The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension (The Second Coming Chronicles Book 1)

by Terry James

  It was the word “physically” that bothered her. Was she to infer that neurologically, or psychologically, she might suffer irreversible mental health problems? She had studied a great deal in brain physiology, as well as other things having to do with brain functioning. The fixed, dilated pupils worried her.

  She hadn’t had time to consider the decision so hastily made--the decision to completely leave everything behind. To pull up all ties to Austin and the University of Texas. Pull out of the Ph.D. program for advanced molecular biology. For what? To take a job with a program that Robert Cooper promised would make the doctorate program at any university in the world seem kindergarten stuff by comparison.

  “The people who know have analyzed every part of your potential, Lori.”

  Robert Cooper’s words traversed her memory, while she continued to tend to her mother’s needs.

  “The President himself approved the new position they’ve created for your special gifts and talents,” Cooper had said with praise in his inflection.

  It wasn’t the ego massage that convinced her to agree. It was the fact that her mother would be given the most advanced medical attention and care, free of charge, that did the trick.

  No. There was another consideration at least as important.

  “You and Mark will be working very closely together in this special assignment,” Cooper had said, clinching the deal.

  But what exactly was the deal? For some reason the question kept returning and burning into her mind. She should be ecstatic. She was promised security in a government job, working in her area of what some called her “genius.” Cooper guaranteed her a Ph.D. from the school of her choice--including the University of Texas--within a year of completed work for her government.

  But, the worry was there. All Robert Cooper would--“could” --tell her was that it was a cutting-edge project involving molecular science. It had both civilian and military implications. There were reasons that both she and Mark had unique qualifications for the work.

  “How is she?”

  Mark bent forward through the door’s opening.

  “I don’t know. She’s so sick, she looks so old.”

  “They said she would come out of it quickly, once the recovery begins,” Mark said.

  “I guess a lot of it is that she’s not wearing make-up,” Lori said, applying more ointment to the lips.

  Lori looked into Mark’s eyes, seeing in them the strength she needed at this moment.

  “Are we doing the right thing, Mark? Did we make the right decision?”

  “We’ll be together,” he said with confidence, but felt his own apprehension welling.

  The tall, aristocratic-looking chief master sergeant looked at the papers the Secret Service agent had handed him a moment before.

  He went to his desk and phoned the T-39 section’s commanding officer.

  “Major. We’ve got a guy here says he’s got orders to take one of my birds to D.C. You know anything about that?”

  The voice on the other line responded, and T-39 Line Chief Stephen Sullivan listened impatiently.

  “So, you’re telling me you’ve already approved it?”

  He waited to hear the major’s explanation of why the chief wasn’t informed as soon as the orders came down.

  “Yeah, I know that your staff is limited, sir. But, how the…” He calmed and spoke with controlled anger. “Major, how do you expect us to provide VIP service with all these training sorties going on, without giving a little warning?”

  Sullivan’s complexion returned to normal, his less reddened, Irish-German bald head displaying his calming demeanor.

  He slammed the receiver on its cradle, and said in a booming voice to his assistant, a tech sergeant sitting at a desk in the next room., “How long will it take you to get a bird ready to fly to Washington?”

  The sergeant appeared in the doorway. “We’ve got one that can be ready in about 30 minutes. It needs a top off, and quick clean-up.”

  “Do it.”

  Robert Cooper waited, watching the gray, white and black T-39 being prepared for his flight. He looked northward and saw the C-41 taxi from its position less than a hundred yards from Base Ops. He sat in the long limo, the dark-tinted windows shading him from the Texas sun that had broken out in full glory an hour before. Even with the darkened interior, and the car’s air-conditioner on maximum cool, the deputy director of covert operations for the Department of Defense sweated beads of perspiration just below his almost non-existent hairline.

  He removed the white, silk handkerchief from the coat pocket of the dark suit and mopped the perspiration.

  How he did hate Texas. D.C. was humid, but there, he would secret himself away in the bowels of the Pentagon, locked in the absolute cool comfort of his plush office.

  He always hated to come to Texas. He hoped this would be his last mission for the men he didn’t like, including Lyndon Johnson. Soon he would be director.

  Texas was his least favorite place. He would rather follow the Starlifter to New Mexico than stay here. He wasn’t that crazy about New Mexico, but at least it didn’t have this humidity.

  How would his young converts take to the operation in the barren places outside Taos? Were they really converted to the government’s designs for them at this point? They knew only the basics. That the project was a very important one involving molecular science experimentation. They had been--he smiled--pre-conditioned. But, was that enough?

  Fewer than 3 minutes later, he watched the glinting C-141 leap from the concrete after a short take-off roll. The huge aircraft climbed, like most of the transport aircraft in the inventory, maintaining a near-level position as it lifted. The Starlifter continued to ascend and began a slow turn to the right.

  Cooper returned his gaze to the T-39 and watched the crew while they pumped JP-4 into it through the long, thick black hose running from the yellow fuel truck. He wiped his face with the silk handkerchief. He would be glad to get out of Texas.

