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 6
He was not in Brussels — had not just talked to Karen. He was no longer Jacob Zen, but John I. Gdrver, Sector Coordinator 550.He felt for the belt of explosives. Yes! Still there. He sat on the edge of the sofa and, though drowsy, had enough presence of mind to smooth the waist coat over the belt. The digital clock read: 21:18. The INterface Response Unit's Scanner beneath the clock was active and swept the room like a slowly oscillating fan, then stopped to train on him. He gave the snooping device as disinterested a glance as he could, not wanting to appear apprehensive, yet wanting to know how intent the Watchers were on monitoring his movements. To appear bothered by the camera would be an admission of hiding something from them, and might give Watcher Control incentive to undertake a personal search.
What difference? He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands, trying, with the performance, to convince the Watchers that he was only trying to revive from the rest period. The difference was, he reminded himself, if they came here — to the Sector Coordination Terminal — there would likely be no more than two controllers. There would be many more at Facility 500, meaning the explosion would do much greater damage. For the few minutes left to Jacob Zen, John I. Garver must remain a loyal citizen of INterface, a dedicated servant, and a cautious one.
Thirty-seven minutes until the meeting at Facility 500. Why was he summoned, if not to present himself for elimination? Sector Coordinators, once they breached Interact procedures, could not be forgiven like ordinary citizens who made slips and were forgiven on occasion. Sector Coordinators were summarily executed by one of several methods available to Controller Central, and their bodies incinerated; their records of existence were electronically expunged in an instant from INterface Response Unity. But Carver had been told to come — not that he would be escorted by a team of the black-uniformed INterface policemen. Might it be a test to see if he would bolt? Was that why the camera constantly watched him? To garner proof that he was indeed an enemy of the great Utopian order?
Time felt different; it was different! The sky had changed with relationship to the hour. Looking out the window, he studied the horizon above the decaying structures across from his building. It glowed eerily in a seemingly perpetual dusk. For months, it had been neither truly night nor day, but an iridescent red-orange, which changed in brightness and hue only moderately when the hour grew late.
At 9:30 p.m. - 21:30, as INterface would have it — the sky would have, in former times, been black, the stars points of brilliance against the backdrop. Not a hazy orange that contrasted with the jagged, dilapidating structures to form the silhouetted illusion of a Halloween graveyard scene. In a way, the reality was much more nightmarish than such a ghoulish fantasy could ever be, he thought, starting, out of habit, to reach into the cabinet beside him for the Trachetrol II. No! He must not give in to the drug's pull. The chemical might aid him in his desire to do what he had to do by giving him courage, but its debilitating effects would decrease the chances of his success.
There was a problem. His replacement would be at the door in 10 minutes. How to get the Bible and notebook from beneath the console chair, with the Interface Eye constantly on him? He had to get them out before the shift change; the next Coordinator would be no more tolerant of the book nor of his note taking than would Controller Central. Before, it had been a simple matter; he had folded the old volume and the pad into the blanket he always brought with him. Watching for variation from established patterns was a basic technique used in INterface surveillance, from the time they moved him from the remote Coordinator Center to the inner-city. John I. Carver had brought the blanket with him. They searched it for the first dozen or so times and found nothing. He brought the blanket still — he told them, for the rest periods — and, as he had suspected, they had examined the blanket periodically for months. But for the past few months, they had not inspected the blanket at all. So he had decided to take a chance and had begun bringing the Bible and notepad. Later, he taped the explosives to the blanket, and had brought the belt with him to the Sector Controller Room on a daily basis since developing the contingency plan.
Today's events changed things. The Scanner Eye had watched his movements from the moment he stirred on the sofa following the rest period. There remained a chance, the remote possibility, he thought while again looking out the pollution-soiled window, that he might somehow survive the interrogation at Facility 500. Why, though, would he want to live on in this miserable existence? Perhaps because the will to survive fought on even when less sturdy instincts succumbed to emotion. At any rate, if the Bible and the notepad were discovered, the matter would become academic. INterface would, without hesitation, forget John I. Carver and replace him with a more deserving member from among its ranks. With blazing suddenness only a mind pushed to desperation could generate, inspiration hit. He smiled, his back to the camera, and almost laughed out loud when the thought struck. He would put on a show for the INterface fools. Whether it would work was not important; that was the beauty of it. The reason, perhaps, that the ploy had a chance for success. Yes! It was made more workable by the confidence gotten from his attitude of fearlessness!
