A five-minute video clip had followed, in which Romulus promised a bright and prosperous new world, an international community free from fear, want, and repression.
And Amelia had fallen to her knees, knowing that something had gone terribly wrong for Daniel.
Gusts of wind blew over the cabin’s roof, dropping clumps of snow on Daniel’s head and dislodging mounds of snow from the pines. He hesitated, afraid he had just stepped into a sniper’s crosshairs, then the muffled sound of barking set his blood to pumping. He ducked and ran toward the sound, weaving in a drunken pattern as tree branches snapped under his feet and in the trees beside him.
That’s the sound of gunfire, not breaking branches—
“Daniel?”
Lauren’s grateful shriek reached his ears, and he dove toward her like a baserunner sliding into home plate before a screaming hometown crowd. They held each other for a long moment, then Daniel lifted his head and listened.
“It’s quiet.” Lauren voiced his thoughts.
Daniel cradled her head to his chest and nodded. Releasing her after a moment, he crawled forward on his hands and knees, then knelt at the foot of a gnarled pine. The wind had slowed to a whisper, and the snow fell silently now, in an almost-vertical path from heaven to earth.
Daniel ducked instinctively as two dark forms came out of the woods and ran in a serpentine course toward the cabin. They went inside, and Daniel knew they’d be kneeling beside Herrick, probably helping him up, assessing the rising knot at the base of his skull.
“Did you kill him?” Lauren asked, her voice fragile and shaking.
“No.” Daniel turned back to meet her earnest eyes. “He was unconscious, but alive.”
“Then we’d better get out of here.”
Daniel took her hand, ready to run for the truck, but he froze as the roar of an explosion scattered snow and tree limbs for two hundred yards. Daniel fell upon Lauren, pinning her to the ground as he sheltered her with his body, and they trembled together until the roar subsided to the whispering, crackling noise of a fire contentedly talking to itself.
Daniel lifted his head as Lauren stirred beneath him. “What happened?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.” Daniel rolled away and stood, searching the woods for any other signs of life. Nothing else moved in the snowy landscape.
He felt Lauren’s shoulder against his arm. “Herrick had a bomb?” she asked, trembling as she hugged herself.
Daniel slipped his arm around her. “Yes. He said something about the triggers—two of them. I’d bet that means one manual, one electronic.”
Lauren shivered. “Surely he wouldn’t trigger it himself, so how—” Her chin quivered as her gaze roved over the trees. “Is someone else out there?”
“Either it was on a timer, or—” Daniel glanced up at the cloudy sky—“or someone triggered it by satellite.”
Daniel drew Lauren closer as thoughts he dared not vocalize came welling up, a persistent swarm of them. If all had gone according to plan, he and Lauren would be dead now, killed by rifle fire and gunshot. Kord Herrick had planned to plant their bodies and detonate the explosives, but an invisible beam had sliced through the night sky and triggered the bomb. . . .
Had Adrian Romulus wanted to kill his own general? Hard to believe, but in light of the evidence, Daniel could see no other explanation.
“God was good to us.” He pressed his lips to Lauren’s windblown hair, shivering in sudden gratitude that they had escaped the night’s danger. “And we still have the truck, and my phone.”
“Your phone?” Locking her arms around his waist, she looked up at him, a trace of hysterical laughter in her eyes. “Daniel, what good is a phone—without batteries out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Brad packed batteries in the suitcase, and it’s not just any phone.” He took Tasha’s leash and led her out of the trees, toward the ramshackle pickup. “It’s a Nokia 9000 personal communicator, and it can do everything from send e-mail to balance a checkbook.”
She blinked in dazed exasperation. “Daniel, we don’t have a checkbook.”
“We don’t need one. The Nokia 9000 can access a mainframe,my computers at the office, and the Internet. We can even tap into the Financial Crimes Computer Network, which by now is in need of a little help. Romulus’s European computers should be so jumbled that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put the system back together again.”
“Really?”
Daniel grinned. “Well, it’s nothing that Professor Kriegel and I couldn’t fix. But it’s going to upset Romulus’s plans for a few months, since the hardware virus makes it look like all the glitches are coming from his EU computers. No country in the world is going to want to go near his systems until the problem is straightened out.” He reached up and brushed a spray of snowflakes from her hair. “Don’t worry. I sent an encrypted e-mail to the president a few weeks ago, warning him of what would happen.”
