by Sam Bourne
The Church of the Reborn Jesus.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Monday, 5.13pm, Darfur, Sudan
The night of the thirty-fifth killing was almost silent. In this heat, and with so little food, people were too listless to make much noise. The call to prayer was the only loud sound to be heard all day; the rest was moans and whispers.
Mohammed Omar saw the heat-wave shimmering on the horizon and reckoned sunset would be only a few minutes away. That was the way it was in Darfur: the sun would sneak up without warning in the morning and disappear just as quickly at night. Maybe it was like that everywhere in Sudan, everywhere in Africa. Mohammed did not know: he had never travelled beyond this rocky desert.
It was time for his evening tour of the camp. He would check in first on Hawa, the thirteen-year-old girl who had, too young, become a kind of mother to her six sisters. They had fled to the camp two weeks ago, after the Janjaweed militiamen had torched their village. The little girls were too scared to talk, but Hawa told Mohammed what had happened. In the middle of the night, terrifying men had arrived on horseback, waving flaming torches. They had set everything alight. Hawa had scooped up her sisters and started running. Only once they got away did she realize that her parents had been left behind. They had both been killed.
Now, in the corner of a hut made of straw and sticks, she held her three-year-old sister in her arms. By the doorway, on the ground, stood a battered pot. Inside, a meagre ration of porridge.
Mohammed walked on, steeling himself for the next stop on the tour: the 'clinic', in reality another frail hut. Kosar, the nurse, was there and her face told him what he did not want to hear. 'How many?' he asked.
Three. And maybe one more tonight.' They had been losing three children a day for weeks now. With no medicine and no food, he did not know how he could stop the dying.
He looked around. An empty corner of desert, sheltered by a few scrubby trees. He had not meant to start a refugee camp here. What did he know of such things? He was a tailor.
He was not a doctor or an official, but he could see what was going on. There were columns of desperate people, often children, walking through the desert, searching for food and shelter. They spoke of village after village destroyed by the Janjaweed, the men who burnt and killed and raped while government aeroplanes circled overhead. Somebody had to do something — and, without ever really thinking it through, that somebody had been him.
He had started with a few tents, two of them stitched together on his old Singer machine. He collected a few axes and gave them to the men to get firewood. They struggled.
One, Abdul, was desperate to help but the burns on his hands were so bad he could not hold an axe. Mohammed saw him, his hands so scorched he could not even wipe away his own tears.
Still, they chopped enough wood to start a fire and, once it burned, it worked as a beacon. More refugees came.
Now there were thousands of people here; there was no time to count them precisely. They pooled what meagre resources they had. These people were farmers; what little could be conjured from the earth, they somehow teased out.
But there was not enough.
Mohammed knew what he needed: outside help. In the few hours of sleep he snatched each night, he would dream of a convoy of white vehicles arriving one bright morning, each one loaded with crates of grain and boxes of medicine.
Even with just five vehicles — just one — he could save so many lives.
It was then he saw the headlights, shining through the dusk.
Strong and yellow, they were coming his way, their light wobbling in the heat haze. Mohammed could not help himself.
He began jumping up and down, waving his arms in a wild semaphore. 'Here!' he was shouting. 'Here! We are here!'
The truck slowed down until Mohammed could get a better view. This was not an aid team, but just two men.
'I come in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,' the first man began in English, rapidly translated by the second.
'Welcome, welcome,' said Mohammed, grabbing his visitors with both arms in gratitude. 'Welcome, welcome.'
'I have some food and drugs in the back. Do you have people to unload it?'
A crowd had already assembled. After the interpreter had spoken, Mohammed nominated two of the strongest teenagers, a boy and a girl, to take the boxes off the truck.
He then summoned a couple of men he could trust to stand guard: the last thing he wanted was a food riot, as hunger and desperation sparked a stampede.
'Do you think we could talk?' the visitor asked. Mohammed answered with a gesture, ushering his guest towards an empty hut. The man followed, carrying a slim, dark briefcase.
'It's taken me a long time to find you, sir. Am I right that you are in charge? This is a camp you started?'
'Yes,' Mohammed said, unsure whether to look at the translator or his boss.
'And you have done this all by yourself? No one is paying you to do this? You don't work for any organization? You did this purely out of the goodness of your own heart?'
'Yes, but this is not important,' Mohammed said through the interpreter. 'I am not important.'
At that, the visitor smiled and said, 'Good.'
'People are dying here,' Mohammed continued. 'What help can you give them? Urgently!'
The visitor smiled again. 'Oh, I can promise them the greatest help of all. And it won't be long to wait. Not long at all'
He then clicked the two side-locks of his briefcase and produced a syringe. 'First, I want to say what an honour it is for me to meet you. It is an honour to know that the righteous truly live among us.'
'Thank you, but I don't understand.'
'I'm afraid I need to give you this. It's important that a man such as yourself should feel no pain or suffering. No pain or suffering at all.'
