Acts of God

by James Beauseigneur

  Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

  He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and, as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

  Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant willjustijy many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

  9:15 a.m. — Lamax, Cyprus

  The eighty-mile flight over the Mediterranean from the mainland of Turkey to the island of Cyprus was farther than any of the birds had ever flown at a single stint. Now, after resting the night, they continued their trek, leaving the southeastern corner of the island. Had they understood that it would be more than twice the first distance before they would see land again, they might have turned back. But they did not understand, nor did they know their destination or their purpose. All they knew was that they must fly in this direction.

  10:00 a.m. — Babylon

  The time for discretion had passed. The warning from the sky to flee Babylon had come two days before and no one knew how much longer they had to make good their escape. Many had already been caught trying to leave. Still, the thought of piling into the back of a produce truck and making a desperate attempt to go unnoticed past armed guards at one of the city gates seemed a pretty good one compared to the alternative. And so they took the risk, leaving their hiding places in broad daylight, coming to the meeting place, packing into the back of the truck like sardines in a can or commuters on a subway car.

  Among those hoping to get on the truck, Akbar Jahangir, his sister, and mother struggled to stay together. At first it seemed impossible that there would be enough room for them, they were so far back in the line, but soon all three were on board.

  "There's no more room," Joel Felsberg said, as he pulled shut the door on the truck and locked it.

  "Please, please," called several voices from among those still in line.

  "I'm sorry," Ed Blocher answered. "If we make it out of the city alive, we'll try to come back to get you."

  "How will we know?" someone asked.

  "Listen for gunshots," Felsberg answered as he looked at the truck's tires and suspension and shook his head. If the guards were observant enough to notice, they'd know right away the truck wasn't empty and they'd all be dead. "If we make it out okay," Felsberg continued, "there won't be any gunshots. It will take us about two hours to get back for another load . . . assuming, of course, we can get back in." It was not the answer anyone wanted to hear, but for now they could only pray and wait, and hope that they would not be discovered as they made their way back to their hiding places.

  The truck lurched forward and the weight of those inside shifted, pinning Akbar and his little sister against the back door. The shift was only temporary, and as everyone attempted to right themselves, compensating for the movement, the truck turned a corner and the process was repeated, pinning those who were on the wall opposite the turn beneath the crush of human cargo. People looked for something to hold on to but except for a few tie ends on the side walls, there was nothing. Those too young to understand what was happening inside the darkened vault began crying, while those who realized that the noise could get them all killed tried desperately to calm and quiet them.

  As Joel Felsberg pulled the truck up to the checkpoint, he rolled down the window to speak to the guard. "Manifest," the guard said in a one-word sentence.

  Felsberg handed him the document with its forged signature, showing that the produce they had brought in that morning had been delivered. The guard then checked the manifest in his hand-held system to ensure that the produce had in fact been delivered. Felsberg's computer hacking had included not only the entry of his false manifest: he had also included a triggering mechanism that would automatically create a record of the completed delivery one hour after the initial security check indicated they had entered the city. Two hours later, all records of the manifest would disappear from the system altogether.

  So it was that the guard found everything in order. Nine out of ten times the next step for the guard was to have the driver open the back of the truck to show that it was empty. That is why no attempts had been made in the past to smuggle people out of the city. Felsberg, Blocher, and everyone in the back of the truck were praying this would be that one in ten times that the guards would forego that requirement and let them go on their way.

  "Okay," the guard said in a tone that said their prayers had been answered. Joel Felsberg breathed a silent sigh. Ed Blocher could barely contain his relief. But then suddenly the guard's eyes shifted to the back of the truck. Had he heard something?

  Inside, Akbar Jahangir cringed and put his hand back over his sister's mouth. "Shhhhh," he said, pleadingly.

  "Wait a minute," the guard said. "Open the back."

  Felsberg's foot twitched above the gas pedal. He knew this might happen and yet he was unsure what to do. What could he do? If he made a run for it, the guards would fire at the truck, killing many of those inside, and the chase vehicles would certainly catch them before those still alive could be let out to scatter and try to make it on their own. But if he opened the back, they would all be arrested, and most would be dead before sunset. The only hope — and it could hardly be called that at all — was that those inside, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, might jump out and rush the guards, and though many would be killed, perhaps a few would survive to escape the city.

  Felsberg got out of the truck. Though he prayed, his prayer did not consist of words. He prayed with raw emotion, his mind too busy planning what to do while trying not to let on by his actions that anything was wrong. With his teeth clenched for the conflagration to come, he unlocked the door and threw it open as quickly as possible to allow those who could fight time to get out.

