Burke calmed himself. He had been assured that the box liner would fool any sensors, and the tiny antenna that penetrated the thick layer of lead could pick up a cellular signal and transmit it to the internal workings of the bomb. So, unless the police somehow found the antenna and disabled it—a possibility that was remote in the extreme—Burke could detonate at any time. He calmed himself and listened to what the Archangel had to say.
“Th-Th-Th-there’s a policeman here,” he stuttered over the phone, and then he added, comically, “You’re on speaker.” Burke actually laughed into the phone. He was astonished that he had allowed this man—who could not keep track of the time of day—to carry out the most important task in all of judgement day. And yet—here he was—in a situation he had wanted to avoid—relying on an idiot to perform tasks that he clearly was not up to. Yet they had not been able to find anyone else for the job, despite everyone professing their ‘undying faith’ to the MCP on a daily basis. No matter. That was why they had built in the back-up option of a cellular phone signal triggering the detonation.
“Archangel,” Burke said into the phone, “Tell me where you are.” Burke had a map of the DC Metro subway system in front of him. He knew it should be a stop on the blue line. He was hoping to hear he was at a stop such as Potomac, or Federal Center—any of the stops near the White House and The Capitol Building. But that was not what he heard.
“Ummm… Van Dorne,” he said. Burke quickly found the stop on the map. It was on the outskirts of the subway line. It was far less than ideal. It would not suffice.
“Very well, put the officer on, please.” Burke would have to clear this up. He wanted the timing to be right. It was written in the stars.
“This is Officer Mueller, who is this?” came a loud, booming voice on the phone.
“Hello, officer, my name is William Page,” Burke said, using the same last name as the fake identification that Archangel was carrying. “My son is umm… a bit slow, as you may have noticed. He’s bringing an amplifier across town—”
Hearing this, the Archangel remembered what he was supposed to say, and he shouted, “It’s an amplifier! I’m a roadie!” as if it was a terribly important point. Officer Mueller looked at him strangely again.
“Show me what’s in the box,” the officer said into the phone and to Archangel. This was met by silence. “Open up the box, please,” he said.
Over the speaker phone, Burke said, “Go ahead, son, do as the officer says.” But Burke frowned. Things were not supposed to happen like this. He could tell Archangel to resist, but he suspected that would be fruitless—the man was hopeless. He had attracted enough attention already. It was far too early, but they were going to have to detonate now—and hope that the blast radius would be enough to take out the Capitol.
Burke sighed. Things were not working out as the stars had predicted. And yet he felt no disappointment, no surprise—he felt nothing, really. He came to the inescapable conclusion that it was time to detonate. He brought up the application on his phone that was connected to the bomb and typed in the code.
It was eight ‘eights’ in a row. He entered the number 88,888,888. The number seemed to hover on his screen for a moment. He heard voices on the speaker phone. It was too bad he couldn’t have gotten closer to the heart of the evil that made up the existing power structure. It would be okay—he knew this was only the icing on the cake—this part of the plan was, ultimately, superfluous; the main plan had already been carried out. With a smirk on his face, he hit the ‘enter’ button. The code disappeared and the app lit up with the words ‘signal sent,’ just as he had known it would.
And then… nothing happened. The voices on the other end of the speaker phone kept coming through. There was no rumble, no impossibly loud noise before the connection cut—instead, he heard the officer saying something to the Archangel.
It didn’t work, he thought, and his mind immediately flashed to the violence he would inflict on his engineers and scientists. Those fools will suffer before I send them to Hell. They will die slowly. This is the final time they will be allowed to fail me.
But he could deal with them later; there were voices coming through the speaker now. He had to find a way to make the Archangel do his job. The man who could barely perform a simple task—despite multiple rehearsals—would have to accomplish the same thing while an officer of the law was hovering over him. It would be a miracle if he succeeded.
Burke whispered one word into the phone. “Armageddon,” he said.
