The Trinity Game

was out of the question. It took two months of “hanging out” in a group, at neighborhood parties, before she finally got over the age difference and agreed to a real date.

One date was all it took. They fell for each other hard and fast, became a steady couple, and spent every free minute together. Daniel was taking a year off after high school, concentrating on his fighting and working at the gym, but he was slated to enter the seminary when he turned nineteen, and time was running out for them. As the months counted down, everything became more intense. The lovemaking, the fighting, the all-night metaphysical debates.

He’d told Julia all about his past, and she understood his need to believe. But to her, God was a human invention—a way for people to strike back at their fear of death. As she saw it, secular miracles were all around us, and that should be enough. Friendship and love and sex and chocolate and children were all miracles. That humans had evolved and survived and thrived in a coldly indifferent universe, had brought meaning and beauty to their lives through art and music and literature, had brought understanding of the world through science—she saw all of that as a miracle. And she saw no place in the universe for a God; didn’t need one.

Damn it, no. Lives are at stake, you cannot afford this right now. Focus. Daniel put the receiver down. He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, returned to the desk, took a few deep breaths.

Daniel could see the promise of a beautiful life with Julia, and he almost backed out of the seminary. But the wounds of his childhood were too deep, and her love was simply not enough to heal those wounds…

He again picked up the phone, and this time punched in the number. After a few rings, she picked up.

“Julia Rothman,” she said. Daniel tried to answer, but the words caught in his throat, so exquisite was the ache caused by the sound of her voice. “Hello?”

He fought against a resurgent flood of memories. “Hi. Julia, it’s Daniel Byrne calling, we knew each other back in—”

Julia let out a throaty laugh. “You don’t have to remind me how I know you, Danny.”

“Well, yes, it’s just, it’s been a long time, so I didn’t want to assume…” You are such an idiot.

“You still a priest?”

“Yes, yes, still a priest. You?”

“Uh, I’ve never been a priest.”

“No, of course. I-I meant…” Shit. “Listen, Julia, I can’t do small talk right now. Something important has come up, and I think it’ll be of professional interest to you.”

A couple seconds of silence. “All right, shoot.”

“It’s a delicate situation, and I’d like to keep our conversation off the record.”

Another pause on the line. “OK.”

“OK. There’s gonna be an explosion at the Belle Chasse oil refinery. Tomorrow morning.”

“Jesus Christ…pardon the blasphemy. What kind of explosion?”

“I don’t know, an accident of some kind.”

“Accident? How do you know about it, then?”

“That’s the delicate part. I already called the refinery—they thought I was a nut job. But if you warn them —”

“I’m sorry if it’s delicate for you, but I can’t just take your word on it. I need to know how you know this.”

“I understand. But we’re off the record, right?”

“We already agreed on that.”

“Fine. This will sound completely insane, I realize, but if you check it out, you’ll know it’s the truth.”

“I’m listening.”

“You remember my uncle, Tim Trinity?”

“??’Course I do.”

“You’ll find his broadcasts archived on his ministry website. You need to look at the one from yesterday. Not all of it. Just skip ahead to the speaking-in-tongues part. Record the tongues, then play it backwards and speed it up by a third.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m serious. Run it backwards, and Trinity’s speaking English. He predicts the accident at the refinery. I know how crazy this sounds, but it’ll only take an hour of your time. Lives are at stake here, Julia.”

She sighed into the phone. “All right, I’ll check it out.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I just said I would.”

“And you’ll get down to the refinery today, warn them.”

“I will.”

“Thanks, Julia.”

“Yup. You take care now, Danny.”

Julia Rothman hung up the phone, dropped her face into her hands, and didn’t move for a full minute.

A reporter two desks over said, “You OK?”

“Yeah,” said Julia, “that was just an old friend. Sad to say, he’s become a member of the tinfoil hat brigade.” She tore the top sheet off her notepad, crumpled it into a ball, and dropped it in the wastepaper basket.

Thinking: What the hell happened to you, Danny?

Tim Trinity sat alone, drinking bourbon in the video control room, facing a wall of blank monitors. One monitor for each of the four camera feeds, three more dedicated to video playback decks. A master monitor in the center was for whichever feed was currently “hot,” as the director punched buttons on the switcher to assemble the finished show. An audio mixing board sat on the table, next to the switcher. The soft whisper of the machines’ cooling-fans was the only sound in the room. He’d always found that sound comforting and often spent time in the control room after the crew went home.

But he hadn’t come here tonight for comfort.

The soundproof door opened and a young video technician—Trinity couldn’t recall his name—entered, arms full of videocassettes. The kid put the tapes on the table, making a neat tower.

“Here’s the last fifteen episodes, Reverend Trinity. Most recent on top. Anything else I can get you?”

“That’ll do.”

“Want me to stay and run the deck?”

“No, I got it. You can go home now.”

“Yes, sir. Good night.” The kid started for the door.

“Hey, kid.” Trinity dug into his pants pocket and fished out a fifty-dollar bill, stuck it in the kid’s hand. “Thanks for staying late.”

“Thank you, sir. Sure do appreciate it. I’m getting married next month, and this’ll help the honeymoon fund. We’re going to—”

“Fine, have a good time,” mumbled Trinity as he swiveled his chair away from the kid and grabbed a tape off the top of the tower. The door closed behind him, and he stuck the tape into a playback deck.

He scanned through the tape on high speed, to the end of yesterday’s tongues, and hit pause. He refilled his glass from the bottle of Blanton’s, took a sip. He turned the deck’s jog-wheel to the left, and the tape began running backwards.

Trinity listened. And heard.

“Oh my God,” he said.

The glass slipped from his hand, splashing bourbon across his white leather cowboy boots.