Soon

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Paul heard squeaky wheels and felt something brush his thigh. The men lifted him and set him into what felt like a canvas cart.

  “Fetal position,” one said.

  Paul thought about trying to wrestle free, but he was at too much of a disadvantage. They covered him with sheets and blankets, and he heard Straight’s voice.

  “See you down there.” Then, “Trust me, Paul.”

  He felt the cart move—toward the door, he assumed. Was it possible Straight was a double agent? If so, Paul was dead.

  “Are we alone?” he asked.

  “Quiet.”

  “Where’re we going?”

  “Don’t make this difficult, Paul.”

  Paul heard the door open and felt it bang the side of the cart as Straight pushed him into the corridor. They were going the opposite direction from where Paul had gotten off the elevator, so when they stopped and he heard a button being pushed, he assumed it was the freight elevator.

  Doors opened, the cart was pushed on, doors closed, and Paul heard a whine and felt downward motion. When the doors opened again, he smelled the underground garage and heard electric- and hydrogen-powered cars coming and going. The cart slowed as it was wheeled up a ramp. A metallic door slid open, and the cart jostled over an uneven space. The door slid shut.

  Everything was quiet save the sound of a truck engine, and they began to move. Straight removed the sheets and blankets. “Can you sit up, Paul?”

  Paul planted a foot and tried to rock up, but he needed help. Straight pulled him to a sitting position, then unfastened the leather strap. “You okay?”

  “I could have killed one of you in that room.”

  “I believe that,” Straight said, tossing the strap aside and lifting the pillowcase free.

  There was zero light in the back of the truck. “So it’s just the two of us now?” Paul said. “Where’s the muscle?”

  “In front with the driver. Now take my arm and step out of there. There’s a bench over here. It’ll be a long ride.”

  “Where are we going, Straight?”

  “You’ll see when we get there, Paul—but let me just say it will be more than you ever could have imagined.”

  “I need to know—”

  “You need to have faith, Paul. Just relax.”

  After about two hours, Paul guessed, the truck finally stopped, but the engine continued to idle. Straight put the pillowcase over Paul’s head. “I’ll accept a blindfold,” Paul said. “But don’t restrain me. If you can’t trust me—”

  “You’re not in charge here, Paul. It’s not about me and my trust. This is for the comfort of those you are visiting. Now don’t make me get help.”

  From outside, Paul heard what sounded like a huge metal gate sliding open. Straight knocked twice on the back of the truck, and the door slid open. Paul felt the cool evening breeze through the flimsy pillowcase and was aware of the glare of overhead lights. He was led down off the truck, across a gravel pathway, and inside. The way the door rattled and the way their quiet conversation echoed and rang, he deduced it was a metal structure.

  They moved him across a squeaky wood floor, and he heard an elevator noisily rumble open. “Careful,” Straight said, guiding him onto what felt like a floating platform. “There’s just enough room for the five of us, and you won’t fall through.”

  Paul felt cool air rush from below, and though the car began a rickety, metallic descent, the wall felt like wire mesh. They seemed to descend forever. “How far are we going?” Paul said.

  “A good ways. More than eleven hundred feet.”

  When the elevator finally bounced to a stop far below the surface, Paul sniffed and found the air cool, dry, and briny.

  Straight said, “You two drive on ahead and tell them we’ll be along.”

  Drive? Eleven hundred feet underground?

  Straight walked Paul a couple hundred feet then guided him into another truck. They rode a long time before Straight helped him out of the restraint and the pillowcase. They were on a broad thoroughfare, where huge, cloudy translucent pillars rose to a vaulted roof. A salt mine.

  “Southwestern Detroit or northeastern Ohio, right?” Paul said.

  “If I wanted you to know, I wouldn’t have tossed you in the back of a truck, would I? This salt bed covers tens of thousands of miles. We could be in any of several prewar states.”

  They rolled past huge, dilapidated equipment that made Paul wonder aloud how it had been delivered to this level. The tires alone had to be seven feet tall.

  “In pieces,” Straight explained. “Assembled down here. When the mines were active, just before the end of the war, there was all kinds of that stuff down here.”

  The farther they rode, the better lit the mine was. Every few yards, signs along the walls warned of radioactivity. “Phony,” Straight said.

  They passed what looked like massive banquet halls or ballrooms.

  “People live down here?”

  “More than you would think. You’re going to meet three of ’em.”

  “And nobody knows they’re down here?”

  “Nobody who doesn’t need to know. They’re not thrilled about your knowing.”

  Paul heard nothing and saw only whitish walls. “How far in are they?”

  “About another quarter of a mile. This labyrinth goes for miles and miles.”

  “What’s all this?” Paul said, pointing at a network of pipe and cable overhead.

  “It used to supply electricity to all the mining equipment. They connected to the cables the way electric trolleys used to on the surface. We have vastly expanded this to provide power for daily living. This is a city beneath a city, Paul. Any outsider gets this far and sensors let our guards know. All activity in our little community ceases. Lights go out; refrigerators, freezers—you name it—stop humming. Snoops get tired of walking in the dark, so they head back up and out none the wiser.”

