Brink of Chaos (23 page)

Abigail and Cal were in the Citation X, winging their way through the darkness back to Washington, D.C. Abigail was relieved she might be able to get to her court appearance on time after all. She glanced over at Cal, who was fast asleep and snoring loudly. But she couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept clicking despite the fatigue that threatened to overwhelm her.

The reading light above her head was on. She was cramming for the oral arguments that would commence in just a matter of hours. She knew the laws related to the issues in the case, of course, and she had the facts down cold. But she didn’t know what was on the mind of the three appellate judges who would be hearing the case. She wouldn’t know that until she was standing at the podium in the federal courtroom. The green light would flash on, signifying her turn to start her argument, and then — if everything had gone perfectly up to that point — she would argue the wrongness of the case against Joshua and field a raft of questions from the judges.

Before getting to that point, however, she had to get inside the courthouse, which meant getting past the security guards with their BIDTag scanner just inside the entrance. She lifted the back of her right hand to the light. The laser tattoo was invisible — just like the real BIDTags.

When Chiro Hashimoto had escorted her and Cal out of his lodge and down a path through the woods to a lonely cement building that had a huge satellite dish mounted behind, he assured them his system
would work. “My BIDTag facsimiles are the closest counterfeit you will ever see,” he bragged, “perfect in every detail. I was able to duplicate the government’s laser imprint system. You know why?”

Before Abigail or Cal could respond, Hashimoto answered, “Because I’m the one who designed it for IntraTonics, who then sold it to the government!” And with that he laughed raucously. “I consulted with bioengineers and medical experts about using nonlethal lasers to imprint permanent, invisible code matrices on human skin. Not easy. But I did it. You have to admit — the idea was pretty cool, right?”

“Now the question is,” Cal replied, “will your counterfeit BIDTag, created out here in the forest, simulate the government’s system? Is it close enough that the tag screeners at the courthouse will give her a pass?”

“I’ve built my own scanners,” Hashimoto said as he unlocked the door to the cement building, “very close to the ones the government uses. So I can test the result. Passes every time.”

Once inside, he flicked on the florescent overhead lights. What Abigail and Cal saw was a fully functioning tech lab, complete with rows of computers linked together, laser guns inside glass tubes, and a table with microscopes. But there was more. Cal drifted over to the other side of the room where a row of chairs were lined up behind a long metal table. On the table there were rows of zephyrs, receivers, shortwave transmitters, voice analyzing screens, cryptographic cipher machines, and monitors — all cabled together in a massive tangle of electrical cords.

“This is your own listening station, isn’t it?” Cal said, pointing to the strange collection of electronics.

“We’re not finished yet,” Hashimoto said, “but when we are, I’m going to watch the government’s surveillance just as closely as they watch the citizens of America.”

“Why?” Abigail asked.

“Well, why are you here, right now with me, in the Olympic National Forest?” he shot back. “Because we don’t trust how our government has morphed — turning into a predator, devouring information about everyone in the nation. I don’t trust how it’s going to use that
data. We are entering a new ice age, where freedom will be extinct. The big freeze. And so, this,” Hashimoto said, gesturing to his makeshift surveillance laboratory, “is my Ice Station Zebra.”

Cal chuckled at the movie reference. Chiro took Abigail over to one of the laser tubes. “The key,” he continued, “was to take the basic laser-imprint system I devised and refine it. Changed it so in my version the imprint is only temporary and would fade from the surface of the skin. That was really hard to do, but I did it. That way if we have to venture out into society we can laser-tag ourselves with a little invisible QRC box on the skin that contains harmless basic bits of information that will satisfy the government scanners but won’t give away anything. Then, after a few days — poof — the laser tag starts to dissolve.”

Hashimoto dumped himself onto a lab stool in front of a computer. He started typing in a flurry. “I’m creating your QRC pattern that will contain only a little bit of data about you, which I will put into the system.” When he had finished, Abigail placed her hand into a brace that lined up the back of her hand against the glass-enclosed end of the laser tube. “Okay. Now your own personal QRC matrix has been loaded into the laser for transmittal in the form of a little invisible pattern that will be lasered onto your skin. Don’t move,” he said. He typed in a code that was connected to the laser and flipped a switch. “In twenty seconds you’ll feel it,” he said. “Unlike the government’s version, you will feel mine, and it’ll hurt a little.”

The laser whirred — first softly; then, with a minor roar, a stream of light as gossamer thin as a spider web shot through the tube onto Abigail’s hand. She winced. Then it was over.

