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Sunday

Haven Ridge, Utah

William Shepherd looked out of the tall bay windows of his study, over the manicured lawns of the campus, kept a lush green by the regularly spaced sprinklers that stirred to life in synchronicity every evening.

Several classes were sitting in the warm mid-morning sun on the lawn, noisily debating scripture, or silent in prayer, all of them young and earnest people, radiant with purpose and God’s love. Such a contrast to the surly groups of teenagers he noticed on every street corner these days - soulless, mean-spirited creatures with dead eyes, clustered together like cancer cells.

Shepherd shook his head sadly. There was a knock on the door to his study. ‘Mr Shepherd, studio three is ready to record your mid-week sermon.’

‘Thank you, Annie,’ he called out. ‘Tell them I’ll be along presently.’

He heard the squeak of Mrs Wall’s sandals on the wooden floor outside, dutifully hurrying off to inform the studio team.

I have things to think about.

He had almost missed it because it had been buried amongst all the other email he received daily. Shepherd had almost deleted it out of hand as a piece of spam mail. The message was automated, mailed by ‘SiteDog’ software that monitored the accessing of a nominated web page and reported back on details of who and when and how long they had been studying the page. He got these notification emails very rarely, one every couple of months at most. The web page that SiteDog was set up to monitor had deliberately been designed to be as unappealing as possible, tedious for any casual surfer who might by accident stumble upon it. Only someone looking for something very specific would be enticed to stay a while.

He opened the notification mail.

One visitor, several hours ago, had loitered around the page for ten minutes and thirty-seven seconds and then clicked on the contact email link.

‘Who are you, then?’ asked Shepherd curiously.

Someone else interested? Or just a passing surfer?

Someone interested might just mean someone with a little information. If he wanted, he could find out more about this person who had stuck around on this page longer than anyone else had ever done, who had even clicked to send an email, but apparently decided against it. SiteDog presented him with an IP address. With a little - not entirely legal - effort he could get a postal address out of that, if he wanted to.

Be cautious.

Yes, he needed to be that for sure.

I can’t afford to make any silly mistakes now.

Shepherd was beginning to become newsworthy, a candidate that some of the news shows were quietly predicting might be worth ‘watching for the future’. Beyond his core audience of Latter Day Saints worshippers, beyond those that tuned in regularly to the Daily Message, his name was beginning to register; his message was beginning to hit home.

But, unlike the other running candidates, there was no party for him to hide behind, no ranks of fellow Democrats or Republicans to close formation around him like a Roman testudo, to shelter him from the sticks and stones of politics.

There was just his name, his reputation . . . and the message.

I have to be whiter than white. I have to be so careful. I cannot afford a single skeleton in my closet.