by Terry James
"But why? I didn't fire the shot. I wasn't in Jerusalem. I was on the other side of the world," Jacob said, thinking that if Krimhler was God, he would know that already. Wondering why he bothered bringing up the fact. Knowing at the same time that the subject came from his lips involuntarily.
"It matters not what individual pulled the trigger. You, Jacob Zen, are made a symbol of the Jews’ prehistoric perpetration of absolute evil upon my creation. You were made the example of absolute evil. You were given the opportunity, on behalf of every Jew, to accept forgiveness for yourself and for them. You rejected salvation. A decision made not only for you, an individual sinner, but for all Jews of all times."
"Why tell me this?" Jacob said, caustically.
"God is absolute good. Could God do less than lovingly explain why it must be as it must, to the one Jew chosen to symbolize the race which is the agent of pure evil?"
"Lucifer is the pure evil."
"Satan is the pure evil... the devil," Krimhler corrected softly.
"But Lucifer is Satan... the devil."
"The supreme lie of the supremely evil being, thrust upon mankind by the false Christ and his book of delusions."
"The Bible?"
"The Christian Bible," Krimhler said. "If the God of the Christian Bible be God, then He is a flawed God indeed. How can a perfect God create a world of imperfection, where there is disease and famine and nuclear weapons and murder... all the evils mankind has experienced? Why could not God create perfection, if He is truly God? How can a loving God, as the God of the Christian Bible and of the Talmud declares himself to be, allow these evils to continue? How can such a loving God send a soul to a literal, burning, eternal fire, knowing in godly omniscience that soul is innocently born into a world of God’s own making? Is that perfect justice?”
“Who created the world, then? You?”
“The Universal Mind Father and I are one. I and my Father and Lucifer. The so-called God-Jehovah is in reality Michael, our creation who has tainted perfection with absolute evil.
“Placed in charge of this tiny portion of our infinite creation, Michael infected Lucifer’s progeny by using his own innate, though limited, creative capability to form the genetically impure Jewish seed. All evil has grown through this contamination. It now must be changed through a rebirth into salvation, or it must be purged so that creation can be cleansed. Made perfect.
“Through one Jew-deceiver, the supremely evil deception was given, the one called Jesus of Nazareth. Through another Jew-deceiver the deception is made manifest before the world, and the genetic contamination shall be cleansed from the New Age earth by his death. You, Jacob Zen, are to be that sacrifice, to satisfy the judgment of the Universal Mind Father.
Cold sweat soaked his body, his energy draining from him through his pores. Hugo Marchek’s face, the wire-rimmed glasses resting upon the thin nose, eyes closed in eternal sleep. In his coffin, being lowered into the damp-smelling concrete crypt vault. Marchek’s sister’s neatly smoothed clothing, scorched by the fire. No! By something other. Before the fire that held the screams of the men who tried to end his flight from the entity stalking him. The shroud, stained by the brownish discoloration, the heat-created negative image of a crucified man.
“Jacob...Jacob Zen.”
He awoke and quickly looked around the cell. Empty!
Another nightmare.
“You are safe now,” one of the prisoners assured him from the cell across the corridor.
Despite the hour, the sky was a dark hue of copper and stank of the pollutants that made it so. His last breath would fill his nostrils with the stench. His lungs with the choking abrasiveness that not even Trachetrol could smooth over, were it available, and if he were not about to face his ten-hundred hours appointment with the blade atop the Decap platform looming 40 meters away.
INterface cameras mounted on the high, thick stucco walls and on individual platforms at the same level as the Decap platform trained on Jacob and the four controllers escorting him across the expanse of concrete that separated the cell block from the platform of execution. Strangely, he experienced a surge of strength rather than the weak-kneed fear and panic he had expected. Denying them the performance they so much wanted to present to the world of those who bent the knee filled him with a kind of pride he had not known. To refuse to beg for life, which at any rate held nothing further from him, was the one act still within his power that promised the greatest damage to the INterface propagandists. Somewhere in that watching horde was someone, maybe several, maybe many, who, seeing his act of honor, would transform into spirits kindred with his own. Even in death, he could strike a blow by galvanizing fragments of hatred for the masters into a mighty resistance, thereby living on to fight with ever-increasing strength born of his death. Never had the martyr wish been a part of his psyche. Now, drawing nearer the gleaming instrument that would cleave him from the living gave him understanding of what might have gone through the mind of Christ, had Christ been merely human, when contemplating Golgotha. To die passively when the purpose was served by such death -- unlike when the millions died unresistingly during Hitler's Holocaust, with no one to know, to care--made the dying something approaching desirable.
Iron gates on the wall to his left were opened by uniformed men. People filed through the opening and walked quickly along the wall to the Decap platform, where they encircled it. They turned toward Jacob and his guards, strangely silent, watching the five figures who now stood at the steps of the platform.
