Kalifa could never relinquish his weapon. To die young was to die fighting. The magazine on the Model-0 held twelve rounds and he had placed an extra directly into the chamber; giving thirteen. Five had been delivered on the deck above but that still left eight twitching to find permanent homes. Kalifa fought through his pain to focus as much energy as he could. Closing his eyes to the man’s gaze he pulled the trigger nine times, the final hollow click telling him that his weapon had emptied.
When he opened his eyes again he saw that the man had collapsed to his knees, agony tearing through his face. His black polo neck sweater possessed five distinct holes, his torn flesh visible underneath. Five out of eight. More than enough to kill a man. Yet no blood flowed from this man’s wounds. His flesh was as dry as Kalifa’s mouth.
The fear that Kalifa felt now stole the very breath from his lungs. He had shot the man five times, and three had caught him full in the chest. When you shot a man five times he bled. Ultimately he died.
Instead, this man composed himself and slowly rose to his feet as though he had tripped on a low branch. Then he walked toward Kalifa’s collapsed frame with no more than an expression of puzzlement and resignation. “I warned you,” he said, his brow furrowed, “and still you chose to shoot?” In his head he reached a conclusion. He pulled the hammer back on his revolver and shrugged. “It will be your undoing.”
“Then I will die knowing that I did all that my God asked of me,” Kalifa replied. His words were fast, his time was short. He closed his eyes in readiness...
A pause. “You would die for your God?” the man asked.
Again Kalifa had opened his eyes. The man was looking straight back at them; genuinely interested. Kalifa had nodded defiantly, reached into his coat and clumsily retrieved a packet of filterless cigarettes. They fell from his weakened hands and landed on the floor. He would not even be able to muster enough strength for a condemned man’s cigarette.
The stranger reached across and picked them up. He placed one in Kalifa’s sweating mouth and extracted a gold lighter from his jacket pocket.
“What is your name?” he had asked, and with great pride Kalifa had told him. Still he wondered if they might be the last words he ever spoke. The man looked to his victim and thought for a moment, recalling Kalifa’s words to the Irishman. He had listened and he had learned and when he spoke, his words were structured to appeal directly to his victim’s overwhelming sense of pride.
“And the Children of Israel said unto them, would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots and did eat bread to the full...” Then he paused, looking around at the six dead men whose bodies were draining blood into the timber flooring of the yacht. Unknown to Kalifa, one of those men had been ‘Malachi’, the previous wearer of the red robes; the previous head of Eternity’s armaments division. Now he was dead and a replacement needed to be found. The man smiled in admiration, “...for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
“Exodus 16:3.” Kalifa replied slowly. He knew the passage by heart.
The man crouched low so that he could light Kalifa’s cigarette.
“Like Zebulun, born of Jacob, you are indeed a Child of Israel,” he had said. “Because you kill to assuage the hunger of your people, and your God follows with you.”
At the precise moment that the man had placed his gold lighter in the breast pocket of Kalifa’s coat, he had felt the glory of God. In an instant Kalifa Halil had almost ceased to exist. He had encountered a living deity, a man who could not die at the hands of mortals; truly a man descended from God himself. A man who later claimed that, as ‘The Abraham’ he was clearing the way for the coming of the true Hebrew Christ.
From that day forward, Kalifa knew that he would follow this man wherever; whenever; forever.
Now, as Malachi’s replacement; Zebulun, Kalifa’s years of service had indeed led him to witness the promised Messiah. He was indeed blessed.
He checked his pocket for the plaque, still protected from fingerprints in a clear plastic sleeve, and wondered. He would never question any of his six sets of instructions, for only The Abraham knew what the ultimate outcome would be, but he conceded to himself that he was often intrigued.
Preparing for the fourth of his killings he tried in vain to understand why the plaques must be left at the scene, why they contained references to chess and why he was now only fifteen minutes away from slicing a man’s throat and allowing the body to drain of blood from a twelve foot high crucifix which The Abraham already knew adorned the roof of the victim’s home.
But as he ignited the instructions and they fell burning to the stony ground, the evidence dispersing as glowing ashes into the breeze, Zebulun gave up trying to solve an impossible equation. After all, he was in reality no more than a privileged servant. He did not have the need, the right or indeed the foresight to know where the paths he cleared would ultimately lead mankind.
As ever, the end result of The Abraham’s divine thinking was something that could not be predicted by a mere disciple such as he. What connection could there possibly be between the inconsequential Spaniard, the young and ambitious Dave Clearwater and an elderly monk who had chosen to offer his final years as a recluse, hidden away in a monastery in the tiny Italian village of Montecastrilli?
Why were these people deemed so significant as to be part of Zebulun’s final kills? How could their deaths possibly protect the child or prepare the way for Armageddon?
Only The Abraham could possibly know.
dwelling at ephesus
Acts 19:17
Almost as soon as Andy had left the building, MaryBeth’s head appeared around Jack’s heavy door wearing a warm smile. “How are you feeling?” she asked, although there was really no need. The answer was written all over his face.
