CHAPTER 9

Carl stroked his wife's hand absent-mindedly as he held it. "It's strange,"
he said quietly, "but I walked over to the Council Chambers knowing full
well there was a risk I'd run into Lancaster, yet when I actually did meet
him I wasn't really prepared for it."
Emma stilled his hand by placing her other hand over it. He looked down
at their hands on his lap, then at her, and smiled. He leaned over and
kissed on the nose, making her giggle, and put his arm around her. Then he
was suddenly serious again. "It was an odd meeting," he said, "I'm not sure I
understand it even now."
"Lancaster's really the mayor there, then?" Emma asked.
"Oh, yes, it's him all right."
"Has he changed at all? I mean, is he different from the way he was back
when he was your boss?"
"Has he changed?" Carl repeated, "In one way, he hasn't changed—he's
just as ambitious and unprincipled as ever. Like Kevin said, 'I wouldn't trust
him for a second!' But in another way, he has changed, and that's what I
found puzzling. It's as if he's developed charisma, you know, the ability to
charm people, to attract them. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe you'll
see what I mean as I tell you about my encounter with him." He stood up
and put his hands in his pockets. "Shall we walk again for a while?" he
asked.
"Sure," Emma replied, getting up and linking her arm in his.
He continued talking as they walked slowly by the Lake. "When I got to
the Council building I went in and looked around the front lobby. It looks
about a hundred years old—probably dates from the nineteen-thirties, at
that. There was an information desk so I went over to ask where I could find
the Public Records. While I was talking with the woman there I noticed out
of the corner of my eye that a group of men and women were coming in the
main door. The reason I noticed them is that I heard and recognized the
voice of one of the men... They were walking past behind me towards the lifts
when the man stopped talking in mid-sentence, and the whole group
stopped in their tracks. Then suddenly someone slapped me on the
shoulder."

!!!

"Well, well, if it isn't Carl Slade!" Ross Lancaster boomed genially for the
benefit of his audience. Gripping Carl's shoulder, he made him turn around
to face him. "And what brings you to our fair town, my dear friend?"
Carl's blood ran cold as he faced the man who four years before had had
him tortured and then handed over to a firing squad. Lancaster had been
unpleasant enough to deal with as Chief of the Police Counselling Institute,
but it was rather sinister now to see him as Mayor of Goldridge, and Carl

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shuddered at being called 'my dear friend' by this man whom he felt quite
sure was most definitely still his enemy.
What Carl saw before him, however, was not the strutting, self-important,
blatantly unscrupulous man who had fawned after Brent Denson. This Ross
Lancaster had the appearance of a benevolent, friendly, fatherly figure, and
the smooth manner of a man who knows he has the upper hand, who is
quite certain he is the winner.
"Good morning, Mr. Lancaster," Carl said, in what he hoped was a
normal tone of voice, "I came to Goldridge at the invitation of several of your
churches—they asked me to speak in their meetings."
"Ah, yes, I was forgetting that you're in the church and religion business
now," Lancaster said, "Let me introduce you to my staff, Carl." He turned to
the group who were still standing around them. "This is Carl Slade," he
informed them, "I knew him when he was a Counsellor in Densonia." He
smiled unctuously at them and then at Carl. "Nowadays he goes round the
country preaching religion, don't you, Carl?"
Carl smiled—on the inside he wasn't smiling at all—but he didn't answer.
Instead he asked Lancaster a question. "How long have you been Mayor of
Goldridge, Mr. Lancaster?"
"Almost two years, my dear fellow," he answered suavely, "It's a four-year
term."
"And these people are your staff, then?"
"You might say that."
Although Lancaster's tone was affable, the look in his eyes was quite the
opposite and Carl decided that this might be a good time to leave. He did not
really want to have anything to do with Lancaster personally. "I have to keep
going, Mr. Lancaster," he said, looking at his watch, "I'm sure you're a very
busy man. I wouldn't want to keep you from your work."
"Nonsense, Carl," Lancaster exclaimed, "You're coming to have a drink
with me in my office. For old time's sake."
He took hold of Carl's arm and waved his colleagues away. The group
dispersed in different directions and Lancaster, not giving Carl a choice, led
him towards the lifts.
Carl prayed silently and urgently for wisdom and for discernment. What
he found most disconcerting about this "new" Lancaster was that he found
himself, against all his better judgment, suddenly on the brink of believing
the man had actually reformed. The only thing that had stopped him
actually taking the plunge was the cold steel glinting in Lancaster's eyes as
he'd greeted and spoken to him. Silently, he asked God to remove fear from
his heart. He had come to the conclusion that Lancaster could well be more
dangerous now than he had ever been as the Chief of the Counselling
Institute.
In his office, Lancaster invited him to sit down, indicating the two
armchairs in front of his desk. Carl sat down in one of them, but he was on
his guard.

