Fifty-One
PredicamentsThe ground suddenly dropped several feet beneath Sheriff Robert Hoag, and it caught him completely off guard. One second, he was looking down the cliff at the unmoving form of Peter Chase, and in the next second, he was above the ground. He didn’t know what was happening, but it was happening fast. The ground dropped, he was in midair, waving his arms frantically, and then he was back on the ground.
This time, the ground came up fast. His feet hit the earth and he suddenly found himself on his back. The wind had been taken right out of him and as he tried to process what was happening, he discovered there was another problem.
The ground was still moving.
It was shaking hard, and it kept him continuously off balance. He tried to get to his feet, but he couldn’t. All he could do was roll, bounce and hope that the nightmare would end. Unfortunately, he happened to notice that the quaking of the earth was causing him to bounce toward the edge of the cliff. The same cliff that he had witnessed James Bollinger pushing Chase off from.
Desperately, he tried hard to dig his hands into the ground. He didn’t know if it was going to be enough, but it was all he could do. Just when he thought he had his fingers deep enough to hang on, the earth bounced so hard, it literally caused him to once again hang in mid air above the earth. Then, he came back down, or the earth reared back up, and he hit it hard. But just when he thought it was going to get worst, it abruptly stopped.
Panting heavily, he laid on the ground, his face in the grass and hands digging into the dirt. He slowly raised his head. Thankfully, the quake had stopped, but he couldn’t quite trust himself to stand up at the moment. Taking it slow, he finally managed to get on one knee and that’s when he noticed the Cliffside directly in front of him.
He looked up.
Somehow, he had found himself from being at the top of the cliff to being at the bottom. The ground he had been standing on had broken off from the cliff and fallen to the bottom…with him laying on it.
He turned his head and froze. Approximately eight or nine feet from his position, Chase lay still on the hard ground. His legs and right shoulder had been buried from debris because of the quake.
“Peter,” he groaned. He struggled to his feet and hurried to his friends side. Somehow, he knew what he was going to find.
He didn’t have to even check for a pulse to know that his deputy and friend was dead, but he did check for it anyway because he didn’t know what else to do. Once he did check it, he rubbed his face with his hands.
“Oh, God…” Then, he looked up the face of the cliff and just cried out in rage.
Anger and grief welled up in him as his eyes blurred with tears. Chase didn’t have to die. This didn’t have to happen. But it did happen. Chase died…No, Chase was murdered. Hoag took several deep breaths, thinking only of one thing.
Vengeance.
He fully intended to go after Bollinger, put his gun to the man’s head and pull the trigger. When he thought of his gun, he realized that he didn’t have it any more. During the quake, he must have dropped it.
“Sheriff!”
Looking up, Hoag saw Amber Eastwood at the top of the cliff, looking down at him.
“Sheriff, are you okay?” she called down to him.
Nodding his head wearily, he said, “I’ll live.” He looked at Chase’s face and found that the man’s eyes were still open. He reached down and with his right hand, he closed his friend’s eyes.
“Oh, Sheriff…is Peter okay?”
Hoag shook his head. “No.”
From where Amber stood, she didn’t know what Chase’s condition was but judging from Hoag’s reaction, she had an idea. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.
“Did you see Bollinger?” Hoag called up to her.
“Bollinger? Yeah, I saw him. I left him back in the woods close to camp. He’s out cold.”
He looked up at her, puzzled.
“I hit him with a big stick.”
Hoag hesitated, thinking of revenge. “Go back and get help! I need to get Peter back up there and back to camp! And get someone to watch Bollinger so he doesn’t leave! He has things to answer for!”
“You bet he does!” Amber exclaimed back. “He tried to steal our money!”
Hoag didn’t tell her of Bollinger’s more serious crime. He was allowing his rage to build inside him.
“I’ll be back!” Amber shouted.
And, then she was gone.
Amber ran back into the woods, heading back toward where she had come from. When she got to the big tree where she had found Bollinger taking the money, she made a startling discovery.
James Bollinger wasn’t where she had left him.
