Rosen sat back in his chair and it seemed he might actually be finished.
“Well, that’s quite a story,” Decker said. “But like I said, there’s no way I’m going to trust the word of a kidnapper over Christopher.”
“I understand,” Rosen allowed. “I’ve done all I can. I’ve rolled away the stone — the rest is up to God,” he concluded, drawing a biblical analogy to the resurrection of Lazarus.”[108]
Decker doubted it could be over that easily. It wasn’t. Not quite.
“There’s just one other item we need to cover before you leave,” Rosen said. “The Bible calls the times in which we now find ourselves, the ‘Tribulation,’ a seven year period that began with the signing of the treaty between the UN and Israel,[109] which was arranged by Christopher when he returned the Ark of the Covenant. Of the seven years, less than four months now remain.”
“As far as I can tell,” Decker interrupted, “things have been going pretty well since Christopher got rid of John and Cohen three years ago — no asteroids, no plagues of locusts, no homicidal madness, not even any wars. The whole world has been at peace. The only ‘tribulation’ that I’m aware of is the killings and violence by the fundamentalists at the communion clinics. And I suppose you could throw in the appearances and empty threats of the three angels.”
“Nevertheless,” Rosen said, “over the next four months things are going to get much worse fast.[110] Of course, Christopher will blame Yahweh, the KDP, and the fundamentalists.”
“Oh, and you just can’t imagine why he’d do that, can you?” Decker shot back. “Are you really trying to suggest that Yahweh isn’t responsible for the death and destruction that plagued the Earth before Christopher killed John and Cohen?”
“What God has done to this point,” Rosen answered, denying nothing, “has been designed to get our attention. The plagues that befell Egypt in the days of Moses were designed to demonstrate God’s supremacy over the false gods of Egypt. The Egyptians worshiped the Nile River, so God turned it to blood; they worshiped flies and frogs, so he gave them plagues of flies and frogs; they worshiped the sun, so he blacked it out. In the same way, God has selectively struck the Earth with plagues that demonstrate his supremacy over the false gods of this age. People look to the stars to guide their futures, so God used asteroids — falling stars — to plague the Earth. People worship nature, so God used nature to afflict mankind with storms, volcanoes, and locusts. People seek the guidance of spirits, so God allowed spirits to bring madness and death.
“But what’s coming next is designed, not to get our attention, but to demonstrate to “Humankind” that it is unable to stand against a righteous God.
“To strike back at Yahweh, Christopher will order the arrest of all who oppose him, and ultimately the execution of all who refuse to take the communion and the mark. When the plagues continue, he’ll call for the people of all nations to gather and march on Petra to destroy those who still pledge their allegiance to Yahweh. He’ll justify his actions by saying it’s necessary to destroy the opponents of the New Age just as you would destroy a disease or remove cancer. And, of course, it will be argued that killing us is really for our own good since we’ll all be reincarnated, free of our past ‘prejudices’ and ‘bigotries.’
“Do you understand why we’re called Koum Damah Patar, Mr. Hawthorne?
“Yeah,” Decker answered. “Because there’s supposed to be 144,000 of you kooks, and the Hebrew characters used to write 144,000 are the same characters used to write Koum Damah Patar.”
“There’s an additional reason — a prophetic reason,” Rosen said. “In English, Koum Damah Patar means ‘arise, shed tears, and be free.’ In the book of Zechariah, speaking through the prophet, God said:
I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.[111]
“The time is coming soon when these words will come to pass, when all Israel will arise as one and shed tears for the one they’ve pierced. As Christopher marches on Petra, the people of Israel will understand that Yeshua, whom they rejected and their ancestors pierced, is indeed their king and Messiah. When that happens, Messiah will return to save them from Christopher, just as Moses, whom we also rejected, returned to rescue our forefathers from Pharaoh. When that happens, they will at last be free.”
“And that’s when you all get to live happily ever after, right?” Decker mused.
