“It simulates a breakdown in the technology. Like if you’re watching TV and the signal breaks up. It makes it go all jumpy with static, then it just crashes. It’s designed to be minimally counterintuitive. What you’d expect to see if the sign was a fake. It’ll conjure up a broadcast that’s going haywire.” Danny gave him an uncomfortable smile. “It was either that or a huge Coca-Cola sign.”
“What if we don’t do this and it never comes out?” Gracie threw in, thinking aloud. “I mean, what if there was a way to get Drucker and his guys to keep their mouths shut?”
“The evangelicals would get to keep their new messiah, and Darby and his friends on the far right would get to choose our next few presidents,” Rydell observed gloomily.
“Well by breaking the story and letting people know who was really behind it and what their agenda was, it’ll be even worse,” Gracie countered. “Either way, Darby and all his pals are going to come out of this stronger. Once you and Drucker are exposed, all the heathens and depraved liberals across the country are going to be demonized. We’ll be giving the hard-core right their biggest rallying cry since the fall of the evil empire. Branding people as ‘anti-American’ will get a whole new lease on life. They’ll run away with the next ten elections and turn the country into a Christian theocracy.”
“Hang on, we’re talking about a handful of guys who put this stunt in play, not an entire political party,” Danny protested.
“It doesn’t matter,” Gracie argued back. “What matters is how they’ll spin it. How they’ll use it to split the country even further. They’ll tar everyone with the same brush and make it look like everyone on Drucker’s side of the aisle was in cahoots with him. That’s what they do. And they’re damn good at it too. Just imagine what someone like Karl Rove could do with it.”
“Hey, maybe we could draft him and the other scumbags who sold us the war in Iraq and have them pin this thing on Iran,” Dalton joked.
The others all turned to him with deeply unamused eyes.
“What? I’m kidding,” he protested, his palms turned out.
A dreary silence smothered the room. On the TV, the anchor was back on briefly before the image cut away to footage of violent riots in Islamabad and in Jerusalem. Across the screen, people were clashing furiously as cars blazed behind them. Police officers and soldiers were in the thick of it, trying to stop the carnage.
Gracie sat up. “Turn it up,” she told Dalton, who was closest to the TV.
“. . . religious leaders have urged their followers to show restraint while the questions surrounding Father Jerome are answered, but the violence here shows no sign of abating,” an off-camera reporter was saying.
An anchor came back on, and a banner at the bottom of the screen said, “President to make statement on Houston events.”
“Following the unprecedented events in Houston earlier this evening,” he announced, “a White House spokeswoman indicated that the president would be making a statement tomorrow.”
Gracie and the others didn’t need to hear the rest.
Drucker’s web was spinning out of control.
“Even the president’s getting suckered into this,” Rydell said.
“We can’t let that happen,” Gracie insisted. She let out a dejected sigh and sagged back in her seat. “This is just going to sink us all.” The room went silent. After a moment, Dalton asked, “So what do we do? ’Cause it seems to me like we need to do this pronto, but we’re screwed either way, whether we expose it or not.”
Rydell sat up. “We can expose it,” he stated. “We have to. But only if I take the fall for it. Alone.”
That got everyone’s attention.
He pressed on. “It’s the only way.” His voice was quivering slightly, a tremble of nerves that was alien to Larry Rydell. “My plan didn’t call for a fall guy. It was never intended to empower or undermine any religion. It was just meant to get people to listen. But now . . . after what they’ve done, the way they’ve turned it . . . We’re all agreed that we can’t let this lie go on. But Drucker’s right. We need a fall guy with no political motive if we’re going to avoid tearing this country apart. And that fall guy’s got to be me.” He sighed, then looked around at them with renewed determination. “There’s no other