Frantic

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Nada stood and hugged Judd, then gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for coming. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Judd sat. “What’s up?”

  “I was questioned by a woman from the Global Community as soon as I went inside. She wanted to know why I hadn’t been stung, why my family hadn’t responded to the letter the potentate sent about my brother’s death, all kinds of things.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I was creative,” Nada said with a smile, “but it’s the girl I’m rooming with that has me stumped. She’s loyal to Carpathia, but she’s asking questions about God.”

  “Might be a trap.”

  “Her name is Kweesa Darjonelle,” Nada said. “She knew my brother. I think they dated. He told her things that made her think he wasn’t completely loyal to the GC.”

  Judd sat up. “You mean, he may have been a believer?”

  “I don’t know. Before he died, Kasim told me Carpathia wasn’t all he said he was. I never even thought he might have believed.”

  “What did this Kweesa want to know?”

  “She kept probing, asking what my brother was like at home, what my parents believed about Carpathia. That made me nervous.”

  “It should,” Judd said.

  “Then she handed me this.” Nada pulled out a tiny computer from her handbag. “Kasim left it at her apartment the night before the earthquake.”

  Judd opened the computer.

  “It doesn’t work,” Nada said. “Kweesa said there’s something wrong with the power supply.”

  “There may be a clue in here,” Judd said. “Why hasn’t Kweesa been stung?”

  “She hasn’t gone out of her building. There’s an underground tunnel from her apartment to her office.”

  “The GC are smarter than we think.”

  “She asked me this morning if I knew anything about Tsion Ben-Judah,” Nada said.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t know what to say. I kept thinking maybe this is someone I need to tell the truth to. She seems sincere.”

  “But if they link you to me, and me to Pavel and his dad . . .” Judd looked around. He couldn’t expose Pavel and his father.

  “I wasn’t followed,” Nada said. She took a breath. “I think I’m going to tell her the truth.”

  “I admire your faith,” Judd said, “but don’t talk yet. Wait and see what else she asks.”

  Judd glanced at a nearby building and saw two GC Peacekeepers with binoculars. One pressed his hand to an earpiece.

  “Gotta go,” Judd said. “I’ll look this computer over and get back with you soon.”

  “Wait!” Nada said, but Judd was already on the jogging path, heading back to Pavel’s apartment.

  Vicki tried to keep up with Pete as they ran through the night. They found Roger leading a group down the hill. When Roger saw Pete, he nearly fainted. Pete told him the news and said, “You have to get back there.”

  “What are you going to do?” Roger said.

  “Our truck’s gone. We’ll have to hide until we can find some new wheels.”

  An older woman stepped forward. “I have a pretty big house with a barn behind it. I can take at least half of you all in.”

  Several others chimed in and volunteered to keep people who lived too far away to walk home.

  “As soon as I locate another truck,” Roger said, “I’ll get in touch with you.”

  “Good,” Pete said.

  Vicki and a few others followed the woman through a valley and up another ridge. “My place is just on the other side of this mountain,” the woman said.

  The sun was almost up when they arrived, and Vicki was exhausted.

  About twenty people crowded into the woman’s kitchen as she started breakfast and assigned rooms. Conrad went to the barn with a few teenage boys. Vicki and Shelly said they were too tired to eat and made their way to a musty, downstairs room with bunk beds. Vicki sneezed and pulled the covers over her head. Finally, she fell asleep.

  The gasoline smell was so strong that Mark and the others at the schoolhouse were forced to sleep outside. Charlie kept an eye on Janie and Melinda.

  The next morning the kids got to work hosing down the upstairs room. The kids voted to put Janie and Melinda downstairs where they wouldn’t be able to harm themselves or anyone else.

  Darrion helped Charlie and Lenore study the Bible. The kids prayed for Vicki, Judd, and the others and asked God to protect them from the Global Community. Charlie prayed, “Please bring Vicki back so she can see I’ve finally understood what you did for me.”