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"What can I offer you to drink, Carl?" Lancaster asked, waving towards a
row of dispensers on a sideboard at one end of his office, "I have quite a
choice."
"A glass of water, please," Carl replied.
"Water?" Lancaster said disdainfully, "What kind of a drink is that?"
"One that quenches thirst," Carl answered levelly, "I happen to like
drinking water, Mr. Lancaster."
"Now, now, Carl, you can call me Ross, you know," Lancaster said easily,
"I'm not your boss any more."
The last thing Carl wanted to do was to be on a first-name basis with the
man, and he declined. "You're not my boss, that's right, Mr. Lancaster," he
said, "but neither are you my friend. I cannot call you by your first name."
He suddenly found himself fighting a battle against hate, for he was
sorely tempted to hate Ross Lancaster the way he had hated him before
Jesus Christ had saved him, when he was still a Counsellor under orders
from the Chief of the Institute. "'Love your enemies, do good to those who
hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you.'" The
words of Jesus in Luke's Gospel rang in his mind, and he understood that to
love his enemy didn't mean he had to like him, or be friends with him. Jesus
loved the Pharisees, but he hated what they did.
Lancaster was not pleased with Carl's answer, but he didn't show it. He
was determined to either win Carl over or silence him the way he had
silenced the other Christian leaders in Goldridge. Only, Carl Slade would be
a bigger prize, for he was listened to all over the country... The Mayor
poured himself a drink from one of his dispensers and gave Carl a glass of
water from a bottle in his fridge.
"Thank you," Carl said as he accepted the glass.
Lancaster shrugged and smiled crookedly. He sat down behind his desk
and crossed his legs, and studied Carl as he took a sip of his drink. "Well,
Carl, I hear you're married, now!" he said affably, "You've even got kids!
Things have changed since we last met."
"I was already married, then, Mr. Lancaster," Carl said quietly, not
smiling, "and I already had children, even if they weren't actually born yet."
"Ah, yes, quite so, quite so," Lancaster muttered, somewhat confused by
Carl's answer.
Carl looked him in the eye. "You may recall, too, that our last meeting
was not a very friendly one," he said, "If I remember rightly, you handed me
over to the executioners..."
Lancaster started, recovered himself, and regarded Carl chillingly. "You
deserved execution, Carl, one way or another," he said, his tone suddenly
hostile, "You were—you are—a traitor to all that the Protection stood for.
You dared to turn your back on all that the Protection had done for you. You
dared to become one of those-those Christians!" He spat the word out, as if
expelling something foul from his mouth. "And you topped it all off by
becoming a spy for those Kawanyamans!"
Carl didn't respond to his tirade. He gazed at Lancaster with interest, for
it had suddenly occurred to him that the man was a bore. He had a one-

