The fight began when one of the priest’s supporters took the doll from her.
Jack, crouched in the ferns outside the priory, clenched a fist in triumph.
Suddenly he could hear the police breaking up the brawl. Martha, his unwitting accomplice, bit a policeman on the arm. The officer yanked his arm away and she spat, “Take that, pig!”
“All right, in the cuffs!” She was handcuffed and thrown in the back of one of the patrol cars, along with several of her fellow protesters. Housewives, students, businessmen and more, they all looked and dressed and acted exactly like what they were: a furious mob, protesting a priest accused of molesting an altar boy. The patrol cars drove off soon, full of blue jeans, T-shirts, high heels and suits, all occupied by indignant men and women.
Jack, comfortable in his green shorts and shirt, listened intently on his headphones as he crouched in the cool of the fern garden. The doll that had been seized was a grotesque caricature of a priest holding a smaller doll, as if engaged in coitus. His wife’s idea, the doll gave him an idea of his own, and he secretly embedded a microphone and something else inside the doll, hoping it would be taken away.
“Can you believe this horrid thing?” Jack could hear the woman’s voice, guessing it to be the nun who took the doll. “I’ll throw it in the trash – or burn the horrible thing.”
NO, thought Jack, no, give it to him. Show it to him. Tensing up in anticipation, he found his breath coming in short, shallow spurts.
He heard another woman’s voice. “You’d better show him. He has a right to know what’s being done.”
Yes, he thought. Listen to her.
He heard the clunk, clunk of heavy, ugly shoes climbing the stairs. A door opened. He heard the first woman’s voice again.
“Monsignor.” There was a pause. “The protestors . . . one had this hideous thing.”
Jack heard a heavy sigh. “Leave it, sister,” came a man’s voice. “Leave me.”
“Yes,“ Jack hissed. He then flipped a switch, activating the bomb he had also concealed in the doll. This priest had sixty seconds left to live.
“Lord, forgive them,” Jack heard the priest say. “If it be thy will, take this cup from me.”
I’ll do the Lord’s work, Jack thought.
“Lord,” the priest continued. “Why has this come to me? You know I have never done anything to hurt anyone. Why has this boy lied about me, Lord? What have I done to deserve this punishment for something I did not do?
Jack’s mind screamed “No” and his mouth dropped open as the explosion rocked the small white stucco building. Jack stood, unable to run, unable to walk, unable to do anything but stare in horror at the flaming carnage he had wrought in the name of God, feeling his own soul searing away.
