“I am.”
“How?”
“Well, David had a son named Solomon. Solomon had Rehoboam who had Abijah who had Asa who had Jehoshaphat who had Johoram. Do you want me to keep going?”
“You’re saying if we followed all the generations down, we’d find you?”
“You bet.”
“I should know better than to doubt you. But, just humor me and tell me one other thing only God could know.”
“Your grandmother was an amazing woman, who was strong in the Shelljah. With that ancient Hebrew magic, you were able to go back in time and kill me.”
Erika’s face grew softer, the humor gone.
“And,” she added, “the world needs me now more than ever before. And it needs you too.”
“Me? I doubt that.”
She shrugged and smiled again.
“You’ll come to understand. Soon, David. We live in dangerous times. Timing is critical.”
I had no clue what she was talking about. Then she came and hugged me, and I held onto her tightly, almost afraid to let her go.
That night, the threats started.
In retrospect, it seems like an obvious impact from the interview that morning. Within minutes of Face the Nation airing, somebody had already started using #SaboIsFake and by noon it was the top trending topic on both Twitter and Facebook. Later our tech guru traced it back to a single post on Twitter. It was from an obscure rabbi in Kansas City:
Watched the discussion on Face the Nation this morning. Why are we wasting time with this stupid bitch? #SaboIsFake
Harsh, but not nearly as bad as what came later as social media piled onto the Erika bandwagon.
It’s ridiculous to think a black teenager could be the Messiah. Why not say Harry Potter for President? Disgraceful and vulgar. #SaboIsFake
My God doesn’t send false witnesses. If Sabo is out of this world, she’s been sent by Satan, not my God. #SaboIsFake
Disgraceful (not to mention full of shit). There must be laws preventing this kind of cult from starting. This is the United States, not some pathetic third-world despot! #SaboIsFake
A thousand bucks to whoever kills her. #SaboIsFake
As the day wore on, more and more violent tweets showed up, and it was impossible to keep up with them. Thousands of posts discussed assassinating Erika. For the first time, I felt ashamed to be American. Even if people didn’t believe the whole daughter of God thing, what happened to the right to free speech, the right to assemble peacefully, and the right to religious expression?
By mid-afternoon, Twitter was drowning in calls for Erika to be killed. It wouldn’t surprise me if some nut-job decided to take on the challenge.
“We should go,” I said to Erika.
“This is our church, David. We can’t be run out. We’re just getting started.”
“Have you seen what’s going on? You’re public enemy number one.”
“You can’t worry about people who think that way. This is way out of their comfort zone, and they need time to reconsider things.”
“Yeah, but while they’re reconsidering, somebody is going to kill you.”
“There’s a police presence outside. That’s all we need.”
“That’s only two people.”
“Cowards who make silly threats are easily discouraged. We’ll be safe here.”
I looked out the window down to the street below. Everything seemed dangerous. The little old man walking his dog, the new mother rushing somewhere carrying a small baby, two teenaged boys holding hands as they casually went about their way. Nothing was threatening, but everything was.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Besides, all the threats are good news.”
I turned and stared at her, seeing that playful smile again.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll bite. How is it good news?”
“Twenty-four hours ago, maybe one percent of the population knew my name. Now, it’d be tough to find anybody in the country who hasn’t heard it.”
“Any news is good news?”
“They’ll all hear the good news in their own time. In the meantime, they’ve all heard that God is my Father, and that’s a big first step.”
“But they don’t believe it.”
“Not yet. Many of them will change their minds tonight.”
“Midnight.”
“That’s right.”
I knew I wouldn’t get an answer, but I asked anyhow. “What’s going to happen?”
She laughed. “Be patient, and look up to the sky at midnight.”
Chapter 26
Colonel Peter Lassiter had kidnapped his first victim when he was only twenty-one years old. That was more than two decades ago. He remembered his first time fondly. It was an eight-year-old boy who had wandered away from his mother in a busy arcade. It was crowded with teenagers playing the latest games, and the boy (Tommy Karewell, Lassiter remembered) had to go to the bathroom. He was holding his crotch with one hand, ready to burst into tears, when Lassiter saw him.
It wasn’t particularly well-planned. He hadn’t known what his next steps were or certainly the long game, but he saw the boy and something clicked.
“Here, son,” he said with a soft smile. “I’ll help you.”
“I need to go pee real bad!”
“I know. Come with me and we’ll take care of that.”
He held out his hand, continued to smile, and nodded, letting the boy know everything was totally fine.
There was a side door. Lassiter knew that because he’d played in this arcade somewhere around a million times, or at least it seemed like that. He’d been there so many times, he knew he basically blended into the wallpaper, part of the furniture.
“Hurry,” pleaded Tommy.
“This way.”
He led Tommy outside. The door led to a remote back part of the building. Only maintenance people ever used the door.
“This isn’t the bathroom.”
“It’s okay. It’s better than a bathroom.”
Why did he have chloroform in his car? Because he was prepared. He knew the next chapter of his life would need it, and so he was able to knock out the kid easily. Tommy never screamed, even when he must have realized something was horribly wrong.
The ransom demands followed, and that’s when he learned his first lesson. Just because a kid shows up to a birthday party at an arcade, that doesn’t mean his parents have any money.
He killed the kid two days later and buried the body in the woods outside San Diego.
When he finished he took the shovel and smashed it against a nearby tree. “Fuckin’ waste of time.”
He took a second whack at the tree before calming down.
The second kidnapping went much better. That time it was a teenaged boy wandering the beach. Lassiter saw the styled hair, the expensive ripped jeans, the leather backpack, and the guitar he had strung around his neck. He might have looked like a wanderer, but he came from money.
Lassiter waited, walking in the shallow water, until the boy got closer.
“Hey, Bud! Got a light?” Lassiter held out an unlit joint.
The teen almost walked right by, but the joint was calling to him. He shrugged and walked over to Lassiter.
“You sharing?”
“If you have a light.”
The boy kicked off his sandals and set the guitar down on the sand. He dug into his backpack, and while he was doing that Lassiter walked to him and put a rope around his neck, pulling tightly.
The teen dropped his backpack and tried to pull the rope away from his neck, but it was no use. Lassiter pulled as hard as he could, and after a minute or so, the victim stopped struggling. Lassiter dropped him on the sand and took one last look around. As he expected, there was nobody on the beach to be seen. There was a reason he chose this isolated location.