“And what’s their plan, Donald?” Renata asked.
Constantine turned to her. She was looking at him quizzically, without anger.
“Excuse me?”
“Their plan,” Renata said. “What do they have in mind for Cristos? Crucifixion, no doubt.”
“I have no idea…”
“Your name isn’t Donald Summers, is it?” Renata said, now glaring at him. “It’s something else. And you’re an agent for the Network.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Born Again
“Renata’s suspected you all along,” Pantera said, then waited for Constantine to turn toward him. “She knew the Network wouldn’t let her betrayal go, that they’d send a replacement to watch me and monitor the situation, maybe infiltrate the ministry. Like you have.”
Then Pantera smiled, reached over, and patted Constantine’s right hand, as if to ease the tension. The others did not look so yielding, and Constantine calculated what it would require to take them out.
“Renata’s statistical calculations supported her suspicion,” Pantera went on, “and mine. We are led to the unshakable conclusion that you are a Network agent sent to spy on me.”
“Or worse,” Renata added.
“So I had Nick follow you the last few nights,” Pantera continued, “when you went off on your meditation walks.”
“Who were you on the phone with, Donald?” Amato asked.
When Constantine looked around the table at Nick, Pantera, and then the others, he saw Renata aiming a pistol at him, an otherwise inconsequential snub-nose revolver that markedly changed his calculations for defense or escape. Unless she hit him square in the forehead, he’d be able to take a hit and overpower her—and then, he hoped, the rest of them. But Pantera was no pushover, and Nick Amato and Richard Avery were sitting across from him, tense and silent. Even Stu Goldstein, a small Jewish guy who’d grown up in Brooklyn, had a certain level of chutzpah. And last but not least, Constantine knew that Mother Jane would do whatever was necessary to protect her son.
Pantera glanced at Renata and frowned.
“Put that away,” he told her. When she delayed, he said in a staccato, final way, “Put…it…away.”
After a sigh, she set the pistol down on her lap, then Pantera turned back to Constantine.
“This is not an inquisition,” he told Constantine softly, without a hint of malice in his eyes. “At most tonight, your days as a disciple will be over. You can leave here and return to your life as an agent for them. But I’m hoping you choose a different outcome.”
Constantine frowned. The different outcome Pantera meant was for him to truly join his movement, not as the fictitious Donald Summers, but as the real Jude Constantine. Or at least, the much-changed Jude Constantine. He sighed and bowed his head. It was the way he’d been leaning all along—not only since this evening, but for weeks now up until the present moment.
“You want to free yourself of them, don’t you?” Pantera went on, his eyes boring into Constantine. “Join us for real. I feel it. You want to be reborn.”
His eyes were focused upon Constantine like laser beams, something from beyond the earthly realm. And Constantine felt the impact. He could not look away—could not so much as blink. He was humbled to his core.
“Enter the Kingdom,” Pantera said to him in a rock-sure voice. Then, he nodded and flashed a deep, knowing smile. “Become a Citizen.”
After a moment, despite all that he had done and become over the years, Constantine found himself nodding. Half an hour ago, he had assured Chief Bradley on a dark, moonless night in the middle of dark woods in the middle of nowhere that he’d pull the trigger that would kill Pantera and end his Ministry. He had promised to end this threat to the Supremacy. Now, he was nodding in supplication to the man he had agreed to murder, but didn’t feel ashamed. He felt relieved. He suddenly felt free, freer than he’d felt in years, and he laughed.
He had become a true disciple. He was born again. Converted.
He had been transformed into a Son of Man.
He had become a Citizen of the Kingdom of God.
Constantine bowed his head and whispered, “Yes, I will.” And then he put his face into his hands and wept.
Pantera got up, went over, and knelt before Constantine. After a moment, Constantine fell into his arms, and Pantera held him like a child. The others watched, stared, trying to fathom whether they were truly observing a conversion—Constantine’s rebirth. Or was this a mere contrivance from a seasoned Network operative trained in method acting? Had Jude Constantine aka Donald Summers truly just renounced his belief system and come to accept and embrace the Word of God?
