The Firstborn (31 page)
Devin shook his head. “He knows something more. There’s another attack coming.”
“You’re bluffing—trying to buy more time for your muscle to show up.”
“I’m trying to buy time so that we can learn where this attack is going to take place—before it’s too late.”
“Midnight tonight or nothing.”
“Their target is an elementary school,” Devin said flatly. He waited a moment for it to sink in. “If I have to choose between Morris and an elementary school full of kids, I know which one I’ll choose.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Give us until tomorrow night—or no deal.”
“Fine,” Blake spat across the line. “Where?”
“I’ll send you the address before the swap.”
“No. You’ll give me five locations, and I’ll choose one. That way you won’t have a chance to set up an ambush.”
“Likewise.”
“Bring the terrorist.”
“No. The parcel will be at a separate location of our choosing. The parcel does not go to the exchange point until we have Morris.”
“How do we know that you’ll follow through and give us our terrorist?”
“Simple. You send a representative to our side and we’ll take him to the parcel—he’ll phone in a confirmation letting you know that our word is good—but he does not come to the exchange until we have Morris.”
“No,” Blake said again, continuing to bargain. “We’ll do the same with Morris. You send one of your people to confirm that he’s OK. Once both parties have made confirmation, we’ll bring them to the exchange spot and make the trade—straight across—one for the other. Got it?”
“OK,” Devin said firmly, “tomorrow night, ten o’clock. Call me at nine thirty for a list of locations. You’ll have ten minutes to choose and call us back. We’re in Pennsylvania—Cameron County—I’ll tell you that. So be prepared for an exchange there.”
“Tomorrow night,” Blake agreed. “
Thresher
.”
Devin smiled and turned off the phone.
J
OHN SAT IN THE
living room, staring at his hands. He was nervous, which was not something he felt very often. Usually he just felt everything in passing as he moved through the world. But it was all becoming so real so fast, a nearing future that he simply had no clue what to do with.
Saul entered from the next room, taking a seat. “Nervous?”
“A little,” John nodded.
“Don’t worry. You guys won’t be doing this alone. The people I contacted are on their way.”
“Who exactly is coming to join us?” he asked. “Are they all Fallen?”
Saul shook his head. “No. There’s one active member of the Domani—a woman.”
John’s heart skittered, and his flesh went cold. “Trista Brightling?” Saul nodded his head. “You know her?”
John looked away. “Yeah. I used to.”
Saul laughed. “Is she the one who got you into so much trouble a few years back?”
John nodded. “I met her during a short-term missions trip—eight weeks in Barcelona, Spain. There was an instant connection. We talked a lot—nothing serious, at least not at first.”
“Then it got serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you know she was Domani?”
He shook his head. “Not at first, but then as time went on I could feel more and more of her—her secrets. I realized that she was Firstborn.”
“But you didn’t tell her?”
“No. It was stupid, but I loved her. I was going to quit missions work. I even set up a real job working for Goldstein so that I could buy a ring.”
“But?” Saul led.
“The last night we were supposed to be there she called her uncle Morris and told him about me. He knew who I was. He told her that I was Ora—our relationship wasn’t allowed.”
“Don’t tell me,” Saul said, “you wanted to continue in secret, but she wouldn’t have it?”
“I didn’t even bother asking,” John said. “I left Barcelona that night. Just got on a plane and flew to Thailand. It was more than a year before I came back to the States.”
“And you never resolved things with her? Never called, wrote, talked?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Just like the Ora,” Saul mused. “No regard for the future and the possible consequences—just the joy of the moment, right?”
“Yeah,” John said with another melancholy nod, “but it’s all in the past now—and I intend to leave it there.”
Hannah was in the kitchen cleaning up. The exterior of the house had a very definite Depression-era look, but the kitchen must have been refurbished in the sixties, given its tacky avocado-green color scheme.
Devin entered. “Well?” she asked.
“The exchange is going to be at ten o’clock tomorrow night.”
“Good,” Saul said as he and John entered from the next room. “What about location?”
“We give him a list of five. He chooses one.”
“Simple enough,” Saul agreed. “Pick one location you want and another four you know he’ll turn down.”
“Maybe,” Devin said. “And one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He called me Thresher.”
Saul and John stifled disgusted laughs. Hannah turned from her dishes, leaning against the sink, looking them over.
“I don’t understand. Who’s Thresher?”
Saul shook his head and looked at her. “Remember D’Angelo?”
“Yes.”
“Before he died, he started to prophesy.”
“Like the Domani?” she asked.
“No—like the prophets of the Old Testament. He was betrayed, and he escaped the trap but was wounded in the process. His companions—a hodge-podge of the few Firstborn from each of the orders that he still felt he could trust—found him. They did what they could for him—but it was too late. It took him a month to die.”
“Why then? Why did all his prophecies happen then?”
