Joshua sounded the alarm. Several people still resting or sleeping sat up quickly. Others stood up and stretched.
One of them shouted, “What’s the call for all this noise? Don’t you see that we’re trying to get some sleep?”
Joshua paused before speaking, aware that what he had to say could be misconstrued if he failed to be direct. Everyone needs to be aware of what’s going on. The tactics of the Task Force are getting more obvious.
Then another person prodded, “Look, Josh, what’s this about?”
“Speak to us,” a third person blurted.
“I know there has to be a good reason.”
Someone in the back shouted. “Let him speak!”
Joshua felt a tingling sensation. He felt goose bumps on his arms as a sense of security from the Holy Spirit surrounded him. “I’m not sure how many of you know that they captured and sent Yosef to Africa.”
He heard loud gasps.
“They deported Yosef! No way!” a loud voice floated above the murmur of responses.
Judge Collins boldly shared, “Yeah. I brought the news. They denied my appeal to turn him around. Task Force had infiltrated the computerized documents, and made it look like Yosef has been gone a year, only to return without permission.” He lowered his head. “I had a gut feeling they were watching me and I wasn’t comfortable going home. They’re probably tearing my place apart as we speak.”
“What’re you going to do about it?” one of the women asked.
Joshua responded, “I had been so busy trying to strategize a plan to get our friends out. Many of you were aware of the capture of Roya and Solomon and their small children. We’ll think of something.”
“Yes.” Several nodded, looking around to see if others nearby also knew.
“We saw what happened to Solomon. Will someone get his body from that bridge?”
“Some of the group tried, but they were shot and killed,” Joshua answered, bowing his head in sorrow.
“What did you mean when you said you’d think of something? Are you the only one in leadership?” the woman persisted.
“There were officers on site. His body has been rotting up there for nearly a week now. We did rescue Roya.”
“Only a week?” Judge Collins’ face betrayed his surprise. News had been coming in so quickly it seemed like a month.
Joshua sighed deeply. “It feels like a week.”
“So—what happened exactly?” someone in the crowd asked.
“Our first attempt backfired,” Joshua answered.
“Just tell us!” A few shouted in unison.
“These men really think they’re technology gods by keeping tabs on us.”
Judge Collins surmised, “So, they knew you were coming on the first attempt.”
Joshua nodded. “We tried a second time, and it was sabotaged before we even arrived at the location. Then, Isaiah was hit.”
Joshua heard a voice say, “Hit?”
“A bomb went off. Then, I drove to the local hospital to check out Izzy’s injuries, and a sniper was waiting, on top of the hospital building, to shoot at us.”
“How did you get away?”
“The Holy Spirit laid it on my heart to turn the van around.”
“Whoosh,” someone gasped.
“The sniper shot at us even though no one stepped out of the car, but one of our militia shot him down instead.”
There was an awkward silence, a bit eerie for Joshua’s liking.
“We also had a couple moles in our operation.”
“Who?”
“Not important right now. We can’t just welcome everyone anymore,” He paused.
The room went silent as people considered the ramifications of turning away strangers versus their needs for privacy and safety.
“We have to test the spirits.”
One of the women nodded, affirming his response. “Test the spirits by the Holy Spirit because they might be wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
“Isn’t that in the book of Jude?” Judge Collins added.
Joshua turned and pointed at Judge Collins with a smile. “Correct. The book of Jude warns us of false prophets, but it is also false members who may pretend they are one of us. As Paul says in Romans 16, to watch out for those who will cause divisions and create obstacles,” He stopped for a moment, feeling he was sounding too preachy for the babes in Christ in the room. “Yet, they are only fools trying to infiltrate our methods, practices, and feel us out only in hopes to set us up.”
“Who is it?”
“We discovered them while we were in prayer, in our own church, to set Roya and Solomon free from their captors.”
Some responded, “That’s scary.”
Joshua continued, “Before I could speak about our plans, these two men brought Diamond inside, who they claimed was a spy.”
“Diamond Banks, the news reporter, right?”
“Yep. From New York,” Joshua shared. “Yet, we did discover that she was a CIA agent pretending to be a news reporter.”
“Whoa!” the woman exclaimed. “CIA!”
“I recalled meeting her once at Solomon’s house.”
“Met her before this incident,” Judge Collins’ eyes widened as he spoke, taking in the possibilities that they all could have met a ‘wolf.’
“She was his next-door neighbor,” Joshua explained. “Don’t look at me like that—she was just a lost person, lost from the truth, God’s Word”
“Really? figures,” a voice came from the corner, laced with sarcasm.
The group fell silent.
“Regardless of what she said, we prayed on it, and she came clean.”
“What do you mean by she came clean?” Judge Collins wondered.
“She admitted to us how she was recruited to save her own family. It was world government scheming right under our very noses. We have no idea how many people are out there pretending to be patriots to the cause, only to have been planted in place years ago. Their primary job is to create a diversion from the truth of God’s Word.”
