by James Somers
“She was killed because of someone she knew and trusted, but he betrayed her.” He did not know if he had described Solomon Gauge, or himself. Jason wanted to believe it wasn’t the latter.
“That’s so sad. I’m very sorry for your loss, Jason.” Chloe placed her hand on his shoulder as a comforting gesture. Deep down, he appreciated the sympathy. “My mother was taken from us, too.”
“I’m sorry for you, too, Chloe.” Jason’s own sympathy surprised him. He never regarded other people’s feelings. Agents didn’t act that way—they killed without pity, or remorse.
They sat there for several minutes saying nothing, but shared an understanding—a common bond in pain that didn’t need words. “I tell you what, Jason, I know someone who could make you feel better no matter what you’ve been through. He can give you hope.”
“Who is he?” Jason wondered if this might be the lead he was hoping for.
“A friend. Would you like to meet him?”
“I suppose.” He tried to sound genuine. “Where do I find him?”
“Just have faith, Jason. My dad is speaking tonight and he can introduce you.”
“Here at the mission?”
“Not exactly.” Chloe smiled. “But if you’ll meet me here at seven tonight, I’ll take you to the place.”
SOLOMON GAUGE
Chloe had been true to her word. She had met Jason at the mission, along with another middle-aged man. Chloe and the man apparently knew each other well. He appeared clean cut with silver hair and glasses. Many poor people still wore the devices for their visual impairments.
Jason got the impression that the man had escorted the girl for her safety and wondered if this might be her father. He had been sizing Jason up through narrow calculating eyes ever since Jason met them in front of the building.
“Hi, Jason, I’m so glad you could make it.” Chloe sounded cheerful, despite their surroundings.
“Hello. Is this your dad?”
“Oh, no, this is Uncle Max. He’s been a friend of our family since before I was born. Dad is preparing for the meeting tonight. Max came along to keep me company.”
“So, where are we going?”
Max removed a black cloth from the pocket of the light jacket he was wearing, but it was Chloe that informed Jason of its purpose. “Don’t be afraid, Jason. The location of the meeting has to remain a secret. This hood is just a formality. I hope you don’t mind. I’d really like you to go with us.”
Jason looked at the black bag dangling from Max’s hand. The man held a barely discernable grin on his thin lips. He enjoyed this cloak and dagger arrangement.
Jason decided not to buck their system. “Well, I suppose it’s no big deal. I’ll go along.”
Max came to him and placed the hood over his head. He felt Chloe take hold of his hand. “Come on, Jason, I’ll lead you to the jeep.”
Soon they had him secured in the passenger seat, with Max driving next to him and Chloe seated behind him. They drove for what he guessed was about five miles then began a descent. The air became cooler, and Jason supposed that they must have gone underground.
The whole drive took them slightly less than ten minutes—nine minutes and forty two seconds, to be precise, at an estimated forty miles an hour. That calculation might be very useful to him later.
Max and Chloe led him out of the jeep through a corridor. Jason heard voices. They must be coming into the place where the meeting would be held. They removed the hood. Jason found himself in a well lit concrete room among several hundred other people.
Some of them looked like street people, some of them were even people he’d seen earlier at the mission. Others dressed better, but they all seemed to treat each other in the same manner. They seemed joyous, cheerful and genuinely glad to see one another.
There were no windows in the room, which supported Jason’s underground theory. At the head of the room, stood a single wooden podium set up on a raised platform. Chloe’s father would evidently be speaking from it.
The girl led him through the crowd of people, and he saw that they would be seated in folding metal chairs. To Jason’s surprise, people he had never met before turned to shake his hand. They certainly don’t act like a secret terrorist organization.
Jason looked back to the single doorway where they had entered. On either side, metal detector bars ran from the floor to ceiling. He had made it inside with his weapon. Stella, old girl, you’re the best.
The time arrived for the meeting to begin. Chloe led him to a group of chairs, where Max was already sitting. They sat on the fifth row back from the front. Everyone else found chairs, and someone bolted the entrance with a large bar. The man remained on guard at the door with a machine gun. Though the weapon was very old, Jason recognized it as an AK47—an old favorite of many European and Arab nations.
Now, he got the feeling of an underground movement. They certainly did a lot to keep their whereabouts a secret. Jason noticed several exits on the far side of the room. Only one entrance, scanned, and several exits—obviously a fox den. Smart.
He and Alfred currently employed similar strategy at the abandoned sewage plant they were using as a home base. Jason always used the same entryway, but he usually left by one of the five different exit tunnels, utilizing the abandoned portions of the old sewage aqueduct system.
One thing about the ancient cities like Jerusalem—they had a lot of unused secret tunnels and catacombs, underground passages and even aqueducts, left by the Romans. If you knew how to use the network properly, no one would find you.
They sat down as the speaker for the evening appeared from a side door, making his way onto the platform. The room lights dimmed, except for those that shone on the platform and the wooden pulpit. Chloe leaned over to Jason. “That’s my dad.”
