Storming Heaven

by Kyle Mills

  “When my daughter and her husband died—you were very young then—I wanted to bring you here. To raise you myself, in the church. To prepare you.” He looked past her at Sara. “Sara convinced me that it would be a mistake. That trying to bring you up surrounded by people who knew who you were and what you would become would be impossible. Seeing you now, I know she was right. She so often is.”

  Jennifer glanced back at Sara as the old man continued. “Eric and Patricia Davis were two of my most devoted followers. And they were childless. We decided that it would be best for you to develop naturally on your own. Without my influence or the influence of the church.”

  “Why?” Jennifer stammered. “Why did you do this to me?”

  “I know this is hard, Jennifer, but my time here is almost over. You understand that, don’t you? That I have only a short time left here?”

  She nodded dumbly. He was supposed to die on Good Friday, just like Jesus. Everyone knew that.

  “Well, when I’m gone, the church will be yours to lead.”

  19

  “YOU’RE EITHER GOING TO HAVE TO START getting here on time or give me a key,” Chet Michaels said. “I’m numb from the waist down.”

  Beamon adjusted the gym bag thrown over his shoulder into a marginally more comfortable position as the young agent peeled himself from the steps.

  Today had been his first session with the personal trainer he had hired, and his first attempt at real exercise since his unheralded but pivotal bench-warming position on his high school football team.

  This regime of self-improvement was starring to get to him. Nicotine withdrawal, booze with no burn, and now a set of quivering leg muscles that probably wouldn’t propel him the rest of the way to his front door. He wondered if all healthy people felt like crap and were just good liars.

  “You been working out?” Michaels said. “Feels great, doesn’t it? Get out of the office and sweat off your stress?”

  Beamon threw his gym bag at the young agent. “Shut up and carry that up the stairs for me.”

  Michaels grinned and bounded up the icy stairs two at a time as Beamon tested the first step with his foot and grabbed the handrail.

  “You all right, Mark?” Michaels said, his head appearing over the railing above him

  God, how he hated that kid.

  Beamon could feel Michaels’s eyes on him as he waddled across the living room to the fridge.

  “I forgot it was your first day with that personal trainer. How’d it go? I love—”

  Beamon looked up from the two beers he was hovering over and gave Michaels a glare that prompted him to change the subject.

  “Man, I could have used a hot cup of coffee tonight. Your neighbor decided not to take pity on me, I guess.”

  Beamon dropped into the sofa and pushed one of the bottles toward Michaels, who was pulling a folder out of the small backpack that had been slung over his shoulder.

  “She’s visiting her mother.”

  Michaels’ eyebrows rose slightly. “Really? When’s she coming back?”

  “Don’t know,” Beamon lied. In truth, he knew she’d be back the day after tomorrow. And if he’d regained full use of his legs by then, he intended to take his newly buffed physique over to her door and ask her out on a proper date. “Let’s go, Chet. I just want to have a couple of beers and go to bed.”

  “If you’re tired, I could just—”

  “Nah, you’re here and I’m going to D.C. Sunday. Won’t be back till Monday afternoon.”

  “What’re you doing there?”

  “Budget meeting,” Beamon lied.

  The truth was that he was scheduled for another in a string of pointless hearings relating to a case he’d wrapped up almost six months ago. When a group of well-organized vigilantes had decided to end America’s drug problem by poisoning the narcotics supply, one of their early victims had, unfortunately, been the son of a powerful senator. The hearings, ostensibly begun to ensure that America’s hospitals would never again be flooded with thousands of dying addicts, had now degenerated into a forum for Senator James Mirth to allocate the blame for his son’s death. Blame that, by all reports, rested firmly on his shoulders.

  Michaels looked a little uncomfortable as he held out a thin stack of paper.

  Beamon eased himself forward and took it. The pages consisted of a few copied articles on the Church of the Evolution from various newspapers and magazines.

