29

Right after dinner, Finney slipped back to his condo and sat down at the keyboard. He logged on to Westlaw and stared at the screen. This would be so much easier if he could write a few things down. But the camera recorded every move and he couldn’t take that chance.

He racked his brain to think of search requests that would fit the encryption pattern for the code contained in the introduction to The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ. Everything that crossed his mind was too obvious. Today he had cross-examined Ando. Tomorrow it would be Finney’s turn to be grilled by Kareem. Finney needed to think of search requests that made it look like he was getting ready for Kareem’s questions.

He finally settled on a few simple searches, though he knew Nikki Moreno would not be happy.

da (after 1/1/03) Hearsay and “Proof of Resurrection” and “firsthand Knowledge”

He received a response from Westlaw that said no documents satisfied his request, but he thought it at least looked legitimate. His next request read:

da (after 1/1/02) Resurrection and Muslim and “Generally held beliefs”

This search generated a whole slew of documents, and Finney took his time reviewing them. Then he typed in one final search:

da (after 1/1/00) Islam and “Lebanese sects”

He reviewed the one newspaper article that surfaced and shook his head. He should have thought of this earlier. He could hear Nikki now.

Nikki arrived at the Waterside parking lot after a painfully slow trip from the Chesapeake suburbs. Wellington Farnsworth might be the world’s greatest code geek, but he clearly had a thing or two to learn about driving if he intended to keep up with Nikki Moreno. Twice she had to pull the Sebring over and wait after sneaking through a yellowish-reddish light that Wellington refused to run. She tried to reach him on his cell phone so she could tell him to pick it up a little, but she ended up in his voice mail. On the interstate she finally gave up and puttered along in the right lane with the grandmas and accountants so Wellington wouldn’t disappear from her rearview mirror.

By the time they hit the parking deck, it was nearly 9:00 p.m. Nikki had been working her cell phone furiously, making sure the collection buckets would be sitting at the door of Norfolk’s Finest Sports Bar.

Nikki squeezed into a spot with her Sebring and watched Wellington take forever to park the minivan. Forward and back three times before he finally got it straightened out. He emerged from the vehicle with his trusty laptop under his arm.

“You won’t need that until later,” Nikki said. “We’ll check for messages after the show.”

Wellington put the laptop back in the van and pushed the automatic lock on the key chain twice. Each time, the van responded with an obedient beep.

Nikki gave Wellington the dog-eared copy of The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ she had lifted from Finney’s office. “Don’t lose this,” she said. “I ordered another book online, but right now it’s the only copy we’ve got.”

Wellington took the book gingerly, his round eyes wide, as if he were holding some ancient Egyptian treasure. He opened it to the introduction.

“Not now,” Nikki said as she started toward the elevator in the parking garage. “We’re already running late.”

In the elevator Nikki handed Wellington the second piece of the puzzle: a folded sheet of paper with a series of random letters written on it.

“I pulled these from the first page of the introduction,” Nikki explained. “Finney tried to hide them in the interior design of the book—you’ll see what I mean. They’re somewhat obscure, but I found them.” She took a second to bask in her accomplishment before having to admit her failure. “But I couldn’t find the key anywhere in the introduction. Seems like we’re missing the secret decoder ring.”

Wellington took the paper and stared at it. The bell rang and they disembarked from the elevator. Wellington walked slowly, his eyes glued to the letters Nikki had recorded:

YOVHHVWZIVGSVXLWVYIVZPVIHULIGSVB

HSZOOFMWVIHGZMWGSVNBHGVIRVH

“C’mon,” Nikki said, picking up the pace. “You’ll have time to analyze that inside.” She watched Wellington tuck the paper inside the book as they crossed the street.

“I can probably solve it without a key,” Wellington said matter-of-factly. “I think that’s the whole point.”

“Yeah,” Nikki said. “I tried that too.” She tried not to sound defensive. But how could anyone solve that list of garbled letters without a key?

“By the way,” she said, “you might want to make sure your cell phone is on. I tried to call a couple times but kept getting your voice mail.”

“I know,” Wellington said. “Sorry about that, but I don’t use my cell phone while I’m driving, and I didn’t want to pull over and lose you.”

That’s a dumb rule, Nikki thought, but for once in her life she chose not to verbalize her every thought. Still, her silence must have conveyed the message because Wellington felt compelled to respond.

“Drivers who talk on their cell phones are four times as likely to have accidents injuring themselves,” Wellington said. “It’s why states make it illegal to talk on a cell phone and drive at the same time.”

“What do the studies say about talking on the cell phone while putting on makeup?” Nikki asked.

“While driving?” Wellington asked, as if the feat Nikki described were humanly impossible.

But Nikki didn’t have time to answer. They were walking through the door of Norfolk’s Finest Sports Bar, and Wellington was about to get carded.

“He’s my designated driver,” Nikki said, pulling Wellington past the bouncer. “He won’t be drinking tonight.”

The bouncer nodded. He knew whose party this was.

