Light of the Last

by Chuck Black

  “All it would take is for him to know who we are, and it would be done.” Validus was frustrated. Carter seemed so ignorant of the obvious, and yet his salvation was the trigger point for the beginning of the End of Days. How could he not see it?

  “You don’t know that. Remember Elohim’s people in the wilderness? They all saw greater miracles than Carter has seen, and Elohim caused the earth to swallow them because of their unbelief. What of the girl?”

  Validus turned and walked away. “She’s our best hope, but they are driven apart by the CIA now. He may never see her again.” He turned back. “I understand that the gospel of the Messiah is reserved for men to preach, but messengers have given men revelations before. Request a messenger to reveal the truth of who we are to Carter.”

  Brandt seemed to consider Validus’s request. “I’ll put the request in. Meanwhile, get Carter and Carlyle together.”

  Validus nodded. “I’m working on it, but you can bet the Fallen will counter with everything they’ve got. They know the influence she has on him, and if we’re successful in getting them together, the Fallen will unleash everything to keep him from salvation.”

  General Brandt stood up and walked toward Validus. “Then your team had better be ready.”

  Validus drew a deep breath. “Yes sir.”

  By the time Validus returned to his team at the Farm, all seven of them were outside Carter’s quarters. They looked anxious. Persimus was pacing. When he saw Validus approach, he hurried to his friend.

  “What is it, Persimus?”

  “You have a visitor.”

  Brandt’s request must have gone through, and the reply was fast.

  “A messenger?” Validus asked, looking for the angel.

  “Not a messenger,” Persimus said. “It’s Michael.”

  Validus froze. “Michael?”

  Persimus nodded.

  “Yeah,” Jayt said with a grin. “Whatever you did over in Scotland must not have set well. He’s not looking his usual pleasant self.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He said he’d be at the church,” Persimus replied.

  Validus looked in the direction of the only church at Camp Peary, a remnant from the past. “Michael?” he asked again.

  “We’ll be right here if you need us,” Crenshaw said.

  “Thanks for the support,” Validus said with a smirk. He straightened and made his way to the church.

  When he entered, the mighty archangel stood at the front of the sanctuary, looking at the cross. Validus approached cautiously.

  “That was a marvelously sad and victorious day.” Michael’s voice reverberated off the walls of the empty church. The archangel slowly turned and looked at Validus.

  In spite of Validus’s expectations, Michael’s gaze was not full of judgment. Though the fire still burned in his eyes, Validus was taken aback at the diminished fierceness that usually accompanied the first angel.

  “Do you remember what Messiah told the disciple Thomas after He conquered death?”

  Validus stood still below the mighty form of Michael.

  “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed,” the archangel said as he stepped down to stand in front of Validus.

  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” Validus finished.

  Michael looked at Validus, then seemed to look off into the distance beyond the walls of the church. “Walk with me.”

  He led Validus through the back wall of the church and into the thick woods of the camp.

  “Validus, the burden of your mission with Carter is great, particularly because of his unbelief. Do you understand the significance of it? What will happen if you fail?”

  “I believe so, sir. I am prepared to give my all.”

  Michael nodded. “Consider your actions carefully and remember, Elohim highly values the free will of men and women. Without faith, a man cannot please Him. Regardless of the outcome, Carter must come to faith on his own.” Michael’s emphasis of those last three words was his message.

  The archangel continued. “Drew Carter has already seen more than he needs to in order to believe. Do you know what’s keeping him from faith in Messiah?”

  Validus nodded. “The same thing that keeps most of mankind from Him. Pride.”

  Michael stopped near a brook that meandered through the camp, eventually spilling into the York River. The crisp sounds of the water babbling were filled with harmonics that reminded Validus of Zion.

  “Yes. And the only way to penetrate a heart of pride is to break the man.” Michael looked at Validus. “You have done well, but the future of Drew Carter is not cast. You must carry on, and you must prevail no matter the cost. And there will be cost.”

  “Yes sir. I understand.”

  Michael’s wings morphed outward and upward, gleaming pearl-white in the midday sun. The archangel’s gaze resumed the fierce fire of the First. Without another word, he launched upward toward heaven. Validus watched the silver streak arch toward the Puebloan Stairway until it faded away.

  9

  RISKY BUSINESS

  Drew resolved to do his part. He couldn’t afford to let the conflict between the light and dark invaders jeopardize his training. The distraction alone could cost him his life. He owed it to Validus and his team of warriors to remain focused and excel in his training, and that was exactly what he did. It helped that the encounters Validus and his team had with the dark invaders seemed to diminish. Evidently their message to the dark invaders was clear—we will stand our ground.

  The rest of the training at the Farm went very well for Drew. There were moments when he didn’t hold back, especially if he could get away without being seen or drawing undue attention to himself. At the end of eight months of training, Drew and Hadad were selected for an advanced course, whereas the rest of their crew were assigned to operational positions within the CIA.

  “They’re grooming you to be a NOC,” Reed said.

  A nonofficial cover agent, or NOC, pronounced “knock,” carried the greatest risk of all. It was how the United States government disavowed involvement in shady operations outside not only the laws of nations but often outside the moral and ethical boundaries of society. Their missions were often the darkest of all, done in the name of national security without a nation to back them.