Suddenly the interpreter was gripping Mohammed's arm, forcing him onto the ground. Mohammed tried to escape, but he was too weak and this hand too strong. Now, towering over him, was the visitor, holding the syringe up to the light.
He was speaking in English, lowering himself closer to Mohammed. As he did so, the interpreter was whispering directly into his ear.
'For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones.
They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off.'
Mohammed was writhing, struggling to break free. And still the voice was speaking, its breath hot.
'The wicked lie in wait for the righteous, seeking their very lives; but the Lord will not leave them in their power or let them be condemned when brought to trial. The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble.'
Finally he felt the needle break the skin of his arm and, as the sky darkened, he heard the words of a prayer, until the voice grew distant and all was silent.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Monday, 2.50pm, Brooklyn
Now it was Will's turn to take charge. He all but pushed Tom out of his chair, and instantly returned to twenty-first century journalism's base camp: Google.
'Church of the Reborn Jesus' brought up a page of entries, but they were thin. To Will's surprise, the group did not have a website of its own.
He clicked the first entry, a link to a paper delivered at a University of Nebraska conference.
Though never large in number, the Church of the Reborn Jesus achieved great influence at its height a quarter century ago, especially among young Christian intellectuals. Central to its teaching was a radical brand of replacement theology, the belief that Christians had replaced the Jews as God's chosen people…
Maddeningly, the article said nothing more, rambling off into a wider discussion of campus Christianity in the 1970s.
But Will was on a roll. He could tell TO was keeping up, yet both knew, intuitively, there was no time to waste on discussion.
He went straight to Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia and typed in 'replacement theology'.
It took a few seconds, during which Will's right foot pulsated — partly in anxiety, partly in excitement. A half-buried memory was nagging away at him. The Church of the Reborn Jesus: he had seen that name before, somewhere at the office…
Then a page appeared, headlined Supersessionism. It was defined as 'the traditional Christian belief that Christianity is the fulfilment of Biblical Judaism, and therefore that Jews who deny that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah fall short of their calling as God's chosen people.'
Will skimmed to the next paragraph. 'It argues that Israel has been superseded… in the sense that the Church has been entrusted with the fulfilment of the promises of which Jewish Israel is the trustee.'
The entry noted that while several liberal Protestant groups had renounced supersessionism, ruling that Jews and 'perhaps' other non-Christians could find God through their own faith, 'other conservative and fundamentalist Christian groups hold supersessionism to be valid… the debate continues.'
And I bet I know where it continues, thought Will. He went back to Google, now narrowing his search to 'Church of the Reborn Jesus and replacement theology'. Three references, the first an article from The Christian Review.
'… Replacement theology became increasingly unfashionable in this period, discredited by the politically correct crowd, said its defenders. A few years earlier, it had enjoyed a vigorous revival chiefly through a cerebral grouping known as the Church of the Reborn Jesus. According to this group, Christians had, by their recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, not only inherited the Jews' status as the elect, but inherited Judaism itself. The Jews had, the Reborn Jesus movement argued, ignored God's direct wishes and therefore forfeited all that they had learned from Him. They had disinherited themselves from their role as the chosen people but — and this is what set the Church of the Reborn Jesus apart — the Jews had also abandoned their own traditions, customs and even folklore. From now on, those were to be regarded as the possessions of committed Christians.'
'Stop.' It was TO, white-faced. 'That's the key point, right there. Their own traditions, customs, even folklore. This group believes that Judaism contains the truth, not for Jews but for Christians. Even the folklore. Don't you see? They've taken it all. The mysticism, the kabbalah, everything.'
'The story of the righteous men,' said Will.
'Yes. They don't think this is some weird Hassidic tradition.
They think this belongs to them. They believe it's true.'
He clicked on the next Google result. It was a link to an evangelical discussion group. Somebody calling themselves NewDawn had written a long posting, apparently in reply to a question about the origins of the Church of the Reborn Jesus.
In its day it had quite an impact — kind of the smart end of the whole Jesus freak, sandal-wearing movement. It was centred on this very charismatic preacher who was then a chaplain to Yale, Rev Jim Johnson.
Will looked up at TO. 'I know that name,' he said. 'He founded some evangelical movement in the seventies. Died a few years ago.' But TO was reading on.
'Apparently Rev Johnson influenced a whole generation of elite Christians. They called him the Pied Piper on campus, because he enjoyed such a dedicated following.'
I can vouch for that, said the posting below. 7 was at Yale in that period and Johnson was a phenomenon. He was only interested in the A-list, top-flight students — editors of Law Review, class president, those guys. We called them the Apostles, hanging around Johnson like he was the Messiah or something. For anyone interested, I've scanned in a picture from the Yale Daily News which shows Johnson and his followers. Click here.
Will clicked and waited for the picture to load. It was grainy, in drab, 1970s colour and it took a while to fill the frame. Slowly it came into view. At the centre, wearing a broad grin, like the captain of a college football team, was a man in his late thirties, wearing an open-necked shirt and large glasses with the curved, rectangular frames that were then regarded as super-modern. He wore no dog-collar, no dark suit. He was, Will concluded, what the Victorians would have called a muscular Christian.
