The Prognostication

by David Berko

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Foreword

  This is a continuation of the Before the End Series, the follow-up to The Great Deception.

  The Prognostication centers around the battle between evil Uncle Ephraim, his nephew Azriel, and his brother Seth Markov. There’s also a plot twist in the Berlin Mission. Suddenly not everyone is playing on the same team.

  After a surgery alters his memories Azriel is trained to go on a mission to take out the only threat to Scorpion’s plans of taking over the world.

  Prologue

  Today, the sun forgot how to shine. It was a dark day. Very, very dark day.

  Having had several millennia to plan this, the forces of evil were finally ready to yoke humanity into their fixed schemes for the end of days.

  Sector 3 or Washington D.C. (the district’s historical name) grew very rich from private funding. When the revamped city got off the ground, quite literally, it wasn’t too hard to see why this location off the Potomac River could serve as the New Babylon.

  …

  04/24/2041: 6AM, S3

  Esmeralda Westover had just started her day.

  The warm sunshine of that particular morning shoved its way into the unprotected living areas that weren’t outfitted with blackout shades. The natural sunlight was one of the things Esmeralda appreciated most about her residence up in the clouds. Every room except her master suite got an overdose of the friendly UV rays.

  She enjoyed it most though when her routine took her out to the floor garden/green area which was simply there for the complex’s residents to bask in its radiance. Every ten floors of the massive building she lived in had one of these. It existed at the center of the cylindrical tower in a greenhouse environment.

  All in all the place she called home shone with an emerald radiance. The floor to ceiling windows of the tower expressed that color in its tint.

  …

  The flaky sleepies still occupied the corners of her eyes. Esmeralda hesitantly draped her legs over the side of her bed, anticipating a jolting drop to the floor: all twenty-eight inches.

  When she had finally left the comfort of her master bedroom, the first thing that greeted her were the morning rays. The sun felt better than it should have over her body—a warmth that awakened the senses before the first pot of coffee even finished brewing.

  She didn’t have anything booked for that day. Yet.

  It wouldn’t be extremely unusual though to say yes to another shoot on the whim—jet to the set. These sort of things were as whimsical as her personality.

  Still in her robe, she padded over to a vanity with its coordinating makeup mirror. The mirror doubled as a screen where she viewed her calendar, among other things.

  A sudden low rumble startled the woman. Her drowsy figure searched for the source of the noise. Unsuccessful at first, Esmeralda returned back to the mirror. As soon as she sat down on the little stool the disturbance from before reared its ugly head again.

  This time her instincts prevailed; they knew right where to take her. The missing phone, the one she had searched high and low for last night? An incoming phone call functioned as the homing beacon to draw her to the device’s location.

  Esmeralda found herself in a mini trance when she spotted it. The inbound call had nearly made it all the way to voicemail again. That is until she flipped the device up to her ear to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Mom? Listen to me, it’s very important you look out your window!”

  Confusion came before blind obedience. “Wha--?”

  “Just do it,” her daughter Amanda said more firmly.

  The reluctant mother didn’t have to go very far to get to the nearest window. That beautiful sunrise she woke up to? Gone.

  At that moment long foreign shadows stodgily moved across the various living spaces in her apartment. Where there had previously been an overabundance of natural sunlight now was blotted out by several immense objects loitering over Sector Three airspace.

  Esmeralda clutched her robe in a defensive posture as she cautiously traipsed over to the nearest window to get a better look.

  “Oh, my…God.” escaped her lips

  --

  Masada: Tel Aviv, Israel

  Azriel briefly looked away from Ephraim Markov to notice the strange room he stood in.

  “Dad, where are we?”

  “Home son. You are home,” he repeated a little softer and more distant than the first.

  Even though he had heard Ephraim, he continued to walk past the man and out into a more open area, away from the room he spent the last twenty-four hours in. Azriel swiveled his head in a full three-sixty like an owl.

  “What is this place?” he asked again.

  Ephraim’s eyes shifted to Stacy. They were both doing the same thing: smiling at the boy’s curiosity--amused at his juvenile line of questioning.

  Ephraim cleared his throat and calmly approached on Azriel’s left. He then wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders and gave him a little shake.

  “We’re in Masada, son! The modern day fortress no one knows exists except for the good folks at Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.”

  Azriel’s face brimmed with exuberance.

  “Tell me about it!”

  Stacy craned an ear towards Azriel and said, “What?”

  “Mossad. Tell me more,” he clarified.

  Stacy passed the buck on to Ephraim to fill in the blanks.

  Ephraim Markov nodded at her non-verbal request; not before running his fingers through his silver-streaked hair to fix a side part, though.

  “Come walk with me son. I’ll show you around,” he said with a twinkle in his mischievous eyes.

