Fire Of Heaven 03 - Fire of Heaven

by Bill Myers

  He coughed and fidgeted. It was obviously Heylel’s doing. As best as he could tell, his mentor was not in a very good mood.

  The scissors were dull and he had to cut smaller portions than he wanted, but slowly, methodically, it was coming off. He’d put a paper towel in the sink to cover the drain, and it was already covered with the long strands of his shiny black hair.

  Brandon was not sure why he wanted to cut it. It had been part of his identity since high school. He just thought that maybe … maybe it was time for a change. But it was more than a change. As he watched the tufts fall into the sink, he knew it was also a type of death. Everything he’d been, everything he was, and yes, everything he wanted to be, had come to an end. There were no tears, no self-pity. Just numbness. Numbness and bone-weary fatigue.

  If Gerty wanted him to stop trying, no problem. When you’ve got nothing left to try with, quitting is easy. Today, maybe tomorrow he’d go down to Bollenger’s Printing and Lithograph. See if he could get his old job back. That at least was something he knew how to do. Maybe, in time, Sarah would come back to him. Maybe people would eventually forget all of the craziness. Maybe, someday, he could.

  He folded up the paper towel, trying to keep as much hair in it as possible, then pitched it into the garbage. Looking back into the mirror, he checked out the sides and top. It wasn’t terrible. True, nothing like he’d get at Supercuts, but going to a Supercuts would mean going out in public. And going out in public would mean having to endure the stares, wisecracks, and occasional confrontation.

  It had been a week since Gerty’s e-mail. And for a week he’d prayed, he’d fasted, he’d done everything he could think of to find out what God wanted.

  And for a week there had been nothing.

  She’d mentioned something about searching his dreams. But for the most part they had been equally uneventful. No more special guest appearances by Jesus Christ, no more symbolic imagery. Except for the occasional nightmare of the serpent’s head along with the addition of that silly crescent moon and star from Salman Kilyos’s tattoo, there wasn’t that much to speak of. Mostly just memories of Sarah and the constant reminder of how hollow and empty he was without her.

  He stared into the mirror. Not thrilled with his new ’do, he went to plan B. He grabbed a can of shaving cream and a disposable Bic from the cabinet. He wasn’t exactly sure how to pull it off, but hopefully shaving his head wouldn’t be all that different from shaving his face … hopefully.

  He turned on the hot water. As he waited for it to heat up he thought through the various fragments of last night’s dream. It was no different from the others. He and Sarah at the lake, he and Sarah at work, the two of them shopping. Then came a brief appearance of Salman’s tattoo. But instead of being inside the church, Brandon was walking across a giant version of the crescent moon and star. To further confuse the issue there were the seven lampstands he’d seen during his vision at the hospital. The same number of lampstands he’d been reading about in Revelation. And leading him through the maze was none other than Salman Kilyos.

  Typically absurd and confusing, it was just like everything else. If there was a code to be cracked here, God would have to do the cracking. Because, as in everything else, Brandon had quit trying.

  When the water was good and warm, he stuck his head under the faucet to soften his hair for the shave. He didn’t hear the knock on the door until he turned off the tap and reached for the towel. Even then he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer it. By now every kook in the county had his address.

  But the knocking persisted. Toweling off, Brandon stepped into the hall and headed across the worn carpet toward the door.

  “Mr. Brandon, Mr. Brandon, are you there?” More knocking. “Mr. Brandon?” The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “Mr. Brandon?”

  He arrived and looked through the peephole. To his surprise it was Salman Kilyos, healthier than he’d ever seen him. Before he could stop it, Brandon’s mind sorted through the information, searching for the meaning behind the coincidence. For the millionth time he tried fitting together the puzzle, this time including Salman and the dream tattoo. And for the millionth time he hit a wall.

  “Mr. Brandon.”

  “Hang on.” He unlocked the original dead bolt, then the two new ones he’d installed, before sliding back the chain and opening the door.

  The man stood, smiling in the bright sunlight. “Good morning.” When he registered Brandon’s lack of hair, his smile wavered slightly. “It looks … good on you.”

  Brandon eyed him warily. “Good morning, Salman.”

  The man’s grin broadened. “I have them.”

  “Them?”

  He held out a business envelope. “Our tickets. To Istanbul.”

  Brandon clutched the door just a little bit tighter. “Istanbul?”

  “Of course.” The man moved past him and entered the apartment. “After all you have done for me, I figure it is the least I may do for you.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Dear Sarah,

  A minute doesn’t go by that you don’t somehow come to my mind … wondering what you would say in a situation, what jokes we would make, how we would laugh and talk and argue and pray with each other. I know this time is necessary, but it doesn’t make it less painful. Every morning I wake up and feel this huge piece of me missing … and every day I’m a little more afraid that we are drifting apart and that that piece of me may never return. Stupid, I know, but the fear is always there in the back of my mind. I’m glad you’re finding the boy so challenging … you’ve always liked challenges (as long as you can solve them).

