21

“SO, WHAT DID HE HAVE to say? What’s the deal? What’s going on?”

“Why didn’t you listen in like you wanted to, Dad?” Jae said. She had stayed in her room rather than running down to report the phone conversation to him. She hoped her mother would bring the kids up so she could busy herself putting them to bed and avoid the third degree. No such luck.

“I was just hanging up the phone,” Ranold said. Past retirement age and he still couldn’t tell the truth.

“He’s fine, I’m fine, we’re all fine.”

“You were able to keep it together, not give away that—”

“That what? That I’ve been told he’s the same promiscuous rascal he’s always been, and on top of that, a traitor?”

“What’s the matter, Jae? Losing your resolve?”

“What made you think I had any resolve to start with, Dad? You think this is easy? That I would hear a few disappointing details and then just sign up with the vigilantes to do in my own husband? That wasn’t very insightful—”

“A few disappointing details? Do you realize that the man you married may be the biggest enemy to freedom the United Seven States has ever seen? Worse than Benedict Arnold. Worse than Alger Hiss. Worse than—”

“You call him the man I married as if I should have seen this coming. You forget how high you were on him when we were dating and engaged, Dad. You even beamed at the wedding. Not that long ago you sat on the stage at the Pergamum Medal ceremony, busting your buttons like the award was going to you.”

Ranold sighed. “He was that good, Jae. He’s not going to be easy to bring down. But we’re trying. And we need your help.”

Jae wanted to reiterate that she hadn’t been close to convinced yet, but she didn’t want to get into it. She heard her mother and the kids on the stairs and excused herself.

“As you’re going to be part of the team now,” Ranold said, “I should tell you we have a scheme in the works right now over there.”

Jae hesitated but she wouldn’t bite. Her father wouldn’t be able to keep it from her anyway. She could get back to the subject anytime she wanted.

The idyllic setting for the Sunday midday meeting reminded Paul of country farms in the Midwest. It seemed incongruous to see several cars parked under the trees, a pleasant clapboard house in the shade, the winter fields lying fallow in the sun.

Chappell Raison and his leadership team met in the parlor, and this time Paul faced a much tougher crowd. Whatever it was in Chapp’s bearing that so endeared him to these people, they rallied round him now, eyeing Paul with suspicion. Paul realized immediately that an all-out offensive was his only hope.

The little group began by singing choruses and praying, but it was all Paul could do to keep from interrupting. Even talking to God, they sounded defeated. Rather than asking for wisdom and guidance and courage, all they pleaded for now was protection and peace. There was going to be precious little of that soon enough. When the worship segment was over, Paul stood and faced wary eyes, except for Chapp’s. He apparently couldn’t bring himself to look at Paul.

Paul began quietly, earnestly, planning to warm to his topic as he took cues from the body language of his audience. “Chappell,” he began, “what’s happened to you? I was told one thing about you before I got here, that you were intense. That suggested I might have a hard time keeping up with you, that you would set a pace and a tone that would inspire me to do what I had to do in a tough and dangerous situation.

“At first I found you that way, talking fast, thinking fast, earnest, passionate. I give you some inside information, tell you what’s coming from the government tomorrow, expect you to lead by example, get your troops fired up, lead the charge in the name of Christ, and what do I get? You’re folding your tents, man.”

Chapp had at least raised his head and was looking at Paul now.

“And then I hear of the tragedy that has befallen the body here. It’s awful. It’s maddening. It’s enough to make you want to kill or quit. Well, frankly I expected the former, not the latter. Nothing we can do will bring that young woman back, but we can conduct ourselves in such a way that she will not have died in vain. We can, in her memory, get our backs up and oppose this evil world system, can’t we?

“Chapp, are you done? Are you finished? Should the torch be passed to Lothair or one of these other younger, braver, brasher people? Because your intensity is just a memory now. If I were part of the leadership team here—and worse, if I were part of the rank and file—your example would inspire me to do what? Oh, I don’t know. Quit?”

He was making Chapp mad now; Paul could see that. That was better than nothing. “If you’ll all bear with me, I want to tell you the story of what happened in Los Angeles.” Paul could tell he finally had their ears. They had been scowling at him, and some still were, probably out of loyalty to their besieged leader. But they were plainly interested now.