  Twilight displayed its final colors, the Texas spring sunset beautiful in Christopher’s rear view mirror. He drove his VW bug eastward on I-35 toward San Marcos. Randall Prouse had said he wanted to discuss the happenings of recent days…the things that had somehow drawn Laura and Lori Morgan, as well as Mark Lansing, and him, Christopher Banyon, together.

  It was as if they had vanished from the earth, he thought, glancing again at the magnificent lavenders, pinks, yellows and reds of the quickly fading sunset. He had tried the apartment manager’s office, the hospitals, Randolph Air Force Base. They were nowhere to be found. It was eerie. His spirit told him it had something to do with the figure that he and Mark Lansing had seen in their … What were they? Their dreams?

  His own had not been a dream, not a nightmare. It was real. Mark believed his encounter with the thing was real.

  The encounters, Col. Morgan’s death in the T-38, Laura’s inexplicable coma--they must be related in some macabre way, his innermost being said as he turned down Randall Prouse’s street.

  “Lord, if it’s important to you…please provide the way to the answers.”

  The minister said the prayer silently while he pulled the Volkswagen into Prouse’s driveway.

  Before Banyon could push the headlight switch “off” and shut down the engine, Randall Prouse had opened the side door of his home and moved down the few steps. Prouse motioned to him, mouthing words Banyon couldn’t hear because of the engine noise.

  The archaeologist motioned him to hurry. “Chris! I’ve found something! You’ve got to see this!”

  Banyon followed Prouse through the doorway and down the short hallway to Prouse’s book and paper-cluttered study.

  Prouse rifled through the mess on his desk.

  “Here. You’ve got to see this!”

  Prouse turned to the page he had marked only a few minutes earlier. “This is by Julius Barnard, Dr. Julius Barnard. You remember him. He’s the guy who did those studies in the occult, about spiritism, both
heavenly and demonic. The book’s title is ‘Angelic Visitations’—a secular work.”

  Christopher searched his mental files. “No…I don’t recall a book by that title,” he said. “I do remember the name, though. Julius Barnard. He was the scientist who disappeared, according to his wife, wasn’t he? About 1960 or ‘61, somewhere in there?”

  “That’s right. The police, the prosecutors. Remember? It was a national story. They all believed his wife murdered him or had him murdered. There was never a body,” Prouse said, continuing to look for the exact passages he wanted. “He worked in particle physics, remember?”

  Christopher smiled, and shook his head. “No, Randy, my head doesn’t get up into that stratosphere. I just remember it was a big flap. But, she was exonerated, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes. She swore that he just vanished right in front of her eyes one night while they were walking. She claimed there was a bright light, and the good doctor just wasn’t … Like Enoch in Genesis 5.”

  Prouse picked the book up from the desk and held it open at the chosen place. “This is a book I bought back in 1959. ‘Angelic Visitations’…”

  Prouse sat in one of the two chairs in the small study. Christopher sat in the other.

  “Listen to this, Chris. It might strike a familiar chord.”

  Prouse checked once more to make sure he had the right spot to begin reading.

  “‘The pathway exists upon which both the spiritual and the physical can walk together. My attempts to bring both worlds, or, if you will, dimensions, into a common field, if for a brief moment, seems to offer promise.

  Here is a timeline record of a degree of accomplishment in this endeavor.

  June 6, 1957: While attempting to open my mind to the vastness of space I meditated upon, more than one light appeared to me. They seemed at first friendly enough. They seemed to hover over me. This was not a dream, or trance-like state. The lights were real, but at the same time, did not consist of matter, so far as I could discern.

  I became frightened, when they seemed to draw my thoughts, or my actual, physical self–I could not be certain—to themselves. I resisted their allure. The brightness grew to the extent I had to close my eyes. The brightness was unbearable, even with my hands covering my eyes.

  When next I opened my eyes, the lights–the bright, hovering lights were gone. My pained eyes than beheld a dark, boiling mass. From it sparked flecks of lightning-like eruptions. The boiling, rolling mass took on the form of a human.

  It stood perhaps 10 feet from me and spoke. It said that it was my father. It beckoned me to join its mass. It told me I could be part of changing the Earth. It told me that soon would come the taking away, and that the Earth must be prepared for that quantum moment.

  I struggled hard against its pull. I was terribly affrighted. When the struggle of wills ended, the thing was gone.’”

  Christopher sat forward. It was a stunning revelation. This man, who, himself, had disappeared in front of his wife, according to her, had described precisely the creature he, Christopher Banyon, saw that stormy night.

  “He said the thing spoke to him in both Hebrew and Greek, Chris. Barnard is--was--a top-notch scholar in both Hebrew and Greek.”

  Banyon got to his feet and paced. “The Marine pilot, Mark Lansing, he and Lori, Laura Morgan’s daughter, said the recording they made of James, Laura’s husband, was in both Hebrew and Greek. They told me that James’ words on the tape were deep, and guttural–not at all like his voice. The professor who translated the taped words said that James, in that unearthly voice, said something about the ‘taking away.’ That it would be soon…”

  Both men were silent for a few seconds, reflecting on the meaning of the experiences, identical to that of Julius Barnard.

