A dose of adrenaline shot into Daniel’s bloodstream, and his heart responded immediately, contracting like a squeezed fist. Europa and the bull. During his weeks in Europe, he had seen nearly the exact same sketch on the stamp of the European Parliament and the new euro currency.
A confusing rush of anticipation and dread whirled inside him as he flipped the pages to check the book’s publication date—1946. Long before anyone had ever begun to plan for the unification of Europe, prior even to the establishment of the State of Israel.
How could the author possibly know? When this book was written, there was no Israel, no Temple, and no European Confederacy. And yet there was the picture that now adorned postcards in every European tourist shop, and Israel had begun plans to rebuild her holy temple.
Daniel leaned back against the wall and unfolded his long legs over the carpet, then opened the book to the first chapter and began to read. He knew it might take all night to digest this information, but he had nowhere else to go, and sleep was out of the question.
By the time the first pale hints of sunrise touched the library windows, he had decided to invite his mother and Lauren to New York for a weekend visit. Of all the people he knew, they were the only two he dared to trust with his suspicions.
Wrapped in a heavy blanket of grief and exhaustion, Lauren slept like the dead, then awoke to the sound of the morning newspaper slapping the doorstep. Dawn seemed to come reluctantly, glowing sullen through her open bedroom window, but the gray light was enough to pull Lauren fully awake. She sat up in her bed, hugged her knees, and raked her sleep-tousled hair away from her face. Then she remembered—Tasha was home, for her handler had gone on the road to show a champion mastiff in several major competitions. Lauren wasn’t alone.
“Tasha?”
The dog lifted her head immediately, her dark eyes seeking Lauren’s face like a homing beacon. But she did not spring off the bed as she usually did; even the animal seemed to sense the sadness that felt like cold hands on Lauren’s heart, slowly twisting the life from it.
Though she had found the spiritual peace Victoria Stedman cherished, Lauren had never felt more alone. Victoria was gone, and Daniel, too. Even the president had pulled away from Lauren, preferring to vent his grief in the private woods surrounding Camp David. Lauren had no one to turn to in this hour of need, no one but her dog . . . and the Lord she was learning to trust.
She hadn’t expected to fall into a life of ease and perfection when she became a Christian, but she hadn’t expected this kind of grief and loneliness, either.
“Lord Jesus?” Lauren’s voice broke as she lifted her face toward the ceiling. “I’m not much good at asking for help. I’ve always wanted to be the one in charge of things; I’m always the fixer. But this is something I just can’t fix, and I need you to show me what to do. We all miss Victoria, Lord, and I really miss Daniel. I know I shouldn’t want something I can’t have, but I can’t help but think of him.”
She listened for some still, small voice but heard only the dripping water from the bathroom faucet, a slow, rhythmic patting. Was this how God spoke to people? Through water droplets in Morse code? Her short laugh lacked any trace of genuine humor.
“Dear God—” she pressed her hand over her face—“show me what I should do. I’ll go into the office, though there’s not much to be done as long as the president stays away. I’ll try to keep up a brave front, but please, Lord, help me see what I should do. And if I’m not to spend any more time with Daniel Prentice, keep him far away from me. Help me to forget him, to put him far from my mind so I can concentrate on helping the president recover from his awful loss.”
She sat silently for a moment, marveling that she’d been able to be so honest. Six months ago she would have flatly stated that her busy schedule allowed no time for romance, but at least she’d been able to admit that she couldn’t stop thinking about Daniel. But he was now God’s problem. If their relationship wasn’t meant to be—and Lauren didn’t see how it could be part of some eternal scheme—then the Almighty would just have to obliterate it.
She jumped as the chirping of her bedroom phone shattered the stillness, then glanced at the clock—7:13 A.M. Either the president had risen early this morning, or God wasted no time in dispatching answers to prayers.
Like someone about to plunge into freezing water, with a quick intake of breath Lauren picked up the phone.
