CHAPTER 12
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9
And make not Allah because of your swearing (by Him) an obstacle to your doing good and guarding (against evil) and making peace between men, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing. Qur’an [2.224]
On Wednesday evening, three long days after the putative terrorist house was discovered, Toby, Tad and Trey met at the outdoor restaurant on the roof of the Hotel Washington. As they arrived, the sun was just about to set over the White House.
“I love this spot,” Tad said after they were seated at a table near the railing on the southwestern corner of the roof deck. “My parents used to bring me up here at least once a year when I was a little girl. Watching the sun set over the White House and seeing the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial in the distance is something I never get tired of.”
“It is a fantastic view,” Toby agreed as he noticed a stunning young woman and her male companion seated at the adjacent table, also noticing that the two were sharing earphones for an i-Pod and that the young woman had pushed her right hand a good distance up one of the legs of the pair of shorts that the young man was wearing. “You can see a lot of amazing sights up here.”
Suddenly, the waiter- he said his name was Barack- appeared. “May I get you something to drink?” he asked.
“I’d like a white wine,” Tad said.
“I’ll just have a cup of coffee,” said Trey.
“Do you have an oaky, buttery Virginia chardonnay?” Toby asked the waiter.
“Yes sir. We carry Piedmont Vineyards’ chardonnay.”
“Excellent,” Toby said happily. “ Let us have two glasses of the Piedmont and one coffee.”
“Yes sir,” said Barack as he finished writing on his order pad. “Will there be anything else?”
“I don’t believe so,” Toby said to the waiter while tilting his head toward the young couple at the adjacent table, “unless you can find out what they are listening to on their iPod.”
Tad stared at Toby and then noticed the couple that he had been eyeing. “Men!” she said while laughing out loud.
Trey, who was absorbed in thought and unaware of the joke, unconsciously straightened his bow tie and asked, “Anyone got any idea why Drake called the meeting tomorrow?”
“Not a clue,” Toby answered as he looked to see how close the sun was to the horizon. “Maybe the lab has finally turned up something worthwhile.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Tad, who Toby thought looked particularly alluring in a light blue silk- or was it microfiber- blouse that accentuated her well-proportioned breasts. “We certainly didn’t learn much from the real estate agency that handled the rental house. The name George Clinton is obviously a fake name- probably from George Bush and Bill Clinton- and no one at the agency actually saw this Mr. Clinton. He paid in advanced for six months using cash.”
“We haven’t had much better luck,” Trey said as he paged through the notes he took on his electronic notebook. “During the last three days, local law enforcement personnel and Toby and I must have talked to nearly 500 people in that area and we only found one person- a Latino package delivery driver- who could remember seeing anyone who wasn’t eventually identified as being someone who belonged in the area. He thinks he remembers seeing three men in an SUV leaving the suspect house early one morning.”
“Yea, I remember him well,” said Toby. “I have his photograph somewhere on a microchip. He has a very interesting face and an unusual voice for a man. It isn’t exactly feminine, but it isn’t very masculine, either.”
“What does his appearance have to do with anything?” Trey asked.
“Probably nothing,” said Toby, “But you know that people’s faces interest me. And I was impressed that he was so precise in his description of the three men. According to him, they were all olive-skinned and all had facial hair. Two had both a beard and a mustache and one had only a mustache.”
“Unfortunately, though,” Trey continued, “he didn’t believe he could describe them to a sketch artist.”
“Well, from my perspective it appears that the late, great Virginia crusades were basically a waste of an entire week and a lot of energy,” said Tad.
“I wish you wouldn’t refer to the canvassing as the crusades,” said Trey as the waiter arrived with the drinks. “Just because most of the people involved in the canvassing were members of Christian churches, doesn’t mean that they were on a crusade against non-Christians.”
“It seems to me that is exactly what they were doing,” answered Tad. “After all, the mission was to help prevent terrorism, and I would bet for most Christian Americans their perception of terrorists would be people of Middle Eastern origin and the Islamic faith. Maybe they weren’t killing Muslims in the name of Christ, but they sure were hunting them.”
