“SOMETHING’S UP, DEAR GIRL, something big.”
Ruth was sure she heard concern in Father Alfonso’s voice rather than his usual tone of good cheer when she made her daily radio check.
“Maybe the isolation is finally getting the best of me,” he said before Ruth could speak. “The hurry-up visit by your professor to this backwater place, especially at this particular time, seems strange.”
There was a moment of dead air.
Ruth’s voice finally filled the void. “You’re not worried about me, are you?”
“Not really. It’s just that…”
“What?
“Like I said, it just seems strange.”
“If you remember, I asked the professor to come,” she replied as anxiety nibbled at her mind.
“I know. It’s just that I’ve been hearing things.”
“What things?” Anxiety had stopped nibbling and was gnawing.
“I didn’t want to alarm you, dear girl. The rainy season’s depressing enough without me conjuring up a thunderstorm.”
“What things, Father Alfonso?”
“Reports on the short wave. I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.”
“You already have,” she shot back in exasperation.
“I’m sorry,” he answered weakly. “I’m hearing reports that many Western leaders are taking cover. They’re calling it a NATO security exercise, but from what I hear in the news, people aren’t buying that explanation.”
“What do they think is going on?”
“I’m not sure. Some doomsayers think they’re battening down the hatches for nuclear war or some such awful thing.”
“And you think Dr. Neisen and Jerry’s coming has something to do with—”
“I really don’t know,” Alfonso interrupted. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything. Like I said, it’s their coming at this particular time that bothers me.”
There was more dead air.
“Just be a careful, dear girl,” he finally said.
“I’ll try,” Ruth whispered and signed off.
The news was growing worse by the hour. Ever since NATO had announced their supposed security exercises, fear fueled by the media that the world might be on the brink of a catastrophe had grown exponentially.
Neisen and Jerry Spencer huddled with dozens of others around monitors in the American Airlines international departure area of the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport.
Jerry was not only watching the continuous bulletins, but Neisen’s reaction to them. The man’s sense of urgency seemed to be growing in a direct ratio to the bad news coming out of Israel.
“We must get to the Amazon before it’s too late,” Jerry heard him mutter to himself with each news update.
“We go live to Harry Kramer in Tel Aviv,” an anchor in New York announced.
Neisen leaned forward in his chair, straining to hear over the din of PA announcements.
A disheveled and obviously nervous reporter appeared on the screen. “It was just announced tremors felt across this tiny nation at approximately 7:30 last night were the result of the accidental detonation of a ballistic missile in Israel’s southern desert. Sources close to the Ministry of Defense tell CRN a computer malfunction was responsible for the accident. These same sources emphasize fallout from the blast is expected to be small and confined largely to unpopulated desert areas.
“The blast heightens concern growing here since the evacuation of Israeli children that a disaster is imminent. In the meantime, demands are growing for the deportation of all Palestinians from Israel for what many in the Knesset describe as ‘their continuing provocations.’”
The reporter paused and seemed to be getting a cue through his earpiece before continuing.
“I am being told Sandy Jamerson is outside the Knesset in Jerusalem where another explosion has just been reported. Sandy? What can you tell us?”
For several seconds the screen was awash in out-of-focus images as a camera operator scrambled to find his subject.
“This is Sandy Jameson near the Knesset,” an obviously excited young woman said as she finally came into focus. “Just moments ago an emergency session of the Knesset was interrupted by an explosion that rocked the city.”
She turned toward an elderly man who had joined her on camera.
“Sir, you are a member of the Knesset?”
“That’s right.”
“Can you tell us what happened?”
The old man’s voice was trembling with rage. “I just got off the phone,” he said nervously, as if trying to relate all he knew in a single breath, “with a friend in the Old City. He says the blast was in that area and that a number of buildings have collapsed and many were killed. All I can tell you is that we will have our revenge. I must go.”
He turned from the camera and joined others who were heading for their cars.
“That’s all I know from here, Harry.” There was another pause but this time the camera stayed focused on the young woman who was nodding as she received more information through her earpiece. “Yes, I understand,” she said to someone off camera. “Harry,” she finally said as she refocused on the television camera, “I’m being told that right now a reporter with World News Service is in a helicopter over the Old City. We should receive a live feed from him in about ten seconds.”
