For Paul, the gradual restoration of his sight was a mystery that turned his world upside down. If he now had faith in God, what did that mean? What would be expected of him—surely his life, his work, even his marriage would have to change. Given who his father-in-law was, Paul couldn’t imagine how to explain the change in himself to Jae. What if it spooked her, made her tell her father? Paul’s life would be over.
First he had to come to grips with this himself. He’d been studying the New Testament as an outsider. He had listened to the words over and over, yet there was so much he didn’t understand. Jesus’ teachings were antithetical to everything Paul had ever been taught. He said to love your enemies and be kind to those who mistreated you. How would that play in the NPO?
Another hurdle for Paul’s intellect was the assertion that Jesus had lived a perfect life, without sin, so He could become God’s sacrificial lamb for all the sins of the world. That made Christianity unique among religions, at least the ones Paul had studied. What other religion based salvation on a gift, something someone else had done? What other religion featured a hero who not only rose from the dead but also supposedly still lived? Most religions seemed focused on man’s attempts to reach God, but Jesus was clearly God’s attempt to reach man.
Paul’s namesake, a highly educated man, seemed to write directly to him in a New Testament letter: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
Was I perishing? That’s the apostle Paul’s contention. Unless I believed this, I would die without God.
The passage continued, “For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”
Paul listened to that passage over and over. He was reeling. He had been looking for intelligent reasons to consider this all just nice-sounding words for the religious mind. What he thought sounded foolish was meant to be foolish, to confound the wise. Well, he was confounded.
Then there was the promise that Jesus would come back to earth someday. He had told His disciples that He was going to heaven to prepare a place for them and that He would return to receive them to Himself. And He added, “If it were not so, I would have told you.”
Paul had studied the book of Revelation, which described the conditions of Christ’s return and the promise that He was coming soon. Both Paul’s father and the San Francisco worshipers believed that time was nearly at hand. How did that fit in with Paul’s new embrace of faith?
Paul needed a spiritual confidant, someone more seasoned, with whom he could share his doubts and questions.
The next time Straight came over, as soon as they were behind closed doors, Paul said, “We need to talk. I need to ask you a question.”
“Shoot.”
“You remember in the car, when you quoted me that passage about the two blind men? ‘“According to your faith let it be to you.” And their eyes were opened.’”
Straight seemed to stiffen. “Yeah?”
“I’ve been thinking about this, and I know I never told you that story.”
“Huh.”
“So how did you know it?”
Straight leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “You think you’re the only person who reads?”
“The Bible is contraband, Straight. Forbidden. I have access to it because of my job.”
“You looking for a confession, Paul? What do you want from me?”
“I want to know if you’re reading the Bible.”
“And if I am?”
“I want to know.”
“Are we friends, Paul? You don’t seem to have any friends but me.”
“We’re friends.”
“You’re asking your friend to confess a capital crime to an operative of the National Peace Organization.”
“So it’s true?”
“My life is in your hands, Paul.”
“Is it true?”
“It’s true.”
A shiver ran through Paul. I knew it!And he needed Straight’s wisdom.
“Are you going to turn me in, Paul? Are you going to do your duty, or are you going to aid and abet the enemy?”
Paul let his head fall back and closed his eyes. “I couldn’t ever see you as the enemy, Straight.”
“That’s a mighty important decision.”
“I know. This changes everything.”
“Yes, it does. Are you sure?”
“I don’t know.”
“God spared you and restored your vision. You don’t have any question about that, do you?”
“Not anymore.”
“You know, Saul asked the Lord who He was. Remember the answer?”
“It works on me every day,” Paul said. “He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’ For a long time, I resisted that. I said that even if I was persecuting underground Christians, I wasn’t really persecuting Jesus.”
“But there’s a bond between us and Him, Paul. Persecute us, persecute Him.”
“That’s exactly what I came to.”
“Have you told Him yet?”
“Told Him what?”
“That you believe in Him? He restored your sight, and He’s proving to you every day who He is. You telling me you can ignore that and treat the New Testament as a bunch of stories, just like those of all the other religions you’ve studied?”
Paul found himself trembling. “No.”
“You know what to do.”
“I think I sort of already did.”
“Sort of?”
“I was scared to death on the plane, Straight. I called upon God to save me. And then all this happened. But I didn’t earn it. I don’t deserve it. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“I wouldn’t want it to be fair, Paul. I’d never have earned this either. You remember what Paul wrote to the Romans about what he called ‘the word of faith, which we preach’?”
“Vaguely. I haven’t memorized it.”
“He said, ‘that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.’”
Paul fell quiet. For his entire life it had been important to understand the logic of things and to know for certain how the world worked. He had learned to trust the mind and distrust the heart, and the world made sense accordingly. But now, in just days and hours, all was turned upside down. He had experienced things he could not explain, things not logical. His mind reeled and he was confused. His sight was no more miraculous than that God would save him when he didn’t deserve it. And yet, from deep inside, somewhere other than his mind, there was something else . . . a sense? a voice? a whisper? Whatever, it was nodding, whispering yes, saying, You do not deserve this, yet I am here with you.
