The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension (The Second Coming Chronicles Book 1)

by Terry James

  Still, the added miles were significant--particularly as it concerned buffering for defensive purposes.

  He ran his index finger down the page until he found the estimates. The territory had increased from 8,000 to 26,000 square miles. Israeli forces had captured the Sinai, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and Judaea and Samaria, which the non-Jewish world called the West Bank.

  Levi Eshkol couldn’t keep from smiling. The war had given Israel the city of Jerusalem…and the Temple Mount. Maybe not “given” it to Israel, but that great city was now again unified under Israel’s control.

  The smile was slight, and of brief duration, because Eshkol knew the Arab chieftains would never be content to accept their tremendous losses. There were bleak days ahead, to be sure.

  “The call from Washington, Mr. Prime Minister,” the woman said in Hebrew, after poking her head through the door opening.

  He nodded to her, and picked up the phone, then pushed the button that was lit.

  “Hello, Mr. Secretary,” he said in accented English. “How are things there?” He listened intently for several minutes before he spoke.

  “Thank you, Dean. The aircraft performed flawlessly, except for the shootdown. We just don’t know what happened there…”

  He listened to the U.S. Secretary of State talk again.

  “We put your young Marine on the plane yesterday evening. It was to stop briefly in Paris. He should arrive Washington this afternoon.”

  He listened again to Dean Rusk before answering. “Yes. The technology performed, I would say, frighteningly well. In every case, the enemy fled as if they had seen a horde of demons.”

  It had been nearly impossible to call the States for the past 11 days. Finally, Randall Prouse heard the line ring. He hoped--prayed--that at last a connection could be made.

  “Hello,” the voice on the other end said, bringing a broad smile to the archaeologist’s face.

  “Ruthie!”

  “Randy? Are you okay?”

  Ruth Prouse’s question was blurted, while tears came to her eyes.

  “Yes, sweetie…I’m just fine.”

  Christopher Banyon tried not to listen while he peered between the blinds, looking at the Jerusalem streets below the hotel window. He and Susie had discussed how hard it must be on their friend’s wife, not being able to talk with him, except through the few telegrams the Prouse’s had exchanged over these past days.

  Christopher smiled hearing the archaeologist mostly grunt and say “yes” while his wife spilled everything into her husband’s ears. Finally, he spoke.

  “When did he call?”

  Prouse’s question was asked with troubling inflection, and the minister looked to see the expression on his friend’s face.

  “He left his number, didn’t he?” Prouse said.

  He retrieved a ballpoint pen from the drawer on the nightstand beneath the telephone. “Go ahead. Give me the number.”

  He wrote on the notepad. “Ruthie, listen carefully. Try to call him back. I’m not sure I can get through. Have him try to get in touch with me, here, at the hotel.”

  Prouse gave his wife the number, even though he knew she already had it.

  “Yes, Sweetie. Everything’s going to be okay here. I’ll be home next week, God willing.”

  When he finished talking with his wife, Prouse tore the page from the note pad, picked up the receiver again, and dialed the “0”. He gave the operator the number and other required information. He looked briefly at Christopher, then again at the numbers before dialing the final digits.

  “Gessel Kirban,” he said quickly, then listened to the phone line electronic switches trying to make the connection.

  He looked at Christopher again, and spoke while waiting. “He couldn’t get me, so called home. I knew he would, eventually.”

  Prouse’s eyes brightened.

  “Gessel! Where are you?”

  The men talked for the next ten minutes, Prouse doing most of the listening. When they finally hung up, the archaeologist whistled his incredulity.

  “You won’t believe it, Chris. Laura’s husband, James, is alive. They had him in a top-secret area of the complex at Taos, New Mexico.”

  “Her husband? How? He was killed in the crash…”

  “No, he wasn’t. He’s with them now.”

  “With whom?”

  “The three of them--Gessel, Laura, and the Morgans’ daughter. Gessel said something else. He said that the Marine pilot’s father was in the complex. According to Morgan, he was used, like himself, in channeling thoughts through that weird technology they’ve been working with.”

  “Mark Lansing’s father?” Christopher said, stunned.

  “Yeah. Clark Lansing. That’s the name. They wanted to take him, too, but had to leave the complex because a scientist was killed, according to Gessel. James Morgan stabbed him, because the guy was going to shoot Laura, Gessel, and the girl.”

  What did it mean? The man had disappeared, had been missing since 1947. Had vanished without a trace near the place of the Roswell UFO crash incident.

  The thoughts caromed within the minister’s mind, interrupted by Prouse’s words.

  “This is really strange, Chris. Gessel told me some things about the dark human-like things you’ve been talking about, that you say Morgan and that kid, Lansing, have been seeing in their nightmares, or whatever. He told me the things were everywhere in that laboratory, or whatever it is, the secret technology chamber where they’ve been doing experiments. He said the experiments have something major to do with why he and Laura called us, asking us to go to Olivet to pray. He said it all involves the Israeli victory against all those Arab forces.”

  Prouse’s expression changed to a frown of puzzlement.