“I agree with you! Schemers and dreamers. No respect for freedom!” another shouted.
“Great deception…pretenders,” still another pouted in disgust.
Joshua continued, “But prayer opens doors and gives us answers we could never imagine. Shortly after Diamond came clean, spilling her guts to the twelve of us there, we clearly saw that our two posted officers were the moles.”
“Jesus!” a few shouted.
“These men had been loyal and with us for months, but they somehow were working for the Task Force Special Operations. Can you believe this, Special Ops?” he asked.
The abrupt silence let him know they suddenly became aware that there might be other moles in the room.
“This explains how they knew where Roya and Solomon were at that very hour.”
“Through prayer,” a lady added. Several people around her looked at her with puzzled looks on their faces.
“Plus, the Holy Spirit provided such a well-thought-out plan that we understood ours would not be sufficient. We would’ve never thought of a cathedral as the new location!” Joshua raised his voice.
“But you found them.”
“Not them. Only Roya.”
“What hap?” a young man asked.
“The first attempt was only me, Yosef, Isaiah, Stuart, Diamond, and a couple others, but we were stopped in our tracks, not being able to save them since we were low in numbers. Think there were 13 in total, and only eight of us survived.”
“Like Noah’s story,” someone exclaimed.
“Isaiah didn’t want to risk getting captured either. He’s the big fish in this operation. Isaiah’s my mentor and my spiritual father.”
“We know, Josh.”
“Jonah, swallowed by the big fish,” someone uttered.
“All of our lives are on the line—to protect us from what?”
“We are protecting the rights of the people! Whatever happened to do th
at?” One person yelled.
“Hush and let Joshua continue, please. All of these outbursts are ridiculous! Distractions if you ask me,” an elder said hotly. “Go on, Sonny.”
“I love Solomon like a brother. All of you are my brothers, but he was a remarkable man and his wife, Roya, tells it like it is.”
“True.”
“Shh. Listen.”
“Roya needs your prayers in this hour.” Joshua’s eyes became watery. “I’ll never forget when she came to our organization and snapped. Roya once said, ‘Why don’t you have any women in this organization?’ Then, Roya stirred something in Isaiah where he realized that he should have all races, backgrounds, and genders in our organization. It is about God, not man.” Joshua sniffled and tears ran down his face.
Before someone spoke, he finished sharing his thoughts on this mission.
“Now, I lost my best friend, Yosef.” He stood next to Judge Collins and placed his hand on his shoulder.
With an edge to his voice, he said, “Mr. Collins, here, thought he could keep him in the country.”
“Go ahead and blame it all on me…” Judge Collins retorted.
“No, man, it isn’t you. We’re all at risk of disappearing. Forgive my frustration, okay?”
“Forgiven.”
“Well, to go on, we were defeated.”
“How’s that?”
“I know that Task Force, who takes orders from the world leader, with the tacit blessings of our government, is behind this.”
“You really believe that…”
“They had us on tape at the warehouse, probably showing Yosef, hacking into their system. Therefore, they found an illegitimate reason to boot him out of our country as—according to the propaganda, ‘we keep allowing terrorists into the country.’”
He turned in the direction of Judge Collins.
“Sorry, Judge Collins, that I blamed you earlier. Just being able to articulate his situation lets me see with clarity,” He wiped the sweat from his brow, and lowered his head with remorse.
“It’s okay Josh.”
“I was worried because I didn’t know what happened to him.”
“Neither did I. He called me, when he was at the deportation office,” Judge Collins offered.
“I stopped by his apartment complex before taking Isaiah. Even though the men in the back seats yelled that Isaiah’s heart had stopped beating, I was more concerned about Yosef, because I realized they had managed to hack him,” A lone tear rolled down his cheek and he sniffled. “When he wasn’t there…”
“Okay, man. Apology accepted,” Judge Collins said in a low voice. “I understand. You’ve suffered quite a bit.”
“I also admit to feeling Isaiah was responsible for Solomon and Roya’s lives, even to losing their three-year-old twins. I don’t care what happens to Isaiah anymore,” Joshua said as tears ran down his cheeks.
“Not true,” someone shouted.
“Since I felt we could’ve done more for Solomon and his family,” Joshua continued his confession, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“What. How can you talk like that about the man who started this organization, arranged to spread the gospel to the four corners of the earth, and helped you out, Joshua?” a man hollered.
“Come on. Yes, I no longer am the man I was when I first arrived. A ‘used-to-be’ that now Jesus can use me. Don’t tread on my past,” Joshua’s voice rose.
“What’s your point?”
“But let’s be honest with ourselves right now.”
“Go ahead,” Judge Collins said, egging him on.
“Most of us on the team have lost something in these perilous times.”
“True.”
“We’re scared that we’ll be murdered, mutilated, or next on the list to be destroyed in the public eye like Solomon,” He scanned their faces and observed non-verbal gestures. “Yes, I can’t erase the fact that we’ve lost a few good men.”
