But by 5 a.m. all entrances and exits to the Hilton had been sealed off in anticipation of the president’s arrival. He was trapped in a hotel room with Harold and Meredith from Highland Park, Texas.
The most he could hope for now was to warn Serena and the president about the second globe and Seavers’s plan to release a bird flu contagion. His best shot at reaching them was the prayer breakfast. And thanks to some bad blowfish the night before, Harold was going to be saying his prayers in the toilet while Conrad—or rather “Pastor Jim”—escorted Meredith to the breakfast.
Together they stood in the long line of thousands of prayer breakfast attendees who had emerged from packed elevators and stairwells to follow the directions of young ushers in blue blazers down two escalators to the ballroom level for the 57th Annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast. And dead ahead, just before the ballroom’s open doors, the Secret Service had set up an elaborate and impenetrable security checkpoint.
“This is just like the end of time when God’s angels will separate the sheep from the goats,” Meredith joked.
Conrad chuckled nervously. He had pulled a switch with the tickets back in Harold and Meredith’s room, taking Harold’s ticket and leaving him his own. But he also had the silver cornerstone plate. Whatever hope he had of slipping through the checkpoint would vanish as soon as he tripped the metal detectors and drew unwanted attention.
Meredith slipped her arm under Conrad’s and looked up at him starry-eyed. “Ooh, I feel so dangerous, Pastor Jim!”
As the metal detection gates at the checkpoint began to loom larger, Conrad felt his chest tighten. There was no way the trained agents were going to miss the fact he looked nothing like Harold’s picture unless Meredith distracted them first.
“Hey, Meredith,” he said, and removed the silver cornerstone plate from his inside breast pocket. “This souvenir I bought from Mount Vernon. I want you to have it.”
“Why, thank you, Pastor Jim!” she said, and took it from his hand and ran a perfectly manicured fingernail across the surface. “How pretty! I’ll treasure it,” she cooed, and slipped it into her little pink purse.
When they reached the security gates a few moments later, Conrad could see there were checkpoints about ten feet apart. Armed agents in windbreakers stood at one table next to the first gate.
“Please empty your pockets and place any metal objects on the table,” said a young female officer. “Thank you.”
Beyond the gate an impossibly large black agent stood with a wand in his hand for full body scans.
“Oooh, this is so exciting,” she said to the officer as she emptied her purse. “Oh, wait, hon, you go through first, I better turn this over,” she said, and pulled out the cornerstone plate from her purse. “Don’t want to set off any alarms with my souvenir.”
Conrad presented his ticket, walked through the metal detector, and looked back to see the officer return the cornerstone plate to Meredith.
“Please move on, ma’am.”
Conrad let out a low breath as Meredith bounced over to him with a smile. He calmly led them away from the security checkpoint and toward the open doors of the giant ballroom. Soon as they crossed the threshold, he tried to ditch her.
“I’m at table 232,” he told her. “Where are you?”
She had trouble letting go of his arm. “I’m over in the 700s.”
“I just realized something,” he said. “That souvenir I gave you—I had promised it to someone else. I feel horrible.”
“Oh, now don’t you worry about a thing, Pastor Jim.” She looked disappointed, but gave it back without a second thought. “You gotta be a man of your word.”
Conrad smiled at her as they parted ways. “You’re a saint.”
Seavers left the gold room with a couple of Secret Service agents and marched toward the security checkpoint outside the ballroom. He showed the agents on duty Yeats’s picture. None of them had seen him.
“Are you sure?” Seavers pressed one young man, who had hesitated.
“I’m almost positive,” he swore, though Seavers could see the doubt in his eyes.
“Almost?” Seavers seethed.
Just before he killed her, Brooke had told him that Yeats had discovered the existence of a second globe. Seavers knew he had to find out what Yeats knew and stop him before he told the good sister or the feds.
Seavers then heard some kind of row and turned to a man being frisked at the metal detection gate by two agents.
Seavers hurried over. “What’s going on?”
“We flagged his ticket—Carl Anderson.”
Seavers looked at the man. He obviously wasn’t Conrad Yeats, but the man must have had contact with him. “I take it your name’s not Carl?”
“My name’s Harold,” the red-faced man said. “I don’t know how I got that ticket. Look, my wife is already inside with Pastor Jim Lee. You know, the bestselling author?”
“Does Pastor Jim look like this?” Seavers held up the photo of Yeats, which looked familiar enough to startle Harold.
“That’s him!”
“Not quite,” Seavers said. “You just handed off your wife to a terrorist wanted for the slaying of law enforcement agents and attacks on America’s most sacred landmarks.”
“Dear God!” Harold cried. “I didn’t know! You have to believe me!”
“Can you recognize your wife, at least?”
Harold shot him an angry look. “I’m pretty sure I can.”
“Then take me to her in the ballroom,” Seavers said.
The gigantic ballroom was as big as a football field. The domed ceiling a couple of stories high only added to the aura of an indoor sports stadium.
