The Last Day

by Glenn Kleier

  But Feldman was no longer paying attention. He was trembling inside. Aloud, to himself, he played out his thoughts. “Then Jeza wasn't the main test subject of the Negev laboratory after all. She wasn't even an enhanced subject. She was the control. The unaltered daughter. The pure, untouched one. Which means … that all di Concerci's arguments are false. Which means … that none of Jeza's knowledge or abilities came from the infusion process, or telecommunications with computers, or any of that. Which means—”

  Feldman's mind reeled and he lapsed into virtual catatonia. He did not begin to recover until Lazzlo, who'd left the room momentarily, returned to thrust a sealed envelope in Feldman's hands.

  “Here,” Lazzlo said. “Here's everything you'll need to indict the entire IDF command—Tamin, Goene, me, all of us. These are intelligence documents and internal memos exposing it all—the corruptions, the conspiracies, the cover-ups. And I've also included a full CD disc of the Messiah's E-PET scan for complete authentication of what you've just seen.

  “Now I'm afraid it's time for you both to leave. Goene has called on his troops to take this hospital and rid Israel of a traitor. An advance of helicopters from the Negev base is due here any minute, and I can assure you, they'll stop at nothing to acquire Jeza's body.

  “But of greater concern,” Lazzlo warned, “even larger numbers of anti-Jeza forces are approaching Jerusalem from the north. They've been met by our northern army division several miles outside the city and a bloody battle is underway as we speak. I don't expect General Zerim can hold than long, and certainly this hospital will be their next target.”

  The dazed look in Feldman's eyes changed to one of sympathy for the doomed officer. “What are you going to do now, Commander?”

  Lazzlo paused and calmly faced the reporter. “I'm going to stay here, Mr. Feldman,” he said evenly, “and defend my Messiah.”

  Hunter placed a hand on the officer's back. “What's the point? That sounds like suicide. Why not evacuate and take Jeza's body with you in the helicopter? We can get asylum for you somewhere, I'm certain.”

  “You don't understand,” Lazzlo replied, his face hardening. “You see, I—I personally—hold large responsibility for what happened yesterday. The commission of the most deplorable crime in two thousand years. I conspired in the death of my Messiah. The most grievous sin against God. The sin of ad sins.

  “With all my heart I must believe that Jeza will rise tomorrow, here in Jerusalem, as scripture foretells. And I must also believe that I will be given the opportunity to kneel before Her and plead personally for Her forgiveness. Protecting the sacred temple of Her body is now the only hope my eternal soul has left. I cannot leave!”

  Feldman inhaled deeply. “I wish you well, then, Commander.” He extended his good hand. “You have my word I'll air this information as quickly as possible.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Feldman.” Lazzlo gripped the reporter's hand with both of his. “And you, too, Mr. Hunter,” he repeated the gesture with the videographer.

  “Commander—” Feldman paused on his way to the door. “I have to take Cardinal Litti with me.”

  “By all means, do,” Lazzlo urged them. “As you've no doubt noticed, we've almost completed the evacuation of the hospital, but the cardinal has refused to leave. Take him, but hurry. You must see to it that the information you carry, especially the PET scan, is made public immediately. Perhaps the truth can stop the madness.”

  With that, Lazzlo left the reporters to resume his defense preparations. Feldman stashed the precious package of evidence inside his shirt and a guard escorted them to the room where they left Cardinal Litti. They found him on his knees, in prayer, a small snapshot of the Messiah on the chair in front of him.

  “Alphonse,” Feldman called to him, “we're leaving.”

  The cardinal placed a hand on the chair and rose slowly to his feet. “Will you return at dawn to join me for the Resurrection?” he asked, bestowing a smile of perfect tranquillity.

  “No, Alphonse, you don't understand.” Feldman grabbed him by the shoulder, “We're going. All of us. You, me, Hunter. Two crazed armies are converging on this place and all hell is about to break loose. Let's go while we can!”

  Litti shook his head steadfastly. “No, Jon. It's you who don't understand. There is no safer place to be. I tried to tell Commander Lazzlo that he's wasting his efforts with his defense measures. Do you really think God would let anyone interfere with the culmination of His Great Purpose?”

