The Trinity Game

by Sean Chercover

  “I know,” said Daniel. It came out sharper than he intended. “Give me some time to think it through. I get a bright idea, I’ll be sure to share it with you.”

  Atlanta, Georgia…

  Julia entered the office, where Kathy Reynolds stood behind her desk, aiming the remote at the television screen. She closed the door behind her.

  “Saw it on the way in,” she said.

  Kathy nodded at the television. “Not this part. We just got another angle on it, but on this one, the tape runs longer.” She scanned through to where the crowd started chanting, then let it play at normal speed. The camera jostled as the crowd pressed forward, and then a man jumped onto the stage and grabbed Trinity’s wrist.

  Daniel.

  Kathy Reynolds paused the action on the screen. “Who is he?”

  “I, uh…”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know that fine young man. Your face already established that you do. And given your little freakout yesterday when they started dragging bodies out of the place, I’m guessing you know him quite well.”

  Julia dropped into a chair. “I can’t.”

  “Julia, this footage goes to air after the next commercial break, and the whole world will be asking the same question. It was his choice to step in front of the cameras. He put himself in the story—his choice—not your fault.”

  “If not for him, there wouldn’t be a story, Kathy. He’s the one who brought it to me in the first place, and I made a commitment in exchange. Beyond off the record, he’s my Deep Throat on this whole thing. When I promise to protect a source, I stick to it.” She looked straight at the veteran news producer. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Shit.” Kathy pressed the remote and the screen went black. “Yes, I would. Damn. You know, the answer will be found. It’ll come out.”

  “But not from me.”

  Julia was keenly aware of the hypocrisy. She’d already breached her professional ethics by wiring money to Daniel, just as Daniel had breached his by contacting her in the first place.

  But when the ethics of your profession conflict with your ethics as a human being, well, then there’s just something wrong with your profession.

  Las Vegas, Nevada…

  William Lamech sat in the cabin of his private jet, drinking Perrier while his pilot waited for clearance from the control tower. He picked up the Gulfstream’s sat-phone and dialed the number of Vito Carlucci, head of all things profitable and illegal in New Orleans.

  “Vito, it’s William. The conversation we had earlier? It’s happening…he surfaced, and he’s heading your way…I’m on the tarmac at McCarran, I’ll be touching down in about four hours. Assemble a team of your very best men. I want them at the Hotel Monteleone in six. We’re going to end this, now.”

  He hung up, lifted the receiver again, and punched in the cell number of Samson Turner.

  Julia sat across from Anderson Cooper and adjusted the lavaliere mic clipped to her dress as Cooper welcomed her to the show.

  “My producer tells me you’ve been looking into the possibility that the Trinity Phenomenon can be explained by quantum physics. But I gotta tell ya,” Cooper chuckled, “we had Leonard Mlodinow on last night, and I still don’t fully understand it.”

  Julia laughed along with him. “One thing all the top physicists agree on: Anyone who claims to fully understand quantum physics, doesn’t. But that doesn’t make it completely impenetrable.”

  “Can you give us an explanation we can understand, I mean without any parallel universes, anti-matter, or cats that are both alive and dead at the same time?”

  “I know, a lot of it seems to run counter to common sense,” said Julia. “But common sense tells us that the sun revolves around the earth. We think we see the sun rise and set, while we’re actually watching the earth rotate on its axis.” She shifted in her chair. “And for most of our history, suggesting that the earth revolves around the sun was heresy, punishable by death. The border between the known and the unknown is always perilous for science. Look at it this way: some animals only see black and white. You might be tempted to think our experience of the universe is more ‘real’ than theirs because we can see the color spectrum. But we only see part of the spectrum, while birds also see UV light. And there’s increasing evidence that birds also ‘see’ the earth’s electromagnetic field. Is their view of the world more ‘true’ than ours?” She smiled. “Luckily, evolution gave us the big brains—”

  “Not everyone believes in evolution,” said Cooper.

