“What do you think happened?” Cheyenne asked.
“I think he was killed. Without a doubt. And I have—I don’t know—maybe forty or fifty other examples of people like this. Important people, some influential and others outspoken, who disappeared during the last twenty years. Some have had their corpses pop up. Let me find one.”
Jazz showed her reports on a woman named Rosalina Garza, who worked as a professor at Harvard University. She had been an outspoken atheist and proponent of expelling Christian bigotry in the country until a dramatic conversion caused her to recant everything.
“This was a public thing like five or six years ago,” Jazz said.
“I remember hearing about it in the news.”
“Yeah, she got fired, fined, even arrested. Then when the smoke finally cleared, she was judged by the public as a racist. She couldn’t be lumped with white supremacy since she wasn’t white or male, but having the public imprison you is worse than being sent to a penitentiary. It wasn’t until a year ago that I discovered—buried and not reported, of course—that her body had been found on the shores of a lake in Louisiana. A place she had no connection to.”
“So you think she was killed?”
“Absolutely. I have lots more examples, and these are only the disappearances. These are not random things I’ve found but a careful and systematic extinction of our country’s Christians. That’s it in a nutshell, pure and simple.”
Or maybe more like nutjob.
“My sources and info mentioned Keith Burne—your father—after he was missing for a couple of days. Same modus operandi. Influential power player becomes a Christian, often in dramatic fashion, and then suddenly goes missing.”
“But you said you didn’t know if he had been killed,” Cheyenne said.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell you with certainty that most of these missing people were killed. It’s just that we know they’re gone. I’ve had the fortune—and the misfortune too—to learn network secrets and tricks. I also have a lot of contacts, most of whom I don’t trust but still sometimes use. This sort of info is better than the kind the FBI might gather. Everything I know, every single piece of data I’ve collected and uncovered, leads to one single person.”
Jazz pulled out a large photograph of Jackson Heyford. “Acatour’s CEO. The great founder of PASK. The most profound revolutionary in technology and business since Steve Jobs.”
Cheyenne could detect the mockery in his tone. “You believe Heyford is secretly killing Christians?”
Jazz put the photograph back. “That’s only one of many things he’s doing.”
Lot and his wife and Heyford…This guy’s spent too much time down in the bunker by himself.
All she wanted to know was the answer to the question that had brought her here in the first place, the one she’d carried like a battle wound every day for the past year.
Where is he?
“The note my father wrote me…When did he write it?”
“Months ago when he and Acrobat set this up.”
“Set what up?”
“You reading that letter and you being right here right now.”
But why? For what reason?
Jazz shifted in his chair, staring down at the floor for a moment, visibly searching for what to say to her next.
“Look, I know this is all a bit much. Acrobat—I tell the truth on the grave of my grandmother, who believed in the blood of Jesus Christ and who I think looks down on me every day with smiles—is the real deal. He is a bona fide prophet of God. Like the kind the Old Testament had. He’s been told to expose the heart of the evil in this world to everybody.”
“And you’re going to help him do this?”
Jazz nodded. “But this is what I know. What I believe. The reason I’m in Acrobat’s life. Look, these preppers have been preparing for the end for decades, and a lot of them think it’s gonna come from some crazy ruler. But no. It’s gonna be God, and it’s been a long time comin’. He’s angry. And look at Sodom and Gomorrah. You don’t want to anger God.”
“People have been saying we’re living in the end times for the last hundred years,” Cheyenne said.
“I’m not talking about Revelation. We’re still in the book of Jonah, except I’m not going to run the opposite way and get swallowed by some whale.”
“Where’s Acrobat now? Can you reach him?”
Jazz shook his head. “I don’t know. Nobody knows, really. Even those working with him. Let me show you something. This is how scared they are about the work we’re doing.”
Jazz typed on the actual keyboard to bring up some videos on the computer. The footage showed firemen putting out a blazing building while police and EMTs were swarming around them.
“The massive bomb blast a few years ago that almost leveled what used to be the historic Chicago Theatre,” Jazz said, then cued other videos showing smoke and the aftermath of what appeared to be some terrorist act.
“More than two hundred people died,” Cheyenne said. “We thought it was 9/11 all over again.”
Pictures showed the splendor of the former seven-story building that opened in 1921. Filling half of an entire block, with a marquee that glowed and showcased the word Chicago above it, the theater once included a grand lobby, mezzanine, and balconies, all resembling something built at Versailles, France, in the sixteen hundreds.
“This is what it looked like thirty years ago,” Jazz said.
The pictures after the carnage showed the front of the building obliterated, as if some giant had taken a large bite out of it.
“I still have nightmares about that day,” she said.
Cheyenne thought of the tragedy three years ago. Her father desperately trying to get in touch with her but unable to with the network cutting off Illinois for fear of a cyberattack. When she finally spoke to him, he was in tears and wanted her to leave the city, fearing that the Incen Tower would be targeted, especially since that would be the most notable building in the state and in the entire country, not to mention the headquarters of Acatour.
