lies, the binges, the betrayals, the women and the flashy gifts he had bought for them with contributions from the faithful. Most horrifying of all, he recalled the way he’d more than once caught himself lusting after a boy in the street. All those sins—large and small—pushed in from the edges of his mind, shouting to be seen and reexamined.
Fear, guilt, and despair swept over him. God saw everything. Everything.
And anyway, this couldn’t be the Second Coming. What the hell was he thinking? Eddy was a nutcase. Of course he was. Spates had known it from the moment he first heard that high, cracked voice on the phone. Anyone who would live in the middle of the desert with a bunch of Indians, a hundred miles from a decent restaurant, was by definition crazy.
He read the man’s letter again, looking for signs of insanity, and a fresh wave of dread hit him. The letter made sense. It was powerful. These were not the ravings of a madman. And this business of “ARIZONA” and “ISABELLA” each adding up to 666 was the most unsettling of all.
God, how he was sweating.
He opened the glass doors of the cherrywood bookcase, removed a thick book, and flipped through to the gematria tables. He looked up the Hebrew letters and jotted their numbers on a piece of paper. As he worked, he saw that Eddy had gotten some of his Hebrew letters wrong and misnumbered others.
He applied the correct numbers and added them up with a shaking hand. Neither word came to 666.
He sat back, gasping with relief. The whole thing was a farce, just as he’d thought. He felt as if an angel had swooped down and lifted him out of the burning lake. Jerking a linen handkerchief from his pocket, he mopped the sweat off from around his eyes and forehead.
Apprehension returned. God might have spared him. But would the media? Would the government? Could he be charged with incitement to violence? Or worse? He’d better pull his lawyer out of bed while he still could. There had to be a way to push the blame onto Crawley. It was Crawley, after all, who had started it.
He pulled at his collar, trying to get some air down his hot, sticky neck. It had been a mistake to bring in that damn cracker, Pastor Eddy. The guy was a loose cannon. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He pressed the button on his intercom. “Charles, I need you.”
The usually prompt young man did not appear.
“Charles? I
His secretary opened the door instead. She looked more haggard than he had ever seen her.
“Charles left,” she said in a flat voice.
“I certainly didn’t give him leave to go.”
“He went to Isabella.”
Spates stared up at her from his chair. He couldn’t believe it.
“He left about ten minutes ago. He said he’d been called by God. Then he walked out.”
“For crying out loud!” Spates slammed his hand on the desk. Then he noticed she was wearing her coat and had her purse. “Don’t tell me you’re also going off to follow that jackass!”
“No,” she said. “I’m going home.”
“I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible. I need you here for the rest of the night. Get my lawyer, Ralph Dobson, on the phone. Tell him to get down here pronto. I’ve got a problem on my hands, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“No.”
“No? ‘No’ what? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I don’t care to work for you any longer, Mr. Spates.”
“What are you talking about?”
She clasped her purse in two hands in front of her midriff as if for protection. “Because you’re a despicable human being.” She turned stiffly and left.
Spates heard the faint sound of a door being closed carefully—then silence.
He sat behind his desk, alone, streaming sweat—and very, very frightened.
57
THE WORD “ASSAULT” HUNG HEAVY IN the air. The others crowded in and watched the main security screen. It was a live feed from a high-angle camera mounted on top of the elevator and it gave a bird’s-eye view of what was going on. At the edge of the cliffs above Isabella, Ford could make out a group of black-suited men setting up fixed ropes and stacking equipment and weapons. They were clearly getting ready to rappel down. Kate moved next to him, and took his hand again. Hers was sweaty, trembling.
George Innes broke the horrified silence. “Assault? What the hell for?”
“They couldn’t contact us,” said Wardlaw. “And this is their response.”
“This is an absurd overreaction!”
Wardlaw turned to Dolby. “Ken, we need to restore communications right away and call this off.”
“I can’t do that without shutting down Isabella. As you well know, Isabella is totally firewalled to the outside. The programming simply won’t let us turn on the communications system until Isabella is shut down.”
“Restart the main computer and transfer control from the servers.”
“It would take at least an hour to boot up and reconfigure the mainframe.”
Wardlaw swore. “All right, then, I’ll go up top, explain the situation in person.” He turned toward the door.
“You’ll do no such thing,” said Hazelius.
Wardlaw stared at him. “Sir, I don’t understand.”
Hazelius pointed mutely away from Wardlaw’s station toward the screen overhead. A new message had materialized.
Wardlaw looked at Hazelius in panic. His eyes swiveled to the security screens and back again. “We can’t keep them out, sir. I’ve got to open the security door.”
“Tony,” said Hazelius, his voice low and urgent, “think for just a moment about what’s going on here. You open that door and this conversation with . . . God or whatever it is comes to an end.”
Wardlaw’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “God?”
“That’s right, Tony.
Nobody spoke.
Hazelius went on. “Tony, we can buy ourselves a little time, and it won’t cost us. We’ll tell them the door wasn’t functioning, the communications systems were down, the computer crashed. We can finesse this. We can keep the doors shut and still come out of this without serious charges.”
“They’ll have a demolition kit. They’ll blow the door,” said Wardlaw, his voice high and tense.
“Let them,” said Hazelius. He grasped Wardlaw’s shoulder gently, gave it an affectionate shake, as if to wake him up. “Tony, Tony.
Wardlaw said, after a moment, “I understand.”
Hazelius looked around. “Are we all in this together?” His eyes traveled around the room and locked on Ford. He must have seen the skepticism in Ford’s eyes. “Wyman?”
Ford said, “I’m astonished you think there’s a possibility we may be talking to God.”
“If not God, then who is it?” Hazelius asked.
Ford glanced around at the others. He wondered who else could see that Hazelius was finally losing it. “Just what you’ve said all along. A fraud. Sabotage.”
Melissa Corcoran suddenly spoke up. “If that’s what you still think, Wyman, then I’m sorry for you.”
Ford turned to her, astonished. There was a new look in her face that stopped him. Gone was the insecure young woman restlessly seeking affection. She looked radiantly serene, her eyes flashing with self-confidence.
“You think this is God?” Ford asked incredulously.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” she said. “Don’t you believe in God?”
“Yes, but not