Other black-uniformed controllers ordered the people to designated areas from which they would watch the execution and at the same time add effect for the INterface broadcast. He looked at the drawn, drugged, compromised faces, each mirroring the other in sickly sameness. There could be no hatred for these pathetic onlookers, each as much a victim as himself. Even more so because they had yielded long ago without struggle, and would go on yielding until they were inevitably chewed up and digested by INterface justice. He felt only pity for them, and regret that his own physical struggle on their behalf must end. He was sure he saw in the sad, tired eyes below the triangle-shaped symbol tattooed upon the foreheads not desire to be entertained, or joy over seeing INterface justice done. They were looks that tried, in their silence, to convey helpless sympathy for a fellow creature in an unalterable hell, which they realized they, like he, helped to create through their inaction during that earlier time when liberty had been alive.
INterface Response Unity cameras were active, the red lights on their tops going off and on in turn when their cameramen manipulated the levers and knobs and buttons in a nearby control center. The cameras' huge black lenses seemed to have life of their own while they trained on Jacob, who struggled with his natural inclination to look directly into them, afraid doing so might disrupt his fidelity to passive martyrdom.
Up the stainless steel steps and onto the chrome-like platform. The air became harder to breath, causing pressure in his lungs, like when scuba diving with Conrad Wilson in the Atlantic on the rare occasions the diplomat took time out from his government work.
It was impossible to think of Conrad Wilson kneeling to them. To United States’ purposes and goals -- yes. Maybe even to international cooperative designs. But, to one-world megalomania? No. Yet his foster father had knelt, yielded like all the empty-eyed creatures standing around the platform beneath him. Conrad Wilson's servitude was worse! Accepting, approving, and implementing their kingdom of misery. For what? A position of dominance during the scant years left to him? Was that it? Fear of death? Certainly it was not for ideals shared with Herrlich Krimhler and his kind. Or was it the drugs? Or psychological alteration in other ways? Or...
Members of the crowd behind the rope constraints began to mumble, then quieted when one of the guards who accompanied him from the cellblock forced Jacob to kneel by pushing downward on his shoulders from behind. Another guard stood by the panel that operated the Decap Unit.
"This Jew has ref
used salvation through TRINITY and INterface Universal!" The voice from the loudspeakers blared at the same instant the words were broadcast to INterface Response Units throughout INterface.
"By refusing, he denies the one, true God, Herrlich Krimhler, and allies himself with the Jewish disease that continues to infect our world. He now deservedly precedes them in the fate they must all ultimately meet... ignominious extermination befitting betrayers!"
Powerful hands seized him and forced his head forward until he felt the cold steel rim of the guillotine's lower notch against his Adam's apple. The upper steel plate, with its half-circle notch descended and clanked over the back of his neck, trapped his head within the metallic circle. He stared into the bottom of the glistening steel box which would momentarily receive his head and his blood.
Tales of life's passing before one's eyes — it was not happening. Maybe that would come once the actual process of dying began. Maybe then, while the world tumbled and whirled before his head bounced against the bottom of the container. Would there be pain when the head hit bottom? When the neck was sliced through?
Before, when death seemed near, the flashbacks began to come; why was it that all he thought of now was mashed potatoes with gravy, and a smiling, happy child playing with his puppy? A child whose mother called him to dinner, the puppy following through an opened screen door that slammed behind them when they had entered the house.
Another dream? Was he still in the cell, sleeping a sleep from which he would awaken? Or was he dead? Is this the beginning of eternity? Was Hugo Marchek right, the world wrong? Would he forever be in Hell because he had refused to accept Jesus Christ as Savior? Had he accepted Marchek's Christ without knowing it? But Marchek said it was a conscious thing. It must be done volitionally, just as refusing Christ was done willfully. Was it too late for him to accept that Jesus of two millennia ago? If Jesus was Christ, if He was God, was He not, still? Was He not ageless, changeless? Could He not forgive as long as there was physical life surrounding the soul, which, the old eschatologist said, lives eternally or dies eternally, depending on the volitional acceptance or willful rejection of Jesus Christ?
The old black, worn Bible. The words, "Who do you say that I am?" came in an inner voice not recognizable. Was it the Holy Spirit Marchek talked about? "Who do you say I am?" The question asked Peter the Apostle by Jesus of Nazareth. Peter, a fisherman who gave up his nets to follow Christ. "Who do you say I am?" The question put to him, Jacob Zen, now, in the same voice that Peter might have heard. "Who do you say that I am?" From the Bible, Peter's answer; "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Was it too late? Had God not run out of patience? Was it true, or a mind trick during the time of dying?
"Who do you say that I am?"
Bible verses! Why not memories of life's passing like in stories he had heard of vision-like replays while final breaths were taken? Bible verses instead! Clearly and swiftly going through his mind... .
"Who do you say that I am?"
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
"It is appointed unto a man once to die, and after death, the judgment."
"There is but one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus."
"God is not willing that any should perish but that they should come to repentance."
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man cometh to the Father but by me."
"Then shall the wicked one be revealed, the man of sin."
"It is the number of a man and the number is six hundred, threescore and six."
"And he causeth all, both rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark in their right hand or forehead and none could buy or sell except he that had the mark of the beast or the number of his name."
