“Do it,” Mary said. “You won’t find any resistance from me.”
Matt smiled. “Good.” He started reading. “‘After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory.’ Dad thought we should ask this angel with authority to come and touch your foreheads. If the placing of a second sign on the forehead didn’t help, surely the touch of an angel wouldn’t hurt.”
“I never went to church,” Nancy said, “and I don’t know anything about the Bible. But Bill and I realized we were wrong about many issues. I don’t understand anything about angels, but I want God’s assistance. I’m glad to ask Him to be with us.”
Matt rolled up the windows. “The summer heat may make the car get hot fast, but I don’t want anyone on the street to hear us. We’ve still got to protect ourselves. Let’s join hands and ask God to help us with this forehead problem.”
The three friends clasped hands and closed their eyes. Matthew fervently prayed that a “touch of authority” would cancel the effects of evil. He called on the angels of God to walk among them.
“And please forgive me of my sin,” Nancy added. “I don’t know what’s the right thing to say, but I want to believe and be one of Your people, God. I want Jesus Christ in my life. Please, please help me.”
“Me too,” Mary added.
Matthew suddenly sensed light filling the car. The intensity of the glow was so strong, he squinted and feared to open his eyes. After a few moments, Matt felt the light subsiding.
“Did you see that?” he asked in awe.
“See what?” Nancy asked.
“A powerful light flooded our car,” Matt explained. “I’m sure I didn’t hallucinate.”
“God really was here!” Mary said fervently.
“Oh, I pray so!” Nancy said. “With all my heart, I pray so.”
CHAPTER 63
MATT PULLED UP in front of the motel around ten o’clock. The residue of volcanic smoke had once again turned the night into blackness. Only the haze around the streetlights gave him any sense of direction.
“This is the motel where Adah and I have been staying,” he said. “We have no reason to think it’s not safe, unless computers are still following the mark on your foreheads. We have no alternative but to trust that God has done something to break the spell.”
“I’m playing with a new deck of cards,” Mary Peck said. “I’ll trust His hand to deliver us anywhere.”
“Me too,” Nancy added.
Matt turned off the engine and pulled out the key to the room. With the two women following him, he cautiously put the key in the lock and slowly opened the door. Without making a sound, he pushed the door open wider. His heart nearly stopped. Someone was stretched across the bed.
Pushing Nancy and Mary back, Matt pulled the small penlight out of his pocket and flashed the beam on the shape.
“It’s Adah!” he gasped. “Oh, man! I nearly had a heart attack!”
“Shalom?” the sleepy-eyed woman said and blinked several times. “Matt?”
Mary rushed in and grabbed the Jewish woman. “Adah, we are so grateful to you! Thank you, thank you.”
Adah sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Sure. It’s okay. I had a hard journey getting across town.”
“You look tired and beat up,” Matt said. “The blast got you?”
“Afraid so.” Adah pushed her disheveled hair out of her face. “I stayed too close.”
“I hate to wake you up, but I think we should leave tonight. We don’t know if Mary’s and Nancy’s forehead markings have been neutralized. The sooner we get out of Chicago the better.”
“Won’t they be watching the roads to the north?” Mary said.
“Did you know Al Meachem and a group of his henchmen attacked our cabin in Tomahawk and burned it down?” Matt asked his sister.
Mary started crying. “No.” She sobbed. “D—did I tell them where the cabin was? I don’t remember.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mark said. “We all escaped, but you’re correct. Bridges’ people will assume we’ll take a northern route. Dad told me to drop south on Interstate 55 to Joliet and then drive west to Davenport, Iowa. We’re going to take a long back way up through Dubuque, but it should be more secure.”
Adah nodded. “I am ready to go when everyone else is.” She pushed her hair back. “Thank God we are all safe.”
The sound of a helicopter circling the area drifted across the motel.
“Think they’re looking for us?” Mary asked.
“Could be a routine security vehicle,” Matt said. “I sure pray it is, but let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 64
EVERY MORNING before he got out of bed, Hassan Jawhar Rashid talked to his god. These quiet meditations gave him a sense of purpose, direction, stability. Often, before he had to make an important decision, Rashid would lapse into an inner dialogue with the divinity, and from these moments of communication, he found the precise path he needed to follow.
During one of these periods of quiet reflection many years earlier, he had “heard” the directive to develop two names. One for the Eastern world; one for the Western world. From this insight, Rashid had suddenly thought of the name Borden Camber Carson and experienced the urge to use this name as his public persona until otherwise notified. He much preferred his original name of Rashid, but immediately saw the value in creating a camouflage, a subterfuge to work behind.
His ability “to hear” was key in his religious life because the divine intervention was actually identical with his thought life. Insights, intuitions, ideas came out of nowhere, and this voice was similar to his normal way of thinking. Sometimes the voice would simply bubble up while he was reflecting on another matter, and he knew god wanted to speak to him.
Early on, Hassan Rashid had worried that he might turn into a schizophrenic and could start becoming disoriented. He worried that he might go crazy. Then Rashid realized that only one voice ever spoke to him, and it was always the same voice. Well, sometimes it was hard to differentiate between his thoughts and this voice, but the voice left him energized and gifted. Could that be crazy? Certainly not.
