Mark of the Two-Edged Sword

by K A Bryant

  "I would have taken this guy to Jerry," Caleb says to me.

  "Who is Jerry?" I ask.

  “Never mind, a joke.” Caleb mumbles.

  I lead them to the special elevator and press the coded sequence. The doors opens and a seat for two bolted to the floor is in the elevator.

  "Please have a seat." I say to Caleb and the Archbishop.

  "Thank you, Chen, it’s good to see you." says Caleb.

  He smiles at me just as he did as a boy. I think he liked our meetings because it meant he could release his anger. In his eyes, I see a man in transformation. But, he still needs prayer.

  The elevator doors shut but neither he nor I release our gaze until the doors seal. My work tonight is done.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  "I saw you in a dream. On the train," I say.

  "And I, you," the Archbishop replies. "What will you do, young David?"

  "Clever, David and Goliath. Testing my Bible knowledge?" I say.

  "I kept it simple. Be grateful it wasn't Habakkuk."

  "Yes, that would have stumped me. The eighth book of the twelve minor prophets. His personal struggle understanding injustice. It would have definitely fit," I say.

  He's smiling. That's a first.

  "I see those years at the monastery weren't wasted."

  The elevator descends then stops. The rear wall lifts, our seat turns around and moves smoothly down a sterile white corridor for a few feet then enters another elevator. A panel closes behind us and a small sign flashes, 'Stay Seated'. A infrared scanner does a body scan pans over us, probably checking for weapons. Then the small sign flashes, ‘Exit’ and the elevator doors open to a corridor that with two open double doors with two guards on either side.

  We step out of the elevator, to the right, a door. It opens and a young man walks out, holding his cell phone up to the ceiling and several uncomfortable assistants all made to sit in a large waiting room.

  "Damn. No signal," says the young assistant. He notices the Archbishop. "Oops. Excuse me, Father."

  He walks back into the room where all assistants are seated in chairs that circle the room. They are clearly going through device withdrawal. The heavy door shuts.

  "What do you think I should do with the drive once I get it back?" I ask the Archbishop.

  "Destroy it, Caleb. It holds no good thing. Remember, you can't fight spiritual warfare with carnal weapons. I suggest you pray."

  "You think that will help against real bullets, or that thing they created?" I ask.

  He leans in discreetly and whispers in my ear.

  "Oh, ye of little faith. Your father believed for you despite the doctors. Born three months early. Now, look at you."

  I can't help but relax when I talk to this man. He's disarming.

  "Your world must be so simple," I say.

  "My world stares down the face of evil every day but holds hope. There is nothing simple about that."

  Wilkes did a good job making this look like a peace talk in the media, hiding the location, but it still didn't stop the media from sniffing out the location.

  Media bundles got as close as they could to the building outside. Down here, in some underground conference area, it feels like everyone is held hostage. They look miserable.

  I can't help but think what sort of trickery, manipulating or threat Wilkes had to use to get these diplomats to agree to come here. Yet, here they are.

  Walking through the two open sterile white doors is dwarfing. The lights shine from the ceiling along the perimeter. Creating shadows every few steps. The lighting in the room is dim with leather seats set facing a rounded white shining stage. Heads of state from all over the world are seated with no formality. They sit where they chose and most of them chose to sit in the front around the stage no doubt to get the best look possible. After all, the front says prestige.

  The ceiling is a dome with a fresco painted in it. Three large screens hover above. The Archbishop and I sit as close to the doors in the back as possible.

  Exactly at 7:00 p.m. The lights around the room dim further. A spotlights illuminate the stage. There is a door in the center of the stage Wilkes sure wants an entrance. I'm not surprised. He's a center stage kind of man.

  There he is. Wilkes steps out, trying his best to look serious. I can tell he's desperately trying to hold back a smile. He walks into the center of the round stage. The seats form a giant 'C' around the stage. It's cold. Basic seats and no windows. The walls are shadowed from widely spaced high hat lights. It's dark in here. It feels like we are beneath a mountain. The room feels angry. I don't know everyone’s name or what country they rule, but I know angry when I see it. And they look angry.

  I recognize the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I've seen her in the news. That looks like the President of France, I recall him congratulating the President after the elections. What is that? A slight rumbling above. That's not what you want to hear when you are near snow-covered mountains.

  "Welcome. There is no pretense here, only truth," says Wilkes. "Every leader in here knows what it is like to watch your people die in war. Die for your country at your own requests.

  “I know this feeling. Ladies and gentlemen, the United States has a new way to war-"

  "You say 'we' yet, your President is not here," yells an irate leader from his seat in the front.

  "I speak for the President. You know my position. We have worked for decades at world peace and I've seen first hand that it's a waste of time. There is one thing you all understand. Fear. We have a new way to war. Let's get to the point."

