Brink of Chaos (8 page)

The young bearded messenger, with prayer locks dangling along each side of his face, sprinted up the uneven stones of the street just off the Western Wall plaza. It was the section of the Old City where the massive Herodian Temple on the Temple Mount once dominated Jerusalem in ancient times.

But that was two millennia ago. Back then the smoke from the animal sacrifices of the Jewish faithful would rise up from the Temple and spiral into the sky during the days of Roman occupation, when political and religious strife made Jerusalem as tense as the strings on a lyre. Eventually the Temple would be leveled by Rome’s legions in A.D. 70, after which, all Temple worship and animal sacrifices came to an abrupt halt. For nearly two thousand years, the Jews were without a Temple on that sacred plateau — with no immediate hope for its restoration.

Until now.

Breathless, the messenger stopped abruptly when he came to a weathered wooden door. He knocked three times. He waited … and knocked two more times. He waited … and knocked once.

The door opened.

A man in his thirties welcomed the messenger in. The messenger bowed to the rabbi seated on the couch at the far end of the room, an aged man with a pale, saggy face and a full grey beard. The rabbi’s assistant pointed to a chair, and the messenger sat.

“Rabbi,” the young man began. “Important news.”

“Speak,” the rabbi instructed him.

“About Prime Minister Bensky. Certain negotiations. Incredible …”

“Catch your breath,” the assistant chided. “Speak clearly.”

“It’s just that,” the young messenger said, “as I watched our secret work in preparation … the fashioning of the altar … the water basins … the great bronze basin … all the sacred implements for sacrifice … making ready for the day when the Temple will be restored to its rightful place on the Mount …”

“Yes …,” the rabbi said, nodding slowly. The old man twisted his head slightly to look through the lace curtain of his apartment so he could catch a glimpse of the Western Wall’s uppermost row of stones and the Temple Mount above, now occupied by Muslim mosques. He turned to the young messenger. “Please, tell us what you know.”

“There are discussions within the Sol Bensky coalition government. I don’t have the details yet. But hints. More than just rumors.”

“What kind of discussions?” the rabbi’s assistant asked.

“Between the United Nations envoy and the prime minister’s office …”

“About what?” the assistant demanded.

“Jerusalem. Some kind of international solution to control and supervise the city.”

“That’s old news,” the assistant chided him.

“No, not this part …”

“What part?”

The young messenger broke into an ecstatic grin.

“The part about the Temple Mount.”

In the conference room at the Jordans’ ranch, the members of the Roundtable were chatting around a long table of polished birch. The curtains had been pulled open, giving everyone a spectacular view of the Rockies. Even though they had all been there more times than they could count, they still found it awe inspiring.

The group had taken a five-minute break before launching into the
last order of business. Some of them, including Cal Jordan, were helping themselves to the snacks on the split-log buffet. Cal grabbed a soda and a huge oatmeal cookie and wandered toward Phil Rankowitz, the Roundtable’s head of media.

Rankowitz, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, stared off at the distant mountains. Abigail was next to him. Phil murmured, “I keep trying to remember that psalm … about the heavens declaring the glory of God …”

“That’s one of my favorites,” Abigail said. “How’s your reading-through-the-Bible-in-a-year project coming?”

“Try to keep up with it. I miss a few days here and there. Funny though, thinking back to the old days. I was just like all the other TV exec’s I worked around back then — reading the Bible, are you kidding?”

Cal laughed. “I remember not long ago when Dad would have had the same reaction. Funny how an encounter with God radically changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“The ultimate paradigm shift,” Phil replied. Cal took a bite of his cookie, and Phil reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “Cal, have I told you how glad I am to have you sitting with us on the Roundtable?”

Cal gave a smiling nod. “So, you don’t think with my dad being the founder, my mom sitting as chair, and now with me here that it looks like the Jordan family show?”

“Naw,” Phil replied. “Besides, even if it did — so what? You’ve got an extraordinary family. The more of you the merrier.”

The rest of the group was now slowly migrating back toward the table. Cal got a back-slap from former FBI agent John Gallagher, a favorite of his, as they sauntered back to their chairs. Cal congratulated Gallagher on looking so fit.

