Jacob's Trouble 666 is a novel by Terry, which was published a number of years ago. It tells the story of Jacob Zen, a young, lower echelon U.S. government official, who is forced to take on staggering responsibilities, when millions of people vanish, and his world begins coming apart. Terry wanted to share with you this fictionalized account of the Rapture and of the first part of the Tribulation era in serialized form. Although it is fiction, it is a story that could take on startling reality with your very next breath, because Christ's shout: "Come up hither" (Rev 4:1) could happen at any moment!

Chapter 11

So this is how it would end — his brain splashed against the windshield of a stolen car, while sitting on grounds, where as a child, the only dangers he faced were rusty nails and broken glass. At least he had come home to die.

Still, instinct for survival was with him — like when it urged him to remove the materials from the attache' case before he entered the tunnel when escaping the grounds of Stone Oaks. Now, instinct forced him to remember the critical instructions of the operative who gave him the case:

"Cuffs unlocked— three minutes to detonation; Closed again — resets timer for three minutes; Box opened safely by pushing inward three times — is armed; Push upward on latch — Explosion!"

"Now, Mr. Zen, may I have the case? Slowly and carefully..."

"I'll have to get the key."

"Very carefully, please."

Jacob took the key from his pocket and unlocked the handcuff from his wrist. Whether to snap the cuff shut and deactivate the explosive, or leave it open and wait for certain death in two minutes and fifty seconds... "Now give it to me, please."

He snapped the cuff closed and handed the man the case. If the man opened it now... opened the blue box, they were both dead!

"Knight Seven to King's Guard Three. I have him," the man said.

"King's Guard Three. Affirmative! Confirm contents and wait there," the voice on the other end of the walkie talkie transmission ordered. "Ten-four."

The man with the gun would open the case, then the blue metal box. Either die by the gun while trying to get out the door, or die by the explosive! The man was fumbling with the case; he would be at the blue box within seconds! Time to do it, or the chance would be gone!

Jacob wrapped his left hand around the door handle — Jerk upward and hit the door hard with the shoulder — Roll to the ground, out of the man's line of sight ~ There was just the chance it would work! He tightened his grip on the handle.

"King's Guard Three to Knight Seven..."

The walkie-talkie!

"Give us visual signal of your location, Knight Seven."

"Roger, King's Guard Three. Complying now." The man opened the right rear door and ordered, "Get out slowly, and put your hands on the top of the car."

The man eased out of the car on the side opposite Jacob and stood with the pistol butt resting on the roof. The barrel pointing at the captive when he had done as ordered. The man signaled for several seconds with a flashlight, then put the light aside and moved cautiously to the trunklid, on top of which he put the attache' case.

Jacob could see the man manipulating the case with both hands, while holding the pistol on him, alternately looking down at the latches, then in his direction. This was it! If he was to get away in one piece, he had to play it perfectly. Wait until exactly the right moment when the man reached for the blue metal box!

Inside the case now, reaching for the flashlight, examining the case's interior. Putting the light on the trunk lid, reaching inside the case for the metal box. Now! Do it now!

Jacob dove toward the car's front bumper at the same instant the blast hit him in a concussion of light and superheated wind. He contacted the heavily grassed earth with his right shoulder, then rolled end over end, somehow ending upright on one knee. Up and running, then diving in another shoulder-roll when a second blast hit him, propelling him forward with greater violence. He came to lying on his right side, facing an inferno. Flames licking upward; hot air; suffocating, barely tolerable! He was dead! -- In Hell!

Jacob's vision focused along with his other senses; the inferno was in the shape of the burning car. He sat up, checking himself, then the materials in his suitcoat pockets and the boxes stuffed in his shirt. The hard containers had cut and bruised his back, but he was able to move with minimal pain. Nothing broken.

The signal to the walkie-talkie! He had to get out of the area now! Light thrown off by the fire would make him easy to see if he got to his feet and ran; the best tactic was to crawl, belly-down, into the heavier brush. The fire was spreading and soon that refuge would itself be ablaze.

"Clary!"

Someone shouting, feet running toward the exploded, burning car. "Clary!"

He could barely hear the shout above the roaring crackle... and the other voice.

"Come away, Mario. Nobody could live through that."

Jacob fought to control his shaking while sitting beside the man in the khaki work clothes. The convulsions began the moment he knew he was safely out of reach of the half-dozen men who had examined the flaming sedan. Their conversations indicating they believed that both men, and the materials they were desperate to have, were destroyed in the explosion, which, one of the examiners concluded, was likely initiated by the booby-trapped attache' case. The second blast - from the car's fuel tank igniting.

Jacob's crawl through the adjacent thicket, just ahead of the spreading fire, and his subsequent hitching a ride, was accomplished with little feeling — merely automatic response to what had to be done. But now, his hands shook and his body quivered. His state was not lost on the van's driver.

"You all right there, Mister?" The man reached to touch Jacob's left shoulder.

"Yeah... Fine."

"Hey! You don't think you're the only one shook up. I've been haulin' people to their houses all night. Never seen nothin' like it... Never!"

The fat driver spoke in a half-chuckle, alternately glancing at Jacob and at the highway ahead. It was a nervous laugh, probably masking the man's own worry. "Or taking 'em to the hospital or someplace else."