“Armageddon!” he heard Archangel whisper back to him.
Burke pictured what was happening in his mind. The bomb casing had a series of metal latches which could be thrown in a matter of seconds, opening up the shell and revealing the interior of the ‘amplifier.’ Even then, though, it just looked like a large grey box, because that’s what it was—the lead shielding offered no insight as to what lay beneath… except for two things. One was the tiny ridge on top which acted as cellular antenna but had, for unexplained reasons, failed.
The other thing that stuck out of the surface was the handheld electronic device—it was an old-fashioned calculator connected with a wire to the inner workings of the bomb. It had been repurposed and instead of using it to calculate sums and differences and products, it was used for one thing only. To enter a simple code: 88,888,888. Then, when ‘enter’ was hit, it would detonate.
“SIR!” he heard over the phone, “STEP AWAY FROM THE BOX!” Burke put his head in his hands. There was nothing he could do now. He prayed the Archangel could remember what to do. “STOP OR I’LL SHOOT,” he heard. “DROP THAT NOW!”
Then he heard a series of loud bangs as the report of a Smith and Wesson came through the cellular connection six times in a row. Burke knew it was over. The Archangel had failed. Now the MCP compound would be raided in the next few hours. This was inevitable. Once the nuclear device was found, and the Archangel’s cellular call was traced, it would not be long. His one solace was that the planes had done their job already, and that part, at least, was irreversible.
And then he heard something, and the connection went dead. Could it be? Was it the miracle he had prayed for? He couldn’t be sure at first but then his conviction grew. He had plainly heard it and at first, he wasn’t sure what it meant, but the more he thought about it the more he knew it must be salvation. He smiled and tears began to stream down his cheeks. It had been a roller coaster ride, but just when all seemed lost, his faith had been completely restored. He praised the Archangel, who had, at the last moment, performed admirably.
The connection was lost. But right before that, for a split-second, there had been a muffled sound. It had sounded like an explosion.
“Where is the bomb?” I asked.
“The bomb has been in Washington, DC for some time now,” the Seraphim said. “Naturally, the Messiah dictated that it should go off at eight o’clock, on the eighth day of the eighth month. Whether or not the president survives, or which members of congress make it out of the rubble, is of no concern to us. Because the bomb has always been the smaller, less imaginative part of the Messiah’s vision.”
“Tell us,” I begged him.
“It’s quite simple, doctor. We have a total of 32 aircraft. Our atmospheric scientists calculated exactly what would be needed, and we’ve been making flights for eight weeks now. And the amazing thing is that no one seems to care. We told the government we were doing atmospheric research.”
“What are you talking about?” Emily said, “Are you going to use them as bombers?”
“Well, yes, Deputy, I suppose so. But the bombs they are dropping are crystals. Tiny chemical crystals of silver nitrate and sulfur dioxide. It took quite a long time to stockpile so much, but we eventually obtained thousands of tons of it. The process has already begun.”
“What are the crystals for?” I asked.
“The crystals were initially proposed as a solution to global warming,” he said. “Well, I can assure you, there
won’t be any problems with global warming anymore. We’ve put an end to that.”
“So, you release the crystals at high altitudes,” I said, “And they form clouds… those clouds reflect sunlight and cool the earth. Like when a volcanic eruption spews ash into the atmosphere and the global temperature drops a few degrees.”
“Very good, doctor. A few weeks from now, a new ice age will bring a fresh start to this miserable planet.”
“I’ve heard rumors of ski resorts seeding the clouds to make it snow,” said Emily. “But to cool off the entire earth, you would need…”
“Thirty-two high altitude aircraft, flying flights around the clock… for two months.” His voice was becoming quiet now. “The bomb in DC is just a distraction. It’s just another way to help us re-establish order in the new world. We have to wipe the slate clean before we can repopulate the earth with the chosen people. The chrysalis symbolizes rebirth... soon, it will be Armageddon, and anyone who isn’t prepared will perish. Just as with Noah, and the Great Flood, this cleansing will be a new beginning.”
