Babylon Rising Page 13

  “Sweetheart, for the life of me, I don’t know. But it’s beginning to smell like a smear that’s bigger than what’s covering those windows up there.” Into the phone he said, “Welsh, my wife’s joined me. She shares my faith as well. You’d better call in backup for Agent Baines here—the religious fanatics now outnumber him. I’ll put you on speakerphone.”

  Laura looked first shocked, then puzzled by her husband’s outburst.

  “Professor Murphy, Mrs. Murphy, hello, I’m FBI agent Burton Welsh up in New York. Look, we just seem to have pushed each other’s buttons—”

  “I’m pushing the hang-up button, Welsh. I don’t see how I can help with any of this, and I’ve got some writing that’s a few thousand years old that I can do something useful with. So, unless you want Agent Baines here to arrest me and my wife, and then round up our entire church, I’m going to go.”

  Welsh bristled in his chair in New York. “You can go, Mr. Murphy. Just don’t go far.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Agent Baines reached over and disconnected the call before Murphy could get an answer. “I’m sorry, Professor Murphy. Things seemed to get a little out of hand here tonight.” He paused, and Laura sensed an awkwardness behind his hesitation.

  “Agent Baines, is there something else we should know?”

  “No.” He looked away from them both.

  “Baines, you can talk to us. We’re not monsters, no matter what New York thinks.”

  “No, ma’am, I know that. Agent Welsh is a fine man and a superior agent. I saw him in action at Quantico. But … I’m from down here, and I know how funny some big-city folks get about religion. I just wanted you to know, we’re not all like that at the FBI.”

  Murphy shook his hand. “Agent Baines, thank you. It takes a special man to stand up for both his God and his job sometimes. You seem to have figured that out, and I admire that. I could probably have used some of your balance tonight.”

  Laura put one arm around her husband and gave him a loving squeeze. “You, choosing balance over temper? If Agent Baines could teach you that, we’d give him tenure here at Preston. Agent Baines, it was good meeting you, even if the circumstances were bizarre.”

  “Hey, I’m just a messenger in all this, but I’m glad to be out of the frying pan, whatever is going on up there.”

  Laura put both her arms around Murphy. “That FBI man can’t possibly think you had something to do with the U.N. thing, can he, Murph?”

  “No, I think he’s just desperate to make some sense out of why somebody would leave a big Bible quote on the U.N., and like a lot of people, he looks at all of us believers as some vast conspiracy opposed to individual thinkers. Still, he is right about one thing. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to paint that up there.”

  Murphy reflected, as he had for the last half hour, on the possible reasons why. The entire message of the Bible was condensed into this one tiny sentence by the Holy Spirit, who had inspired John to write it down. The Scripture itself had crept into the mainstream a few years back when an individual started a habit of holding up a crude cardboard sign inscribed with a big black JOHN 3:16 at countless televised sporting events across the country, always in direct view of the cameras.

  Sometime later, the Scripture survived the silliness of a pro wrestler’s using a variation as part of his act. But now things were about to turn really ugly. Just based on tonight’s hyped-up coverage, Murphy sensed that the media was poised to use the same Scripture, the most beautiful and poignant of all Scriptures, which had brought hope to countless millions down through the ages, as part of a smear campaign, a conditioning process against evangelical Christians. The irony was not lost on Murphy.

  “John Three: Sixteen is a pretty good message to get out there,” Laura said.

  “Yes,” Murphy agreed, “but something tells me it wasn’t some Sunday-school teacher who put it up there.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SHANE BARRINGTON WATCHED his own BNN network’s live coverage of the U.N. events alone in his apartment after he had been alerted to tune in by the president of the news division, who had a standing order to call Barrington’s personal hotline whenever there was important breaking news.

