After making the rounds with the children and sharing an awkward moment with her husband, by shying away at the notion of joining him in bed, Shari sheltered herself at the work station in the den area and booted the PC. Within moments the screen downloaded the dossiers and, while fighting fatigue, probed every page until she finally nodded off into a deep sleep.
At 10:39 Yahweh received the call in his study. Outside, the moon was in its gibbous phase which cast an eerie glow upon the land that was the color of whey. It was the only light granted as he sat silhouetted in front of the window overlooking the grounds. As the phone rang, his mind was drifting, when he reached for the phone and lifted the receiver. “Yes.”
“It’s Obadiah.”
Yahweh’s spoke without emotion. “Yes, Mr. Obadiah, what do you want at so late an hour?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”
“You know I am a man-of-position. And the situation with the pope is taking up a majority of my time.”
“We seem to have a problem.”
“Which would be?”
“Shari Cohen,” he said.
Yahweh remained quiet.
“I’ll come directly to the point,” said Obadiah. “It appears that Ms. Cohen has some rather delicate information that could prove catastrophic, if she’s able to make the proper ties. And our associates supporting the cause are not happy with that situation.”
“The proper ties with what?”
“Apparently, someone from Mossad sent the United States Government an attachment of encrypted pages holding something of value to the project.”
Yahweh’s attention was fully captured. “I’m listening?”
“The pages hold the graphics that could tie a lot of people involved with the cause, including prominent leaders in the United States, Russia, Israel and Venezuela. It was never meant to be seen outside of the Defense and Armed Forces Attaché and the Mossad Director.”
“Then why is it in the possession of Ms. Cohen?”
“It was passed through black channels without the knowledge of the Director or the Attaché. It seems that American sleepers within the Lohamah Psichlogit and the Research Department obtained and forwarded the information to the FBI.”
After feeling his neckline prickle with heat, Yahweh undid the top button of his shirt. “What exactly is in the encryption?”
“Diagrams,” he answered, “and some photos. But if a connection between the diagrams and dossiers are made, then the matter could open up a Pandora’s Box.”
Yahweh wanted to strangle something, anything. “We need that CD back,” he finally said. “And I think we both know what needs to be done. I want you to contact Judas immediately and have him direct Omega Team to dispatch Ms. Cohen tonight… And get that CD before it ends up in the hands of the NSA.”
“I have no problem with that, but so you know, the encryptions contain inbred viruses. If anyone outside of Mossad or the Attaché tries to decipher the code without having the proper knowledge to do so, then the viruses will ignite and completely wipe out the file, dossiers and all.”
Yahweh closed his eyes and slowly dropped his head into his hand. “I don’t care what toys you put into the program, Mr. Obadiah. I just want you to put Ms. Cohen out of my misery.”
“I understand.”
“Do you, Mr. Obadiah? Then understand this.” Yahweh slammed the phone down as a measure of his discontent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
He lay between the two mounds of sand with a hand on each mound, his eyes looking skyward for the face of God. In between the great distances of the stars, he tried to glimpse something celestial, to make him believe there was something heavenly beyond the blind faith that led men to believe an existence beyond the five senses. All he saw was the glimmer of stars shimmering like a cache of diamonds on black velvet.
Beneath his hands the soil began to undulate, the tenants below trying to force their way to the surface. Applying great strength through his massive arms, Kimball employed himself to keep them below the depths of the plane and, as always, failed. When their heads broke through the layers of sand, Kimball tried to force them back down, their strength far greater than his. Their faces, remarkably similar to his own in shape and contour and with eyes the color of ice, held the mottled skin tones in the putrescent hues and shades of decay.
Crying out against the surge, Kimball exerted all the power he could call upon. But the shapes continued to rise, the jaws of his own rotting features opening to impossible lengths and revealing a darkness in the throat that was blacker than black.
Kimball always woke at this juncture and searched his surroundings for the reality of the moment. Once calm settled in and the moment less surreal, he would always ask this question: Could You ever forgive me for the things that I have done? But Kimball believed forgiveness would forever elude him, since he gave up one war to wage another against his personal demons. And these demons never allowed him to forget, coming night after night and eroding what little hope of someday being free of a past laden with the bloodshed of others committed by his hands.
It would take him almost twenty minutes to shake off the images, and ten more before he could commit himself to his duties.
Kimball sat in the van outside the Cohen brownstone, with Isaiah in the back monitoring the audio receiver and listening to every movement within the Cohen household.
As Kimball sat with his back against the paneled wall, he wondered why Isaiah’s faith remained so entrenched after living in a culture of hardcore misery.
Isaiah, or Christian, was born in 1984 to a family who lived in makeshift huts of discarded wood and corrugated tin in a Mexican shanty town. Dung piles and rancid water drew mangy curs and blow flies. And as time went on and their world a constant state of suffering, the only possession they held was their faith in Christ.
After Christian’s father succumbed to the ravages of dysentery, wasting away until his body withdrew into itself, the rack of his ribs threatening to burst through flesh, he was buried with little ceremony in a scratch of earth marked for the dead not far from the dung heaps. The stark-white crosses, too numerous to count, seemed to saddle the small stretch of land. But after six months, as the land dwindled, the family was forced to pay homage from a distance, since additional grave markers took over the trails leading to his father’s burial site.
As Christian and his faith grew, he never questioned his abject poverty, but accepted it as a test of diversity to achieve a higher level. But when his mother was taken from him — her body found in a muddy waterway with her skirt hiked up to reveal unspeakable violations — he became lost and frightened, and sought union with anybody who would have him.
He found himself alone and unwanted, however, just another mouth to feed in an already famished world. So he migrated to the north through hot winds and an unforgiving sun, his mind falling into delirious bouts of fog and images.
Sometimes he imagined the worried faces of his parents as they beckoned him with ghostly hands to follow a certain path. But when his body could push no more, the environment having sapped him dry, he surrendered to the elements and took to the earth.
Two days later when he awoke he knew he was in heaven. The angels surrounding him were smiling and wore habits. Around their necks they wore chains bearing the symbol of the Catholic crucifix that was as gold and as bright as the emblazoned sun. When Christian sat up his eyes searched for his parents, who had led him to this wondrous place that smelled of clove and burning candle wax.