Paul’s eyes welled with tears. He had to take the final step.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I do believe.”
16
THE LIBRARY WOULD HAVE BEEN impressive anywhere. The walls of its thirty-by-sixty-foot expanse, from the sparkling white floors to the vaulted, glinting twenty-five-foot ceilings, were lined with old-fashioned books printed on paper. Long cherry tables with inlaid detail and matching leather-cushioned chairs dominated the left side of the room, and the right was a honeycomb of carrels, each with its own Internet connection.
“I’m amazed how warm and cozy it is down here,” Straight said.
“Perfect environment for books and furniture,” his host said. “After World War II, you know, they found caches of looted art-work in European salt mines. It was the best place for them: bone-dry, clean and pure, temperature steady between fifty-five and seventy-five degrees. No insects or mice—nothing down here to s
ustain them—and they haven’t found us yet. I do worry about stowaway roaches though, especially in the books.”
“It’s a precious collection,” Straight said.
“We’re transferring it all onto electronic media. I love the old volumes, but they’re fragile, and the point is to get them back into circulation.”
“How many people live here?”
“About a hundred and fifty permanent and fifty to a hundred passing through at any given time.”
“It’s amazing you can feed and house so many.”
Straight’s host shrugged. “We’ve got fourteen hundred acres down here, fifty miles of tunnels. The water and ventilation systems are huge—had to be, to accommodate the mining machinery. Even back then they could pump in a hundred thousand cubic feet of air a day. These mines were worked successfully for almost two hundred years.”
“What happened? Salt run out?”
“Oh no! It was a money thing—cheaper to ship it in from Canada. We’re still surrounded by seventy trillion tons of it—enough to supply the world for millennia.”
A couple in their late fifties entered, accompanied by a younger sturdy blond man. “I was boring the professor with tales of our city,” the host said. “It’s been a while since he’s been here. Stuart, you know Abraham and Sarah—” they embraced him—“and this is Isaac.”
“I’m not their son,” the younger man said, shaking Straight’s hand.
“I didn’t think so.”
Straight’s host, Simeon—who had been Clarence Little when they were growing up and had become his colleague at the University of Chicago—was the man Straight credited for “getting me saved and saving my life.”
“Let me introduce three more recent arrivals,” Simeon said. “Silas, Barnabas, and Damaris, who may have some insight on your proposal. Folks, meet the professor.”
Straight greeted the two men but paused when he got to the woman called Damaris. “No names,” Straight said, “but I believe we recently met over lunch in Washington, D.C.”
“We did,” Angela said.
The committee of seven took their places on one side of a long table, facing Straight. “I’ve become involved with a very unusual convert,” he began, “one in a unique position to help us. But there are also huge risks. His father-in-law was one of the original big guns in the NPO. The convert himself is an agent.”
He described how he had met Paul. “The nurses had asked me to check on him. His bitterness was interfering with his healing, and he had alienated his family. But he was also listening to the New Testament on disc.”
Straight recounted conversations they had shared and what he considered the figurative opening of Paul’s eyes. “Then I witnessed a miracle. On a flight back from Washington—this was the same day as the cherry-blossom miracle—Paul regained his sight.”
The committee exchanged glances. “That’s when I left Washington,” Angela said, explaining how Paul had warned her and how she’d come west with her sons to be picked up by the underground in Ohio. “I was one step ahead of Bia Balaam, who was responsible for the killings following the blossom miracle.”
“Bia means ‘force’ or ‘might’ in Greek,” Straight said. “In Greek mythology, Bia set up the torment of Prometheus.”
“That’s fitting,” Angela said. “Her specialty is intimidation. She masterminded my father’s death and a snake attack at the Asclepian Zoo, and now the latest atrocities—a Christian leader crushed in the machinery at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and two others gassed with pesticide in a National Botanical Gardens greenhouse. That’s five leaders killed in Washington alone. Others, like my Uncle Jack, have been forced underground.”
“Obviously, those last two killings were designed to link us to the cherry blossoms and tap into the public outrage,” Silas said. “And that’s what has me worried. Bia Balaam is just the talent. She’s a creative sadist, a monster who comes up with these dramatic and frightening deaths to undermine our groups—and she’s been all too effective. Not only has she crippled our leadership, but we’ve also had defectors, maybe even moles.