  Over the next few days, Judd watched Pavel’s health grow worse. The boy had trouble breathing and could hardly sit up. Judd tried to start the computer Nada had given him but couldn’t. Pavel asked to look at it. His skin was pale and his fingers thin as he turned the machine over.

  “Looks like the solar panel,” Pavel said. “It’s not getting power.” He showed Judd where to hook up a regular power supply. Within a few minutes the computer was working.

  As Judd inspected different files, he noticed the daily entries of Nada’s brother. “This is almost like a diary,” Judd said. He read a few entries to Pavel.

  “ ‘I’ve been assigned duty at the potentate’s headquarters tomorrow,’ ” the boy wrote in an early entry. “ ‘I finally get to see things up close.*’ ”

  Judd was puzzled. “I wonder what that asterisk means. There’s a bunch of them throughout the entries.”

  “Let me see,” Pavel said. He raised his head and clicked through the file. “There are notes embedded in the text. Something he doesn’t want anyone to see.” He fiddled with the tiny keyboard and a screen popped up. “It’s asking for a password. Four letters.”

  “What could be in those secret files?” Judd said.

  Pavel shook his head and typed several words, then letters and numbers. He tried combinations using letters from the words Global Community, but each time the computer denied access.

  “Sometimes people will use their own initials or birthdays or names of people they’re close to,” Pavel said. “Makes it easy to remember. What’s this guy’s name?”

  “Kasim,” Judd said. “I don’t know his middle name.”

  Pavel typed more words but came up with nothing.

  “Wait,” Judd said, “his sister is Nada. Try that.”

  Pavel typed in her name and the computer whirred. “Bingo!”

  The document revealed nearly one hundred pages of single-spaced notes Kasim had written. Pavel scrolled down and Judd read over his shoulder.

  “Nada came to the training camp today and embarrassed me,” Kasim wrote. “She’s just as committed to her beliefs as I am to Nicolae Carpathia. I hope she’ll see that she’s wrong about him.”

  “Can you find anything else about Nada in there?” Judd said.

  Pavel did a word search and came up with several more sections with Nada’s name. “Here, read it to me.”

  Judd took the computer. “ ‘Talked with Nada today about the facilities here. There is so much luxury and wealth. My room is like a palace compared to back home. Why can’t my family see the truth?’ ”

  Judd skipped to the last few pages of notes. “ ‘I talked with Nada tonight about seeing Leon Fortunato in the hallway of the building. It’s exciting anytime I see someone famous, but I can’t tell Nada what’s really going on in my heart.’ ”

  Judd scrolled up and found passages that talked about Kasim’s feelings for Kweesa. Kasim mentioned another friend named Dan. “ ‘Dan seems to know what’s going to happen before it does. He thinks there’s a big earthquake coming sometime soon. I’ve asked how he knows all this and he’s been pretty cagey.’ ”

  The next entry talked about Dan wanting to meet with Kasim after they finished work the next day.

  “What happened with that?” Pavel said.

  Judd scrolled down and found the answer. “ ‘It was like talking to my family,’ ” Kasim wrote.
“ ‘Dan believes everything they do. I tried talking some sense into him, but he wouldn’t budge. He gave me a Bible but I refused. I don’t know what to do. He’s working for the potentate but is totally against him. I am betraying what I believe by not exposing him, but I haven’t exposed my family either. What should I do?’ ”

  Pavel put his head back. “I’d like to hear more, but I’m so tired.”

  “It’s okay,” Judd said. “Rest. I’ll tell you how it ends when you wake up.”

  Vicki awoke sneezing and red eyed. She wandered upstairs around midday and found an old computer. She tried to check e-mail but couldn’t.

  The woman who owned the house came into the kitchen. “I don’t know anything about that thing. It’s my son’s. He ran off a few days before the locusts came and I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “Is he a believer?” Vicki said.

  The woman wiped sweat from her face with a paper towel. “I tried to talk with him time and again. As far as I know, he’s not one of us.”

