who would do what they were told by their superiors but had no more idea what was really going on than the unwitting Bud Richmond at the epicentre of it all.
Slater had been blown away by the speed and power with which he’d been able to build up his secret agency. The End Time Stratagem had been born.
They got planning.
The plan was grand in scale but simple in concept.
It was a plan of war. A war that, if the prophecy’s power to influence global behaviour were to be believed, shouldn’t be entirely impossible to provoke.
According to the prophecy, the conflict would start in the Middle East. That didn’t seem like a hard thing to manage. It was God’s will, after all. All it required was a helping hand to roll things along, a spark to set the tinderbox alight. A big spark, something guaranteed to outrage the Islamic world like nothing that had ever happened before. Slater and his associates had long ago figured out what that spark would be. It was just a question of giving it the green light.
For the plan to work, the blame for the atrocity had to fall on the heads of the old enemies of Islam – the Jews. It was all right there in the Bible. The war that would escalate into the beginning of the End Times would begin with the massive retaliatory attack by the Muslims on Israel. The fire and brimstone prophesied in the Bible would take the form of nuclear warheads. As the world teetered on the brink of devastating war, millions of US voters who recognised these as biblical events would be convinced that the end was finally nigh. End-Timer votes would flood in. Richmond would be unstoppable.
It was insane, atrocious. Millions of people would die, for sure – Jews and Muslims, maybe even Americans too. But Slater didn’t care about that. The logic was perfect, beautiful and elegant, as the simplest ideas often were. He didn’t believe for one moment that the war would kickstart the countdown to Armageddon. Just the countdown to power, for him. And time was on his side. All he had to do was slowly groom Bud Richmond for his future role as the leader of the faithful.
But Richmond had competition. He wasn’t the only influential figure banging the End Time drum. Slater had teams of agents watching every other potential Christian figurehead. One in particular, Clayton Cleaver in Georgia. Slater had been sitting with Richmond in the limo on their way to a press conference when he’d received the shattering report back from his sources that had turned everything around. It was the start of the Bradbury crisis.
As he thought back to all the events of the past months, Irving Slater paced up and down in his huge office in Bud Richmond’s Montana home base, the sprawling house nestling in the mountainside. The vast windows of his office gave him a sweeping panoramic view of the Richmond thousand-acre range.
He stopped pacing and took a swig of milk from the bottle on his desk. Then he flopped in a soft leather armchair opposite a giant TV screen on the wall, grabbed the remote and hit PLAY.
The DVD was of a current affairs panel discussion programme that Bud Richmond had participated in three months earlier. Slater couldn’t stop watching it.
The programme had been a great PR builder for Richmond. Slater had paid plants in the audience to fire tailor-made questions at the Senator, and he’d written all of Richmond’s responses himself. It was all going smoothly to begin with. Richmond had been in fine form, and Slater had been congratulating himself. The combination of the jackass’s sincere belief and Slater’s own smooth and witty script made for a great show.
But then, two minutes from the end and just when they were almost home and dry, some damn long-haired student in the back of the room had stuck up his hand and asked the fatal unscripted question out of the blue.
Watching the screen, Slater aimed the remote and skipped ahead to that terrible moment.
The student put up his hand. The camera panned across and zoomed in. ‘Senator, many scholars have doubts about the legitimacy of the Book of Revelation as a Bible text. What do you think about that?’
Cut to camera two, and Richmond filled the screen. ‘I’ve read all they have to say,’ he replied calmly. ‘But my faith remains solid and sure.’
The student had more to add. ‘But if someone could prove that St John hadn’t been the author – that Revelation wasn’t the true Word of God – would that not undermine your faith in it, sir?’
Watching the programme on live TV, Slater had been gripping the edge of his chair.
Richmond had hesitated a second, then nodded solemnly. ‘OK,’ he’d said. He’d inched forward across the table on his elbows, fixing the student with that fervent look of his. ‘Let’s say some scholar came up with real, concrete evidence that St John did not really write that book,’ he’d said. ‘Let’s say they could actually prove that the prophecies in Revelation were not truly based on the Word of God?’ He paused again for dramatic effect. ‘Then I would have to revise my belief in it. But I would also take that as a sign from God, telling me that I had to move in a new direction.’ Then Richmond had smiled broadly. ‘And I have to tell you,’ he added, ‘I’d be darn relieved, knowing we didn’t all have to go through the Tribulation.’ The crowd had laughed.
At the time, the sense of unease that Richmond’s ad-libbed answer had instilled in Slater had only been slight and temporary. He’d soon forgotten about it.
But then disaster had struck. When the surveillance team watching Clayton Cleaver in Georgia had informed him that Cleaver was under fire from a blackmailer, Slater had realised that in the light of Richmond’s comments all their careful plans were in serious trouble.
He’d never heard of any Zoe Bradbury before. When he Googled the name he began to worry even more. This was a legit Bible scholar with a high enough profile to blow everything apart. If what she was saying was true, and if she could give the critics the evidence they needed to prove that the Book of Revelation hadn’t been written by John the Apostle, that its very legitimacy as a New Testament text was in question – that the book was a
Slater was a businessman, and his mind worked pragmatically. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out the options.
One. Buy her off. She wanted ten million from Cleaver, but why should she care where the cash came from as long as she got rich? He could double that figure to make her go away. But what if she kept coming back for more? What if she went ahead and spilled the beans anyway? How could she be trusted?
He’d preferred option two. Grab her and make her lead them to the evidence. They’d destroy it for good, and then they’d bury her along with her claims.
So Slater had called on his contacts. His chief associate within the CIA had delegated the task to his man Jones, who in turn had sent a team to Corfu to snatch her. Now Bradbury was in their custody, somewhere nobody would ever find her. But there were too many problems and complications. He couldn’t afford to wait. It was time for decisive action.
He turned off the DVD playback and sank back in the soft armchair, massaging his temples. On the low table in front of him was a hardwood bowl filled with chocolate bars. He grabbed three of them, tore off the wrappers and swallowed them voraciously.
Gulping down the last of the chocolate, he snatched his phone from the arm of the chair and stabbed the keys.
His associate’s voice answered on the second ring.
‘We need to talk,’ Slater said. Pause. ‘No. You come here. I’m alone. I sent the jackass on vacation for a few days.’
‘Give me three hours,’ his associate replied.
‘Be here in two.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
