Christopher nodded in understanding.
“ . . . well, are you mentioned in Revelation? I mean . . .”
Christopher nodded again, this time in answer to Decker’s question. No doubt the question would have to be answered again and again in the future. “Yes, Decker,” he said. “I’m in there. That is, my role is in there. By deciding to oppose Yahweh and side with the people of Earth, I have fulfilled the prophecies concerning the Antichrist, the Beast, as John called me.”
Decker gasped despite himself.
“But consider the source,” Christopher added. “John has cast me in the role of the villain, second only to Lucifer in my alleged evil. But in reality, I’m guilty only of trying to tell the world the truth about Yahweh — the same thing Lucifer tried to do in the Garden. If that makes me ‘evil’ then so be it,” he continued with resolve. “I won’t shy away from my responsibility or abandon the people of Earth simply because Yahweh calls me names and attacks me with his lies. In truth, I am not anti-Christ! Indeed, I am Christ, I am the Messiah, fulfilling what I began two thousand years ago.[86] And that mission is to tell the world that they must not worship at the feet of a tyrant! My mission is to tell them that they can depend upon and trust themselves. They must believe in themselves and in their own potential for divinity!”
Tel Aviv
People began arriving at Ben Gurion Airport before 6:00 A.M. By 8:30 anxiety was high and tempers on edge, and airport security was limited — a dangerous mix — as Christopher’s plane landed. Someone heard someone else say the plane would be pulling in at one end of the terminal. That was all it took for people to rush in that direction. At the other end of the terminal, someone else thought the plane would be pulling in at the opposite end. Neither was right, but that didn’t matter. The result was stampeding hordes and utter chaos. Others, employing neither common sense nor logic, decided to break through security and run out onto the runway toward the taxiing plane. Not only was it dangerous, it put them far beneath the plane with no possible way to get aboard. Nevertheless, when one person ran out, others followed. Airport security, even Israeli airport security, was no match for the mob.
As the plane rolled to a halt, Decker saw the problem out the window and called to Christopher, who looked out without comment, then phoned the pilot, who anticipated his question. “I’m afraid that until airport security can clear the tarmac, we can’t move from this position, sir,” the pilot said. “If we move now, we risk injuring people on the ground.”
“It’s all right,” Christopher replied. “Just stay where we are.”
“I’ll make arrangements,” Robert Milner volunteered as he picked up another phone.
A moment later Decker spotted a helicopter approaching. “That’s our ride,” Milner said.
“But how do we get to it?” Decker asked.
“We’ll have to rely on Christopher for that.”
Decker and Milner followed Christopher to the front of the plane, where a crew member stood by the door. The young crewman was obviously uneasy with the prospect of coming face to face with a man who, until very recently, had been dead. “I’m sorry, sir,” he stammered, “but we can’t move the plane any closer to the terminal because of the people on the ground. The ground crew has a mobile stairway ready, but if they roll it out with all those people down there, we’ll be mobbed.”
“Open the door,” Christopher directed gently.
“But, sir,” the crewman began to protest, but then thought better of it and followed Christopher’s command.
In a moment the door was open and Christopher stood looking down upon the clamorous and growing mass. Raising his right hand just a little, he said simply, “Peace,” and immediately the crowd fell silent. And then an even more curious thing occurred: All at once the people began to smile, and then turned and walked away. “Now call for that mobile stairway,” Christopher told the crewman, who wasted no time in doing so.
Once aboard the helicopter, they headed directly for Jerusalem and the Temple.
Chapter 17
The Hosts of Heaven
Jerusalem
The immense crowds surrounding the Jewish Temple were distinguishable even from a great distance as the helicopter approached. The several courts were usually a swarm of activity, but now, despite the number of people in the streets, the Temple itself was abandoned. The steps leading to the southern entrance were equally barren, with two exceptions. As the helicopter hovered, Christopher, Milner, and Decker could see two men standing on the steps, both clothed in sackcloth.
