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 4

Jacob sat up, startled, trying to get his bearings. The staccato pounding between his unfocusing eyes combined with the ultra-shrill screaming inside his skull, forced him to grab his head in an attempt to quell the pain.

He was on the floor near the window of the small room. He had fallen from the chair! The Trachetrol! Had he overdosed?!

The vivid thoughts or dreams or whatever they were, of Karen and Hugo Marchek, were driven from his brain by the squeal produced by the biosensor grafted next to the bone at his forehead. He must have been away from the console past the allowed time! Controller Central would increase the intensity of the vibration until the proper response was made or until the skull shattered! Already, the level of pain almost incapacitated him, and his body quivered and spasmed while he struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the console chair. He collapsed to his knees before reaching it, the sharp contact with the rock-hard tile making him feel his kneecaps were crushed. Still, the pain in his head increased with each second that passed, overriding the pain in his knees, and he managed, through an inner strength he somehow found, to pull himself up by gripping the right arm of the INRU console chair.

He fumbled to find the right response key, his index finger barely steady enough to locate, then push it.

The INRU screen came to life; the agonizing throbbing in his forehead stopped instantly.

"John I. Garver, six, six, six, IN, three, one, eight, eight, eight, two, seven, one.

Prepare for Ident. Watcher eight, three, seven, seven."

When the computer voice completed the command, the official symbol of INterface, the sparkling transparent pyramid, with its golden Roman numerals DCLXVT superimposed over a photographically realistic blue and white planet Earth, disappeared and was replaced on the screen by the live image of a dark-clad controller.

The man was a hulking figure whose broad, puffy face looked unnaturally swollen, the billowy jowls made more so by the stiff collar that pinched the fat which spilled over it to form a huge double chin. His heavy brows, above slitted eyelids that barely permitted the tiny black eyes to be seen, slanted downward to the point between his eyes where they co-mingled angrily, creating a constant frown of hatred. He glared into the camera in front of him and leaned forward to within inches of the lens to punch keys, giving Jacob, at the other end of the transmission, a fisheye distortion of the Watcher's face against a backdrop of hectic activity at INterface Watcher Facility 500.

"You are tardy, Sector Coordinator five, five, zero. I hope you enjoyed our little reminder that you must be attentive," the fat man said with pseudo-pleasantness, his sickening smile magnifying greatly when he again reached forward, his fare coming to within inches of the camera lens.

"Sir... it was the Trachetrol... it affected me badly this time," Jacob said timidly.

"Perhaps we should put you on rations. Maybe that would help you learn self-discipline. Or should we eliminate Trachetrol altogether and give the position to one who can appreciate its opportunities and its responsibilities? Perhaps I should call out a Decap Unit and let you join these Jews! Yes... maybe dying is the best way you can serve!"

Any response would only damage his case. Would the Watcher send a controller team for him? Few ever returned from a Controller Facility once they were taken there. What were the chances of avoiding the dragnets should he be able to flee the INRU room without detection? He would have no chance to escape the Allegiant pressed against his forehead, at least not until out of its range. But secretly located monitoring stations were scattered about. It was impossible to know where they were — impossible to escape the Allegiant device. Still, there was the other way, the contingency plan...

"Prepare for Print Ident. Seize Print Plate." said the voice of INterface.

Jacob complied, and the video displayed the results through yellow characters generated a line at a time:

AFFIRM — JOHN I GARVER

SECTOR 550 COORDINATOR — EEE-IIM-3- 1 88827 1

The voice announced,"INterface accepts. IN are you."

With the identification process finished, the video changed again to the Watcher, whose huge face continued to present a surrealistic, convex image because he constantly moved in close to the camera lens to manipulate his control board.

"INterface computer says you are IN five, five, zero. But the final decision on that is up to me," said the man while he continued to tinker with the control board. "How long you will be IN is..." Something on the control panel in front of him interrupted the Watcher's words, and he handled the problem before returning his smug gaze to the camera.

"You will be at Inculcation Room seven, seven, three, Facility Five-Hundred, at twenty-two hundred hours, Sector Controller five, five, zero. Do you think it is within your capability to follow that simple instruction?"

"Yes, Watcher eight, three, seven, seven. May I ask the nature of the matter?"

"You may not!" the INterface Watcher responded angrily. "It will not become your business to know until you are here!"

