The Last Judgment (15 page)

“I don't have the time,” Mullburn said brusquely. “Tell him I'll authorize the Assistant Foreign Minister to meet with him in my stead. I'll convey my thoughts on the matter through him.”

The oil tycoon had grown increasingly impatient with Mandu La Rouge, the figurehead president of the Republic of Maretas. Mullburn had originally bailed out the bankrupt Caribbean republic in return for the position of permanent foreign minister. He had thought, back then, that he and La Rouge had arrived at a good working relationship.

But these constant interruptions,
Mullburn thought to himself,
have to stop
.

“Oh, and one other thing,” he said into the intercom.

“Yes, Mr. Mullburn?”

“Tell my chef I want the crusted sea bass for lunch. And make sure you tell that hack he has to sear the fish at the appropriate heat this time.”

22

W
ILL
C
HAMBERS WAS EVENTUALLY ABLE
to contact Bob Fuller in the State Department. They had a short and cordial conversation. But Fuller seemed guarded and noncommittal.

At the same time, Jacki tried to open a dialogue with the Egyptian Embassy. Unfortunately, she got nowhere.

Yet despite Fuller's initial hesitation, the State Department apparently did contact Cairo. Will discovered this when he hired an Egyptian translator to set up a conference call with the police department in the capital city. Will, to his surprise, was informed that Gilead Amahn had been released from the jail. His destination after release, they explained, was unknown.

Will then contacted Gilead's parents, Bill and Esther Collingwood, and brought them up to date with his limited information. That Gilead had been arrested in Cairo, apparently for illegal preaching. He had been detained for two days but then released. And no one seemed to know where he was heading.

Collingwood told Will that Gilead had mailed them a letter the day before he left for Cairo and shared a few of his son's comments. After he heard it, Will could no longer dismiss the growing concerns he had about Gilead Amahn.

Later, after Will had wrapped up things at the office for the day, he decided to pick up dinner for everybody. Today was a recording day for Fiona, so he stopped by a carry-out deli called Blue Ridge Grub-to-Go.

When Will arrived home, he turned at the “Y” in the driveway and took the route to the recording studio. The two-story, log, barn-shaped structure was some two hundred feet away, connected to the house by both a separate driveway and a stone path. Per Fiona's specifications, it had two state-of-the-art recording studios and a full sound board.

As Will parked his Corvette, he saw Fiona's Saab convertible and the two cars belonging to the sound engineer and her recording manager.

Will plucked the large plastic bag of food from the passenger's seat and took it in through the front entrance. The recording light was on, so he quietly moved into the sound booth, where he waved hello to the board operator and the sound engineer. Both had headphones on, and they smiled and waved to Will as he laid the food on the table.

Fiona was at an overhead microphone on the other side of the glass, and she waved and threw several kisses to Will when she saw him.

He leaned over and flipped on the intercom switch.

“Hey, darling, I brought some grub. I'll go over and eat with Andrew.”

“Stick around for my next number. You haven't heard this one before—I'd love to get your take on it later,” Fiona said.

Will agreed, and he settled back in one of the comfortable chairs in the studio as the background orchestration began playing.

Fiona's soprano voice was soft and ethereal as the song began, accompanied by the recorded strings.

Are there shadows

all around you?

Does the night fall

hard and cruel?

Is your heart a

thirsty desert…

Has your past

caught up with you?

Then the orchestration broke into a pounding, jubilant beat as Fiona sang,

GO TO

THE WELL SO NEAR YOU

TO THE WELL

HE'S WAITING THERE

HE WILL TELL YOU

ALL YOU'VE EVER DONE

AND THE GRACE

THAT WAITS FOR YOU…

Will rose from his seat, and as he passed by the sound engineer, he patted him on the back. The engineer lifted a headphone from one ear.

“Tell Fiona it's terrific. I just love it.”

He waved through the glass as Fiona continued to sing, walked out through the lobby of the recording studio, quietly closed the front door behind him, and drove his Corvette over to the house.

Andrew was already sitting at the kitchen table with a pad of paper, a pen, and a book in front of him.

His father caught him staring out into space as he walked through the front door.

“Hard at work—that's my man!” Will said to his son.

“Hi, Dad.”

Then his eyes lit up when he saw the bag.

“All right! Blue Ridge Grub-to-Go! Did you get me the ribs and shrimp?”

“Do I know you, or do I know you?” Will replied with a smile.

Andrew shoved his homework aside and quickly poured drinks for himself and his dad.

After he sat down Will asked him to say grace.

“Mom's still over at the studio?” Andrew asked as he began athletically separating the barbecued ribs.

“Yeah. I think she'll be there for a while. She's working on a new song…”

For a moment there was only the sound of a father and his son noisily licking their fingers and gobbling Blue Ridge Grub-to-Go's famous spareribs.

Then Andrew broke the silence.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything. Shoot.”

“It's about the Sunday school lesson we had at church.”

“What was it about?”

“Abraham. Isaac.”

“Which part?”

“How the dad was going to sacrifice Isaac.”

“Oh, that one,” Will said in a quiet voice. “That's a tough one, isn't it?”

