Jacob's Trouble 666 is a novel by Terry, which was published a number of years ago. It tells the story of Jacob Zen, a young, lower echelon U.S. government official, who is forced to take on staggering responsibilities, when millions of people vanish, and his world begins coming apart. Terry wanted to share with you this fictionalized account of the Rapture and of the first part of the Tribulation era in serialized form. Although it is fiction, it is a story that could take on startling reality with your very next breath, because Christ's shout: "Come up hither" (Rev 4:1) could happen at any moment!
Chapter 21
The wait had done its jangling work on the nerves of everyone since they arrived from their former refuge. But Conrad Wilson's smile said he had now accomplished what he promised three days ago, before they left for this abandoned military storage bunker.
"It's set!" He slapped Jacob's shoulder. "At twenty-two thirty hours, they'll have the aircraft in the pasture just beyond those trees." He pointed to a stand of tall, partially-leaved trees 200 yards to the north of the ground-level opening where they stood. "Where's Kerry?"
"He's still on the phone with them. They're checking him out on the aircraft as best they can on the phone. It'll save time when the plane gets here. He wanted to brush up on the Harrier system and so forth. He'll be along."
"Jacob! They've got them!" Karen rushed up the steps leading underground; her face was pale. "Who's got whom?"
"Those two men who disappeared from the compound... The prisoners who were with you." "Where are they?" Wilson said.
"Jerusalem. They're going to execute them! They're showing it now!"
They hurried down the steps and along several short, narrow corridors, then into a small room crowded with several people and an INterface Response Unit, whose screen displayed the pyramid symbol of INterface. When the symbol faded, Herrlich Krimhler, wearing a dazzlingly white jumpsuit, glared from the screen while sitting atop the crystal pyramid throne. Behind him loomed a gigantic golden cross, with a human form affixed to it, the face angelic and glowing while looking toward heaven — Herrlich Krimhler's face.
"These deceivers have preached the soul-murdering lies to the brothers and sisters oflNterface Universal. Now they come to recompense for their wickedness. So that all may know these Jews are mortal hate-mongers and not prophets of some non-existent god. Behold their deaths! Let it serve notice to all who believe the false promises which, with the killing of these dogs, will be forever eradicated from the minds of humanity! No longer shall there be in our midst the barbaric practice of worshiping the false idol who was called Jesus of Nazareth!"
The scene changed to the streets of Jerusalem, to one part or the other of the oldest section, Jacob surmised. Hundreds of taunting, sneering men, women and juveniles surrounded two men dressed in robes. One of the cameras zoomed in on the faces of the besieged men at the center of the circle of people. "It is them!" Jacob said. "They've apparently been preaching in the area for a couple of days, according to what they've been saying. INtetface has been trying to catch them, because they've been converting a lot of people," one of Conrad Wilson's men said.
"These wicked ones do not deserve a quick, merciful death. Let them die as the harlots and infidels of ancient days... because they have tried to take worship from he who alone deserves worship, and have tried to direct worship to the false Christ! Let them be stoned!"
While Krimhler spewed his vehemence, the INRU screen presented a four-video split, one part showing the two men in closeup, one split displaying Krimhler sitting upon the crystal pyramid, another displaying the angry people surrounding the condemned men, and yet another showing a huge dump truck while it rolled to a stop behind the mob and dumped its load of baseball-size stones.
The people rushed to take the rocks, each grabbing as many as they could hold, then again took positions around the two men. For the moment, they were constrained by Krimhler's words from the loudspeakers and by a number of controllers, who stood in a circle between the mob and the intended victims.
"Death to the deceivers! To the deceiver, Jesus of Nazareth, whose bones lie buried somewhere nearby. Whose soul dwells in eternal nothingness for the deluding claims He made!"
The video changed again and continued changing rapidly, capturing the excited faces of the crowd, while Krimhler shouted his dictate. All became silent when the taller of the two robed men raised his hands toward the sky, then slowly lowered his right hand and, pointing a finger in a slow, sweeping motion toward the people around him, he spoke.
"Repent or reap the whirlwind you have sown!" The words were clearly audible over the Response Units throughout INterface. "God is not mocked; The Lord Jesus lives! Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord and turn from the son of perdition! Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Him! Repent! Accept Christ!"