In fact, the man was nowhere to be seen.
___ ___ ___Just before the quake, William Fronk and Erin Greye were asked to leave Director Fuller’s office. The reason for this was because of the arrival of Tristian Salvadori, and Ed Carr. Carr was also asked to leave because the self-appointed Advocate wanted a private discussion with Director Fuller.
With Salvadori’s personal bodyguards keeping anyone from disturbing the meeting, Fronk led Erin away. He decided that because of her present condition, he needed to get her away from the building. Erin had frozen in terror when she soon found herself in the same room as the Anti-Christ. Fronk had to take her by the arm and help her out of the office. He still had her by the arm as he led her toward the nearest elevator.
He was trying to offer encouraging words as they entered the elevator. He was so focused on her that he had not noticed a man entering the elevator with them. The doors closed, sealing them inside.
Fronk pressed for the first floor. “You need caffeine,” he told Erin. “Or sugar. A lot of it, too. How about an Espresso and a Danish pastry?”
Erin didn’t respond.
“Erin…Erin, talk to me. Say something. Hum a few bars. Just don’t go all mannequin on me. You don’t have to be scared of some pompous charlatan in a James Bond suit!”
The man in the elevator with them cleared his throat, making his presence known. “Tristian Salvadori is not some pompous charlatan!”
Fronk turned his head. “Oh, it’s you! Can’t you stand in a corner and stick your thumb in your mouth? That would be preferable than to have your jaws a flapping. Then, you just sound like a bunch of sheets hanging out to dry and flapping in the breeze.” He imitated the sound.
Ed Carr scowled at him.
Fronk shrugged helplessly. “See? It’s annoying, isn’t it?”
“I’ve had enough of your disrespect!” Carr exclaimed. He pointed in Fronk’s face. “Director Fuller may put up with it, and I’ve put up with it for far too long myself…but I refuse to stand idly by while you insult a great man who is going to change the entire world!” He took a menacing step forward. “Advocate Tristian Salvadori is a man who is going to accomplish things that no one before him has ever been able to do. He’s already done that! He has single-handedly stopped hostilities between Israel and her enemies. He has brought peace to all of us, and you have no right to speak of him with disrespect!”
“Can I do an Irish jig in his honor?”
Carr stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “What?!” he shouted, incredulous.
“How about the hokey pokey? The ho-down? No?” Fronk pursed his lips in thought. “Oh, wait! Is he more partial to the honky tonk square dancing? Well, okay, but he won’t be my partner.”
Erin snickered. It was suddenly apparent that Fronk’s odd sense of humor had gotten her attention. Perhaps it was the idea of seeing Fronk and Salvadori performing a square dance that caused her to overcome her fear.
“What is wrong with you?” Carr demanded.
Fronk continued with his ranting. “Well, if it’s ballet, the whole thing is off.” He shook his head adamantly. “I do not do ballet.”
Carr opened his mouth to speak.
But he never got the chance to give Fronk a piece of his mind.
The elevator abruptly stopped, and then is shook hard. All three of them fell to the floor and when they tried to get back up, they soon discovered that they couldn’t. The elevator commenced to shake and several times it dropped, and then stopped. The lights flickered. They heard screaming from somewhere in the building.
Then, everything stopped.
The elevator was dark for several more seconds and then the emergency lights kicked in. The lights bathed everything and everyone in the enclosed elevator a shade of red.
Carr groaned.
Fronk shoved the man away from him and said, “Get off of me, man!” Then, he turned to help Erin sit up. “Are you okay?”
Erin put her hand to her head and nodded. “Yes…I think so. I’m just…a little dizzy.” She blinked and tried to focus on Fronk. “Wh-what happened?”
Fronk looked up, noticing that the elevator was stuck at an odd angle in the shaft. The floor was crooked. “I believe we just got our butts kicked by an earthquake.” He turned to glance at Carr. “And now we’re stuck in Oz with one of the Wicked Witch’s flying monkeys.”
___ ___ ___Director Fuller was certain about one thing.
He was a dead man.
