In His Image

by James Beauseigneur

  Faure didn’t respond; he was distracted from the conversation by one of the documents in the stack of papers. Poupardin knew the look and waited silently as Faure examined it. After a moment, Faure began to glance through the rest of the accumulated stack and picked up the conversation exactly where it had left off. “Yes,” he said, smiling. “That couldn’t have worked better if I had planned it.”

  “A few more fortuitous circumstances like that and you might have gotten China’s support without having to—”

  “Fortune is a very uncertain ally, Gerard,” Faure chided. “Besides, we do not have the luxury of waiting for fortune to strike. Mark my words, if a new secretary-general is not chosen within the next six months, I’m convinced that the Security Council will vote to do away with the position altogether and have the responsibilities permanently rotate among the Council members. We must make our own fortunes.” Poupardin nodded in agreement. “What about the Chinese situation?” Faure asked.

  “You’re scheduled for dinner with the new Chinese ambassador tomorrow night. I’ve prepared a briefing packet for you.” Poupardin handed the packet to Faure. “I don’t think you’ll find anything outrageous there. Our intelligence on him indicates he’s basically a reasonable man. He doesn’t expect any promises. His main criterion in selecting a new secretary-general is simply that the candidate be willing to give a fair hearing to China’s position.”

  “Well, I think I can convince him that I’ll be all ears,” Faure smiled.

  “Of course,” Poupardin continued, “since he’s not asking for anything, we can’t really count on his support. But if you can convince him you’d be the kind of secretary-general who’s willing to listen, I think you can at least count on him not to oppose you.”

  “Excellent,” Faure said, as he put the papers back in a pile on his desk. “Then I’d say we made a pretty good trade for Ambassador Lee.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about Kruszkegin?”

  “We’re watching his schedule closely for the right opportunity.”

  “Be sure you clear it with me before you authorize any specific action. We can’t afford any mistakes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, if there is no more pressing news,” Faure said, as he opened his brief case, “I picked up a few videos for you while I was in Paris. They came very highly rated.”

  “These look great,” Poupardin said, as he took the disks from Faure and eagerly examined the photo collage on the cover of one of the disks. “We can watch these when you come over tonight.”

  “It sounds like fun, Gerard, but I promised Suzanne and Betty I’d take them to dinner when I got back,” Faure said, referring to his wife and daughter. Poupardin was obviously disappointed. “I’m sorry, Gerard,” he said, and then looked at his watch. “I suppose we have a few minutes right now, if you’d like.”

  Poupardin smiled and went to lock the door.

  Ambassador Lee’s replacement was a much younger man in his early fifties. His stamina for the responsibilities of his new office would soon be tested. As the Security Council reconvened, they tasted the first bitter fruits of General Brooks’ ultimatum and the resulting blockade at the Pakistan-China border. Forced to take up fixed positions to enforce the blockade, UN troops had quickly become the targets of sniper fire and guerrilla attacks by Pakistani forces. The Pakistani government officially condemned the attacks, stating that the attackers were independents, not associated with the Pakistani army. They also took the opportunity to reiterate their position that since the blockade was not in the host country’s interest, the UN forces were not acting within their charter or in accordance with the original invitation from Pakistan for the placement of troops within its borders. They went on to explain that since all available Pakistani forces were engaged elsewhere, there was really very little they could do about the guerrilla attacks.

  Far worse than all of this, however, were the threats of a rogue Pakistani militia called the Pakistani Islamic Guard. According to the reports, the Islamic Guard, fearing that the war would soon swing in India’s favor, had planted nuclear devices in eight major Indian cities. Though it seemed unlikely the Guard could have acquired nuclear weapons, the magnitude of the threat compelled the Security Council to take them seriously. The Guard’s demands were straightforward enough. First, all UN and Indian forces must leave Pakistan, and second, for good measure, India must surrender the long-disputed Jammu-Kashmir province to Pakistani control. Prime Minister Rajiv Advani would consider neither demand, and thus far was satisfied to hurl insults and counterthreats.

  28

  The Power Within Him—

  The Power Within Us All

  The wilderness of Israel

  IT WAS JUST AFTER DAWN. Robert Milner acted as navigator while Decker Hawthorne drove the rented Jeep through the mountain pass on their way to meet Christopher. In the Jeep Decker had brought food, bottled water, and a first-aid kit. His thoughts alternated between worry about the condition in which they would find Christopher and anticipation of what Robert Milner had told him in the lobby of the Ramada Renaissance forty days earlier. The barren countryside brought back memories of Decker’s own wilderness experience eighteen years earlier, when he and Tom Donafin had made their way through Lebanon toward Israel before being rescued by Jon Hansen. He recalled the powerful shift of his emotions in that moment as he lay on the ground, tangled in barbed wire, with three rifles pointed at his head, expecting to be shot, and then suddenly recognizing the UN emblems on the soldiers’ helmets and realizing that he and Tom were safe.