He told them of the underground factions in L.A. and how they had been beaten down again and again, suffering losses, even slaughter. “It would have been easy to cave, to give in and give up. No one, not even I, would have faulted them if they had. How much should people be expected to take?

“That’s what I wondered when I heard your story, Chapp. I  don’t know where I’d be if I had lost my wife and kids simply because I wanted to exercise a right that was privileged in my country—and yours—not so many years ago. I have to wonder if I would still be a part of the underground, of the resistance. Well, here you are. You’re still here. But are you leading the charge, or are you in the way?

“From a human standpoint, the L.A. underground was whipped. This wasn’t even Gideon against the Midianites anymore. Those would have seemed favorable odds compared to a bunch of loosely organized, petrified, clandestine groups facing the military strength of the United Seven States of America. And so they did the only thing they could think of. They called on their one final resource, the unconquerable King.

“They prayed that God would smite their enemies. And then they told their enemies they had prayed that and warned them that if they didn’t stop killing believers, God would act. And He did. Do you know what the USSA has done about Los Angeles? They have abandoned it. No one but a believer can survive there anyway, so the government pretends it doesn’t exist.

“Chapp, listen to me. I’m in no position to tell you how to feel or react. But I am here as your brother, telling you that come tomorrow, the clock begins ticking toward the end of the underground resistance as we know it. Maybe that’s a good thing. No longer will we have a choice. Within sixty days, remaining underground will not be an option. Shall we put the chairs on the wagon ’cause the meeting’s over? Or do we carry our colors into the public square and declare ourselves?

“Frankly, I’m no more eager to do that than you are, except that I know we have the victory in hand. I don’t know how God is going to do it; I know only that He has to, because we can’t. Chapp, if you could ask God to do in Europe something like He did in Los Angeles, what would it be?”

Paul sat and let the question hang in the air. If anyone but Chapp began to speak, Paul was prepared to shush them. The question had been put to their leader, and Paul wanted an answer.

“Well, one thing I wouldn’t do,” Chapp said, his voice tight, “is ask Him to help me flush out Styr Magnor.”

Several nodded, but Paul sighed through his nose. “That wasn’t the question. We’ll deal with that in a minute.” Starting over, slowly and articulately, and yes, he realized, condescendingly, Paul asked the question again: “Chapp, if you could ask God to do in Europe something like He did in Los Angeles, what would it be?”

“It’s not going to sound loving,” Chapp said.

“And why should it?” Paul said. “Do you think God’s shutting off the water supply to Los Angeles was loving? That was vehemence. That was judgment.”

“I don’t know if He even still does things like this,” Chapp said.

“‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,’” Paul said. He could tell he had caught Chapp’s imagination at last. But then, just as it seemed Chapp was about to speak, he sat forward and buried his face in his hands, shaking his head. “This is just an exercise, brother,” Paul added. “There’s no wrong answer.”

“Yes, there is,” Chapp said. “All I can think of is mayhem and ruin. There’s nothing loving about what I am thinking.”

“Again I remind you of Los Angeles, friend. God woos His own in love, but He judges His enemies in wrath and anger. Who are we to say which is preferred?”

Chapp looked up again, his face red and wet with tears. “I feel such rage. I want God to act. I want Him to take a stand on the part of His people. I want Him to deal a blow to the enemy.”

“Say it, Chapp.”

“I want Him to rain down judgment on those who punish us for believing in Him.”

Paul said, “Have you considered that you have not because you ask not?”

“I don’t know that I dare to ask.”

“Tell us,” Paul said. “Let us decide whether we want to pray with you for this.”

“Yes,” someone else said. “Tell us, Chapp.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Please.”

“All right,” he said. “But I confess it does not make me feel better to think it and can likely only make me feel worse to express it. I compare the International Government to Egypt and us to the children of Israel. Chancellor Dengler is Pharaoh. . . . ”

The rest glanced at each other, and Paul was getting the drift.

“What I want,” Chapp said, “is a plague on the house of our oppressor.”

“A plague?” someone said, making a face. “Chapp, that’s awful.”

