“You leave, don’t plan on coming back,” the foreman shot back. Andrew turned away. “I’m serious, Andy. You walk out that door, you’re fired.”
Andrew kept on walking.
But as he moved through the sun-drenched parking lot toward his truck, doubt crept around the edges of his mind. He’d just walked away from the only decent job he ever had. Was Reverend Tim really talking for God? The absolute certainty he’d felt in the cafeteria now eluded him.
He climbed into his rusty old F-150, drove off the compound, and headed down the road a couple blocks. He pulled a U-turn, parked facing the refinery. Rolled down the windows, opened his lunchbox, and filled his right cheek with chewing tobacco. Popped the top on a Dr Pepper and settled in to wait.
Thinking: I’m either the smartest man in Louisiana, or the dumbest.
The foreman hated the term productivity meeting. To him, productivity meetings were just about the least productive thing ever devised by middle management, and that was saying plenty. Those corporate frat boys were master time-wasters. Their other major skills included ass-covering, blame-shifting, and brownnosing. But he was a deputy supervisor, which made him junior management, so he had to play along.
At least the meetings were held in the cafeteria. It was the frat boys’ way of showing that they were just plain folk. Those boys loved slumming with the men who worked for a living.
The foreman drank some coffee and tried to focus on the meeting. The IT guy was giving another general warning about sending jokes around by company e-mail. Not naming any names, but the ones who did it knew who they were, and the threat was implied, if things didn’t change soon.
The foreman’s ears popped as if he were in an elevator. Sudden change in air pressure, he thought. Something’s wrong. Something’s—
A blast rocked the building. Windows blew out of the far wall. Men screamed. Everyone grabbed the table for support…
The room went dark…
The HVAC and refrigerators and vending machines shut down, and the cafeteria fell silent…
A low rumble reverberated through the walls. Red emergency lights started flashing and the alarm began blaring, once every second. The generators kicked in, and white light strips set into the floor glowed a line to the door.
Years of monthly fire drills also kicked in, and muscle memory took over. The men abandoned their belongings and moved quickly to the door. A few put their hands on the door, testing for heat. The foreman and the IT guy grabbed the fire extinguishers mounted on either side of the door. Someone opened the door, and the foreman led the other men into the hallway.
The light strips ran left, down the hallway, to the nearest fire exit. The foreman clasped the IT guy on the shoulder and pointed left.
“You’re in charge,” he barked into the guy’s ear. The rumbling had grown to a roar—he had to yell to be heard. “Take them out.”
The group followed the IT guy outside to safety. The foreman turned right, walked through strobing red light toward the double doors at the end of the hallway.
The doors burst open and three men came out in a stumbling run, clothes charred and smoking, skin melting off faces and hands. Through the open doors, everything was raging flame. Smoke billowed into the hallway.
Two of the melting men continued lurching, past the foreman and toward the fire exit. The other man pitched forward onto the floor. The foreman dropped the useless fire extinguisher, ran to the prone man, and hoisted him up in a fireman’s lift.
He ran for the exit. Another concussive blast from behind. The double doors flew open and a wave of heat rolled over him.
The hallway filled with fire.
Andrew Thibodeaux heard the blast. In the distance, a fireball rose through a ragged hole in the metal roof of the refinery’s main building. The top third of the adjoining wall collapsed and more flames leapt free. Thick black smoke filled the air above and climbed into the sky.
For a full minute, he sat watching the fire grow, without a conscious thought in his head. Then his stomach tightened, and he sobbed once, twice, and again. The sobbing stopped as quickly as it had hit him. He wiped his eyes, turned the ignition over, and drove.
Thank you, Lord…thank you, Lord…thank you, Lord…
Julia Rothman heard the call on her police scanner and mashed the accelerator to the floor, making record time to Belle Chasse.
It was a hellstorm. Massive black clouds billowed skyward from a wall of orange flame, and the whole scene shimmered with heat, like a mirage on the highway.