  “I still don’t think they trust me,” Drew said. “Either way, you take care, Reed. I hope we can work together sometime.”

  Reed smiled. “Yeah, maybe we can be on the same team this time.”

  Drew laughed. “And I promise not to steal your gun.”

  Drew soaked up another four months of training before he was deemed a fully qualified CIA operative. The strange thing was that he wasn’t given any particularly unusual assignment. In fact, he was honestly quite disappointed. Even though he would be a field operative, a lot of his job would be analyzing intelligence other agents had gathered. He wondered if it had to do with his history. Would he ever be trusted?

  Drew felt strange leaving the Farm. The last four months of training were intense, and the nature of the training, along with the unusual skills that Drew had acquired as a result of the lab accident years earlier, completed him. He had to admit that he was anxious to be on an operation just to see what he could do. He told himself that such thinking was foolish and tried to temper his enthusiasm, but it didn’t work.

  Back in real life, Drew realized that the danger from invader attacks would be just as severe and probably worse, now that they had the minds of reprobate people to work with again. And because he was an agent with the CIA, his interaction with such people could be close and personal.

  He processed in at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, then caught a plane to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the next day, where he would be assigned for the foreseeable future.

  Waiting for him at the airport was none other than Agent Reed. Drew was glad to see his friend, but also a little disappointed. Reed picked up on it.
/>   “Just so you know, I haven’t been given any directive regarding you,” Reed said.

  Drew threw his bags in the trunk and slammed it shut. “And the odds of us being assigned the same field office are…?” he mocked.

  Reed just shook his head.

  “It’s all right. I’m looking forward to working with you, Reed, regardless of what Ross, or whoever, really thinks of me. So much for being a NOC agent.”

  Once they were in the car and moving, Drew wanted to know more about what he would be doing. “So how’s the job? Was the move from the FBI to the CIA a good plan?”

  Reed shrugged. “It’s about the same so far. The only difference is that now I read reports that come from outside instead of inside the US.”

  Drew grimaced. “Sounds wonderful. I guess it beats staring at prison bars.”

  —

  It wasn’t long before Drew realized that Reed hadn’t underestimated the excitement of the job. Their primary mission at the Philadelphia office was to analyze intelligence gathered on foreign militant terrorist groups and ascertain threat levels for an attack on US ground. When 9/11 hit in 2001, the credibility and morale of the CIA took a nosedive for not having stopped it. As a result, budgets were increased, more people were hired, and they redoubled their efforts to stop terrorist attacks before the plans ever made it to America’s shores. It was the primary focus of the Philadelphia office, although it was not its exclusive mission.

  For the next few months, Drew settled into the mundane work of analyzing mountains of intelligence data. If there was any side-benefit, there didn’t seem to be a lot that the dark invaders could use against him, so there was a bit of a reprieve not only for Drew but for Validus and his men.

  During this time, Drew was finally able to spend some time thinking about Ben and about how he would go about searching for him. The problem was that he knew he was still being closely supervised and couldn’t afford to draw attention to his friend. Instead, he turned his focus to trying to determine if the CIA or any other clandestine agency had any knowledge whatsoever of the invaders, either directly or indirectly.

  After months of analysis work, Drew and Reed started being assigned field missions. Twice Drew was sent to Afghanistan to coordinate with an SOG team—a Special Operations Group—and participate in an intelligence-gathering mission regarding the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Validus and his team had no small amount of difficulty keeping the dark invaders at bay on the missions, but that couldn’t be Drew’s concern. He had to do his job and do it well.

  Back in the States, Drew went over the files again, a mountain of intel that he and the rest of the agency had collected on the rising threat of retaliation efforts against the US by ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), Al-Qaeda, and Hamas—three Jihad terrorist organizations. Of significant note was a communiqué from the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence organization, warning the United States of an impending threat by one or all three of the terrorist groups.

  Something nagged at the back of Drew’s mind as he reviewed the intel. He felt like he was looking at a collage of images that formed a larger image, but he was too close to see the big picture. There seemed to be a connection between recent terrorist attacks and threats from distinctly isolated and separate jihadist groups—groups with vastly different local goals. Drew kept coming back to the IGA, the Islamic Global Alliance. Though undirected to do so, he spent a significant amount of time trying to connect the IGA with ISIS, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamic militant groups, but each trail he followed was a dead end.

  Until recently, Islamic groups were independent and disjointed, serving their own interests. Three years ago, a charismatic man named Aashif Hakeem Jabbar had offered a global vision and mission for the fastest growing religion in the world. Over one-fourth of the population of the world now claimed Islam as their faith. Jabbar created the IGA and brought unity to a splintered Islamic people while garnering support within world governments in Europe and in Russia. An ideologically unified group of such magnitude carried great political clout, and Jabbar was a brilliant politician. He maneuvered himself to the front stage of the political arena by denouncing all terrorist attacks, calling for cease-fires, and negotiating territory disputes between nations in conflict. He was an extremely intelligent and strategic leader with a degree in law from Oxford and a master’s and a doctorate from Harvard.

