by Terry James
"Jacob! They've got them!" Karen rushed up the steps leading underground; her face was pale. "Who's got whom?"
"Those two men who disappeared from the compound... The prisoners who were with you."
"Where are they?" Wilson asked.
"Jerusalem. They're going to execute them! They're showing it now!"
They hurried down the steps and along several short, narrow corridors, then into a small room crowded with several people and an INterface Response Unit, whose screen displayed the pyramid symbol of INterface. When the symbol faded, Herrlich Krimhler, wearing a dazzling white jumpsuit, glared from the screen while sitting atop the crystal pyramid throne. Behind him loomed a gigantic golden cross, with a human form affixed to it, the face angelic and glowing while looking toward heaven — Herrlich Krimhler's face.
"These deceivers have preached the soul-murdering lies to the brothers and sisters of INterface Universal. Now they come to recompense for their wickedness. So that all may know these Jews are mortal hate-mongers and not prophets of some non-existent god. Behold their deaths! Let it serve notice to all who believe the false promises which, with the killing of these dogs, will be forever eradicated from the minds of humanity! No longer shall there be in our midst the barbaric practice of worshiping the false idol who was called Jesus of Nazareth!"
The scene changed to the streets of Jerusalem, to one part or the other of the oldest section, Jacob surmised. Hundreds of taunting, sneering men, women, and juveniles surrounded two men dressed in robes. One of the cameras zoomed in on the faces of the besieged men at the center of the circle of people. "It is them!" Jacob said. "They've apparently been preaching in the area for a couple of days, according to what they've been saying. INterface has been trying to catch them because they've been converting a lot of people," one of Conrad Wilson's men said.
"These wicked ones do not deserve a quick, merciful death. Let them die as the harlots and infidels of ancient days... because they have tried to take worship from he who alone deserves worship, and have tried to direct worship to the false Christ! Let them be stoned!"
While Krimhler spewed his vehemence, the INRU screen presented a four-video split, one part showing the two men in close-up, one split displaying Krimhler sitting upon the crystal pyramid, another displaying the angry people surrounding the condemned men, and yet another showing a huge dump truck while it rolled to a stop behind the mob and dumped its load of baseball-size stones.
The people rushed to take the rocks, each grabbing as many as they could hold, then again took positions around the two men. For the moment, they were constrained by Krimhler's words from the loudspeakers and by a number of controllers, who stood in a circle between the mob and the intended victims.
"Death to the deceivers! To the deceiver, Jesus of Nazareth, whose bones lie buried somewhere nearby. Whose soul dwells in eternal nothingness for the deluding claims He made!"
The video changed again and continued changing rapidly, capturing the excited faces of the crowd while Krimhler shouted his dictate. All became silent when the taller of the two robed men raised his hands toward the sky, then slowly lowered his right hand and, pointing a finger in a slow, sweeping motion toward the people around him, he spoke.
"Repent or reap the whirlwind you have sown!" The words were clearly audible over the Response Units throughout INterface. "God is not mocked; The Lord Jesus lives! Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord and turn from the son of perdition! Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Him! Repent! Accept Christ!"
The mob would no longer be restrained. Stones flew toward the center of the circle where the men stood. But they were no longer there!
The astonished people surrounding the pile of stones recoiled, their expressions open-mouthed, fearful. The sky suddenly darkened, and terrible, wicked streaks of jagged lightning cut blindingly against the billowing blackness. Thick gray-white objects as large as cannon shot rained on the hapless would-be executioners and the controllers, and they fell while the hailstones crashed with thunderous noise. The screen went black.
Everyone in the room watched in silence while the screen filled again with the pyramid symbol. Karen started to speak to Jacob but he was no longer by her side.
She found him huddled over a small table, reading.
"Dr. Marchek's Bible?" she looked over his shoulder, seeing the Scriptures underlined in red. "Does it have something to do with those men?"
"Listen to this... It's in the Revelation, chapter 11..." He quickly ran his index finger beneath the words and Karen tried to follow, but gave up, instead giving her full attention to his reading of the passages.
"And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
These are the two olive trees, and the lampstands standing before the God of the earth.
And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy; and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
And they of the peoples and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not permit their dead bodies to be put in graves.
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.
And after three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them who saw them.
And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, 'Come up here.' And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them.
And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand; and the remnant were terrified, and gave glory to the God of heaven."
Jacob looked away from the book for a moment, deep in thought, then reread part of the Scriptures silently.
"I just can't accept that. It's nonsense!" Karen said, then watched and heard him read in a whisper. "...And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified..."
"Jerusalem! Come on!" He rushed from the room and into the adjoining one, where the INRU screen's video was split into two images. The larger segment showed the pyramid symbol; a small picture in the lower right corner displayed a confused scene in which controllers rushed about, weapons poised, searching the bodies and rubble of the stones for the two men who had vanished before the sudden hailstorm struck.
