The Trinity Game

by Sean Chercover

  The Trinity Game

  Sean Chercover

  Daniel Byrne is an investigator for the Vatican’s secretive Office of the Devil’s Advocate—the department that scrutinizes miracle claims. Over ten years and 721 cases, not one miracle he tested has proved true. But case #722 is different; Daniel’s estranged uncle, a crooked TV evangelist, has started speaking in tongues—and accurately predicting the future. DanielknowsReverend Tim Trinity is a con man. Could Trinity also be something more?

  The evangelist himself is baffled by his newfound power—and the violent reaction it provokes. After years of scams, he suddenly has the ability to predict everything from natural disasters to sports scores. Now the mob wants him dead for ruining their gambling business, and the Vatican wants him debunked as a false messiah. On the run from assassins, Trinity flees with Daniel’s help through the back roads of the Bible Belt to New Orleans, where Trinity plans to deliver a final prophecy so shattering his enemies will do anything to keep him silent.

  For my father

  Murray H. Chercover

  (August 18, 1929 – July 3, 2010)

  I love you, Dad.

  “For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed…”

  MARK 4:22

  In 1983, Pope John Paul II officially abolished the Office of the Devil’s Advocate—the Vatican’s department responsible for investigating miracle claims. Only, he didn’t. The ODA continues its work, unofficially and in secret, to this very day…

  New Orleans, Louisiana…

  The Deceiver had not yet arrived, but the multitudes preceded him, and Jackson Square was packed. A sea of clamorous believers stretched from the rocky bank of the Mississippi River all the way to the microphone stand set before the blazing white façade of Saint Louis Cathedral. A turbulent sea of believers, jostling and sweating under the oppressive midday sun.

  Some in the crowd carried placards.

  REPENT AND BE SAVED

  PREPARE FOR THE RAPTURE

  TRINITY SPEAKS FOR THE TRINITY

  Idiots.

  The man wondered if he would get a clean shot. It’s in God’s hands. He stepped back from the window and again checked the action of the well-oiled rifle that had been left here in this room for him. Clack-clack. Smooth.

  There were cops everywhere, of course. National Guard too. And media. News vans below and helicopters above. The timing had to be perfect. No one would see him at the window, so long as he was quick and careful. The lights inside the apartment were off, and the sheers—yellowed by years of sunlight and nicotine—were duct-taped to the wall against any wayward breeze. This too had been done for him in advance.

  He had set up a table with a sandbag rest, four feet back from the window. This far back from the sheers, he wouldn’t be seen from the street outside, yet with the scope, he could see right through them.

  The crowd outside roared to life. It was time. The man lifted the rifle from the bed, seated the magazine, and racked a round into the chamber. Clack-clack. He carried the rifle to the table, set it firmly on the sandbag. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a sleeve and put his eye to the scope.

  His target had arrived. About a dozen cops cleared a path to the small stage that had been set up in front of the cathedral, and the Deceiver followed in their wake, carrying his famous blue Bible from the television. He wore a shiny silk suit, which picked up the highlights in his wavy silver hair. His skin glowed with a deep salon tan. The tan contrasted with his brilliant smile. His teeth looked like dentures, or implants.

  Perfect, and perfectly fake.

  The Deceiver hopped up on the stage and waved to the cheering horde with both hands. He approached the microphones and signaled the multitudes into submission. The cheering subsided.

  All at once—divine providence?—the cops backed away, providing a clean shot.

  It’s in God’s hands.

  The Shepherd had said not to pull the trigger before one thirty. He checked his watch. 1:34.

  The man mopped his brow with his sleeve one more time, put his eye to the scope, and carefully positioned the crosshairs, center-of-chest.

  Flicked off the safety.

  Put his finger on the trigger.

  “State of grace,” he said. He took a deep breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger.

  Lagos, Nigeria – four weeks earlier…

  Daniel Byrne didn’t notice the boy with the gun until they were standing face-to-face, six feet from each other in the quiet alley behind the fruit stand. Before he saw the gun, Daniel Byrne had been enjoying the best day of his trip.

