The Trinity Game

people. Catholics, Protestants, Mormons—it won’t matter. People are hungry for miracles, and they’ll be led away from God—they’ll follow a false prophet. We need him debunked before that happens. Question is can I trust it to you? I know things ended badly between you two, and I don’t want you to take the case if you don’t think you can handle it. This can’t be personal. It isn’t about what happened between you and your uncle.”
    Twenty years ago, when Daniel was just thirteen, Tim Trinity had been the closest thing to a father that Daniel had ever known. A lot of water under the proverbial bridge since then, but some wounds never fully heal.
    “Personal involvement won’t be an issue,” Daniel said. “I have no problem exposing Tim Trinity as a fraud.”
    Nick removed his reading glasses. “Then we may just be able to outflank Conrad after all. I can sell His Eminence on my need to assign the case to you, based on your knowledge of Trinity. And if you can nail this case shut fast, I think it’ll convince him that you’re indispensable to the ODA.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Just don’t make me look like an idiot for assigning it to you.” Father Nick pushed the file folder across the desk. “Transcripts are in the case file—you can read them on the flight to Atlanta.”
    Daniel took the folder, stood, and walked to his boss’s four-centuries-old oak office door. Carved in the wood was Saint John, the Baptist, kneeling in the Jordan with his arms open, while Jesus instructed him to fulfill all righteousness.
    And a voice came out of the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; in You I am well-pleased.”

A fter completing his morning prayers, Daniel skipped rope for fifteen minutes, working up a good sweat. Then he donned the gloves and worked out on the heavy bag that hung in the corner of his bedroom, enjoying the electric jolt that ran up his arm each time he landed a particularly vicious blow. The bag bucked and the chains rattled and the feeling of power spurred Daniel on. He put even more into his punches, employing his legs, his lower body, and the bag bucked harder and the chains rattled louder. He kept at it until his shoulders and wrists begged for mercy and the muscles of his arms began to twitch from fatigue.
    As he pulled the gloves off, his gaze fell to the framed photo on the dresser. From the center of a boxing ring, eighteen-year-old Danny Byrne looked back at him with a prideful grin. The teenager wore silk trunks—purple and gold—and his bare chest, not yet as hairy as it was now in the mirror above the dresser, glistened with sweat. He held a Golden Gloves trophy above his head.
    Sometimes it felt like yesterday. Sometimes, a hundred years ago. Daniel couldn’t decide which feeling was the sadder.

    Daniel drank espresso in the first-class lounge, waiting for them to call his flight, thinking:
One week, at most, and you can wash your hands of the man again.
    Usually he was thrilled when a case brought him back stateside. He loved America, always missed it, occasionally ached for it, often fantasized about someday returning “back home” for good.
    But this case did not thrill him one bit.
    One week,
he told himself again.
Get in, debunk, get out.
    Turning toward the flight-status monitors, Daniel caught a glimpse of the pretty redhead from the check-in line, now sitting three tables away. She’d been standing directly behind him in line, and she’d asked to borrow his pen. The skirt of her Chanel suit stopped a couple inches above the knee and the jacket hugged her narrow waist. She looked about his age—thirty-three—but her manner suggested late thirties as she took the pen and smoothly launched into small talk. She was a buyer for a chain of upscale women’s clothing stores—twenty locations spread across the South—and she loved expense account trips to Rome but was happy to be heading home to her papillon and her yoga classes, both of which she missed terribly whenever she was away. She was clearly single, and interested, and he’d tried to be friendly without encouraging further interest.
    And now she sat three tables away, watching him over the top of her
Marie Claire
, trying to be just obvious enough that he’d get the feeling of being watched, look over, make eye contact. This was the downside of not wearing his clerical collar. And, if he was honest, it was the upside as well. Daniel wasn’t devoid of ego and it was nice to be reminded that