She flashed her press credentials through the windshield, and the deputy waved her past the police line. Michael Alatorre, sheriff of Plaquemines Parish, stood with one foot on the bumper of his cruiser, barking orders at another deputy. Six fire engines and an ambulance idled nearby, lights flashing impotently in the midday sun. A couple dozen firemen stood around smoking, gazing, awestruck by the blaze.
Julia jumped from her car, hooked a few strands of black hair with her little finger, and put them behind her ear.
The sheriff recognized her and tipped his hat, his expression grim. “Young lady.”
“Jesus, Sheriff Alatorre, what the hell happened here?”
“Don’t know yet, some kinda accident.”
“How many dead?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. We can’t get near it. Fire chief says we just gonna have to let it burn for a while.” He flipped open his notebook. “Supervisor says he thinks there were one hundred forty-five men on shift in the main building when the thing blew, but that’s unconfirmed. Far as we know, forty-three came out alive, eighteen taken to hospital in varying degrees of distress. Some were pretty bad off, probably not all of them will make it.” He gestured at the ambulance. “They just stickin’ around in case somebody else staggers out, but…”
They both looked back to the inferno. Nobody else would be staggering out.
Julia raced back to the office, logged onto the Internet, and directed her browser to the Tim Trinity Word of God Ministries.
Thinking: If that sonofabitch actually predicted this…
Thinking: What has Danny gotten himself involved in?
Thinking: Why didn’t I—Oh my God, what have I done?
Daniel stayed in his hotel room all morning, anxiously flipping between the cable news networks, praying that Julia had been able to convince the refinery executives of the danger. This last hour was the toughest. He’d been too nervous to eat breakfast and now felt a little queasy. He checked his watch every few minutes, confirming the time displayed on the television screen. Noon could not come soon enough. He paced the floor, sat and checked the Internet news sites, stood and paced some more. He read Psalm 23 about a dozen times.
As the final seconds ticked by, he counted them down, like a New Year’s Eve reveler watching the ball drop on Times Square, waiting to kiss everybody and sing “Auld Lang Syne.”
Noon arrived. No disaster.
He flipped through the channels, and nothing had changed. Just the usual parade of Democrats and Republicans, shilling their talking points about a broken economy and how not to fix it. He decided to give it a little longer, to be sure.
He left the television on, shaved with the bathroom door open. And as the minutes ticked by uneventfully, his heart soared. He’d done the right thing, he was sure of it. If God had wanted the refinery to blow, it would’ve blown, so He must’ve wanted Daniel to take action. It seemed so clear now.
Daniel had spotted a nice-looking pub the previous day, just around the corner from the hotel. He decided to take himself out for a burger and a beer to celebrate.
At twelve thirty, the news was still the same. He shut off the television and headed out.
He entered the pub at 12:46. The television above the bar was running CNN, and he glanced up at the screen.
Everything was fine.
“Afternoon,” said the bartender, “can I pull you a pint?”
“Thanks, I’ll take a Guinness.”
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“Menu?”
Daniel shook his head. “Cheeseburger, rare. And fries, well done.”
“You got it.”
The bartender moved to the computerized cash register and entered the order, then to the taps. Daniel watched black stout flow into the pint glass, creamy head forming on top. It was a slow pull, as Guinness should be. Most pubs in America didn’t use nitrogen tanks, but this one obviously did, and for that he was grateful. The extra wait would be worth it.
A voice behind him said, “Hey, Larry, turn up the volume.” The bartender abandoned Daniel’s half-pulled pint, grabbed a remote and aimed it at the television.
Daniel looked up. On the screen was an aerial shot of a massive inferno.
The newscaster was saying, “…details still coming in, but here’s what we know so far: at 11:19, Central Standard Time, a large explosion rocked the Belle Chasse oil refinery in southern Louisiana, followed by three or four secondary explosions…”
Damn! Central Standard Time—of course.