“Dropped forty pounds, and now I’m a lean, mean fighting machine,” the former special agent remarked. “Problem is, Cal, I still have the urge to be an eating machine. Got to work on that.”

Cal looked around at the accomplished array — a dozen leaders in business, the military, the media, and the law. He had recently found himself yearning to be included. He wasn’t sure exactly when it
happened, but his plans to go to art school had given way to something else: an intense desire to follow the path forged by his parents — fighting to restore the most basic freedoms in the country they loved. It was almost laughable — how he used to shrug off his parents’ commitment — he had silently considered it just a “political obsession.” Now he had come to realize it wasn’t about politics at all. This was a spiritual battle for the soul of a nation at a time in history when the world looked like it was about to head right into its darkest hour. Even some of Cal’s Christian friends called him an “end-times freak” now. A few of them attributed his turnaround to the scary encounter he had had with a terrorist in a New York train station.

And, Cal thought, maybe it did have something to do with that.

Whatever the genesis, Cal had a powerful sense of calling to do what the Roundtable was doing. He would have wanted to be part of it even if his parents weren’t involved.

For him, the timing seemed perfect. He had graduated early from Liberty University and had plenty of time before starting law school. Until then he would act as a paralegal for the Roundtable, something he had been pursuing like a dog on a bone. His parents had finally relented to his request. Joshua and Abigail told him, after everything he had been through, he had earned a seat at the table, even though they feared there could be political — and even legal — fallout against their son for his involvement. After all, they pointed out, under the Tulrude Administration, the Department of Justice had filed a vindictive criminal case two years before against every member of the Roundtable. True, for tactical reasons the DOJ had dropped the charges against everyone except Joshua, their prime target, but Cal’s parents told him this might be the beginning of political retaliation.

Cal didn’t care. It wasn’t reckless abandon. Instead, it was a rock-solid conviction that this is where God wanted him, at least for the next few months. The Roundtable existed to counteract the ruthless, abject corruption that had been spawned in the corridors of power in Washington, and Cal now felt privileged to be part of the Roundtable, even in a small way, like today, when his primary task was to adjust the video feed on the big screen, as he was doing now.

The screen at the end of the room lit up. Ethan March’s face appeared. The image was a little scrambled.

“Cal, is that you?” Ethan asked.

“Sure is,” Cal replied and reached for the remote. “The feed’s off. Let me reset the telemetry here.”

“Fine. I’ll sit tight,” Ethan said. “I’m standing in for Josh, playing the part of a test dummy.”

Cal chuckled. There had been a time, when Ethan first started working with Joshua, that Cal harbored some bad feelings about the arrangement. Envy? Maybe. Though Cal and his father had been through some tough, amazing things that had brought them closer together, still, there were occasional sparks between the two of them. He used to blame his dad for those. But lately Cal wondered whether he wasn’t more like his dad than he had ever imagined. And now Cal felt comfortable with Ethan as a kind of adopted part of the family, even if he was on the other side of the globe, so much so that Cal wished Ethan was back in the States so the two of them could pal around. He didn’t have a brother. Ethan was the closest thing.

Cal reset the feed, and Ethan’s face was crystal clear. “Okay, you’re coming in great. So, how are things in Israel?”

“Hot,” Ethan said with a grin.

“And you’re not just talking about the desert heat?”

Ethan nodded. “You got it. Yeah, there’s talk over here about a major shakeup on the Temple Mount. Josh told me this morning there are plans to rebuild the Jewish Temple up there. Josh says, after two thousand years of waiting, there’s a lot of excitement in Israel over this. I can’t see the big deal, but then, that’s just me …”

“Wow,” Cal shot back. “The Temple rebuilt? That’s huge! Listen, bro, you got to get into your New Testament. It’s all laid out in Matthew 24. Jesus predicted the destruction of the Herodian Temple on the Mount in Jerusalem when He was on earth. And it ended up happening — in AD 70 — just like He said. In that same place in Matthew, Jesus talks about the desecration of the Temple by the Antichrist at the end of days, which implies that the Temple has to be rebuilt first. Man, we’re getting close …”

“Thank you, Reverend Cal,” Ethan cracked. “I’d start the hymn singing except I’ve got a lousy voice.”

