“And it all goes to funding the Church and helping the poor.”
“The hell it does! They live like kings in there,” Sam growled.
“Wait,” I said. “This is getting us nowhere.”
Ignoring me, Sam went on, “And the Pope has absolute authority over all of it. He’s got all the executive, legislative and judicial powers in his own hands. He’s an absolute monarch, responsible to nobody!”
“Except God,” Greg added.
“Right,” Sam said. “The same God who owes me half a billion dollars.”
I repeated, “This is getting us nowhere.”
“Perhaps I can set us on a useful course,” Greg said. I nodded hopefully at him.
Greg laid out Sam’s case, chapter and verse. He spent nearly an hour tracing the history of the Petrine theory that is the basis for the Pope’s claim to be “the vicar of Christ.” Then he droned on even longer about the logic behind holding the Pope responsible for so-called acts of God.
“If we truly believe in a God who is the cause of these acts,” he said, with implacable logic, “and we accept the Pope’s claim to be the representative of God on Earth, then we have a firm legal, moral, and ethical basis for this suit.”
“God owes me,” Sam muttered.
“The contract between God and man implied by the Ten Commandments and the Scriptures,” said Greg, solemnly, “must be regarded as a true contract, binding on both parties, and holding both parties responsible for their misdeeds.”
“How do you know they’re misdeeds?” Josella instantly rebutted. “We can’t know as much as God does. Perhaps these acts of God are part of His plan for our salvation.”
With an absolutely straight face, Greg said, “Then He must reveal his purposes to us. Or be held responsible for His acts in a court of law.”
Josella shook her head slowly. I saw that Sam’s eyes were riveted on her.
She looked at me, though, and asked, “May I present the defendant’s argument, Your Honor?”
“Yes, of course.”
Josella started a careful and very detailed review of the legal situation, with emphasis on the absurdity of trying to hold a person or a state responsible for acts of God.
“Mr. Gunn is attempting to interpret literally a phrase that was never so meant,” she said firmly, with a faint smile playing on her lips.
Sam fidgeted in his chair, huffed and snorted as she went on and on, cool and logical, marshaling every point or precedent that would help her demolish Sam’s case.
She was nowhere near finished when Sam looked at his wristwatch and said, “Look, I’ve got to get to Selene. Big doings there, and I’m obligated to be present for them.”
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Christmas stuff. Parties. We’ve brought in a ballet troupe from Vancouver to do The Nutcracker.’ Nothing that has anything to do with this legal crapola.” He turned to Greg. “Why don’t you two lawyers fight it out and lemme know what you decide, okay?”
Sam had to lean toward Josella to speak to Greg, but he looked right past her, as if she weren’t there. And he was leaving Greg to make the decision? That wasn’t like Sam at all. Was he bored by all these legal technicalities?
He got to his feet. Then a slow grin crept across his face and he said, “Unless the three of you would like to come up to Selene with me, as my guests. We could continue the hearing there.”
So that was it. He wanted Josella to fly with him to the Moon. Greg and I would be excess baggage that he would dump the first chance he got.
And Josella actually smiled at him and replied, “I’ve never been to the Moon.”
Sam’s grin went ear-to-ear. “Well, come on up! This is your big chance.”
“This is a pretrial hearing,” I snapped, “not a tourist agency.”
Just then the door burst open and four women in janitorial coveralls pushed into my office. Instead of brooms they were carrying machine pistols.
“On your feet, all of you, godless humanists!” shouted their leader, a heavyset blonde. “You are the prisoners of the Daughters of the Mother!” She spoke in English, with some sort of accent I couldn’t identify. Not Dutch, and certainly not American.
I stabbed at the panic button on my phone console. Direct line to security. The blonde ignored it and hustled the four of us out into the corridor to the bank of elevators. The corridor was empty; I realized it was well past quitting time and the court’s bureaucrats had cleared out precisely at four-thirty.
But security should be here, I thought. No sign of them. They must have been out Christmas shopping, too. The Daughters of the Mother pushed us into an elevator and rode up to the roof. It was dark and cold up there; the wind felt as if it came straight from the North Pole.
A tilt-rotor plane sat on the roof, its engines swiveled to their vertical position, their big propellers swinging slowly like giant scythes, making a whooshing sound that gave the keening sea wind a basso counterpoint.
“Get in, all of you.” The hefty blonde prodded me with the snout of her pistol.
We marched toward the plane’s hatch.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Sam said, pulling his sports jacket tight across his shivering body. “I’m the guy you want; leave these others out of it. Hell, they’d just as soon shoot me as you would.”
“I said all of you!” the blonde shouted.
Where was security? They couldn’t be so lax as to allow a plane to land on our roof and kidnap us. They had to be coming to our rescue. But when?
I decided to slow us down a bit. As we approached the plane’s hatch, I stumbled and went down.
“Ow!” I yelled. “My ankle!”
The big blonde wrapped an arm around my waist, hauled me off the concrete and tossed me like a sack of potatoes through the open hatch of the plane. I landed on the floor plates with a painful thump.
Sam jumped up the two-step ladder and knelt beside me. “You okay? Are you hurt?”
I sat up and rubbed my backside. “Just my dignity,” I said.
Suddenly the whole roof was bathed in brilliant light and we heard the powerful throbbing of helicopter engines.
“YOU ARE SURROUNDED!” roared a bullhorn voice. “THIS IS THE POLICE. DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER.”
I scrambled to the nearest window, Sam pressing close behind me. I could see two helicopters hovering near the edge of the roof, armored SWAT policemen pointing assault rifles at us.
“What fun,” Sam muttered. “With just a little luck, we could be in the middle of a firefight.”
The blonde came stumping past us, heading for the cockpit. Greg and Josella were pushed into the plane by the other three Daughters. The last one slammed the hatch shut and dogged it down.
“YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER!” roared the police bullhorn.
“WE HAVE FOUR HOSTAGES ABOARD, INCLUDING JUSTICE MEYERS.” The blonde had a bullhorn, too. “IF YOU TRY TO STOP US WE WILL SHOOT HER FIRST.”
Sam patted my head. “Lucky lady.”
They bellowed threats back and forth for what seemed like an eternity, but finally the police allowed the plane to take off. With us in it. There were four police helicopters, and they trailed after us as our plane lifted off the roof, swiveled its engines to their horizontal position, and then began climbing into the dark night sky. The plane was much faster than the choppers; their lights dwindled behind us and then got lost altogether in the clouds.
“The Peacekeepers must be tracking us by radar,” Sam assured me. “Probably got satellite sensors watching us, too. Jet fighters out there someplace, I bet.”