The mob would no longer be restrained. Stones flew toward the center of the circle where the men stood. But they were no longer there!
The astonished people surrounding the pile of stones recoiled, their expressions open-mouthed, fearful. The sky suddenly darkened, and terrible, wicked streaks of jagged lightning cut blindingly against the billowing blackness. Thick gray-white objects as large as cannon shot rained on the hapless would-be executioners and the controllers, and they fell while the hailstones crashed with thunderous noise. The screen went black.
Everyone in the room watched in silence while the screen filled again with the pyramid symbol. Karen started to speak to Jacob but he was no longer by her side.
She found him huddled over a small table, reading.
"Dr. Marchek's Bible?" she looked over his shoulder, seeing the Scriptures underlined in red. "Does it have something to do with those men?"
"Listen to this... It's in the Revelation, chapter eleven..." He quickly ran his index finger beneath the words and Karen tried to follow but gave up, instead giving her full attention to his reading of the passages.
"And I mil give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
These are the two olive trees, and the lampstands standing before the God of the earth.
And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy; and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
And they of the peoples and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not permit their dead bodies to be put in graves.
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.
And after three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them who saw them.
And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, 'Come up here.' And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them.
And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand; and the remnant were terrified, and gave glory to the God of heaven."
Jacob looked away from the book for a moment, deeply in thought, then reread part of the Scriptures silently.
"I just can't accept that. It's nonsense!" Karen said, then watched and heard him read in a whisper. "...And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified..."
"Jerusalem! Come on!" He rushed from the room and into the adjoining one, where the INRU screen's video was split into two images. The larger segment showed the pyramid symbol; a small picture in the lower right corner displayed a confused scene in which controllers rushed about, weapons poised, searching the bodies and rubble of the stones for the two men who had vanished before the sudden hailstorm struck.
"Is this just coincidence? Like all the rest that's happened?" Jacob said.
"I don't know, Jacob. I've never believed all that religious garbage. Not even Dr. Marchek could convince me that."
"But you see it for yourself, Karen. You saw them vanish the same as I did!"
They watched an angry-faced Controller charge the camera, which was obviously hand-held, causing the small picture in the corner of the INRU screen to become a jumbled blur, then white out with electronic snow.
"I'm not saying there's nothing unusual going on in all this. There's never been a situation like it in history. But it's just the inevitable outcome of a dictatorship that has at its disposal unprecedented technologies, Hitler... the Nazis.... would've probably come to this, or maybe worse, if they had the technology Krimhler and INterface has available to them for controlling people. The eschatologists or whatever they were called during that period, no doubt proclaimed the Nazis to be the end-time dictatorship... Hitler, the Antichrist." "You sound like Uncle Conrad," Jacob said.
"And you've been sounding like Hugo Marchek."
"Yeah... Somehow things got turned around, didn't they?" He pulled her to him and they looked into each others' eyes, sharing the special emotion there had been little time for until this moment.
"You still like me?" He brushed her lips lightly with his.
"A little, maybe." She smiled, her eyes glistening with tears. She held his face between her hands and kissed him, then looked into his eyes again. "I love you, Jacob Zen. Nothing can ever change that."
"No... We can't let anything change that, no matter how much everything else gets turned around," he said.
They kissed again and he felt her quiver. "Are you okay, Sweetie?" He tried to blanket the cold fear he sensed in her by embracing her more tightly.
"If we weren't so caught up in it... Weren't so much at the center, knowing what's happening to the world, maybe it could be like it used to be for us," she said, putting her face on his shoulder and looking away, wishing.
"But we are at the center, and if for no other reason, that's why we have to try to understand what's going on. We have to be able to agree, or at least try to agree, about the nature of what we're facing, so we can fight it with the strength of our combined wills. This thing will tear apart anything or anyone, who fights it with anything less than its one and only solution."
"And that's to be found in the Scriptures?"
"I'm absolutely sure it all fits together. The Bible, Marchek told me, is a living entity, not just a great work of literature. The living Word of God, himself.
