Before the Lumbys and Dalymples left the church to take their plane back to Europe and to start their lives as a united family, Ruthie pulled Lisa and Tom over to ask a question.

"Guys," she said, "there's something that's been bothering me. All this time, we've been pursuing Jack Whirry on money laundering and God knows what. But from all we can see, he's been nothing but cooperative with us. Is he pulling the wool over our eyes?"

The siblings looked at each other nervously.

"We've been following the wrong guy all along too, Ruthie," said Tom. "Turns out the one we're looking for was the last person we thought would be involved in this."

"Then who?"

"It's someone from another Church of God - the Reconstructed Church of God, to be precise," said Lisa. "You, Hope and Felicity have seen Arnold Thompson's shows - he's the good cop of BI compared to Jack's bad cop. That is to say, he makes the concept look good without looking ridiculous. And while he is into Bible prophecy, it's nowhere near as heavy-handed as we've seen on Jack's shows. We dropped him as a suspect over a year ago, before you and I met and made love."

"Why?" Felicity was listening in, as was Hope.

"Arnie files all his taxes on time, and provides meticulous disclosure of his activities - at least, the legal ones. Even most good televangelists don't come near the level of openness he does. It never occurred to us he might be in on the take. At least, until Brigitte and I were kidnapped."

"So what tipped you in it was him?"

"The kidnappers claimed to be lone wolves, but Europol ran their financials and it turns out they've been doing bond trading, unauthorized and unlicensed, for the last five years. They were the ones that came up with the 'brother and sister' fraud."

"So how are they connected to Thompson?" asked Hope.

"They run the mail room at the church's European offices in ... Luxembourg City. And one of their brothers does bond trading at the same desk Tom does. He would have had access to insider information, and would have known how to create a fake bond."

"So it was an inside job!" said Ruthie. "And we've been running across two continents, making ourselves look like idiots!"

"Not really," said Tom. "All the Christian televangelists that got busted ... they've been plea bargaining like crazy and turning on Hope's parents like they're the plague. And they're paying up - often fifty cents on the dollar - to stay out of jail. You ladies should be proud of yourselves for that!"

"Yeah, but going after Jack, unwarranted. And what if there's another Doomsday Device we don't know about, one that Arnold controls?"

Shelby and Rod cringed.

"If he does, he's tapped into a network that may have insulated itself very well from being infiltrated," Shelby finally said. "And here's the crazy thing too ... Arnold definitely is gay. Openly. Or claims he is, anyway. He's even called out Harry and Prudence for their, well, inconsistency on the subject. Unless ..."

"Unless what?" asked her husband.

"Unless he's used a back channel to communicate with Hope's parents to coordinate something," said Tammy. "Shel, what do you know about how the NSA operates?"

"I don't care for their methods," said Shelby. "The CIA and those of us in defense intelligence, we have a rhyme and reason to what we do. Much as I despise them ... " She sighed. "It's our only choice. Rod, can you call your friend at the 'phone company' and have them run some LUDs?"

"You heard Tammy," said Rod. "He wouldn't use normal communication methods. A phone would be easy to trace."

"Skype, or some kind of VOIP program that could be scrambled, perhaps? Don't forget, honey, we in the military invented that kind of stuff so we'd know how to cover the tracks."

"I'll make the call in the vault." He gave the new family hugs all around, which were followed by the other ministers and their families.

It would take until the next day. But Tammy's hunch was right. Arnold Thompson and Prudence Anderson had kept open a line of communication for four and a half years, almost as long as the bond trade fraud had been going on. This was done by changing the proxy settings on their respective laptops to make it seem that calls were starting and ending in difference places, even different countries, each time. But the IP addresses had remained consistent and left an indelible footprint. They started and ended in Boston and Anaheim. Calls sometimes numbered five or even six a day.

"That's not enough," pointed out Heather when the Parkers announced what they had learned. "Maybe they were just talking."

"Unless money was wired between the two churches," said James.

"Two hundred thirty six wire transfers, between banks in the Seychelles," said Rod. "Total, three hundred nineteen million dollars and change. The last transfer, the very day Ruthie and Hope got engaged - ten million, with a memo line that said 'Lambeth Palace'."

"So?" asked Ruthie.

"So?" said her wife Hope. "Ruthie, Lambeth Palace is the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England. Remember, BIs believe the British Royal Family is descended from King David. And the Queen is the Supreme Governor of the Church."

"I'm not following you, sweetheart."

"Darling, in the last few years, the Anglican Church has gone places we wouldn't have dreamed of two decades ago. They ordain women. They bless gay marriages. In fact, some of the member churches actually marry gay couples! This has driven a lot of other Anglicans crazy - a lot have left for the Catholic Church which the BIs absolutely despise."

"But Arnold Thompson is openly gay. Or ... maybe he isn't. But he'd be shooting himself in the foot by ..."

Ruthie then understood where Hope was going.

"That's it! Some of the members of the Royal Family are privately gay, that's why the Queen has allowed the reforms to go through without exercising her veto. She's being blackmailed by Harry and Prudence. Or, more accurately, they've paid her off to shut up so they do."

"Or both. If word got out about that, with some reasonable proof," said Patrick, "it'd be the end of the monarchy ... and the entire reason for the BI movement to exist. They're scratching each other's backs."

"But a trillion dollars of fake money?" asked Maighread skeptically. "This would make the Priory of Sion look like an amateur operation. Which, in fact, the real Priory was."

