The Portent

by Michael S. Heiser

  33

  Affliction is often that thing that prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.

  —C. S. Lewis

  “Man, this place is sure tucked away,” Malcolm said through a yawn. He and some of the others had nodded off to sleep after their conversation. He checked his watch. It had been three hours since they’d left the airport hangar. His ear caught the faint sound of crunching ice and snow under the tires. He wasn’t sure how long it had been, but they were no longer on paved road. Peering through the windshield, he could see they were navigating their way on a winding road through a heavily-forested enclave. The pathway was wide enough for two cars and packed solid from earlier snows and plowing.

  “This is magnificent,” Melissa said, admiring the thick tree lines, a mixture of bare but majestic timbers and rows of towering dark green pines glistening with snow. “I had no idea Montana was so beautiful.”

  “We love it,” Neff said, opening his eyes and shielding them from the sun.

  The car came to a slow halt. Melissa could see a metal gate blocking their way. She watched as Ward waved a card out the window in front of a small screen fixed to a metal pole. The gate swung open.

  “That lets everyone know we’ve hit the property. Another minute or so till we’re at the house. We have about 140 acres out here. It’s remote, but that’s what we want. We have a house in town near the airport that we sometimes use if we know we’ll be doing a lot of flying. Otherwise we take a helicopter from home to the airport if we need to get there quickly. Honestly, though, I love the drive—at least when I’m awake for it.”

  “So what do you keep out here?” Melissa asked.

  “Lots of things,” he replied with a playful grin. “You’ll see.”

  Melissa eyed him thoughtfully, but not with suspicion. “I take it that the name Miqlat stands for something. What does it mean?”

  “It’s Hebrew. It means ‘haven’ or ‘refuge.’ ”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “Pretty close,” he said, straightening himself in his seat. “I suspect you’ll agree.”

  The van broke through the tree line. Melissa surveyed the stunning landscape that exploded into view. A large, picturesque log home was nestled on a wide, sloping hill in the direct center of a clearing. The clear-cut area surrounding the house sprawled about a hundred yards in all directions, ending at a densely-wooded forest. Melissa saw two helicopters off to one side of the house, about half the distance to the edge of the forest. Beyond them, situated within the tree line, was a building that had the appearance of an oversized garage. Despite being surrounded by the rising pines, the view was breathtaking, dominated as it was by the towering, snow-capped mountain range straight ahead from their vantage point.

  The vehicle rolled to a stop in front of a wide, three-car garage door. “Rise and shine, everybody,” Ward said. “Get the defibrillator for Malone.”

  “Someday you’ll get that wish,” Malone replied with a yawn.

  Brian blinked out of his slumber and then raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s rays, which were streaking across the horizon, breathing life into the wintry panorama. He turned his head to get a look at their new home and stopped cold. Without a word he quickly unbuckled himself, opened the door, and got out. He stood for a moment gazing at the house and then started to run away from it, down the snow-covered path over which they’d just come.

  “What the—what’s up with him?” Malcolm exclaimed, turning to Melissa. Her own perplexed expression added to the confusion.

  They exited the car as quickly as they could. Ward and Neff were already out, looking in Brian’s direction, equally astonished. The small group watched as Brian stopped and turned in the direction of the house. He stood motionless for a minute and then dropped to his knees.

  “Something’s wrong!” Melissa urged. The four men in the company quickly ran out to Brian’s location. They slowed their pace, taking note of his thunderstruck expression.

  “What’s up, man?” Malcolm asked as he knelt beside Brian, his hand on his shoulder. Brian turned, uncertain of how to answer.

  “I don’t know how,” his voice trembled with astonishment, “but I know this place.… I’ve seen it before.”

  “That’s not possible,” Neff said. “We only finished building it three years ago. No one besides us has ever lived here. There was nothing here before.”

