Solomon's Porch (38 page)

“Peter? You still there?” Julie was reacting to the silence on the other end of the line.

“Yes, sorry Jules. This is a bit of a shock. What should I do?”

“Call him.” Julie gave Peter Father Kallistos’ number in Greece. “He’s a wonderful, gentle man, Peter. I can tell that just by the way he talks. I get the feeling he’s been waiting for the right time to reach out to you, honey. And Peter … ”

“Yes?”

“I love you. Kevin is taking a bath before bed. Can I tell him you’ll call him tomorrow?”

“Of course, Jules. I love you too. Sorry if I was short with you. Please take care of Saul.”

“I will. Alex and I got it all straight, love. Bye.”

Peter gave the number to the White House operator. He heard the whines and clicks as the international telephone network processed the call. He felt an anxious but wonderful anticipation as he listened to the dull short blasts of the foreign ring tone.

“Hello.”

“Father Gregory Kallistos, please,” Peter said.

“My son?”

Peter heard the voice, but it registered more in his heart than in his brain.

“Father? Father Kallistos?”

“Panos! Praise Christ! My boy, Panos! You must think this very strange. I’ve been waiting so long my son, how you say? Since you very little.”

Peter was dazed. He vacillated for a second, not quite sure what he should say. Then he asked, “How much do you know, about what’s happened, I mean.”

“Oh, Panos, my boy, I know everything. Known forever. Your papa, my brother, he and I knew your, how you say, fate since before you born. But much you do not know, Panos.”

“Father, I … ”

“Say no more, Panos. The evil one, he hears too much. Send me ride, how in English, airplane ride to Athens. I come to see you, must come to you. Do it now, son, do not wait.”

Peter did not hesitate. With his uncle on hold he told the President’s aide what he needed. An Air Force transport happened to be already manned, fueled, and ready for departure in Athens. It was immediately redirected and converted into the private jet of Father Gregory Kallistos.

“Father,” Peter said, jumping back on the line.

“I still here, my son.”

“Go to the airport in Athens. There is a section of the facility the U.S. military uses. They say there are signs that will direct you to it.”

“Been to airport many times, Panos, know it well. I be fine.”

“Tell the U.S. soldier at the gate who you are. They will fly you to me, to Washington, D.C.”

“Panos.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I am very proud of you, my son. Nicholas is watching you from heaven, praying for you. You are very special man, Panos. You have big family here in Greece. We love you very much. I must go now.”

The line went dead. Frustratingly, the millions of questions Peter had for his uncle would have to wait.

Alex and Malik had listened to the entire conversation from Peter’s end.

“Panos, this is wonderful news! You have a family. I know how much this … ”

“Alex, Malik, could you brothers give me a moment or two alone?”

Without saying another word, Alex and Malik got up and left, but Malik didn’t go far. He stood outside the office door as a sentry, ready to sound the alarm if the evil one appeared.

There was a sofa in the office. Peter felt weak and lightheaded and decided to lie down and gather his thoughts.

Peter closed his eyes and tried to recall everything Thomas and Marie Carson had told him about his biological parents.

At one point he remembered seeing pictures of them, the last time was when he was in junior high, if he had his dates right, but every photo the Carsons had was destroyed in a house fire in Peter’s freshman year of high school. The impressions he retained were that his mother was a beautiful woman, a blonde with classic Greek features; his father was a large man, strong and virile. Marie Carson always told Peter that he took after his mother. When he was a boy, Peter had often fantasized about her and what she looked like, and how it would feel to be hugged by her.

Peter had always known that he was born in Athens; in the Greek Orthodox Church priests are not only allowed, but encouraged to marry. He was told that his father and mother had been together since they were teenagers, long before Nicholas Kallistos went off to the seminary to become a priest. Peter was their only child. They wanted to have a large family, according to Marie Carson, but their plans were cut short by tragedy.

The Carsons told Peter the story many times over the years. When it happened, Peter was barely two years old. He was a “perfect baby,” never cried or fussed or got sick; smiled at everyone, lit up any room his parents brought him into. Peter had always believed that these descriptions of him were exaggerations made to make him feel good about himself. Now he wasn’t so sure. He needed to reevaluate all he knew about his parents’ deaths in the context of God’s revelations.

On that fateful March morning that changed so many lives, about a half an hour before the proud young Kallistos family was set to depart for a picnic with friends in the country, unexpectedly young Panos started to fuss, to cough, and to run a fever. It wasn’t considered serious, but Panos’ symptoms were sufficient to keep him at home that day in the care of a nun who acted as a part-time nanny for the popular parish priest.

“Funny thing was,” Marie Carson always said as she got to this part of the narrative, as soon as Nicholas and Neitha drove away from the house, Peter was fine. No more fever, coughing, or complaining.

“You weren’t meant to be in that car, Peter,” Marie told him. She dwelled on the fact that it was very unlike her cousin Neitha to let Peter out of her sight for even a few minutes, nanny or no nanny. “Fate,” she called it.

“Not fate, mom, grace,” Peter said softly to himself as he stretched out a bit more on the couch. “It was God’s grace.”

He wondered why he hadn’t thought much about this whole subject for years until today. It hadn’t seemed too important, for whatever reason.

As the Carsons told it, several eyewitnesses described how a large black car of indeterminate make and model approached and then rammed the Kallistos’ vehicle on a narrow and winding mountain road, sending it tumbling five hundred feet down into a ravine. Peter’s parents died on impact.

No one was ever charged with a crime in the incident. Neither the black car not its occupants were ever identified. It was also uncertain whether the collision was an accident or a deliberate act.

