“Are they likely to be a problem?” Lorentz asked.
“Hard to say, Sir. They’re behaving themselves for the moment.”
Lorentz trusted his head of security. He was a career officer who commanded his soldiers well and had gained their respect. His men called the big Irishman The Chief and Lorentz knew he could trust the man’s assessment of the situation.
“Can’t you just arrest them?”
“Well the problem is they haven’t broken any laws yet, Sir. They’re not trespassing, they’ve made no threats; there’s been no stone throwing or bottle tossing. They appear to be a pretty well behaved bunch. If that changes you can bet we’ll be on them like flies on shit—begging your pardon, Sir.”
“If there’s any change let me know.”
“It’s nothing serious. I’m sure we can handle a few whacked-out Jesus freaks. Besides, they’re not doing anything other than build their tent city and stare at the building.”
Lorentz hung up the phone and settled back in his chair. He had a bad feeling about this.
Over the next twenty-four hours, the number of Second Redemption followers collecting around the entrance to the base grew disturbingly. Coaches began arriving, dropping off their passengers, then immediately departing for locations—unknown only to return an hour or two later filled to capacity with more protestors.
The security chief didn’t know whether to call them protestors or not. No demands had been made for the scientists to stop their work. No banners were being flown or placards painted demanding the complex be shut down or for the personnel be handed over to the gathered crowd. They stayed far enough away from the gate to allow traffic in and out of the scientific complex. There was no misbehavior, no threats, nothing.
By the time the last bus deposited its final group of silent passengers, there were two-thousand souls outside the gate and spread out along the north perimeter fence. The Chief knew because he had had his men count every damn last one of them.
They sat on the open grass verge on the opposite side of the road encircling the complex, talking quietly amongst themselves or praying in huddled groups, staring at the security guards as they walked their way around the perimeter fence, or reading quietly from their open bibles.
That made The Chief very nervous.
One of the phones on Mitchell Lorentz’s desk was ringing, demanding his attention. There were three phones, each one on a separate line. Two of them had to come through the front—desk operator, and allowed either Lorentz, the receptionist, or Mina Belkov to filter out any unwanted callers. The third phone was a compact, black, box with a stub of plastic protruding from the top. It was a military-issue satellite phone that allowed him to stay in communication from anywhere in the world. The only person who knew the number to the phone was John Humphreys, his government contact at the Department of Homeland Security.
Lorentz kept a strict weekly routine of contact with Humphreys. Each Friday he would call him and apprise the department of how well the project was progressing. In the months since the project had begun, Lorentz had made only outgoing calls on the handset. The fact that the phone was now ringing insistently was doubly disturbing because he had made his report just two days earlier.
Lorentz picked up the sat-phone and pressed the receive button.
“This is Doctor Lorentz,” he said.
The familiar voice of his government handler spoke quickly and insistently into his ear. “Doctor, we have a problem.”
The team of scientists gathered in the conference room, chatting quietly amongst themselves. Doctor Lorentz had summoned them all to the room half an hour earlier for an emergency meeting. Mina had delivered the message to each of them personally; drop everything, and get yourself to the meeting room right now.
The chatter stopped as a red faced Lorentz stormed into the room slamming a folder of papers loudly down onto the conference table, spilling some onto the floor. Mina Belkov, who was following close behind her boss, started to pick up the spilled papers.
“For God’s sake, leave them be,” snapped Lorentz.
Belkov blanched at the sharp tone of voice and Jim thought that this was probably the first time he had seen the little girl who hid deep beneath the frosty efficient exterior of Lorentz’s personal assistant.
The room became still. All faces were now regarding Lorentz who seemed just about ready to explode.
The Doctor took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. “I must apologize for my anger,” he said, laying a reassuring hand on his assistant’s arm, a smile of contrition fixed to his face, “but I have just received some utterly incomprehensible news which I will now share with you all.”
His face took on a deeper shade of red and the gathered scientists could see the control Lorentz was exerting to keep himself composed.
“The Director of Homeland Security, in all his wisdom, has just informed me that we will soon be receiving a delegation whose explicit responsibility it will be to document our procedure and monitor our efforts here.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad.” said Jim. “These government crews are pretty respectful of our space and usually—”
“They are not government,” interrupted Lorentz.
“Oh!” exclaimed Jim
“No. They are representatives of Father Edward Pike and his Church of Second Redemption.”
That news unleashed an immediate uproar of protest from the gathered team.
“They can’t—”
“Who the Hell do they think they are?”
“You have to be kidding?”
When the room finally quieted down the tension and anger was as palpable as fog. Its miasma clung to them all.
“How the hell can they get away with this?” asked a shocked Adrianna Drake, her voice an even higher pitch than usual.
“They are the Church, they can do as they damn well please, apparently” spat Mabry.
“It is really quite simple,” said Lorentz, “The massed followers of the Church of Second Redemption now amount to approximately thirty-five percent of the voting population of this country. Pike has apparently informed President Roderick that if he wishes to continue to count on the votes of his parishioners he will allow his team of monitors—Pike’s name for them, not mine—complete access our program. And with the death of President Sarandon and the upcoming election, well, you know the drill with politicians.”
“Is there anything we can do?” asked Mabry.
“Of course, I refused,” Lorentz continued, “and I was told, quite bluntly, that if I wished to maintain my position as Director of this project that the matter was closed and I would comply with the request or else.” Lorentz leaned on the table, his tone matter-of-fact “We are too close to allow my personal ethics and pride to get in the way of our success.”
There was a mutter of discontent from around the table.
“When can we expect our… guests to arrive?” asked Jim.
“Tomorrow. They’ll be here tomorrow.”
This drew more groans of discontent from the group.
“What does the Church want with us?” Adrianna said aloud. “I thought they were convinced the Slip was an act of God?”
“Apparently they want to be here if the experiment fails. So they can gloat, I suppose.”