Jacob watched the bloated face fill the INRU screen, the man's fat arm stretching forward to hit a switch. The screen went black.

Jacob stood from the console chair, his thoughts replaying the abbreviated conversation with the INterface officer. Rarely did a Sector Coordinator, or anyone else, get called to a Watcher Facility. AH business was transacted through INterface Response Unity, except in the instances when Watcher Control wanted to deal in personal matters. Such occasions almost always meant that the one called in would vanish — that all records of his having ever existed would be erased from the perfect memory of INterface Response Unity.

Was this the time to try? To, despite the Allegiant, the dragnets, the impossible odds, try to escape? To go underground if possible and continue the research, linking up with others who still believed something could be done? The fat man told him to come to Facility 500, apparently without escort. Could he use the opportunity to make his try for freedom? But there was no freedom. They would watch him from the moment he stepped from the INRU room and follow him every step of the way to his rendezvous with...

The Scanner was following his movement around the room! Did the Watchers intend to monitor his every movement until the time he had to leave for Facility 500? Did they want him to sweat it out? Worry about the reasons for his being called in? Was it punishment for his earlier lapse in obedience?

The question of whether to bolt was now moot. He would not get farther than the street if he did try to run.

He wanted, needed, another Trachetrol II fix, but he dared not take one. The danger of the drug's possible effect on his level of consciousness outweighed the raking urge to give in.

Looking toward the cabinet near the window, he gritted his teeth and turned his back on the drug's beckoning. There was still a chance, he fought to convince himself. Still time to run, to get lost in the underground sewer caverns or the hundreds of dilapidating buildings. There were too many hiding places for the controllers to cover without an extensive dragnet, and John I. Garver was not that much of a threat to INterface. Too, the possibility existed that he could talk his way through it. Although his rhetorical abilities suffered from years of nonuse, the basic talent remained. He could, like an athlete, shake off the years of mechanical response in front of a video data terminal, away from contact with other human beings, and recoup enough to verbally dazzle them.

He forced his thoughts from their heights, recognizing them as euphoric after-effect of the Trachetrol high from which he was descending. Next would come depression and total lack of confidence in himself ~ in everything. Then a return again to euphoria. There was no time for giving in to the manic-depressive swings of the drug's lingering influence. He must ignore them and go on with whatever had to be done. If he must face death at the hands of the controllers, it would not be a slow death — not the kind of death they enjoyed inflicting.

It was 18:26 hours, still time left in the allotted rest period. Good! Still time to prepare for the worst eventuality he might confront at Facility 500.

He glanced again at the digital clock above the Scanner to assure himself his burning eyes had not misled him, then moved to the gray plastic sofa. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the Scanner's lens follow his movement.

Long ago he had planned for such a contingency. He was, if nothing else, a man who compulsively planned for contingencies, he fleetingly thought, while kneeling to pull a heavy blanket from beneath the sofa. The remaining time left of the rest period, from which the Watcher had called him, would provide opportunity to put his plan into effect. Carefully spreading the blanket across the sofa, he put his body between the Scanner's eye and his work. Yes. There it was. The thick belt he placed there seven months ago, along with the four round, hard objects and wires. He slid between the blanket and the sofa, at the same time pulling the plastic belt from its taped position against the blanket. The squirming to get comfortable — so far as the Watchers monitoring his activity should be concerned — allowed him to secretly slip the belt around his waist and attach it securely by squeezing together its plastic mesh clasp. He felt for the battery-pack and the wires that ran through the plastic belt covering and into the explosive material, to ensure they were still in place. He then ran his index finger along the pouch containing the batteries until he found the snap. Unsnapping the flap, he probed for the metal clasp that covered the tiny button which would, when depressed, force the wires in the explosive to make contact with the battery terminals. The resulting explosion should take out anything and anyone within 15 feet.

He clamped the button's cover shut. They would not only be deprived of the pleasure of watching him dance the death-dance to their tune, they would be dispatched into the deepest reaches of eternal hell, as well. He pulled the uniform jacket-shirt over his waist, concealing the explosive belt. The bulkiness of the jacket would hide the belt during a quick frisking by the controllers, but a more ambitious search would betray the secret. By that time, though, the button would be pushed.