  “Did you get the books I had delivered to your church?”

  Banyon, still deep in thought about what he had just heard, snapped his attention to his friend’s question. “Oh, yes. I did.”

  “Did you read the Scripture on the first page of my book, ‘Our Struggle?’”

  The minister diverted his mind from the things that had been read to him, to the book in question.

  Randall Prouse said, before Christopher could answer, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

  Banyon considered those words of Ephesians 6:12. He remembered the words on the phone that night when the phone was out of service because of the violent storm.

  “Watch for the bene elohim.”

  “We’re dealing here with the Biblical sons of God?” he said, quietly.

  “’As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the son of man,’” Prouse said, in a tone that said he measured carefully the gravity of the words before uttering them.

  “The Lord obviously wants you involved in opposing this end-time intrusion, this invasion,” Randall Prouse said. “Don’t you sense that?”

  The minister didn’t know what to say. He looked with a dazed expression to Prouse for answers.

  “Whatever God allows in our lives, He gives us the tools or weapons necessary to deal with it, Chris,” the bigger man said, giving his guest a brief hug. “You and I have got to work on this project--together, if you’ll have me as a partner.”

  Banyon said nothing, but wondered, after a smiling nod of approval, what sort of weapon would be required to deal with such an enemy.

  Susie just smiled when he told her. He saw no anger, no tears, no rebellion. She just smiled, her pretty, oval-shaped face, inset with the most wonderful brown eyes God ever made, taking on the shy look of a teenager about to go on her first date.

  He had just explained to her that he had decided to resign as pastor of St. Paul Presbyterian Church. He and Dr. Randall Prouse would be devoting themselves to following the strange intrusions into his life, and the lives of the others, to whatever destination waited at the end. He wanted her with him and could provide for them by assisting Randy in archaeological digs, and other ways the professor had in mind to support them during their quest.

  Then, too, there was the matter of the inheritance left him by his great aunt that would soon be available. He didn’t know what that might amount to, but it could be considerable, his mother had told him.

  Most importantly, he had prayed much about it, and was convinced that he must do it.

  “I…I’m sorry, Susie. I realize we’ve waited this long to get our house ready.”

  Christopher held her small hands in his and kissed her cheek, then her lips.

  “It’s as if the Lord himself has a grip on my spirit, my soul. I know now. This is what I was put here to do,” he said, looking into the eyes that looked softly into his.

  “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge,” Susie responded with her characteristic tenderness. It was the part of her he loved most, expressing her total love for him with the Biblical words from Ruth 1:16.

  He knew that this would be her response. Knew she would accept whatever came, so long as they were together. But, her loving acquiescence to his sudden and unexpected --even outrageous--action, brought relief to his many troubled thoughts.

  Her faith in his decision, her unquestioning love, gave him the confidence and the strength he needed to do what must be done.

  01:40 MST, the Friday following the crash

  Maj. Red Germand looked over the hangar floor while standing high upon a mobile scaffold. Debris from the T-38 crash covered the hangar’s smooth concrete floor, laid out in a tight configuration that approximated the shape of the destroyed talon.

  Lt. Col. Larry Cox, head of the investigation for the Air Force, climbed the grated metal steps and joined Germand, who continued to study the debris.

  It was late, and it had been a long day for Germand. For some reason, he just couldn’t leave the hangar. Something raked his thoughts. Thoughts tha
t had at their top position the fact that after combing through every centimeter of the 30-foot crater and the surrounding area for 200 yards in all directions, there was evidence of only one pilot who had been in the bird.

  “Why don’t you get some rest, Red,” Cox said, patting him on the shoulder.

  “Yeah, I guess there’s not much I can do, standing up here studying this heap of metal.”

  “There’s still no evidence of Morgan?” the lieutenant colonel said.

  Red Germand shook his head and sighed. “No, Larry, I just can’t figure. Every crash I’ve ever been involved with has produced at least a shred of every person aboard. I just can’t figure.”

  “They’ve found several parts of Beery’s helmet, they tell me.”

  “And, just an hour or so ago, they found part of his ‘chute,” Germand said. “They’ve still found nothing of the colonel’s body but that tooth, the end of his right thumb, an eye, and a rib, I think. But they have an accumulation of things that were on his person.”

  “But, not one scrap of evidence that James Morgan was ever on that aircraft.” Cox’s assessment was offered in a frustrated, questioning tone.

  “What percentage of the bird have they recovered? Anyone given an estimate, yet?”

  “It’s just too decimated,” Maj. Germand answered. “Most crashes just don’t happen like this one--full burners, straight in.”

  “I guess we’re lucky to get something that looks even that…helpful,” Cox said, scanning the floor below, evaluating the debris jigsaw in the process of being assembled.

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Germand.

  Chapter 10

  Washington, D.C., the White House Oval Office, May 31, 1967

  Lyndon Johnson was in a burning rage. Vietnam consumed his every waking hour. The press was making life miserable, as were the hippy “make love not war” protestors. Now, the Israelis strained at the US leash wanting to get at the Arabs threatening them.