A Premature Apocalypse Read online

  One down, one to go. The gray-haired bureaucrat should make an easier opponent. Alex took one step toward the corridor when he heard a shot ring out, followed by the unmistakable flop of a body hitting the floor.

  In the deafening silence, Alex froze.

  No! Not Irina!

  Chapter 91

  Shmuel held his breath as the clusters of white dots converged on the larger red one. The live feed of the glowing asteroid went blank.

  A military engineer stared at his laptop. “We’ve registered multiple direct hits.”

  The denizens of the cramped bunker glanced at each other and at the tense faces on the smaller squares on the mounted screen. The white dots had disappeared from the schematic, but the red dot remained. The missiles had found their mark, but was the full force of the planet’s combined nuclear arsenals enough to divert the asteroid from its path?

  Shmuel’s fists whitened at the knuckles. All eyes turned to Professor Stein, who tapped at his own laptop, bobbing his head as he consulted charts and calculations.

  Professor Stein looked up from his screen. “The trajectory has changed. The asteroid will miss Earth by a few miles. We did it!”

  The people in the command centers jumped in the air and hugged their neighbors.

  Shmuel released a pent-up breath and mopped his forehead with a handful of tissue paper. If only Moshe could have seen that! Shmuel had to let him know that the danger had passed. Citizens could leave their homes.

  He reached for the desk phone and dialed Moshe’s mobile number from memory. The call cut to voicemail. Was Moshe all right?

  Then he glanced at the live feed and tugged Professor Stein’s arm. “What is that?” He pointed at the big screen.

  The bright light had faded, and the asteroid was visible again. Only now the large glowing rock had two smaller siblings, which veered away from their big brother.

  Professor Stein gasped. “The blast split the asteroid into chunks.” The room fell silent again, and the giddy smiles vanished. “The main bulk will miss us, but the others…” He trailed off and punched at his laptop again.

  “The others?” Shmuel asked.

  Professor Stein looked up from his calculations, and his face turned white. “They’re heading for the Middle East. Right for us!”

  Chapter 92

  In his long life, Eli had seen empires rise and fall, cities burn and sprout from the ashes, languages transform, and accepted wisdom overturn. He’d seen kindness and joy, tragedy and suffering. He’d even experienced love. But he’d seen nothing as heartrending as what his eyes beheld now.

  On the black stage, Moshe Karlin—his only messiah candidate—writhed and twisted in the watery glass chamber.

  This is your fault. Eli had twiddled his thumbs at Noga’s bedside. After waiting millennia for the True Messiah and receiving countless hints from the Boss, he had still not acted in time.

  In his defense, this was not from lack of trying. Failing to contact the new Prime Minister, he had assisted with Noga’s plan to build a grassroots awareness of the Ten Lost Tribes. The plan might have worked, had a premature apocalypse not ripped through Jerusalem. Eli’s timing sucked.

  But identifying the Lost Tribes was only part of his job. God sent prophets to anoint His chosen kings. Despite rushing across the city to fulfill this part of his mission, he had missed his crucial meeting by minutes.

  In hindsight, he should have approached Moshe Karlin before the elections, when he was more accessible. But by then Eli had lost his way, determined to become Eli Katz, the young Internet entrepreneur, while suppressing Elijah the Prophet in the depths of his psyche. And why had he done this? To win the affections of a mortal woman.

  But had there been any other way? The Elijah that Noga had met in the hospital had abandoned hope for humankind. He had despaired of redemption, inclined to let the Boss scrap humanity and start over. He had done so before.

  Noga had not only messed with his mind, she had recalibrated his moral compass. The world was worth saving. But by the time he’d recovered his will to fulfill his destiny, he’d missed the boat.

  It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. In the past few months, he’d discovered the secrets of the Ten Lost Tribes and the End of Death. Why would the Boss hit the reset button now? Why would He render Eli useless, his body taped to a chair of plywood and steel, while the Messiah drowned before his eyes?

  Two Messiahs, as it happened. In yet another twist of cosmic irony, the details fell into place only now. Moshe, son of David Karlin, represented the tribe of Judah. The Arab kid in the magician’s box stood for the Ten Tribes of Israel. Noga’s research had found proof of that. But why would God kill them both?

