The Last Day (16 page)

But not all her audience. There were some here who did not come to welcome a new religious icon. Particularly a female one. And they left this encounter with skepticism, scorn and displeasure.

Yet, to all who personally witnessed this unprecedented event, there was no denial that
something
very extraordinary had happened here.

32

WNN headquarters, Jerusalem, Israel 8:06
A.M
., Thursday, January 6, 2000

T
here you are!” an aide called out with relief, spying Feldman at a coffee cart. “We've been looking all over for you. Sullivan's called a special strategy session in conference room four.”

Leaving his coffee mug behind, a tired-looking Feldman hustled off down the corridor, only to be intercepted by another staff member who stuck her head out a door and called hesitantly to him.

“I—I don't know if I should even bother you with this one,” she second-guessed herself, noting the harried look on Feldman's face, “but I have a long-distance call from Japan—some guy who insists he knows you and has some important news. I can barely understand his accent.” She looked at the scrawled message in her hand. “A Dr. Omato?”

“I'll take it.” Feldman braked, stepping inside the door to accept the phone from her outstretched hand.

“Hello, Dr. Omato, how are you? You're back in Japan now?”

“Hello, Mr. Feldman. Fine. Yes, IDF deport us after we appear on TV.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, sir.”

“No problem. Our work finished. But I have more important news for you now. About Messiah!”

Feldman had been jotting unrelated notes in his pad, but now the astronomer had his full attention.

“You have new information about the Messiah?”

“Yes, Mr. Feldman! Messiah is woman!”

Feldman sighed inwardly, returning his mind to his notepad. “Yes, that seems to be the consensus.”

“No, Mr. Feldman, I mean, Messiah is woman from meteorite crash. She survivor in desert!”

Feldman's pen point tore the page and he jolted upright.

“What!”

“Yes, we see her on TV. She survivor we help after meteorite crash.”

“Are you certain, Dr. Omato? It was dark. You said the woman was injured.”

“Yes, positive. Dr. Hirasuma also agree. Dr. Somu also. We positive.”

“Okay, excellent. That's a great help. You've been
very
helpful. Can I have someone from our Japanese bureau get a statement from you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Excellent, thank you. Hold for my assistant, please!”

Feldman passed the phone back to the staff member, leaving her with instructions, and headed off to the strategy meeting, his mind churning.

“Good, Jon, you're here!” Sullivan addressed him as he joined the session in progress. “Just to let you know, we're trying to arrange another appointment with Richard Fischer. He returned to his hotel with the Messiah in a rental helicopter a short while ago.”

Feldman found a place at the table between Cissy and another female staffer.

“The Samaritans control the entire hotel grounds now,” Sullivan continued. “It's fenced and heavily guarded and they're not letting anyone enter. If we can get a message through, we're going to offer a handsome sum for a private interview with the Messiah, which we'll want you to conduct, naturally.”

Feldman nodded.

“Right-o.” Sullivan switched topics. “Now let's get back to our concepts for an alternative, backup story tonight. If everyone prefers the idea of developing an analysis of the Messiah's sermon, I'd tike to suggest, Jon, that you consider a co-anchored report with Erin Cross. As our expert on religious issues, Erin has some nice angles to suggest.”

Erin and Hunter were beaming.

“Sure,” Feldman agreed, and noticed Cissy shifting in her chair.

“Let's get to work, then.” Sullivan rubbed his palms together. “Any questions before we begin?”

Feldman raised a hand slightly. “Maybe this is a moot point now, Nigel, but are we all in agreement, the Messiah is a she?”

Sullivan shrugged his shoulders above a wave of bobbing heads and murmured affirmatives. “There doesn't seem to be much argument about that.” He smiled. “And quite attractive, to boot! Perhaps a trifle eccentric, but striking nonetheless, wouldn't you say?”

“But who is she and where in heaven's name did she come from?” Bollinger posed the core question.

“I think I know where she came from,” Feldman offered, and all eyes quickly focused on him. “I got a call a few minutes ago from Dr. Omato, the Japanese astronomer who assisted us before. He and his colleagues are convinced our little Messiah is the missing survivor from the Negev disaster, the injured woman they found in the desert. I'm having our Japanese bureau get their statements.”