“…The fire is still raging, and officials say it will be some time before they can move in and bring it under control.”
Daniel closed his eyes to stop the room from spinning, forced himself to breathe.
Goddamnit, this was not supposed to happen. This could not happen…
The newscaster was saying, “…according to a company spokesman, the fire began adjacent to the number six silo, which was undergoing repair work, and quickly spread through a feeder line to the main unit, where the first explosion occurred. We do not have casualty numbers in yet—we do know that eighteen workers were taken to area hospitals, but most of the workers inside the main facility did not make it out. Many lives have been lost.”
Many lives will be lost…
“You OK?”
Daniel opened his eyes. “No,” he said, “I’m not.”
He dropped a twenty on the bar and bolted out the door.
Father Nick pressed the remote and shut off CNN.
He swiveled his chair to face the large wooden crucifix on the wall opposite his desk, brought his hands together, and closed his eyes. He prayed for the souls of the men who died that morning in Louisiana and for their families. He made the sign of the cross.
He fought the urge to pray for his own soul. He would pray for others, and he would pray for the Lord’s guidance, but he would never use prayer as a Get Out of Jail Free card. The consequences of his decisions were heavy, but carrying that weight was part of the job.
It was Nick’s responsibility to always think of the big picture, even when the big picture was hard to see. If he had taken action to save the men in Louisiana, and the Trinity Anomaly had been disclosed to the world, then whatever power was at work in Trinity would be given instant credence, a papal stamp of authenticity.
And there was no way to know what Trinity might predict—or advise—next. He might tell us what brand of hot sauce works best in gumbo…or he might tell us to nuke Iran.
The Law of Unintended Consequences.
And the unintended consequences could be devastating, not just for the Church, but for the entire world.
Father Nick closed his eyes again, and prayed for guidance.
Tim Trinity stood in the middle of his home theater, staring at the sixty-inch high-resolution plasma television, unable to move. When the “Breaking News” graphic swept across the screen and the newscaster announced the explosion, he’d gone to the wet bar and grabbed a bottle. Now he stood there with the bottle in one hand. He wanted to sit back down on the leather sectional, but he’d forgotten how to operate his body. He wanted to raise the bottle and take a swig, but his arm wouldn’t obey.
He wanted to look away from the blaze, but he couldn’t even blink.
It looked to him like the fires of hell. Hell on earth. And sitting in the control room, just last night, he’d actually heard himself make the prediction.
How the fuck is this even possible?
Tim Trinity stood, unmoving, unblinking, staring at the screen, for a very long time.
And he began to believe.
Daniel jammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop in front of his uncle’s Buckhead mansion. He pounded on the front door with the heel of his right hand. The door opened. Tim Trinity made bleary eye contact and turned back inside the house. Daniel followed him down a marble hallway, into a room with a big leather sofa facing a huge television.
The television was tuned to CNN, the volume muted.
Trinity plucked a bottle of bourbon off the coffee table, took a swig. “Yeah, I’m drunk,” he said, “and you would be too, if you had a lick of sense.”
“What did you do?” Daniel thrust an accusing finger at the television screen. “What did you fucking do?”
“I didn’t make this happen.” Trinity was indeed drunk, but still plenty lucid. “Until two days ago, I was just a guy with a mental problem. Question is what did you do?”
It felt like a punch in the gut. “I tried to stop it.”
“Evidently you didn’t try hard enough.” Another swig of bourbon. “Lemme ask you something. If the archbishop of New Orleans showed up at the refinery, you think he coulda convinced them there was a problem?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
“But they didn’t send him, did they? So who’s to blame here? Why don’t you take a look in the mirror, Danny?”