Finally, Pantera released Constantine and settled back on his haunches. “You renounce Satan?”
Constantine looked at Pantera for a long moment. He understood that by Satan, Pantera meant the symbolic belief systems of the cultures of the world, both at the present and throughout human history, that had so miserably failed to save human souls—and that had been and continued to be sponsored by the ruling elite he had taken an oath to serve.
Finally, Constantine nodded and whispered, “Yes, Master. I renounce Him.”
There were tears in his eyes.
Pantera got to his feet and told Constantine, “Stand.”
Constantine stood. He sighed deeply and looked around the table. The others at the table—Renata, Amato, Avery, Goldstein—were all frowning, still not sure if they were witnessing a true conversion or the ruse of a clever Network agent playing them. Mother Jane leaned against the far counter, serene, saintly, and unassuming.
And for another long moment, Constantine wondered if he was playing them as well. But, no. He wasn’t. His former life was over. What Pantera wanted for him, for everyone, was right and true. The only way to go. The Supremacy created automatons, and after seeing what authenticity was all about, Constantine could never go back.
He truly wanted to be saved.
“What’s your name?” Pantera asked. “Your real name.”
“Jude Constantine.”
“And they intend to kill me?”
“Yes,” Constantine confirmed. “I’ve been ordered to do it. During the DC rally, before your opening sermon at the National Mall. They’ve already lined up a patsy to take the blame. His pistol will match the bullet that I will shoot.” He nodded, laughing sardonically. “It’s been done before. JFK. Martin Luther King. Bobby Kennedy. Many others. Only it wasn’t the CIA…it was us. Standard operating procedure.”
“I expected it,” Pantera said. “If not you, someone else. Cut off the head…”
“Exactly the way they put it,” Constantine agreed. He sighed and looked around at the others. “But it can be used to backfire on them.”
“How so?” Amato asked. “What do you mean?”
Pantera smiled at Constantine, patted his hand again, and said, “Yes, turn it around on them.” Then, he turned to the others. “It’s been done before.”
“What’s been done before?” Renata asked.
“Faking a crucifixion,” Constantine told her. “And a resurrection.”
“Yes,” Pantera agreed.
Now everyone was nodding.
Chapter Forty
The Plan
They sat at the kitchen table until three that morning discussing Constantine’s plan—how they would pull off the hoax of the millennium, just as Jesus had done two thousand years ago. It would be orchestrated again with the help of a traitor. Last time, that traitor had been Judas Iscariot. This time, it would be Jude Constantine.
Mother Jane had brewed multiple pots of coffee and boiled water for her exotic herbal tea as they hatched the plot, massaging it, adding or deleting this or that detail, figuring this or that contingency, trying to make it all work out.
Constantine went over the details one last time that morning.
“They think I’m going to shoot him, right,” he began. “Well, that’s exactly what I’ll do, only I’ll b
e using blanks.”
“What kind of gun?” Amato asked.
“A Tikka T3 Lite,” Constantine said. “It’s a short-action rifle that’s light and easy to shoot…a short barrel too, easy to hide. That’s the same kind of gun they’ll plant on the patsy.
“I’ll aim at the Master’s chest,” he went on. “Once he’s hit with the blank shot, he’ll have to make it look real. He’ll grab at his chest and stumble backwards, then fall in a heap. We’ll practice that. There’ll be blood on that white robe, and after he falls, he’ll be whisked off stage to the hospital morgue, only to rise again in three days or whatever.”
“Blanks,” Renata said. “They’re safe?”
“With me doing the shooting, yes,” Constantine said.
“And, then the resurrection part,” Avery said. “How do we pull that off again? First, how do we get his fake dead body from the authorities?”