Walking from the window to the sofa, he picked up the blanket and slowly folded it as he always did before leaving his shift. Tucking the blanket under his arm, he walked back across the room, stopping to put the blanket on the table by the right arm of the console chair, then walked to the cabinet. He poured a glass of water from the server and took a sip, turning to face the Scanner, looking over the glass to see that the camera was focused on him. He moved back toward the console chair, drinking from the glass while he walked. The camera, he noticed, turned with his movement, and, like he anticipated, the lens was zoomed out, framing for the Watchers, the upper portion of his body. Good! The plan should work.
In the next instant, the water erupted from Jacob's hand, the glass shattering against the hard floor. The table next to the chair tipped and crashed onto its side when Jacob's body made contact. The heavy metal lamp bounced crazily across the floor, while he managed, with his hand, to brush the blanket toward the front of the console chair. Sitting on the floor, apparently stunned, he glanced quickly at the camera lens, which seemed to go crazy with confusion, sweeping the room, first across then up and down, the Watcher controlling it obviously trying to make out what the commotion was about.
Jacob cursed loudly for the benefit of the policeman at the other end of the teletransmission. The camera finally stopped its frantic gyrations, to point in his direction.
He sat for a moment, wanting to appear confused, himself, then he slowly regained his feet and stood, wiping water from his clothes and looking around at the mess the faked accident had caused. He cursed again, getting a handful of paper towels from a drawer of the cabinet near the window, then returned to the chair. Kneeling with his back to the Scanner, he picked up the nearest pieces of broken glass, then mopped the water.
Even INterface allowed for human clumsiness — had no choice but to tolerate physical ineptitude on occasion. The INterface devil -- even he must have enjoyed his underling's comical mishap, if for no other reason than that it offered a brief respite from the Watcher's own misery. He hoped so, while he sopped the last of the water from the floor; someone, maybe the Watcher, would pay for the performance with his life.
With several wet paper towels, he wiped the slivers of glass into a neat pile, picked them up and deposited them in the metal trash receptacle to his left. He carefully calculated, then put into action his move to a position more directly in front of the chair, thus more securely blocking the Scanner's view of the bottom of the chair and his true activity. With the glass removed, he began what the Watcher would think was a straightening up process, first the table, then the blanket. He reached beneath the console chair's right side with his left hand and in one smooth motion pulled the Bible and the notepad across the floor, while at the same time moving the blanket in front of him with his right hand. He spread one corner of the cloth over the book and the yellow pad, then folded the blanket as neatly as it was before, completing the deception.
The clock read: 21:36 -- 9:36 p.m. Completed with four minutes to spare before his shift replacement came, precisely on time as he always did, like he surely would this night.
He stood and placed the folded blanket on top of the cabinet before returning to put the lamp back on the table and pick up the few scattered pieces of glass he missed earlier. The Scanner camera continued to monitor his movements, but he was certain the staged accident had accomplished its purpose. He fantasized how his next plan would succeed as well, and how it would be even more productive. The terror of tasting their own blood would wipe the smiles from their drug-bloated faces. Although Clarendon Street, like most other streets in the area, was empty except for a staggering man here, a bicyclist there, or an occasional official vehicle of one sort or another, Jacob felt caged, hemmed in by the omnipresence of INterface. The once-familiar streets and alleys at the heart of the great city were now pitted, barely recognizable heaps of concrete and asphalt. Boston, like other megalopolises, was among the first areas ravaged by the terrorist-looters in the chaos that followed the great disappearance, as governments were unable, at first, to deal with the crises.
Maybe the survivalists had been right all along. Jacob fiddled with the rubber strap that kept the cheese-cloth mask over his nose and adjusted the mask to keep out the pollutants. With the food supplies of the big cities so quickly depleted, the outlying business districts and suburbs then thoroughly plundered, the mass swarm of human vermin moved to the mountainous and forested areas. Many of the wooded regions were burned, making it easier for scavengers to find food and other essentials that the survivalists had horded in case such an eventuality happened when other supplies were contaminated by radiation and disrupted by the after-effects of the brief nuclear exchange and the disappearance phenomenon.