“Yeah, something like that,” Rosen replied. Then scooting his chair back from the table, he said, “I assume you’ll want to leave as soon as possible.”
Decker looked at him askance. “Just like that?” he asked after a moment.
“Just like that,” Rosen repeated. “God hasn’t instructed me to be successful, only that I make the effort. It’s not my responsibility to change your mind, only to present you with the truth. What you do with it is up to you.”
Decker considered demanding an apology, but getting one wouldn’t change anything, and if Rosen really did plan to release him, he didn’t want to say anything that might make him change his mind. He wished that for just one moment he could read Rosen’s thoughts. Was this a trick?
“I’ve made arrangements for you to leave the day after tomorrow.”
That didn’t sound promising. “Why not right now?” Decker pressed, suspicious of any delay.
“You’ll be taken to Israel and released,” Rosen continued. “I’m sure that from there you can get back to Babylon on your own.”
“Why can’t I leave right now?” Decker asked again, more forcefully.
“It’s after four o’clock on Friday afternoon,” Rosen answered. “There’s not enough time for anyone to take you to Israel before sundown when the Sabbath begins.”
Of course, devout Jews wouldn’t travel on a Sabbath. Rosen’s answer was plausible enough to be the real reason, or it might be a well considered lie. “And so I’m just supposed to sit and wait?” Decker grumbled.
“You’re free to go wherever you like in Petra.”
“And if I choose to go farther?” Decker asked reflexively and then cringed that he had asked such a stupid question. Petra was in the middle of the wilderness. Where else could he possibly go?
Whether it was the look of embarrassment on Decker’s face or Rosen’s ability to read his mind, he didn’t answer. “There’s just one last thing,” he said instead. “Somehow, Mr. Hawthorne, you’ve avoided the mark for this long. If you believe there’s even the smallest, most outside chance that I might be telling you the truth, then I urge you to do everything in your power over the next four months not to take the communion or the mark.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Decker answered with obvious insincerity. He found possible encouragement in Rosen’s words, though. It might be an indication that he really did intend to let him go.
“I pray you’ll consider what I’ve said and what the Spirit of God is saying to you even now,” Rosen concluded as he got up to leave, “and that our next meeting will be as brothers and fellow heirs in Messiah’s kingdom.”
“Yeah, sure,” Decker said disingenuously. The fact that Rosen had once again referred to something that would necessitate his living for a while longer, however, didn’t escape Decker’s attention.
Rosen left the room, leaving the door open behind him.
Chapter 10
Donafin
Decker sat quietly for a few minutes, unsure of what might come next. When nothing happened, he got up to look out the window. The guards that had been posted outside were gone. For a while, he just watched and waited. There was no place to go except out into Petra, so what was the point? After all, though it was larger than the cage he had been in for the previous three days, Petra was still a cage. Whether he stayed in the cabin or not, the risk was the same. Whatever the KDP had in min
d for him, they were going to do whether he stayed or left. He decided to leave. Better to die in the sunshine, he thought, though he couldn’t have given a reason why.
Stepping carefully from the room and taking only what he was wearing and the leather satchel that held Elizabeth’s Bible, Decker was surprised to see that not even the jailer was anywhere to be found. His mind flashed back to his escape from captivity in Lebanon when his guards had all mysteriously disappeared. This wasn’t quite so mysterious; Rosen had said he was free to leave. Still, the feeling of déjà vu was strong.
At first, Decker stayed near the cabin, but the inclination to do so quickly faded and he decided the safest thing was to get lost in the people and the surroundings. He knew that trying to avoid Rosen and the KDP would ultimately be hopeless. There was no escape from this island in the desert. And what if Rosen had been telling the truth and he really did intend to have someone take Decker to Israel on Sunday? If so, then he needed to stay where Rosen could find him. Still, he found it hard to convince his feet of any of that. For nearly forty-five minutes he bobbed and weaved his way erratically through the rows of tents and their crowded inhabitants. Everyone he passed greeted him with a traditional Shabbat shalom, meaning “Sabbath peace.” But for Decker there was no peace: He just wanted to lose anyone who might be following him.