For whatever reason, now increasingly more mysterious to Peter after learning that he had a living uncle on his father’s side, following the death of his parents he was immediately shipped off to America to be raised by his deceased aunt’s daughter, Marie Carson.

“There are no accidents,” the Voice gently whispered in Peter’s ear. “God has always had a plan and a purpose for your life.”

Peter smiled. He knew the Voice well. It was his Comforter, his Friend, his Constant Companion.

Aloud but softly he asked, “Why did my parents have to die? Couldn’t they have just been told to move to America? Why all the pain and suffering?” He stopped for a moment, reflected, and began to whisper again.

“Why did I have to make so many stupid mistakes? Did you know I would, Lord? Why did I have to lose everything in order to gain You?”

The Voice did not provide any more answers, nor did Peter expect It to. Trying to unravel the ways of God, to apply human logic and wisdom to divine events, he knew was a totally pointless exercise. God requires faith and obedience and an open heart. He does not necessarily provide the knowledge of His ways in return.

Another knock came from the door. This one was quiet and respectful, as was the voice that followed it.

“Mr. Carson,” the young female aide said demurely. “They told me to find you. You are needed, sir. Sorry to disturb you.”

“That’s really what it comes down to,” Peter said to himself. “I’m needed. Glory to God, what else can a man ask for.”

“Coming,” he said loud enough to be heard through the door. Peter was indeed coming, moving inexorably toward the destiny planned for him since time began.

“Well, Peter, let me put it this way,” the President reported. “Pretty much everyone in this government thinks I’ve lost it, gone screwy. They do not have an explanation for the restriction, mind you, other than to say it’s an ‘amazing phenomenon that needs to be studied.’ They’re blind, which somehow makes me insane. To tell you the truth, I expected better from some of them, from most of them.”

“Mr. President, if I may, sir, let me remind you what St. Paul told us. We battle not against ‘flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities.’ Sir, Satan is blinding them. That’s why they refuse to see.”

“The invisible controlling the visible concept again, Peter?”

Peter thought about Malik and Saul. Not so invisible to them, he reminded himself. “Exactly. If I can ask, sir, what happened?”

“I called an emergency meeting of our government a couple of hours ago, Peter,” the President said. “Congressional leaders, cabinet members, the Chief Justice, the top military brass, all the major players. Like I told you I would, I brought Mr. Austin and General Vargas along with me.”

Tim and Rico were in the President’s office, along with Peter, Alex, and a small group of aides.

“I laid it out for them. Didn’t hold anything back. Told them about my vision, described it in great detail in fact. I could not have been plainer with them, Peter. I said God made it abundantly clear to me that either we change our ways or we will die; maybe not all of us, but certainly most of us. We’re facing Armageddon, total annihilation.

“As the President of the United States, my first and foremost duty is to protect this country. I said in order for me to do that now, I must work with my fellow world leaders to eliminate not only all types of weapons, but more importantly to once and for all end war as an acceptable human institution. Violent conflict between nations in all its forms must end, and end quickly. I told them I was prepared to take whatever action was required to accomplish this goal, unilateral or otherwise.”

“And they said?” Peter prodded.

“That I was moving too fast, making decisions without enough information, panicking in response to the unknown. They didn’t even consider what I had to say. It was obvious that they had their own agenda.”

“Their own agenda, sir?” Peter asked.

“The Vice President, no doubt with considerable help from my former top two advisors, has convinced our leadership that you are the problem and that I am your lackey. They intend to try and remove me from office. God knows what they have planned for you.”

Peter was well aware of what the world was going to do to him.

“Can they do that, sir? Remove you from office, I mean?”

“If they can convince the Senate I’m nuts, you bet they can impeach me. Or, and I know this is what they’re thinking, they believe they can pressure me into resigning.”

“Would you consider doing that, sir, resigning I mean?”

“Peter, my friend, the answer to that question is not no, but hell no. If they want to create a Constitutional crisis I say bring it on. The Lord is with me. I’m not afraid of them or what they think they can do.”

“How soon will they come after you, sir? I mean, are they trying to impeach you today?”

“It’s not that easy, Peter. The process takes time. Besides, no one can do anything until the restriction ends, and that’s not until around ten p.m. on the twenty-second, right?”

Peter looked at his watch. “Yes sir, something like fifty hours from right now.”

“Let those damn fools do what they will, Peter. What’s happening in the world interests me far more than their shenanigans. Have you been keeping up? On the news, I mean?”

“No sir, not really. With Saul’s death and everything else that’s going on I haven’t looked at much since this morning.”

“Mr. Edwards,” the President said to the suit nearest to him, “play the video you fellas made. The one we watched a few minutes ago.”

“Yes sir, Mr. President,” Edwards said as he cued up the disc.

The White House staff had compiled and edited a series of news reports from around the world. English dubbing had been added as required.

“Here in Germany an unbelievable scene is unfolding in Berlin,” the excited British accented commentator reported. “Upwards of one hundred thousand people have jammed into the city’s largest football stadium. But for what purpose? No one has organized this rally. Yet somehow the public address system and the physical plant of the arena have been activated. A rotating group of people, it’s almost as if the members of the crowd were all taking orderly turns at the podium, is leading the throng in hymns and prayers. Shouts arise periodically as miracles are claimed. We’re being told of families reconciling after years of bitter fighting, paralytics walking away from wheelchairs, deaf and blind people having their senses restored, clinical depressions lifted. We are doing our best to try and verify these claims.”

“No church or denomination is sponsoring this event or has taken control of it. I’ve seen Catholic priests, Lutheran pastors, Anglicans, even some Muslims and Buddhists on the stage addressing the crowd.”