  Unless Eli had screwed up. Was Moshe Karlin the Messiah?

  On the stage, Moshe Karlin’s body twitched twice, then fell still. The show over, the magician and the suited visitor lost interest in him and moved on to their second victim.

  “What’s that?” said Suit, in English and with his Texas drawl. “What’s he saying?”

  The magician nodded to his assistant, the black-clad thug with the scar down his cheek, who walked up to the Arab boy. “It’s Arabic,” he said. Another Russian, by his accent.

  “Kid,” he said, in Hebrew. “Speak Hebrew if you have any last words.” He chuckled.

  Eli couldn’t hear the Arab’s words, but the assistant translated them into English. “He wants to ask you a question,” he told the suit.

  The magician and the suit exchanged glances. The magician shrugged, hefted his long thin sword, and the two men drew closer.

  “He asks if you are the… Shepherd?”

  The magician seemed confused, but the suit laughed and puffed out his broad chest.

  “I am. Nothing like a golden ticket to make a man feel the greed.” He chuckled again. “I know that you were eager to meet me, and now I’ve granted your wish.”

  The boy spoke again, longer this time.

  “He says you’ve hurt many people, that you’ve turned others into killers.” The henchman smiled. “He says he won’t let you do that again.”

  The three villains had a good laugh. The boy’s empty threats wouldn’t save him.

  Adams recovered from his fit of laughter. “You’ve got guts, kid. I admire that. But our time is up, and we have a flight to catch.”

  The magician raised his sword, positioning the sharp point at the mouth of the slat over the center of the Arab’s chest. One Messiah floated, motionless, in a watery grave; the other had a sharp blade aimed at his heart. Eli couldn’t bear to watch, so he closed his eyes.

  On Mount Carmel, he had faced off the prophets of Baal. Despite their prayer and dance and self-flagellation, the false god had failed to answer their offering with fire. Elijah had scorned them. He dug a deep trench around his own altar and filled it with water. He turned his eyes heavenward, and the Boss answered his call. Lightning had struck his altar, igniting the wood, engulfing his sacrifice in flames, which lapped up the water too. The people had fallen to their knees and bowed. “The Lord alone is God!” they had chanted. “The Lord alone is God!”

  And now, from his front row seat at the foot of the stage, Eli understood. He had a role to play. A single, final act to surpass all the miracles and wonders he had wrought over the centuries. Had the Boss led him here for this reason? Was this act the ultimate purpose of his life? He’d never know for sure. But a purpose it was, a purpose he now chose.

  Elijah turned his heart heavenward. The Magic had fled, the Thin Voice fallen silent. But like Samson, defeated, blinded, and chained to the pillars of a Philistine palace, he prayed. He envisioned fire and brimstone, an explosion of heat and flame to engulf the men who sowed death and destruction. To engulf them all.

  Goodbye, Noga. His final tears streamed down his cheeks. Please, Lord. Answer me one last time.

  He found the invisible muscle at the core of his brain. Flex! Flex! Flex!

  Nothing happened. More nothing happened. No he
at, no flame. No explosion. His prayers had gone unanswered.

  Eli opened his moist eyes. The three evil men, anti-Messiahs and murderers, stood over the Arab, as the magician, grinning, leaned into the hilt of the sword. The Arab boy did not cry out. Instead, he muttered a few soft words.

  “What was that?” the suit said. “What did he say?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” the henchman said. “It’s Arabic. Something about Samira. I think that’s a name.”

  Then, with a glint of victory in his dark eyes, the Arab smiled and balled his hand into a fist.

  The world turned yellow. A fireball expanded with a whoosh, swallowing the stage, singeing Eli’s eyebrows, drying his tears, and throwing him back. The chair toppled, his head hit the floor, and everything went dark.

  Chapter 93

  Irina was dead. The reality hit Alex harder than any physical blow.

  In the living room of his apartment, he stood frozen to the spot beside the toppled giant. His reason to live had died with her.

