Simon patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going to check you on that one. It sure doesn’t sound right to me.”
Hakim shrugged. “Reverend Mason, when are you going to Lebanon to preach to the Muslims?”
Simon laughed. “Now there’s an invitation that I don’t recall getting in the mail.”
“I’m not sure the Middle East is ready for Christian revival meetings,” Elise said.
Hakim took one hand off the wheel and turned his palm up. “Neither was Rome two thousand years ago, wouldn’t you agree?”
Elise narrowed her eyebrows. “It would be suicide for a prominent Christian preacher like Simon to go to the Middle East and try to convert Muslims.”
Hakim adjusted his mirror so he could see her face. “Suicide? Perhaps. I suppose one could say that Jesus’ apostles committed suicide by spreading the Word in the Roman Empire. They were martyred you know, all except John. And they knew it was coming. Does that make it suicide? There is no place on earth where the people need Jesus more than in the Middle East. If Jesus gets a chance to compete for the people’s hearts, he will win.”
“Competing for hearts—I like that. I never thought of it that way,” Simon said.
“Jesus is love. And given a choice, in the long run people will always choose love,” Hakim said. “He conquered the Roman Empire without firing a shot because thousands were willing to be martyred to spread the gospel. That’s a lot different than the way Islam spread.”
“You know a lot more history than any cab driver I’ve ever met,” I said.
He wagged a finger. “It’s not a cab; it’s a town car. Anyway, I only drive at night. I’m a seminary student at Lakeshore Bible Institute during the day.”
“Now it’s starting to make sense. So tell us how Islam spread.”
“The prophet Muhammad was a warrior and a politician. The history of those who came immediately after him—his apostles, so to speak—was one of assassination and war and bloodshed, not peaceful martyrdom like Christ’s apostles. Islam spread through military conquest and political domination—a starkly different beginning from Christianity.” He pulled the limo to the curb in front of Pascali’s. “Here we are.”
Simon reached in his pocket and pulled out a money clip. He peeled off two bills and reached over the seat toward Hakim.
“No, no. The tip will be on the bill the limo service sends you for all of the rides during your visit.”
“This is something extra. We appreciated the lesson. I’d like to continue this discussion when we finish dinner.”
“Sorry, Reverend Mason. I won’t be here. They’re sending another car to pick you up. I’ve got to study for a test in the morning.” He smiled. “It’s eleven-thirty. Do you think I’m starting to study too soon?”
Simon and I laughed. Elise didn’t seem to get it.
“That brings back some college memories,” I said.
Simon leaned one arm across the back of the seat in front of him. “Do you have something with a phone number on it?”
Hakim grabbed a pen from the drink holder next to him. “I’ll write it on the back of a receipt.” He ripped a receipt off a pad, scribbled on the back, and handed it to Simon.
Simon put the receipt in the inside pocket of his jacket. “I get to Chicago fairly frequently. Okay if I call you sometime? Maybe we can get a cup of coffee.”
Hakim turned around. “Are you kidding me? You’re Simon Mason. If you call, I’ll be available. Wait until my professors hear about this. Maybe you could come speak at school sometime. Do you think that would be possible?”
“I’m sure we could work it out. Elise, do you think we could schedule something?”
Elise sighed, pulled out her phone, and started punching buttons. She shoved the phone back in her purse. “I made a note in my calendar to call.”
I reached for the door handle, then stopped. “By the way, do you know the driver who is coming to get us?”
“No, ma’am. But you can call the printed number on the receipt and ask. The dispatcher should know.” He jumped out of the driver’s side and came around to open our door.
As we got out of the car, I said, “Thank you, we’ll do that.”
When Hakim drove off, Simon looked at Elise. “Well, that was the strangest limo ride we’ve ever had. Wouldn’t you say?”
“You’re not really going to call him, are you?”
He studied Elise. “Sure I am. He was a good kid— had some interesting ideas too. Why wouldn’t I?”
She shook her head. “You’ve got to start understanding that you’re a celebrity. Everyone wants a piece of you.”
He angled a look my way. “The minute I start thinking I’m a celebrity, shoot me, okay?”
I was afraid I would have to stand in line.
CHAPTER
NINE
DESPITE SIMON’S VIEWS ON his own celebrity, from the moment we entered the restaurant it was apparent how the staff saw him. They greeted us at the door and funneled us between two rows of red-clothed tables toward a wall of rich mahogany paneling adorned with autographed photos of famous people. A warm cloud of smells—garlic, oregano, and freshly baked bread— drifted through the restaurant. My nose reminded me that I hadn’t eaten a thing since I grabbed a hot dog early that afternoon in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport.
Near the back, the maitre d’ led us down a narrow hallway that ended in a private room. Three of the room’s walls were brick. The fourth wall was a built-in oak wine rack. In the center of the room was a rectangular cutting-board table. Hanging above the table were two cast-iron chandeliers.
Simon and I sat at one end of the table. When Elise pulled out a chair next to Simon, he glanced at her. “Elise, would you mind entertaining everyone down at the other end? I want to talk over some security issues with Taylor.”
