Logan Airport was frozen in time and space. Nothing moved on the runways. Even the deicers sat motionless on the tarmac. In the absence of movement, it seemed to Gage as if history had met its end in a nuclear winter.
Gage turned away from the window and toward the mass of fidgeting passengers inside the terminal waiting for their international flights.
Some glared at the ground crew as though controlling the weather was part of their duties. Others stared up at the television monitors, the story of massive pesticide-induced birth defects in Russia replaced by a breaking news report of flooding in Paris, the Seine River overflowing its banks and transforming the city into a French Venice. The aerial view made the Eiffel Tower look like an islanded lighthouse in a sea of gray.
Gage had intended to fly into de Gaulle and spend a day in Paris visiting bankers, lawyers, and money launderers who were unrelated to Ibrahim or Hennessy, and thereby conceal what he had actually come to France to do. But the floods made that impossible. De Gaulle airport had been shut down.
Instead, he was flying to Nice, east of Marseilles along the Mediterranean, and to mask his intentions by pretending to help a friend from Transparency Watch trace the proceeds of the sale of platinum, allegedly stolen and smuggled out of South Africa by its president.
Gage was certain that whoever replaced Gilbert would catch up with him in Marseilles; he just needed twenty-four hours in the city before that happened.
An elderly Catholic priest standing next to Gage mumbled, and then whispered, “That son of a bitch.”
Gage glanced over at him, surprised by the outburst and assuming that his words were meant for the uniformed United Airlines employee standing by the gate. The priest’s eyes were focused instead on a wall-mounted monitor showing Vice President Cooper Wallace looking like a celery stalk next to the tomato-shaped Reverend Manton Roberts, red-faced and sweating, with a flop of chin and neck fat oozing over his collar and smothering the knot of his tie.
The priest looked up at Gage.
“Maybe the son of a bitch will eat himself to death like Jerry Falwell. That would be God’s justice.”
The priest then pointed at the screen as the camera pulled back and displayed a line of suited politicians, evangelicals, and talk radio personalities standing against the background of a two-story American flag with a black cross superimposed on it. It was erected behind a stage centered at the fifty-yard line of the Louisiana Superdome.
“A glutton,” the priest said. “A compulsive gambler. A onetime adulterer. A two-time adulterer. A drug addict. Is there any sin or human corruption that isn’t represented on that stage?”
A handful of Korean-American missionaries, white shirts, black ties, and matching backpacks, walked forward as though toward an altar and gathered below the television clutching their Bibles.
“I call on all Americans to come together on Sunday,” Roberts said from the podium, “two weeks from tomorrow, at noon Eastern time, all across the country to join in the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance.” Roberts raised his arms as if leading a hymn. “Let everyone driving pull to the side of the road. Let everyone walking pause in their tracks. Let everyone in church stand. Let every checkout clerk’s hands fall still. Let every toll taker close his lane.”
The camera panned the audience of seventy-five thousand. They had risen to their feet, smiling and clapping.
The priest standing next to Gage spoke again.
“It’s a damn national loyalty test, all on one day.” He again looked up at Gage. “But loyal to who? The country or their version of Christianity?”
“Let every voice rise up in unison as we celebrate our one nation under God.”
The applause morphed into cheering that almost overwhelmed the words, “And let the agents of Satan reveal themselves by their silence.”
Faces in the Superdome turned hard and shaking fists shot skyward.
“God’s punishment is upon us,” Roberts said, his voice now raging and his face engorged with angry blood. “He speaks to us through the earthquakes and the floods and the epidemics and the riots. All is in preparation… all… is… in… preparation, for mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
Then the crowd in a single explosion of song:
The missionaries standing below the television interlinked their hands as Roberts spoke again.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
Gage surveyed the waiting area. A scattering of people stood up. Some of those who were already standing turned toward the monitor.
Those remaining in their seats glanced at one another. One after another they shrugged and then rose. By the end of the last chorus, nearly half the people in the terminal were singing. The rest sat rigid in their seats, jaws set, eyes locked forward.
“We’ve got massive unemployment,” the priest said, “people dying in earthquakes and floods, and their answer is a damn loyalty test.” He then shook his head and walked away. “That son of a bitch.”