Saint (6 page)

“You're right, Calvin, I am the people's president. The minute I put my leg over the Harley and thundered down the highway to that infamous rally in Ohio, I became the people's candidate. I don't intend to ignore them. But that doesn't mean I'm always going to agree.”

“I'm only suggesting you reconsider your judgment.”

“I reconsider my judgment every day of the week,” the president said. “I spend half my nights wondering if I'm making the right decisions.”

“Forcing Israel to disarm in exchange for the mutual disarmament of all her neighbors, assuming it all could be reasonably executed and verified, would go a long way in reducing the risk of a major conflict in the region.”

“Assuming it could be executed and verified,” Robert said. “And enforced. That's a significant assumption, isn't it?”

“Both the French and the Germans will aid us in enforcing the Iranian initiative, should it be approved.”

“The initiative isn't officially Iranian.”

“No, but it's been proposed by their minister of defense, and they are backing him. The United States is now the
only
Western nation openly opposing the plan.”

“And how many Middle Eastern countries are paying lip service with no intention to disarm?”

“If they don't disarm, Israel doesn't disarm.” Bromley shrugged. “The execution could stall and fade into oblivion like every other treaty signed in the Middle East. But by backing the plan, we gain considerable political capital.”

The president closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. There was some good logic behind the plan. Each Middle Eastern country would be allowed an army large enough to carry out regional defensive operations only. No air forces, no nuclear programs, no mechanized armies.

The United Nations would establish a full-scale nuclear defense in the region under the strict obligation to deal immediately and force-fully with any threats.

It was a bold, audacious, improbable plan that made sense only on paper. But his staff had analyzed it for nine months now, and the fact remained, it did indeed make sense on paper. The Iranian minister of defense, Assim Feroz, might be a crook to the bone, but he certainly wasn't short on intelligence.

All of Europe and Asia had provisionally endorsed the plan.

Israel had rejected the plan outright, but that only played into the hands of her enemies.

“Our alternative is to dissent along with Israel, further degrading our good standing with Europe and Asia,” Bromley said.

“The Israelis will never agree.”

“If we back the UN force, they may have to.”

Still no comment from David Abraham. The man was biding his time. He sat in his black tweed suit, legs still crossed, one hand still rubbing his beard.

“The initiative will come to a head at the United Nations Middle Eastern summit next month,” Bromley said.

David Abraham spoke quietly, but his voice was thick. “This is unacceptable. If you agree to the terms of this initiative, pain and suffering will haunt the world forever.”

They stared at him in silence. David had never really concerned himself with policy—why the strong reaction now? What had prompted him to suggest the meeting in the first place? Robert gave him space.

“I'm not sure I understand,” Bromley said.

“Without an army, Israel is powerless against an enemy sworn to her destruction. I don't profess to be an adviser of world politics, but I am a historian. A simple glance down the corridors of time will reveal the foolishness of any disarmament on this scale. You can forcibly disarm a country, but you can't disarm the heart. The hatred of Israel's enemies will find its own way.”

“Which is why the United Nations—”

“You assume the United Nations will always have Israel's interests in mind.” David lowered his hand from his beard and drilled Bromley with a stare. “Don't forget that the United Nations is made up of Israel's enemies as well as friends.”

“I think the secretary's suggesting that we play ball without intending to follow through,” the president said.

“Assuming that's possible. You agree one day, and the next day you are bound by your word. You must not do this, Robert. As your adviser on spiritual matters, I cannot overemphasize my strenuous objection to agreeing to this initiative.”

David was now out of character. He was known to give strong opinions at times, but always with a smile and a nod. Robert couldn't recall ever seeing the man so agitated.

“You see this as a spiritual matter?” the secretary asked.

David settled back in his chair. “Isn't everything? At the risk of sounding arrogant, let me suggest that I know of things in this matter that would make no sense to either of you.” He shifted his gaze to Robert. “Words can become reality, Robert. And when those words are evil, someone had better be fighting the good fight, or the world could very well be swallowed up by evil.”

The president felt his heart pause.
Project Showdown.

There was far more here than David was saying openly. The secretary's presence was now a liability.

“Could you give us a minute, Calvin?”

Bromley glanced at David, then stood. “No problem.”

“Dinner's in an hour. Join us?”

“Of course, Mr. President.”

“Robert.”

“Right.” He left without another word.

Robert and David sat in silence for a few seconds. Robert wasn't sure how to draw out his mentor. When he'd invited David to serve as his spiritual adviser, the professor's first response had been that he couldn't, not until he told the president everything.

It was then, nearly a year ago now, that David had sat down with Robert in the Oval Office and told him about Project Showdown. The story spun by this man on that day had sounded like something out of the Old Testament, a series of fantastic events of mythical proportion. Such an account made it seem as if Joshua were a real man who really had knocked over the walls of Jericho with a blast of horns. As if John's Revelation were a real possibility, in literal terms.

David had insisted that Robert know the full extent of Project Showdown, because he wasn't sure that the president of the United States would want someone with such a résumé to serve as his spiritual adviser.

At first, Robert wasn't sure either. He commissioned a private study to determine if the events described by David Abraham could possibly have happened as the man claimed. The man he'd put in charge was a proud agnostic with the FBI named Christian Larkin.

One month after receiving the assignment, Larkin had walked into Robert's office a changed man. The only copy of his report, simply titled
Showdown
, was now in Robert's closet at the White House residence.

Larkin had analyzed satellite images of Colorado, which showed some spectacular anomalies if you knew what to look for. He had conducted hundreds of interviews, analyzed the material from many of the buildings, and explored the canyon in question with ultrasonic equipment.