The gang laughed nervously.

"And Lambeth Palace figures into this ... how?" asked Rhiannon.

"Kidnap the spiritual leader of the church, threaten to kill him unless the Queen outs the gays in her family - publicly," said Tammy.

"How embarrassing would that be?"

"Oh, it's perfect for Harry and Prudence," said Peter. "We have proof they're gay. They use this on the House of Windsor, and it deflects nearly the entire case against them. Especially the child abuse allegations."

"So Arnold is a true believer, regardless," said Felicity. "And it was staring us in the face and we didn't even see it!"

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend, but with friends like these, who needs enemies?" repeated Ruthie. "Man, we're in a mess. I can imagine the jury trying to sort through all of this. They're bound to acquit just based on the volume of the evidence."

"It just doesn't make sense, and it's getting even crazier," said Hope. She leaned on her wife. Ruthie comforted her in her arms. "And to think, I actually respected Thompson for his decency. Now he's just as crooked as the rest of them."

"How much did he pocket for himself, if the money kept going back and forth to confuse authorities?" asked Shelby. This was the one part of the story she didn't know from her husband.

"Hard to say," Rod replied. "Guesstimate ... two hundred million. Nice nest egg though. We sure could use it!"

Tammy felt a tapping in her belly.

"Oh my God," she said! "My babies are moving inside of me already!"

Patrick leaned over, rubbed her belly and could feel it too. She kissed his wife on the cheek. Their other children then did the same.

The meeting ended, with an agreement that nothing further would be discussed until that Friday, while the prosecutors vetted the new information.

As Hope and Ruthie made love that night, the wives asked themselves how much further into trouble they could get. For the first time, they considered hesitating on the insemination procedure, but then decided the first attempt would be the following week as they had agreed. For Hope to wait any further to have children of her own - their own - would be giving the bad guys the victory.

Peter and Felicity's lovemaking was as exquisite as ever. Although it had been only a few months since the birth of their babies they talked about having more. They agreed to dump the condom and the Pill later that week.

Tammy and Patrick were as ecstatic as ever in bed, so much so it kept their children up. They didn't mind. After having been deprived of a father, they longed to hear the sounds of joy in their home and they were glad to do so.

While Rod and Shelby made love as beautifully as they ever did, theirs was the most introspective. Since they had the most inside knowledge on the security front, they were also worried. As Rod brought himself and his wife to climax, he asked her about the other spies she slept with. He figured if she gave, he would tell the truth about his other lovers too.

After their shared peak, Shelby provided a rundown. Of the other two female lovers, one worked for yet another rival BI church. This one operated under the radar and she was sure would never be part of such a big conspiracy.

"But are you sure about that?" asked her husband.

"No, honey, I'm not," she admitted. "But their revenues last year were under ten million - chump change to their competitors. They ... wait a minute, Rod! Are you asking me to ... No! I love you too much, and our daughters and son, to do that! I don't care if there is a Doomsday Device out there, our marriage is too important!"

"You don't have to do a home run, Shel! Would you say no to phone sex?" asked Rod.

"I guess not," Shelby said reluctantly. "I'll try, but I can't promise you anything! What about you?"

"Well, we both slept with the Canadian," Rod said. "She did give both of us a lot of stuff. I also slept with someone I can only call a Catholic mystic. Really into Fatima and Lourdes and that kind of thing. I remember her once telling me the Vatican Bank was a place to launder money big time - "

"That's not a secret," reminded his wife. "Everyone knows that. A Pope, John Paul I, was murdered because he was going to blow the lid off of it. The Bank recently admitted they laundered thirty-two million euros in just one year. If they'll admit to that much, God knows what went through their coffers?"

"She told me anyone with a couple hundred thousand dollars could open up a numbered account," said Rod. "They often got a visit from someone called 'The Californian'. Never gave his name, but the bank did do facial pics when their customers came in."

"Could it be ..."

Rod picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Helen, it's Rod Parker," he said when the phone picked up on the first ring. He put it on speaker. Normally, he would use the vault but he didn't have time. "This is an emergency. Do you know anything of the one we called 'The Californian'?"

"Hell, Rod," said Helen Baxter, who had long left the church and was now a self-described Humanist. "He's Harry Anderson. You and 'Shelly' don't know that?"

"How much did he deposit at the IOR?" asked Shelby, using the official Italian initials of the disreputable institution.

"Ten billion, give or take. And he just wired it all out, or his executive assistant did, one hour ago. The IOR is freaking out. They had to get the Pope out of bed at five AM."

"All of it?"

"All of it."

"Where is the money now?"

"In a numbered account in the Turks and Caicos," said Helen. "But it's a known holding account for Arnold Thompson. The authorities there, and all major exchange commissions, are on high alert as I speak. My guess is, he's planning a terrorist attack of his own."

"Any idea of where or when?" asked Rod.

"Damned if I know, guys," said Helen. "I just got pinged on this ten minutes ago. I was going to call you. Thank God you called me first! And Rod?"

"Yeah?"

"Wake up your kids, now, and hold them extra tight. This doesn't look good on any account."

"Thanks, Helen." The call ended.

Rod turned to his wife.

"Call the other houses, NOW!" he shouted. "We need to get out of town, fast, before Thompson kills us!"

Shelby didn't need to be told. She was already on the phone. Within an hour, all four families were on the road to a predetermined backup place.