by Ted Dekker
She looked at the forest, jaw clenched.
Carl’s confusion lifted like a fog before the sun. He’d been here before, too, which only made sense. He was undoubtedly practiced at stepping out of the fog when presented with the right information.
In that moment, Carl heard the sincerity in her voice and knew that Kelly had done precisely what she said she’d done. She’d saved his life. There was a bond between them, which explained the emotions he’d allowed himself when he looked into her eyes as they laid tied to the bed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just . . .” He didn’t know what to say.
“Confusing,” Kelly said for him. “Their invasive techniques are designed to strip you of your identity and reshape you. They spent three days force-feeding you the fabricated memories prior to this last test. Now they’ve taken those memories from you with a simple injection. They’ve trained your mind to respond to their manipulation. But there are some things they can’t take from you. Trusting me is one of them. Remember that, Carl. Please remember that.”
“I will.” He swallowed, unsure how he felt about anything, including the woman who led him across the browned field toward the bunkhouse.
Familiar. The bunkhouse made his stomach turn, but such an emotional reaction was unreliable. “Tell me who I am.”
“You’re Carl Strople. Also known as Saint. Your memory has been stripped and reconstructed many times, and each time it becomes more difficult for you to remember who you really are. I won’t bore you with the science behind it, but it’s based on the relationship between memory and emotion that every human experiences. Here, a normal lifelong process is compacted into days, weeks, and months.”
“But who am I?”
“You were in the United States Army, Special Forces, when you were recruited for this assignment. You’ve never been married and have no children. When you first came to the X Group, a man named Charles was your handler. He was terminated and they gave you to me.”
“Why are you here?” he asked.
Kelly hesitated, then answered in a distant voice. “Because I survived the training just like you.”
“Then you’re what they made you?”
Another break. “I suppose. I won’t be deployed in the field. I’m here to help you make it in the field.”
“This is all an elaborate extension of the Special Forces? Why in Hungary?”
As soon as he’d asked the question, the answer came to him from his own memory. He answered himself.
“Black Ops. No one in the United States government has officially approved of these operations.”
“You’re remembering. Good. And you’ll quickly remember that Englishman is the most dangerous person in this compound, perhaps more than Kalman. You won’t see much of him, but he’s stronger than you. Be careful around him. Play by the rules and I’ll make sure you survive.”
“I can’t remember who my father is,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
“Or my mother.”
Still no answer.
They walked up to the bunkhouse. It was made of concrete blocks with a single door. This was his home. The darkness inside, under the first floor, was bittersweet to him. He remembered. Once bitter, now sweet.
Kelly walked up to the door and pulled it open. “Do you remember your specialties?”
Carl followed her into an empty building with a concrete floor. A stairwell descended to their right. Kelly walked toward it.
He stopped and stared at the concrete steps. “I can walk into a dark tunnel,” he said. “Nothing will hurt me.”
She reached the rail and turned back. Their eyes met. “Yes, you have a strong mind. Stronger than you think. Are you coming?”
He stepped after her, focusing anew. Shutting down his uncertainties. Once bitter, now sweet. He had to remember that it was now sweet, or he might be tempted to think it was still bitter.
“What else?” she asked, walking down the steps.
Carl followed. “I can kill with almost anything. But I am first a sniper.”
“Not just a sniper. You can handle a rifle like no one in recorded history. Do you remember?”
Her voice echoed in the narrow cement stairwell. She unlocked a metal door at the base and pushed it open. It was cool down here. Damp but not wet. The musty smell of undisturbed earth filled his nostrils. He walked through the door into a long tunnel lit by a single caged incandescent bulb.
“It’s okay,” she said, reaching back for him. “I’ve been here too.” He took her hand and walked beside her, deeper into the tunnel.
His fingers began to tremble, so he squeezed her hand tighter. She let him walk without speaking now. This journey to the pit was always a quiet one. Bittersweet, but sweet now. Lingering ghosts that had once been memories tried to haunt him, but he refused to succumb to their power.
They walked past two gray metal doors, one on the left and one on the right. The door on their right led to the training room, which featured a large sensory-deprivation tank that they’d used many times in his early training. When they lowered him into the warm salted water with headgear that masked his sight and hearing, he floated weightless without sensory perception, left only to the dark spaces of his mind. Terrible, beautiful, comforting, lost. But in the end he always found himself.
The other room had a small kitchen, a refrigerator, a shower, and a hard bunk without a mattress. When he wasn’t in the pit, he slept and ate here.
The hall took a sharp right turn, then descended one more flight of stairs into the pit. They called it the pit, but it was really just a small, square concrete room with black walls. A single metal chair was bolted to the floor in the center of the room. There was a small metal door to an access tunnel at the back of the cell, but it was always locked. No other features.
No lights.
He paused at the open door, then stepped in, walked to the chair, and turned around.
