Prophet Of Doom td-111

by Warren Murphy

  The work went on for the better part of a month. Kaspar grew increasingly sullen as the permanent stains beneath the arms of his jungle jacket grew stiffer and encrusted with salt.

  "My life is not supposed to be like this," he growled.

  As his time in his ancestral homeland wore on, he spiraled deeper into his self-made pit of misery.

  But just before the dig was to end, something happened that would change the course of Mark Kaspar's life forever.

  A new chamber was discovered at the ruins of the temple to Apollo on Mount Parnassus. At first this was less interesting to Kaspar than his next decent American meal, but the team leaders acted as if they had stepped miraculously into another time.

  The students beamed, while older members of the dig handed out bottles of warm wine. The discovery was talked up as of greater importance than it actually was, for although that sort of find occurred with some frequency, whenever a new chamber was discovered it was treated as if it could contain treasures as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Besides, the children were leaving in a week, and their Greek hosts wanted to make them feel as if they had participated in something more important than sifting teaspoons of sand through wire-mesh screens.

  It was too late in the day to continue working. Once the last wine bottle was drained, everyone agreed to meet shortly at the tavern in town to continue the celebration. They would return to the site at dawn.

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  They hugged and shook hands and, with the camaraderie of shared hardship, the entire group marched proudly down the hill, arms draped over one another's shoulders, and singing. Their raucous cadences boomed across the ancient rock-strewed hills, making polyglot echoes.

  Once they were gone, the site of Apollo's former temple was as lifeless as it had been the day after the last worshipful Greek supplicant had come to pay his respects to the sun god over two millennia before.

  Almost as lifeless.

  As the jubilant crowd passed down the road and out of sight, a lone pith helmet bobbed into view behind a pile of overturned stone.

  Once he was certain everyone was gone, Mark Kaspar slipped down to the excavation pit. It was marked with poles tied at the end with bits of flapping white cloth.

  Mark didn't see what the big deal was. It was nothing but a hole in the side of a mound of scrub-covered dirt that might have been dug by a giant prairie dog. Beyond that there wasn't much to see.

  Kaspar noticed that someone had left a flashlight near a pile of empty wine bottles beside the mouth of the cavern.

  He never knew what compelled him to get down on his hands and knees and crawl through the dirt and stone chips into the midnight black opening. But a minute later he found himself crouching inside a chamber that had not encompassed a human inhabitant since before the time of Christ.

  Mark still didn't see what was so fascinating. He

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  played the dusty flashlight beam around the cramped room.

  It was man-made, obviously. The ceiling was cut of large, rough-hewn stone. The walls, as well, were stone. The floor was dirt. Kaspar guessed that the room had filled with sand over the years. It was possible that the original floor was much farther below.

  As Kaspar examined his surroundings, he noticed that the stones in the wall and ceiling were strangely marked. He had heard that the temple had been destroyed by an earthquake around 400 B.C. and he reasoned that the rocks had probably been shattered and then salvaged for the rebuilding. But the pitted areas in the stone were odd. Kaspar peered at the markings. Each came in a series of four. As he studied them closely, he realized they looked almost like...knuckle marks.

  As he moved along the interior of the chamber, examining rock after rock, each etched with the same knucklelike indentations, Kaspar's curiosity heightened. Several yards in he stumbled upon something of recognizable historical value.

  It was a large stone urn, still intact.

  It rested on a rock shelf and was half-buried in two thousand years' worth of settled earth. Excitedly Kaspar brushed the dirt away with his hands, exposing a stone exterior that was decorated with delicately intertwined serpents.

  Kaspar's mind fired.

  He knew that Greece was once a powerful civilization. He knew that historically, powerful civilizations were always, always very wealthy. And he knew that he had discovered something in the ruins of an

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  ancient temple from what, in its day, had been the most powerful civilization on earth. And in that ancient urn had been placed something mysterious that someone back then thought valuable enough to store for safe keeping.