No. The survivalists had not been right, and Boston was Boston no longer, but Geoquadrant 3 of INterface. It would never be Boston again, just as surely as New York City, vaporized by a nuclear blast, was no more.
He had to stop, put the blanket on the broken pavement, then remove the mask and rethread the strap through its metal retainers on either side, which meant he had to take the goggles from his eyes — a thing not pleasant to do in the corrosive atmosphere. Instantly his eyes began tearing up in the heavily particulated air. The inevitable hacking began, his cough-reflex center fighting to defend against the painful intrusion.
Finally managing to get the mask strap restrung, and, mercifully, the goggles back over his eyes, he picked up the blanket from the street and glanced at his watch. 9:49' — just enough time to make Facility 500 before the commanded time. But what of the blanket? The forbidden Bible, the note pad? The questions undulated through his mind while he began a slow jog up Clarendon. What difference did it make? If they made a move to examine the blanket, whoever did so would join him on tbe trip into the afterlife — if there was such a thing.
Across Columbus Avenue and left onto Massachusetts Turnpike, or what had once been Massachusetts Turnpike - it did not matter when the button must be pushed. When the time came, he would be up to pushing the button. The last look at the unsuspecting faces, before their descent into hell, would be reward enough. He wished there to be a hell.
Right on Exeter — Facility 500 was in sight! His breathing was now labored, and his vision darkened, as if he would faint. If so unconcerned about what the controllers might do, why the exertion to get there at the commanded time? Still, there was a chance — a possibility — there might be another purpose for the call to the headquarters. Possibly another reason...
Was it all bravado? A false sense of his self-destruct capability? Karen's face floated in his mind while he continued the jog toward Facility 500, the huge stone building that once housed the public library. There was no longer a need for such institutions. The great would-be Utopian state provided everything the citizen needed in the way of reading materials. And all the citizen needed was to know the laws of INterface. Six Ways to Law — Six Ways to Order — Six Ways to Peace. Karen's face, floating before his mind's eye.
Inside the building, dispassionate eyes dissected him, black-uniformed controllers glaring at him and the blanket he held.
This was it! They would want to examine the blanket! They would find the book, the notes! His heart thumped viciously. Perspiration, the familiar, unhealthy sweat he had known for months, beaded, then rolled over his face and body.
"Your goggles!"
"Pardon? I'm sorry... What?" Jacob said.
"Remove your goggles and step up to the IN,n the fat man behind a half-circle desk said irritatedly.
Jacob complied, taking off the yellow-lensed eye coverings before stepping up the four inches onto the rubber-covered platform.
"Come on! Come on! You know the procedure! Face the circle and hold your head erect!"
Jacob held the folded blanket tightly, knowing that any moment the fat controller would demand it from him, discover its secrets. What would death be like? He would probably know... soon!
He did as he was told, stiffening to a rigid position of attention, his head facing the crimson circle. Behind the desk, the controller watched the INterface Response Unit's screen on the board in front of him.
Time passed agonizingly slowly for Jacob, whose face the screen in front of the controller displayed; the name "John I. Garver" popped on the screen beneath the image; a bar code symbol materialized on Jacob Zen's forehead.
Beneath the name, the decoded numbers were generated one at a time:
"BBB-IN-3- 1 88827 1 " and beneath that line, the words "SUBJECT CONFIRMED — " flashed brightly in yellow characters.
"You are IN, Sector Coordinator five, five, zero," the fat man said from behind the desk. "Follow that officer."
The controller nodded in the direction of the stocky man who had stood at parade rest a few paces behind Jacob during identification.
The fluorescently lit hallway floor was of brilliantly white tile, the surfaces of the walls and doors covered entirely with mirrors. Once Jacob's eyes adjusted, he was struck by the symbolism — the vast sterility of the walkway contrasting with, defiled by, the black-attired controllers who moved busily through it. The pure good; the unalloyed evil. He had been here before, but not since Boston became Geoquadrant 3. Then, the walls had been paneled and painted, the floors carpeted, and there had been warmth and books and time to dream. There had been freedom...
The controller walked with military aloofness, stopping at one of the mirror-covered doors near the center of the hallway. "Wait here for further instructions," he said, allowing Jacob to pass by him into the room. "Be seated and do not leave for any reason."
