The Veritas Conflict (8 page)

The enemy troops were still a factor, of course, so even the best-laid plans didn’t always work out perfectly. But, as in so many other places, this wasn’t
their
territory anymore. There were so few residents who feared God anymore, so few prayer warriors, that it now took special effort from the heavenly host assigned to this area to counter the fine-tuned intentions of darkness.

Finally, the city reports wound down. The room grew tense as Krolech pointed toward the center of the map, the center of their plan. The university had been the
crown jewel of this handpicked team’s success for many years, but these days it was becoming more and more troublesome. It was beginning to remind them of those early days after they had finally gained control of the area, but when there were still enough God-fearing, praying men—and enough Enemy warriors—around to cause serious headaches. With the exception of a few outliers, the years since had been much easier. But now, unexpectedly, the headaches were back.

In the past few years, the praying had intensified again. The Enemy had stirred Christian fellowship groups of every stripe, and they were praying in concert as had happened from time to time in years past.

This time it had started small, sometimes with just a few believers here and there, but it had deepened. And before the dark forces knew what had happened, whole
classes
had been admitted with large numbers of praying Christians! God-fearing chaplains and leaders had arisen to shepherd them. Now, instead of fellowship groups of ten or twenty, there were groups of fifty, then eighty. Dozens of God-fearing men and women now met weekly to pray over the campus. No wonder it was no longer as easy as it had been.

Krolech’s eyes narrowed as the reports progressed, and he drummed a heavy beat on the massive table with his fingers. His underlings winced whenever he questioned their efficiency, their results. He was particularly irritated in cases where set plans couldn’t be immediately instituted—a student’s angelic guard prevented an attack; a faculty member’s long-awaited divorce was thwarted by the tender intervention of a praying friend; a classroom debate was no longer effectively influenced by the dark side.

It was an unacceptable situation for a troop of the best and the brightest—and was certainly unacceptable for a key pivot point in the Great War.

Finally, the dark commander barked an order, and his underlings wound up their briefing. They departed quickly leaving Krolech to his thoughts, waiting to see what he would come up with to stem this slow tide.

Krolech brooded for a moment after the meeting. One thing was certain. He wasn’t going anywhere near his master until he had managed to polish his crown jewel a bit. He returned to studying the center of the large map, formulating new strategies, thinking, planning. A thought struck him. Come to think of it, it might simply be time to strengthen some old strategies.…

Humming to herself, Claire pulled on a light jacket and bounded down the stairs of her dorm and out into the late afternoon. The grassy square in front of her dorm was lined with venerable redbrick buildings and majestic old trees. Harvard Yard. Claire crunched through the leaves, gazing around at the solid weight of history. Presidents had gone to
this school. JFK had lived in her dorm, on the floor below her. The students walking and chattering on the paths around her would go on to be senators, multimillionaires, governors, captains of industry. She looked back at her building.
Maybe one day someone will say, “Claire Rivers lived in that dorm
.” She giggled, thinking how preposterous that sounded.

She noticed a tour group across the Yard standing in a loose semicircle around an admissions office tour guide. The guide was pointing out some feature on the wrought-iron Johnston Gate, the giant entrance to the Yard through the twelve-foot walls surrounding the college property.

The tour group broke ranks and trooped across the Yard toward the statue of John Harvard. Claire noticed many young faces in the group. They looked around hungrily, weighing the chances of beating the odds for admittance. She smiled at several, and they looked at her enviously as she passed by.

A dark presence hovered above her head and whispered beguiling words to her. He rubbed his hands together with eager relish. Floating a few feet away, a warrior angel stared at him fiercely, keeping pace with him and the girl. The angel far outmatched the demon for size and strength, but the demon pretended to be unconcerned by his presence. The dark being made no moves of aggression, gave no excuse for the angel to cut short his time with the girl. He just kept speaking those subtle words to her. They were being accepted, and so was he. As long as he was accepted, he had the right to be there.