In less than three-and-a-half hours, his lifetime of wondering about death, eternity, God, might be answered. Hugo Marchek's beliefs about afterlife proved — or — disproved nothingness. Anything had to be better than this, and the thought, strangely, provided relief. A single tear rolled slowly down his cheek while he lay with his back to the INRU and the still-activated Scanner. He didn't know why. Anger? Anticipation of what he faced? Separation from Karen? ...sweet, lovely Karen. That night, Karen's look of disgust amused him while they turned from Hugo Marchek's sharply dipping driveway, the front bumper brace of his car crunching against the concrete curb. She was mad, and his favorite thing to do when Karen was mad was to keep at her until her anger turned to laughter. He tried for the first two miles, but she maintained her solemn expression.

"Sending me out of the room like a stupid schoolgirl!" she said, finally breaking her silence. "And you! You went along with it!"

"Come on, Kay. He didn't want to worry you. You knew I'd tell you all about it later."

Her mood mellowed while she studied her fingernails. "Worry me? What does he think? That I'll fold like some over-protected plantation owner's daughter out of the antebellum south? I think I can handle anything you can handle."

"That's what I told him, but he's from a different time, Karen." He touched her chin and turned her face toward him. "The women were to be protected from the Yankees. Did it hurt so much to humor the old guy?"

She pulled from his grip and again studied her nails for a moment before looking at him. "It's one of the few things about him I don't like."

"You're a granddaughter to him... to be protected. He loves you very much, or he wouldn't go to the trouble."

"I know."

"That makes him one of my favorite people," Jacob said.

"I knew you'd like him," she said, sounding happier. "I'm glad you do, Jacob. You both mean a lot to me." She leaned across the console to kiss him on the cheek.

"Friends again?" He held out his hand, offering to shake hers.

"That won't do." She slapped his hand aside and moved as close to him as the console would allow, then kissed his neck. "Can't wait to make up," she whispered in his ear.

She turned serious again. "I know about Dr. Marchek's visit from those hoodlums."

"How?"

"His transcriber. He left his dictation from that night on the machine. He sounded like he was still woozy from what those animals did. The first thing I do when I get to his study in the morning is check his transcriber, because he leaves random notes recorded. Most of them, he forgets about. I was going to tell you about those men when we were in his study, but he came in and you two ran me out."

"I should've known nothing gets past you."

"He was right; it did worry me. He doesn't lie, you know. He told me he fell down and bumped his head, which I'm sure was true. He fell after they hit him."

"You can't blame him for wanting to keep you out of it."

"But I am in it, and he has to have somebody."

"He does have somebody," Jacob said. "He has us."

She kissed him and there were tears in her eyes.

"He asked me to look into who might be harassing you. Who those two goons might be — what agency they might come from."

"We must be getting close to something, but I can't figure what can be so important that they'd do these kinds of things. There are all kinds of lobbyist groups with more clout than PAL."

"I agree. So does he."

"Then who?"

"He attributes it to Satan," Jacob said, smiling.

"He would! Yes. Satan, to him, is behind all of it," she said, shaking her head incredulously. "He really believes that, too."

"He wanted to give me his Bible to study... said all of the answers are in it," Jacob chuckled.

"What if he's right?" Her question was offered only half-joking.

"I hope he is, because the good will win out in the end, if that's the case."

"On the other hand," she continued the banter, "a lot of people could be in pretty serious trouble, considering that book's judgments on premarital and extramarital sex, homosexuality, occultism, and all the other things it condemns that this world loves so much."

"But look at it this way, if both heaven and hell have voting privileges in some eternal election process, hell will hold a majority, I'll wager." "Gambling's a sin."

"Yeah? Guess my party affiliation is a foregone conclusion, then."

"He has a point," she said, her tone serious again. "He believes that the Devil's human agents, that is, the agents the Devil has used to his best advantage, are the money powers. 'The love of money is the root of all evil,' he always tells me and anyone else who'll listen." She tried to imitate Marchek's accented speech.

"Greedy money interests have been at the bottom of a lot of conflicts. I'll concede that."

"He's absolutely convinced that Satan has controlled the minds of the huge banking houses and conglomerates right up to the present giants of finance. He believes that is where the nucleus of the movement toward a diabolical world order can be found. They, with their knowledge and control of developing computer and communications technologies, are behind it all."

