The Sign

by Raymond Khoury

  Drucker sat back and exhaled slowly. He studied Rydell like a principal wondering what to do about a wayward student. After a moment, he said, “Do you love this country?”

  Rydell didn’t get the question’s relevance. “Excuse me?”

  “Do you love this country?” Drucker repeated firmly.

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  Drucker opened his palms. “Indulge me.”

  Rydell frowned. “Of course, I love my country. What does that have to do with anything?”

  Drucker nodded, as if that was the right answer. “I love it too, Larry. I’ve devoted my whole life to serving it. And this used to be a great country. A world leader. The Japanese, the Chinese . . . they weren’t even a speck in our rearview mirror. We put a man on the moon fifty years ago. Fifty years ago. We used to be the standard bearers of modernity. We were the ones showing the rest of the world how it’s done, how science and technology and new ideas can help us live better lives. We were the ones exploring new visions of what a twenty-first-century society should look like. And where are we now? What have we become?”

  “A lot poorer,” Rydell lamented.

  “Poorer, meaner, fatter . . . and dumber. We’re moving backward. Everyone else is charging ahead and we’re backpedaling to the point where we’ve become a joke. We’ve lost our standing in the world. And you know why? Leadership,” he said, jabbing an angry finger at Rydell. “It’s all about leadership. We used to elect presidents who blew us away with their intelligence. With their knowledge of the world and their sharp wit and their dignity. Guys who used to inspire us, guys the rest of the world respected, guys who made us proud. Guys who had vision.”

  “We have one of those now,” Rydell interjected.

  “And you think we’re out of the woods?” Drucker shot back. “You think, hey presto, the country’s safe now? Think again. We just had eight years of an oil wildcatter I wouldn’t even hire to run a car wash, eight years of a guy who thought his instincts were manifestations of God’s will, eight years of criminal incompetence and unbridled arrogance that brought our country to its knees, and did we learn anything? Clearly not. Hell, it took the economic meltdown of the century to just barely manage to scrape through this victory. This was no landslide, Larry. Damn near half the country voted for more of the same—or worse. We actually came this close to putting someone who thinks The Flintstones is based on fact, someone who only got a passport a year before the election and who wouldn’t take an interview for a month while she was whisked away to be quietly educated about what’s happening in the real world, someone who actually thinks she’s going to see Jesus Christ again on this earth during her lifetime and who thinks our boys in Iraq are out there doing God’s work,” he raged, slamming his palm against the table. “We actually came this close to putting someone as risibly, absurdly unqualified as that within a seventy-two-year-old cancer-weakened heartbeat of the presidency. As ridiculous and insane as that sounds, it actually almost happened, Larry, and it could still happen. That’s how blinded we’ve become when it comes to choosing our leaders. And do you know why it almost happened? You know why they almost got away with it?”

  Rydell thought about Father Jerome and started to see what Drucker was getting at. “Because God is on their side,” he said.

  “Because God is on their side,” Drucker repeated solemnly.

  “Or so they claim,” Rydell added with a slight, mocking shrug.

  “That’s all it takes. We’ll elect any bumbling fool, any champion of mediocrity to the highest office in the land as long as they have God as their running mate. We’ll hand them responsibility for everything—the food we eat, the homes we live in, the air we breathe—we’ll give them the power to nuke other countries and destroy the planet, even when they can’t pronounce the world ‘nuclear’ properly. And we’ll do that proudly and with no hesitation at all just as long as they say the magic words: that they believe. That they have Jesus in their heart. That they seek the guidance of a higher father. That they can look into the heart of a Russian president instead of talking to the experts. We’ve got presidents making policy decisions based on faith, not reason. And I’m not talking about Iran here. I’m not talking about Saudi Arabia or the Taliban. I’m talking about us. I’m talking about America and this evangelical revival that’s sweeping the country. We’ve got presidents making political decisions based on the Book of Revelations, Larry. The Book of Revelations.”