“But it’s the puppeteer pulling her strings that we really have to worry about. So far Washington has done a masterful job of keeping our existence out of the press and the public eye, even when they expose and kill us. They’ve tried to cover up clear acts of God by blaming them on pranksters, as in the case of the Reflecting Pool; industrial sabotage, as in Texas; or even random terrorist cells, as in San Francisco. But the more of these acts they pin on us—as they seem to be doing with the cherry blossoms—the more they’ll rouse public opinion against us. Then they’ll be able to mount a much more systematic offensive. That’s what I’m afraid is coming next.”
“A contact in the NPO could keep his ear to the ground,” Isaac said. “He could warn us when and if that kind of crack-down was imminent, as well as help prevent tragedies like we’ve seen this year. These deaths and the lack of public outcry are stifling our movement. Cowards who would avoid us we wouldn’t want anyway. But there may be hundreds of thousands out there who would rally to our mission.”
“A contact might also help us carry out our mission more effectively,” Silas said. “Someone who could circumvent the government could keep us in touch with each other—help us share resources, like the electronic and physical materials you produce here, as well as ideas on how to disseminate them. At the very least, we want other believers to know they are not alone.”
Abraham stood and leaned forward, hands flat on the table. “I don’t know, Professor,” he said. “I’m troubled by this whole idea, asking a man to become a mole in the biggest government security agency in the world. He’d be putting his life on the line every day. He could flip on us—make a name for himself, exposing us and engineering a raid that could end our cause.”
“I know him,” Straight said. “I trust him. I’m not a fool. If I thought there was a chance in a million he wasn’t who I think he is, I’d never have brought it up. We need help in high places. You don’t get much higher than this guy.”
Sarah reached out to Abraham, and he sat again. “I don’t like the alternative,” she said. “Had it not been for the deaths we’ve seen, I might not recommend that we take such a risk. But it’s clear the government has declared war on us.”
Barnabas spoke for the first time. “There’s something we’re forgetting. This man’s sight was miraculously restored. The professor here, whom most of you seem to know well, observed him daily and witnessed his recovery. How can we doubt such an obvious gift from God?”
“Abraham,” Simeon said, “I’ve known the professor most of my life, and I would never doubt his judgment. But the risk is great. Why doesn’t one of us meet this man? I could go, or—”
“No,” Abraham said. “I’ll meet him myself, if the professor can make the arrangements.”
Angela left the library with Simeon and Straight. “What’s next for you?” Straight said. “Staying here?”
“A few more days,” she said. “I’m not so well known that I have to get out of circulation for good, like some here. I was overseeing book drops in Washington—working out of the Library of Congress to get Christian texts planted in the reading rooms and computer archives along the East Coast. Now I’ve been training for a new mission, and I’ll probably head west. There are plenty of places I could be useful.”
They entered the main thoroughfare of the mine, as wide as a four-lane highway. Straight ran his hand along the white salt wall. “Like marble but more translucent. It glows.”
“Those darker streaks are dirt that got trapped when the salt was forming eons ago,” Simeon said.
“Beautiful.”
Angela stopped at the left turnoff that led to dormitories and family suites. “Professor, I assume Paul will hear nothing of this meeting.”
“Of course not. I know everyone’s anonymous here.” He took her hand. “Glad to see you again. May God keep you safe and bless you on your new mis
sion . . . Damaris.”
Straight followed Simeon to the right turnoff, where permanent members of the community lived. Simeon kept a pair of modest rooms for sleeping and sitting, furnished with castoffs from the old mining operation—old lockers and an upright filing cabinet where he kept his clothes—and the few relics of his old life he’d bothered to smuggle in, like his sophisticated decasonic sound system. Knowing how much his friend loved music, Straight always brought him a couple of new discs.
Simeon poured coffee from his old-fashioned electric pot, stirring two sugars into Straight’s cup.
“Ever get claustrophobic?” Straight said.
“No, man.” Simeon swept a hand toward the ceiling, far above the twenty-foot-high wooden partitions that formed his walls. “The roof is so high that we never feel closed in. And look at the scale—those columns holding up the roof are sixty feet wide. Human beings are dwarfed. You miss the outdoors, of course, but I get out once in a while. We have everything we need—worship, fellowship, and peace. For someone like me, who loves books and study, this is a great place.”
“It’s incredible, the work you all do here. Maintaining a library. Copying old books. Printing and circulating flyers. Training teachers to establish or lead Christian communities. Sending missionaries. Maintaining a network of Christian groups, spreading the news. Being a haven for victims of persecution. It’s a lot.”
“Just keeping the faith, man.”
“Missed you yesterday,” Paul said. “Get your business straightened out?”
“Sure did,” Straight said. “You were on my mind. I was thinking about you going back to work.”
“You know when you told me I was making a mighty important decision?”
“Yes.”
“You know what I was thinking about?”
“I think so.”
“I was thinking it means I’m going to have to quit the NPO.”
“Not so fast.”
“C’mon, Straight. If you know the Bible, you know the story of Saul before he became Paul. He persecuted Christians. What am I doing if I stay with the agency? That’s my job.”
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