[Photo Caption: Stone facades in Petra]
Finally, he slowed down. He had to — he was too tired to continue. Only now did he begin to allow his mind to focus on the beauty of the natural and man made wonders around him. Stopping to rest, he sat down on the excavated stones of a two-millennia-old structure and surveyed his surroundings. From his location at what archaeologists called the Roman House, he could see much of Petra. In the west the sun hung just above the jagged red faced mountain that surrounded the city. Under other circumstances, he might have lost himself in the study of the archaeology and architecture of this ancient but now thriving metropolis. Then he noticed something else: a young boy, perhaps ten or eleven years old. He had seen him before. The first time had been right after leaving the cabin. Thinking back, it seemed that he may have seen him again some time later. Both times it appeared the boy had just been out walking, but here he was again. Decker had made too many turns along the way for this to be a coincidence. The boy must be following him. A wave of disgust rushed over him at the thought that Rosen would recruit one so young as a spy.
He looked around for the best avenue of escape from his unwanted attendant. It would be impossible to simply outrun the boy; Decker would never win such a race. But now that he knew who his pursuer was, he thought he could probably lose him amongst the people and tents and scattered structures. He was about to leave his perch when he heard a woman’s voice. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like she was calling his name. There were scores of people within earshot, all crowded into this self imposed exile, and many voices competed for the ear’s attention. Still, it truly had sounded as though a woman had called his name.
“Decker!” he now heard distinctly. He didn’t recognize the voice.
“Decker!” the woman called again. Finally she came around a row of tents and into view. He was certain he didn’t recognize her. Stranger still, she headed not toward him, but for the boy who had been following him.
The woman and the boy obviously knew each other and they talked for a moment, and then both looked at Decker, who was very conspicuously watching them. Eye contact was unavoidable and the woman, apparently believing some explanation was required, came over with the boy in tow to where Decker sat.
“Are you Decker Hawthorne?” the woman asked.
He could find no good reason to deny it. “Yes,” he answered.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Hawthorne,” the woman said. “I’m afraid my son has been following you. He didn’t mean any harm.”
Decker wanted to ask her why her son had been following him, but there was something even more perplexing. “Did I hear you call the boy Decker?”
“Yes,” the woman answered. “I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Rhoda Donafin. Tom Donafin was my husband.” Decker was stunned, unable to respond. But there was more. “This is my youngest son, Decker. Tom named him after you.”
Decker felt as though he had been thrust into an unexplored reality. Here was evidence of a past of which he had obviously been a part — hence a child named in his honor — and yet it was totally unknown to him beyond the fact that Tom had said that he was married and had children.
“Decker has been asking about you since we found out that you were in Petra,” Rhoda said of her son. “He really wanted to meet you.”
“How did you know I was here?” Decker managed to ask.
“My brother, Joel Felsberg, and Scott Rosen are good friends,” she answered. “Besides,” she added, “I’m a doctor: Scott came to see me the other day. Seems he walked into a door or something with his face.”
Decker wasn’t sure if she was making a joke or, if because of the boy, she was avoiding mentioning that Scott Rosen’s injury had come as the result of a meeting with Decker’s fist.
Rhoda looked toward the western rim of the city at the sun that would soon be setting. “It’s almost Shabbat,” she said. “My children and I would be honored if you would join us for dinner.”
“I . . . uh,” Decker stammered. This was all happening so fast. He felt a little uncomfortable about imposing on the hospitality of someone he had just met, and yet he had so much he wanted to ask this woman. “Thank you,” he said finally. “I’d like that.”
The Donafins’ tent was not far from where they met so there was little time to talk, but once the initial surprise of meeting Tom Donafin’s widow and son had settled in, Decker noticed how young Rhoda looked. “You’re uh—” Decker hesitated, for despite all the social mores that had changed in his lifetime, one taboo that still remained was talking about a woman’s age, “—quite a bit younger than Tom,” he said, finally.