  “Not everyone believes the earth revolves around the sun.” Julia smiled. “Anyway, however we got them, we got the big brains. We use machinery and math and to expand our knowledge of the universe beyond what we can perceive through direct sensory input. And it’s important to note that quantum physics, however strange it seems, is borne out by real-world results in the laboratory. And despite the seeming paradox, there’s no actual physical law forbidding time travel. Physics makes no distinction between past, present, and future. For example, if we look at the Wheeler Delayed Choice Two-Slit Experiment...”

  Tim Trinity cupped a hand to his ear playfully. “Hear that? The sound of millions of people changing the channel.” He took a swig from a bottle of Dixie beer. “Hand me the box, will ya?” Daniel passed the pizza box across to him.

  They sat on the twin beds in room twenty-three of a motel just outside Waynesboro, Mississippi. The television had to be at least thirty years old and the hue of the picture tube had shifted red, so both Julia and Anderson Cooper looked a little sunburned. But the picture was crisp enough. The truck was hidden behind a Dumpster in back, and Waynesboro was far enough north that nobody would be looking for them here.

  This particular motel wasn’t a place where anybody looked for anything. No other rooms were occupied. The mattresses probably predated the television, and the old woman in the office was practically blind.

  They’d be safe enough, until morning.

  Daniel finished his beer and pulled another from the six-pack and turned his attention back to the set.

  Julia was saying, “…so basically, we know quantum physics makes accurate predictions—perfect predictions, in fact—about the world around us. The problem is it describes a world that, when looked at in extreme close-up, seems impossible to reconcile with the large-scale world we see through our eyes. Nevertheless, it is accurate, and in the quantum world it is possible for information to travel backward through time. As Albert Einstein said: The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

  “You’re right about one thing. It seems impossible,” said Cooper.

  “Yes, because—just as we experience the sun moving around the earth—the nature of time is not accurately described by our experience of time in our everyday lives. Time is not what it seems.”

  “And what does this tell us about the Trinity Phenomenon?”

  “Tim Trinity is somehow predicting the future, and millions of people have decided that God is behind those predictions. But we don’t really know that. It could just be a strange wrinkle in the quantum world, seeping through into the world we experience. We need to look at the phenomenon from all angles and follow the evidence where it leads, rather than jumping to conclusions.”

  “That’s an interesting point,” said Cooper. “It reminds me of something Stephen Hawking said in his most recent book. He said, ‘Quantum physics doesn’t tell us that God doesn’t exist, but it tells us that the existence of God isn’t necessary for the universe to exist as it does.’”

  Julia said, “I think the parallel is apt. There might be a God who is behind Trinity’s predictions, but there doesn’t have to be.”

  Tim Trinity said, “Julia really wears that dress.”

  “Yes,” said Daniel. “Yes, she sure does.”

  “You mind if I ask you something personal?” Trinity shook his empty bottle and Daniel handed him a fresh beer.

  Daniel smiled. He knew what
was coming. “Yes, Tim, I really was celibate all those years.”

  “Aside from regular dates with the Palm Sisters, naturally.”

  “Goes without saying.” Daniel stared at the red-hued Julia on the television. He said, “There’s a story about a couple of Zen Buddhist monks. One day they leave the monastery and walk into town to buy vegetables. Along the way, there’s a stream they have to wade through, about thigh-deep. At the edge of the water, they come across a beautiful young woman wearing a lovely silk dress. One of the monks offers to carry her across, and she accepts. On the other side, they part ways with the girl and walk on in silence. About five miles down the road, the other monk says, ‘I don’t think it was right, what you did back there. You know we’re not supposed to have contact with women.’ The monk who helped the girl replies, ‘I put the girl down once we crossed the river—why are you still carrying her?’”

  His uncle smiled at the story. “Damn, son, you been carrying that girl a donkey’s age.”

  “That I have,” said Daniel as the television switched over to a commercial for prescription pills guaranteed to give you an erection whenever you want one. “Fourteen years.”