Jason recognized the man immediately. Every muscle in his body went on alert. He felt the adrenaline surge through his veins. His eyes fixed on the man’s every detail, like an eagle honing in on a distant rabbit. His single black talon, Stella, yearned for release upon the prey. None other than Solomon Gauge stood before him. Jason had found the Christian underground and its leader.
Gauge was in his late forties. The age was most noticeable by the neatly trimmed, graying goatee that he wore. His head was shaven, probably to hide a receding hair line that had gotten out of hand in recent years, and he had piercing blue eyes that smiled.
He wore a pair of dark slacks with a long sleeve, pull-over, knit shirt barely able to hide his muscular build. Jason had to admit—the man looked formidable. He exuded an air of power and authority. Yet, among these people, carrying his black Bible, he seemed like a gentle giant. There was something else strange about Solomon Gauge, now that Jason sat so close to him—something Jason couldn’t quite place his finger upon.
Everyone in the room fixed upon him as he brought the Bible to rest on the podium and opened it. “Good evening, everyone, I’m glad you could all make it. It’s been difficult to schedule our meetings, for obvious reasons, so I hope you’ve all been studying as best you can. I’m sorry to say that we’ve had twenty more people arrested because of their Bibles being found, or because of witnessing for the Lord to implanted military personnel within the city.
“I cannot stress how important it is to keep the written word hidden in a safe place. Don’t reveal it to anyone, except those who are among us in the meetings. This is why it is so important that we memorize God’s word. We can present passages from memory to new friends and acquaintances as we witness of our faith and not have to be caught with physical evidence that might get us arrested. Be very careful about who you witness to.
“I know this may sound unscriptural, but I only mean that you should get to know people a bit, before you share your faith. This will help us to avoid the undercover agents the military has planted in the city with the purpose of uprooting our movement.”
It seemed like sound common sense advice for the people, but Jason noticed how calculating Gaug
e was as he said it. In another time and place, the man could just have easily been addressing his troops on a battlefield, or briefing agents before a mission.
Then it hit him. A memory leaped up, demanding immediate attention. Jason realized he had met Solomon Gauge before. He had looked somewhat different then, but this was the same man.
Jason had been seventeen years old, the day that he had entered the dome to face his final challenge before graduating at Babylon’s training school, known only as the Academy. The dome had been the name given to this perilous room by the students of the Academy.
Its wall curved—a continuous cylinder with a dome on top that reached a height of thirty feet. The diameter of the room measured easily twenty yards across, and there were doors to enter and exit at four equidistant positions on the wall. Ample lighting came from mounts in the ceiling that shone down at angles, so that shadows were virtually nonexistent inside.
This room was used for specific tests only, and the sole occupants were always one or more instructors and one student, attempting to move to the next level in their training. Jason had been in the room eleven times before and had passed his test eleven times. His instructors had always complemented him for being an excellent student.
As he rose through the skill levels at the Academy, Jason had noticed the difficulty and danger increase proportionately. The lower level tests had been taken in padded sparring gear, along with padded weapons. As he progressed, the padding began to be removed from the tests in the dome. Bokkens were replaced by real metal swords with dull blades. Now, with this final test, they utilized completely combat ready weapons—razor sharp with the ability to kill.
It wasn’t the instructor’s plan to kill the student, but to draw blood, if possible, in a vital area. The torso, in particular, was the main target. Having your blood drawn with a sword or knife was an automatic failure if the nature of the wound was such that it could have easily been rendered in a fatal manner. The Academy instructors came from among the very elite of Babylon’s active field agents with the expertise to carry out these tests. They had the precision necessary to be sure a passing student was either ready for the field, or ready to train harder in the future.
On Jason’s day in the dome, he stood alone, awaiting the beginning of the test. He wore a mock agent’s uniform: black with Kevlar mesh layers for protection and light-weight combat boots. This type of uniform would be worn if he made it to the field. This particular uniform carried sensors to detect hits and successful weapons strikes.
He had his choice of combat knives. He carried his favorite composite blade, affectionately called Stella. He also carried six shuriken on a magnetic strip down the left side of his chest—dulled to prevent skull penetration. On his back, he wore a black scabbard, housing a ninja sword with a blade of the same color.
His instructor for the test would be hooded, even though Jason wouldn’t be. He had been taught to kill without regard for the individual’s identity. The victim was never human—only a target. He had always been taught to think that way and he would never forget it.
Along the cylindrical wall of the dome, racks stood with various types of martial arts weaponry. From staffs to blades, all were available to the two combatants during the test. Jason took the few precious moments he had alone in the dome to pick out the weapons he would attempt to lay his hands on during the fight. In his mind, he imagined various scenarios where particular weapons would give him the advantage, or disadvantage, and what he would need to switch to if the latter became the case.
After a few minutes, the door opposite him on the wall opened, and the instructor entered the small arena. As expected, the instructor wore a ninja hood that only revealed the eyes, but Jason noticed, as the instructor closed the distance between them, that the eyes were a penetrating blue.
Jason knew the entire exhibition was being recorded for future classes to observe as he and his fellow students had done. Not all of the videos were of passing students. Some had been soundly defeated in the tests. The mistakes were matters of study for him and his fellows, so that they might not repeat them.