  Of course, his network news head had no idea that Barrington had been peripherally involved. How could he? Barrington thought. Even I’m not certain I was involved. These people he was now working for, these Seven, along with their creepy thug, Talon, were a strange lot. He dared not ask them questions, and he had no way to contact them even if he had wanted to. They seemed to know everything about his business, however, and he assumed they would know about his personal life as well, if he had one.

  Most nights, like this one, he would be poring over reports and figures by himself in his apartment. With the financial security assured by the Seven, Barrington was even further empowered in his greed, so he was driving every division to expand, to look for takeovers, to seek new ways to crush his competition.

  The Seven’s backing also allowed him to pay off the few trusted lieutenants within his organization so that he could be assured there would be no betrayals or sellouts. Except for the moles who were obviously reporting to the Seven, but he didn’t mind about them now because he was not planning on trying to cross the Seven in any way in his business dealings. They knew what they were getting when they aligned with him: a ruthless, hard-driving, take-no-prisoners bottom-line business mogul.

  He just wished he had some better idea of who these people were, these Seven. What was their goal? Other than making money and building an ever-larger and controlling communications systems and electronics empire, what was his role in their plan?

  Take this U.N. stunt, for instance. He had gotten his specific instructions from Talon to find some ways to circumvent some of the U.N. security systems and he had been able to do so in a complex round of maneuvers that could never be connected or traced even under the tremendous focus that would now be brought to bear on the U.N.

  However, once he transmitted the information himself to Talon, he never heard another word about the U.N. until that night. He just assumed that somehow Talon and the Seven were behind the deed, but to what end?

  Barrington marveled, as he always did, at the quickness and cleverness of his network producers, who had already come up with one of their trademark alarmist names for this latest crisis: U.N. VIOLATED. However, this painting of the message on the front of the building looked more like a high-school prank than a world-shaking security threat.

  His phone rang. Expecting his news president on the other end, he answered, “Jim, what’s the latest?”

  “You’re not going to be getting the news tonight, Barrington, you’re going to be making some.” Talon. Despite himself, Barrington froze at the sound of his voice.

  “You’re going to give your lady news star, that Kovacs woman, the big scoop of the night.”

  “I am?”

  “Just listen and write this down. It’s a house at One Hundred Sixty-fourth Street and Seventy-sixth Avenue in Queens, a house rented by Joe Farley, one of the regular window washers at the U.N. It’s not where he lived, it’s a secret place he kept. So secret, in fact, he didn’t even know he rented it, if you get my drift. Tell Kovacs that one of your big lawman buddies tipped you that the FBI is about to bust in on the place. The FBI doesn’t even know that yet, so she’s got a jump on the story.”

  “So what’s the big deal? Is this guy Farley hiding out there?”

  “The ‘so what’ is that this guy kept this other house, which is full of crazy rants and Bibles and all sorts of religious-nut papers—and plans to blow up the U.N.”

  “How do you know this? You couldn’t have gotten this from the information I supplied you with.”

  “Let’s just say that all this is information I supplied myself.”

  “You mean you’ve planted the evidence to frame this Farley? When the FBI finds him, won’t it be clear that somebody set him up?”

/>   “But the FBI will never find Farley. Nor will anyone. And trust me, never is sooner than anyone will find you if you ever ask me another question. Just get Kovacs on the phone, give her her scoop, and tell her to get over there with her cameraman and start broadcasting. She can make up some excuse later for breaking in. Then tomorrow tell her to redouble her efforts on her assignment to investigate these evangelical Christian crazies. Why, it’s a disgrace what they could do to an international treasure like the U.N.”

  Barrington was unsure whether he should laugh, but the line went dead. As he punched in Kovacs’s speed-dial phone number, he decided he would use those very words on her.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “THIS IS STEPHANIE Kovacs, broadcasting a live world exclusive for BNN. I am now standing on a deceptively quiet street in Queens, New York City. Here in this seemingly ordinary two-story brick house you see behind me, the apparent mastermind behind tonight’s shocking attack on the United Nations had his secret terror cell.”

