The voice that answered was a man’s, deep and measured. “Welcome. You must be thirsty.”
“I am,” Angelique said.
By instinct, Gates drew his pistol, fumbling with the snap.
“Please drink,” the man said.
DiSalvo shoved passed Gates, his weapon at the ready. They burst into a small clearing where Angelique stood in front of a tall man. He was well tanned, with a short beard tinged with gray. There was a scar above his right eye.
He raised both hands, showing he was unarmed, but indicating something more, a gesture of comfort and peace. And the he spoke to the three:
“I, Judas, bear true witness to many of the events that have been recorded in the New Testament, for I saw and heard much of it with my own eyes and ears.” The man who uttered these words looked up from the barrels of the guns pointed at him. Judas smiled at the two men who held the weapons. A woman stood between them, not pointing a weapon. “Would you like to know more? For I have walked this planet for over two thousand years. Surely that is a story worth putting off killing me for a bit? At least until after we share a meal? Please be seated.”
The Present: The Final Day
From the 5
th
Gospel: Judas:5:1 And the Second Coming will complete this Gospel.
Judas got up and walked around the table. The three also rose as he came toward them. He halted in front of Angelique. He took her face between his hands and peered deep into her eyes. “Your hair, you received from your mother. Always curly and dark and kept short. But your eyes, you have your father’s eyes.”
“Who was my father?” Angelique asked. “My mother?”
“Once more, my dear, you ask the wrong questions, although they are important.”
“What is the right question?” Angelique asked.
“Who you are,” Judas replied.
“And who am I?”
“The Fifth Gospel, of course.”
And then DiSalvo raised his left arm and fired one of the spring loaded darts from under his sleeve at Angelique. Judas was a fraction of a second faster and got between the priest and guide. The dart ripped into Judas’s left side, burying deep into his body, slicing through numerous blood vessels before lodging against his spine.
DiSalvo’s right hand was also busy, pulling a throwing knife out from his belt. As if he were double-tapping with a gun, he threw the knife at Angelique as Judas collapsed to his knees.
The knife hit true, striking her in the chest, slicing between ribs and embedding in her heart. Gates grabbed Angelique as she staggered back. He held her upright as she gasped in utter pain, dying as her beating heart was shredded.
The four were like a frozen tableau. DiSalvo was watching Angelique’s eyes, seeing the life fade from them. Judas was on his knees, slumped back against the edge of the bench, holding his side, blood seeping through his fingers. The dart was part of him, ripping apart his flesh with each breath.
“No,” Gates whispered. “No.” He repeated the same word over and over as a mantra.
“Forgive yourself,” Angelique said to him in a voice only he could hear.
And Gates understood. He felt it in his arms, through her. As if the tree were drawing up sustenance from the Earth, he felt himself fill with something so substantial, that he knew he could do whatever came next no matter how large the holes inside were as a result of his past.
And then he felt her move forward, gathering her feet underneath and standing upright. She reached up, wrapped her hands around the handle of the throwing knife. She pulled it out with one smooth movement and let it fall to the ground.
Angelique turned to Judas. “I can help.”
Judas shook his head. “No.” He struggled for a breath. “This is the release. I was cursed until the Second Coming. My curse is over. Let me rest.”
“What do I do now?” Angelique asked.
“You don’t do anything,” Judas said. He took a shallow breath. “They do.” He nodded toward Gates and DiSalvo. “With their free will.”
She held out her bloody hands toward DiSalvo. “I forgive you.”
DiSalvo stared at her, disbelief morphing into a belief beyond anything he had ever thought possible. He dropped to his knees, his hands clenched in prayer. “Please, Lord!”
Angelique pointed toward the Intruder touching the horizon to the north. “How do we stop it?” she asked Judas.
“You don’t. They change it.” Judas grimaced. “Or they don’t. I lied earlier about one thing.” He struggled to catch his breath. “It wasn’t Mount Toba that reduced mankind to the ten thousand. It was—” he nodded his head up—“and our Father gave man one more chance in the Garden of Eden to start over. And then he sent his son to teach man how to do it. And they corrupted his teachings into words more than actions.” Judas swallowed. “I can’t feel my legs. My chest, now that’s killing me.” He smiled at his own gallows humor. “I suppose that’s a small blessing. To go quickly, unlike my Brother, your Father.” He reached up and gripped Angelique’s hand. “There won’t be another chance.”
Angelique knelt next to him. She placed a hand on his forehead. “I can at least take away the pain.”
Judas shook his head. “I need to feel the pain, just as your Father did on the cross.”
“And my mother?” Angelique asked.
“Mary,” Judas said. “You will see her again. As you will see your Father again. And Our Father.”
And then Judas died.
Terminal Impact in Ten Minutes
The Mato Grasso, The Amazon
Angelique reached out and gently closed Judas’s eyelids. She lowered her head for a moment, whispering something.
Then she stood.
DiSalvo was still kneeling, praying. Gates, the man of action, was motionless, as still as the trees around them, waiting and watching her.
“My brothers,” Angelique said. “Will you help me?” She reached down and touched DiSalvo’s shoulder “Stand.”
The priest slowly got to his feet, eyes downcast.
“Father,” Angelique said, “will you lay aside your fear and your misguided faith and trust me?”