"For as long as I can remember, as a student and since I've worked in government, I have heard of conspiracy by a select group of financiers. The Trilateral Commission, the World Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations, all the others. It's just like the Second Coming. Everyone talked about it, but where is it? Big money interests have always been part of the overall problem, but we can look to politicians, to the military, to the media, to each one of us, individually. We've all helped create the problem of money controlling the affairs of men."

"That strengthens his contention that these people who know the ins and outs of high finance have the greatest potential for controlling, should a world government be formed."

"Yes. They've always controlled, and always will as long as people put so much importance on material things," he agreed, glancing into the rear-view mirror at the bright headlight beams closing fast on them. "But I don't believe the top people in finance have deliberately set out to control the world in any destructive way, any more than I believe that they are Satanically controlled, or that there's a superman who's going to rule any such government." The lights moved closer and were blinding him, and he reached to adjust the angle of the mirror. "What's wrong with those people...?" Karen's words were interrupted by a crunching jolt. The Volvo leaped violently forward, causing Jacob to nearly lose his grip on the steering wheel. The car swerved across the white stripes separating the southbound lanes of State 355 before he managed to regain control. His lower back spasmed with pain; he felt as if his entire body had been compressed. He looked at Karen. She was struggling to rise from the floorboard. He looked into the mirror to see the vehicle closing again. A huge, broad vehicle, its glaring lights too high to be those of a car. The raging machine struck again, more violently than before, throwing the girl against the dashboard, but having less effect on him than did the first impact.

Jacob planted his feet firmly and gripped the wheel tightly to prepare for the next jolt.

"Karen!" He looked quickly to see her body's involuntary lurching movements caused by the car's careening. The interior of the Volvo brightened with the beams -- then contact. Karen's unconscious body jumped against the dash, then thudded onto the floorboard.

Jacob swerved hard to the right, and the right front of the pursuing vehicle missed the Volvo's left rear fender by inches. He jammed the brakes, and the truck shot past in a blur of light and roaring engine noise.

Karen was hurt! He couldn't stop to help her now; the maniac would crush them! He hit the brakes again, coming to a complete stop, then he stomped the accelerator to the floor and at the same time whirled the steering wheel sharply to the left. The car shot forward, leaving the truck where it had come to a stop in front of its intended victim.

Jacob had a good lead, but was headed north now — the wrong way in the southbound lane — with no way to get off, because both sides of the highway were bordered at that point by high concrete retainer walls. No chance to get off for at least four miles! The thought ricocheted through his mind while he glanced into the mirror to see the headlights far behind.

"Karen!" He tried to help her onto the seat, but she would not respond. He could see a bloodied abrasion high on her forehead and thought he saw her eyes open, then shut again. Her seat belt! Why had she not buckled up?

No time now to attend to her. The Volvo could easily outrun the heavier machine. He would cross the median where the retainer walls ended. The maniac could not keep up then; the Volvo, with its superior cornering and handling, would have the advantage.

The maniac! Until now, Jacob's panicked brain had only considered the dilemma in terms of random circumstance — someone gone berserk on drugs, or drunk at the early morning hour of two o'clock on a deserted highway. The distance he had put between himself and the would-be killer permitted him to consider the more logical probability. Was this act somehow connected to things discussed just before the attack? The Marchek contentions? Was this the time Karen had been warned of? When she and those she loved would pay the price for interference? Jacob felt a vibration. The car's engine was running erratically, causing it to slow down, then speed up once more as the motor faltered, rallied, then performed smoothly again. "No!"

The headlights were closer! He looked at the gas gauge. More than half full. The collision had jarred something loose — maybe the fuel injection system. Still two-and-a-half miles or more before the walls ended, and the headlights were brighter -- the hunter closing in on its prey!

The Volvo's motor chugged erratically and sputtered down -- sounding as if it were missing on two cylinders — then caught again and raced to full power. The engine was running more roughly by the second! The car lurching now, sputtering back to life... running more smoothly now... almost dying!

Brilliant light again made it difficult for him to distinguish anything in the rear-view mirror. The big vehicle was three-quarters of a mile back, but still its lights blinded him! What were the alternatives? Only two. Limp straight ahead and try to reach the end of the retainer walls before the onstorming machine caught up. But even if he could make it, his car's loss of power would allow the heavier vehicle to catch up. The Volvo might die, probably would die if he didn't keep the accelerator fully depressed. The other alternative — Stop, quickly get Karen from the car and over the wall, and hide from the attacker. But the truck was much closer now. Karen's limp body would be almost impossible to handle in the time required. Nothing but open space in the neatly mowed ditches outside the concrete walls. No place to hide!

