Neither Jose nor Styles knew that one of the men in their group wasn’t who he claimed. He was an agent for Boris Petrov.
((((((((((*))))))))))
With Roger Alden dead, the time had come for Boris Petrov to contact his friend in the Russian government. His friend happened to be the Russian President.
Sitting in a snowy park, Boris told the Russian President in a careful voice, “He is dead. His death was filmed on a cell phone, and the video was sent to me.” Boris paused before asking, “We can work together, yes?”
Then he ended the call and began thinking about Lionel. Was Lionel dead or alive? Boris didn’t know. He focused his thoughts on forming a shaky alliance with Russia once more to assist his country in becoming the new world superpower.
“Yes, I will help my country dominate the world and continue the battle from the inside,” Boris whispered, as the icy snow dripped onto his tired body. “The rules of the game have changed. We must change for now. Yes, Lionel?” he asked a man who he had no idea was lying dead in a distant county. “We must change our rules in order to win the battle.”
Boris stood from a frozen park bench, glanced around a white landscape, and slowly began strolling back toward his office with a frown on his face. Roger Alden, the great enemy, was dead. He was killed by the same people who he had hired sinister politicians to protect. But for some strange and alien reason, the news of Roger’s death didn’t please Boris. Instead, Boris’ heart was feeling very uneasy. A dark cloud was on the horizon. He felt it, but there was nothing within his power that could push the dark cloud back. That dark cloud, of course, was China preparing to attack and destroy America and Russia, along with other numerous enemies. Then, they planned to dominate the world.
The last anyone saw of Boris Petrov was him leaving a snowy park. He vanished into thin air. Rumors spread that the Russian government finally assassinated the man, while other rumors stated the Chinese had him.
In truth, Boris went back to his office. Unseen, he packed a few personal items before flying to Russia. He was greeted by a Russian government agent who took Boris straight to the President’s personal residence. Believing he was attending a meeting to form a new alliance, Boris was shot dead.
The rules had certainly changed. When Lionel died, he had the promise of Jesus Christ waiting for him. When Boris died, the promise of eternal darkness waited for him.
(((((((((*)))))))))
Unaware that Roger Alden and Boris Petrov were both dead, Jessica Mayes continued her journey to find President Green. Unfortunately, she was trapped in a rundown house on the outskirts of a small town with Tom, Alvin and Jacob. A fierce blizzard had crippled the three horses her team traveled with. The three horses were lodged in a miserable barn which sat in a frozen backyard. The barn was the only shelter available.
“The horses are going to die,” she worried, standing in a shadow-filled, cold living room while staring out at the blizzard. She listened to screaming, howling winds that sent misery into the depths of her heart. “We don’t have time.”
“We’re no more than three or four hours away,” Jacob promised Jessica. “It’s getting dark. We had to stop for the night. As soon as first light arrives, we’ll ditch the horses if needed and leave on foot.”
Jacob was just as impatient as Jessica. The cold hard truth was that the man was beyond exhausted and didn’t have the strength to travel another foot in the storm, let alone a mile. His body was frozen and weak. His wounded shoulder was crying in pain. And his mind was suffering from lack of sleep.
“We have to rest or collapse,” Jacob told them.
Jessica watched Jacob slide down the living room wall and sit on the floor next to Alvin and Tom who was fast asleep. Alvin was barely awake.
“I...yes, you’re right.” She was feeling on the verge of collapse, too. “I know we need to rest and—”
Jessica stopped talking when she spotted four shadows suddenly leave the woods in front of the house and run across the front yard toward the back of the house. At first, her panic-stricken mind assumed the four shadows belonged to the Red Widows, the motorcycle gang that seemed to be spread out all through southern Pennsylvania and Maryland. They were controlling small towns and staying clear of cities.
“Movement. I saw movement!” she yelled. “Four shadows. They ran toward the back of the house.”