  “What about mom?” Azriel replied, looking up to Stacy who stood a few inches taller than he did.

  Stacy smiled softly at her stepson and patted him on the back.

  Ephraim’s eyes moistened a little at the sight. “You’ll see her soon. Come, come. I think you’ll wanna see what I have to show you. Lots to go over.”

  “Okay!” he replied with youthful exuberance.

  …

  The hallway straight ahead bloated into a cavernous open air atrium. Up or down, left to right, one could glimpse a complete cutout of the one hundred plus story supertall.

  Ephraim leaned over the railing that looked down into a deep abyss—thirty-nine stories to the lobby. He placed more weight of his than he should have in his elbows. If someone happened to bump into the Head of Kidon at that moment he’d wind up a bloody mess on the marble far below.

  Azriel fearlessly perched at the same waist-high rail as the man he now called father did.

  The cerebrum transfiguration had changed so much about the young man. His fears and insecurity? Gone. Replaced by an adaptable personality that used any methods or means possible to overcome obstacles.

  Before the transformation Uncle Ephraim was one of those obstacles. Now, the boy knew the man to be his father. He didn’t know any different. Though that would only be just scratching the surface of the changes he had borne under the knife.

  Manufactured memories of a happy childhood with Stacy as a nurturer and Ephraim as the caring father played in the boy’s mind.

  He looked over at his new dad. “When can I start doing what you do around here?”

  The suddenness combined with the absence of a preambl
e startled Ephraim.

  “Boy, where did that come from?” He didn’t know what else to say.

  “What do you mean, father?”

  “Nothing,” he said quietly while shaking his head ever so slightly.

  “There’s so much to say. I don’t know where to start,” Ephraim said after an interlude of silence.

  “Start where it seems logical to,” the thirteen-year-old suggested.

  Ephraim smiled at this. Getting offered advice from a youngster seemed so foreign to the old-hand agency man. However, this teenager was his son now.

  It would take time to reconcile the new change. These things took far longer than the operation itself. Much longer. No program, equipment, or medical miracles could facilitate familiarity among a newly-formed family. Again, time would be the conduit through which the cerebrum transfiguration patient (Azriel) and his new family would have to travel through in order for them to become a unit.

  “Azriel?”

  The boy evenly measured his father, waiting for an interesting tidbit to come out of the man’s mouth.

  “I’d like to take you where your sister Esther is training at. We can get you plugged in today if you like!”

  Azriel didn’t expect this kind of information. The message most pleased him however. After all he wanted to know when he could start to begin doing what mattered in life, walk in his father Ephraim’s footsteps.

  Here’s to the journey.

  --

  Barcelona, Spain

  The cafeteria at the Mossad hub in Barcelona didn’t seek to thrill those who were on the meal voucher system. It merely existed like the rest of the well-greased operation that ran underground at the black site location.

  Vegetables were delivered to the kitchen for dishes far less often than meat and grains—the traditional food staples at the cafeteria.

  That night the special was trout.

  Chicken soup happened to be simmering in tall pots with steam escaping through their wide-mouth openings. Beef kebabs served on skewers with fried veggies were another meal option.

  Braided Shabatt bread with its fluffy yellow insides dominated all other smells in the kitchen, however. It was nearing Easter, so naturally the seasonal bread proliferated over all others at the black site.

  Agent Marcello passed through the cafeteria line slower than normal. His mind worked quietly as he ladeled a little soup into a styrofoam cup. He anticipated the phone call the Germans promised they would make with their handlers which were somehow connected to Scorpion.

  An alarming thought pierced through all the others: What if all they’re saying is a hoax? Disinformation?

  It wouldn’t be the first time that happened to Agent Marcello. Many others that had gone on before the Germans employed the same tactic. It reaped excellent short-term returns for the promulgators of the lie, but in the end the truth would always come out.

  In this scenario he hoped the bad guys were actually playing by the rules this time and not making life more difficult for him and Mossad.

  For time was not on their side.

  …

  Three little raps on the door signaled there would be a new face in the room…or a returning one more than likely.

  Agent Marcello invited himself back into Interrogation Room 3a with a deliberate attempt at an exaggerated re-entry.

  “Miss me?” he flashed a toothy grin the German’s way.

  When neither one of them gave him the satisfaction of a change in expression or tort reply, he politely set their meal down on the table. Alfonso didn’t say another word as the two German officials grabbed at the grub with a gusto that appeared more barbarian than civilized and measured.

  After the last morsel of food had been cleaned off their plates Alfonso resolved to move forward once more without further delay. Before the agent could get underway though Amalia promptly reminded her interrogator that they still hadn’t been allowed to shower or change clothes per the prearrangement they had agreed upon.

