“They were going to bomb the sites,” he said suddenly.
Warner sounded puzzled. “How do you mean?”
“I’d been trying to work out why they hadn’t bothered coming straight after me, and then I realised... They needed me alive so that they could use my launch.” Jack’s voice was hurried, as though he had been given a minute to outline the facts in some cheap Saturday night game show. “So, you see, I had the guys do a full site sweep and the bastards had placed a device on every damn one of them. They were going to kill thousands and they were going to use my fucking launch to do it.”
“Jesus Christ,” Warner said. “You sure know how to make enemies, don’t you? Well, I’ll tell you now. Within thirty six hours they won’t be doing anything to anyone. Then I reckon we can start to clear this whole sorry mess up.”
“So... so... how did you find them?”
“From your lists,” Warner said, smiling to himself. “Long story. I’ll fill you in when you get here, if you can make it.”
“I’m as good as there,” Jack said.
His relieved face curled into a full smile as the Bronco’s powerful headlamps eerily illuminated the gates of the ranch. It had been a long day, but a damn good one all the same. Not only had they unearthed the hidden devices, but also the people responsible for planting them. And for killing Dave and the others. There would be no ‘KNIGHT TAKES KING’, if that was indeed what they had been planning. And soon - very soon - his grandson would be coming home and life could finally start the task of creating a sense of normality again.
“Agent Warner?” he said. “Thanks.” His tone was genuine. “I mean... for finding them for me.”
Warner’s broad smile almost carried along the wire. “Told you I would. Didn’t I?”
all of them riding upon
horses, a great company
Ezekiel 38:15
In the beautiful orange-red light of an Ægean dawn, the signal was given and ten sea-grey Sikorsky CH-53 ‘Super Stallion’ helicopters lifted gracefully from the decks of the U.S.S. Eisenhower, the heavy thunder of engines filling the morning air as their silhouettes climbed higher into the sky. Ten more Sikorskys would be starting their ascent from the Nimitz-Class carrier’s sister ship, the U.S.S. Roosevelt, currently holding position twelve miles due east. With a maximum airspeed of 278kph at low level the helicopters, leaving for the 135km flight at 05:30, would arrive in Kozlar at 06:00 hours precisely.
Nineteen of the twenty helicopters each contained fifteen United States Marines, whilst the twentieth carried a medical team, three United Nations Weapons Inspectors and four representatives of the International Red Cross. This final helicopter would not land in Kozlar until it received special clearance which indicated that the base had been fully secured and the dangers to the passengers it carried had been minimised.
During the half-hour flight to Kozlar, tense telephone exchanges between Washington and Istanbul would begin to take place, Senate officials explaining the United States’ position to the Turkish government. They would request that no action was taken against the helicopters as they entered Turkish airspace, and dictate the terms as laid down by the United Nations for harbouring a group of people now suspected of contravening the Geneva Convention.
Politically, the United States were creating a minefield but even so, in his rush-meeting with Assistant Director William Kessel, President Clarke had offered his instant approval to the raid. With Iraq and the former Soviet Union’s chemical and biological programme now all but defunct, he had been appalled to learn that privately owned organisations were now entering into such potentially lethal areas of manufacture. The United States, he would explain to the press if the site did indeed turn out to be manufacturing sarin, had a moral duty to crush those who continued to manufacture weapons of such indiscriminate mass destruction. Subliminally he would be trying to indicate that the people of the United States had a moral duty to re-elect such a caringly hardline President come next year’s end-of-term showdown.
General Kerr smiled as the helicopters disappeared into the morning sunset and went below decks to the control room from which he would co-ordinate the landings and initial assault. If ‘Operation Weedkiller’ was a success, which he was sure it would be, then he would leave the Eisenhower in just over an hour, flying to Cyprus aboard a much smaller Bell 212 ‘Huey’ helicopter. By the time he arrived, Special Agent Frank Warner, Jack Bernstein and a team of official investigators and translators should already be well on their way.