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track mind. His only aim in life was to be at the top of the heap. As long as
that remained his life-goal, he was doomed to miss out on all that made life
worth living—starting with God and the joy of His presence in one's life. Carl
had a sudden and fleeting vision of Lancaster, wild-eyed, surrounded by
utter darkness and desperate because he was unable to find light of any
sort. From that moment on he determined more than ever to fight all that
Lancaster stood for, and hoped and prayed that in the process Lancaster
might allow God to snatch him from that terrible blackness.
He found it frightening that the population of Goldridge had been so
easily deceived by Lancaster that they had elected him Mayor less than
three years after the end of the Protection Party's rule. Didn't anyone in the
town know anything about Lancaster's past? He was still puzzled, too, that
Lancaster was not in prison. There was something sinister about the whole
situation, something that rang a bell, but he just couldn't figure out what it
was...
After a long silence, Carl decided to put a few questions to his former
boss. "Mr. Lancaster," he asked, "What are your plans for this town, since
you're in a position to influence its progress?"
Lancaster seemed flattered by the question, which is what Carl had
expected would be his reaction. In that way he hadn't changed, anyway. "I
intend it to be the capital one of these days, Carl," he replied, "A few changes
need to be made, first, of course, but you must be aware that most of the
population here would appreciate their town being more important in the
affairs of the country."
"Is that why you opened the Pleasure House earlier this year?" Carl knew
he was taking a risk asking that, and hoped Lancaster wouldn't hear it as a
cynical remark.
Lancaster didn't. He shrugged. "The people were demanding it, and of
course we must keep them happy. You should know that, Carl, from your
background. When the people are happy they don't cause trouble. Or have
you forgotten your Protection training?"
"Unfortunately, I haven't," Carl answered, "Or maybe fortunately. It
depends on how you look at it. Are you thinking in terms of another
Protectorate, Mr. Lancaster?"
The Mayor got up and went to the window. He swept his arm around to
indicate what was beyond the building. "You can see that the relaxing of
rules has not done the country any good, Carl," he said, "Look at the
number of workers' strikes we've had in the last couple of years. Look at the
rise in the crime rate. Look at all the fighting in the churches—you'd be
most familiar with that area—even in Goldridge alone. We need a return to
law and order, and we need to give people what they want to keep them
happy. Unfortunately for him, Denson forgot that he had to get rid of the
rebels before he became President. We'll be more efficient. When I become
President, Carl, I'll have the whole country behind me."
A picture of the meeting at Joel's shop the previous day passed through
Carl's mind. Not quite the whole country, he thought to himself, thank God.
"Mr. Lancaster," he asked, "Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps God

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might have His own plans for the country and that they are doubtless quite
different from yours?"
Lancaster guffawed. "God?!" he exclaimed, "Carl, you may have fallen for
all that religious nonsense, but I certainly have not! In fact, that's one thing
that will not pollute my country—religion! Get that into your head."
Carl got up from his armchair and put his glass down on Lancaster's
desk. "I'm afraid I have things to do, Mr. Lancaster, so I'll go now." he said
quietly, "Thanks for the drink, and for letting me know where I stand." He
looked at Lancaster, and the Mayor was disconcerted to find he couldn't
stare back, for Carl's blue eyes were full of compassion. To Lancaster, who
was not familiar with that sentiment, they seemed hostile. "I will pray," Carl
continued softly, "for your sake as much as anyone else's, that your plans
might fail utterly. 'The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."'"
"You are the fool, Carl," Lancaster said, his eyes like ice, "and so is your
friend Henry Smith. Both fools."
"Goodbye, Mr. Lancaster," Carl said politely. He bowed slightly, turned
around, and left the office, leaving Lancaster staring open-mouthed after
him.
He walked to the lift, took it down to the ground floor, walked out of the
building, and made his way to the shopping centre. He walked around the
area, looking at the shops without seeing them, remembering Densonia as
he had seen it with newly-opened eyes during his visits with the
Kawanyaman delegation, imagining the return of that nightmare to his
country. He was in a daze. His reaction to Lancaster bewildered him. He had
been battling the whole time he was in Lancaster's office—battling against a
feeling of powerlessness, against a growing inclination to just give up and
join what appeared to be the winning side. He'd felt as if he were two
people—one being pulled almost willingly into something which surely must
be next door to hell, the other hanging on grimly to God's hand. He couldn't
understand it, and he thanked God for having kept him from such an
insane move as joining Lancaster's side.
And then it struck him. Lancaster had said, "Your friend Henry Smith".
How did he know that Henry and he were friends? Who had told him? It
seemed that Kevin's comment about Lancaster that morning might not be
far off the mark...
He sat down on a bench and bowed down, his face in his hands, and
prayed. People going past glanced at him, most of them thinking he must be
someone who'd just received some bad news. Little did they know.

!!!

