by Mark Romang
Battle Siege
By Mark Romang
Copyright© Mark Romang 2015
Kindle Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Robin Ludwig, Inc.
Author’s Note
Although Battle Siege is filled with Biblical truths, this book and the other books in the Battle Series are not intended to be used as reference books concerning the end times. All books in the Battle Series were written for entertainment purposes only. They are fictional books heavy on speculation. Please treat them as such.
“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
Karl Barth
Swiss theologian and author
1886-1968
Prologue
The days after
The vanishings happened in an instant, in less time than it takes the eyes to blink. No farewell goodbyes, no letters of explanation left behind, just disappearances numbering in the hundreds of millions.
All around the world, it seemed every family experienced an abduction.
Parents lost children. Older children lost parents. Wives lost husbands. Husbands lost wives. Brothers lost sisters. Sisters lost brothers.
The initial shock and disbelief of losing loved ones soon gave way to heartbreak. Heartbreak soon gave way to outrage. Hard questions were shouted to those in charge. Answers were demanded, but never received. Governments were at a loss as to what to tell their citizenry, and as a result, chaos and deadly rioting ensued around the world at unprecedented levels. Gangs ruled the streets and organized crime skyrocketed.
Anarchy reigned like never before in human history.
And out of the madness Henrik Skymolt stepped forward.
He took charge when no one else wanted to.
The Swede’s kind and affirming words gave hope and courage to those left behind. More importantly, Skymolt restored order, stopping the riots with just one televised speech. The real estate mogul also brought peace to a planet reeling from a world war, somehow brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Islamic nations in only a few days. And his vast fortune, thought to be uncountable, gave financial stability to every nation on earth.
Overnight, Henrik Skymolt became the most beloved person on the planet. His popularity exceeded the Pope’s by a wide margin. A hastily assembled world election was held—the first of its kind. And representatives from the E.U. and nearly all existing U.N. member nations unanimously appointed Skymolt as the supreme leader of the world, giving him absolute power.
These government representatives surely regret their decision now. They elected a monster.
To discourage crime and to monitor the world’s population, Henrik Skymolt mandated an identification program that is still in place. Every human on earth must be micro-chipped with a GPS tracking device. Those who don’t comply are unable to buy and sell. After the mandate went public the vast majority gladly allowed their wrists or foreheads to be chipped. They wanted to eat, and felt they had no other recourse.
But a remnant rebelled. A few still refuse the chip even now. And these courageous individuals, these people with the unbreakable wills…they choose to fight back.
Chapter 1
Olympic Peninsula—Washington
3.5 years into the Tribulation
Death hunted Nathan Banks.
Like a bird of prey circling the sky, his would-be murderer stalked him from above. Although Banks could not smell his deadly pursuer, his other senses, including his sixth sense had shifted into overdrive, and he could hear the drone’s electronic hum as it hovered overhead, skimming the treetops.
The sun didn’t often shine on the Olympic National Forest, but today the fiery orb blazed its rays without letup, and the drone’s ominous shadow darkened the rainforest Banks sprinted through. Dread filled every cell in Banks’s body. Today just might be the day his luck ended.
This wasn’t the first time a drone targeted him. It seemed to be happening more and more, the last occurrence only two days ago. As Banks understood it, the Skymolt drones can easily track a person by the chip implanted in their forehead or wrist. Worse, the drones can scan a tiny chip in a person from as high as thirty-thousand feet. The often-used term eye in the sky never rang more true.
Banks kept his eyes on the terrain as he fled, wary of tripping hazards like fallen logs, exposed tree roots and rocks.
Skymolt drones can also identify someone who has never taken the mark. The drones patrol the sky relentlessly, always searching for the courageous few who rebel at accepting the marking chip.
When the all-seeing drones spot an unmarked individual they signal the rebel’s coordinates back to a nearby mobile unit. In short order Unified World Coalition officers, driving their UWC emblazoned SUVs, close in on the unmarked rebel. Once apprehended the rebel either accepts Henrik Skymolt’s marking chip, or faces execution on the spot. Most accept the chip. But a few, those who possess unswerving faith, offer their heads willingly to the ax-wielding executioner.
Banks didn’t possess unswerving faith of any kind. And he wasn’t about to allow his head to be severed. So he ran like a collegiate sprinter, hurdling obstacles when need be.
Deer ferns threw their leaves up in surrender as Banks dashed through the rainforest, their delicate greenery dotted with moisture beads from the rain that fell the night before. The ferns brushed against his churning legs and pumping arms and wetted his torn and patched jeans.
Some would call Banks anti-government, others would go so far as to call him an anarchist. Banks would admit to being a stubborn fool, but he didn’t consider himself either an anarchist or anti-government. He just knew the terrible man behind the drones, and didn’t want any part of the megalomaniac’s world changing agenda.
Henrik Skymolt terrorized the planet like a fire-breathing dragon. He wanted to scorch everything in his path, and his insatiable hunger for power and worldwide adoration never waned, but grew more consuming each day. Skymolt’s latest edict demanded every human to worship him. And Banks wouldn’t do it.