Immediately after calling Lauren and his mother, Daniel fell into bed and slept hard for eight hours. The alarm burbled at 4:00 P.M., and he shook off the lingering wisps of sleep, showered, then telephoned Brad Hunter at home.
“Daniel?” Brad’s greeting was heavy with sarcasm. “Gee, do I know a Daniel Prentice? I thought I did, but then I hear that he came to Washington for a week and didn’t even call me. So maybe I don’t know the guy at all.”
“Hey—it was an emergency, okay? Besides, I didn’t hear that you were trying to get a hold of me.” Daniel lowered his voice. “I imagine it was a hard week for you, too.”
Brad’s voice sobered instantly. “Yeah, you could say that. Heads are rolling; a lot of people are being questioned. No one knows how that bomb got into the car or how a car with that kind of explosive device inside it could get through the new MX3 Tetracycle scanners in the gates. But there’s some pretty sophisticated stuff on the black market, and we’re trying to track it all down.”
“Was there anything useable in the rubble—any remains of the device?”
“Now, Daniel, you know that’s classified. But as soon as the information goes public, you’ll be the first to know.”
Daniel snorted. “Twenty years from now I won’t care—but then again, maybe I will.” He shifted the phone from one ear to the other, ready to change the subject. “How’s Christine?”
“Great.” Brad’s voice vibrated with happiness. “I tell you, Danny boy, you’ve got to stop messing around and get married. No matter how rough things get in the real world, I can always come home and push all that other junk aside. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this week without Christine.”
“I’m happy for you,” Daniel said, and he meant it.
“So when are you going to take the plunge?”
Daniel sighed and stared at the empty walls of his bedroom. “I don’t know. I’m working on it, but it takes two, you know?”
“I hear you.” There was a silence, then Brad cleared his throat. “So, what’s up? I know you didn’t call just to inquire about my health and marriage.”
Daniel cast about for a diplomatic way to broach the subject, but he couldn’t find one. “I was up late last night, reading an old book that had belonged to my father. It was about a dictator-type, a government leader.”
“Fiction or nonfiction?”
Daniel made a face. “Um—fiction, I think. Probably.” He ran his hands through his hair. “At least I hope so. Some pretty ugly things happened under this guy’s regime.”
“So what’s your question?”
“Hypothetically, if a tyrant wanted to take power right now, what sort of approach would he use?”
Over the phone line, Daniel heard the tinkle of ice cubes. Brad was drinking something, swishing the ice in his glass as he considered the question.
“Well, look at the past,” he finally said. “Julius Caesar rose to power through military might. Hitler added race to the equation. He convinced his followers that the Jews were subhuman and thus fit for eradication. I would think that a dictator for today’s times would have to use the military— that’s a given, because clear-thinking people instinctively react against dictators—as well as religion.”
“Religion?” Daniel looked at the stack of prophecy books he’d brought up and placed on his night stand. The muscles of his throat moved in a convulsive swallow. “Why religion?”
He could almost see Brad shrugging. “Look around. The world’s on a spiritual kick right now. You’ve got the coming millennium, you’ve got everybody talking a
bout peace and love and toleration. Everybody wants to love everybody else, but there are going to be a lot of people who don’t want to get aboard your hypothetical dictator’s love train. So they’ll be outcasts. Not tolerated. And since race and gender and sexual preference are no longer politically acceptable reasons for ostracism, I’m thinking that religion will be the criterion that divides the sheep from the goats. The religions that are intolerant—the ones that don’t practice a ‘come one, come all’ philosophy—those will be the ones that bear the stigma.”
Daniel thought for a moment. “You’re talking about Christianity.”
Brad laughed. “Aw, come on. Last time I went to church, everybody was welcome.”