Headlights topped an incline in the distance, sitting high off the ground - possibly the lights of a large truck. Maybe a bus, its lights blinking off and on rapidly, warning Jacob he was traveling the wrong way. The approaching vehicle was within 100 yards, the truck pursuing had closed to within 90. A third alternative! The indecision effect! It was selfish — if it worked. If the oncoming vehicle was a bus, and if it did work, many might die.

Put it into effect at the last possible second! Use the strange human mental quirk to advantage. Like times when people meet face-to-face on a sidewalk and fall into the indecision effect, not knowing whether to move right or left -- finally breaking into a slow, foolish dance until one steps to the side and allows the other to pass. Would it work similarly with vehicles coming toward each other? Would it work now?

Time only for the one move that might save them - save Karen! The attacker was within 50 yards, the oncoming vehicle much closer... Time to execute!... Only one chance!... Now!

Jacob swerved the Volvo to the left, putting it directly in front of the onrushing machine. He saw in that terrifying instant that it was a gigantic tractor trailer rig. Seventy yards... sixty! The Volvo rushed forward, sputtering and lurching toward the deadly lights. The beams of the pursuing machine were offset to the Volvo's right rear, still in the right lane. The oncoming truck swerved to its left, into the lane with Jacob's nemesis, trying to avoid colliding with the car. The attacker cut sharply into the left lane behind Jacob, and closed to within 30 yards of the Volvo's rear.

The huge oncoming truck was weaving, its driver trying to recapture stability. At the precise moment his instinct told him to act, Jacob whipped the car across the dividing line and directly in front of the massive tractor. There was no more than 70 feet between them. The diesel's driver, equally out of instinct, jerked the wheels of the rig hard to his right and the truck crossed the white line into the lane with Jacob's pursuer.

Looking into the side mirror, Jacob watched the tractor-trailer miss him by less than a yard. His attacker had neither the time nor the reflexes to swerve to the right. The darkness framing the hulks of metal gave him clear view in the mirror when they came together in a night-rending flash. The maneuver had worked! He saw the exploding vehicles scatter and carom off the concrete walls and into the deep ditches beyond.

He brought the car to a stop and pulled Karen into the seat. She was regaining consciousness and he smoothed the hair from her forehead to better see the wound. The abrasion was superficial, but the discoloration around it indicated a deep bruise.

"Karen! Are you okay?" He whispered the words and dabbed the wound gently with his handkerchief, wanting her to regain her senses calmly. "Yes... I think so." "It's okay, Sweetie. Just sit still." She sat upright with his help and touched his fingers, which held the handkerchief over the wound. "Is it bad?"

"No. I don't think so," he lied, thinking there could be a concussion. "But we're going to have it looked at just to be safe."

The brightness in the car made her curious about the source of light and she looked around to see the burning wreckage. "What happened?"

"Whoever was trying to run us down got what was coming to him. He hit a semi-rig head on. I'd better go see what I can do for them. Stay here, and keep still. Do you think it's okay to leave you for a few minutes?" "I'll be okay," she said, smiling weakly.

He trotted from the car, looking back to see several sets of oncoming headlights. He wanted there to be, by some miracle, something he could do for the driver of the diesel, but the heat of the wreckage quickly proved too intense, and he backed away. Both drivers were either killed instantly by the impact or burned alive while their mangled, mashed cabs held them prisoner. He hoped — at least for the sake of the driver of the big rig - that the end came quickly.

Blue and red lights whirled now near where he left Karen. State troopers ran toward him, along with curious travelers who had stopped.

"You see this happen?" one of the officers asked. "Is that your Volvo back there?"

"Yes to both questions."

"Why is your car pointed north, sir? This is a southbound lane."

"I know it's the southbound side," Jacob said, irritated by the trooper's suspicious tone.

"Then why is your car headed north?" The man moved nearer and looked more closely at Jacob.

"Because I couldn't get by the wreck. I turned around so I could go find help," he lied.

"They're finished, Sarge," a trooper who walked back from near the wreckage informed the officer questioning Jacob. The sergeant nodded acknowledgment.

"May I see your UNIVUSCARD?"

Jacob handed him the card, and the man looked at the photograph, then eyed Jacob warily. "You been drinking, or taking some other substance, Mr. Zen?"

