* * * * *
“Agent Warner,” General Kerr smiled, his hand outstretched. “Good to see you again.”
The bottle-green Huey which had brought the two men from Nicosia airport lifted back into the morning sky, angled and slowly disappeared from view across the rich blue of the Mediterranean. The heavy downwind from the spinning rotors was replaced by a gentle morning breeze which cut low over the ocean, bringing with it the slightly pungent smell of salt. The grass which grew in disjointed clusters at the side of the tarmac rippled gently, clinging to the rocks like sacrifice to an approaching tide.
“General Kerr, this is Jack Bernstein. He is the chairman of IntelliSoft,” Warner offered. Jack and the General shook hands firmly. Kerr smiled warmly, recognising Bernstein instantly from the media coverage to which he had been subject to over recent years.
Kerr was wearing army fatigues, his green beret proudly tipped to one side across his thinning white hair. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Sir.” He narrowed his eyes. “Agent Warner here informs me that you possibly have a relative resident within the camp, is that right?”
Jack nodded. “My grandson,” he said dejectedly.
“Well, don’t you worry, Mr. Bernstein. First reports coming through are that all the occupants are offering themselves over peacefully. And if we do encounter any form of resistance, my men are the best there are. We’ll get him out safely for you.”
Jack nodded, smiling diffidently as Kerr led the two men across the main runway to the dull grey of the prefabricated buildings beyond. “This place hasn’t seen action since ‘96,” he said. “It was initially a Royal Air Force staging post in the Second World War, but they only use it for training exercises now.” He gestured around the base. “We have three hangars which we’ll be using to house any personnel not requiring medical attention, a suite of offices for the interviews and a command centre where my guys are set up. The medical team will be housed in the former dormitory and we have an air-ambulance should we need to fly anyone to the hospital at Nicosia.”
The base was situated on the eastern coast of Cyprus between Cape Arnaouti and Cape Drepanum, 96km from the capital. It looked out, somewhat ironically, across the Mediterranean bay of Kölpos Lara and had served as the ideal location from which numerous British, American and Coalition Forces had planned and executed assault operations throughout Palestine and the Middle East during the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s. It was a dull, drab and blandly functional place erected without aesthetics in the midst of nature’s unspoiled beauty.
The three men entered the shade of the main building, a single-storey monstrosity set inland from the runways, and turned right into the room which was now home to the makeshift Control Centre. Ten soldiers were already in place, each with a steel attaché case opened up to display either a radar screen or communications equipment. Many were talking into microphones, liaising with the on-site teams and the returning pilots. Recognising the voice of an additional soldier radioing for contact, Kerr picked up a transceiver handset and responded.
“USCY-2 to SK-7; this is Kerr. Go ahead, Charlie.”
The voice was heavily digitised and distorted by both white noise and the sound of the rotors, but the marine sounded painfully young. “Camp secured, General. No resistance, no casualties. UNSCOM on site at production facility and we’re starting evacuation from the main sector. We’ve set up a holding system and have cleared four choppers for lift off. We’ll be pulling more down from the other sectors. They seem to be less heavily populated. First four; E.T.A. with you forty minutes. Over.”
“What are first impressions of the presumed chemical facility? Over.” Kerr asked.
There was a pause, filled only with the gentle hum of static. “Put it this way, Sir,” the marine replied with a subtle hint of irony, “the team who stormed the building and the inspectors who followed were very cautious. After seeing the facility close up, UNSCOM wouldn’t set down without putting the suits on. Over.”
Kerr smiled confidently. “Good work, Charlie.”
Looking to Jack he saw that a worried expression was still the dominating feature on his face. He smiled as consolingly as he could and turned back to the microphone. “SK-7, do we have any news on a small child? Male, aged less than twelve months with a silver spoon firmly embedded in his kisser?” He smiled at Jack. “Over.”
There was static again across the connection as the soldier presumably did some checking. Though it lasted less than a minute, to Jack it seemed like an entire lifetime.
