The Snare

by David A Ogunde

  Dr. Diaz graciously kept her gaze upon the map of Nebuchadnezzar’s empire which was once again on the large display screen as Pierre suddenly felt the need to look down and remove some lint from his lapels. Then, she went on.

  “Still more, say the clay represents the true Church of Christ that has been thrown together with the world, but will not mix. And I’ve even read,” She said musingly, “an interesting article claiming that the pieces of iron represent modern technology and the clay, humanity, signifying an age where man and machine began converging into a new species. So, there is a lot of speculation; but what is generally agreed upon is that these ten toes in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream correspond with the ten horns on the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision.”

  “In the context of Daniel’s vision,” stated Dr. Diaz, like a professor at lecture, “these ten horns could be indicative of spirits or supernatural powers that reign over individual kingdoms within these empires.”

  Pierre moved closer to study the toes of the holographic figure. Suddenly, a dreadful feeling filled his being as a memory crashed into the forefront of his mind. In the lab with his current team, he had once thrown out the idea that the three obsidian tablets and their supposed ritual may have been meant for a future use. At the time, he hadn’t put any stock into his words as it was really only an attempt to grasp at straws. But, now… If this statue did represent the timeline of history into the present day, then whatever the ten toes and ten horns represented would be made manifest in events that had not yet come to pass. He crossed his arms in front of him and tentatively asked the question he really didn’t want to. “So, this principal spirit with ten horns, whose image we pulled from the ancient tablets in my lab could be in our…future?”

  Dr. Diaz locked eyes with her friend and somberly nodded. “Daniel predicted that in the time directly preceding the manifestation of God’s righteous rule over the earth—this ruler ship being bestowed upon the Son, Jesus—the beast with ten horns will rise to power from ten confederates and endow one man to begin a tyrannical rule upon the earth. This man is labeled in the Bible as Anti-Christ. He will be empowered by a diabolical force, also known as the ‘mystery of lawlessness.’”

  Pierre groaned inwardly. Though he was admittedly on the fence about how much of what Dr. Diaz was telling him was applicable to the world as he knew it, there was still something menacing, something undeniable about the connection that was forming between everything that had been going on with the mysterious stones, his co-workers, and the dreams. If—he dared to explore the thought—if this were all true, and something historically momentous was looming just over the horizon… He stopped there, unwilling to fathom any further. While as a historian he allowed himself to consider that human history may have been different than what was commonly accepted, as a citizen of the world he clung to the desperate hope that good people like himself could shape a bright future in spite of whatever had happened in the past. But to think that this…prophecy, he deigned to call it, spoke of a coming, unnatural tyrant grated harshly against his belief that the prospect of the future depended upon his, and his fellow man’s good choices. It was a very disempowering feeling which seemed to gnaw at his very self-purpose in an intolerable way. He quickly snatched onto another facet of the conversation in an attempt to gain distance from these bleak, hopeless thoughts. “So, these ten confederates,” he took up swiftly, “who are they?”

  “It’s not specified.” Dr. Diaz tucked a wayward lock of hair back into place. “Some swear it’s the European Union, though the Scriptures don’t necessarily say that. It may turn out to include a morph of the present EU or it may not. It does, however, seem rather clear that the ten will come from Europe, Asia, Africa…” Her words were cut off as a loud alarm began to blare harshly. Pierre jumped in his skin and looked toward the door just as two security guards rushed in.

  “What’s going on?” Dr. Diaz shouted over the alarm.

  “We’re not sure yet, Ma’am,” a guard answered hastily. “But our priority is to get you to safety. Please come with us.”

  Dr. Diaz and the commissioner fell into hurried steps between the guards, who led them through a short but complicated labyrinth of corridors and stairways until they finally burst through a door into a low cement room where a non-descript black car was waiting.

  A muffled squawk came through the guards’ radios, but the company could clearly hear the last words: Attempted break-in.

  Pierre felt as if an ice cube was sliding down his spine. The memory of his museum’s own break-in clear in his mind. Suddenly, he felt unusually afraid. Had he made a mistake in coming here? Had he been followed? Had he now just put his friend and her museum at risk for his foolishness?

  “Pierre, get in!” Dr. Diaz called to him from inside the car.

  Still in shock at his own revelation, Pierre slid in the car while one of the guards snapped the door shut. The driver took them up a ramp and onto the street, driving casually so as not to attract attention.

  “Pierre? Pierre…”

  “Hmm?” Pierre jumped out of this thoughts. “What did you say?”

  “We’re going to my office in the annex building. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, just shaken up a bit is all. You know, we had a break-in not too long ago and….”

  “You’re wondering if they are connected.” She stated his fears calmly, much more calmly than he felt. It seemed to summon a little bravery to his heart.

  He nodded, pulled out his phone, and pulled up the image of the monster Kate and John had pieced together from the tablet markings.

  It just couldn’t be true. But, then, what was happening? Why was this image here? And why was someone else breaking into museums trying to take the stones from them? It was beginning to seem that the more he searched for answers, the more obscure everything became…and more dangerous. He didn’t want more riddles; he needed some light! He said the last word forcefully in his mind and at the same time his eyes came to rest on photo where the seven moons and seven crowns circled around the beast.