“How do we reverse it?” asked Emily.
“You can’t,” he said, “It’s already done.”
“So that’s why the MCP has been stockpiling coal, and wood, and grain… They’ve been prepping for the disaster that they’ve created,” I said.
“We expect a ten-degree Celsius drop in global temperature. That might not sound like much… but it will be enough to cover the Northern United States in ice. Instead of the debauchery… instead of the foul stench of humanity… there will be only ice. The cleansing of the earth is at hand.”
“Another ice age? Because of a ten degree drop?” I asked skeptically. But I had forgotten the Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion. It would really be a twenty-degree Fahrenheit difference—and that was only the average global change. I learned later that the climate at the equator would be pretty much the same, but at the northern and southern extremes it could change by forty to fifty degrees Fahrenheit. So, instead of averaging 76 F (24 C) in Manhattan in the summer, it would be closer to 39 F (4 C)... in July. If the Seraphim was right, New York would be wiped off the map, covered under hundreds of feet of ice.
“I can assure you, doctor. The ice will cover everything. It’s only a matter of time. It won’t be long until I am proven right.”
He was beginning to lose consciousness. I squatted so that my face was close to his. There was still some light in his eyes, and I could see that he registered my being there.
“Why don’t you use your last moments to try to absolve yourself,” I said softly, “Tell us what we can do to stop this. Tell us where the bomb is. If you want to get into heaven, this is your last chance. So… tell us.”
He chuckled again. It was a devilish chortle. Like his soul, it was full of malice. Even as I heard it, I knew it was his death rattle, and as the blood rose up from deep in his throat, he laughed at me.
“Please… doctor…” he managed to say, “Haven’t you been listening? The bomb has gone off. We are synchronized with the Holy land. The Messiah shall inherit the earth…”
He trailed off. His eyes glazed over. “How do we stop this?” I cried.
The man known as the Seraphim wasn’t going to answer. He had drifted into unconsciousness, and death was only minutes away. I wanted to shake him, to wake him up, to get more answers out of him. But I knew it was pointless. He had already told us everything; it was just impossible to accept it.
At the time, Emily and I didn’t believe him. It’s a natural tendency to believe that your own existence is guaranteed. It’s normal to think, did he just say the world was ending? That’s impossible. The world has never ended before, so that can’t be true.
That is, essentially, what we thought. There was no bomb in DC—that would be crazy. There can’t be a global scheme to create another ice age. Can you believe that nonsense he was spouting right before he died? When he was on his deathbed, and he had no reason whatsoever to lie to us…
Without a word we started slowly climbing back up to the trail. Moira Fitzgerald waited anxiously, sitting in the pickup bed facing us with her rifle at the ready. It was over, but Moira didn’t get it. She had a sense of urgency that Emily and I no longer had. She had not heard the words of the Seraphim. She seemed to think we were in a rush. Emily and I knew better.
“Let’s go!” she yelled. “We’ve got to get to Denver! We’ve got to contact the FBI! There’s no reception up here—none at all. Maybe once we—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “It won’t make a difference.”
“What?” she asked.
“He told us all about the plan,” Emily said, “And… well… it looks like it’s all over. Whatever happened has already happened.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“He told us everything,” I said. “He said that it’s all over—we’re too late. But we’ll contact the FBI—”
“What did he say?” Emily’s mother asked. Emily and I looked at one another, apparently unsure of how to describe the diabolical ice-age inducing scheme that sounded like it was out of a James Bond movie. After a few clumsy attempts at explanation, we finally brought Moira and Mrs. Holland up to speed. We told them everything the Seraphim had said. And then we all looked at one another for a long moment, and Emily climbed into the driver’s seat and I buckled into the passenger seat. We started rolling slowly down the canyon. We crawled carefully over the rocks as Emily did not seem to be in a rush anymore.