  And what you say about Lucas Ponte is interesting. He’s on the news every night now, as the debate continues about him taking office and as they prepare to build some sort of temple in Jerusalem. He sounds like a courageous and caring man — just what our world needs to try to bring the peace the Cartel is promising. You’re right, working with him is a great opportunity, and it will be interesting to see what purpose his coming into our lives may have.

  Sarah blew the hair out of her eyes and reached for her mug of tea. She was annoyed at how, even now while reading a letter from her husband, thoughts of Lucas kept trying to distract her. Of course she found his flirting to be flattering — who wouldn’t? A man with all of that power and prestige taking an interest in her? It was enough to make anyone give pause. But that’s all she’d done, paused. She’d held off the invitations to dinner, the requests to privately discuss Eric’s condition over drinks. She was a married woman. And she was married to an incredible guy. Of course they had their differences; what couples didn’t? But they’d work them out. They had to.

  She looked back at the screen.

  I’m glad this trip to Turkey makes sense to you. When Salman first showed up at my door, telling me that God had told him to buy the tickets, you can bet I had some doubts. Of course I remembered how he’d said the crescent moon and star was the symbol for his beloved homeland, and I knew what Gerty had said about my going on a trip. But it wasn’t until you pointed out how all seven churches in Revelation are also in that country that things suddenly made sense.

  This is where Christ sent the “love letters” that He commanded us to study. I wouldn’t have made the connection if it wasn’t for your help. Funny, isn’t it? Here we are separated by thousands of miles, and yet we’re still working together as a team. Then again, maybe it’s not so funny at all.

  I’m on the plane now. We’ll be in Istanbul in eight more hours, then we’ll catch a flight to Izmir, and drive fifty miles to Ephesus, the first of the seven churches. I tell you though, this sitting and doing nothing for hour after hour can sure make a person crazy. Time is dragging in slow motion.

  To make it worse, they’re showing a little model of our plane up on the TV screens as it creeps across a map of the world. Talk about painful. It’s like watching the hour hand of a clock. Some people can sleep. I can’t. Too much excitement.

 
My hope is that I quickly learn what I must learn to “warn the bride.” How that’s going to happen is beyond me, but then it won’t be the first time He’s surprised us, will it? All I know is that the sooner I learn the lessons and the sooner you finish your work there, the sooner we will be back together.

  Until then, I love and miss you with all of my heart and all of my body and all of my soul.

  Yours forever, Brandon

  Sarah looked at the screen a long time before shutting it off. The room was darker now. She rose and crossed to the overstuffed chair near the window. She was already in her nightshirt — actually it was Brandon’s shirt, his blue shirt she loved so much. She eased herself down into the chair and pushed back the curtains. The mountains were on fire with another incredible sunset, making everything glow an iridescent pink.

  She wasn’t sure why she was crying. Some of it had to do with the letter, some of it had to do with missing Brandon. But there was more.

  She pulled her legs up under her chin and held them. High up on the slope above her, some of the Cartel office lights were still burning, including Lucas’s. She scolded herself for even looking and quickly redirected her gaze.

  She rested her forehead on her knees, face in the shirt, and breathed deeply. Even now she could smell Brandon’s smell — a little woodsy, a little trace of aftershave. And, as she breathed in, the memories came …

  It was true, Brandon was the most incredible man she had ever met. And he always would be. Just as importantly, he loved her. He cherished her. She snuggled deeper into the chair. She would sleep there, curled up, her face buried in her husband’s shirt, smelling his smell. The tears were gone, at least for now, as she continued to sit, breathing in and remembering his love. But they would return. Off and on throughout the night they would return.

  It was late and Katherine was bored. Once again she sat in front of Eric’s computer and once again she stared at the antisense files, the ones labeled after the first four cities to be infected with Scorpion — Cairo, Mecca, New York, Tel Aviv. Either the Cartel was getting more sophisticated in protecting their information or she was losing her touch. Maybe a little of both. In any case, her earlier attempts at hacking into these files had been unsuccessful. Now it was as much pride as it was curiosity. She would get into those files and she would find out why they were restricted.

  It was the last resort and one she felt a little uneasy using, but hey, they started it …

  First she brought up the Cartel’s system, complete with the graphic field of their logo, the planet Earth with four different races of hands clasped around it in unity.

  Next, she tried to log on as Marshal T. Elliott, the system’s administrator. She’d never met the man, but as the S.A. he had the highest security access to the Cartel’s computers. He could go anywhere he wanted inside the system. Nothing was forbidden to him. The reason? It was his job to oversee and watchdog the computer system, including, among other things, preventing people like Katherine from breaking into it.

