The Trinity Game

And while he prayed daily for stronger faith, the truth was he just wanted a damn miracle. Just one miracle to prove God was taking an active interest in human affairs.
    And now he had one.
    Daniel picked up the phone and dialed a number that was known to fewer than 120 people on the planet. The phone was answered on the first ring.
    “Facilitations. Please identify.”
    “Father Daniel Byrne. Devil’s Advocate, clearance code: UG-8806.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “I need a plane, in Atlanta. Destination is Rome, and I need to leave in”—a glance at his watch—“two hours.”
    “Um, that’s pretty tight, I’m not sure—”
    “Just make it happen,” said Daniel. “Priority One.”
    “Yes, sir. Anything else?”
    “Yeah, get a message to the DA. Tell him I’m coming in. And tell him we’ve got a positive.”
    He hung up, shaved, showered, and dressed. He hadn’t worn the uniform since his last visit to the Vatican, and as he adjusted his clerical collar in the mirror, he saw a priest looking back. In recent years, he’d felt increasingly like an imposter, the uniform increasingly like a costume.
    But not anymore.
    The sky was still dark as Daniel walked across the tarmac to the white private jet with a gold holy cross painted on its tail. He climbed the aluminum steps and entered the lush cabin, was greeted by the smell of fresh leather. The seats were wide and soft, and could swivel, and each had a gold cross embroidered into the headrest. Side tables of polished burl wood and silk curtains on the windows. At the back of the cabin, a well-stocked bar and flat-panel television on the wall.
    As they reached altitude, Daniel reclined his seat and closed his eyes.

J ulia wrapped her wet hair in a towel and picked up her cell phone. The display said it was her editor at the
Times-Picayune
calling from New Orleans.
    “Haven’t found him yet,” she said.
    “Shit.”
    “Left messages with his office, got his unlisted number and left messages at the house too. Nothing else I can do right now on that angle.”
    “There
is
no other angle, Julia. Trinity
is
the story.”
    “I get it, Herb, you don’t have to yell at me. Nobody knows where he is, what the hell do you want me to do? Anyway, you have no idea what it’s like here. Atlanta’s gone insane.”
    “Seen it on the news. What are you following?”
    “Got a call in to Sheriff Alatorre. Figure I’ll talk to a couple survivors, work some
human interest
to carry us through the next cycle until Trinity reappears.”
    “OK, I want you to get with Kathryn Reynolds, she’s a producer at CNN. You’ll be working with her for the duration.”
    “Oh God, gimme a break.”
    “I don’t want to hear it, Julia. You know the drill—we’re broke, and they offered to pay your expenses. And we need the profile. Soit’s either that or we call you home and send Sammy to work with them. Your story, your choice.”
    Julia blew out a long breath. “Fine, but I answer to you. Can’t serve two masters.” She wrote down the number Herb read over the phone, said, “I gotta run.”
    “Hey, one more thing.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Nice job on GMA this morning.”
    “Thanks. On two hours sleep, but yeah, I think I did OK.”
    “Better than OK, you did great. The camera really likes you.”
    “Well, thank you.”
    “Look, I know we don’t pay television money—hell, we barely pay newspaper money—but…I hope you’ll stay with us when this is all over. I mean, you’ll be able to write your ticket now—”
    “Don’t sweat it, Herb. New Orleans is home. And I’m a newspaper gal, I bleed ink.”
    She hung up, towel-dried her hair and tied it back in a ponytail, and switched on the television.
    The city had indeed gone insane. Lunatics were flooding in from all over the country, clogging the streets, pitching tents in the parking lot of Trinity’s church. And it would only get worse. The television outlets were having some kind of tantric orgasm over the story, decoding Trinity’s past predictions, confirming their accuracy, and reporting each as
Breaking News
, around the clock, reporting each with the same breathless intensity as the refinery explosion.
    This just in: Reverend Tim Trinity accurately predicted a traffic jam three weeks ago!
    This just in: Reverend Tim Trinity declared that jambalaya is good!
    Asinine.
    Julia really
was
a newspaper gal, and she did bleed ink. Television is a possum with a tapeworm, she thought; always hungry and it’ll