“Sounds like good advice to me,” Rachael replied. “You know the book of Psalms you returned to me? My mother always used to tell me that there were few men who had more challenges, failures, and triumphs than King David. She said she could always find a psalm which would encourage her no matter what the circumstances.”They were both silent for a few minutes. Then in a soft, clear voice she began to recite a psalm her mother had taught her:
“YHWH, how are they increased that trouble me! Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah. But thou, YHWH, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto YHWH with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for YHWH sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about. Arise, YHWH; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth unto YHWH: thy blessing is upon thy people. Selah.”
As the final words of Psalm 3 hung softly in the air, Rachael got up and stepped into her sandals. She turned to go, and Zane said, “Thank you, Rachael, for that . . . and thank you for listening.”
She smiled. “Good night, Zane. Don’t let the seeds of doubt grow in your heart. ‘Trust in YHWH with all thine heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct they paths.’”
As she walked away, Zane prayed a silent prayer. Father, help me to have the faith of David. My own understanding is lacking, Father. Please don’t let these seeds of doubt grow and bear fruit. Direct me in your paths. I ask you in Jesus’s name. Closing his computer, he got up and returned it to his car. Walking the dim path to his tent, he turned in for the night.
Chapter 47
In the morning, Zane was back at the pile of dig debris. To his surprise, a brand-new full-sized wheelbarrow was sitting by the pile. Zane smiled to himself. It looked like Rachael had graduated him from the kiddy-barrow.
Filled to capacity, the new wheelbarrow was a real challenge to maneuver up the trail to the waste dump. By noon, Zane had caught up to the sifters; his pile was gone. His legs and arms were tired and sore, but he was happy. He loved the feel of his tired hands and legs. Hard physical exertion always made him feel alive.
With a contagious smile, Zane walked over to the sifters and stood there watching them work. Each sifting table had two members of the dig team sifting through small stones and clumps of hard earth. Rachael was working two tables over to his left. The table he was standing at was occupied by an older lady and middle-aged man.
“Have you found anything interesting today?” Zane asked.
Without looking up, the lady replied, “Only a few pieces of broken pottery and a couple of beads. Yesterday, though, we found a prutah.”
“What’s a prutah?” Zane asked, interested.
“A small bronze coin minted by the Roman procurators. During the first Jewish revolt some were even minted by the Jews themselves. A loaf of bread would cost approximately ten prutot.”
“Are they rare?”
The woman replied, “No, they are not particularly rare as far as coinage goes for that era.”
Zane watched them work for a few more minutes before wandering to Rachael’s table. Rachael worked efficiently through the debris, her shapely hands moving with skill through the rough dirt and gravel. Loose earth smaller than a quarter-inch fell through the screen into a wheelbarrow underneath. The larger rocks and debris were sorted until she was satisfied nothing had been missed. Then she dumped the larger debris and rocks into another wheelbarrow.
After each table had been sorted, both wheelbarrows were dumped in the pile Zane had been working on the last two days. Those wheelbarrows were then taken back to the dig site for loading and exchanged for more excavations from the dwelling. The process went on and on in a seemingly endless cycle.
Rachael finally looked up from her sifting.
“I am finished with the pile for now. What else needs to be done?” he asked.
She glanced over at the place where the pile used to be and looked back at Zane. “Looks like you put your new wheelbarrow to good use. If you want, you can help us sift here after lunch, or you can start hauling the larger debris.” She pointed to a pile of rocks and larger stones about a hundred feet away. This pile came directly from the excavations at the dig site. They were large enough that no sifting was required. The pile was half again as large as the first pile had been.
Shrugging his shoulders, Zane said, “Looks like I have my work cut out for me there. I’ll tackle it after lunch. Thanks for the wheelbarrow, by the way. I like it much better than the other one.”
With a challenge and a bit of humor in her expression, Rachael indicated the new wheelbarrow and asked, “So what do you call that type of wheelbarrow, Mr. Harrison?”
“Well,” he replied facetiously, “it doesn’t quite measure up to a full sized man-barrow, so I guess I will have to call it a girl-barrow.”
“What exactly does a man-barrow look like, Mr. Harrison?”
With a straight face Zane replied, “Well, where I come from we call it a dump truck.” He laughed as Rachael rolled her eyes.
Dismissively, she replied, “I’ll see you after lunch, Mr. Harrison. Then we’ll see how many loads of rocks you and your girl-barrow can take up that hill this afternoon.”
For the next two days, Zane hauled load after load of rocks and large debris. He only saw Rachael at a distance, as the pile was some ways from the sifting tables. The past four days of work were beginning to tell on him. He had pushed himself extremely hard, and he could tell he needed a good rest. Tomorrow would be Friday and his last day of work at the dig site. By lunchtime tomorrow he figured he would be done with the larger pile. Then, finally, he would try his hand at sifting. He had done two men’s work the past four days and was satisfied with his accomplishment.
