For the second time in a month, Christopher was forced to go before the world to appeal for calm. Despite the fact that General Kerpelman had acted without consulting him, Christopher accepted sole responsibility for what had occurred. General Kerpelman had acted in good faith in what he considered to be a tactical decision over which he had full authority. All that Christopher could do, though belatedly, was to issue a directive that no UN forces were to engage the KDP without his explicit authorization. He pledged, however, that the day would soon come when such an order would be given and on that day those who had died would be remembered and justice would be delivered.
Two days later, on April 11, undeterred by what had happened[41] — in fact encouraged and jubilant — the first large contingent of those who followed the KDP reached their destination.[42] As satellite photography revealed, their objective was the ancient Moabite and Nabataean city of Petra in southwestern Jordan.
Chapter 2
Signs and Wonders
Tuesday, October 2, 1 N.A.
The Albert Hall, London
Tommy Edwards watched closely as the magician levitated his hypnotized assistant above the stage. It was Tommy’s fifteenth birthday, and he had come to the performance with his grandfather, who was himself an amateur magician of some note. Tommy had seen the levitation trick performed on several occasions, but he was impressed with this magician’s technique. Then suddenly, strangely, as if hit by a gust of wind, a strange feeling of power swept over him. With no explanation, as if in a dream, he felt he had the power to do what the magician was doing, but not by some sort of trick. He felt — he knew, there was no doubt in his mind — that he could, by the sheer power of his will, cause the woman to levitate.
Looking toward the floating woman, he squinted slightly to aid his concentration. Then, with the power of his thought, he pulled her from her position above the stage and out over the audience, snapping the trick wires that had held her suspended. The audience at first thought this was part of the magician’s illusion and were unaware of what was actually happening. The magician, of course, realized immediately that something was awry. So did his not so hypnotized assistant, who grasped wildly but in vain for the wires that she assumed still held her.
Thursday, October 4, 1 N.A.
Burgeo, Newfoundland
Peter Switzer took a deep breath of salt air and opened the door to the small cottage that had been his home since he was born. His father, like his father before him, had fished these north Atlantic waters for his living, and had been killed in an accident twelve years earlier. His mother died shortly thereafter, leaving the family homestead and its responsibilities to Peter when he was eighteen. He would like to have married, but was painfully shy, and for ten years lived alone until one day a lovely girl named Deborah, whom he had known in school, insisted he go out with her. Within two weeks they were married. It seemed to Peter a dream come true until a year and a half later when Deborah’s father died. Her mother, taking advantage of Peter’s mild nature, decided to move in with her daughter and son in law. Since then, Peter hadn’t had one day of peace from her nagging and complaining. As he feared, she was waiting as if to pounce when he walked in the door.
“Why are you in so early?” she scolded. “There’s still an hour of daylight left. What kind of fisherman are you, anyway? It’s no wonder you can’t provide better for my daughter if you’re too lazy to work a full day.”
Peter remembered the time before she had moved in with them. Then, Deborah had greeted him each evening with a warm hug and an eager kiss. Now she was nowhere to be seen, intimidated by her mother’s presence. On all previous nights Peter had simply tried to ignore his mother in law’s sharp tongue, but on this night, for no apparent reason, he felt inexplicably determined to face her. Looking her straight in the eye and surprised at his own nerve, he heard himself speak the words. “Shut your mouth and do not speak for a week!” he commanded loudly. At this, Deborah came into the room, shocked at her husband’s raised voice and sure that a serious fight had begun. To her surprise, her mother didn’t respond. Even more surprised was her mother who, try as she might, couldn’t utter even the slightest sound. Deborah looked for an explanation to her husband, who after taking a confused moment to assess the situation, just smiled. He had no answer, but he was delighted with this strange development.
Saturday, October 6, 1 N.A.
