Chapter 8: Scapegoat

President Stinson leaned heavily against the soft cushions of the richly-upholstered leather chair in his private quarters. His wife had retired to their bedroom an hour before and was soundly asleep. He had peeked in through the door, barely cracking it open, and even through that tiny opening he could hear her labored snoring.

"Drunken fat sow," he mumbled to himself, easing the door closed again. He had returned to his chair and motioned for his chief of staff, Jonas Barnes, to speak.

"Mr. President," Barnes began...

"JB, call me Albert when we're alone like this," Stinson waved dismissively. "After all, we've been through a lot together, and I'm pretty sure we've got a whole lot ahead of us yet. So forget the 'Mr President' title for the moment, okay?"

Jonas 'JB' Barnes grinned his feral smile. He didn't like the 'friends and partners' attitude from Stinson, but he played along with the gesture.

"Sure thing, Albert. Here's what I've learned. That Texas preacher who came out of nowhere has made a huge splash for himself. We started tracking him when we got word that thousands of followers were attending his tent meetings. Since then, he's been in sixteen southeastern cities to sold-out crowds in every major auditorium and sports arena, starting with the Astrodome in Houston, and ending in Tampa, Florida. He's covered seven states. Word is that he plans to take his road show to the West Coast. He's got sold-out appearances scheduled from San Diego to Sacramento, with LA and San Francisco in between.

"That's just just the live appearances. He's appeared on cable television for two hours every night since his Texas beginnings. He started with two minor religious channels; now he has his own 24-hour cable channel, and two-hour slots on half a dozen others. And he isn't having to pay for those ... they're paying him because he's generating so much advertising for them. It's amazing how many corporate sponsors are falling all over themselves to associate their names with this guy.

"My teams report that as soon as word gets out about a scheduled live appearance by this preacher, tickets get sold out within two days. Hell, a third of them get bought up by scalpers and are resold for six times their box office price, and the faithful climb all over themselves to pay it just so they get a seat close enough to hear this new messenger from God, they're calling him."

"You're kiddin' me! Messenger from God?! Are you serious? Just who the hell is this clown, anyway?" Stinson erupted.

"He calls himself Chase Evans McClayne, and he always uses his full name like it's some kind of trumpet call. Nobody, not even his closest staff members, calls him anything but his entire full name. As for his church, it's something he started the second year after graduating from a pissant little divinity college in Nowhere, Texas. That ain't its name, of course, but the place is so damned insignificant that they count the jackrabbits and armadillos in their census to qualify for a post office. So, anyway, our background check revealed that he was a little too wild-eyed and ranting for anybody to keep him hired on for longer than a month or two. So Chase Evans McClayne decided to start his own church. He got hold of a war surplus tent, a PA system and a second-hand generator, and he founded the God in Glory Church of His Primal Revelation.

"He struggled along for a dozen years, living on donations of chickens and turnips from a handful of worshipers, until he struck gold. The Masi'shen ship broke out of Antarctica, made world-wide television, and scared the holy crap out of everybody in the process. Now all those with an IQ about equal to room temperature are terrified that the space aliens are gonna return and suck their brains out through their left ear. And our good preacher-man, Chase Evans McClayne, has got them all convinced that after their brains get sucked out, they'll be sent straight to Hell because the space aliens will undo everything Christ came to earth to do. They're convinced that God's compact that His Son Jesus made with the human race will be cancelled—null and void—because we impiously allowed them heathen aliens access to our little place in space. We're all gonna be condemned to Hell because of it!"

"Holy bullshit, JB! Is that right? He's actually selling that line of crap?"

"Albert, he is not only selling it, the crowds are crashing the gates to grovel at his feet, begging for more! And he's got every other fundamentalist preacher from Newark, New Jersey to Vancouver, Washington so jealous and pissed off at him for exploiting it first, that they're torn between condemning his line of bullshit, or rushing to his business offices to try and buy a franchise from him!"

"My god ... how long has it been? Not even a year since this started?" Stinson exclaimed.

"Closer to nine months, start to finish. You forget, Albert, that nothing sells faster than fear and hate. This guy Chase has pushed the magic button. People are shaken to their roots to realize that we aren't alone in the universe like they assumed. Add the fact that they're so advanced; the alien stuff seems like magic. So we have full-blown fear as a factor. Toss in some good old religious FUD—fear, uncertainty and doubt—whipped up by a charismatic, hate-mongering preacher howling that the aliens disbelieve in Jesus and their coming here will destroy all His works on earth ... Albert, I don't need to spell it out for you, do I?"