  “Gessel said they’ve got to get out of New Mexico, got to find a place to investigate the technologies he’s been working with, but has found out he really knows next to nothing about--says he wants us to work with him on learning the truth about what’s really going on with these creatures. These Dimensionals, as he calls them.”

  “Where can we reach them?” Christopher asked.

  “He’s looking for somewhere to move his lab equipment. He’s set up a laboratory that those at the Taos complex apparently know nothing about. But, he’s afraid they’re about to catch on to what he’s doing. He wants to find another place right away.”

  Christopher’s face brightened. “I know a perfect place, if he doesn’t mind cold weather.”

  Mark stepped off the bottom rung of the boarding ramp that led upward to the hatch of the Israeli jet that had brought several diplomats, and him, from Paris to Andrews Air Force Base. He had spent five days being debriefed by the Israeli military, and another two days answering questions for Israeli government officials.

  He had explained that he remembered nothing of shooting down the Mirage with 30 mm cannon fire that morning of June 5. While he wore the PND, he did only what it programmed him to do. He remembered none of it.

  They scolded him, and in the next breath praised him, leaving him as confused as he had been when his co-flyer, Maj. David Rashfer, had first asked why he had shot down the Israeli fighter.

  The Mirage pilot was never found. They had made scores of helicopter searches, but to no avail. The jet was found, in a widely scattered pattern on the barren desert floor. There was no sign of the captain who had flown the fighter. It was as if he had vanished, the investigators had said.

  He was home now, and that was all that mattered. Home was where Lori was, and that was where he wanted to be more than anything.

  “Captain.”

  Two young men in dark suits approached. Mark put the heavy duffel bag he had carried from the plane on the hot concrete of the parking ramp, and said beneath his breath, “Here we go again.”

  Both had their IDs in hand and flashed them for him to see by the time they stopped a few feet in front of where he stood.

  “We’re from Defense,” one of them said.

/>   “We’ve been sent to accompany you from Andrews, Captain,” the other man said.

  “Why the escort?” he asked, a touch of irritation in his tone.

  “We just follow orders, Captain. Will you please come with us?”

  Less than an hour later Mark sat in a small waiting room somewhere in the Pentagon. He thought how easily he had gotten through security at every checkpoint that was designed to prevent intruders from reaching the area where he now sat.

  This was not unlike a doctor’s waiting room, he thought. The industrial-grade furniture, the indoor/outdoor carpet, the magazines on the small table to his right. He picked up and thumbed through several. Time, with Gamul Abdul Nasser’s photograph on its cover, The U.S. News & World Report, The New Yorker…

  He glanced at the clock on the wall across from where he sat. 3:15.

  “They will see you now.”

  A young woman wearing a sharply tailored, though colorful suit, made the announcement with a smile, while holding the door open.

  “May I leave my bag here?” Mark said, gesturing toward his Marine Corps-issue duffel bag.

  “It will be okay there,” she said. “But, if you’re concerned, you can bring it here, and I’ll keep an eye on it.”

  He took her up on the offer, lugging it through the doorway and setting it where she directed.

  “This way, Captain,” she said, leading the way through a series of short corridors. “Right through here,” she said, holding the door for him, and standing aside for him to pass into the large conference room.

  The room was much different than the areas just outside. The walls were heavily paneled in rich, dark wood, highly polished--as was the huge, coffin-shaped conference table’s top.

  “Director Cooper will be with you in a moment,” she said, looking upward at the Marine’s handsome face. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Capt. Lansing! Mark,” Robert Cooper said, bursting through the doorway, his right hand extended.

  “Sir,” Mark took the offered hand.

  “And the flight? Was it smooth today?” Cooper asked, lightly.

  “A little rough over the Atlantic in a few places.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ve experienced much rougher, right?” Cooper said, slapping the pilot on his shoulder.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Like the mission you just completed. I’ll bet there were rough moments,” Cooper said, in his best ice-breaking tone.

  “I was so busy, I didn’t notice.”

  “Right, right! All business when on a mission. And, you took care of business, too, according to every report I’ve seen. Congratulations, on a terrific job!”

  “Thanks, sir.”

  Cooper’s expression became more serious. “Have a seat, Mark.”

  Cooper pulled the big, high-back chair from the head of the conference table and was seated. Mark took one of the burgundy leather conference table chairs near where the director sat.

  “Guess you’re anxious to get back to Miss Morgan?”

  Cooper’s voice continued to have a friendly tone.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be glad to see her, and Mom.”

  Both men were quiet for several seconds. Cooper’s intense, blue-gray eyes narrowed while he looked directly into Mark’s eyes.

  “You know, Mark, the things you accomplished over there must never go beyond a rather tightly defined circle. They are highly sensitive matters, for a number of reasons. World war or peace might be--” he searched for the word, “--influenced for the worse, should the technology be known by foreign interests. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  How could he not understand it? He had undergone everything just short of brainwashing to be made to understand the point. He wanted to blurt the thought, but said, “Yes, sir.”

  “You did everything asked of you. And, I’ve been authorized by Sec. McNamara, himself, to give you this.”

  Cooper stood and walked to where Mark sat. The younger man instinctively stood.

  “You’ve earned it, Captain. And, now I must say… Major!”