“I detect that you aren’t a big fan of Christianity, are you?” Trey asked Tad after taking a sip of his coffee.
Tad took a sip of wine before answering. “Don’t be offended, Trey; I’m not a big fan of any organized religion. It seems to me that organized religions- including Christianity and Islam- have been responsible for far more death and destruction than for anything positive. What was it somebody once said, ‘The nearer to the church, the further from God?’”
Trey answered just as the sun began to disappear behind the White House. “Just because man has misinterpreted Christ’s Word doesn’t mean that the Word is imperfect; it just proves that we are imperfect and need to turn our lives totally over to Christ. If all people truly knew Christ and gave their lives to Him, there would be no wars or conflicts.”
“Sure,” Tad responded quickly. “And if everybody lived their lives according to the teachings of Buddha, there would be no wars or conflicts either. And, if everybody lived their lives according to the Qur’an- at least as a vast majority of Muslims interpret it- there would be no wars. Every religion claims to be the one and only true religion. So what makes Christianity so special? Out of all the religions in the history of mankind, why is the one that just happened to catch on during the days of the Roman Empire the only path to heaven? It makes no sense that any God would leave people out of his or her heaven just because they didn’t live in the right time or place to hear about the one ‘true’ religion.”
“That is why we as Christians have an obligation to make certain that everybody does hear the Word of Christ so that they have the chance to be with Him in heaven,” Trey answered.
“You folks have a non-responsive answer to every question, don’t you?” Tad said, refusing to accept Trey’s explanation. “That does nothing for the people you don’t reach.”
“Well, let me ask you a question about your faith- or lack of it,” Trey said calmly, but with intense fervor. “Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?”
“No, he can’t be,” Tad said after taking another sip of her chardonnay.
“Why not?” Trey asked with a puzzled look.
“Because there is no God,” Tad answered. “No God. No Son of God. No Grandchildren of God. Just people who developed out of cells that came together somehow and someway that I admit I don’t totally understand.”
Although Toby found himself much more on Tad’s side of this discussion, the gorgeous sunset he was watching made it hard for him to believe that there was not a creator of some type.
“I agree that Christians have no more claim to the truth than any other religion,” he said, “but when I see a beautiful sunset or sunrise or hear particularly beautiful music, I think that there has to be someone or something ultimately responsible for such beauty.”
“Obviously, everything that is beautiful in this world is the work of God,” Trey said to Toby before then replying to Tad. “I’m very sorry to hear that you have no faith in God, Davenport. I will pray that Christ comes to you in some manner so that you, too, will know of His existence and His love for you.”
Tad looked at Trey and smiled. “I appreciate that, Trey. I know you mean well, but I don’t need to be saved. When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. I just wish that the Christians who are trying to take over our government would somehow find enough humility to realize that they do not have a direct pipeline to God.”
“Anyone like another drink?” Toby asked after Tad finished, but before Trey had an opportunity to respond.
“Nothing for me, Trey answered. “I need to get home to Tricia and the kids. But it was nice to see the sun set, and I always enjoy a lively religious discussion. And, if I can say just one more thing, Tad, Christians do have several pipelines to God. They are the Bible, the Word of Christ and prayer.”
Trey mentioning his stay-at-home wife and his pipelines to God at the same time was like adding kerosene to a fire burning deep within Tiffany Ashley Davenport.
“Does God tell you through his Biblical pipeline that women should be second-class citizens?” she asked.
“What do you mean by that?” Trey responded curiously.
“Do you believe that women should have the same rights as men?” Tad responded.
“Of course I do,” Trey answered. “God loves women as much as men.”
“As long as they have children and stay at home?” she asked.
“No, women should have the right to do whatever they wish- although, it is obvious that they were designed to bear children and they have the maternal instincts that make them far superior to men in raising children.”
“So, God did make women to bear children and raise them?” Tad asked.
“Yes, but I hardly think that most women consider that to be second-class citizenship,” Trey answered. “In fact, most women I know say that they feel privileged to be able to stay at home with their children.”
“So you favor the laws that the CDR has passed to encourage women to be stay-at-home moms?”
