The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (19 page)

On top of it
,
I
realized the only way for
Bishop Morgan
to find
out
was
from Palmyra
. H
er betrayal stunned me. Our m
arriage had been sealed in the T
emple, and like all Mormon wives, her personal salvation depended on serving her husband with complete loyalty and devotion.
O
nly I could bring her
into
the
Celestial Kingdom in the
afterlife
.

One of my coworkers heard me groan and came into my cubicle to find me trembling.
I told her it was
a
food allergy and ran off to the bathroom, where I indeed lost my
breakfast
in one of the stalls.

Back at my desk, I realized there was no one I could call to share what had just happened. Not only
did
it involve
a secret assignment from the C
hurch, but copying
veterans’ personal information and passing it to outsiders
was a
federal crime
. Even my elderly parents, who perhaps could be trusted to keep my secret
and offer kind advice
, were now living with one of my sisters in Utah and had too much riding on the divine prospects of what would happen at the
approaching
end of their
mortal
lives. They would be horrified at my failure and
would
tell me to repent and obey Bishop Morgan.

And
worst of all, I could not consult with
Palmyra
. T
he one person in the world whose loyalty to me had been certain, whose love
had been total, and whose s
upport had been unquestioning
, was suddenly unavailable.
How could
my wife
disclose
to Bishop Morgan
what I had shared with her in the confidence of our
marriage
?

The answer was simple:
My wife
felt it was her duty to me
.
How could she stand by and let me destroy my spiritual future, lose the right to progress to
exaltation
and
e
ternal
godhood
? How could she let me
destroy
her
chance of
salvation
and afterlife glory, which depended on me through our seali
ng in a celestial marriage
?
By
informing
Bishop Morgan,
Palmyra
was
sav
ing
me
—and her
self
—
from a
spiritual
catastrophe
and eternal
da
mnation
.

W
as she wrong?

I couldn’t answer.

Was I right to disobey and lie to
the B
ishop to protect
the Marine captain—
a
dead Gentile!—
from
posthumous
baptism?

I couldn’t answer that either.
What did I know about th
e
dark-eyed captain? Not even his name! Perhaps
I was wrong about the strength of his Jewish faith, perhaps
his soul would delight at the chance of
accepting the True C
hurch, achieving
salvation
,
and
progressing
to
the Celestial Kingdom of God
?

Chapter 23

In Ben’s mind,
Zachariah’s talk of a floppy disk
triggered a memory
. He set down the i
Phone
and went back to look at the photos
stored in the Can
on’s memory
. There were a few dozen snapshots he had taken of Porter’s meticulous search of the accident site, but the one Ben was looking
for
had been
taken very quickly
. The object Porter had found stashed in the back, under the dead victim’s belt, was about the size of a DVD case, thin and square.
Ben had
managed to snap a photo
just as Porter was slipping
the object i
nto the pocket of his jacket.
By zooming in on it, Ben could see something
that
resembl
ed
a floppy disk.

Shifting the focus to Porter’s face, his
expression was inscrutable. Had he known of this floppy disk?
Had he been conducting such a thorough search in order to find it? Or was he just collecting evidence? And if so, why put it in his pocket and not with the victim’s other belongings?

Ben realized
t
he ramifications
of the story.
The
old
floppy disk, which contained
the
Medal of Honor
recipients’
personal
information
and
had
Joe Morgan’s handwritten note
on it
,
would
prove that
the presidential candidate
had
directed the
copying
of confidential data from government computers
for
secret LDS baptizing rituals
of dead heroes
.
If this came out, it w
ould
outrage
not only
veterans
and their
families
, but
many other voters.

The events at the Marine Corps
r
ide now
made sense.
Zachariah
had been
in possession of
evidence
that
could derail Joe Morgan’s presidential campaign
. T
he mysterious white Ducati
had waited
to
confront
him
, or to cause the crash. Inspector
Porter
, conveniently nearby, had searched the body and removed the incriminating floppy disk.

It was a plausible theory, but Ben hoped that Z
achariah
had
taken precautions
against losing the floppy disk
. The answer,
Ben
hoped, would be in
the journal.

Chapter 24

Z.H. Journal Entry # 10
:

The ceremony at our magnificent Washington DC
Temple
took place
in the afternoon of
Veterans Day
.
Only the necessary few Saints
were allowed to attend and witness.
My job was to load the
floppy
disk into the computer and
make sure that each name
was displayed and called by the
temple worker
in charge of the ritual
.

Bishop Morgan
climbed into
the baptismal bath
,
a huge container
made of white mar
ble and resting on twelve
giant
oxen
, also white
,
which
symbolized the twelve tribes of Israel
.

The temple worker, standing in the water next to the bishop, watched the
auxiliary
computer screen set up next to the baptismal bath. When
I clicked on
the first name
, it appeared before
the temple
worker
, who
recited the
prayer and
declared, “
For and o
n behalf of
Lieutenant
Darrin Farley
, as a proxy and stand in, you are now being baptized to the church of
Jesus Christ of
Latter
-d
ay Saints.
” He then pushed Bishop Morgan backward, immersing him completely in the water, and pulled him back up.

Only then, seeing the glowing joy on Bishop Morgan’s face,
did
I realize
how
this whole thing
amounted to much
more than
providing
a spiritual
ri
te
for dead heroes. With each successive hero’s name and
dunking,
Bishop Morgan’s
expression became more elated until he was echoing the temple worker’s declarations at the top of his voice and falling back into the water for the repeated immersion with
a
joy that seemed to heat up the lukewarm water in the baptismal bath. I watched him while my fingers hit the keys, going down the list
. I
wondered
whether
Joe Morgan
somehow felt that he
was
uniting with their souls
, infusing himself with their virtues,
and acquiring their courage
.

There were nineteen men who received the Medal of Honor twice,
and I hear
d
their names
one by one
as the temple worker declared each one.

Dread came over me as the dates on the left side of my screen approached
1991
.
I had avoided looking at the captain’s name when I had
copied and pasted
hi
s information from the VA pension records
to the list on the floppy disk
. His wife was still alive, so I had no need to deal with her information. And now, as
the
blinking
curser reached that
line, I averted my eyes, clicked on it, and quickly covered my ears to block o
ut
the temple worker’s voice as he declared the captain’s name, followed by Bishop Morgan’s cheerful repetition before his face disappeared underwater.

Bishop Morgan was helped out of the water and down the few steps to the floor. Standing there in his dripping
temple
undergarments, he turned to face the
twelve
oxen
. H
is athletic body
straightened up, and
he
saluted. This was not part of the ceremony, and everyone watched him in silence. After a long moment,
Bishop Morgan turned and left.

No one paid attention to me, sitting at the computer, deflated and guilt
y
.
And w
hat I did next
, while
instinctive and without
a second
thought, in time turned out to be a lot more fateful than anyone could
have
imagine
d
.
I ejected the floppy disk
, which contained the list
s of heroes
and was etched with Bishop Morgan’s
handwritten
note,
and
took it
.

I spent the
afternoon
driving
around
aimlessly, too confused and angry to go home. As twilight descended on the suburbs of Washington, I passed by
a
motorcycle shop
–
Ironman
Cycles of Gaithersburg
.
A
ramp out front propped up a
Harley Davidson
painted in
the colors of the American flag
.
I got out of my car and went over to look at it up close.
A cardboard sign on the seat said:
Reserved for a Veteran!

There were many flags raised that day all around the nation’s c
apital, but for some reason, that
stars-and-stripe
s
Harley Davidson made me
all
choke
d
up
. I
st
ood in
attention and salut
ed
.
Then
I went in and bought it.