"What is this about? Can you tell me what...?" But the stern-dispositioned policeman left before the question could be completed.
Jacob moved his fingertips around the bulge at his waist, not too conspicuously, because INterface Eyes were no doubt watching. The feeling was strangely comforting, touching the ridges and bumps of the belt, knowing enough explosive charge was there to wipe out a room the size of this one. His sanity had slipped; he did have a death-wish. Maybe it was best that his mind had finally begun to fall victim to Trachetrol's brain-eroding effects, and to the Inculcation Sessions that anesthetized one to the fear of death. — And Karen was gone... nothing left to live for. — Fortunate that the Watchers could not read the mind, could not yet probe the thoughts of the finale he planned. But it was just a matter of time until their technologies gave them power to invade that only remaining sanctuary.
The room was battleship gray, with old, scarred tables and folding chairs. There were no windows. He considered how the library, before it became Facility 500, had been configured, how the basic structure remained the same. This had been an interior room, housing, he thought he remembered, a special section on Spanish history, or French. Maybe Italian. It was a dark, dull, totally depressing room then. It had not changed in that respect, he surmised, pulling a folding chair from beneath one of the tables and sitting.
"Sector Coordinator five, five, zero!" He stiffened in the chair, turning to look around, trying to pinpoint the deep voice coming from speakers somewhere in the room. "Termination Session will commence in thirty seconds! Face the wall behind you!"
Termination Session1! The terminology was new.
Would even INterface, in all its twisted illogic, give its victim a propaganda speech before erasing him from its data banks? The announcement, he noted calmly, had little effect on him. He was becoming callous to the thought of dying. He did as the voice commanded, shifting the chair to face the wall.
"Do not move from the room when this session is ended. You will be instructed what to do at that time."
The room went black; the wall in front of him then became awash with faint light, and the gray paint separated, unveiling a large screen.
"Termination Session seven, seven, five," the voice announced, while the screen came alive with the translucent pyramid symbol of Interface. An elaborate production to waste on one who was about to be terminated.
A sudden explosion shook him from his lethargy! The picture on the wall-screen lurched and jerked violently before locking into a stable image of a burning, crumbling building from which 20 or more people staggered, their clothing and skin ablaze. The horror of the second scene was even more starkly presented, so diametrically did its silent tranquility contrast with the ear-shattering violence of the first. Torn bodies of women and children, internal organs exposed, brains spilling from erupted cranial cavities — captured by a slowly panning camera. And, the terrible silence...
He felt nothing, nothing at all while viewing the grisly scene. That was the thing that bothered him. And, that contradiction of thought — the concern that he felt badly only for his own inability to feel — itself, troubled him, made him somehow more a part of the impersonal atrocity. The flesh spattered about the exploded room was simply organic machinery that had ceased to function. He had seen it all too many times.
"Since Interface time began," the computer voice narrated, while the death scenes continued, "the truly civilized have been victimized by sub-human filth; and, on an increasingly alarming scale. It seems the greater the effort to show mercy, to try to convince through love and understanding, the more heinous the acts by these enemies, who are led by the Jew — murderers, the scourge of mankind. The Jew is at the heart of every evil in our world today, a world that will achieve its perfection only after the Jew is eradicated!"
The same diatribe, repackaged, with new, updated horror-video. As desensitizing as the Trachetrol in its effect on an INterface-vtorn nervous system. But the next moments were designed to break the monotonous pattern of the Inculcation propaganda; it worked!
He snapped to alertness in the chair, seeing what were obviously a series of controller raids upon, not the pitiful Jews or scavenging looters as depicted in all the previous Inculcation tapes, but upon their own kind — upon Product Center Supervisors and Society Watchers. Black-uniformed men and women were dragged from their stations of duty, clubbed, then carted off in the controller vans to one Precinct headquarters or another.
"Now INterface Controller Central has the capacity to cut out the individual and collective malignant cells from among the healthy, productive tissue which comprises the growing, networking organism that will soon become a perfect universal body. Those who have been mistakenly placed in positions of responsibility within INterface are being gathered, as you can see, from everywhere they infect us. They will pay for their treacheries, even a greater price than the Jew-dogs who inspired them!"