  “I’m underwhelmed,” Beamon said. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  “There is no rest right now. I am working on getting some more, though.”

  Beamon scanned a copy of a Wall Street Journal story describing the phenomenal investment performance and financial strength of the church, then flipped through the remaining articles. Most related to the persecution of the church by the German government.

  “Come on, Chet. You’re telling me that an organization with eleven million members,” he flipped back to the Journal article, “bringing in ten billion dollars a year, has had a whopping seven articles written about it—five of which are about its activities abroad? I don’t think so.”

  Michaels seemed to have anticipated Beamon’s skepticism. “I went through the academic index at the library and searched for the Church of the Evolution, Albert Kneiss, God, organized religion, cults, you name it.”

  “And this is all you found?”

  Michaels shook his head. “Not exactly. It’s true that there hasn’t been much written on the church considering its size …” He pulled out another piece of printer paper from his bag and laid it in front of Beamon. “But this is probably why.”

  The page was full of titles of articles printed directly off an index. Most related to libel suits filed against various media companies. The list included such names as ABC, the New York Times, and Newsweek.

  “Okay,” Beamon said. “This is more the type of thing I was looking for. Where’s the text to those articles?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “I went to three different libraries. When you go back into the old newspaper and magazine issues, the pages that these articles appear on are missing. If it’s on microfilm, the microfilm is missing. I’ve ordered copies directly from the publishers, but it’s going to take some time to get them.”

  Beamon took a long pull from his beer. “I guess when you have eleven million devoted followers, there isn’t much reason to leave negative articles lying around where the public might stumble onto them.”

  Michaels nodded. “Yeah. Notice how most of the articles I could find relate to the Germans?”

  “Makes perfect sense,” Beamon said. “America was founded on the concept of free religion. The hatred of religious persecution is in our genes. If I was running the church, I’d milk this Germany thing for everything it’s worth.”

  The phone rang as Beamon drained the last of his beer. He held the empty bottle out toward Michaels and motioned toward the kitchen.

  Michaels took the empty, walked over to the phone and picked it up.

  “Hold on a second,” he said and handed it to Beamon, who pointed to the refrigerator in an effort to get another beer without having to make an attempt at getting out of the chair.

  “Hello?”

  “Mark? Jake Layman.”

  “What can I do for you, Jake?” Beamon said tentatively. His new boss had certainly never called him at home. Hell, they hadn’t even spoken since that unfortunate round of golf.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the Jennifer Davis case, Mark. A very disturbing memo came across my desk today.”

  Beamon heard the unmistakable sound of air escaping from the neck of a beer bottle and he held his hand up over his head.

  “Disturbing how, Jake?”

  “It says that you’ve been looking into the Church of the Evolution in relation to the case.”

  Beamon was a bit surprised. “Who wrote the memo?”

  “I don’t think that’s important, Mark. What is imp
ortant is whether or not it’s accurate.”

  Beamon felt the cold glass of a beer bottle hit his hand and watched Michaels walk around him and sit down. “I am following up on Jennifer’s family connections. As near as I can tell, Albert Kneiss is her only surviving biological relative—her grandfather.”

  There was silence over the phone for a few moments. “I’m not sure how that’s relevant to the investigation, Mark.”

  That didn’t surprise him. Layman probably didn’t understand how gasoline was relevant to his car starting in the morning.

  “Probably isn’t,” Beamon said. “But on the other hand, you never know. With Kneiss scheduled to bop off to heaven next month, maybe some nut wants his own personal messiah. Maybe Kneiss has made enemies in his business dealings. Hell, maybe the church—”

  “Look, Mark,” Layman interrupted. “I know it’s got to be tough for you going from D.C. to a little post in Flagstaff, but this is where you landed and you’re going to have to adjust. We’re dealing with a pedophile or a botched robbery here. Not a religious conspiracy. Are you going to be able to keep your eye on the ball? Because there’s a lot of media coverage on this thing and we can’t afford a fumble.”

