Arrived (8 page)

“This office must belong to one of the prison directors.”

About halfway into the message Judd spotted an interesting paragraph.

Regarding the latest Jewish camp on the Island, I wish to relate good news. The transport you sent arrived fine with only two dead prisoners. We have experienced great success in keeping the inmates alive and, at the same time, miserable. The camp doctor has come up with a concoction that we have to feed only once a day, and it sustains the prisoners for twenty-four hours
.

Judd read on, discovering this mysterious “Island” had more than two thousand housed there. A chill ran down his back. He wondered if the camp was under the plague of darkness, and if so, what people were doing.

“What are you reading?” Zvi said.

“Have you heard of the Island?”

“Yes. It's on the Tigris. I have heard horror stories of Jews being taken there. I'm not sure which is worse, being taken to the Island or facing the guillotine. At least with the blade, the suffering is over.”

“What else have you heard about the camps?” Judd said.

Zvi put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “It's worse than the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. The GC torture their prisoners to the point of death but don't allow them the decency of dying. I've even heard they take videos of the beatings and torture and send them to Carpathia.”

Judd shook his head. He wished he could do something for people on the Island, but he decided he had to focus on Zvi. Random gunfire echoed through the hallway, and Judd moved closer. “You don't have to stay in the dark. God can open your eyes.”

“You going to preach now? Like that guy did back in the cell?”

“We've risked our lives to come here because we thought there might still be someone who needed to accept God's forgiveness.”

Zvi rolled his eyes and bit his lip, then seemed to remember that Judd could see his face. He put his head in his hands.

Judd paused, then continued. “Before I found out about God, I used to hate it when people would preach or act like they knew something I didn't. I don't want to come across that way. There was a time when I felt really nervous about talking about God, and I tried to figure out all kinds of ways to convince people without making them feel bad.”

“And what do you do now?”

“The world's gone so crazy that there's no time to tiptoe. I just lay it out before people as plainly as I can and let them make their decision.”

“Okay, so lay it out.”

“Basically, God loves you and wants you to be his child. He wants to adopt you into his family, but he won't do that unless you want to be a part of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“God's perfect. He can't allow anything near him that's imperfect. And you and I are both sinful. We've done bad things.”

“I've been taught since I was young that the path to God was through obeying his commands.”

“True, but you know as well as I do that you haven't lived up to every command. And if you break even one, you're out of the program. That's why God had to provide a sacrifice, so we could be forgiven.”

“This is the part where you tell me about Jesus, how he is the Messiah, and if I'll just get baptized or pray some prayer—”

“Zvi, have you ever considered the possibility that you've been living in darkness your whole life? Do you know God's peace, feel his forgiveness, his love?”

“You can't know those things in this life.”

“Yes, you can. Again, I'm not trying to preach, and this is your decision, but God is real and he wants to come into your life right now and make a difference. He wants to show you mercy, but you have to accept it. I've met a lot of people in the past few years who've been raised exactly like you, and when they see the truth, they can't believe they were blind to it for so long.”

Zvi sighed. “And you guarantee relief from the darkness?”

Judd smiled. “It's one of the perks. Back when the stinging locusts came—” Judd stopped as someone approached in the hall.

“I heard you talking,” a woman said. A gun clicked. “Tell me where you are! Come out now or I'll shoot!”

8

JUDD
sat still as the female guard stumbled down the hall, her gun held in the air, the other hand out to guide her. Judd leaned close to Zvi and whispered, “Don't make a sound.” But when Judd leaned back, the chair squeaked.

The woman pointed the gun at him. “I heard that! Come out of the director's office, hands up!”

Judd studied the angle of the gun. She was aiming about three feet over their heads. He thought of rushing the woman or hiding behind the desk, but neither of the options seemed good.

Judd turned and picked up a beautiful glass paperweight from the desk. The delicate piece was about the size of a baseball and had been created in the likeness of Nicolae Carpathia. Judd carefully brought the object behind his head and threw it over the woman's head. It crashed against the wall, shattering into a million pieces.

The woman screamed and turned, firing at the wall. The bullet pinged through the hallway. Judd jumped up, lunged for the door, and slammed it. He turned the lock and dived for the ground as another bullet punctured the wall above his head. Judd hit the floor and pulled Zvi down with him.

Zvi was panicking now, breathing heavily and shaking. “A friend told me he saw a man appear at one of the mass beheadings of Judah-ites. Right out of thin air. He wasn't there, and then he was. Do you think that was from God?”

“What did the man say?”

“He talked about God's forgiveness, like you.”

“I've seen angels do the same thing,” Judd said. “They come as God's messengers to warn people about not taking Carpathia's mark. And they plead with the undecided to choose Christ. It's another display of God's love.”

“I won't take Carpathia's mark.”

“It's not enough to be against Nicolae. Jesus said those who are not for him are against him. That puts you in some pretty awful company.”

Judd could tell by the look on Zvi's face that there was a fierce battle raging. He had seen the same look many times before. Those who rejected Christ seldom struggled like this. They simply threw their hands in the air and walked away. But Zvi was different.

The woman outside cried and moaned. The gun clicked over and over. Judd opened the door to find her lying on the floor, her face buried in her arms. She had pointed the gun at her head and was pulling the trigger.

“I'll be right back,” Judd whispered to Zvi.

Judd crawled on the tile floor, scooting on his knees and pulling himself forward with his hands.

The woman looked wild, clawing at her skin until it bled. Big patches of hair were gone from her head. “Oh, God, help me. I don't want to go through another one of these!” She finally stopped and put out a hand toward Judd. “Who are you?”

“A friend. Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you.”