"What? I'm sorry..." Jacob looked puzzled at the driver.

"I said, seems like everybody's needing a lift somewhere. What you think it is, anyhow? Most of the folks I've talked to think it's them Russians. Some kinda experiment they did, or something they thought would work when they tried to take over there in the Middle East. Probably backfired on 'em and wiped 'em out. Then, whatever it was, almost wiped out the rest of us. You know, some kinda secret weapon or something. Disintegrated all them people. But why not everything? Why just some people?"

The driver looked at Jacob for answers, then continued talking when his passenger remained silent. "It's scary. You know? I've picked up, I'll bet forty, maybe more, people tonight along the roads. You know what? Most of 'em say their kids just..." He motioned explosively with his free hand. "Poof! Vanished! Can you imagine seein' your kids just disappear right there in front of your eyes? You got kids?" Jacob nodded negatively.

"Mine are gone. I mean they're grown up. But the little ones seem to be the ones this thing..." The driver's voice sounded worried for the first time. "You know, I've got grandkids... four of 'em. I've got to get to a phone and see if they're okay. I've been haulin' everybody else around... Guess I better call the old lady. See if she's heard from the kids. You mind if we stop up here at the station?"

"No... whatever you need to do." Jacob said, thinking, "A good man who put himself last Probably would be a hero in war. Should say something to comfort the selfless man — offer him encouragement about his wife, his children, his grandkids"

But his mind turned to the boxes in his lap, to the folded leather pouches in his coat — then ahead, to Hugo Marchek's home in Rockville. He looked to his wrist, then at the driver. "What time is it?"

The fat man straightened and raised his belly to get the pocket watch from its place in his pants. "6:09."

It would be light soon, exposing him even more to anyone who might be watching for him. Why, though, should he be concerned? Had not the men who watched the car burn said that both men died in the explosion and fire? They wouldn't be looking for him now, or for the information he carried — the materials he would get a look at once he got into Marchek's home.

"Here we are. I'm gonna call the house. Can I bring you back a cup?" "No, thanks. Hope everything's okay for you."

"Thanks, Son. I hope so, too."

He watched the heavy driver shuffle around the corner of the station fingering the UNIVUSCARD he would use in making the call. State Highway 355 looked deserted ahead. A considerable part of the landscape beyond, visible only because the eerie glow, created by the fires resulting from the catastrophe, illuminated the horizon in all directions. It was probably 6:15 by now - not quite time for the sun to begin paling the skies.

What he would give for just 30 minutes of sleep. Maybe he should have accepted the offer of coffee. His lids grew heavy beyond any heaviness he had felt; his body ached strangely, as if it had lost most of its circulation — like it was intent on falling asleep, even if his brain was ordering it not to. Time to get out of the van, walk around, stretch the body to convince it the brain was still in control — maybe get that cup of coffee.

He got out of the van after laying aside the two boxes on the seat, then thought better of it and picked them up, before walking toward the service station building, around whose corner the driver had disappeared less than two minutes earlier. He heard the man's voice when he approached the corner and stopped to listen while the driver spoke into the phone attached to the outside of the building.

"Yeah. It's him. This is the same guy I've been looking at on film and in those pictures we were given to study."

The voice was different, the accent changed from country drawl to efficient metropolitan inflection; it displayed irritation.

"Yeah. The guy's name is Zen. Of course, he didn't tell me his name. That's what they told us the guy's name in the dossier was. It's the same guy. He's nervous as a bird about to fly. Find out what they want me to do. Yeah, yeah... I'll hang on."

Cold fear shot through Jacob's body, drowning the burning need for sleep, filling him with new alertness. He fought his urge to panic, forcing himself to stand his ground, to analyze the overheard words. How could they know where he was so quickly? They couldn't have traced him. A mutant occurrence of fate. He had been picked up by one of their agents! Probably one who was sent out to patrol the roads just in case he did somehow escape the fire.

Whether to attack the man, or to run. There were no other vehicles nearby. His chances of hitching another ride were not good, and if he were picked up, he ran a high risk of being picked up by yet another of his enemies.

"Yeah. Gregory here. What you want me to do?" The driver paused for several seconds, listening. "Yeah. I got it. Drive two miles down the highway and pull over like something's wrong with the van. You'll have somebody there to give me a hand with him. Got it."

Jacob put the boxes on the ground. After several seconds of a frantic search for a weapon, he picked up a two-foot piece of iron pipe lying against the building's concrete foundation. Defensive maneuvering seemed to be allowing him to be drawn deeper into their whirlpool. From this moment forward he would take the offense — beginning now, with his driver friend.

The solid thud of the pipe against the fat man's head felt good. He regretted, in that instant, only that he used but one hand to deliver the blow. The man groaned, still semi-conscious and Jacob drew the pipe back to strike again. He couldn't do it, conflicting urges battling to dominate his exhausted will. He threw the pipe aside; if there was to be any civilization left after this, he would remain a part of it.

Killing, even after what they had put him through, even with what he still faced, was repugnant. The pleased way he accepted the explosive horror at Stone Oaks — the almost sensual feeling when the iron pipe contacted the man's skull — he was becoming one of them — like the would-be masters of a world gone mad.