“Yes,” Amato said. “How is that little problem resolved? After the Master pretends to be hit, I presume there’ll be a pill or something he’ll break on his robe…”
“Yes,” Constantine said. “A blood pill. Easy enough.”
“So how do we get his body?” Amato asked. “Keep it from them?”
“All right, let’s start from the beginning,” Constantine said, glancing around the table. “The Master rides into town in his Pinto. He goes on stage. A Network agent dressed as security is near the lone nut, making sure he’s there and can be nabbed just after I take the real kill shot. That’s how these hits get done. The lone nut will have the gun on him, the same one they told me to use. Of course, he’ll have no idea why he’s there. All he knows is that he needs to be there. That’s how they programmed him.
“After I take the fake kill shot,” Constantine went on, “the Network agent’ll spring into action, taking down the lone nut and finding the gun. It will have been fired at some point before he gets to DC. They’ve figured all that out, just like with all the other lone nuts.”
“All right, we get all that,” Amato said. “But like Richard asked, how do we secure the Master after the fake shot?”
“We use a fake ambulance and crew,” Constantine said.
“What?”
“We commandeer an ambulance,” Constantine said. “I bet Spartacus Rex can arrange that…get the ambulance, then some people, actors or something, to play paramedics. Paid actors who’ll be also paid to keep their mouths shut. All they need to know is that they’re stealing the Master’s dead body.
“They’ll arrive within moments after the Master pretends to be shot. And in the mayhem, all the confusion, nobody’ll think anything of it. Even the cops. The paramedics will attend to him for a time on stage, give him CPR…”
“Yes, I see,” said Pantera.
“Then,” Constantine continued, “they put his body on a stretcher and hustle it over to the fake ambulance. They close the doors and drive off. Where to, we’ll have to figure out. Some hiding place, a safe house or something that our good friend Rex can arrange for us where the Master can lay low until he’s ready to make a grand re-entrance as a resurrected demigod.”
“We can trust Spartacus Rex to do all this?” Mother Jane asked.
Constantine looked at her, but Pantera answered for him. “Yes, Mother. I think we can. He’s a salesman deep down, and he’ll jump at the chance to promote a resurrected demigod. Best promotion of all time.”
Pantera mulled things over for a time, then laughed.
“It’s brilliant, Jude,” he said. “You know that. Brilliant. And it just might work.”
“And upon your fake resurrection,” Constantine went on, “humanity will rejoice, or at least those not bought and paid for by the elite. The fervor will be so great, the joy so overwhelming, that the Kingdom of God might just happen that much quicker. And the New Age of the Sons and Daughters of Man will begin.”
“Nice fairy tale,” Amato laughed. “But saying it and pulling it off are two different things.”
“We’ve got a week or so to get it right,” Constantine replied. “Right?”
“Nine days,” Pantera said. “We leave for DC on October second.”
“Well, we’ll have to work out the details,” Constantine said. “Bottom line, I think we can pull it off.”
“I agree,” Renata said, but she turned and glared at Constantine. “Sounds doable. But are we sure Agent Constantine can be trusted? I know he just came up with this brilliant plan, but excuse me for not being overly enthused. His conversion seems almost too good to be true. Another treasonous Network agent. How convenient.”
She turned to Pantera with a concerned look.
“Or maybe,” she went on, “just maybe, this plan of his is simply a ruse, a way to lull us to sleep. And instead of a fake kill shot, he takes a real one.”
Pantera reached for Renata’s arm and smiled at her.
“No, Renata,” Pantera said to her, then turned to Amato, Goldstein, and Avery. “If a traitor be among us, it’s not him. It’s someone else.”
Chapter Forty-One
Last Supper
On the morning of October 1st, it rained and turned cooler in the hills around Grassy Creek. By early afternoon, the clouds had opened and scattered, blue sky was peeking through, and bright sunlight warmed the air to a pleasant sixty-five degrees.