Jacob glanced up to where Jessica pointed at the dusty, frozen living room window. Their hide-away rundown house was located in a very remote part of the woods at the end of a driveway that had been overrun with weeds. The house had obviously been deserted for quite some time, standing empty except for beer bottles and cigarette stains left behind by wandering vagabonds. Who in the world could be outside in the storm, stalking the house? Surely, Jacob thought, no one had followed the three horses to the house?
“We better check, man,” Alvin mumbled in a sleepy voice and carefully crawled to his feet. He held a gun in his left hand, careful not to cause his right shoulder to start bleeding again.
Tom let out a low snore, pulled a brown blanket up to his shoulders, and dropped back into a deep sleep.
“Yeah, we better,” Jacob agreed, and reluctantly forced his legs to work. “Jessica, stay here with the pastor,” he ordered in a weary voice. “Alvin, you and I will check the kitchen.”
Alvin looked at Jessica through the darkening living room. “Are you sure it wasn’t deer?”
Jessica kept her eyes on the blizzard, searching for any signs of movement. Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, she saw the snow turn into a cold, heavy funeral rain. Then she saw a lonely, wet cemetery appear.
“Oh Jack,” she heard a woman standing beside a rain-soaked casket crying, “don’t leave me. Come back. Come back.” Jessica blinked, but the sight of the rainy cemetery didn’t vanish. “Why did you have to leave me alone. I’m so scared.” Jessica watched as the woman, dressed in a black dress, dropped down onto her knees, placed her hands over her tortured face, and began sobbing in grief. “Come back to me. Come back to me.”
Movement caught Jessica’s eye. She turned her head and saw her husband, very much alive, walk up to the woman and bend down to put his arms around her.
“I’m right here. We’ll be together soon,” he whispered, even though the sobbing woman couldn’t hear him. “You have to fight, Jessica. It’s your time to fight for the truth.”
Jessica watched as Jack, who was dressed in a bright glowing robe, kissed the sobbing woman’s head and then vanished into thin air, leaving the poor woman alone in the funeral rain. But before the woman could look up, Tom Braston appeared in the rain, holding a warm Bible and a loving smile.
“We’re all destined to die, Mrs. Mayes,” he spoke in a gentle voice. “You’ll be with your husband in the blink of an eye, even though there seems like a gulf between you now. In the meantime, do as your husband ordered, and fight the good fight. When the fight is over, you will rest. We all will.” Jessica watched as Tom patted the sobbing woman with a loving hand and then vanished into thin air, too.
“Jessica?”
Alvin’s voice entered the funeral rain like a hammer, shattering the sight of the sobbing woman, and brought Jessica’s mind back into the living room.
“Huh?”
“Are you sure it wasn’t deer?” Alvin asked in a tired voice.
“I...can’t be sure?” Jessica answered. “I suppose—” Before Jessica could finish her sentence, a hard boot kicked open the kitchen door.
Jacob placed his finger over his lips and motioned for Jessica to press her back up against the living room wall. Dropping down on one knee, he whispered to her, “Get your gun. Pastor, wake up. We have company.”
Alvin hurried over to the living room doorway and pressed his back up against the divider wall. He waited as Jacob shook Tom awake while listening for any sounds of approaching boots. Instead of hearing boots, the crash of a bottle breaking was followed by fire devouring a path over
old, dry wood. Before anyone could react, a second Molotov cocktail flew into the living room, right where Jessica had been standing and burst into flames.
“Pastor! Up!” Jacob yelled, as gun fire began blazing through the living room window. “We have to move!”
Tom jerked awake and saw the living room engulfed in flames. For a second, he assumed he was dreaming. The raging heat of the fire struck his face and let the poor man know he was awake.
“What is happening?” he demanded, crawling to his feet.
“You in there,” a voice yelled, “thought you won, didn’t you! You were wrong! We’ve been following your tracks! Now you’re gonna pay for killing our boys!”
“The Red Widows,” Alvin yelled in an angry voice and carefully eased his head out of the living room doorway, just enough to see the kitchen consumed in flames. Two men were standing just outside the kitchen door in the snow. They spotted Alvin and started toward him. Alvin dropped down onto the floor and covered his head with his arm.