Controllers, with rifle butts and shock sticks, prodded a van full of prisoners from the big vehicle, forcing them through open heavy- gauge metal gates, whose tops were forged with Gothic spikes and barbed-wire, as were the 10-foot high fences that rimmed the complex of floodlit concrete buildings making up the compound.
The scene changed to the interior of one of the structures; several of the bloodied and bruised prisoners stood at attention, their eyes glazed and wide.
"These have been among the elite of INterface. They have tasted the best our magnificent society has to offer our citizens. They betrayed that trust by hiding Jews, by entertaining forbidden activities. These have taken what they wanted for themselves, without permission from the provider of us all, Master Manya, and INterface Universal. They will now, as will all who are our enemies, taste the bitterness of lNterface wrath!"
The video changed again, showing a prisoner who had been stripped naked being held by two controllers. Every inch of his head and body had been shaved then covered with what looked to be a coat of clear, glistening lacquer.
"These traitors deserve the most cruel deaths that can be devised, because they have perpetrated the cruelest crimes of all — taking from their trusting brothers and sisters of lNterface, while those brothers and sisters sacrifice to bring in the perfect order we all want — and because they have aided the Jewish swine in their drive to enslave the world with their Zionist, humanity-robbing ideology!"
The prisoner was thrust into a room and the door locked behind him. The narrator's voice continued.
"The Jew, in most cases, dies a quick, merciful death. INterface is not unfeeling, even for the rodents that infest us."
The room in which the man stood was illuminated by dim, red light, it soon becoming evident that the camera providing the view taped the event with an infrared lens. The prisoner could not see. He moved cautiously ahead in what was, for him, total darkness, looking in aU directions, trying to pick up some glimmer of light.
"Our mercy ends where betrayal begins! This man, a Sector Coordinator, was found to have hidden at his apartment, two Jewish females, with whom he sexually consorted, as if they were of his own kind instead of being of the lowest order. He also read from the Talmud, which he kept hidden away along with many other pieces of trash formerly passed off by the Jews as literature."
Alone, naked, and in total darkness, knowing his death was imminent but not knowing how he would die, the man became increasingly panicked, reaching his hands to feel for obstacles. He stepped slowly, extending his feet with each step to feel for openings in the floor that might swallow him and dash him to pieces somewhere below. The infrared lights allowed the cameras to capture the terror on the man's face and each movement of his glinting body, while he felt his way.
"Watch the former Sector Coordinator grope, lost in his sin, alone in his punishment, terrified in his hell," the narrator-voice said, while Jacob followed the doomed man's movements.
"There was salvation for him — Salvation through INterface — Through our Master Manya. This man chose darkness — death — hell!"
INterface added audio to its video presentation, urging the viewer to become even more caught up in the victim's agony. Crying could be heard — soft, guttural sobbing, when the camera's lens zoomed quickly in for a close-up of the man's face. The tears and terror on the glistening face, graphically presented, to shock those who watched. Jacob was unmoved. For him it was anti-climactic, this vulgar display of INterface cruelty. They took everything from him. His personality, his vitality... Karen. Everything except his life. He would take that himself. He had lost control of his life — he would control his own death.
"This is the fate of all who betray the Cosmic Whole of INterface, of all who are disloyal to our loving Master Manya," the voice continued while the man inched his way until he made contact with one wall. He ran his hands along its surface, his unseeing eyes still trying to gather in his surroundings.
"Not knowing what is in store for him is part of this traitor's hell. But that is only a small bit of the punishment he is about to... enjoy. You see, his body has been prepared, through bioelectronics computer analysis, for the finale, for the ending to his miserable, disloyal life."
The scene before Jacob became one of a room equipped with various electronic circuitry boards.
"We shall take this former Sector Coordinator's analysis as our case in point."
The video showed the man, at an earlier time, being hooked up to the electrodes and probes that surrounded him, giving the appearance, when the process was finished, that thin, white tentacles grew from many parts of his nude body and attached to the modular machinery that almost encircled him. He showed no fear, but stared straight ahead.
"Our subject has been injected with newly developed serums that interact with his body functions and with this new technology, to which he is attached. The process provides answers to essential questions such as: Which chemical agents, when co-mingled with his body's bio-galvanic constituency, can produce what types of reactions when different stimuli are introduced at a later time? You will soon understand and see the answers in this traitor's case."