'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'
"The Word says that Jesus of Nazareth was, is, the Christ. He and the Holy Spirit are One with the Father. The Trinity... the perfect Good. And the perfect Good is the only thing greater in power than the absolute Evil. Jesus Christ is the only Being who can and will put an end to Herrlich Krimhler and INterface... To the genocide."
Karen held him tightly. "I'll accept it, because you accept it. I can't say I find it easy to believe everything about these prophecies. About Herrlich Krimhler being some end-time Antichrist. But I believe in you, and in your faith in all the things you say."
Jacob took her hand and spoke earnestly, gently. "No, Karen, not me. It's man's belief in man... thinking that he can solve all of mankind's problems, that brought us where we are now. That's why the world has turned to this maniac to save them from the problems they've brought upon themselves. It's God, not man, who has the answers. Do you understand the things I'm saying?"
"I'm trying, Jake."
"It's a one-on-one situation. The individual and God. No one can make the decision but the individual whose immortal soul is beckoned by God's Spirit to accept Christ. Without Jesus Christ, one's soul is lost for eternity. We must accept Christ and refuse the mark of the beast, the symbol of INterface and the controls that go with it. We must reject the Antichrist system to the end." "The end of what?"
"Either the end of this age, the period of Tribulation, which is to last a total of seven years — three-and-a-half of which, I believe, might have already passed — after which Jesus Christ will return at the end of the world's last battle at Megiddo."
"Armageddon?"
"Yes, Armageddon."
"It's all so totally foreign to all I've ever been taught and believed, Jacob. Knowing we're together and that Conrad and Kerry and other good, sane people have faith in our effort, gives me something to hold onto while I try to absorb all the things you've told me. We've got to hold to each other and our friends through this, don't we? Human beings still need other human beings. Things haven't changed that much, have they?"
He felt her convulse again and tried to warm her after gently kissing her, feeling the softness of her hair, smelling its fragrance.
"It's time to be on our way," Conrad Wilson said, putting his head through the doorway. "Everything's plotted. They'll know the plane is missing by now, so we've got to move quickly."
Wilson stood to one side of the doorway, allowing them to pass on their way out of the room, then carried Karen's luggage to the top of the steps leading to outside, where another man took her bags.
"I've some last-minute things to attend to here, Jake. I'll join you on board in a minute," Wilson said, patting his foster son on his shoulder, then watching them hurry toward the clump of trees and the jet sitting in the opening just beyond.
A few seconds later, having returned to a room near the back of the underground facility, he heard the four engines of the plane stir to life and settle into their idling whine. He put the thick attache' case on the single bed and opened it, then sat on the bed beside the case while expertly manipulating its contents. The adjustments made, he carried the open case into the adjoining room and slipped a small black device into the INRU unit. He activated the Unit by pressing two buttons within the attache' case in his lap, causing the screen to snap to life. A dark-skinned woman gazed at him and spoke in a business-like manner.
"Stand by, sir. You are priority for Interact One."
The picture changed to that of a flat, brilliantly illuminated map of the world, overlaid with white gridlines and dotted with various points of light that represented major cities and population centers. On either side of the map, INRU monitors were alive with video from each of the INterface capitals.
There materialized the image of a man upon the gigantic map. He was young, bronze-skinned, with thick, black hair swept precisely back on either side of the handsome, symmetrical head. The eyes, as dark as the hair above the smooth, tanned forehead, projected commandingly from the almost too-perfect face.
"Is all as it should be?" the deep voice, seemingly older than the one to whom it belonged, said in English. "It is, Sir," Conrad Wilson replied with confident, reportorial inflection. "Everything has come together as envisioned from 'The Plan's' inception."
"You have accomplished your duties faithfully, but there is yet much to be done to assure that my enemy cannot complete his objective. The agents of his birth and fulfillment will be slaughtered where they nest like rodents infesting a world which must be purged of them forever!"
Herrlich Krimhler stood and walked to his right, his image disappearing from the center of the map. Wilson's INRU screen then showed Krimhler walking to a position in front of the world map.
