Jacob's Trouble 666

by Terry James

  With the videotaped presentation finished, Jacob looked to his wrist for the time, then at the clock on the credenza against the wall several feet behind Marchek's desk. 10:38 - a quartz-type clock, not affected by power disruptions in the area. The introduction to the new order had cost him more than two hours, but the education was transfixing, a blueprint masterpiece for what looked to be a terrifyingly feasible authoritarian monster. "The Plan" was so complete, so encompassing, it would have no doubt dumbfounded the President, as it must have Conrad Wilson. But, when would his foster father have had opportunity to view the tape in Naxos? The constant surveillance probably made it impossible for him to do so. Most likely, Jacob, himself, was the first person, not a part of the INterface planners, to see the tape.

  The thing was like it was choreographed by a master director. The only resistant force that might have had a chance to thwart INterface ambitions — the President — the United States government — had been eliminated in a single catastrophic second. However, the master-director had let one monkey wrench slip into the cogs of INterface machinery. Jacob Zen now knew what was to come to a world ripe for dictatorship. And, although he couldn't grasp what possible threat he, one human being, presented to such power, it was supremely evident they considered him more than merely an irritant.

  He picked up the other Naxos videotape and weighed whether to put it into the machine, or to get into the Marchek things. He chose the second option, inserting one of the diskettes into the computer and punching the appropriate keys. The computer's display screen lit up with information, and when he punched other keys, it became evident the program was devoted to personal finances — nothing to indicate the old eschatologist had entered a hidden code. He removed the diskette then snapped in another and manipulated the keyboard. The screen displayed: "Apyr Doopo nowa"oBaTb!"

  Beneath the confusing garble, the computer automatically generated the message: "Jerome, I am thirty-seven, old enough to know better! Where time sublime, they make no crime and perfect rhyme. There is no sin -- no fools rush-in."

  He searched his memory for the antiquated methodology that might help solve Marchek's cryptology. He mentally ran through the computer, straining to remember technology he once struggled to put out of his mind so the new could take its place. Had Marchek used KLIC? KPIC? KWOC? A hybrid creation of his own ingenuity? Most of the indexing was smokescreen, he was certain. He would have to break through that screen to determine if Marchek left the message to unlock his secrets.

  Jacob tried to shake the illogical thoughts. There was no reason to the feeling, but it was there, and he couldn't get rid of it. Marchek had left a message for him. Each time he forced his mind into a more rational frame, the almost tangible intuitive sensation struck again. Hugo Marchek's secrets could be unlocked only by Jacob Zen.

  He must think back to their time together—to what he knew about the man. If the key to unlocking the indexing system rested with him, it would likely be found in his memory of the brief time the two of them were together in conversation. He felt it more strongly than ever — Marchek had left a message for him.

  He wheeled from beneath the computer in the chair, rolling backward until he could consider the entire machine while studying the data glaring at him from the display screen. The key was there; he knew it!

  "Jerome, I am..."

  Who was Jerome? No one he and Marchek had discussed. It had to be a code word.

  "Jerome, I am thirty-seven."

  Nothing even remotely familiar. He looked at the line above. "Apyr Doopo nowa"oBaTbl"

  Why the quotation mark in the middle of the last combination of letters? Something familiar about the effect. He read again the entire message. "Jerome, I am thirty-seven, old enough to know better! Where time sublime, they make no crime and perfect rhyme. There is no sin -- no fools rush-in."

  "Rush... hyphen... in" Jacob said aloud. "That's it! It's Russian!"

  Marchek had headed this message in Russian. Using English letters as best he could, the quotation mark as close to the intended Russian character as he could manage. Russian, the one language besides English that Marchek had known both he and Jacob understood.

  "Apyr," the Russian masculine for "friend." The greeting, in total: "Friend, welcome!"

  The old man would not have left him a code for finding the index key that did not relate to something both of them understood from their knowledge of each other. What was close to Marchek's heart? Karen, PAL, God, the Bible. That was it! Marchek had said it himself! All the answers to mankind's dilemmas were in the Bible! Even in death Hugo Marchek had something to tell him that might give insight into what more and more looked to be the biblically predicted apocalypse. Things at which Jacob would once have scoffed, but which now chased him like a predatory demon out to devour him. Searching the Scriptures was the message. Search the Scriptures!

  "Jerome, I am thirty-seven." Of course! Jeremiah. The Book of Jeremiah, one of the prophets of the Old Testament, chapter 37. He looked through the desk drawers for a match and found a book, then fumbled for a cigarette from the crumpled package taken from his suit coat pocket. He lit the cigarette and jammed the book of matches into the pocket of his pants.

  He searched the many volumes in the bookshelves lining the study walls, finally spotting and removing the black leather-bound Bible. He put it on the desk and quickly looked up the book and chapter. Nothing there that was familiar, he decided after five minutes of reading and re-reading. Just the prophet Jeremiah, talking with King Zedekiah about the prophet's imprisonment, being released, and trying to get the king to repent — nothing that struck a familiar note.

  A false trail, so he returned to the computer and looked again at the message for several seconds.

