by H. L. Wegley
She wasn’t going to drop this until he ended it. He hated doing this to Kate, but he wanted this conversation brought to a speedy conclusion. Time to smash her make-believe world with the hammer of reality. “Let’s just say that God is needed for so few things that I’m not sure we need Him to explain anything at all. But more importantly, look at the mess the world is in. Children being abducted, murders, rapes, wars, drugs…”
“So you think there is no God, or He’s not good, or He’s just…impotent?”
“Something like that.”
“Which one?” She shook her head at him. “Forget the question, Josh. Suppose He wanted to have a relationship with the people He created, a love-based relationship?”
“Why?” He gave her a shrug. “The people are mostly bad.”
“You can’t force someone to love you…or to be good. Love requires allowing someone a measure of free will and, because of that, it requires taking risks.”
This conversation was no longer just annoying. Kate was probing into his heart in a way no one else ever had, and the direction her logic was headed made him far more than merely uncomfortable. From somewhere deep inside something or someone asked him a question. Have you actually examined your life and found any basis for what you profess to believe or disbelieve? He took the shot right in his intellectual solar plexus. He wasn’t even sure what he—
“Josh? Are you listening?”
“Yeah. I’m listening.” Well, he meant to be listening.
“Then answer me.”
“Uh…would you please repeat the question?”
Her penetrating, mind-reading gaze came again, full force. “What would you risk to have a relationship with someone you cared about? Danger? Perhaps death?”
“Maybe…” He looked at Kate and instantly knew the truth. He would risk everything for her. Did that mean he loved Kate?
“That’s what God did when he came to this earth as a man, to open the door for the relationship between bad people and a good God. He risked everything, including scorn and rejection. He even risked His life. And by giving it, He made a relationship with Him possible.”
Kate’s words had raised a dagger positioned over his heart. Was she going to shove it in? “Josh, isn’t that what you’re risking to have a relationship with me? I’m not stupid, you know.”
He looked down at the floor. Kate’s words had pushed the dagger in, dead center. But was God like that? The Bible said He was like a father. Wouldn’t a father sacrifice himself for his children? And Josh would certainly sacrifice himself for Kate. She was worth it. But how could God see in Josh the goodness Josh saw in Kate?
He looked up into her eyes, into warmth that seldom replaced the intensity in those brilliant blue eyes. He couldn’t lie to her about taking risks to be with her. “Yeah. But you’re worth it, Kate.”
She shook her head. “I’m glad you think so, but I’m not perfect. I’m not even that good. Five years ago I was within a split second of killing a nineteen-year-old-girl, Anya. A girl I now love and correspond with.”
“You mean you accidentally almost killed her?”
“No. I was intentionally delivering a deadly blow that would have crushed her larynx. I meant to kill her for something bad she had done. I set myself up as her judge, jury, and executioner. My Granddad grabbed my wrist and stopped me. But I had already committed murder in my mind and heart and was in the process of killing this girl. I held nothing back when I went for the kill.” She paused and gave him that penetrating stare again. “You’ve never tried to kill anyone, have you?”
He looked away. “No, but—”
“No buts about it. I’m worse than you, Josh.” She stopped and her words sank deep into his heart. “But God loves me. He proved it by allowing Jesus to die in my place, murderer that I am. And now I’m God’s own, adopted into His family, just like Mom and Dad adopted me into theirs.”
Kate’s sincerity, her logic, and her intensity pulled hard on his heart. But there were other questions that needed to be answered. What about the existence of God? People could have simply made him up because they needed something to help them survive. But would relying on something that didn’t even exist actually help you survive? And if God really was Who Kate described, He would know what people needed, right? Was that why Josh was drawn to Kate, to her story, and its explanation?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
You can’t have it both ways, dude.
But he needed to be certain before committing to something so—the word, certain, arrested his thoughts. A person can’t be absolutely certain about anything, not certainty in the sense of a mathematical proof. He wasn’t certain about Kate. He saw her, observed her, wanted to be with her. Somehow, he just knew. For reasons already set in his heart, the way he was wired, Josh knew Kate was a person he wanted in his life. She was the proof.
Would it be the same way with God? Josh couldn’t prove God absolutely. An infinite Being could always remain beyond his finite grasp, unless He—
“He reaches out to us, Josh.” Kate’s voice came softly. She took his hand.
He gasped at her words, an answer to his unspoken question.
Kate pulled his hand to her heart and held it there. “He reaches out because He loves us and wants us to be with Him forever.”
Where had Kate’s words really come from? What was going on here? Coincidences? Was this just Kate’s influence on him? Or was God reaching out to Josh through Kate?
Josh needed to stick with Kate. He sensed that through her would he find the answers to his questions, the missing pieces to the puzzle of reality.
“Our world is broken, Josh. Like a giant jigsaw puzzle where we only have part of the pieces.”
Puzzle? He drew a sharp breath. Was Kate somehow reading his mind?
“He gave us enough pieces so that, if we put them together, we anchor the big picture. We can see the big picture and recognize it for what it is. We can see God in it. We just can’t see all the details. Put the pieces you already have together, Josh, and you will see God as an integral part of the big picture.”