  “Danny…I never meant to bring you any harm. I never thought what I did to support us would drive us apart.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Daniel agreed. With no bitterness in his voice he added, “You were too busy thinking about the money.”

  Trinity took a pull on his beer and nodded. “That I was.”

  The commercials ended and Anderson Cooper came back on, but now there was a BREAKING NEWS banner along the bottom of the screen.

  Cooper said, “I’ve just been handed something during the break…” He shuffled through some photographs and handed them across to Julia, but the camera stayed on him “…CNN has just received pictures of Reverend Tim Trinity. They came to us anonymously and we don’t know when they were taken but they appear to be fairly recent, and I’m told by our staff that they don’t appear to be digitally altered…”

  Daniel felt a rush of vertigo as he recognized the photographs that now filled the television screen—shots of his uncle snorting cocaine in the den of his mansion. Guilt began twisting in his gut like an oversized worm.

  “Wow,” said Trinity. “Didn’t see that one coming. You’d think they’d start with something like this, then ramp up to killing me, not the other way around.”

  Daniel struggled to find the words. What could he say? “These pictures didn’t come from Samson’s superiors. They came from the Vatican.”

  “Oh.” Trinity lit a cigarette. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” said Daniel. “I took them.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Yeah. I came to Atlanta to debunk you, hard. I was convinced you were running a con, and then everything started happening and I didn’t delete them in case it turned out you were running a con, and then the billboard came down and I just forgot about them and flew back to Rome planning to convince my boss you were a miracle.”

  Trinity let out a smile. “You know what the Jews say: Man plans and God laughs.” He chuckled out a cloud of blue smoke. “Right you are, Rabbi.”

  “I’m sorry, Tim.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t sweat it, son. I messed up a couple times myself, as you so frequently feel the need to mention.” He reached sideways and clinked his bottle against Daniel’s. They both drank. Trinity picked up the remote, muted the television. “So what’s the plan now?”

  “We drive straight past New Orleans tomorrow,” said Daniel, “down into the bayou. I’ve got a friend in Dulac. Pat Whalquist. Worked with him on a case in Honduras.”

  “A priest?”

  “Not hardly,” Daniel let out a grim laugh. “Pat’s a mercenary.”

  Trinity’s eyebrows went up. “A mercenary? Oh, you have got to tell me that story.”

  Daniel remembered the dampness of the church basement, the fear in the eyes of the politician, the weight of the pistol as Pat pressed it into his hand. He remembered the sound of automatic gunfire above and the thundering of soldiers’ boots coming fast down the wooden stairs. He remembered not knowing if he could do it, not knowing if he should do it, and then doing it without hesitation when the door banged open. The bucking of the pistol in his hand, the muzzle flashes and smoke and the smell of gunpowder. The blood and gore and the smell of death.

  Daniel drank some beer. “Not much to tell,” he said. “Pat was there to protect a politician and I was there to investigate a miracle claim. We helped each other out, I guess, and we became friends. Anyway, we’ll drive to Dulac, stop with Pat one night, maybe two. See, we can’t beat them to New Orleans, so we wait ’til it becomes clear you’re a no-show and they start thinking about where else you might be headed.”

  “Then what?”

  “One step at a time,” said Daniel. “Pat’ll help plan our strategy for getting you in and out of the Quarter without getting killed.”

  Piedmont Park – Atlanta, Georgia…

  Drums and guitars and tambourines lay silent on the grass, the time for singing and dancing now past. The Kumbaya spirit had deserted Tent City #3, and Trinity’s Pilgrims were fast falling away.

  Families mumbling their dejection aloud as they collapsed their tents and rolled their sleeping bags. Couples speaking sharply to each other, pushing the bitter pill of blame back and forth. Litter strewn all over the place. A girl of about fifteen, who looked like—and probably was—a streetwalker, sitting under a tree, knees pulled to her chest, face in her hands. Weeping.

  Andrew Thibodeaux wandered numb through the crowd, taking it all in but unable to form either thoughts or feelings in response to the input. Disconnected from it all. Disconnected even from himself.

