What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [40]
The other major hurdle, of course, had been getting the Governor to buy into the idea that Cadmon could predict the future. Whitford might be a psychopathic turd of a man, but he was a pragmatic turd, and he wasn’t willing to accept on faith Cadmon’s promise of a giant, devastating storm. He’d wanted proof. And Cadmon hadn’t been able to say, “Well, this angel came down and he told me.” Whitford had demanded that Cadmon make good on his statement that he’d stake his personal fortune on the scheme, and had required the preacher to pony up the cash necessary to buy cots, portable housing, and food stuffs that would make it look like Whitford was actually trying to help the storm-struck citizens of Louisiana. All Whitford had to do was show up after the storm, give a press conference, and – hopefully – take it from there.
But that wasn’t how it had worked out. Whitford had shown up, but then the bugs had attacked and he’d run away. He hadn’t looked like a leader or a savior. No, he’d looked like an idiot. And now he was back in his cave here in Texas.
You’d think that carrying out God’s plan with the direct, personal assistance of an angel would go a little more smoothly. Cadmon sometimes wondered if this wasn’t the blind leading the blind.
Cadmon clicked the mouse some more and turned up the volume to listen to the brief press conference Whitford had given before being driven away by the locusts. On the screen, Whitford grumbled and glowered and sneered. The Governor reminded Cadmon of something he’d seen in a movie once – that giant, green slug guy. What was his name? Java or something? He watched the way Whitford had hefted his weight back and forth, grunting his answers, and it reminded Cadmon of a nature program he’d watched about giant male seals croaking their angry-sounding mating calls to seal cows. He shook his head to try to get rid of the image.
No, choosing Whitford was turning out to be a complete disaster, and the Louisiana catastrophe was only part of it. The angel had instructed Cadmon to get started on the next step, and had pointed out that Whitford would be very helpful with that. The preacher had done as he was asked, and dutifully (and casually) asked whether Whitford knew how to get a hold of some sarin gas. But in the weeks since, the Governor hadn’t said a word about it. In fact, as far as he knew, Whitford had forgotten entirely. But then, he didn’t really know at all. He couldn’t even get the bastard on the phone to ask.
The angel was going to be pissed. That – not whether Whitford actually managed to do anything – was what made Cadmon nervous. Ezekiel was, when you got right down to it, a little scary. Cadmon needed to somehow get Whitford back on track. But how the hell was he going to do that? He couldn’t exactly reveal what was really going on. “Hey, guess what Dick – you’re the bad guy!”
It was so unfair. It wasn’t as if he could post an ad: “Wanted: Antichrist.” Cadmon didn’t know any real dictator types, and traipsing through some South American jungle to get in touch with whatever military junta didn’t really seem like an appealing prospect. He’d been tempted to ask himself: What would Jesus do? How would Jesus find an antichrist? But he’d dismissed the idea, thinking that this problem was just too far afield for Jesus to be able to weigh in. Ironically, the man who’d authored a series of books with titles like How Would Jesus Invest? had been unable to wrap his mind around the notion that the most famous political revolutionary in history might have had something to say about the situation.