Kelly stood by the door, staring at him. If he wasn’t mistaken, she looked sad. She didn’t like his being here. Why not? It was what he needed to succeed. And it wasn’t nearly as bad as the hospital bed or the electricity.
They controlled the temperature of the room by heating or cooling the floor. He was forced to spend most of his time in the chair with his feet off the floor. The only way to survive the extended periods of time was to sleep sitting in extreme temperatures, something he could do only with considerable focus.
They monitored his vital signs with remote sensors.
“How long will I be here?”
“Two days.”
He slipped off his shoes. Tossed them to the floor by her feet. She picked them up by the laces and tossed them onto the steps behind her.
“And then more training?” he asked.
“Yes. I want you to forget everything that happened at the Andrassy.” He nodded. They stared at each other for a few seconds.
“Be strong, Carl. You have to make it. We’re almost done. I’m so proud of you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“They’ll try to break you this last month. Promise me you won’t break.”
“I won’t break.”
“I think that you’ll change the world. They have something very special in mind for you. All of this will soon make sense.”
“It already does,” he said. “Why are you helping me?”
Kelly walked into the room, put her right hand on his chest, and kissed him gently on the lips. “Maybe this will help you remember,” she said.
Then she walked out and shut the door behind her. An electronically triggered bolt slammed into place. Familiar silence settled. He couldn’t hear her ascending the stairs.
Carl stood with one hand on the chair, staring at the blackness. It made no difference in here whether he had his eyes open or closed. The darkness was like a pool of black ink.
He stood without moving for a long time, at least an hour. The questions that had plagued him up in t
he light no longer mattered. He’d spent countless hours asking those questions and never received answers, only frayed emotions, which he could not afford.
The only way to survive for Kelly was to shut down.
The floor began to cool, and he knew it would soon be covered in ice. He climbed onto the chair and sat cross-legged.
It was time to enter the safe tunnel in his mind.
5
The president of the United States walked along the long book-case in his office at Camp David and ran a finger along the leather-bound titles. How many presidents before him had added volumes to this collection? It contained the expected law books, history books, countless classics. But it was the eclectic mix of fiction that intrigued him most.
Stephen King. Which president had taken the time to read Stephen King? Or had The Stand simply been placed on the book-shelf unread? Dean Koontz, John Grisham, James Patterson. A book called This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti. He had heard the name.
Behind him, Secretary of State Calvin Bromley cleared his throat. “I think it’s a mistake to underestimate the polls, Mr. President. The country isn’t where it was ten years ago.”
“Robert, Calvin. My name is Robert Stenton. If I’ve learned anything from my son, it’s that even presidents have to be real.” He faced the two men seated in the overstuffed leather chairs flanking the coffee table. “I feel more like a real person when my friends use my given name in private.”
“And when will you feel the realness of being the leader of the free world?” David Abraham asked, stroking his white beard.
The president frowned, then cracked a grin. “Give me time. I’ve only been at this for a year.” He walked to the couch and sighed. “I know the polls are leaning toward the Iranian defense minister’s proposal to disarm Israel, but I can’t ignore the fact that it goes against every bit of good sense I’ve ever had.”
“Mr. Feroz’s proposal makes some strategic sense,” Bromley said. “I’m not counseling you to throw in the towel, but more than a few nations are backing this initiative. I think the American people see what the rest of the world is seeing—a plausible scenario for real peace in the region. And you are the people’s president.”
Robert looked at the secretary of state. Calvin Bromley, graduate of Harvard, two years his elder, but they’d known each other through the track-and-field program. The large Scandinavian man’s blond hair was now graying, and he’d put on a good fifty pounds in the last thirty years, but his clear blue eyes glinted with the same determination that had served him so well throughout his career.
All three were Harvard men. David Abraham, retired professor of history and psychology who’d taught three of Stenton’s undergraduate classes, now served as a confidant, a kind of spiritual adviser. The professor had experienced a spiritual renaissance later in life and had reconnected with Robert when Robert was the governor of Arizona.
The seventy-year-old mentor sat stoically, one leg crossed over the other. David had called this meeting. The weekend had originally been scheduled as a time to unwind, but when David suggested that the secretary of state come as well, Robert dismissed the hope of rest altogether.
“You’re right, Calvin, I am the people’s president. The minute I put my leg over the Harley and thundered down the highway to that infamous rally in Ohio, I became the people’s candidate. I don’t intend to ignore them. But that doesn’t mean I’m always going to agree.”
“I’m only suggesting you reconsider your judgment.”
“I reconsider my judgment every day of the week,” the president said. “I spend half my nights wondering if I’m making the right decisions.”
“Forcing Israel to disarm in exchange for the mutual disarmament of all her neighbors, assuming it all could be reasonably executed and verified, would go a long way in reducing the risk of a major conflict in the region.”
