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I threw the rock at the front door, which shattered in such a triumphant, glorious way I wanted to repeat the process on every window in the whole place. It crumbled apart like a stunt window in a movie, glimmering cubes of glass falling in a heap, like diamonds.
After wading through them, I grabbed the handle for the second door and tugged. It opened without resistance.
“You were right. Unlocked.” I held it open for him, and after he took a moment to make sure I knew he thought I was nuts, he went inside. No alarm sounded, which was a surprising disappointment to me.
Bits of glass trailed us like guilty bread crumbs as we moved through the lobby and into the main congregation room.
Jesus stared down at us from the cross, the gaudy gold sun glimmering behind him, haloing his limp body in a grotesque way. The sun might be the church’s symbol, but I was disgusted by the implication of the idol. It seemed to suggest God was rejoicing in the death of his son, and I couldn’t look at it for long without wanting to climb up and tear it down with my bare hands.
I really didn’t like these people.
Wilder and I walked up to the front pulpit area where a lectern stood, waiting for Timothy to take his place for Sunday worship. On the left was a door marked Exit and another matching door on the right with a printed sign that read Employees Only.
Bingo.
I glanced behind us, up to a big glass control room overlooking the whole scene. Several video cameras were positioned around the room, to televise Deerling’s weekly sermons. I’d seen links for the feeds on their website. It wasn’t uncommon for local churches to share the Word on Sundays for folks who couldn’t make it down to an actual church but still wanted to feel like good little Christians.
The Church of Morning was no different. They had fans all over the country who weren’t able to come to Franklinton in person. It made sense, given how big the church was. The money had to be coming from somewhere, and a sucker was born every minute who would give their cash to a charming leader.
Before we went to see what was in Deerling’s chamber of horrors—which I prayed I wasn’t wrong about—we’d need to be sure the cameras were rolling. Alarm or no alarm, we were short on time, and we had to make the most of every second.
“See if you can find access to the control room up there.” I moved along the side wall, hoping a staircase would pop out that I hadn’t noticed before. Wilder beat me to it.
Between the two of us it would have been easier to learn to fly an airplane than to get the AV turned on. A degree in electrical engineering would have helped us a bit, but even then I wasn’t sure anyone could decipher what all the knobs and dials and switches did.
We accidentally turned on all the lights, then dimmed them, then shut off the lights in the room we were in. By the time we finally found the switch for the cameras, we had wasted so much time I thought we might have to abandon the plan altogether. I never thought I’d be bested by a bunch of switches.
Four overhead monitors turned on, showing different views of the pulpit area and a reverse angle facing the crowd. An empty hiss of white noise told me the sound was working, there just wasn’t anything for it to pick up.
Now all we needed was the broadcast button.
I scoured the board until I found a row of metal tabs, each with a label beneath it written on masking tape.
Local Access.
East Coast.
West Coast.
Satellite.
Web.
I flicked them all on, and with each one a small green light turned on.
We were, as far as I could tell, live on air. Of course, if this all went terribly wrong, I was handing over proof of our criminal activity to the whole world, but it was a risk I was willing to take.
Back downstairs we headed right for the Employees Only door. I started doing visualization exercises in my head, telling myself I was prepared for anything as long as it wasn’t disappointment.
The door was locked, which gave me my first thrill of hope since we’d arrived. The front door and control room were both unlocked—showing an incredible amount of trust or naivety, I wasn’t sure which. But if this room was locked, it meant there was something behind it worth hiding.
Wilder forced the door open with his shoulder before I had a chance to make my move. It swung inward hard, bouncing off a wall and slamming shut again, but the damage to the doorframe meant it didn’t close all the way. We nudged it open and stood at the precipice of a darkened stairwell going down.
I led the way, my eyes adjusting to the darkness slowly, so I could make out shapes but nothing too specific. Fumbling along the wall, I found a light switch and flipped it, just as I bumped into a low wooden table.
The sudden flood of light meant I had to let my eyes readjust, but when they did, I was struck immediately by two conflicting thoughts:
Jackpot.
