The Warning (24 page)
“Get on . . .” Clarke stepped back through the doorway. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am.”
Clarke exchanged a glance with Wesley, who was staring at Buddy in openmouthed bafflement. Clarke said slowly, “If you're absolutely certain, I guess we'd better be going.”
“Take the contact numbers with you,” Buddy said. “There isn't much time.”
The breathless call came just as Thad Dorsett was checking into the Clarkstown hotel. He moved away from the reception desk as soon as he recognized the voice. “What's the matter?”
The kid tracking Korda reported, “They've changed the venue.”
Thad felt awash in an icy fury. “You mean you got it wrong.”
“I mean they
changed
it. There was a fire at the community hall last night.” Wesley's voice was more than agitated. The guy sounded like he was approaching the edge. “If you don't believe me, go check it out yourself. I don't care.”
“Calm down,” Thad snapped, signaling to the guards.
“
You
calm down. I've had enough of this. I'm out, you hear me?”
“Sure, sure. Take it easy.” Dorsett turned away from curious gazes cast his way. “Where are they holding the talk?”
“This whole thing is
crazy
. The guy hasn't done anything wrong. Why are you bugging him anyway?”
Thad felt another chance slipping through his fingers. “I'll discuss philosophy with you another time. Right now just tell me where the talk is going to be held.”
There was a moment's silence before Wesley sullenly replied, “I don't know.”
“You mean they're keeping it secret.” He exchanged glances with the cold-eyed guards. Bad news.
“I mean, I don't
know
. Nobody does. Mr. Korda's told us to drive into town, stop at the first church we see, ask if we can hold it there.”
“That doesn't make any sense.” Now it was
Mr
. Korda. Now it was
us
headed into town. “Run that one by me again.”
The kid did as he was told. “This is my last call. I can't stand this.”
“You mean they suspect you?”
“I mean I don't know what's right anymore. It seemed so simple when I started. But now . . .” He cupped the phone, said something muffled, then came back on the line with, “I see Clarke signaling me.” Another moment of raspy breathing and then, “I quit. That's all. I'm a banker, not a spy.”
Thad punched off the phone, turned to the pair of guards, and said, “You're not going to believe this.”
“Are you sure we're doing the right thing?”
“What, doing as Buddy said?” Clarke laughed and shook his head. “All I can say for certain is, when he spoke there in the hotel room, it was not just Buddy's authority that I heard.”
Wesley Hadden was a slender young man with a preference for suspenders and overloud silk ties. He settled his tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses more firmly upon his nose, every gesture tinged with the same nervous air that pitched his voice somewhere near a whine. “But it doesn't make sense! I mean, we're three hours from what's supposed to be our biggest meeting yet, chasing all over creation following orders that sounded, well . . .”
“Crazy,” Clarke agreed. “Totally crazy.”
“So how can you trust him?”
“I'm not trusting Buddy. I'm trusting God, and trusting that Buddy got it right.”
“Got
what
right?” Wesley spun his head around. “Wasn't that an exit?”
“Where?”
“Back there! That side road behind us.”
Clarke squinted into the rearview mirror. “I don't see anything.”
Wesley spun in his seat. “I'm positive it was an exit.” He slumped back around. “So now we're even more lost than before.”
“Wait, there's another exit up ahead.”
“So what? Mr. Korda said take the first exit.” Wesley shook his head. “What difference does it make? I don't believe any of it anyway.”
“Okay, here we go. No big deal. We'll just swing around and get back on the interstate going the other way.” But then Clarke squinted through the windshield, and slowed the car.
“What's the matter?”
“Right up ahead, see that?”
“It's a church, so what?”
“So there's a pastor standing out there in front.”
“Where?”
“Right there. By the notice board.”
“But Mr. Korda said the first exit! We're on the wrong side of town!”
“Come on, it won't take a moment to see if this is the right one after all.” Clarke glanced at the young man seated next to him. “Is everything all right?”
“All right?” Wesley wiped at the sweat beading his forehead. “We're off riding around Clarkstown on instructions that don't make any sense at all, and you ask me if everything is all right?”
“Have faith,” Clarke said mildly, inspecting the young man more closely. Something was definitely wrong there. “In times like these, we can only find answers with the help of faith.”
After his talk, Buddy stood listening to the pastor continue to radiate excitement over the unexpected meeting. “I had just heard that our evening speaker was canceled. Hard to argue with laryngitis. I had decided to stretch my legs while my assistant started calling around.” He laughed. “I have to tell you, when your friends pulled up, I thought it was a hoax. It was only the night before last that I heard about you for the first time. A group of pastors from the area had been invited to a friend's to watch your video.”
Buddy listened with one ear, still drained from the evening's meeting. Despite the lack of notice, the hall had been filled to overflowing. The meetings so often were these days. Buddy shook the hands of the last to depart and noticed that Clarke and Wesley were standing in the corner, trying to gain his attention. Buddy waved them over.
“I can't tell you how moved I was by the video,” the pastor went on. “So moved I almost doubted it myself the next day. You know how it is, being swept up one moment, then caught by doubt the next. But tonight, my goodness, I have never felt such an affirming flame before.”
The pastor offered Buddy his hand. “It has been an honor, Mr. Korda. And I mean that sincerely.”
“Thank you.” He wondered why Clarke was still holding back. Then he noticed that Wesley's face was streaked with tears.
“I will see to it personally that tapes of tonight's talk are passed throughout our city. You can rest assured of that.” He gave Clarke and Wesley a friendly nod and moved off.
Clarke waited until they were alone to announce, “Wesley has something to tell you.”
“I'm a spy,” he blurted out. “Valenti headquarters sent me to track your movements and report them.”
Buddy found himself waiting for some internal reaction, but all he felt was tired. “I see.”
