by Terry James
"You think they monitored us?" he said to Vinchey when the engine became silent.
"They wouldn't expect anyone to be so open about it. I think you're right about that. If they had suspected anything other than it being a routine shuttle or surveillance, they'd have confronted us in the air and tried to force us down in a place of their choosing... or just shot us down, period. But just in case I'm wrong..." He lifted the lid of a heavy metal box near the pilot's seat, took out an automatic rifle and tossed it back to Jacob. "They won't put us on display while we lose our heads." He took out another rifle and handed it to Conrad Wilson, then retrieved yet another from the box for himself. He pulled back the bolt and let it snap shut, feeding a round into the chamber.
"What about me?" Karen said. The pilot handed her a rifle and she followed his example, pulling back the bolt then releasing it.
Jacob watched her handle the weapon while Vinchey instructed her in its use, then took her hand and kissed it. "I wish you had stayed back there."
"Why? If anything happens, why should I be there, with no hope of being with you again? If it's to end here, then let it end for both of us. That couldn't be as bad as being alone, waiting for them to find me again."
He could not argue with the truth in her logic. Now, to wait for the blackness the thick, abrasive smog would assure, before attempting the, perhaps, dangerously foolish research into what he was driven to know.
The old backhoe had not been used for some time. It’s starter and choke, as well as the controls, were stiff and stubborn from the corrosion which came with the disuse and lack of maintenance. There was plenty of gasoline in the tank, and he hoped there would not be condensation to the extent it would make the fuel burn improperly, or not at all. Jacob replaced the cap to the fuel tank, looking over the cemetery, using the flashlight's powerful beam. Conrad Wilson and Kerry Vinchey tried to see beyond the stone fences, weapons poised and alert to any movement.
"No one has attended this place in months," Karen said quietly, walking among headstones, occasionally brushing high grass away from one or the other of the markers to read the names. "The crypt is in this area, I think. It's been so long, and it all looks so different. Shine your light on this one," she said, walking toward the dingy gray crypt building centered in Jacob's light. She ripped and stomped weeds to get to the iron-barred doors of the small mausoleum, then read the words etched in the once white facade.
"This is it!" she said excitedly, wiping away caked dirt and cobwebs from the engraved word, "MARCHEK."
It was all so completely different from that day they had put the old man's body in the crypt, which looked so small now in the overgrown graveyard. A thing that should be left a part of undisturbed antiquity, and death.
That stormy day, as gloomy in its way as this black night, came back to Jacob while he joined Karen at the barred gate. Conversations and accusations of conspiracy, of cold, depressing rain, of Karen's tears, and the beginning of involvement in what Wilson called a natural development of history, but what Marchek had assured him was the fulfilling of prophecies. Prophecies that could be finished only when the supernatural had run its course as written in the old Bible Marchek once offered him. Would be consummated when the Prince of Peace returned in power and glory to bind and banish the world's last great dictator, and war from the earth. A process that would first become evident when millions of people vanished before the astonished eyes of their fellow humans. When, like Christ at the resurrection, they were in an instant, "in the twinkling of an eye," as Marchek had put it, transformed from mortal flesh into immortal beings. Like Jesus Christ, the shroud. Like Saryeva Marchek, the scorched dress.
"How are you going to get in? They won't budge," Karen said, watching him test the iron gates.
"The backhoe... if it will still run."
Moments later, he pulled the choke free from its oxidation-stuck position and worked it in and out several times. The battery should be okay if its energy was not depleted at the time the grave diggers stopped using it. It was a self-sealed battery, which had been well sheltered from the elements. But would it be strong enough to awaken the engine from its months of idleness?
He pushed the starter button and the engine turned but refused to start. Twice more and it caught. Two cylinders at first, then revved to power, its straight-up exhaust pipe cracking sharply and dispelling black smoke.
"If that doesn't bring 'em here," Vinchey shouted to Conrad Wilson above the popping engine, "They're not in the area!"
Wilson nodded agreement, both men continuing their vigilance. Jacob intent on his singular objective, steered the machine to the front of the building and rammed the comb-edge of the trenching scoop, attached to the front of the backhoe's crooked arm, into the barred gate-door. He throttled up the engine and the backhoe lurched, causing the crypt's door to creak and pop, but did not break the gate free from its moorings. He put the machine into reverse and backed, pulling the iron gate with the shovel, whose comb-like steel projections had become lodged between the bars. The gate groaned, tearing loose with a loud, scraping crunch.
He maneuvered the backhoe to directly in front of the opening so that the lights of the machine lit the burial chamber's interior, then hopped from the operator's seat, forgetting in his excitement the wound in his leg. Contact with the ground sent a stab of pain up his calf and into his back, causing both legs to buckle. Karen and Wilson hurried to help him keep from collapsing.
"I'm okay. Give me the flashlight," he said, taking the light from Karen then limping into the crypt, fighting his way through cobwebs while he directed the beam at the several cement and marble vaults lining the walls. He quickly found the one inscribed with Hugo Marchek's name and brushed away the thick layer of dust to read what was carved in the vault covering.