  Vicki kept working with the computer as she listened to the woman’s story. She had gone to church since she was a girl and had taken her children as well. “I always heard that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than walking into a garage makes you a car. I guess they were right.”

  Pete came into the room. “That computer’s no good. I tried to get a message to the co-op but I couldn’t get through. It’s something with the phone lines.”

  “Then there’s no way to get in touch with Carl or Mark,” Vicki said, “or those people in Maryland.”

  Pete shook his head. “Local radio reported they arrested a bunch of people, including that former senator.”

  Vicki plopped into a chair. “The GC is getting tighter, and we’re stuck.”

  “Yeah, we’re stuck,” Pete said, “but on the positive side, you’ve got a lot of people to teach. That pastor came by about an hour ago and asked if you’d talk to people tonight.”

  “If we meet, we might get caught,” Vicki said.

  Pete smiled. “When has that ever stopped us?”

  19

  JUDD stayed with Pavel while doctors monitored the boy’s condition from remote computers. It was clear that Pavel was getting worse. While Judd waited, he read page after page of Kasim’s diary. Kasim mentioned Kweesa often and wrote about missing his family in Israel as well. Nada’s parents would love to see the files, Judd thought.

  The most interesting sections detailed the turmoil Kasim experienced when he wrote about Dan. “The more I see of the Global Community and the way they treat people,” Kasim wrote, “the more confused I get. They talk about tolerance, then threaten people if they visit the Ben-Judah Web site.

  “I saw pictures of the two aides Peter had executed. This guy is supposed to be the head of the one world religion. If that’s the kind of religion the GC wants us to follow, I can’t do it.

  “Every day I think about what my family believes. If they’re right, I’m working for the devil. But how could that be? Nicolae Carpathia is doing so many good things.”

  Kasim went back and forth with his arguments. On one page he listed the positives of both belief systems.

  “I want to believe what the Global Community stands for,” Kasim wrote, “but something tells me my parents are right.”

  Judd found the entry for the night before the earthquake and read it over and over. He checked Pavel’s condition and phoned Nada. “I need to see you right away.”

  Vicki met with members of the Johnson City underground church in the musty basement. Shelly and Conrad helped her move a mountain of canning jars and dusty boxes to make room.

  About twenty people crammed into the tight space. Some sat on the floor. Others brought chairs. These people were hungry for any kind of teaching.

  Vicki went over the same information she had taught Carl Meninger when he was at the schoolhouse. She referred to the notes Lenore had typed for her, but as she went over the Scriptures, she found herself relying less on notes. Things Tsion Ben-Judah had said or written came back to her, and the people were amazed such a young woman could teach so well.

  Pete slipped in after the meeting and reported the latest from Roger. “As far as we can tell, the GC are gone.”

  “Why would they leave?” Vicki said.

  “They came to the station and made a big show about pulling out,” Pete said. “I guess they looked at the truck and were satisfied.”

  “They didn’t find any bodies,” Conrad said. “I’ll bet they’re hiding somewhere waiting for the believers to come back for their cars.”

  “We’ll stay here another day to make sure,” Pete said. “I’ve got a line on another truck we can use. Our supplies from Florida are still in the parking lot of the gas station.”

  Vicki tried to sleep, but the dust and mildew were too much for her. After dark, she found Shelly and they walked to the backyard. They found two rickety chairs and sat near an outdoor fireplace. Vicki breathed in the cool, mountain air. An owl hooted in the distance.

  “Until I met Judd,” Vicki said, “I’d never lived in anything bigger than a trailer.” She looked at the tree-lined mountainside and sighed. “All this space is incredible.”

  Shelly suggested they get some covers and try sleeping outside. Suddenly, someone cried in the distance.

  “What was that?” Shelly said.

  “I don’t know,” Vicki said, “but it didn’t sound like an animal. It sounded human.”

  Crickets chirped and frogs croaked from a nearby pond. Vicki finally turned to go inside and heard the cry again.

  Shelly pointed. “It’s coming from up there.”