"We know the Jews are here." Krimhler pressed a button and the map changed, the area of Jordan enlarging greatly, filling most of what formerly was representative oflNterface in its totality. "And we know they are most likely here, in the area known as Petra." He made another adjustment on the control board in front of him and the map changed again, the specific area enlarging within the Jordanian enlargement. "The Holy One..." The words burst from his mouth with hatred, "thinks they are hidden from me, and that the prophecy will be fulfilled. But, thanks to 'The Plan,' and to your ward, Mr. Zen, here is where the fulfilling of the prophecies end, and my kingdom... My Father's kingdom... begins!"
"I am prepared to carry out this last portion of my assignment, my Lord," Conrad Wilson said, bowing his head and closing his eyes before lifting his face again to see the young man, whose features were animate with excitement.
"Yes!... Yes! Follow this Jew ward of yours into the bowels of the world, where the excretion awaits its flushing. Then my world shall be purged of their defiling stench!"
"How can we be sure they can be located? All we have are the somewhat sketchy directions of those two Jews. Did they divulge additional information before they were turned over to the people?"
"This is no concern of yours! Yours is only to do as you are directed! You will not question me! Do you understand?! No one will question me!" Krimhler's glee had turned instantly to screaming rage; he slammed his fist into the control board repeatedly. Wilson bowed his head. "I am sorry, my Lord. I did not mean to question..."
"From the time the child was placed in your responsibility when its mother was dispatched, this moment has been the purpose of his continued existence... and yours. Do you not know that?" Krimhler's voice calmed while he spoke, finally leveling at consoling volume and tone.
"His every movement was orchestrated — from his placement into the United States diplomatic service, to his being made to sense collusion against his nation, to his meeting the women operatives, to his being hated as our greatest enemy — all aimed at bringing him to this hour. A Jew, meeting the two preachers from the so-called Holy One. Being accepted by the underground Jews because they trust him... because they perceived him as also a victim of INterface. So that now I shall learn, through Jacob Zen, of their place, which they stupidly believe I will not be able to locate."
Krimhler's features seemed to grow darker, his expression hardening, and he slammed his fist against the control console again.
"Now do you think we cannot accomplish so simple a thing as following your deluded little Jew into the rat's nest, which this God of theirs will surely open to him after all the trouble he has taken to lead him there?"
Wilson did not answer, but nodded, with closed eyes, his fawning agreement.
"There has been no greater slaughter in the history of this world than will take place when they are found! Go now! Accompany Jacob Zen to the fulfilling of his purpose for being allowed to live to this moment... And question your Lord no more!" along with that!"
Conrad Wilson nudged Jacob's knee with his fingertips, his voice still jovial. "Oh, lighten up, Jake. I know you're talking about this new found religion of yours." He gestured toward the book Jacob held open in his lap. "The pilot you're talking about sits at the controls a few miles above our present altitude."
Jacob said nothing in answer to Wilson's teasing words, choosing to let his troubled thoughts take refuge in the words underlined in Hugo Marchek's old Bible. He read the words, hearing Marchek's accented voice in his mind's ear. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."
Kerry Vinchey grabbed instinctively for the controls when the shrill, pulsating sound pierced his ears through the headphones. The electronic guidance-locator screen near the center of the complex middle control console blazed red with warning that the H-9 had been locked onto and was being tracked. Vinchey pushed a button on the left grip of the control and spoke into the headset's microphone.
"Buckle up! Somebody's on to us!"
Moments later, Jacob was at his side, strapping himself into the seat next to Vinchey.
"What do you think you can do up here?" Vinchey said, glancing at Jacob, then at the glowing screen whose warning continued to be punctuated by the high-pitched sound. The pilot pushed a nodule that silenced the noise.
"I'll fly this thing for you, if I have to," Jacob joked weakly, his eyes scanning the incredibly intricate agglomeration of buttons, dials and toggles.
"If that happens, them trying to shoot us down will be among the least of our worries," the pilot bantered somberly, searching for the instruments that could jam the enemy's fix on the craft. "Not working! It's inoperative!" he said angrily, trying again to activate the jamming device.
"What's happening?"
"The jamming's totally gone. It's not even hooked up!" "What does that mean?"
"It means I can't confuse them. They'll lock onto us... hit us whenever they choose. I checked this out a couple of times in the preflight. Somebody has disconnected it since then."
"What can we do?"
"You know that God you've been telling me about? It's time to give Him a call. We're sitting up here like a carnival shooting gallery target." Kerry glanced at Jacob, then back to the instrument panels when he thought he saw his friend's lips moving in silent prayer, as suggested.
