The Sign

by Raymond Khoury

  “We never agreed on it, Larry,” Drucker replied smoothly from his lush, padded seat. “You just wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “So you just went out and did it anyway?”

  “We both have a lot invested in this. I wasn’t about to jeopardize it all because of your stubbornness.”

  “Stubbornness?” Rydell flared up. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Keenan. Have you even thought about where this goes from here?”

  “It’s working, isn’t it?”

  “It’s too early to tell.”

  Drucker tilted his head slightly. “Don’t be disingenuous. It demeans you.”

  “I don’t know if it’s working, but—”

  “It’s working, Larry,” Drucker interrupted emphatically. “It’s working because that’s what people are used to. It’s what they’ve been used to for thousands of years.”

  “We didn’t need it.”

  “Of course we did. What did you expect? Did you think people would see the sign and just ‘get’ it?”

  “Yes. If we gave them a chance.”

  “That’s just naïve. What people don’t understand they just push away to the far corners of their minds and eventually it fades away and gets forgotten. ’Cause it’s safer that way. No, people need someone to tell them what to believe in. It’s worked before, many times. And it’ll work again.”

  “And then what?” Rydell fumed. “Where do you go from here?”

  Drucker smiled. “We just let him grow his following. Get the message across.”

  “That’s untenable and you know it,” Rydell flared up. “You’re building up something that’s going to be impossible to maintain.”

  “Not if you graft it onto an existing structure. One that has staying power. One that can last.”

  Rydell shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. You, of all people.”

  Drucker chuckled. “You should be enjoying the irony of it. You should be sitting back and laughing instead of getting all worked up about it.”

  “I can’t even begin to . . .” Rydell’s mind was overwhelmed with indignation. “You don’t get it, do you? You don’t see how wrong you are.”

  “Come on, Larry. You know how the world works. There are only two surefire ways to get people to do what you want them to do. You either put on an iron glove and make them do it. Or you tell them God wants them to do it. If God wills it,” he scoffed, “it shall be done. That’s when they listen. And given that we don’t live under an Uncle Joe or a Chairman Mao—”

  “That was the whole point,” Rydell protested. “God was supposed to be willing it. God. Not his self-appointed, holier-than-thou representatives.”

  “That wouldn’t work, Larry. It’s too vague. Too open to interpretation. You’re asking people to decipher the message on their own, and that would be giving them far too much credit. That’s never worked. They’re not used to figuring things out for themselves. They like to follow, to be led. They need a guide. A messenger. A prophet. Always have. Always will.”

  “So you create, what, a Second Coming?”

  “Not exactly, but close. And why not? A major chunk of the planet’s expecting something like this. All this talk of End of Times and Armageddon. It’s a golden opportunity.”

  “What about the other religions? ’Cause you do know there are others on the planet, right? How do you think they’re going to react to your manufactured messiah?”

  “He won’t be exclusive. It’s been factored in. His message will embrace all.”

  “Embrace all and encourage them to follow Jesus?” Rydell said acidly.

  “Well,” Drucker mused with a mischievous twist to his mouth, “That’s not the main message he’ll be bringing, but I suspect it may well be a secondary effect of his preaching.”

  “Great,” Rydell retorted fiercely. “And in doing that, you’ll be propping up this mass delusion we haven’t been able to shake for thousands of years. Can you imagine the field day these preachers are gonna have with this? Can you imagine how much power you’d be handing to all those blow-dried, self-serving egomaniacs out there? You’ll turn every born-again politician and every televangelist into a saint who can do no wrong. And before you know it, they’ll reclassify the pill as a form of abortion and ban it, the Left Behind books will become required reading in schools in between mass burnings of Harry Potter, kids will be saying Hail Marys for detention, and we’ll have a creationist museum in every town. If that’s the trade-off, I think I’d rather stick with global warming.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way. See, you’re forgetting one thing,” Drucker pointed out as he leaned forward, his face animated with expectation. “We control the messenger. Think about it, Larry. We’ve got a chance to create our own prophet. A messiah that we own. Just imagine the possibilities. Think of what we can make people do.”