“Two men at the back door. We’re trapped.”
Jessica began coughing as the flames created heavy, gray smoke in the living room.
“We have…to leave here!” she cried between coughs, dropping down onto her knees. “We’ll suffocate or be burned alive.”
Jessica quickly checked to make sure her husband’s journal, which contained the AI virus, was still firmly tucked into the wide pocket Tom had cut into the inside of the coat. The journal was secure.
“What do we do?” she coughed.
Fight a warm, stern voice ordered Jessica. Fight.
“But how?” Jessica asked, barely finding enough clean air to inhale a single breath.
Fight!
Jessica didn’t know what to make of the voice’s demand. He’d never led her astray before, but how could they fight if they couldn’t breathe? How when bullets were thundering through the living room window?
By now, the living room and kitchen were crackling and the heat almost unbearable. There was no escape. Or was there? No.
Jessica knew that the Red Widows had trapped them in a burning house. There was no way out. The end had arrived.
Fight with faith, a voice whispered into Jessica’s ear. Fight with prayer. Pray, now!
Jessica heard the voice yell in her ear, as if Jack had been standing right next to her in the burning house. Her body turned weak, and she dropped forward. As if with a mind of their own, her shaking hands came together.
“Please, Jesus, we need a miracle. Please, Jesus, save us. Don’t let the darkness win. Please, Jesus, save us.” she prayed, as tears began streaming from her eyes. “Please, Jesus, save us.”
Tom saw Jessica praying, and then began praying himself. “Jesus, save us. Only you can save us, Lord. Only you.”
Preparing to burst through the front door and risk having a shoot-out with the Red Widows, Jacob heard Jessica and Tom praying, and then Alvin joined in. And that’s when something happened that he would never be able to explain to anyone. The front door flew open, as if someone kicked it. Jacob expected to see a cruel motorcycle gang member appear in the doorway. Instead, the storm sucked out all the flames and suffocating smoke the way a vacuum cleaner sucks up dirt. He gaped as the flames and smoke simply disappeared, out into the snow and icy winds. Mesmerized by the sight, he was unaware that the bullets thundering through the living room had stopped. Then, he heard screaming—awful screaming—that sent terror into his heart.
“What?” he asked.
He ran to the front door and eased his head out into the storm. The two men, completely on fire from head to toe, were running through the snow. Before Jacob could react or even process what he saw, the two men guarding the back of the house began screaming. The agonized screams were awful, those of a painful death which would haunt his dreams for years.
Alvin stuck his head around the living room doorway and caught sight of the two men guarding the back of the house. They were completely engulfed in flames, dancing around the kitchen, as if some powerful hand had yanked them into the burning kitchen against their will. The two men screamed and howled in agony, as the fire engulfing their bodies. They dropped and rolled across the floor, but nothing helped. They finally sprawled lifeless onto the kitchen floor and became nothing more than meat for the fire to consume. Alvin watched with wide eyes, and fear in his heart.
“Oh my...” he whispered in a trembling voice.
Jacob watched the two men outside collapse onto the snow and become a burning pile of rubbish. The snow melted around them but did nothing to help the two men put out the fire. He stood motionless, shaking all over and feeling the presence of a Mighty God that had answered the prayers of three desperate, faithful servants.
“Pastor...I...”
Tom moved to Jacob, stuck his head out the living room door, and spotted the two burning gang members.
“I suddenly feel able to travel,” he said in a calm, alert voice. “Jessica?”
Jessica approached the living room window and spotted two burning bodies. She turned her look at Alvin. “Jesus saved us.”
Alvin struggled to his feet, careful of his right shoulder. “Yes, Jesus saved us,” he said, and then smiled from ear to ear, and pointed a thumb toward the burning kitchen. “I watched those two men burn up in the kitchen.” Alvin felt a powerful burst of hope and life enter his heart and let out a mighty shout of praise. “Thank you, Jesus, for saving me! Not just from this fire, but the everlasting fire! Oh, thank you, JESUS!”