For a moment, Neisen’s eyes left the screen and swept the waiting area. Like an infectious disease, anxiety and fear was spreading. Its symptoms were visible on every face. I must act soon, Neisen thought, feeling the onslaught of the contagion himself, or it will be too late.
Once again, the monitor came alive with a flurry of snowy, outof-focus images. “Oh my God!” someone was heard shouting off camera.
As the picture came into focus, a collective gasp erupted from those gathered around the monitor. What others in the terminal saw was bad enough, but what Neisen saw was even more horrifying. The scroll predicted terrible birth pangs would precede the earth’s restoration. In his mind’s eye, he saw its forerunner on the screen, a scene his father had vividly described in a sermon before he lost his faith. Above the city of Jerusalem rode a rider on a pale horse, its bridle dripping blood, and in the shadow of its passing the smoking rubble of what had been the golden domed Al-Aqsa mosque.
As the scroll predicted, the time was coming round again, Neisen realized as he watched the future playing out in fast forward in his vision superimposed on the television screen.
He was repelled by his vision of the world he saw coming, unless he could unlock the secret of the stone in time.
“We’re receiving real-time images from our satellite over their western border.”
The briefing officer highlighted the area on a large illumined map at the front of the hastily assembled situation room nearly half a mile beneath Cheyenne Mountain.
“Switch to real-time transmission,” he said to a technician sitting at a nearby console. At his order, the map dissolved, instantly replaced by hundreds of tiny black squares.
“Magnify,” he ordered. The squares vanished and a large single square appeared.
“Are those tents?” the President asked.
“Yes, Mr. President,” the briefing officer replied. “We estimate ten thousand troops are bivouacked in that area.”
“Reverse magnification,” the officer ordered.
An image of hundreds of black squares reappeared.
“We believe there are at least ten thousand of these tent cities in this area alone,” he said.
The President shook his head in disbelief as he looked at Harry Holbrook and his military advisers seated across from him. “Do you mean to tell me they have prepared shelter and logistic support for a million men at this location? Impossible!” He slapped his desk for emphasis. “That’s nearly as many as the NATO armies combined.”
“Mr. President, the picture doesn’t lie,” a military advisor interjected, “and you’ve only seen the first one.”
“There’s more?” Stewart felt his heart pounding, and his head ached terribly as he recoiled into his chair.
“Several hundred more I’m afraid,” the briefing officer replied before giving an order to display the next picture.
As it came into focus, the President could see it was a carbon copy of the first. “Are you telling me these tent cities are preparing to receive…?”
The pounding pain in his head was too strong for him to finish the thought.
“Not just to receive, Mr. President, but to dispatch,” the briefing officer explained.
Holbrook moved to the President’s side. “The CIA reports all reservists have been called to active duty,” he said. “All commercial transportation in the country has been halted. Trains, planes, trucks, practically everything with wheels has been commandeered to carry military personnel and supplies to these receiving areas.”
“Next image,” the briefing officer said, anticipating the need for more visual proof.
This time the President needed no one to tell him what he was seeing: a large railroad-switching yard filled with flatcars loaded with long cylindrical objects whose outlines were clearly visible under their covers. “Missiles?” he whispered.
“Short-range, yes, sir,” the officer replied. “Radiation patterns picked up by our satellite sensors tell us they’re nuclear lights.”
“Isn’t that a euphemism for neutron bombs?” The President reached and loosened his collar then clasped his sweaty palms together.
“Right, Mr. President,” Holbrook interjected. “No radioactive contamination, no destruction of assets, a controlled kill radius.”
“The weapon of choice, if you’re going to field an army for an offensive,” the briefing officer added.
“They’re taking no pains to hide any of this from us, are they?” the President said, more to himself than the others. The photos had erased any lingering doubts in his mind. He was sure now he knew who was behind the nuclear blackmail.
“They know we can’t retaliate,” Holbrook said quietly. “Based on our best intelligence, the Chinese are fielding an army of two hundred million men and preparing to invade the Middle East within the next two weeks.”
At that moment, the President of the United States clutched his head and collapsed into his chair. Holbrook was the first to reach him. He shouted for a doctor, but the fixed stare of his old friend announced that something irreversible had short-circuited in his brain. President John Stewart no longer was troubled by the disintegration of the world he had known or by anything else.
Holbrook held the limp body in his arms and wondered if perhaps the President was not the lucky one.