He checked his watch. Twenty-three minutes to go.
* * * * *
Warner handed Jack a double measure of bourbon laced with glistening ice from the drinks cabinet housed in the aft section of the F.B.I. Lear jet.
The inside of the executive lounge was both modern and luxurious. In addition to the high-backed leather seating the cabin also possessed telephones, fax machines and laptop computers with modem and ISDN links, all secured to chrome shelving which ran both sides of the aircraft. There was also a television set with integral video recorder mounted on a bracket on the forward wall. Whilst Warner had fixed the drinks, Jack had been watching yet more press reports covering the bombing of Senator McKinnock’s car. When the two men had appeared on screen, temporarily incapacitated on the ground and surrounded by pieces of twisted metal, he grabbed the remote control and switched off. The cabin had fallen into sudden silence during which he rubbed his tired neck. It was broken only when he gratefully accepted the drink.
Warner smiled. “Nervous?”
“Very,” Jack said. “I just hope he’s alright, that’s all.” He did not need to say any more. The television coverage alone was testament enough to the consequences the guardians of Lara’s child were capable of creating in God’s name.
Warner smiled gently, settled into the leather seat to the left of Jack’s and held up his glass as a toast. “Fingers crossed,” he said.
Each took a drink and each made a vain attempt to relax. It had been a tiring journey for both, Jack having flown overnight from Los Angeles with only an hour’s rest in Washington and Warner having attended a lengthy briefing session by the F.B.I.’s Senior Interrogation Officer on what to expect from the people he was due to interview in Cyprus.
Those arrested, he was told, would undoubtedly be reluctant to reveal any plans that the group may have had, and would fervently protect their leader to the end. An added stumbling block was the possibility that they may, as was often the case in ‘cult’ situations, be under the influence of either mind expanding or sedative drugs. The most prolific in previous cases was LSD, which therefore increased the possibility of hallucinogenic, paranoid or schizophrenic outbursts during the interviews. If there were signs of substance abuse, the S.I.O. had said, then it would be very hard to trust anything that was said.
“By the way,” Jack said, turning to Warner. “You never did tell me how you found them.”
Warner’s wry smile returned. “I used a thief to catch a thief,” he said.
Jack’s puzzled face demanded an explanation.
“A young agent by the name of Kyle McCarthy; forever treading on toes. They put him in charge of investigating the death of your man Clearwater and consequently the Senator. So I tricked him into giving me the lead I needed on the lists. That way he was helping me to solve his case. I had him thinking he was helping me with a fraud.”
Jack pondered the scenario for a moment and smiled. “Which I suppose he was in many ways.”
“Damn right,” Warner agreed, “but he made me see something we’d all been missing. Namely, that the clues were not in the companies themselves but in their names and logos. I gather that’s something your Global TeleSoft system did not give you access to. It appears that the logos have a kind of religious slant and, as it happens, Kyle’s your regular Sunday morning guy. As soon as he sees them he knows I should be looking for a fourth company. Tells me to ‘look to God’ and how it ‘might be a revelation’.”
T
he cabin fell silent. But not for long.
“The Bible?” Jack said, his eyes narrowing as he worked the puzzle through his mind.
Warner took another drink and nodded emphatically. “It took me a bit longer to work it out, but I got it in the end. Book of Revelation: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
Jack nodded as the pieces clicked into place. “That figures.”
He pulled out the a copy of the notes he had compiled for Berkeley. “You see, the logo for Pegasus Holdings was a crown with an archer’s bow intertwined within it. And they had a tagline which read:” He scanned the sheets for the required section. “Here it is; ‘conquering, and to conquer’. You see? Revelation 6:2; “And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon had a bow; and there was given unto him a crown; and he came forth conquering, and to conquer.’ Pegasus? White horse? Bow and Crown. Business and Finance. The first horseman of the apocalypse.”