Lauren’s gaze clouded in confusion. “I don’t understand. How could you send a virus through our computers and not hurt our system?”
“The hardware virus also contained a vaccination program. All the computers are connected by network, you see, so they were all exposed to the virus, but computers registered to non-EU countries picked up the vaccination, too. American and Canadian computers won’t be at all affected, but things are going to be pretty rough for the European Union countries after tonight. President Stedman is supposed to give a press conference tomorrow to explain why we have to break the Millennium Treaty with the European Union. By noon tomorrow, he’ll be a hero.”
“Daniel Prentice, I love you.” Lauren turned to face him, and something in Daniel reveled in her open admiration. “You’re not going to make it easy for Romulus, are you?”
“No.” Daniel squinted up at the dark sky. “Until the Lord comes and we are snatched away, we’re going to make life miserable for Adrian Romulus. We have the entire Canadian wilderness to hide in until it’s safe to go home; we have the Nokia, a dog, and a pickup—what more could a couple of Americans want?”
“I know what I want.” The look in her eyes made his pulse pound. “And I thank God for giving you to me.”
He brushed a gentle kiss across her forehead, then opened the pickup’s passenger door. “Come on,Mrs. Prentice. We’ve a lot to do, and not much time left.”
Lauren slid in, Tasha followed, and Daniel closed the door on his little family. As he walked around the truck to the driver’s side, he caught a reflection of the burning shack in the still lake. Henry’s monster, the old pike, probably lay in the darkness even now, as wild and untamed as ever.
“Don’t think you’ve escaped, Monster,” Daniel whispered, jingling the truck’s keys in his hand as he studied the unbroken silvery surface of the lake. “Your time will come.”
EPILOGUE
SIX WEEKS LATER ADRIAN ROMULUS LIFTED A GLASS OF WINE TO HIS LIPS AND moodily sipped it as he stared out the window of his chateau. A small group of sheep clustered beneath a barren tree, and the ram, a cocky old fool, kept careful watch over them lest a single ewe stray.
Romulus should have minded his own ewes more closely. By now he should have been undisputed master of the globe, but a single meddlesome computer genius had managed to impede his plans.
Romulus swirled the wine in his goblet, then sat it upon the polished mahogany table. “Charles,” he called over his shoulder, “bring my laptop, please. And the evening news.”
Despite Daniel Prentice’s efforts to derail the Millennium Network, the world had already begun to show signs of significant change. Cash currency was a thing of the past, outlawed in all but the most primitive countries. The Iraqis remained open to Adrian’s overtures, and the countries of the European Union, though shaken by the computer fiasco, were too intimidated to reject Adrian’s leadership.
The United States and the Pacific Rim had been frightened away by the European Union’s Y2K computer confusion, but the coming
year would bring another American election—and that quintessential nation of sheep would follow any man who promised convenience and freedom from responsibility. The computer problems would be worked out in several months, then Romulus would begin again.
He was destined to lead. From the foundations of the earth, his fate and purpose had been sealed.
“Your computer, sir.” Charles placed the laptop on the table and lifted the lid, instantly booting the system. Romulus acknowledged the act with just the smallest squint of his eyes and watched with disinterest as the operating system ran through its paces. Finally, the e-mail program loaded, the automatic dial device checked the Internet, and an obnoxiously cheery voice informed Romulus that he had three messages.
The first two were routine, meaningless greetings from the emperor of Japan and the prime minister of the united Korea. The third, however, piqued his interest. The note had been encrypted, so only someone with access to Romulus’s password could have sent and encrypted the message.
Romulus leaned forward and tapped the keys. The unscrambled letter was simple and direct:
Good evening, Adrian.
You will lose, you know. The Book foretells your end, and the Word of God is never wrong. If I may quote: “Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshipped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. . . . He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
Romulus shivered in revulsion. A spasm of hatred and disgust rose from his core, radiating through his flesh.
Only one man could find his way through the labyrinth of safeguards that shielded Romulus’s private account, and only one man would dare to insult the chief of the Community.
Daniel Prentice.
A scream clawed in Romulus’s throat as he smashed his fist into the keyboard.
THE BIBLE CODES PHENOMENON REVEALED
Best-selling author and noted prophetic scholar
Grant Jeffrey discloses the most dramatic discoveries of
Bible codes in both ancient and modern times.
Flee The Darkness Page 42