  “Do you know what these seven crowns might mean?” he asked in spite of himself.

  Dr. Diaz leaned over to look at the image again. “Biblically speaking, crowns typically symbolize regal power or authority.”

  “Where could that fit in?” Pierre asked as scholarly as he could though his head was beginning to spin. “I thought there were only four empires on your timeline, not seven.”

  “The book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ—more commonly known as ‘Revelations’— in the Bible also contains clues about this particular event at the end of the timeline. It does, in fact, give us a fuller picture and mentions seven powers in all: Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome and Revised Rome, which some call modern Europe; others take ‘Revised Rome’ to mean everywhere that has at one point been a protectorate of a European country, including America, the Congo, India, Australia, etc.; and some simply use it as a blanket term for the Roman system which in essence governs most of the world in some form or another.”

  “So,” reiterated the commissioner as he brushed a still shaking hand through his hair, “these seven powers include the four empires of Nebuchadnezzar’s and Daniel’s respective dreams.”

  “Correct. The visions in the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation are not contradictory.”

  “Seven crowns…seven leading world powers throughout history to the present.” He set it on a mind’s burner to simmer. “And the seven moons? What might they mean?”

  His friend pondered thoughtfully for a moment before responding. “I may have an idea.” The car had stopped, and Dr. Diaz beckoned Pierre to follow as she made her way briskly toward the door of darkened building.

  Pierre slightly hesitated. There was a small part of him that was begging to just forget it, forget it all—to follow Ariadne’s thread out of this frightful tangle of magic and mystery, prophecy and riddles. But a stronger part of him knew that he couldn’t just set this asid
e and walk away; that he would never find rest within himself until this labyrinth was solved. And to do that, he had to venture further in.

  Chapter 72

  They were in a small but neatly arranged area exhibiting artifacts. Pierre glanced around while Dr. Diaz activated a gadget similar to a miniature version of the holographic table at the museum. Skating her finger across a handheld tablet, Dr. Diaz caused images to digitally appear above the small gadget. Pierre quickly recognized what they all had in common.

  “These are Babylonian artifacts,” he stated, glancing at the pieces of pottery, jewelry, and clay cuneiform tablets appeared and disappeared before his eyes. . “At the height of its renewed empire.”

  “Yes, before it fell to Cyrus the Great. This is the Babylon that most commonly comes to people’s mind when the empire is mentioned. But as you well know, one of the original peoples of this region were called Akkadians before they were called Babylonians; and they were quite an advanced culture.” Dr. Diaz continued zipping through images until she stopped on one—a large slab of stone on which was carved an intricate relief of several men in regalia standing under a starry sky. “In fact, these Akkadian/Babylonian astrologers were pioneers in the study of space and time.”

  Pierre nodded. “Quite. We owe the basis of the science of space exploration to them. They discovered eclipse, or saros, cycles and made many accurate astronomical observations.”

  “Based on all you’ve shown and told me,” said Dr. Diaz, “I surmise that your tablets, with their even being found just outside the city of Babylon, originated in that very region as opposed to being brought from Egypt or Assyria. Perhaps they were meticulously etched over decades by priests who would be well practiced in what seems to be advanced ritualistic magic. In their craft, Babylonian priests were not only proficient in communing with their gods (who I undoubtedly believe to be fallen angels) and harnessing unnatural powers granted to them, but also in using the gifts of the night sky as a means of diving spiritual seasons tied to their rituals and formulas. In pursuant of this, they observed the precise locations and movements of the planets, the moon, and the sun on the celestial sphere. They found that the sun moves in the firmament along a great circle, the ecliptic, in roughly 360 days.”

  “Hence, their invention of angles,” the commissioner adjoined knowledgably. “Measurements by which they divided a circle into 360 degrees, a year into 360-some days, a time-telling face into sixty minutes, and each minute into sixty seconds, which we still use in our clock and calendar systems today.”

  “Exactly. So, from an Akkadian/Babylonian perspective, these moons, or circles, could be a form of denoting time—years or groups of years.” She paused to ponder on what she had just said. Pierre could tell by his companion’s sudden pacing that her speculative thoughts were close to forming into a coherent idea. Though resolving to wait, he couldn’t help but ruminate himself, quietly muttering to the artifacts. “Seven powers, seven years…Seven kings, seven years?…Seven months?”

  Suddenly, Dr. Diaz stopped and looked toward the Commissioner. Her face was hard to read, though Pierre got the sense she was about to say something profound.

  “What if the beast from your stones literally correlates with the beast Daniel saw? What if a countdown clock was initiated from the renowned Babylonian Empire—depicted as the golden head— to a coming event found at the very fringes of the iron and clay toes, the end of the timeline? What if…your tablets hold the ritual that will supernaturally empower the rise of this evil king of which the Bible prophesies? The Anti-Christ.”