Jack nodded his head in recognition, looking like a man who had answered the $64,000 Dollar Question three seconds after the buzzer had sounded. He should have seen it earlier.
“The second company, R.K.I., had a sword and the tagline; ‘take peace from the earth’. So I check Revelation 6:4 and I find; “And another horse came forth, a red horse; and to him that sat thereon it was given to take peace from the earth, and that they should slay one another; and there was given unto him a great sword.”
“Red Knight Industries,” he said. “Armaments. The second horseman.”
“And Mørkhest was the third?” Jack asked, though he guessed that he already knew the answer.
“Certainly was,” Warner confirmed. “Revelation 6:6; ‘And I saw, and behold, a black horse, and he that sat thereon had a balance in his hand. And I heard as it were a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny, and the oil and the wine hurt thou not.’ The third horseman of the apocalypse is designated to the company that handles agricultural interests. The one whose logo is a set of traditional balances and whose tagline is ‘a measure of wheat’. When I get one of our language guys to give me the English translation of the Norwegian word Mørkhest, he says...”
“Black horse,” Jack said, smiling. It was all starting to come together. “So Pale Horse, the fourth horseman, is what...? The cult? The religious group itself?”
“Kind of,” Warner explained. “I tried running ‘Pale Horse’ through the computer and got everything from ‘Pale Horse Rubber Products’ to ‘Pale Horse Traditional Indian Jewellery’, but nothing religious. At least, not in Turkey.”
“So you spoke to your translation guy and...”
“And he translated it into Turkish for me,” he said sheepishly. He could tell that Jack was a lot sharper than he was when it came to puzzles. “The word is ‘Borac’ and, when I key that into the system I only get one match: ‘Borac, a charitable organisation founded to promote the teachings of the one true Messiah’. They were listed as based in Kozlar, Turkey. So, next thing you know we have a C.I.A. Hercules taking aerial snapshots and our guy in Istanbul working overtime to gather some intelligence.”
“And you’re sure it’s them?”
“Oh, it’s them alright,” Warner said. “There ain’t no doubt about that.”
The F.B.I.-employed stewardess entered the cabin and smiled dutifully at her passengers. “We’re preparing for our descent, gentlemen, if you could finish your drinks and make sure that your seatbelts are secured ready for landing.”
“Here we go,” Warner said, his dark eyes wide with expectancy.
Jack said nothing. He knew enough of the Bible to have seen the one missing piece of the puzzle. The passage that ultimately linked the cult called ‘Borac’ to the devices planted in each and every one of IntelliSoft’s one hundred and thirty eight sites.
“Revelation 6:8,” he said quietly, almost to himself, “And behold I saw a Pale Horse. And he that sat upon him, his name was death; and Hades followed with him.”
He looked directly over to Warner, his face serene but his eyes burning a blaze of fury toward the people who had murdered his daughter and who had been ready to murder thousands of others in the name of their religion. Indiscriminately. Men, women and children alike.
“And there was given unto them the authority over the fourth part of the earth,” he quoted, “to kill with sword and with famine, and with death.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
he sent them to bethlehem
Matthew 2:8
As a hazy wisp of sunlight started its steady ascent over the hills and began to cast long shadows throughout Bethlehem; the disciples gathered for Sermon and First Prayers in the Temple of Salvation. Ephraim offered short prayers and joined them in thirty minutes of silence - one minute for each piece of silver that Judas Sicariotes had accepted to betray the First Christ to his accusers. He reminded them once again that if they did not now betray the True Christ, then they would all be reunited at His side when His kingdom was risen.
The silence did not last very long.
It began as a gentle humming, the sound of a bee searching for summer pollen, but it grew with steady regularity, expanding until it became an integral part of the valley itself. In the end it was a thunderous, deafening roar which filled the lungs and carried with it the recognisable whup-whup of rotor blades. From behind the western wall of the Temple, five helicopters lifted into view, perfectly synchronised, and peeled away until they surrounded the building. At precisely the same moment, each of the other three sectors of the settlement was playing host to five more.