In the end, there was no room for doubt. Evil had indeed visited the small town of Paradise, Colorado, in a most stunning fashion twelve years earlier. What started out as a covert experiment to study the noble savage in a controlled environment had spun horribly out of control. The shocking events of Project Showdown required three hundred pages.

Robert had called David Abraham within an hour of reading Christian Larkin's full report and insisted that he fill the role of his personal spiritual adviser.

He looked at David, who was watching him, calm now.

“Okay. Tell me what's on your mind.”

“I have,” David said.

“You know what I mean, Father. I'm not making the connection here.”

“I'm not a priest,” David said. “But I appreciate your confidence in me. Can you look past the simple ways of man?”

Meaning what? Robert wasn't a man of subtleties—he never liked it when David employed them to make his points. “Don't tell me this decision I'm about to make has anything to do with what happened twelve years ago.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. But I have a feeling. I haven't had a feeling like this for twelve years. I can tell you that this Iranian defense minister, this Assim Feroz, is not where he is by accident. He will be the destruction of Israel if you allow him.”

David stood and walked across the room, staring at the books. He'd always been a great lover of books. He collected them, tens of thousands of them. Some said that his was the most valuable private collection of books in the world.

“There is an evil stirring, Robert,” David said behind him. “I realize you would prefer some evidence, but nothing I can tell you would satisfy your demand for plain facts. I came here to tell you and the secretary that you must not, under any circumstances, yield to Feroz.”

“What do you suggest I do?”

“I suggest you pray, Robert. You do still pray, don't you? For your son?”

“More than you know.”

“Then pray more. And know that Assim Feroz is your enemy.” He turned and faced the president. “Have you ever heard of a man named Laszlo Kalman?”

“Doesn't ring a bell, no.”

“The X Group, then?”

Robert frowned and shook his head. “No. Should I?”

“Yes, I think you should. But not from me. You should talk to the CIA.”

“What does this have to do with the initiative?”

David hesitated. “I believe they're connected. I can't prove it any more than I can prove any of this has anything to do with Project Showdown, but I have a very strong feeling, Robert. A feeling I haven't had in twelve years.”

“So you said.”

A soft knock interrupted them. He knew that knock—two raps. It was his son, Jamie, who had carte blanche permission to join him in any unclassified meeting he wished during these last few months of his life. The doctors had given him two, but they all knew he would outlast any doctor's prognosis. He had lived eighteen years with a very mild case of Down's syndrome complicated by a congenital thyroid dysfunction that was supposed to have killed him before he turned four. Other than being short for his age, he showed no physical clue of his illness, unusual for those with Down's.

His mind was a different matter. Although Jamie was eighteen, he had the mind of a twelve-year-old.

There was nothing that Robert and Wendy, his wife, loved more about their son.

“It's Jamie,” he said.

David nodded once. Smiled. He had his own affection for children, didn't he?
It's why he and Jamie have struck up such a friendship,
Robert thought.

“Come in.”

The door swung open. A short boy, blond and sweet, stared at them with wide brown eyes. “Can I come in?”

“Of course. I've been expecting you.”

Jamie walked in and shut the door. His one love in life was politics. He lived and breathed the business of government, which in his simple world primarily meant scanning the news channels, listening to a good three hours of talk radio each day, and sitting in on whatever meeting his father would allow him to. It didn't matter that half of it flew over his head; Jamie had a way with politics. His outlook on life gave him a unique insight into the public psyche. If Robert wanted to know how the American public felt about a certain initiative, nine times out of ten Jamie's perspective would tell him.

In ways his staff would never truly appreciate, Robert credited Jamie for his ascent from Arizona governor to president. At his son's suggestion, he'd revamped his entire campaign during the primaries, bought himself a Harley, and become the people's man from Arizona. And that was only the beginning. His wife, Wendy, had once teased him that he'd won the presidency by thinking like a twelve-year-old.

The very least he could do for his son was to allow him unfettered access to a political life that most could only dream about. He took Jamie anywhere and everywhere that he could.

Jamie looked sheepishly from his father back to David. “Heavy discussion?”

“David thinks that Assim Feroz isn't who he says he is,” Robert said. “What do you think?”

“I think Feroz is a bad goat,” the boy said. “I think he's lying and won't disarm anyone but Israel.”

“Really?” Robert lifted a brow and smiled. “What brings you to this conclusion?”

Jamie shrugged. “I don't believe him.”

David put his arm around Jamie and faced the president. “Listen to your son, Robert. For the sake of his generation, listen to Jamie.”

6

D
eep in the darkness beyond the black tunnel, a terrible enemy had gathered and was waging war against the light.

The light was a tiny pinprick at the end of the tunnel, and Carl's mind and soul were fixated on that light. Two days or maybe ten days ago—he'd lost his sense of time completely—that light had been the murder of two people in the Andrassy Hotel. But he'd extinguished that light, as Kelly had asked him to. He'd learned long ago that if he didn't obliterate certain memories, Agotha would, and he didn't favor her methods.

Now the light at the end of his tunnel was survival.

He'd learned how to ignore the darkness and focus on the light by disciplined repetition. His ability to control his mind and by extension his body was his greatest strength.

In fact, his mind, not a gun or a knife, was his greatest weapon, and his handlers had helped him learn how to wield his mind in a way that few could.

The enemy changed shape regularly. Right now it was an intense heat that threatened to suck the moisture out of his body and leave him so dehydrated that his organs might stop functioning. But if he forced his mind to accept the impression that it was cool in the room rather than hot, he could maintain his energy for an extended period of time.

He sat crosslegged on the metal chair, willing his flesh in contact with the chair to stay cool, sitting perfectly still so the rest of his skin would not be unexpectedly scalded.