Tom turned to Alvin with tears of joy running down his cheeks. A sinner had been saved.
“Amen, brother,” he beamed.
Jacob, who was still in shock, saw the flames that were consuming the kitchen start moving down the short hallway toward the living room.
“We need to get out of here. Hurry! Grab the blankets and food!”
Tom reached out and took Jacob’s hand. “You can keep running from Jesus, son, but He’s not going to let you go,” he said, and then hurried to gather up the blankets, and what food there was left. They managed to run outside with Jessica and Alvin, just as the flames burst into the living room.
“We’ll travel through the night,” Jacob told everyone, stepping around two burning bodies. They made a path toward the rundown barn. “We’ll travel through the night,” he said again, and then grew silent, as the presence of the Lord weighed heavy in his heart.
Chapter 6
Into the War
President Green could not believe his eyes. He grabbed Jacob tenderly and hugged him.
“I wasn’t sure,” he whispered, as tears rolled from his eyes. “I just wasn’t sure, son.”
Jacob wrapped his good arm around President Green. “It’s been a rough, confusing and...strange mission,” he confessed, standing in a private meeting room. His body was about to collapse from absolute exhaustion. “We have the AI virus.”
President Green let go of Jacob and carefully studied the three near-frozen people standing behind Jacob. Three true warriors.
“You have the virus?” he asked, focusing his eyes back on Jacob. “The AI virus?”
Jacob nodded his head and said urgently, “The Chinese are going to attack us, Dad. We have less than twenty-four hours. We have to move.”
“The Chinese are going to attack?” President Green asked in an alarmed voice. “Jacob, explain yourself.”
Jacob quickly collapsed onto a black leather chair at a long wooden table before explaining, “This is the SITREP.” For the next ten minutes, he told the President how the Chinese were planning to attack America. “We have to use the AI virus to cripple them. Now.”
President Green rubbed his chin. “We’re not fully aware of the capabilities the AI virus possesses. Our team is still somewhat hesitant about the virus. The last known report confirms, according to our team, that it can imitate any known system. Override it. Reprogram it. Steal and manipulate. I was informed that the virus does conta
in artificial intelligence, which makes it extremely dangerous.” President Green focused his attention on Jessica Mayes. Jessica stood, shaking and frozen from traveling in a blizzard on the back of a weak horse all night. “My dear lady, you look horrid. Please, rest. All of you, please, sit down and rest.” President Green pulled out a chair for Jessica, helped her sit down, and then assisted Alvin and Tom. “I know the situation is urgent, but...” President Green walked to the meeting room door, opened it, and called out, “I want four coffees, ASAP, and a medic...and blankets.”
President Green waited until two loyal soldiers rushed in with four coffees and four green blankets. After the two soldiers tended to the four newcomers, they assisted a medic that began tending to Jacob and Alvin’s wounds. The medic, thirty-one-year-old Staff Sergeant Rearbanks, came from a long line of military heroes. He carefully checked Alvin’s shoulder first and, with caring hands, inserted a small dose of morphine before beginning the painful work of disinfecting the wound and stitching it up.
“Good thing the bullet went right through, my friend.”
“Yeah...good thing,” Alvin winced, feeling the morphine begin to take effect, but not enough to dull the pain. Staff Sergeant Rearbanks smiled and continued his careful work. Alvin could tell the man was being as careful and caring as anyone could possibly be. “Thank you, my friend.”
Staff Sergeant Rearbanks checked Alvin’s shoulder, and then began applying a field bandage. His sharp red hair stood out like fire, making Alvin think of an angel.
“You’re going to be okay, my friend,” he promised, and then moved onto Jacob.
“No morphine,” Jacob ordered.
“No deal,” Staff Sergeant Rearbanks objected. “I’m only giving you a small dose for the pain.”
Green File Crime Thrillers Box Set Page 46