“You see?” Chapp said. “You’re right. I’m in the flesh. This is no good.”

Paul sat silent. It had rocked him too, but he had been the one who encouraged this thinking. Was God really the same yesterday, today, and forever?

“I am not willing to pray for that,” Lothair said.

In the midst of some murmuring, another said, “Neither am I. It sounds more mean than just.”

“‘I will take vengeance,’ says the Lord,” a woman said.

“Then it is for Him to accomplish and not for us,” Chapp said.

Paul nodded. “Now you’re talking.” But what was Chapp talking about?

“She’s in Europe now?” Jae said. “That’s what you’re telling me? If I’m such a crucial part of this new team, why would I not have known that?”

She and her father sat in the living room while Jae’s mother made breakfast for the kids.

“Not all members of the team are required to approve every decision,” Ranold said. “Chief Balaam is my designee for this operation, as well as our choice to represent us in Bern for Chancellor Dengler’s announcement Monday morning.”

“And Paul didn’t know she was coming?”

“Of course not.”

“But he does now?”

Ranold looked at his watch. “By now, he should. And the bug should have been planted.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ranold looked self-conscious again. Jae hated when that happened. That meant he had something he knew she ought to know but was sheepish about telling her. This from one of the most powerful men in America. When he got this way, especially with her, she came as close to hating him as a daughter could hate her father.

“When, ah, Chief Balaam greets Paul, she will plant on his person, probably his jacket or whatever piece of material she touches, a microscopic device that will transmit to a receiver she can use to record anything useful.”

“Such as?”

“Conversations.”

“With?”

“With whomever, Jae. If he is behaving, he should have nothing to worry about.”

“I want to know if you are hoping to catch him in subversive activity or an infidelity.”

“Frankly, I don’t care, Jae. Either will confirm my suspicion that he is not the new man you believe him to be.”

“But the latter is my business, not yours, not the NPO’s, not Bia Balaam’s, and certainly not the USSA’s.”

“It will go a long way in solidifying your role on the team though, won’t it?”

“Your pursuing it might cost having me on the team at all.”

“I don’t believe that, Jae. I admire your loyalty to Paul; I really do. I confess I don’t understand it. If I thought your mother was unfaithful to me, I’d be homicidal.”

As she should have been, rather than averting her eyes so many times?

“But this,” Ranold continued, “is intended merely as a monitor. Maybe it will record Paul doing what he is supposed to be doing, and it will go in his file as another stellar example of great work.”

“Yeah, right. That’ll happen.”

“But if in setting him up to see how he responds to an interesting situation we also find that he is fraternizing with the enemy, that could prove very beneficial as well.”

“You set him up?”

Her father’s gaze was darting again, and he actually reddened.

Jae stood. “Just tell me. You know I’m going to be steamed either way, so just put it on the table.”

Paul remembered the sweet hours of prayer with the underground in Los Angeles as he and the other members of the French underground knelt. He had to admit, this was not the same. Singly, in pairs, and sometimes all at once, they poured out their hearts to God, beseeching Him to act. Some prayed that He would unleash judgment as He had in the book of Exodus to persuade the evil world leaders to let His people out from under the tyranny of religious persecution. Others pleaded with Him to show mercy and patience, to use some other means to get through to the hard hearts in Bern.

“All we want is to serve You,” someone prayed. “All we want is the freedom to tell others the news of Your salvation and see them come to Christ.”

When they finished praying, Chappell had a concrete, practical idea. “Just like in Los Angeles, we need to publish our response to what the government is doing. Once the announcement is made in Bern, we need to circulate far and wide our warning that if any believers suffer because they refuse to sign the decree—obeying man rather than God—we are praying that God will make the government regret it.”

“Frankly,” one of the older men said, “I will be praying at cross-purposes to that.”

“So, God was wrong in Exodus?”

Paul knew God was never wrong, but he didn’t know how to pray either. He stood and approached Chapp. “You and I need to talk in private about what we’re going to do about Styr Magnor. I know that soon enough I will have to declare my true loyalties publicly, and that will mean the end of my tenure within the government. But if we can buy even a few days in the meantime by delivering this terrorist, it will also serve to protect the world from mortal danger.”