Jonathan Rabb - The Book of Q

The image of the four men from Kukes instantly fixed in his mind. Especially the one who had come after him, the look in his eyes just before Salko had attacked. No threat. No menace.

But if they knew about Athos, why go after him? Why not go after the Manichaeans directly? It didn’t make any sense.

“Do we need to get out of here?” he asked, unwilling, for the moment, to focus on anything but the immediate threat.

“I think we caught it in time,” Mendravic answered. “But I don’t know. We could go to Visegrad, if you want.”

“And sit there?” Pearse said, his mood souring. “I still have no idea where the ‘Hodoporia’ is.”

“The what?” asked Petra.

“The thing we’re looking for. The parchment.” The phone call had evidently taken more of a toll on him than he cared to admit. “I haven’t … gotten it. I haven’t broken the code. And I don’t know if I can. Look, there’s a woman in Rome-”

“All right,” said Mendravic, trying to keep Pearse from sinking deeper into frustration. “We stay here tonight. We go tomorrow. Maybe … I don’t know. I could take a look. You could show me how it works….”

“Oh, that would be good,” Petra piped in, also trying to lighten the mood. “I’m sure you’d be a lot of help.”

“I’m just suggesting-”

“He’s trying to move forward, Salko, not back.”

“Your confidence is overwhelming. I’m sure you-”

“I’ve already been dismissed,” she said. “I couldn’t pass the Latin test.”

“There’s a test?” he answered.

Listening to the two of them was enough to snap Pearse out of his funk. “I get it. You’ve made your point.”

“Good.” Mendravic nodded.

“Look, I’ll … figure it out. I have to figure it out.”

“I don’t think anyone was worried about that,” she said.

Mendravic put his hand to Pearse’s neck; he squeezed once. “My guess is, you get to Visegrad, and everything falls into place. Trust me. You’re friend will be fine.”

Pearse nodded. Why not? The alternative wasn’t worth thinking about.

The contessa had been right. The congregation seemed primed to hear him speak. Harris had spent the better part of the last hour listening to what many considered the preeminent Pentecostal preaching in the South. Archie Conroy and his Ministry of Peace. Five thousand strong had gathered in the largest amphitheater he had ever seen. Another 120,000 had tuned in for the early-morning services. That the contessa had set it all up on such short notice had astounded him. Thirty million on deposit was one thing. Having one of the most powerful ministries in the States at his beck and call was another. Conroy hadn’t flinched. If the contessa was involved, Harris had carte blanche. He was learning not to underestimate her.

“Now, before I hand you over to the colonel, who has been so kind to join us here this morning”-Conroy’s accent and demeanor reeked of southern hospitality, with a little medicine show thrown in just for fun-“I want him to know who is with him today, joining him in prayer.” Conroy paused. “I think I would be right in saying it’s a community of the faithful.” Amens from the crowd. “Which embraces anyone of faith.” He smiled and looked over at Harris. “Even an Anglican, Colonel. Even an Anglican.” A wave of laughter from the audience. Harris could see Conroy wasn’t quite ready to cede the stage.

“Because we are a community here, even though you may be sitting next to someone you don’t know, whose own brand of faith is unknown to you. Look around you. Does he call himself a Baptist? Does she call herself a Methodist? Another a Pentecostal?” Again he turned to Harris. “I think it’s a pretty safe bet you’ll be the only Anglican here, Colonel.” Harris nodded with a smile as the audience laughed. Conroy turned to his congregation. “But does any of it matter if we are a true community in faith? As Paul tells us in Romans, ‘Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.’ Or elsewhere, when he tells us, ‘With one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord.’ ‘One voice.’ For ‘if the dough offered as first fruitsis holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.’ Look around you at those branches. ‘One voice.’ Can you say that with me?”

The entire congregation echoed, “‘One voice.’”

“Again.”

“‘One voice,’” this time louder.

“Can you hear the power in that? Can you sense the power of that one indomitable spirit-unbroken, untarnished by personal desire, by personal lusts, by personal affectation. ‘One voice.’ Paul warns us in Philippians. He tells us that there are those who ‘preach Christ from envy and rivalry.’ ‘Envy and rivalry,’” he repeated. “How? How can they preach it that way? Because they ‘proclaim Christ out of partisanship.’ ‘Partisanship,’” each syllable given its due. “Those walls they build high, as if somehow they can keep the Word only for themselves, hold Christ within their churches? Can the Lord be so tethered? Can the Lord be kept for only one group, no matter what they call themselves? No. He alone flies free to all who would embrace Him. But to those who embrace ‘partisanship,’ He has only one answer: ‘Affliction and imprisonment.’ Choose to build those walls, choose to place those stumbling blocks between brothers, and you will not find Salvation in Him.

“It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? One God, one salvation, one faith, one voice. How else would He hear us? Even when He afflicted us with the Tower of Babel-that voice scattered throughout, altered, and divided-His message was clear. Those differences don’t matter. Language, culture, wealth”-he paused for emphasis-“denomination. Seek Him out, and you speak but one language. The language of God. The language of Christ.

“Now, I know there are plenty of preachers who think my views on inclusion only complicate things.” He began to pace, nodding, eyes staring straight ahead. “‘Leave things the way they are,’ they say to me. ‘Archie-Baptist with Baptist. Methodist with Methodist. We all have different needs,’ they tell me. And maybe they’re right. Who am I to argue with the status quo? Who am I to say we’re stronger than that, that the only thing that matters is our faith in Christ? What other needs do we have? I don’t know.” He stopped and turned to face the audience again. “When the Pharisees told Jesus that His ways were too dangerous, His message of love and inclusion too bold, He continued on. I don’t know if I have that strength. I can find it only through Him. But henever talked about different needs. He never talked about the status quo. He talked of love and salvation. He talked of ‘one voice.’”

Archie turned again to Harris. “It’s a kind of salvation itself, isn’t it, Colonel?” For all his homespun rhetoric, Conroy knew exactly how to lead a crowd. He was making Harris an essential part of the message-the dissolution of denominational differences, with its personification sitting up onstage with him. An English Anglican and a southern Pentecostal. What could be clearer? Harris was beginning to understand why the contessa had insisted on this venue.

“A kind of protection,” Conroy continued, addressing the audience. “But protection from what? It’s so hard to talk of inclusion when there are those whose very existence is bent on destroying that voice, whose sole aim is to maintain a ‘noisy gong or a clanging cymbal’-as Paul tells us in Corinthians 1:13-rather than to embrace the singular Truth that is Him.” He stopped. “And I’m not talking about my fellow preachers who say, ‘Archie, give it a break.’” A few titters from the audience.