Karen's pretty face kept him going, sometimes fading into the fatigue-created brain-fog, but always returning to beckon him toward whatever would be the ultimate ending to the nightmare. He left the van along the shoulder of 355, pointed southward toward Washington, then walked back along the outside of the north-bound lane toward Rockville and Hugo Marchek's old stone-facaded home.

Luck was with him, having managed to steal a van, much older than the previous one, whose driver lay in a drunken stupor after apparently having pulled to the side of the highway to sleep it off. The man probably had no idea of what had happened during the course of the past 13 hours, Jacob reflected, guiding the rattling van to a stop. Nor would the drunk know why or how he was deposited here, a block-and-a-half from the late eschatologist's house. From this vantage point, Jacob could safely watch the area for the next hour — giving his antagonists time to check out their suspicions, should they have them, that he would, for some reason, return to Marchek's home. He hoped that the pointing of the other van in the opposite direction along 355 would send them searching elsewhere.

Two things bothered him: they had pinpointed his location on the grounds across from Stone Oaks, and he had, before knocking the fat man unconscious, been headed in the direction of Rockville. The driver had probably told them by now the direction their quarry had been headed before stopping at the station. Jacob hoped the van had thrown them off the scent, but he would take no chances. He chose to sit here, with the drunk man sleeping it off in the rear of the van, and observe Marchek's block for signs his ploy had failed. An hour should be enough.

Soon, though, a burning want to know what Marchek had hidden, and the mind-image of Karen in the grasp of the likes of the men who dogged him, combined to make a more persuasive case for leaving the van. His caution made for staying put. The sun was up now, its light muted, however, by a purple-red overcast that permitted only limited view beyond 200 yards. Marchek's old rock home lay, slightly less than that, away from where he walked along the antiquated, badly cracked sidewalk which disappeared into the early mist. His imagination, heightened by his weariness, played tricks. His strained eyes seeing dark objects moving toward him from the fog, then, in the next instant, seeing nothing but the barely visible black trunks of the big trees lining the yards of the homes beyond. Movements to the right and left — between the houses — imagined eyes peering from the fog...

He carried the boxes beneath his right arm, while hurrying along the concrete walkway, forcing himself to overcome his apprehension, turning his thoughts to the interior of the house. Where to begin the search? What to look for? The thing that had so upset Karen.

The boxes he carried with him — where would their revelations lead? Certainly, they could not put him any deeper into confusion. They had to help. If the papers he carried were so important that only the President of the United States had clearance high enough to digest them, they should provide clues to his own boggling dilemma — to the Vice President's treason — clues to Karen's fate.

Karen — the thought ignited his hate-passion. Answers lay close by and he would rip away the deceptive, rotting flesh that covered the frustration-beast trying to devour him from within, and would get to those answers. The spectres that had been raging in his imaginings dissolved while he drew within 20 feet of Marchek's front door. No matter what, he was committed.

He knocked on the heavy wooden door and waited for Marchek's sister to answer. She would not have moved from this old house; she was as devoted to it as she had been to her brother when he lived here with her. She might be with relatives temporarily, though. If she weren't home, he would break a window or do whatever necessary to get in.

No answer. He tried the door — locked. He walked to the side of the house along one of the 14-inch wide runners of concrete that made up the left half of the driveway leading to a separate garage. Finding the back door locked too, he removed his UNTVTJSCARD from his wallet and slipped the card between the door latch and the door's facing, then manipulated it up and down until the locking device tripped and the door opened. It stopped abruptly, restrained by a security chain.

"Miss Marchek! Saryeva!"

His calls were not answered and after several seconds he stepped back and kicked hard just below the door handle, ripping the chain from its screwed-in position. Once inside, he stuck his head back through the door opening and looked outside to see if the break-in had been noticed. Satisfied, he moved quickly through the kitchen and the dining room, stopping in the foyer to see, with surprise, that the security chain on the front door was fastened, as had been the chain on the kitchen door. Probably a back way out. Yes. He remembered Marchek's study having a door to a flower garden. Saryeva Marchek probably left the house through that door.

There was a feeling about this old place, he perceived while walking down the long hallway toward the study. Not merely an empty feeling, but a totally vacant one. It was as if the house had somehow been vacuumed of all things human —just a feeling. The fatigue, probably.

The morning's dingy illumination filtered in through the double French doors that led to the garden. Across the doors, where they met, brass security devices were in the locked positions. Saryeva had not left the house through the study exit to the garden.

Then he saw evidence of the old woman's fate. In the leather chair behind Hugo Marchek's desk, lay a rumpled pile of cloth — just like in the car with the Treasury agent — like all the others!

He examined the flower-patterned print dress, finding it wrapped around underclothing. On the floor beneath Marchek's desk chair, opaque gray stockings lay crumpled over black, orthopedic lace shoes. The white slip and portions of the dress had brownish discolorations, as if the material had been scorched. She was taken by the catastrophe. The house -- like it had been vacuumed of all things human. Evidence told the story of what must have occurred. The old woman was sitting at the desk when it happened, writing on white paper, the words:

"To honor the memory of Hugo Marchek properly is to honor Jesus Christ, because Christ meant everything to Hugo Marchek."