  Nothing happened.

  The door slid open but no one jumped out to fight. There was no sound of gunfire, no shouting.

  "Okay," the guard said.

  Joel Felsberg was frozen, afraid to look at the faces of those he had gathered up only to deliver them to their executioners. But what had the guard said?! 'Okay'? ... 'OKAY'!??

  The guard had already walked away. Felsberg did not understand. Had he not seen.... At last he looked for himself. The truck was... the truck was empty.... Empty! Felsberg closed his eyes and then looked again. It was still empty. Slowly, not knowing what else to do, he stepped up on the truck's bumper and pulled the door closed and locked it shut. As he started back to the front of the truck, he ran through the events that had led up to this moment, trying to understand. Had he just imagined loading all those people? Was he dreaming?

  Then he noticed something: the tires. Acting as though he had dropped something, he leaned over and picked up a pebble while turning to look at the truck's suspension. The truck looked like it was loaded with lead.

  "What happened?" Ed Blocher asked when Felsberg got back
in the cab.

  "I don't know," Felsberg answered. "I don't know."

  To keep from arousing suspicion, Joel Felsberg drove the truck four miles from the city before he stopped. When he finally did he literally jumped from the cab and ran to the back, followed by Ed Blocher. Unsure of what he would find, he unlocked the door and slid it open.

  "Are we there already?" asked Akbar Jahangir.

  Joel Felsberg began laughing and crying at once. They were all there. "Not yet," he answered, dumbfounded. "Just a few more miles."

  When they returned to the cab, Ed Blocher again asked what had happened at the checkpoint.

  "I'm not sure you'd believe it. I'm not even sure I believe it myself. But right now we've got to deliver these people and go back for another load. I have a feeling this is going to be a very good day."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Epic of Eight Millennia

  Saturday, September 19,4 N.A. — Petra

  As his family listened quietly, Michael Feingold, like thousands of other fathers and mothers in Petra, read the words of the prophet Hosea to his family:

  Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.

  Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he mil come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.

  In accordance with the instruction of their High Priest, the people of Petra cloistered together in their family tents and sought forgiveness as they recalled their individual and collective rebellion against God. They recalled their animosity to others, their vanities and chasing after things of this world, their selfish acts, their lack of trust in their God.

  They remembered too, the many false messiahs throughout the centuries that their people had followed: BarKochba, who when he briefly recaptured Jerusalem from the Romans in about 130 A.D. was proclaimed Messiah by Rabbi Akiba, but who shortly thereafter was captured and put to death; Moses of Crete, who promised the Jews of Crete he would part the sea and lead them back to Israel on dry land, but after failing to perform the promised miracle, quietly slipped into obscurity; Abraham ben Samuel Abulqfia, who in 1284 proclaimed himself Messiah but whose prophecy of a Messianic Age which was to begin in 1290 died with him; Shabbetai Zevi, whose thousands of followers in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and British Isles so ardently believed him to be the Messiah that his initials were inscribed in gold above the Torah shrines in synagogues and new prayer books were printed with his name appearing in place of the Messiah, but who, when challenged by the Sultan in Constantinople to prove he was Messiah by turning away arrows fired at him, chose instead to convert to Islam; the lesser false messiahs Asher Lemlein, Abu-Issa, Serenus; and in the 1980s and 90s, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, some of whose followers continued for years after his death to insist that he would rise from the dead and establish his Messianic kingdom. All in all, Samuel Newberg's assessment had been correct. Many of the people of Petra had only been waiting for the word from their High Priest before accepting Yeshua, Jesus, as their Messiah. Others, upon hearing the High Priest's words and reasoning and reading from the prophets wondered only how they had so long missed what now seemed so obvious.

  5:41 p.m. — AbuZanlmah, Egypt

  Some had come more than 1500 miles. They flew endlessly it seemed, toward the northwest, in numberless flocks over the great continent of Africa. Stopping here to rest for the night on the eastern bank of the Gulf of Suez before continuing on in the morning, the birds scavenged for whatever they could find to eat. Soon there would be food enough, but they would not reach it if they could not maintain their strength for the journey.

  6:51 a.m., Sunday, September 20, 4 N.A. — The Sier Mountains

  From his sentry's position atop Gebol Haroun, on the Sier Mountains above Petra, Dennis Kreimeyer watched in amazement as the vanguard of the U.N. forces swept toward him from the east and west like two slow-moving storms. Peering through binoculars revealed only that the storms stretched on to the horizon and seemed to have no end.