  “Anyone ever get far enough to encounter your lookouts?”

  “Never.”

  “What if somebody did?”

  “We don’t like to think about that, but we have a plan.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Like I say, we don’t like to think about it.”

  “You’d have to kill them. And then what?”

  “Procedure calls for taking the body to the surface, putting it in the vehicle it showed up in, and moving that vehicle somewhere so the body would not be traced to the mine.”

  “How do you justify that?”

  “We don’t, Paul. We pray it never happens.”

  “How do you keep people from nosing around?”

  “We’re way off the beaten track, and you have to really want to get here. There’s absolutely nothing of value that anyone knows about. The gates work only on our highly encrypted code, and as soon as we’re inside the fence, our vehicles can be hidden. There are signs warning of high voltage, dogs, and again, radiation. When the mine first shut down, a group planned to dump radioactive waste here, which would have worked well. They never did it, but our signs scare off people with bad memories. I daresay most of the locals believe this is a radiation dump site.”

  “That would keep me away.”

  They finally turned a corner that opened onto a long, straight corridor. “About another three hundred yards that way you take a left and you’ll come into the community. Up here on your right should be our hosts.”

  Paul was struck that the area looked like a lunchroom for a small office. Nondescript chairs, a table, a fridge, a microwave, even a coatrack. As they entered, three people rose. In the center was Abraham, the man Paul had met in the park, hoodless now but still wearing shades. “Doctor,” he said warmly, embracing him, “welcome to our community. This is my wife, Sarah—” a woman who looked to be in her late fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, smiled—“and this is Isaac.”

  “Not their son,” Isaac offered so quickly that Paul guessed he said it often. He and Sarah, like Abraham, wore dark glasses
. His hair was reddish blond with a little gray visible. Paul judged him to be in his forties.

  “We all use code names here,” Abraham said. “Many of our residents are fugitives. Almost none of us know the true identities of those we live and work alongside. It’s a matter of security.”

  “That’s why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff getting me here?”

  “I can understand if you found it a bit off-putting. But we transport everyone in and out of here, with few exceptions, the same way. Imagine if law-enforcement agencies got wind of this place.”

  Abraham gestured toward chairs for Paul and Straight. He, Isaac, and Sarah wore small crown-shaped pins identical to one he’d seen on Straight’s lapel. Some kind of Christian insignia? Paul had never thought to ask Straight about it—in fact, he’d barely noticed it—but he would now. As Isaac sat back down, Paul noticed that though he was powerfully built, one arm dangled, unusable.

  Isaac caught him looking. “Shot,” he said. “Got my shoulder blown out during a government raid in Pacifica. I was the only member of my group who survived.”

  Paul stifled a gasp. Pacifica—did he mean San Francisco? Dare I ask?

  “We were thrilled by the success of your efforts in New York,” Abraham began.

  “What I witnessed there was amazing,” Paul said. “And as you predicted, God showed me what to do.”

  “The professor says it helped bring you to a decision on our proposition.”

  “It has. And my answer is yes. I’m with you all the way.”

  Abraham beamed. Sarah leaned against her husband, raising a hand to brush away tears. Isaac reached with his good arm to grasp Paul’s. “Thank you,” he said. “We know you’re in a far more vulnerable place than any of us, living within the camp of the enemy. You’re an answer to prayer, and we will continue to uphold you in prayer.”

  “Paul, one of our people has begun daily prayer and study with your new convert,” Abraham said. “And we owe you a special debt of thanks. He has already made a substantial donation that will let us implement some new efforts we have planned. We spoke a little of our mission when we met in the park.”

  “Yes, to offer believers fellowship and guidance, as well as to spread the word.”

  “That, and to help coordinate the work of local Christian groups. But our mission actually goes deeper than that. What do you know of the Rapture?”

  Paul looked at Straight, puzzled.

  “You might call it the opening phase of the events described in the book of Revelation,” Straight said. “In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, Jesus will appear in the clouds and with a shout and the sound of a trumpet will summon all who are ready—the true believers—to meet Him in the air and welcome them into heaven.”

  “Literally lift them off the earth?”

  Straight nodded, smiling. “And the Bible tells us it will happen at an unexpected hour.”

  “What happens to everyone else?” Paul asked.

  “Those who are left behind and survive the chaos—imagine what happens during rush hour when people disappear from behind the wheels of their cars—will try to survive a period of tribulation, when God sends twenty-one judgments from heaven in a last-ditch effort to get their attention. Many will receive Christ, but more will still reject Him, in spite of everything they’ve experienced. Since the true believers will be in heaven, there will be no one left to teach them except people who should have known better.”

  “And since religious texts have been banned for decades,” Isaac said, “there might be nothing for them to learn from without our help.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We’ve started planting copies of the Bible and Christian tracts throughout the world, in countless locations and in every conceivable medium, to ensure that God’s Word will never be eradicated from the earth. We’ve begun to issue print, digital, video, audio—even international sign language video—editions so it will be accessible to all despite technological change, illiteracy, or environmental upheaval, such as power outages arising from natural or man-made disasters or even the privations of the end times. Some of the places we plant texts are predictable—after all, you want to put them where people would naturally look, even while safeguarding them from the government. For example, the American Library of Congress, which has outreach all over the world, runs our book-drop program, getting Bibles or tracts, often bound inside other books or monographs, placed in every single library in the world.”