Within the Temple nobody moved, despite the powerful downdraft and the swirling dust. Each disciple had known that this day would soon be upon them, because Ephraim had warned them. Just as The Abraham had instructed. In their hearts and minds they expected it. They were prepared and they feared nothing because each believed that the Lord was standing resolutely by their side.
All except Ephraim himself.
Watching as four of the Sikorskys descended to earth, a shaken blanket of earth enveloping them whilst the fifth remained in the air, Ephraim’s mouth was hanging open in shock and despair. A message was being broadcast from loudspeakers contained on the fifth, orders that everyone should remain exactly where they were; that they would not be harmed. But Ephraim could not hear properly. He was consumed not only by the deafening sounds in his ears, but also by the betrayal he felt throughout his entire body. Something had gone wrong with the plan and his thoughts were centred now on one person; The Child. He must protect Him from the tyranny which was descending around them. He must hurry to Jerusalem so that he might rescue Him and take him to a safe haven. It was imperative if he was to fulfil his destiny.
Lifting his robes around his ankles he ran from the balcony, through the Robing Chamber and down the stone staircase, emerging into the light beyond. He continued to run, headlong into the trees where he followed the thin track as it curved like a dormant snake through the dense undergrowth. He was an old man, too old to be running as hard and as fast as he was, but he felt as though he was consumed by the Holy Spirit itself. It pushed him on, begged him to run yet harder and faster so that mankind’s Saviour would not be cast into the pit of evil. The tanned leathery skin on his bare feet was torn by the roots of the trees as he ran blindly through them, the blood staining the base of his robes as red as those of The Joseph. He did not slow and he did not stop. He could not stop.
His eyes were thrust intermittently between the darkness of the shade and the light which streamed between the perforated canopy of the trees, illuminating the dust and creating shafts of radiance as though they were searchlights from the helicopters from which he was running. His pupils could not adjust quickly enough and he steadily became disoriented, eventually misjudging a gnarled root and tripping, falling to his knees as though praying to God Almighty to deliver him the strength to continue.
And God, it seemed, heard his prayer. He
struggled to his feet and fifteen minutes later arrived at the eastern walls of Jerusalem. Waiting breathlessly under the cover of the trees, he watched the men who had guarded the Temple of the Father being led away by camouflaged soldiers toward a waiting helicopter, thick dust swirling around their feet. A team of four marines skilfully slithered up the steps and into the shade of the pillars, their automatic rifles trained ahead as they moved to either side of the entrance. They pressed their backs against the wall in readiness.
Ephraim realised that the men were now only seconds away from entering the temple itself. Inside, once they had checked the other rooms, they would find The Child and remove Him. Ephraim must do all he could to prevent that from happening; it was his duty as The Jacob. It was why God had blessed him. He had a calling that he must fulfil until the last gasp of breath escaped from his body. But to save the Child of David he would need to make his way through the trees alongside the temple and in through the servants’ entrance; the one used by the women who cared for the child. And he would have to do it now, because he had no idea how long it would take the soldiers to find the Sanctuary of Light and then the door to the Chamber of the King. There, hidden from view for thousands of years, they would behold the treasures of Israel.
And the ultimate of mankind’s treasures. The casket, with the Child already placed inside by the women as they waited for Ephraim to finish the sermon and return to deliver prayers to Him. Finally, the soldiers would steal him away; lead Him away from his birthplace and imprison him like the latter-day Romans they were. The last hope for mankind would be lost and, when Ephraim faced his God, he would carry with him a burden of failure that would drag him down into the depths of a personal Hell.
He must reach the Child before they did.
He steadied his breath, closed his eyes and prayed once more for strength. Then, as carefully as he could, he started to make his way along the treeline.
Codex Page 39
