Storming Heaven

by Kyle Mills

  As time went on, she had become entrenched in her atheism, beginning to look down on the faithful as desperate and weak. They knew that the childish concept of God was a lie created to keep them docile but hadn’t the courage to accept that and go out into the world alone. No, they found it easier to wrap themselves in the ridiculous paradoxes of the Bible and books like it, and to ignore the truth.

  She had moved quickly through the ranks of her firm, spending impossibly long hours in the office and continuing her education through courses at night. The owner, a small, weak man of limited ability, had continued to heap more and more responsibility on her.

  It had been a little after seven o’clock, in the summer of 1975, when he had dragged a box full of loose notebook paper and receipts to her desk and sat down with the grave expression that he always seemed to wear at the office.

  They had never spoken about religion, but it was common knowledge that he was involved with an esoteric little cult centered near Lake Placid. At the time, she hadn’t known much about the fledgling church or its leader, Albert Kneiss, beyond the fact that he claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus.

  She had reluctantly accepted her boss’s invitation to a “presentation” that Kneiss was making at a small auditorium nearby, as well as his request that she take over as shepherd of the church’s paltry accounts.

  That night had changed everything.

  The less than half-full auditorium had smelled vaguely of marijuana when they walked through the curtains at the back. She and her boss—she couldn’t remember his name, though she thought she’d read that he’d died recently—settled into a couple of folding chairs just as the lights dimmed and Albert Kneiss wandered onto the stage.

  His long white hair had seemed to move on its own as he slowly paced in front of them, speaking in a low, patient tone. Despite the poor acoustics of the auditorium, his voice didn’t fade as it floated to the back where they sat.

  It had been far from the bizarre and pointless evening she had steeled herself for. The self-absorbed megalomaniac that she had expected to appear and ramble incoherently instead delivered a message that stripped away the superstition and compromise from Christianity, leaving a simple and elegant melding of God and science.

  This man, with his penetrating charisma and beautifully constructed theology, seemed to have created something with almost unlimited appeal. His ideas had the potential to spread like wildfire through the hearts of the myriad people who wanted desperately to believe in something but also wanted that something to reflect the world they lived in and not the world of their distant ancestors.

  She remembered taking a paperback copy of Kneiss’s Bible from a poorly groomed young man at the auditorium’s exit and walking out into the cold night somewhat dazed. Albert Kneiss had done something that she had never considered. He had taken the philosophy she had applied to religious organizations and used it to reinvent God.

  Over the following year, her boss had happily diverted her non-church-related clients to other accountants at the firm until she was, in essence, working for Kneiss’s organization full-time. As she dug deeper and deeper into the workings of the church, she began to tailor the ideas she had developed to fit the infinitely more flexible and forward-thinking Church of the Evolution.

  When she had finally presented her ideas to the seven Elders who controlled the church, she’d found their minds just as closed as the priests who had threatened her with excommunication. At first she’d thought that their disinterest stemmed from the fact that she was not actually a follower of Kneiss, so in 1976 she joined his church. Her conversion, though, did nothing to penetrate the wall the Elders had built around themselves.

  She could still remember, down to the last smell and sound, the day almost twenty years ago when she had opened the door to her apartment and found herself face-to-face with Albert Kneiss—the man some believed to be the returned Jesus.

  He accepted a cup of tea and told her that he had been instructed by God to come to her and hear her ideas on the future of His church. She remembered how still he sat and the passive expression on his face as she described her theories on building a contemporary church. But, like her priest, he didn’t really seem to be listening. When she finally fell silent, he stood and walked toward the door of her apartment. He didn’t close it behind him, and she heard him speak as he disappeared down the hall. “You’ll lead my church into the next century, Sara.”

  It had taken months to break down the barriers the Elders created to try to make her look incompetent. What she had found when she finally penetrated the deepest layers of the church’s management had horrified her. The financial reports the Elders had been providing her were completely fictitious. It was an organization teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, led by a group of ineffectual, bickering asses, all jockeying for the attention of their messiah.

  When she reported to Albert what she had found, he had just smiled calmly and told her that he would no longer be involved in the management of the church. That his God had directed him to focus on making people understand. The church was hers to run as she saw fit.

  She hadn’t believed him at first, but when he sat passively by as she disbanded the existing group of Eiders and replaced them with volunteers experienced in practical areas such as finance, psychology, and marketing, she’d begun to feel the power and potential of her position. That had been the true first day of the Church of the Evolution.

  At that time, the church had been made up of about twenty-five thousand loosely connected members, largely confined to the northeastern U.S. And now, as the sun continued to set on Catholicism, her church had swelled to millions of members and was growing faster than any other in the world. The priests should have listened.

  Sara stood and turned back toward the altar. She had created this church from nothing and now Albert was trying to take it from her. She had always known that this day would come, that before he died he would make one last desperately sentimental act. And she had been preparing for that act ever since she’d become aware of Jennifer’s existence.

