“What are you telling them?” Morgan asked.
Rachel detected a sympathetic tone in Morgan’s
voice.
“Not much. Just that the reports of unexplained
events are being researched, but as yet there is nothing to
report.”
“Sounds general enough,” Morgan said.
“The real problem is Priscilla Simms. She’s becoming
a real pain. Apparently she’s made this her journalistic
crusade.”
“So how do we deal with her?” Morgan puffed faster
on his pipe, sending a chain of small clouds rising toward the
ceiling.
“I don’t know, but I think she has an inside
source—someone who is informing her of every occurrence. That
source needs to be stopped.”
“Who would betray this hospital?” Morgan asked.
Rachel wondered at the word
betray.
She had
previously noticed that Morgan often referred to the hospital as
his
hospital, but had always written it off as a convention
of speech. Could he really view the hospital as his personal
kingdom?
“Anyone,” Fuller said matter-of-factly, “doctors,
nurses, orderlies. You see, many people view these reporters as
stars. Just talking to them gives them a thrill. You know, they
have a few friends to the house and then they say, ‘Oh, I know what
you mean. When I was talking to Priscilla Simms—you know, of the
Evening News
—well, she and I were talking and . . .’ You get
the idea.”
“Still, it could be more than one person.” Morgan
turned back to the window. “So how do we locate the source or
sources?”
“Let me see if I can run that one down,” Sanchez
replied.
“Okay,” Morgan said, “but do it quickly. I don’t
want any more leaks. I want the pipeline to Simms shut down.”
Turning from the window, he asked Rachel, “Did your interview with
the Loraynes’ minister help us any?”
“Not really,” Rachel said. “He assumed that Lorayne
had only come out of the coma. He didn’t know about the . . .”
Rachel struggled for an acceptable term. “About the physical
alteration.”
Morgan turned back to the window. “Where was he when
the event happened?”
“In the cafeteria with the family.”
“He just left them there to go up to the ICU?”
“They were struggling with whether to sign the
heroic efforts release papers. He left to give them some
privacy.”
“And when he walked into Lorayne’s cubicle, what did
he see?”
“The patient sitting up in bed.”
Even with Morgan’s back turned to her, she could
tell he was puffing on his pipe more. A stream of smoke rose to the
ceiling. “I wonder,” he said quietly.
“Excuse me,” Rachel said, unsure of what she
heard.
“I was just wondering if he could be our man.”
Morgan turned and walked to the conference table. “After all, no
one saw him come in. He knows the family. The nurses were tied up
with other patients.” Turning to Sanchez he asked, “Bill, what kind
of evidence do the police look for at a crime? I mean if you
already have a suspect.”
“Just like what you see on television.” Sanchez sat
up as he spoke. “We look for evidence that shows motive, means, and
opportunity.”
Morgan paused thoughtfully. “Well, this preacher had
motive, he’s a friend of the family; he had opportunity when he was
in Lorayne’s room alone. The only thing we don’t know is if he has
the means.” Turning to Rachel he asked, “What do you think? Could
he be our man?”
Rachel thought for a moment. “What about the other
events?”
“He was a patient of yours, wasn’t he?”
“He has his own physician, but I performed the
emergency appendectomy.”
“When was he admitted?” Sanchez asked.
“Sunday, a few weeks ago,” Rachel said then paused
to mentally calculate the date. “That would be March 1st. He came
in a little before noon. We operated soon after that.”
Sanchez rolled the cigarette back and forth between
his fingers. “That’s the day of the first heal . . . occurrence.
The second event happened the next day.”
“Interesting,” Morgan said.
“Wait a minute,” Rachel remarked. “The first healing
took place in the predawn hours of March 1st, Bridger wasn’t
admitted until hours later.”
“Does Bridger live in the city?” Sanchez asked.
“Yes.”
“Then what’s to stop him from taking a little
late-night drive down here?”
“This doesn’t make sense to me.” Rachel shook her
head. “Why would a person who can heal others need to be admitted
to the hospital for surgery?”
“Maybe things aren’t what they seem.” Sanchez looked
up.