Three days earlier, Pantera had announced to the inner circle and all the other converts that they’d celebrate the Kingdom Rally with a massive barbecue on the day before they left for DC. Pantera leaned to Constantine standing next to him and whispered, “Our last supper.”
By four that afternoon, a long line had formed near the serving tables and within an hour, everyone had plates overflowing with chicken and corn and beans and was holding plastic cups of cold beer or wine or a soft drink. They sat around the compound, enjoying the final meal before heading to DC the following morning.
With all the regular converts fed, Pantera told his disciples to make a plate, get something to drink, and join him at the long table set up in the dining room of the farmhouse. Fifteen minutes later, each of them was sitting at the table and digging in. Pantera sat at the middle of the table between Renata and Mother Jane. There was some quiet banter and laughter among the others, despite knowing that they were entering a new, exciting, and possible more dangerous phase of the Master’s ministry. Only Renata, Nick, Richard, Mother Jane, and Constantine knew exactly how dangerous and provocative this “phase” promised to be. At Constantine’s suggestion, they had agreed to keep their plan to fake Pantera’s “crucifixion” and “resurrection” from the other disciples. The more people who knew about the plan, the better the chance it would be leaked.
With the meal finished, Pantera stood and held out his arms to quiet them.
“Not another sermon!” joked Baker, whose wild, glimmering blond hair had grown to his shoulders. Everyone laughed, and Pantera grinned.
“Yes, another sermon, Kenny.” And then, his grin faded. “Near the end of them, perhaps.”
The disciples fell silent. The Master seemed unusually down—tired, perhaps.
“We must now, at this late hour of our Ministry, make a covenant,” he told them. He stopped and looked around the table, into their now-serious eyes. When he turned to Mother Jane, she flashed a brief smile, then nodded sadly in approval of his next move.
“The time to take decisive action is upon us,” he went on, “to seize the day. I know it’s been only a short time, but strong forces are moving against us. Therefore, we must make plans to continue advancing our message of change should I no longer be with you…if I am no longer a part of it.”
“What are you saying, Master?” Morgan asked.
“This may be our last supper together,” he said.
“No, no, no,” several of the other disciples wailed, though Constantine, Renata, Amato, Avery, and Goldstein sat mute.
Pantera raised a hand to stop their protests.
“And as Jesus did during his last meal with
his chosen twelve,” he went on, “I am announcing a covenant between myself and you, and all my brothers and sisters, whether they have yet become Sons and Daughters of Man. This covenant shall be the foundation of our new religion, a religion that will offer genuine salvation for the individual and for the human species.”
Pantera took a piece of bread, raised it, and looked upward.
“As Jesus did,” he said, “I am making this bread the symbolic representation of my earthly body that I must give up in order for the Word of God to be advanced.”
Constantine winced inside. This seemed odd, blasphemous somehow. And yet, it seemed necessary as well.
“Upon the gathering of people in my name,” Pantera went on, “the eating of bread and drinking of wine shall represent a remembrance of me and my message so that our ministry continues beyond my death.”
Again, several of the others grumbled disagreeably, and again, Pantera raised his hand to quiet them.
“And this shall be our solemn pledge in furtherance of that remembrance,” Pantera said, then sighed and looked around at his seated disciples as he continued, “I accept God and vow to seek and enter His Kingdom on Earth. I dedicate my life to quest for God’s true nature. I accept the eternal sanctity of the human spirit and the value and dignity of each human being as the way to a meaningful life.”
Constantine felt a thrill go through him upon hearing this pledge. The hairs of his arms stood on end.
“Now, repeat this pledge, after me,” Pantera told them.
“I accept God and vow to seek and enter His Kingdom on Earth,” Constantine started, and each disciple repeated the pledge in a solemn, heartfelt way.
Then, when they had finished, Goldstein laughed and asked, “Now, who’s Judas?” When the others glanced curiously at him, he said, “You know, the traitor.”
No one laughed.
Chapter Forty-Two
The Kingdom Rally
The Messiah Page 16