  Over the years, she had systematically isolated Albert until his wishes and hers were indistinguishable to the church’s members and leadership. It had been a simple matter, really. Albert preferred quiet reflection and needed time alone to exercise his genius for devising ever-new ways to enthrall the public with his message.

  What she hadn’t anticipated was that he would, for the first time in a decade, call a meeting of all the Elders instead of passing along his wishes through her. It was at that meeting that he had announced Jennifer’s existence to the others and ordered Sara to bring her to the compound.

  At that point she’d had no choice but to comply. Her power at the church was nearly absolute, but not so unshakeable that she could ignore Albert’s wishes with impunity.

  She had come here that night full of rage and panic. Slowly, though, she’d come upon a way to keep control of the church that she had built. She had set her plan in motion when she convinced Eric and Patricia Davis that it was Albert’s wish that they ascend to heaven before him. She had chosen them for their blind fanaticism and she had chosen well.

  Witnessing her parents’ death had thrown Jennifer into a state of confusion and pain that Sara had been able to amplify and use to keep control of the girl. With that control, the problem of Jennifer’s existence and Albert’s ambiguous speech about her to the Elders could be solved simply and finally. When Albert and his granddaughter were gone, the church would be free to grow in size and influence. And she would grow with it.

  21

  “YOUR TIMING WAS MOST FORTUITOUS, MARK,” Hans Volker said, slowing his boat of a BMW to a crawl and slipping it expertly through the thick crowd of people milling about in the street. “The Church of the Evolution is expecting over half a million people to attend this rally. Quite extraordinary, really—they only began planning it three weeks ago.”

  Despite the dreary skies and intermittent rain, it looked
like that estimate would prove low. From their position near the Capitol Building, only occasional flashes of asphalt and grass were visible beneath the flowing carpet of well-dressed humanity.

  Beamon had sicced his secretary on the German embassy last week, figuring it would take her at least a few days to coax someone into meeting with him while he was in D.C. subjecting himself to another fiery Senate inquisition. He’d been more than a little surprised when, two minutes into her first attempt, she’d connected him with Volker—the German government’s U.S. watchdog in all things church-related. He’d been even more surprised when Volker not only agreed to meet with him, but also offered to personally pick him up from the airport.

  “I really appreciate you taking the time to meet with me on such short notice, Hans.”

  Volker waved his hand dismissively. “It is I who should thank you. I have been meaning to contact you since you took your post in Flagstaff. I had hoped to cultivate a better relationship with you than with your predecessor, Ms. Dunham.”

  “You knew Marjorie?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m afraid so. I had a number of conversations and meetings with her relating to our concerns about the church. This was a number of years ago, of course, before I discovered that she was a member and just using me to gather intelligence for Albert Kneiss. As I’m sure you can imagine, our relationship cooled after that.”

  “I guess I can see how it would,” Beamon said, remembering his conversation with Marjorie Dunham and her insistence that the German would be unwilling to talk with him. He turned and looked through the tinted windows, noting the glares that they were getting from the people around them. He wasn’t sure if the problem was that theirs was the only car moving on the pedestrian-choked street or if it was that they were driving a car manufactured in Germany.

  “So all this is for you, Hans? I mean, I’d read that Kneiss was upset about your government’s policies, but this looks more like pissed off than upset.” Beamon said.

  “Pissed off? Oh, yes, absolutely. The church has been very vocal in their criticism of Germany’s treatment of the church’s followers and I’m afraid they’ve found a willing audience in the American public.” He paused for a moment. “I assume that you are aware of our disagreements with Kneiss’s church?”

  “Aware, yes. Knowledgeable about, no. I understand that Kneissians can’t hold public office and are barred from a bunch of other sensitive positions in the German government. I think someone told me that they’re denied positions that might allow them to influence young people, too—teachers, day care workers, that kind of thing.”

  “That’s all true,” Volker said.

  “Seems like I also heard that if a church member owns a business, the fact that they’re Kneissian has to be disclosed on their letterhead and business cards.”

  Volker tapped his brake to avoid bumping a man who had lifted the car’s windshield wiper and shoved a bright yellow flyer under it. The text of the flyer was impossible to read, but the heading GESTAPO TACTICS was clearly legible through the windshield.

  “And how do you feel about those policies, Mark?”

  “I don’t see any reason to lie to you. I think it all sounds very familiar.”

  Volker nodded. “The church has been very efficient in distributing propaganda comparing our policies to the Nazis’ treatment of the jews during the war. It’s ironic, really. Our actions have been fueled by a fear of what happened to the Jews in our country. That the Kneissians’ organization could incite their German followers.”

  Volker slowed the car again, this time rolling to a stop in front of an angry-looking group of young people who were obviously blocking their path on purpose.

