*
“Heaven-o,” Frankland said, and Robitaille began to scream.
“He cries in pain when you speak the name of heaven,” Dr. Calhoun said, and frowned at the man writhing on the bed.
The stench in the room was appalling. Sweat, urine, vomit. Frankland steeled himself against it.
“Donne-moi un verre! Au nom de Dieu, un verre!”
The three pastors looked down at the priest, each holding a well-worn Bible. “He just keeps talking that Latin,” Frankland said. “I figure the Devil speaks Latin like the Pope.”
“That’s French,” Calhoun said. “He’s from Cajun country, remember.”
Frankland looked at Calhoun dubiously, then decided the precise language didn’t matter anyway. “Well,” he said to Calhoun, “you’re the college boy.”
“Pourquoi êtes-vous là? Qu’est-ce que vous faites? Des diables!”
“Did you hear that?” Garb said. “He said devil, I think.”
Calhoun stepped closer to the bed, passing a hand nervously over his bald head, and then straightened and spoke in a loud, commanding voice. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What is your name? I demand this in the name of the Lord!”
“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”
The English words sprayed between Robitaille’s broken teeth. He shrank from his three visitors, backing across the stained sheets to the far wall.
“Why don’t you want us to touch you?” Garb said. “Why do you try to hide from the name of the Lord?”
“Vous voulez que je meurs!”
Calhoun adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles. “Why don’t you try touching him with the Bible?”
Calhoun nodded. “Good idea, Brother Garb.” He stepped forward and tried to press his Bible to Robitaille’s head. Robitaille gave a cry and tried to bat the Bible away with his hands.
“C’est le singe! Le grand singe!”
Calhoun pulled Robitaille’s hands away and firmly pressed the Bible to Robitaille’s forehead. Robitaille shrieked, seized Calhoun’s wrists. For a moment there was a frantic struggle.
“Get away! C’est le singe!”
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.”