With two controllers standing at parade-rest behind the man, who sat strapped to a wooden chair, a young woman in a white lab coat fidgeted with several gadgets on the circuitry boards to which the prisoner was attached by the white wires. His body convulsed each time she threw a switch or manipulated a rheostat.
"This process feeds the computer the necessary information for it to assess the data and read out the answers we seek. The result, this answer, combined with further hypnotically secured data, tells us the subject's inner-most secrets. More precisely, his greatest fears. In the case of this former Sector Coordinator, we learned that his most dramatic fear is the fear of being attacked by wild animals. Rodent-type mammals, to be exact. We considered rats. They registered very high on his fear index. Ah... but bats! Bats were the answer! Therefore, this traitor shall indeed have bats!"
The scene changed back to the man in the red-hued room. He looked to be struggling, his hands still on the wall, trying to pull his palms from it. His struggle increased, became frantic in his effort, while the voice explained.
"The wall is treated with a special adhesive which when first touched, feels dry. Body heat quickly dissolves the chemical, turning it into a powerful glue, which makes the wall like flypaper for human insects. This enemy of INteiface will remain in this position until he is removed after his death."
The narrator, loving his job, sounded delighted while he explained. If only the narrator could be nearby when Jacob pressed the button. If only... But the narrator was merely speech, synthesized! A computer made to enjoy its work. So sophisticated, so efficient had the Masters become with their technologies.
"Now we provide just the faintest illumination, so our friend will be able to see his companions."
The indirect lighting negated the infrared light, the camera now able to capture every movement of the glistening prisoner, who ceased his struggle and turned as far as his predicament allowed to see what was planned for him next.
"Now we tell him exactly what is in store for him. His fear will produce the chemical body agents which will combine with the compound painted on his body to create a fascinating phenomenon. Through the computer bio-psychological analysis process shown earlier, we are able to produce this lacquer-like substance, which in itself is totally harmless. However, when extreme fear is induced, the subject's unique secretions and galvanic responses — all analyzed and recorded before the lacquer was prepared for him — encourage the chemical to strip the top layers of skin from his flesh, exposing more and more nerve endings. The chemical reaction also becomes more pain-stimulating than does salt when poured in an open wound."
The stuck prisoner had resumed his struggle to free himself from the wall while the narrator-voice continued with seeming pleasure. "Let us induce fear into the matter."
The voice changed tone. "Six, six, six, four, one, five, seven, three, three."
The prisoner stopped struggling and glanced quickly around the room, looking to see where the voice came from.
"My, my... you have gotten yourself into a bit of a problem, haven't you?" the narrator-voice said. "We must at least make your stay more interesting. We would not want you to become bored." Jacob could see the man screaming at the speakers located in the corners of the room's ceiling; he could not hear the man's words, but imagined they must be pleas for mercy.
"You are in for a most interesting time, four, one, five, seven, three, three, I assure you. Let me explain. The compound spread over your body... We won't bother you with the technical name, do you mind? Suffice it to say, the compound has the most peculiar effect on bats.
"Bats of every type ~ brown bats, fruit bats, vampire bats — they are drawn to it as sharks are drawn to blood. Even the huge fruit-eating bats dive right in to whatever this compound is spread over. To them, you would appear or smell to be a giant, sweet, delicious fruit to be enjoyed. To the bloodsucking variety, the vampire bat, the scent tells them, of course, that you are a mammal, full of warm, nourishing blood to be sucked and enjoyed until they are sated. We know how much you like bats, four, one, five, seven, three, three."
The man screamed silently on the screen in front of Jacob.
"Now, now... let's not make a spectacle of ourselves," the mocking voice continued. "We have for you... bats... bats of every description! Small, gray bats with razor sharp fangs, with mouths that can suck the juices from a brown rabbit in a matter of minutes. Gigantic fruit bats that have unbelievably ravenous appetites for the flesh of fruits, which, of course, you will to them seem to be."
The man twisted to look toward the speakers, then turned and placed his bare feet on the wall in an attempt to pry his palms free. He was sobbing, begging to be delivered from his fate. He turned his head when he heard the fluttering beat of hundreds of the winged mammals as they were released into the small room, his eyes and mouth gaping wide with terror.