“You're one of them, aren't you? One of the Judahites.”

Judd didn't answer. He simply stared at the
-6
on her forehead, signifying that she was from the United North American States.

“Before the disappearances, before any of the bad things started happening, I went to one of those big meetings,” she said. “The kind they used to have in stadiums.” Saliva ran down the woman's lips and onto her chin. She was sobbing as she talked, reaching out, then pulling her hand back.

“A man sang and then another one stood up and talked about the Bible. I didn't want any part of it. My friends and I were there to make fun of the meeting. And then I saw some people from my neighborhood going forward. I almost went with them, just to see what would happen. I almost did.”

“Why didn't you?” Judd said.

“I thought religion was for weak people. I thought I had plenty of time to decide. I wanted to have fun with my life. But …”

With this, the woman flew into a frenzy of scratching and wailing. Her eyes flew open and Judd saw how hollow they looked, as if he could see all the way to her soul.

When she settled, Judd came closer. “Let me help you to a safe place.”

“Where can I go in this blackness that's safe?” she spat. “I might as well throw myself off the side of the building. There's no hope!”

Judd wanted to tell her she could call out to God and be forgiven, but he couldn't. The best he could do for her was ease her pain a little.

“I know what I've done!” the woman yelled. “I had a lot of chances to say yes to God, but I kept putting it off.

Kept saying no. And now look what happened.”

Judd sat back, drained of emotion. How many other people on earth could say the same thing? How many had hardened their hearts toward God, making jokes of the message or saying they would get around to it later? Judd had been one of them. He had ignored the truth for so long, but God had given him a second chance.

Judd scampered back to the office and helped Zvi to his feet. “Come on. We have to help this lady.”

Judd pulled him into the hall, and they both helped the guard to her feet. Judd found a lunchroom down the hall and put the woman in a chair. “There's a refrigerator behind you, to your right. Looked like there were some sandwiches in there. And here's a drink in case you're thirsty.”

The woman reached out and nearly knocked the can of soda over. She took a sip, sat back, and mumbled something.

“What did you say?”

“I know he tried to reach me,” the woman whispered. “I watched them bring people through here and treat them like dogs, then talk about peace and love and goodwill. I knew in my heart it was fake and the other message was true.” She looked up and opened her mouth. Her chin quivered as she tried to form the words. Then tears welled in her eyes.

Judd guessed what she was trying to say. She wanted to know if there was any hope, if God would somehow give her one more chance. But the woman must have known the answer. She put her head on the table and sobbed.

Judd put an arm around Zvi and guided him to the door. As they walked down the long hall, the woman's wails and cries nearly tore Judd's heart out.

When they reached the police cruiser and the others, Judd found Gunther and explained what he had seen on the computer in the director's office. Gunther and Westin went back inside to investigate while Judd and Zvi climbed into the GC cruiser.

“How could you have compassion for that woman when she wanted to kill you?” Zvi said.

“Because I was exactly like her before the disappearances. For some reason, God gave me mercy and allowed me to call on him before it was too late.”

“Why do I still have a chance when that woman doesn't?”

“I don't know the full answer, but I do know that if God has given you one more opportunity to respond, do it.”

Zvi turned his head toward the window, deep in thought. “Tell me why you think Jesus is the Messiah.”

Judd began in the Old Testament and from memory shared many prophecies that looked forward to the Messiah. “In Genesis, God curses the serpent and says that a descendant of Eve will crush the serpent's head. Jesus won the victory over the devil on the cross. In Isaiah it's predicted that a virgin will conceive a child and give birth to a son. Mary, Jesus' mother, was a virgin.

“In one of the little books, Micah, I think, it says that out of Bethlehem will come a ruler over Israel whose origins are from ancient times. Jesus was born in Bethlehem.”

“But wasn't Jesus just a good teacher? He never really claimed to be the Messiah, did he?”

“That was the reason the Jewish leaders were so angry. He called God his Father. He said, ‘I existed before Abraham was even born,' which is how God referred to himself to Moses. It drove them wild. They wanted to kill him.”

“But did Jesus actually say he was the Messiah?”

“In one of the Gospels, John the Baptist sent someone to ask that very question. It was something like, ‘John wants to know if you're the one who was to come, or if we should expect somebody else.' ”

“What did Jesus say?”

“I'm going from memory here, but it was something like, ‘Go back and tell John that the blind can see, the lame can walk, the deaf hear, and the good news—' ”

“ ‘—is preached to the poor,' ” Zvi finished. “I know that passage. Isaiah 61.” He closed his eyes. “ ‘The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. …' ”

“It's exactly what he's done for you today, Zvi. God has freed you from your prison so you can respond to him. So you can know him. So you can be forgiven.”

Zvi stared into the darkness. “Give me a moment.”

Judd nodded. “I'll be right back.”

Judd stepped out of the car and said a prayer for Zvi, then dialed Chang Wong's secure phone and reached him at his apartment.

“Judd, your worries are over,” Chang said. “I've finally decided it's time for me to get out of here. Captain Steele and a couple others are coming for me as soon as possible. They're taking me to Petra!”

“That's great news.”

Chang told Judd what had happened at the palace during the last few hours, and Judd relayed his story about the guards and the building they raided.

“You're right in the thick of things,” Chang said. “There's supposed to be some kind of emergency meeting there tomorrow morning. Nicolae was supposed to come, but with the plague of darkness, I'm not sure.”

“We're following a lead on a concentration camp,” Judd said.

“I've felt so bad that I haven't been able to do much about that. I've tried to slow things down with shipments and computer glitches, but they've even constructed a camp here on an island.”