  Wilkes takes a small fob-sized black remote out of his pocket and presses a button. A curtain opens revealing a large monitor. Then the sound of high heeled shoes walking across the shiny white stage. Gretchen?

  She stands beside him. Why does he look surprised?

  "Ladies and Gentlemen, we call it, The Beaston. Please, my dear, elaborate." Wilkes embraces her briefly, then steps aside.

  The screen monitor shows video of attack missions, the men marching into battle and then, their bodies stretched out on the ground. Some unidentifiable.

  "Certainly," says Gretchen.

  She is certainly not the feeble, overly emotional woman in the apartment in Italy. Clever actress. She is comfortable there.

  Her classic red lipstick lends the air of sophistication, accentuating her graceful hand movements. Hard to tell she's warped.

  "What does every war have in common? Death. It is inevitable in war. The Beaston is a new way to war. The Beaston is tried and true. Dedicated. Impervious to atmospheric changes, not given to emotional irrational actions."

  She steps forward, walking to the front of the stage with her toes just touching the edge. I can see the flicker of passion for this in her eyes. It was a birthing moment for her. One I desperately want to end. But, not yet.

  "It follows instructions implicitly," she says, "but holds the capability of deduction, thermal sight capabilities, examines structures and can strategically plan its own attacks, predicting its prey's behavior. Remarkable really. It's a skill it has practiced in real life circumstances out in nature... it would be interesting to see it practiced here."

  Wilkes looks at her, bewildered, but holds his composure. Everyone begins to look at one another. A sense of vulnerability just filled the room.

  "You see, Secretary Wilkes and I agree that we need a new way to war. However, I believe the problem is not with the people. It's with the leaders."

  Chatter rises from the crowd. The Canadian President seated in front of me turns to the German Prime Minister.

  "What does she mean?" says a leader. "I'm leaving."

  She turns to Wilkes, removes the small black device from her pocket and holds it up to him. Just like her to dangle it in his face. Wilkes taps his right suit pocket. She must have taken it from his pocket when they embraced.

  "My love, you didn't recruit me, I recruited you," Gretchen says to Wilkes.

  She press
es the button and a glass sphere rises from the stage, trapping Wilkes in the middle of it. He drops his cane and rushes toward her but the glass sphere rises quickly and separates them. Wilkes beats his hands on the glass.

  "Behold. A brilliant contraption designed specifically to contain the Alpha Beaston. Quite tricky getting it in there. An elephant's worth of tranquilizers. Anyway, you are safe, for now. The cylinder glass is impenetrable, bullet proof also. In the center, the opening to – well, for lack of a more sophisticated word, the pit. If I press this tiny button, the floor slides open within the cylinder and well, you can deduce the rest."

  "Dear God," I hear the Archbishop murmur.

  Wilkes’ leg weakens, his balance gives way. He leans onto the glass.

  "I'm leaving too," agrees another President.

  Several presidents stand. Gretchen presses another button and the doors behind us seal tightly.

  "Gretchen, what are you doing?" yells Wilkes.

  She ignores him. What's she doing? I adjust myself in my seat. Gretchen walks back and forward on the stage with ease.

  "You are in no danger. Your cell phones won't work, don't bother. You don't really know who I am. But, in time, you will."

  Wilkes is beating desperately. He looks like a forgotten bug on the inside of a window.

  "Gretchen! Let me out of here! You hear me..." yells Wilkes.

  She continues as if he is non-existent.

  "This is just a demonstration," says Gretchen. "I want your cooperation in ridding this earth of your problem and ours. The ones who disrupt our peace and pull on the earth’s resources. Christians, Jews, your impoverished, whoever takes without giving. Anyone who can't bow."

  "Intolerable!" yells a leader, standing. "He said this was a courtesy introduction of a weapon for peace. Who do you think you are? I'm leaving this atrocity."

  "Dear Prime Minister, everyone, if you please, beneath your seat, something I think you'll be quite interested in. Please. You've come all this way. Indulge me. Your fingerprint unlocks your personal live video. Direct your attention to the large screens above. Your video will appear in a section on the screen."

  Her gown swings as she struts across the stage completely confident. A Prime Minister standing in front of me pulls out the device. He’s angry and stood to leave. I can hear him grunt under his breath.

  "Go ahead," says Gretchen, seeing their reluctance. "DO IT. You will not be disappointed."

  'Place your thumb here' is on his screen with a small box beneath. I watch him place his thumb on the box. His name and country name appear, then, what no man wants to see. An image that makes him sit.

  "Take a good look, ladies and gentlemen, at a new way to war." Says Gretchen.

  Wilkes has slouched onto the floor. He looks frail. He begins searching his pockets. Gretchen walks up to the glass cylinder separating them and pulls his little silver pill box from a pocket in her skirt.

  "Looking for these, my dear?" Gretchen holds the pill case up to him.

  Wilkes closes his eyes. She played him well. She turns her attention to the audience again.