The fountain pen had fallen on the paper, point first, as if she had dropped it. The pen's impact sending ink spattering across the paper and desk. He picked up and read a hand-written letter lying next to the writing the woman had begun. The penmanship was familiar.

"As you know, Saryeva, we will be honoring Hugo Sunday evening. We would be greatly pleased if you would say a few words about your brother at that time.

Also, Hugo told me of some information he had in his possession, which he put in his place, for safe keeping. It concerns some vital matters for PAL, which he and I discussed not long before his death. I must have them. Do you know where he might keep them?

I couldn't call you because we are under surveillance here, so I had a friend bring this note. He -will be by tomorrow for the materials. Thanks for your help. Cordially, Karen M"

Karen! — There was still hope! He didn't know why, but he was certain she left a message in this note they forced her to write. Clues to where Marchek's secret papers were kept.

The first part of the message's puzzle was clear. She wrote this note under the gaze of her captors. She would not address Marchek as Hugo, rather as Dr. Marchek. She would never call Saryeva Marchek by her first name. Always it was Auntie Sarah. She loved and respected the woman as much as she did Marchek, thus she was saying, that it was not her thoughts, but theirs which she conveyed.

She ended it "Cordially, Karen M." an ending that should have been "Love, K... or, Kay." The best news in the message was that as of yesterday, Karen was alive and mentally alert enough to trick her incarcerators.

Saryeva must have picked up on the message. Rather than gathering the materials, she began writing a speech to honor her brother, as if she was complying with the first part of Karen's note, which invited her to speak. The old woman knew about her brother's work and knew that Karen was in trouble. She began writing thoughts about Hugo Marchek to make them think she had taken their message seriously. When they came to pick up the materials, her explanation would likely be that she had no idea where Marchek kept such things. She was, in fact, his close partner in work.

Now, Saryeva was gone, and Jacob was alone in his search for a way out of his torment. Alone — the cruelest part of his circumstance.

The key to the eschatologist's hidden materials had to be somewhere in Karen's note to Saryeva. The words and handwriting were hers, but the message's tone obviously was not. Key words in her composition ~ the way she put her captors' message together — could unlock the secret of the old man's hiding place. Too, if Jacob could accurately remember the first phone conversation he and Karen had — he at Stone Oaks, she at Brussels — he might gain insight.

Thoughts moved in no particular order through his mind while he stood over the big desk, forcing open the first of the two boxes he had carried with him since leaving the island. At the same time, he glanced again at the letter, written in Karen's hand.

He remembered her words: "Oh, Jake... I found the secret place and the things he was talking about in the note. I found out the reason he was murdered! I found out they killed Dr. Marchek because he learned that this country, that is, some people at the top have..."Cut off.

He could now finish in his mind some of what she wanted to say, but could not, before they were disconnected. The traitors were about to sell their country. But the Marchek materials — the hiding place?

Karen said that night that she had found the apparently volatile information. If his and Karen's conversation was bugged, and surely it was, the people holding her should know that she was aware of where Marchek's secrets were kept. Why, then, did they continue to search? Why did they make her write the letter to Saryeva, asking the woman if she knew where the old man kept the secret materials?

Of course, the unwritten message Karen wanted to convey to Saryeva was that the people holding her did not know the whereabouts of the secret things and that Saryeva must lie in her reply, to the one sent to pick them up. Say to him, that she had not been privy to her brother's business affairs, therefore did not know where he kept such things. Almost certainly Saryeva did know where Marchek kept such things. Had she been around when Karen came to the house that day, Saryeva, too, would likely have been their prisoner, because Karen would have included the old woman's name when she talked with him when he was in Brussels.

The people who made Karen write the letter were not informed that Karen had located Hugo Marchek's materials, yet the people who bugged that Brussels call had to know. They would make her tell them.

If they were not the people who listened in on their Brussels' conversation that night, then who? The only answer: The people, originally holding Karen, were replaced by others who did not know about the phone conversation nor that Karen knew about the hiding place where Marchek kept the information.

The Naxos bunch, the Vice President, the others, they must have taken control from those who placed the interests of the United States above the interests of the Utopian dream. That Naxos group had not heard the phone conversation. They only knew that Marchek had information which might damage them.

The fact that they took over so quickly following the disappearance disaster said something about the power of the European one-world nucleus. It said something else, too; they were neither omnipotent, nor omniscient. They still did not know — at least, not as of the day before this one — where Hugo Marchek's secrets were kept.

Another question, perhaps more troubling: If their plans were already in place, if the government of the United States was already under the thumb of the Naxos group, why did they still have such a deadly interest in whatever Marchek's documentation had to say? How could they be hurt by the information?

The letter they forced Karen to write held the answer to where Marchek deposited his secrets. There had to be a message there, in the letter. He scanned the note quickly, taking in several lines at a time for a word, a phrase, something. If not what was written, perhaps, how it was penned — maybe a change in style, a grammatical inconsistency.

