ALONE IN HIS SITTING ROOM, ASHER SLIPPED OUT OF HIS COAT AND tossed it onto the settee, wishing he could cast aside his defeat as easily. Sighing in frustration, he slouched into his desk chair and pulled his journal toward him. As the wind hooted through the half-opened window, he uncapped his fountain pen and confessed his failure in the only way he knew how.
Today I spoke to Santos D. Justus, and he would not hear me. May God forgive me if the fault was mine, but I fear his heart was set against the truth before I even began to speak. He sees nothing but his own ambitions; he cares for nothing but his own schemes. And now I am at a loss—what should I do? I was certain I had caught this one sooner than the others.
Oh, God, have I failed you yet again? My hand still bears the scars from your crown of thorns. Must I bear the scar of your displeasure forever as well? I know I am cursed before you. My anger and pride were an abomination to you, an affront to the humble Lamb of God who was preparing to give his life.
Can Justus not see the truth? He lives in the most holy city in the world; he walks upon the streets where saints have trod, yet his eyes are blind to the truth of the gospel. He is Antichrist, if not in fact, then certainly in deed and attitude.
I pray he is not the one, yet I am almost certain he is. Never have the times been more ripe for the Lord’s coming. You spoke, blessed Lord, of wars and rumors of wars; I see them on every hand. You spoke of famines in various places, of earthquakes and death and destruction. These, too, I see behind and before me.
You said the sons of Abraham would return to the Promised Land, and they have. I know now why Adolf Hitler could never have been the Antichrist—the time was not right; your people did not safely dwell in the land promised to Abraham’s seed. But now they are there, with more arriving every day, and they have signed peace accords that allow them to dwell in relative safety. They are even preparing to rebuild the holy temple that will be the scene of abomination and desolation in the time of tribulation.
I understand, heavenly God, that man’s time of groaning and travail is nearing an end. I myself am weary and weak in spirit. My tongue is not as eloquent as it once was, and the men and women of this day and age are not easily impressed by knowledge. Their minds are too full of useless things; their minds are cluttered with images and sound bites from around the globe. They hurry and scurry and chat by telephone and e-mail. They communicate more information in a minute than an ancient scribe could in a year . . . yet they accomplish nothing of eternal value or consequence.
I cannot help feeling that I failed today. Santos Davide Justus must be the man who will lead the world once your church has departed, yet I could not persuade him to hear the truth.
Have I presumed upon your eternal plan? Will you come so quickly, Lord Jesus? Your children would rejoice to see you burst through the clouds to call them to their heavenly reward, but the rest of the earth would mourn. They are still lost, holy God; they are still groping in spiritual darkness. For their sakes, have mercy and postpone your coming. For them, withhold your righteous anger for another generation. For them— Let me stop Santos Justus.
Asher dropped his pen to the desk, pinched the bridge of his nose, and closed his eyes. A thought occurred to him—a thought he dared not write in his journals or even confess aloud. The idea might have arisen from the pit of hell itself, but in the light of the day’s defeat, it seemed the only logical alternative to surrender.
He had a choice—God always provided a choice—but Asher could not step back and let Santos Justus continue to lead Unione Globale. Already the organization had spread its tentacles throughout the world, and by sending Asher and Claudia to Brussels, Justus had demonstrated that he was not an honorable man. Just like Napoleon, Wilhelm II, and Hitler, Santos Justus craved power. And he would increase his power, through fair means and foul, until he controlled the mightiest empire the world had ever known. Like a great, dark spider sitting atop a web, he would manipulate the media, the economy, the government, and the church. It was only a matter of time . . . and time was running out.
Asher opened his eyes, blinked, and raked his hand through his hair. In Old Testament times, God allowed his people to kill their enemies; at times he demanded it in order to purge the land of idolatry. Wasn’t this the same situation? Santos Justus would lead the world to idolatry when he set himself up as god, for the Scripture plainly prophesied that the Antichrist would erect a statue of himself within Jerusalem’s holy temple. Anyone who did not worship the beast would be martyred, and thousands of people would die, just as they had in the Inquisition . . .
Asher could not wait. Even if God did not protect him, still he would act. Not for his own sake, but for the ones who still wandered in darkness.
Pressing his lips together, Asher picked up his pen.
Give me strength, holy God, and guide my hand. Even if you will not, then clear the way so my aim is true. Let me rid the world of this one who would lead it to death and destruction and desolation.
Thank you, Father, for your mercy. I pray you will heap it upon the dark soul of Santos Justus tomorrow.
Asher lowered his pen, waited a moment for the ink to dry, then closed his journal. Moving slowly in the dim lamplight, he moved to the bureau in his bedroom, then knelt and opened the bottom drawer. From beneath a stack of sweaters that smelled of wool and mothballs, he pulled a bundle of gray felt, secured with strips of leather.
Carrying the bundle to his bed, he carefully unknotted the leather strings, then wound the felt away from the object it protected. The gray material fell away, leaving a seven-inch metal tube in his hand.
Asher stared at the olive green weapon, reacquainting himself with its features and purpose. He had not unwrapped it since 1959, when it fell into his possession shortly after the assassination of Ukrainian dissident Stefan Bandera. Asher had not known Bandera or the assassin, a KGB officer called Stashinsky, but he had been standing in the shadows on a snowy night in Munich when a Russian officer crept out of an underground tunnel and dropped the felt package into a waste bin. As the officer crept away, Asher retrieved the bundle.
A week later he read in the German papers that Stefan Bandera had been murdered with a Soviet gas gun, a short tube containing an ampule of acid. When the firing lever activated a firing pin, the percussion cap detonated, vaporizing the acid into a poisonous gas that would be propelled out of a small hole in the tube. According to eyewitnesses, the papers added, Bandera fell dead just after KGB officer Stashinsky approached and pointed a rolled-up newspaper toward his face.
Now, as the thick black sky pressed against his window, Asher studied the assassination gun. The felt had kept the mechanism clean and dry; he found no evidence of rust. The cocking rod lay at one end, the muzzle at the other. The designer had placed a rubber ring between the cocking rod and the bend of the firing lever. The rubber had deteriorated somewhat, so the shooter might feel the recoil.
Carefully, Asher twisted the muzzle end, then pulled out the firing chamber. A single cartridge lay within, its end still sealed with a gas ampule that would spell certain death for whomever the shooter selected as a target.
In the rush of a busy Roman street, it was unlikely anyone would notice the encounter, much less hear the short bark of the shot. And Asher doubted that an assassination gun had been used in more than forty years—the authorities might even conclude that Santos Justus had suffered a heart attack.
The thought of murder was like a rock dropped into the quiet pool of his heart, sending ripples of anguish in all directions. But what else was he to do? God had allowed him access to Santos Justus, and Justus had spurned the gospel. If Asher did nothing, Justus would rise to power and begin a bloody inquisition unlike anything the world had ever seen. The barbarity of Hitler’s ovens would pale in comparison to the guillotines of the Antichrist, and no one would be able to buy or sell or work without swearing allegiance to him and accepting his mark on the hand or forehead.
And all who did so would be consigned to eternal torment.
Though his hands were slick with sweat, Asher’s mind had sharpened to an ice pick’s point. He alone could stop Justus and secure a reprieve for the earth.
He wiped his right hand on the leg of his trousers, then carefully screwed the firing chamber back into the hollow tube.