by Ben Bova
Three: The Vatican simply did not have any money to spend on malicious lawsuits. Every penny in the Vatican treasury went to running the Church and helping the poor.
The uproar was global. All across the world people were being treated to “experts” debating the central question of whether or not God should be—or could be—held responsible for the disasters that are constantly assailing us.
There were bloody riots in Calcutta after an earthquake killed several hundred people, with the Hindus blaming Allah and the Moslems blaming Kali or Rama or any of the other hundreds of Hindu gods and goddesses. The Japanese parliament solemnly declared that the Emperor, even though revered as divine, was not to be held responsible for natural disasters. Dozens of evangelist ministers in the U.S. damned Sam publicly in their TV broadcasts and as much as said that anyone who could stop the little bugger would be a hero in the eyes of God.
“What we need,” yowled one TV evangelist, “is a new Michael the Archangel, who will smite this son of Satan with a fiery sword!”
In Jerusalem, the chief rabbi and grand mufti stunned the world by appearing in public side-by-side to castigate Sam and call upon all good Jews and Moslems to accept whatever God or Allah sends their way.
“Humility and acceptance are the hallmarks of the true believers,” they jointly told their flocks.
My sources on the Senate intelligence committee told me that the chief rabbi added privately, “May He Who Is Nameless remove this evil man from our sight.”
The Grand Mufti apparently went further. He promised eternal paradise for anyone who martyred himself assassinating Sam. In a burst of modernism he added, “Even if the assassin is a woman, paradise awaits her.” I thought he must have been either pretty damned furious at Sam or pretty damned desperate.
Officially, the Vatican refused to defend itself. The Pope would not even recognize the suit, and the Curia—which had been at odds with the new American Pope—backed him on this issue one hundred percent.
Even though they knew that the World Court could hear the suit in their absence and then send in the Peacekeepers to enforce its decision, they felt certain that the Court would never send armed troops against the Vatican. It would make a pretty picture, our tanks and jet bombers against their Swiss Guardsmen. Heat-seeking missiles against medieval pikes. In St. Peter’s, yet.
But the insurance conglomerate that carried the policy for Ecuador National Space Systems decided that it would step forward and represent the Vatican in the pretrial hearing.
“We’ve got to put a cork in this bottle right away,” said their president to me. “It’s a disgrace, a shameful disgrace.”
His name was -Frank Banner, and he normally looked cheerful and friendly, probably from the days when he was a salesman who made his living from sweet-talking corporate officials into multimillion-dollar insurance policies. We had known each other for years; Frank had often testified to Senate committees—and donated generously to campaign funds, including mine.
But now he looked worried. He had flown up to Nashua to see me shortly after I returned from Quito. His usual broad smile and easygoing manner were gone; he was grim, almost angry.
“He’s ruining the Christmas season,” Frank grumbled.
I had to admit that it was hard to work up the usual holiday cheer with this lawsuit hanging over us.
“Look,” he said, as we sipped hot toddies in my living room, “I’ve had my run-ins with Sam Gunn in the past, Lord knows, but this time the little pisser’s gone too goddamned far. He’s not just attacking the Pope, although that in itself is bad enough. He’s attacking the very foundation of western civilization! That wise-assed little bastard is spitting in the eye of every God-fearing man, woman and child in the world!”
I had never seen Frank so wound up. He sounded like an old-time politician yelling from a soapbox. His face got purple and I was afraid he’d hyperventilate. I didn’t argue with him; I merely snuggled deeper into my armchair and let him rant until he ran out of steam.
Finally he said, “Well, somebody’s got to stand up for what’s right and decent.”
“I suppose so,” I murmured.
“I’m assigning one of our young lawyers to act as an amicus curiae in your pretrial hearing.”
“I’m not sure that’s the proper legal term,” I said.
“Well, whatever!” His face reddened again.”Somebody’s got to protect the Pope’s ass. Might as well be us.”
I nodded, thinking that if Sam somehow did win his suit against the Pope it would turn the entire insurance industry upside down. Amicus curiae indeed.
The moment I laid eyes on the lawyer that Frank sent I knew we’d have nothing but trouble.
Her name was Josella Ecks, and she was a tall, slim, gorgeous black woman with a mind as sharp as a laser beam. Skin the color of milk chocolate. Almond-shaped eyes that I would have killed for. Long silky legs, and she didn’t mind wearing slitted skirts that showed them off cunningly.
I knew Sam would go ape over her; the little juvenile delinquent always let his hormones overpower his brain.
Sure enough, Sam took one look at her and his eyes started spinning like the wheels in a slot machine. I felt myself turning seventeen shades of green. If Sam had seemed a little jealous of Carlos de Rivera, I was positively bilious with envy over Josella Ecks.