  A young man stood perched atop a milk crate, a replica Tim Trinity blue Bible open on his palm. He had the look of a straight-A student at some evangelical Christian college. He was saying, “Lest we forget, brothers and sisters—Matthew 11:19—The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they said ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Now they say Reverend Tim is a drug addict! It’s the same thing! Don’t you see?”

  “Hush your mouth, boy,” called a very large, middle-aged black woman. She stopped to face the loyal pilgrim. “Jesus didn’t snort no damn cocaine, and you got rocks in your head.”

  “They didn’t even have cocaine in the Holy Land in those days,” he insisted.

  A powerfully built white biker stepped out of the gathering crowd and came to a stop between them. He was bald and wore a horseshoe moustache and black leather pants. He was shirtless—his entire back covered by a tattoo of Christ on the cross. His right bicep featured a cartoon red devil, complete with horns, cloven hoofs, and pointed tail. A buxom Bettie Page angel graced his left. He pointed at the kid on the milk crate.

  “The lady’s right. Shut the fuck up, we don’t want to hear it.”

  The kid persisted, despite the terror on his face, saying, “Please, Reverend Trinity is the Messiah. I’m just trying to help you see—”

  “I’m gonna help you see the inside of an intensive care unit if you don’t shut yer fuckin’ yap.” The biker stepped closer. No one moved, except the kid, who fell off the crate when his knees went wobbly. He managed to recover his footing after one knee hit the grass, and stood there, visibly trembling. The biker said, “The Savior doesn’t run away, dipshit. Here’s what happened: The going got rough, and Trinity saved his own ass.”

  The kid fought to get the words out. “I’m-I’m sorry, sir, but the Savior does run away. Jesus ran from the temple the first time, then he came back. Reverend Tim will return to us, and it won’t be long…” Tears breached the levees of his eyelids and flooded down his cheeks. His bottom lip danced violently, and he blubbered in a very small voice, “Please, we must keep the faith.”

  The biker took two steps forward and swung with his right, and the kid’s nose popped, splatter-painting his chest crimson.


  “Don’t you fuckin’ bleed on me!” bellowed the biker as the kid dropped to the ground. He cocked his arm again, but froze in place. After a few tense seconds, he shook his head, lowered the arm, and started opening and closing his hands repeatedly. “I warned you.” He stormed away, disappearing into the crowd. Nobody tried to stop him.

  The kid lay on the grass in the fetal position, hands to his nose, blood running through his fingers, gulping air through his mouth, sobs wracking his entire body. A hippie cowboy who looked like Kris Kristofferson and the teenage hooker rushed to his aid.

  Andrew continued walking through the wreckage of the tent city. Probably a quarter of the crowd had already deserted, and it looked like another quarter was making moves to pack up.

  This can’t possibly be God’s plan…

  He saw a guy he knew slightly, coming his way. They’d met two days ago, standing in line for a port-a-potty. The lines were over an hour long, and the guy was a talker. But now Andrew couldn’t recall anything he’d said. What was the guy’s name?

  “Andrew,” the guy said. “Dandelion, remember?”

  “Right, yes, of course.” Now he remembered. Dandelion was from Canada. His mother was full-blood Mohawk, his father a Jewish radical, some kind of environmental activist. Dandelion grew up in a place called Hamilton, which he said was like Canada’s Pittsburgh. Spent summers with his grandma on an Indian reservation. He’d shown Andrew some kind of First Nations ID card and said he didn’t have to pay taxes on cigarettes back home because he was an Indian.

  “New Orleans,” said Dandelion. “Everybody says that’s where he’s going.”

  Andrew nodded.

  “I hooked up with some cool guys, we’re heading straight there.”

  “You still believe in him, Dandelion?”

  “Never did. But I didn’t not believe in him either.” Dandelion laughed. “Either way, something heavy is goin’ down. Some mega-seismic cultural shift, ya know? History is being written, dude, and I want a front row seat.” He hitched his backpack up a little higher on his shoulders. “Hey, you OK? You look a little out of it.”