  Talon watched from his hotel room and gave a grim chuckle. This woman is good, he thought. She may have more ice water in her veins than her boss, Barrington, has.

  He would have to keep an eye on her for future use.

  In U.N. Security headquarters, Burton Welsh broke in on Nugent and turned on the television.

  “Look at this, will you? That BNN reporter Kovacs is broadcasting from the window washer’s secret hiding place.”

  Nugent swore. “How did she get there?”

  Welsh shrugged. “My people say all she’s said is ‘street sources.’ And we’ll probably never be able to sweat it out of her. But look at what she’s found there.”

  He turned up the volume on the set. “… Although there is no sign of the alleged renter, Joseph Farley, here at this house, BNN has confirmed that he was a regular window washer at the U.N. who would easily have been able to perpetrate tonight’s shocking attack. And we have confirmed that he was new to this neighborhood, which is not his legal residence, but at least one neighbor told me she has seen him coming in and out of this house at strange hours.”

  The camera now panned away from Kovacs, and in the harsh brightness of the TV lights it zoomed in on piles of books and papers on the table in what looked like a dining room.

  “Here is what BNN has found, as we are the first on the scene of the Farley-the-Fanatic house. Bibles that appear to be marked up with key passages about Christ and the resurrection. Floor plans of the United Nations also marked up for what I fear could be a terrorist attack.”

  Nugent swore again. “How long until the NYPD are over there and get her off the air?”

  Welsh held his cell phone to one ear while cupping his other ear. “ETA a minute and a half. I’m getting myself patched through to her as soon as they arrive. This is turning into a night at the circus.”

  Talon did not want to take the time to wait until Kovacs interviewed the foolish old woman who lived next to the house he had rented in Farley’s name. He knew Kovacs was too good a reporter to miss the half-blind but fully nosy Mrs. Sorcatini, who Talon had made sure would see him when he made his two late-night forays dressed as Farley to set up the house.

  No, he had seen enough of BNN’s very satisfying hyped-up news coverage. Apparently, so had his contact at the castle. By the second ring he had unlocked his security-scrambled phone. As expected, the voice was John Bartholomew, his main contact from the Seven.

  “I tell you, Talon, if Christ had the miracle of twenty-four-hour satellite television, there would be no need for evangelicals. I suppose we could say that tonight you have actually begun to do the same thing, using that TV newswoman to begin destroying them.”

  “I don’t know about that, sir,” Talon replied. “This is just a flash in the pan. Nothing is going to stand up when the authorities investigate, and they will never be able to produce Farley to prove anything.”

  “Now, Talon, this is no time for false modesty. You’ve established a great worldwide media event. That’s what news is these days. Nobody cares about the fine points, the correction, the follow-up—they’ll be on to the next scandal by then. But people will remember that some Christian nut job, as they say on the talk shows, was going to blow up the U.N. I’d say that’s a good night’s work.”

  “If you’re happy, I’m happy. Do you want me to step up the next wave?”

  “No, Talon, just keep doing your prep work. My colleagues and I must decide which paths to pursue and on what timetable. We want to do this right so that we can remain in control. Chaos is a noble pursuit if properly orchestrated. Otherwise, it is just that, chaos, unless you can manipulate it to your advantage. I will be in touch.”

  Stephanie Kovacs held her cell phone a foot from her ear as Burton Welsh screamed at her. The network had gone back to the anchor desk for the hourly update. “Mr. Welsh, you know I’m not going to reveal my street sources for how I beat the police—and the FBI—to the Farley house.”

  Welsh refused to lower his decibel level. “All the freedom of the press in the country is not going to save you from a breaking-and-entering charge, Miss Kovacs. You had no right to bust into that house tonight, and you know it.”

  Kovacs spoke in her most innocent voice. “Why, Agent Welsh, I was watching this house from my news van because of my tip, when we thought we saw smoke coming out. We were just doing our duty as citizens to save whoever was inside from the fire.”

