Thinking:
Thinking:
Thinking:
Daniel stayed in his hotel room all morning, anxiously flipping between the cable news networks, praying that Julia had been able to convince the refinery executives of the danger. This last hour was the toughest. He’d been too nervous to eat breakfast and now felt a little queasy. He checked his watch every few minutes, confirming the time displayed on the television screen. Noon could not come soon enough. He paced the floor, sat and checked the Internet news sites, stood and paced some more. He read Psalm 23 about a dozen times.
As the final seconds ticked by, he counted them down, like a New Year’s Eve reveler watching the ball drop on Times Square, waiting to kiss everybody and sing “Auld Lang Syne.”
Noon arrived. No disaster.
He flipped through the channels, and nothing had changed. Just the usual parade of Democrats and Republicans, shilling their talking points about a broken economy and how not to fix it. He decided to give it a little longer, to be sure.
He left the television on, shaved with the bathroom door open. And as the minutes ticked by uneventfully, his heart soared. He’d done the right thing, he was sure of it. If God had wanted the refinery to blow, it would’ve blown, so He must’ve wanted Daniel to take action. It seemed so clear now.
Daniel had spotted a nice-looking pub the previous day, just around the corner from the hotel. He decided to take himself out for a burger and a beer to celebrate.
At twelve thirty, the news was still the same. He shut off the television and headed out.
He entered the pub at 12:46. The television above the bar was running CNN, and he glanced up at the screen.
Everything was fine.
“Afternoon,” said the bartender, “can I pull you a pint?”
“Thanks, I’ll take a Guinness.”
“Menu?”
Daniel shook his head. “Cheeseburger, rare. And fries, well done.”
“You got it.”
The bartender moved to the computerized cash register and entered the order, then to the taps. Daniel watched black stout flow into the pint glass, creamy head forming on top. It was a slow pull, as Guinness should be. Most pubs in America didn’t use nitrogen tanks, but this one obviously did, and for that he was grateful. The extra wait would be worth it.
A voice behind him said, “Hey, Larry, turn up the volume.” The bartender abandoned Daniel’s half-pulled pint, grabbed a remote and aimed it at the television.
Daniel looked up. On the screen was an aerial shot of a massive inferno.
The newscaster was saying, “…details still coming in, but here’s what we know so far: at 11:19, Central Standard Time, a large explosion rocked the Belle Chasse oil refinery in southern Louisiana, followed by three or four secondary explosions…”
“…The fire is still raging, and officials say it will be some time before they can move in and bring it under control.”
Daniel closed his eyes to stop the room from spinning, forced himself to breathe.
The newscaster was saying, “…according to a company spokesman, the fire began adjacent to the number six silo, which was undergoing repair work, and quickly spread through a feeder line to the main unit, where the first explosion occurred. We do not have casualty numbers in yet—we do know that eighteen workers were taken to area hospitals, but most of the workers inside the main facility did not make it out. Many lives have been lost.”
“You OK?”
Daniel opened his eyes. “No,” he said, “I’m not.”
He dropped a twenty on the bar and bolted out the door.
Father Nick pressed the remote and shut off CNN.
He swiveled his chair to face the large wooden crucifix on the wall opposite his desk, brought his hands together, and closed his eyes. He prayed for the souls of the men who died that morning in Louisiana and for their families. He made the sign of the cross.
He fought the urge to pray for his own soul. He would pray for others, and he would pray for the Lord’s guidance, but he would never use prayer as a
It was Nick’s responsibility to always think of the big picture, even when the big picture was hard to see. If he had taken action to save the men in Louisiana, and the Trinity Anomaly had been disclosed to the world, then whatever power was at work in Trinity would be given instant credence, a papal stamp of authenticity.
And there was no way to know what Trinity might predict—or advise—next. He might tell us what brand of hot sauce works best in gumbo…or he might tell us to nuke Iran.
The Law of Unintended Consequences.
And the unintended consequences could be devastating, not just for the Church, but for the entire world.
Father Nick closed his eyes again, and prayed for guidance.
Tim Trinity stood in the middle of his home theater, staring at the sixty-inch high-resolution plasma television, unable to move. When the “Breaking News” graphic swept across the screen and the newscaster announced the explosion, he’d gone to the wet bar and grabbed a bottle. Now he stood there with the bottle in one hand. He wanted to sit back down on the leather sectional, but he’d forgotten how to operate his body. He wanted to raise the bottle and take a swig, but his arm wouldn’t obey.
He wanted to look away from the blaze, but he couldn’t even blink.
It looked to him like the fires of hell. Hell on earth. And sitting in the control room, just last night, he’d actually heard himself make the prediction.
Tim Trinity stood, unmoving, unblinking, staring at the screen, for a very long time.
And he began to believe.
Daniel jammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop in front of his uncle’s Buckhead mansion. He pounded on the front door with the heel of his right hand. The door opened. Tim Trinity made bleary eye contact and turned back inside the house. Daniel followed him down a marble hallway, into a room with a big leather sofa facing a huge television.
