Saint by Ted Dekker Read Free Book Online Page B

Robert. “Words can become reality, Robert. And when those words are evil, someone had better be fighting the good fight, or the world could very well be swallowed up by evil.”
    The president felt his heart pause. Project Showdown.
    There was far more here than David was saying openly. The secretary’s presence was now a liability.
    â€œCould you give us a minute, Calvin?”
    Bromley glanced at David, then stood. “No problem.”
    â€œDinner’s in an hour. Join us?”
    â€œOf course, Mr. President.”
    â€œRobert.”
    â€œRight.” He left without another word.
    Robert and David sat in silence for a few seconds. Robert wasn’t sure how to draw out his mentor. When he’d invited David to serve as his spiritual adviser, the professor’s first response had been that he couldn’t, not until he told the president everything.
    It was then, nearly a year ago now, that David had sat down with Robert in the Oval Office and told him about Project Showdown. The story spun by this man on that day had sounded like something out of the Old Testament, a series of fantastic events of mythical proportion. Such an account made it seem as if Joshua were a real man who really had knocked over the walls of Jericho with a blast of horns. As if John’s Revelation were a real possibility, in literal terms.
    David had insisted that Robert know the full extent of Project Showdown, because he wasn’t sure that the president of the United States would want someone with such a résumé to serve as his spiritual adviser.
    At first, Robert wasn’t sure either. He commissioned a private study to determine if the events described by David Abraham could possibly have happened as the man claimed. The man he’d put in charge was a proud agnostic with the FBI named Christian Larkin.
    One month after receiving the assignment, Larkin had walked into Robert’s office a changed man. The only copy of his report, simply titled Showdown , was now in Robert’s closet at the White House residence.
    Larkin had analyzed satellite images of Colorado, which showed some spectacular anomalies if you knew what to look for. He had conducted hundreds of interviews, analyzed the material from many of the buildings, and explored the canyon in question with ultrasonic equipment.
    In the end, there was no room for doubt. Evil had indeed visited the small town of Paradise, Colorado, in a most stunning fashion twelve years earlier. What started out as a covert experiment to study the noble savage in a controlled environment had spun horribly out of control. The shocking events of Project Showdown required three hundred pages.
    Robert had called David Abraham within an hour of reading Christian Larkin’s full report and insisted that he fill the role of his personal spiritual adviser.
    He looked at David, who was watching him, calm now.
    â€œOkay. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
    â€œI have,” David said.
    â€œYou know what I mean, Father. I’m not making the connection here.”
    â€œI’m not a priest,” David said. “But I appreciate your confidence in me. Can you look past the simple ways of man?”
    Meaning what? Robert wasn’t a man of subtleties—he never liked it when David employed them to make his points. “Don’t tell me this decision I’m about to make has anything to do with what happened twelve years ago.”
    â€œMaybe yes, maybe no. But I have a feeling. I haven’t had a feeling like this for twelve years. I can tell you that this Iranian defense minister, this Assim Feroz, is not where he is by accident. He will be the destruction of Israel if you allow him.”
    David stood and walked across the room, staring at the books. He’d always been a great lover of books. He collected them, tens of thousands of them. Some said that his was the most valuable private collection of books in the