  Drucker studied Rydell through cold, calculating eyes.

  “You know we’re right,” he continued. “You know this was the only way to go. These people don’t read newspapers. They don’t research things on the Internet. They listen to what their preachers tell them—and they believe them. Fanatically. They don’t question what the preachers say. They don’t bother to fact-check the bullshit they hear in their megachurches. They’re happy to swallow it whole, no matter how ridiculous it is, and not even an army of Pulitzer Prize-winning thinkers or Nobel Prize-winning scientists with all the common sense or scientific evidence in the world could convince them otherwise. They’d just dismiss them as agents of the devil. Satan, trying to cloud their minds. We need these windbags. We need them to sell our message. And what better way to get them on board than to give them a new prophet of their own to sell on to their flocks?”

  Something in his words jarred within Rydell. “What about the rest of the world? You’re talking as if we’re the only problem here.”

  “We’re the biggest polluters, aren’t we? So let’s start here. The rest of the world will follow.” He paused, gauging Rydell for a moment, his gaze unwavering. “Our focus hasn’t changed. We’re still in this for the same reasons. This is still about survival. It’s still about the singular threat facing the planet. It’s still about leading people away from the dangerous path they’re on.”

  “By sending them back to the Dark Ages? By giving those poor deluded sods out there a real reason to believe in their Bronze Age superstitions?”

  “See?” Drucker answered him with a smile. “Now you’re getting the irony.” He scrutinized Rydell, then added, “For better or for worse, the whole movement has become a religious one, Larry. You know that. It’s the same old story, the same classic myth that’s hardwired into our brains, and in this case it fits like it was tailor-made. It’s a story of salvation, after all, isn’t it? We’re sinners. We’re all sinners. We took this perfect Garden of Eden that God bequeathed to us and desecrated it with our orgies of consumption. And now we have to pay. Now we have to make huge sacrifices and flagellate ourselves by driving smaller cars and using less electricity and cutting down on flying and other luxuries we take for granted and choking our economies to death to make things right. We have to defeat the antichrist that is pollution and seek out the salvation of sustainability and save ourselves before Judgment Day rolls over us and wipes us out in an Armageddon of abrupt climate change. That’s how it’s playing out, Larry. And the reason it’s become that is that people like these religious myths. They thrive on them. Sooner or later, they turn everything into a crusade. And this crusade needed a prophet, not just a sign, to get the word across and make it happen.”

  Rydell shook his head and looked away for a moment. He was still struggling to fully register that they were actually having this conversation. That, after they’d debated it many months earlier and put the issue to rest—or so he thought—he was actually sitting there facing it in its full, catastrophic glory today. “The others . . . they’re all with you on this?”

  “Without hesitation.”
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  “And where does it end?” Rydell countered. “Do you really think you can keep Father Jerome in line forever? You really think you can keep this lie alive indefinitely? Sooner or later, someone’s gonna figure it out. Something’ll screw up, someone’ll slip up, and it’ll all come out. What happens then?”

  Drucker shrugged. “We’re running a very tight ship.”

  “Even the best laid plans eventually come unstuck. You know that. I thought that was one of the main reasons you agreed not to go down this route.”

  Drucker wasn’t budging. “We’ll keep it going as long as we can.”

  “And then?”

  Drucker thought about it, then waved it off like a minor nuisance. “Then we’ll figure out a graceful exit.”

  Rydell nodded stoically, processing it all. He just sat there, hobbled by the shock of it all, his eyes staring into the distance as if he’d just been told he had a week to live. “No,” he finally told Drucker, his voice thick with dismay. “This is wrong. This is a huge mistake.”

  Drucker’s eyes narrowed a touch. “Take some time to think this through properly, Larry. You’ll see that I’m right.”