  For two days the people of Petra had confessed their sins. Now as their destruction bore down upon them, the High Priest of Israel issued a decree that all prayer should become a call for deliverance from the enemies gathering at their door.

  By noon, Mount Sier and Petra within it had become an island, surrounded by the sea of their adversaries. And yet still the tide that had engulfed them stretched on forever in the direction of Israel in the west and the Euphrates in the east. There seemed no end to those who came to destroy them.

  12:05 p.m. — Babylon

  Joel Felsberg and Ed Blocher had not slept in fifty-two hours. So far, adrenalin and concern for those trapped in Babylon had kept them going but even that was beginning to fail them. They did not know how many trips they had made in and out of the city during that time; both had lost count somewhere in the middle of the first night. They could loosely estimate it based on the number of city gates — they had used them all twice so far, though never in the same eight-hour shift, and had started on their third cycle — but such a calculation was beyond them in their current state of exhaustion. Whatever the number, it seemed there were always more waiting to leave, and so Felsberg and Blocher continued to come back. This time, though, the truck was only about half fiill and there seemed to be no one else.

  "What now?" asked Blocher.

  "Let's give it a few more minutes," Felsberg answered. But as the minutes passed, no one else came.

  "I guess that's it," Felsberg said finally, and as he did he noticed that the faint wisps of clouds overhead appeared to have noticeably darkened.

  Looking up, Blocher nodded and responded, "That's definitely it!"

  "Everybody hang on!" Felsberg said, as he reached to pull the door shut. In the few seconds it took to lock the back and for the two men to reach the front seat, a cool wind began to blow against their faces and the sky had begun to turn gray. As Felsberg started the engine, lightning struck a nearby building and thunder like a cannon blast shook the truck. "Okay," he said, looking up, "we're gone!"

  But as he pulled his door closed, Blocher saw someone in the mirror. "Wait!" he shouted.

  "Please, let me in!" a voice called to them. It was a teenaged girl. "Please," she cried again as she ran to the driver's side of the truck. Felsberg looked out, and the girl threw back her hair away from her forehead and held up the back of her right hand so he could see she did not have the mark.

  "Are there any others?" he asked.

  "No," she said and then changed her response to, "I don't know," as another bolt of lightning struck, this time a little farther away.

  "Get in the other side!" he said, concluding there was no time to open up the back. He did not wait for her to get settled in or for Ed Blocher to close the door before throwing the truck into gear and pulling away; already lightning had struck twice more and fire rose from the first building that had been hit.

  Blocher looked at the girl and thought about getting out the city gate. "It will be interesting to see this vanishing act up close," he said.

  The fact that the truck was empty going in and appeared empty going out gave the security guards no reason to suspect they were doing anything illegal. But to keep questions to a minimum, they had been careful not to use the same gate too often. With darkness closing in there was no time to think about such things. They had to get out of the city fast and so they simply headed for the closest exit. Even so, by the time they approached the city gate, it had become as dark as late evening.

  "Joel," Ed Blocher said, watching the girl beside him as they sped toward the gate, "I don't think she's going to disappear."

  "It doesn't matter," Felsb
erg responded, as he pressed the accelerator closer to the floor. "We're not stopping anyway."

  "Good idea," Blocher said under his breath as they barreled through the gate. Apparently the environmental cataclysm, which included numerous lightning strikes nearby, was sufficient to distract the guards because no one fired a shot or even tried to stop them.

  Having cleared the city walls, Joel Felsberg floored the gas pedal and accelerated to 110 miles per hour down the straight flat road leading east from the city. In the back of the truck, the passengers held on as best they could and wondered what was going on outside.

  Six minutes and eleven miles later the day had turned black as the darkest night, with the repeated bolts of lightning creating a strobe effect all around them. The wind whipped at the truck as Joel struggled to keep it on the road. The rumbling of thunder was a constant drumbeat, with new claps coming one after another. Then one of the beats did not die away. Instead the sound grew quickly and steadily louder.

  "This is it!" Felsberg shouted as he took his foot off the gas and hit the brakes, slowing the truck as quickly as he could. They had nearly stopped when the earth beneath them began to roll like a wave and then finally buckled, throwing the truck off the road and onto its side. Inside the truck, the passengers were tossed violently about, resulting in numerous abrasions and bruises, several cracked ribs, two concussions, and a dozen broken bones.

  But it was not over yet.