“His appendix was real,” Rachel said. “I held it in
my hands, and I cleaned up the mess it left. His attack was real.
It still doesn’t make sense.”
“And what, Dr. Tremaine,” Sanchez said calmly, “does
make sense about any of this? A terminal cancer patient with no
cancer, a burn victim with no burns, and a surgery patient with no
scar. This makes as much sense as anything I’ve seen so far.”
Rachel sat quietly. Sanchez was right; nothing made
sense anymore.
“Perhaps,” Morgan said, taking his seat for the
first time since the meeting began, “just perhaps this deserves a
little more scrutiny.”
Monday, March 23, 1992; 12:30
P.M.
AN INTERIOR DECORATOR WOULD have considered the
office uninspired. The large room was filled with a hodgepodge of
furniture and memorabilia scattered throughout the room. On the
walls were photos of the famous and influential shaking hands with
a short, stout man with deep-set, piercing gray eyes.
It was the same short, stout man who leaned back in
his executive chair and punched a button on the TV remote that
turned off the set in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase opposite his
desk. Then he drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, lost in
thought.
A moment later he punched the telephone’s intercom
button.
“Yes, Reverend?” A sweet, high-pitched voice came
over the speaker. It instantly brought its owner’s face to mind. Of
his 230 employees, Christie Harper was the prettiest. Beauty was a
job requirement for each of his personal secretaries.
“Christie, honey,” he said smoothly, “call R.G. for
me and tell him that I need to see him in my office as soon as
possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
The man with the piercing eyes smiled as he enjoyed
the thrill of a new idea. Within the next few weeks, the name of
Reverend Paul Isaiah would be on the lips of every person in the
nation, maybe even the world.
ADAM HAD NOT DRIVEN straight home. Instead, he spent
several hours sitting alone on a park bench overlooking the azure
waters of La Jolla Cove. It was one of his favorite places in the
city. Although towers of expensive condominiums had sprung up
around the beach area, he could still come here and lose himself
watching people snorkeling in the legally-protected underwater park
or the children playing in the sand. He felt a strong compulsion to
swim with the skin divers and swimmers, with their faces under the
cool March water and their fins slapping the surface. Unfortunately
his swimsuit was at home.
This was the place he came when troubled; its serene
setting freed his cluttered mind. He often prayed as he strolled
the winding concrete walk that paralleled the shore. Other times he
simply sat, letting his mind roam. Today he was sorting the many
questions that plagued him. What had happened to David Lorayne? It
was one thing to “wake up” from a coma, but it was another thing to
have an incision completely disappear. Theologically this didn’t
bother him, but experientially it did. Why? He had always taught
that miracles were a present-day possibility. There was no biblical
reason to discount them. But on the other hand, he had never truly
seen a miracle, certainly not one of this nature.
Other questions swirled in his mind. Why did those
people in the hospital lobby make him so uncomfortable? Could there
really be a person with the power not only to make people well, but
also to reverse the effects of their illness, removing even scars?
There were plenty of biblical examples: the lame walking, lepers
given healthy skin, the paralyzed made mobile, and even the blind
being made to see. Still it was almost too much to believe.
Adam walked along the cove past Alligator Point and
continued on to the Children’s Cove. He stopped and leaned against
the rusting metal rail that separated the sidewalk from the cliffs
that bordered the shore. He gazed down the thirty-foot drop and
watched as the white-laced waves crashed on shore. He listened to
the gulls overhead and took a deep breath of salt air. It was then
that Adam learned something about himself—that he was a skeptic,
hesitant to believe that a man or woman could walk into a hospital
and facilitate a dramatic healing. Yet, if anyone should believe
such things, it should be he. After all, he was a man of faith, one
who preached faith.
Suddenly the matter took on new and greater
dimensions. It was no longer about the good news of David’s
remarkable recovery but about Adam’s faith. Not his salvation—that
was secure, and not about his belief in God—of that he had no
doubt. What he now realized was he didn’t know if he believed in
the miraculous or, at least, in contemporary miracles. This was
something he needed to know. And to know, he needed knowledge;
information about the previous healings and more facts about
David.
Adam decided a trip to the library was in order.
