JERRY TREKKED THROUGH THE gathering gloom from the Student Union Building directly to the library, found an empty study carrel reserved for graduate students, and flipped on the computer. He shrugged out of his parka and tried to collect his thoughts. Two days secreted away with The Brotherhood had left him an emotional wreck and during the nearly two weeks since, he had struggled as to how best to communicate the nightmare he witnessed. Hellish images kept flashing through his mind as he tried at last to compose his email to Mills. He stared at the screen and willed himself to focus.
The image of Ruth’s face, tear-stained, flashed into his mind, but he pushed it away. He had no time for personal regrets. If he were brutally honest with himself, he would have to admit her decision had made his own easier. Love, marriage, children— these had no place where his involvement with The Brotherhood and Mills were leading him. He had no time to reflect on what might have been. He had delayed too long already. Now he had to alert the Agency to what had occurred at the meeting while the horror of it was still fresh.
He shook himself and typed in Mills’ secure email address.
Over a thousand miles away, Mills heard the programmed chime announcing an email had arrived on his scrambled, secure server. Short almost to the point of terseness, the message stirred the hairs on the back of his neck. As a seasoned operative, Mills could almost smell the fear that permeated every word…
“The threat we feared is real and growing, not just to America but to the whole world. Pieces of the puzzle are coming together. They know the agency and the Vatican are on to them. They are capable of anything. Repeat anything—even murder!”
The Vatican? Did that mean Melchisedec?
The gnawing in his gut deepened. He needed a full report from Spencer ASAP.
Jerry stared at the words your message has been sent emblazoned across the screen. He knew it had been inadequate, but there was no way he could have communicated the horror in an email. He checked around him. The study area seemed deserted, although he could just make out a dim light in a carrel on the other side of the room.
He turned back to the computer and opened a blank Word document, gathered himself, settled into the chair, and began to type.
Two Years Later
“Sorry, Mr. Spencer, to be giving such late notice, but Dr. Neisen said it was an emergency and that you would understand.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, Greta,” Jerry replied to the disembodied voice on the other end of the line, “I do. Did he mark in his teaching outlines where he ended his last lecture?”
“Yes, he said he had highlighted where to begin. The outlines for each class are on his desk in his office. I believe you have a key?”
Jerry noticed the usual edge to Greta’s voice. A lowly graduate assistant had been granted what twenty years of faithful service had not earned for her—the doctor’s trust. Jerry sensed this had been the hurt festering in Greta’s mind ever since he and Neisen returned from Hilton Head two years before. Without knowing any of the terrible details of that horrific weekend, she seemed to realize that a bond had developed between them, one with which she could not compete.
Even more reason to be careful, he thought.
“You’ll be gone before I come by?” he asked.
“Unless you plan to be here within thirty minutes.”
“Can’t make it that soon,” Jerry replied, relieved he would have the privacy he needed. “Thanks again, Greta,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything.”
The dial tone told him she had moved on to better things.
An emergency. He could think of only one thing that would drag Neisen away from his classes so near the end of a semester— Brotherhood business.
Jerry recalled, just before they left Hilton Head, he heard Abelard tell Neisen he would want him with him when and if he recovered the stone.
Since then there had been only an occasional email from the old man, all essentially saying the same thing: The search for the stone progressed, its whereabouts nearing discovery.
During the last several months, Neisen’s demeanor told Jerry these infrequent updates had done little to overcome the professor’s growing discouragement over Abelard’s apparent lack of success. His morale, however, took a decided upturn when Neisen received a letter from Ruth three weeks ago.
Jerry was not surprised when Neisen told him. She had mentioned her intention to be in touch with the professor in her last letter. What did surprise him was the boost receiving it had given to Neisen’s morale.
He glanced at the new picture of Ruth on the shelf above his desk and smiled. A missionary pilot who delivered supplies to the village where she worked had taken it digitally and emailed it to him about ten days before he got her last letter. How time had flown. He glanced again at the smiling face looking back at him. So much had happened since that winter afternoon two years ago when their lives turned in such different directions.