  The words didn’t really sink in with Rydell. The image of the priest standing on the roof of the monastery in Egypt, with the sign hovering over him and hundreds of prostrate worshippers before him, shot to the forefront of his mind again. “Even with the best intentions, even given what we’re trying to do . . . I won’t be a part of this. I can’t help you make this . . . this virus any stronger than it already is.”

  “You’re gonna have to. We both have too much at stake here,” Drucker reminded him dryly.

  “It’s wrong,” Rydell flared. “The plan was to scare them, Keenan. To make them sit up and think about what they’re doing. That was it. A few carefully chosen appearances, then it’s gone. Keep it unexplained. Keep it mysterious and unsettling and scary. We were in agreement on this, goddammit. We agreed that it would be a good thing if people didn’t know where this was coming from, if they ended up thinking it was coming from some alien presence, from some higher intelligence out there. The beauty of this whole plan was that beyond making them sit up and listen, it might also help them pull away from this childish notion they have of this God of theirs, this personal God, this old man in a white beard who listens to every pathetic request they make and who sets down ridiculous rules about what they should eat or drink or wear or who they should bow to, and help them grow into the notion of God being, if anything, something that’s unfathomable and unexplainable—”

  “—and nudge them to the half-assed mind-set of agnostics,” Drucker commented mockingly.

  “Well, yes. It’s a step in the right direction, isn’t it?”

  Drucker was unmoved. He shook his head. “It’s a noble thought, Larry, but . . . this was the only way it was ever going to work. The world’s not ready to give up its obsession with religion. Far from it. It’s becoming more fundamentalist by the day. And it’s not just our enemies. We’re doing it too. Look at what’s happening in this country. We don’t have a single congressman or senator who can admit to being an atheist. Not one. Hell, we had ten presidential candidates on a podium last year, and not one of them dared raise his hand and say he believes in evolution.”

  “And you’re helping make it even worse.”

  “It’s a trade-off. It’s a message they’ll understand.”

  Rydell shook his head again. “No. It’s wrong. There was no need to do it this way. You might help get rid of one evil, but you’ll be feeding one that’s just as vile. One that’ll turn our world into a living hell for any rational person.” His face darkened with resolve, and he fixed Drucker with a hard stare. “We need to figure a way out of this. We need to stop it before it gets too big.”

  “You saw what just happened in Egypt. It’s too late.”

  “We have to stop it, Keenan,” Rydell insisted.

  Drucker shrugged. “We might just have to agree to disagree on that one.”

  “I still have a say in this.”

  “Within reason. And right now, you’re being unreasonable.”

  Rydell thought for a moment, then said, provokingly, “You need me for the smart dust.”

  “I do,” Drucker nodded calmly.

  “You can’t do this without it.”

  “I know that.”

  Rydell was momentarily thrown by Drucker’s lack of even the slightest hint of agitation. “So?”

  “So . . .” Drucker winced, as if pained by something. “So I had to take out some insurance.”

  Rydell studied him, unsure of what he meant—then it fell into place. “What?” he hissed. “What have you done? What have you done, you son of a bitch?”

  Drucker let him stew on it for a moment or two, then just said, “Rebecca.”

  The word stabbed Rydell like an ice pick. His eyes turned to saucers as he yanked out his phone and stabbed a speed-dial button. After two rings, a voice answered. Not Rebecca’s. A man’s voice. Rydell instantly recognized it as the voice of Rebecca’s bodyguard.

  “Ben, where’s Becca?”

  “She’s safe, Mr. Rydell.”

  Rydell’s heart somersaulted with relief. He shot a victorious glance at Drucker.

  The man’s face was unnervingly serene.

  A bolt of worry ripped through Rydell. “Put Becca on,” he ordered the bodyguard, hoping for an answer he knew he wasn’t going to get.

  “I can’t do that, Mr. Rydell.”

  The words coiled around his gut and twisted it, hard. “Put her on,” he growled.

  The bodyguard’s voice didn’t waver. “Only if Mr. Drucker gives the word, sir.”