The Anti-Christ was hanging out the window with a firm grip on Fuller’s ankle. If the man let him go, Fuller knew he would only fall to a certain death. He couldn’t help but notice that Salvadori not only had a tight grip on him but he also didn’t seem to be struggling at it either. Salvadori didn’t even appear to be breaking a sweat.
Fuller looked up and into his enemy’s eyes.
Salvadori’s own gaze was hard as he stared into Fuller’s. Suddenly, Salvadori grinned. Then, he pulled Fuller back into his office feet first. When he was certain Fuller was back inside safely, he stepped back and rubbed his hands.
“Well,” he said dryly, “it appears that we are in quite a predicament. Doesn’t it?”
Fuller rose shakily to his feet and moved away from the window. He looked at Salvadori, regarding him as if sizing up the opponent. “I’ve been in predicaments before,” he finally said.
“Oh, there’s no doubt in my mind of the truth to that, Director. I know your background. In fact, I know your background a great deal more than you realize.”
“That’s…very reassuring,” Fuller replied sarcastically. “Can we just stop the small talk and get out of here? We should be out there to see if anyone’s hurt. People are going to need our help.”
“Noble, of course, but…we’re not going anywhere.”
“Why not?”
Salvadori waved toward something behind him, gesturing toward the door. “See for yourself.”
Fuller stepped past him and glared at his front door. A beam had fallen from the ceiling and was firmly in place against it. There was no way that he and Salvadori were going to move the beam out of the way to get at the door. Someone from the outside was going to have to cut through the door to get them out of his office.
“That’s just great,” Fuller muttered under his breath.
Salvadori folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against Fuller’s desk. “So you see, Director…we appear to have plenty of time for that small talk after all.” He smiled.
Fuller turned to glare at him and he didn’t feel like returning the smile. “I assume that your purpose for this visit was just because of a tour. Nothing more, nothing less. So there’s nothing to talk about.” He shrugged. “I apologize for the inconvenience of the quake interrupting your itinerary. But these things do happen, don’t they?”
Salvadori pursed his lips in thought. “By these ‘things’, I believe you are referring to the quake itself. Yes?”
“What else could I possibly be referring to?”
Salvadori ignored the sarcasm. “As a Christian, perhaps you can tell me why God would permit such devastating catastrophe’s to occur, such as these earthquakes. This quake seemed powerful enough to claim hundreds if not thousands of lives. And perhaps the number of deaths will be even far greater than that. Why does God allow these things to happen?”
“This isn’t God’s fault. He warned us that these things were going to happen.”
“He warned us?” Salvadori shook his head, but he appeared to be amused. “You are referring then to His Word. The Bible. You are telling me that a book written long ago warned us of earthquakes that would happen today.” It wasn’t a question.
Fuller sighed. He really didn’t want to get into a debate with the enemy of God. “That’s right. It’s called Bible prophecy.”
“Yes, of course, it is. But even so, why warn us about these quakes instead of seeing to it that they never happen?”
“That isn’t how God works.”
Salvadori raised his eyebrows. “Oh? Then…you know how He works?”
Fuller looked at him. “I know that He has given us His Word so that we could learn about Him and take heed of the prophecies written in it.”
“And if we do not take heed, what then? He punishes us?” Salvadori shook his head. “So God gets mad at us when we don’t do what He wants, and like an angry, spoiled child, He grabs the earth and gives it a good shaking.”
“God is not an angry child.”
“Perhaps there is no God.”
Fuller stared at him. “What?”
“Perhaps we are gods, and there really is no one particular god.”
“There is but one God. You and I are nothing but mere mortals. We are men who were created by God.”
Salvadori scoffed at him. “That is a lie, Director. I was not created by God. I was brought into this world by means which you can never fully understand and for a purpose which is something you can never grasp. There is much more happening here today in this world that you know nothing about. Things happening even right here in your own country. And I tell you truthfully…your United States of America is falling and I alone am able to offer Americans like yourself hope.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Since after the vanishings - which, by the way, can be easily explained as a natural act other than a supernatural act of God - America has deteriorated greatly. Your borders are not protected. Your economy - let alone the entire world’s - is not just on the brink of collapse. It has collapsed. There is a growing food shortage that is causing riots right here in America. People are beginning to do what seems right in their own eyes. And you have yet to grasp the magnitude of the terrible predicaments as you call them coming your way.”