Clarke demanded, “Report to whom?”
“A guy named Dorsett. Thad Dorsett.”
“That name sounds familiar,” Clarke said.
“He was head of our local branch,” Buddy offered.
“In Aiden?” Clarke stared at him. “Your boss?”
Buddy nodded and said to the young man, “Thank you for telling us.”
“They promised me a promotion if I helped.” The young man seemed broken by his confession. “I didn't know, I didn't realize.”
Clarke's eyes widened. “The girls, the ones who came to my room.”
“That was part of this,” the young man confirmed. “They wanted to find some way to discredit you.”
“I understand.” Buddy felt more worried about the young man than he was about himself. “All is forgiven.”
“Not by me,” Wesley groaned. “I can't believe I've tried to hurt you. I've listened to your talk four times now, and all I hear is somebody trying to help others. You're not getting anything out of this at all.”
“Nothing except the joy of serving my Lord,” Buddy said, forcing aside his desire to go and rest. “That is more than enough.”
“I don't even know what you're talking about,” Wesley confessed. “I've watched the others at your meetings, though. I know this isn't some mass hysteria. I
know
it.”
“No, it's not,” Buddy agreed. It seemed the simplest thing in the world, the most natural, to offer, “Would you pray with me?”
The young man looked at him, astounded. “You'd do that? After what I've just told you?”
“As far as the east is from the west,” Buddy replied. “That is how far the Lord will separate us from our own sins, if only we will confess and repent and accept Him into our lives. How can I do any less?”
Wesley nodded his head. “Teach me, then. Show me how.”
Buddy reached out to draw both Clarke and the young man closer. He bowed his head and said, “Let us pray.”
Eighteen Days . . .
Nathan Jones Turner heard Fleiss out to the end, then demanded, “You say this Dorsett thought up the rumor business?”
“The whole idea was his,” Fleiss confirmed, taking great pleasure in rubbing the old man's nose in it. Losing his former number-one trader still burned. “Netted us a cool seventy-five mil in one day's trading.”
“Not bad.” Trying as hard as he could to sound casual about it. But Fleiss knew. The old man was seething. “Can we do it again?”
“No chance. This was definitely a once-only deal. Had to pull every string I could to get the rumors and the timing down right. Cost us some change too.”
“That still leaves us down a hundred and seventy-five million,” Turner pointed out. “Not to mention what I need for the second payment on the hotels. Which, I need not remind you, is almost due. I managed to put them off a week, but it was tough.” Even so, the protests lacked force. Fleiss had one-upped him. Turner hated that worse than losing money.
Fleiss responded with, “A week should be long enough. Got a couple of other things in the works.”
“I hope so.” A pause, then, “These come from Dorsett as well?”
“One of them. The biggest one.”
“Incredible that such talent would be found in a local Valenti branch.”
“Sure is.” Keeping his voice bland, he decided now was the time to spring the final shock. “Oh, by the way. I've decided to make Dorsett my personal number one.”
“I'm not surprised, with that sort of record.” Holding to his calm. But Fleiss knew and Turner knew. Another person was being moved in to shield Fleiss from Turner's spies. “Where is the wonder kid now?”
“Tracking Korda.”
“Who?”
“The thorn in our side.”
“Not that doomsayer from the back of nowhere.”
“The very same. He's starting to have an effect on the market.”
“I don't care if he's doing handstands in the middle of the Exchange!” Turner was clearly pleased to have something valid on which to hang his anger. “We've got an
emergency
here. Does the word have any meaning to you at all?”
“Sure, but this isâ”
“I'll tell you what this is. It's a waste of our time, and it's a waste of our valuable resourses! Bring that man back.”
“Listen, I'm worriedâ”
“Be worried about your future,” Turner snarled. “Get Dorsett back on the trading floor. See what other projects he can dream up. Find out if he can save both your hides. And while you're at it, have him report to me. I want to meet this boy wonder for myself.” Turner gathered his dignity like a cloak. “Fly him to Kennedy. I'll send the chopper. Today.”
“Thad, this is Larry.”
“Don't tell me you've already heard.”
“Heard what?”
“Never mind.” Thad rose from the breakfast table and carried the cell phone out into the hotel lobby. “I'm afraid we missed Korda again last night. Or at least the guys we hired did.”
“Never mind that now. Where's the nearest airport?”
“There must be a municipal field outside the city. Why?”
“I don't even know where you are.”
“Clarkstown. What's the matter?”
“I'm sending a jet down. Get out to the field now.”
“Look, Larry, we're on this guy. It's just a matter ofâ”
“I told you not to worry about that. Leave the security goons on his tail. You get back here. The old man wants to meet you.”
Early Friday morning they left Clarkstown for Flint, Michigan. Buddy had rested well and felt even more energized by the conversation he had had that morning with Molly. He waited until they had checked out of the hotel and started for the car to declare, “I'm going home this weekend. Molly's orders. It's for my health. She says she's going to shoot me unless I make it back.”
To his relief, Clarke did not object. “I think we could both use a break.”
Buddy reached for the cell phone. “I'll call Alex and make sure there's nothing that can't be rearranged.” When he disconnected, Buddy was smiling. “They hadn't gotten anything firmed up for either tomorrow or Sunday. Amazing.”
Clarke turned from the highway long enough to share his grin. “I can't believe anybody who's been through what you have would still find that word in his vocabulary.”
“I suppose so. Anyway, they'll try to book us on the last flight out tonight.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Buddy settled back. “That was nice, praying with the young man last night.”
“You know, Wesley is going to stay on with us,” Clarke informed him. “He says we need to take a more careful look at security and planning.”
Buddy shrugged. “We'll have to rely on God to protect us, same as always.”
Clarke glanced over a second time. “You've changed, old friend.”