  "Jerome. I am thirty-seven."

  Thirty... dash... seven. Could it be that simple? He moved from the chair to the desk and again fumbled through the pages until he found the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 30, verse 7: "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it."

  Jacob's trouble! It sprang at him in all its truth! Marchek had somehow anticipated this moment — his predicament. The Bible — the Scriptures could be the key to Jacob Zen's survival! "It is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it."

  Glass exploded from the French doors, ripping him from his euphoria. They had found him!

  Chapter 12

  The doors were giving under the violent blows. Jacob frantically pulled the suit jacket from his body and spread it on the desk. He shoveled the computer diskettes, videocassettes and Marchek's notes and Bible into the coat, then wrapped the coat around the materials. Only one direction to take — down the hallway and out either the kitchen door, or the front.

  He scrambled from the study into the dark hallway, hearing the glass of the French doors shattering, and their wooden frames splintering. Escape did not seem possible, and he fleetingly wished for one of the miracles Hugo Marchek credited his God with performing. He must decide now which of the exits to try, or else turn and face those who were breaking through the stubborn doors separating the study from the garden. Too late! Now the other doors were being pounded! Soon he would be hemmed in on both sides; nowhere to go but up, down, or out one of the bedroom windows — but they would be waiting outside the windows — There! Above him! A way that might put off the confrontation for a few seconds more.

  The chain, attached to a large, rectangular piece of wood at the center of the hallway's ceiling. It had to be. He grabbed the dangling chain and pulled. Yes! A folding stairway to the attic, something he had not seen for years. The contrivance was his lone remaining hope. But was there time?

  He unfolded the ladder to the floor and, without taking time to consider its sturdiness, vaulted up its steps. At the ladder's top, kneeling on the planks of the attic floor, he leaned as far down the ladder as possible and grabbed one of the rungs to refold the steps against their plywood ba
se.

  Footsteps! Running heavily toward the hallway! They were in the house! They would be in the hall within seconds. He tugged the folded stairway toward him, and its spring mechanism guided it into place flush against the attic floor. Did they hear the spring-slap sound? Or did their own noisy rush through the house drown out the stairway's closing thump?

  They were beneath him now; beneath the folded ladder. The voices of at least three men, looking for him, telling each other that their quarry could not have gotten out of the house, could not have gotten past them. If only there had been time to take the hanging chain off the plywood.

  His eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the attic, and there was enough illumination to make his immediate surroundings visible. Boxes with old clothes, Christmas tree ornaments, papers. A box with tools and cans of glue, cans of paint and three one-gallon cans of paint thinner.

  The paint-thinner! He pulled one of the cans from beneath the tools and other cans. It was full. Then the others — all were new cans and full!

  He unscrewed the caps and sniffed to be certain. Yes! Paint-thinner. He emptied the contents of the cans into an empty bucket he found nearby.

  One of the voices below him was shouting. "Here! He's in the attic! In here!"

  He heard the hurried shuffling of feet as the others ran back into the hallway. There would be no more chances. It had to work, or he was finished!

  He fumbled through his shirt pocket — empty! Where were they? Had he dropped them? His tormentors were pulling the chain now, lowering the ladder! He shrank back into the darkness, still searching. His pants! They were in his pants pocket!

  The ladder was being unfolded and events were simultaneously shifting into slow-motion. The book of matches pulled out of the pocket — the steps unfolded — the cardboard covering of the matches flicked open — the ladder making contact with the floor -- the voices, angry, desperate to get to him! — pressure on the ladder — the disappearing stairway creaking and groaning beneath his pursuers' weight — the match struck — not lighting the first time — another try and the match disintegrated — a new match, handled with a shaking hand — Lit!

  The head and shoulders of the first man, a square jaw, the black eyes not seeing Jacob yet in the darkness of the attic. Jacob hid the glow of the match by cupping his hand over it. The head ducked back down just below the attic's floor. They were hesitant, probably concerned that their quarry had a gun. Jacob wadded and twisted a piece of cardboard and held the match to it until the paper lit. Now was the time to move!

  He had positioned himself at the back of the rectangular hole in the attic's floor so that the attackers' backs were to him when they ascended the steps. He moved forward on his knees in order to see them, three in all, two on the ladder and one on the hallway floor below — all with drawn handguns. He splashed the paint-thinner on them with one douse. The two men on the ladder staggered, almost losing their balance. Jacob threw the cardboard torch at the man at the top of the steps. The attacker erupted in flames, and in his agony he triggered two rounds into the ceiling. The fire spread instantaneously to the man just below him. Both men, screaming, fell on top of the third man.

  He had to break out of this attic! Others would be waiting outside, possibly, but he would quickly be overwhelmed by the smoke and fire if he stayed longer; the old home would go fast. Luck! A sledgehammer in the box of tools. But could he beat his way out of the attic through the roof? No. The ceiling was too high to reach the 1" x 8" planks of the roof with any degree of leverage. He looked at the gable vents 30 feet away, where the light poured in through the slats. The answer! He hurried toward the light, hearing the sounds of his would-be captors writhing and screaming on the hallway floor. Pressing his face against the vents, he looked out on the grounds, having a good view in all directions, and satisfied himself that no one was waiting outside.