Claire stepped through Johnston Gate and into the bustle of Harvard Square, heading for the Coop, the giant co-op store that sold everything from textbooks and school paraphernalia to toiletries and furniture. She watched two tourists in the distance taking photographs in front of the famous Out of Town News kiosk. She smiled with inward amusement, pleased to belong to this place.

A steady stream of cars traveled past her, and after a moment she stopped and looked for a place to cross the street. She saw several people in the cars staring out their windows at the picture-postcard entrance to Harvard Yard; she watched their eyes flicker in her direction and take in the backpack she had slung over one shoulder.
They know I’m a student at Harvard
.

The demon above her smiled maliciously and kept whispering.

SIX

B
ARBARA
R
IVERS TOOK A DEEP BREATH
as she watched the red and gold leaves flutter on the branches in front of her. The trees in their friends backyard were beginning their yearly blaze of color. God’s paintbrush at it’s best.

“Here you go.” Tom handed her a tall glass, ice clinking. “Margaret’s raspberry iced tea. Perfect for christening David and Margaret’s long-awaited deck.”

David was busy at the grill, a grin playing on his lips. “Does that officially make us adults, now that we not only have a house, but a house with a back
deck?
I have no more excuses!”

Tom slapped him on the back. “Friend, I hate to tell you this, but I think you officially became an adult last year when Jeremy went to college!”

“Well, at least that makes two of us.”

“I’ve heard the colors in Boston are amazing in October.” Barbara’s voice was distant. “I wonder if Claire will have a chance to get out and see them.”

Margaret set down a tray of hamburger buns on the picnic table and came over to join Barbara. “You know, Jeremy was pretty busy getting acclimated his first semester. It took him a few months to get hooked up with a group of friends and do things like sightseeing. Claire doesn’t even start classes until Monday, right?”

When Barbara didn’t respond, Margaret rubbed her friend’s shoulder. “I know it’s hard to have your baby so far away. But she’ll be okay; she’s a good kid.” A grin flashed across her features. “A little headstrong, perhaps, but good.”

“Her stubborn streak used to drive me crazy. But I’m kind of glad for it now: It’ll serve her well at Harvard. As long as she is stubborn in the right direction. You wouldn’t believe some of the things she saw in her first few days there. And I know she wasn’t telling me the half of it. There are going to be so many temptations.…”

Barbara fell silent, and after a moment Margaret took her hand and guided her to the picnic table. She gently pushed her to a sitting position, then straddled the bench and faced her friend. “Do you remember what you told me about seven or eight years ago, when you were debating whether to put Claire in Christian school?”

“I said that I wanted her
out
of the public school system after I found out that group was conducting assemblies on safe sex and abortion rights and such. She was only ten!”

“Right, but that wasn’t all. We had all made the same decision: We wanted our children to learn as much as they could without that sort of pressure
and … do
you remember what else?” She watched Barbara’s face closely. “We said we wanted to arm them with a solid Christian education before they went out into the world.”

Barbara laughed slightly, remembering. “I know. I just didn’t think that going out into the world would come so soon.” She made a face at Margaret’s sympathetic chuckle, slightly annoyed. “It’s all fine for you to say. Jeremy went to a Christian college!”

“Yes, but still, it’s college—and he’s out from under our wing, making his own choices.”

Tom came over and sat down on the bench opposite the two women. He looked at his wife. “Lord knows I wanted Claire to go to a Christian college more than anyone. I wanted some assurance that she wouldn’t make the same stupid choices that I had, and I figured Wheaton would give me that. But that wasn’t God’s plan.” Tom reached across the table and took Barbara’s hands. “We’ve always said that we were raising the kids to be salt and light in a decaying world, right? Well, at some point we have to let them go out into the darkness and trust God to care for them. After all, He’s had the harder job trusting
us
with them all these years. Us trusting Him should be a piece of cake.”