He forced a smile as she handed him a laser printout of the most important Email to have arrived during the time he had been away. “It came through while I was collecting you last night apparently,” she said, biting into the arm of her glasses. “I haven’t had chance to check the data yet. All I can tell you is that the first one was, quote ‘somewhere in Los Angeles’. They say they can’t be any more specific in high usage areas, but there are some co-ordinates given for the other two. They tell me that these are approximate, but I don’t know where they place her as yet.”
Jack looked at the A4 sheet of paper, headed ‘GlobeLink Communications International’ and read aloud: “Dear Ms. DeLaine, thank you for your recent enquiry regarding locational information on the cellular transmissions listed below, blah, blah.” Toward the base of the page he saw that, as MaryBeth had indicated, the first transmission had been somewhere in central California, in or around Los Angeles.
“She was close to home for the first,” he said. His statement was tinged with slight optimism until the moment that he realised how that was probably the last detail he had wanted to know after the event. It was harder to learn that she was nearby when it was all too late. Had he known at the time, he might have been able to do something to help her. Always assuming, of course, that she had allowed him to.
The second transmissions were both triangulated to the same approximate location, GlobeLink apologising that they could only work to the closest full degree of latitude and longitude. Their data readout from cross-referencing the signals from four active satellites detailed the co-ordinates as probably 38_Lat, 29_Lon.
“So where does this put her?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” MaryBeth offered. “Like I say I haven’t had chance to look.” She realised almost as soon as she had spoken that Jack’s question had been rhetorical; he was already firing up the MapFinder software on his desktop computer.
He keyed in the grid co-ordinates and a small flashing icon appeared on the Mediterranean area of the world globe. Dextrously moving his mouse to the ‘OPTIONS’ palette at the base he selected ‘ZOOM TO LOCATION’ and saw
that it was in the western area of Turkey, a few miles from the Ægean Coast.
MaryBeth walked over to the screen, placing her hand on Jack’s shoulder as she leaned to take a closer look. “What the hell was she doing in Turkey?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Jack replied, “but we’re going to find out.”
“Can we zoom any closer?”
Jack clicked the same function again and the western coast of Turkey filled his screen. The flashing icon intermittently obscured the name of the closest town to the co-ordinates he had entered, a moderately sized coastal town called Izmir.
Then his eye caught another name about half an inch of screen from Izmir itself. A much smaller village, marked with an unusual church-like symbol to suggest that it held some special religious significance. The key to the map, running down the right hand side of the screen, showed that six other locations within Turkey had the same symbol designated to them. Together, it explained, they formed the ‘Seven Ancient Churches of Asia as visited extensively by the Apostles’; Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Pergamos and one other settlement were on the list. The most highly regarded of the ancient settlements, however, was the one he was staring at open-mouthed right now.
“Holy shit,” he said. “We just found Ephesus.”
Jack did not know or care that Jesus and his ‘disciples’ had had chosen to settle in Ephesus because it was seen to be a tactical location. Positioned halfway between Palestine and Rome, it was the ideal base for an assault against the might of the Roman Empire.
He was not aware that Saul, having seen the ‘resurrected’ Jesus and changed his name to Paul, had broken away from the group resident at Ephesus, formed his own less aggressive assault and ultimately founded the Roman Catholic Church right in the very heart of Rome.
He was not even well-versed enough to know that the Book of Revelation itself had been addressed to the Seven Ancient Churches of Asia as a warning of things to come. Some scholars, noting that only Ephesus received a favourable review within its text, even speculated that Revelation might have been written there. Perhaps it had been composed by the most famous resident of all.
All Jack cared about was that he might have unwittingly found the location of the cult. He might therefore have finally uncovered the whereabouts of the child.
Andy had not even made it off the campus before his mobile phone was ringing and the addendum was given:
Detail all cults based in Turkey which match criteria; especially any based in or near a town called ‘Ephesus’.
behold, his daughter
Judges 11:34
Whilst Jack dutifully attended Dave’s funeral service, MaryBeth was placed in a situation where she did not know whether to laugh or cry. What was now being presented before her was perfect, far better than she had ever hoped. And to think they had had so little to work with; just photographs, a few movies and limited segments of recorded speech.
She was standing open-mouthed in D-12, a laboratory situated within the secretive walls of the Research & Development Unit. The area known as ‘Ocean’.
It had been on the third occasion that Jack had visited the site of the campus to check on the work in progress that he had noticed the foreman referring to the way the work was progressing ‘in the Mountain’. When questioned, the foreman had simply said that most of his men did not seem to know east from west or north from south. So, the ‘Mountain’ was the quarter of the campus that faced north toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. This now housed IntelliSoft’s Technical Division.
The southern quarter of the site was the ‘Valley’ in reference to the valley which ran south to Los Angeles. That now housed the main offices of the sales, accounts, legal, marketing and public relations departments, as well as the boardrooms and the conference centre. The western quarter which faced toward the ocean was designated ‘Ocean’ and the eastern quarter was now ‘River’ because they had run out of ideas and the Colorado River was about the only thing they could think of that could be construed as east of the site. This now housed IntelliSoft’s state-of-the-art manufacturing and distribution centre. As each of the quarters was positioned around the huge lake and park complex which was under construction in the centre of the Campus, the remaining central area had simply been labelled the ‘Lake’.