There! He read it aloud, accentuating the portions he thought significant. "Hugo told me of some information he had in his possession which he put in his place, for safe keeping..." Not a place; his place, for safe keeping. Jacob turned and looked at the rock-facaded fireplace directly across from Marchek's desk. Could it be? Had she left him a clue? He examined the stones carefully, trying to dislodge the most likely ones first. All were solidly glued by a half-inch of mortar. He tried to lift the oak mantle; it wouldn't budge. Working his fingertips around the edge of the left side of the fireplace and finding nothing, he moved to the right side and began manipulating each rock with the fingertips of both hands, trying to force each of the rough stones to move. A bad guess.

He turned again to the letter. What might he have missed? Was there a message there at all? His excitement degenerated to depression. He had been sure the fireplace was the answer. That Karen had given clues.

"In his place, for safe keeping." She had used the phrases in a totally uncharacteristic way. It had to mean the fireplace. But he had checked it thoroughly.

Not the hearth! Karen wrote "in his place." ln\ It was raised more than a foot off the floor and was of solid stone.

He pounded the top of the hearth with the heel of his fisted hand to detect looseness. Unmovable, like all the other stones. Leaning to one side, while sitting on the long rock hearth, he reached behind the fire screen, into the firepit, feeling first the left side of the interior, then the right, achieving nothing but blackening his hands with soot.

He adjusted his position, kneeling, then crawling forward, making his shoulders narrow by reaching forward with his hands at full arms extension toward the back wall of the firepit. He ran his palms over the stony surface, then his fingertips around each of the large stones. There ~ in the center of the back wall, a different feel to the fire-blackened stone. He brushed the rock with his fingers, then with a handkerchief, until something at the stone's center appeared gleaming. A strip of metal! He pulled outward on the strip. A handle! Recessed to lie flat against the fake stone. He continued to pull until the stone facade glided on rollers from between the other rocks. A box of some sort, made of very thick metal! Upon further manipulation, the phony stone cover swung outward on hinges, revealing a metal front with a heavy brass-colored handle at its center.

His pulse quickened. It was brilliant of the old man. A fireproof box behind the fire, even the handle of the fake rock blackened by the smoke of hundreds of fires. Brilliant, too, of Karen. He found it!

The knob turned easily and the box's door fell open. Jacob pulled a long, rectangular box from the fireproof safe and removed its lid, after setting it down on the desk beside the boxes he had carried with him since Naxos. Karen's lovely face floated in translucent mind-image before the agglomeration of materials on the desk, while he spread the Marchek papers and boxes, looking for a place to begin making sense of it all.

Insurance policies in a leather portfolio, bound by a leather strap and buckle; a brown envelope, filled with photographs. Very old, probably old family pictures; letters from people with whom the old man must have shared deep friendships. Nothing that looked like the diary-type notes Karen talked about that night.

After lifting the remaining materials out of the rectangular drawer, he hurriedly sifted through them, near panic in his need to find the information. Nothing but personal financial records, more photographs, a scroll-diploma from a seminary. He swore in frustration, picking the drawer up and examining it in better light for anything that might be stuck in a corner. Nothing there.

He slammed the metal container angrily against the desktop and it bounced onto the floor near his feet, ending up leaning on its side against the desk. Its bottom had loosened by the impacts, and several items spilled onto his feet from beneath the container's newly opened secret lid.

Stunned for a moment by the new development, he picked up and examined the items and the container, determining that there was a small button on the rear portion of the box that must have been bumped when it hit the floor, springing open a false bottom. The things Karen told him about! A small, brown leather-bound notebook, and two 12" x 15" brown envelopes containing, he discovered upon opening them, a videocassette and a number of old-style computer disks. He dropped the contents from the envelopes onto the desk and spread them out to get a total perspective. Four disks, one tape.

Hugo Marchek had, like most everyone else, the government-subsidized UNFVUS computer system. It was the hybrid creation by corporate technological giants which made access to important databases and to other networkers possible for users in the United States and in Europe, where the comparable system was designated UNIVER. It would be the foundation on which to build the structure of a unified world. The ultimate outgrowth of Internet and the World-Wide Web. It was an instrument with which to begin networking toward global understanding and cooperation. It was a noble conception, but, from what he had experienced, a monstrous birth.

Hugo Marchek, Karen told Jacob on one occasion, accepted the government computer in his home only because he could better keep track of the gestating beast, and to carry on with life as it had technologically evolved, though it disgusted and disturbed him. For his PAL work, he used an old conventional personal computer, whose disks Jacob held in his hand now. The TJNIVUS system, which had occupied one corner of the study when Jacob was last in this room, was gone now. Taken, no doubt, by the government upon Marchek's death. Saryeva Marchek, Karen had also told Jacob, hated the UNIVUS system and expressed to her brother often that he was sinning by allowing the satanic equipment to stay in their home. The scoldings, Karen said, amused Hugo Marchek. When he died, Saryeva probably ordered the system removed.

The old-style computer was private, unless hooked by phone to any of the few databases still available to those who continued to use personal computers. Marchek's personal computer, which was in the same corner it had occupied before his death — given the eschatologist's mistrust of those he suspected were watching him, and given his innate cleverness — would no doubt be secure through some well-devised indexing technique. The old man would have created his own code for information classification and retrieval—characters, words, or perhaps entire phrases taken from the data texts. Whatever the keys, he must find them, and quickly.