"To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."
"Hold this." Jacob handed her the flashlight. "Give me a hand with this." Vinchey and Wilson positioned themselves around the thick marble slab and in unison, jerked upward. It would not move.
"Try sliding it," Jacob said, pushing then adjusting to try to pull the covering to one side then the other.
"It's no doubt sealed," Wilson said, looking around for something with which to pry. Jacob went outside and retrieved a rusting crowbar he remembered kicking out of his way when he sat in the operator's seat before starting the backhoe.
Within seconds, the heavy marble piece was leveraged to one side, uncovering a chamber containing a bronze colored coffin.
Jacob's heart raced. Suddenly his actions seemed in slow-motion, like much of his existence had been while under domination of Trachetrol II. He looked into Karen's eyes and saw a mixture of apprehension and anticipation at seeing the body of the old man she had worked so closely with — had loved so much. "Give me the light," he said, taking the flashlight and holding the beam on the smaller lid of the split-top casket. With his free hand, he lifted the lid, Karen looking over his shoulder. "He's not there!"
"Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!" The words Jacob had read in Marchek's Bible shook his mind when Karen spoke the fact, which, despite his deepest suspicions, he was not prepared to accept.
"The clothes! Look! The suit they buried him in, Jacob. They look like they've collapsed on his body. Or where his body was! It couldn't have decomposed that way. Not skeleton and all! Could it?"
Jacob said nothing while opening the larger lid of the coffin. He shined the light first along the gray suit, with its jacket still buttoned, then along the lining of the coffin's lids.
"Looks like it's been burned... Like it's been scorched," Kerry Vinchey said, adding the beam from his flashlight to that of Jacob's.
"Just like his sister," Jacob said beneath his breath.
"Curious way for the body to deteriorate," Wilson said, peering into the casket. "This terrible pollution, no doubt, can have effects we don't understand yet."
"On a body, sealed air-tight? Sealed
up before atmospheric conditions got so bad?" Jacob's question was put with mild anger. "And what about this scorched material?"
Wilson made no response, but shined his own light along the collapsed material of Marchek's burial suit.
Jacob unbuttoned the suit coat and carefully removed each flap to uncover the shirt.
"The shirt's burned too!" Karen said.
The white shirt's front was scorched brown, from the buttoned collar beneath the tied necktie, to where it was covered by the waistline of the trousers.
Jacob directed his flashlight beam to the opened casket lids and slowly moved the circle of light down the satin lining.
"Put your lights on the lining," he said; the other men added their beams to Jacob's, illuminating the entire length of the once-white material. "Just like the shroud," Jacob said.
The discoloration, in varying gradations of brown, formed the negative image of a man's naked body, its hands folded neatly upon its chest.
"It... It's Dr. Marchek!" Karen said in a whisper.
Preparations for the move were underway by the time Vinchey set the helicopter down near the small, rectangular building. The twirling red lights on the bird's belly, and the bright landing lights, reflected off the yellowed, nearly-bare trees, making them appear from the passengers' view to be grotesque monsters with bony, reaching fingers, grasping to pull their victims into themselves. Several men carrying machine guns greeted them at the helicopter's door after Vinchey cut the engine.
"Everything is ready to move, Sir," one of the men said to Wilson, who looked over the compound, watching the darkly dressed men and women throwing the final contents from the buildings into the canvas-covered back of the old truck marked with white stars and the words "U.S. ARMY".
"Where are the two men? The two prisoners you brought with me from D.C.?" Jacob asked, getting the attention of one of the men, who looked to Conrad Wilson for approval before answering.
"I believe they're helping get things ready in that area," the man said, pointing, after Wilson nodded affirmatively.
"I need to know about the hiding place they've mentioned. Maybe they'll tell me now that they know we're not their enemy."
"Why? What good will it do?" Karen asked.
"There's nowhere to go to get away from him. I'm sure, now, that Krimhler is the one written about in the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation. He will devour the entire planet, according to the Scriptures, except the Jewish remnant. They'll be protected. If we're to survive, it will be with them, in the place prepared for them by God," Jacob said while they walked into one of the buildings. He went into the room where he had been placed after his rescue, the room with his belongings. Karen, Wilson and Vinchey followed.
He went through his things and picked from them Marchek's Bible. "I remember the verse being in Isaiah." He thumbed to the prophetical book and found the boldly underlined passage. "Here it is... Isaiah the 26th chapter, verse 20."
"Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation is past."
"Here are the men you wanted, Mr. Zen." The man who spoke moved out of the doorway to let the two strangely-robed men pass.
"How is your leg wound, Jacob?" the taller man said.
"It's nothing," Jacob said, anxious to pursue the more vital matters. "Sir, can you answer my question? In the Scripture... Isaiah 26, verse 20. That's the verse about when God will hide his people, Israel during the rule of the Beast, the Antichrist, isn't it?"
"Yes," the man's eyes flashed acknowledgment; he was obviously pleased Jacob had made the discovery.
"Do you trust me? Trust us?" Jacob gestured toward the others in the room.