Farther away, about three hundred priests and Levites huddled near High Priest Chaim Levin, who stood at a safe distance in a tableau of mock defiance toward the men on the steps. A little farther back, the crowds watched from behind a line of armed Israeli soldiers and police. Reporters from the international news media, aware that Jerusalem was Christopher’s destination, stood ready to cover the event. The unexpected arrival of John and Cohen an hour earlier and the subsequent clearing of the Temple while Christopher was en route from New York only intensified the level of expectation. Into the midst of this, or more precisely between the line of military personnel and the steps of the Temple, Christopher directed the pilot to set the helicopter down.
Christopher was the first to disembark the aircraft, his hair and long robes tossed wildly about him in the swirling winds of the helicopter’s rotating blades, painting a striking portrait for onlookers and viewers as he stood unflinching before the challenge that faced him. Looking out as he waited to exit the helicopter, Decker could see that John and Cohen had expected their arrival.
Once they were all on the ground, Milner signaled for the pilot to withdraw. Standing there face to face with John and Cohen, Decker, who still didn’t know all the details of Christopher’s plan, couldn’t ignore the sudden anxiety that swept over him. Was this feeling the result of animosity borne between him and John two thousand years earlier, as Christopher had told him? Decker wasn’t sure. To Decker’s surprise, despite all else that was going on, Christopher turned to him and put his hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said, and somehow Decker understood that it was.
John was the first to speak. “Hiney ben-satan nirah chatat haolam!” he shouted in Hebrew, meaning: “Behold the son of Satan who manifests the sin of the world.”[87]
“So we meet again at last,” Christopher answered in an ironic turn of the phrase, ignoring John’s comment.
“You are mistaken,” John replied. “I never knew you.”
“No, Yochanan bar Zebadee,” Christopher replied. “It is I who never knew you!”
For a long moment neither spoke, but only stared at each other. Then Christopher dropped his gaze to the ground. “It’s not too late,” he said finally, addressing both John and Cohen. His voice had a sense of pleading, but at the same time the tone indicated that he knew the attempt was in vain.
John smiled and then began to laugh out loud at Christopher’s suggestion. Cohen joined in. Christopher looked back at Decker with an expression that seemed to say, “this is for both of us.” Then, taking a deep breath and with no sign of anger but every ounce of conviction, he looked back at the two men and then shouted above their laughter, “As you will!”
Then making a quick sweeping motion with his right hand, at once John and Cohen’s laughter stopped as they were hurled backward through the air at incredible, almost unbelievable speed, their bodies slamming against the wall of the Temple on either side of the southern entrance. The crunch of their breaking bones was loud enough to be heard throughout the vast multitude and left no doubt as to their fate. Their blood splattered liberally on the wall and remained there as witness of where they had struck. As Christopher brought his hand back down, the two lifeless forms fell and, with a sweep, they tumbled down the steps toward the street below, leaving two broad trails of blood to mark their paths.[88]
Those assembled watched in stunned silence as Christopher, Milner, and Decker swiftly c
limbed the steps to the Temple while the bodies rolled on either side of them. As soon as the crowd realized that John and Cohen were actually dead, a shout went up from civilians and military alike. A spontaneous celebration began and was soon joined by people around the world cheering the news as they watched on television or online or listened on radio. Members of the media quickly pushed forward to get a better look at the bodies.
* * * * *
In Chieti, Italy, a man whose nostrils were filled with the rank smell of burning sulfur and whose heart was filled with the madness by which he had thus far made bloody carnage of all but one member of his family, held a gory meat cleaver above his head and was about to bring it down upon his only remaining son when, as quickly as it had come upon him . . . the madness was gone. Carefully he lowered the cleaver and laid it aside, and there among the dismembered bodies of his family, he dropped to his knees to hold his terror-filled son and wept. In Aleksandrovka, Kazahstan, an old woman choked and gasped for breath as she pulled her head from a barrel of rain water in which she had tried to drown herself. In Gaalkacyo, Somalia, a teenage boy stopped only seconds before striking a match to set fire to his four gasoline-soaked younger siblings.