A fallen hemlock too large to skirt, stretched across the forest floor. Banks slowed and gathered himself, and then leapfrogged over the dead tree. He regained his stride quickly, but didn’t know how long he could keep up his frenetic pace. He hadn’t eaten much all week and operated at less than full strength. His breath came out in ragged gasps, and lactic acid tightened his legs in a vise grip.
Banks peeked over his shoulder for a split-second but didn’t see the drone flying over the thick canopy of hemlock and Sitka spruce treetops. When he’d first spotted the unmanned aircraft several minutes ago he recognized the drone as a VR-96, one of the larger drones in Skymolt’s vast drone arsenal. A Cessna and a VR-96 share roughly the same dimensions.
Banks weaved his way in a serpentine fashion through a western hemlock grove. Some of these giant, moss-covered hemlocks were a thousand years old and soared to heights of two-hundred feet. The trees were like natural skyscrapers.
Banks rounded a hemlock whose diameter he guessed at nearly eighteen feet. He startled a group of hikers on a trail, ruining their pristine nature experience. They gaped at him angrily. Banks fled on.
As he ran he noted the hikers wore the latest outdoor gear: fancy hiking boots, colorful fleece and backpacks with many pockets. They carried trekking poles in their hands. Chipped people, he thought. Their gear looked brand new. To buy it they would have needed to be chipped. All tra
nsactions require one to be scanned. Per Skymolt’s decree, every clerk at every retail outlet waved a wand over a customer’s forehead or wrist at checkout.
Banks angled away from the hikers and toward deeper woods. He glanced over his shoulder again. In that one little glance he saw the drone bypass the hikers and fly straight toward him. Banks pushed himself to a greater speed. He ran for his life with reckless abandon. Small branches snapped under his churning feet. The moist dirt slowed him down and sucked at his shoes. But the soft earth covered with lichen and moss and ferns also gave him traction.
A ravine lay just ahead, but Banks didn’t slow even though the ravine was deep and rocky, its sides tumbling down at a steep pitch and ending at the boulder-strewn Hoh River. He didn’t worry about plunging down the ravine into the river. He intended to traverse the wide ravine by the air. His bunker hid in the forest on the other side.
The ground angled up near the ravine’s edge. Banks had to slow his stride momentarily to compensate for the short climb. Big-leaf maples stood near the edge, forming giant ramparts. A steel cable wrapped around the largest maple’s trunk.
Banks topped the ridgeline and sped toward the ravine’s edge as fast as his legs could carry him. He reached the edge and leaped out into space. He felt his stomach rise up into his chest. His arms flailed for a panic-stricken moment. But then he forced his limbs to reach up above his head.
And like a trapeze artist grasping for a trapeze, Banks latched onto the zip-line trolley dangling from a cable. The steel cable bowed for a moment under his weight but held fast. And then Banks began sliding down the cable. He picked up speed rapidly, far surpassing what he could achieve on foot.
Banks wasn’t the only one living in the rainforest. There were others.
A small community of preppers live a secret life here, and the preppers erected hidden zip-lines to help them navigate large sections of Olympic National Forest.
Forest rangers took down many of the zip-lines. But the defiant preppers kept putting them back up just as quickly, and the rangers finally gave up. Banks knew the locations of many zip-lines and used them frequently.
Ninety feet above the riverbed, Banks slid down the steel cable and crossed the chasm. The ravine’s other side rapidly approached. Above all else he had to retain enough speed to make it all the way to the other side and to a small platform attached to a Sitka spruce. If his speed dipped too much he wouldn’t make the platform and slide back down. Dangling over the river didn’t appeal much to him, neither did working his way hand over hand back to the platform.
Banks felt his grip on the handle loosening. Unlike commercial zip-lines that require one to wear a safety harness clipped to the cable, this homemade zip-line required nothing but strong hands and arms and a daredevil mentality. Fortunately the platform neared. His arms would get a short rest.
Banks readied himself. The zip-line trolley smacked into the braking block and slowed his speed markedly. He bent his knees and lifted his feet.
One foot reached the wooden planks and then the other. Banks gained his balance and reached for the next zip-line handle. Once again he took off down a tautly-stretched steel cable. This time he traveled not over a chasm or riverbed but through the forest. All he could see in his periphery was a green blur as he sped by moss-covered trees, their branches swaying in the Pacific breeze and occasionally slapping at his ribs and arms.
He couldn’t tell if the drone still followed or not. Twisting his body to look behind him would slow his speed, and he couldn’t hear the drone’s mechanical hum for the hissing roar given off by zip-line. But he assumed the drone still followed. He would find out soon enough. His stop approached.
Banks slid up to another platform. And rather than continuing down the next cable, he grabbed a vine growing from the tree and shimmied down to the ground. He took off at a dead run and headed for a waterfall roughly forty yards away. Several tributaries jutted off from the Hoh River. One of these tributaries spilled over a hillside.