  First day off in two weeks, seventh in the nine since he arrived in Africa. A day free of commitments or obligations or expectations. A day he didn’t have to live up to his rep as Golden Boy of the department. He spent the morning working on his tan, reading a novel on the beach, and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, bathtub warm and salty soft. Back in his executive suite on the top floor of the Federal Palace Hotel, he showered, made the executive decision to give his face a day off from the razor, and dressed—light chinos, a plain black silk Tommy Bahama shirt, and deck shoes, no socks.

  Out on the balcony, Daniel stood with the salt air caressing his face and looked out over the white sand beach, the sparkling blue ocean beyond. He leaned forward until the balcony railing pressed against his waist, just above the pelvic bone. Then he leaned farther, keeping his hands free, bending over the railing, looking down at the concrete patio and swimming pool below.

  He started to get the tingle.

  He leaned even farther. There was a little give to the railing, but it was unlikely to give way completely. Unlikely, not impossible.

  The tingle grew into an adrenaline rush. Heart racing, Daniel imagined concrete screws shredding mortar, imagined the sudden jolt of the railing ripping free of its mooring. Imagined falling. Like the dream of falling that jerks you back from the edge of sleep.

  But the railing held.

  He straightened, blew out a breath, went back inside, and checked his e-mail one more time—all quiet at the office—and grabbed a taxi to Jankara Market.

  He wandered among stalls of corrugated steel and sun-bleached canvas, navigated around the beggars, dodged the occasional moped, stopping at the stalls of the artisans, thinking he might find a gift for his boss, who had a birthday coming up. Folk art was always a safe bet.

  In the stall of a juju man he found a stunning crucifix—the cross carved out of ebony, polished to a high gleam. But the corpus was real ivory, so he let it go.

  He moved on, taking in the bright colors and rough textures, shrill sounds and pungent smells of the seventh largest metropolis in the world. Second largest, on what was, but a few generations ago, referred to as the Dark Continent.

  The aroma of charcoal-grilled meat, peanuts, and hot chilies drew Daniel to a smoky green tent across from the voodoo shop, sandwiched between a stall brimming with colorful jewelry, hand-beaded in Nigeria, and one selling counterfeit Gucci and Louis Vuitton handbags, made in Southeast Asia, bribed through customs, and liberated off the back of some transport trailer.

  An old man sat in the swirling smoke, skin dark as ebony and beard whiter than ivory, shifting wooden skewers of various cubed meats around on a rusty hibachi, calling out:

  Suya, Suya!”

  Hanging on the canvas wall, a menu of sorts:

  PORK

  CHICKEN

  BEEF

  GOAT

  Beside the menu hung a line drawing of a snake coiled around a pole, cradling a large egg in its open mouth. Damballah Wedo. The Source—Creator of the Universe, chief among the loa for the Yoruba practitioners of the Ifa religion, and for practitioners of new-world offshoots like Vodun in Haiti, Santeria in Cuba, Voodoo in Amer
ica.

  Daniel had been warned not to purchase any animals—dead or alive, cooked or raw—in the market. The meat of cats and carrion birds sometimes masqueraded as chicken, dogs and hyena as beef. The rumor of what passed for pork was too horrible to contemplate. Goat was the safest choice. Goat meat had a taste you could train your tongue to identify, and goats were plentiful, cheap to raise—probably not worth faking. Daniel always ordered goat. He held up two fingers.

  “Eji obuko, e joo.” Two goat, please.

  The old man offered a gap-toothed smile and held out two skewers.

  Daniel handed over some bank notes—the equivalent of about twenty-five American cents. He’d have been happy to pay five bucks, but that would’ve been an insult to the man’s pride, so he just paid the price listed on the menu.

  “E se,” he said. Thank you.

  The old man held up a hand. “Ko to ope. Kara o le.” You’re welcome. Good health.

