The Great Thirst Boxed Set

by Mary C. Findley

  “Get them all out in the open, Keith,” Sophie said. “Every question you want to ask. We promise to try to answer anything you want to know. Anything we can, at least.”

  Naddy and Sophie sat on a bench across the footpath and Talia sat next to Keith.

  “Did you or didn’t you know that this Repository Project was going to demand that we turn over all our Bibles and materials to be scanned?”

  “We knew nothing about that part of the project. We asked Talia to become involved in the Bible as Literature project because we wanted to learn more about it, and could get no information from the outside. We did not specifically choose your school or you. Talia just applied for an open position.”

  “What about these new families?”

  “We have no connection to them. But this is a pattern to extend government control and extort compliance. They love to use this double-edged sword of grants and pressure to comply with ever-stricter regulations. We see now how it first breaks down the resistance, next creates obligations, and finally forces obedience.”

  “But it wasn’t the government or those parents that introduced us to this program. Talia was the one who told dad about it.”

  “In hindsight, I think they wanted teachers to be the ones who presented it at a school, so it wouldn’t look like government interference,” Talia said. “I guess I let them use me to dupe you.”

  “We still don’t know that this repository scanning is dangerous,” Sophie said. “We wanted to become involved because we saw potential dangers in the Bible as Literature program to lovers of the Word. We only want to try to preserve the Word of God and be ready when it is time to slake the Great Thirst.”

  Naddy took up the appeal. “We know that many governments, not just the American government, are trying to stifle reliance on the Scriptures. They don’t want them taught. They don’t want them to exist. We thought this was the plan for this class. Talia wanted to take a stand, to make their plan – what is the expression? – backfire. She wanted to teach truth as truth, not as just another mythology. The two of you have succeeded beyond our wildest hopes.”

  “I’m not complaining about being able to teach kids the Bible,” Keith admitted. “But how’s the trip connect to the Bible as Literature Class?”

  “For over two years now, we have believed that we were being followed and spied upon in our work to discover the whereabouts of the Golden Testaments,” Naddy said. “We thought that meant we were getting very close. Things began to go wrong with our research contacts, our travel plans, our equipment … All of this convinced us that we must be on the right track, but that we must try to misdirect those who wanted to stop us.”

  “So we arranged for Talia to offer this trip to the school,” Sophie said. “Who would suspect that we would take forty-five high school students along on a real and vital expedition? It was our hope that they would think we have given up, or were aimlessly fishing and no longer a threat.”

  “Somebody still seems to be taking you seriously,” Keith replied. “Talia told us about you being stabbed. Looks like you’re way beyond people spying on you and following you. I’m not saying I won’t go on this survey trip with you, but are you thinking hard enough about the safety of our students?”

  “I am hiring a security force for both trips,” Naddy replied. “Just because I take this so seriously. They will operate without people knowing they follow us. Their mandate, on the second trip especially, will be to keep the students, chaperones, and teachers safe. We will seriously assess threats and change our itinerary if necessary to ensure their safety.”

  “Indeed,” Sophie added, “We considered canceling the trip, considering all that has happened. When we learned that people would shed blood to stop us, and even those we would want to be our allies did not think us worthy, it was a terrible shock.”

  Chapter Twenty-five – “You People Are Nuts.”

  “People you want to be your allies?” Keith asked. “Who are you talking about? Is somebody else looking for the Testaments?”

  “We met some of the Guardians of the Testaments,” Talia explained.

  “Those people you said were all dead?” Keith asked. “What do you mean, they didn’t think you were worthy? Is that where you heard about that ‘playing with defilement’ thing?”

  “I met Dr. Ewing at the airport when I left to go to Greece,” Talia answered. “She said she is Sam’s aunt. You might know her. She had a ring just like the seal on the bag I showed you pictures of, the one from the dive.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know Dr. Ewing.” Keith shook himself. “She has the scariest bedside manner of any doctor ever. She’s one of those guardian people? No way.”

  “She scared me, all right,” Talia said. “She told me to warn Uncle Naddy and Aunt Sophie to stop interfering.”

  “If I was going to pick somebody to give a warning,” Keith said, “It would be Dr. Ewing. She is not the kind of person who would fool around if she had a message to deliver. She’s an Army vet, and she used to teach self-defense classes. She has some for-real skills.”

  Talia kept her eyes down. “I believe you. But we are trying to prove ourselves worthy of their trust. The man who said we were playing with defilement was the cafe-owner on Naxos who saved those scrolls from being stolen. I went to his shop thinking I might have to force him to give them up.”

  “So you have some kind of warrior-maiden mode?” Keith joked. “I saw that look in your eyes the day that van came at us. And the way you gave orders – made me wonder if you used to be in the military.”

  Talia still wasn’t looking up. “I was glad he and his wife trusted me enough to let me take the pictures. Let me tell you the whole story.”

  Keith listened, open-mouthed. “So with jet lag and everything, you were ready to fight some guy who might have tried to kill your uncle?”