No longer could anyone doubt the nature of the madness. It was no contagion, as a few skeptics had insisted — not in any normal sense. For not only had the madness claimed approximately one third of the world’s population as John and Cohen had prophesied, but throughout the affected areas, at the moment the two men died, the madness ceased.
Circle of death — final spread of contagion[89]
* * * * *
When they reached the top stair, Christopher turned to the gathering. “No one must touch the bodies!” he shouted, pointing at John and Cohen. “There is still great power within them. It will not be safe to touch or dispose of the bodies for at least four days.”[90] Nodding to Decker to imply that he should reinforce the warning, Christopher turned and, together with Robert Milner, continued into the Temple.
As they had planned before their arrival, Decker remained outside. Pulling a tablet from his jacket pocket, he waited for the press who would, no doubt, descend on him as soon as they finished inspecting and taking pictures of the two dead oracles. Decker was pleased to see that the press were heeding Christopher’s instruction and not venturing too close. There was no need to fear that the priests or Levites would touch the bodies: their laws forbade contact with the dead. The only problem might come from onlookers who for now were held back behind police lines.
Inside the Temple, Robert Milner and Christopher walked side by side. Crossing the floor of the normally bustling Court of the Gentiles, the only sound came from the column-lined portico that surrounded the court. There, animals meant for sacrifices had been brought for sale to worshipers and were left untended when everyone was driven out. A hundred and fifty yards ahead of the two men, the buildings of the Inner Court and the Sanctuary within it towered more than two hundred feet above them.
Outside the southern entrance and framed on either side by the blood of John and Cohen, Decker waited as the members of the press hurried up the steps to find what light he could shed on the events they were witnessing.
Christopher and Milner reached the soreg, the low stone wall that separated the Court of the Gentiles from the inner courts of the Temple. Signs, harking back two thousand years to inscriptions in Herod’s Temple, warned visitors in more than a dozen languages: “No foreigner may enter. Anyone doing so will bear the responsibility for his own ensuing death.” It was convenient that the Temple had been cleared, for the Temple Guard would never have permitted Christopher and Milner passage beyond the soreg without an altercation.
Intentionally going out of their way, the men went to the center passage on the eastern side of the soreg, toward the King’s Gate, to enter. Quickly spanning the distance to the first of three short flights of steps, Christopher and Milner ascended to the Chel, or rampart, from which the massive stone walls of the Inner Court rose above them.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Decker shouted above the reporters’ questions. “I have a brief statement.”
Someone yelled out another question, but Decker ignored it. “Forty-five years ago,” he began, “I was part of a scientific team from the United States that went to Italy to examine the Shroud of Turin, a piece of cloth bearing the image of a crucified man.” In the limited time available, Decker provided a summary of the events that had followed the Turin expedition and which had led to this moment. He told them how, ten years after the expedition, he had been contacted by Professor Harold Goodman, who asked him to witness a discovery he had made concerning the Shroud.
“Professor Goodman,” Decker said, “had discovered that among the samples taken from the Shroud was a microscopic cluster of human dermal cells. To my amazement . . .” Decker paused, still awed as he recalled what he had seen those many years before, “the cells from the Shroud were still alive.” For some, that piece of the puzzle, together with Christopher’s resurrection, was all that was needed to make sense of the whole incredible picture, but though there was an audible gasp, no one spoke. “Tests of the cells showed them to be incredibly resilient and possessing a number of unique characteristics,” Decker continued. “It was using cultures grown from these cells that Professor Goodman conducted his cancer research.