“Because,” John interjected, “he was trapped between this world and the next. He began hemorrhaging visions and prophecies about the future.”
“He was delusional,” Saul grumbled, “wounded and bleeding—hallucinating. The only reason any of his statements were taken seriously was because of the gifts he had in life.”
“Did anyone write down these prophecies?”
“Yes. All of them.”
“What happened to them?”
“The Firstborn fought over them—so that they would have D’Angelo’s visions for themselves.”
“Where are they now?”
Saul shrugged. “All over the world—some lost to antiquity, some buried or hidden. Others were destroyed, and some are hidden in plain sight.”
“Regardless,” Devin said, “he prophesied repeatedly about one thing—that someone or something called Thresher would bring an end to the Firstborn.”
Hannah considered. “And each side is afraid that the other is Thresher?”
“Exactly,” Devin said with a nod.
“And so,” Saul said with a sigh, “one man’s delusion resulted in six hundred years of fear, distrust, and death.”
Hannah sat in confusion. “This all happened?”
“Yes,” Devin said, “and it’s happening again.”
Devin looked at his watch—10:00 p.m. “We have exactly twenty-four hours to extract everything Tariq knows about this coming attack—or we lose him.”
John shook his head. “I don’t like it, but we have to accept the possibility that maybe Morris’s life isn’t worth this.”
“Regardless, we’re going to have to try.”
Saul nodded. “Agreed.”
“Then how do we get information?”
Devin considered how he wanted to respond.
“You don’t suggest torture? Do you?”
“If it comes to that.”
John stood. “Wait a minute! You don’t actually think you’re going to torture another human being, do you?”
Saul worked his hands together. “Tariq is a terrorist—a human being, but a terrorist. He has information about a coming terrorist attack against children, and he’s not willing to comply. He has forfeited his right to comfort. Do you understand?”
John held, fists balled, eyes darting from one to another. “I can’t believe this,” he blustered, then stomped from the room.
“Torture is still a last resort,” Devin said with a nod.
“Agreed,” Saul replied.
“In the meantime we treat this like a hostage situation—he’s a hostage-taker holding valuable goods. We shut off his power and heat until he gives us hostages.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Take away his clothes and his heat. Don’t feed him. Shut off the lights for a while—then drill him with a strobe light. As he starts to give up information, we give him his amenities back.”
“You realize this is highly illegal, right?”
Devin nodded. “I don’t think we have a choice. He’s the only asset we’ve got.”
John sat outside of the makeshift prison cell and looked in. “I need to know what you know. When is this attack going to be? And where?”
Tariq said nothing. He simply lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling.
“Listen, if you don’t help me, I think they’re going to hurt you.”
Tariq heaved a weary sigh as if he’d just been asked a very stupid question. “I’m not afraid of pain or death.”
John looked into the young man’s unwavering eyes. “Children are going to die,” he said angrily. “If you let it happen, then it’s the same as if you did it.”
The young Palestinian balked. “For every one Israeli that dies, three Palestinians are murdered—even children. Especially children.”
John nodded. “I’ve heard about the violence.”
“But do you know it?” Tariq asked pointedly. “Have you ever tasted death?”
“I’ve felt people die, yes.”
The young man seemed to ignore the statement, looking up at the ceiling. “When I was in Palestine, there was a boy in my neighborhood—Omar. We were best friends—I loved him like a brother. We played together every day. We went to school together. We were both just children when the Israeli bulldozers came through our neighborhood, destroying all the houses that the Jews thought might be a threat. Omar’s house was bulldozed—wiped from the earth. So he came to live with my family.”
“It sounds like you were close.”
“I loved him like I loved my own soul—my friend. Then one day we were playing in the street. We’d made guns out of wood—but the Jews didn’t stop to make sure—they simply shot him.”
John could feel Tariq’s heart sag, the sense of loss still weighing down on him after all these years. “I’m sorry about your friend. The Israelis were nervous and—”
“They were murderers. They said, ‘Look, a Muslim child with a gun! Good, we have a reason to kill him!’”
“I’m certain that wasn’t their thought.”
Tariq shook his head. “He was shot in the side—a flesh wound. My father was the surgeon who worked on him. He said that Omar would be just fine.”
“He made it?”
“He bled to death six hours later.”
John looked at the cement. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
“By the time I left Palestine, my father, two brothers, two uncles, and countless friends had all been murdered by the Jews.”
“You can’t blame the Jews, and you certainly can’t blame America.”
Tariq sat up on the concrete, setting his arms across his knees. “This isn’t about Jews and Christians; this is about Zionism—colonialism, people forcing their way of life on us. In 1948, when Israel began, the Palestinians were swept aside, like dust. They’re like the Nazis. They’d have all the Muslims in camps if they could get away with it. All because of this doctrine of Zionism—and we resist it. And it’s not just the Jews. America supports this Zionist doctrine as well—so they must be fought also.”