It took Alix no more than a couple of seconds to fix an image of the housekeeper in her mind’s eye. Then she slipped away from the entrance, unseen by anyone as she left. By the time the housekeeper got to the hut, she was long gone.
13
Kurt Vermulen looked around the banquet hall where the Commission for National Values was holding its private meeting. The room was located on the fifth floor of a modern hotel close by a shopping mall on the outskirts of Washington. The interior designer had gone for a gentlemen’s club effect, with dark paneling, lights in ornate sconces, and vintage oil paintings in gilt frames. Vermulen hoped the men he’d come to address weren’t equally phony.
The meal had been cleared away, and the speeches were about to begin. Vermulen, however, would have to wait his turn. For now a stocky, pugnacious man, in a sober black suit, his shock of silver hair glinting in the glow of the chandeliers, was making his way to the podium, which had been placed on a low stage just behind the top table.
His name was Reverend Ezekiel Ray. Across a swath of states in the South and Midwest he could draw crowds to hear him preach that would put platinum-shifting rock acts to shame, but today there were no more than eighty men present. No women had been invited, and the only brown faces in the room belonged to the waiters.
This select congregation belonged to the innermost core of a secretive organization, invisible to the public eye. Its membership constituted some of the heaviest hitters in American conservatism: politicians, preachers, lobbyists, strategists, lawyers, academics, and business leaders. Their congregations ran into millions, their fortunes to tens of billions. They could bankroll candidates, or boycott TV stations. Though they were, for the time being, denied control of the White House, they still wielded enormous, if well-disguised influence on their nation’s politics.
The “national values” with which the commission was concerned were defined in a very particular way. They felt that it was immoral, even blasphemous, to keep God out of government. Their God, however, was a very specific, Baptist Christian deity, and they regarded the followers of Islam with a fear and hatred equaled only by the loathing that Islamists felt toward America ’s satanic, crusader culture.
These were not Kurt Vermulen’s values. He believed in God, but his faith was a personal, private affair. When it came to the country for which he had so frequently risked his life, he believed that the Constitution was a more important document than the Bible, and that the nation’s Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they argued for the separation of Church and State.
At this moment, he wasn’t in the position to debate such philosophical niceties. He needed every friend he could get, and if that meant talking to his audience in their own language, he would do it. So Vermulen aimed to pay careful attention to Ezekiel Ray: to both what he said, and how.
For a while, Ray stood in silence, acknowledging the applause that had greeted his arrival at the podium. He waited till it had risen to a crescendo before he bowed his head and clasped his hands in front of him, murmuring the words of Psalm 19: “ ‘Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.’ ”
His audience responded with a murmured “Amen.” Again, the preacher let the silence build, holding himself in a pose of prayer and contemplation until he suddenly stood tall again and flashed a smile that lit up the room as brightly as the chandeliers.
“My friends,” he began, “I bring you joyous news of our Savior’s return! This is news of exultation for those who are brothers and sisters in Christ. But it is news of pain, and death, and eternal torment for those who have turned away from Christ, those unbelievers who mock the Lord and wallow in the sin and temptation offered by the Antichrist.
“You know the news I’m talking about. You have the words of the first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter four, verses sixteen and seventeen, engraved upon your heart. ‘For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
“ ‘Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.’ ”
Many of the congregation had mouthed the words as they were spoken, and murmurs of approval greeted their conclusion.
Ray nodded in acknowledgment. “Gentlemen, we only have to look around us today to see those who are pious, God-fearing, and living a life of decency and morality. But if we turn on the television, or read the poisonous words of the media elite, we see those who mock the word of God… who sneer at those who believe… who degrade the holy institution of matrimony… who wallow in decadence and fornication.
“Believe me, they will soon be cut down by the sickle of Christ, and all the followers of the Antichrist with them. For their day of reckoning is coming soon, as the word of the Lord makes plain.
“Consider the second epistle of Timothy, chapter three: ‘In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection… despisers of those that are good… lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.’
“The Gospel of Matthew, chapter twenty-four, warns that ‘nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom… And many false prophets shall rise… iniquity shall abound.’
“Sounds familiar. Sounds like the world today. So now we wait for the final warning that the end is nigh, the arrival upon the earth of Satan himself. Gentlemen, you must be on your guard. For Satan will come soon, and when he does come we must make ready for war.
“We know where that last, great battle will take place, for it is written that ‘he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.’
“As you know, this place truly exists. It is the hill of Megiddo, which stands in the land of Israel. And you can visit this place. You can see it with your own eyes.
“But do not be afraid of this great battle. For the Christ who will return in glory is a mighty Christ, a warrior Christ, riding on a white charger, a Christ who will make His enemies tremble. So be joyful that He comes. Be happy that you will be saved. But be prepared for that final conflict between good and evil.
“For He is Christ…
“He brings us rapture…
“And He is on His way!”
As the shouts of “Amen!” rang around him, and the Reverend Ezekiel Ray settled back down in his seat, accepting handshakes and backslaps from the men on either side, Kurt Vermulen clapped politely. He was assessing the room as he’d so often assessed a battlefield, looking for strong points and weaknesses, calculating threats and opportunities, seeking out hidden dangers. Above all, he was considering the men he was about to face. He knew now exactly what his audience wanted to hear. But could he give it to them?
He was about to find out.
14
It was half past six, and Alix was sitting on a bus, three rows behind the housekeeper, as she made her journey home. She would, Alix knew, be carrying her own personal set of keys to virtually every working room in the hotel, as well as a pass card guaranteeing access to every guest room. Chambermaids had pass cards, too, but they were kept on cords tied around their waist so that they could not possibly be dropped or mislaid. Only staff as senior as a housekeeper were entitled to put their keys in a handbag. Somehow Alix had to get inside that bag.
It happened in a neighborhood supermarket. Alix watched as the housekeeper paused by the first aisle, reached into her bag to get her shopping list and left it open as she put on her reading glasses, then ran her finger down the piece of paper, mentally ticking off everything that she had to buy.