Black

by Ted Dekker

  The phone was ringing. She’d taken the phone in Tom’s room off the hook last night. He wouldn’t hear it.

  She grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

  “This is Merton Gains. Kara?”

  She switched the phone to her right ear. “Yes. Good morning, Mr. Secretary.”

  “I’m sorry to wake you, but it seems that we have a situation on our hands.”

  “No, no, it’s okay. What time is it?” What time is it? She was speaking to the deputy secretary of state, and she was demanding he tell her what time it was?

  “Just past eight in the morning local,” Gains said. His voice sounded strained. “The State Department received a fax from a party claiming to be Valborg Svensson.”

  A chill washed down Kara’s spine. This was what Thomas had predicted! Not so soon, but—

  “He’s claiming that the Raison Strain has been released in twelve cities including Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta,” Gains said, voice now very thin.

  “What?” Kara swung her legs off the bed. “When?”

  “Six hours ago. He claims that the number will be twenty-four by the end of the day.”

  “Twenty-four! That’s impossible! They did it without the antivirus! Thomas was right. Has any of this been verified?”

  “No. No, but we’re working on it, believe me. Where is Thomas?”

  She glanced at the door. “As far as I know, he’s sleeping next door.”

  “How long has he been sleeping?”

  “About eight hours, I think.”

  “Well, I don’t have to say it, but it looks like he may have been right.”

  She stood. “I realize that. You realize that this could have been prevented—”

  “You may be right.” He wasn’t the one who’d doubted Thomas. She had no right to accuse him. What was she thinking? He was the deputy secretary of state for the United States of America, for heaven’s sake!

  “If this new information turns out to be right, your brother may be a very important person to us.”

  “He may be or he may not be. It could be too late now.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  She hesitated. Of course they could talk to Thomas. They were powerful men who could talk to anyone they wanted to. But they’d taken too long to talk to him already.

  “I’ll wake him,” she said.

  “Thank you. I have some calls to make. Bring him down in half an hour. Will that be enough time?”

  “Yes.”

  The line clicked off.

  Kara got halfway to the bedroom door and stopped. Half an hour, the secretary had said. Bring him down in half an hour. If she woke Thomas now, he’d demand to go down immediately. Besides, he’d hardly slept a decent stretch in over a week. And if he was dreaming, which she had no reason to doubt, then every minute of sleep—for that matter, every second—could be the equivalent of hours or days or even weeks in his dream world. A lot could happen. Answers could come.

  Six hours ago, Svensson had released the virus. It was a mind-bending thought. She should wake her brother now, not later.

  Right after she used the toilet.

  Carlos had heard enough. He hadn’t anticipated hearing their reaction like this, but he found it quite satisfying.

  He twisted the knob. Cracked the door. The sound of breathing.

  He readied his gun and slipped in.

  Thomas Hunter lay on his back, sleeping in a tangle of sheets, naked except for boxer shorts. Sweat soaked the sheets. Sweat and blood. Blood? So much blood, smeared over the sheets, some dried and some still wet.

  The man had bled in his sleep? Was bleeding in his sleep. Dead?

  Carlos stepped closer. No. Hunter’s chest rose and fell steadily. There were scars on his chest and abdomen that Carlos couldn’t remember, but nothing to suggest the slugs Carlos was sure he’d put into this man in the last week.

  He brought the gun to Hunter’s temple and tightened his finger on the trigger.

  He couldn’t resist a final whisper. “Good-bye, Mr. Hunter.”

  38

  Rachelle was wrong.

  Thomas did not eat the fruit forever.

  He only ate it for fifteen years. Not once in those fifteen years did he dream, but then, in the worst of times, when they didn’t think it could possibly get any worse, just as the boy had foretold, Thomas dreamed again.

  And when he did, he dreamed that a gun was hovering by his left temple. Three words whispered menacingly in his ear: “Good-bye, Mr. Hunter.”

  THE JOURNEY CONTINUES WITH RED . . .

  Coming

  Full Circle

  It’s amazing how clear hindsight is. If only our foresight were as clear. If we only had been able to see then what we see now, we could have purchased a hundred thousand shares of Google and become gazillion-aires. If only, if only, if only. But every once in a while—for reasons beyond our understanding—we make decisions that might as well have been made with clear foresight even though we had little at the time.

  Such was the case with my penning of the Circle Trilogy—Black, Red, and White—in 2003. I won’t lie; much of what’s happened since was in my mind way back then. But not everything . . . not by a long shot.

  The whole idea for the Circle Trilogy began during a time of meditation when I saw a crystal clear image of a man diving into a lake and breathing the water: not ordinary water, but the essence of God Himself. The man trembled in the folds of intense pleasure.

  That was it.

  I threw myself into expanding this image into a tale that I called The Song of Eden and submitted it to a reputable agency. The story was summarily rejected.

  So I retooled and rewrote and resubmitted, this time with an agent who believed in what I was doing. He submitted the new and improved story to a dozen publishers, and they all passed, saying it was too edgy for the intended market.

  Over the next few years I went on to publish a handful of novels with Thomas Nelson that quickly gained acclaim. Armed with renewed confidence and Thomas Nelson’s full support to write whatever I desired, I returned to The Song of Eden, completely overhauled the story, renamed it Black, and resubmitted the fresh manuscript as Part One of a trilogy.

  I still remember waiting for that Come to Jesus phone call all writers either dread or beg for after turning in a manuscript. What is it: thumbs up or thumbs down? If it’s thumbs up tell me, tell me more, and don’t stop telling me.