  Ignoring all protocol for a discovery of such magnitude, he pulled the lid from the top of the dust-covered urn.

  And in the sickly beam of the flashlight, Mark Kaspar thought he had unearthed an ancient pot of pure gold.

  With a shaking finger, he touched the glistening yellow substance.

  His hopes were immediately dashed.

  It was powder. A pot full of some ancient spice, probably.

  In disgust Kaspar started to replace the heavy stone lid.

  All at once he felt something slither into his mind.

  The sensation shocked him. He dropped the lid to the ground. It landed on a slab of rock and its edge chipped off a dozen small stone pieces.

  Kaspar watched in wonder as the yellow substance in the urn began to glow brightly in the center of the ruins of Delphi. The strange, powdery residue on his hand flared up in sympathy.

  And a voice inside his mind spoke to him, and it said, You have returned, my peristiarchoi. Your great future is at hand.

  And he accepted the truth of the voice in his excited mind.

  When Kaspar left the ruins, the shelf on which the

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  ancient urn had sat for more than two thousand years was empty.

  The spirit of Apollo's Pythia was weak in the yellow powder.

  Kaspar found it necessary to enhance the strength of the oracles by artificially steaming the powder, just as had been done in the hills of Greece all those years ago.

  Back in America he began harvesting virgins himself, at the urging of his unseen master. The first was a freshman in his English class. He used her in the spare bedroom of his attic apartment and, when she was of no further use to him, he drove her out into the night like a stray dog.

  The last Kaspar had heard, she had been institutionalized, her mind a gibbering blank. But that didn't matter to him. The girl was no more than a vessel. Something to be used and discarded by his master.

  There were other vessels as the years wore on. Kaspar was forced to move from city to city. The Pythia always provided for him, and he never had cause for any bitterness at the life he had been chosen to lead. Fate had led him to Delphi. And it was fate that led him back to his home in Wyoming. It was here, in a dingy boardinghouse room in Thermopolis and through the utterances of the gymnast Pythia—the girl he would eventually bring with him to Ranch Rag-narok—that he finally learned of his great destiny.

  America was a nation where many had gotten out of touch with its Judeo-Christian roots. New Age mys-licism and faith healing had taken the place of a mono-ihcistic religion. The Pythia foretold that the greatest

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  of all Western nations would become the seat of Apollo himself in the dawn of the next millennium. And Telemachus Anaxagoras Kaspurelakos, the high priest of Apollo, would be the herald of the great new era.

  You are destined, Telemachus, it said, to rule the land in which you dwell. The prophecy had sent a chill up his spine.

  But it was only fitting that the god of the new American theocracy have a proper place to reside, a place from which it could spread its influence to the powerful and influential.

  Esther Clear-Seer's ranch was the perfect choice.

  Esther had founded the Church of the Absolute and Incontrovertible Truth with her husband during the 1970s. When he had passed away, she had ne
arly bankrupted the entire church by trying to cash in on the faith of all of her worldwide members. She thought that if she bilked her entire membership in one fell swoop, she could live like a queen for the rest of her life. And so, even as the United States and the Soviet Union were beginning to ease nearly fifty years of tension, Esther had created Armageddon in her own mind.

  She had made a young fortune in the single venture but lost out in the long run. After her predicted apocalypse failed to materialize, members of the International Truth Church finally figured out that they had been had. Church membership dropped off dramatically, and what with all the bills she still had to pay, Esther found that her anticipated windfall was only a passing breeze.

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  It took years to rebuild an acolyte pool productive enough to sustain her lavish life-style.

  When Mark Kaspar showed up at her door with his ancient urn and uncanny stock-market predictions, Esther thought at last she had hit the mother lode.

  With greed, power and corruption to unite them, Mark Kaspar and Esther Clear-Seer were truly a perfect match. And the Pythia's plan for the future of America moved along with flawless rapidity.

  There was only one small problem.