Jack liked the system and, even though his campus had now somehow managed to be split in five quarters, it had stuck. He had even used a similar system to label the sites within the ‘FireWorX’ virtual environment.
All research and development, whether hardware, software or a combination of both, was conducted in ‘Ocean’, as was all reverse engineering; the department which dissected the coding of competitors’ products in order to obtain as significant a commercial advantage as possible.
It had long been documented that when experienced programmers had looked closely at Jack’s first major product, ChessWizard, the coding contained within it possessed more than a passing resemblance to that of Gambit Software’s ‘ChekMate’, the biggest selling pre-IntelliSoft chess program. It was accepted that Jack’s team had added significant features and an innovative interface but it was also obvious that most of the hard work had already been done by Gambit who were soon finding themselves nearing insolvency due to IntelliSoft’s almost overnight domination. Domination by plagiarism.
Gambit had immediately threatened to sue for millions in lost revenue from copyright theft but Jack calmly offered anyone that mattered at Gambit Software a healthy lump sum, share options in IntelliSoft and a job on his own development team. It achieved what he had wanted, for them to shut up shop and shut up about legal action, but it brought with it an extra bonus. In a matter of weeks the company effectively became part of IntelliSoft and every good idea they were working on, including computers that could learn as they played, became Jack’s. Chess was an ideal in the development of true artificial intelligence because it contained no chance factor to muddy the contest and it pitted two intellects in a situation so complex that neither could ever hope to understand it completely. It was, however, sufficiently open to analysis that each opponent might actually try to out-think the other. By purchasing the most powerful chess technology available, IntelliSoft had instantly gained the means by which other ultra complicated problems might one day be solved.
In the virtual room with MaryBeth was one of the brightest stars to have been procured from Gambit Software; Geoff Hoyle. He had been second in command at Gambit and had known MaryBeth since long before the takeover. She had spent three years handling P.R. for a games developer in England and had approached Gambit several times with a view to joining them. She had said that she was looking to work in a better climate, and had meant it in every sense.
Geoff had liked MaryBeth straight away. She had come bearing a big smile and equally big ideas but then IntelliSoft’s overnight success had led to a similarly swift Gambit takeover. Geoff, far from being annoyed, was more than happy with the deal he received; he was offered a favourable sum of money and plenty of freedom. He had even managed to introduce his new employer to MaryBeth and have her taken on board as well. Even now he liked her so much that it never even bothered him that she had worked her way up to become perceived in many ways as his senior.
Now, as they took a few moments to look at the R&D lab’s latest amazing creation, his smile was uncontrollably wide. Gambit would never have raised the funding for a project such as this. Gambit would never have even dreamed of a project such as this.
Queen was complete.
“Pretty convincing, isn’t she,” he said, his excitement fuelled by an almost paternal sense of pride.
MaryBeth shook her head in awe. “She’s unbelievable.”
“So when do we show the big guy?” He sounded like an eager schoolboy who had completed his finest assignment.
MaryBeth pensively bit a heavily glossed lip. “He’s out all afternoon. What about this evening?” She looked pleadingly to her colleague, knowing that it wou
ld necessitate another late night. “Shall we say nine o’clock?”
“Nine o’clock,” Geoff said mockingly. “I’ll make sure the team are together.”
an eagle toward heaven
Proverbs 23:5
Though it was only his second in as many years, Dave’s funeral was also Jack’s second in as many months. He hated them. He had as a child and he did as a man. Then, after Elizabeth’s...
But he had to be there. Not just to represent IntelliSoft, but also for Dave as well.
As the service was delivered he looked across the grave and caught sight of Frank Warner, the FBI agent who had been the first to inform him of his daughter’s death. He was waiting at the crest of the hill; eyes fixed firmly back. The sight of the stoic figure, wearing a private detective style hat against the heat and staring intently each time Jack lifted his respectfully lowered head was as stark a reminder as he needed that his life was currently spiralling out of his control. Strange as the circumstances surrounding his daughter were becoming, and strange as the use of a nerve agent in Dave’s apartment may be, he hoped to God that the two acts were not as related as they initially appeared to be. If they were, then he was undoubtedly entering into a game whose stakes were higher than he could ever have initially envisaged. Far higher.
The traditional Mojave service, held in an area designated as a family burial ground at the furthest extremes of the reservation, was anything but sedate. After a ritual dance performed by five tribesmen wearing traditional dress, the Song of Salvation was performed by an elder. Then came the ‘Flight of the Eagle’.
The majestic bird never strayed far from the ceremony; choosing instead to circle around the onlookers as though circling Dave’s path to another world. Its broad wings formed a clear silhouette in the afternoon sky and its cries of temporary freedom echoed through the barren landscape. There was no fear that the eagle would disappear into the wild. From the moment it had entered into the world, it had been nurtured by the tribe and it belonged to them. It would always come back. Bringing with it the spirit of their now departed brother.
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