Fuller felt numb. He didn’t understand why God had allowed him to get stuck in a room with the Anti-Christ. If he didn’t find a way out of his office soon, he was seriously considering to find a way to kill the man before him, even though he knew that it wasn’t going to help his situation at all.
___ ___ ___Marc “Fury” Shiva opened his eyes.
He sincerely wished he hadn’t.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the street several floors below him. For a few scary seconds, he panicked and almost fell off of the ledge he was laying over. Just in time, hands grabbed a hold of him and pulled him back over. He fell onto the hard reassuring surface of the rooftop, trying to catch his breath. Looking up, he saw Sean Kempner standing over him, hands on his hips.
Shiva blinked. The man looked like he needed a V-8.
He wiped at his forehead and realized it was wet. He looked at his hand and saw blood. He frowned. “What happened?”
“The earth moved,” Kempner replied. “Didn’t you feel it?”
Shiva paused. “The earth moved?”
“Yeah. A lot. I think the actual term is ‘earthquake’.” He pointed at Shiva’s forehead. “You hit your head when you fell. I guess you were out for a few seconds or so. I had to get to you fast, otherwise you would have gone right over the edge.”
Shiva blinked again. “Why do you look lopsided?”
“It’s the building. It’s leaning.”
“Seriously?”
Kempner nodded grimly. “Yeah. Seriously. Why would I kid about a thing like that?”
Shiva slowly rose to his feet and once more, he came close to stumbling over the edge.
Kempner grabbed a hold of his arm and helped to keep the ex-wrestler steady. “Maybe we should get away from the ledge.”
Shiva agreed.
As they moved away from the edge of the rooftop, Shiva looked around him. The city of Albany appeared to be a city that had been tossed into disarray. Smoke rose from the city. Some buildings had clearly suffered damage from the quake while a few others appeared to have remained intact. Walking toward the center of the rooftop also proved to be challenging. It was like moving up a hill with slippery stones under foot.
Shiva stopped when they were far enough from the ledge and looked toward the Federal Building. He remembered why he had come to this rooftop to begin with. He looked at Kempner. “Didn’t you put handcuffs on?”
Kempner shrugged. “I took them off when I realized I would need my hands to help keep you from falling.”
“How did you take them off?” He frowned. “I saw you put them on.”
“I’ve been in this business a long time, friend.”
“And this business led you here to assassinate Tristian Salvadori?”
Kempner nodded. “It did.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “But for the time being, that window of opportunity has closed. I seem to have lost my rifle.”
Shiva put a hand to his forehead. “Who are you anyway, man?”
“You can call me Ari,” Kempner replied.
“That’s not your real name though, is it?”
“Obviously.”
“Why don’t you tell me your name?”
“I don’t know if you can be trusted.”
Shiva nodded. “I’m having the same problem, man. My name is Marc Shiva.” He held out his hand. “What’s your name?”
Kempner paused. He narrowed his eyes as an impression came upon him to trust the ex-wrestler. He grabbed at the man’s offered hand. “Sean. Sean Kempner.”
“You’re a believer, aren’t you?”
Kempner shrugged. “I believe in a lot of things.”
Shiva regarded Kempner for a moment, confident that his impression of the man being a believer to be a correct assumption. “You really did come here to shoot him, didn’t you?”
Kempner looked at him. “What gave you that idea?”
“Why do you want to kill him?”
“Why do you want to kill him?”
Shiva shook his head. “Look, man. You’re the one who came up here with a sniper rifle. Why can’t you just spell it out for me and stop talking in riddles? So you came up here to shoot the man who calls himself the Advocate. Why?”
Kempner paused. “You know why.”
