The Great Thirst Boxed Set

by Mary C. Findley

  “It was, before we bought it,” Talia said. “You can even park there and hide your truck in a warehouse for a few days. We don’t want you to get in trouble over this. What will your company say if DOT makes a report?”

  “They’re not my boss. I’m an owner-operator. We’re just leased to them. Besides, what are they going to report? I didn’t run past the weigh station. Technically I’m illegally parked at this rest area, but if the truck’s broken down I have to do what I can to get safely off the highway. Just because they didn’t find me doesn’t mean I was running from them. They can squawk but they can’t take any action.”

  Two hours later, Mike drove the tractor trailer up to the gate beside a sign that read “Precious Treasure Campground.” A guard approached the truck.

  “Delivering Tchatchkis,” Mike told him. It had taken Talia the better part of an hour to teach him to say Uncle Naddy’s favorite password.

  “Yes, sir, you are expected,” the guard replied, and buzzed the gate open. Keith had enjoyed greatly Talia falling asleep against his shoulder and grumbled when she started awake and pulled away from him.

  “Pull into that first warehouse there,” Talia directed. Mike steered the truck inside and men hurried out to place ramps behind the trailer. The men unloaded the Tesla very quickly and disappeared.

  “Are you sure you won’t take us up on the offer to stay?” Talia asked as they shook hands with Mike and Mary. “You can at least come to the house and meet our families.”

  “I think I can get a good ways from here before I run out of log hours,” Mike replied. “Safer for you and us, and we can’t identify people we never met or describe stuff we don’t see.”

  Mary added, “But we will keep this place in our prayers. Can we contact you if we run across any like-minded people you might want to give sanctuary to?”

  “Yes. You have my contact information on the load paperwork,” Talia answered.

  “Let’s have prayer together before we take off,” Mike suggested. They bowed together briefly, and the semi drove away.

  Chapter Forty-seven – Forting Up

  “Thank God for changing Dan’s heart, and for this Sharon fellow being so close by, with a helicopter available to him,” Joshua Bradley exclaimed as he hugged Keith.

  “And also for sending that trucker couple to help you escape with the Tesla,” Sophie exclaimed, hugging Talia when they came to the “cabin.” It was a two thousand square foot log building, more like a first-class ski lodge than any cabin Keith had ever seen. His grandmother enfolded him in her arms and clucked in dismay at the bruises and cuts from his tumbles in the robot van.

  “So what do we do now?” Keith asked. “What about our jobs, Dad? What about the school? Are we going to try to rebuild it, or what? Did we do something crazy by running away? I thought we were just going to be here a couple of days at the most, and then go back home. But this place is like a fortress, set up for the long term. We won’t be staying here, will we?”

  “You haven’t heard the latest news,” Joshua said, his face gray and hopeless.

  “Come in here, Keith,” Naddy invited. He stood in the doorway of a room from which a blue glow silhouetted him. Keith entered to find that Talia already sat in a high-backed swivel chair in front of a bank of monitors. On each screen a different news agency displayed, including some online sites Keith had never heard of. Each one showed an image of something that had been bombed, or people fleeing a cloud of smoke, or traffic jams and emergency workers.

  “Over five hundred schools and education centers have been attacked in the last two weeks,” Naddy said, guiding him to a controller. “Thank God all were empty. But most of the media is hardly mentioning these attacks. And in other countries it is worse. Thousands of centers where the Word is studied and preserved were targeted.

  “No one is crying terrorism. No one is investigating. Those reporting anything at all give superficial explanation that the buildings were old or improperly-constricted and there were long-ignored flaws. We can already find altered records claiming these structures were not up to code, that warnings had been issued. Your father has already seen some of these reports. This is why he is so disheartened.

  “Were he home, he would receive a notice Monday morning that the school will not be allowed to reopen until massive fines are paid, because he failed to heed the phantom complaints and warnings. Your three complaining families have not been idle, though you thought them appeased. Lawsuits have already been filed and it will take millions to reopen your school.”

  “But it’s a public school,” Joshua said in a thin, weak voice. He helped his mother to a chair and sank down beside her. “We’ve always been in compliance. We’ve never been sued or even warned before.”

  “I am so sorry, Joshua.” Naddy patted him on the shoulder. “Magnum Security says your house is being searched. It was my oversight that I did not specify that your belongings be protected as well as your persons when we contracted with them to watch over your home. But I am not sure it could have been prevented. Drew Summers informed me that when he challenged the searchers, they displayed government badges. They claim to be looking for evidence that you knew of the faults in the school’s construction … or planting such evidence, was the way he stated it. You may be charged with criminal negligence.”

  “They’ll use it as an excuse to vandalize and destroy, too. All Joana’s things … she’ll be wiped away, like she never existed.” Mrs. Bradley began to cry. Sophie hugged her.

  “He also said both your summer employers have been informed, Joshua and Keith, that you are persons of interest in a government investigation into possible child endangerment.” Naddy forced himself to continue. “You will not have jobs, I am certain, as soon as they have time to react to this news.”