  “But … I’ve seen it before,” Brian repeated, staggering to his feet. “The door opens to a foyer.” He closed his eyes in concentration. “To the right there’s a huge sunken den with a big stone fireplace. The wall of the foyer hides another open family room that adjoins to a kitchen, and the kitchen has a passageway that leads into a pantry that’s really large.”

  “That’s right,” Neff confirmed slowly, looking at his companions, who were at a complete loss for words.

  “I’ve seen this place … in some dreams,” Brian continued, gesturing toward the log home. “I used to have this dream when I was a kid—I’d be in front of this house, right about at this distance. I’d walk up and go in, and I’d look around. Nothing spectacular. When I got older, I stopped having it—until a couple days after my parents were murdered.”

  The three men exchanged uneasy glances. “Brian’s had some pretty severe personal tragedies,” Malcolm offered.

  Brian looked at Malcolm. “I’ve had the dream once more since then—last summer, after Neil was killed. I don’t know what it means, but I know this house.”

  “Well,” said Neff, giving no indication of skepticism, “maybe we’ll learn something else inside. Let’s go in.”

  Brian nodded, and the five of them walked back to the vehicle. Brian and Malcolm explained what had happened to Melissa and Dee before they retrieved their belongings and headed inside.

  “You’re probably surprised to see the place empty,” Neff began after they’d set everything down on the floor and he’d locked the front door.

  “Now that you mention it, yeah. Where is everybody?” Dee asked.

  “The house is used quite a bit. We’re up here a lot. There are five bedrooms, some large living spaces, a modern kitchen, three baths—all the sorts of things you’d expect.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming,” Malcolm said, his hands on his hips.

  “But,” Neff continued, smiling, “it’s really just a façade.”

  “What did you mean by ‘up here’?” Melissa asked apprehensively.

  Ward broke in. “Miqlat is underneath. Forty feet, to be exact.”

  “Are you telling me Miqlat is an underground bunker?” Melissa asked with a pained expression.

  “It’s much more than a bunker,” Neff answered. “It spans almost six square acres. It has everything we need and want—accommodations, a research library, a theatre, an infirmary with two fully-functional emergency rooms, a chapel, an armory, a pistol range, exercise rooms, hot tubs, our own Internet servers and telecommunications. We even have vehicles stored underground. If we had a real chef, it would be a five-star hotel.”

  “But it’s underground,” Melissa said, more to herself than anyone else.

  “Miqlat is completely self-sufficient,” Ward added quickly. “Everything is powered through state of the art solar energy, with several layers of redundancy. It has its own heating, central air, plumbing, ventilation, water supply—you name it.”

  “The whole enterprise cost almost twenty-five million dollars,” Neff noted. “We have two more like it under construction, one in Belize that’s basically finished and another that just got underway in South Africa. They’re both bigger than this one. The dollar goes a lot farther in those places.”

  “But it’s underground,” Melissa repeated with a groan.

  “Miqlat isn’t a dungeon,” Malone replied. “Honestly, you have to see it to believe it.”

  “I guess so,” she sighed. “It’s just that we’ve all had experience with living underground, most of which we’d like to forget.�
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  Ward tried to diffuse the tension. “Trust me, you’ll be impressed. It’s not like you’re moving into Area 51 or something.” He chuckled at his own punchline, but their humorless, stony expressions stopped him cold.

  “Can you believe that?” Dee cracked, looking at the others. “Hello, Dreamland. Is Adam home?”

  “Dee …” Malcolm reproached, scowling.

  “What did I say?” Ward asked, concerned.

  “Forget it. No harm done,” Brian replied.

  “Well … sorry just the same,” Ward said sincerely. “You all can spend as a much time as you want up here. We only insist that you never tell anyone what you’re going to see underneath. This is ground zero for what we do, and no one can ever know it’s here.”

  “No worries there,” Brian assured him.

  “Follow me.” Neff led them through a hallway that ran behind the foyer wall. The floor plan conformed precisely to Brian’s description, and in a few seconds they found themselves standing in the pantry, a room as large as a single-car garage.