The four of us met ten days before Christmas in my formal office in the World Court building in The Hague: Sam, his lawyer Greg Molina, the delectable Ms. Ecks, and my plain old self. I settled into my desk chair, feeling shabby and miserable in a nubby tweed suit. Josella sat between the two men; when she crossed her long legs her slitted skirt fell away, revealing ankle, calf and a lot of thigh. I thought I saw steam spout out of Sam’s ears.
She didn’t seem to affect Greg that way, but then Gregory Molina was a married man; married to President de Rivera’s daughter, no less.
“This pretrial hearing,”. I said, trying to put my emotions under some semblance of control, “is mandated by the International Court of Justice for the purpose of trying to come to an amicable agreement on the matter of Ecuador v. Vatican without the expense and publicity of an actual trial.”
“Fine by me,” Sam said breezily, his eyes still on the young woman sitting beside him. “As long as we can get it over with by eleven. I’ve gotta catch the midnight Clipper. Gotta be back at Selene City for the Christmas festivities.”
I glowered at Sam. Here the future of Christianity was hanging in the balance and he was worried about a Christmas party.
Greg was more formal. His brows knitting very earnestly, he said, “The
nation of Ecuador would be very much in favor of settling this case out of court.” He was looking at me, not Josella. “Providing, of course, that we can arrive at a reasonable settlement.”
Josella smiled as if she knew more than he did. “Our position is that a reasonable settlement would be to throw this case in the trash bin, where it belongs.”
Sam sighed as if someone had told them there is no Santa Claus. “A reasonable settlement would be a half billion dollars, U.S.”
Josella waggled a finger at him. I saw that her nails were done in warm pink. “Your suit is without legal basis, Mr. Gunn.”
“Then why are we here, oh beauteous one?”
I resisted the urge to crown Sam with the meteoric iron paperweight on my desk. He had given it to me years earlier, and at that particular moment I really wanted to give it back to him—smack between his leering eyes.
Josella was unimpressed. Quite coolly she answered, “We are here, Mr. Gunn, because you have entered a frivolous suit against the Vatican.”
Greg spoke up. “I assure you, Ms. Ecks, the nation of Ecuador is not frivolous.”
“Perhaps not,” she granted. “But I’m afraid that you’re being led down the garden path by this unscrupulous little man.”
“Little?” A vein in Sam’s forehead started to throb. “Was Napoleon little? Was Steinmetz little?
Did Neil Armstrong play basketball in college?”
Laughing, Josella said, “I apologize for the personal reference, Mr. Gunn. It was unprofessional of me.”
“Sam.”
“Mr. Gunn,” she repeated.
“I still want half a bill,” Sam growled.
“There isn’t that much money in the entire Vatican,” she said.
“Baloney. They take in a mint and a half.” Sam ticked off on his fingers, “Tourists come by the millions. The Vatican prints its own stamps and currency. They’re into banking and money exchange, with no internal taxes and no restrictions on importing and exporting foreign currencies. Nobody knows how much cash flows through the Vatican, but they must have the highest per capita income in the solar system.”
“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.”
And then I realized he was speaking to Josella, not me.
We rode for hours in that plane, Sam jabbering across the aisle to Josella while I sat beside him, staring out the window and fuming. Greg sat on the window seat beside Josella, but as I could see from their reflections in the glass, Sam and Josella had eyes only for each other. I went beyond fuming; I would have slugged Sam if we weren’t in so much trouble already.
Two of the Daughters sat at the rear of the cabin, guns in their laps. Their leader and the other one sat up front. Who was in the cockpit I never knew.
Beneath my anger at Sam I was pretty scared. These Daughters of the Mother looked like religious fanatics to me, the kind who were willing to die for their cause—and therefore perfectly willing to kill anybody else for their cause. They were out to get Sam, and they had grabbed me and the other two as well. We were hostages. Bargaining chips for the inevitable moment when the Peacekeepers came at them with everything in their arsenal.
And Sam was spending his time talking to Josella, trying to ease her fears, trying to impress her with his own courage.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “It’s me they want. They’ll let you and the others loose as soon as they turn me over to their leader, whoever that might be.”
And the others. I seethed. As far as Sam was concerned, I was just one of the others. Josella was the one he was interested in, tall and willowy and elegant. I was just a sawed-off runt with as much glamour as a fire hydrant, and pretty much the same figure.
Dawn was just starting to tinge the sky when we started to descend. I had been watching out the window during the flight, trying to puzzle out where we were heading from the position of the moon and the few stars I could see. Eastward, I was pretty certain. East and south. That was the best I could determine.