The whole conversation was eerie, confining. Like a chess match when there were no more moves left. Checkmate. “Kate…I—”
The whopping of a big chopper’s rotor grew loud. Peterson was here.
Josh had been in checkmate, but somebody kicked the chessboard and the pieces were scattered in disarray. Would Kate try to recreate the checkmate?
What do you think, dude?
28
Hasan quickly surveyed their motel room. “I’ll get the laptop. You put our clothes in our suitcases, Arissa.”
“Hasan, how did they find us? They must know…”
“They know far too much. It was something to do with the laptop. I’ll destroy it and we’ll get another one.”
“Where should we move to?”
“We must stay in Canada…in British Columbia, near the border.”
“But after this, we can’t wait two more weeks to launch the attacks. They may be able to stop us.”
“We launch them as soon as I can get back online at a new location. The peer-to-peer communication software is on my flash drive. We’ll purchase another laptop, configure it, get online, and start the attack sequence. We can launch it in about twelve hours and complete the sequence of attacks in thirty-six.”
“Will the Americans be able to react to whatever the two agents learned in time to stop us?”
“Not stop us. But I fear the impact might be greatly reduced. Far less than what we had hoped for. The total number of people infected will be reduced. They may have time to prepare for the fires before the power outage begins. The power outage could be contained to smaller areas.” His anger turned to rage as he contemplated the impact of the man and the young woman’s interference. “We’ll try Surrey or Abbotsford and launch in no more than twelve hours.”
Arissa’s eyes were filled with excitement. “And then we fly home?”
&nb
sp; How could she be fixated on going home when the biggest battle in modern-day jihad was just beginning? “No. Then we cross the border and kill the blonde-haired princess and her boyfriend.”
“Are you so obsessed with her that you will give your life to kill her? We cannot drive across the border, Hasan. They will be looking for us.”
“Anyone who causes this much damage to the cause of Allah must die, Arissa. Even if we must die in order to kill them. But she will die slowly, in agony, begging for her cursed life.”
29
What was Josh really thinking after their discussion? While the helicopter landed outside, Josh studied the floor, obviously engrossed in some mental struggle.
As Lee had taught her, Katie hadn’t left Josh any wiggle room, none of the existential or intellectual arguments that atheists throw at theists. But then that blasted helicopter arrived. She fired a short prayer for Josh as the helicopter rotor spun down.
Men’s voices came from outside the building. One booming voice sounded above the others, Peterson’s.
Katie steeled herself for the onslaught of questions and threats.
The door to their room swung open. Peterson and Ruska stepped in and Agent Ruska closed the door behind them.
The tall FBI agent walked across the room toward her.
Katie sat up and stiffened in her chair as Peterson approached.
He put a hand on her shoulder.
She looked up into eyes that only held concern, not anger.
“Are you OK, Katie?”
Ruska stood on the other side of the room, arms folded across his chest, silent but watching.
Was this the calm before the storm?
“I’m OK. Josh saved me…from being shot. A couple of times.”
Peterson looked down at Josh. “And you didn’t get hit, Josh?”
“No, sir. Only sprayed with some shattered glass.”
“We’ll have to keep your car. Forensics.”
“Yeah. I suspected that. You’ve taken it before.”
“That was the Seattle police who took it.” Peterson turned his attention back to her. “I need a concise description of what you discovered. Then we can finish the debriefing back at the field office.”
Katie looked up at Peterson, sensing that everyone’s gazes were on her. Where should she begin? She waited for the words to come.
“Kate…” Josh stood, “…if you’re not going to tell him, I am.”
She took Josh’s hand and pulled him back into his chair. “The two who chased Josh and me were functioning as command and control over a three-pronged attack coordinating elements of Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram, funded by Shiites in Iran and Sunnis in Saudi.”
Peterson shook his head. Was it disbelief or disapproval?
Katie continued before he could inject his thoughts. “The weapons and points of attack include nearly all the Western forests. They plan to use radio-controlled planes as fire bombs, planes having six-foot wing spans. Second, weaponized smallpox, variola major, using a Russian-made deployment mechanism. We think it’s some type of explosive, but we’re not sure. Third, a large-scale cyber attack against SCADA systems. The attack is designed to take down much of our power grid.” She pressed her lips together and met Peterson’s gaze.
“Heaven help us.” She’d only heard Peterson pray once, but his voice sounded like a prayer.
“Yeah. Heaven help us.” Ruska echoed.
Peterson blew out a blast of air. “When, Katie? Do you know their schedule?”
“They have to launch it now or lose their entire investment of people, time, and money. I don’t know how quickly they can initiate the attack. Another uncertainty is that I turned loose a piece of malware that should have wiped out the hard drive on the guy’s laptop.”
“But they probably have redundancy built into their plan,” Josh said, leaning forward in his chair. “He’ll just get another laptop.”
She nodded. “But it will cost him a few hours.”
The room went silent.
