The Sign

Think of what we can make people do, Drucker had said. The phrase reverberated inside Rydell’s head again.

A final thought confirmed his worst fears. Again, it was born out of something Matt had said.

Me, I’d take it as a definite sign that you guys are now enemies. That’s what he’d said. And it suddenly dawned on Rydell that Matt was right. There was no way this was ending well. Not for him. Nor for his ill-fated alliance with those bastards. They had Rebecca. There was no point in glossing over it. In pretending that it was a temporary difference of opinion. There was no going back from that. No way to salvage it. It was over.

They were the enemy.

His cell phone rang. It was Drucker. It didn’t take long for him to voice the main question.

“What did you tell him?”

“All he wanted to know was what happened to his brother,” Rydell said vaguely.

“And?”

“I told him I thought he was still alive. I told him I didn’t know where he is. Then I ran.”

Drucker went silent. After a moment, he said, “Nothing else?”

“Don’t worry, he doesn’t care what you’re up to,” he lied. “He doesn’t know about you, for that matter, although maybe I should have mentioned it.”

“Wouldn’t have been ideal for Rebecca,” Drucker reminded him coldly. He paused, clearly putting the news through its paces, then said, “All right. Stay at the hotel and avoid the press as much as you can. We might have to find you somewhere more discreet to stay until you can move back into the house.”

Rydell hung up and thought about Rebecca again. Matt’s words rang through his mind.

He was right. They were enemies now.

And maybe Matt was the only one he could turn to in order to do something about it.

Chapter 62

Skies over the eastern Mediterranean

The sea stretched out as far as Gracie could see, a cobalt-blue quilt snugly tucked in around the very edge of the planet. Up ahead and to the left, the sun was teasing the horizon. She leaned forward, right against the glass, and drank in the tranquil view. Although she hopped on planes as often as people took the subway, looking out from an aircraft at high altitude never failed to instill a sense of wonder in her. It was an almost mystical experience—looking out at the planet, the clouds, the sun, the infinite expanse of space beyond what she could see. She never tired of it. She’d normally just sit there and stare out and let her mind wander in all kinds of directions, enjoying that fleeting moment of blissful isolation before getting pulled back into the land of the living by some intrusion.

This time, the intruder was a question, voiced in the dulcet tone of Father Jerome. “How are you feeling?”

She looked up at him. It felt surreal. To be there, talking to him. After what she’d witnessed. When she wasn’t sure what he really was.

She managed a partial smile and a soft shrug. “Frankly . . . a bit lost. Which is not a feeling I’m used to.”

“You’ve been lucky,” he commented. He looked uncomfortable, slightly stooped in the cabin despite the fact that its ceiling was an inch or two over six feet high and he wasn’t a tall man.

Gracie noticed. She gestured at Dalton’s empty seat. “Please. Won’t you join me?”

He nodded, and as he sat down, Dalton came back from the galley.

“I’m sorry, I’m in your seat,” the priest apologized.

“No, that’s fine,” Dalton replied breezily as he handed Gracie another coffee. “I need to talk to the pilot anyway. Find out what the plan is.” He glanced back at Gracie to make sure she was okay with that, then moved forward toward the cockpit.

Gracie watched him go, then turned her attention back to the priest, recovering her train of thought. “You were saying I’m lucky?”

“I know what it feels like. To feel lost. Ever since I left the Sudan, I’ve often felt adrift myself. Unsure of where I was, what I was doing. It’s been . . . hard,” he said vaguely. “And now this . . .” He managed a half smile. “Just to confuse me even more.” He waved his ramblings away and focused on her.

She studied him, then leaned closer. “Up on that roof,” she asked. “What did it feel like?” She remembered his mystified look, when the sign was just there, over him, suspended in midair. “Did you have any control over what was happening?”

He shook his head softly. “It feels as strange to me as it does to you and to everyone else,” he said. “There’s only one thing that’s clear to me.”

“What’s that?”

“If I’ve been fortunate enough to be chosen, then I must overcome my doubts and accept God’s grace and his trust. I mustn’t shy away from it or deny it. It’s happening for a reason. It has to be.” He eyed her reaction, then asked, “What do you think is happening?”

“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.