As the three of them walked back to the lodge in the dusk, Cal thought of something the tech genius had said. “You described your scanners as ‘very close’ to the kind used by the government. Which is fine as far as it goes. But have you ever sent your temporary laser tags — like the one you just gave my mom — through the government scanners to see if they will pass security?”

“Ha, ha,” Hashimoto replied.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Cal pressed.

Hashimoto’s reply left a cloud of uncertainty hanging in the air.
“Do you think I would leave my compound to test it out on the federal government?”

Now, airborne in the Citation X, Abigail stared at the back of her hand, wondering what was there. Would it be her passport into the court building in Washington? The rest would have to remain as it always had remained, in the sovereignty of God. She tried to review her notes for the case, but her eyes were too heavy. Before long she was fast asleep.

Pastor Peter Campbell staked out a spot on the Western Wall plaza to preach. He knew it would be controversial, but he fixed his eyes on the earthmoving equipment, tractors, and cranes on the Temple Mount just above the plaza. It seemed clear that the climax of history was rushing up. How could he wait? This was a time for boldness. He had left his Eternity Church in Manhattan in the hands of his assistant pastor so he could come to Jerusalem for exactly this moment. He thought about runners who had trained and prepared all of their life for the Olympics and had one chance to compete. Would any one of them balk when it was time to stride up to the starting blocks?

Forty members of his small Jerusalem congregation gathered around Campbell as he started to preach. Onlookers started drifting over to hear him. Soon the group swelled to over a hundred. Campbell had a small portable amplifier and a wireless mic headset. As he spoke, his voice was calm, unrushed.

“Two millennia ago, a fisherman-turned-disciple by the name of Peter walked into the center of this city. Filled with the Spirit of God, he told the crowd what he himself had seen and heard about the person of Jesus Christ. Peter was an eyewitness. And he gave testimony that Jesus, his beloved friend, rabbi, Savior, and King — the very Son of God — died on a bloody Roman cross not far from here. But he died for an incredible purpose — to take away the sins of everyone standing
here today — me and you — everyone who ever trod these stones and everyone who ever lived. He paid the price that only the sinless Holy One of God could pay — the man who was truly God in the flesh and who had dwelled among us. He took on Himself the punishment destined for us and willingly accepted the sentence of torture and death. Right here in this city.

“But it didn’t end there. Jesus walked out of the tomb three days later, just as He said He would. And Peter was an eyewitness to that too. Possessing such earthshaking news, Peter could not be silent about it. And neither can I. Many years ago my life was transformed by the power of Jesus Christ who walked out of that grave — it started on the day I confessed that I was a sinner and that Jesus, the Son of God, was my Savior and Lord, and that I wanted Him to live and dwell in my heart — that is when everything changed. And it can change for you. Thousands responded to Peter’s message that day in this city two thousand years ago. But God is not interested in thousands or millions or billions. Numbers don’t impress Him. He is the one who cast a trillion stars across the universe. God will soon enter this planet and bring an end to human history. His Son, Jesus the Christ, will establish His Kingdom. But there is one particular number that does concern the heart of God.” Peter Campbell pointed his index finger up to heaven. “That number is the number one. Which means you,” and he pointed to a young man wearing a UT Longhorns football sweatshirt in the crowd. “And you.” He pointed to a mother with her hands on a baby carriage. “And you, my friend.” He gestured to a bearded Hasidim in the very back of the crowd, who was wearing a black hat and long coat.

“Today, you are building a great temple,” Campbell said, pointing to the construction on the Temple Mount. The sounds of tractor treads and diesel engines could be heard. “But know this — that God is building His temple. And it is not a thing made by human hands. It is an assembly of people who have chosen to believe in, receive, and follow Jesus. They are His temple, the work of the hands of God. And today God welcomes you to become part of His great spiritual assembly. He holds the door open. And when God opens a door no man can
close it. You can walk through that door right now. Jesus is that door. And He wants to welcome you, like a prodigal son or daughter, and to lift the burdens from your soul. But also know this — a day will come when that door will close. And when God closes the door, no man can open it.”

The commanding Shin Bet agent, who was surveying the scene from his position on the edge of the large open plaza, radioed the Jerusalem police and gave his order in Hebrew. “We need armed officers to disperse an illegal assembly at the Western Wall plaza, over.”

“This is police dispatch. What is your situation?”

“A Christian religious leader is preaching in violation of the prime minister’s emergency order regarding religious incitement of civil unrest.”

“Confirmed. Officers are being dispatched, over.”

Beyond the outer ring of listeners, GNN reporter Bart Kingston was ready to do a stand-up with his single cameraman. When he had heard from his sources in the city that Pastor Campbell planned to defy the prime minister’s emergency orders to prohibit “public displays of extremist religious language,” he rushed to the scene.