After some time, comforted and refreshed, Carl sat up and looked at his
watch. He still had plenty of time before he was to meet Henry at his father's
shop. He stood up and decided to look around at the shopping centre. He
began walking around, but hadn't gone far before a sign caught his eye. The

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shop beneath the sign sold books and Video-CD's. The sign proclaimed it to
be a Christian bookshop. He went in to have a look.
The salesroom was not very large, and was lined on both sides with
bookshelves. A table in the middle of the room held items being sold at
reduced prices, and a salescounter stood in front of the back wall, where a
door led to a room behind the store.
Carl examined the shelves. There was one displaying a few Bibles of
different sizes and versions, and a shelf next to it held a variety of
commentaries. He found a handful of classics, which looked as if he might
be the first person to discover them, for they were very dusty. Another shelf
held biographies and songbooks. But there was a whole bookcase containing
what he concluded, after a glance at the titles, was popular psychology
disguised as Christian teaching. He picked up book after book, reading
randomly from each, and was horrified that he hardly found anything in
them that was in straight harmony with Scripture. As he examined the
books he thought of Henry's account of the decline of his church.
A woman had come in from the room behind the store and saw him
looking at the books. "Are you looking for anything in particular?" she asked
in a friendly tone.
"No, I was just having a browse, thank you," Carl replied, "but I wonder if
you could tell me which are the most popular titles these days?"
"Oh, almost anything in that section sells very well," she said, indicating
the bookcase, "but the CD versions—interactive, you know—sell even better.
A lot of people still haven't got back into the habit of reading books."
"Would you recommend any title in particular?" Carl asked.
"Well, these two we've got displayed here on the counter have been highly
acclaimed lately," She showed him a display rack on the counter. The two
books being promoted bore the titles Turn the Other Cheek? and Your Hidden
Self. "We had to order more stock," she went on, "because so many of the
local church groups wanted them."
He picked up the books and skimmed through them, reading paragraphs
at random. Your Hidden Self seemed to him to be a step-by-step course in
narcissism, and would be easily dismissed by anyone familiar with Christ's
life and teaching and with the letters of the New Testament. But the other
book he found especially disturbing. As far as he could see, it thoroughly
distorted the words of Jesus in Luke's Gospel. The book was about being a
victim, and encouraged readers to blame—though it didn't actually use that
word—anyone who may have made a victim of them, for their problems. He
skimmed the book several times, looking for the words 'forgive' and
'forgiveness', but they were not there. The saleswoman watched him
curiously. Finally he put the books back on the rack.
"This isn't quite the sort of book I'd enjoy reading at the moment," Carl
said, truthfully, "I wonder if you have anything by, uh... for example, Tozer?"
"Tozer? Never heard the name. Is that a foreign writer?" the woman
asked, frowning.
"American, I think," Carl replied, remembering George Newman's
complete set of the works of A.W. Tozer.

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"Have you looked through the shelves?"

"Yes, but I might have missed it. I'll look again."
"Wait. Let me look through our stocklist," she said, going to her
compufiler to do so. She looked at the names on the screen. "No—nothing
under that name, I'm afraid. Are there other authors you enjoy reading?"
Carl gave her more names—Lloyd-Jones, Brainerd, Nee, Wesley,
MacArthur, Barnett, White, Jensen, Murray—not one of them were on the
list. He looked again at the dusty volumes on the shelf. They were all by
recent evangelical authors, and he guessed that they hadn't been bought
mostly because their language was difficult for people used to interactive-
CDs.
"Do you happen to know when these books were written?" the woman
asked him.
"Oh, at the turn of the century or earlier," he replied, "Some of them, two
or three hundred years ago..."
"Oh, we've nothing that old!" she exclaimed, "You'd have to order
specially." She looked at him strangely, as if she could hardly believe that
anyone would want to read such old authors.
"Well, never mind," Carl said, smiling, "Thanks for your help, anyway."
"Anytime," she replied, regaining her composure, "Do come again. We
might have something more to your taste another time."
Carl left the shop feeling very depressed. It's not a matter of taste, he said
to himself—he felt like shouting it out loud— it's a matter of God's Word! He
wondered if all the Christian bookshops in Goldridge were the same. He felt
like weeping.
He wanted to be alone with God. Was there anywhere in this town where
he could just be by himself? He considered going back to Henry's home and
his camper van. He wondered if there might yet be an unsullied church in
Goldridge. In the end he decided to ask Joel if he could use his back room—
just lock himself in it for a little while. After all, he was supposed to go there
to meet with Henry at lunchtime.
Joel was a bit surprised at his request, but one look at Carl's face told
him all he needed to know. "Go ahead, Carl. Make yourself at home," he
said, patting him on the shoulder, "You can lock it from the inside. Lock the
back door, too."
Carl went into the room, locked both doors, and knelt down on the floor,
his heart heavy. He took out his Bible and read from the Psalms, but his
eyes filled with tears and he put the Bible back in his pocket. He stretched
himself out, face-down, on the floor, and wept and asked God for help, for
strength, for wisdom—he felt terribly small and helpless in the face of this
enemy that was attacking on all fronts.

