“Are we done fucking around here, Boss? There is work to do in Washington and New York, if you’re up to it, ma’am.”
“What about my parents?”
“They’ll be just fine, ma’am,” says the operator coming down the stairs, still in a mask. “The police are on the way, and your folks are tied up in the master bedroom. By the time they piece anything together, you will be on assignment. Schwarz can brief you in the air.”
Sirens sound in the distance as Mike rubs her wrists, “Okay, as long as they are safe.”
She reaches for Mark’s Sig, turning quickly; she fires two shots through Dixon’s still grimacing face, splattering brains behind him. To her, there are none more guilty than those who would protect her sister’s killers.
A Black Hawk helicopter returns from Camp Bullis, dark and in whisper mode, coming to hover above Jacob’s back yard. Fifteen ropes are dropped out the side doors, and the chopper lowers to where the ropes touch the ground. The seven men are joined by four more shooters who were outside, along with Mike, and each wraps their wrist in a rope and gets a good grab with their dominant hand, other hand taking the tail behind their backs, as the chopper raises and flies west, away from the house, and away from the cops. In ten minutes they are at Bullis, and in thirteen, they are loaded inside a new bird – VTOL Boeing cargo cruiser – designation DragonStar, hot and waiting, with all their gear for the upcoming mission.
Rendition
It’s a scale really, with a perfect mission at one end and a total pooch screw at the other, and we’re right about in the middle.[18]
E-Day Minus 7 Years
Hooded, blind, and bound, they travel through traffic for about sixty minutes, down a highway for another forty or so, and down some rural roads for another ten. All the while, Jeremiah, Malachi, and Lester are kept laying down on the floor of the van, with a boot on each of them to remind them of who is in charge. After all, tied up on the floor of the van are a low-level reporter, an unknown gambling addict, and one old fool – at least that’s what people say about Jeremiah these days.
In Malachi’s mind, there is nothing but panic, eventually causing him to pass out, but the reporter is on a different plane of thought. He notices the time it took to get here, which directions they were going, based on the sunshine warming through the widows, and when they opened the van doors, he notices the sounds of the birds nearby. Jeremiah is operating on a plane that seems to be impossible, but here it is.
He is eighty-nine years old, with a birthday coming in just a few months, aching from his neck to his feet, from the slamming to the ground, the bagging and dragging to this location. What he “noticed” during the trip, from the smell, was that he was not the first person to wear that bag. When they got out of the van, he felt the cool breeze, smelled the lake nearby, caught the distant sound of children playing in the water, and he smiled as the sack was removed from his head.
His hands are still bound when the sky becomes visible, and as they are cut free from his elbows, behind him. His response is, “Domo arigato, Miki’do-sama.”
“Sama is for males.”
“I’m sorry Mike, that my Japanese is so very bad, but thank you, none-the-less.”
“How do you know my name,” asks Mike.
“Yeah, Jeremiah,” starts Lester, “how do you know our kidnappers?”
“You have not been kidnapped, Mr. Burrows you have been Renditioned.” It is another voice. “We had to talk to Jeremiah, and you were so close, our choices were to take you along, or we could leave you and Malachi behind . . .”
“I like that better,” says Malachi, interrupting.
“. . . dead!” concludes Major Rathe.
“Never mind that shit,” says Malachi, “Take me at will, brother!”
“And, what exactly was your job, Malachi?”
“Jere gave me a list of numbers . . . spose’ta be the opening numbers of the Dow every day for a couple weeks. I took the cash Jere gave me, and bet with a local bookie that the numbers would be true. But I got it wrong.” He hung his head and looked up from under his eyebrows, at Jeremiah, “I was spose’ta do it all one day at a time.” He shook his head, plainly displaying his regret, and said, “I’m sorry Jeremiah. I really didn’t understand.”
“It’s okay, boy. It’s all come out as it should.”
“Is that all you know, Malachi?”
“Yeah, cep that I borrowed some more money to make a bet of my own!”
