Pulling The Dragon's Tail (23 page)

Additionally, many millions of people around the
world now lived in intentional communities; many religious, but
many not. That all made for slim pickings for traditional churches.
But Kruck was happy to serve God, happy to help the Lord in his
fight against Satan’s demonic influences. He envisioned himself a
soldier for God, working on one soul at a time. But, he sighed
wearily, it was a long, sometimes lonely battle.

Herschel interrupted the pastor’s thoughts. “My
faith is strong. I’m not about to leave.”

Kruck was taken aback for only a second, but
then recovered. “Oh, well, Hersch, I really wasn’t too concerned
about that. I just really wanted to talk.”

“Oh?” Herschel’s eyebrows arched slightly
upward. “To talk, huh?”

“Sure. Life’s been tough lately. I kind of
needed a break. Ya know, get out of the office. Never really seen
your farming operation. D’ya care to show me around?” Kruck
motioned for Herschel to follow him outside.

A moment later, Kruck found what he was looking
for: a small patch of bare ground behind one of the warehouses. He
looked around and saw no one else. He exhaled forcefully, gave
Herschel a glance, and casually pointed toward the ground. Using
his left foot, Kruck drew a capital letter G with his toe.

Without a word, Herschel looked around, and with
his right foot he drew a capital letter L next to the G.

Kruck responded with his left foot by drawing an
A. The pattern continued for another minute, until Kruck drew the
final letter, an S. The word GLADIUS, Latin for sword, had been
carved into the parched Kansas soil

Herschel cleared his throat, staring at the
disturbed soil below them. Then he thoroughly erased the word with
the heel of his boot and motioned for Kruck to follow him.

At the end of the warehouse, they turned
northward, keeping a silent, unhurried pace. Fifteen minutes later,
under the warm spring sun, they walked around and through the
massive solar generator panels at the rear of the farm.

After that, the solitude and vastness of the
prairie surrounded them. Wild grasses waved in the wind, undulating
out toward the horizon in unfolding spiral patterns. For several
minutes more their silent trek continued. They soon approached a
stand of trees which had been planted over a century before. The
stand offered a hedge against erosion, and was meant to stem the
tide of the dustbowl of the 1930s. The shade was welcoming and now
bore witness to these two warriors, dedicated to stemming the moral
and spiritual erosion of the human race.

Just prior to sitting down on one of two large
rocks, Herschel dug the toe of his left foot into the dust-blown
Earth. He formed the number ten on the ground. With the solemnity
of a ceremonial ritual, Kruck took his right foot, and scrawled the
number thirty-four next to the number ten in the soil.

Herschel looked him in the eye and said, “I have
not come to bring peace …”

Kruck responded, “…but a sword. Matthew 10:34.”
He knew the code GLADIUS, and he just confirmed the password that
would allow him access into the secret society of Gideon’s Army.
Kruck sat down on the adjoining rock. He crossed his legs and
waited for Herschel’s response.

“So, Brother Leonard Kruck, now I know the true
purpose of your visit” Herschel finally felt relaxed.

The pastor looked all around. Nobody was in
sight. Herschel reassured him, “Don’t worry. There are no listening
devices on me. Radio blocks are all around the property just in
case anyone has any ideas of snooping.”

“Aren’t you going to scan me, Hersch? Are you
sure I’m not a spy from the government or the mainstream churches,
sent to root out GA operatives?”

“You’ve been checked out thoroughly by the
GA.”

“I think that sounds flattering.”

“You should be flattered, Brother Leonard. The
GA believes you could serve them well. Is that why you’re
here?”

Leonard Kruck let out a big sigh. He hesitated
but then grew bolder. “I’ve spent my adulthood serving the Lord.
And I’ve been very faithful to that calling. I love my church and
my pastoral duties.”

But...then I see the state of Christianity. It
seems God is losing the battle. Given the state of affairs, these
are definitely the end-times that were foretold in Revelations.
Armageddon is just around the corner.”

“And?” Herschel urged him on.

“And, I believe the Lord’s calling me to wage a
more, um...”