  The Prime Minister in front of me looks at her with a rage in his eyes.

  “I will kill you for this!” he says.

  I look to my right, the Archbishop seated beside me has clasped his hands and shut his eyes. He looks like he's sunbathing on a beach without a care in the world.

  On the large monitors, individual video’s begin to pop up. Like a security camera each video showing what is on every leader’s hand held device. Now I know why he sat.

  A body camera is getting inching close to a child. He's no more than four. Sleeping in his bed, teddy bears beside him. It must be his son. He is trembling from rage.

  "You don't know what you've just done!" he says. His teeth grinding. His hand begins to tremble the longer he stares at the monitor.

  "I know exactly what I've done. I've gotten your attention. All of your attention." says Gretchen.

  "You have just started a war," he says. "Remove your man now and I may-"

  She turns her back to him and holds her arms up and two more massive screens descend each from the ceiling. A collage of each leader’s most loved person being stalked unknowingly by a very limber creature wearing a body camera.

  "-You will re-think that."

  A leader to my left holds his device, seated, wide-eyed, helplessly watching a body camera approaching his wife from behind. She can't see it. She's reading in a chair in front of the fireplace, holding a glass of red wine in their bedroom. But it is not the presence of the approaching danger that dropped his jaw, it is the presence of another man in the room. Two glasses of wine.

  "Bastard," he grumbles in rage.

  The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom closes her eyes, her hand resting on the device she placed face down in her lap. She opens her eyes and turns it over. I can see her press her thumb on the device. Her image appears on the large screen.

  In her image, a moving body cam leaps from a tree over infrared security beams, softly lands on the ground beneath a window. Her son.

  A birthday party. He's talking and dancing with his girlfriend. Birthday balloons whirling around the room surrounded by friends. The danger approaches.

  Wilkes’ turns his anger to the crowd who isn’t doing anything to help him. They didn’t want to come anyway.

  "GET UP, YOU IDIOTS! SHE'S MAD! STOP HER! Gretchen, stop this madness, I-" yells Wilkes.

  "You are a dead man," Gretchen says to Wilkes. "You think they will help you? It is because of you that they are here. Be silent."

  "It's not real," the Italian President says. "Recordings. They must be!"

  The British Prime Minister has tears in her eyes.

  "No. It’s live," she says.

  Another speaks out.

  "It can't be. No one would be so crazy to dare threaten all of us like this. It is suicide!"

  Gretchen ignores them. The noise of a motor opening a door begins. She pressed the device and a circular trap door on the floor beneath Wilkes begins to slide open. It is drowned out by a deep-throated growling.

  The room falls silent. Wilkes shuts his eyes, his hands still on the glass, he turns his head, afraid to look backward.

  "This weapon has a unique gift given to it by its genetic composition. It can tell who its enemy truly loves and can hunt that person, and only that person."

  A Prince from the Middle East is seated in the row in front of me. His eyes are glued to the large monitor with the image on the screen showing a body camera emerging from water in the dark of night behind a young lady laughing romantically, embracing a young man. A large diamond engagement ring glistens on her finger.

  It must be his daughter, just beginning life. It descends, the camera submerges under water and it swims around their feet effortlessly with her giggles heard muffled. His rage is building. I can hear him breathing heavily. However, like everyone in the room he is helpless to stop it. He watches while comments of outrage fly from the leaders toward Gretchen.

  One particular leader, a few seats away from me is watching the monitor above Another camera walks through a woman's apartment, with boxes of baby items scattered on the floor, delivered by mail. More than six months pregnant, diamonds and gifts trail across her dresser, she prepares a bath, humming and rubbing her belly lightly. Family photos displayed on the night table, but no wedding ring is on her finger, yet the hand holding the device has a wedding ring on it.

  "...unlike the public, it can't be fooled," says Gretchen.

  "You can't do this," says the Prime Minister with the young son, "they are innocent."

  Gretchen glances at a ring on her finger and answers him.

  "The unique characteristic of true leaders is that they are always willing to die to protect others, but won't let others die to protect them. They are leverage to me. Nothing more. You will make your choices now. Are you a true leader? If you can put aside your political ideologies, together, we can cleanse your r
egions, if not, others will take your place."

  "This is outrageous! Don't fall for it, images only! Let's get out of here!" yells the Prime Minister.

  He heads toward the doors when he is stopped by Gretchen's words.

  "Images. Really Prime Minister?" Gretchen presses her device. "Look at your image now. All of you look, see what an image looks like."

  On the large screens, all the other images disappear leaving that Prime Minister's image alone enlarged on the screen.

  He looks at the screen. It is his bedroom, a warm glow of the large stone fireplace warms the room with a fiery light. His wedding photo in oil painting hangs above with fresh flowers beneath it on the mantle. The body camera turns from the fireplace and the snorting breath of the hunter is heard whiffing the room, detecting her scent, like a dog smells the air.