“Can’t you go any faster?” Moira asked, “There’s still a chance we can stop a nuclear bomb—”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Why?” she asked. I turned around to face her.
“The Seraphim said that they planned for the bomb to go off at eight o’clock,” I said.
“Good! We’ve got plenty of time,” she said.
“But he also said that the bomb had gone off already,” I said.
“What? What are you talking about?” she said.
“Right before he died, he said that they were synchronized with the Holy land. I think the MCP isn’t on the same schedule as us,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Moira said.
“You’re right,” Emily said, “The MCP lists the time in Jerusalem on everything they do. Reverend Thompson told me that when I met with him in his office. It’s even on the recruiting pamphlets they hand out. And I think it’s nine or ten p.m. in Israel right now.”
“Which means that the bomb went off an hour already, just like the Seraphim said,” I added.
Moira just stared at the two of us. She couldn’t accept what we were trying to tell her. The mind doesn’t have mechanisms which permit things like this to be understood. I know from experience. It just takes time.
Neither Emily nor I were surprised when the first jet fighter went blazing by at low altitude. The noise shook the canyon and filled our ears momentarily and then it was gone. They had scrambled every Colorado Air National Guard jet available, not to mention the air force fighters and army helicopters that soon seemed to fill the sky.
I turned to Emily. She looked particularly beautiful concentrating on her off-road technique as we scrambled down the mountain. I will never forget the way she looked, or the way I felt right then. As selfish and horrible as it may sound, I felt better than I had felt in years. It was a tremendous relief. I didn’t have to worry about saving the world anymore.
“Emily,” I said, getting her attention. She still watched the road, but her eyebrows went up—she was listening. “Would you like to go to dinner tonight?”
Emily smiled that beautiful smile of hers.
“You really have to work on your timing,” she said.
Chapter 18
And that, as they say, is that.
I know it’s not the fairy tale ending we all wanted, but anyone reading this already knew the ending before buying the book. Everyone knows the story of the MCP, or at least everyo
ne knows the broad outlines—I only wrote this book to fill in the details as best as memory would serve. Emily and I did our best to reconstruct events exactly as they happened. Admittedly, we used a poetic license to fill in some gaps and add some drama, and yes, we were offered money to tell our story. After all, Emily and I are famous now, which is not something we ever wanted. We are still targeted, from time to time, and we have to take precautions, because no matter what we do, there are still plenty of ‘true believers’ out there. Despite the fact that the MCP was disbanded—and Lucas Burke sits in a federal prison—there will always be those who believe he is the true prophet. Maybe even because he’s in prison, I don’t know.
I don’t regret the fact that we were paid to tell the story of how the MCP changed the world forever. Some people said we should have published the book for free, but if you ask me, we deserve the money. Emily and I have to take certain security precautions—we even have bodyguards—and they cost money. We’ve got a kid on the way, and we expect to have more, and it’s going to get expensive.
As crazy as it may seem, I look back on the whole episode quite fondly. After all, I met my wife in chapter one, remember? I didn’t know it at the time, but then again, one never does. At the time, I was just fumbling through an Emergency Department patient who came in with scripture branded on her skin, and I reacted accordingly—assuming that it was the work of some loner madman. Which, in a way, it was. A madman named Lucas Burke with about five thousand followers.
That was one of the many things we learned later. There were never twenty thousand people in the Messianic Cathedral of Penance. They exaggerated their numbers, and much of what they projected was a lie. Furthermore, they had contacts in the local media and even a few in the Associated Press—reporters who were either MCP members or paid collaborators. So, Burke had been able to control much of the media coverage surrounding the MCP. And indeed, Burke had two MCP followers inside the Hawk Claw Sheriff’s Department, but they were not of much consequence in the end. They both retreated to the MCP compound before all the fighting began. Apparently, their faith only went far enough to include cowardice and betrayal, not direct confrontation. Their names were Meyers and Richardson, and they were arrested along with all the others during the raid.
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