  Beamon covered the receiver and took a deep breath. The old Mark Beamon would point out that his conviction rate in kidnapping cases was the best in the Bureau and at least three times Layman’s. But the new Mark Beamon was going to handle this situation with the well-balanced mix of calm dignity and bald-faced lies that it demanded. “Just trying to be thorough, Jake.”

  “Hey, and I appreciate that, Mark. I know you’re doing the best you can out there. But we have to look at the big picture. After Waco and Ruby Ridge, we’re not ready for the press to start in on us again. Don’t embarrass the Bureau, right, buddy?”

  “Yeah. You’re right, Jake. Sure.”

  “So you’re on the team, then?” Layman said.

  Beamon frowned. One more sports cliché and he was going to drive down to Phoenix and beat Layman to death with a hockey stick. “Yeah, Jake. I’m on the team.”

  “All right. Good. I knew I could count on you.”

  Beamon hung up the phone and turned to Michaels. “What else you got for me?”

  “Was that Layman?”

  “Mmm-hmmm.”

  “He doesn’t like the church angle?”

  “Not excited about it, no.”

  “Are we going to get off it?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, we’re really not on it. Just following up all the angles.” Beamon paused. “Having said that, when we’re looking into stuff that’s church-related, we probably shouldn’t wave flags and blow horns. Okay?”

  Michaels nodded.

  “Now where were we?”

  “The fact that there isn’t much info on the church.”

  Beamon leaned forward in the chair, ignoring the pain in his lower back. “What about an exposé? Some ex-Kneissian who was pissed off about not getting God’s personal phone number or something and wrote a book?”

  Michaels flipped another piece of paper from his knapsack and let it spin through the air and onto the cardboard box serving as a coffee table. “The Betrayal of a Messiah: Albert Kneiss and His Church. By Ernest Willard.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Chet. Where is it?”

  “What?”

  “The book.”

  “It’s been out of print for years. Publisher’s out of business. I called over a hundred libraries and probably fifty stores dealing in rare books and came up empty-handed. Even the Library of Congress has managed to lose their copy.”

  “Great. What about the author?”

  “Looked in all the regular places. Nothing. I managed to track down his agent, but she says she hasn’t heard from him in years. I’ll keep digging.”

  Michaels stood and began slipping on his jacket. “Beyond that, we’re still following up Passal’s known acquaintances and anyone who might have had an infatuation with Jennifer, and we’ve expanded our investigation of local sex offenders to neighboring states.”

  “You in a hurry?”

  “Told my girlfriend I’d meet her at the brewpub for a beer at eight-thirty. You want to come? It’s a really fun place.” He pointed at the bottle in Beamon’s hand. “And their beer beats the hell out of that swill.”

  Beamon shook his head. “I like this swill. Thanks anyway, but I think I’m just going to spend some time with my couch tonight.” His legs had continued to stiffen during their conversation. Hopefully, a few beers would loosen them up enough to get him to the bedroom.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Mark.”

  “Right,” Beamon said, punching the ON button on the TV remote and then surfing through the channels until he landed on the Church of the Evolution’s cable access channel.

  Albert Kneiss was wandering benignly across a gloomy stage talking about God’s plan for humanity. “August 1969” was printed in the bottom corner of the screen.

  Despite the poor quality of the tape, the image of Kneiss moving smoothly along the elevated stage and the sound of his powerful voice resonating through the static was strangely hypnotic. Even to an old agnostic like him.

  20

  NONE OF THIS WOULD EXIST WITHOUT HER. None of it.

  Sara Renslier stood silently in the middle of the small chapel that had been built into the expansive compound housing the room where Albert Kneiss was spending his final days on earth.