He saw a few slight nods.
Others lowered their heads as the rest stared at him angrily.
“Think about it, there’s nothing we haven’t done to get some of you off the streets, and stay in our care, when many of you were suspicious that someone was following you or discrediting your name.”
“I remember…”
“Like the Bible commands us to do—feed the hungry, clothe and shelter the homeless, and care for the sick, widows, orphans, to name a few.”
“We’re to lay down our lives for one another.”
“Speak the truth!”
“And I wanted so badly to help Yosef,” His head rose to the ceiling as if he was staring at Jesus in the heavenly skies. “Lord, forgive me, I’m sorry I haven’t trusted you enough either.”
Joshua paused, surveyed the room, and glared at the people. He argued his points to them, discussing reacting instead of trusting the Holy Spirit. “It was God who handled the last rescue. Not men. Angels were there.”
“Sonny, I’m sorry you’re hurting,” the elderly woman said calmly.
“Yosef’s place was trashed when I got there. I could tell they were looking for any leads on our plans.”
“Whoa. Do you think they found anything?” someone said, sounding scared.
Joshua continued, “They broke his computer, threw his papers and books all over the place.” He gestured as he spoke, “Who knows what they found, but he wasn’t there when we arrived. They even took the chips we reprogrammed.”
“No!” a few yelled.
“I was the only person concerned about his welfare.”
“Not true!” someone screamed.
“Now, I watched the featured story on the news that he was deported back to Africa! He’s gone.” Joshua yelled.
Another person affirmed Joshua’s reactions, “We hear you.”
“What do you expect us to do?” a younger male voice inquired.
“However, Judge Collins did update his records but somehow they still deported him to Africa illegally. Unfortunately, they also are destroying Judge Collins’ reputation with false allegations and accusations on the news feed. The stories seem to smear him with purposely choosing criminals to immigrate here.”
“They can’t do that on false pretenses,” someone exclaimed.
Joshua slapped his forehead from an abrupt thought, “Oh shoot, I just remembered that Yosef had a tracking device on Solomon. It was secretly planted on him. Yosef told Isaiah and me a while back.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Judge Collins questioned.
“Back at his apartment, they did destroy his computer that had the software to keep tabs on Solomon.”
“But Solomon’s dead!” a male yelled.
“We know that. Why you had to say it like that?” the elderly woman said. “But these men were using the supercomputers that IBM created to track us,” Joshua said, speaking quickly.
“So, what did you do if you knew?” a man quizzed.
“We all had disabled our cell phones with GPS tracking devices so they couldn’t track us.”
“Okay, now we are talking…” someone interjected.
“Look at what they’re doing, they want to divide and conquer to turn us on one another.” Joshua spoke boldly.
A chorus of voices rose, “No—oo!”
“Isolation camps will be our next hope.”
“I pray not,” the elderly lady said.
“Or until most of us are willing to receive the mark because we’re tired of fighting the system,” Joshua kept going.
“Are we doing the right thing staying up here?”
“Is this really the way out?”
“What happened to trust in God?” the elderly lady spoke.
“We know that we’ll be persecuted like Jesus was,” Joshua ranted. His thoughts coalesced and his hands articulated his thought process as he put the pieces together for the group. He quoted a scripture from Psalm 31 verse 20, “You hide them in the shelter of Your presence, safe from those who conspir
e against them. Like you, Judge Collins.”
Judge Collins clapped and gave a light nod. “Amen to that, Brother Joshua.”
“Josh, what about those people in Mexico? Where we heard two hundred and fifty thousand were dead, and over thirty-seven thousand were missing?” a woman in the back of the building said.
He shrugged. “Clearly, God’s letting us know the plans of the Task Force Special Operations. With that knowledge, we’re able to judge times and seasons. Only the countries whose constitutions provide the people’s freedom are still without the chip as a primary means of monetary exchange. All of the others, led by other motives, have given into the chip wholeheartedly. It’s why our nation has seen so many people come to our borders. We’ve met robots, drones, and other technological means of interacting with society. Human tissues are being experimented with in spite of ethical concerns. We’re seeing people on television who once were more animated, and discussing among ourselves whether they’ve replaced the original soul or transplanted the person’s mind into a robot. May God take that soul if they’ve been taken against their will.”
“You believe what’s happening is a connection?” someone asked.
“Not positive, but wouldn’t doubt they’re involved.”
“Why?”
“We’re seeing things happening in Venezuela—and other cashless societies. Governments are experimenting. The cost of making and delivering valueless paper and metal is costing more than it’s worth. The jury’s still out on whether it’s really saving any money for their economies.”
“True,” Judge Collins said.
“When we seek the Kingdom of God, we’re in the secret place with the Father through prayer and supplication.”
“He is our shelter.”
“The Lord will reveal their plots and schemes to us, but we have to be careful with our tongues. Our tongues are like a sword.”
The elderly woman spoke. “Yes, speaking either life or death.”
Marked Souls Page 5