Surrounding him were young, serious-looking men, exuding that born-to-rule confidence that radiated out of Yale or Harvard yearbooks. The hair was long or bulky, the shirt collars and jacket lapels wide. The faces seemed to shine with possibility. These men were not only going to rule the world.
It was quite clear they believed they would do it with Jesus's blessing.
'I think you need to hurry,' said Tom, now taking up Will's previous position by the curtain. There's a car outside. Two guys are getting out and coming into the building.'
But Will was hardly listening. Instead he was pushed back into his seat with surprise: he had recognized one of the faces in the photograph. He was only able to because he had seen another, different picture of this same man in his youth recently. The paper had run it when he was appointed. There, at Jim Johnson's side, was none other than Townsend McDougal — the future editor of The New York Times.
'I don't believe it,' Will said.
'It's him, isn't it?'
Will was confused. How would TO recognize McDougal? 'I didn't want to say, because I wasn't sure. But it really couldn't be anyone else.'
Will looked up at her, crinkling his eyebrows to register his puzzlement. 'Who are you talking about?'
'Will! They're coming up. You've got to go!'
'Look,' said TO, taking her finger to the far left of the back row of the picture — an area Will had barely examined. TO stopped at a lean, handsome young man with a full head of thick hair. He was unsmiling.
'Maybe I'm wrong, Will. But I think that's your father.'
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Monday, 2.56pm, Brooklyn
Tom had fairly wrenched Will from the chair and out the window, sending him plunging down the fire escape. He nudged TO the same way and was about to follow himself when he looked back. The computer screen was still alight with information. It would be too terrible, thought Tom, if his machine, always such a loyal ally, were to end up giving them all away.
He rushed TO out, then moved over to the desk and started frantically closing down programmes. It was while he was shutting down the internet browser that the door flung open.
He heard it before he saw it, a splintering crash, as two men shouldered their way into the apartment. Tom looked up and saw one of them: tall, thick-armed and with the clearest, sharpest blue eyes. In an instant, Tom decided to do the one thing his every instinct rebelled against. He reached for the powers cord and pulled it out of the wall, shutting down his computer and everything connected to it.
But the move was too sudden for his uninvited guests.
They interpreted a man stretching downwards the way they had been trained to, as someone reaching for a weapon. As he pulled on the white flex, the bullet pierced his chest. He crumpled to the ground. The screens went dark.
Will charged down the back ladder, taking two then three rungs at a time. His head was throbbing. Who was chasing him? What had happened to TO and Tom? Where should he go?
But even as he thundered downwards, storey after storey, his mind was racing with what he had just seen. The face was unmistakable; TO had seen it straight away. What Freudian impulse had led his eye away from it? The eyes, the jaw, the firm nose: his father.
And yet, the one thing he knew for certain about William Monroe Sr was that he was an avowed rationalist, a coolly secular man whose scepticism about religion might well have thwarted his highest ambition, to serve as a justice of the United States Supreme Court. Could he really have once been a bible-thumper, and such a serious one?
Three more storeys to go, and now he could feel the iron handrail vibrating. He looked up, to see the soles of shoes descending just as fast as his. One more level to go: Will all but jumped it.
Now he started sprinting down Smith Street, dodging people as they came out of the Salonike diner. He looked over his shoulder: a commotion behind him, caused by a man dashing through a cro
wd. 'Hey, watch it asshole!'
Will body-swerved round the corner, clasping hold of a pretzel wagon to steady himself. In front of him was Fourth Avenue, with six lanes of traffic, all moving fast. At the first gap, he plunged in.
He was standing on the dotted white line separating two streams of heavy traffic. Drivers started blasting their horns; they clearly thought Will was some kind of psycho. He looked back. There, just a lane of cars away, was the stalker, the man he had nearly caught in the act of murder less than twenty four hours ago. As if protected by the traffic, Will stared at him. What came back was a laser-beam eye that seemed to bore right through him.
He wheeled around and spotted another gap in traffic just a beat and he would miss it. Will leapt across, turning around to see that his pursuer had made the same move.
They were still just the width of a single car apart. He could see a bulge around the man's hip, what Will assumed to be a holster.
He looked ahead: the light was still green. But for how much longer? Soon it would be red: the traffic would slow down and he would be able to cross to the other side, but so would the man with the gun. He would be within pointblank range. But there was no gap. The cars were moving too fast.
Will had only one option. Instead of crossing the road, he sprinted to his left, as if trying to catch up with the traffic.
He ran faster, never taking his eye off the lights. He would act the second he saw a glimmer of red. Come on, come on. He looked around. The man was still just one lane away, but hardly moved from his previous position. Now was the moment.
As green turned to red, the traffic slowed, the cars bunching up behind each other: Will had only to dart between them, keeping himself low. Three, four, five lanes and he was nearly there.