2013: Beyond Armageddon (41 page)

Zeke curled his hand around the small hard plastic football, getting his fingers into the proper position on the laces.

“Not those real small ones that you can’t control,” Dayagi said, “but not so big that they take up too much space.”

The football fitted comfortably into the palm of Zeke’s hand. About an inch jutted out at each end. “They’re perfect, Joe. Good weight, too. I can get a nice tight spiral with these.”

“I’m counting on that. Centrifugal force from the spinning of the football will make the pins holding the fuze assembly fly outward, so the assembly can slide into position. On impact the firing pin slams into the percussion cap on the detonator and ka-boom.”

“And the holy water is in the middle of all that?”

“Yes. In specially designed breakaway bottles made from a plastic resin. It’s much stronger than the ‘sugar glass’ they use in movies, but still disintegrates easily. Especially with all that explosive. Each bottle holds four ounces, and there are thirty grenades, so that gives you about a gallon of holy water.”

Dayagi unzipped another large compartment on the outside of the bag. “There’s one more thing.” He pulled a pistol out of the pouch. “This is a Para Micro Uzi. It was made especially for Israeli counterrorism forces. Fully automatic. One pull of the trigger will empty the magazine in a couple seconds.”

He pointed to the oversized magazine that extended below the pistol grip. “I’ve used the magazine from the Glock 18 to give you more rounds.” He pulled five more magazines from the pouch and laid them side by side on the table. “Almost two hundred rounds total. Silver bullets from the crucifixes.”

“Great job, Joe. Outstanding. No wonder I haven’t seen you all week.”

Dayagi flashed one of his rare smiles. “I’ve been busy.” He pulled out two more magazines. “These have regular bullets. I thought you might want to use them for target practice, get a feel for the weapon in case you have to use it.”

“Good idea.”

“By the way, total weight on all this is about thirty pounds.”

Zeke did the math. Along with everything else he’d be taking, even packing ultralight and with helium in the aluminum framing of his pack, the effective weight would still be somewhere around fifty pounds. He was maxed out.

“That’s good to know. Listen, I’ve got to start getting ready for tomorrow. I’ll see you before I leave. Thanks again for all your hard work.”

“Can’t send a soldier into battle without the right weapons.”

Zeke walked away thinking that, besides target practice with the gun, he’d like to practice throwing the crucifixes and the footballs, but that was impossible. Hitting targets with the crucifixes would dull their points, and the footballs could only be thrown once. He told himself no amount of practice would be enough, anyway.

Everything that could be done had been done. All that was left was to get himself mentally ready to face the Archenemy of the entire human race.

Alone.

After an early dinner that evening, Zeke and the two people he loved most in the world went upstairs to his room to talk privately. He never said the words, but they all knew he was saying goodbye. All three were trying mightily not to think that it might be for the last time.

Zeke and Leah sat on the bed, using the headboard as a backrest. Reese pulled one of the vinyl armchairs close. Alongside the bed was the duffel bag with the holy arsenal. Zeke had just shown the contents to Reese and left it open. As Reese settled into the chair, a hint of regret tightened his expression.

“What’s the matter?” Zeke asked.

“I struck out on getting you that AA-12 shotgun I was bragging about. I met your weapons guy, Joe. He said he has some pretty good connections in the military, he’d see what he could do, but still. Even if he could get one, I don’t see how by tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Sure. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Zeke smiled. “Listen, I just wanted the three of us to have a little time together before we call it a night. Tomorrow morning will be here real soon, and I’m going to be a little…preoccupied.”

His attempt at gallows humor was smothered by the dark cloud of foreboding spreading through the room. Reese rushed to fill the silence.

“Z-man, I know we’ve been through all this, but you do understand why I keep bringing it back up.”

“I do. And I love you for it. But no.”

“I know. Nobody’s coming down that tunnel with you. I understand. But we could give you some kind of backup. Something, I don’t know. Hassan wants to, and Leah of course. And that Joe Dayagi is a particularly macho dude.”