“Damn!” Hunter broke the stunned silence. “A shell-shocked, mad scientist with a messiah complex!”

“Or,” Bollinger had been following a similar train of thought, “possibly an amnesia victim caught up in the millenarian brouhaha.”

“Or,” Cissy extrapolated, “an amnesia victim, manipulated by the Samaritans.”

“I think we're on to something here,” Sullivan concurred. “Well done, Jon. Let's resurrect the investigation of the Negev laboratory. Put both teams three and four on it together. And let's keep a lid on the Messiah/survivor story until we see what we can turn up, shall we?”

“Try for a list of personnel working at the institute that night,” Bollinger suggested. “Names, ages, description. Anything to help us identify her.”

“Cock your ears,” Sullivan urged. “Surely someone who knows her true identity has recognized her face from the newscasts by this time. She's not exactly common-looking, now is she?”

There was no disagreement on that score.

“Okay, now on to the matter of a follow-up report on yesterday's sermon.” Sullivan turned to Erin Cross. “Erin, would you be so kind as to share some of your key insights with Jon?”

“Gladly, Nigel.” Erin accepted the floor, fixed her bright smile on Feldman and approached a pull-down screen on the wall behind her.

“I spent the better part of last night doing a comprehensive comparison of the New Beatitudes with the originals,” she explained, scrolling open the screen to reveal a large, side-by-side printout of both sermons. “For now, I'll spare you some of the more technical evaluations, of which there are many—”

“Thank God!” Cissy hissed under her breath, loud enough for it to register with most of the table.

“—and summarize what I consider to be the essential, underlying points.

“It's important to note how these New Beatitudes differ in their intent from the originals. Christ's Beatitudes are designed to inspire and comfort the downtrodden and to promote passivity, humility. The New Beatitudes, however, appear to lead us in a very different direction. The New Messiah encourages open-mindedness, independence, self-reliance, assertiveness and selflessness. A more proactive stance, I would say.

“If there is a key to where the Messiah is going with all this, I believe it occurs in the third line of her introduction.” Erin pointed to the screen and read the verse aloud: “’In the name of Revelation, I come to you.’

“It's the use of this word, ‘Revelation,’ that I find so intriguing. It's possible that in using this term, the Messiah may be referring to John the Apostle's Book of Revelation, which, of course, contains the apocalyptic messages describing the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ.

“On the other hand, by ‘Revelation’ the Messiah could simply be implying that she intends to reveal something of special, spiritual significance in the future. If so, what this special ‘Revelation’ might be is also left unclear.

“Despite the tide the Samaritans have given her, it's impossible to determine yet what this woman actually considers herself to be. Does she really believe she's a true Messiah—that is, a spiritual leader personally anointed by God? Or does she merely think herself a prophetess, inspired by God to provide insights into the future? In any event, there's no denying that she has convinced herself she's some sort of an emissary from God.”

A staff assistant timidly raised her hand. “I know this is going to sound ridiculous to everyone, but should we really rule out the possibility that she might be a genuine Messiah, a holy person sent by God?”

Hunter nearly choked on his coffee.

Sullivan was quick to shut him down. “None of that! We'll respect all points of view at this table!”

The cameraman apologized and Erin addressed the question.

“If we make the assumption that she's a true Messiah, then we have to ask ourselves why. What purpose would it serve a supreme being to send a female envoy to convey His message? And why would God allow her to mimic the life of His Son? To parallel the origins of Christ with a birth in Bethlehem, a Sermon on the Mount? It confuses Christ's message; it doesn't make theological sense, if you ask me.”

“But maybe God has a separate message for women?” the female staff member suggested.

“Yeah! Or maybe God's looking to balance the scales with women?” someone else volunteered.

“Right!” Cissy snorted, contemptuously. “God's going politically correct on us!”

Sullivan raised his hand to bring the proceedings under control. “I suggest we leave the philosophizing to the philosophers and stick to the issues at hand. Let's turn our attention to developing a substantive report on these controversial New Beatitudes, shall we?”