"And I saw the saints of God, who were beheaded for witness of Jesus, standing arrayed in white garments before the throne of God."
"Whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life."
"Who do you say that I am?"
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," Jacob said aloud.
Violent vibrations and blasting, thumping noises interrupted his meditation. The crowd began to disperse. He strained to see what was happening around him, but his view was restricted by the limited movement allowed by the stock.
The roaring and vibration increased, the pulsating given off by the powerful engine of a large helicopter whose massive blades kicked up dust and debris, peppering his captive head. The wind seemed to move the remaining people backward until they cringed in a huddle against the high wall directly in front of where he knelt.
Was it INterface dignitaries, who had come to witness in person the killing of a single Jew? Was it Herrlich Krimhler, himself, come to smirk while the Decap blade pinched off his enemy's head?
Gunfire! Men and women were screaming. One of the controllers blasted from the platform, landing on the ground near the frightened people. His dark uniform drenched with his own blood, a portion of his skull flapping in the wind generated by the helicopter blades. More gunfire, then just the idling motor, decreasing wind, and feet clanking against the metal steps of the execution platform.
The upper half of the stock lifted, freeing his head. Strong arms lifted him roughly and rushed him from the platform. The men held him in their grasps and kept him from stumbling because he could not maintain proper balance with his hands still manacled behind his back. The ski-masked men at his right side released him to turn and pour a volley of Uzi fire into a Controller who had sprung from a doorway aiming his automatic weapon at the escaping men. An explosion to their left sent debris high into the air and caused them to nearly fall from the concussion. His left calf suddenly was on fire in one spot just below the knee joint. Hit — again! Like on the road from Andrews. The pain worsened and spread, causing loss of control of the leg.
His rescuers dragged him quickly toward the chopper, whose heavy blades drooped although they continued rotating — kept moving for a hasty departure from the prison yard. He felt himself being jerked into the helicopter's small doorway by someone inside while being pushed upward from behind by the men in the ski masks, then rushed, though gently, into a net hammock. Someone began cutting his left pant leg, then ripped the material to the groin.
"Doesn't look too bad," a deep-voiced man said, mopping the calf with gauze, tossing the material to the floor, then applying pressure to the wound with a fresh gauze pad.
"It's okay, Mr. Zen. You'll be okay," the man shouted above the almost deafening slamming of the engine, while it strained then jumped the big helicopter from the ground and swept it skyward and to the left at full power.
"Who are you people?"
"Hello, Son."
"Uncle Conrad?" Jacob said, trying to rise from the netting, but failing. The face, smiling and at the same time frowning with concern, dissolved to blackness.
Chapter 20
The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things,
There is no armor against fate,
Death lays his icy hand on kings.
My life did and does smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain,
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.
"Jacob!" The bright light hurt his eyes, deluging his mind's ascension on to consciousness and making it difficult to recognize the form bending near him to touch his forehead with a cool cloth. The voice was concerned.
"Sweetheart."
Karen! Not a dream... Her arm felt warm and soft against his hand. Her lovely face was surrounded by the dark hair she brushed back to keep it from touching his face, which she lovingly wiped with the damp cloth. Her eyes--the eyes he knew better than he
knew his own. Not the drugged, glazed eyes of when they walked the temple's roof. Her lips, soft, hot against his lips, against his forehead, against his cheeks. Her slender hands, cool against his burning skin while caressing him.
"Karen..."
"I'm here. I won't leave you, darling."
"Well!... How's our boy?" Conrad Wilson stood above him and behind Karen, smiling. He moved the lamp that had partially blinded Jacob, making his seeing more comfortable. Conrad Wilson appeared much older than those years before, but lively, happy.
"They gave you something to make you sleep for a while. The bullet passed by the artery and bone. I know it doesn't feel like it, but it hit nothing of consequence. Just a bit of muscle and fatty tissue, they tell us. You'll be up and around before the day is out."
"What?" Jacob's dryness of throat choked off the questions.
"Much to tell you, my boy. Much!" Conrad Wilson turned toward a nearby doorway and nodded to a man, who went into the adjoining room.
"I want you to eat something while we try to straighten all this out for you."
The man returned and set before Jacob a tray that held bacon, eggs and juice.
"Eat, Jake!" Wilson said. "That stuff is hard to come by these days."
"I'm not hungry. I just want to know what's happening." His voice choked. "Why are you a part of them?" He looked to Wilson, then to Karen.
"Oh, Jake!" Karen cried, pressing her face against his chest while she clung to him. Her body quivered in his arms, and his anger dissolved when her tears soaked his chest, and he clutched her tightly and kissed her.
Wilson's voice, too, betrayed emotional upheaval. He spoke softly while not letting control slip. "I have never... and could never be a party to this... monstrous thing, Son. Not from the time they thought they had recruited me to right this second."
Wilson patted Karen's shoulder while Jacob held her. "She was drugged and programmed. Brainwashed through new, devilish technologies even I had never heard of. Even so, she fought them. Held on to enough of herself to be of great help to us in getting you free from them."