Ruth graduated from Evangel University and immediately enrolled for classes at the Institute of Linguistics in Houston. She finished thirty-nine hours of specialized training in subjects ranging from phonetics to phonology, and several weeks later received an appointment for service with Last Tribe Missions as a Bible translator.
Jerry remembered how happy she had been the day news came of her appointment. She was bubbling with excitement when she called him from Houston.
“Isn’t it wonderful the way God confirms things?” she exclaimed.
He acknowledged that it was, thinking fleetingly of his own calling.
She had spent the past summer in orientation in Maracaibo, Venezuela, before arriving at her mission station in late August. During that time, she received an introduction to the culture of the Yanoako, the people with whom she would be working for the next several years.
In her letters, she said the tribe had little contact with the outside world until the late fifties. As hunter-gatherers, they once ranged over a large area bordering Venezuela, Brazil, and Peru where, until recently, timber, farming, and mining interests had almost free rein to engage in what euphemistically was called the development of Yanoako tribal territories.
In reaction to the coming of outsiders, they retreated farther and farther into the jungle until finally the three countries awakened to the threat this development posed to the tribe’s survival and passed laws to protect what was left of their traditional hunting lands. Now, the tribe numbered fewer than twenty thousand, scattered in small villages along several tributaries of the Amazon River.
Ruth’s assignment was to work in a village near the junction of the Orinoco and Amazon rivers. Other than a battery operated short-wave radio, her only contact with the outside world would be via a monthly supply plane during the dry season or a trip of several days by canoe to the nearest trading post.
When Neisen announced he had received Ruth’s letter, Jerry had a good idea what it concerned. In her last message to him, she said her ability to speak Spanish had been a godsend since the tribe’s Shaman also spoke a little. She was able to explain to him the meaning of the words found in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” As a result, he had become a follower of Jesus and immediately began sharing his newfound faith with the villagers, receiving what Ruth described as “an unexpected response.” She didn’t tell him what it was except to say she thought Dr. Neisen might have insights that might help her understand what was going on.
One thing for sure—whatever she told him raised his spirits dramatically.
Jerry looked at his watch. Almost four-thirty. By the time he got to Neisen’s office, Greta should be gone. He put several blank CDs in his laptop case, zipped it, and walked out the door.
He was glad the sun was still shining. Late night visits to Neisen’s office were the rule when he was in town but even then, he sometimes had the silly fear Greta was watching from the shadows as he copied Neisen’s emails. At other times, he imagined she followed him back to the dorm and watched through the window as he sent them to Mills in Washington.
The other night he had dreamed the shark-ravaged body of Bodien was standing beside his bed, warning him to be careful, when the door burst open and Greta came in with Stiediger’s bodyguards.
“Take him away,” she yelled, pointing a quivering finger at him.
No sooner had she screamed than he found himself splashing about in the dark waters of Calibogue Sound, then awakened, trembling and in a cold sweat, more aware than ever of the terrible price he would pay if The Brotherhood ever discovered his treachery.
It took him only a few minutes to cross the campus and reach Neisen’s office. Just as he thought, the door to the outer office was unlocked, and Greta was long gone. Using his key, he entered Neisen’s inner sanctum. Scattered about on his desk was a week’s supply of teaching outlines where Greta had tossed them.
He powered up Neisen’s computer, highlighted “Saved Mails”, and immediately found the message from Abelard. As always, it was short and to the point.
“Come to London immediately. A room is reserved in your name at the Viscount Hotel. Await my call there. I believe I have found it.”
After copying it, he cued up Neisen’s sent mail file and scanned it until he found the latest one addressed to Abelard. Composed about three weeks before, two words in the body of the message made Jerry’s breath catch in his throat. The name leaped off the page: Ruth Starling!