“That’s a negative, General. We have eight young children so far, aged between approximately six months and two years. All female. Still awaiting reports through from sector two, though. Over.”
Jack’s heart sank. Warner could see from the look in his eyes and the way he was stroking his beard on either side of his chin just what he was thinking. The worst. He placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and smiled. Jack breathed deeply and closed his eyes. The hand was too much of a reminder of Lara and the river of condolences which flowed following her death. He hoped to God that today was not going to be the start of a deluge.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Bernstein,” Kerr said, his voice rich with his usual heavy confidence. “I always keep my promises. And my men will find him for you.”
* * * * *
Major Colin J. ‘Webbo’ Webster gave the signal and two of his platoon kicked open the door to the Sanctuary of Light, crouching low with guns trained. Then he and the remaining soldier swung their bodies swiftly around the door, their assault rifles positioned above the heads of the others.
The room was empty.
Stepping into the cooler air within, the soldiers moved carefully between the pillars, warily checking every shadowy alcove. Two men went to the left of the sunken pool, the water filling the air with a sticky sweet fragrance, and two to the right. The surface was perfectly still and their shapes were mirrored as they made their way to the furthest edge and the heavy wooden door which separated the Sanctuary from the room beyond.
The Chamber of the King.
One of the soldiers cautiously approached the door and tried the handle, but it was locked. He crouched down, running his fingers over the heavy cast iron studs and peering into the key housing. Whilst seemingly very old, ancient perhaps, it was in fact a thoroughly modern tungsten carbide mechanism. He could see the light as it glinted from the multi-latch housing and the tiny levers which indicated that it was probably linked to additional bolts which would slide into place at the top and bottom of the door when the central key was turned. He looked to Webbo and shook his head.
Webbo nodded to one of the other soldiers who removed his camouflage rucksack and extracted a length of plastic rope, heavy duty tape and a small chrome cylinder. The first soldier moved backward, allowing him to tape the rope to the door and attach the cylinder to its base. The small detonator, no larger than a cigar tube, housed a tiny electronic counter which he set for ten seconds. Then he and his colleague took refuge behind the adjoining marble pillars whilst Webbo and the remaining marine moved back behind the pool.
The door exploded, splinters of wood rocketing into the Sanctuary and falling into the pool which grasped the bright yellow light and threw it back in thousands of tiny ripples. The dust cleared to reveal that the two soldiers had already burst through the shattered steel inner-frame and were now crouched toward the floor once more. Webbo and his colleague followed close behind.
The cavernous room into which they had entered was decorated with hundreds of tiny alcoves. Each one held an artefact sacred to the cult. The floor was marbled with a complex yellow and red grain which curved like a vortex toward the centre of the room. In the centre of this vortex was a raised platform housing a red velvet and gold casket.
Inside was a baby. Crying.
Behind the casket stood an elderly man wearing pale green robes, his bare feet dirtied and bloodstained and his eyes defiant. In his right hand he held what appeared to be an automatic pis
tol, probably a 9mm. Its barrel was trained directly at the soldiers.
“Lay down your weapon and move away from the child,” Webbo barked, aggressively focusing his gaze along the barrel of his own weapon.
Ephraim contemplated the options. He could attempt to shoot all four soldiers, but they would undoubtedly have swift enough reactions to shoot back. His fear was no longer that he himself would be killed, he expected that. His only concern now was what might happen in the crossfire. They might hit the casket. They might kill the Child. Even if they did not, Antonio Turow himself - Ephraim - was going to die today, he knew that now. He was too late; they would take the child, alive or dead, no matter what he did.
For the first time in his entire life Ephraim was afraid to die, because for the first time in his entire life he would face the afterlife knowing that he had failed. God had blessed him to be the Jacob at the time of the New Messiah and he had been completely unable to protect Him at the time it mattered most. He could not believe that he had allowed it to happen. Worse still, he could still not accept that The Abraham had failed him. His timings had never been wrong. When he said that something would happen on a given day it always did. Along with the power of Eternal Life it was his gift from God; his blessing. He had the power to control the world.