She gripped the back of the chair with both hands. “Don’t you think I should be part of the discussion?”
He smiled. “Now don’t get worked up. We’re not going to make any decisions without you. If all three of us are down here with our heads together, everyone else will feel left out. Do you mind?”
She looked at me, then back at Simon. “Of course not.” Just then the other group of Simon’s traveling crew walked into the room. Elise moved to the opposite end of the table and sat down.
Donny, the song leader, slapped me on the back as he walked past. “Hey, if it isn’t the potted plant lady! Did you wash the dirt from under your nails before you came to the table?”
I held up a thumb. “It’s green. Next time I thought we could go with a backyard garden theme.”
“Great idea. Each of us can dress like a different vegetable.” Everyone laughed except Elise, who was holding her knife up to the light and polishing it with her napkin.
After we all settled in, the events coordinator from the Mid America Center ordered a bottle of Chianti.
I felt the muscles in my neck relax. One bottle seemed light for a group of nine, but it was a start. It had been a stressful evening.
A white-coated waiter with a thick mustache and a towel draped over his arm selected the bottle from the rack behind Donny’s head and moved from chair to chair, offering to fill glasses. As I stretched out my hand to steady my wine glass for the waiter, Simon turned his glass upside down. Everyone from the ministry followed suit. I swallowed hard. “Waiting for something with a bit more bounce?” I smiled hopefully.
“I don’t drink. You go ahead if you’d like, though.”
The waiter appeared next to me and extended the bottle toward my glass. His hand seemed to move in slow motion as I balanced risk and reward in my mind. Just as he tipped the bottle, I caught his hand. “No thanks. Just water.”
Simon smiled. Good thing he didn’t know me better, or he would have recognized the longing look that I gave to the bottle as it passed. I turned my glass over.
Donny said a prayer for the food and then loudly entertained the other end of the table with a high-pitched
recap of his role in improvising music during the potted plant debacle. He smiled my way a number of times, presumably to assure me that he was not being critical.
Simon picked up his butter knife and twirled it between his fingers. “I understand you stepped into a difficult situation tonight. I think my problem was that we hadn’t had any time to talk things over. I didn’t know what to expect. If we could sit down and go through a sort of cost-benefit analysis on some of the security steps you would like for us to take—Elise is big on cost-benefit analysis—we can probably get to a point we both can live with. Are you willing to give that a try?”
I was pleasantly surprised. “Sure. I understand that you don’t have an unlimited budget for this. Nobody does, except the president.”
“Actually, I’m not as worried about the dollar cost as I am about the effect on my ability to reach people. I’m no PR genius, but I understand that much of my appeal is that ordinary people view me as one of them. Anything that would make me appear aloof or as if I were acting like a big shot . . . well, that’s what I couldn’t afford. Here’s an example. We tell the car services never to send those big, long limousines to pick us up. We ride in regular town cars, even if it means taking two or three cars instead of one. Riding around looking like rock stars is not our thing.”
“That makes perfect sense. I can work within your requirements. I’m all about compromise.”
The waiter walked into the room and placed salads on the table. I must have glanced lovingly at my upside-down wine glass because Simon said, “You really wanted a glass of wine, didn’t you?”
I considered how I had lied to him about the bathtub during our first telephone conversation. I resolved not to lie to him again—at least not unnecessarily. “Yes, I would have liked a glass. Or two.”
“You could have had it. I wouldn’t have minded.” He looked at his watch, which must have been as old as he was, judging by the wear on its leather strap. “I’ve always told Kacey that most of the bad things in life happen after midnight and involve alcohol or drugs. It’s five minutes after twelve.”
I gave him a weak smile. “That late? Boy, time has really gotten away from me tonight.”
“I don’t have any problem with people who like to have a glass of wine now and then, so you don’t need to worry. Even the apostle Paul said we should take a bit of wine for the stomach’s sake.”
“He really said that?” I rapped my fingers on the edge of the table. “Now, there’s a portion of the Bible that’s grossly underreported.”
He laughed as he opened his menu. “We had them bring the same salad for everyone because we’re usually starving by the time we get to dinner after a show. You can order your entrée off the menu.”
After a few moments he closed the menu and set it on the table. “I don’t drink because there are always those in the press out to snap a picture that will prove that people like me are nothing but fakes. Though it’s still difficult for me to believe, millions of people look up to me. One photo with a goofy look on my face and a wine glass in my hand could do a lot of damage. I’m determined not to let that happen.”
The waiter came around to take our orders. As I watched Simon pick up his menu and point to something, I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for him. Because of my stint in the Secret Service, I knew the fishbowl in which politicians swim. Until that moment, though, I never considered that people like Simon were in the same sort of situation.
Actually worse, if they took their responsibility seriously.
The public expected politicians to have vices. They did not cut preachers the same slack. One public slipup would not only irreparably injure his career but could damage the whole point of it. People looked to him for guidance on how to live their lives. That was quite a burden to carry around every day. I thanked my lucky stars I was far too socially irresponsible to have any influence over anyone.
