“Not a bit, my boy. I’m on it.” He reached for the pipe pouch and left the room in big pounding strides.
I fired off an email to Larry Bond, telling him what we had and asking if he had anything else for us. I’d saved a picture of Jana Fulton to my hard drive the night I researched her and everyone else, and I pulled that picture up and wondered if she was okay. I also wondered if a woman could possibly be as beautiful in the flesh as she was in that picture. Nebraska. Last I heard, the Feds were still confining their search to New York and Los Angeles.
I hit the Internet and tried to research the issue a bit more, but everything other than a few government and news sites yielded “server cannot be reached” errors. I went back to the Fox site and checked for updates. There were none. A banner ad for a site selling “As Seen on TV” products was blinking at the top of the screen. I sat staring at the obnoxious rectangle and it hit me. The Feds were wrong. Bad wrong.
My FBI liaison Larry Bond wasted no time replying to my email:
Matt,
Cryptos examining password issue now. Will advise of progress or suggestions. Field agents in Omaha presently investigating source of Fulton call. Suspect captured in Earth, Texas is cooperating but of surprisingly little help. He is part of a religious movement loyal to a “messiah” who is supposed to usher in a new era. Movement operates in classic compartmentalized cells, so individuals and smaller teams have no idea about the activities of others. They do know some major part of the plan is supposed to happen TODAY, however. They claim no knowledge of what the event is and special interrogation team reports confidence in veracity is Delta level. I’m told you will understand what that means.
Larry
I printed the message and took it to Tark. “What’s Delta level veracity?” he said.
“It means the interrogators are positive the suspects are telling the truth.”
“How can they be positive? Lie detectors?”
“Not the kind you’re thinking about. After the World Trade Center, some laws were quietly passed and a few executive orders issued that gave the Feds enormous latitude when dealing with suspected terrorists. Special interrogation teams were formed and these guys were given carte blanche to get the answers they needed. All in the name of national security, of course.”
“You telling me they made it okay to beat people and such?”
“Torture,” I said. “They legalized torture. Beating isn’t the half of it, although that’s certainly a part. Electrical shock. Chemicals. No holds barred, get the answers.”
“Good heavens, I had no idea.”
“Pretty amazing, huh?”
“Obama tried to do away with it while he was in office, but sometimes what a president doesn’t know can’t hurt him.”
Tark shook his head and returned to his Bible. “You still got that time line handy?”
“Sure. What’s on your mind?”
“Just a hunch.” I got the printout from the control room and handed it to him. He relit the pipe and puffed and squinted, slow at first, then it shifted into high gear.
“You see something, don’t you?”
“Yep, Matthew. I believe I do.”
47
11:12 AM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
YELLOW CREEK
“Everything this guy does,” Tark said, “means something to him. If we overlook anything we run the risk of missing important clues.”
“We’ve established that. What’s your point?”
“And two-sixteen is the pattern, right?”
“Yes.”
“But not the whole pattern, you see. We missed something.”
I sighed and motioned for him to get on with it.
“My point is this. It didn’t begin at precisely two-sixteen. Fact is, it began at two-sixteen and thirty-seven seconds. Since he does nothing by accident, why not two-sixteen on the mark?”
“Good find, Tark. Any idea on the significance of thirty-seven?”
“Hold your horses, there’s more. Now that we’re thinking in hours, minutes, and seconds, take a look at the times between the three states blacking out on Monday.”
I picked up the printout and looked. “I’ll be damned.”
“That may well be, but you can change that with a quick prayer,” Tark said.
I started to ask what he was talking about but it clicked and I moved on. “Mississippi went down at two-sixteen, thirty-seven seconds, then Alabama at two-eighteen-twenty-one, and finally Tennessee at two-twenty-one-nine. All two minutes sixteen seconds apart. Amazing that we’ve missed this, but other than reinforcing two-sixteen, and by extension six-six-six, what’s the meaning?”
“Let’s move back to the importance of thirty-seven seconds. What was the first computer password you finally figured out after looking all night for it?”
“White horse.”
“Now take a look at this.” He shoved the Bible across the table to me and pointed to the top of the sixth chapter of Revelation. “Count the words,” he said. I counted, and then looked at him and shook my head. Word number thirty-seven was the ‘white’ in ‘white horse.’
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
“Good work, Tark.” I had jotted the current clue on a scrap of paper and read it out loud: “Very good with the first. Number three will lead you home. You have three tries.”
“The white horse was the first horse and also the first password.”
I looked to the whiteboard that was still filled with our earlier scribbling about horses. “And the black horse was the third one, number three.” I started counting words.
“I’ve already counted it. The ‘black’ in ‘black horse’ is the hundred-forty-third word in chapter six, assuming he sticks to King James.” I headed to the control room with him in tight tow.