33

The Vatican, Rome, Italy 11:00
A.M
., Friday, January 7, 2000

N
icholas had heard so much about yesterday's controversial New Sermon on the Mount that he'd been eagerly looking forward to viewing it. There was a sense of relief in him now. The universal consensus that this purported New Messiah was female had removed any of his subconscious fears that the world was experiencing the Second Coming. At best, she could be no more than a prophetess.

Nonetheless, the pope had had a background examination run on the Reverend Richard Fischer. It had revealed him to be a onetime carnival barker, alcoholic, drifter and sometime Bible salesman before finding his niche as an evangelical. This would add credence to the conventional Vatican wisdom that yesterday's
Sermon on the Mount II
media sensation was nothing more than a clever marketing scheme concocted to exploit the current millenarian fad.

Nicholas had asked his respected confidant, Prefect Antonio di Concerci, who'd already seen this video, to join him. Meeting in the anteroom outside the palace's small movie theater, they entered together, walking midway down the aisle, taking seats next to each other in the otherwise deserted room.

“What is the status of your
Millennial Decree,
Holiness?” di Concerci asked, making conversation as they awaited the start of the tape. The cardinal was referring to Nicholas's long-awaited encyclical on materialism.

“It's finished, Tony. I've merely been awaiting the appropriate time to issue it. I didn't see how it could receive the attention it warrants under recent conditions. However, now that we seem to have safely crossed this bothersome millennium barrier, I believe I shall have it released next week.”

The theater darkened and the video began. The pontiff was unconsciously drawn forward in his seat as the picture opened on a breathtaking, distant, predawn shot of the mount crowned in glowing lights and cloaked with vast crowds that spilled down the slopes into pockets of lingering fog.

Nicholas frowned. Not with displeasure, but with deepening wonderment as the first rays of morning broke the horizon, irradiating the stage from behind. He folded his hands tightly together as the stirring music crescendoed and the Messiah began her transcendent march to the altar.

The first clear image of the New Messiah took him quite by surprise.

“She is an angel!” Nicholas exclaimed in full appreciation, and di Concerci glanced at him, nodding gravely.

The pope absorbed the rest of the video engrossed in silence.

At its conclusion, after a period of quiet reflection, di Concerci finally spoke. “Wouldn't you agree this is a female, Holy Father?”

The pope's eyes finally focused on his associate and he responded in a thoughtful tone. “Oh yes, yes. This is most assuredly a female. And with such a commanding presence!”

“She has a certain gift of oratory,” di Concerci conceded. “What's your assessment of her possible authenticity?”

Nicholas looked back at the blank screen as if the answer lay there. “I came here quite prepared to brand her a fraud, Antonio,” he admitted. “Certainly, as a female, she cannot be a Messiah. But perhaps she could be a prophetess. I would like to understand better her affiliation with these Samaritans, who she really is, and where she comes from. There's an ethereal quality about her. We simply need to learn more.”

“What do you make of this ‘New Light’ she speaks of, Holiness? This ‘New Revelation’?”

“Those are the two aspects of her Beatitudes I find disturbing,” the pope asserted. “The rest of her message, as far as I could tell, is benign and uplifting. It will be interesting to see how far she takes this and what, if anything, we hear next from her. We must keep a close eye on this situation, my friend.”

“I quite agree.”

“If this woman is the product of some duplicity,” Nicholas added, “we must quickly root it out. The sooner we do this, the faster we can restore our world congregation to normality. I'm greatly concerned about the state of Holy Mother Church right now, Tony. Support around the world is down substantially, both spiritual and financial. No event in the last hundred years has impacted the Church as severely as all these disturbing millennial phenomena.”

34

WNN headquarters, Jerusalem, Israel 8:49
A.M
., Monday, January 10, 2000

E
rin Cross's audience appeal in the well-received telecast of her Beatitudes analysis did not go unnoticed by upper-level WNN officials. She was quickly assigned several follow-up opportunities during the coming week to offer her additional on-camera experience, another step in grooming her for a more visible future with the network. There was even talk that WNN International was considering a long-term pairing of Feldman and Cross as a highly attractive media couple.