Barbara felt her husband gently stroking her fingers between his. Unexpectedly, her eyes grew red. She looked down at the table. “I know it
should
be. And I know we can’t all just cluster in our Christian colleges and churches and clubs. But—”

David set down the tray of cooked hamburgers. “You’ve said yourself, Barbara, that if all the Christians leave the public schools, leave the secular universities, that we’ve removed a major influence for positive change of exactly those things we’re tempted to run away from. If Christians remove themselves from society, we’re like candles glowing brightly in an already lighted room, while the darkness outside remains unchanged.”

“I understand that!” Barbara tried to keep her voice even. “And I believe it. Somebody needs to venture out into the darkness and light it up. I just don’t know that I want my baby to be the guinea pig.”

Tom continued rubbing her hands. “Honey, what you just said is wrong, and you know it. It’s not that somebody needs to be out there in the darkness; it’s that all of us do. I don’t like the idea of Claire being out there any more than you do, but we’ve trained her up in the way she should go, and we have to let God complete her training on the front lines. If there’s anything we should have learned by now, it’s that we need to learn how to confront the problems of the world head on, with God’s help.”

He made a self-deprecating face and turned to their friends. “I’ve always wanted to protect Claire, to insulate her. But when she said she wanted to go to Harvard, I finally
had to stop and think. Maybe if I had been forced to deal with ‘real life’ earlier in my own life I wouldn’t have caused this family so much trouble.”

Barbara started to protest, but he shushed her. “You know what I mean.”

“I think,” Margaret said, “that you need to bring this up at home group on Thursday night and let everyone pray for you and for Claire. I know you’ve been praying a lot, but all your friends want to get in on the action. After all, we kind of feel that each others kids are our own.”

David finished setting out plates and utensils and took his seat. He held out his hands. “Let’s pray now.”

The little group joined their hands and hearts, giving thanks for the food and for the opportunity to come before the Throne. David and Margaret asked God to give peace and protection to the Rivers family, especially to the daughter so far away.

SEVEN

H
OW DID ANYONE EXPECT TO MAKE SENSE
of this stupid map? Claire fumbled with her purse and portfolio while trying to hold the flimsy paper open. The subway lines looked like spaghetti strands, crisscrossing the page at random.

She looked wildly around her at the bustling underground Government Center station. There was the blue line to Bowdoin and the green line to Lechmere. She had gotten off the red line on the subway—the T, she quickly corrected herself—and had to switch to another. But which one?

She looked at the digital clock hanging over a nearby platform. The first day of class had been a blur. She should have taken the time to ask for directions before she hurried from her last class to the Harvard Square T station. She was already late. Not a good way to meet the people who were financing her education.

A distinguished-looking woman in a long, red wool coat walked by, her shopping bag? rustling as she passed. Claire turned around. “Oh, excuse me, ma’am! Could you tell me which direction the blue line …?”

The woman shook her head and kept walking.

Claire stared at the map again. Why couldn’t the lines just say North or East like any self-respecting highway system would? A younger woman in a tracksuit approached from the other direction. Claire stepped toward her. “Excuse me. Does the blue line to Wonderland go toward the business district?”

“Don’t know.” The tracksuit turned a corner and was gone.

Claire stared after her. “Gee, thanks for the help.”

“Whatcha need, dearie?” Another woman stopped next to her.

Relieved, Claire poured out her dilemma. The woman pointed out her line, and Claire hurried to the correct platform. She stared down the tracks, but could see no lights approaching.

She noticed the hum of a soft drink machine from a nearby newspaper kiosk. She stepped in, bumped from all sides by patrons hurrying in and out. People jostled for space in front of the cashier. The bottles of soda were in the glass case behind him. Where was the line?

Keeping an ear out for the sound of her train, she inched her way forward behind a man in a baseball cap. Suddenly, she was poked by a sharp elbow and found
another person between her and the baseball cap.

“Hey!” She tapped the offending shoulder. “I’m sorry, but the line is back there.” Several people turned to look, but no one seemed surprised when the line-breaker didn’t budge. No one said anything.