The Trinity Game (14 page)

“But—”

“Listen. Disasters happen every day, and people die every day. We can’t know why that is, but if nothing else, we
must
believe God has a larger plan, beyond what we can see. Because if we can’t believe that much, then all is chaos and there’s no point. You need to take the larger view. If the oil refinery explodes, that is God’s will. Who are you to mess with that? Don’t presume to take God’s place. You are not Him.”

Daniel unclenched his fist, forced himself to breathe deep. “I’m not trying to be God. But Trinity’s batting a thousand so far. Innocent people are probably going to die, and I find it hard to accept that God would not want us to save them.”

“There are no innocent people, Dan. And you need to stop trying to read God’s mind. Now go get me pictures of Reverend Trinity fucking up.”

Nick broke the connection without saying good-bye.

Daniel’s hand shook as he put the phone down. How could Nick be so callous? Why not step in to save those refinery workers? And—
Jesus
—he’d barely reacted to the news of the altered transcripts.
Did he already know?
And what would that imply? The questions swirled in Daniel’s mind. He adopted a fighter’s stance and shadowboxed for a few minutes, burning off the excess adrenaline. Still his mind reeled, and the thought of doing nothing made his stomach churn.

This was asking too much.

Daniel dropped to his knees, clasped his hands together, and squeezed his eyes shut.

I know I have been a bad son, and my faith is weak. But Father in Heaven, I need your help, even as I don’t deserve it. I need you to strengthen my faith, because without it, I cannot sit back and do nothing while people burn to death. Please, give me something to hang my faith upon…

But there came no answer. No sign.

Just like always.

After a few minutes, Daniel stood up, feeling vaguely foolish, and wiped his eyes dry.

He picked up the camera again. Trinity made millions hustling poor people with the false promise of prosperity, and he did it in the name of God. He was the worst kind of con man. But as Daniel scrolled through the photos, he saw something more than a crook. He saw a man in deep crisis. And he had come away from their meeting convinced that whatever was happening to Trinity, it wasn’t an act.

But what was it? The man was predicting the future; there was no way around that. Also no way around the fact that the Christian God would never choose Tim Trinity as His spokesman on earth. And that led back to the horrible, terrifying question that had been quietly plaguing Daniel for some time.

What if God isn’t the Christian God?

One thing Nick was right about: This wasn’t about Daniel and his uncle. It wasn’t even about debunking a con man or protecting the sanctity of the Church or searching for a miracle. It was about the dozens of Louisiana oil refinery workers, who Daniel now believed would die the next morning, unless he did something about it.

T
he head of security at the Belle Chasse oil refinery told Daniel to get back on his meds and hung up in his ear. Understandable, really. He probably would’ve done the same thing in the man’s shoes.

He had known it might come to this, had hoped in vain that it wouldn’t. But now there was only one thing left to do. So he directed his laptop’s browser to the website of the
New Orleans Times-Picayune
newspaper, found the staff directory, and looked up the telephone extension for Julia Rothman, his heart racing.

Julia was an intern at the
New Orleans Times-Picayune
when they were together. She’d since worked her way up to senior investigative reporter at the paper. She was quite the maverick, had been fired and rehired more than a few times, had won several regional journalism awards for exposing political corruption in Louisiana. Her series on government failure post-Katrina had been nominated for a Pulitzer. Daniel knew all this because, against his better judgment, he’d followed her career on the Internet all these years, unable to let go completely.

His heart now pounding as he reached for the phone, his mind flooded with the memories of the headiest year of his life…

Eighteen years old, high school graduate, New Orleans Golden Gloves champion, and madly in love. She was twenty-one, unafraid,
and scary smart. And the sex was incredible. Not that he had any basis for comparison—she was his first, and would be his only.

They first met at a neighborhood party in the lead-up to Mardi Gras, and the sexual spark was there from the get-go, but she deflected his first advance. He was welcome to hang out in her group of friends, she said, but dating was out of the question. It took two months of “hanging out” in a group, at neighborhood parties, before she finally got over the age difference and agreed to a real date.

One date was all it took. They fell for each other hard and fast, became a steady couple, and spent every free minute together. Daniel was taking a year off after high school, concentrating on his fighting and working at the gym, but he was slated to enter the seminary when he turned nineteen, and time was running out for them. As the months counted down, everything became more intense. The lovemaking, the fighting, the all-night metaphysical debates.

He’d told Julia all about his past, and she understood his need to believe. But to her, God was a human invention—a way for people to strike back at their fear of death. As she saw it, secular miracles were all around us, and that should be enough. Friendship and love and sex and chocolate and children were all miracles. That humans had evolved and survived and thrived in a coldly indifferent universe, had brought meaning and beauty to their lives through art and music and literature, had brought understanding of the world through science—she saw all of that as a miracle. And she saw no place in the universe for a God; didn’t need one.

