Destiny

EIGHTY-EIGHT

Marcus and Alicia walked through the destruction scattered across Jerusalem. Most of the ancient buildings remained intact. Some of the newer high-rise hotels were tumbled as if they’d been standing in front of a firing squad. There were sounds of people sobbing, human misery layered in with air-raid sirens, the blaring of car horns, and the ratcheting blast of helicopters circling the city. Hundreds of rescue workers and paramedics attended the injured, searching through the rubble.

“This is unbelievable,” Alicia said, her voice raspy. “We’ve got to help—”

“Continue walking! Evacuate the area immediately!” a police officer shouted to Alicia. He pointed toward the clearest path. “Leave!”

They followed his direction, caught in the river of people running down Via Dolorosa and heading left on Beit HaBad, stepping over twisted steel and ancient stones.

A helicopter flew close overhead, the prop wash blowing dust and dirt into the air, the noise drowning out the howling of air-raid sirens. Alicia shielded her eyes. Marcus held her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. “Let’s get out of here!” he shouted.

They found the Toyota, its hood crushed and almost buried under rubble. “Maybe our hotel is still standing,” Marcus said. They walked through streets littered with fallen trees, downed utility poles, rocks, glass, building debris, stalled cars and hundreds of people walking, most outwardly lost.

One man wasn’t lost.

Marcus noticed him when he and Alicia walked through Damascus Gate, a man wearing a baseball cap, carrying a shopping bag. There was no sense of a tragedy around him. Nothing that would indicate he was walking through piles of rubble and human suffering caused three hours earlier by an earthquake. He casually strolled around the ruins like a detached tourist on holiday, stopping to snap a picture with his cell phone and then to resume his hike through a daytime nightmare.

Marcus carried his laptop in one hand, the flash drive in his shirt pocket and the spearhead in the back pocket of his jeans.

Alicia stopped him after they made it out of Damascus Gate. “Paul…” She looked around the city, her eyes wide, penetrating, filled with force. Sweeping an arm broadly in front of her. “All of this hell on earth…it’s starting, isn’t it? What’s on that flash drive? What’s the damn meaning or message? Is God walking around down here in all this shit? Is he somewhere in what’s left of Jerusalem? And, how did Bahir know I was raped as a girl?”

Marcus held her by the shoulders. “Alicia, listen to me! I don’t know all the answers to the things you’re asking. He said the bastard that killed my family — said his time grows short. Does that mean he’s about to die or be arrested? All of this is happening in layers, timed in increments.”

“What exactly did you find on the scroll in the vase?”

“It’s the continuation of Daniel’s prophecy of seventy weeks. I believe it’s got a dotted line to Revelation thirteen, twenty-one and twenty-two.”

“What does that mean?”

“I believe a New Jerusalem will rise out of this destruction, physically and spiritually. Before it does, China, Russia, America, Israel, Turkey and most of the Middle East, including Israel, Iran and Syria, might engage in confrontation. It has the potential to become a nuclear holocaust.”

“When? Now? What’s the date?”

Marcus said nothing, fatigue weighing behind his eyes. He looked all around them at the destruction to the Old City and then at Alicia’s face. “Soon…I think.” A helicopter approached, flying over the Temple Mount.

Alicia watched it for a moment. “And we’ve helped Iran by destroying the worm that gives them the green light to nuclear weapons. Brandi is still in that shithole. You’ve got the fate of the world on a damn flash drive, and we have—”

“We have each other. But we must move. Now!” Marcus looked over his shoulder. Evacuees streamed out of the Old City. He reached for Alicia’s hand, glancing over Alicia’s shoulder. He saw a man in the distance, unmoved by the chaos, coming closer.