want to get back to the Westin.”
Jennifer smiled broadly, said, “On it, chief,” and hip-swished out of the room.
Trinity said, “Georgia Dome’s gonna be somethin’ else, but ya know, I think I’m gonna miss this place, I’ve become rather fond of it.”
Daniel wondered exactly what there was to miss in this place. There would be another dressing room just like it, another dressing table, another three-way mirror. Another mountain of unopened mailbags would accumulate just as this one had grown, dirty and gray, except for the new black one with the Bulldog Couriers logo and the—
Daniel flew across the room, grabbed his uncle’s arm.
“Everybody get out!” He yanked Trinity toward the door. “Out! Everybody out!”
Nobody moved. Trinity pulled his arm back. “The hell is wrong with you?”
Daniel couldn’t get the words out. “Mailbag, some—I, a bomb, I think—we gotta go. NOW!”
Trinity’s eyes went wide, a look of desperation on his face. “Where’s my Bible?” Before Daniel could stop him, he’d crossed to the dressing table, next to the tech guys setting up the computer, next to the pile of mailbags.
As Trinity picked up his Bible, Daniel caught his arm again and yanked him into the hallway, yelling, “Run! Everybody run!” He got his arm around his uncle’s waist, forced him to pick up the pace.
“Stairs,” Daniel shouted as they ran down the hallway. Trinity pointed to a door, and they banged through it, into the stairwell.
A concussive blast rocked the building, and the stairwell lights flickered. Trinity stumbled, but Daniel steadied him. “Faster! C’mon!”
Muted screams of horror and howls of pain followed as they flew down the concrete steps and into the underground garage.
Daniel’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he could make out Chris sitting in the limousine, just thirty feet away.
“Chris!” he shouted as they ran to the limo.
But Chris didn’t move.
Chris had a bullet hole in his forehead. He was duct-taped upright in the seat, and his dead eyes stared at nothing.
Daniel jerked at the door handle. Locked. He spun to face Trinity. “Your car—”
“Over there.”
They ran across the garage, to Trinity’s red SUV. Trinity beeped the locks with his remote. Daniel snatched the keys from his hand.
“I’m driving,” he said, yanking the door open and shoving Trinity forward. “Down on the floor, outta sight.” Trinity scrunched down into the foot-well, his chest on the passenger seat.
Daniel stuck the key in the ignition, cranked it, and the engine roared to life.
Behind them, the stairwell door banged open. Daniel turned his head. Samson came running into the garage, gun in hand.
Samson made eye contact with Daniel—a split second that seemed to last an hour—and then raised his gun and pointed it at him.
Daniel threw it in gear, mashed the accelerator to the floor.
Tires squealed on concrete, found purchase, and the beast shot forward.
Samson unloaded at them from behind—
The sidewalk at the end of the driveway was full of Trinity’s Pilgrims. Daniel leaned on the horn, jammed the brakes, saw a clearing, wrenched the wheel, hit the gas, and tore across a patch of grass and onto the road.
“You hit?”
“What?”
“Are you hit?”
“No,” said Trinity, “fine.” He wriggled up into the passenger seat, buckled his belt, as Daniel hung a hard right, then a left, then another right.
Daniel didn’t let up on the gas, driving them deeper into the surrounding ghetto, no destination, just putting distance between them and what they’d left behind.
“Nobody’s following,” he said.
“Well, that’s something,” said Trinity. “Hang a right, there’s a police station up on Magnolia.”
“Not going to the cops.”
“Why not?”
“Samson was coordinating security with the cops, and that was Samson who just shot at us.”
“What?”
“It was Samson just tried to kill us.”
“Shit. Really?”
“I saw him clearly.”
“Damn.” Trinity shook his head. “Still, that doesn’t mean—”
“Another thing: When we arrived, cops all over the hallway outside your dressing room. Same thing when we went to the stage. But when I came out during your sermon, no cops. All gone.” He hung a left, headed south. “You see any when we ran out?”
“No.”
“Right. Maybe they’ve got nothing to do with it, but I say we don’t make that wager.”
Trinity sat in silence for a few seconds, then nodded. “Where we going?”
“I don’t know. Away from Atlanta.”
Special Agent Steve Hillborn straightened his tie as he crossed the high-ceilinged lobby of the FBI Chicago Division Headquarters. He signed in at the counter, clipped his building pass onto his handkerchief pocket, and nodded to the uniformed guard standing at parade rest as he passed through the inner doors.
Hillborn didn’t usually mind being called in on a Sunday, but he’d promised to meet Fred at five o’clock at the Lakeview Athletic Club’s climbing wall. They’d only been dating a couple months, and Hillborn had been putting a lot of hours in at the Bureau lately, and he didn’t think Fred would enjoy being stood up…again. But that’s the life of a cop’s boyfriend, he thought as he stepped into the elevator, and if Fred couldn’t accept it, the relationship wasn’t gonna last anyway. Better to find out now.
The text message from his boss, Chicago SAC Winfield Battles, had said simply: Explosion @ Trinity church—Report HQ, 3PM.
Hillborn worked the Organized Crime desk. A week ago he’d been tasked with opening a file on the Reverend Tim Trinity, and he was glad to be working on something new. Morale had taken a hard hit after their most recent showcase prosecution went tits-up. There’d been a thorough post-mortem on the case, and nobody thought the investigation had been faulty or the evidence lacking. Sometimes you just get a charismatic defense attorney who dances the seven veils and seduces the jury. Sometimes you get a jury of idiots.
And when you get both, you don’t get convictions.
So now the federal prosecutor was insisting that