  As if to underscore Feldman's argument, they suddenly heard the alarming report of automatic weapon fire outside, and then the sound of a small explosion. “Alphonse,” Feldman pleaded, leaning close and looking hard into the clergyman's eyes, “I don't know what God's intentions are, but we can't wait any longer. You have to leave with us. Now!”

  The cardinal's response was a look of absolute conviction.

  “Gentlemen!” their guard yelled in the doorway. “We must go!”

  Hunter grabbed Feldman's biceps. “Come on, man, you're wasting your time. If we don't get out of here now, that package will never see the light of day.”

  Saddened and frustrated, Feldman encircled the portly cardinal with his one arm and hugged him tightly. “God protect you,” he said.

  “And God protect you, my good friend,” the cardinal replied.

  Feldman released him and exited the room, making his way cumbrously down the hall with Hunter's support. By the time they reached the roof, the two newsmen realized they'd missed their window of opportunity. The air was acrid with smoke. Bullets were zinging everywhere around them. Despite this, the helicopter remained at high throttle, its pilot faithfully awaiting his passengers, the unwavering Corporal Lyman crouching alone inside the doorway, fiercely waving them on.

  Upon spotting the reporters, the pilot revved the engine to full speed, the two men hurled themselves through the open door, the helicopter tilted forward, swung ninety degrees around and soared out quickly over the rear of the hospital. The pilot purposefully held the craft low to avoid offering a silhouetted target against the bright blue morning sky, but it was of little help. The chopper quickly took several hits to the undercarriage, pitched sharply to the right, and then was immediately jarred by a heavy impact just above the right side of the cockpit. Black smoke began pouring into the cabin.

  There was a flurry of Hebrew from the pilot and Lyman screamed repeatedly to Feldman and Hunter to fasten their seat belts, which they'd yet to locate. In the thick smoke and turbulence, it was a futile effort. The chopper was vibrating and lurching badly, yawing alarmingly to the right. Feldman slid against the bulkhead and felt the strong hand of Hunter seize him by the arm.

  He knew they were going down.

  110

  A deserted field, northern Jerusalem 9:22 A.M., Saturday, April 22, 2000

  Feldman didn't remember the crash. As he came to, sputtering and coughing, he felt a cold, thick wetness on his face, partially obstructing his breathing. When he was able enough to clear his head and eyes, he realized he was lying on his side in a duck gruel of mud. Looking back over his shoulder, he spied the crumpled, smoking ruins of the helicopter, its tail elevated in the air, its rear blades still spinning. The crackup could have been worse. There was no fire. The leaking fuel he smelled had not yet ignited.

  Somehow Feldman had been thrown clear upon impact, landing about twenty-five feet from the wreckage in a deep bed of mud left over from the heavy rains. As his reasoning came back to him, he was gripped with a frantic concern for Hunter and the two crew members. Crawling in the muck, oblivious to his injuries, he slogged his way back to the helicopter, calling out for survivors.

  A large foot and a small groan emerged from a cavity beneath the shattered fuselage. Sitting down in the quagmire, Feldman placed his feet against the frame, lodged the protruding foot under his left armpit, grasped the calf with his left hand and pushed hard with his legs. The body budged toward him, slightly. Feldman worked his grip up to the knee,
and with a few more such efforts, the bloodied form and face of Hunter appeared.

  Feldman sucked the mud from a finger and pulled open one of Hunter's closed eyelids. There was movement underneath.

  “Breck!” he called out. “Can you hear me?”

  The videographer growled in pain.

  “Come on, Breck, wake up. I've got to get you away from this thing before it blows, and I need your help.” In the mud, and with his preexisting injuries—as well as any new, undiscovered ones he may have just incurred— Feldman was incapable of enough leverage to move the big man any further.

  Hunter's eyes finally peeked open and he grimaced up at his friend. “Shit!” he said.

  “Are you hurt bad? Can you move?”

  “My right side is killing me, but if you can roll me over on my left, I think I can sidestroke on outta here,” he replied with a scrunched expression. “How about the others?”