So why had Ephraim not been granted the time The Abraham had promised in which to remove The Child to safety?
His tired eyes looked directly at Webbo, who stared back like an accusing statue. His weapon was raised in readiness, the sights fixed firmly at the old man’s forehead. The slightest move and he would have no option but to open fire.
“Lay down your weapon and move away from the child,” he repeated, slower this time.
The old man’s hands were shaking. The barrel of his gun quivered like a leaf on the gentlest of breezes. He was inadvertently squeezing tighter, desperately trying to maintain a steady grip. Webbo did not want to kill the man unless he had to, but this was a dangerous situation. They had found what he now suspected to be the leader of the cult; and Webbo felt certain that he was not likely go down without a fight.
He tipped his head to the two soldiers who had burst through the door and they rose to their feet, the stocks of their rifles still firmly embedded in their shoulders. One moved to the left, the other to the right, Ephraim’s frightened eyes forever in their line of fire. He glanced quickly at them both, then back to Webbo where he saw a determination in the Major’s eyes that he knew he should have been feeling himself. His own was gone. Now all he could feel was the cold chill of desperation. He was afraid, but not of the soldiers. He was afraid of God’s Judgment in the days after they had killed him. He was being surrounded; and death would follow soon. Though he had never thought they would, the Servants of Satan had caught him unprepared and the Child would now have to fend for itself. He prayed that the Child would survive his time of temptation and would emerge as a strong man to fulfil his own destiny.
But, if Ephraim could protect Him no longer, then there was only one thing he could do.
With the weight of failure laying heavy in the depths of his stomach, he carefully placed the pistol into his own mouth and, with Webbo’s starting to protest from the world he was leaving, he pulled the trigger.
His final thought was to wonder what had really gone wrong. Why had the raid on the settlement occurred a full week before The Abraham had so vehemently promised him it would?
according to thy word
Genesis 30:34
General Kerr, waiting in the control room with Warner and Jack, listened intently to the various messages being relayed backwards and forwards between the teams. Three hundred and twelve disciples had been listed so far, although no clear leader had been found in the mansion within sector four, as had been hoped. The manufacturing facility itself, however, was undoubtedly producing a number of weapons; sarin and Semtex devices included. Worse still, and certainly more incriminating for the cult, the UNSCOM officials had uncovered a compression unit giving off exceptionally high levels of radiation and possibly containing radioactive isotopes within Warehouse-3 in Sector-3. It was situated in close proximity to specialist machinery such as a portable sealed reactor unit and an interferometer. Whilst much of the equipment required had probably been removed, the view of the UNSCOM investigators was, for the time being, that the cult had ‘attempted, successfully or otherwise, to manufacture nuclear weapons within this facility at some point in the last few years.’
Jack had smiled confidently at Warner. There was no way they were going to get away with this now, because they had been caught on all levels. Sarin linked them to Dave; Semtex to Lara and Andy; and the possibility of nuclear weapons to one hundred and thirty eight devices discovered across the globe. They were, quite literally, fucked.
But then Jack had overheard a conversation between two teams that had made his heart stand still. The voices crackled but the words were clear. As were the implications.
“SK-7 this is SK-13. Do you read?”
“SK-13 this is SK-7, Go ahead, Webbo.”
“Urgent medical assistance required; Sector-2, Building-C. 9mm gunshot wound to head. Need a team and an Emergency Evac Chopper. Can you route?”
General Kerr looked equally concerned. His eyes moved everywhere and nowhere at the same time. “My men don’t carry nine millimeters,” he said as though thinking aloud.
“Hang in there, SK-13. Team on its way. Advise you to allocate a man on main door to direct.”
There was a desperate pause filled only with gentle static. It lasted far too long. Jack closed his eyes and could almost see what was happening. Another soldier was looking up at the man on the radio. He had that look in his eyes and he was shaking his head. His eyes were saying that there was nothing more they could do.