"Is this just coincidence? Like all the rest that's happened?" Jacob said.
"I don't know, Jacob. I've never believed all that religious garbage. Not even Dr. Marchek could convince me that."
"But you see it for yourself, Karen. You saw them vanish the same as I did!"
They watched an angry-faced Controller charge the camera, which was obviously hand-held, causing the small picture in the corner of the INRU screen to become a jumbled blur, then white out with electronic snow.
"I'm not saying there's nothing unusual going on in all this. There's never been a situation like it in history. But it's just the inevitable outcome of a dictatorship that has at its disposal unprecedented technologies, Hitler... the Nazis.... would've probably come to this, or maybe worse, if they had the technology Krimhler and INterface has available to them for
controlling people. The eschatologists or whatever they were called during that period, no doubt proclaimed the Nazis to be the end-time dictatorship... Hitler, the Antichrist."
"You sound like Uncle Conrad," Jacob said.
"And you've been sounding like Hugo Marchek."
"Yeah... Somehow things got turned around, didn't they?" He pulled her to him and they looked into each others' eyes, sharing the special emotion there had been little time for until this moment.
"You still like me?" He brushed her lips lightly with his.
"A little, maybe." She smiled, her eyes glistening with tears. She held his face between her hands and kissed him, then looked into his eyes again. "I love you, Jacob Zen. Nothing can ever change that."
"No... We can't let anything change that, no matter how much everything else gets turned around," he said.
They kissed again and he felt her quiver. "Are you okay, Sweetie?" He tried to blanket the cold fear he sensed in her by embracing her more tightly.
"If we weren't so caught up in it... weren't so much at the center, knowing what's happening to the world, maybe it could be like it used to be for us," she said, putting her face on his shoulder and looking away, wishing.
"But we are at the center, and if for no other reason, that's why we have to try to understand what's going on. We have to be able to agree, or at least try to agree, about the nature of what we're facing, so we can fight it with the strength of our combined wills. This thing will tear apart anything or anyone, who fights it with anything less than its one and only solution."
"And that's to be found in the Scriptures?"
"I'm absolutely sure it all fits together. The Bible, Marchek told me, is a living entity, not just a great work of literature. The living Word of God himself. 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'
"The Word says that Jesus of Nazareth was, is, the Christ. He and the Holy Spirit are One with the Father. The Trinity... the perfect Good. And the perfect Good is the only thing greater in power than the absolute evil. Jesus Christ is the only being who can and will put an end to Herrlich Krimhler and INterface... To the genocide."
Karen held him tightly. "I'll accept it because you accept it. I can't say I find it easy to believe everything about these prophecies. About Herrlich Krimhler being some end-time Antichrist. But I believe in you, and in your faith in all the things you say."
Jacob took her hand and spoke earnestly, gently. "No, Karen, not me. It's man's belief in man... thinking that he can solve all of mankind's problems, that brought us where we are now. That's why the world has turned to this maniac to save them from the problems they've brought upon themselves. It's God, not man, who has the answers. Do you understand the things I'm saying?"
"I'm trying, Jake."
"It's a one-on-one situation. The individual and God. No one can make the decision but the individual whose immortal soul is beckoned by God's Spirit to accept Christ. Without Jesus Christ, one's soul is lost for eternity. We must accept Christ and refuse the mark of the beast, the symbol of INterface and the controls that go with it. We must reject the Antichrist system to the end."
"The end of what?"
"Either the end of this age, the period of tribulation, which is to last a total of seven years — three-and-a-half of which, I believe, might have already passed — after which Jesus Christ will return at the end of the world's last battle at Megiddo."
"Armageddon?"
"Yes, Armageddon."
"It's all so totally foreign to all I've ever been taught and believed, Jacob. Knowing we're together and that Conrad and Kerry and other good, sane people have faith in our effort, gives me something to hold onto while I try to absorb all the things you've told me. We've got to hold to each other and our friends through this, don't we? Human beings still need other human beings. Things haven't changed that much, have they?"
He felt her convulse again and tried to warm her after gently kissing her, feeling the softness of her hair, smelling its fragrance.
"It's time to be on our way," Conrad Wilson said, putting his head through the doorway. "Everything's plotted. They'll know the plane is missing by now, so we've got to move quickly."
Wilson stood to one side of the doorway, allowing them to pass on their way out of the room, then carried Karen's luggage to the top of the steps leading to outside, where another man took her bags.
"I've some last-minute things to attend to here, Jake. I'll join you on board in a minute," Wilson said, patting his foster son on his shoulder, then watching them hurry toward the clump of trees and the jet sitting in the opening just beyond.
