Calhoun pulled back. Robitaille gasped for breath, eyes rolling wildly in his face as he tried to back himself into the headboard. Calhoun turned to the others, his face grave.
“Well,” he said, “I guess that settles it.” He looked at Frankland. “Brother Frankland, praise Jesus for letting you see this.”
“Thank you, Dr. Calhoun,” Frankland said in relief. He had needed his colleagues to assure him that his diagnosis was correct, that this was not merely a case of the DTs. They had all worked with alcoholics, they had all worked with people going through withdrawal. But this one was, clearly, different. Now all could agree that Father Robitaille had been possessed by an evil spirit, presumably a demon flown up from Hell.
The Devil could get you if you went into a Catholic church, Frankland thought. In Robitaille’s case, it wasn’t a what-d’you-call-it metaphor, it was a genuine devil. It had led Robitaille into false worship, into alcoholism and probably other sinful behaviors. It cursed and gibbered in foreign tongues and shrank from the Bible and the name of the Lord.
Garb bit his lip. “The question is, how do we get rid of it?”
There was a moment of silence.
“Well,” Frankland said, “our Lord cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, and a legion’s worth of devils out of the two possessed men. And he gave this power to his disciples.” Calhoun passed a nervous hand over his bald head. “But how’s it done, exactly?” None of them had ever had direct experience with demons before. In preparation for this moment, each had looked into his Bible and discovered that there were no actual directions for casting out spirits.
“Well,” Calhoun said, “in Mark, our Lord says, ‘Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.’” Frankland considered this. “Shall we try it?”
They faced Robitaille and chanted the phrase in unison. They tried it several times. Robitaille only whimpered and muttered as he cast terrified looks around the room.
“There’s got to be more to it than this,” Frankland said.
“We don’t dare let a demon spy on us,” Garb said. “What we’re doing here is too crucial.” Frankland looked at Robitaille again. He had curled up around a pillow, and was crying. “What can we use to help us?” Frankland asked.
“The Lord’s name,” Garb said.
“The Lord’s Word,” said Calhoun, brandishing his Bible.
“The Lord’s…” Frankland stumbled. “Prayer?” he finished.
“All three,” Calhoun said firmly.
They worked on Robitaille for an hour, with vigor and persistence and pure-hearted dedication, but it didn’t seem to help.
It took some time to get a hold of the President. Jessica kept getting the brushoff from various aides and assistants. She didn’t want to think about how many leaps in the chain of command she was making by placing this call.
“It is a decision that only the President can make,” she kept repeating. “I must speak to him personally.” Jessica was told that the President was speaking to the press about the tragedy while taking a boat ride past the flooded Memphis Pyramid. Let it not be said, she thought, that he was ever at a loss for photo opportunities. Jessica wished she’d stayed in Memphis and dropped in on the President while he was making his tour.
“Listen,” Jessica said, “the President appointed me to this job, in person, just a few weeks ago. The last thing the press wants to hear is that I resigned because the President would not speak to me on a matter of vital national interest.”
She wagged her eyebrows at her husband, Pat, who sat across her desk with a highly impressed look on his face. He didn’t very often have the opportunity to see her turn into Major General Frazetta, the Fire-Eating Army Engineer. She covered the mouthpiece of her phone.
“What’s for lunch?” she asked.
“Mystery meat on a bun,” Pat said. “Macaroni and cheese. Mixed veg. I haven’t had these kinds of meals since high school.”
“That’s because you never experienced the joy of national service. A few years in the Army would have taught you to appreciate chicken a la king and chipped beef on toast.”
“If today’s army were sensible—like that of Jeb Stuart—I would have served.” Jessica grinned. “Could you get me some lunch?”
“You bet.”
“Make mine with extra mystery meat, will you?”
Pat nodded and was off. Jessica returned to her phone and her war with the Executive Department. In due time she heard the velvet tones of her boss. “Jessica,” he said, “where are you?” Ninety minutes, she noted. Damn. She had clout. This was a good thing to know.
“I’m in Vicksburg, Mr. President,” Jessica said. “At my headquarters.”
“I’m told you needed to speak to me. What can I do for you?”
“A couple things, Mr. President. First, you’d make my job a little easier if you asked Congress to move along my appointment as President of the Mississippi Valley Commission.”
“Okay,” the President said. “I can do that.”
An undertone of impatience had crept into the President’s soothing tenor. Jessica had only asked about the MVC appointment by way of delaying her real request, which took a certain amount of nerve.
“But what I really need you to do, sir, is this,” she said. She took a deep breath. “I need you to order the evacuation of the entire Mississippi Valley from St. Louis south to the Gulf of Mexico.” Pat returned with Jessica’s second cup of coffee, and she sipped it gratefully. “I didn’t hear all of that,” he said, “but it sounded as if you wanted to evacuate every city on the Mississippi. New Orleans and everyplace.”
Jessica nodded. “I do.”
“But New Orleans isn’t flooded. And there’s no danger from quake down there—” Pat looked at her. “Is there?”
Jessica shook her head. “Don’t think so, no.”
“So the levees are safe? They’ll hold?”
“Probably they’ll hold. I’ll do my damndest to make sure they do. But that’s not my problem—the problem is that all those cities, and every little town in between, get their water from the river. And the river isn’t just a river, it’s the biggest sewer in North America. With this many refugees, you’re going to see every disease you can think of going into the river. Cholera, typhus, typhoid. Any industry you can name sits on the river bank. Petroleum, fertilizers, flammable chemicals, raw sewage. Nuclear power, even.”
Pat looked at her. “You’re going to have to evacuate those cities… because of pollution?” She looked up at him. “I presume the big cities can chlorinate their water enough to keep out the diseases, but I doubt the small towns have even that capacity. And even the cities can’t handle the other stuff. Heavy metals. Nitrate fertilizer. Chlorinated chemicals. Pesticides, petroleum products. Phosphates, ammoniated compounds. Plastics. Toluene, benzene, fuel oils. Polychlorinated biphenyls, from places that haven’t phased them out. Corrosives. Hexavalent chromium—” she shook her head “—now that’s a nightmare. And on top of all that, we’ve maybe got nuclear isotopes from that plant downriver.”
“Jesus,” Pat said.
“Enough to keep every Hazardous Materials team in the country busy for twenty years,” Jessica said. Pat’s eyes were wide. “So what did the President say?”
Jessica’s helmet felt very heavy. “He said he’d talk to his people and get back to me. But what can he do?” She shook her head. “I don’t know how many millions of people live on the Lower Mississippi, but we don’t have the capacity to ship fresh water to them every day, especially when there’s an all-out emergency just up the river.”