  Daniel dodged through the crowd, spotted a quiet alley behind a fruit stand, made his way there, and sat on an empty crate to eat. The suya was delicious, maybe as good as that served at the Ikoyi. And he was pretty sure it was goat.

  He wiped his fingers on the rough paper napkin as he stood, turned, and then he saw the boy, six feet away.

  Saw the boy before he saw the gun.

  The boy couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Skinny kid. Too skinny, wearing cutoff jean shorts, two sizes too big and held up with a rope belt, and a once-white T-shirt, threadbare and stained. A small gold cross on a thin chain around his neck. Complexion almost as dark as the suya man, eyes set far apart. Eyes more desperate than afraid.

  And then Daniel saw the gun. A snub-nosed revolver, pointing at his chest.

  “Gimme your wallet.”

  Daniel dropped the paper napkin, raised the index finger of his left hand, and slowly fished the wallet from his back pocket, nodding his head the whole time.

  “No problem, I understand.” He kept his tone casual, his face placid. He finished chewing the last bite of lunch, swallowed. “Here’s my wallet.” He opened the wallet, showed its contents. “No plastic, but I’ve got two hundred Yankee dollars, and you’re welcome to it.”

  “Hand it over.”

  Daniel locked eyes with the boy. “Well, now that’s the problem. You can have the money, but only in exchange for the gun.”

  “What?”

  “I’m offering you the money, but I’m buying the gun. It’s a purchase.”

  The kid stared at him, processing. “Then I just shoot you, take the wallet anyway. How you like that?”

  Daniel held the kid’s stare. “I really wouldn’t like that at all. Have you done it before?”

  “Plenty times.”

  “No,” Daniel put compassion in his smile, “you haven’t,” he drew the bills from the wallet, “and you don’t want to start now.” He pointed at the cross hanging from the kid’s neck. “You really want my blood on your hands? Carry that with you for the rest of your life? Answer for that, when your time comes?” He slipped the empty wallet back into his pocket. “Give me the gun, and you can have the money.”

  The kid bit his lower lip, shook his head. “I give you the gun, you shoot me, take your money back.”

  “Fair enough.” Keep the head nodding and the tone soothing and the message positive: “Here’s a solution. Take the bullets out, and then hand me the gun, and that will make you happy.” Of course, he could pistol-whip the boy into submission with the empty gun easily enough if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to, and he figured the kid could see the truth of his intentions. Just as he was betting that he could read the kid. “Two hundred, American. Just give me the gun and it’s yours.” Always be closing.

  The boy thought for a few seconds, then flipped the cylinder open and dumped the bullets into his left hand and shoved them into his jeans. He held the gun out and said, “Same time.”

  They executed the trade by simultaneous snatch, and the kid ran away. Daniel took the gun to the back of the alley. If he gave it to the police, it would be back on the streets before nightfall. He cocked the hammer, used a rock to break off the firing pin, smashed the hammer until it bent and wouldn’t snap back into place, and tossed the now useless weapon into a trashcan.

  A voice behind him said, “You really are a sucker.”

  Daniel knew that voice. He turned around. “How long were you watching?”

  Father Conrad Winter pulled at his clerical collar, letting a little air in, and grinned. “Long enough.”

  “Thanks for the help.”

  “Any time.” The priest pulled at his collar again, wiped a handkerchief over his forehead, pushing back his damp blond hair. “Hot as a bitch out here, let’s find some shade.”

  Conrad Winter snapped his fingers at a waiter, and the waiter put a two-hose hookah on the table, went away, and came back with a copper pot of sweet Turkish coffee.

  Daniel didn’t want this meeting but Conrad’s position as head of the Office of World Outreach was of equal rank to Daniel’s boss, Father Nick. Refusing to meet was not an option. At least the café was cool, with open walls all around, massive ceiling fans turning above. He reached for the hookah, picked up one of the hoses, and puffed. The hookah burbled, and his mouth filled with the taste of coconut. He blew out the smoke.

  “What brings you to Lagos, Father Conrad?”