Snow Hill, Maryland
“Okay, you can open your eyes,” Dan Highland told his wife, Betty as he stopped in front of the Victorian mansion that had been converted to a bed and breakfast. It was their fifth anniversary. Betty didn’t respond. “I said you can open your eyes now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I fell asleep,” she joked as she pretended to yawn. Then, looking at the old house, her eyes opened wide and it seemed as though she had lost her breath as she stared in apparent disbelief.
“You like it?” Dan asked. But he sensed something far more in her response.
“I’ve been here before . . .” she started, and looking around, modified her statement, “I lived here! This was my house!”
This wasn’t at all what Dan had expected. He had known Betty since they were teenagers and as far as he knew she had never even been to Snow Hill, Maryland. Nevertheless, he searched for some reasonable explanation for his wife’s claim. “You mean you lived in a house that looked like this?” he asked.
“No! I mean I lived in this house!” she insisted, as she quickly got out of the car and began looking all around.
“But when?” Dan shouted, as he turned off the engine and followed her.
“I don’t know, but I did!” Searching her memory she found what seemed proof of her claim. “One street over that way,” she said, pointing, “is Washington Street. And two streets over is Collins Street where Uncle Jack and Aunt Olive lived.” She was right about the street names. Dan had noted them as he drove past looking for the B&B.
“You must have seen the street names when I drove by,” Dan reasoned.
“But I had my eyes closed,” she countered.
Dan didn’t want to argue, but there was no other explanation. “Maybe they were opened just a little,” he suggested, but Betty didn’t reply. Instead she ran up the front steps to the porch and the front door. Without knocking, she went inside, leaving the door open for Dan to follow.
“It’s been changed some, the furniture is different and there used to be a door there, but this is it. I’m sure it is!”
“Betty, you can’t just run into someone’s house, even a bed and breakfast.” But Betty ignored his pleadings. A thought had occurred to her and she intended to pursue it. Turning, she ran from the foyer down a narrow hall with Dan following close behind. Where the hallway widened they were met by a woman in her mid sixties, dressed in blue homespun and wearing an apron.
“Hello,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, obviously surprised but not wanting to seem inhospitable to those who were most likely paying guests.
Betty had already opened a small door off the hallway as Dan answered the woman. “We’re the Highlands,” he said, unable to offer any other explanation.
“Oh, good, I was hoping you were,” she said cheerfully as she turned to see Betty Highland descending a rickety flight of stairs. “That’s the cellar, dear,” she said, and then taking her best guess at the reason for Betty’s hurried actions, she added, “the bathroom’s right down this hall.” But the Highlands were no longer there to hear her. Following them into the cellar, she reached for the light that neither Betty nor Dan had taken the time to locate.
“Betty, what on Earth are you doing?” Dan pleaded.
“It’s here! I know it is!” she answered as she felt her way along the stones in the foundation wall. And then at once she stopped. “This is it,” she said in a hushed tone. Dan and the woman could only watch and wait as she wiggled the stone back and forth and pulled it from its place. Confidently at first, certain that she was about to be vindicated,
she reached in, but found nothing. Then in desperation she reached in with both hands, feeling her way over every square inch of the cavity. “It’s not here!” she said with great distress.
Dan struggled for something to say but before he could speak, the woman asked haltingly, “What is it you were looking for, dear?”
“The locket,” Betty Highland answered, almost crying. “The locket from Augustus.”
This was all madness. “I’m very sorry about this,” Dan told the woman.
“Augustus?” she asked with a strange tone of recognition.
“Yes,” Betty answered, no longer holding back her tears, and still just as certain of her fantastic story. “They told me he had been lost at sea . . .” she sobbed. “We thought he was dead. After a year, Papa insisted that I marry Micah Johnson.”