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 CHAPTER 10

"Have you ever met Ross Lancaster?" Carl asked Henry as they were
having lunch together. Joel was busy serving other customers but he joined
them for a few minutes now and then when there was a lull.
"Yes, a few times, but not to talk to, much," Henry replied, "Strange
bloke, he is, but people seem to like him. He's got some ambitious ideas for
this town and I guess that appeals after the dreariness of the Protectorate.
I'm getting a bit suspicious of him, though, as I told you the other day.
Remember? When you had to move your camper?"
Carl nodded. "He seems to be incredibly wealthy. And to have a lot of
power," he said, "I'm puzzled about where his wealth comes from, but I think
I saw some hints in those articles in the National. But never mind that—
what I wanted to know is how you reacted to him, to Lancaster as a person."
"Oh. Well, now, how did he strike me?" Henry thought for a moment,
tapping his fork on the edge of his plate and looking up at the ceiling. When
he answered he seemed to be thinking aloud. "He seemed very friendly. Was
he perhaps overly friendly? Hard to tell. He seemed very concerned about
the problems in the churches. This was about a year ago. But notice that I
said 'seemed'—I don't know if that was just a politician's pose. Anyway, he
asked me all about my own church, how we were doing, and so on."
"And you told him all about it," Carl muttered.
Henry's eyes moved from the ceiling to Carl's face. "Why, yes, of course,"
he said, surprised, "I had no reason not to—he seemed genuinely
interested."
"Do you know anything about his background?"
"Does anyone? Really? His official campaign biography said he was a
businessman. In fact he owns the Stardust Video-CD retail chain and an
awful lot of other businesses besides. Like the caravan parks."
"Is he married?" Carl asked.
"Yeah... His wife's name is Myra or something like that. Never see her in
public, though. He even throws some big parties now and then, for the
bigwigs, but apparently Mrs. Lancaster has nothing to do with them."
Carl was surprised to hear that. Back in the Protectorate days, it had
always been Myra Lancaster who had organized the parties at the Lancaster
mansion. Another strange thing to add to the list. "So, how did he get
elected?" he asked.
"He put on a big campaign. He sort of came out of the blue, you know,
but he managed to win a lot of people to his side very quickly. One of the
other candidates unfortunately was caught in some big scandal with a drug
deal, so he had to drop out of the running—he wasn't likely to be elected
while in prison! People became very suspicious of the second candidate but
nothing could be proved against him although all sorts of rumours went
around—killed his chances, anyhow. The third man was found in a
scandalous affair involving all sorts of perversions—that was the end of his