"It's almost black down there," Jacob said moments later, straining to look out the right corner of the windshield. "How far are we from the spot you've programmed us to land?"
"We're about five minutes away. But it's taken some kind of wind to stir that much sand and dust." Kerry looked out the left side of the windshield past the nose of the aircraft, then turned to Jacob.
"You'd better go get them prepared, Jake. If they don't get us first with surface-to-air missiles or with fighters, we'll have to take our chances with that turbulence down there. There is a positive side."
"What's that?" Jacob said, hurriedly unbuckling the seat harness.
"Like you said, if the dust cloud is high enough, and we can get into it quickly enough, we'll have good cover. They won't be able to follow us in too closely. Their pursuit aircraft can't maneuver safely under conditions like those down there. The H-9 can... I hope. And, if it's not too rough, our terrain-reading and landing computers will get us to our touchdown spot in good shape."
Vinchey gripped each side of the control tightly and called over his shoulder to Jacob, who stopped to hear the pilot's words before ducking through the cockpit's doorway. "Tell them to expect a sharp turn and steep descent. Let me know when you're strapped down."
Karen clutched Jacob's hand when the plane banked to the right and plunged toward the swirling darkness of the storm below. All bodies strained to battle the negative gravity force being exerted, fighting the sensation that their stomachs were, invading their throats.
"It's alright, Kay... It's all right," Jacob said soothingly to her, while he fought his own urge to gasp for the breath that left him somewhere several thousand feet above. "We'll be coming out of it in a second or two."
"Reminds me of my first and only time on the Coney Island coaster," Conrad Wilson wheezed from his seat, his face increasingly crimson against the silver-white hair, eyebrows and mustache. "On that occasion I had a pretty girl like Karen holding my hand, Jake. Wish I had one now!"
The plane's angle of descent moderated, the scream of the powerful engines and the stress on the airframe vibrating the craft while it struggled to come out of the dive. The bird shuttered and popped, as if, Jacob thought, the wings had snapped or were in the process of snapping from the fuselage. When the H-9 leveled off, it was buffeted wildly from side to side, rocking violently, almost doing a complete roll, it seemed, while Vinchey fought to stabilize it in the vicious winds of the desert storm.
The engines surged and pulsed when Vinchey applied power, then throttled back before throttling up again, trying to maintain controlled momentum and altitude.
"One thing for sure, folks," the pilot said over the intercom, straining between words, "they can't know exactly where we are in this stuff. Looks like we're okay now."
Seconds later the jet slowed to barely controllable forward movement, the Harrier machinery pushing jet exhaust hard against the desert floor, toward a landing that Vinchey hoped would be within tolerance. When the bird thumped hard but safely against the sand, the flyer let his intensity seethe in exhalation through his clenched teeth. He relaxed his grip on the controls, then cut the engines.
"Terrific job, my friend!"
Jacob's hand slapping against his back brought full realization of the ordeal he had brought them through. His joints ached, his temples pounded with each beat of his heart.
"Yeah... Thanks... But I think we should both be giving that compliment to whoever you talked with just before we started down through this stuff..."
The hot sand had blasted the exposed areas of skin nearly raw during the first several hundred meters of their trek against the wind that raged at them from the south. But the storm was dying, and they moved with greater ease.
"We'd better get a reading!" Kerry Vinchey shouted above the howl, pulling the compass from his pocket and squinting while holding the instrument near his face, away from the wind and sand.
Jacob, with Karen clinging to him, pressed against his friend to hear his assessment.
"We're headed a little to the north! The wind's pushing us off course! We'll have to stop to get our heading more often!"
They shuffled through the drifting mounds in the new direction Vinchey pointed out. The wind no longer blew a steady gale, rather came in powerful bursts, occasionally subsiding to a less impeding level. Vinchey, in the lead, stopped again after they had traveled another 300 meters.
"We're almost there!" he shouted to Jacob. "Less than half a kilometer, I'd guess!"