None of this made any sense to Dan Highland, who took his wife in his arms to comfort her. But Betty hadn’t finished her story, and she continued to sob. “Just three days after Micah and I married, Augustus returned.” Betty Highland looked up at her husband and then to the woman, her expression asking forgiveness for the things she was confessing, her voice filled with equal parts of guilt and desperation. “There was nothing I could do. I had to send him away . . . I was married. I never saw him again.” Betty sniffled and wiped her eyes and tried to continue. “A few days later, Augustus’ sister, my best friend, Regina, called on me and . . . and gave me the locket. I couldn’t part with it, but I couldn’t let Micah ever find it. So I hid it behind that loose stone.”
“Honey, it’s all right. It must have been a dream or maybe an old movie,” Dan said consolingly, though he struggled greatly with the discomfort he felt at having his wife speak so emotionally of other men.
Betty knew it sounded crazy, but she was sure it was real.
“Come with me, child,” the woman told Betty, and then turned and left the cellar. “My husband, Will—” she said as Betty and Dan followed her up the narrow steps. “—You’ll meet him later; he’s doing some repair work next door. He and I restored this entire house — spent six years getting it into this condition. We’ve been over every inch of it. But it was just last year when he noticed that loose stone.” The woman led them into the kitchen. “Will was going to put a little cement in to hold it, but Will — he never does anything halfway — he pulled the stone out to put cement in all around it. That’s when he found this.” The woman reached into a drawer of a period hutch and pulled out a dishcloth, which, when she unwrapped it, revealed an antique gold locket and chain. “It’s a hundred years old if it’s a day,” she concluded.
“That’s it!” Betty exclaimed, as she reached for the locket.
“After we found it, Will never did get around to cementing the stone, so I finally put it back in place.”
Betty Highland carefully opened the locket. In it Dan could see the picture of a bearded man in his early twenties. On the other side was an inscription, which he couldn’t help but read out loud: “I shall always love you.” And below it was inscribed the name Augustus.
Monday, October 8, 1 N.A.
Cifuentes, Spain
Mercedes Xavier opened her eyes and immediately sat up. Something was wrong. She had fallen asleep only fifteen minutes before, after being up since three o’clock with her two-month-old son, Rauel. Finally, after nearly seven hours of crying, Rauel had fallen asleep. But now something was wrong. She didn’t stop to ask herself how she knew. Running as fast as she could to his room, Mercedes found her son, his blanket tangled around his throat and his face turning blue for lack of air.
“Rauel! Rauel!” she cried as she pulled the blanket away.
Rauel Xavier gasped and began to scream. Mercedes had reached him in time.
Wednesday, October 10, 1 N.A.
New Orleans, Louisiana
Brian Olson was having worse than his usual run of luck, shooting craps at the Rising Sun Casino, which is to say none at all. So far he’d lost two weeks of his company’s payroll in less than two hours. He could feel desperation close its grip on his chest, making it hard for him to breathe as he pushed back visions of angry employees and creditors. Sweat from his nervously perspiring hand formed a moist salty film on the small plastic cubes that held his fate, and when he blew on the dice for luck, a mist of sweat sprayed like spittle from his loosely-closed palm. Embarrassed, he pretended not to notice and was about to shoot when the fear and anger about his misfortunes suddenly left him. A cool rush of confidence swept over him. It wasn’t a logical thing to do, but Brian Olson rarely relied on logic. Reaching down to the table he increased his wager, betting everything he had left, $240, on his next roll of the dice.
With more confidence and certainty than he’d ever had about anything, Brian closed his eyes and threw the white cubes, picturing in his mind a four and a three.
“Seven, a winner,” came the voice of the croupier.
“Let it ride,” Brian said as he took the dice again. This time he pictured a five and a six.
“Eleven, another winner,” reported the voice.
“Let it ride,” Brian said again, as he pictured a five and a two.
Within ten minutes, Brian Olson had won more than $168,000. This, of course, attracted the attention of the casino management, who thanked him for his business and escorted him to the door with his winnings.
Thursday, October 11, 1 N.A.
