The Trinity Game

over. The men abandoned their belongings and moved quickly to the door. A few put their hands on the door, testing for heat. The foreman and the IT guy grabbed the fire extinguishers mounted on either side of the door. Someone opened the door, and the foreman led the other men into the hallway.
    The light strips ran left, down the hallway, to the nearest fire exit. The foreman clasped the IT guy on the shoulder and pointed left.
    “You’re in charge,” he barked into the guy’s ear. The rumbling had grown to a roar—he had to yell to be heard. “Take them out.”
    The group followed the IT guy outside to safety. The foreman turned right, walked through strobing red light toward the double doors at the end of the hallway.
    The doors burst open and three men came out in a stumbling run, clothes charred and smoking, skin melting off faces and hands. Through the open doors, everything was raging flame. Smoke billowed into the hallway.
    Two of the melting men continued lurching, past the foreman and toward the fire exit. The other man pitched forward onto the floor. The foreman dropped the useless fire extinguisher, ran to the prone man, and hoisted him up in a fireman’s lift.
    He ran for the exit. Another concussive blast from behind. The double doors flew open and a wave of heat rolled over him.
    The hallway filled with fire.

    Andrew Thibodeaux heard the blast. In the distance, a fireball rose through a ragged hole in the metal roof of the refinery’s main building. The top third of the adjoining wall collapsed and more flames leapt free. Thick black smoke filled the air above and climbed into the sky.
    For a full minute, he sat watching the fire grow, without a conscious thought in his head. Then his stomach tightened, and he sobbed once, twice, and again. The sobbing stopped as quickly as it had hit him. He wiped his eyes, turned the ignition over, and drove.
    Thank you, Lord…thank you, Lord…thank you, Lord…

J ulia Rothman heard the call on her police scanner and mashed the accelerator to the floor, making record time to Belle Chasse.
    It was a hellstorm. Massive black clouds billowed skyward from a wall of orange flame, and the whole scene shimmered with heat, like a mirage on the highway.
    She flashed her press credentials through the windshield, and the deputy waved her past the police line. Michael Alatorre, sheriff of Plaquemines Parish, stood with one foot on the bumper of his cruiser, barking orders at another deputy. Six fire engines and an ambulance idled nearby, lights flashing impotently in the midday sun. A couple dozen firemen stood around smoking, gazing, awestruck by the blaze.
    Julia jumped from her car, hooked a few strands of black hair with her little finger, and put them behind her ear.
    The sheriff recognized her and tipped his hat, his expression grim. “Young lady.”
    “Jesus, Sheriff Alatorre, what the hell happened here?”
    “Don’t know yet, some kinda accident.”
    “How many dead?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine. We can’t get near it. Fire chief says we just gonna have to let it burn for a while.” He flipped open his notebook. “Supervisor says he thinks there were one hundredforty-five men on shift in the main building when the thing blew, but that’s unconfirmed. Far as we know, forty-three came out alive, eighteen taken to hospital in varying degrees of distress. Some were pretty bad off, probably not all of them will make it.” He gestured at the ambulance. “They just stickin’ around in case somebody else staggers out, but…”
    They both looked back to the inferno. Nobody else would be staggering out.

    Julia raced back to the office, logged onto the Internet, and directed her browser to the Tim Trinity Word of God Ministries.
    Thinking:
If that sonofabitch actually predicted this…
    Thinking:
What has Danny gotten himself involved in?
    Thinking:
Why didn’t I—Oh my God, what have I done?

    Daniel stayed in his hotel room all morning, anxiously flipping between the cable news networks, praying that Julia had been able to convince the refinery executives of the danger. This last hour was the toughest. He’d been too nervous to eat breakfast and now felt a little queasy. He checked his watch every few minutes, confirming the time displayed on the television screen. Noon could not come soon enough. He paced the floor, sat and checked the Internet news sites, stood and paced some more. He read Psalm 23 about a dozen times.
    As the final seconds