  Cooper reached up to the taller man’s neck. He removed the captain bars from Mark’s collar, then reached into his suit coat pocket and retrieved a gold-colored oak leaf insignia.

  He pinned it where the captain’s insignia had been.

  “Congratulations, Major Lansing,” the director said, taking Mark’s hand and pumping it with vigor.

  “Thank you, sir,” the newly made major said, surprised, despite his accomplishments in the Middle East, to have made the rank so quickly.

  “Tell Sec. McNamara, and whoever else is responsible, that I thank them,” Mark said.

  “I will, I will. But, you are the one who’s responsible, young man,” Cooper said, returning to the chair at the head of the table.

  “Now, Mark, I’ve got to tell you something, something that I’m afraid will be--that will be a shock.”

  The Director paused to study the younger man’s face. There was no change of expression, although Mark’s heart jumped to a faster beat. Was it Lori? Had something happened to Lori?

  “You mentioned your mother a moment ago. You said you would be glad to see her again,” Cooper again paused, obviously, this time, searching for words.

  His mother! Something was wrong. Something had happened to his mother!

  “She is remarried, isn’t she?” Cooper asked.

  He said “is.” At least she’s alive. The thoughts stumbled through Mark’s travel-fatigued mind.

  “Yes, sir. She remarried quite some time ago.”

  “Here’s the thing I’ve got to tell you, son. It’s about your father. He’s alive.”

  Jerusalem, June 16,1967

  Randall Prouse was jubilant. He talked while he and Yadin stood looking at the Temple Mount from across 30 yards of open spaces and badly deteriorated streets.

  “This means they should open the digs beneath Moriah, again,” he said, while they watched Israeli soldiers and military vehicles move along the streets, and near the Mount.

  “I think it wise to withhold too much optimism, Randy,” Prouse’s Arab-Christian friend said. “The opposition is terrible in its vengeance. There must be some compromise about the holy mountain, or I am afraid the killing will be unlike any we have seen.”

  “Compromise?” the archaeologist said, his enthusiasm now a bit dampened. Yadin had his finger on the pulse of this city, of the Israeli-Palestinian problems, as few others. Certainly, better than many of the diplomats who flew in and out of the region in their futile efforts at peace making.

  “If there is not compromise, jihad will almost certainly result,” Yadin said, watching a truckload of Israeli troops jump from the back of a big truck and take positions near the Wailing Wall.

  “You think Israel will give the Temple Mount back, now that they’ve won it in war?” Prouse asked, surprise in his voice.

  “Maybe not give it back, but at the very least, share its administration with Islam.”

  “The Islamics aren’t interested in sharing,” Prouse said.

  “Yes, but we live in a strange world, Randy. Pressures on the Jew are never ending--our Bible tells us so,” Yadin said, before turning to walk back into the small Arab shop, the place where they had both agreed to meet that morning.

  “The soldiers are there today, to assure that the Jews are not hindered from worship at the wall, are they not? All should be worshiping on top of Moriah, but, even with Israel now fully in control of East Jerusalem--of the Mount, the Jews must be protected while they worship at the foot of the mountain.”

  The Arab examined merchandise while he talked, picking one thing up to look at closely, then another.

  “If my Arab brothers heard this from my lips I would be instantly dispatched from this earth,” he said seriously, but without fear in his voice. “Nonetheless, what I say is true. The Jews have for too long refused to hearken to Jehovah.”

  The American archaeologist, always an admirer of this man’s c
ourage, never ceased to be amazed by his ability to discern truth. Yadin, a Bethlehem-born Arab, was like the great Jewish king, David--a man after God’s own heart.

  “I am reminded of the many times the Jewish leaders the Jewish people have refused to listen. I am afraid they will refuse to listen yet again to what God has said, through giving them this great victory,” Yadin said.

  “Their own prophet Isaiah said, ‘But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number. Therefore, will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.’”

  Prouse was silent, thinking about how easily, how perfectly this son of Ishmael used Scripture that God gave through the Jewish race.

  “Friend, Randy,” Yadin said softly, looking upward into the much bigger man’s eyes. “Until the Jews, all who will believe, recognize their Messiah, and until that king sits on that mountain, in control of everything, there shall be no peace for Jerusalem…for Israel, for my people.”

  She had never felt so cold. Laura stood in the night air, listening to the connections being made to Israel. Although mid-June, the high desert nights chilled the bones, the cold made worse by the drastic change from daytime temperatures. Only a few hours earlier, temperatures of more than 100 degrees had baked this desolate place. Now the thermometer struggled to stay in the thirties. A wind, uninhibited by anything but distant, monolithic buttes and expansive plateaus stung the skin without let-up.

  Gessel Kirban sat in the Jeep station wagon, behind the steering wheel, watching Laura make the call. He had driven her to the remote gas station to avoid the danger of his own phone line perhaps being tapped. The probability was unlikely, he thought. No one, except certain people within the Israeli government, knew about the private laboratory, which they had funded. It sat beneath plateau 30 miles from Taos and Santa Fe. It had been well camouflaged by desert experts. Still, the security forces--and who knew who else--would be after him, after the four of them.