“The blame went to the GG,” Jazz said and showed her more articles and pieces on the network. “The white supremacists calling themselves the Goebbels Group. A bunch of Nazi freaks that make former white supremacists look sane. And Acrobat was listed as the mastermind behind it.”
“Was he involved in any way?”
Jazz shook his head as he clicked on new images, including several pictures of Jackson Heyford talking with other men.
“The Acrobat wasn’t involved, and neither was the GG. But your leader—your former leader—was.”
“Do you have some vendetta against Acatour or something?” Cheyenne asked, only half joking.
Jazz gave her an animated and serious look. “Do you believe in any of the 9/11 conspiracies?”
“What? That the Twin Towers were blown up by our own government or something crazy like that?”
“Something crazy like that,” he said, mimicking the mockery in her voice. “I’ve spent a good chunk of six months researching everything from US government securities, to Building Seven’s collapse, to the Pentagon being hit by a missile. Do you know that half the country used to actually believe some of the truth behind these 9/11 conspiracies?”
“A journalist put all of those conspiracies to rest ten years ago.”
“Oh, the whole Kurt West circus? Did you ever think he was purposefully chosen because of his charm and wit? There’s no way he could have uncovered all that information. He’s an actor, one of the many puppets they bring out to spin their evil lies.”
I’ve flown halfway across the country to talk to some guy who’s going to put on his tinfoil hat any second. “So I bet you believe there was more than one gunman who shot JFK,” Cheyenne said.
“Yes, I believe shots were fired from the grassy knoll,
” Jazz said as he stood up. “And, yes, I believe in the 9/11 cover-up. But I’m not a lunatic, and I don’t believe Elvis is alive, nor do I think Lizard People are running the world. We know exactly who’s running this world. And we’re going to expose them.”
“So the Chicago Theatre—”
“They did that specifically to try to shut down the Acrobat. To force him to go away. But all that did was ignite the fuse inside him. Before this, he’d only been sending anonymous messages, asking questions, confronting people online. All under different monikers, such as Acrobat and Reckoner. He already had a good portion of this list.”
Jazz handed her a page full of pictures of men and women with information next to them. “There are forty-two people listed here,” he said. “These are all key people who’ve suddenly died or gone missing. Every single one of them was a believer. And only one of them has been found alive and well.”
“My father,” she said, seeing his face and information among the other names.
“Exactly.”
Cheyenne sighed and handed the sheet back to him. As she looked at him, trying to sort through the thoughts and emotions rising inside her, she felt as though Jazz was a familiar face she had known for years. For the moment she tossed this sentiment aside.
“Even before I began working for Acatour, there were plenty of psychos who claimed everything under the sun about Jackson Heyford. He’s a target because he’s running the biggest corporation in the world. So, yeah, I do believe in one sense he’s running the world. He’s certainly one of the most influential business leaders out there.”
“Are you calling me a psycho?” Jazz asked as he opened his eyes as wide as they could go, along with his wide grin.
“No. I’m referring to people who pull stunts. Like the one a couple of years ago where twenty cows were let loose all over Michigan Avenue. Ever hear about that? A message to the city of Chicago to wake up and smell the coffee.”
Jazz laughed. “Of course. That was Acrobat’s work.”
“How do you— Are you serious?”
“Sure. He was inspired by an Old Testament prophet, a passage about Israel being stubborn as a heifer.”
“A what?” she asked, confused to hear Israel and heifer in the same sentence.
“A female cow.”
She let out an exasperated sigh and then a wry chuckle. “I’m talking to a man using ancient computers in an underground bunker about a conspiracy junkie who releases heifers as a warning about God’s judgment?” Cheyenne let out a louder and more ridiculous laugh. “This is absolute bonkers.”
“I would have said the same thing two years ago. But I’ve seen things with my own eyes, Cheyenne. Not shooters on grassy knolls or explosives under the Twin Towers or even the secret plans behind the Chicago Theatre bombing. The things I’ve seen, the dark things, are the same twisted stuff but on a personal level.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Look, I wouldn’t have trusted Acrobat if I hadn’t met him. I’m suspicious of everyone. Even you being here. I don’t like it. But when I met him and spoke to him, I knew. The Holy Spirit moved in my heart.”
“Did he give you any Kool-Aid to drink at this meeting?”
Jazz turned away from the computer, nodding at her dismissal.
“I met him in a bar, and the first thing he tells me is that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. Instantly he’s got my attention, and I’m like, ‘That’s such a brilliant quote.’ He laughs and says he stole it from Steve Jobs. Then he starts to explain everything he knows about The Thirteen.”
“The Thirteen? What’s that?”
Before Jazz could answer, a heavy pounding echoed in the room.