His timing was perfect. At the other end of the plaza, a dozen Jerusalem police were entering the wide space, heading directly toward the crowd. A loudspeaker boomed over the area, commanding the crowd to disperse. People moved in all directions. Soon, the only people left were Campbell, a handful of his devotees, and the police.

Kingston motioned for his camera guy to follow him closer to the Western Wall area. Then the unexpected happened — four Jewish men, who appeared to be lawyers or some kind of businessmen, appeared and rushed headlong toward the police.

They held papers in their hands, shouting, “We have a temporary restraining order from the Israeli Supreme Court to protect the rights of these Christian worshipers …”

Kingston, standing a good distance away, watched as the guards disregarded the paperwork. One of the officers lobbed a canister of tear gas into the air, which fell a few feet away from Campbell, spilling white smoke into the area. A young woman collapsed, coughing and gagging. Campbell stumbled over to her and picked her up in his arms and tried to walk her away from the area. But his eyes were streaming with tears, and his throat was closing as if a boa constrictor was squeezing his windpipe.

From his safe position, Kingston was about to ask his cameraman if he had caught all of this, but the guy was a pro, and Kingston knew it. At some point — perhaps only an instant later — it ceased to be a news story for Bart Kingston.

He surveyed the scene. Pastor Peter Campbell was overcome by gas and down on his knees with a young woman cradled in his arms. Kingston looked up at the Temple Mount, where the construction workers were peering down at the melee on the plaza below.

Apocalypse
was one of the words that flooded Kingston’s mind.

And he thought of another word, one that Campbell had shared in their television interview a week before. It was a word that he couldn’t admit to anyone else. He barely was able to admit it to himself, but he was seriously entertaining it and what it meant. The thought of the ultimate divorce — of some taken and some left. A God who rescues those who have accepted his lifeline and leaving behind those who have refused. As the police with their gas masks waded into the smoke to arrest Campbell’s small but disabled group, Kingston could not shake the almost palpable force of that word.

Rapture
.

It was after hours and Supreme Court Justice Carter Lapham was in the back of the limo that was pulling out of the underground parking deck of the Supreme Court building. For some reason his driver turned onto the avenue that ran past the front of the tall marble courthouse with the words “Equal Justice Under Law” chiseled in stone over the columns. After stopping at the corner, the driver turned right onto Second Street and slowly eased into traffic as it passed the Supreme Court building. It looked like a traffic tie-up ahead and some flashing lights from two squad cars.

Lapham peered at the tangle of traffic. “Hey, Brock,” he said with a wry smile, “would you like me to drive tonight? I could teach you some techniques on avoiding traffic jams.”

Brock, his longtime driver, smiled into the rear view mirror but didn’t respond, as if he had chosen this route on purpose.

The justice glanced from the window as the limo snaked past the steps leading up to the Supreme Court. He could see several capitol police officers handcuffing a man and a woman who were holding signs. One read: “Christ = Truth / Allah, Buddha, Sidharta = Liars.” Another read: “Jesus Is Coming to Judge the Judges.”

Justice Lapham had dissented bitterly in Marquis v. United States of America, but he could only woo three other votes to his side in that case. His dissent went beyond the bounds of anything he had ever written before in a decision — calling it a “constitutional atrocity” for
the majority to have upheld the hate speech provisions of the international treaty pushed by President Tulrude and ratified by the senate. He was now witnessing the toxic aftermath of that treaty with his own eyes. But there was something worse, and it made him cringe. Lapham considered the court’s decision in Marquis to have been a betrayal of the oath taken by the five other justices who formed the majority in that court opinion. After all, there was that matter of an oath taken by the justices — all of them — to uphold the Constitution. When exactly, he wondered, does bad judicial reasoning drift into treason, like a wayward youth who finally takes up the enticing invitation to join the local gang?

For a fleeting moment he entertained, once again, the idea of retirement. To go fishing in the Gulf on his forty-footer; going after that worthy fighter, the yellow-finned tuna, or the elegantly powerful sailfish that he would catch and release; traveling the world slow and easy, with his wife at his side … Perhaps he would accept the permanent invitation to become an elder in his hometown Bible church in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Now it almost seemed as if he had the taste of vinegar in his mouth as the limo cruised away from the scene. It was the bitterness of gall, that his own country seemed to be slipping into legal oblivion. But then, this was not just a legal issue, and Lapham knew it. By and large, most judges he knew expressed little compulsion to honor the great Lawgiver. The words of one of his favorite poets, William Butler Yeats, haunted his mind more than ever lately. Its harrowing vision of the disintegration of civilization seemed to be ever before him — just as in Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming,” which he knew by heart: