Rydell nodded somberly. “What choice do I have?”
She shifted her gaze across the room. “Danny?”
He nodded. “Hell, yes.”
Gracie acknowledged it, then slumped back in her seat, a frustrated, haunted pallor to her face.
Rydell turned to Danny. “How were they planning on doing this? Do you know? How were they going to expose him?”
“They made me design a debunking software. They were going to run it over him once they were ready to out him.”
Rydell pressed. “What does it do?”
“It simulates a breakdown in the technology. Like if you’re watching TV and the signal breaks up. It makes it go all jumpy with static, then it just crashes. It’s designed to be minimally counterintuitive. What you’d expect to see if the sign was a fake. It’ll conjure up a broadcast that’s going haywire.” Danny gave him an uncomfortable smile. “It was either that or a huge Coca-Cola sign.”
“What if we don’t do this and it never comes out?” Gracie threw in, thinking aloud. “I mean, what if there was a way to get Drucker and his guys to keep their mouths shut?”
“The evangelicals would get to keep their new messiah, and Darby and his friends on the far right would get to choose our next few presidents,” Rydell observed gloomily.
“Well by breaking the story and letting people know who was really behind it and what their agenda was, it’ll be even worse,” Gracie countered. “Either way, Darby and all his pals are going to come out of this stronger. Once you and Drucker are exposed, all the heathens and depraved liberals across the country are going to be demonized. We’ll be giving the hard-core right their biggest rallying cry since the fall of the evil empire. Branding people as ‘anti-American’ will get a whole new lease on life. They’ll run away with the next ten elections and turn the country into a Christian theocracy.”
“Hang on, we’re talking about a handful of guys who put this stunt in play, not an entire political party,” Danny protested.
“It doesn’t matter,” Gracie argued back. “What matters is how they’ll spin it. How they’ll use it to split the country even further. They’ll tar everyone with the same brush and make it look like everyone on Drucker’s side of the aisle was in cahoots with him. That’s what they do. And they’re damn good at it too. Just imagine what someone like Karl Rove could do with it.”
“Hey, maybe we could draft him and the other scumbags who sold us the war in Iraq and have them pin this thing on Iran,” Dalton joked.
The others all turned to him with deeply unamused eyes.
“What? I’m kidding,” he protested, his palms turned out.
A dreary silence smothered the room. On the TV, the anchor was back on briefly before the image cut away to footage of violent riots in Islamabad and in Jerusalem. Across the screen, people were clashing furiously as cars blazed behind them. Police officers and soldiers were in the thick of it, trying to stop the carnage.
Gracie sat up. “Turn it up,” she told Dalton, who was closest to the TV.
“. . . religious leaders have urged their followers to show restraint while the questions surrounding Father Jerome are answered, but the violence here shows no sign of abating,” an off-camera reporter was saying.
An anchor came back on, and a banner at the bottom of the screen said, “President to make statement on Houston events.”
“Following the unprecedented events in Houston earlier this evening,” he announced, “a White House spokeswoman indicated that the president would be making a statement tomorrow.”
Gracie and the others didn’t need to hear the rest.
Drucker’s web was spinning out of control.
“Even the president’s getting suckered into this,” Rydell said.
“We can’t let that happen,” Gracie insisted. She let out a dejected sigh and sagged back in her seat. “This is just going to sink us all.” The room went silent. After a moment, Dalton asked, “So what do we do? ’Cause it seems to me like we need to do this pronto, but we’re screwed either way, whether we expose it or not.”
Rydell sat up. “We can expose it,” he stated. “We have to. But only if I take the fall for it. Alone.”
That got everyone’s attention.
He pressed on. “It’s the only way.” His voice was quivering slightly, a tremble of nerves that was alien to Larry Rydell. “My plan didn’t call for a fall guy. It was never intended to empower or undermine any religion. It was just meant to get people to listen. But now . . . after what they’ve done, the way they’ve turned it . . . We’re all agreed that we can’t let this lie go on. But Drucker’s right. We need a fall guy with no political motive if we’re going to avoid tearing this country apart. And that fall guy’s got to be me.” He sighed, then looked around at them with renewed determination. “There’s no other way out of this. If anyone here has a better idea, I’m all ears, but . . . I don’t see it happening any other way.”
“Great,” Gracie grumbled. “So Drucker wins.”
“Don’t worry about Drucker,” Rydell assured her quietly. “I’ll make sure he pays.”
Gracie nodded stoically. No one knew where to look. Rydell was right, and they knew it. But the thought of doing what Drucker was going to do anyway, albeit long before he was planning to, was swirling inside them like a tuna melt that was a month past its sell-by date.
Gracie turned to Matt. He hadn’t said a word throughout.
“You got somewhere else you got to be, cowboy?” Gracie said, a slightly provoking grin bringing a quantum of light back to her eyes.
“We’re forgetting someone in all this,” he said. “Remember?”
Gracie saw it even before he’d finished saying it. “Father Jerome.”
“Damn,” Dalton groaned.
“Can you imagine what’s going to happen to him if this thing breaks?” Matt asked.
“They’ll rip him to shreds,” Rydell said.
“But he wasn’t in on it,” Dalton noted. “You’ll make that clear, right?” he asked him.
“It doesn’t matter,” Matt frowned.
“They’ll protect him,” Dalton argued. “We can make sure they do. Get him somewhere safe before we go live.”
“And after that?” Gracie asked, her voice thick with emotion. “Where’s he going to go? His life will be over, and it’ll be our doing.” She glanced at Matt. “We can’t do this,” she argued, resolve hardening her voice. “Not without letting him know what’s about to happen to him. He needs to be part of this decision. We can’t just have it all hit him unprepared.” She shifted her focus back to Matt. “I have to see him. Talk to him—before anything happens.”
“You saw the news. They flew him back to Darby’s place,” Rydell reminded her. “You walk in there, Drucker’ll make sure you don’t come out.”
“What if you say you want to interview him, one-on-one,” Danny offered.
“Too dangerous,” Rydell grumbled. “Besides, he’s got to be the most heavily protected guy on the planet right now.”
Gracie glanced over at Matt. He seemed to be processing something. “What?” she asked him.
He turned to Danny. “How much gear is there in that van?” he asked him, hooking a thumb toward the motel’s lot.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how much of their gear is in there?”
“The full kit,” Danny said.
“What about the laser transmitter? It was inside the stadium, wasn’t it?”
“One was. We had another with us. For when the sign was all the way out over the roof. It took over then.”
Matt nodded. Visibly putting something through its motions in his mind’s eye. “And how much smart dust do you have left in there?” He caught Gracie’s expression and noticed her posture straightening up.
“I’m not sure. Why?”
“Because we’re going to need it. We can’t feed Father Jerome to the wolves.” Matt glanced around the room. “He was dragged into this, like Danny. And he’s a good man, right? As decent as they come, isn’t that what you