Ruefully, he realized he’d gotten a little soft the past couple of years at college. He had several small blisters on his hands and one very large one on his right foot. To be fair, he had pushed himself harder than normal. Was he trying to impress someone? he asked himself. He hadn’t consciously thought of it that way, but he supposed he was trying to impress Rachael. That was food for thought. Why was he trying to impress Rachael Neumann? She was nice enough, but impress her?
Okay, he admitted. His mild interest in her had grown a little over the past few days. She was clearly good-looking, hardworking, and intelligent. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Enough of that nonsense, Zane. You’ll be gone in a few more days and will forget about her. Yes, and she was a good listener, gave good advice . . . you sentimental fool. You’re losing it. You’ve only had one decent conversation and you’re thinking like this? Man alive, Zane, get ahold of yourself.”
Shaking his head in genuine disgust, Zane put down the wheelbarrow for the day. Weary and sore, he slowly trudged up the hill to his tent. Taking off his work boots, he gingerly inspected his blister. He had seen worse. A few minutes in the cool waters of the Galilee might sooth the burn. Putting a clean pair of socks on, he slipped into his boots once again, tucking the untied laces into the sides. At the edge of the water he said down, took off the boots again, and gingerly placed his feet into the waters. “Yes, that feels really nice,” he sighed. The water soothed his burning blister and cooled his tired feet.
Looking out across the lake, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was near here that Jesus walked upon the water. Was it near here that he told the disciples to cast in the net and they drew out one-hundred-and-fifty-three fish? And why did the Scripture mention precisely one-hundred-and-fifty-three? Was it just a random number, or was there some symbolic significance to it? He laughed to himself. “Buddy, you have plenty on your plate without trying to explore other mysteries of the Bible.”
Closing his eyes, Zane tried to relax and enjoy the peace
and quiet of the moment, shutting out all other thoughts. Finally, his feet sufficiently cool, he pulled them out of the water, and after they had dried, headed up to his tent and much-needed rest.
* * *
Rachael had watched Zane go about his work since the moment he arrived. One thing Zane Harrison left no doubt about was that he was a hard worker. In fact, she had never seen anyone work as hard as he had over the past two days. He worked with single-minded effort and more often than not with a pleasant expression on his face. He genuinely seemed to enjoy the effort.
She had noticed his slight limp this afternoon, but other than that, he had kept up his brutal pace. She guessed he would be done with the large debris pile sometime tomorrow morning. The volunteer coordinator had informed her he would be leaving Sunday. Frankly, she would miss his striking figure driving his “girl-barrow” up the hill. She laughed.
She had seen a lot of volunteers come and go over the past couple of years, and young Mr. Harrison stood out among them. Too bad he lived so far away—he seemed like a person it would be worth getting to know better. Rachael finished with her dig journal and turned out the small light. Lying down on her cot, she soon fell asleep.
Chapter 48
Phoenix, Arizona
Sam sat at his computer looking at the results from his virus. So far, the virus had identified thirty computers using the Anaj encryption software. Eight were in the US, three in the UK, four in Israel, and sixteen in the EU and Africa. He decided to wait another week or two before he passed the information along to David. Right now, he was trying to track down the precise location of each IP address his virus had returned.
Sam was living dangerously, and he knew it. He was confident his hacking of the Ukrainian computer was not traceable back to him. However, he knew that whoever was using this clandestine network would not hesitate to kill him if they found out he was tracking them. Sam weighed the risks and decided he had better take some extra precautions to protect his data just in case. First, he would set up another office far away from this one, not associated with his current business. Then he would duplicate all his systems at that location. He would only work the Ukrainian angle from there. It would be expensive, but well worth the precaution. He had years’ worth of work and valuable client data stored on his servers, and he did not want to lose it should things turn south.
As Sam sat back in his chair, he looked up at the picture hanging over his desk: David, Zane, and himself on their last climbing trip together in Zion National Park. Sam missed those days and wished they could get together more often. They had made a good team, the three of them.
Looking at the picture, Sam had an inspiration. He now had several million dollars in cash, thanks to AQES. He wondered if David and Zane would be interested in becoming partners in a security firm. With David’s connections to law enforcement and the intelligence community and his own connections to the corporate security industry, they could expand into a global security firm. He knew Zane did not have the same background, but he was extremely intelligent, hardworking, and loyal. Sam smiled to himself. Wouldn’t that be something, the three of them back together again. They could call their new firm Tricore Security, or Trident Security or Tri-Global Security. He would think about it some for a few weeks, and if after some prayerful consideration he still felt good about the idea, he would approach David and Zane. Tri-Global Security—yeah, he liked the sound of that.
Chapter 49
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Darius Zarindast stood looking out through the wall of glass separating him from the panoramic view before him. The perspective from thirteen hundred feet was spectacular. What a difference the months had made! He no longer saw the hazy desert of Dubai, but the lush green fields of an oasis.
In cooperation with the government of the United Arab Emirates, Aquarius Elemental Solutions had begun cultivating large tracts of desert on the outskirts of Dubai. The UAE was on track to becoming the first Arab nation in the Middle East to be agriculturally self-sustaining. In the distance, fields of wheat, barley, and other crops were being grown for the first time. In a few months AES would be harvesting enough grain to feed many of the mouths in Dubai.