A few seconds later, having returned to a room near the back of the underground facility, he heard the four engines of the plane stir to life and settle into their idling whine. He put the thick attaché case on the single bed and opened it, then sat on the bed beside the case while expertly manipulating its contents. The adjustments made, he carried the open case into the adjoining room and slipped a small black device into the INRU unit. He activated the Unit by pressing two buttons within the case in his lap, causing the screen to snap to life. A dark-skinned woman gazed at him and spoke in a business-like manner.
"Stand by, sir. You are priority for Interact One."
The picture changed to that of a flat, brilliantly illuminated map of the world, overlaid with white gridlines and dotted with various points of light that represented major cities and population centers. On either side of the map, INRU monitors were alive with video from each of the INterface capitals.
There materialized the image of a man upon the gigantic map. He was young, bronze-skinned, with thick, black hair swept precisely back on either side of the handsome, symmetrical head. The eyes, as dark as the hair above the smooth, tanned forehead, projected commandingly from the almost too-perfect face.
"Is all as it should be?" the deep voice, seemingly older than the one to whom it belonged, said in English.
"It is, Sir," Conrad Wilson replied with confident, reportorial inflection. "Everything has come together as envisioned from 'The Plan's' inception."
"You have accomplished your duties faithfully, but there is yet much to be done to assure that my enemy cannot complete his objective. The agents of his birth and fulfillment will be slaughtered where they nest like rodents infesting a world which must be purged of them forever!"
Herrlich Krimhler stood and walked to his right, his image disappearing from the center of the map. Wilson's INRU screen then showed Krimhler walking to a position in front of the world map.
"We know the Jews are here." Krimhler pressed a button and the map changed, the area of Jordan enlarging greatly, filling most of what formerly was representative of INterface in its totality. "And we know they are most likely here, in the area known as Petra." He made another adjustment on the control board in front of him and the map changed again, the specific area enlarging within the Jordanian enlargement. "The Holy One..." The words burst from his mouth with hatred, "thinks they are hidden from me, and that the prophecy will be fulfilled. But, thanks to 'The Plan,' and to your ward, Mr. Zen, here is where the fulfilling of the prophecies end, and my kingdom... My Father's kingdom... begins!"
"I am prepared to carry out this last portion of my assignment, my Lord," Conrad Wilson said, bowing his head and closing his eyes before lifting his face again to see the young man, whose features were animate with excitement.
"Yes!... Yes! Follow this Jew ward of yours into the bowels of the world, where the excretion awaits its flushing. Then my world shall be purged of their defiling stench!"
"How can we be sure they can be located? All we have are the somewhat sketchy directions of those two Jews. Did they divulge additional information before they were turned over to the people?"
"This is no concern of yours! Yours is only to do as you are directed! You will not question me! Do you understand?! No one will question me!" Krimhler's glee had turned instantly to screaming rage; he slammed his
fist into the control board repeatedly. Wilson bowed his head. "I am sorry, my Lord. I did not mean to question..."
"From the time the child was placed in your responsibility when its mother was dispatched, this moment has been the purpose of his continued existence... and yours. Do you not know that?" Krimhler's voice calmed while he spoke, finally leveling at consoling volume and tone.
"His every movement was orchestrated — from his placement into the United States diplomatic service, to his being made to sense collusion against his nation, to his meeting the women operatives, to his being hated as our greatest enemy — all aimed at bringing him to this hour. A Jew, meeting the two preachers from the so-called Holy One. Being accepted by the underground Jews because they trust him... because they perceived him as also a victim of INterface. So that now I shall learn, through Jacob Zen, of their place, which they stupidly believe I will not be able to locate."
Krimhler's features seemed to grow darker, his expression hardening, and he slammed his fist against the control console again.
"Now do you think we cannot accomplish so simple a thing as following your deluded little Jew into the rat's nest, which this God of theirs will surely open to him after all the trouble he has taken to lead him there?"
Wilson did not answer, but nodded, with closed eyes, his fawning agreement.
"There has been no greater slaughter in the history of this world than will take place when they are found! Go now! Accompany Jacob Zen to the fulfilling of his purpose for being allowed to live to this moment... And question your Lord no more!" along with that!"
Conrad Wilson nudged Jacob's knee with his fingertips, his voice still jovial. "Oh, lighten up, Jake. I know you're talking about this newfound religion of yours." He gestured toward the book Jacob held open in his lap. "The pilot you're talking about sits at the controls a few miles above our present altitude."
Jacob said nothing in answer to Wilson's teasing words, choosing to let his troubled thoughts take refuge in the words underlined in Hugo Marchek's old Bible. He read the words, hearing Marchek's accented voice in his mind's ear. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."