  “This is the only entrance into Miqlat from within the house,” Neff informed them. “There are six tunnel passageways that lead from within Miqlat to the outside, all of them beyond the tree line except for the one that leads to the chopper shed. Each exit within the forest is camouflaged in some way and blocked by a door that requires biometric identification. Two of the passages are large enough for our ATVs. We have a small, off-site facility about a half mile from here at our private weapons range. You’ll learn the locations of all the tunnels soon enough. The main entry from within here is voice activated. We say our first and last name, then give the password.”

  “Didn’t you say Kamran couldn’t speak?” Melissa recalled.

  Neff laid his hand on a tool chest sitting atop the bench next to where he was standing. “We have a backup biometric passkey. That’s what Kamran uses. This toolbox has a false bottom. Once you remove that, you’ll find a metal slide that will expose a small screen. You have to press your thumb to that screen and hold it for a few seconds. The system will recognize any of our thumbprints. Yours will be added once you’re settled in. Remember to replace the slide and the false bottom if you use the biometric.

  “Once the system accepts your voice activation or thumbprint, the entire floor of this room will descend—it’s actually a freight elevator made to look like a large pantry. All the cabinetry lining the walls and this bench are bolted to the floor, which drops about forty feet to a concrete landing that leads to a door. Miqlat is on the other side.”

  Neff paused and took out his phone.

  “What’s up?” asked Malone. “They know we’re in the pantry.”

  “Cameras?” Brian asked.

  “Not inside the house, just outside. Motion detectors, too. When anybody gets near the tree line we have visual alarms in various places on the inside that let us know someone is on site.”

  “Sabi asked me to call when we were ready to come down,” Neff explained, answering Malone’s question. “I’m not sure why.” Neff hit the speed dial button and waited. It rang once.

  “Graham!” a cheerful male voice sounded from the phone, “so wonderful that you are finally here!” Brian took note of the heavy eastern European accent and its enthusiastic tone. “We are so eager to meet our guests. Everyone is greatly excited!”

  Neff smiled, his affection for the man on the other side transparent. “We are, too. Why did you want me to call first?”

  “This is a special day,” Sabi explained with a deliberate cadence, his earnestness evident, “a very special day for all of us—especially one.”

  Neff’s brow wrinkled. He glanced at Malone and then Ward, who shrugged. “What do you mean?”

  “Today we are all reminded that there is a God in heaven who guides our lives, never forgets us, and loves us deeply. But one of your number needs this fixed in his heart more firmly, needs to feel it in a powerful, personal way—and so it will be, this day. Professor Scott, what is the password, please?”

  All eyes immediately turned to Brian. Melissa felt a spasm of panic as she caught sight of his startled expression. She gave Neff a quick glance, but saw instantly that he, along with the others, was dumbstruck. She turned back to Brian, whose head was bowed, either in defeat or a silent prayer, she couldn’t tell.

  “Just a moment, Sabi,” Neff said calmly into the phone, watching Brian, the anticipating building. “He’s thinking.”

  “No. He is not thinking,” the voice replied. “He is believing. Professor Scott knew the password the moment I asked. The Most High gave it to him years ago. We used the voice recordings of your meetings with him to add his voice to the system.”

  “But—”

  “He’s right,” Brian interrupted softly and looked up. He turned to Melissa and took her hand, squeezing it tightly, choking back the emotion. “He’s right.” His chin quivered. “I know it.”

  The room fell silent. Brian looked at their amazed faces, then around the room, and finally upward toward the ceiling. He cleared his throat. “Brian Scott,” he said firmly, “I am my brother’s keeper.”

  A low hum instantly vibrated through the room, and the floor began its descent. Melissa looked up into Brian’s face and saw his eyes welling up with tears. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ward silently mouth an incredulous, “How did Sabi know?” Neff shook his head, his lip slightly upturned in a barely discernible smile.

  “Welcome home, Dr. Scott,” Sabi’s reassuring voice reverberated from Neff’s phone. “Welcome home.”