“I’m fifty-five,” she answered, showing no timidity. “Tom was seventeen years older than me. He was sixty-one and I was forty-four when Decker was born. He was a surprise to both of us.” Rhoda affectionately ran her hand through her son’s hair.
Decker sorted through the many questions in his mind. It seemed that the things he most wanted to ask would require too long a response to be given fair treatment before they reached the tent — which Rhoda assured him was just a little farther on — and everything else he might ask would seem like small talk and terribly inappropriate to the circumstances. With little choice then, Decker maintained an uneasy silence, hoping somehow that Rhoda might volunteer answers for his unspoken questions. Rhoda, however, did not oblige.
The Donafins’ tent looked like so many others — plain canvas, something less than fifteen feet square, with a canopy extending from the front, under which the family did its cooking and had its meals. Busily working there to prepare the Sabbath dinner was a young woman who smiled as they approached.
“Mr. Hawthorne, this is Rachael,” Rhoda said, giving her daughter a little hug. Rachael was a handsome girl, not what anyone would have considered a great beauty, but with strong features that were a blend of the best from both her parents.
“Rachael, this is an old friend of your father’s, Mr. Decker Hawthorne.” The girl was very polite and greeted Decker with great interest, though some of that could have simply been eagerness to find some distraction from her chores and the pot of boiling manna on the gas camp stove, which seemed to be standard issue for the city’s residents.
“Rachael is our middle child,” Rhoda continued. “She’s sixteen.”
“And this is Tom Jr.,” Rhoda said, as her eldest came out of the tent carrying a pair of silver candlesticks. Tom Donafin Jr. looked very much like his father had when Decker first met him, with the notable exception of the injuries Tom Sr. bore from his childhood accident.
“Tom, this is Mr. Decker Hawthorne.”
Tom nodded recognition of the name as
he reached to shake Decker’s hand. “So, Scott Rosen finally let you go,” he said.
“Well, that remains to be seen,” Decker answered. “I’m still here.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. If you’re out, I’d say you were out for good.”
The comment sounded as though Tom might have some experience in the subject. Decker wanted to find out. “So does Rosen do this often?” he asked.
“No, you’re the only one,” Tom answered with a strange tone that seemed to imply that Decker should consider the exception as some kind of honor.
“Tom is eighteen,” Rhoda said, rounding off the introductions.
Dinner was soon ready and they shared a traditional Sabbath meal, with Tom filling the role of his father at the table. Finally, Decker felt he had the proper setting to ask his questions. He wanted to know what had happened during the missing twenty-one years between the time Tom was presumed dead and the day he reemerged. In the presence of Tom’s children, Decker was careful to omit any mention of Tom’s death or questions that might necessitate such a reference. Those would be saved for Rhoda alone. His interest was in uncovering all that he could about who Tom Donafin had become during those years.
As it turned out, however, it wasn’t Decker Hawthorne who asked most of the questions, but Decker Donafin, so that without realizing it, the elder Decker spent most of the meal telling stories. Whether the events he recounted had, in truth, been as interesting and amusing as they now seemed, or whether it was simply the old reporter’s ability to weave a tale, even Decker didn’t know. What he did know was that it was delightful fun to remember and even more so to see the interest in the faces of Tom’s wife and children as he told the tales.
After dinner they were joined by neighbors who had overheard Decker’s stories and the Donafins’ laughter and wanted to hear more. It started with just a few children but continued to grow as the children’s parents dropped by to meet the unusual guest. As he spoke to what had become a group of more than twenty people, Decker was struck by the extreme irony that he, the closest friend of Christopher Goodman — the man these people considered their worst enemy — would be telling them funny stories about his experiences with the man who had been Christopher’s assassin.
The Christ Clone Trilogy - Book Three: ACTS OF GOD (Revised & Expanded) Page 14