Cal chuckled and noticed Phil Rankowitz had finished gathering all the members around the big table. “Okay, Ethan, gotta go. Probably good too. I’m not sure how much of your off-key singing I could take.” Ethan guffawed. “Can you do me a favor?” Cal asked. “Have my dad join us on the screen. Good talking to you. Stay safe over there, Ethan.”

Cal touched the prompt for the multiple-screen option, and the video broke into quadrants, one for each remote participant. Once the meeting started, Phil Rankowitz took the lead. He described an article written by an eccentric investigative journalist named Curtis Belltether, whose research had revealed a seamy, even criminal, side to the brilliant and suave Alexander Coliquin, then a rising international diplomat with a global, rock-star kind of following. Belltether’s explosive article had been mailed to AmeriNews on the same day that Belltether was found murdered in a hotel room. Since then Coliquin had been elevated to secretary-general of the United Nations, and the stakes over publishing the article had been raised exponentially.

“Here’s the problem folks,” Phil explained. “We paid Belltether for the article before his death. We own the rights. That’s not the issue. The question is whether we can afford to release the article over our AmeriNews Internet/Allfone service at this time.”

Retired Senator Alvin Leander spoke up. “Why not? Isn’t that why we launched AmeriNews in the first place?”

Phil explained, “Well, as you know, we started the news service because the feds pushed all the TV and radio news over to the Internet so they could use over-the-air broadcast spectrum for other purposes. They said it was for emergencies. But it never worked out that way. You remember the story. A handful of networks and technology companies, mostly controlled by foreign money, became the gatekeepers for all the news and information on the web. And the White House willingly collaborated with them, allowing them to maintain a vise-grip monopoly over the Internet as long as they sang the administration’s tune. Until we introduced AmeriNews, that is, and got it grandfathered
onto the Internet through a technical loophole in the FCC regulations. The loophole was quickly closed for all other comers, so AmeriNews is the only show in town where Americans are going to get the other side of the story.

“By the way, an update for you. A few years ago we started delivering our news, free of charge at first, to the Allfones of every American who uses that device — about fifty percent of the population. Fifteen percent cancelled when it came time to pay for the service, leaving thirty percent on our news service. But we’ve added another twenty eight percent who use the cheaper Youfone device. So as of now, we’ve got fifty-eight percent of America reading some part of our news every day. We expect even more growth next quarter.”

From his quadrant on the video screen, Rocky Bridger, a former Pentagon army general, brought the discussion back to the main point. “Phil, what’s the problem? Just transmit the article.”

“I’m not just a former TV exec,” Phil replied, “I also consider myself a journalist. I have no way to corroborate the information in Belltether’s article without going back to his sources to fact-check it.”

From another quadrant on the screen, Joshua posed a question. “How long will it take to authenticate the information?”

“Weeks, likely. With Belltether dead, running down all his sources is going to take some time. This is pretty explosive stuff. Belltether makes Coliquin look like a sophisticated, brutal mobster back in his homeland before he gained international celebrity status. And let’s not forget his close affiliation with President Tulrude. The shrapnel from our information bomb against Coliquin is going to hit the White House — and you know Tulrude’s administration will pounce on any factual weaknesses in the article to tar and feather us.”

Judge Fortis Rice, from his chair in the conference room, asked, “Is there a rush on getting this article out that I’m not seeing?”

“Here’s the urgency, Fort,” Joshua replied. “I think Coliquin is dangerous, and the U.N. he heads is no longer an international lame duck, a world-wide debating society with no teeth. We’ve all seen what he’s turned it into: a coalition of nations that pass treaties and enforces them with large international armies in blue helmets. His
global regulations against climate change have industries around the world being monitored by his environmental police. He’s united major religions around this initiative, but I find it incredibly suspect. His international regulations on hate speech, for example, have sent ministers and pastors to jail right here in the United States. He’s a man to be watched — and exposed. Until we can expose him, he will continue to hurt people … good people.”