Now he stared down the table at her, slumped in her chair, the burnt stub of her cigarette in one jaundiced hand and her drink in the other. Because of him, because of his disregard, she had become bitter and disillusioned and had slowly drifted, first from their marriage, and then from God. Gradually her despair had led her to drink—at first secretly but then openly and constantly. He looked away and sipped his soup, trying to push away the guilt.
A voice in his head countered, No! He was not responsible! The Devil was whispering lies to make him doubt himself. Faith’s choices had made her this dried up monster, reeking of tobacco and booze, her parchment skin stretched over brittle bones. Faith was his reminder of what happened when a person turned away from the Lord.
He pressed forward in his chair. “Do you even know who I am?” he demanded.
For a few seconds, Faith’s glassy eyes seemed to clear, and she barked a hoarse laugh. “I have no idea who you are.”
Biddle thought of his meeting earlier that day with Thomas Swaggert, the Vice President of the United States and the man who would soon accede to the Presidency. Swaggert was seventy-two, a Tennessean and fellow Pentecostal, once also a handler of serpents before his hunger for national office led him to a mainstream church. Swaggert was one of the cornerstones of Biddle’s plan, and he had gone to him seeking assurance that Swaggert’s heart was still capable of Biblical vengeance.
He had found Swaggert cautious, but beneath his politician’s veneer he was as full of hate for non-believers as ever. It had gladdened him because given the coming outrage at a terrorist attack on the President, the electorate would demand a massive military retaliation against Iran and Syria. The new President would have to be steadfast, making certain that Israel became involved. Then the Final Battle would be underway.
He looked again at Faith, fighting his desire to tell her about the coming glory, to rub her face in her failure to live up to his greatness. As if she was reading his mind, Faith waved one hand, moving it like an eraser on a blackboard. “No,” she slurred. “I do know what you are. You’re an asshole!” She let out a drunken laugh, showing her wolfish, discolored teeth.
“The End of Days is coming!” Biddle said, leveling a finger at her. “The Son will soon return, and your soul will be judged!”
Faith put her arm on the table, shoving her untouched bowl and saucer and slopping soup over the side. “Go play with your snake.”
“Be careful, woman!”
Faith pushed back her chair and stood unsteadily. “Idiot,” she sneered.
Biddle watched her shuffle from the room and thought again of his great secret. When he became the Messiah Bringer, she would understand the error of her ways. He felt a thrill run up his spine—the End of Days! The Second Coming! One thing was certain—the Messiah Bringer would be rewarded. He shook his head, enraptured by anticipation.
The maid came in and took his soup then wordlessly wiped up the mess at Faith’s end. Afterward, she served Biddle a plate of broiled snapper and green salad, and as he ate, his thoughts changed and drifted to Anneliës. How she transfixed him! Her existence proved that God did not intend for him to waste his life with Faith.
His mind wandered further, to the night Anneliës had spent with Brent Lucas. He tried to choke off the thought, but not before he felt the claws of jealousy close around his heart. He reminded himself that her sacrifice had been in God’s service and a true Christian did not hate, but what he felt for Lucas had the dark tarry consistence of something very close.
NINETEEN
NEWARK, NJ, JUNE 27
MAGGIE KNEW SHE SHOULD HAVE been razor sharp on her first day at Project Seahawk, but she wasn’t, not even close. Her new boss, Ann Jenkins, the Deputy Director, seemed to sense it because she’d paused several times during their orientation walk around the ops center to give Maggie a questioning glance.
“Must have been one hell of a send-off party,” Jenkins sniffed at one point, apparently finding Maggie less impressive than her personnel folder and test scores indicated.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Maggie said. She didn’t bother to add that the insomnia had nothing to do with partying but everything to with her old boyfriend.
“Well, then,” Jenkins said, giving her a cool smile. “What do think so far?” Her skin stretched tight across her cheek and jaw in a way that suggested an eating disorder or compulsive exercise. To Maggie, Jenkins looked uptight even by FBI standards.
“A lot of different agencies and a lot of computers,” Maggie said, her tone noncommittal. “Does it work?”
Jenkins tilted her head as though sifting Maggie’s words, maybe reappraising her a little. “Our capabilities outstrip anything that’s ever been done,” she said. “But it doesn’t work as well as it should. That’s the reason you’re here.”
Maggie nodded, knowing now was the time to say something politically correct, like how excited she was to join the team, but she remained silent because she already had doubts about whether Project Seahawk was the right fit. Jenkins had made it clear that she envisioned Maggie as an inside person, meaning she’d be crunching through reams of paperwork and solving computer incompatibilities. That meant she’d miss the things she loved the most—working cases and human contact.
Jenkins started walking again, her heels clicking on the linoleum in an unspoken demand for Maggie to keep up. They came to a locked door, and Jenkins punched in a code. Inside, through a second locked door, they entered the computer room, cooled to a constant fifty-five degrees. Jenkins talked for several minutes about terabytes and gigaflops and millions of computations per second, describing Operation Seahawk’s vast data crunching power. When she finished, she gave Maggie a skeptical glance, as if questioning how much a small-town cop could have grasped.
Maggie already understood that most FBI agents assumed local law enforcement people to be dumber than rocks, so before she answered she took a long look around, at the gleaming rows of mainframes and servers with their flashing lights. “From what I’ve read, the problem isn’t the size or speed of your systems,” she said at last. “It’s database incompatibility. For example, accommodating instance heterogeneities in large freestanding systems. I have a paper on it, in case you’re interested.” When Maggie looked at her again, Jenkins seemed to be suppressing a smile.
Finally, Jenkins nodded. “You’re right, and in addition to database problems, our groups have interdepartmental biases and cultures that have never shared information. Our job is to make sure neither the computers nor the people prevent communication.”
“Why are all the groups segregated?” Maggie asked, referring to the way the Coast Guard was housed in one group of offices, the FBI in another, the New York/New Jersey Port Authority Police in a third, the New York City Police in theirs, and so on. “Seems kind of hard to break down barriers that way.”
Jenkins lowered her head and looked at Maggie through upraised eyes. “I’m the Assistant Director,” she said. “I happen to have a boss.”
“Gotcha,” Maggie said with a smile, thinking that maybe she was being a little tough on Agent Jenkins.
An hour later Maggie was back in her cubicle starting to get organized. In addition to computer work, she was supposed to act as a liaison officer to the town and city police forces of New Jersey. Jenkins had explained that her counterparts from New York and Connecticut were out checking mailboxes and manhole covers for next Sunday’s POTUS visit. When she’d asked why a port security operation was involved with a Presidential visit, Jenkins had shaken her head and growled, “Don’t ask.”