  Feldman pulled himself up the fuselage to a standing position and looked around. The aircraft had fallen in a sparsely populated residential part of the city, in an open area approximately one or two kilometers north of the hospital. The newsman could see in the distance several people on foot laboring to reach them through the soggy field. Apparently the pilot had been attempting a forced landing here, but was unable to maintain control. The front of the aircraft was completely crushed and buried in the mud. It was obvious to Feldman that the pilot could not have survived.

  Working his slippery way hand-over-hand around the upright tail section, Feldman found an open door on the opposite side of the wreck. Peering inside, through the shadow and lingering smoke, he spied the back of a blue and gray flight helmet with dark hair spilling out from beneath. He climbed through the doorway and slid down the deck beside the still form of Corporal Lyman.

  Carefully he attempted to work his good left arm underneath her when he felt the mass of warm blood. Leaning over to get a better look at her, he recoiled in horror to find the far side of her helmet crushed like an eggshell. He pulled back in shock, a creeping nausea pervading him, and let the limp body slip slowly from his grasp.

  Outside, voices were audible. Feldman had no time to linger over his emotions, he had Hunter to consider. As he clambered in agony back up the side of the deck to spy out the door, a scraggly, bearded face confronted him with a pistol.

  “What is this?” it said, in thickly accented German.

  Feldman's heart sank. At least, he realized, the man was not an Israeli soldier. Remembering the important information he carried, he pressed his injured hand against his stomach. The package was still there, thank God, if not ruined by the crash and wetness.

  “Please, I'm unarmed,” Feldman said.

  “Gogormagog?” the guerrilla asked.

  “What?” Feldman did not understand German.

  “Are you Gog or Magog?” the question came slower. “Are you for Jeza or against Her?”

  Feldman finally comprehended. But not knowing which hands he'd fallen into, he hedged. “Uh, I'm uh, I'm a reporter. Jon Feldman, WNN News,” he said, and wiped the mud from an ID card he retrieved from his vest pocket.

  The eyes of the militant suddenly widened, and the man blurted out cheerily, “Jon Feldman! My good friend Jon Feldman! I did not recognize you with the mud.”

  Assisting the newsman from the wreckage, the German called out to his colleagues. “Ya! Look, we have my good friend Jon Feldman, from World News Network!”

  “My associate is injured,” Feldman appealed to his captor. “Please, help us!”

  “Ya, Jon! You remember me?” the strange man asked. “Fredrich Vilhousen, from Hamburg! We meet at the Negev laboratory the night of God's Hammer!”

  Unsure, Feldman was not going to jeopardize his good fortune. “Of course. Am I glad to see you! We were just shot down by the Israelis. You've got to help us!”

  “Ya! We help you. Come.”

  Feldman was glad to see Hunter had wriggled his way to a safer distance and was now sitting up, conversing with two of Vilhousen's three men.

  “So which are you, Gog or Magog?” Feldman asked apprehensively as the German assisted him with a supporting shoulder.

  “Magog, of course!” came the welcomed reply. “We are here for the Armageddon! The Gogs are coming to attack us and take Jeza's body. They think we are going to fake the Resurrection by stealing her away. But we will defeat them, as the Bible predicts.”

  Although there was a little color in Hunter's face now, it was obvious he'd taken a nasty hit. At the very least, he had serious gashes on his right thigh and temple that the Magogs were attempting to bandage.

  “Can you help us get back to our headquarters?” Feldman pleaded again. “We have some extremely important news about the Messiah that we have to get out of here.”

  “Ya, ya, but look. We have trouble.”

  Feldman swung around, peering up into the air where Vilhousen was pointing. Swooping over the buildings behind them and heading directly toward the crash site was an Israeli military helicopter.

  Hunter saw it, too. “Damn, Feldman. Get the hell out of here!”

  Feldman looked to his friend, then back at the charging helicopter, then to his friend once more. “No, I'm not leaving you. Not that I could make it anyway. Not in this mud, not in my condition.”

  Over Hunter's protests, Feldman unbuttoned his shirt and extracted a limp package. He grabbed Vilhousen's arm hard with his right hand, despite the pain.