"Of course, what I have just told our subject is somewhat of an exaggeration," the narrator voice said while the man's struggle to free himself became more furious. "What we are doing, as I said before, is inducing fear in our friend."
Jacob analyzed the words and events of the past several seconds. If they were setting John I. Garver up for a similar experience — the use of fear in helping with his own execution — why let him know they lied to the doomed man about the effect the skin-glazing chemical would have on the bats? Were they not concerned that a similar ploy would not work, should they want to use fear as part of his own termination? There were perhaps other, more stimulating forms of execution available to provide even greater entertainment for those who would view John I. Carver's elimination. Could it be that his being forced to watch this torture - being given the reason and time to wonder what was in store for himself -- might be the first stage of the termination experience chosen for John I. Garver?
"Inducing fear is our main objective — not securing this traitor's death by letting these creatures feed on his bodily fluids. His death will come through his own terror, and, of course, through the pain that will occur when the nerves are sufficiently exposed to the chemical... and the bats. The bats would eventually kill him, perhaps, because the compound is extremely attracting to them. They will be drawn to him, and will use his body as a place to seek refuge from their fellow creatures. The chemical will not cause them to begin feeding, but will, as his skin and inner-flesh are more and more exposed, mix with his blood, causing a panic reaction in the beasts. They will tear at each other and at his open flesh in an attempt to defend themselves against the imaginary enemies the chemicals and blood combination tricks their senses into believing are trying to harm them. Probably, however, he will die from shock and exposure, or perhaps, before that, from heart failure brought on by fear and pain."
The room was filled with hundreds of the frenzied, fluttering animals, becoming a horror chamber for the man adhered to the wall. His struggle had stopped, and he cringed in a semi-fetal position against the wall, his head buried between his arms while the grotesque creatures slammed against his skin, which now had begun to dissolve due to the glazing compound's reaction to his body chemistry.
Jacob watched the open-mouthed scream of agony and fear he knew the man was enduring. The bloodied prisoner tried to stand but could not, because now his left side, shoulder and hip were also firmly affixed to the fly-paper wall at points where they touched during his effort to protect himself.
"See the end result of sin against the righteousness of lNterface Universal." The narrator-voice was high-pitched and increased in its frenetic excitement, as did the chaos inside the room when still more bats were released. "Watch while the traitor endures the hell he has earned!"
Jacob felt a sickly perspiration begin, the beads of his own sweat-juices emerge from the pores of his forehead. If not fear, he certainly felt something, and suddenly knew the psychological punishment was working! They were telling him he would die by the most agonizing method they could devise! He ran his hand around the belt again, fingering the metal clasp that hid the button; he still controlled his own destiny. There would be no such show for the monsters to enjoy at his expense.
Blood showered from the man's serrated flesh, splattering against the wall and floor where he lay writhing in a semi-comatose state, the bats clawing and biting him and each other. Jacob looked past the gore, forcing his memory into time, where Karen was still there for him and hope was alive — though life was anything but trouble-free.
Conrad Wilson shouted to be heard above the whining thump of the big helicopter that whisked them along at 300 knots above the cobalt-blue Aegean.
"They never stop! They'll always be Cossacks! jf we let it, this thing will have a disastrous effect on our timetable. And I'm sure that's a big part of this posturing." Wilson flipped through loose papers atop the briefcase on his lap while he talked.
Jacob sat in the seat next to his foster father, taking in the magnificent view afforded through the big window. "They've done this sort of thing before. Maybe not on as large a scale, but it's probably like you said, just designed to throw confusion into the unification process — to get the Western leadership's collective mind off the business at hand."
"It's an expensive bluff for them if that's the case. And if it doesn't accomplish their purpose, the top Russians will pay with their heads."
"Could we stop them, if they were to go down into Palestine?" "Not short of using tactical nuclear weapons. Since Turkey left NATO to become closer to the Russian coalition and with Israel neutered, its army greatly reduced in order to satisfy the treaty with the Arabs, we don't have the capability to put a significant conventional force in the area. Not like during the action taken against Iraq in '91. It would take months to get enough strength there to fortify Israel," Wilson said. "If they go down at all, they'll go full force."
"Nothing on earth, short of nuclear armaments, could deal with them in that event."
"Would Israel be worth World War m to us?" Jacob queried.
