Page 64 of End of Days

The guard smiled, finally getting the joke. He said, “Yes, sir. The car will be here when you return.”

Knuckles laughed and said, “How much security do you guys have here? I mean, outside of you at the gate. It doesn’t seem like this place is very secure.”

Now friendly, the guard said, “It’s just us out here on the gate during the day. At night, when the place is closed, there are security inside, but the true protection are the cameras all over the place.” Hepointed into the guard shack and said, “If we see something during the night, we call the police.”

Knuckles smiled and said, “Good to know,” then exited through the arch onto the street outside.

They began walking to Piazza de Spagna, Brett saying, “What was that all about?”

“Just checking. Those guys are a bunch of liars, and it’s nice to know their security posture.” He held up a thumb drive and said, “Same reason I asked to use the secretary’s computer. We now have their network.”

They entered the square next to the fountain, went left, and walked to an outdoor café, the area threaded with umbrellas and tourists walking about. Brett saw Shoshana and pointed. They took a seat and Pike said, “So did you get more than we did?”

Knuckles said, “That depends. What did you get?”

“Nothing. The geolocation ended up at an apartment complex with a crime scene.”

“Crime scene? Like a terrorist attack?”

“No. Like a murder.” Pike flicked his head to Shoshana and said, “Carrie here thinks it’s the guy behind all the killings of our diplomats. Because she ‘read the room.’”

She bristled at his disparagement, but Knuckles said, “Why? What did you see?”

It was the first time Knuckles had ever indicated he trusted her instincts. Surprised, she said, “I saw colors. It was red. I smelled the death outside the room. I mean I could sense... Wait, wait, that’s not right. I can’t explain it. I just—”

He chuckled, holding up his hands and cutting her off, saying, “I get it, I get it.”

She smiled her little shark grin and sat back, saying nothing. Pikewinked at her and said, “She might be right. We have a meeting with the inspector in a couple of hours. What did you find out?”

“Not a lot. They said the guy was a Croatian Catholic who they used for menial stuff. According to them, he came to the organization through their relief efforts in the Bosnian war. He was supposed to be visiting his sick mother in Croatia, and they have no idea what he was doing in Bahrain. According to them, he was a good kid, but had a bent towards something called dispensationalism. Which is apparently a biblical theory that has to do with the end of the world.”

At that, Shoshana sat up, saying, “He told you the Croatian was a believer?”

Knuckles said, “Believer in what? He’s a devout Christian, is that what you mean?”

“No, I mean dispensationalism.”

Pike chuckled and said, “Shoshana has a theory about the Bible’s book of Revelation going on here. She thinks that these guys are trying to start the End of Days. You know, the seven seals and the horses of the apocalypse?”

Knuckles didn’t join in the humor. He said, “Well, that’s exactly what the person we met told us. This guy was a true believer in that stuff. I was raised Catholic, and that wasn’t something we were taught. It’s from somewhere else.”

Brett said, “I’m a Mississippi Baptist, and we didn’t run around with that, either, but I’ll tell you, I knew some who did. They constantly thought every earthquake was a precursor to the End of Days. Everything was a prophecy.”

Knuckles turned to him and said, “But these guys are Catholic. That’s not what they think. It just isn’t.”

Brett said, “I’m not arguing here, I’m just saying I’ve seen it, and the people who believe it take it to their core. No offense, but it’susually a bunch of white folk like you guys. It’s a real thing. You want to know why so many American evangelical Christians support Israel? It’s because they need Israel to own the entirety of the promised land in order to fulfill the prophecies in the Bible. The End of Days and the second coming of Christ.”

Surprised, Pike said, “I didn’t know you were such a biblical scholar.”

Brett smiled and said, “Not a scholar. I just had to go to Sunday school for close to eighteen years, or get my ass kicked by my mom. Kept me out of prison and into the Marine Corps, if you want to know the truth.”

Pike laughed and said, “Why Israel?”

Shoshana said, “Because it’s how the prophecy unfolds in the Bible. In order for the third temple to be built, bringing about the second coming of your Christ, the Israelites must own the totality of the promised land, and right now, according to some, we do not. We took Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, but we didn’t take back the entirety of the land. And we didn’t take back the soul of the realm—the Dome of the Rock, where the first two temples stood and where the third must be built to conform to the prophecies. We left that under the administrative control of Jordan, along with the Al Aqsa Mosque on the same grounds.”

Pike said, “Why would you do that? Why not just retake it and build the damn temple? Let it go up and then defuse the whole situation when the earth doesn’t split apart. Seems to me that location has been nothing but trouble since.”

She smiled and said, “Because it’s also the oldest religious building in Islam, created after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem way, way back when. Like in the first century. The dome was built long after the second temple fell, and according to Islam, it’s covering the locationwhere Muhammed ascended into heaven. It’s the holiest site in all of Judaism, but it’s also the third holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. If we had taken it following the Six-Day War, we would have engendered a six-year war, and against all of Islam instead of a few pathetic armies. The nation of Israel would not have survived, so the leaders during that time took a pragmatic approach, but some in my country want to take it back very badly. As do some in your country.”

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