  He settled back to catch his breath and watched Rydell for a reaction before pressing on. “We were a great country once. A rich country the rest of the world envied. Then they put a guy in there who thought Russia was an evil empire and thought we were living through the prophecies of Armageddon. They got us a guy who found Jesus but can’t read a balance sheet, and they’re out there running the country down to the ground and waging wars in the name of God and getting our boys blown to bits, and half the country’s still marching into church every Sunday and coming out with a big smile and waving the flag of their redeemer nation—”

  “I know you’re angry about Jackson,” Rydell interrupted, the face of Drucker’s deceased son suddenly flashing up in his mind and making him aware of what was really fueling this, “but—”

  “Angry?” Drucker growled. “Oh, I’m not just angry, Larry. I’m fucking furious. And don’t get me wrong. I’m not one to mollycoddle our troops. A soldier’s job is to put his life on the line for his country. Jackson knew that when he signed up. But our country was not at risk here. This is a war that never should have happened. Never,” he bellowed. “And the only reason it did was that we had an incompetent fool with daddy issues and a messiah complex running the show. And that can’t be allowed to happen again.”

  Rydell leaned in closer. He knew how much Drucker had loved his son, knew of all the grand plans he’d had for him. He had to tread carefully. “I’m with you on this, Keenan. We’re on the same page here. But what you’re doing is—”

  Drucker headed him off with a quieting hand and nodded like he knew what Rydell was about to say. “We can’t allow this to go on, Larry. They’ve got it so politicians can’t get elected these days if they say they believe in Darwin. They’ve turned a college degree into a stigma and ‘elitist’ into a dirty word.” His eyes narrowed. “In the America of the twenty-first century, faith trumps competence. Faith trumps reason. Faith trumps knowledge and research and open debate and careful consideration. Faith trumps everything. And we need to turn that whole mind-set on its head. We need to bring back a respect for fact. For knowledge. For science and education and intelligence and reason. But you can’t reason with these people. We both know that. You can’t have a political debate with someone who thinks you’re an agent of Satan. They won’t compromise, because to them, compromising means compromising with the devil, and no God-fearing Christian would want to do that. No, the only way to put an end to this is to make it embarrassing for people and for politicians to flout their faith. We’ve got to take that tool away from the guys who’re using it to win elections and advance whatever agendas they have. We need to make it as embarrassing to say you’re a creationist as it would be if you said you still support slavery in this day and age. We need to sweep religion into the dustbin of political discourse, just like we did for slavery. And we have to do it now. The country’s caught in a voodoo trance, Larry. You’ve seen the numbers. Sixty percent of the country believes the story of Noah’s Ark is literally true. Sixty percent. There are seventy million Evangelicals out there—a quarter of the population, attending a couple of hundred thousand evangelical churches, most of which are run by pastors who belong to conservative political organizations, and these guys are telling them which way to vote. And the people are listening, and they’re not voting for the guy whose policies make sense. They’re not voting for the guy with the brains or the vision. They’re voting for whoever will help them improve their standing when they get to the pearly gates. And it’s getting worse. This delu
sion is spreading. There’s a new megachurch opening every other day. Literally every other day.”

  Drucker fixed Rydell with blazing intent. “You think global warming is around the corner? This threat’s already here. We may have dodged the bullet with this election, but they’re still out there, they’ll be back, and they’ll fight twice as dirty. They look at it as a war. A war against secularism. A crusade to reclaim the kingdom of God from the nonbelievers and save us all from gay marriage and abortion and stem cell research. And the way things are going, they’re going to make it. At some point, these prayer warriors are going to put a televangelist in the oval office. And then we’ll have a bunch of whack jobs running Capitol Hill and another bunch of nutcases facing off against them in the Middle East, each of them thinking God wants them to show the other the error of their ways, and guess what? It’s going to get ugly. They’ll be lobbing nukes at each other before it’s over. And I’m not going to let that happen.”

  Rydell wasn’t following. “And you’re going to do that by giving them a prophet to fire them up even more?”

  Drucker just stared at him enigmatically. “Yes.”

  “I don’t get it.” Rydell pressed on. “You’re giving them something real, a real miracle man to worship and rally around. A Second Coming to unite them all.”

  “Yes,” Drucker repeated, leading him.

  Rydell tried to follow his train of thought. “You’re getting all the church leaders to embrace him and hitch their wagons to his train.”

  “Yes.” This time, a hint of satisfaction cracked across Drucker’s face.

  Rydell’s brow furrowed. “And then you’ll get him to change his message?”

  Drucker shook his head. “No,” he stated. “I’ll just pull the rug out from under him.”

  Rydell stared at him questioningly—then his eyes shot wide. “You’re going to expose him as a fake?”

  “Exactly.” Drucker’s hard stare burned into him. “We’ll let it run for a while. Weeks. Months. Just let it build. Let every pastor in the country accept him and endorse him as God’s messenger. Let them spread the word to their flocks,” he added, spitting out the word mockingly. “And when it’s all sunk in and settled, when it’s deeply embedded and they’re all on the hook—we’ll show him for what he really is. We’ll show them what the sign really is.”

  “And you’ll show them how gullible they are.” Rydell had a faraway look on his face as he imagined the outcome in his mind’s eye.

  “The preachers will have so much egg on their faces they’ll have a hard time stepping behind those pulpits and facing their people. The churchgoers will feel like they’ve been had—and maybe they’ll start questioning the rest of the crap they hear in those halls. It’ll open up a whole new discussion, a whole new questioning frame of mind. ‘If it was so easy to fool us today, with everything we know . . . how easy was it to fool people two thousand years ago? What do we really know about that?’ It’ll put everything about religion on the table. And it’ll make people think twice about who they’re willing to follow blindly.”

  Rydell felt heady. He himself had been ready to try and convert the world to his cause, but this . . . this went much further. He let out a weary hiss and shook his head. “You’ll make a lot of them even more fanatical than they already are,” he warned.

  “Probably,” Drucker agreed casually.

  “And you could also start a civil war,” Rydell added, “if not a world war.”

  Drucker scoffed. “Oh, I very much doubt that.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Rydell flared. “You’re going to have a whole bunch of really angry people out there. And they’ll be looking to take it out on someone. Who’s going to shoulder the blame? You can’t exactly stand up and tell them, ‘Hey, we did it for your own good.’ The country’s already split right down the middle on this. You’ll polarize them even more. The blowback will be horrendous. There’ll be blood in the streets. And that’s before you get the blowback from the rest of the world. You’ve seen what’s starting to happen in Pakistan, in Egypt, in Israel and Indonesia. It’s not just Christians who are buying into your little scam. Muslims, Jews, Hindus . . . they’re fighting among each other over whether or not he’s the real deal. And they’re going to be seriously pissed off when they discover it’s got Uncle Sam’s fingerprints all over it. People don’t take kindly to having others mess around with their beliefs, Keenan. They get real angry about that. And it’s Americans who are going to pay for it with their blood. You’re gonna end up triggering a war you’re trying to stop.”

  “Well if they’re so closed-minded, if they don’t see the danger of their ways and insist on marching down that path to destruction, then they’re beyond saving.” Drucker seethed. “We had a war over slavery. Maybe we do need a war over this.” He gave a haughty shrug. “If it’s going to happen sooner or later, might as well just get it over with. And then maybe we can build something more sane from its ashes.”

  Rydell felt as if someone had reached in and yanked his lungs out with pliers. “You’re insane,” he told Drucker. “You’ve lost all sense of perspective.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You can’t do this, Keenan,” Rydell insisted.

  “No. Not without a fall guy,” Drucker conceded.

  Rydell stared at him, the words colliding with his tangled thoughts, and instantly got it. “Me. That’s what you need me for.”