“Unknown to me on that occasion,” Decker revealed, “Professor Goodman had already performed a number of experiments, including,” Decker paused, “implanting the DNA from one of the cells into the embryo of an unfertilized human egg and then replacing that egg into the donor, thus . . . cloning the person whose cells were on the Shroud. From that cloning, a male child was born.” For any who hadn’t yet figured it out, this revelation provided the missing link; for those who had already guessed, it was undeniable confirmation. Christopher Goodman was the clone of Jesus Christ.
It was an incredible story, but nothing else could explain what had happened at the UN or what they had just witnessed on the Temple steps. “That child was named Christopher,” Decker said, adding further confirmation. “He was raised by Professor Goodman and his wife Martha until their untimely deaths in the Disaster. At that time,” Decker explained, “Christopher Goodman was fourteen years old and, having been directed by Professor Goodman to turn to me in case of emergency, Christopher came to live with me. The rest of the story, at least the important parts, you know.”
The inflection in Decker’s voice let it be known that his prepared statement had drawn to a close, and as he returned his tablet to his pocket, he was surprised that no one seemed to have any questions. He needn’t have been, for the reporters had many; they were all still processing what they had heard. Finally, someone in the back shouted, and then a flurry of queries followed.
Yes, he told them, Christopher had really been dead.
Yes, he was indeed saying that Christopher was the clone of Jesus Christ.
Yes, he was also saying that Christopher was God’s son, just as Jesus was. (This didn’t set well with the Jewish reporters in the group, but it wasn’t a point that was currently open to argument.) No one had any reason to suspect or ask for the specific details of that relationship — which Christopher had revealed to Decker on the plane — and Decker had no intention of volunteering them. Christopher would explain all of that soon enough.
“What about his arm and eye?” a reporter called.
“Though Christopher has the power to restore both his arm and his sight,” Decker answered, “he has pledged to not heal his own injuries until he has first healed the injuries of the rest of the world. Until then, his wounds will serve as a symbol of all that must be accomplished before any of us can truly rest.”
“Why has Ambassador Goodman gone into the Temple?” someone yelled. The rest of the reporters fell silent for the answer.
Decker considered for a moment. “I’ll let him answer that question.”
“Will he be making a statement?”
“Y
es,” Decker nodded. “He will be addressing the people of the world on the subject of the destiny of Humankind.”
Model of the Inner Courts of Herod’s Temple. Nicanor Gate is at center of photo, at top of semi-circular steps.
Christopher and Milner passed through the Beautiful Gate into the Court of the Women. Only an hour before, this had been a center of activity. Now it was silent except for the hollow echo of footfalls on the stone floor as Christopher and Milner walked without speaking toward the broad semicircular steps at the western end. Atop these steps, the Nicanor Gate, sixty feet wide and seventy-five feet high, extended far above the walls themselves, forming an arch, which opened into the Court of Israel.
Unlike the Court of the Women, which was open to the sky, the Court of Israel was narrow and roofed and crowded with numerous columns. A series of rooms used for storage and small meetings lined the interior, further reducing the open space.
The third and final court, the Court of the Priests, rose four feet above the Court of Israel. Though adjoining and fully open to the Court of Israel, admittance was permitted to laymen only when bringing a sacrifice. At all other times only the priests and Levites could enter. In the gateway to the Court of the Priests were four tables of hewn stone, on which lay the blood-drained carcasses of a half-dozen lambs and goats, abandoned there when the priests and Levites were driven from the Temple. The smell of blood, incense, and charred animal fat still hung heavy in the air. To the north and south of the gateway stood eight more tables in a similar state.
Near the center of the Court of the Priests, the Altar of Sacrifice rose twenty feet in stair-stepped pyramid form in a series of four immense, unfinished stones, which by commandment had never been touched by metal tools.[91] Steps on the eastern edge of the altar provided access to the upper stones. The capstone, which was called Ariel by the priests and Levites, was twenty-one feet square and, like the stone immediately below it, was seven feet thick. On this stone was the fire of sacrifice, which consumed the burnt offerings. Unattended by the priests since they were driven out, the fire had been reduced to embers.
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