  “The Library of Congress,” Paul repeated, thinking of Angela Barger.

  “I used to work in the recording business,” Abraham said. “One of the new programs we want to start involves having one in every-so-many-thousand discs issued contain a New Testament track or maybe even be an entire New Testament disc, instead of what the customer ordered. The same goes for downloads off the Internet; you might expect Thelonius Monk and get Thessalonians.”

  Paul laughed. “Corinthians instead of Carmen. Galatians instead of Garth Brooks. Ingenious.”

  “We have to keep thinking up new schemes to stay ahead of the government,” Abraham said. “One of Sarah’s pet projects involves textiles with texts woven in.”

  “It would be quite easy,” Sarah said, “and think how valuable it could be in less developed parts of the world.”

  “And your friend the professor is working with medical professionals to tap into the nationwide hospital communications network.”

  “Straight! I always thought you were overqualified to be an inpatient baby-sitter.”

  “Oh no, Paul. My volunteer work is important too. That’s why you’re here, don’t forget.”

  We have our appointed tasks—which are critical—that we must diligently perform. . . .

  Abraham said, “So you see, Paul, our work is vital. We are fighting to win hearts to Christ in what is surely the most repressive time in human history—when world governments have not only banned religion but also are technologically capable of enforcing that ban by spying on every citizen. We maintain a library, train teachers, and offer other support services to believers today, but we must also lay the groundwork, through our masscommunications program, for a future we will never see that could begin at any moment. We code-named the new effort Soon.

  “Let’s pray.” They all clasped hands, Paul taking Isaac’s crippled one. “God, our Father, we bring to You Your son, Paul, who is embarking on a journey so dangerous that his life is in Your hands. We pray Your guidance and protection, Your wisdom and strength for him as he serves You. In the name of Christ, amen.”

  Abraham raised his head. “We wanted you brought here, Paul, so you would feel that you are truly one of us, a soldier in the growing army of God. Since He is with us, none of us need ever feel alone.”

  21

  PAUL WAS BLINDFOLDED and restrained again once they were a short way from the meeting site. His mind spun like a turbine, thinking of a city in a salt mine, modern catacombs, a refuge from persecution, and a mother ship for Christian groups. The Rapture, when God would call believers to heaven. Operation Soon, a bold initiative to keep the Word of God in circulation through the end of time. Isaac, who may have been the man Paul tried to murder in San Francisco. And those lapel pins . . .

  When they were settled on the bench in the truck, Straight freed him.

  “When you gave me the ailanthus leaves, it fit my theory that different Christian groups use different identification symbols.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about those?”

  Straight hesitated and spoke slowly, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Well, ah, before you committed to joining us, it didn’t make sense to give you a lot of background on Christian identification symbols.”

  “Fair enough. But you can tell me now. Those crowns you and the people in the salt mine wear are your identification symbols, right? And they come from the third chapter of Revelation, when God tells the church of Philadelphia: ‘Hold on to what you have, so tha
t no one will take away your crown.’ ”

  Straight raised a brow. “Well, yes . . .”

  “So my theory was right. I figured the resistance was using imagery from Revelation, especially the beginning, the part about the churches. For example, they might have attacked Sardis Oil in Gulfland because one of the churches of Revelation was in Sardis. The believers connected to that operation picked a medallion depicting a book and light-colored clothes as their symbols. I never worked it out enough to report it to my boss. But it’s true, isn’t it?”

  Straight shook his head. “It’s scary how close you came, Paul. But remember, the events in Gulfland and other places were miracles. Christians never targeted or attacked anything. So no, your theory wasn’t quite right.”

  “What did I miss?”

  “Think about it. How many churches—or lampstands or stars—come up in that section?”

  “Seven?”

  “And what seven divisions could Christians be grouped under?”

  “Well . . . we are the United Seven States of America.”

  “Right. And the affiliations aren’t random. You know history is my game, Paul. Check the history of those seven churches of Revelation and you’ll find that each bears a distinct correspondence to one of our seven states.”

  Paul decided that was the most amazing thing he’d heard that night—even considering he had been abducted and dragged down into a mine.

  “Take Ephesus,” Straight said. “It was a port city called the ‘market of Asia’ because it was the most important financial center on the Mediterranean. Besides banking, a major industry was making silver shrines to the goddess Artemis. The Bible tells us that, in addition to believing in false gods associated with silver, so many Ephesians believed in magic that when their divination books were burned, it was as if fifty thousand pieces of silver had gone up in smoke.

  “Ephesus remind you of someplace?”

  Paul stared, dumbfounded.

  “Thought so,” Straight said. “And—just as an aside—remember, in Acts Paul is called upon to revive a man who fell from a thirdstory window in Troas.” Paul sat back, speechless. “See, Paul, once you start looking for signs that the end is upon us, they’re everywhere.”