dropping their foreheads to the ground and prostrating themselves in fearful adulation.
Chapter 41
Washington, D.C .
“What the hell are you doing? I thought we had an agreement.” Rydell was seething. He’d been up through the night, monitoring the news. The images from Egypt had exploded across his TV screen a little after midnight, and right now, pacing around the cabin of his private jet by a quiet hangar at Reagan National Airport, his senses still throbbed with the burns of their visual sharpnel.
“We never agreed on it, Larry,” Drucker replied smoothly from his lush, padded seat. “You just wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“So you just went out and did it anyway?”
“We both have a lot invested in this. I wasn’t about to jeopardize it all because of your stubbornness.”
“Stubbornness?” Rydell flared up. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Keenan. Have you even thought about where this goes from here?”
“It’s working, isn’t it?”
“It’s too early to tell.”
Drucker tilted his head slightly. “Don’t be disingenuous. It demeans you.”
“I don’t know if it’s working, but—”
“It’s working, Larry,” Drucker interrupted emphatically. “It’s working because that’s what people are used to. It’s what they’ve been used to for thousands of years.”
“We didn’t need it.”
“Of course we did. What did you expect? Did you think people would see the sign and just ‘get’ it?”
“Yes. If we gave them a chance.”
“That’s just naïve. What people don’t understand they just push away to the far corners of their minds and eventually it fades away and gets forgotten. ’Cause it’s safer that way. No, people need someone to tell them what to believe in. It’s worked before, many times. And it’ll work again.”
“And then what?” Rydell fumed. “Where do you go from here?”
Drucker smiled. “We just let him grow his following. Get the message across.”
“That’s untenable and you know it,” Rydell flared up. “You’re building up something that’s going to be impossible to maintain.”
“Not if you graft it onto an existing structure. One that has staying power. One that can last.”
Rydell shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. You, of all people.”
Drucker chuckled. “You should be enjoying the irony of it. You should be sitting back and laughing instead of getting all worked up about it.”
“I can’t even begin to . . .” Rydell’s mind was overwhelmed with indignation. “You don’t get it, do you? You don’t see how wrong you are.”
“Come on, Larry. You know how the world works. There are only two surefire ways to get people to do what you want them to do. You either put on an iron glove and make them do it. Or you tell them God wants them to do it. If God wills it,” he scoffed, “it shall be done. That’s when they listen. And given that we don’t live under an Uncle Joe or a Chairman Mao—”
“That was the whole point,” Rydell protested. “God was supposed to be willing it. God. Not his self-appointed, holier-than-thou representatives.”
“That wouldn’t work, Larry. It’s too vague. Too open to interpretation. You’re asking people to decipher the message on their own, and that would be giving them far too much credit. That’s never worked. They’re not used to figuring things out for themselves. They like to follow, to be led. They need a guide. A messenger. A prophet. Always have. Always will.”
“So you create, what, a Second Coming?”
“Not exactly, but close. And why not? A major chunk of the planet’s expecting something like this. All this talk of End of Times and Armageddon. It’s a golden opportunity.”
“What about the other religions? ’Cause you do know there are others on the planet, right? How do you think they’re going to react to your manufactured messiah?”
“He won’t be exclusive. It’s been factored in. His message will embrace all.”
“Embrace all and encourage them to follow Jesus?” Rydell said acidly.
“Well,” Drucker mused with a mischievous twist to his mouth, “That’s not the main message he’ll be bringing, but I suspect it may well be a secondary effect of his preaching.”
“Great,” Rydell retorted fiercely. “And in doing that, you’ll be propping up this mass delusion we haven’t been able to shake for thousands of years. Can you imagine the field day these preachers are gonna have with this? Can you imagine how much power you’d be handing to all those blow-dried, self-serving egomaniacs out there? You’ll turn every born-again politician and every televangelist into a saint who can do no wrong. And before you know it, they’ll reclassify the pill as a form of abortion and ban