"No, I haven't."

"Why is your car so beat up in the rear? Those dents look fresh."

"It happened some time earlier... last night. Somebody hit it while it was parked at a friend's house."

A helicopter thumped overhead, and the sergeant looked up, as did Jacob, seeing the chopper's brightly lit belly hovering almost directly above them. The trooper removed a walkie-talkie from his belt and pulled the antenna to full extension.

"Looks like a seven-sixty three, sir. You want a zebra on the zero? Over!"

The communicator squawked in response. "Negative. Over and out!"

Jacob watched the bird whirl away, its red and green position lights rapidly shrinking, then vanishing into the blackness.

The man handed him the UNIVUSCARD. "We've blocked off 355 at the end of the walls. You'll be able to get on the access road there."

Jacob started to call to the officer, who had walked away toward the wreckage and begun talking with two other troopers. He thought better of it. Something rooted deeply in his subconscious reasoning troubled him, and made him know the best thing to do at that moment was to get Karen away from there. He didn't know what lay at the bottom of his worry, but the apprehension ~ maybe even fear — weighed heavily on his thoughts while he turned to have a last look at the holocaust scattered across State 355, and at the three uniformed men silhouetted against the flames. At the charred frame of the machine that had nearly killed them. The full impact of the past minutes hit him, and he began to shake. The dark outline within the blazing mass was clearly that of a heavy tow truck, its semi-molten skeleton twisting in the flames like black, groping fingers reaching from the bowels of hell.

Karen sat groggily beside him while they crossed the Potomac on the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge, the drug given her by the emergency room doctor 30 minutes earlier doing little to ease the throbbing in her head.

"We'll stay at Stone Oaks for a couple of days. There's always a doctor on call for Uncle Conrad since he's been helping the President. The doctor said you need watching for twenty-four hours or so." Jacob kept to himself his thoughts about the small army of Secret Service and military guards at the old mansion; her safety would be ensured there.

"We've got to call Dr. Marchek!" Karen sat up with the sudden realization that the old man might be in danger. She grimaced and lay her head back gingerly against the headrest.

"He's all right, Kay. I called him while you were on the table getting patched up. He said to tell you not to worry about him."

The lie was best for her at the moment. He would, in fact, call Marchek when there was time.

Her pretty face reflected lights from approaching traffic, and he saw his words had calmed her. Despite feeling more relaxed himself, since the early morning rush began along George Washington Memorial Parkway, Jacob nonetheless kept a nervous watch in the rear-view mirror for the lights he could never see again, but which he would not likely forget, headlights now part of an incinerated heap being trucked to some distant refuse dump. Those who died in the tow truck, though, had friends, and Stone Oaks would provide haven for Karen while he found out who those friends were.

At the same hour, Jacob and Karen could not know that Hugo Marchek stood looking out his huge study window into the stillness of the early morning at what would in spring be a garden of flowers bursting with color. Now, the grounds lay dark and gray and lifeless, with only a faint, misty illumination to prove they were more than nothingness. He looked but saw little, his mind on the ancient, musty volumes piled atop the scarred table at the center of the room.

An antique lamp with a single 40-watt bulb barely dented the darkness of the study while the old man began thumbing studiously through the books, squinting at the tiny print. He occasionally had to use a magnifying glass, drawing it near then pushing it away from his face to make readable the words on the yellowed pages.

A small fire, now in its final stages of life, flickered within the smoke-blackened fireplace, its embers growing darker and collapsing in their degeneration to ashes.

Marchek slowly raised his head, sensing the presence nearby of someone or something in the old home. His eyes closed in a deeper squint, the age wrinkles becoming valleys in the sparse light, when he tried to pierce the darkness of the hallway.

"Saryeva! Is that you?" he called, then stood from the table, craning his neck to hear noises he thought might be coming from the kitchen, the area through which his sister must pass in order to enter. He glanced at his pocket watch. It was most likely not Saryeva; she would not be traveling about, alone, at this hour. Besides, she was spending the weekend with her sister, Katherine, at Silver Spring. Marchek's watch read 5:08. No — it was not Saryeva he heard.

Negotiating the distance from the study to the kitchen was easy for him. His vision, growing worse by degrees over the past few years, forced him to incorporate feel as part of getting around in areas not completely free of obstacles, and though the totally dark hallway made two turns, he moved swiftly and surely, stopping only after he reached the door to the kitchen to flip one of the several light switches on the hallway wall.