Lester is taking copious mental notes, sorting out the whole mess as well as he can. “So, this is all a result of some wild numbers running bet?” He looks at Malachi and asks, in his best reporter voice, “Where’d you get the numbers? How accurate were they? How far in advance did they predict?” There was more, and faster, but that’s the gist of it.
“Jeremiah gave me the numbers, and every day they was exactly right; for two weeks out.” Malachi is mournful sorrowed as he looks at Jeremiah. “I didn’t think it would work out at all. I figured you was crazy, but I also figured, ‘what the hell’ ‘til the firs’ one hit.” He pauses, sobbing, and Jeremiah comes to lean against him – bound still, he cannot hug him. “I’s so sorry . . .”
Major Rathe asks Jeremiah, “Where did you get the numbers?”
“What do you care? You’re not going to believe me anyway.” Jeremiah is still leaned against his friend.
Major Rathe draws his sidearm, pointing it at Malachi, and he asks, “Where did you get them?”
“You know,” says Jeremiah, “what you’re doing has nothing to do with your oath.” At this Major Rathe looks a little confused, his eyebrows raising, his gun hand twisting a little. “I remember it as ‘to protect and defend the Constitution and these United States, from all enemies, foreign and domestic’ but you haven’t got any enemies in this thing. Everyone is on your side.”
Jeremiah gently raises his hands to approach the Major, and as he does, it seems as though the zip-ties pass through his wrists, falling to the ground. Everyone is so astonished at what they see, but no one reacts to the security threat he could become. His hands raise and he walks slowly, into the line of fire from the Major’s gun, saying, “William! There’s no reason to be afraid anymore, and there’s no enemy here.” His hands touch the Major’s cheeks, and an intense peace falls across his face, his arm lowers, the gun drops out of his hand, and a gun butt strikes Jeremiah in the back of the head. A captain standing nearby has stepped forward.
“Take these men to the cabin. Separate rooms in the back.” At first, everyone stands still, almost as if the commands had not been given. Their daze clears as the captain says, “Snap to, boys and girls! Get these men in for interrogation, or do you need a thump on the head as well?” Slowly the teams respond, not with their usual sharp, crisp manner, but a bit as if waking from a tired dream.
When the crowd has cleared, the captain pulls the major aside, asking, “What happened back there?” He waits ‘til the major is facing him fully and asks, “What happened when he touched you?” Bending down to pick up the zip-ties, still intact, he asks, “And, how did he get out of these?” He puts his fingers into one of the loops, but cannot get them past the knuckles.
The major deliberates just a moment, and he says, “I don’t know about the zips, but when his hands touched my face, I didn’t even feel them, but I saw something that showed me,” and his voice lowered, heading toward muttering, “He showed me that everything I knew from childhood Sonday School was true, but forgotten. No . . . not forgotten. It hadn’t been forgotten. It had been beaten out of me, mentally, spiritually, emotionally . . . everyday; but still true.” His voice was so low by now that the captain could no longer make out his words. And the words he could make out made no sense to him, so he quit listening.
When Jeremiah awakes, he is laying on a bed in a bare room, with Mike sitting across the room, no weapons in sight, waiting on him. He is groggy, his head hurts from the gun-butt, and he flops back down on his back rather than risk sta
nding in his state. “Could the room stop spinning please?”
“I doubt it,” says Mike. “But anything is possible.”
“That’s true,” says Jeremiah. “Especially now.”
“What do you mean by that?” asks Mike.
“It is all winding down, Mike, the end is on its way, and the world is going to start scrambling to figure out what happened, and what kind of excuses they can make to deny it all.”
“Didn’t you used to be that news guy . . . back in the regular TV days?”
“I used to be a lot of things, young lady. But now I am a tired voice that no one hears, mitigating the darkness.”
“Young lady! That’s something no one has called me in a very long time.” She pauses to think as he pauses to rub his head. “Who doesn’t hear you?”
“Everyone!”
