of Peter?”

The prefect grabbed one of the smaller man's thin shoulders and gave it a heartening squeeze. “That, Silvio, I assure you, was very real. I did hear the voice of the Fisherman, and the rest is exactly as I explained it.”

Santorini's faith was only partially salvaged.

Di Concerci smiled confidently, patted the side of his associate's shoulder and turned to close his briefcase, advising, “Sometimes God's miracles are better appreciated with a little theatricality. I merely added a harmless garnish, nothing more.”

Detecting a hesitancy, the prefect turned to his colleague again, a stronger tone entering his voice. “The Lord helps those who help themselves, Silvio. And I, for one, do not intend to sit idly by and watch my beloved Church disassembled by this insufferable freak of science. We must rally the troops for the war ahead of us. We must, stay united in our cause and we must attack with deadly force.”

89

Shadow of the Pyramids bar and lounge, Cairo, Egypt 10:17 P.M., Friday, March 24, 2000

All right, that's it,” Hunter announced to Feldman, rotating on his bar stool to face his friend head-on. “I've been doing a monologue all evening. All I get out of you are yeah's, uh-uh's and maybe's. what's going on, Jon?”

Elbows on the bar, his shoulders stooped, Feldman looked over glumly at his partner. “Sony, Breck, I'm not good company tonight, am I?”

“Hell, Jon, good company? You're not even here. You haven't been here all week, for chrissakes. You haven't contributed a thing at a staff meeting since we got back from Rome. It's like you've lost all interest just when things are heatin’ up.”

Feldman said nothing and resumed staring down at his drink.

“Come on, Feldman, for the last time, talk to me!”

The lanky reporter shrugged his shoulders and gave Hunter a sideways glance. Looking back down at his now-warm glass of beer, he mumbled, “I'm in love with two women.”

“What!” Hunter cried, a large, insidious grin spreading across his rugged face. “You're shitting me! You sly dog! Where the hell have you had time to-” He stopped and the grin collapsed.

“Holy shit, Feldman. Jeza?”

Feldman nodded his head.

“Holy shit!” Hunter repeated himself. He paused for a few moments as if he needed to let the outlandish thought sink in. “When did this happen?”

“It's been happening. But I guess it really materialized the night we flew in from Rome. I took Jeza back to the desert. We were alone together. I walked her up the hill to the drop-off point, we held hands, and-”

Hunter's brows arched.

“Nothing like that!” Feldman hurriedly clarified, reading Hunter's lascivious expression. “Damn, give me a break, will you!”

Hunter's brows returned to normal. “And now you think you love her,” he said. It wasn't a question. More like a restating of the circumstances in an attempt to absorb them. “I don't know, bubba. Somehow I just can't see you and little Jeza settlin’ down in suburban Cincinnati to raise a family. It just doesn't compute, man.”

“You don't understand,” Feldman attempted to explain, shaking his head. “I don't exactly understand it myself. It's not just a physical attraction that I feel for her. I mean, she's beautiful and all. But it's more than that-”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “She's bewitched you, man. She's got her millenarian hooks deep in you just like all those other raptured suckers out there. Come on, guy, I don't mean to belittle you, but you're a hell of a lot smarter than that!”

Feldman took his glasses off, laid them on the bar and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “God, Breck, I don't know. Maybe that's part of it. I really don't know what to make of her on that level. I mean, how do you explain what happened at the basilica?”

“You mean, do I believe there's some sort of divine intervention in what went on there? Hell no!”

“Well then how do you explain the altar stone? How in the name of God did Jeza know her way around the archives like that? How the hell did she know exactly where all that data was hidden? Explain that to me. Christ, she even knows things about me I never told anyone but my shrink.”

“I don't know about the altar stone, man, but finding her way around a bunch of musty old books is not exactly right up there with walking on water. How do we know Jeza didn't have knowledge about all that archive stuff programmed into her head by Leveque?”

Feldman was unimpressed and Hunter tried a different tack.

“Look, Jon, there are a lot of things about human nature we don't understand. Clairvoyance, mental telepathy. And as far as that altar stone goes, there are things like psychokinesis, telekinesis-moving shit around with your mind, for example. You know, like poltergeist phenomena, where pubescent little girls get all weirded out and mentally crash dishes and crap, and everyone blames it on mischievous ghosts.”

Feldman was still unimpressed.

“So Jeza pulls a few David Copperfields,” Hunter conceded, exasperation in his voice. “That doesn't mean we have to get all Jesus-freaky and emotional and fall on our knees and everything. I mean, Jon, a few thousand years ago people worshiped the sun, for chrissakes. This is the twenty-first century. If we can't explain something right away, we don't have to reach for the God handle.”

Hunter smacked the bar. “Shit, it's time people wised up. Society's been prey to faith healers and con artists ever since superstition was invented. Religion's nothing more than a scam. A way to make money off the gullible. You know it and I know it. It's all a big con. The concept of God is psychological salve for the insecure. Santa Claus for adults.”

Feldman shook his head. “Come on, Breck. All religions aren't scams. There are millions of people out there who're completely sincere in their beliefs and honestly trying to live their faiths.”

Hunter sighed impatiently, set his jaw and frowned at Feldman. “Even if there are, Jon, the truth of the matter is, I just don't give a big ol’ goddamn shit. I don't like religion. I find it boring and political and manipulative. I don't like the sanctimoniousness. And most of all, I don't like the goddamn rules.

“I like to sin! I like to do all the things they don't want me to do. I like to live the good life, and if that doesn't cut it, then God can just haul my ass off to hell when I die, ‘cause I'm not about to change. Those goddamn millenarians out there are idiots,” he exclaimed, dismissing them all with a grand, sweeping gesture. “A bunch of sheep trotting to the slaughter.”

Neither man said anything for a while. Feldman cleaned his glasses with a cocktail napkin and put them back on. At length, Hunter rested an arm on his friend's shoulder. “What about Anke, Jon. What are you gonna tell her?”

“She already knows something's wrong,” Feldman moaned. “She's tried to get me to talk to her about things, but Christ, I don't understand it well enough myself to make any sense to her.”

“Well, you sure as hell don't make any sense to me. Here you've got this fantastic woman any guy would die for, and you're ready to throw her over for a platonic relationship with someone who thinks she's the Daughter of God? I mean, face it, man, Jeza's got some bad wiring. Literally! She's a lab experiment gone wrong. A freak!”

Feldman swung around on his bar stool and grabbed Hunter's forearm hard, spilling his drink. “If I ever hear you say anything like that again, I swear I'll kick your ass big time. Understood?”

It was unlikely that Hunter, who once entertained offers to play pro football as a defensive linebacker, felt any intimidation, but he realized he'd gone too far. “You're absolutely right, buddy,” he backed off. “I was way out of line there. I'm sorry.”