Rashid had grown up in a poor family on the edge of the desert with an overwhelming amount of religious confusion swirling around him. At age two, he started recognizing words, and before anyone instructed him, Hassan taught himself to read, devouring every book in sight. Rashid quickly realized his father’s modicum of Muslim faith made him distrust his Jewish mother’s religion, and both had disdain for Christianity. As time went by, he discovered that the villagers hated Jews, and he must completely obscure this part of his identity. Quite perplexing!
Rashid’s neighborhood swirled in such contradictions. Heredity was confusing. His father’s lineage ran back literally to the Caesars. He had plenty of good, strong genes, but Rashid also realized the Islamic world churned with hatred for the West, and many Muslims proved to be extremely narrow-minded. Because he had inherited a fear of what Christians would do if they got the opportunity, Rashid had never seriously looked at the Christian religion. As he grew into adolescence, he seemed to only step from one puddle of pitch to the other.
One afternoon as he walked across the burning sand of the desert with the sun blaring down on him, Hassan Rashid abruptly decided he would create his own religion. With the hot sand oozing up between Rashid’s toes, the idea seemed exciting and promising. Pulling together something from each of the three faiths, he would mold a new lump of dough and break his own bread! Standing on a height of his own creation, Hassan would throw himself down to the world in a burst of his own glory. Casting the ancient ways aside, Hassan Jawhar Rashid would walk on a path of his own making.
At that moment, Rashid suddenly experienced an impartation of power. He felt as if the blinding sun had swooped down on him and burned hot energy into his brain. When he walked out of the desert that evening, he knew exactly what needed to happen with his mundane job
at the oil company. Rashid recognized a path out of his humble origins straight to the top of the ladder, the world of wealth.
The first sign of change came when he discovered that he could now read people and perceive their intentions. Again, the ability wasn’t a mystery as much as an insight that simply arose in his mind, enabling him to perceive the other person’s core values. He could quickly decide where their thoughts would take the individual. In effect, it was almost like reading minds. He seldom missed. His capacity to “read them” was the key to constantly evolving success.
Rashid often thought about that afternoon in the desert. Sometimes the day seemed so revolutionary he wondered if it had even really happened, but it had. His life had changed. Progress escalated and wealth poured in. Of course, he kept this mountaintop moment in the depths of the desert to himself. No one knew, but those hours would forever remain the guiding fire in his soul.
CHAPTER 65
FOR SEVERAL MOMENTS Hassan Jawhar Rashid listened without comment. The prime minister of Israel, Dov Landau, kept pushing to make his point. Their conversation had been long and arduous. Landau argued that they both knew Iran was behind the current military tension, and that the Iranians had sponsored terrorism. Since that long-ago invasion of Afghanistan by the United States, Iran had supported the Taliban-al-Qaeda axis. Landau wanted to know if such manipulations were going to stop.
“Yes, my friend,” Rashid said. “If you sign an agreement with me, I will guarantee Iran will retreat from attacks on Israel.”
“And Syria? Saudi Arabia? The Emirates?”
“Of course. I control the military in these countries,” Rashid said with such cavalier indifference it had to chill Landau. “They have not always acted in ways that I approved, but I am telling you they will respect a treaty . . . if you sign it.”
For several moments silence filled the telephone line. Finally, Prime Minister Dov Landau answered. “In that case, and on the basis of your personal guarantee, my cabinet has instructed me to tell you we will sign.”
“Excellent! I can assure you that your actions will open the door to a new day of peace and tranquillity for the entire Middle East.”
“I trust so. We will hold you to your word guaranteeing that it shall be so.”
“And I have one more detail,” Rashid continued. “I understand that since you took control of Haram es-Sharif from the Wakf, your people are constructing a third temple between the Dome of the Rock and the El-Aqsa Mosque. Am I correct?”
“Since the first and second temples were on this mount, we have every right to do so,” Landau argued.
“How is the construction coming?” Rashid asked casually.
“Acceptably,” the prime minister said without elaboration.
“Good, good. I would like for us to sign this treaty on the steps of your new temple. I think your people would accept such an event as a divine blessing. It would be a sign to the Arab world.”
“Really!” Dov Landau sounded completely caught off guard. “I see no problem in signing there. It would be a highly significant political step. Of course, the Arab’s won’t like it.”
“Excellent! I am going to release a statement indicating that we will sign an accord on the Temple Mount. Are you prepared to do so . . . in, let’s say, oh . . . three days?”
“Three days!” The prime minister coughed. “That’s rather soon!”
“Isn’t the sooner the better for your citizens?”
“Well . . . I suppose so. Yes. We will sign.”
“Ah, Dov. You are a good man. I trust this event will be the most important deed of your life.”
“I hope so,” the prime minister said with lingering hesitancy in his voice.
“Good-bye, Mr. Prime Minister. I will see you on the Temple Mount in three days. Our people can mutually work out the details.” Rashid hung up the phone and turned to the four men gathered in front of him. Each was removing earphones from his head through which they had been listening to both sides of the conversation. “Well, gentlemen?”
