Reverend Roy Averill Simmonds transferred from his Mercedes to the rented school bus at the preselected rendezvous point on Maryland Avenue, twenty blocks from the Capitol. His chauffeur stayed with the car, looking rather nervous to be left alone in the run-down neighborhood. Simmonds heard the door locks click behind him. The two aides who had been riding with him accompanied Reverend Simmonds as he climbed aboard the shabby, rickety bus. They were both big men, their faces expressionless as statues.
The people aboard the crowded, sweaty bus were overjoyed to have him among them. They were mostly youngish, in their twenties and thirties, new parents from a suburban church outside Baltimore. Reverend Simmonds worked his way along the aisle, shaking hands with each man and woman in the seats as the bus lurched and swayed through the hot summer sunshine.
“God bless you!” they called to him. “Thank the Lord for your strength!”
He smiled at each and every individual one of them, a bright beaming smile full of confidence and goodwill. He was a tiny man, even in his elevator shoes, almost delicate. Compactly built, a feisty bantam who stood out in a crowd because of that glowing smile and the palpable radiance of his personality. Sandy hair cropped short, light hazel eyes that could peer into the depths of your soul, he looked youthful and energetic, except for the shaggy eyebrows that showed a few strands of gray. And the faint scars behind his ears. But only an expert would notice such traces of cosmetic surgery. He wore plain tan slacks and a summer-weight sports jacket of slightly darker brown. No tie. He was no better dressed than the people with whom he rode.
One of his aides held a tiny oblong black cell phone in one beefy hand, with its receiver plugged into his ear. He whispered to Reverend Simmonds as they made their way down the length of the bus, hand over hand along the grips set into the seat backs.
When they got to the rear of the bus and all the passengers had turned in their seats to watch him, Reverend Simmonds raised both hands above his head and announced:
“We have more than a thousand people already at the Capitol, and more on the way!” His voice was strong and surprisingly deep.
Everyone cheered.
“Are you ready to show the world what God wants of us?” he demanded. The strength of that voice never failed to move people.
“Yes!” they shouted back, as one voice.
“Are you ready to force those godless scientists to obey the Lord’s will?”
“Yes!” they screamed louder.
The bus was braking to a stop, still some two blocks from the Capitol.
“Then let’s get out there and win the day for Jesus!”
They boiled out of the bus, impatiently yanking their printed placards from the bus’s luggage compartment and joining the growing crowd that was marching along the avenue toward the Capitol building, waving their signs like battle standards.
Simmonds descended from the bus, but did not join the march. He watched while another aide in a dark suit and string tie came running up to him, sweating and breathless.
“CNN van just arrived,” he gulped out.
“What about the other networks?” Simmonds asked, squinting into the bright sunlight.
The young man bobbed his head. “They’re all there, including Fox.”
Simmonds smiled. Turning to the aide with the cell phone, he said, “Get them ready.”
The sweaty young man said, “There’s others here, though.”
“Others?”
“People who’re for Marshak.”
Simmonds blinked with surprise. “Who brought them here?”
The young man shrugged inside his loose-fitting dark jacket.
“They’re not organized,” said the aide with the radio. “According to our front men, they’re just a bunch of old folks and cripples.”
“A spontaneous demonstration?” Reverend Simmonds smiled ironically. “How quaint.”
“They could cause trouble,” the other aide said.
Simmonds’s smile widened slightly. “Good,” he said. Then, motioning to his little group of assistants, he started walking toward the Capitol. “Let’s get cracking. If there’s going to be trouble, it’ll be on the news this evening. And if it’s on TV, I’ve got to be on the screen, right in the middle of it all.”