The Israeli officer hesitated, his expression alert and cautious. Ethan saw his eyes scan their bodies for any sign of explosive devices, a grim reminder of the threat to Israel from suicide bombers. Ethan’s ripped shirt betrayed the presence of no suspicious packages however, and the officer waved them forward.
“Ethan Warner?” the officer asked briskly.
“How the hell did you know we were here?” Ethan stammered.
“We got a call from Washington,” the officer said. “Follow me.”
Ethan led Rachel past the tank, its huge diesel engine idling now in the darkness, and knew that they would be safely escorted from Gaza. Doug Jarvis had come through once again.
“I need a direct line to the office of the commander of the Israeli Defense Force,” Ethan told the soldier as he directed them to an armored personnel carrier parked nearby. “There’s a lot I need to tell them.”
“There’s a lot the Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to tell you,” the officer replied, turning and pressing a pistol to Ethan’s chest as another soldier grabbed his wrists and bound them in handcuffs.
“What are you doing?” Rachel demanded.
“Ethan Warner, you are under arrest,” the officer said briskly. “I suggest that you reconsider your alliance with him, Ms. Morgan. He won’t be in this country by the morning.”
ROOM 517, HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
CONSTITUTION AVENUE, WASHINGTON DC
Kelvin Patterson stared at his appearance in the smoked-glass windows of Senator Isaiah Black’s twin duplex suite in the Senate building. He looked tired, older than his years. Maybe the late nights were wearing him down, but this one was important enough to justify. He straightened his tie and smoothed his hair before retaking his seat.
In years gone by, men like Senator Black would have flocked to his church, eager to be seen to worship with the vigor of times gone by. No more. Now, such men considered themselves more powerful than him, more powerful even than God. From his viewpoint he could see the marble facade of the Hart Senate Office Building that led into a cavernous ninety-foot-high central atrium populated by milling crowds of diplomats, civil servants, and tourists. Walkways bridged the spaces above the atrium on each of the building’s nine stories. Dominating the ground floor was a fifty-foot-high sculpture in black aluminum, Mountains and Clouds, suspended from a ceiling above that allowed natural light to illuminate the building.
A monument to power, and all of it before the eyes of a God they sullied with their arrogance. Patterson had been forced to cancel his press conference in light of the changing polls, and now found himself waiting on Senator Black’s doorstep like any other citizen, begging for a chance to be heard.
As Patterson watched, a long black limousine pulled up outside the building and a tall man in a dark suit got out, surrounded by staff wearing earpieces and sunglasses. Senator Black strode into the Hart Senate Building surrounded by a maelstrom of journalists, broadsides of camera flashes and salvos of questions bombarding the senator’s entourage as they wound their way through the atrium below.
Greater than God, Patterson thought to himself as Senator Black dismissed the wolves of the press with a bright smile, a wave, and a slick one-liner that dispersed the journalists with a trickle of laughter.
Patterson stood, and watched as the elevator nearby signaled the senator’s imminent arrival.
“Pastor,” the senator greeted him as he stepped from the elevator, his staff on either side of him, “I didn’t expect to see you before the rally tomorrow.”
Patterson shook his hand, following Black into the suite and closing the door behind him.
“Something came up.”
They sat down on opposite sides of the senator’s desk.
“What can I do for you?” Black asked.
“I take it that you have seen the news?”
Senator Black smiled at the pastor. “It would appear that the opinion polls have shifted considerably.”
Patterson concealed a sudden ripple of displeasure that twisted deep within his belly.
“In our favor, Senator?”
Isaiah Black leaned back in his chair. “In mine.”
Patterson watched as the senator tossed a newspaper onto the desk to face him. It was folded so that the opinion polls were uppermost. Patterson scanned them with a renewed sense of dismay.
“The polls are unreliable, the people fickle.”
Isaiah Black shook his head. “Yesterday they were reliable, according to you.”
Patterson felt his features twist into something between a smile and a grimace.
“It would be unwise to act with haste on such dismissable statistics.”
The senator shook his head slowly.
“The people are voting with their feet, Pastor. New York,