“Tell me anyway. Pretend I’m an ex-wrestler who can’t put two and two together.”
“That man is the one who is leading the One World Order. He has everything lined up and it’s happening now. The master plan. It’s like Nazi Germany all over again, only worse. In America today, he already has his own trusted forces in place. They have strategically moved in to their assigned areas and taken control of the United States government.”
“Come on, man. You can’t take over the government overnight.”
“This has been happening for years. Like chess, Salvadori has been placing his people right where he wants them to be. He has been in league with many others…some of the world’s richest people have been financing him. Everything they’ve been doing has brought them to the one goal they’ve been aiming at. World domination. One World Order. Can’t you see that? Haven’t you been paying attention to what’s been happening? Do you think the economy has failed by accident? The economy has been failing because these people - this conglomerate of billionaires under the devil’s thumb - have been purposefully sabotaging it throughout a period of several years.”
Shiva swallowed. “That’s heavy, man. What people are you talking about? Do you have any proof?”
“You want proof, read the Book of Revelation.” He pointed toward the Federal Building. “That man in there who I planned on putting a bullet through his head is the White Rider of Revelation. The Antichrist. Right now, he is the most powerful man on this planet and if we don’t stop him, he’s going to lead us all to our deaths.”
Shiva let out a weary sigh. He shook his head as he wiped at his forehead. “Man, you have to know your plan to assassinate him won’t work. The Bible tells us that this man will receive a wound which he would come back from, but I don’t believe that’s going to happen now.”
Kempner shrugged. “Well, I thought I’d at least give it a try.” He paused. “There will be other opportunities. One such opportunity is months away…and I won’t be the one making the attempt that time.”
The ex-wrestler frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The AC is making a trip to the White House. The Vice President is giving him an office there…” He paused for affect. “The new Oval Office.”
“Man, are you serious?”
He nodded once. “That’s not all. Once Salvadori has arrived to take his place in the new Oval Office, there will be an assault made on the White House.” He made eye contact with Shiva. “President Ballou himself will be leading the attack.”
___ ___ ___They had just placed a serial killer in the back of a squad car when the quake struck. The ground shook so hard, it was impossible to maintain on their feet. There was nothing to hold onto because everything shifted and moved. Vehicles were bouncing on the pavement like basketballs. The only thing that wasn’t affected was the helicopter in the air.
Keith LeBeau and Jeremy Bandjough were safely in the Storm Breaker above the warehouse district on the outskirts of Albany. Below them in a deserted warehouse, they had seen several police cars arrive on the scene. They had recognized Detectives Randy Groh and Brian Yorke and later seen them place Sebastian Crowe, a killer they called Cain, into the back of one of the police cars. Then, like dominoes, those who had been standing fell to the ground.
From the safety of the sky, the pilots saw the ground buckle and wave like the sea. It was the strangest sight they had ever seen. Then, the warehouse where Michael Lenox and Staci Cohen had last been reported to be in collapsed. The walls buckled, the windows exploded and the ceiling caved in. A huge cloud of dust and debris filled the air. It became so thick, the pilots brought the Storm Breaker up higher to get out of it.
When they were high enough from the smoke where they were able to see, Bandjough said, “Oh, man…”
LeBeau glanced at him. “We’ve gotta get down there and help! Doc and Knox are down there.”
“Ace, look!”
LeBeau looked and he saw the city of Albany. From several locations, smoke rose from the city. He thought his mind was playing tricks on him because there were quite a few buildings he could recognize on sight…but some of them were missing. He had been in Afghanistan. He had been in places that had been targeted by air-to-air missiles and on this day, Albany looked as if it had been attacked.
He swallowed. “Oh, man…This is not good.” He shook his head. “Well…we have to help right where we’re at before we head for the Federal Buildin‘, Rookie. I don’t intend to abandon Doc and Knox right now.” He was already looking for a place to land.
With the quake over, the Storm Breaker set down in the parking lot away from the police cars. Yorke ran over to them just as they settled and banged on the door. Bandjough moved into the back and pulled it open.