  In the past, when Decker had recalled that moment, he’d thought of it as just another case of being in the right place at the right time. Now he could not help but believe it was much more. Had it not happened, he would not have met Jon Hansen, and he surely would never have become his press secretary. And had Decker not worked for Hansen, who later became secretary-general, then Christopher would not have had the opportunities he did to work in the UN and later to head a major UN agency and then become a UN ambassador serving on the Security Council. Surely this was more than chance.

  It occurred to him that this chain of events had not just started on that road in Lebanon. There was the destruction of the Wailing Wall, and then he and Tom were taken hostage; and before that, there were the events that had allowed him to go to Turin, Italy, in the first place. Had he not gone to Turin, he certainly never would have been called by Professor Harry Goodman on that cold November night to come to Los Angeles to see what Goodman had discovered on the Shroud.

  As he continued to think through the chain of circumstances that had brought him to this point, he tried to find the single weakest link in the chain, the seemingly least important event that, had it not occurred, would have averted any of the later events.

  “Some things we must assign to fate,” Robert Milner said, breaking the silence. It was as though he had been listening to Decker’s thoughts.

  “Uh … yeah, I guess so,” Decker answered.

  The days leading up to his return to Israel to find Christopher had been some of the most anxious of Decker’s life. At times he could barely concentrate on his work as he counted the days until Christopher’s return and anticipated what would follow. Milner had talked about a time so dark and bleak that the destruction of the Russian Federation and the Disaster would seem mild by comparison. Somehow the horror that might otherwise have consumed Decker at such a thought was mitigated by the hope that Milner also foresaw. Certainly, to this point, nothing cataclysmic had occurred, though the unrest in India and Pakistan might well foreshadow such events. Decker realized he would have to accept the bad along with the good. He just didn’t want to dwell on it, especially if, as Milner indicated, such events were inevitable.

  Ahead on the trail, a shapeless form began to take on definition. Had Decker noticed it before, he would have thought it was a bush or a tree stump or perhaps an animal, but until this moment it had blended so well in
to the background that it seemed an inseparable part of its surroundings. “There he is,” said Milner.

  Decker pressed a little harder on the gas pedal. As they got closer, he began to wonder again in what condition they would find Christopher. The last time they were together, Christopher had told Decker he was beginning to wonder whether in the final analysis his life had been a mistake. Now, forty days later, he was—according to Milner—the man who would lead mankind into “the final and most glorious step in its evolution.”

  In another moment they could see him clearly. His coat and clothes were dirty and tattered. He looked thin but strong. Over the forty days his hair had grown over his ears and he now had a full beard. When Decker saw his face, he was startled for a moment by the astounding resemblance to the face on the Shroud. One thing, however, was very obviously different. The face on the Shroud was peaceful and accepting in death. On Christopher’s face was the look of a man driven to achieve his mission.

  Milner was the first one out of the Jeep. He ran to Christopher and embraced him. Patting Christopher on the back caused a small cloud of dust to rise from his clothes. Christopher then went to Decker, who reached out his hand. Christopher refused it and instead hugged him as well. He smelled awful, but Decker held him for a long time anyway.

  “Are you all right?” Decker asked. “I’ve been worried about you.”

  “Yes, yes. I’m fine.” Then turning slightly to address both Decker and Milner, he continued. “It’s all clear now. It was all part of the plan.”

  “What plan?” asked Decker.

  “I’ve spoken with my father. He wants me to finish the task.”

  “You mean … God? You talked with God?”

  Christopher nodded. “Yes,” he said quietly. “He wants me to complete the mission I began two thousand years ago. And I need your help, both of you.”

  Decker felt as though he was standing on the crest of a tidal wave. Suddenly his life held more meaning than he’d ever imagined possible. He believed what Milner had told him about Christopher’s destiny; if he hadn’t, he never would have left Christopher alone in the desert. But then it had all been cerebral. Now he was hearing it from Christopher’s own lips. This was a turning point, not only in the lives of these three men, but of time itself. Just as the coming of Christ had divided time between B.C. and A.D., this too would be a line of demarcation from which all else would be measured. This undoubtedly was the birth of a New Age. Decker wished Elizabeth were alive to share it with him.

  “What can we do?” Decker managed.

  “We must return to New York immediately,” Christopher answered. “Millions of lives are at stake.”

  Before leaving New York, Decker had arranged for the loan of a private jet from David Bragford, telling him it was for Milner. As planned, the jet and crew were waiting at Ben Gurion Airport when Decker, Christopher, and Milner arrived. Decker had brought clothes and a shaving kit from home for Christopher, but though he eagerly took advantage of the shower on Bragford’s plane and welcomed the clean clothes, Christopher decided to forego the razor and keep the beard.

  As Christopher ate his first meal in forty days, Decker briefed him on events at the UN. Afterward Christopher began to pore over the reams of documents Decker had brought for him to review.

  Three hours into the flight, one of the crew members came into the cabin, obviously very concerned about something. “What is it?” Decker asked.

  “Sir,” he said, “the captain has just picked up a report on the radio. Apparently, the war in India has just gone nuclear.”