  34

  Length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery.

  —C. S. Lewis

  “Any progress today, detective?”

  The man at the desk turned from his computer screen toward the voice. Two men stood before him. One was FBI, the same suit he’d debriefed yesterday. He looked past the federal ID that was thrust unnecessarily at his face.

  The question had come from the second man, who’d extended neither hand nor identification. He stood stiffly erect, hands clasped behind his back. Tiny bristles of close-cropped, blond-white hair were faintly visible on the thin line of skin between his ear and the rim of his cap. His two piercing eyes of topaz blue gazed from under the cap’s brim. His square jawline, rigid yet elegant, was held perfectly motionless. Lines of colored ribbons, indecipherable to the civilian eye, decorated the left breast of the navy blue Air Force uniform just under the familiar wing lapel pin. The blue tie was perfectly straight. The creases in the pants looked sharp enough to draw blood. By both age and demeanor, he was obviously in charge and accustomed to the status. There was only one reason the soldier would opt for dress blues instead of the daily fatigues: Intimidation.

  The detective’s blood rose. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Colonel Vernon Ferguson,” he said calmly, offering no gesture of goodwill, much less camaraderie. “My associate tells me that when he phoned you this morning, you let on that you’d come across an important piece of evidence, but you weren’t predisposed to share that. I thought I’d pay a visit and ask if there was a problem. Is there?”

  The detective stared at him coldly. “Yeah,” he said defiantly, “there is.”

  “Please enlighten me.”

  “I know how you guys work. The feds want to avoid responsibility for this girl being out on the street. I’ve played the game before—you come in, take jurisdiction, screw up, and then blame the locals. It ain’t happenin’ this time.”

  “Did my associate say something to give you that impression?” the Colonel asked, turning toward the agent, who remained silent and avoided the officer’s gaze. The detective took note of the body language.

  “Well, no—not exactly. I don’t need it.”

  “Then what exactly leads you to distrust our intentions?”

  “Experience.”

  “Yes, you did say ‘this time.’ I presume that unfortunate incident involving two men from the 119th is what’s
going through your mind. What was it, seven years ago? It’s too bad that cost you a promotion.”

  “Forget the spy game, Colonel. I know that one, too—and it’s all the proof I need to justify not trusting any of you. You’ll get what I have when I get some official assurance that you boys are going to own your own decision this time. You’re the ones who let that girl out on the street, nobody else.”

  “Quite right, detective. I believe we can come to an agreement.”

  “You apparently didn’t hear me.”

  “Oh, but I did—it’s you who hasn’t heard me.” The Colonel turned to the FBI agent. “Could you excuse us for a moment?”

  “Of course.” He turned and left the detective’s office. The two remaining men watched him close the door. Another detective in the outer office glanced curiously through the blinds but quickly returned to his own desk work.

  “We can do this one of two ways,” the Colonel said confidently, reaching into his lapel pocket. He removed two pieces of paper and proceeded to unfold one of them and spread it on the detective’s desk. It was a type-written letter on the Colonel’s personal stationery.

  “I’ve taken a recent interest in your career, detective. This is a letter of commendation from me on your behalf,” the Colonel explained. “You’ll notice in the second paragraph that the occasion of the commendation is a reassessment of the incident that has stymied your journey up the law enforcement ladder in this charming piece of tundra. The reassessment in turn was occasioned by a new piece of evidence—a participant in the … altercation … has changed his story.”

  The detective eyed the officer suspiciously but picked up the letter. He read it quickly, confirming the content.

  “Those guys were in lockstep against my version of events—the real version. They were buddies. There’s no way either of them would flip on the other.”

  “Buddies die, detective. Sadly, one of the men in question was killed in action in Afghanistan a few weeks ago. The other wants out of the hellhole—and his change of heart prompting this letter is his ticket. I spoke to him myself earlier this morning. Now, I can sign this for you, or I can pursue a different path.”