  “I went there ready to face an enemy, yes. But God provided that honorable man to intercept the bag from the men who tried to steal it,” Talia told him. “We let him keep the bag, because of course we were too vulnerable. Uncle Naddy was hurt, we had an innocent girl, Jiggly’s poor Maria, who needed help and protection, and they convinced me that we weren’t ready to take on all that the task involved, anyway. We’d used the world’s methods, allowed a traitor to work for us, and almost caused two deaths because of our carelessness.”

  “My carelessness, Talia, not anyone else’s,” Naddy said sadly. “I hired that traitor. I gambled to fund the expeditions. I was selfish. I deserved to die that day. God preserved me and changed my heart.”

  “So you just called Talia and said, ‘Hop on a plane. We need you.’ You people are crazy.” Keith shook his head. “But I guess that convinces me you’re not criminal masterminds.” He turned his eyes back to Talia. “I still can’t believe you did it. Just hopped on a plane and buzzed over to – I already forgot where you said Naxos is.”

  “It’s an island off Greece. It was five planes, and a boat,” Talia responded.

  “So, do you have any idea who it was, trying to steal the artifact?”

  “The two men who attacked us were captured,” Sophie said, “but the Greek police told us they were killed in the prison where they were being held.”

  “Someone tortured them,” Naddy added. “No doubt they wanted to know what happened to the artifact. But since then we have not been threatened, nor have we seen evidence that anyone has been following us.”

  “Except for the black van showing up right here, today,” Keith grumbled. “Of course, those people are after Talia, not you, which doesn’t reassure me at all. What can you tell me about the Men in Black?”

  Naddy and Sophie looked at him blankly.

  “It’s an American comic book and movie,” Talia said. “He’s just kind of joking about the van. I forgot to tell you I saw it again when I got your call to come to Naxos. I was sitting on the side of the road trying to pray for you and get my head straight. I was sure it was coming straight at me, and I was going to die
. But all of a sudden it was gone, and Officer Johnson – the police officer who got me to the airport – was there, and told me he had chased it until he thought I needed help.”

  “We do not know who these people are, or why they would try to harm Talia. No one in the States has ever physically threatened any of us before.”

  “They tried four times, now, but never hit the car,” Keith mused. “Doesn’t that sound weird? What if they weren’t trying to run her down, but just get close – maybe listen for information, with a powerful area mic, or scanning to hack her phone, or getting pictures?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Talia admitted.

  “Has the van appeared since you returned to the States before today?” Naddy asked.

  “I haven’t seen it,” Talia replied.

  “Today was the first time it’s been back since Talia left town,” Keith said. “You guys were so focused on chasing me you missed it, I guess, but it was here.”

  “I have investigators trying to discover who is driving this van,” Naddy said. “It seems so strange that the local police cannot bring it to a stop, but your town is on the county line, and no one was willing to pursue it out of their jurisdiction. Perhaps we will hear today that someone has intercepted it, since it has ventured into a larger city.”

  “How about that reporter?” Keith switched subjects again.

  “We found out there is indeed an International News Agency,” Naddy answered. “But it is tiny, a stringer or for-hire investigative service, run by this Jenny Kaine person. It does not usually operate in the U.S., either. She could pass herself off as an unknown reporter here, but there are stories by her from Africa and Europe that seem to focus on persecution and destruction of religious centers. She has reported on many such incidents.”

  “I remember Dad checked in the school office and the information she gave was pretty sketchy. The way that woman appeared and disappeared, she acted more like some kind of spy.”

  “Jenny Kaine rarely appears on camera for her broadcasts. We found no description of her beyond what you told us, and the blonde in tight clothing is epidemic among newscasters,” Naddy sighed. “Stranger still, we have contacts who monitor newscasts and they have found no mention of your school or even the Bible as Literature class. We simply do not have answers about why she would come to your school on three occasions.”

  “The fact you don’t have ‘make me feel better’ answers for everything is a good sign that you’re not trying to jerk me around.” Keith tried to weigh his next words and figure out how to ask about what he still wanted to know. “So why does it matter if I go on this preliminary trip, or even the other one?”

  “You are a scientist,” Naddy answered. “This field of expertise is what we have been lacking. At the inservice, Talia showed the brochures for the program to your father. He suggested other teachers to help with the class, but she probed to learn who was the science teacher. She also believes that your father felt the need to have someone keep an eye on this somewhat scatterbrained new teacher. We are thankful that he put the task on your shoulders as his most trustworthy representative.”

  Keith glanced sideways at Talia. “There’s only one science teacher in the whole school. That’s me.”

  “But that wasn’t all we needed,” Talia said, only casting her eyes upward at Keith for a moment before dropping them again. “We couldn’t have asked for or picked out a more knowledgeable, strong-hearted, godly man to work with us. God provided you.”

  Keith didn’t know how to respond to that. “I don’t even have my master’s yet. What do you need a scientist for that I’m capable of doing?”