  A prompt came up asking for Elliott’s password, which, of course, Katherine didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. This was where it got interesting …

  Instead of trying to guess the correct password and enter it on the Cartel’s graphic logo, Katherine simply typed up a program enabling her to make an exact copy of that graphic logo. Once she captured it, she then designed a shadow TSR, or terminate stay resident, program to bring her graphic logo up onto Elliott’s computer screen instead of the original. It would work like this:

  Elliott would boot up his computer. But instead of the Cartel’s graphic logo appearing, asking for his password, Katherine’s copy of the logo would appear asking for it. He would then enter his password using the standard nonechoing format which replaced his typed letters with asterisks. Next he would hit enter. When he did he would see a momentary flicker on the screen, and then the genuine graphic logo would appear, once again asking for his password.

  He would hesitate, wondering if there was a glitch in the system. But the only way to find out would be to reenter his password. He would do so, check out the system to make sure everything was running properly, and when he was satisfied he would continue with whatever work he was doing.

  In the meantime, Katherine’s copy of the graphic logo, complete with the newly typed password, would be recorded into an encrypted file and tagged with a legitimate file name so it wouldn’t stand out. Then, at her leisure, Katherine would simply bring up the file, retrieve Elliott’s password, and use it anytime she wanted to go into the system.

  It was totally dishonest and deceptively simple. But as any hacker or con artist will tell you, the best deceptions are the simplest.

  Katherine’s fingers flew across the keyboard as she finished the last of the TSR program and entered it into the system. In a day, maybe two, whenever she had some spare time, she would bring up the graphic field, use Elliott’s password, and cruise anywhere she wanted … particularly into the antisense subfiles listing those four cities.

  To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:

  These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

  Brandon had read the first part of this letter in Revelation a dozen times on the plane and half that many times in the bus on the way to Ephesus. He’d practically memorized it. And now, as he and Salman walked along the uneven marble road amidst the ruins, it was all he could do to imagine that this was the city, the actual location of the first-century church that Christ had addressed in the letter. This was where Timothy had pastored, where Paul had caused a riot, where many believe Mary spent her last years, and where the disciple John came to die.

  So much history here — particularly for someone whose idea of the ancient past went only as far back as the Civil War. It was hard to imagine that he was walking on pavement over two thousand years old, that he could actually see the grooves worn into the street from chariot wheels. And Salman was the perfect tour guide. He was only too happy to be back home in his country and to be showing off its rich history. As the son of an archaeologist, he’d been dragged to most of the major ruins a number of times. And Ephesus, nestled in the fog-covered hills near the Aegean Sea, was no different. He made sure Brandon saw everything … the temples, the gates, the palaces, the fountains, the baths, and the brothel. For Brandon one crumbling wall, broken set of steps, and marble column looked like the next, and he had to take Salman’s word as to what they saw. However, he was certain about the ancient public latrines — there was something about the long row of clearly defined and still functional marble toilet seats that made their authenticity more than obvious.

  “And the vestal virgins” — Salman pointed off to the right — “over here is where they lived. They were highly honored in the city. Their job was never to let the sacred flame go out.”

  “Sacred flame?”

  “Yes. The glory of Rome, that is what it represented, and it burned for centuries. These were glorious times, my friend. The times of the Imperial Cult.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Imperial Cult’?”

  “That’s when the Roman emperors ruled the world, when they were worshiped as gods.”

  Brandon said nothing as he looked around the ruins. Despite its fallen state, it wasn’t hard to imagine the splendor and majesty of the city.

  Salman continued. “And the festivals held for the Imperial Cult, they were the most important times of the city, for any of the cities. People, they would come from everywhere to participate in the processions, the ceremonies, the sacrifices, the feasts — they were wonderful times. The government even passed out money to the poor so they could afford an animal sacrifice. For some it was the only meat t
hey would be able to eat for the entire year.”

  “All of this to celebrate their ruler-gods?”

  “Yes, exactly. The Caesars. And that is why Christians, they were not so well liked.”

  “Because they didn’t worship them.”

  “Exactly. People, they would worship whoever or whatever they wanted, and that was okay. But if they did not also worship Caesar, the leader of the entire civilized world” — Salman ran a finger across his neck with the appropriate sound effect — “things would not go so well for them.”

  “And this.” Salman motioned to an imposing two-story structure complete with towering columns, statues, and intricate carvings. “This is the Celsus Library. It was completed about A.D. 125 and contained twelve thousand scrolls, making it one of the largest libraries in the world. The walls, they were twenty feet thick to protect the scrolls from weather and insects. Magnificent, is it not?”

  Brandon had to agree. In fact, the more he took in the sights of this ancient capital, the more magnificent everything became. What a world these first-century Christians had lived in … affluent, sophisticated, educated. And what a credit it was for them not to have their heads turned by all of this wealth and intellectualism — not to mention the flat-out hostility against them for refusing to worship Caesar. No wonder Christ started his letter to them with such praise.

  I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men… . You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

  These were impressive accomplishments. In many ways they made this church the ideal role model for today’s churches. Unfortunately, the letter continued …

  “Mr. Brandon, where are you going?”