“Yeah.”

After a few seconds of silence, Andrew continued. “So I'm wondering…”

“Yes?”

“If God told you to sacrifice me…would you?”

Will stopped eating. He glanced over at his son. At his soft, young face. His bright eyes and the swatch of uncombed hair, with a small cowlick in the back.

“So…Dad…would you?”

“I'm going to give you a lawyer's answer,” Will said with a smile.

“Awww—that's no fair!” Andrew said, laughing a little.

“All right, here's the deal,” Will began. “For me…it's one of the toughest parts of Scripture. Every time I read it—that story—I ask myself that question.”

Andrew's eyes widened as he listened intently.

“All right,” Will continued. “Here's my point. You asked me whether, if God ever asked me to sacrifice you, would I do it. But
here's the fact. That story happened in Genesis, and it was between Abraham and his son Isaac for a specific reason. It was the only time ever in Scripture where God asked someone else to offer his own son up on the altar. And God stopped Abraham's hand at the last moment. And I bet you know why…”

“Yeah,” Andrew answered. “Because God wanted to provide the sacrifice. Because the only time that a son would ever have to be offered by a father was when God gave up His Son, Jesus, for a sacrifice on the cross. Right?”

“Bingo. A-plus-plus-plus.”

“But I still don't understand.”

“What?”

“Would you or wouldn't you?”

“God wouldn't ask me that question. He wouldn't ask me to do that.”

Will could see that his son was not satisfied with the answer, but he relented and returned to his spareribs and shrimp.

After a few more moments elapsed, Will added something.

“But I will give you one answer.”

“What's that?” Andrew asked, dipping his last fried shrimp in the cocktail sauce.

“I'll say this—that if I ever had to, I wouldn't hesitate to give my life for you.”

Andrew paused before he dropped the last shrimp in his mouth. He looked at his dad and simply said, “Huh.” And then he smiled and gobbled his shrimp down.

After a few more moments, Andrew spoke up.

“Sarah Tompkins got sick at school—she threw up all over her desk. I thought that was so gross.”

“Poor kid. That had to be really embarrassing for her.”

“Yeah. I guess so…” Andrew said thoughtfully.

After he finished his homework, he and Will watched the last few innings of the ball game. Then Andrew went to bed.

His dad showed up in his bedroom to tuck him in. The two talked for a few moments, discussing their schedule for the next
day. Then they said prayers together, and Will bent down and gathered his son in his arms, giving him a near bone-crushing hug—so tight that Andrew had to say, “Give,” before he let go. Then Will bent down and kissed his son on the forehead, reminded him that he loved him, and said, “Good night.”

As Will came down the stairs, he looked through the large windows of the great room of their log house, casting his eyes along the ridge leading to the recording studio. The lights were still burning brightly there.

Will settled into one of the leather chairs in front of the immense fieldstone fireplace. He pulled something out of his briefcase. It was a copy of the letter that Gilead had mailed to his parents as he was leaving for Egypt. Bill Collingwood had faxed it to Will after their phone conversation. He had thought that Will ought to see it.

As Will read it, the house was very quiet, except for the mournful evening song of a whip-poor-will somewhere out in the woods. Will studied the letter, and as he did, his mind was troubled.

At the end, Gilead had signed off by writing,

The Spirit of the L
ORD
is upon Me,

Because He has anointed Me

To preach the gospel to the poor;

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the L
ORD
.

Will Chambers recognized those verses as from the Gospel of Luke, fourth chapter. It was Jesus' announcement of His Messianic mission at the beginning of His ministry.

Will was haunted by two things about Gilead Amahn.

First, he could no longer ignore his misgivings about what appeared to be Gilead's apparent delusions of grandeur. It had
now gone far beyond mere evangelistic zeal. His headlong rush into theological conflict might be, Will thought, a symptom of a larger problem. Had Gilead assumed a self-appointed role as a martyr? And was that, in some way, connected to his mother's brutal death?

But there was also a second concern. Will knew what had happened in the latter part of chapter four of the Gospel of Luke, after the proclamation by Jesus in the synagogue.

Will picked up the Bible lying on the end table and flipped it open to verses twenty-eight and twenty-nine of Luke four. The rest of the story was that the people who had heard the proclamation of Jesus

were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.

23

T
HOUGH IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT
, the meeting was still going on.

In an empty second-level store above the corner café, less than a half-block from the Damascus Gate of the Old City section of Jerusalem, several dozen people had crowded into the room. Most were sitting cross-legged on the floor while a thin outer circle of onlookers stood against the walls of the empty room. Most were young—under forty, some as young as eighteen or nineteen. They were there because they had been recruited or solicited quietly in the markets of the Old City, in the bistros and coffee shops, and among the backpacking travelers strolling among the shops and sidewalk cafés of Ben Yehuda Street.

One young man who was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor was debating with Gilead Amahn, who was standing and leaning against the wall.

“So tell me,” the young man sitting on the floor asked, “you talk about the future events. You talk about the fulfillment of the Bible. But on the other hand, you and your religion have been waiting for two thousand years. Nothing has happened.”