  “For shame,” Alfonso said, shaking his head in mock sympathy. “Don’t you hate it when people don’t hold up to their end of the bargain? There’s a lesson that can be learned here.”

  His eyes grew more intense as he stared down the victims who sat there looking like fattened livestock before the slaughter.

  Wendel’s head throbbed a little. He winced. “Let’s just get it over with already.” He held an open hand out, ready to accept the phone he would use to contact his people.

  “Ah! But first we must do a few things to you before you make any calls,” Alfonso quickly said, dismissing the German’s see-through entreaty.

  Wendel’s face turned red in an instant. “We had a deal!”

  “Yes, we did,” Agent Marcello deflected, “however we have a few redundancies which must be put into place in order to insure truthful compliancy on your part when you make the call.”

  “Wire me up then, if you must,” Wendel indignantly stated. “I will do anything to shorten my dealings with scum like you. I’ll deliver for you….”

  “I expect no less than your best,” Agent Marcello said while he untangled some wire to a few contraptions he was prepared to use on the Germans before they placed any calls.

  Chapter 1

  Berlin, Germany

  This wouldn’t be a zero-hour operation. On the contrary, the hit would take place during the humdrum early hours of the morning—at the start of everyone’s work day at Germany’s Interior Ministry.

  …

  Dimitri, Sofia Keller’s limo driver, woke up extremely early that day. First he hit the gym following a protein-rich breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. When he got back from his sweaty routine a healthy shake waited for him in the fridge.

  He felt refreshed from the invigorating exercise and chocolate-flavored supplement he took afterwards. It was now time to pad on over to the bathroom in the flat to clean up before continuing his daily grind.

  Dimitri’s workout suit dropped onto the tiled floor in a haphazard stinky heap. He stripped down to nothing then hit the button on the shower wall to start the jets.

  Streams of water blasted out from the nozzles, pulsating against the back wall of the enclosure at irregular intervals. Dimitri stepped into the spray when he felt satisfied the water was warm enough, but not blazing hot.

  The water coursed over the man’s muscular body. Before long it mixed in with the suds. Dimitri remembered he had a music jukebox he could play with, too. His dripping wet finger dialed in his favorite playlist of songs. A surround sound system made the shower become an experience.

  If anyone were to ever break-and-enter, now would be their golden opportunity.

  Normally Dimitri was always prepared for the worst. He frequently conceal-carried a sidearm. His self defense didn’t stop with a gun either, though. The German’s martial art skills weren’t anything to be taken lightly. He could dislocate shoulders, hips…put the hurt on a victim in a hurry in a myriad of ways.

  At the moment an opus from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony chorused through the six speaker system in Dimitri’s shower. It made him linger even longer than he normally would have underneath the steamy streams of water which seemed to match the intensity to which the orchestra played.

  Unbeknownst to the preoccupied man in the shower his dog had been barking for a few minutes. Its cries suddenly went silent after it let out the telltale whimper.

  The double basses, cellos, and percussion came in strong during the climax to a particular opus. Each one of their distinct voices added to the hauntingly beautiful mastery of orchestral symphony.

  Dimitri never grew tired of these scores of music written centuries before.

  Just then the fan in the room automatically kicked in to purge the air which was thick with steam. The loud noise the ventilation system made when it switched on drowned out the far more subtle disturbance of the door handle turning.

  The bows of the violinists went up and down a few more times--the screechy dissonance
serving as the apropos death knell to Dimitri’s waning last seconds.

  A black silencer-tipped muzzle appeared between the void of the cracked bathroom door. Three pew, pew, pews ended Beethoven’s Ninth…and Dimitri’s existence. The German lay dead against the back wall of his travertine tiled shower; his crimson blood funneling towards the drain in the center of the smooth stone surface.

  --

  Seth parked his black sedan with fake plates a few miles away from the barber shop he needed to get to. It was a cool fifteen degrees Celsius out that morning. The sun hid behind partial cloud coverage, and a nippy breeze from the north would occasionally gust across the open areas.

  Agent Markov wore a grey wool henley top with light body armor underneath. Enough protection against small arms fire and most rifles. Although .50 Cal rounds would make things a little dicey for the Israeli.

  He had on black tactical pants that could resist tears, liquids…the harshest treatment you could put it through.

  His boots were special. They were equipped with springs in them for extra hop for clearing walls more easily. The level of traction in the insole was enough to allow Seth to nearly scale walls vertically. Nearly. Certain materials still proved difficult to climb like Spiderman though. That’s why he wore fingerless gloves which had a gecko-like skin on the palms.

  His whole uniform was tailor-made for the urban fighter’s environment. In the concrete jungle they gave their user an unsurpassed advantage over traditional mountain climber gear used by militaries and police forces for decades. Outfitted with the wonder gloves he wore, Agent Markov could go where most men couldn’t.