  “We’re too late,” Christopher whispered to himself as he let his head fall into his open hands.

  The crewman continued, “The Pakistani Islamic Guard have detonated two nuclear bombs in New Delhi. Millions are dead.”

  For a long moment they sat in stunned silence, then Decker turned to Milner. “This is what you were talking about in Jerusalem, isn’t it?”

  “Only the beginning,” Milner said as he reached over and hit the remote control to turn on the satellite television.

  Immediately the screen showed the mushroom cloud of the first atomic bomb set off in New Delhi. The billowing cloud of debris seemed to roll back the sky like an immense scroll of ancient tattered parchment. Two days after the Pakistani Guard first warned of hidden nuclear weapons, the television network had set up remote cameras to run twenty-four hours a day outside the targeted cities just in case the Guard carried out its threats. Even from ten miles away, the camera began to shake violently as the earth trembled from the blast’s awesome shock wave. Several hundred yards in front of the camera a small two-story building vibrated with the quake and then collapsed. An instant later a bright flash on the screen marked the second explosion.

  “That was the scene approximately one hour ago,” the network commentator said, his voice registering his horror, “as two atomic blasts, set off by the Pakistani Islamic Guard, rocked the Indian subcontinent. It is believed that the action came in response to the successful interdiction of weapons into Pakistan from China and a new ultimatum issued by General Brooks, commander of UN forces in the region. According to sources close to the Pakistani Islamic Guard, leaders of the Guard were convinced that UN special forces were close to locating the bombs, which would have left little to prevent India from invading Pakistan.

  “Within minutes of the explosions the Pakistani government strongly condemned the action by the Guard who, they repeated, are rogue forces not associated with the Pakistani government. But by then India had already retaliated, launching two nuclear-tipped missiles on Pakistan. Apparently prepared for such a response from India, China immediately launched interceptors, which successfully brought down the Indian missiles before they could reach their targets.

  “Prior to that launch, China had attempted to maintain a neutral position in the long-running conflict between its neighbors. That neutrality was frequently called into question, however, because of the Chinese arms merchants who served as the main source of weapons for Pakistan.”

  As Christopher, Decker, and Milner watched, new information poured in at an incredible rate. In a matter of only a few hours, the entire war was unfolding. In response to China’s action, India launched a conventional attack on the Chinese interceptor bases, while simultaneously launching five additional missiles on Pakistan. Three were intercepted; two reached their targets.

  Pakistan then responded to India’s attack by launching a volley of its own nuclear weapons and within minutes the Pakistani Islamic Guard set off the remaining bombs they had planted in Indian cities.

  In a temporary lull in the action, the scene on television switched to a satellite feed from a camera mounted on the top of a remotely controlled all-terrain rover, which showed the first horrifying scenes from the suburban areas of New Delhi. Fire was everywhere. Rubble filled the streets. The sky was filled with thick black smoke from the fires and radioactive fallout, which blocked out the setting sun as though it were covered by a loosely woven black cloth. Scattered around the landscape were hundreds of people, dead and dying. Immediately in front of the vehicle, the mostly nude body of a young Indian woman lay sprawled in the street. All but a few scraps of her clothing had been burned away. On the less charred parts of her body, where some skin remained, the flowered pattern of the sari she had been wearing was seared into her flesh like a tattoo.

  Sitting on the street beside the woman’s body, a startled young girl, three or four years old, looked up at the rover and began screaming. The bombs had not been so merciful to her as to her mother; she might languish two or three days before life fully released its grip on her. For a moment the camera dwelled on her. Her skin was covered with numerous open blisters.

  Christopher turned away from the screen. “I could have prevented this,” he said. It took a moment for the statement to sink through the horror and register with Decker.

  “Christopher, there’s nothing you could have done,” Decker answered. “It’s usel
ess to blame yourself.”

  “But there is something I could have done. I told you before we left New York that I felt Faure was going to do something that would lead to catastrophe, and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. But it wasn’t true. There was one thing I could have done. And now, because I hesitated, millions have been killed and millions more will die. Even after the war is over there will be untold deaths from fallout and radiation poisoning. And unless the UN acts to provide immediate relief, millions more will die of starvation and disease.”

  “But it’s crazy to blame yourself for this. If this is the result of something Faure did, then the responsibility rests with him alone.”

  “Oh, the responsibility does indeed rest with Faure. It was he who put General Brooks back in control, and it was he who directed Brooks to issue the two ultimatums. With the first, Faure was hoping to bring the war to a quick close in India’s favor. In return, he expected to gain Nikhil Gandhi’s support for his bid to become secretary-general. With the second ultimatum, Faure believed he could force the hand of the Islamic Guard. General Brooks assured him that the Guard didn’t really have nuclear devices planted in India, but Faure knew the risk he was taking! If there were no bombs, then the ultimatum would call the Islamic Guard’s bluff. On the other hand, if the threat was real, Faure knew that a war would destabilize India to the point that Gandhi would likely return to rebuild India and Rajiv Advani would replace him as primary on the Security Council. Either way, Faure calculated that he would benefit.”