“I think that families are better off if one parent is the primary care giver and homemaker,” Trey admitted.
“And, based on what you said about women, you probably believe that women are the ones who should be the primary caregivers?” she asked rhetorically.
“I’d have to say yes to that,” Trey responded.
“Well, I can see there’s no need to discuss this issue any further then, because I can’t argue with what God has ordained,” Tad said, “but it does bug me that so-called Christians want to impose their values about women and everything else on the rest of us.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Trey responded, “but even if it were, Christians make up about 85-90 percent of the population. Shouldn’t society’s values reflect the values of the vast majority?”
“First of all, I disagree that a majority of Americans are Christians,” Tad answered. “Sure, a majority claim to be Christian, because that’s how they were raised. If they had been brought up in India, they would probably be Hindu. And if they had been brought up in Pakistan, they would very likely be Muslim. I would guess that less than half of Americans actually practice Christianity and less than half of those actually believe what they profess to believe. Therefore, the values being imposed on everyone are actually being determined by the most militant Christians in our society.”
“You make some valid arguments,” Trey responded as he stood up and reached to get his wallet, “but I believe this is clearly a Christian country and should reflect Christian values as much as possible. I do admire you for standing up for what you believe, however, and I wish some Christians I know had your fervor. How much do I owe?”
“I’ll get it,” Toby answered. “We’ll probably hang around for awhile longer.”
“Thanks,” Trey answered. “I’ll buy next time.”
As Trey left, Toby ordered two more glasses of the Piedmont chardonnay and he and Tad watched the sunlight gradually fade until the streetlights and building lights illuminated the magic city spread out before them.
“It’s almost scary that Trey is so serious about that religion stuff,” Tad said. “I don’t understand how he can be so intelligent and yet so narrow minded.”
“I wonder the same thing sometimes,” Sullivan said as he gazed out a Lafayette Park across from the White House. “But I have come to realize that there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between a person’s intelligence and his religious beliefs. I know very religious people who have the I.Q. of a corncob and very non-religious people who are equally as stupid. And I know very religious people who are brilliant and equally as brilliant people who are not at all religious. What separates people is faith or the lack of it, and there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between I.Q. and faith.”
“I guess you’re right,” Tad said as she took another sip of the full-bodied, buttery chardonnay. “And I certainly have nothing against people being religious. But I have seen entirely too much religious-sanctioned discrimination against women to believe that any god would sanction any religion, including Islam or Christianity, that treats women as inferior to men.”
“Agreed,” said Toby, “but you have to admit that women fare much better under Christianity than under Islam. You don’t see Christians stoning women for being raped.”
“That may be true,” Tad admitted, “but a lot of the mistreatment in Muslim countries is due more to culture than any religious requirements. The Qur’an itself is addressed to all Muslims, and for the most part it does not differentiate between male and female. Man and woman, it says, ‘were created of a single soul,’ and are moral equals in the sight of God. In Islam, women have the right to divorce, to inherit property, to conduct business and to have access to knowledge. Any money or property owned by women is theirs to keep, and they are not obliged to share it. Similarly, in marriage, a woman’s salary is hers and cannot be appropriated by her husband unless she consents.”
“Are you saying that Christianity isn’t much better than Islam in terms of treatment of women?” Toby asked.
“What I’m saying is that a lot of the mistreatment of Islamic women is more cultural than religious. And, I’m saying that it really doesn’t matter that Christianity isn’t as bad as Islam. This is the United States in the 21st century for God sakes. Women in this country, whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu or any other religion, should be able to decide what they want to do with their bodies and their lives. It is their choice, not the men who write the laws.”
“No argument here,” Toby said both out of conviction and a keen sense of self-preservation. “But I have two important questions for you.”
“What are they?” Tad asked with a somewhat puzzled look.
The first question is, “Do you want to get a hamburger before we leave? And the second question is from J. Edgar. He wanted me to ask you if you would consider sleeping with him tonight?”
“Yes to both questions,” Tad answered, “and if you are real good, Jeddy and I might even consider letting you join us.”