  “The case you’re working on.”

  “I’ve got six open files, three more on deck. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”

  Conrad sipped some coffee. “What is it with you, anyway?” He gestured at his collar. “It’s a powerful symbol, makes you a minor god to these people. Why not wear yours?”

  The last thing Daniel needed was people putting on more of a show for him than they did already. But he wasn’t about to take the bait. “Too hot,” he said.

  “Tell you one thing,” Conrad puffed on the hookah, “that kid never would’ve pulled a gun on a priest.” He blew out a white cloud. “I’m curious. How much did you give him?”

  Daniel shrugged.

  “And how much does a gun cost on the street? Forty, fifty bucks?”

  Another shrug.

  “So what did you achieve? He’ll just buy another gun, with cash to spare.”

  And the kid probably would. But what the hell. Daniel had resolved the situation without hurting the kid or getting shot, and as a bonus, he’d taken one gun off the street.

  And maybe he’d given the kid something to think about.

  Maybe.

  He puffed on the hookah. He said, “Which case?”

  “The girl.”

  “Which girl?” He knew perfectly well which girl, but he wasn’t giving anything away for free.

  By way of explanation, Conrad held his hands out, displaying his palms. “South of Abuja. We need this one.”

  So Conrad had access to Daniel’s e-mails. Only way he could’ve known his personal persuasion was necessary. Another fun-filled day of Vatican office politics.

  “The investigation was fair,” said Daniel. “The girl is not a miracle.”

  “A lot at stake here, Golden Boy.”

  “Especially for the girl.”

  Conrad shot back the rest of his coffee, sludge and all, brought the cup down hard. “You think you’ve got the moral high ground? You don’t. We’re at war, and this girl lives on the front lines. Thirteen provinces have gone over to Sharia Law, soon fourteen, and it’s spreading south. You see that one girl, you want to save her. Hypocritical. What about the millions of other young girls unfortunate enough to be born in this place? What chance will they have, if the tide keeps rolling? You think God wants us to trade all their futures for that one girl, so you can wallow in your integrity?”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “The hell it isn’t.”

  Daniel swallowed his first response. “Father Conrad,” he said, “I agree with the goal, but this is not the way to get there. The ODA is indepe
ndent for a reason, and we don’t knowingly certify fake miracles.”

  “From what I hear, you don’t certify any miracles.”

  A little below the belt, but Daniel didn’t flinch. “Not yet. Still looking, though.”

  “Then step down off the cross and look a little harder at Stigmata Girl. The parish has been flooded with converts since she started manifesting.” Manifesting. That’s what they called it back at the Vatican. “Did you even read the Outreach brief on Nigeria before going native and eating the bush meat?”

  “It was goat.”

  “Boko Haram is acting on its promise. The head count is over a thousand and accelerating.”

  “Father Conrad, I read the report.”

  “Then consider this: despite everything, and because of this miracle, we’re winning hearts and minds up there.”

  “I wish you success in keeping them, but my orders are clear. I follow the evidence where it leads.” Daniel put back the rest of his coffee. “And I don’t work for you.”

  Conrad reached into his jacket and came up with an envelope, handed it across the table.

  Daniel turned the envelope over, and his heart sank. The flap bore the red wax seal of Cardinal Allodi, the direct superior of both Conrad and Father Nick. Daniel had long suspected Allodi favored the political mission of World Outreach over the more esoteric duties of the ODA.

  Daniel broke the seal and read the letter.

  Fr. Daniel:

  Due to departmental workload fluctuations, you are hereby on transfer status from the Office of the Devil’s Advocate to the Office of World Outreach. You will report to Fr. Conrad Winter until further notice.

  In faith, we serve.

  “Cardinal Allodi told me about Honduras,” said Conrad, “so don’t act like you’re above this.”

  Daniel’s blood rose. He pictured breaking Conrad’s nose with a hard right, followed by a hook to the ribs and an uppercut to...He reined it in, refocused on what the man was saying.