  Chapter 73

  The large expanse of the low building loomed through the shadows of the surrounding trees sitting like sentinels guarding the hillside. The pinpricks of headlights from two slowly approaching vehicles seemed to dim against the massive structure instead of illuminate it. From deep in the dark, leather back seat, Silas Maximos appraised the approaching building, feeling a deep undercurrent of power growing stronger as they drew nearer. From this angle, Maximos could see a tip of the structure pointing in their direction. His mind immediately brought up the schematics of the whole place. He mused at it’s almost sword-like design. Two quadrilateral back wings combined from which perpendicularly jutted two walls of the third wing they were now nearing—one wall straight and narrow, the other slightly curving and jagged—that met together in a narrow, pointed tip.

  An amazing piece of architecture, thought Maximos, though not just for its unique shape. There were features here…secrets…built into the design. Combined elements formed from ages of study and enlightenment. Symbols which, to many, meant nothing, but to some meant everything. And the irony, Maximos continued musing, here, in this place where the God of the Bible was supposed to have such a stronghold, is such a history. Here, in the city where they say God’s very Son was said to have died, the denial, the rebellion of his own “chosen people” continues. Or perhaps, it’s not rebellion at all. Perhaps, they have grown out of their fairy tale history, embracing, instead, the power of themselves over the obscure power of an in-understandable deity. Either way, Maximos was curious as to how many of those dwelling in Jerusalem, how many of those who came to work here every day, understood the true power carefully concealed throughout the Masonic-like design of Israel’s Supreme Court building.

  *

  Maximos was the last of the invited party to arrive. But he did not hurry himself past the cool stone hall of the Supreme Court’s holding cells, which seemed more related to a medieval dungeon than a modern day prison facility; nor did he quicken his decent into the bowels of the building where another dark hall, dramatically lit with low lights, led him through a deeper maze before depositing him before a set of double doors being watched over by a few strong men with expressionless faces. One gave a nod to Maximos who, without hesitation, grabbed the knob and let himself in.

  A dozen or so figures turned from their quiet conversation to look at the late arrival.

  “Silas, you made it. We were wondering if you had lost your way.” A thin, dark-haired man moved from the crowd to shake hands. Maximos noted that the man’s narrow, square glasses made him appear more intelligent than Maximos perceived he really was. But he had always thought that about this current President of the United Nations. Dr. Youcef Ammon had always been interested in the position of president more than the work it was supposed to be promoting. Not that this was of any bother to Maximos. In fact, quite the contrary. This character would play itself out well in tonight’s scene.

  Silas unclasped Dr. Ammon’s hand and began making the rounds. In attendance for this meeting were a handful of Israeli high government officials, though the Prime Minister himself had declined to attend, several prominent Jewish spiritual leaders, rabbis whose religious authority often held the same weight, if not more in some cases, as those holding political power in Israel. As Profeta had once declared, it would be through religion, not politics, that worlds could be moved. And Silas was about to test that maxim.

  “Ministers, Rabbis, and President Ammon, thank you for meeting with me. And before we begin, I will not insult you by questioning the integrity of this room or those in it.”

  “The room is secure, as are the words spoken in it,” one of the ministers stated firmly. Her piercing eyes revealed she was, in fact, feeling insulted. “And our time is precious, Mr. Maximos.”

  “Then, I will get right to it, madam. I have asked for your attention this evening to admit to you that I am not a Jew, nor a religious man, at all, really. But I believe in God. And I believe that the Messiah’s arrival must be soon. Don’t look so bewildered, Minister. I have seen your government’s plans of actions pertaining to this awaited coming. Why, just six months ago, I believe you had a mandatory training program implemented within your law enforcement branches on crowd control for, and I quote, ‘the imminent appearance and officiation of the promised Messiah. ‘Surely, such an official precaution indicates the seriousness of the belief in his coming. You are expect
ing him, as am I. But he has not yet appeared. What is he waiting for? What have we failed to do to bring his tangible presence to us?

  “We are at destruction’s doorstep; and, soon, there will be nothing left on this earth to save. For this reason, I think it is imperative to take the next step. We must begin constructing the piece that is missing. I believe Messiah will come once the Third Temple is built—God’s holy temple—and the proper worship and sacrifices to him are reinstituted. For only then can Israel be clean enough for Messiah to appear. And the full redemption of the Jews and their promised land can be completed.”

  As Maximos’ bold proclamations sunk in, the faces around the room gazed back and forth at one another. President Ammon’s gaze remained cautious as he, with Maximos, took in the effects among the people. Some were scrutinizing. Others appeared almost angry. Yet, a few of the rabbis seem to hold more positive consideration—wanting to trust in this outsider, wanting to hope, but remaining in doubt. Finally, one of the silver-haired elders raised his head in a sagely gesture and said, “You seem to have valuable knowledge for a Gentile. The Jews’ greatest longing has always been to usher Messiah into this world. But who are you that we should give your words any merit? Why should we trust you? What can you do to help us that we cannot do ourselves?”

  Most of the eyes in the room suddenly seemed extra sharp, as if their owners wished to pin Maximos to the wall. Silas Maximos wasn’t intimidated, but rather worked hard to maintain an obsequious appearance as he gave the answer that he and his prophet had already prepared.

  “With all due respect, Rabbi Vilna, I believe that if you were able to do it yourselves, it would have been done already.”