“We’re gonna need a digging crew out here,” Yorke said.
“I really don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Bandjough told him. “Albany looks bad. I think we’re on our own here.”
Yorke looked at LeBeau.
LeBeau confirmed what Bandjough said with a nod.
Yorke sighed. “Well…I guess we’ll have to work with the handful of people we got.” He waved at them. “Come on.”
The Storm Breaker was shut down and secured. LeBeau and Bandjough followed Yorke back to the collapsed warehouse. Groh was there with five other police officers. Several of them were trying to pull debris away from where the entrance once was. They were not hopeful of finding a way in to Staci and Lenox.
“This is hopeless,” Groh told Yorke and the pilots. “Even if we could somehow get through all this, I doubt we would get to them in time. For all we know, they could already be dead.”
LeBeau glared at him. “We’ve got to try! And for the record, pal, they ain’t dead! Everybody digs and no one stops until we get in there!”
“I don’t take orders from you, flyboy.”
Yorke looked at his partner. “Come on, Randy. Easy. Let’s just try to make a dent in this thing and see what happens.”
“Why don’t you get him over here to help us?” Bandjough said.
Groh turned his head. “Who?”
Bandjough pointed.
When Groh looked to see where the pilot was pointing, he shook his head in disbelief. Bandjough had been pointing at the prisoner in the squad car. “Are you out of your mind?” he exclaimed. “That guy isn’t getting out of that car until we get him somewhere we can lock him up.”
“There’s nine of us,” Bandjough persisted. “He would make ten.”
“Yeah. That’s really great that you can add and all, but the answer is still not on your life. That guy is a killer and if we drag him out here to help us, he’ll kill any one of us the second we take our eyes off of him.”
Yorke sighed. “Randy, we don’t have a choice. We need his help.”
Groh shook his head. “He’s not going to help us.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know it because he’s a killer and we’re the cops who caught him. We’re going to lock him up. I know if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t be feeling so helpful either.”
“Well, we just won’t give him a choice.”
“Great. What are you gonna tell him?
‘Listen, Cross, we want you to help us out here but we’re still gonna lock you up for life. Maybe even get you the chair.’”
Yorke turned and headed for the squad car. LeBeau and Groh followed, but Bandjough joined the other police officers in digging through the rubble. Yorke opened the rear door and looked in at Crowe.
Crowe turned his head and smiled. Blood on the side of his head indicated that he had struck something during the quake. “That was fun,” he said. “Could we do that again?”
“We need your help to get back inside,” Yorke told him.
“Now why would I want to help you?”
“The woman you kidnapped is still in there and she’s in there because of you. So is the ATD agent who helped us capture you.”
“I’d shed a tear or two if I cared.”
Yorke paused. “Here’s how it works. You help us and you don’t get a bullet in your head.”
Crowe looked into his eyes. “Careful. That’s not very Christian like. Besides, if you really do have Jesus down in your heart, I don’t believe you could pull the trigger in cold blood like that. So why don’t you try to scare something else up to threaten me? If not, go dig out your friends and get away from me.”
Yorke smiled. Then, without warning, he reached into the car and grabbed a hold of Crowe. He pulled the man out and slammed him up against the car. Groh and LeBeau continued to stand by, waiting to see if he needed help.
“Yeah, that‘s right!” Yorke snapped angrily, his face inches from the killer’s. “I’m a Christian and I’m supposed to live a life that is not contrary to what He tells me in His Word. So you know that I wouldn’t just pull out my gun, press it against your head and pull the trigger. But guess what? I know someone who isn’t a Christian and who is at this moment itching to put a bullet in you. The thing is, I’m here to keep him from doing that. At the moment, all it takes is for me to look away and that would be the end of it. So help us dig or face the consequences.”
Crowe looked at Yorke for a moment. Then, he looked over at Groh and he knew Groh wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him. Not for a second. He also realized that as he helped them dig through the rubble, anything was possible. Even escape.
He smiled. “Sure, old buddy, old friend. Let’s do some digging!”