“Okay,” she says, with a patient, even quiet tone in her voice. “I’m listening now. What’s happening?”
He tells her about the numbers, the bet, the absolute foolishness of it all, and how even the brightest minds got into it, how national leaders began moving money into it, expecting a payout, and that the numbers are from God.
“You mean God? The God?” she asks. “I don’t think there is such a thing.”
“Well, there is,” he says. “The Creator of the Universe, the I-AM, Yahweh – Yah-Way! He is the one who gave me the numbers, which, as any stockbroker or mathematician can tell you, are absolutely impossible, but somehow, they paid off, one hundred percent. It is the same God who gave me your name, and wanted me to tell you, He has your sister Mae, in His home.”
Mike crosses the floor in a hurry, grabbing Jeremiah by the collars, she is nose to nose with him, saying, “You don’t get to talk about my sister.”
“Over a hundred men and women died for what happened to your sister, Mae. Someone has to talk.”
Mike releases him, knowing that he is right, knowing that what she did was no measured response, but that no one asked for a measured response. In a flash of thought, she reflects back to a Sonday School account of the life of Samson. She realizes that her rash actions have been put to great use. She understands that the drug trades in San Antonio have been decimated, that even though there will be replacements, they will never trust each other enough to unify the way they had been under Jacob and the boys. And she is pleased to know that the sex trafficking is all but ended, for a hundred plus miles around SA. There is a dearth of supply, though the demand has not decreased. Somehow, it has gotten out that it was all about an abducted woman, a sex toy, a dead body in a dumpster. All of this comes to her in just a couple of seconds, and her pupils settle, eyes open, neck retracts, and her hands release Jeremiah from her grasp.
“You get it . . . don’t you?” asked Jeremiah.
“Yeah, but I need to know more. What can you tell me?” she asks.
They have about thirty minutes of uninterrupted conversation and in that time, Jeremiah unfurls the secrets of the universe to her, and she listens. He also tells her about her life, and how she used to be soft and loving, but that, partly because of her work, partly because of Mae, she has become hard and merciless. She sees and understands what she has become, and she is not proud. Believing, more or less, considering her options, and his. Her heart softens, even if only ever so slightly. She decides, she knows what must be done, and later, plans so that she can do it, still, she realizes that she has been given a greater duty.
Confluence
noun
the junction of two rivers, especially rivers of approximately equal width.[19]
E-Day Minus 7 Years
“What’s the plan?” asks Mike of Jeremiah.
“I have no plan,” he replies. “I only have a destination, and again, it is just a number.” He borrows Mike’s pen and writes it down for her. She puts her notepad and pen away mere seconds before another guard comes to replace her. This time it happens to be Mark.
As you may recall, Mark had been SpecOps and more, back in the day, and he was wrangled into this job, not of his own volition. “Be careful,” Mike says to him. “He really is smarter . . . or at least wiser than anyone else here.”
Mark doesn’t know what that means, but he doesn’t really think it matters. The windows are sealed with Lexan panels, screwed on from the outside. The locks on the door work only from the hallway side of the door, not allowing for an exit, even in an emergency. Any government safety related agency would have this place burnt to the ground, but safety is of little concern today.
Mark has a four-hour watch, looking over Jeremiah, during which time they talk, much as had Jere and Mike. Mark has longer to absorb what Jeremiah tells him, not presiding over a warm body, as did Mike. He learns that Jeremiah has predicted all that had come to be in these past few days, and he learns of what Jeremiah predicts for the next several years, including the arrival of the Two. If he could fully believe Jeremiah, Mark knew that he would be terrified. But he doesn’t really believe it all – maybe not any – not right away. But he gets it well enough to commit it to memory, as a whole, and act on what he can readily assimilate.