  Drucker nodded stoically. “I needed a fall guy. Someone with a completely different motive, one that wasn’t in any way related to the politics of this country. Because this can’t be seen as a political act, you’re absolutely right about that. The only way to do this is to paint it as the desperate act of a visionary genius with no political motive other than trying to save the planet. And who knows? It may well end up giving people more awareness of the global warming problem.”

  “But you couldn’t care less either way,” Rydell said sardonically.

  “Not true, Larry. I care. But I’m not even sure what, if anything, we can realistically do about it. And bringing reason back into politics—that’s going to help the polar bears more than pushing Hummer into bankruptcy, don’t you think?”

  “This isn’t about saving the polar bears or the rain forests, Keenan,” Rydell said angrily. “It’s about social justice. For everyone on the planet.”

  “Social justice is about freeing people from the clutches of witch doctors and superstition,” Drucker fired back.

  Rydell rubbed his brow, letting Drucker’s words sink in. The room was suddenly feeling much hotter and tighter. “How was it all meant to end for me? ‘Suicide’ ? ”

  Drucker nodded. “Once the hoax is exposed. A tragic end to a heroic attempt.” He sighed and leaned forward. “I’m sorry, Larry. But I hope you can see the sense in what I’m trying to do here. The urgency. And that, at some level, you agree that it had to be done.”

  Rydell sat back and shrugged. “I hope you won’t be disappointed if I tell you I won’t play along.”

  Drucker gave him a negative, dismissing wave of his hand. “Please, Larry. Give me some credit.”

  Larry looked at him, waiting for more—and suddenly froze at Drucker’s composure.

  “You’re going to have a stroke,” Drucker told him, casually. “A bad one. In fact it’s going to happen sooner than you think. Maybe right here in this restaurant. In front of all these people. You’ll end up in a coma. One we can manage. And during that time, we’ll,” he paused, choosing his words, “massage your personality. You know, like we did with the priest. We’ll put the right answers in your mind. Make you more amenable to our plans. And when the time comes, we’ll help you take your own life, after leaving behind a detailed, contrite, and moving explanation of why you did what you did.” Drucker studied his face, as if intrigued by Rydell’s reaction to his words. “It’s the stuff of legends, Larry. No one will ever forget your name, if that’s any consolation.”

  Rydell felt a surge of she
er terror—and just then, he noticed something behind Drucker. A man in a dark suit, one of his drones. He swung his head around toward the entrance of the café. Two more men appeared there. His mind tripped over his only option—to make a loud, visible run for it and hope the commotion screwed up their plans—and he was about to push himself out of his chair when he spotted something else. To his side. Out, on the street. A white van that had been parked there all along. Its side door, sliding open. Two silhouettes, standing inside, on either side of something big and round and mounted on a stand, something that looked like a projector lamp. His hands slipped off the chair’s arms as he tried to push himself to his feet, but he never made it past a couple of inches off the seat cushion. The blast of noise was horrific. It assaulted his senses like a hammer blow that came from inside his skull, overwhelming every nerve ending in his head with an unbearably loud and shrill noise that wouldn’t stop. His eyes burst into tears and he yelled out, the force of the caustic sound blasting him out of his chair in front of a stunned roomful of hotel guests. His hands shot up to protect his ears, but it was too late as his legs crumpled under him and he fell to the ground, wretching and coughing and sputtering with convulsions.

  Drucker’s men rushed to his side. They helped him up and instantly bundled him out of the room, avoiding any brusque moves, and displaying the well-trained, expert moves of caring, efficient bodyguards. One of them even called out for a doctor. Within seconds, they’d hustled him out of the café and into a waiting elevator.

  Its doors slid shut with a silent hiss, and it glided down to the hotel’s underground parking lot.

  Chapter 72

  Matt’s pulse thundered ahead as he saw Rydell get blasted out of his seat by an unseen force. There was no noise, no physical disturbance. It was as if he’d been punched backward by a huge invisible fist. Then he was there, bent down on the ground, writhing in agony, the contents of his belly spewing out onto the café’s richly textured carpet.