“Welcome to visit, yes. But didn’t you ever hear that verse about the narrow gate? Christians believe—born-again Christians, anyway—that only a few truly find salvation. I’ve heard it all my life.” Daniel closed his eyes, remembering his mother’s voice. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. He opened his eyes. “Okay, Mr. Expert, one more question—if a dictator needed to assume power quickly—in the shortest amount of time—how would he do it?”
Brad laughed. “That’s easy. Assuming he is already a leader, he’d do two things—eliminate his opposition, then declare a national emergency.”
“I’m talking about a world dictator.”
“Then he’d declare a worldwide emergency—something that would give him the legal authority to take over all communications, transportation, banking, even food distribution. Of course, he’d probably have to invent a war with aliens to threaten the entire world.” Brad let out a short, embarrassed laugh. “Ambitious, aren’t we? Are you planning to slip some extra little command into your Millennium Code? If you’re planning to take over the world, I should probably tell my bosses to put you under surveillance.”
“I’m already under surveillance, remember?” Daniel’s voice rasped with irritation.
“Not anymore. You were cleared as soon as you returned from Europe.”
“Good. I’ll tell my people they can stop encrypting their grocery lists.” Daniel paused. “Why was I cleared? Aren’t your people still concerned about Adrian Romulus?”
“He’s been shoved to the back burner. We decided that you were right—Adrian Romulus is focussed on European problems, and right now Europe seems to be the extent of his ambitions. So, for now at least, he’s off the hot list. We’re still watching him, but whoever arranged this assassination attempt is priority number one.”
Daniel thought about telling Brad about Samuel Stedman’s conviction that Romulus had something to do with the bomb, then decided to stay quiet. The president had been lashing out that afternoon, wanting to blame someone. General Herrick and Adrian Romulus had been unfortunate enough to push him at the worst possible moment.
“Is that it, Danny boy?” Brad laughed again. “’Cause though I’d love to sit here and speculate about dictators all night, I’ve a much more enjoyable prospect waiting for me to take her to dinner.”
“Yeah, I’ve got to go, too. Lauren’s coming in on the 6:30 flight from D.C.”
“Well, then, remember what I said about marriage. It’s worth trying.”
Daniel promised to keep that in mind.
Lauren smiled as she came down the ramp, and met Daniel’s embrace with a kiss on the cheek. She wasn’t certain why she had come, but in light of his call, coming so soon after her prayer, accepting his invitation seemed like the right thing to do. If God wasn’t keeping Daniel Prentice at arm’s length, maybe there was some reason she was supposed to see him.
They made polite small talk as they left the Delta gate, and Lauren lifted a brow when Daniel pointed toward another concourse.
“Aren’t we going to get my luggage?”
“In a minute.” Daniel smiled and pressed his hand to the center of her back. “First we’ve got to pick up my mother.”
Lauren tilted her head and gave him an uncertain look, but she didn’t protest as they walked to the other gate. After they waited for about twenty minutes, the flight from St. Petersburg arrived. Daniel stood and waved as a silver-haired woman came down the ramp.
“What’s this about, Daniel?” Lauren waved at the woman, then looked up at him. “I know what it usually means when a man brings a girl home to meet his mom—”
“It means,” Daniel said, taking her elbow and leading her forward, “that I need counseling, and you two are the most qualified counselors I know.”
Lauren laughed, taking his comment as a joke, and Daniel didn’t correct her impression as the woman came toward them with a welcoming smile. Mrs. Prentice, Lauren noted, was a full-figured woman of medium height. She had bright blue eyes, clear skin, and hair that framed her face in a halo of white curls.
Daniel stepped forward to hug his mother, then kept one arm around her shoulders as he introduced Lauren.
“Mom, this is Lauren Mitchell.”
His mother drew in a quick breath, and her eyes brightened as she smiled. “Does this mean—?” She glanced from Lauren to Daniel, then back to Lauren. “Is something going on between you two?”
“We’re good friends, Mom.” Daniel took the small bag from her hand, then leaned closer as he turned her toward the long hallway that led to the baggage claim area. “And if you promise not to embarrass me, I’ll tell you everything on the ride home.”