  “We’ve run across mysteries you may be able to help us solve. One is the dragon skin,” Sophie said. “This leather treatment preserved that bag for hundreds of years underwater. Talia has probably also told you it is fire-resistant. Another is the orichalcum itself. It is a word written in ancient texts, but we do not even know for sure what it means. We want to understand the technology of these things. They are more than just artifacts. There seems to be some purpose behind the materials used, and we are certain it will help the cause to have this understanding.”

  “Unless you’ve got samples for me to test, I don’t see how I can learn anything. I’ll see if I can research the concepts and see if anybody’s doing modern work related to this stuff. But I don’t have access to a lot of scientific studies. I don’t have many academic contacts, and I’m not credentialed enough to get access to some of the best research.”

  “Do not sell yourself short,” Naddy said. “We know that your formal studies were interrupted by your mother’s death and your sister’s illness. We also know you have pursued them … informally, some would say, but with great application and care. Considering the state of modern education, it is likely you are better prepared than most graduate schools could make you. Best of all, your faith has not crumbled. You remain strong and pure in belief. How many scientists today could we say that about?”

  Keith took a deep breath. “So now I know everything? Wait, no, I don’t. I don’t understand what you’re preparing for. You said something to my grandma about the Great Thirst. What’s that?”

  Naddy, Sophie, and Talia all began to speak together with an intensity that scared Keith.

  “Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord God, When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, But they will not find it.”

  “Wait … That’s from the book of Amos … something to do with the ‘great and terrible day of the Lord’ ... The Tribulation, or something, right?”

  “Scriptures do not clearly map out the events of the last days, bam, bam, bam,” Naddy responded. “There shall be wars and rumors of wars but the end is not yet. And so there have been, since the days of the apostles. Just so, there have been waves of persecution. Some we did not even perceive as such. This does not mean the times of the end have come, but only that the tribulation Paul assured us we would have is intensifying.”

  “Whether it means the great and terrible day of the Lord has come,” Sophie said, “or is coming soon, or it is merely another wave, we see the signs of this Great Thirst – a snatching away of the Word of God, the beginning of an era where people will search for any scraps or crumbs of it. Remember that in the time of King Josiah, men cleansing and repairing the temple found ‘a Book.’

  “This may have been the only remaining copy of the Word of God in all the world. The evil King Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, had done enormous wickedness, shed the blood of innocents, and no doubt tried to destroy the Word of God as well, until this was perhaps the only one left. In the past, and even in various areas of the world today, we have seen Scriptures destroyed. We have seen people mutilated, imprisoned, and tortured for possessing the Word, beaten and killed for speaking what they have memorized.

  “We believe,” said Naddy, “that even if the end times are still a long way off, there is no better way to subjugate and to terrorize people than to rip away the presence of God as represented by His Word. Even to those who only call themselves Christian, whose beliefs are little better than a superstitious respect for ‘the Good Book’, this would be terrifying and demoralizing. The Word has power. It brings stability, peace, and comfort, even to those who do not truly understand and follow it.”

  “But they had their chance to get rid of Bibles with this Repository Project,” Keith said. “We were showing my grandmother the website, and she pointed out that it’s already been done in other places, different countries. Why didn’t they bring an incinerator instead of a scanner and say, ‘Oops, all the Bibles burned up. Sorry.’”

  Sophie said, “They would not have succeeded in getting so much support and compliance. They have something subtler in mind. This much we know. We want to be prepared when the Great Thirst do
es come. And we need you to help us. Please, will you not help us?”

  Sophie took Keith’s hands in hers and knelt before him. He scrambled up and made her stand on her feet again.

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll do what I can. But don’t be getting on your knees again, please. I can’t take that.”

  “Oh, thank you, Keith!” Talia jumped up and hugged him.

  Chapter Twenty-six – A Family Christmas

  Naddy and Sophie had taken up residence in a by-the-week hotel. They already had their rental car and even after shopping and arrangements for the survey were complete, they made many mysterious trips. The Bradley family celebrated Christmas early so Keith would not miss out when he left for the survey trip.

  “We have celebrated many Christmases,” Naddy said. “Christians choose different days, and some celebrate many days. But one thing all of us have in common. It is a time when people do not ask questions – ‘Where are you going?’ ‘What is in the trunk?’ ‘Can I go with you?’ For this year, you Bradleys are our family, and you will see that those who are not too curious are rewarded.”

  Keith and Joana’s brother Dan arrived just in time, having scrambled to change his leave time to be in on the rescheduled festivities. The last day of school was also the day before the departure for the survey trip. Dan wasn’t quite able to take it in stride when Naddy and Sophie met him at the airport, waving “Welcome Daniel Bradley” signs.

  “You don’t look a thing like Indiana Jones,” the muscular young man grinned, looking like a shorter, slightly older version of Keith. “Neither one of you.”

  Naddy produced a crumpled fedora and jammed it on his head. “No? How about now?” He puffed out his chest and struck a pose.