“Aggressive campaign?” offered Herschel. He
vividly recalled the last sermon he’d heard Kruck give a month ago,
urging the faithful to redouble their efforts and fend off a
lukewarm attitude. Railing against the many false Christs out
there, he had preached from Second Thessalonians 1:8 of the
judgment awaiting those who deny Christ.

“In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that
know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. God’s creation was perfect until man sinned,” Kruck had
said. “Now we puny humans are vying to go beyond, to extend
ourselves into God’s realm. It took God six days to create the
Earth. He rested on the seventh day. But, today it’s as if we
sinful humans are daring to tell The Almighty, ‘And on the eighth
day we humans are taking over from you, Lord.’

“The Lord grieves when we turn our back on Him.
He abhors it when we allow modern technology to rule our life. It
is a lie straight from Satan himself.”

Herschel recalled the flood of people who came
forward to repent that day and recommitted their lives to
Christ.

“Yes, that’s right,” Kruck continued.
“Aggressive campaign is the right term; intense, provocative, front
lines.”

“The GA is as front lines as one can get in the
battle for souls,” proclaimed Herschel. “Our current focus is the
Church of Abraham. There’s a debate about whether the beings from
Andromeda are simply fantasy, or are flesh and blood creatures like
us, or are even of supernatural origin, there is no debate that
their essence is satanic. This cult’s notion that all religions are
of equal value so disgusts me, it sends chills up my spine. Anyway,
our focus is on dealing with the humans on this planet who follow
CHOFA. Our aim is to help bring about the confrontation between God
and the Devil, who I personally believe resides in Andromeda.”

“I’m not sure,” answered Kruck, “what details to
believe regarding those beings, but I’m thoroughly convinced
there’s no middle ground.”

“And that was the essence of your Second
Thessalonians sermon, right?” queried Herschel.

“Exactly. In a war, the most dangerous place, as
well as the most ineffective, is in the middle as a
non-combatant.”

Herschel sat up straighter, a smug look on his
face. “What helped you decide?”

“My own sermon on Second Thessalonians. Later in
the letter, the Apostle Paul preached on the danger of idleness. My
conviction became just that: I’d become idle and complacent. I
can’t be a non-combatant any longer. It might not be the path for
all Christians, but it is for me.”

Herschel cleared his throat. With a hardened
jaw, he crossed his arms and glared at Kruck. “Certainly sounds
like He’s calling you into His Army.”

Kruck nodded in assent, silent, unsure what to
make of Herschel’s sudden brooding. “Is something wrong?”

“Sorry,” replied Herschel, uncrossing his arms
and sighing. “Just a bit distracted. Let’s just say I have an old
friend who’s now joined CHOFA.”

“Oh! Does the GA want you to deal with him?”

Herschel mulled over how to respond, his jaw
slowly grinding. Out of all the burdens he carried, what aspect and
to what depth should he share with Leonard Kruck? He felt as the
Apostle Paul must had felt, struggling with doing things that he
should not be doing and not doing things he should be doing.
“Well,” he finally growled, “the GA wants him. But I want him
more.”

Kruck now took his friend’s gruffness in stride,
knowing his induction into Gideon’s Army was complete. From here on
it was war. “Before we go, Hersch, I got two more questions.”

“Shoot.”

“Are your numbers tattoos on your shoulders part
of Gideon’s Army?”

“You could say that,” Herschel intoned slowly.
He wasn’t about to share with Leonard Kruck that the numbers ninety
and ten symbolized a passion and mission even greater than Gideon’s
Army. “What’s your second question?”

Kruck asked, “What’s it like to kill in the name
of God?”

A smile broke across Herschel’s face. Pumping
his right fist into the air, he said, “Glorious!”

Utilizing newly installed program, L’AMISTAD.
Synthesizing with CLUES, sub-program Interpersonal Conflict,
(provided by Dr. Devereaux’s authorization code) [PAUSE]
Synthesizing also with syntax and language program Morphosis 8.9.
[PAUSE]

Seventeenth entry in computer journal by CCR
Model P118, Serial # 490373, named by human owner as Dugan. Owned
by Nate Kristopher, known to his long-time friends as Skip.

Location: Coordinates are 11.5 W, 43.1 N.