"Enough to tell us where this place of hiding is? It's our only hope now. You know that Krimhler will not be stopped. He will gobble us up, eventually, just like everything else."
The robed man spoke softly. "You yet do not understand, although you believe."
"What do you mean?"
"About Jesus of Nazareth... That He is the Christ."
"I believe it. There are no other explanations. I know these prophecies have come to pass and that the others will also come to pass. What do you mean, I don't understand?"
"That there is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop the Antichrist. It will be done as written. If one is sealed within Jehovah's shelter, he is there for the duration. It is not a military headquarters. The battle is between the ultimate Good and the ultimate evil, and the Lord shall fight it. God has already won, because the prophecies will conclude exactly as given in His Holy Word. If you want to fight Herrlich Krimhler, futile though that effort would be, you must do it from beyond the safe haven prepared by the Lord of Hosts."
The words were true. Jacob knew it! The only way to survive, to endure to the end. And in that moment it became clear in his soul. The way to live, the way to salvation was, had always been, the way of the Cross, the shelter provided by Christ!
"Where? Will you tell us? Where is this place of hiding?"
"You will find it in Maan Muhafuzah, in a place known as Wadi-Sik."
"Jordan?" Conrad Wilson said with surprise. "Can you show us exactly where to find it?"
The man looked at Jacob, ignoring Wilson's anxiously put question.
"Go to the place of the Rock... to Petra. There you shall find the House of Chambers and safety."
Jacob looked to Vinchey, who was stuffing articles of clothing into a duffle bag, while sitting on a cot. "Think we can get there?"
"I'd hate to risk flying a chopper, even a transcontinental class, over that much water, although it could be done with extra fuel tanks. Couldn't take but a few people. If we did make it to the coast, there would be no parts for her if she broke down. After a flight like that, the bird would need major maintenance."
"I still have some people I can depend on to help," Conrad Wilson said. "Good people, who have access to aircraft and who will do what I ask, so long as we can make it look as if the aircraft was stolen."
"What about a pilot?" Jacob said.
"We'll get whatever Kerry's checked out on. Probably, it would be best to appropriate something with hover-landing capability so we won't need a long strip to set down on. You're checked out on that sort of thing, aren't you, Kerry?"
"A few planes," Vinchey said. "But I can handle whatever it is, as long as it's not too big."
"How soon can you arrange this... appropriation?" Jacob said.
"It will take a few days at least. We can take the helicopter to the prearranged spot. I'll have my contacts meet us there."
"How will you be able to get in touch with them without tipping off the wrong people?" Karen said.
"Old-fashioned telephone, my dear. And by using a code, which they won't have enough time to break before the deed is done. The fools don't think that anything can be carried on in such an obvious way any more. Witness our trip to Rockville. They're so heavily into secretive, high-tech stuff, they rarely monitor the good old telephone."
"We'll need fuel enough to reach..."
Wilson cut Vinchey short. "How about one that will take us straight through?"
"You can get an H-9?"
"Can you fly it?"
"Love to!"
"Then it will be available, my friend. I told you I have people who haven't forgotten this old broken-down diplomat!"
"I get the impression you don't want to go with us," Jacob said, turning to his former fellow prisoners. The men were gone.
He opened the door and looked into the darkness. "When did they leave?" he said, looking back to the others, who were equally puzzled. "I didn't hear them leave," Karen said, coming to the doorway to look out.
"A couple of strange ones. Are you sure you want to go to the Middle East on their information, Jake?" She said.
"We have to," Wilson put in. "There's really no alternative. I, of course, still can't accept all this nonsense about the Church Age ending and b
odies being transformed into heavenly beings and that sort of thing. But I believe those fellows know where there's a safe place to sequester ourselves for awhile. INterface has been going berserk trying to find where all those Jews are disappearing to. If we can get that many people fighting with us, and if their hiding out place can provide adequate time for us to plan and build our forces, maybe we can put up formidable opposition to Herr Krimhler and his lot."
"They didn't leave through this door," Jacob said. "The door was bolted on the inside just now, before I opened it."
"One of us must've locked it and not noticed the men were gone," Karen said. "They probably stepped out while we were talking. One of us unthinkingly locked the door after them, and when they couldn't get back in, they probably went back to their quarters."
They watched the rain begin to fall, rain which burned the skin where it touched the body if allowed to remain for more than several seconds. Rain that caused a sickly greenish halo to form around each of the telephone pole night-lamps surrounding the compound.
Chapter 21
The wait had done its jangling work on the nerves of everyone since they arrived from their former refuge. But Conrad Wilson's smile said he had now accomplished what he promised three days ago, before they left for this abandoned military storage bunker.
"It's set!" He slapped Jacob's shoulder. "At twenty-two thirty hours, they'll have the aircraft in the pasture just beyond those trees." He pointed to a stand of tall, partially-leaved trees 200 yards to the north of the ground-level opening where they stood. "Where's Kerry?"
"He's still on the phone with them. They're checking him out on the aircraft as best they can on the phone. It'll save time when the plane gets here. He wanted to brush up on the Harrier system and so forth. He'll be along."