“No,” Zeke said, more forcefully than he’d intended. Softening, he went on. “I appreciate it, Reese, from the bottom of my heart, but no. Nobody else is going down there except me. Even if the backup camped out at the top of the tunnel—and that’d be the absolute farthest I’d let anybody come—you’d be too far away to do me any good. There’s just no possible way.”

“We
could
camp out there,” Leah said. “After you head down the tunnel, you could give us progress reports on the two-way radio to let us know it’s safe, and we could shuttle some supplies in behind you. Set up little relay stations every few hundred yards or so, for when you come back.”

Zeke shook his head wearily but good-naturedly. “You people are stubborn, I’ll give you that. Look, the radio probably won’t work that far underground. But even if it did, the farthest you could set up supplies would be, what? A mile? A half mile? What if the tunnel goes ten miles? Or more? It makes no sense from any angle.”

He caught Reese and Leah exchanging a look that said they’d figure out something.

“Listen,” Zeke said. “Here’s my final word on the subject. I’m leaving here alone tomorrow morning. I will keep you all posted as long as my voice communication holds out. Whatever happens, once I head down that tunnel, what I don’t know won’t hurt me. All I can do is say it one last time:
please don’t come down that tunnel after me
.”

Reese held out his hand. Zeke and Leah took their cue, each putting a hand on top of his.

“You’re in, you’re out, and nobody gets hurt,” Reese said.

They broke the huddle with a subdued cheer. The silence that settled in its wake churned with emotion. They were all craving eye contact and avoiding it.

Zeke nodded at the sacred arsenal waiting beside the bed and tried to lighten the mood. “Let’s face it. If all of that doesn’t do it, then the only backup that could save me is God Himself.”

The Reckoning

If therefore thou shalt not watch,

I will come on thee as a thief,

and thou shalt not know

what hour I will come upon thee.

Revelation 3:3

Underneath the Dead Sea. December 18

Zeke stood at the threshold of the final downward section of tunnel.

Alone. Except for those two obscene gargoyles lurking in the tunnel walls. And whatever lay beyond them.

He was anxious to get under way, but first he needed to get out of his wetsuit and rinse the oily Dead Sea chemical crust off his body. Then he’d rest. The long dive and walk from the boat to here had depleted his energy, and he wanted to be fresh before starting a trek of unknown distance and difficulty.

A team of divers had neatly arranged his stockpile of supplies at the base of the tunnel wall, leaving him only one item to bring: the duffel bag with the weapons. Zeke had refused to let it out of his sight.

Four cases of liter-sized bottled water were stacked against the wall. He stripped and used several to rinse himself off. After toweling dry he dressed in a lightweight hiking outfit, leaving off the shoes. He spread an ultralight down sleeping bag onto the flattest section of stone floor he could find, placed a flashlight close at hand, lay on his back, and closed his eyes.

As he dozed off, vague feelings crept in from the edges of a dreamlike fog. Gradually the feelings became more specific. Lost in the twilight of a haunted dreamworld, he sensed evil creatures sneaking about in the shadows, stalking him. He heard unseen things, skittering stealthily across the floor. Darkness began closing in all around, like some bizarre medieval vise slowly being tightened, cutting off his air…

He sprang into a sitting position, wide awake and gasping for breath. It had felt like he was being smothered. He clicked on the flashlight and scanned his surroundings, listening.

He neither saw nor heard anything unusual and told himself to get a grip. In this godforsaken tomb, a brain full of imaginary horrors was the last thing he needed against the very real horrors he might have to face.

But he had to sleep sometime. And no one could control their dreams…

Enough of that. “Get in the game,” he chided himself.

He attacked the packing process to distance himself from the whole episode. He rolled up the sleeping bag, then meticulously began to load the backpack.

The main compartment was subdivided into two sections. Zeke used these for the sharpened crucifixes and holy water “grenades.” In addition to the modified crucifixes, he had brought a dozen more in their original state, to use in any way that might prove helpful. He’d done the same with the holy water, bringing a dozen of the original small bottles. All of these he put into another compartment.

