“Say your prayers,” he said in perfect mockery of the man he called his father. Then he turned to the screen and it occurred to him that what he was doing was a lot like praying. He called up a stronger search engine and punched in “Manichaean Heresy.”
The initial offerings were academic treatises. He scanned them quickly. He got the basic facts. A man calling himself Mani, born in 216 AD in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), proclaimed himself a new messenger of Light that heralded the arrival of the one true religion – the Religion of Light. All life was a pitched battle between the light and the dark. The light had created the world but the darkness had come and encased the light. The soul was light encased by the darkness of the body. That’s where pain came from – the light tries to free itself from the darkness – but the body encases the light. It causes the pain, like the pain behind his eyes – and the sense of falling. Babies were light itself before they entered the world, then they became small hard cases keeping the light locked in endless darkness.
At the end of the document there was a recitation of the persecutions of the Manichaeans and a reference to original scrolls that had been lost. It was speculated that these scrolls contained the Manichaean secrets for releasing the light and that the scrolls probably travelled east into China with the Manichaeans maybe as early as the ninth century in their desperate effort to avoid increasing persecution from Rome.
Matthew found himself sweating as he read page after page on website after website.
Finally he came upon the phrase, “The Religion of Light is the true, original Christianity.”
Something inside him relaxed, as if the final tumbler of a lock had fallen into place and the safe had opened as it had when he was six years old on the day the light first talked to him. From then on he folded his hands and prayed in church to please the man he called his father, but in his head he was on a quest – to free the light.
Several of the web files mentioned original texts. It took some doing but he found what remained of the documents of the Manichaean faith and downloaded then printed them. They made a thick pile. In the dim glow of the computer screen he sat and read the thoughts of Mani – all two hundred pages – in one sitting.
The next morning, after church, he said goodbye to the man he called his father, and rather than taking the bus to his exclusive private school, he headed downtown.
By two that afternoon he had the parts he needed.
By four he set off the first explosive of his life – the light reflected off the even-sided Manichaean cross he’d bought and bounced up to his face. He was ecstatic.
The thudding pain behind his eyes – retreated.
When, years later, the man he called his father broached the possibility of going to the People’s Republic of China and becoming an arm of God he had said, “Like Angel Michael with his flaming sword, you can bring an end to the darkness and allow back in God’s light.” Matthew had heard the rest of the familiar rant about secularism and society’s failure to follow the laws of God. He had even agreed with some of it.
“Are you listening to me?” the man Matthew called his father asked.
Matthew had nodded and mentioned casually, “I speak Mandarin.”
The man had chuckled and muttered, “And Latin.” Matthew nodded although he didn’t like the chuckle from the man he called his father. “Why do you think I had you learn Mandarin, Matthew?”
“Not because I’m Asian,” Matthew thought, but he said nothing. His mind was racing. The man he called his father was wealthy and could have adopted a baby of any race, but he had chosen a Han Chinese baby. Now Matthew knew why. The man Matthew called his father was a chess player – Matthew was his end game. He was being sent the length of the board to become a king – or an angel. Matthew nodded and thought, “Fine. But you have no idea that I have experienced the light.” For a moment Matthew wondered if it would matter to the older man. Then Matthew put it aside. The light was his concern; it was his secret.
The older man laid out the bare facts of the abortion rate needed to keep the single child policy in effect in the People’s Republic of China. The figures were new to Matthew but the idea was obvious. As was the man’s insistence that there be extensive newspaper coverage of the “acts of revenge” in Shanghai – there was a Congressional election approaching, after all.
Matthew had nodded again, his mind already at work. China – a step closer to the hidden scrolls. All he insisted on was that “I’m to do it alone.” The man Matthew called his father thought about that for a moment then agreed. It made sense – the lone gunman.
They quickly discussed logistics, then Matthew disappeared to his room. It only took him thirty minutes to get the data he needed on currency regulations, immigration requirements, and web access from the Middle Kingdom. Then he opened the secret panel in his desk, stared at the book on modern explosives he had secreted there, and wondered how he would get his hands on this sort of thing in Shanghai.
Two days later, Matthew found himself on a flight to Taipei with a list of contacts who could help him get established in Shanghai. He knew of Taiwan’s fundamentalist community and decided to use the members as a resource but tell them nothing. They were probably infiltrated by State agents.
He picked the code name Angel Michael, took the permitted amount of currency (just under US$10,000) that he would not have to declare, shook the hand of the man who he called his father, took his two hundred pages of the wisdom of Mani, slipped his equalsided cross around his neck, and set out for the airport.
That was exactly six months ago – to the day.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Joel sat in his Washington office at the FBI building and thought about the e-mail from his old Yale roommate, Larry. It was well past midnight. The silence in the room was only interrupted by the sound of the night-shift data processors down the hall. There were three stacks of newspapers on his desk. The first reported the initial bombing in far-off Shanghai of an abortion clinic, complete with its grotesque photograph and the warning: THIS BLASPHEMY MUST STOP. The second stack of newspapers was from two days later. The stories in these papers were all about information of an imminent second bombing but that no bombing had taken place. The papers, with much self-righteous posturing, had refused to run the photo, which they all agreed this time was grotesque, and all were angered that this may be some kind of a hoax. Then the third stack of papers wrote about a fire in a Shanghai hospital that was reported by their stringers in the city. But there had been no previous e-mail. No cage. No note. No message of any sort.
Joel sat back in his chair. It was all pretty confusing but what was clear was that Shanghai and hence the People’s Republic of China were reeling. And that was good as far as Joel was concerned. A China offbalance was a China vulnerable. And no vulnerable nation, no matter how many people it had, could endanger the United States. A weak China was a good China, as far as Joel was concerned.
Joel thought about the e-mail from his Yale buddy, Larry, again. Clearly, there was an arsonist on the loose in ol’ Shanghai, probably a religiously inspired arsonist. Joel knew the profile of such individuals quite well.
He turned off the overheads in his office and stared at the lights of the Capitol. How to proceed? Joel felt as if the ball were now in his court. What could he do to force this nutcake into striking again? Joel allowed a smile to come to his lips. If even a little of what he surmised from his former roommate’s e-mail was true, Joel thought he knew just how to egg this lunatic on to another effort. He lit a smoke, picked up his phone, and called his contact at the New York Times.