  You idiot! He should have taken Boris first. How had he let the thug go after her? Had he thought he’d make short work of his henchman? Now Boris had his gun. Any moment now he’d appear in the corridor to finish what he’d begun.

  The ground disappeared beneath his feet, and Alex collapsed to the ground. The giant had swept his legs from under him, and his back hit the floor hard. Before he could react, the giant rolled on top of him, pinning him beneath his immense weight.

  Alex swung at the bloodied face, but a large hand caught his fist and squeezed. Alex gasped as the steel grip dug into his palm. The giant grinned with pleasure, inches from his nose. Alex got in a left hook, but the giant lunged forward with both arms, pressing meaty forearms over Alex’s upper arms, and the huge hands closed over his head.

  The thick fingers tightened around his skull like iron clamps, the pressure increasing.

  “Now this ends!” Igor roared, and his thumbs closed over Alex’s eyes, pressing them into their sockets.

  Flashes of bright light exploded in Alex’s head, the last sight he’d ever see. He cried out as the pressure on his cranium mounted, threatening to implode his head.

  Bang!

  Another shot had rung out. At once, the pressure subsided, the thumbs slipped from his eye sockets, and the bloody face dropped onto his chest. A large chunk was missing from the side of the giant’s head.

  Alex crawled backward from beneath the dead thug. Irina stood over him. Her arms were rigid, her face rippled with fear. A wisp of smoke rose from the barrel of the gun she held in two hands—the spare loaded Glock he had kept hidden in his cupboard.

  She trained the gun on him as if considering whether to shoot him too. He’d lied to her. In a former life, he had let her die. Now that she knew the truth, the whole truth, could she forgive him? He’d turned his back on that old life, but he hadn’t turned his back on her. He had risked everything to save her and start a new life together.

  After three long seconds, Irina lowered the weapon. She held out her hand and helped him to his feet. Then she hugged him for all she was worth.

  Chapter 94

  Moshe retched his guts out. He knelt in a puddle of water and vomit. Shards of glass littered the floor and glinted like diamonds. Hazy light poured from the heavens like angelic rays.

  The moist air smelled of roast chicken and singed hair. He had drowned in a glass elevator filled with chilly water. But now the straitjacket hung from his frame in long white scraps and only partially restrained his left arm.

  He paused to fill his raw chest with air. Breathing—what a sweet, glorious sensation!

  He extracted his body from the jacket, and the scraps of material that fell to the floor were stained red. Blood? He ran his hands over his side and back. His fingers traced a dozen shallow cuts. A small, hard object stuck to his skin. He winced as the foreign body came away in his fingers, a small silver screw. What the hell had happened?

  He glanced around. A metal frame remained where the glass elevator had stood. Torn wooden boards creaked around the rough hole in the ceiling. The place looked like ground zero after a terror attack. Adams, Mandrake, and their henchman had disappeared. Moshe would not wait for them to return.

  He struggled with the weights around his feet, his fingers numb and clumsy. Staggering to his feet, he took a step, and his soaked shoes kicked against chunks of blackened meat on the stage floor. Grilled chicken had rained from the sky. The paint of the stage had peeled away to reveal naked wooden panels. Smoke rose from the black patches, which grew thicker and darker toward….

  Dear Lord! The magician’s box had disappeared, leaving only the charred remains of the base. High above, a smoldering white bundle dangled from the lighting scaffold. The Arab boy’s white kaffiyeh. Moshe felt the urge to vomit again, but he had already emptied his gut.

  Oh my God. A powerful charge had detonated right where the Arab boy had sat. The explosion destroyed the glass elevator and vaporized the water, releasing Moshe from certain death.

  A black top hat sat on the stage floor. Moshe leaned over and picked it up. Ouch! The hat singed his fingers and fell to the floor, landing right side up. Then it burst into flame.

  A groan drew his attention beyond the stage. Picking up a shard of melted glass for defense, he hobbled to the edge.

  Three men lay on their backs, their legs in the air, their limbs still taped to chairs. Moshe descended the stairs and got to work, slicing the bonds with the sharp glass. Alon, Rabbi Yosef, and the stranger got to their feet and rubbed their bruised arms.