At the end of the four hours, Mark is replaced by Crazy Andy. At least, that’s what the people at the VA had come to call him. But Sargent Lightfoot had been echoing the words of Jeremiah, months in advance, and all out of order. When he was in the room with Jeremiah, one would have thought that they would get along famously, but instead, Andrew believes he knows more than Jeremiah, so he dismisses what he is told, trying to force the old newsman to absorb his version of the story. It sounds as plausible as any, and any normal human being would say that the two accounts had equal validity, but their sources, it would turn out, were determinately divergent.
Andrew, hearing the words and wisdom of Jeremiah, arranges for a meeting with Major Rathe, telling him what he was trying to impress on the prisoner. He convinces the Major to get a copy of his, that is, Crazy Andy’s psych and med reports from the VA, before his disappearance. As soon as those are in hand, and the Major has a chance to review, he sees the similarities – convoluted as they are – and he believes that Jeremiah is trying to bamboozle everyone into believing, so that he can escape what he has coming. The Major has forgotten what he was shown, and has shifted his faith.
Major Rathe communicates his conclusions to President Harrison, et al, and is told, “It will be taken under advisement.” The President is bombarded with ideas of what is about to happen, many from a vast array of preachers, rabbis and imams. There are two streams of thought, flowing like sister rivers into a single valley, which is the minds of all men and women, everywhere.
One thought-river is that of Jeremiah, supported by a few, not so popular preachers; though Jeremiah’s voice is never heard outside the camp, beside the news stories that leak. It tells the same story that the others are telling, from a secure and secret location, on the opposite side of the world. The leadership of the nation, and much of the world, knows that Jeremiah is telling the same story, and has been for days. They know that the story is documented in an ancient text, which has been reviewed and verified by experts. But experts tell different stories as well.
Some of the “experts” agree that the text “could, possibly be viewed as being in agreement with Jeremiah. But there are hundreds of possible explanations for what each part of the text tells us.” The argument goes on for months, actually for thirty-nine months, while most of the nations plot, privately and in collusion, for the destruction of the dissenters, and the sway that they extend over their congregations.
The second thought-river is somewhat in agreement with Andy, though they disagree on the details, and don’t mind being in disagreement. But regardless of the middle of the stories, those in Andy’s camp agree that, in the end – which they disagree could be in seven days or seventy years – all will be fine in the world, and a peaceful coexistence will remain for mankind, forever.
When the US reviews all the options, what will, may, and won’t happen, t
he President determines that the problem of Jeremiah will also have to be “solved.” He sends the orders to Major Rathe, that the termination is imminent, but to hold on, until the timing is right. The Major shares this information with some of his closest confidants, who share it throughout the camp. Eventually, it is common knowledge among the detail workers, that Jeremiah has a limited life expectancy, and a few of the operators on site are concerned. None of them really mind killing someone, but usually there is some context that tells them they are killing some sort of bad guy. Even Mike, with over a hundred kills under her belt, in recent history, has more than a little case of conscience. Combine that with what she has learned from Jeremiah and, in her mind, the narrative must be changed.
Mike was wise enough to discuss the situation with Jeremiah, though he had little ability to make any changes. If he is going to die, Mike doesn’t want it to be unawares; though she believes there is little about which Jeremiah is unaware. He tells her that she can trust Mark, that although he is not a “believer” – whatever that means now – Mark does understand that Jeremiah is not the problem. Unfortunately, Mark and Mike seem to be the only ones on Jeremiah’s side of the confluence.
Mike is in her rack and Mark is having a meal, off duty, when the order comes down for Jeremiah to be prepped for travel. The swelling from the gun-butt strike has gone down, and though the news did cover his abduction for about a minute, the cameraman disappeared, along with all copies of the video.
Three men enter Jeremiah’s room, and his guard steps aside. They find no resistance when they place a Velcroed sleeve over his arms in a position where they are crossed in front of him. They will leave no marks if he struggles, allowing them to take him anywhere they want with a minimum of resistance, but he is not resisting at all. He held his arms out, and in place, as if he had seen this done before, and he was willing to participate.
The Warriors' Ends- Soldiers of the Apocalypse Page 19