But first, he had to discover what secrets he had carried with him since leaving the Aegean island. He opened one of the leather pouches and unfolded a sheaf of 8-1/2" x 14" papers, seeing that the first was a letter, rather a memorandum, on United States State Department letterhead. To: The President From: C. Wilson

P.E. ill due to unanticipated growth of Germ-Diagnosis: total involvement of system. Prognosis: terminal without immediate surgery.

The accompanying page, borrowed from a Naxosfile, is part of a Top Secret document composed by Herrlich Krimhler.

Jacob turned the page and, seeing it was typewritten in German, translated it silently while he read:

"The cosmos, having been prepared for the ultimate mystery that must soon be endured by those not attuned with the New Age into which humankind must enter, the Six Ways, is equally prepared to light the path for the worthy. When the uninitiated are withdrawn into the inner worlds' subconsciousness to be ministered to and made worthy before their new-birth experience back into the physical body, post-dissolution society will bloom with unprecedented prosperity. Peace, which has been an unattainable end for mankind, through 'The Plan,' will be achieved,

'The Plan' necessitates the elimination of national entities within our body, who can never be depended upon to accept anything other than the predominant role in this new beginning. The dissolution will accomplish the excision; 'The Plan' shall prevail."

Jacob read the document again, his eyes burning, tearing because of lack of sleep. The page, apparently taken from a longer communication, was for a readership comprised of a select few people close to the great man, Krimhler.

Jacob's fatigued brain drew into focus the stabbing fact that shocked him into a new level of alertness. The German had written about the disappearance! The effect the cataclysm would have on the United States! Somehow, what should have been confusion came together into a horrible realization; he was, the world was, dealing with something beyond the explainable!

Conrad Wilson could not have anticipated that Krimhler was writing about the disappearance of millions of people. The old diplomat did see the implied threat in Krimhler's declaration:

"'The Plan' necessitates the elimination of national entities within our body, who can never be depended upon to accept anything other than the predominant role in this new beginning. The dissolution will accomplish the excision; 'The Plan' shall prevail."

That was the message. It must be. The message Wilson wanted to get to the President -- that Krimhler was proposing to eliminate the United States from contention for leadership in the new ruling structure. His foster father probably inferred that the now extremely powerful Unified European States, would use its new-found economic strength to pressure America into taking a back seat to leaders chosen by Krimhler and those in the hierarchy at Naxos. Certainly, the words could not imply the threat of military force; the U.S. still wielded the nuclear bludgeon; Europe still depended on America to deter the unsatiated Russian bear's lust for Western European blood. But... No! Again there was Krimhler's inexplicable foreknowledge! The Russian allied threat was no more — Gone. Nuclear leverage, how was it affected? And Conrad Wilson could not have foreseen the geopolitical changes that took place in that millisecond of cataclysm. Jacob had firsthand knowledge from time spent in the crawlspace in the basement of Stone Oaks of just how much relationships, power bases, abilities to dominate, had been altered.

That change was dramatic, and the words of Herrlich Krimhler — written a considerable time before events of the past 24 hours — testified that his was the real power, which not only controlled the Western world's present, but understood what had caused the sudden change and what that change would mean for the future world.

Conrad Wilson did not know the extent of Krimhler's power, but sensed that it was not good for the United States, and in his memorandum to the President recommended that the German be assassinated. The revelation would have been a shock, stretching believability to the breaking point, but for the more unbelievable shocks, Jacob had been jolted by since shortly after his plane touched down at Andrews. And, before those events on the road to D.C., he would have been shocked at his own attitude of this moment — that assassination was indeed warranted because of the threat to America's security -- whatever that security might be worth now. No longer true.

The thought of a single life being snuffed out was dwarfed by the knowledge that millions of people faced oppressed existences beneath a regime which claimed for itself— without consideration, apparently, for the wishes of its subjects — the power to govern. The one thing those new masters failed to consider: People used to freedom of choice, of representative government, would not easily be made to bend a knee to those who claimed the right to make the choices for them. Even the people within military establishments had enjoyed basic rights and freedoms for too long; sudden chaos could not for long persuade them to back an oppressive master. The psychology was all wrong for this new order to work.

He pulled one of the videocassettes from the box and examined it to make sure it was not damaged by the beatings to which his circumstances had subjected it. No damage.

Had he misjudged his adversaries earlier, thinking that whatever they were, they were not omniscient? Herrlich Krimhler's foreknowledge, demonstrated by the document in which the German seemed to have anticipated the disappearance, appeared to refute that. And they were able to follow his movements to this point. Omniscient? No... just tricks played by his tired mind — fatigued by seeing the agent vanish, by the wreckages, the missing children, by seeing his country betrayed by its leaders.

Hugo Marchek's old videocassette recorder sat on top of an even older console television set near the computer. Jacob was not sure he could figure out the device, so different was it from the equipment he was accustomed to working with. He managed, after several seconds of study, to recall the way the machinery operated, a lesson once learned in a basic telecommunications class, then forgotten. The tape, smuggled out of Naxos and dragged with him since, slipped easily into the receptacle-slot. He pressed the rectangular button marked 'PLAY.'