“He took the bait?” Ali al-Hakim, the defense minister of Iran, asked.
“And they will sign?” Muhammad Baqer Hussein of Syria pushed.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Rashid held up his hand to stop the onslaught of questions. “You heard the entire conversation with your earphones. You already know the answers. The point is that Landau does not realize he will be militarizing their temple. We have tricked him into taking a blasphemous step.”
“Dov Landau is no fool,” said Abdel Sharif, the prime minister of Egypt. “I am surprised he doesn’t suspect something ominous behind your offer.”
“The Israelis need this step out of political tension,” Rashid said. “He may smell a rat, but that is now his problem, not ours. I will sign this agreement, which should bring relaxation of Israel’s military defenses as well as their nuclear capacities. That result is the only one we are concerned about.”
“Indeed!” Anat Berko said. “But our people in Jordan will not be happy with this turn of events. In fact, you can expect rioting in the streets and revolt by the people.”
“Please!” Rashid kept smiling as he talked. “I brought you here today for exactly this reason. You must assure your people that more is working behind the scenes than they can see at this moment. In the near future the entire scheme will become visible, and matters will not be good for the state of Israel.”
“Do not ever forget,” Ali al-Hakim said, “the Prophet Muhammad said that the resurrection of the dead will not come until we do battle with the Jews and kill them. We will be on the east side of the river, and they on the west side.”
“I know,” Rashid said uncomfortably. “I know.”
IV
THE DRAGON ATTACKS
The dragon was angry with the woman,
and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring,
on those who keep the commandments of God
and bear testimony to Jesus.
And he stood on the sand of the sea.
REVELATION 12:17
CHAPTER 66
THE LONG NIGHT’S JOURNEY proved more arduous than Matthew expected. A roadside park turned up outside Dubuque, and they pulled over so everyone could sleep. The next morning they wound their way up to La Crosse and finally got on Interstate 94, which took them through Eau Claire and up to the crossroad at Highway 8 where they turned east toward the town of Prentice. When they crossed the Big Jump South Fork River, Matt knew they were home. While they had been gone only days, it felt like months.
“Son!” Graham Peck ran out of the house when Matt drove into the driveway. “Thank God, you made it!”
Mary Peck slowly opened the back door of the car and got out without saying a word. Graham stopped, stared, and rushed toward his daughter, grabbing and hugging her neck.
“Praise God!” Graham sobbed. “Mary, you are alive!”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Mary began weeping. “I have so much to apologize for.”
Graham whirled her around him. “We’re so thankful you’re home. We love you, love you, love you!”
Jackie Peck rushed out of the house. “My daughter’s back!” she yelled, swinging her arms in the air. “Oh, my daughter is home!” Jackie ran down the steps and threw her arms around Graham and Mary, hugging them both. George and Jeff came out the door behind her.
“I’ve never seen Dad so demonstrative,” Matthew said. Adah and Nancy got out of the car behind him, shutting the doors slowly. “It’s been a hard time for Mom and Dad since Mary ran off,” he said.
“And Nancy Marks!” Graham turned toward their new guest. “You’re here! Welcome to our house.”
“Thank you.” Nancy extended her hand. “I can’t tell you how much I—”
Graham went past the extended hand and hugged Nancy. “We’re so glad you’re alive and with us.”
“Not as much as I am to be with you,” Nancy said. “It’s been a long, gruesome road.”
T
he family broke into conversation with everybody talking at the same time, hugging each other, and sounding like a gigantic party. George and little Jeff kept jumping up and down and hugging Mary.
“Let’s go in the house,” Jackie finally said. “We need to sit down. This family reunion’s overwhelming me.”
Everyone followed her into the small living room of Alice Masterson’s cabin. Jackie quickly prepared a cold drink, and the little boys passed the glasses around while conversation broke out again.
Finally Graham turned to Nancy Marks. “I usually kept some distance from your husband, Bill,” he began. “Of course, Jackie and I saw you at political events, but Nancy, we don’t really know you.”
Nancy nodded her head soberly. “I always stayed in the background because I wasn’t comfortable with much of the political nonsense that went along with Bill’s job.” She leaned back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling for a few moments. “We’ve never been church people in any way, shape, or form, but I did know the difference between good and bad. I simply couldn’t stand it when the mayor pushed my husband to do things that were wrong.”
“Wrong?” Jackie frowned.
“Like the night he, Pemrose, and Meachem raided your home in Arlington Heights,” Nancy said. “Yeah, intrusions like that!”
“Bill was there with those men?” Graham gasped.
Nancy nodded her head. “In the beginning, the mayor said it was a routine security check, but Bill was gone virtually all night because they were trying to catch you. When he came back, Bill was deeply disturbed. Not only was what they were doing illegal, he knew it violated everything you stood for, Graham.”
“He chased us?” Matthew asked.
“Not out of town,” Nancy said. “Bill ended up trying to run down those college students that were meeting in your home. Remember Jennifer Andrews?”
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