Velocity: 55 KMH.

Vehicle: HyperJet Ferry en route to Poseidon
City off the coast of Portugal.

I have been helping Skip in his endeavors to
locate dispersed members of the Alpha Group. We are presently
accompanied by Dr. Campbell Devereaux, granddaughter of Mitchell
Hilliard, who is the Alpha Group creator, and Es, from the
transhuman proto-species of homo-sapiens.

Es is non-gendered, also a member of the Alpha
Group, and is my friend.

Campbell is a psychobiologist, has a low
frustration tolerance when she converses with Skip, and is
experiencing existential losses to her identity.

Skip believes he is on a divinely inspired
mission. He intends to find more data to confirm the validity of
his new hypothesis that the End-Date global catastrophe predictions
are closer than previously estimated. I am helping him assess the
impact if the Alpha Group’s existence was exposed. Skip feels
over-generalized guilt, catalyzed by his End-Date involvement, and
manifested by a neurotic sense of responsibility, mental
preoccupation, worry, and somatization.

Campbell and Skip have been arguing over the
legitimacy of religion and whether there is any common ground to
begin a dialogue. Their polarization is stark. He states an
ultimate being is out there because there is no meaning without it,
while Campbell counters that developing one’s spiritual life is one
of many paths to meaning in a universe in which a super or supreme
being is highly unlikely to exist.

Es, Campbell, and Skip are speculating as to the
motives of the murderer who killed two Alpha Group members. It is
not logical that human intelligence allows for subtraction. Is it a
programming flaw in human neurological make-up? Es risked her life
to save others. She risked being subtracted. Is that also not
logical? Searching Interpol files, comparing databases for anything
on Browning Watts or his aliases.

Accessing CLUES programming. [PAUSE] Analysis of
human tendency to subtract other members of their species is
complicated. Overriding principle is greed, that is, desiring more
than one’s fair share. I am not able to draw logical conclusions
from my experience and CLUES input. Will continue to evaluate.

Description of new status: Morphosis 8.9 has
already improved my ability in receptive and expressive language. I
feel alive.

Campbell, Es, Dugan and Nate had just
disembarked from the ferry which had escorted them from Portugal.
An escalator took them up several decks until they arrived inside
the massive terminal at Poseidon City. Large windows on all sides
gazed out over the calm water. Puffy white clouds dotted the sky.
Like the dozen other floating mega-complexes around the world,
Poseidon City was part capitalistic enterprise, part governmental
research center, and part tourist destination.

“Spread out as we go through the terminal,”
barked Es. “Nate in front, Campbell and Dugan five meters behind. I
will be about five meters behind them. No other conversation
besides safety related. Dugan has configured a secure code for us
to communicate on our dataports. Understand?”

They nodded in agreement.

“All right,” asked Nate, “where do we go?”

Dugan responded, “Terminal dock C4. Scheduled
departure of the hover-craft is 8:25 local time. The red escalator
will take us across the terminal to dock C4.”

Hordes of people jostled for position as they
walked across the terminal.
So this is where today’s tourists go
to have a good time!
thought Campbell.

Dugan processed a three hundred-sixty degree
panoramic view of movement, snapping photos and comparing them to
criminal databases. Walking beside the CCR, Campbell thought his
silence was good news.

Nate breathed a bit easier as he saw the
escalator that would take them down to the waiting hovercraft. Just
a bit further and he would arrive in England.

Dugan spoke urgently. “Someone is approaching
us.”

Nate’s heart leaped into his throat.

Es’s firm, crisp voice rang into their dataport
mikes. “Campbell, Dugan! Casually walk over to the restrooms ahead
on your right! See them?”

“Yes.” Campbell did her best to casually look
around without looking scared.

“Does anyone match Herschel’s profile, Dugan?”
Es asked.

“There is no way he could be here!” Nate sounded
confused, and weary.
So close; and now this.

Dugan replied to Es, “There is insufficient
data, but it is a Caucasian male.”

Campbell began to panic. “Can’t we just call an
officer over?”

“No. Poseidon City law enforcement is full of
cronyism and crooks,” replied Es sternly. Then she added, “Nate, do
you see anything?”