The test began with two minutes of hand to hand, before any weapons would be allowed. The timing would be noted by a yellow light, now lit over each of the four doors. When the light became red, the combatants were free to utilize any weaponry they chose. The contest would end only when the instructor said so, and not before.
Jason’s testing instructor closed the distance between them quickly, never stopping. Jason stood ready. The instructor jumped into the air, flourishing several fast front kicks at him. It was a classic attack, one that was meant to either connect, or cause the opponent to dodge to the side. Jason went for the classic defense rather than getting kicked. He rolled away, avoiding a backhand strike from the instructor.
Jason came back to his feet out of the roll. The instructor waited, already on top of him. The hooded man exploded into a barrage of powerful punches and mid to low kicks. Jason blocked them all, concentrating on the body of his opponent while intercepting the jabs with very acute peripheral vision.
Jason staggered at the power of each blow. Being a seventeen-year-old young man, his opponent greatly outweighed him. Jason needed to outmatch this level of fury, yet maintain complete control in the process.
Rage never won a fight, unless the opponent was stupid, or completely without skill. Rage caused one to make mistakes, not conquests. His instructor wasn’t angry, but he was very aggressive. He focused that aggression into every blow.
Jason found a weakness—not a normal weakness, but he needed something before the two minutes were up. Once they moved beyond the hand to hand portion of the test, this would become infinitely more difficult, far more dangerous. His opponent kicked up his right knee, going for a shot to Jason’s ribs. He had blocked the attack with his own knee, kicked up a little higher, all the while blocking several fast jabs with his hands.
As his opponent withdrew his knee and began to set that foot on the ground, Jason instinctively hesitated, lowering his own leg. Now, the instructor shifted, replacing his weight on that leg. Jason coiled his own defending leg and struck out.
It all happened within fractions of a second. No thought—only controlled, intense aggression, years of finely honed killer instinct. Had Jason been a normal seventeen year old, he might have hesitated—considering the pain, or damage, he could cause someone by performing such a maneuver. But Jason had been trained not to hesitate, not to consider, never to regret inflicting whatever pain, or damage, was necessary to survive. And more importantly, how to achieve his assigned objective. Today, the objective had been simply to win, at all costs.
Jason lashed out with his foot like a viper, planting the heel of his combat boot squarely between his opponent’s patella and medial meniscus. The man couldn’t ignore the stabbing pain, yelping as he crumbled to the ground. But he was still somewhat under control in the process. As he folded on the wounded knee, the instructor used the momentum to roll back and away as Jason tried to follow with several jabs. He missed. The cunning instructor rolled out to a crouched position, favoring the knee.
The light over the door turned red. Jason pulled a shuriken from the magnetic strip going down his chest, launching it at the hooded man. With lightning fast reflexes, the man bounced from a crouching, one knee stance, to his right palm, legs extended, as though he were about to go into a set of impressive one armed pushups. The shuriken sailed over him, inches above his flattened body. While one hand had darted to the floor to support his weight, the instructor’s left hand had wrapped itself around the hilt of his own ninja sword.
The man shifted one leg to a pike position using it to propel his body forward like a cat. He unsheathed the sword in flight—a silver, glinting blade that caught the light and gave the appearance of a bolt of lightning hurled across the room. Jason, who had seen the man’s intent, reached his right hand back to retrieve his own weapon from its scabbard.
As the instructor
launched himself low, hoping to swipe at the young man’s belly, Jason leaped high and over in a somersault. Jason pulled his blade, using the momentum, slicing down as his opponent passed under him. Jason’s blade struck the ground at the top of its arc, as the instructor dodged out of range. Sparks leaped away from the concrete floor. Jason landed back on his feet. He turned to find the instructor clamoring to his feet ten feet away, but still favoring the right leg.
The blue steel eyes half-winced and half-smiled through the narrow opening of the ninja hood. Jason realized the injury wouldn’t yield any long term damage. He hadn’t gotten the pop he would have normally expected.
Perhaps his instructor had caught a glimpse of Jason’s intent, just in time to prevent a torn meniscus, or worse, a damaged ACL ligament. These required surgery and the latter would have effectively ended the fight with the instructor completely unable to place any weight on the leg. Jason cursed under his breath at the failure.
One thing was sure. His opponent’s attacks would be limited. He almost certainly would not be able to utilize any kicks since it would require shifting his full body weight to the injured leg. To Jason’s surprise, the instructor launched another attack. The hooded man wailed into him with an exquisitely precise series of sword strikes. Jason blocked and parried, but he knew this man was a much better swordsman than he was. Jason needed an edge, and it was time to further exploit the only one he had.
Jason countered the attack, going into an offensive barrage. His opponent met each blow with ease. It wasn’t even fair. Then, Jason swiped at the man’s good leg. He was forced to dodge the attack, placing most of his weight on the bad knee just long enough to cause him to falter. Jason used the slight stumble to get a strike in at the man’s hand behind the sword guard. Jason’s midnight blade sliced at the hilt as the man released it instinctively to save his fingers. Still, the instructor immediately moved inside of Jason’s line of attack, slamming two quick jabs into his face.