Damn it, no. Lives are at stake, you cannot afford this right now. Focus.
Daniel put the receiver down. He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, returned to the desk, took a few deep breaths.

Daniel could see the promise of a beautiful life with Julia, and he almost backed out of the seminary. But the wounds of his childhood were too deep, and her love was simply not enough to heal those wounds…

He again picked up the phone, and this time punched in the number. After a few rings, she picked up.

“Julia Rothman,” she said. Daniel tried to answer, but the words caught in his throat, so exquisite was the ache caused by the sound of her voice. “Hello?”

He fought against a resurgent flood of memories. “Hi. Julia, it’s Daniel Byrne calling, we knew each other back in—”

Julia let out a throaty laugh. “You don’t have to remind me how I know you, Danny.”

“Well, yes, it’s just, it’s been a long time, so I didn’t want to assume…”
You are such an idiot.

“You still a priest?”

“Yes, yes, still a priest. You?”

“Uh, I’ve never been a priest.”

“No, of course. I-I meant…”
Shit.
“Listen, Julia, I can’t do small talk right now. Something important has come up, and I think it’ll be of professional interest to you.”

A couple seconds of silence. “All right, shoot.”

“It’s a delicate situation, and I’d like to keep our conversation off the record.”

Another pause on the line. “OK.”

“OK. There’s gonna be an explosion at the Belle Chasse oil refinery. Tomorrow morning.”

“Jesus Christ…pardon the blasphemy. What kind of explosion?”

“I don’t know, an accident of some kind.”

“Accident? How do you know about it, then?”

“That’s the delicate part. I already called the refinery—they thought I was a nut job. But if you warn them—”

“I’m sorry if it’s delicate for you, but I can’t just take your word on it. I need to know how you know this.”

“I understand. But we’re off the record, right?”

“We already agreed on that.”

“Fine. This will sound completely insane, I realize, but if you check it out, you’ll know it’s the truth.”

“I’m listening.”

“You remember my uncle, Tim Trinity?”

“
  
’Course I do.”

“You’ll find his broadcasts archived on his ministry website. You need to look at the one from yesterday. Not all of it. Just skip ahead to the speaking-in-tongues part. Record the tongues, then play it backwards and speed it up by a third.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m serious. Run it backwards, and Trinity’s speaking English. He predicts the accident at the refinery. I know how crazy this sounds, but it’ll only take an hour of your time. Lives are at stake here, Julia.”

She sighed into the phone. “All right, I’ll check it out.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I just said I would.”

“And you’ll get down to the refinery today, warn them.”

“I will.”

“Thanks, Julia.”

“Yup. You take care now, Danny.”

Julia Rothman hung up the phone, dropped her face into her hands, and didn’t move for a full minute.

A reporter two desks over said, “You OK?”

“Yeah,” said Julia, “that was just an old friend. Sad to say, he’s become a member of the tinfoil hat brigade.” She tore the top sheet off her notepad, crumpled it into a ball, and dropped it in the wastepaper basket.

Thinking:
What the hell happened to you, Danny?

T
im Trinity sat alone, drinking bourbon in the video control room, facing a wall of blank monitors. One monitor for each of the four camera feeds, three more dedicated to video playback decks. A master monitor in the center was for whichever feed was currently “hot,” as the director punched buttons on the switcher to assemble the finished show. An audio mixing board sat on the table, next to the switcher. The soft whisper of the machines’ cooling-fans was the only sound in the room. He’d always found that sound comforting and often spent time in the control room after the crew went home.

But he hadn’t come here tonight for comfort.

The soundproof door opened and a young video technician—Trinity couldn’t recall his name—entered, arms full of videocassettes. The kid put the tapes on the table, making a neat tower.

“Here’s the last fifteen episodes, Reverend Trinity. Most recent on top. Anything else I can get you?”

“That’ll do.”

“Want me to stay and run the deck?”

“No, I got it. You can go home now.”

“Yes, sir. Good night.” The kid started for the door.

“Hey, kid.” Trinity dug into his pants pocket and fished out a fifty-dollar bill, stuck it in the kid’s hand. “Thanks for staying late.”

“Thank
you
, sir. Sure do appreciate it. I’m getting married next month, and this’ll help the honeymoon fund. We’re going to—”

“Fine, have a good time,” mumbled Trinity as he swiveled his chair away from the kid and grabbed a tape off the top of the tower. The door closed behind him, and he stuck the tape into a playback deck.

He scanned through the tape on high speed, to the end of yesterday’s tongues, and hit pause. He refilled his glass from the bottle of Blanton’s, took a sip. He turned the deck’s jog-wheel to the left, and the tape began running backwards.