The density of blowing sand thinned while the storm's power quickly spent itself. Their view of what lay ahead became more defined. Jacob could see the tops of the ridged terrain standing in dark maroon relief against the dust-choked, orange sky. Somewhere ahead they would find the canyon's opening, the narrow pathway leading into Petra, the ancient rose-red city, carved into the cliffs by a people who could not have fathomed the purpose their backbreaking labors would serve at this most crucial juncture of human history. Jacob mulled the thought while the party again trudged through the dunes. Hugo Marchek's God was indeed the true God. To know such endings from such beginnings.
The wind was alive with new sounds that vibrated the earth beneath them. A familiar pounding that grew painfully louder with each thumping noise it made.
"Choppers!" Kerry Vinchey shouted, pointing to the sky behind them. The huge, black helicopters were above them, sweeping low then encircling them, settling, finally, on the sand mounds that surrounded their captives. Seven INterface controllers spilled from the bird nearest the group and trotted toward them, automatic rifles at the ready.
Karen pressed tightly against Jacob, who put his arms around her and kissed her check. His own fears were devoured by the agony of knowing there was nothing he could say to give solace, to reassure her. INterface had again anticipated him, had outwitted and outmaneuvered him. Nothing left of his carefully conceived and executed plan but the small prayer he almost unconsciously let slip from his spirit, toward Heaven. "Dear Father, save us."
The troops' leader approached Kerry Vinchey, the INterface soldiers moving to positions that would allow them to cover the others. "Do you have weapons?" the darkly-clad man demanded in English spoken with a German accent.
When Kerry said nothing in response, the INterface officer clubbed him with the rifle butt. The soldier held the muzzle of the weapon to the pilot's temple while Kerry supported his weight on hands and knees against the sand.
"Please answer..." the man said in pseudo-polite inflection. "Or I will be obliged to blow your head from your shoulders." "Leave him alone."
Jacob knelt beside his friend and steadied him by holding Kerry's shoulders in his grip. "We don't have any weapons."
"They have no guns, Colonel," Conrad Wilson said, stepping between the soldier and the fallen man. "Let him get to his feet."
"Sir!" the officer said in a military manner, then stood at parade rest. Jacob looked upward, into his foster father's eyes.
"Sir?" Jacob said incredulously. "Kerry gets hit with a rifle butt for not answering, and you are called 'Sir' when you give this animal an order?"
Wilson ignored Jacob, turning instead to the soldier. "Are the forces ready?" "Yes, sir! They await your orders, sir." Jacob's emotions blurred with senses darkening inner rage, the abject bitterness of ultimate trust betrayed. "Why?" he said softly, his eyes again meeting those of Conrad Wilson. "There are some things greater than we are, Jacob. We must take second place to them. Our needs, our feelings are of little matter when considered alongside the eternal." The wind had grown strangely calm, as if the storm, which had not lasted quite long enough to provide the cover needed to get them safely to the canyon city just ahead, had never happened at all.
Now, a deep rumble took the place of the former wind's shrillness, the sound of mechanized war machinery on the move, toward them, toward Petra. "Even if you had made it into those caverns, Jacob, the tanks and artillery would have ended your rebellion against the inevitable kingdom that is coming upon the planet. Your God would not be able to save you and Karen and the rest, when the deep-penetration, smart bombs pierce through the cliff tops."
"Why? You must know who you're serving." "You've read Milton, you know why. Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven," Wilson said with resigned irony in his voice. "At any rate, I've cast my lot, and we must, as I said, put our parochial interests aside. I am sorry about you and Karen. But I am comforted by the fact that your fate will be less agonizing than will that of the foolish masses cringing in those caves."
The rumbling grew louder, and now dust, which had settled after the abrupt end of the storm, could again be seen billowing skyward in the distance. A storm of even greater fury drew closer by the second, a man-made maelstrom intended to flush its victims in a flood of violence gushing from the satanically enraged INterface fuehrer. Jacob's diffused thoughts were suddenly synchronized into one thought, galvanized by Conrad Wilson's words: "...the foolish masses cringing in those eaves."
Jacob's recall came to him in the unforgettable, unmistakable voice of Hugo Marchek, while his mind's eye reread the passage from Revelation, chapter 12, verses 14-16 in Marchek's Bible,
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth."
"Time, and times, and half a time," Jacob thought Three and one-half years....