Thursday night’s show started slowly, in Nikki’s opinion. The first half hour seemed more like a documentary than a reality show. She had distanced herself from Wellington quickly so the eligible bachelors wouldn’t get the wrong impression, though they would probably think he was a little brother or a cousin rather than a date. She did walk over to check on Wellington a few times. He was sitting alone in a booth, sipping a soft drink while he watched the show with one eye and studied Finney’s book with the other. He would check something on a page in the book and then make a note inside the front cover, check the page again, and make another note.

“You having fun?” Nikki asked.

“Sure.”

“Making any progress?”

“I think so. But I need to slip outside and make a call. It’s a little loud in here.”

“Okay,” Nikki said, talking above the noise.

She felt a strong arm drape around her shoulder. It was attached to a killer body. Byron had finally noticed the vibes she had been throwing off. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said.

She tried not to act excited, but it wasn’t easy. Byron was an investigative reporter for a local television network—the consumer advocate for Hampton Roads. Nikki had always swooned at Byron’s hidden camera pieces. “He can hide a camera on me anytime,” she told her friends.

“I’ll check back a little later,” she told Wellington.

Byron introduced Nikki to a few of his cohorts, and she threw out some hints about dancing later. Though Byron worked for a different network than the one airing Faith on Trial, he seemed to be enjoying himself. He bought another round of drinks and critiqued the production values of the show for anybody who cared to listen. Most turned their attention back to the television as the commercials yielded to another segment of the show.

The producers had zeroed in on the relationship between faith and health. They raised the question of whether miracles of healing ever occurred, and they interviewed various experts. They did profiles on the terminal diseases attacking the contestants—all except Dr. Kline, who apparently didn’t need a terminal disease to be healed from since she didn’t believe in God anyway. They showed the interviews of the contestants from the cross-examination room, with Finney affirming his belief in a God who heals.

They concluded the segment by showing Judge Javitts’s challenge to the contestants, telling them that they would be examined by medical experts near the conclusion of their two weeks on the island, just to see if God had chosen a favorite in the reality show and had healed one of the contestants. They didn’t show the reactions of the contestants to Javitts’s challenge.

Nikki seriously doubted whether God was going to heal a man who had been a smoker his entire life. Especially one who refused to give up cigars even now. She was saddened, however, as she learned the full extent of her judge’s cancer. She knew he had been treated in the past, but she didn’t realize how much the cancer had spread. Finney had always been private about it. Now the whole nation knew.

She found herself with conflicting emotions. There was the spine-tingling thrill of sitting next to Byron, who was chock-full of insider tips about how to improve the show. Nikki was imagining herself later that night, cavorting around the Virginia Beach dance floors with God’s gift to women, a local celebrity desired by every red-blooded young lady in Tidewater. But then there was the judge, his face plastered all over the television screens in Norfolk’s Finest Sports Bar, talking about his inoperable and spreading cancer.

The morbid subject seemed to cast a pall over everyone. It didn’t stop the flow of beer; in fact, it probably increased it as the patrons thought about their own mortality. But there was none of the bawdy cheering and hollering that had characterized the place on Tuesday night.

Until the show entered the last twenty minutes.

On Tuesday the producers had promised temptation, and on Thursday they delivered. They focused first on Dr. Kline and the Swami, with hints that the others would have their day later.

Surprisingly, Dr. Kline’s temptation had been orchestrated even before she arrived on Paradise Island. Through clever use of hidden cameras, and the cooperation of some of Dr. Kline’s colleagues at the university, the show’s producers had set up a scenario tempting Kline to exaggerate some test results on a government grant proposal. Though the shading of the results would have virtually guaranteed the grant, Kline steadfastly refused to go along with her colleagues.

Boring, Nikki thought. She was much more interested in the temptation of the next contestant. The Swami, it seemed, had been falling under the spell of the ex-reality-show bachelorette, Tammy Dietz. Though the girl made a lousy host, she knew all the right signals to send to the eager Swami, enticing him to stop by her condo late one night. She shooed away the cameraman who had followed him and apparently neglected to inform the Swami that her condo had cameras hidden in the walls.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” she asked, coming up for breath after a particularly long kiss. “I signed something saying I wouldn’t get involved with any contestants. I don’t want to lose my job.”

“Nobody will ever know,” the Swami said as he pulled her close for more.

It turned out to be quite a night for the Swami. He not only got the girl, but when the results from Tuesday’s audience verdict was announced, the Swami came out the winner. “Remember,” Judge Javitts said, “the results are based not on the total number of votes but on the number of converts, determined by the extent to which the contestants exceeded their baseline percentages.”

The verdict brought Norfolk’s Finest Sports Bar to life, with a hearty round of boos and widespread heckling of the television screen. Byron had a few choice words about the Swami that Nikki chalked up to jealous male testosterone. The lawyers at the bar tossed around talk of lawsuits and corrupt Hollywood producers. On the screen, Javitts was explaining that next Tuesday’s show would feature excerpts from the contestants’ cross-examinations of one another. Viewers could submit their own questions by e-mail. Javitts would pick the most interesting ones and ask them in the cross-examination room.

Things quieted down again for the stunning conclusion. There were pictures of Kline and Finney sailing, with hints of a May-December romance. A question was left hanging in the air: “Will other contestants fall to the temptations of Paradise Island?”

And then the credits rolled.