Conrad, now free of Meredith, slipped between hundreds of round tables with white cloths and gold chairs toward a table to the right of the stage. It was near the staff door to the hotel’s main kitchen, where hundreds of waiters shuffled in and out.
He picked an empty seat at the table, the least desirable chair because its back was to the stage, but perfect for him. He sat down and faced the wall by the kitchen entrance and six smiling table companions: a young couple from California, an older self-proclaimed “Lake Wobegon” couple from Minnesota, a middle-aged rabbi from New York, and a tall black woman from D.C. It was a United Nations of faith.
“You’re never going to see anything good looking this way,” joked the rabbi. “Would you mind passing the cantaloupe? They pray later.”
Conrad looked down at the table full of fruit, pastries, juices, and coffee. Because of security issues and the crowd, everything had been prepped beforehand, and he had to remove a clear plastic wrap from the chilled plate of cantaloupe.
“Here you go,” he said, and passed it over. As he did, his eyes swept the ballroom for Serena. She was already on stage with various generals and senators, including the presumptive Democratic and Republican party nominees for the presidency in November. They were waiting for the president.
Most everybody else in the ballroom was seated, except hundreds of waiters attending to the tables. Conrad helped himself to some coffee and looked over the navy blue program with gold leaf trim in front of him. The opening prayer was to be offered by Sister Serena Serghetti following a contemporary rendition of “Amazing Grace” by the rock group U2’s lead singer, Bono.
Conrad was about to pour himself a second cup of coffee when the young California man, who was Asian-American, said, “You might want to think twice about that. Security won’t let you go to the bathroom while the president and first lady are in the ballroom.”
“Thanks, I’ll hold off…”
“It’s Jim,” the man said, offering his hand, and Conrad shook it. “Jim Lee.”
Conrad cocked his head. “Like Pastor Jim, the bestselling author?”
The black woman and the rabbi snorted a giggle. Conrad didn’t get the joke.
“Pretty much,” said Pastor Jim. “That’s me.”
“Oh!”
Conrad suddenly
realized that Meredith from Texas had known from the start he wasn’t Pastor Jim.
The old-timer from Minnesota said, “Is it true that there are more Christians in China than America, Pastor Jim?”
“Yes,” said Pastor Jim. “But my family is Korean.”
“From Seoul?”
“Burbank.”
The old-timer, realizing he perhaps made some sort of faux pas, nodded enthusiastically. “You people make good citizens.”
“Thank you.” Pastor Jim smiled.
The black woman next to Conrad said, “He sells almost as many books as Bishop Jakes, you know.”
Conrad nodded absently and, scoping the room for any sign of Seavers, said, “You sure don’t see this kind of event in any other country on Earth.”
“You mean elected officials acknowledging they’re not God?”
“You got it,” Conrad said, surprised by her dig. “You must work for one of them?”
“All of them. I’m a sergeant with the Capitol Police.”
“I’d have never guessed,” Conrad said slowly. There was something very familiar about her. But if she was feeling likewise she wasn’t showing it. “Tell me, is it true what they say about politicians here in Washington?”
“What’s that?”
“That the only ones with convictions are in jail?”
“You’re funny! I’m Wanda, by the way. Wanda Randolph.”
“J-Jack,” he said, glancing over at Pastor Jim, who was now talking to the rabbi.
She put out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Jack.”
“The pleasure’s mine.”
The instant Conrad grasped her hand he knew it belonged to the woman who held his in the ambulance the night before, the same one who pumped several bullets his way in the tunnels beneath the U.S. Capitol a couple of days ago.
She knew it, too. Her smile froze and she looked down at his hand, not letting go. Her eyes widened like she had just been shocked with an electric buzzer.
“This your first time here, Jack?” she asked him, even as she glanced over her shoulder at the small army of plainclothes security surrounding the ballroom.
“First and probably last,” he told her, not taking his eyes off her.
“Why is that, Jack?”
“I just feel like I don’t belong, you know? Like I’m a criminal here with all the saints.”
There were glances around the table. Then a few vigorous nods.
“We all are, brother,” said the man from Minnesota. “But too few of us are honest enough to admit it and seek forgiveness at the foot of the cross. Isn’t that right, Pastor Jim?”
Pastor Jim, his mouth full with an almond croissant, could only nod.
Conrad looked at Wanda as her hand reached into her purse. He slipped both of his own under the table and for a wild second was ready to upend it if necessary.
But her hands emerged with a card and a pen. “I know from the ballistics report that you didn’t kill my man Larry last night,” she whispered to him as she wrote a phone number on the back of her card. “But I can’t yet prove that Max Seavers did.” She slid the card across the tablecloth to him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“That’s the number to Prison Fellowship. It’s a charity that ministers to men and women behind bars. You’re going to need it if you don’t scram this second.”
Conrad looked at her. “And why is that?”
“Because I see Max Seavers and two Secret Service agents walking straight toward our table.”
From the stage Serena saw Max Seavers, too, and decided to jump the gun on the prayer breakfast by standing up, walking to the microphone stand, and offering up her opening prayer a good seven minutes ahead of schedule.