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campaign. That left Lancas—" Henry stopped in mid-word and stared open-
mouthed at Carl. "Oh, brother!" he exclaimed, slapping the table loudly so
that several customers glanced at them, "Doesn't it sound like what's been
happening in the churches!"
"That's what I was thinking," Carl agreed, "and might I add that I'm quite
sure that Lancaster has a hand in what's been happening in the churches.
With the help, of course, of people like Alf Greenstone, Geoff Hillman..."
"James Winters?"
"Unwittingly, perhaps. I don't think James is in on much of their plan,
from what I could gather in talking with him." Carl toyed with his food. He
wasn't feeling very hungry. He looked up at Henry again. "Could you tell me
more about James, d'you think?" he asked, "What's his family like?"
"He's married, has one daughter, Mandy—she's the rebellious one,"
Henry explained, "His wife, Laura, suffers from some degenerative disease
with a long name, which means she's housebound. She used to get around
in a wheelchair but most of the time now she's in bed. They have a nurse
who looks after her in the daytime."
A sudden disturbing thought came to Carl. "You say she's housebound,"
he said, "Do your church folk visit her much?"
"Well... Over the last year or so only one or two people, like Alice, for
example, have visited her," Henry answered, "When she first became sick,
during the Protectorate, people took it in turns to visit her, to help James
with cooking—Mandy was still only little then—to give a hand with physio,
and so on. But then they got too busy, and that's when the Winters had to
get the nurse. I don't think she sees very many of our church folk these
days." He glanced up at Carl and frowned. "She must get very lonely..."
"When was the last time you visited her, Henry?"
The pastor stared down at his plate for a moment before answering. "It's
been months, Carl," he said softly, not looking up.
I think I'm beginning to understand James Winters, Carl thought to
himself. "Who pays for their medical expenses—for example, for the nurse?"
he asked out loud.
"I assume James does. He has all those stores, after all," Henry said, too
defensively, "They do quite well."
"Is Laura Winters a Christian?"
"Yes, and she used to be very involved in James' ministry as an Elder
when she was well. They used to work as a team, actually, especially when
helping people with marriage problems. I can't understand what caused
James to turn away..."
"I think I do."
"What do you think it is?"
"They needed a lot of love and support, and your church stopped giving it
to them just when they needed it most. Laura, particularly, must have felt
terribly abandoned. And James was left to carry the load by himself..."
Henry considered this for some moments as he stirred his tea. "I expect
you're right, Carl," he said at last.

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"I'm just remembering our own experience, after I'd been shot, you see,"
Carl said.
"You were shot? When?" Henry asked in surprise, "Was it an accident?"
"If they'd managed to kill me, mine would have been the last public
execution in the Protectorate. It's a long story that I can tell you another
time—to do with my becoming a Christian when I was a Counsellor. The
point is that the bullets didn't kill me—as you can see." He grinned. "But
one of them hit my spine and for a while it looked like I would be paraplegic
for the rest of my life. Shortly after that, our twins were born. If it hadn't
been for the church folk, I don't know how Emma and I would have coped.
We were essentially housebound for many months, and people rostered
themselves to help with my physio, to help Emma with the babies, to clean
the flat, even to take us out—which was quite an expedition, with the babies'
things, the prams, and my wheelchair! They babysat so Emma and I could
have some time to ourselves. And they made a point of visiting us regularly.
They kept this up to a large extent until we started our travelling, when the
twins were about two years old. They must have been tempted at times to
just forget us, we meant so much hard work! And we weren't the only ones
being helped, they were doing this for several families, not all of them
church people, either. And they're still doing it."
"Yes, that's the way we used to be, too, until we got into those books.
Then we became more and more focused on our own problems—'Got to sort
myself out, first!' 'How about someone looking out for me, for a change?'
That sort of thinking. What a mess that ended up making!"
"Well, as we saw yesterday, all hope is not gone. The mess can be cleaned
up and you can start afresh."
"Yes. Which reminds me—I haven't told you that we're having a prayer
meeting at my house tonight. We all agreed to that yesterday. We're going to
start the clean-up right away. I'm also going to try to get the other ministers
together to see if something can be worked out for the other churches. That
meeting yesterday—isn't Alice wonderful?—it really turned everything
around for me. God's given me hope again, those people have forgiven me, I
feel that there's hope that most of the damage that's been done can be
repaired. All because thirty people came together and forgave one another
and proclaimed their love for Jesus Christ and their desire to obey Him."
"You asked me last night if there's any hope for James Winters, Henry.
Now that I know more about his situation I can assure there's plenty of
hope. All it needs is for your people to love him more than the Protectioners
do. That shouldn't be difficult, since that mob don't love him at all—they're
just using him!"
"But he was one of the Elders who kicked me out, too. He won't want to
have anything to do with me!"
"Give him time, Henry," Carl smiled, "He'll come round. And pray that the
Protectioners will fail in their plans."

!!!

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