Peterson paced back and forth across the room, pinching his chin. After nearly a minute, he stopped. “Ruska, take care of the forensics on Josh’s car. Make sure you have a police escort when you tow it back to Seattle. You two…” he looked down at Josh and her, “…come with me. I’ll alert DHS and some other people. We’ll need to have a video conference back in Seattle as we mobilize to stop the attack. Katie, Josh, you’ll both need to be there.”
Katie looked up at him. “We aren’t cleared.”
“But your knowledge of the conspiracy is critical. I’ll handle the clearance issues. Now tell me…is there any way we can locate the people in the field who will be carrying out the attacks?”
Katie looked at Josh and gave him a hands up gesture.
When Josh didn’t respond, she focused on Peterson. “The commander will give them the go ahead in some planned sequence. But the problem is they switched to peer-to-peer communications using a client that communicates with unencrypted HTTP.”
“Is there any way, Katie, to find their communications in near real time?”
She looked at Josh wondering if he would speak up.
His wide eyes said no. But Josh knew he was their only hope.
“Josh’s new algorithm might be able to do that, but my database is too—”
“Forget your database.” Peterson’s voice crescendoed. “What if you had access to NSA’s resources?”
She smiled at Josh. “Can you believe this? The first full-scale test of your algorithm is going to—”
“Might be, Kate.” Josh shook his head. “There is no guarantee this stuff is ready for the big leagues, but we probably don’t have any better option if we want to locate the participants in the attack.” Josh stood and became animated explaining how they would need to configure the required resources to run his software.
“Josh’s algorithm is plan number one.” Peterson said. “I’ll get a backup plan going with DHS, the FBI, and other law enforcement while we fly back to Seattle. And…I’ll clear things with NSA. But to interface quickly with their data we’ll need Jennifer’s help. She knows their data like…well, like Jennifer knows everything, in great detail.” He motioned toward the door. “Outside you two. We’ve got a chopper to catch.”
Katie took Josh’s hand as they walked out of the room. She gave him a probing glance, then a smile. “Looks like you’re the hero tonight. You’re already my hero, even if you did mash my face into the seat.”
“You’d better pray my algorithm finds them.”
She squeezed his hand as they walked toward the helicopter. “I will, Josh. You can count on it.”
“My code implementing the algorithm could have used some more testing before we had to rely on it.”
“I have faith in you, Josh.”
“Kate Brandt, a woman of faith.” He gave her a weak smile.
“We still have a conversation to finish.”
“Yeah.” Some of the excitement left Josh’s eyes. “Kate, can your mom really help me interface to the NSA database?”
Katie nodded. “She can probably even give you the code to do it. You did design your code using an object-oriented approach?”
“Yeah.”
“Then don’t worry, Josh.”
“Somebody has to.”
When they approached the helicopter, Josh turned to face her. “You’re not going to throw up on me again, are you, Kate?”
“No. I promise.”
“The way my stomach feels after you volunteered my algorithm, maybe you should watch out on this chopper ride.” He turned and pulled Kate toward the big helicopter as the rotor whined its starting complaint.
30
The helicopter ride to Seattle had been uneventful except that Kate leaned on his shoulder most of the way…wiping tear tracks from her cheeks a few times.
He could guess what her tears were about, their apologetical discussion that ended without apologies and without being brought to
a satisfying conclusion for either of them. But one conclusion he had reached, a very satisfying conclusion, was that Kate cared very deeply for him, or there would have been no tears, only the flames of her hot temper.
After they landed at Boeing Field, Kate took Josh’s hand as Peterson led them to a van parked on the tarmac. He opened the side door and waved them in.
When the van left, the driver turned south instead of north toward the city.
Josh sat up in his seat. “Peterson, would you mind telling me where we’re going?”
“Jennifer’s research lab. It has everything we need, including Jennifer.”
“So Dad’s stuck at home with the twins. How did Mom like being called at 3:30 in the morning?”
Peterson looked back at her. “She liked it as much as I did getting your call at 1:30.”
“I finally get to see inside Mom’s lab. I’ve been in the office part, but never where the real work is done. Speaking of real work, Josh, do you have any estimates of the run time for your program?”
“We don’t know how much data we have to crunch until we find one of the lines of communication. Once we find one, we can probably find the rest in less than two hours, provided the people are communicating.”
Peterson chuckled.” I have an idea that they will be communicating like crazy until everything has been coordinated. If we’re lucky, they’ll stick around and give status.”
Josh sighed. “Finding that first line of communication could take anywhere from an hour to seventy-five hours, depending on how much data we have.”
“You will have all of it, Josh,” Peterson said. “But don’t tell anyone that. In fact, at the lab there are some documents waiting for you and Katie to sign. If you violate these contracts, to the federal pen you go.”
“Kate, you heard Peterson. Are you sure you want to work for the FBI? Maybe you and I should get married, moved to some island in the South Pacific, and live off coconuts and fish.”
The wide-eyed stare from Kate quickly morphed to something much warmer. “I could go for that. Snorkeling every day…but, Josh, are you…”