Darius knew the Middle East would never be the same again. Unfortunately for many of the innocent down below him, great suffering must first come—so that once and for all, they could throw off the shackles of the Order. The sacrifice was necessary, he told himself, the death of millions so that billions would finally be free. He gritted his teeth, his anger flaring. The Order had made this necessary. It was the only way.
He laughed with cold humor, his thoughts turning to the present state of his global empire. He had borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars using AQES stock as collateral. The greedy bastards had stood in line to loan him the money. The Order thought they owned him now. To be sure they had not gone about it directly, but their hand was in it through their extensive financial associations. He was just playing out the rope they would hang themselves with. What was the saying bankers used? “Loan a man a thousand dollars and it’s his problem. Loan a man a billion dollars and it’s the banks problem.” Well, they had a serious problem now. They just didn’t know it yet.
Turning away from the window, Darius walked across his office and sat back down at his desk. With a few clicks of his mouse, he had a summary of all his financial transactions. So far Dylan had followed the plan flawlessly. AES was the largest corporation in the world. Despite the fact that Darius gave most of their gross sales income away to the Aquarius Fund—or more likely because of it—their stock price had continued to increase steadily since they had gone public with their technology.
It was mid-April, and currently AQES traded at $139.40 a share. Over two billion people had taken part in his private placement share offering so far. They had another six months before the offering closed. By that time, Dylan estimated over 4.5 billion people would have taken advantage of the ten dollar shares.
In Iran, the shares Darius had given to the Iranian people were being sold at a moderate pace unbeknownst to the Iranian people. Since very few people in Iran had access to a brokerage account, the government had decided to first sell the shares and then disperse the proceeds to the people. To this end, an escrow account was set up into which they placed all the proceeds of the stock sales. Once all the shares had been sold for the best price possible, the government of Iran had assured Darius the monies would be dispersed. At the current pace of sales, they would be finished selling their shares in late September. That was cutting it kind of close, but he hoped his brother knew what he was doing.
Turning from the window and the green vista below, Darius once again opened File 13. The next name on his list was Charles Thomson. Thomson’s story was entwined with Benjamin Franklin’s. Born in 1729 in Gorteade, Ireland, Thomson, age ten, came to America with his three brothers. Because their father had died at sea on the journey to America, they all became separated when they landed, and Charles was taken in by a blacksmith of New Castle, Delaware.
In 1774, Charles Thomson was elected secretary of the First Continental Congress. He retained this position through the existence of the Congress until 1789, making him the one contiguous member of the Continental Congress. It was Thomson who was responsible in large part for one of the most famous symbolic displays of the number thirteen in history.
Due to the obvious use of thirteen in the Great Seal of the United States, Darius had researched the seal’s origin. He knew many conspiracy theorists claimed that the reverse side of the seal, with its unfinished thirteen-level pyramid, was originally the seal of Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati. Darius could not find any credible evidence to support this claim. All evidence indicated their symbol was not the unfinished pyramid under a watchful open eye, but just a point within a circle. Darius considered it a moot issue anyway. The point within the circle was still a primitive symbol representing the eye or phallus, as well as the astrological symbol for the sun. These symbol
s were all built around the same concept of procreation and renewal, the most basic catalyst for mankind’s evolution toward enlightenment.
Darius looked at the date on the dollar bill in his hand. Surely, no date in the past several centuries held more symbolic significance for the Order: 1776 marked the founding of the Illuminati and a major leap forward in the enlightenment of mankind, as well as the symbolic date for the beginnings of the new American republic. As the Latin phrase at the bottom of the seal stated, Novus Ordo Seclorum, or New Order of the Ages. Darius had learned that many adherents of the Enlightenment philosophy had believed the founding of the United States represented the beginnings of a new golden age in the evolution of mankind, the beginnings of the utopian ideal. No one was more cognitive of this vision than Benjamin Franklin. His enthusiasm and charisma were great factors in the development of early American enlightenment.
While Franklin’s original design for the seal was not chosen, his influence was a great factor in the final design through the work of Franklin’s long-time associate, Charles Thomson. Three committees had worked on a design for the Great Seal. The first committee was appointed in 1776 and consisted of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. They never came up with a seal which Congress could agree upon. It was not until 1782 that a third committee finally approved a design. The third committee consisted of John Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Elias Boudinot. They appointed the heraldic expert William Barton to work on a design, and just five days later he returned with an idea. The pyramid on the reverse side of the seal was borrowed from the continental fifty-dollar currency designed by author, artist, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Hopkinson, in 1778. Barton’s variation on that design featured a thirteen-level unfinished pyramid with a palm tree on the summit. In ancient Egypt, the date palm (Phoenix dactyifera) and the bennu bird were given the same hieroglyph and were often considered synonymous. Both these symbols represented the phoenix and the idea of renewal or regeneration. This design Barton later changed to just the open “eye of providence” over the unfinished pyramid.
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