was no longer there. A scream of horror confirmed his worst fears and he ran faster, his heart fighting its way out of his rib cage, imagining the worst. As he drew nearer, he spotted Jabba’s silhouette, flat on his back on the curb outside a nearby house.
He wasn’t moving.
A couple of onlookers were huddled beside him, the man checking him out hesitantly, the woman staring down, riveted with fear, her hands cupping her mouth.
“Jabba,” Matt yelled as he slid to the ground beside him.
In the darkness, it was hard to see where the wound was, but a pool of blood was spreading out from under him. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, but he caught sight of Matt and tried to say something, but coughed and was having trouble forming the words.
“Did we get her?” he sputtered.
Matt nodded and said, “She’s right here,” turning around to give Jabba a glimpse of Rebecca Rydell, who inched forward, her face flooded with sadness. “Don’t talk,” Matt told him, gripping his hand, tight. “Just hang on, okay? Hang on. You’re going to be fine.” He turned to the couple looming over him. “Call 911,” he shouted. “Call them now.”
The woman raced into the house. Matt just stayed there, hanging onto Jabba—hoping to avoid the worst, cursing himself for having dragged him along—for what felt like hours but was actually less than ten minutes until an ambulance finally showed up.
Matt stayed with him as the paramedics fussed over him before bundling him onto their stretcher with breathtaking efficiency.
Matt kept asking, “Is he going to be okay?” but he couldn’t get a straight answer out of them. With a devastating sense of loss choking him, he watched as they wheeled Jabba into the back of the ambulance, shut the doors, and stormed off.
He heard another siren—a police cruiser this time—and glanced at Rebecca Rydell. She was huddled on the lawn, still shivering.
“Come on,” he said as, mouthing a silent prayer for the life of his new friend, he took her hand and led her away from the horror-struck crowd that had gathered around the blazing house.
Chapter 64
Houston, Texas
“Where are they now?” Buscema asked the preacher. Reverend Darby was in his study. It was late, but he didn’t mind Buscema’s call. He owed him for giving him the heads-up on Father Jerome’s predicament. He also didn’t mind the ego boost he got from talking about it with virtually the only other person in the country outside his organization who knew what he was doing.
“They should be landing in Shannon, Ireland, about an hour and a half from now,” he told Buscema. “It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to refuel the jet.” Darby sounded even more pumped than during his sermons.
“So what time will they get here?”
“I make it around six A.M., Houston time.”
Buscema went silent. Then he said, “You might want to delay their arrival a bit.”
“Why?”
“Well, I suppose it depends,” Buscema thought out loud. “You could sneak him in under the radar. Might be safer to play it that way.”
“Or we could turn his arrival into a major event,” Darby said, completing Buscema’s train of thought. He pondered it for a moment, then said, “I was wondering about that. You’re right. He deserves to make a big entrance. We shouldn’t be sneaking him in like some petty criminal. The man’s God’s emissary, for crying out loud. We’re not like those savages. We’re going to welcome him with open arms. Let’s show the country and the world where America’s moral center really is.”
“I can help leak it,” Buscema told him. “Just give me as much of a heads-up as you can.”
Darby played it out in his mind’s eye. He saw it as something big. Momentous. He flashed to news footage he’d watched a year earlier, of the pope arriving at Andrews Air Force Base. The red carpet, the military dress uniforms. The president and the first lady, greeting him as he stepped off the plane. His mind went back to older footage he’d seen several times. Grainy, black-and-white footage of the Beatles, arriving at Kennedy airport, back in 1964. That was more like it. The frenzied mob, heaving against barricades. The continuous, earsplitting screams. Flashbulbs popping, women wailing. Sheer adulation. That’s what this would be like. That’s what it should be like. With him at the center of it.
The thought put a smile on his face. It would be a defining moment. For the country and, more significantly,