“Abdul, let’s try a password on that steg file,” I said. His fingertips hovered at the ready. “One four three.”
We held our breath as he slowly keyed it in and pressed ENTER. “That’s it!” Abdul said. An elaborate animation ran that showed four horses, one white, one red, one black, and one a creamy color. The horses came in from the corner of the screen, met in the middle, and dissolved into what looked like a digital clock set at 00:00. Underneath the clock a scroll opened up that said PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE. Abdul looked to me for confirmation. I nodded and he hit the key.
An unearthly voice boomed from the computer speakers, “Thank you for your participation.” Then I noticed that the digits on the clock were no longer zeros. It now showed 00:53:14 and was counting down. I glanced at my watch and did the math, as if it was even necessary.
“It’s counting down to one-sixteen our time. Eastern time, that’s two-sixteen,” I said.
“But counting down to what?” Abdul said.
“The fifth seal,” I said.
48
12:18 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
YELLOW CREEK
I fired another email to Larry Bond:
Larry, a couple of things to report here. First, call off the cryptos. We solved the password. Turned out to be a numerical reference to a passage in Revelation. I’m attaching a file showing the breakdown so your people have all the knowledge we have. Bottom line is another event should be expected at 2:16 PM Eastern time.
Also recommend immediate, large scale follow-up on the issue of Jana Fulton’s possible presence in Nebraska. I was told earlier that the Bureau and other agencies are concentrating their search for AC (our code name for the suspect) in NYC and LA, presumably because comm techs determined that only those two areas had access to a fiber backbone large enough to facilitate the communications that have taken place on the other side. That info is faulty. Research shows that Omaha, Nebraska is a site of massive fiber
junctions. Most of the nation’s largest telemarketing (as seen on TV infomercial crap) fulfillment centers are located near Omaha. They started locating there because of low overhead and access to the comm lines that ran through the area due to its fairly central location. After a while, it became a major industry and accelerated the growth of fiber-comms in the area even more. Omaha has essentially the comms capability of NYC and LA.
This would likely be an attractive area for any clandestine operation, plus you must consider the fact that we now have a direct link (Jana Fulton) to the locale.
Will advise on further developments here.
Matt Decker
With less than an hour remaining on the countdown, I walked outside to limber up. A big bank of dark clouds was rolling in from the west and bringing a cool breeze with it. It was the first time since getting there on Monday I had felt anything outdoors other than suffocating heat. I wound down the little asphalt path to the waterfront and sat on the edge of a concrete pier. It was a far cry from the water view I had back home, but it still soothed my ragged nerves.
I sat very still, feeling the wind on the back of my head, watching the water in the canal move slowly downstream. Other than the generator several hundred yards away, the world was void of man-made sounds. Grasshoppers chirped. The flowing water made the soft sound that flowing water makes. No trucks whined on the highway, no contrails sliced the sky. I looked around and for the first time noticed that Mississippi was a beautiful place. Gently rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see, lush green pastures competing for space with thick forests. It was majestic, and I felt small again.
The life I had made for myself, the importance I had accorded to my own existence just five days earlier, seemed small and petty. For years, computers were my friends. Machines. Boxes of silicon and copper and steel and plastic. Money, money, and more money. People meant nothing to me beyond their ability to somehow enhance my own world. I remembered being a child and feeling very different. I closed my eyes and I could see Dad, standing proudly in his pulpit. A cantankerous old cat named Bernie who would purr in my lap and then bite me for no reason. Random bits and pieces ebbed and flowed through my mind. My life.
I laid back on the pier and looked up at the clouds roiling past, their churning, seething underbellies thick with shades of blue and almost-black, the wind growing stronger. And then the magnitude of what had happened that week began to sink in. Two million dead. Two million intricate worlds of hopes and dreams and loves and disappointments and victories and defeats. Gone. Why? It was the same question I asked when my father became a vegetable. A good man who loved and cared for others, yanked from this earth for no reason at all.
I was angry as hell. I pulled myself up, stretched my arms out and screamed to the sky, “What kind of sick God are you? What kind of God would take both my parents from me? What kind of God would let some sick bastard kill all these people? How can you call yourself God at all?”
12:45 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
DOUGLAS COUNTY JAIL
OMAHA, NEBRASKA
“Ms. Fulton?” The voice at the cell door startled her and she hit her head on the frame of the bunk above her as she jumped up.
“Yes?”
“I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’re going to get you out of here and into our custody.”
A voice approached from the hall, reverberating as it drew nearer. “You’re not taking this prisoner anywhere. She’s being held on a variety of state charges.”
“Sheriff, we’re in a national state of emergency and I guarantee you my power supersedes yours concerning any person in this jail. We don’t have time for a turf war, and if you stand in the way of what I’m doing I’ll have my men come in here and put you in one of your own cells.”
