Sean Chercover - The Trinity Game

“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.