Why he was taking the materials apart and digesting them in such random manner he didn't know. Maybe to spare himself the labor of thinking about a more orderly procedure. Maybe his intuitive side, or his imagined intuitive side, was guiding him through the unraveling process in the best way possible.

The video on the console's 27-inch screen flickered then straightened. The image of Herrlich Krimhler's face, close-up, with a serious expression; he turned up the volume, hearing that Krimhler spoke in English.

"To each of you who are to lead the way while we move into the New Age of peace — strength to do what is essential, no matter what your feelings and preferences, is the attribute which makes you worthy, which made your selection to key positions necessary." Krimhler spoke fluently — authoritatively.

"Human beings yearn for strong leadership and appropriate rules by which to conduct their lives. Never before in the history of the world has adherence to these principles been so important, as they will become during the first phase of INterface. The citizen must cooperate, must obey without questioning the authority of those of you entrusted with initiating them into, and cultivating them for, the paradise that awaits the loving, obedient citizen. The citizen's only responsibility during INterphase will be that of obedience. And do not think this will be without its difficulties.

"For too long, the old order of things, has nurtured the false doctrine that individuality and unbridled self-interest, was freedom. If freedom, it was the virulent, malignant freedom, to prevent peace by keeping the peoples of the earth apart. The freedom to invent and use weapons with which to annihilate all forms of life.

"But the great Cosmic Mind has seen fit, after cons of natural evolution, to intervene into human affairs, allowing man to partake, on a conscious level, of the wonders that are the Universal Mind-Body. This will require the removal of some and the training of all others into the oneness of love and perfect order. This is to be your part in the new world oflNterface. '"ThePlan' is perfection. INterphase consists of Six Ways to Law... Six Ways to Order... Six Ways to Peace. These must be enforced with iron-willed resolve. There can be no leniency for those unwilling to cooperate. There must be reward for those who show exceptional willingness to point out the rebellious ones who pose dangers to society. All children born during INterphase must be educated to INterface society standards, from six months through year eighteen."

The children! All born during INterphase! The children! AH disappeared! Was there something to the similarity between the children's disappearance and Krimhler's message, recorded for the ruling elite of INterface well before the occurrence? Did he know there would be no children... small children, as he seemed to know there would be a cataclysm of some sort, which he termed in the document from Naxos the "ultimate mystery that must be endured" — "the dissolution" — "the excision?"

Krimhler's dark, unblinking eyes glistened, his smooth features, youthful beneath thick, black hair, seemed to glow— not reflecting the studio's light, but from inner illumination. The baritone voice seemed older than its owner's years, and echoed the prescient assertiveness shown in the eyes.

"You, as the most vital members of the coming society, especially during INterphase, must prepare yourselves with self-motivated re-education, while at the same time seeing to it that those for whom you are responsible yield cooperatively to their own re-education. The Cosmic Mind has, through its universal wisdom, seen to it that you have the technological power to carry out 'The Plan? The great Cosmic Force has shown the way to the higher order intended for man. Mankind has, through the eons of the ages, through the grand evolutional design, been allowed to create a means for his own salvation. Receive now that message from the Cosmos, which has chosen you to be inheritors of its wisdom — to be the administrators of its perfect justice and order. Understand the technology it has given — strive to use it to best advantage."

Krimhler's image dissolved and a colorful graphic took its place. The voice of an unseen instructor lectured while the graphics changed with the changing text.

"INterface society during INterphase must be carefully controlled, almost, some might say, to the point of totalitarianism."

The voice sounded without gender, mechanized. Synthesized speech, probably produced by computer vocoder of some type.

"All must lose the old ways of nationalism; all must become indoctrinated citizens of INterface, the global community."

The graphic on the screen, a globe set in a background of black, at first portrayed the many nations of the world as the representative earth rotated slowly; colored lights lit them individually. The continents of North America, South America, Australia, a huge chunk of Europe, scattered sections of Africa and Asia, as well as, Japan, and many other islands, became the same brilliant color of gold; the national boundary delineations vanished. Inspirational, militaristic music played beneath the computer voice.

"When the great leap into peace conies, you will be prepared to control the masses, to guide each into becoming what the Ascended Masters intend for them to become - Individual cells within the Universal Mind-Body, each networking with another to, finally, attain total harmony."

The sphere within the sea of black changed to gold, and in the next instant, a crystal clear pyramid came into focus within the golden globe. "Peace will be achieved.

The fulfillment of man's aspirations accomplished.

Six Ways to Law!
Six Ways to Order!
Six Ways to Peace!"

The words as the voice spoke, popped onto the screen as they were being spoken, bright golden letters generated on the jet-black field surrounding the pyramid symbol. Then the graphic changed again, to a chart which outlined what was obviously a chain of command. The voice lectured on each position within the structure, instructing about purposes and job functions — the computer-generated images changing, giving specific information relating to each governing position - from Continental Head at the top of the chart, to the four Quadrant Commanders on each continent, to the 666 Sector Coordinators and, finally, down to the thousands of Controllers and Block Governors represented at the bottom of the chart.