Lafayette, Tennessee
Esther Shrum had worked at Citizens Bank for two and a half years, but she had been working at trying to get Jack Colby, the bank’s new vice president, to notice her since they were in fourth grade. He was cordial enough, but despite her best efforts, he just never seemed to notice her. Esther’s interest did not, however, go unnoticed by her coworkers, who found her continued attempts considerable cause for amusement.
Every morning Jack would greet those he encountered as he walked from the bank’s front door to his office, and Esther always managed to be along that path, even though she worked on the other side of the bank. Somehow, though, she felt today would be different. Today he would notice her. The strange confidence she felt was both invigorating and intoxicating. It wasn’t the first time she had felt this way, but it had been a long time since . . . Suddenly a feeling of dread swept over her as she remembered.
It was the night of the senior prom, nine years earlier. She knew that even though Jack could have had his choice of dates, he hadn’t asked anyone. Some other girls cruelly told her that Jack really wanted to ask her but was too shy. Acting only on this and her strange feeling of confidence, she convinced herself, and even told her friends that she was going to the prom with Jack. Though no invitation came, the confidence remained, and when the night of the prom arrived, she put on her prom dress and the corsage she bought for herself, drove to Jack’s house, went up to his door, and knocked. When Jack answered, he acted as if he didn’t know who she was — a not-too-likely possibility in a town the size of Lafayette. Nonetheless, she boldly asked him then and there to go to the prom with her. Jack stared for a moment, thanked her for the offer, but said he couldn’t go because he was watching a ball game on television and then closed the door. It was a week before she recovered enough nerve to go back to school.
The thought of that night caused a crippling pain that was every bit as real now as it had been all those years before as she stood on the front step of his house and heard Jack’s mother ask who was at the door. “Some crazy girl,” she heard him answer.
Esther looked to the bank’s front door and saw that Jack Colby had arrived. The remembered humiliation was too much and she couldn’t face him. Turning to get away, she somehow managed to trip over her own feet, dropping two rolls of quarters, which broke open, sending coins rolling everywhere. Flushed with embarrassment, she picked herself up off the floor and proceeded to scoop up the scattered quarters. Around her she could hear the laughter of her coworkers. She was about to burst into tears, only to find that Jack Colby had stopped to help. She bit her li
ps to keep from crying and hoped that he would just hand her the coins and walk away, but then their eyes met.
In his eyes was a strange look of surprise; in hers was mortification. She tried, but she couldn’t look away. The two of them stayed in this position for several seconds, squatting down a few feet apart, until finally Jack broke the silence.
“Esther?” he said, as though he wasn’t sure.
She nodded cautiously, preparing herself for the worst and unable to speak without releasing her tears.
“Forgive me for staring,” he said, without taking his eyes off her, “but as long as we’ve known each other, I don’t think that I’ve ever noticed how beautiful you are.”
Friday, October 12, 1 N.A.
Sapporo, Japan
The noise of nail drivers and power saws filled the air around the site where new apartments were being built to replace those that had burnt to the ground only three weeks earlier. Because of its geography, Sapporo had been largely spared the damage of the tsunami two and a half years earlier and now was the fastest growing city in Japan. October wasn’t the best time to start such a project, but every passing day represented hundreds of thousands of yen in lost rent. And so the crews worked in shifts, around the clock, seven days a week, in an attempt to meet the absurd schedule and receive the promised bonuses.
The night shift replacement for Utura Nojo had fallen seriously ill and hadn’t come in the previous night, with the result that Utura had been working more than twenty-four hours straight. Despite the constant noise around him, despite even the sound of the circular saw in his own hands, Utura’s eyelids drifted shut. He awoke an instant later as he felt the saw rip a gaping path through his right thigh. Immediately he dropped the saw and fell to the ground, grasping the wound and screaming as his blood spilled onto the plywood floor.
The Christ Clone Trilogy - Book Three: ACTS OF GOD (Revised & Expanded) Page 6