Monday, March 23, 1992; 12:45
P.M.
R.G. WAS TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS old and considered a
genius by those who worked with him. A rail-thin man with dark,
curly hair and a distinctive Southern drawl, he had made a name for
himself as a master statistician. He held a Ph.D. in statistical
analysis from MIT, but being bored with the world of academia he
chose a different career and spent three years working for network
television in New York, formulating and analyzing viewers’ polls.
It was in New York that he had met the Reverend Paul Isaiah.
Isaiah was a third-year student at Union Theological
Seminary, only then his name was Barry Barrows. The two men had met
through a common friend, Sara Oden. She had left her secretarial
position with the same television network where R.G. had worked to
take a position in the finance department of the seminary. She
introduced the two at a birthday party held in her apartment. R.G.
was immediately taken with the charismatic divinity student. They
became fast friends, each admiring qualities in the other that they
missed in themselves.
While both brilliant and confident, R.G. lacked
charm. He was uncomfortable around most people, preferring to be
alone. When he did seek company, he was awkward and ill at ease. He
didn’t know how to make small talk or ask questions that would lead
people to open up. At parties he stood in the corner and watched
others mingle and laugh. When he was forced into conversation, he
tended to be staid and formal. These unfortunate habits led others
to assume that he was aloof and arrogant. This had been true all
his life and slowly became a self-fulfilling prophecy: R.G. could
be arrogant and self-centered. He was, after all, brighter than
everyone he knew. He could accumulate, store, and use information
that others thought useless or obscure.
Isaiah was the opposite: outgoing, gregarious, and
garrulous. He was not an attractive man physically; his gray eyes
made him look ominous, and his short, squat body made him
unimpressive—until he opened his mouth. When he spoke, his cadence,
inflection, timbre, and delivery could be spellbinding. When he
told a story or even a joke, others stopped speaking. He could
bring men to tears with a sad tale, or make a prude laugh at a
bawdy joke. He oozed a passion for life that trapped all who knew
him in its sticky sweetness. Yet, despite his profound people
skills, he lacked the rudiments of organization. His life was
cluttered and his thoughts often in disarray.
They were as much a match intellectually as they
were a mismatch physically, fitting together like the two center
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Their friendship was sown at that party
and blossomed in the years that followed. R.G. was Isaiah’s best
friend and Isaiah was R.G.’s only friend. Jointly they strengthened
each other’s weaknesses and, sadly, misdirected each other’s
characters.
“You been watching the news of late, R.G.?” Every
word spoke of Isaiah’s North Carolina upbringing.
“Sure. I bet you’re interested in all that hospital
stuff.” R.G.’s voice had a nasal quality that most found annoying;
Isaiah, however, had learned to overlook it.
“You sound skeptical.”
“You’re the religious man. I’m just a simple
administrator.”
“There’s nothing simple about you, R.G.” Isaiah
smiled. “If it weren’t for you, this organization wouldn’t exist
and neither would its ministries. No, there’s nothing simple about
you, sir. If there were, you wouldn’t be earning six figures.”
R.G. grinned. “I never was very good at
humility.”
“Perhaps. But no one can hold a candle to you when
it comes to marketing. That’s what I want to talk to you about. I
think I know how we can increase revenues.”
R.G. opened the notebook he had brought with him.
“I’m for anything that makes money.”
Isaiah punched the intercom button. “Christie,
honey, would you bring in some coffee and see if you can scrape up
some lunch for R.G. and me? Oh, yeah, hold all the calls.”
“For how long, sir?”
“For the rest of the afternoon. I’m going to be very
busy.”
Monday, March 23, 1992; 4:00
P.M.
ADAM WAS NO STRANGER to libraries. He often
described himself as a bibliophile. He found books a comfort to be
around. His love for books had begun as a child. Smaller than most
of the neighborhood children, and possessing no innate talent for
sports, he was often teased. With few friends, Adam made friends
with books; he had found them far more faithful. As Adam grew
older, he learned to deal with people and his own poor self-image.
He developed both a keen mind and great personal confidence. He no
longer needed books for his friends, but he kept them his friends
anyway.