  At first, the CIA, like Drew, aggressively looked for a connection between Jabbar’s IGA and other Islamic fundamentalist groups sponsoring terrorist attacks, but that was abandoned once the investigation dead-ended. Israel claimed there were ties between the IGA and the very terrorist attacks they denounced, but without definitive proof, they were gagged by mounting worldwide political pressure.

  Once Drew’s supervisor, Agent Sloan, discovered that he was investigating possible ties with the IGA, he gave Drew a clear directive that he was to discontinue such investigation and focus on the imminent threat of possible attacks within the US.

  Drew complied and came to the conclusion that three US cities could be potential terrorist targets: New York, Houston, and Chicago. After his presentation, Sloan looked skeptical.

  “This seems inconclusive, Carter, but I’ll pass it on to Langley. If they validate it, they’ll notify the FBI, Homeland Security, and the NSA.” Sloan closed the report. “And now I’m putting you with Reed on the investigation of Andrés Zapata. We believe he is running an illegal arms and drug operation out of San Juan, Puerto Rico.”

  “But, sir, I’ve spent the last six months analyzing this, and I believe this threat to be imminent. Furthermore, specific targets haven’t yet been determined. Shouldn’t we continue on this investigation until the threat is confirmed or eliminated?”

  Sloan handed Drew a new folder stamped Classified. “Our concern is outside the US. It’s time to let the FBI and Homeland Security do their job on this. You and Reed need to review this file, and we’ll brief the op Monday morning. Dismissed.”

  Drew left Sloan’s office and headed to his cubicle. He was frustrated and surprised at Sloan’s directive. He had spent months getting up to speed on international terrorist threats and in one stroke was derailed in an entirely new direction. Why?

  “How’d it go?” Reed asked as he fell in step with Drew.

  Drew shook his head. “It will be passed up the chain if they can validate the threat, and I’ve been reassigned to investigate Zapata.”

  “Hey, you’re a junior agent. You shouldn’t expect more than that. Besides, it sure beats Afghanistan. Puerto Rico has some nice beaches.”

  “Yeah, and a corrupt police force, a failing economy, and crime rates that rival Mexico.” Drew handed Reed the file. “But I’m glad you’re excited about the beaches, ’cause we’re both on this one. You mind reviewing the file first? I need to do some wrap-up.”

  Reed grabbed the file. “Sure. Just don’t poke your nose where it doesn’t belong, Carter.”

  Reed peeled off to his cubicle, and Drew found his. He sat down and faced his computer. New York, Houston, Chicago—all three target rich for terrorists. The attacks on 9/11 were meant to cripple the US government, the economy, and the military. Drew considered the strategy of the terrorists and came to the conclusion that if another series of attacks happened, they would be to incite fear into the hearts of Americans, and the best way to do that was by hitting malls, restaurants, and coffee shops. Places where every American typically felt safe.

  What Drew couldn’t report to Sloan was that he knew why the terrorists were attacking—they were instigated by the dark invaders. It was maddening to be at the heart of protecting US interests and yet not be able to tell anyone who or what they were really fighting. There was no way that these third-world terrorist groups had the technology the invaders had, so whoever was behind it all, the terrorists were simply puppets in their hands.

  Drew’s mind ebbed away from dark invaders and their ISIS and Hamas pawns and turned to Sydney. It had be
en eighteen months since he’d last seen her, but there wasn’t one day that went by when he didn’t think of her, even in the midst of his most intense training. Drew had tried to methodically eliminate Sydney from his thoughts, but it seemed the harder he tried, the worse it got. In spite of his preoccupation with her, he truly hoped she had moved on, because he didn’t want her going through what he was going through.

  If he could determine that she had moved on in life without him, it would free him to move on without her. And even more important, he needed to settle in his mind once and for all if Sydney had any clandestine knowledge of the invaders.

  Drew found himself staring at the CIA database screen, considering the possible consequences of investigating Sydney off the record. After ten minutes of mental deliberation, his need to know overwhelmed caution. His hands tapped the keys, initiating the search.

  She was living in an apartment just two blocks off the University of Illinois campus. It didn’t tell him much, other than she was probably close to finishing up her degree. There was only one way to get an accurate glimpse into her life from this distance. He tapped into her mobile-phone records and began perusing the last month of text messages she had sent and received. There it was—a guy. He went back further and discovered that texts from the guy started about three months ago.

  As Drew read, emotions tore at his heart. She certainly had moved on. Logically he tried to convince himself he was free and relieved, but in his chest, he hurt. He fought his reaction to protect Sydney, but it was impossible.

  He searched the corresponding mobile number and found a Dustin Willis as the owner. A quick search turned up nothing. The guy seemed clean, although his employment history was lackluster.

  Drew shut down the search and tried to be at peace with what he had found, but it wasn’t to be. Why did he feel so stunned? So unrelieved?

  —

  Monday afternoon, Drew and Reed met with Sloan and two analysts from Langley who were investigating Zapata’s operation. A picture of Zapata and three other men flashed up on the large high-definition monitor on the front wall.