Beaming with pleasure, Mrs. Prentice winked at Lauren, then let Daniel lead her through the crowd.
TWENTY-EIGHT
9:00 P.M., Friday, July 23, 1999
DANIEL CHOSE TO TAKE HIS LADIES TO ELAINE’S FOR DINNER, AND LAUREN KNEW he’d selected the restaurant precisely because it was high on every tourist’s must-see list. Mrs. Prentice enjoyed everything from the table linens to the little origami treats the waiter left at their table. In between her exclamations of pleasure, she fussed at Daniel for eating too little, worrying too much, and working too hard.
Lauren smothered a smile in her teacup. Mothers. She’d almost forgotten how charming they could be . . . as long as they were needling someone else.
The conversation at dinner was pleasant and trivial, but several times Lauren caught a glimpse of some dark thought lingering behind Daniel’s eyes. His mother must have seen it, too, for whenever Daniel grew thoughtful, Mrs. Prentice began a new story about her townhouse neighbor, Mrs. Davis, and Mrs. Davis’s overly pushy daughter. “Of course, when she realized that my son was the Daniel Prentice, she was dying to meet you,” Mrs. Prentice babbled as she sipped her after-dinner coffee. “Saw your picture in People magazine, I gather, and thought you were—how’d she put it? ‘Totally gorgeous.’ Of course she didn’t want to meet you when she just thought you were into computers. I’d told her that you were a genius, but she wasn’t at all interested until she heard you were well-off, too.”
Mrs. Prentice leaned forward and lowered her voice. “She’s not your type at all, Daniel, so when you come down to visit, don’t feel obligated to go over there.”
Lauren spooned sugar into her tea and wondered how many times Daniel had visited his mother in the last year. Given his schedule, he probably hadn’t gone more than once or twice, and Mrs. Prentice obviously felt a bit neglected. Still, it was nice of him to bring her to New York, even if it was in the hottest part of the summer. But things had to be even warmer in Florida.
After dessert and coffee, Daniel hailed a cab, and soon they were back inside his cavernous apartment. From Daniel’s dossier Lauren knew that he owned an impressive bit of New York real estate, but she had no idea the apartment would be so glamorous. The foyer, with its grand staircase and works of art on the walls, was clean, precise, and as exalting as a museum gallery. Daniel moved through it with a diffident air, though, as if he didn’t really feel at home in the place.
He picked up Lauren’s and Mrs. Prentice’s bags, then started up the staircase. “I’ll take these up to your rooms,” he called. “Why don’t you make yourselv
es at home? There are snacks and soft drinks in the kitchen, and I thought we could talk in the library.”
Lauren lifted a brow. Talk? About what?
Mrs. Prentice waved her hand and fussed as she led Lauren into the gleaming state-of-the-art kitchen. “That boy, ordering us about like we work for him! Though it’s not exactly obvious, Lauren, I have tried to teach him better manners.”
“I’ve always found his take-charge attitude rather charming.” Lauren leaned against the counter and folded her arms. “And you needn’t worry, Mrs. Prentice. He’s really quite remarkable.”
Mrs. Prentice paused in her search through the cabinets and threw a glinting glance over her shoulder. “Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Her eyes glowed with tender affection. “Don’t mind me, dear, I suppose all mothers fret about their children. But truthfully,God has blessed me with Daniel. There isn’t much I would change about him.” She looked back into the cupboard. “Well, there are a few things. But those things are out of my control.”
She brought three glasses out of the cupboard, filled them at the automatic ice dispenser, then pulled several cans of soda from a pantry shelf and set them on a tray. “If you’ll carry the tray, dear, I believe I can juggle the glasses,” Mrs. Prentice said, moving toward the library with three glasses delicately balanced between her outstretched fingers.
Lauren smiled as she picked up the tray. At least she now knew how Daniel had acquired his tendency to order people about.
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