DiSalvo swallowed hard. “You should be dead. You live through death. Judas, the Great Betrayer cursed to live until the Second Coming is dead. You are the Second Coming as was foretold, but not told correctly. Tell me what to do.”
“You must use your science,” Angelique said. “Set up your transmitter.” She turned to Gates. “And will you trust me?”
Gates nodded.
“Good. You must use your faith to convince your secret master—yes, I know you, too, were a spy for the Illuminati—to do something that goes against what they are planning.”
Gates looked up at the Intruder. Then he pulled the satellite phone from his combat vest.
Space
Forster knew the trip to the eighth Seed was one-way. He would not make it back to the ship with the fuel the MMU had left. He tethered himself to the satellite, removed the panel, letting it float off into space. He modified the GPS satellite into Seed 8.
He reached down and texted confirmation that all the Seeds of the Word were on line to Atlanta on his wrist control.
Then he turned to watch Wormwood and the Earth close in on each other with a sense of unutterable sadness.
New York
Pierce was also watching Wormwood, or ‘the Intruder,’ as his ilk preferred to call it. Brunswick was on the phone, on a conference call with the leaders of the United States, Russia, England and China. The Final Option had to be coordinated, and the Illuminati were the only organization with the multinational capability.
Brunswick was waiting on each country to confirm that its nuclear forces were ready to launch. So far the US, England and China had checked in positively. As always, Russia was a little late.
Pierce turned from the Intruder to a private link on his computer. Thornton was sending a feed from the Airbus 380. The massive plane was gaining altitude, its Rolls Royce engines straining at maximum thrust. The pilots and crew had set the autopilot, and now everyone was gathered inside the TH-Four orbiter in the massive interior.
At the correct moment, the large doors built into the frame of the aircraft began to open. It had worked theoretically on the computer every time.
Pierce felt some sympathy as the doors ripped off, the massive aircraft’s aerodynamics disappearing with them. Before the TH-Four separation rockets could blast it clear, the plane rolled, pinning the smaller spacecraft inside and plummeting earthward.
Gravity always won.
Pierce looked over at Brunswick, still on the phone, waiting for Russia.
“Thornton tried to have it all,” Pierce said. “Beat Wormwood and beat the Intruder, whichever it is.”
Brunswick slid his hand over the phone. “We’ll stop it.”
To Pierce it sounded like his old colleague was trying to convince himself.
Atlanta
The Head sat alone in the conference room. The others had scattered to their flocks to lead them through the coming trials and into salvation. The screens around the room showed the panic, the fear, the turmoil gripping the planet. On one screen, the Very Large Array loomed poised, ready to send the Word of God to the Seeds and then back down to every living soul. Soon they would all be free of the fear.
It would be replaced by belief.
The Mato Grasso, The Amazon
DiSalvo used the key around his neck to open the metal case. As he hustled to set up the two tablets at the correct distance—the tablets that were to have been used to blast Judas’s brain with the Great Commission and win the anti-Christ over to God’s side—Gates was checking his satellite connection.
Angelique stood calmly amid all the activity.
Gates was ready first, achieving a secure link to Pierce in New York.
“What should I tell him that will get him to believe me?” Gates asked Angelique.
“That he must have faith,” she replied.
New York
Pierce’s phone chimed with the tone set for only one person. He punched the on-button.
“What do you have, Gates?”
“Stop the Final Option.”
Pierce gripped the phone tighter. “Why? What have you found? Is Judas there?”
“There’s no time. Trust me, Pierce. Stop it.”
“I need more than that.”
Mato Grasso, The Amazon
“I need your help,” DiSalvo yelled to Gates. “The other tablet. Hook up your phone to it. We have to call the Array.”
Gates had no idea what the priest was talking about. He was trying to think of what he could say to Pierce to get him to stop the Final Option. He looked at Angelique, still standing serenely amidst their frenzied activity. She was looking to the horizon, staring at the Intruder.
““It
is
the Second Coming,” Gates said to Pierce. “But not what they believe. It’s different. Trust me. Trust yourself.” He clicked off the satphone and hooked the phone into the tablet. “Number?”
DiSalvo rattled off a satellite number and Gates punched it in.
The Very Large Array
“The last Seed is sown,” Abaku said. He clicked on the com link to Atlanta. “We are ready, Brother.”
“Sow the Seeds,” the Head ordered.
Abaku turned to Sergut and nodded as he pressed a button on the side of his tablet. Both screens came alive.
“Place your hand on the screen,” Abaku ordered.
“One Minute,”
Abaku’s tablet intoned.
Sergut’s satphone rang. He answered with his free hand. “Yes?”
“Brother, this is Father DiSalvo. You must stop the Great Commission.”
The Mato Grasso, The Amazon
DiSalvo signaled for Gates to put his hand on the tablet.
“What are we transmitting?” Gates asked. “What’s the message?”
DiSalvo held up a hand, as he focused on the satphone.
“Why?” Sergut demanded over the phone.
“The Second Coming is here and—“ DiSalvo paused—“and she requests our help.”
The Very Large Array
“Thirty seconds,”
the tablets announced.
“Enter code.”
Abaku immediately began typing, but Sergut hesitated. “
She
?” The Russian laughed. “I always knew God had a sense of humor. But still, why?”