“What?” Christopher barked in response to the knock at his door.
Robert Milner cautiously entered to find Christopher still seething, his muscles twitching with rancor.
“You said you wanted to see me . . .” Milner began a bit sheepishly, even before spotting the decapitated remains on the floor.
Christopher took several deep breaths to compose himself. Still, the anger in his voice was unmistakable. “I want the World Health Organization, the military, the security forces, and the police to do whatever it takes to round up every last follower of Yahweh. I don’t want any to escape — not one!” It was nothing he hadn’t ordered before, but saying it now gave vent to his anger.
Milner heard Christopher’s words, but his attention was clearly focused on the carnage at his feet. “What happened?” he asked. There was just enough of Decker’s face showing for Milner to be relatively certain it was him.
Except for a glare, Christopher didn’t answer. “And tell the guards the prisoners must suffer before they die in order for the spiritual cleansing to be complete. Do whatever they want. Humiliate them! Rape them! Torture them! Mutilate them! But I don’t want to see any more of them smiling before they die!”
“I’ll take care of it immediately,” Milner answered obediently, finally giving Christopher his full attention.
“And get someone up here to clean up this mess,” Christopher scowled, finally acknowledging the existence of Decker’s remains.
“I’ll call Security. I’ll tell them he attacked you,” Milner said, and then looking at the two cleaved pieces of Decker’s head separated by at least a yard of bloody carpeted floor, he added, “but I’m not sure how to explain the . . . uh . . . circumstances.”
“Just get someone up here that we can count on to keep his mouth shut!” Christopher said, losing his composure and slamming his first on the desk.
Milner nodded nervous agreement. “I’ll tell him to dispose of the body at one of the involuntary life completion facilities,” he said. Then he remembered something and stopped. “I talked to Jackie Hansen as she was leaving a little while ago. She knows Decker was here.”
Christopher shook his head, discounting Milner’s concern. “Jackie Hansen is mine,” he said. “She’s always been mine.”
Friday, July 17, 4 N.A.
Central Iraq
Three miles north of Jadad, Iraq, along the banks of the Euphrates River, a small team of civil engineers completed the final steps to close the massive water gate and thus divert the flow of the great river through the Wadi Ghazila to the lake called Mileh Tharthar. No one on the team was sure why they had been given this assignment. The gate had originally been put here to control flooding, but there was no risk of that at this time of year. The rainy season wouldn’t start for at least another month. If the gate remained closed for long, navigation farther down the river toward Babylon would become impossible. But there was nothing in the order that said when the gate should be reopened, only that it was to be closed. The order gave no reason for any of it. It said only to do it, and so they did.[168]
Friday, July 24, 4 N.A.
Chongqing, China
Su Lien Chu finished her bath and began to dry herself, taking extra care not to irritate the numerous painful sores that scarred her body. As she stood before her mirror, she shook her head in disgust at the sheer ugliness of the open wounds. The largest formed a rough circle that had grown to about six inches in diameter at the base of her neck and spread out onto her right breast. “I hate you!” she said in her native dialect as she looked toward heaven, and began to weep. Holding her face in her hands until she was composed, she wiped the tears with the backs of her hands. When she looked in the mirror again she averted her eyes to try not to look at the large lesion. Nonetheless, she couldn’t help but see that there had been a change: The sore seemed to be smaller. Staring in wide-eyed disbelief, she held her hand up to the sore to get a rough measure. It was clearly smaller, and she soon realized that so were all the other sores on her body.
It was absurd, but with nothing to lose, she decided to test for a connection. “I hate you,” she said again, this time in a clinical manner without much feeling. There was no apparent change. “I hate you!” she yelled emphatically. Now the change was immediate; the sores shrank before her eyes. That was proof enough. Shaking her fist heavenward, she cursed, “I hate you, God! I hate you! I hate you!” Yelling as loud as she could, her eyes twinkled with delight as she watched the ulcerous maledictions diminish and finally disappear altogether.
From a few similar events word spread quickly of the cure and within hours the reports spread worldwide. At about 2:00 p.m. Babylonian time, Robert Milner released a statement confirming that this was, indeed, the first of the three signs Christopher had promised.[169]
“As we curse Yahweh,” Milner said in his press release, “we take away his control over the Earth. The most immediate result is the healing of our own lesions. But as we join our voices,” the statement continued, “and unite in our cry of liberation, we set in motion the greater process that will lead to Yahweh’s ultimate downfall and to our own glorious ascendancy. We must curse him unceasingly, even when our sores are gone. We must join as one voice, continuing our defiance of the tyrant, and carry that defiance as our banner and our shield into battle against Yahweh and our enemies in Petra until all Humankind is free.”
Milner’s statement concluded with the promise that the second sign would follow in one week and the third, one week after that.
Friday, July 31, 4 N.A.
As morning rolled across the face of the planet and the people of the world awoke in turn, no one had long to wonder about the second sign. If the sudden and overwhelming feeling of strength and vitality weren’t enough to convince them, it took only one look in the mirror to confirm its reality. Five, ten, fifteen years of youth had been restored to older people in a single night. Pounds of useless fat had simply melted away, leaving the beneficiaries trim and strong. Those already in good health sensed new power rushing through them and saw the muscle to confirm it. A general outbreak of health, energy, and stamina, far exceeding what had resulted even from the communion, filled the people with the assurance that what Christopher had promised was true and gave them hope of victory over their foes in the coming battle at Petra.
Thursday, August 7, 4 N.A.
Petra
Chaim and Rose Levin walked the steep path up the mountain called Umm Al Biyara, from which they could view most of Petra. Below them, the rows and columns of tents, set off by interwoven strips of garden, formed a huge quilt pattern that seemed to stretch on forever. Scattered throughout the lush valley, groves of fruit and nut trees offered their harvest to all who came to pick. Bisecting Petra from east to west, the crystal clear waters of the Ain Musa flowed into their ringed refuge, directed there through an ancient tunnel cut through the mountain. And in the morning, they were sure, the life-sustaining manna would again settle upon their camp, just as it had six mornings each week for the past three and a half years. Neither Chaim nor Rose had said much since they set out on their trek — ostensibly for their evening walk — but both had the same thing in mind.
“It’s all happening just as they said,” Chaim whispered, as much to himself as to his wife as they reached the end of their journey and stopped to rest. “All of this,” he said with a broad sweep of his hand over the valley below, “the plagues, the extermination of the Christians. And soon, no doubt,” he said nodding, “the armies of the world will be at our door.”
Farnborough, England (south of London)
Ian Wilder sat on the bare wooden floor leaning against his assigned bunk in the World War II vintage barracks. In his lap sat one of the four books he had been given to read about the New Age. After three weeks of waiting with literally nothing else to occupy his time, he decided to try to read one of them in earnest, instead of just flipping through the pages.
Three weeks before he had been assured that this wasn’t a prison and that he would only be here long enough for his paperwork to be out processed, and then he’d be returned to fulfill a useful role in society. He had taken the communion and the mark of his own free will, they reminded him, and that meant he was a citizen of the New Age, with all the associated rights and privileges. It didn’t matter, they had told him at the time, that he had made the choice only minutes before he was scheduled to die; only minutes, he remembered, before his wife — refusing to listen to reason and just too stubborn to see logic — had submitted to her own death. It was just as well, he supposed: She never would have let go of her old religious beliefs. Nor would she have been happy in the New Age. Still, he was glad that he had not had to watch her die.[170]
It all seemed like a dream now. In a single day they had been betrayed by his brother,[171] arrested, loaded into the back of a cattle truck, and sent to be executed. Someone in the truck began singing, and his wife and the others joined in. He knew the words — he had heard the song, even sung it with her at the Bible studies she begged him to attend.
Great and marvelous are your deeds,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.[172]
It was a stupid song. The words didn’t even rhyme.
When they arrived they were taken to a large holding cell and crammed in with a hundred others to wait. Next to them, another cell was being steadily emptied as its occupants were taken to the guillotine. There simply wasn’t time to torture everyone as Milner had ordered and still keep to the quotas, so on the wall in front of the cells, monitors showed close ups of the guillotines and scenes of various prisoners, mostly young boys and girls, being brutally beaten, sodomized, raped, and mutilated by guards or trusted volunteers, before being taken to their deaths. The floor of the cell was puddled in urine, and the stench mingled with that of excrement and sweat, making the air almost unbreathable. Music blared over the prison’s speaker system at ear splitting volume to drown out any praying or singing of religious songs. Ian covered his ears, but it offered only minor relief.
When the other cell was emptied, the guards came to Ian’s cell and began taking those nearest the door. The executions progressed so rapidly that in minutes only about half the prisoners remained. At about this time, another truckload of people arrived and were put in the other cell to wait. Ian stayed close to his wife, though he couldn’t help but feel resentment that she had gotten them into this by insisting that they not take the communion. Soon the guards came and took him and his wife and eighteen others from the cell. Going down a series of long corridors, the music finally faded and, though their ears were still ringing, they could now begin to make out the crack of the guillotine blades and the low hum of the electric motors that powered them. The sound became more distinct as they were taken out a door into a poorly lit exterior passageway.
The air was heavy and putrid as, turning a corner, they came into the open courtyard where the decapitations were taking place. The scene was overpowering, and Ian’s wife stumbled and nearly passed out. Several in their group vomited. Three rows of six guillotines each dropped head after head into blood spattered gray green dumpsters until they could hold no more. Bodies were rolled or heaved by blood-soaked brawny men onto conveyors that deposited them efficiently but unceremoniously into waiting dump trucks. Here and there, bodies that had missed their mark on the conveyor or heads that had bounced and rolled free from the overfull dumpsters were left where they fell until a convenient time for removal could be found. The cement floor of the courtyard was sloped with a drain in the center, but the blood poured so quickly from the victims’ bodies it made a pool several inches deep and formed a continuous whirlpool that emitted a sickening sucking sound over the drain.
From four other doors, Ian could see other prisoners being led in. Apparently, the holding cells he had seen were just two of many in the prison. Ian couldn’t believe that the number was so high. From the broadcast executions (which, unlike the direct feed to Christopher’s office, didn’t have a running tally) he had the impression that no more than a few hundred beheadings had taken place throughout all of England, and perhaps twenty thousand had occurred worldwide. At the current rate, he was certain that number would be exceeded at this one facility in a single day. He remembered watching the first execution on live-net. The condemned was a particularly vocal fundamentalist from the States, a man who was admired by Ian’s wife, but whom Ian had long thought the world would be better off without. The second and third had come a few days later. Ian wasn’t familiar with these men, but they were said to hold beliefs similar to the first. The executions began to occur more often after that, and while it was now possible to watch the bloodletting from somewhere in the world any hour of the day, the novelty had quickly worn away and few paid much attention unless someone famous was to die.
What Ian Wilder couldn’t have known was just how orchestrated the broadcast executions had been. Secretary-General Christopher Goodman had personally directed that the number should appear small in the beginning and increase incrementally until the full extent of the daily slaughter was shown. Just as in ancient Rome, it took time for some to build up a tolerance, and for others to build up an appetite, for the spectacle of so many deaths.
And that, after all, was the real purpose for broadcasting the butchery: that in their approval or at least in their tolerance, all were culpable, all were responsible, all shared guilt with the executioners — and with Christopher.
“Will you take the communion and the mark?” one of the guards asked Ian.
Between the shock at what he saw and the ringing in his ears, Ian barely heard the guard. “What?” he asked, and then realizing what the guard must have said, he nodded his head eagerly. “Yes! Yes!” he answered. From the corner of his eye he could see his wife’s look of alarm.
“No! No!” she pleaded.
“Yes! I want the mark!” he insisted as they pulled her hands away, breaking her hold on him.
That was the last time he saw her. The guard took him to a clinic in the prison and the communion and mark were administered within minutes. He was then put in a van with others who had made the same choice and brought to this old military base and assigned to these barracks.
Now after three weeks the only reality he knew was around him, and he wondered if they’d ever get out. He had heard a rumor that someone in one of the other barracks had been told by someone else that orders had come through to move everyone out in the morning. But he had heard the same rumor two nights before, and still they waited.
Friday, August 8, 4 N.A.
This was it. A week had passed and now finally it was the day of Christopher’s third sign. No one knew for sure what it was to be, but it promised to be big. Excitement was everywhere. The media was filled with predictions and guesses, but even the psychics weren’t sure. Christopher had intentionally hidden it and even the best psychics could not — dared not — look beyond the veil to see the secret that lay there. But now it was Friday and soon the mystery would be revealed and the whole world would know.
The signs — both the fulfillment of the first two and the anticipation of the third — had had their desired effect. Not only did they give a foretaste of the promised magnificence to come, they also served — in their contrast — as a constant reminder of the suffering and plagues that had preceded. And together they served to focus attention on what Christopher said must be done at Petra in order to prevent even greater suffering.
Babylon
At exactly noon Debbie Sanchez, formerly Decker Hawthorne’s second in command and now his replacement, came into the crowded briefing room. In her hand she carried a folder. “I have a statement from the secretary general,” she said as she took her place at the lectern and opened the folder.
“‘At its completion,’” she began reading, “‘the New Age will see the evolution of Humankind into pure spirit energy. In this form, matter will no longer place limits on our abilities. As evidence of what is to come, the third sign will be telekinetic abilities for all Humankind who have taken the communion and the mark. These abilities will not be fleeting, as were the psychic abilities that many experienced over the past three and a half years. Instead, they will be permanent and will grow stronger with use and with time.
“‘Of necessity,’” she continued, “‘these capabilities will begin on a small scale so that Humankind will be able to adjust and deal with this power in a controlled fashion. Soon, however, as we learn to use the power wisely, it will increase until, ultimately, no power in the universe will be able to stand against it.’”
Debbie Sanchez closed the folder and looked up to answer questions. The brevity of the statement caught most in the room off guard. “Is that the whole statement?” one reporter asked without waiting to be recognized.
Another reporter apparently had the same question, and though he didn’t speak or even give second thought to his desire to look at Debbie Sanchez’s folder, suddenly and to his great surprise, his wish was fulfilled as the folder flew from the lectern and into his hands. For a moment the room, as well as the millions who watched the briefing on live-net, fell silent until the reporter, in comic fashion and attempting to appear unruffled, looked in the folder and answered the first reporter’s question. “That’s all,” he said.
Suddenly, the folder flew back to Debbie Sanchez, who seemed to understand the power and showed relative comfort in its exercise. “Thank you for the demonstration,” she said as she set the folder back down on the lectern and held it there with her hand.
The room exploded with questions, but before any could be answered other reporters began to experiment on their own, raising chairs off the ground, holding microphones suspended, one raising himself several feet into the air.
“I wouldn’t try that just yet,” Debbie Sanchez said to the airborne journalist. “You’ll wind up with a whopper of a headache if you’re not careful.”
“How long will this last?” a reporter shouted, not taking Christopher’s written statement at face value.
“As the secretary general’s statement said,” Sanchez answered, “it’s permanent.”
“And the power will grow stronger with time?”
“Yes, as you learn to use the power, it will increase. But you must use it responsibly, with forethought, not haphazardly.”
“Is this the power that will be used to defeat the KDP at Petra?”
“Yes,” Debbie Sanchez answered.[173]