  “Fredrich, listen to me,” he implored, his eyes boring into the German's. “This package is a message to the world about Jeza. An extremely important message! You must see that it's delivered to WNN, to Nigel Sullivan at 419-A, Mount of the Ascension, immediately! Do you understand? Everything depends on this! Do you understand?”

  Dumbfounded, Vilhousen accepted the package, nodding, his eyes wide with his responsibility.

  Reaching up with discomfort, Hunter also waved a videotape at the perplexed German. “Here, I saved this. You might as well take it, too.”

  “Go!” Feldman shouted, sending the German on his way with a hard push. “Hurry, fast! Four-nineteen-A, Mount of the Ascension. Nigel Sullivan. Don't fail us. Don't fail Jeza! Hurry!”

  Vilhousen and his men took off arduously through the slime as the chopper circled once and then closed in.

  “Damn it, Jon!” Hunter yelled at his friend. “You can't entrust that information to them. You've got to go, too!”

  Feldman trudged slowly and painfully over to his partner. “Sorry, guy, but I can barely walk under the best of circumstances. I'd never make it in this muck.” He shaded his eyes against the sun and the oncoming gunship, concern growing on his face. “And I'm not so sure Vilhousen will, either.”

  At the sight of the fleeing Magogs, the helicopter hovered indecisively between investigating the downed craft and chasing the escaping men. Suddenly it pivoted toward Vilhousen's band and a high-caliber gun erupted from the undercarriage, discharging a volley of bullets and kicking up sprays of mud around the scattering guerrillas. One of the shots found its mark and a man fell headlong into the mire.

  Frantically, Feldman began waving his arms at the helicopter and pointing at the wreckage.

  “The bastards!” Hunter yelled. “Did they get our messenger?”

  “No,” Feldman detected from his higher vantage point, holding his bream. “Not yet!”

  But the helicopter finally decided against pursuit and swung back around to settle in alongside the two newsmen. Feldman flopped back down next to Hunter.

  “How bad are you, Breck?” he asked.

  “I don't know. I've got triple vision, my ears are ringin’ like an alarm clock, and my leg's got a crater in it. Not too bad, I guess.”

  Three Israeli military had reached them now, pointing rifles in their faces. “You will come with us,” one said. It took four men to lug the cumbersome Hunter into the helicopter's bay. Two other Israelis carefully inspected the downed wreck, shook their heads back at their com
rades and then returned to the chopper for take off.

  Feldman and Hunter were stripped of their IDs and not allowed to talk as they were flown directly to an IDF command center across Jerusalem on the western side of the city. They were shoved roughly into a large barracks and hauled up before an office door where, despite their condition, they were made to wait, precariously supporting one another.

  Finally, the door to the office opened and the prisoners were admitted into the malevolent presence of their old nemesis, Senior General Alleza Goene himself. Seated next to Goene in a red-leather wingback chair was another man. A short, slightly heavy set individual, perhaps sixty years of age, with neatly combed gray hair. He was dressed in an expensive business suit. Although they'd never met, Feldman recognized him instantly.

  The guards held the two reporters firmly at attention by their upper arms.

  “Well!” Goene looked up from his conversation, not unpleasantly surprised at the newsmen's bedraggled appearance. “We're not looking so high and mighty today, now are we?” he sneered.

  Feldman and Hunter glared back silently.

  Goene gestured to the man next to him. “Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Israel's esteemed minister of defense, Shaul Tamin.”

  Tamin did not bother to rise. He sized up the newsmen with a methodical, imperious stare, scrutinizing them through cold eyes under heavy lids.

  “Your ambition has no conscience, does it, gentlemen?” Tamin remarked, speaking in a resonant voice with little accent.

  The reporters eyed him warily.

  “Thanks to your illustrious reporting,” Tamin continued, “Israel is about to confront Armageddon. I trust you're proud of your work?”

  “We're just a couple of journalists trying to do our jobs, Tamin,” Feldman replied dryly.

  “Journalists?” The minister sniffed. “Ah, is that how you characterize yourselves? Endangering Israel's national security; inciting riots and rebellion; creating a worldwide climate of fear and despair—all in the name of good journalism! I see. What consummate professionals you are.”