  Mark Kaspar didn't know why the President of the United States hadn't yet responded to his threats.

  Former governor Michael Princippi had assured Kaspar that the leaders of the President's party had informed the Chief Executive that more congressional resignations would follow if the young Sinanju Master wasn't turned over at once.

  In actual fact the sorry truth was that without the Pythia, Kaspar's threat was hollow. He only had minor dirt on two other members of Congress, and the nature of the charges was survivable in the new permissive political climate in America. What Kaspar had done was fire all of his seven major salvos at one time, hoping sheer numbers would force the President to turn over Remo and thus return the essences of Apollo and his Pythia.

  But official Washington had so far refused to take the bait.

  "He's got to respond," Michael Princippi insisted. He wrung his hands as he paced anxiously.

  They were in Kaspar's office in the corner of the abandoned hangar on the Ranch Ragnarok site.

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  "Now that you're a bona fide candidate, he can no longer ignore you," Princippi added worriedly.

  Kaspar had taken out the proper papers and filled out the necessary disclosure forms several weeks before. In a brief statement to the press that morning, on the heels of the congressional resignations, Mark Kaspar had declared himself an official candidate for the United States Senate.

  "He is doing just that, my friend Michael," Kaspar said, leaning back in his leather chair.

  A rap at the door was quickly followed by Esther Clear-Seer herself, who didn't wait for permission before marching into the office.

  "I just caught one of the acolytes trying to take off with Cole's daughter," she announced. She didn't acknowledge Princippi's presense.

  Kaspar leaned forward, peeved. "What happened?"

  Esther shrugged. "No big deal. I had the guards take care of her. She was yelling her head off about being a Fed, but she didn't have any ID in her room." She shook her long raven tresses. "I don't like this, Kaspar. It's getting too weird around here."

  Kaspar seemed distracted by some vague, distant thought. At last he exhaled deeply and slapped his palms onto his desk.

  "Mr. Princippi, would you excuse us for a moment?" he asked.

  Miffed, Princippi nodded his respects while shooting a frosty glare at Esther Clear-Seer as he left the room.

  Once Princippi was gone, Kaspar asked, "You saw my press conference?"

  Esther nodded. "Senator Mark Kaspar. I would

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  have figured that was beneath you." She seemed too weary to give the remark a biting edge.

  Kaspar smiled. "All in good time," he explained vaguely. "You realize that with or without the Pythia, I still have a schedule to keep." A casual shrug indicated that Esther understood something was going on. "There are issues that must be dealt with now," Kaspar explained. "The Senate race being one of those things."

  "You better run one hell of a campaign. Cole just went on CNN, vowing to stay in the race, 'come hell or high water.' Unquote."

  "I am aware of his intentions," Kaspar said. "I had hoped the peril to his daughter would be enough to force his withdrawal. But the Pythia's prediction was strangely vague on that point."

  "Pity for you," Esther said with an unsympathetic grin.

  Kaspar smiled back. "Mr. Princippi has been on the phone with the senator's advance man to arrange a meeting for the two of us. We are, after all, now the leading candidates for the office. When our meeting is over, I want to be certain that I am the only candidate left in the race."

  "You want to off Jackson Cole?"

  "It is rather crude," Kaspar admitted with a shrug. "But at this point we haven't much of an alternative. ft could be days, even weeks, before the one from Sinanju succumbs to the power of my master. It is imperative that I win this race so that my ultimate destiny can be fulfilled."

  Esther sighed. Since this creepy little man had shown up, she had found herself involved in assault,

  kidnapping, extortion and murder. And now she was being set up to assassinate a senator of the United States of America.

  It was as if Kaspar had been born to play power politics. And she had no choice but to go along for the ride.

  Esther sighed. "Just tell me what you want me to do," she said resignedly.

  chapter Twenty

  Smith learned of the impending meeting between Mark Kaspar and Senator Jackson Cole in a news story that was sandwiched awkwardly between a segment on dog grooming and an in-studio "Mr. Chow" wok demonstration.