  If it’s a thumbs down there has to be a mistake. Reconsider, repent, return, and restate.

  In the case of Black the call was from then VP of Marketing and now Publisher of Fiction at Thomas Nelson, Allen Arnold. And it was the former kind of call, the kind you live for. But this time Allen took it a step further. “Ted, what do you think about publishing the entire trilogy, all three books, in the space of one calendar year? We’ll call it The Year of the Trilogy. Can you do it?”

  Intoxicated by the flattery, I made a show of bemoaning the effort he was asking of me, but then gave up the charade and cried out my response. Yes! Of course!

  Six months later I was still slaving over Red, swearing that if I ever made it through the next few months I would never agree to such an absurd notion again.

  Little did I know.

  My objective in writing Black, Red, and White was to retell redemptive history by mirroring it in another reality while keeping the reader firmly rooted in our own world. I didn’t want to write pure fantasy: rather an amalgamation of thriller and fantasy that incorporated intense pacing with weighty exploration of truth.

  But not everyone at Thomas Nelson was as enthusiastic as Allen Arnold. I remember being told by one member of the team that publishing this series could very well sink my career. Why? Because nobody read this kind of story.

  The prediction crushed me. But I was growing used to rejection by this point, and rather than folding up my books and going home a defeated storyteller, I went where my heart led me. I began to work on an expansion
of the story by plotting out what would eventually become Project Showdown: Showdown, Saint, and Sinner.

  By the time the trilogy was released, we all began to realize that instead of not being read as some had predicted, the Circle Trilogy was striking a chord with a whole new group of readers. A large group at that.

  The ideas were larger than me. Thousands wanted to chime in. So we launched The Circle, a virtual gathering place at teddekker.com to discuss the stories. Fifty thousand joined over time, and their thoughts led me to consider an even further expansion of the story. After all, plumbing the depths of our own redemptive history isn’t a task easily handled by three measly books. Nor six.

  And so was born the idea of not three books, not six books, but ten books to flesh out the full story. It would be called The Books of History Chronicles. Three series, each dependent upon the others, yet each completely independent. Stories that twist in and out of each other like grapevines before the harvest. You can read any of the three following series first or last, but it is best to read the books within each series in order.

  The Circle Trilogy –Black, Red, White

  The Lost Books –Chosen, Infidel, Renegade (May 2008), Chaos (May 2008)

  Project Showdown –Showdown, Saint, Sinner (October 2008)

  In addition graphic novels are now available for the Circle Trilogy, with plans for the rest to come out in graphic format in short order.

  As I write this short history on The Books of History Chronicles, I have just begun writing the final book of ten, Sinner, and the interconnection woven throughout all ten books is amazing to me. I had my plans at the outset; sure I did. But this is no simple linear story your grand-mother cuddled up next to the fire to read.

  This is a labyrinth of wickedness and destruction and pleasure and, above all, love, because in the end it’s all just one big, mind-bending love story, isn’t it?

  It’s as if the books had their own story to tell, and I’ve come along as the scribe chosen to pen them. A confession: I just learned this year where the worms in Showdown actually came from. I should have known, of course, it makes perfect sense. All the signs were there.

  I’ve also learned why Thomas was allowed to cross realities. And why Billy wrote that one innocent little statement that started the whole thing in Showdown. My family thinks I’ve lost my noodles because each night I come bounding out of my dungeon, giddy like a child having discovered one more nugget in this saga of ours. The further you get the better the discoveries become.

  Four years have passed since Black, the novel that so many within the publishing world said would never work, was published with the full support of Allen Arnold. Today more people are buying the Circle Trilogy on any given day than any other novel I’ve written before or since.

  I once told Allen that I was born to write these chronicles. Admittedly, their writing is only a small part of my life. But if I was born to write them, then in a small, small way you may have been born to read them. We, like the stories themselves, find ourselves interconnected in this wonderful thing called the story of life. You are part of my history and I am a part of yours. And this, my friend is what it means to come full circle.

  Welcome to the Books of History.

  Welcome to the Circle.

  Ted Dekker

  IT BEGAN IN A

  COFFEE SHOP IN DENVER.

  NOW IT SPANS TWO REALITIES, TEN NOVELS, AND THREE GRAPHIC NOVELS

  WELCOME TO THE CIRCLE . . .

  AN EXCERPT FROM CHOSEN

  beginnings

  our story begins in a world totally like our own, yet completely different. What once happened here in our own history seems to be repeating itself thousands of years from now.

  But this time the future belongs to those who see opportunity before it becomes obvious. To the young, to the warriors, to the lovers. To those who can follow hidden clues and find a great treasure that will unlock the mysteries of life and wealth.

  Thirteen years have passed since the lush, colored forests were turned to desert by Teeleh, the enemy of Elyon and the vilest of all creatures. Evil now rules the land and shows itself as a painful, scaly disease that covers the flesh of the Horde, a people who live in the desert.

  The powerful green waters, once precious to Elyon, have vanished from the earth except in seven small forests surrounding seven small lakes. Those few who have chosen to follow the ways of Elyon now live in these forests, bathing once daily in the powerful waters to cleanse their skin of the disease.

  The number of their sworn enemy, the Horde, has grown in thirteen years and, fearing the green waters above all else, these desert dwellers have sworn to wipe all traces of the forests from the earth.

  Only the Forest Guard stands in their way. Ten thousand elite fighters against an army of nearly four hundred thousand Horde.

  But the Forest Guard is starting to crumble.

  AVAILABLE NOW IN THE YOUNG ADULT SECTION OF BOOKSTORES EVERYWHERE