“Let us rise for the opening prayer,” she said, and bowed her head, aware that the president hadn’t arrived yet and that she had caught the senators on stage off guard. But there was nothing they could say at this point as everybody in the ballroom rose to their feet and effectively blocked Seavers from reaching Conrad.
“Almighty God,” she prayed. “We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy Holy protection, and Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large….”
She kept her eyes open, along with every member of the security detail stationed throughout the ballroom, and she could see Seavers seething in the back, craning his neck as he searched for Conrad.
“…And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”
As soon as everybody sat down again, Seavers, a furious frown on his face, marched toward the corner of the room where Yeats sat. Bono, who was supposed to open the breakfast with a song before the opening prayer, now began to sing “Amazing Grace.”
This prayer breakfast was like an absurd nightmare, Seavers thought, walking among the well-dressed deluded whose minuscule brainwaves were directed to a deity that did not exist, and who actually believed that the Founding Fathers sought to establish a Christian nation. That Conrad Yeats believed he could find refuge here was even more absurd.
Yeats had his back to him as Seavers approached and recognized the policewoman from the Capitol. Was there any place he could avoid that woman?
Seavers glared at Sergeant R.A.T.S. as the two Secret Service agents took positions behind her opposite Yeats. Seavers then placed his left hand with the stump of a finger on Yeats’s left shoulder.
“Time’s up, Yeats.”
But instead of Yeats, Seavers found himself staring at the face of a Latino server, who was holding a pot of coffee.
“This is Pablo, our server,” Sergeant Randolph explained. “We had an extra seat and in the spirit of this event invited him to join us in prayer.”
“Goddamn you, where is he?” he said, drawing sharp glances from nearby tables.
“Relax, Dr. Seavers,” she said, eyes like daggers. “Where’s he going to go? He’s not armed and you’ve got an army of security people down here.”
Seavers snapped his head and scanned the ballroom for Yeats as the Irish lilt of Bono’s voice swelled to an unearthly decibel level. No sign of him, only servers with coffee and breakfast items heading into and out of the kitchen entrance.
“The kitchen,” he barked.
39
BY THE TIME SERENA FOLLOWED the president out of the ballroom after his remarks to the attendees, it appeared from the anxious faces of the Secret Service agents in the hallway that her prayer had been answered and that Conrad had escaped.
“I heard you did a good job with the opening prayer, Sister Serghetti,” the president said as she followed him and his Secret Service detail past the portraits of previous leaders. “Wish I had heard it myself.”
“I simply recited the official prayer that George Washington offered for the United States of America in the year 1783,” she said. “It was printed in the program.”
The president frowned and said nothing more until they entered the gold room, where Packard was waiting beside an American flag and a small spiral stairwell that led to a secret outside door and the president’s waiting limousine.
“You’ve got sixty seconds before I step outside,” the president said.
Packard broke the news. “That item we’ve been searching for is waiting for you in the Oval Office, but it’s empty,” he said, providing no particulars with Serena present. “Brooke Scarborough is dead. Conrad Yeats killed her and is at large on the premises. Seavers is sweeping everything room-by-room.”
The
president looked at her. “And I’m to understand that the Vatican has been helping Dr. Yeats?”
“No, Mr. President, but I have,” she said boldly, seeing the shock in Packard’s face. “You should, too. And he did not kill Brooke Scarborough.”
She slipped her hand inside her blouse and removed Washington’s letter to Stargazer. Packard looked like he was going to pass out at the very sight of it.
“I had hoped to press my case with you once I had everything, Mr. President, but I’m afraid I don’t.” She handed him the letter. “But you have everything I do, sir.”
The president looked it over and handed it to Packard. “DARPA will analyze this?”
“Right away, Mr. President.”
Serena watched Packard slip it inside his dress uniform pocket. She doubted it would ever see the fluorescent light of a lab at DARPA or anywhere else if Packard were foolish enough to pass it along to Max Seavers.
She said, “What you’ll find out, Mr. President, is that Dr. Yeats is simply following the orders of George Washington, commander-in-chief.”
“I’m the commander-in-chief, Sister Serghetti,” the president said emphatically.
“What I’m trying to say is that he believes he is serving the highest interests of the republic. If you could offer him immunity from prosecution, he might come in and give you whatever he took from the globe.”
“I appreciate that, Sister Serghetti, and maybe yesterday we could have cut him some kind of deal,” the president said. “But now that he’s been caught detonating explosives on U.S. landmarks, slaying federal agents, and has murdered the daughter of one of America’s most prominent senators, well, I don’t think even I can help him. I swore an oath to protect America.”
“No, Mr. President, you swore an oath to protect the Constitution.”
The president was not pleased with her impudence. “I’ll say a prayer for Conrad Yeats, Sister Serghetti. God bless you.”
“And you, Mr. President.”
With that, the president marched up the spiral staircase behind two Secret Service agents. He was followed by Packard, who looked back at her with undisguised animosity. She saw a square of light thrown on the curving wall and heard the roar of running engines outside before the thud from an unseen door left her alone in the room.
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