“SK-7, cancel request. Please be advised that he’s dead. We have a fatality in Sector-2. Over.”
The words rang through Jack’s mind like church bells pealing in time to a funeral procession. He’s dead. ‘He’ meant that they were referring to a male and his worst nightmare had suddenly come true. They had killed the child. The final sacrifice.
General Kerr quickly scooped up the microphone and intervened. “SK-13 this is USCY-2. Webbo, it’s Kerr. Can you confirm? Is casualty one of ours? Over.”
The line was static again. Within the Control Room nobody dared to breathe. General Kerr was concerned that he had lost one of his men. Jack was sure that he had lost his grandchild.
“SK-13 this is USCY-2. Webbo, do you read? Is casualty one of ours? Over.”
“That’s a negative, General. Male, seventy years old or more. Suicide by gunshot. From the robes he was wearing I think he may have been the leader that ‘21’ were looking for. He’d been attempting to protect a baby. Over.”
Jack placed his hands to his mouth as his eyes widened uncontrollably. General Kerr saw it and thought for the briefest of moments. “SK-13, can you confirm? Is baby male or female? Over.”
There was another static pause as one of the soldiers checked and passed on the answer.
Webbo had already heard the General’s earlier request in his earpiece, and the negative response that SK-7 had offered. He had also heard one too many rumours whilst still on board the Eisenhower that the grandchild of some important businessman had found its way into the camp. Neither Jack Bernstein’s or Lara’s name had been mentioned.
“Confirmation, General,” he replied, “Or should I say ‘congratulations, it’s a boy’?”
Jack tipped his head skyward and breathed a long sigh of relief. The child was safe.
Everything had gone according to plan.
* * * * *
In the bleak squalor of the rented bedsit, the Abraham was reading a hand-written copy of the Old Testament in the eerie blue glow of the portable television. Despite its size and the number of characters per page, there was not one error within its text. Any pages which had been wrong or had required even minor corrections had long since bee
n discarded and completely re-written. It had taken the lifetimes of three disciples to complete.
In the corner of the room, the late evening news was broadcasting on Channel 7. The female newscaster’s sickly sweet and confident words echoeing through the emptiness of the gloom. As her words began to sink in, he looked up like a deer hearing a breaking twig and leaned forward, carefully placing his precious manuscript to one side. He hoped that the original was still safe.
“....discovered on every site, confirming the rumours that the IntelliSoft launch has indeed been the victim of a terrorist threat for some time. Two members of staff have already been murdered and there is speculation that Senator Andrew McKinnock’s death might also be directly related to the impending launch. Here’s our man in Los Angeles, Terry Nunn....”
The scene cut to a bearded man wearing an ill fitting padded ski jacket and holding a microphone. He was illuminated by a single spotlight, his cheeks starting to redden in the chill of night. In the background the words ‘POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS’ leapt out from the yellow band. Beyond was complete darkness, save for the repetitive orange flashing of an emergency vehicle some way down the beach front. The sound of the rolling waves could be heard between his words.
“Thanks, Mary,” he said. “Well, I’m here in Rodondo Beach where behind me you can see the tapes which have been erected to keep the public well away from the IntelliSoft site. Bomb squad personnel are currently on the scene trying to defuse the device which was discovered in the early hours of this morning. It is one of over one hundred such devices, designed to detonate during the impending IntelliSoft launch. And here to answer the questions the nation is posing, I have with me MaryBeth DeLaine, IntelliSoft’s Relations Director...”
He turned as the camera panned backward to reveal MaryBeth by his side. She wore a bright red trouser suit, her hair blowing freely around her shoulders. “Miss DeLaine, with these sites quite obviously under threat from what police believe to be terrorist bombs of some immense power, how can you now justify failing to cancel your launch when your company cannot adequately guarantee the safety of those who might still choose to attend?”
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