“Last I heard, he was in D.C.,” Rydell told him. Then something occurred to him. “Unless he’s here. For all this.”
“Call him. Tell him you’re here if he wants to talk. And tell him to get his ass down here if he isn’t here already.”
Rydell weighed it. Seemed to like it, but with a slight reticence. “He’ll suspect something’s up.”
Matt shrugged. “He’ll still want to meet with you, and that’s something we can control. We’ll pick the place. We can be ready for him. Besides, it’s not like I’m juggling ten different options here.” He played it out one more time, then nodded, going for it. “Make the call.”
“You sure?” Rydell asked.
“Get him down here,” Matt confirmed. “I think we’d both like to hear what the bastard has to say.”
Chapter 69
River Oaks, Houston, Texas
The area around Darby’s house was entirely sealed off by the police. Running a perimeter four blocks out on three sides, their barricades were blocking all access except for residents. The back of the house looked out over the golf course, and access to the club was also now under strict police control. Officers and dogs patrolled the greens, on the lookout for overzealous believers and angry fanatics. The governor also had the National Guard on standby, should the need for more manpower arise.
The chopper set down in the parking lot of the country club, and its occupants were shuttled across the golf course to their host’s mansion under police escort. News vans crowded the edges of the cordon, a long row of white vans and satellite dishes. Throngs of hysterical worshippers were massed against the barricades, clamoring for Father Jerome to come out and talk to them, desperate for a glimpse of the Lord’s envoy. A couple of whackos had infiltrated their ranks and were blathering away with incoherent speeches about the imminent end of the world, but more common were the scattered choruses of hymns and carols that could be heard across the neighborhood.
Gracie and Dalton were shown to a room on the ground floor of a guest house that abutted the main building. Brother Ameen was in an adjacent room. Father Jerome was given a cosseted guest suite on the second floor. The plan was for them all to remain at the mansion until the big sermon at the stadium the following evening.
Ogilvy, who was in town, had asked for continual updates live from inside the Darby estate. Gracie and Dalton had given the network’s viewers a tour of the compound, but hadn’t managed to get a word from Father Jerome, who was resting in his suite and had asked not to be disturbed.
After Gracie signed off, Dalton checked his watch and said, “I’m off to the airport to get the skycam and the rest of our stuff. I might pick up some fresh clothes if the mall isn’t mobbed. You need anything?”
Gracie chortled. “An alternate reality?”
“I’m not sure Gap sells those, but I’ll see what I can do.” He smiled.
He wandered off and left her. She went back to the room, where she collapsed on the bed. It had been a brutal few days, and there was no end in sight. She managed to tune out for all of three minutes before the phone rang.
She fished out her BlackBerry, but it wasn’t the one that was ringing. She burrowed deeper into her bag, saw the soft blue glow of another screen, and pulled it out. It was Finch’s phone.
She eyed it curiously. The caller’s ID was flashing up. It said Gareth Willoughby. It wasn’t a name she recognized at first—then it clicked. He was the producer of the BBC documentary.
She took the call.
Willoughby didn’t know Finch had died. The news took him by complete surprise. He told Gracie he didn’t know Finch and said he was just returning his call.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, then Gracie said, “I guess you must be glad they finally agreed to let you go up there and talk to Father Jerome, huh?”
Willoughby sounded confused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean if they hadn’t said yes, or if you hadn’t kept on insisting . . . who knows what would have happened. I know we probably wouldn’t have flown out to Egypt.”
Willoughby wasn’t getting it. “What are you talking about? They came to us.”
His statement pricked Gracie like a dart. She straightened up. “What?”
“They came to us. I mean, yes, we were there. Making the documentary and all that. But we didn’t go looking for him. We had no idea Father Jerome was even there.”
Gracie was having trouble reconciling this with everything she’d assumed. “So how’d you end up meeting him?”
“Well, it was just one of those serendipitous breaks, I suppose,” Willoughby said. “We were filming there before heading out to Saint Catherine’s in the Sinai. That was our original intention. Not the Syrians’ monastery. We were at Bishoi at the time, you know, the other monastery near there?”
“I know the one,” she told him.
“Well, Bishoi’s story, the whole thing about him chaining his hair to the ceiling so he wouldn’t fall asleep. It’s the kind of rather wonderfully creepy detail that adds a bit of spice to this kind of show. And while we were there, we were buying supplies from this small shop and we bumped into this monk from the monastery of the Syrians. We got chatting, and he told us Father Jerome was up there in one of their caves. Acting rather bizarrely. As if he were possessed, only in a good way. Which was really timely for us.”
“Hang on a second,” Gracie blurted, trying to make sense of his words. “I thought everyone knew Father Jerome was there.”
“No one knew.”
“We looked it up,” Gracie objected. “It was there.”
“Of course it was—
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we wouldn’t have met that monk in the first place if it hadn’t been for our commissioning editor at the BBC. That’s what I’m really grateful for.”
“What, that they gave you the green light?”
“No, that they handed us the assignment in the first place,” Willoughby said cheerfully. “It was their idea. They came up with it.”
Gracie felt a buildup of pressure in her temples. “Whoa. Back up. You’re saying you were sent there? This wasn’t your idea?”
“No.”
“So exactly how did this show come about? Give me the whole back story.”
“You know how it is,” the Englishman related. “We pitch ideas. Programs we’d like to do. We keep pitching until something sticks. We agree on a budget and a timetable, and off we go. This one wasn’t like that though. We were bouncing around different ideas. I was more interested in doing a piece on the odd and rather sadistic appeal of End of Times preachings in your country. You know, the lunatics who are rooting for the whole world to blow up. But then the commissioning editor came back and proposed a three-parter that they had American partners lined up for and we ended up doing that instead. Comparing Eastern and Western approaches to spirituality. It was different, but it was still very apropos and they were laying out a decent budget for it.” He paused, taking stock of the conversation, and asked, “If I may ask, Miss Logan, why all the questions?”
Gracie instinctively put up a defensive wall. Despite the discomfort she felt at what she was hearing, a small voice inside her was telling her to protect what she was uncovering. “Nothing, really,” she lied. “I’m just . . . I guess I’m just trying to better understand what got us all out there. Why Finch died.” The second it came out of her