  Beamon watched as they talked urgently amongst themselves, building their courage and finally directing their shouts toward the car. It was impossible to hear exactly what they were saying through the two-ton piece of German engineering, but Beamon wasn’t having a hard time catching the gist. “You know, Hans, I appreciate the tour, but it might be time we backed on out of here. I thought the dirty looks we were getting were about your car, but it may go beyond that.”

  “Hm?” Volker said, apparently completely unconcerned. “No, you’re quite right, Mark. I’m sure they recognize my car. The church keeps its members very well informed.”

  Beamon twisted around and looked out the rear window at the crowd that had closed in behind them. “I’ve got to tell you, Hans, I’ve been an FBI agent long enough to learn more than I ever wanted to about this kind of group dynamics. If one of those kids gets fired up enough to so much as throw a spitball at us, the others are going to tear this car apart and then do the same thing to us.”

  Volker laughed quietly and inched the car forward. Miraculously, the crowd parted. “I’m afraid that you don’t understand the Kneissians, Mark. They would never perpetrate any kind of overt public act against me—or against anyone, for that matter. That could generate negative publicity. No, they prefer to work in the dark. To use intimidation.”

  Volker took his diplomatic immunity out for a spin, jumping two wheels up on the sidewalk and heading toward the center of activity. “Let me give you an example. A few years ago, my son was being consistently singled out for harassment at his school by a particular instructor—to the point that the woman was warned and finally let go. Prior to this, her credentials were spotless. Her superiors apologized profusely to me, but were baffled by her behavior.”

  “I take it you weren’t.”

  Volker shook his head. “It’s my understanding that she took a position in a private school owned by the Kneissians within a few weeks. At first it surprised me that a woman who clearly loved children would attack my child to get at me, but as I learned more about the Kneissians I began to understand how dangerous their beliefs and organization really are.”

  “I don’t know, Hans,” Beamon said, rolling down the window and pulling the flyer from under the wiper. “This just isn’t all that new. How long has religion been prompting people to attack non-believers? ‘I can see into the mind of God and you—Hindu, Muslim, Jew, whoever—can’t. Therefore, I am good and you are evil, irrelevant, or damned.’”

  “Do you have a copy of Kneiss’s Bible, Mark?”

  Beamon shook his head.

  “I suggest you read it. You’ll see that the Kneissians look to the future—not to the past, as do most religions. This is what makes them so dangerous. By discarding many of the traditions of older faiths, they’ve been able to gain a great deal of power too quickly. And that forced us—the German government—to slow down their growth before they were able to begin imposing their bigotry on others.”

  Beamon frowned deeply. He’d heard a saying once—that you could tell a bad man from a good one not by his actions but only his intent. He’d thought long and hard about it and wasn’t sure if he agreed. Religious persecution was just too easy to justify.

  Volker stopped the car and set the brake. “The Kneissians are starting to use their great membership and wealth to indulge their organizational paranoia. To crush those they perceive to be their enemies and to spy on those who might exert some control over them. I suspect that they are very interested in you, Mark. They are quite concerned with America’s enforcement agencies—FBI, CIA, IRS, NSA—and you, as the head of the FBI’s Flagstaff office, probably top their list. I assure you that they are quite ruthless. But clever at keeping themselves from the media.”

  Volker opened his door a few inches, letting in the buzz of the enormous crowd and the sound of intermittent feedback as a PA system was tested. “It might surprise you to know that we have to sweep the phones at the embassy and my home on a daily basis. On three separate occasions we have found listening devices. Once the police apprehended a man placing one of them. He was a member of Kneiss’s church.”

  “Are we getting out?” Beamon said, as Volker pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped from the car. The German poked his head back in and pointed behind him at a large stage se
t up at the end of the Mall. “I thought it would be easier for you to hear the speaker. And that perhaps you would like to, uh, mingle a bit. I assure you there’s no danger.”

  Somehow the assurance of one slightly effeminate European surrounded by half a million people who thought he was spirting in the face of their god didn’t make Beamon feel all that warm and fuzzy. But what the hell—he hadn’t incited a riot since college. “I guess whatever happens to me happens to you first,” he said, stepping from the car.

  Volker smiled and began to talk loudly over the drone of the crowd, ignoring the hostile looks of the people within earshot. “I and my wife are routinely followed—the church makes no effort to hide it, hoping, I imagine, to intimidate me. Men I’ve worked with in Germany have suffered even more. One had a number of rather graphic photographs of him and his mistress sent to his wife, another was elaborately framed for a crime which he had nothing to do with.”

  Beamon had heard quiet whisperings of the church wielding their power a bit unethically, but he’d never seen any proof. As much as he liked to believe the worst of organized religion, without corroboration, he’d always assumed that it was just mudslinging by rival faiths jealous of the Kneissians’ success.

  Beamon let Volker hook an arm though his but didn’t move when the German tried to pull him away from the car and toward the stage. “I’d rather not have to shoot my way out of here, Hans. As much as I appreciate the effort, I’d be just as happy finishing this conversation over a cup of coffee at your office.”