  “Moshe!” The rabbi wrapped him in a bear hug.

  “Easy there. My back feels like a sieve.”

  Rabbi Yosef apologized. So did Alon.

  “It’s not your fault, Alon. You tried to warn me.”

  He gave the stranger a questioning glance. A bystander, in the wrong place at the wrong time? The man put out his hand. “Elijah,” he said.

  Moshe shook the hand. He’d never met an Elijah.

  A loud bang overhead made them cringe. The sound came from outside, the sound-barrier crack of a hundred fighter jets.

  They reached a unanimous agreement. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  They made for a bright tear in the side of the box and poured into the empty arena of the Sultan’s Pool. Shielding their eyes from the searing daylight, they glanced at the skies. There was no need to point. High above them, a large fireball streaked earthward.

  Oh, no! Moshe’s plan had failed. The asteroid had entered the atmosphere and tore through the skies overhead, toward the rise of Mount Zion.

  They ran.

  Chapter 95

  With much huffing and puffing, the tourist reached the pinnacle of the Rock of Gibraltar when he heard the boom. A thought worried him. Had his wife been right?

  Too nervous to take the cable car, she had remained at the visitors’ center. Her hip ruled out a hike on foot, and so she had let him “risk his neck” alone.

  And risk his neck he had. The line for the cable car had been short, as had the ride, and when he’d stepped outside—oh, what a view! The Mediterranean Sea stretched out as far as the eye could see.

  He’d held onto the railing, taking a moment to catch his breath, and nodded a greeting to a bushy-haired Barbary macaque that had perched on the metal fence and seemed more interested in people-watching than in the awe-inspiring vista.

  The salty sea breeze filled his nostrils and refreshed his lungs. Far below, the lines of ocean swells crept over the deep blue like the slow, calming motion of distant clouds. A colorful, multi-decked cruise ship made for the Port of Gibraltar below.

  Then the deep rumble had sounded, and even the monkey had jumped.

  Had the cable snapped, the car’s passengers plummeting to a miserable and violent death? But the boom had come from above.

  There it was! A large rounded object passed overhead, its fiery tail tracing its slow but inexorable path toward the blue horizon. The ob
ject was too large and rough for an aircraft or even a UFO. Dear God! That had to be the largest shooting star he’d ever seen.

  Was he hallucinating? His family doctor had changed his blood pressure pills two weeks ago. No. Other visitors stood transfixed, their mouths open, their eyes and hands following the descent of the meteor. Some held phones in the air, recording the cataclysm for posterity.

  Just his luck. He’d spent forty years in retail, saving up for retirement. Two months ago, he’d signed away his grocery store on the West End. The week in Gibraltar was the first trip he and his wife had embarked on, and they had planned much more: a week in the Greek isles, a weekend in Venice, and a two-week stint at a villa in Tuscany. Couldn’t the end of the world wait another few months?

  The flaming meteor scuttled across the heavens and disappeared into the horizon, the smoking tail still hanging in the sky. He waited for another boom. None followed. Perhaps the meteor was only passing by or had crashed in a distant land, poor buggers. By the looks of it, somewhere in the Middle East. That’ll put an end to their wars—ha!

  The other visitors started to talk among themselves, processing what they’d witnessed. He’d better get back to his wife. She’d regret not taking that cable car. He’d stood at the right place at the right time for the best possible view of what was surely a once-in-a-lifetime historic moment, and he had bragging rights.

  As he turned to face the cable car station, however, the tone of the ambient chatter changed. Excitement had turned to concern. A young Japanese woman gasped. They were pointing again, so he turned around and made for the railing.

  At the distant horizon, a white pillar rose from the sea, like a cloud. More hands pointed, this time at the waters far below. The waves retreated from the shore, sucking the cruise ship back, away from the port and out to sea. This was not a good time to be on the water.

  The meteor had hit the sea. Although he was no expert in these matters, he’d seen enough Hollywood blockbusters to know what would happen next. The waters would surge back. Tidal waves. Mass hysteria.