The woman — the nation Israel — who delivered the Savior — Jesus Christ — the man-child whom the serpent — Satan — hated above all else. The flood — the onstorming INterface assault force! The prophecy of the 12th chapter of Revelation being fulfilled before his astonished eyes!
Jacob felt a rush of renewed strength. "Stay close to me," he whispered to both Kerry and Karen, while he continued, with Karen's assistance, to help the pilot to his feet. "Be ready to move fast when we've get the chance."
The armored vehicles and tanks shook the earth while they drew to within a kilometer. A fighter-bomber shrieked overhead less than 1000 feet above them, and in the next instant the face of the cliff that guarded the ancient city of Petra erupted, the blast sending huge fragments of rock high into the air, outward, and to the desert floor below. Two jets followed closely behind the first, and the rocks again burst violently when the bombs struck.
"Look!" Karen's wide eyed command caused Conrad Wilson, Jacob, and Kerry Vinchey to turn their attention from the next set of attacking jets, to the top of the cliff, which exploded upward. A thunderous blast drew gigantic boulders and molten rock several hundred meters into the air. The pilots, unable to react in time, flew the planes into the spewing inferno and instantaneous oblivion.
Jacob's legs suddenly trembled, the earth beneath him seemingly turning to liquid. Debris rained around them, while the earth quaked mightily, opening wide fissures that bubbled with lava and expelled acrid smoke that made it difficult to see more than a few meters, in any direction.
He held tightly to Karen while the shaking became more violent. "Don't let go!" he shouted to her, at the same time scanning the area around them for Kerry Vinchey. "Kerry!"
"Here, Jake!... I'm here!" The pilot came through the veil of smoke, reaching to take Karen's offered hand. "Let's head for the cliffs, Jake!" he urged, tugging Karen toward the rocky area beyond the big helicopters, half-swallowed now by huge cracks in the still-shifting earth. "Jacob!"
Conrad Wilson's weak-voiced cry was barely audible through the great noise and commotion taking place around them. Jacob strained to see through the swirling smoke and ash. "Jake! Over here!"
Jacob knelt on one knee in front of the old man, when he saw that Wilson was wedged in a fissure barely wide enough to trap a man's body. "I'll get you out! Take it easy, I'll get you out."
Smoke and gases arose from the crack that entrapped Wilson, causing both Jacob and the old man to fight for breath while the younger man tried to free his foster father. Kerry Vinchey tried to lift Wilson from behind, without success.
"Never mind, boys... It's over for me," Wilson said. "But not for you!" He pulled a pistol from somewhere within the fissure and thrust it in Jacob's direction, causing Jacob to jerk instinctively, away from his foster father. Before Vinchey could react from behind, Wilson fired two shots in rapid succession.
Jacob was hit from behind, the blow knocking him forward on his knees. The body of the black-uniformed, INterface storm trooper rolled from Jacob, the soldier's face streaming blood from the two holes Wilson had put in his forehead. The dead Controller's hand still clutched the Uzi that had been aimed at Jacob's back.
Conrad Wilson winced, the pistol dropping from his hand. His expression became more relaxed. "Jake, I am sorry... Son. Forgive me."
When Jacob grasped his foster father's hand and arm, the earth convulsed violently, knocking Karen and Kerry Vinchey off their feet and causing Jacob to lose his grip on Wilson.
"Uncle Conrad!" Jacob crawled forward in a desperate attempt to grab the old man, whose eyes bulged widely when the earth fissure closed momentarily, crushing him, before opening wide, causing his lifeless body to slip just beyond Jacob's gasp, into the boiling regions below.
"We should be going, Jacob," Karen said after a few moments of emotion-charged silence, gently pulling him away from the chasm. The tears came not from the gases and smoke that engulfed them, Karen knew while she and Kerry walked Jacob from the abyss, but from love only a son could have for a father lost to him forever.
They moved past the broken places in the earth, past the mangled machinery of war that partially jutted from the cracks in the Jordanian desert's floor. They moved with growing resolve, toward a new beginning, when things would be made right again by the One who had brought them safely this far.
Hugo Marchek's voice again whispered in Jacob's spirit. The words from the old Book were true. They were absolutely true! "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be."
"It is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it."