  Rydell threw his phone to the ground and charged at Drucker. “Where is she?” he yelled.

  Drucker sprang out of his seat and deflected Rydell’s attack, grabbing his hand and elbow and twisting his arm sideways and back. As he did so, he kicked out Rydell’s leg from under him. The billionaire tumbled to the floor heavily, slamming against one of the seats. Drucker eyed him for a beat, then took a couple of steps back.

  “She’s fine,” he said as he straightened his jacket. His face was slightly flushed, his breathing slightly ragged. He took in a calming breath before adding, “And she’ll stay fine. As long as you don’t do anything foolish. Do we understand each other?”

  Chapter 42

  Deir Al-Suryan Monastery, Wadi Natrun, Egypt

  Tucked away behind the crumbled wall four hundred yards west of the monastery and veiled by their desert camouflage netting, Fox Two and his two men watched silently through their high-powered binoculars, and waited.

  Beside them, nestling under the truck’s canvas top, the long range acoustical device unit sat patiently, ready to wield its unseen power again. It had been painted a matte sand-beige in preparation for their mission, a color that had been matched perfectly to blend in with the terrain outside the monastery and farther up, on top of the mountain, above the cave. They’d left the directional microphone in its casing on this occasion. Today’s event had been planned strictly as a one-way conversation, unlike the long hours they’d spent during all those weeks and months, up on the mountain, when Father Jerome had occasionally seen fit to ask a question or two.

  Fox Two studied the restless crowd below. So far, he’d been able to push the right buttons and generate the responses he needed without a problem. Father Jerome had reacted as expected to the gentle prodding he’d given him on the rooftop, after the sign had appeared above him—but then, he’d been well primed to react that way. A few whispered words, aimed at the more visibly heated pockets in the mob, were also enough to trigger a cascading reaction, to nudge them into a frenzy at the sight of an escaping car. A high-frequency, ultra-loud pulse using the crowd-control setting was more than enough to hobble their fervor when it was no longer needed and get them to pull away in order to facilitate an escape.

  Remarkable, he still thought, even after using the LRAD device so often that i
t had become second nature to him. A simple concept, really—projecting noise in a tightly focused audio beam, the same way a film projector’s lens magnifies and focuses a shaft of light, so that only the persons—or person, for it was as accurate as a sniper’s rifle—in the device’s crosshairs could hear it. Even at that distance. And either make it appear as if someone’s voice, live or taped, was actually inside the target’s head, or—using the less subtle crowd-control mode—send an unbearably loud, caustic sound pulse into the target’s ears that, at its highest setting, caused nausea and fainting and crippled the toughest enemy.

  Simple, but hugely effective.

  His master’s voice, Fox Two mused.

  The power of suggestion was particularly effective in this case, when the subjects were already burning with the desire to do what was required of them, as in the case of the selected targets in the mob outside the monastery, or, as in the case of Father Jerome, when they’d undergone weeks of forced indoctrination. Electroshocks and sleep deprivation sessions, followed by cocktails of methohexitol to take the edge off. Transcranial mental stimulation. A complete psycho-chemical breakdown. Tripping the switches inside the brain, disarming it entirely before bombarding it psychologically. Implanting visions, thoughts, feelings. Conditioning the brain to accept an alternate reality, like hearing the voice of God or overcoming one’s humility in order to embrace the notion of being the Chosen One.

  He panned his binoculars across the desert, west of his position. Even though he knew what he was looking for, it still took him the better part of a minute to locate Fox One and his unit. The four men and their gear were also virtually invisible, huddled under camouflage netting in the sand dunes a couple of hundred yards away. Their contribution had been flawless, as expected. Its effect, staggering. He’d seen it before, in a video of a test in the desert. But not like this. Not live. Not in front of an unsuspecting audience.

  It had taken his breath away. Even for a battle-hardened cynic like him, it was a heart-stopping moment. A one-two punch that, he knew, would resonate around the world.