  “We shouldn’t even contact the kids,” Keith murmured, his shoulders as slumped as his father’s. “We’ll only make trouble for them. And we’ll put this place in danger if someone traces its location.”

  “We have to contact them,” Talia insisted. “If we don’t, they’ll believe what they’re told. Worse yet, they’ll think we don’t care about them, that we’re giving up, or that saving the Word doesn’t matter. This place is more of a fortress than you know, Keith. We can all communicate with the outside world from here. We have a refuge here in the arms of God, in the secret place of the Most High.”

  “How much money do you people have?” Keith stared up at Naddy. “You can’t be that good at gambling.”

  “No.” Naddy smiled. “We belong to a network of people who all help to finance and strengthen the hands of the godly. We are spokes in an interconnected wheel, on a great vessel with many, many wheels, small compared to the monster machines of wickedness, but lighting our tiny lights in the name of protecting and spreading the Word.”

  “I completely forgot to ask if you know any more about Dan,” Joshua said.

  “I got a text from him,” Keith said, “while we were waiting for the truck. He said he already had a flight out to return to his unit. He said something weird, Dad.”

  “What was it?”

  “He said he almost wished people had a reason to be chasing him.”

  “Not so weird,” said Joshua. “Maybe some good will come out of all this.”

  “Oh, Talia, he said Cherub-rider is still freaked out about meeting Evangel. Well, I guess you were right to knock down my dumb idea to marry Talia, Naddy,” Keith sighed. “I don’t know how I’ll get any kind of job at all now, to support myself or my family, much less her.”

  “You are mistaken, my friend,” Naddy replied. “You have a new job, one more richly rewarding than any you thought to do before. Come with me. Talia, you also.”

  He led them to another, smaller room that branched off from the large media area. Here there were only a few monitors, and two seats.

  “Sit down,” Naddy directed them. “From this room, you can speak securely to any one for whom you have an email address or phone n
umber,” Naddy explained. “The children at the school are, of course, a priority, as Talia has said. More importantly, when we arrived here, we had a message waiting from someone you both know.” Naddy tapped some controls.

  “Jiggly!” Talia exclaimed as a video still frame appeared on all three screens.

  “This is a recording, my treasure, but, yes, it is from our old friend, who has indeed proved himself a John Mark and returned to the work. Listen to what he says.”

  “Hey, uh … Naddy, and everybody …” Jiggly looked very dusty and nervous, and seemed to be in a cave. “First, glad to hear you guys are safe so far. Second, I don’t know why they picked me to contact you guys. I guess maybe they trust me. Well, I’m trusting God that I don’t screw this up. Cindee’s here too, but she said she’s still too new at this stuff to be a spokesperson. Like I’m experienced or something.

  “Look, a lot of the Guardians have gone deeper into hiding since these attacks started happening, after you guys went back home. And so have a lot of people connected to the work. Those underground cities? They’re filling up again. That’s where I am now, underground.

  “They wanted me to tell you that people have been searching the site off Ugarit, but not our people. Figured you already knew that. They are spending a ton of money and time, and swarming over it like bees. But my guys here say they think it’s wasted time, because the tablet translation crew says they can tell these really are all the tablets that were supposed to be there and they won’t find anything. This really was the Mother Lode for finding the Testaments.

  “They are going to want to make contact with translators. Anyway, they want me to say thanks, thanks a thousand times, and I wanna say thanks, a thousand million times, for not kicking me to death, Talia, and letting me be a part of this thing. These people are so full of … uh … light, I guess, and God, and stuff, even down here underground with their homes and schools getting torched up topside. I’m drinking it in between helping where I can. And somebody’s yelling for help, so, gotta go.”

  The video ended but Talia sat there, stunned. “They still don’t know for sure what language the Testaments are in?”

  Keith couldn’t help laughing. “Shouldn’t matter. You said you were ready for anything!”

  “Never mind, precious one,” Naddy soothed. “You will be busy enough. This room will be the command center for you and Keith, to minister to your students and thousands more who need the Word. Once the tablets are decoded and the actual Golden Testaments are found, we will need to translate them into languages you do know, and you will be needed for that, besides.

  “And here Keith will continue to help with the discoveries of the ancient technology. We have messages also from those who study Britomartis’s ax, and the cabling for transmission. They clamor for Keith’s help. Those who support this work beg to be able to support your work, Keith. We understand now that your father also has skills and knowledge we need, in history, Constitutional Law, and the workings of government, to help us protect ourselves as much as humanly possible. Your grandmother will minister to those she has taught and supported and will find a whole new flock to instruct. You will all earn your keep, as the saying goes.”

  “What are we going to do about Jenny Kaine?” Keith asked. “She’s not going to give up.” He repeated what she had said over the van speakers.

  “Jenny Kaine appears to be more resourceful than any of us expected,” Naddy replied. “It appears that she has been seeking to grow her international reputation solely upon her coverage of oppression of believers and terror acts against them. It is possible, as you were told in Turkey, that she may even be inciting acts of oppression, persecution, and terror herself. The fact that she has done all this directly, or with a few helpers, such as the cameraman, means her funds are limited. She may hope to attract the attention of secularists and gain their support.