  The story was brief. As well as mentioning his daughter's abduction and the fact that he was neither going to give up hope for her safe recovery nor allow the tragedy to dictate the rest of his life, the story also stated that Jackson Cole was a resident of Thermo-polis, Wyoming, and that the senator would be making his regular public appearance at his hometown's an­nual spring fair. Political neophyte and pundit Mark Kaspar was also scheduled to appear at the same pub­lic event.

  When the story concluded, Smith placed a call to the White House.

  He didn't know what Kaspar's game plan was, but he knew that Senator Cole was at risk every moment he spent near Mark Kaspar and his Truth Church ac­olytes.

  The President picked up on the fifth ring.

  "Mr. President, are you aware of the meeting be­tween Mark Kaspar and Senator Cole?" Smith asked.

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  "What about it?"

  The President sounded cold, and Smith realized he was still upset over their previous phone conversation.

  ' 'I do not believe it would be prudent for the senator to meet with Kaspar at present," Smith explained.

  "Is this political advice, Smith?" the President asked frostily.

  Smith silently adjusted his tie and pressed on. "I have reason to believe Mark Kaspar is a dangerous individual."

  "You're telling me?" the President said sarcastically. "I've been taking the press and party flak for two days straight over these resignations. Now my staffers are telling me the boys on the Hill have been getting some pretty mysterious phone calls from Prince Princippi."

  "Phone calls?"

  ' 'Apparently his boss is looking for someone named Sinanju or something. Princippi is about as subtle as a mud pie in the face. He suggested to my colleagues on the Hill that they take the matter up with me. Can you believe the gall of this guy? And no one can dig up anything on this Sinanju. Probably some fringe special-interest group is my guess."

  Smith swallowed his horror silently. Kaspar was trying to use the President to flush out Remo. Fortunately, though the Chief Executive had used the services of his two operatives in the past, he had never heard or did not recall the name Sinanju. A blessing for CURE.

  Smith pursed his l
ips. "I believe the man is bluffing, Mr. President," he said after regaining control over his voice.

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  When the President asked him how he could be certain, Smith reluctantly explained the Ragnarok connection and how each of the seven men who resigned had visited the ranch on at least one occasion.

  "There are only two other congressmen who have had contact with Kaspar in the past three months," Smith added. "And it seems reasonable to assume that if he had anything incriminating on them, he would have targeted them also."

  "Or he's got something so toxic he's holding back until he needs to strike a death blow against my administration," the. President suggested worriedly. "We've been doing nothing but damage control up here for the past two days."

  "That is not my impression, Mr. President," Smith said. "I believe Kaspar's hand is played out. There was an incident involving one of my special people. I cannot go into the details, but as a direct consequence Kaspar has become desperate enough to try to contact you, even if it is through a surrogate. And I do not need to remind you, sir, that desperate men sometimes do desperate things. I urge you to persuade Senator Cole to reconsider this joint appearance with Kaspar."

  The President lost his cool attitude. "You sure about this, Smith?"

  "I am certain Kaspar is dangerous."

  The President was silent a moment. "I'll call you back shortly," he snapped.

  He was back on the phone within fifteen minutes.

  "I personally contacted the senator's office," the Chief Executive reported. "Cole's administrative assistant informed me that the senator is adamant about maintaining his normal campaign schedule, even if it

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  means attending the Hot Springs State Fair at the same time as Mark Kaspar."

  Smith politely thanked the President for his cooperation and hung up the phone. He spun around in his cracked leather chair and stared out at Oyster Bay on the other side of Long Island Sound, his face pursing like a wet leather glove.

  He had few options now.

  Remo was nowhere to be found. He had vanished not long after visiting Chiun the previous day. Smith only knew Remo had left after a Folcroft guard reported seeing someone matching Remo's description slipping across the grounds late that night.