  The men had stopped screaming. Had they been overcome by the flames? Or was the fire extinguished, and their pursuit on again? No... Impossible... The fire was too engulfing, too intense. The men were unconscious, or better yet, dead.

  Using a side swing, he crashed the 10-pound sledge head into the old wooden slats that made up the gable vents. Because they were brittle, their destruction was quick and complete, and he stuck his head and shoulders through the opening he had just made, to again look for potential threats. It was a long drop to the ground, with little vegetation to break his fall. He could not afford a broken ankle or leg. He had to remain mobile.

  Leaning out the hole farther, he looked at the surface of the house and saw what looked to be a pipe, painted white, which apparently was a conduit for electrical wires because it ran up from an electric meter located six feet off the ground on the house's rock surface. There should be just enough space between the pipe and the stones, at various points along the pipe's length, to provide a good grip.

  His first try at the pipe almost ended in disaster, but he regained his balance and, after stretching again, he finally managed to reach the pipe and get a firm grip. Then, by carefully negotiating the rock surface with his feet, he let his legs straighten beneath him until the toes of his shoes dug into the crevices between the stones on either side of the pipe. He wouldn't risk dropping the coat with the tapes and diskettes wrapped in it; he had fought, almost died, for the secrets they held. He could not chance damaging them. But the descent would be clumsy if he held the folded coat; maybe even cause a fall. The best way to carry his cargo was with his teeth, leaving his hands free for a better grip. He paused, holding the pipe with one hand while using his teeth and free hand to make sure the coat was still wrapped securely around the materials. He held the coat between clenched teeth and slid down the pipe, using his shoe soles to apply braking friction against the stones.

  Already, thick, dark smoke was billowing from cracks around the window sills. Whatever he had left in the home that might be of use to him in his search for the truths he must uncover was now irretrievable. But, irretrievable to his enemies as well. The old home would be gone in minutes, and because of the calamitous events of the past hours, all available firefighters and equipment were concentrated on the major disasters. One burning house meant nothing, now. Why, then, did one man mean so much to his enemies? Why could he not, like the burning house, simply be ignored? To be allowed to come to his end in his own, natural time?

  They would not stop. He knew that now. However, four of them would no longer hound him — no longer come at him on highways, in the back of cars, in attics, with blood-lust in their eyes, murder in their hearts. Like the ones that night who had driven the tow-truck, trying to run Karen and him down; but were they a part of the same group of murderers? One thing for sure, three of them were now only a stench, swirling skyward behind him. He moved cautiously from the yard, looking around to spot trouble and to get his bearings, trying to find the van he had left parked along the street.

  The nauseating thought clutched at his instinctive side; they had been able to follow him since he left Naxos. What made him believe he could elude them now? There was an answer and he had to find it, if he was to survive, find Karen, and somehow, somewhere, the two of them were to wring a new beginning out of this nightmare world.

  The van was just ahead, the hood to its engine pulled forward — open. Someone had been at the motor, tampering. His enemies, or just vandals? He would stay clear of the van. He had to find another vehicle and get away from Rockville -- drive until he could figure where to go to look over the materials without fear of being found again. But, was there such a place? Their agents seemed able to anticipate his every move. Probably were at every roadblock looking for him.

  Fatigue was again his greatest nemesis, now that his human tormentors were temporarily off his back. Paranoia filled his head with defeat, hopelessness, terror. There must be a place to rest, somewhere. Surely there was a place to hide while he assessed his best options and analyzed his chances.

  He hurried along the sidewalk, back toward the burning
house, becoming aware that he was limping, feeling the skin on his right knee begin to burn. His right pants leg was torn at the knee, the result of making contact with the protruding stones on his way down the pipe. A small spot of blood had soaked through the cloth. The injured calf, too, ached, contributing to the limp.

  People were gathered in the street in front of the burning house, and it was good to see them — to know there were still human beings who were not intent on attacking him. They made no effort to fight the blaze, or to enter the house to see if someone might need rescuing. They were quiet, scarcely talking to each other, as if in shock. Their eyes transfixed on the flames that streamed and flickered upward into the morning sky. They paid him no attention when he passed behind them in the middle of the street, limping toward the navy blue car parked on the side opposite Marchek's, now almost consumed, home. It was the agents' car. Plain, without decorative chrome, a government-issue vehicle. It could not belong to anyone in this crowd of onlookers, all obviously native to the neighborhood. No outsiders among the gawkers. No one looking for him, looking for associates who had gone into the Marchek house to take Jacob Zen. The blue Chevrolet was the car that had brought his would-be captors here.

  He opened the door and slid behind the wheel, then scanned the crowd again. The people were oblivious to all but the flames. He looked over the interior, his eyes meeting a round screen of dark glass 13 or 14 inches in diameter. The keys were in the ignition, the agents having left them there, no doubt, in anticipation of having to chase him. During an escape attempt, they would not have to fumble for the keys, losing precious seconds.