Sean Chercover - The Trinity Game

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 America.

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.