  She stared through the moonlight penetrating the large skylights overhead and at the ten-foot-high cross glowing dully above the altar. Even that was hers. A symbol she had created for people to rally around. Its design, with its stylized head and footboard, was close enough to the standard cross to be comfortable to the world’s powerful Christian population, but different enough not to alienate the more significant number of non-Christians. She ran her hands down the bottom of the cross and over the smooth stone of the altar, thinking back to her earliest memories of God.

  She had been immersed in the Catholic Church almost from the day she was born—Catholic schools, mass two days a week, confession once a month. She could still remember how she’d felt at her first communion, awed by the ancient ritual and air of the supernatural that had swirled around her in the cold of the cathedral.

  She’d chosen a college close to home, unwilling to leave her parish for the four years it would take to complete a business degree—instead becoming even more involved in the church. By the end of her first year, she had joined most of the local Catholic organizations and was attending mass almost daily.

  It was during that time that she’d begun to see weaknesses in the Catholic machine. Much of the dogma that ruled the actions of the church seemed hopelessly mired in civilization’s distant and superstitious past. The aging priests whom she had always seen as spiritually superior to the rest of humanity began to look out of touch and reckless in the direction they’d chosen for their church.

  As her studies progressed, she’d become fascinated with the idea of adapting the increasingly scientific theories of business and marketing to the management of a religious organization. She chose that as the subject of her senior thesis, writing an elaborate analysis of the mistakes made by the world’s major religions and creating a blueprint—in hindsight, more of a rough sketch—of how to steer a church to a position of dominance. Her professor, a young man whose ponytail and round wire-rimmed glasses made him almost indistinguishable from the student body, had given her an A. Next to the grade, written in a bold scrawl, was one word. “Terrifying.”

  Shortly after her graduation, she had gathered up the courage to meet with her priest and present her ideas. She’d argued that the Catholic Church was allowing itself to be slowly stripped of its power—that it had become self-indulgent and no longer provided a service that people needed or wanted.

  He had listened politely for almost an hour but had heard nothing. Sara remembered falling silent as he began a passionless and disjointed spe
ech about God’s will and the wisdom of the Vatican. Later, when she’d defended her position, he had accused her of vanity and a lack of faith.

  Vanity and a lack of faith! Had it been vanity to want to save her church from the backward-thinking old men destroying it? Had it been a lack of faith to want to use the gifts God had given humanity to effectively carry out His will?

  Sara sat down on the cold marble steps leading to the altar, remembering the pain she had felt as she walked from the priest’s office, and her single-minded determination to have her ideas heard. Over the next few months, she sent literally hundreds of letters to the church’s leadership and lay organizations. Each contained a clear explanation of her ideas and a plea for reform.

  She’d received very few letters back, mostly from people she knew or had met briefly at church functions. Their responses were all the same—full of carefully chosen words, caution, and fear.

  Finally, almost a year after she had met with her local priest, a different kind of letter arrived at her small apartment. It was handwritten on the elegant stationery of the bishop and granted her an audience.

  She’d gone prepared to make her argument for change, but when she’d arrived, she discovered that the intimate exchange of ideas she had hoped for was not what had been planned. There were five of them, dressed in the formal robes that hadn’t changed in six hundred years. In front of each man was a copy of her senior thesis—a document that she had enclosed with many of the letters she had sent.

  It didn’t take long for it to become obvious that they weren’t there to listen. They were there to punish. They’d spoken angrily, reading highlighted lines from her thesis out of context and accusing her of atheism. In the end, they had made vague intimations about excommunication and implied that if she were to confess her sins then and there, God would forgive her.

  She’d walked out without a word. A few weeks later, she had moved across the country and taken a job in a small accounting firm in upstate New York. It was there that she had become obsessed with the study of religion, and it was there that she had lost her faith. Contemporary religions, she had found, were nothing more than a collage of earlier and more primitive beliefs pieced together by the ruling class as a convenient way to control its subjects. The considered infliction of fear and hope, it turned out, was infinitely more effective than the infliction of pain and death.