  “The signal information you obtained no longer leads anywhere, so we hope she shut down and withdrew to avoid detection. We do not believe she was able to follow or even track you here, so, for the time being, she must lick her wounds and we must wait to see what she will do next.”

  Naddy put his hands on Talia’s shoulders. “My precious treasure, this will be as much your home as ours, as it will be for Keith and his family. And so you will have Sophie’s and my blessing on your marriage, as soon as it can come off.”

  “Man, I thought the world was ending,” Keith said. “This is just the beginning, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Talia stood up and pulled him to his feet. “It’s the beginning of everything.” She stretched up and kissed him.

  Chapter Forty-eight– “If You’ll Just Come and Explain …”

  Life at Precious Treasure Campground never really settled into a routine. Keith learned that quite a few other people lived there, some in the main building like him and his father and grandmother, and some in cabins here and there around the property. They all had a story to tell about persecutions that were more or less subtile.

  He met Larry Stokes, a pastor and his family who had lost their large, thriving church when the government had decided that the coffee shop and dramatic performance center they had on the property were for-profit enterprises and denied tax-exempt status to the entire ministry.

  “Any money we made from them we used for shelters and other ministries,” the man told Keith. “But they claimed we had to be hiding some of the income. Our bookkeeping accounted for every penny taken in and spent, but that didn’t matter. We just couldn’t keep paying the legal fees to keep fighting. Someone bought the property for back taxes and turned the church into a conference center.

  “I’ve tried to find another church, but once a pastor gets involved in fighting the government over tax exemption and loses, no one wants him. People are scared of that big stick, and they don’t want to lose that fight. Many churches just do what it takes to keep in the government’s good graces. They don’t want to start the fight at all.”

  Several people living at the compound had online ministries. “What happened to going off the grid to escape persecution?” Keith asked Talia. “These people are active online all the time. Aren’t we going to get caught, doing all we’re talking about doing?”

  “All kinds of people pursue causes other people don’t like online,” Talia replied “Doomsday Preppers, Second Amendment Rights, and all kinds of political activists and religious teachers. You can protect yourself on the internet better than if you preach on a street corner or distribute pamphlets by mail. You just have to know how.”

  “I’m so used to talking to people face to face,” Keith said. “That’s why I became a teacher, because I loved seeing the kids every day – seeing their faces – putting an arm around their shoulders. It’s not the same, trying to teach in an email. Even on Skype, it’s weird, not being there with them. When this crazy stuff dies down, are we going to go back to teaching someplace real?”

  “Like Uncle Naddy says, there are waves of persecutions. Jenny Kaine might back off, and we might get to do that. Sometimes the media has more power than the government, though. Remember that famous radio talk show host who said he’d never run for president, because he had more power just sitting behind his microphone than anybody in public office?

  “He was right. You can still teach, Keith, and still change lives. We won’t always be holed up here, for sure. We’ll get involved with those orichalcum tablets we found, and others that are going to be found. We’ll dive, and we’ll dig, and we’ll find more ancient tech. We’ll figure out what the connection is between stuff like Britomartis’s ax and the Guardians. There might be more protective devices, and devices to make spreading the Word easier and safer.”

  “I know. I need to be patient.” Keith sighed. “Okay, I finally got all the emails of the kids from the Bible as Literature class together and I’m ready to transfer them to the secure site we set up to continue the Reclamation Project.”

  “Great. I’ve been putting out feeler
s to teachers and students involved in the project in other places. We didn’t have much time to build relationships with them but I know some of our kids made friends through the Repository site. They are going to want to reconnect, and we should build up those contacts if there’s a possibility of finding like-minded people we can encourage, and who can encourage us. You’re already learning that this can be a very discouraging way to live and try to minister.”

  “Let’s see if we can get online and finish getting things all set up to officially open the new Reclamation site,” Keith said. “This was something Joana dreamed about, you know? She said we should never have waited for a government site to share the Word. Shame on us for not making this a priority ourselves.”

  “She was so right. Keith, what if we call the site Joana’s Sparrows? No one will get anything suspicious out of that. But people who knew Joana will realize it’s a tribute to her love for the Word and her belief that God takes care of us no matter what.”

  Keith didn’t answer for a minute, as the realization hit him that a week ago they had sat at the table back at home right after Joana’s funeral. He rubbed the back of his neck and jumped up from the console where they had just seated themselves.

  “Excuse me, Talia. Sorry. I have to go outside for a few minutes.” He bolted out of the room, out of the building, and into a sea of grass and wildflowers. He ran a few steps and the overpowering beauty of this place chased away that smothering grief. Mountains with a hint of snow still on the peaks made a bowl and framed the perfect blue sky and the few white clouds overhead. He turned and saw Talia standing on the porch, unsure if she should join him. He waved her over.

  “Imagine Joana finally able to run free in a place that must be a million times more beautiful than this,” she said softly, taking his hand.

  “Yeah. I can. I did. C’mon. Time to get to work.”