A two-way radio had been left for him. He tried it. Nothing. He tried it again. As predicted, the radio waves apparently couldn’t make it through the combination of the earth’s crust and extremely dense water. A cell phone wasn’t even an option.

He was completely on his own, which was fine with him. Fussing with the radio would only slow him down, and he wanted to get wherever he was going as quickly as possible. Even if it worked, the radio was virtually useless anyway. This far down, any trouble would be over before anyone could reach him. He put the unit back on the floor and inspected the rest of his supplies.

He plucked a small waterproof bag from the pile. Opening it, he smiled sadly at Anthony Unger’s final contribution, something he’d procured long ago from his connection at the Vatican.

It was a small personal carrying case, dark blue with gold trim. Inside, inserted into a bed of royal red velvet, a glass case ornately edged in gold held three communion wafers, a small cruet of wine, and a miniature chalice—the makings of three days of Holy Communion. Calling upon the spirit of John the Baptist, Unger had given Zeke dispensation to administer the Sacrament to himself. For the believer, they were the Body and Blood of Christ.

Zeke chose to believe. This entire mission was based on belief in Divine Providence, that God would come to his aid when the showdown came. He had managed to silence all but the faintest whisper of doubt that help would come, wondering only what form that help would take.

Would it come through the relics, or through Zeke himself, or directly from on high?

Not that it mattered. All he could do was have faith and press onward.

He put the case into another small zipper compartment on the pack.

He pulled a digital pedometer/timer from the pile of supplies and lightly fastened the Velcro strap around his ankle. He needed to know how far the trip down was and how long it took, in case he needed to pace himself on the trip back.

He packed four replacement batteries for his headlamp, and one other item he had insisted on bringing: an extremely sophisticated high-definition video camera. Knowing he might be shooting on the fly under extremely adverse conditions, he’d gotten the smallest camera available that could shoot in very low light. It fit easily into the palm of his hand, had a powerful zoom lens and mike, and a thirty-hour recording capacity at the highest resolution.

“I know it might seem ludicrous,” he’d told the Hell Squad, “but if I find Satan, I want whatever proof I can get. We’ve been going on hearsay for too long. We’re living in an age where videos from cell phones have started revolutions. If I can get some good footage, maybe I can start another one. The final one.”

He finished by packing a special meal Leah had prepared, a small can of Sterno, and a four-day subsistence supply of food and water.

He attached the sleeping bag to the pack and slid his arms through the shoulder straps, adjusting the assembly into the most comfortable position before taking a last look around.

He was as ready as he would ever be.

He aimed his headlamp straight ahead.

Out of all earthly view, and beyond the reach of any human assistance, he headed down.

Into the bowels of the Earth

Zeke stopped when he came to the skulls embedded in the tunnel walls. He had an idea.

He went to the one on his left. A foot above him, the eerie sentinel hovered and stared its dead stare. Zeke tilted his head up to get more light on it. Shadows created by the movement slid around behind the eye sockets and mouth, as though the skull had suddenly come to life.

For a second he almost expected to hear it scream.

Abruptly pointing his light at the floor, he shut the unnerving image out of his mind. He pulled one of the unmodified crucifixes from the pack and inspected the wall immediately surrounding the skull, looking for a place to affix the sacred relic.

His original thought had been to line the tunnel walls with crucifixes, but it had just occurred to him that it would be better to place one directly beside each skull he came across. If there
was
an evil power down here, these things had to be focal points.

He’d noticed that, although the tunnel was mostly solid rock, here and there in the furrows and crevices were areas of soft, moist earth. When one happened to be near a skull, he could simply press the crucifix into the yielding ground. If not, he would just leave the crucifix under the skull at the base of the wall.

The death’s-head above him was completely surrounded by stone. He wondered how the skull had been gotten into the solid rock in the first place, then quickly dismissed the question as—for now—unanswerable.

He considered pushing the crucifix into the face of the skull itself, but the archaeologist in him said no. As obscene as these things were, they were still artifacts—prize finds to be studied and analyzed. Still wanting to place it as close as possible, he held it against the tunnel wall immediately beside the skull’s cheekbone, to see if there was a way to secure it.