  Vicki headed up the hill. Shelly protested but finally tagged along. The two quietly made their way in the moonlight. They cautiously walked around a small pond and followed a narrow creek bed. The trees were thick and several times Vicki had to retrace her steps and go around them.

  Finally, they reached a clearing and climbed through a barbed-wire fence. In the distance, a small cabin was built into the side of the hill.

  “I don’t like this,” Shelly said. “Let’s go back.”

  A light flickered inside. “There’s somebody in there,” Vicki said. “Maybe they’re hurt.”

  “And there might be a bear or something waiting to jump out at us!”

  Vicki shook her head and climbed the side of a smooth rock to the top of the ridge. The cabin was made of small logs. The holes had been filled in with mud, but the glow of a lantern shone through.

  Someone inside let out a piercing scream that echoed through the valley. “Please,” Shelly whispered, “let’s get out of here.”

  “I have to see who’s in there,” Vicki said.

  The door to the cabin burst open and someone stood in the shadows with a gun. “Who’s out there?” the man shouted.

  “It’s okay,” Vicki shouted back. “We’re friends of the woman in the house at the bottom of the hill.”

  “You better come inside, or those stingin’ bugs’ll bite you.”

  Vicki took Shelly’s hand and the two walked into the cabin. The man was thin with a scraggly beard. He wore a dirty baseball cap pulled low. The man’s eyes were red and there were beer bottles strewn about the cabin. He motioned for them to sit by the fire that burned in a pit in the middle of the room.

  “You were stung, weren’t you?” Vicki said.

  The man pulled a blanket over his shoulders. He leaned against the wall and propped his head against a log. “What are you doing at my mother’s house?”

  Judd slipped into the back pew of the Enigma Babylon One World Cathedral, not far from Pavel’s apartment. The church was a monument to every religion except Judaism and Christianity. There were statues of gods and goddesses, pictures of people on their knees before pieces of wood and stone, and framed speeches of Nicolae Carpathia. Since the attack of locusts, all services had been canceled, but the building was open to anyone. Huge stone archways stood a hundred f
eet above Judd’s head. Inscriptions were written on pillars throughout the sanctuary. The first said, “One world, one faith.” Another simply said, “Tolerance.” Still another read, “Strive for unity.”

  Each seat had its own interactive screen and headphones. He slipped the headphones on and watched a recording of a recent service. As the “Veneration Leader” sang and read “holy texts,” Judd followed the words as they flashed on the screen. He scrolled through the service and found a message by Pontifex Maximus Peter Mathews. Several times during the message people were asked to give an opinion on a religious question by touching the screen.

  “How can a person find the true way to spirituality and inner peace?” Pontifex Mathews said. “(a) by following a list of rules and regulations, (b) by following someone who says there is only one way to God, or (c) by following your own beliefs and letting your heart be your guide.”

  The audience had unanimously chosen “c.” As he scrolled through the rest of the message, Nada slipped in beside him. “How is Pavel?” she whispered.

  Judd frowned. “He’s getting worse.”

  “Why did you want to meet here?” Nada said.

  “I think we were being watched at the park.” Judd handed Nada a printout of some of the pages from Kasim’s hidden journal. “There may be a chance Kasim became a believer before the earthquake.”

  Nada was obviously moved by the words of her brother. She scanned the pages.

  Judd finally took them from her and said, “There’s only one person who could know whether your brother became a believer before he died. It’s this guy, Dan.”

  “Maybe Kweesa knows him,” Nada said.

  “For all we know, he could have died in the earthquake, but we have to find out. If you can take home proof that your brother became a believer, your dad won’t be so mad at you.”

  “I’ll go right now,” Nada said.

  Nada rushed out and Judd continued scrolling through the sermon archives. The last recording was made the day of the locust attack. Judd clicked it and up popped the video of Pontifex Maximus Peter Mathews at the podium. He was in his full outfit, complete with the huge hat and long robes. Judd couldn’t resist. He turned the sound up and put on the headphones.