"No. But those tremendous new oil finds around the Red Sea, and the fantastic amounts of mineral goodies Israel's been taking out of the Dead Sea through the new mining techniques they've bloodied prisoner tried to stand but could not, because now his left side, shoulder and hip were also firmly affixed to the fly-paper wall at points where they touched during his effort to protect himself.
"See the end result of sin against the righteousness of lNterface Universal." The narrator-voice was high-pitched and increased in its frenetic excitement, as did the chaos inside the room when still more bats were released. "Watch while the traitor endures the hell he has earned!"
Jacob felt a sickly perspiration begin, the beads of his own sweat-juices emerge from the pores of his forehead. If not fear, he certainly felt something, and suddenly knew the psychological punishment was working! They were telling him he would die by the most agonizing method they could devise! He ran his hand around the belt again, fingering the metal clasp that hid the button; he still controlled his own destiny. There would be no such show for the monsters to enjoy at his expense.
Blood showered from the man's serrated flesh, splattering against the wall and floor where he lay writhing in a semi-comatose state, the bats clawing and biting him and each other. Jacob looked past the gore, forcing his memory into time, where Karen was still there for him and hope was alive — though life was anything but trouble-free.
Conrad Wilson shouted to be heard above the whining thump of the big helicopter that whisked them along at 300 knots above the cobalt-blue Aegean.
"They never stop! They'll always be Cossacks! If we let it, this thing will have a disastrous effect on our timetable. And I'm sure that's a big part of this posturing." Wilson flipped through loose papers atop the briefcase on his lap while he talked.
Jacob sat in the seat next to his foster father, taking in the magnificent view afforded through the big window. "They've done this sort of thing before. Maybe not on as large a scale, but it's probably like you said, just designed to throw confusion into the unification process — to get the Western leadership's collective mind off the business at hand."
"It's an expensive bluff for them if that's the case. And if it doesn't accomplish their purpose, the top Russians will pay with their heads."
"Could we stop them, if they were to go down into Palestine?"
"Not short of using tactical nuclear weapons. Since Turkey left NATO to become closer to the Russian coalition and with Israel neutered, its army greatly reduced in order to satisfy the treaty with the Arabs, we don't have the capability to put a significant conventional force in the area. Not like during the action taken against Iraq in '91. It would take months to get enough strength there to fortify Israel," Wilson said. "If they go down at all, they'll go full force."
"Nothing on earth, short of nuclear armaments, could deal with them in that event."
"Would Israel be worth World War m to us?" Jacob queried.
"No. But those tremendous new oil finds around the Red Sea, and the fantastic amounts of mineral goodies Israel's been taking out of the Dead Sea through the new mining techniques they've here he was, headed in the direction opposite from McLean, toward a destination he didn't even know. He was discussing with Conrad Wilson things that were of apocalyptic importance to mankind, but which for him — at least in his private thoughts -took a rear seat to personal concerns. Yet he sensed a connectedness, linking these world-convulsing matters to those which were violently shaking his private life. His uneasiness was magnified by the fact that something within him caused, for some reason beyond anything he could figure, a nagging suspicion of the one person he loved as much as he loved Karen. Anything that was afoot in government could not get past Conrad Wilson.
If the stakes were high enough, if the security of the nation was on the line, Conrad Wilson could know about the killing of Hugo Marchek -- or anyone else — and look the other way. Maybe even have an active part in an assassination which he considered vital to the interest of the United States.
No! Conrad Wilson could not be a party to killing — not to killing someone he loved — not to killing Karen or Jacob Zen. The people in the tow-truck had tried to murder them. Their accomplices murdered Hugo Marchek. But were the killers of Marchek and the would-be killers agents of different political sources?
The one-time whites and blacks of viewpoint had long since turned to indistinguishable grays in national and international interrelationships. What was right depended now on the lesser of evils — on who was making the decisions — on whose interests must be served. Those who were assigned to serve at Stone Oaks could, in an instant, be called on to act as instruments of execution and kill the people they had moments before been protecting. He had urged Karen to stay put in the old mansion. By doing so, had he put her directly in the path of the very source the two of them had escaped from on the highway that night? The ones who had killed Hugo Marchek?
"Mr. Ambassador, we are approaching our destination," the helicopter's pilot said over the intercom. "Our ETA is eighteen twenty-three."