  Welsh snorted. “Fire, my foot. There will be fire coming, I promise you, when I fry your fanny in court!”

  Kovacs smiled. “Mr. Welsh, don’t you feel that one psychopath threatening violence is enough for tonight? Any further questions you have can be referred to the BNN legal department. Good-bye, FBI.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “OH, TALON, I swear it is enough to make one believe in a higher power.” John Bartholomew’s usually somber voice sounded almost jolly on the secure phone line. “The next phase of our plan has fallen into our laps. Pack your bags.”

  Talon, as usual, exhibited no emotion whatsoever. “Where am I heading?”

  “You will be strengthening your inspiring new devotion to evangelical Christianity, young man.”

  “This time I hope I will actually get to follow through with something bigger than paint cans.”

  “I believe you will, but you will need to exercise some patience, Talon. We have somebody else doing the heavy lifting for us at the beginning of this next phase. Only he doesn’t know it yet.”

  Talon sounded wary. “Who? Our agreement was that I was to be in complete control of any U.S. actions.”

  “And so you shall be, you suspicious boy. You are just going to monitor our unsuspecting helper while he rises to his challenges. He has a skill-set that even you cannot match.”

  “What skills are those?”

  “Finding things. Old things. You’re going to Preston, North Carolina, to keep tabs on Professor Michael Murphy.”

  “I hunt things, I kill things. Why do you want me watching a professor?”

  “You are a man of few words, Talon, but such clear, colorful phrases. You see, one of our sources in the Mideast has alerted us that this Murphy has stumbled onto something we want very badly.”

  “Then let me just go take this thing you want.”

  “Oh, you will, but it’s not that simple. We’ve had it checked out, and what we want is actually in pieces, pieces that probably no one else in the world could find.”

  “That’s preposterous. You’ve demonstrated that you have power and money enough to do almost anything you want.”

  “Murphy cannot be bought. He’s got morals, principles, things you wouldn’t understand. And he tries to be a very good Christian, something you certainly wouldn’t understand. And yet, surprisingly, he is also a risk-taker, much like yourself, a man of action, sometimes foolish action. Which is why I wish I could be there when you finally do battle with him, Talon, because that should be something to see.”

  “You’re not frightenin
g me.”

  “I’m not trying to. I am warning you that this is not some flabby window washer in Queens you’re going to be tracking. He’s smart, he’s capable, and most of all he is the only person in the world who has such a unique combination of knowledge, courage, and drive to recognize the value of these pieces we want and to go find them.”

  “What are these pieces he’s finding for you? He finds old Biblical junk, doesn’t he?”

  “So eloquently phrased, Talon. Yes, he finds ancient artifacts that have helped to validate events in the Bible as real historical events.”

  “Why is that of interest to you? I thought you all hate religion of any kind.”

  “No, we do not hate all religion. We will one day soon have a new religion, and only one religion. To help lead all of those millions of Christians toward our one religion, we want to lure them over with some of their own symbols from their own Bible. If we can show that we have been entrusted by their God with these symbols, it will make us seem that much more legitimate and will help to distract them as we wean them away from their old God to our new God.”

  “What do you need the real artifacts for? Why don’t you just make your own?”

  “Because there are people like Murphy in the world who would be able to spot a fake. Besides, this particular artifact he’s hunting has been rumored for centuries to have some real power all its own. The Brazen Serpent of the Bible.”

  “You mean to tell me that you Seven have all the power that money can buy and you still believe in some Bible souvenir?”

  “Well, Talon, when Murphy finds the three pieces of the Serpent and puts them together, we’ll just see. Whether it has a darker power or not, we will eventually use it as a centerpiece to rally believers to our religion. So, you are going to keep close tabs on Professor Murphy while he finds the other two pieces, and then take them all for us. Got it?”

  “I’ll need something besides babysitting to do down in North Carolina.”