Banks splashed into the shallow stream and entered the dousing spray. The small waterfall hid a natural arch behind it. Banks sloshed into the arch, a cave-like expanse no longer than twenty feet and maybe six-feet high. In places his shoulders nearly touched the rocky walls. The arch ended at a hole on the other side. Large ferns standing nearly six feet high hid the opening.
Banks weaved his way through the deer ferns and up a short hillside. At the hill’s ridge stood a patch of thimbleberries. The berry plants covered perhaps a half acre and stood over his head. A dead Sitka spruce—its trunk hollowed out—lay on the ground and intersected the thimbleberries. A foot thick layer of moss blanketed the tree. The spruce tree had once been a mighty giant in the forest but no more.
Banks looked behind him but didn’t see the drone. He could hear its unmistakable hum though. He despised the humming sound. Sometimes he heard the hum in his dreams. The drones permeated every part of his life, even his most innocent moments when he slept. But oddly enough a part of him thought he could somehow do something about the drones. It was a ludicrous fantasy; one solitary man with no resources against a numberless fleet of unmanned aircraft. He didn’t know why he allowed the fantasy to play out in his head. And yet he did.
Risking detection, Banks pulled off his backpack and retrieved an item from the pack’s main pocket. Living undetected in the forest required craftiness. Banks pressed the item into the soil and moss wherever he left shoe impressions near the fallen tree.
The object he held was a mold of a bear paw. He hoped the UWC officers and anyone else snooping around would see all the fresh bear tracks and the thimbleberries and leave. Anyone with commonsense would recognize they were in black bear country and leave for safer ground. Banks studied the ground for a few seconds. Satisfied he left behind no evidence of his own presence, he put his bear paw mold back into his backpack and entered the hollow tree.
Banks crawled through the dark tree like a lone rat scampering inside a sewer tunnel. His fingers clawed at the decomposing wood. He shimmied toward a light shaft thirty feet in the distance. A broken and hollow branch on the tree’s topside provided a natural skylight. The entrance to his bunker lay just beyond the light. Banks passed the light and slowed. He straddled the entrance hole and inched forward another two feet so he could back into his bunker using the steps he’d dug into the ground.
Finding the steps with his shoes, Banks entered his hidden subterranean home. Breathing heavily, he slumped against one wall. He sat in total darkness, trembling from fright, alone and hungry, but still very much alive.
He exhaled a deep breath and shook his head. “Stupid drones,” he muttered softly. “I hate those things.”
Chapter 2
Babylon
On the penthouse floor of a 200 floor skyscraper, Lucifer stood before a plate glass window and observed the construction of his nearby palace. The magnificent glass palace neared completion; only interior décor such as gold-plating the walls and installing the many crystal chandeliers remained to finish. Even now workers scurried to complete these final tasks.
From his high vantage point the workers below should’ve looked like ants, but his supernatural vison magnified their size and enabled him to count the facial moles and freckles on the worker’s faces as they entered and exited the palace some three-thousand feet below.
Lucifer smiled proudly as he took in the palace’s exterior grandeur. Situated adjacent to the ruins of King Nebuchadnezzar’s ancient palace, lush grass, palm trees and flowers gave homage to the opulent building that would soon serve as Henrik Skymolt’s residential living quarters and UWC staff headquarters.
The reconstruction of Babylon had taken only two years to complete. With unlimited funds available, and the world’s best architects and engineers flown in to oversee the laborers, the work some said to be impossible went off without a hitch. In just two years’ time, Babylon rose from the arid ground to become the commerce center of the world. And the city continued to grow a
year later. A waiting list for building permits expanded each day by the dozens.
Truly a visual spectacle, Babylon’s towering skyline made Dubai’s glittering skyscrapers look miniature in comparison, and the very building Lucifer stood in soared much higher than Dubai’s most famous structure, the Burj Khalifa skyscraper. Although the architects, engineers and builders didn’t purposefully set out to do it, they successfully constructed a modern day version of the Tower of Babel.
Thousands of shoddy homes, ramshackle structures and even Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace were bulldozed to accommodate the lightning-quick reconstruction. The impoverished people living in old Babylon—roughly a quarter-million residents—were forced out and forbidden to come back. Lucifer wanted only wealthy and elite people residing in Babylon, and people who worshipped Henrik Skymolt and his image faithfully.
Lucifer turned from the window and strode into the room’s center. Since he spent the majority of his time on this floor, he’d demanded the ceiling in the penthouse suite to be fourteen-feet in height, more than high enough to accommodate his angelic stature whenever he left Henrik Skymolt’s host body.
Two other individuals were in the room with him and sat on leather sofas facing each other: Vito Abbadelli, Henrik Skymolt’s right-hand holy man and a person the underground Christians routinely call the False Prophet, and Henrik Skymolt, the most powerful man on the planet and a man the underground Christians routinely call the Antichrist.
Skymolt wasn’t saying much today. But then cadavers rarely speak. Lucifer noted that the Reverend Abbadelli wasn’t saying much either, only whimpers and an occasional snivel escaped his trembling lips.
“Are you afraid of me, Vito?”