Something exploded in front of him, causing his heart to leap. The floor and cabinet, the air around him, swirled with an opaque whiteness. He strained to see through the cloud.

"Isaac!"

He smiled downward at the big tomcat, who stared up whitely from the floor, his yellow coat covered with flour.

"So, old friend, I am getting senile. I did not remember to put you out for your evening's carousing."

He lifted the feline from the floor, holding it at arm's length to brush the powder from its fur. "I guess I subconsciously want you not to disgrace your good Biblical name. Lord knows what goes on out there with you and your friends." He held the cat close to him, scratching it behind its badly scarred ears and examining a recently acquired wound. "And to make matters worse, you missed the mouse, yes?" He walked from the kitchen stroking the animal, stopping to switch off the lights before walking down the hallway. "We will put you out in the garden. How will that be?" Now he could move without following the oak runner along the wall with his fingertips. The lamp in the study, despite its limited output, gave enough light for him to stay centered in the walkway. The cat purred easily against him, moving its head to take maximum advantage of his human friend's massaging fingers. Suddenly the animal stiffened, causing Marchek to lose his grip on the cat. It emitted a low growl, then a nerve-racking scream! It dug its claws into Marchek's arms and abdomen, then into the side of his face, the animal lunging upward onto his shoulder. It ripped viciously into his back, when it let its bottom half reverse toward the floor to break its fall. The old man shrieked, grabbing his lacerated face.

His glasses had been knocked to the floor by the animal's violent action, and he searched the dark hallway for them in sweeping movements of his hands. Finally finding them, he put them on his nose, then stood, dazed, nearly staggering from the experience. The cat was gentle; it had never reacted in this manner before.

He touched his face and felt the warm, slick wetness of his blood, smelling its cupreous odor. The feeling returned — he was not alone in the house. Something cold, unspeakably sinister — something he had long known to exist but had never experienced through his natural senses until now. Chills spread across his body, tightening the skin on the back of his neck and his scalp while he made his way along one wall of the hallway.

"Dear God, give me grace," he whispered just before stepping into the opening to the study. The light from the lamp flickered, then went out. He stood stiffly in the arched entranceway, his eyes drawn to the fireplace embers that suddenly rekindled to flame, which grew until it seemed he was looking into hell itself!

A warm calm flooded his mind and body. AH fear was gone. He could face the intruding force with courage and dignity.

"So," he said in a strong voice, his eyes darting from behind the thick glasses to see into the shadows around him. "You have at last been allowed to come to me!" He moved to the center of the study, then turned slowly to see his nemesis.

"Take my life. But it is I who shall live again to judge you!" He shouted the words with hatred. "The sentence will be everlasting death -- yet eternal pain. Death without its peace! Do with me what you will. I shall, through Jesus Christ, prevail!"

McLean looked good to him in the mistiness of dawn, when he nursed the badly missing Volvo through a shopping district and past the sprawling, immaculately groomed estates, finally coming to the one belonging to Conrad Wilson. Jacob was home, and like the times he had come before, from camp or college or dates, it was expansively welcoming, the massive oaks and hickories holding out their now almost leafless, black arms, beckoning him through the gate and into a home warmed as much by the man he loved like a father as by the hearth always ablaze this time of year with fire especially prepared for the homecoming,

"Hello, Mr. Zen," the man in the dark suit said with a tight smile.

"George." Jacob nodded and handed the Secret Service agent his and Karen's UNIVUSCARDs.

"Thank you, sir. You have some trouble?" the agent asked, seeing the girl's bandaged head and the car's damaged rear portion. "Just a rear-ender. We're okay," Jacob said.

The agent walked back into the guardhouse after returning the cards. Karen marveled at the elaborate television equipment, the many monitors on the guardhouse walls and the television cameras sitting at different points along the top of the thick concrete and stone fence rimmed with wrought-iron spikes. "I heard the President once say in a press conference that Conrad Wilson was a national resource, but I thought he was joking. Just look at this!"

"It's been like this since he began taking on jobs for the Administration. He doesn't want it this way, but they insist."

The heavy sculptured iron gate swung open and Jacob urged the chugging car onto the brick drive and toward the old mansion 100 yards in the distance.