“Assuming it could be executed and verified,” Robert said. “And enforced. That’s a significant assumption, isn’t it?”
“Both the French and the Germans will aid us in enforcing the Iranian initiative, should it be approved.”
“The initiative isn’t officially Iranian.”
“No, but it’s been proposed by their minister of defense, and they are backing him. The United States is now the only Western nation openly opposing the plan.”
“And how many Middle Eastern countries are paying lip service with no intention to disarm?”
“If they don’t disarm, Israel doesn’t disarm.” Bromley shrugged. “The execution could stall and fade into oblivion like every other treaty signed in the Middle East. But by backing the plan, we gain considerable political capital.”
The president closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. There was some good logic behind the plan. Each Middle Eastern country would be allowed an army large enough to carry out regional defensive operations only. No air forces, no nuclear programs, no mechanized armies.
The United Nations would establish a full-scale nuclear defense in the region under the strict obligation to deal immediately and force-fully with any threats.
It was a bold, audacious, improbable plan that made sense only on paper. But his staff had analyzed it for nine months now, and the fact remained, it did indeed make sense on paper. The Iranian minister of defense, Assim Feroz, might be a crook to the bone, but he certainly wasn’t short on intelligence.
All of Europe and Asia had provisionally endorsed the plan.
Israel had rejected the plan outright, but that only played into the hands of her enemies.
“Our alternative is to dissent along with Israel, further degrading our good standing with Europe and Asia,” Bromley said.
“The Israelis will never agree.”
“If we back the UN force, they may have to.”
Still no comment from David Abraham. The man was biding his time. He sat in his black tweed suit, legs still crossed, one hand still rubbing his beard.
“The initiative will come to a head at the United Nations Middle Eastern summit next month,” Bromley said.
David Abraham spoke quietly, but his voice was thick. “This is unacceptable. If you agree to the terms of this initiative, pain and suffering will haunt the world forever.”
They stared at him in silence. David had never really concerned himself with policy—why the strong reaction now? What had prompted him to suggest the meeting in the first place? Robert gave him space.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Bromley said.
“Without an army, Israel is powerless against an enemy sworn to her destruction. I don’t profess to be an adviser of world politics, but I am a historian. A simple glance down the corridors of time will reveal the foolishness of any disarmament on this scale. You can forcibly disarm a country, but you can’t disarm the heart. The hatred of Israel’s enemies will find its own way.”
“Which is why the United Nations—”
“You assume the United Nations will always have Israel’s interests in mind.” David lowered his hand from his beard and drilled Bromley with a stare. “Don’t forget that the United Nations is made up of Israel’s enemies as well as friends.”
“I think the secretary’s suggesting that we play ball without intending to follow through,” the president said.
“Assuming that’s possible. You agree one day, and the next day you are bound by your word. You must not do this, Robert. As your adviser on spiritual matters, I cannot overemphasize my strenuous objection to agreeing to this initiative.”
David was now out of character. He was known to give strong opinions at times, but always with a smile and a nod. Robert couldn’t recall ever seeing the man so agitated.
“You see this as a spiritual matter?” the secretary asked.
David settled back in his chair. “Isn’t everything? At the risk of sounding arrogant, let me suggest that I know of things in this matter that would make no sense to either of you.” He shifted his gaze to Robert. “Words can become real
ity, Robert. And when those words are evil, someone had better be fighting the good fight, or the world could very well be swallowed up by evil.”
The president felt his heart pause. Project Showdown.
There was far more here than David was saying openly. The secretary’s presence was now a liability.
“Could you give us a minute, Calvin?”
Bromley glanced at David, then stood. “No problem.”
“Dinner’s in an hour. Join us?”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
“Robert.”
“Right.” He left without another word.
Robert and David sat in silence for a few seconds. Robert wasn’t sure how to draw out his mentor. When he’d invited David to serve as his spiritual adviser, the professor’s first response had been that he couldn’t, not until he told the president everything.
It was then, nearly a year ago now, that David had sat down with Robert in the Oval Office and told him about Project Showdown. The story spun by this man on that day had sounded like something out of the Old Testament, a series of fantastic events of mythical proportion. Such an account made it seem as if Joshua were a real man who really had knocked over the walls of Jericho with a blast of horns. As if John’s Revelation were a real possibility, in literal terms.
David had insisted that Robert know the full extent of Project Showdown, because he wasn’t sure that the president of the United States would want someone with such a résumé to serve as his spiritual adviser.
At first, Robert wasn’t sure either. He commissioned a private study to determine if the events described by David Abraham could possibly have happened as the man claimed. The man he’d put in charge was a proud agnostic with the FBI named Christian Larkin.
One month after receiving the assignment, Larkin had walked into Robert’s office a changed man. The only copy of his report, simply titled Showdown, was now in Robert’s closet at the White House residence.