“What was that?” she asked, looking at the ceiling.
Jazz tightened his lips and then inhaled deeply. “Someone’s knocking at the door.”
“Someone’s what?” she asked. “Don’t you have any sort of security system?”
He shook his head. Cheyenne couldn’t believe it.
“So you have all this down here, and you’re doing this sort of hacking and spy stuff, and you don’t have any sort of device that a third grader could set up showing you have people on your property?”
“Nobody knows this place exists,” he said. “At least they didn’t until I brought you here.”
“Don’t blame me for not having common sense.”
He moved close to her, his expression suddenly cold and threatening. “I’ll only ask you once, okay? Did you lead anybody here with you?”
“How could I? I don’t know who I would lead to what since I have no clue why I’m here and ultimately what’s going on.”
“Good answer,” Jazz said. “At least you know a little more. Okay, grab your bag.”
“We’re not going upstairs, are we?”
“No,” Jazz said, then pressed a button on the side of each computer in the room. “I might not have set up a security system, but there was an escape route already built into this place.”
“Can we use it?”
“We’d better pray we can,” he said.
8.
Cheyenne followed Jazz, this stranger who looked so familiar, this young man spouting strange conspiracy nonsense but somehow making it seem real. Cheyenne kept hearing in her head the hip-hop song from the superstar of the day, License: “Hell-bent to attack, full a hate. Time to repent, react, and relocate.”
“Come on. This way,” Jazz said after stuffing his backpack with a few more things.
A door that appeared to be a closet in the game room turned out to be a secret passage or really just a cement hallway since the entire structure was a secret. Every few yards, long strands of yellow lights were set on each side of the floor, resembling lit-up dashed lines in passing lanes. They walked for about five minutes before reaching another door. It creaked as Jazz opened it.
“It’s been a while since I’ve come here,” he said.
It took him a minute to find the light switch. As a pale white glow filled the bare space, the first thing Cheyenne noticed was a tire almost as tall as she was. A shiny black Hummer was the only thing in this space, facing down what appeared to be the longest garage she had ever seen.
“Climb aboard,” Jazz said, opening the passenger door that looked like a fence gate.
Once he was behind the wheel, he scanned the dashboard to take in everything. Then he peered down the passageway that was plenty wide for the Hummer.
“This driveway goes for a mile or so until we reach the far side of the property,” Jazz said. “There’s another road we can take over there. If, of course, this beast starts.”
“You don’t know if it will start?” she asked.
Jazz smiled. “You know in the movies when people are on the run, and they get into a car, and they try to start it, and it won’t?”
“Way to jinx us.”
“I’m just saying. Otherwise we’ll be sprinting down this. Did you bring your running shoes?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, then pressed the button to start the Hummer. It roared to life, and Jazz let out a big sigh. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Are you going to tell me where we’re headed this time?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “We’ll be told the safest place to go.”
“What about your place? All the computers?”
“Those little buttons I was pushing will wipe them clean in seconds. Completely destroys anything on the machines.”
“Yeah, but all your personal belongings?” Cheyenne asked.
“I have everything I need in my bag. Probably like you.”
The passage was dark, so the Hummer’s lights guided the way. After a few minutes they could see daylight. Once they exited, the bright morning s
now surrounding them caused Cheyenne to squint and shield her eyes, and Jazz stopped the car and scanned the area. They had emerged on the side of a mountain, with the faint clearing of a road winding downward through the white forest below.
“Nobody’s around. Good.” He looked at her with a grin, brushing back a few thick locks from his face. “So are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” Cheyenne asked.
“Ready to try to save the world.”
FOUR
Consider This
1.
The empty space in the brick building on Water Street looked exactly as Will Stewart remembered from when he first fell in love with it. The bookstore had always been a dream. Who in the world would buy a book in a store? He had always known that this outcome was a possibility or, if he was honest with himself, that this was the probability. Yet it had been almost ten years since he opened Ink. The name had changed over the years from The Ink on the Page Bookstore to The Inkstore to now simply Ink. Everybody called it that. Will had always stressed the uniqueness of a brick-and-mortar store in today’s age that slighted the richness of a space dedicated to books made of paper and filled with ink. Those titles would be handpicked with care and love instead of fed to consumers based on manipulative algorithms and machines designed only to make money. His goal wasn’t only to earn a profit but to connect with a community of people.
Now Will stood in the center of the space all alone. The bare walls, the clean floors, the emptiness of it all…The only thing remaining was an open box by his feet. One of those square white storage boxes, the kind you could mark with a pen to remind yourself what you put inside. The sort that was usually accompanied by similar boxes, perhaps a dozen that contained similar things. But out of everything that had been here, this was all he was taking with him. Favorite books, the rare ones, along with the ones he got in trouble for selling, the kind that were supposedly hateful and promoted venom in an already venomous society.
It was only a matter of time.
American Omens Page 9