“I’d like to see you try,” the sheriff said. He was right beside the agent now, towering a good six inches above the Federal man.
The agent yanked a radio from his belt, keyed it up, and spoke quickly. “All units inside immediately. We have a situation.”
“Don’t let them in here,” the sheriff shouted down the hall.
“Sir, that’ll be hard to pull off,” came a reply.
“Why is that, Deputy?”
“Because there are two of us and six of them and they have much bigger guns, sir.”
“Like I said, Sheriff, we don’t have time for this,” the FBI agent said. “This will be the last time I ask you politely. Open this door.”
The big man muttered but he unlocked the door, and Jana wasted no time moving through it. The agent took her by the arm and escorted her briskly down the hall and out of the cellblock into the lobby area of the jail. They were headed toward the outer door when Jana said, “Do we have time to get my things?”
The agent looked at the sheriff and the sheriff nodded to a deputy. Two minutes later Jana had her personal effects, which consisted of the late Dane Christian’s fatigue jacket, sans revolver.
As soon as they stepped outside Jana saw what the deputy had meant by “bigger guns.” There were four men and two women, all dressed in black tactical uniforms emblazoned with FBI in ten-inch yellow letters, and each armed with what looked like an assault rifle. They made their way to an unmarked car and the agent motioned for Jana to get in on the passenger side, front seat.
The agent left the parking lot with tires squealing, the rest of the crew in close formation behind the car in a black Suburban. “I’m glad to be out of there,” Jana said, “but I’d really like to know where we’re going.”
“No problem,” the man said with a smile as he hit the door locks. “We’re taking you back where you belong, whore.”
49
1:10 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
YELLOW CREEK
After recovering from my encounter with insanity on the pier I came back into the control room and found Tark gone. Abdul said he ran home to check on Peggy, who was still sick.
“Matt Decker, you know something else?” Abdul said.
“Yeah?”
“I think there is more hidden in the file.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The entire file was nearly five megabytes. At first that didn’t seem unusual, because the animation is extensive and should be expected to be quite large, yes?”
“Sure,” I said. “And since it was in bitmap format, that made it even less efficient from a size perspective.”
“But it is not in bitmap. The original picture of the horse was altered from JPEG to bitmap. That is what first aroused our interest. But the movie animation of the horses and the clock is a Flash file.”
He had my interest. Flash animations are very efficient with regard to file size. Very doubtful that animation would go five meg. “Go on.”
“Since I have nothing else to do except sit here and worry about my family, I have been trying to make my mind busy. So I started breaking down the encrypted file into its individual components. The original bitmap of the horse is around five-hundred-k. The Flash animation of the four horses and the clock is a little over three megabytes. That makes a total of about three-point-five megabytes. The encryption overhead itself might be another five-hundred-k at most, which means the total file size should be maybe four megabytes. Yet you can see here that the file is five megabytes. So my question is—”
“What’s that other meg,” I said. “Great eye, Abdul.”
“Thank you. Your nice words make me very proud.”
“No problem, my friend. Have you made any progress getting deeper into the file?”
“Not yet, but I have only just begun.”
“Okay, let me know the moment you find anything.”
“Yes, Matt Decker.”
I walked into the outer office and found Andrea still dialing. “No luck reaching Alpine Village yet?” I said. She shook her head.
1:15:00 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
HART COMPLEX
The moment finally ar
rived. All around the control room, where so many had worked so hard for so long carrying out the orders of their Messiah, anticipation charged the air. All eyes were on the large monitor in the middle of the room as it counted down to the big event. No one in the room knew what the big event was; the details of this, like the premier event, had been closely guarded from virtually everyone, but the Messiah promised to reveal this one in time for them to understand what they would witness on the screen when the countdown was complete.
1:15:18—Abraham Hart faded into view. The video was recorded in his chambers, him sitting at a desk with a large Bible laid open in front of him. The lighting was carefully orchestrated to feature him in his white suit as a shining light in the dark surroundings. He looked into the camera, smiled briefly, then looked down to the Bible.
1:15:24—He began to read: “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.” Hart closed the Bible and looked back into the camera.
1:15:35—“My dearest friends, thank you for your faithful service. Today thou shalt be in paradise, and after a little while, I shall join you there.”
1:15:42—The screen faded to black and then back to a large rendering of the countdown. 15 ... 14 ...
1:15:47—All around the room, confused faces looked to one another to see if anyone understood what they had just seen and heard from their master.
1:15:50—One man understood perfectly and left his desk in a run for the door. “Where are you going?” someone shouted.
1:15:55—The man frantically entered his code into the keypad beside the door, and its screen scrolled the message, “Access Denied. Rest yet for a little season.”
Seven Unholy Days Page 22