We spent the rest of the dinner chatting about a variety of things, including the next weekend’s International Celebration of Hope in Dallas. It would be his largest event ever and would be telecast around the world. Because the event had been planned for months, I would not be able to have much impact on security. There were a few areas, though, where I could provide security upgrades, even on such short notice. We discussed my ideas as we ate.
From time to time Elise eyed us from the other end of the table. She frowned through the entire dinner, as if she had been permanently exiled. Her frown particularly deepened whenever Simon said something that made me laugh, which was frequently. He was a witty guy.
One thing seemed obvious: Elise was likely to create obstacles to my efforts to do my job. Nevertheless, she had made it clear at the auditorium that she would do what was best for Simon, no matter what her personal interest—at least, it seemed that way. That impressed me. I was curious to learn more about her. And about her relationship with Simon.
Of course, that was the last thing that should have been occupying my mind. I was about to learn that, where Simon Mason was involved, there was no time to sweat the small stuff.
CHAPTER
TEN
AFTER DINNER WE MADE our way toward the front of the restaurant. Simon walked in front of me and pulled my suitcase as our group moved single file down the narrow hallway and then wound through several tightly packed tables. Before we reached the front, I turned to him. “Can I take a look at the receipt Hakim gave you?”
He reached in his coat pocket and handed it to me. “Why do you want that?”
“I’m going to call and check on the new driver.”
He stopped. “Now, this is an example of what I was talking about, Taylor. I don’t really think it’s necessary to check out the driver of a reputable limousine service that was recommended by the auditorium. That seems like overkill to me.”
I flipped open my phone. “You talked about cost-benefit a minute ago. I have unlimited minutes on this thing. We can certainly handle the cost of one call.” I held the receipt up to the light and punched in the number.
While the phone was ringing, we passed the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window at the front of the restaurant. A single limo—a white, super stretch model with heavily tinted windows—sat at the curb outside. I tapped Simon on the shoulder. “Didn’t you say that you don’t use stretch limos?”
Just as a voice on the other end of the phone said hello, a light flashed over our heads. The window exploded. A medicine ball of hot air slammed into my chest and knocked me to the floor.
Outside the shattered window, the mangled hood and roof of the limo cartwheeled from the sky like two huge, wounded birds. They crashed to the sidewalk, side by side, bounced into each other, landed again, and spun several revolutions before nudging together and rocking to a stop in the street. Tires screeched as a taxi swerved to avoid the wreckage. At the curb, flames shot from the limo’s passenger compartment, which was peeled open like a sardine can.
I reached up, wrapped my arms around Simon’s waist, and sat backward, pulling him to the floor on top of me. To our right a woman screamed. I rolled Simon off me, then crawled beneath the table in front of us. Lifting with my back, I flipped it onto its side. Plates and glasses crashed to the floor. The tabletop was now between us and the window. I tugged Simon’s arm, and he moved in behind the table. A cloud of acrid smoke drifted in from the street and settled over the room like a dark fog, burning my nose and throat.
A few feet away Elise stood transfixed, one hand on her forehead. I reached out, wrapped my fingers around her ankle, and jerked. She dropped onto her rear end and let out a high-pitched yelp as if a stranger had just pinched her in an elevator. The sound was so incongruous that I nearly burst out laughing. I dragged her behind the table with us.
Expecting gunfire at any moment, I crawled to my purse, which was on the floor about five feet away. I dragged it back to the table, dug into it, and pulled out my Sig .357. Then I squatted, back to the tabletop, so I was positioned between the table and Simon. I ch
ecked the magazine. My ammo was fine.
Throughout the room, people screamed and moaned. I pointed toward Simon and Elise. “Keep your heads down and stay quiet, both of you. We don’t want to draw attention. Are you all right?”
Simon nodded. “I’m okay. How about you, Elise?” His voice was steady and so was his hand as he reached out to place it on her shoulder. I was impressed.
Elise nodded, but her face was ashen and her hands trembled uncontrollably.
Simon got on his hands and knees and began to crawl toward a woman at the table next to us who had a bloody gash from her ear to her chin. She was still sitting in her chair, staring straight ahead and moaning.
I grabbed his arm and yanked. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to see if I can help.”
“You’re not going anywhere! You’re the target!”
He pointed at the woman. “She needs help.”
I tightened my grip on his sleeve. “This may not be the end of the attack, and I’m not counting on this table to stop a bullet. I’ve got to get you out of here.” I scanned the room for exits. The only ones were the front door, which was out of the question, and a door in the back with stairs stenciled across it in yellow letters.
Simon turned toward me. Blood oozed from a cut on the side of his neck. I picked up a napkin from the floor and pressed it over the cut. “You’re bleeding. Hold this tight.”
Simon held it there for a few seconds, then pulled it down and looked at it. It was bloody but not soaked. He pressed it back on the wound. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”
I let go of his sleeve. “We’re getting out of here right now. Stay low and follow me.” I crawled away from the table, brushing broken glass out of the way with my fingers.
Simon grabbed my leg. “We’re not going to leave these people here and run away.”
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