A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [171]
“My footprint? How the hell did anyone get my footprint?”
“I didn’t, but a certificate told me your name, the time you were born and where. Then I researched Catholic adoption records covering a five-year period. A single line said, ‘Baby Patrick, parents unknown. Adopted by Daniel and Siobhan O’Connell, Troublesome, Colorado, February 17, 1953.’ The rest of it? Baby Patrick grew to be Governor Quinn Patrick O’Connell.”
“But how did you confirm your connection with Quinn?” Rita asked.
“Quinn has given innumerable pints of blood to the Red Cross to be used as a bank for a family emergency, and otherwise, he is a regular donor. I was able to get a hold of a pint and run a DNA on it, then one on myself. To make utterly certain, I had Father’s body exhumed and took enough to test him as well. The three of us are a match.”
“We don’t need DNA results,” Rita said, lifting off Ben’s glasses. “Just look at the two of them.”
They drifted down from the tale of fantasia back into Mal’s studio.
“Thank God, Ben reached us when he did. If the public learned after the election, it would be a prelude to a national nightmare,” Greer said.
“Am I privy to this?” Mal wanted to know.
“Of course you are,” Quinn answered.
“All right, then. We must put this before the American people at once,” Mal said. “But no matter what approach you make, you’ve entered a minefield.”
“He’ll tell the truth,” Rita cried.
“Truth is in the heart of the beholder. Them that wants the truth will believe him. No truth can penetrate them who can’t comprehend the truth. They will cry wolf about a Zionist conspiracy. In ten minutes I can find someone in the media down in Troublesome and tip him off that a left-wing Catholic priest planted a Jewish child as part of a Zionist plot. You think that’s crazy? Nothing among the haters will be too far-fetched.”
Mal looked at the brothers and shook his head. The resemblance was remarkable. “The problem is, Jew hating has always been close to the surface throughout the last two millennia. It’s the perfect system of bigotry, time-tested—the Roman sacking of the nation, the divorce of Jesus from the Jews in order to make a new religion, Islam, the ankle-deep blood of Jews by the Crusaders on the Rhine, the Inquisition, Martin Luther, the pogroms of Eastern Europe, and lest we forget, the Holocaust.”
“Is the human race forever in a prison of bigotry?” Quinn whispered.
“Quinn, I don’t want you or Rita or the kids to have to walk into a blizzard of hate. Withdraw from the race,” Mal said.
Ben once again berated himself for his bountyhunter zeal. Greer answered him that he had to do what he did. Neither Quinn nor Rita spoke of the terror they had endured before and after the AMERIGUN convention.
“We Jews are the most outstanding example of a patriotic minority,” Ben said. “At only two percent of the population, we’ve created great industries and writers and musicians and doctors. As I teach my students, there are over seventy Jewish American Nobel prize winners. Goddammit, we deserve the respect of our countrymen!”
“There has been no crime…no conspiracy,” Quinn said.
“Depends on who is telling the story and who is listening,” Mal said. “They’re all in place, waiting for the news.”
“And if I quit, the Second Amendment will never be tested.”
“Remember what was done to the Clintons,” Rita said. “Destruction, sheer destruction.” Her quavering words were her first. She knew what lay ahead if he went on. Quinn was deeply jarred by her less than enthusiastic support. His strong allies in life were becoming his reluctant allies. Greer? What about Greer? She’d be too clever to slip one way or another at this point.
“It’s your call, boss,” Greer said.
“Like my old commander Jeremiah Duncan said, ‘If blood bothers you, don’t go on this mission.’ Greer, buy some network and cable time. I’ll read a statement from here to the American people at one o’clock,” and then he laughed, “Rocky Mountain