With the videotaped presentation finished, Jacob looked to his wrist for the time, then at the clock on the credenza against the wall several feet behind Marchek's desk. 10:38 - a quartz-type clock, not affected by power disruptions in the area. The introduction to the new order had cost him more than two hours, but the education was transfixing, a blueprint masterpiece for what looked to be a terrifyingly feasible authoritarian monster. "The Plan" was so complete, so encompassing, it would have no doubt dumbfounded the President, as it must have Conrad Wilson. But, when would his foster father have had opportunity to view the tape in Naxos? The constant surveillance probably made it impossible for him to do so. Most likely, Jacob, himself, was the first person, not a part of the INterface planners, to see the tape.

The thing was like it was choreographed by a master director. The only resistant force that might have had a chance to thwart INterface ambitions — the President — the United States government — had been eliminated in a single catastrophic second. However, the master-director had let one monkey wrench slip into the cogs of INterface machinery. Jacob Zen now knew what was to come to a world ripe for dictatorship. And, although he couldn't grasp what possible threat he, one human being, presented to such power, it was supremely evident they considered him more than merely an irritant.

He picked up the other Naxos videotape and weighed whether to put it into the machine, or to get into the Marchek things. He chose the second option, inserting one of the diskettes into the computer and punching the appropriate keys. The computer's display screen lit up with information, and when he punched other keys, it became evident the program was devoted to personal finances — nothing to indicate the old eschatologist had entered a hidden code. He removed the diskette then snapped in another and manipulated the keyboard. The screen displayed: "Apyr Doopo nowa"oBaTb!"

Beneath the confusing garble, the computer automatically generated the message: "Jerome, I am thirty-seven, old enough to know better! Where time sublime, they make no crime and perfect rhyme. There is no sin -- no fools rush-in."

He searched his memory for the antiquated methodology that might help solve Marchek's cryptology. He mentally ran through the computer, straining to remember technology he once struggled to put out of his mind so the new could take its place. Had Marchek used KLIC? KPIC? KWOC? A hybrid creation of his own ingenuity? Most of the indexing was smokescreen, he was certain. He would have to break through that screen to determine if Marchek left the message to unlock his secrets.

Jacob tried to shake the illogical thoughts. There was no reason to the feeling, but it was there, and he couldn't get rid of it. Marchek had left a message for him. Each time he forced his mind into a more rational frame, the almost tangible intuitive sensation struck again. Hugo Marchek's secrets could be unlocked only by Jacob Zen.

He must think back to their time together—to what he knew about the man. If the key to unlocking the indexing system rested with him, it would likely be found in his memory of the brief time the two of them were together in conversation. He felt it more strongly than ever — Marchek had left a message for him.

He wheeled from beneath the computer in the chair, rolling backward until he could consider the entire machine while studying the data glaring at him from the display screen. The key was there; he knew it!

"Jerome, I am..."

Who was Jerome? No one he and Marchek had discussed. It had to be a code word.

"Jerome, I am thirty-seven."

Nothing even remotely familiar. He looked at the line above. "Apyr Doopo nowa"oBaTbl"

Why the quotation mark in the middle of the last combination of letters? Something familiar about the effect. He read again the entire message. "Jerome, I am thirty-seven, old enough to know better! Where time sublime, they make no crime and perfect rhyme. There is no sin -- no fools rush-in."

"Rush... hyphen... in" Jacob said aloud. "That's it! It's Russian!"

Marchek had headed this message in Russian. Using English letters as best he could, the quotation mark as close to the intended Russian character as he could manage. Russian, the one language besides English that Marchek had known both he and Jacob understood.

"Apyr," the Russian masculine for "friend." The greeting, in total: "Friend, welcome!"

The old man would not have left him a code for finding the index key that did not relate to something both of them understood from their knowledge of each other. What was close to Marchek's heart? Karen, PAL, God, the Bible. That was it! Marchek had said it himself! AH the answers to mankind's dilemmas were in the Bible! Even in death Hugo Marchek had something to tell him that might give insight into what more and more looked to be the Biblically predicted apocalypse. Things at which Jacob would once have scoffed, but which now chased him like a predatory demon out to devour him. Searching the Scriptures was the message. Search the Scriptures!

"Jerome, I am thirty-seven." Of course! Jeremiah. The Book of Jeremiah, one of the prophets of the Old Testament, chapter 37. He looked through the desk drawers for a match and found a book, then fumbled for a cigarette from the crumpled package taken from his suitcoat pocket. He lit the cigarette and jammed the book of matches into the pocket of his pants.

He searched the many volumes in the bookshelves lining the study walls, finally spotting and removing the black, leather-bound Bible. He put it on the desk and quickly looked up the book and chapter. Nothing there that was familiar, he decided after five minutes of reading and re-reading. Just the prophet Jeremiah, talking with King Zedekiah about the prophet's imprisonment, being released, and trying to get the king to repent — nothing that struck a familiar note.

A false trail, so he returned to the computer and looked again at the message for several seconds.

"Jerome. I am thirty-seven."

Thirty... dash... seven. Could it be that simple? He moved from the chair to the desk and again fumbled through the pages until he found the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 30, verse 7: "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it"

Jacob's trouble! It sprang at him in all its truth! Marchek had somehow anticipated this moment — his predicament. The Bible — the Scriptures could be the key to Jacob Zen's survival! "It is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it."

Glass exploded from the French doors, ripping him from his euphoria! They had found him!