“No, I-I called…I tried…”
“Yeah? Well, I called too.” Trinity glanced at the television. “Wasn’t enough. And your bosses apparently didn’t share your enthusiasm, or they’d have put some muscle behind it.” He pointed the bottle at Daniel. “You may not wear the collar, but long as you work for them, you’re carrying their water. So let’s cut the bullshit, boy. What does the Vatican really want from me?”
“They sent me here to discredit you. Debunk your tongues act.”
“But they knew the predictions were coming true. So what’s really going on? Eliminating the competition? What?”
Daniel brushed past his uncle and turned the television off. He sat down, braced his hands on his knees, and breathed slowly. “They don’t believe God is working through you. They don’t think it’s Satan, but they really don’t know.”
“Oh, give me a fucking tax break, Danny. Satan? ’Course it’s not Satan. Tell you who else it’s not. It’s not Santa Claus or the Green Goblin or the Easter Bunny neither. Satan’s a fairy tale.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s not God.” Daniel nodded toward his uncle. “You’re not exactly a poster child for faith.”
Trinity sat on the sofa beside his nephew, spoke quietly. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said since you got here.” He put the bottle on the floor. “But you know what I think? I think the Church is worried that God is working through me. They’ve got a trillion-dollar business to protect, and they’re gonna start looking pretty musty-dusty, with their robes and incense and Latin incantations, if a guy like me is a miracle. Not good for their brand.”
Daniel stood. “I’m not listening to this. The Vatican is not a business—”
“Christ, son, everything’s a business. Thought I’d taught you at least that much.”
“And you are not a miracle. You’re not even a fucking believer.”
Daniel walked out without another word, his hands balled into fists.
Daniel sat nursing a Guinness and picking absently at a Cobb salad. He didn’t feel hungry, but needed the nourishment, so he forced himself to eat. It was coming up on nine o’clock. The television screen above the bar displayed a live shot of what used to be the main refinery building, glowing like a man-made sunset in the Louisiana night.
Still burning, but now under control.
The opening graphics for AC360 swept across the screen, and Anderson Cooper’s familiar voice said, “Tonight on AC360: ‘Tragedy and Mystery in Louisiana.’ Our guest is Julia Rothman, senior investigative reporter at the New Orleans Times-Picayune…”
Daniel’s f
ork clattered to the floor.
“…and she has a shocking angle on this story that you are not going to want to miss.”
Oh, no…
After a commercial break that felt like a year, Anderson Cooper gave a recap of the day’s events, voiced over a video package showing the inferno in full blaze and night shots of firefighters at work. No final figures yet, but at least one hundred dead. An interview clip of an oil company spokesman established that the fire was a freak accident, the likely culprit a faulty pressure detector that had misread an open valve as closed.
And then there was Julia, sitting right across from Cooper in the studio. She smiled, and something fluttered in Daniel’s chest.
God, she looks good…
Cooper thanked Julia for flying in to Atlanta for the show.
Daniel’s heart skipped another beat.
She’s here…
Cooper told viewers that Reverend Tim Trinity was a local television evangelist, originally from New Orleans. He showed a short clip from the Tim Trinity Prosperity-Power Miracle Hour. Then Julia gave a succinct explanation of the Trinity Anomaly and how to decode Reverend Tim Trinity’s speaking-in-tongues routine.
Cooper asked how Julia had learned of this phenomenon.
Here it comes…
But Julia declined to reveal her source.
For now, anyway…
She cut to the chase, said that Trinity predicted the refinery explosion while speaking in tongues during his most recent Sunday sermon.
“Have we got the tape? OK, let’s roll it,” said Cooper.
Tim Trinity came on the screen. The video ran backwards, sped up by a third, and it looked like a clip from the old Benny Hill Show. But Trinity’s voice was clear, and hearing the prediction again, Daniel cringed.
“This is simply unbelievable,” said Cooper. He introduced CNN’s top video engineer, who came on by remote feed from the newsroom and authenticated the videotape. Cooper shook his head, astounded. “So, Julia, what do you make of this?”
The Trinity Game Page 10