Long ago, the ancient gospels of Jesus’s female apostles were stolen by powerful churchmen and relegated to the rubbish heaps of history. But those apostles have been reborn as female children, and are dictating new gospels that will be incorporated into a radical new religious text, the Holy Women’s Bible.
At a hidden women’s fortress in Greece, the teenager Lori Vale develops a paranormal relationship with one of the reincarnated children, and soon begins to suspect that she may have been connected to the female apostles of Jesus in ancient times, when the Son of God walked the earth and preached to the people of the Holy Land.
While information about Lori’s past is unfolding, she finds herself caught in a violent religious conflict that has immense historical repercussions. Powerful, brutal men want to suppress the emerging gospels of the she-apostles, men who are hell-bent on destroying the radical women and their heretical texts. The women race to get their material completed and published before they are annihilated, but they have another big problem: the twelfth she-apostle—Martha of Galilee—has not been found yet, and the other female apostles say she holds a dark secret that could do enormous damage to the cause of women, and to the entire planet. . . .
Book 2 of the Stolen Gospels Series
Brian Herbert
Copyright 2011 DreamStar, Inc
Smashwords edition 2011
WordFire Press
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DEDICATION
For my talented, special daughters, Julie, Kim, and Margaux. As women, you are the members of a very select group—and you are far more complex and interesting than men.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over the years there have been numerous advisers and editors on this project, and the suggestions of Jan Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Robert Gottlieb, Matt Bialer, Martin H. Greenberg, John Silbersack, Mary Alice Kier, and Anna Cottle have all been greatly appreciated. I am also grateful to Rebecca Moesta-Anderson, for her work on the e-book edition of this novel.
INTRODUCTION
The Lost Apostles
(Sequel to The Stolen Gospels)
This novel is the second half of an epic story that my wife Jan and I originally conceived in the mid-1990s, a tale that became so large in the writing process that it eventually had to be divided into two novels—The Stolen Gospels and The Lost Apostles.
As I have said in the introduction to The Stolen Gospels, this project has a long and checkered history, and the story has never before been published in traditional form. In part, this has to do with the story’s radical nature—both from a feminist and religious standpoint—and the fact that most of the submissions my literary agents made involved publishing it as one huge book. In addition, it spanned several literary genres—containing elements of a religious thriller, combined with science fiction and fantasy. Most publishers prefer to stay within one genre or another.
Eventually a publisher did offer me a contract—a contract that was never signed. So, this epic story was never published. Until now.
At long last, sixteen years after Jan and I began brainstorming this far-reaching, heroic story, I am pleased to finally make both novels available in e-book form.
Brian Herbert
September 10, 2011
Brief summary of the events in The Stolen Gospels
Teenager Lori Vale and her mother attend a goddess circle meeting in a Seattle suburb, unaware of a bitter rivalry between the event organizers (United Women of the World) and their archenemies the male-supremacy Bureau of Ideology. During the meeting, the BOI launches a violent commando attack against the group, hoping to kill the UWW’s second in command (Dixie Lou Jackson), who is making a guest appearance. In an attempt to save Lori’s seriously injured mother, Dixie Lou connects her to a life support system on an escape aircraft, taking Lori along as well. Lori’s mother dies. Dixie Lou—sensing that she has known Lori Vale before, and that it is important—takes her into custody and flies her to the UWW headquarters in Greece, effectively kidnapping her.
At the secret headquarters, a heavily guarded fortress in an ancient Greek monastery, a group of radical women is creating an earthshaking religious text, the Holy Women’s Bible. The new sacred book will include the Old Testament and the New Testament, edited to alter gospels that are detrimental to the interests of women, such as passages asserting that they should obey their husbands, remain silent in churches, and suffer the burden of Eve’s sins.
The teenager learns that a third section of the Holy Women’s Bible is even more of a bombshell, the Testament of the She-Apostles. It asserts that Jesus Christ had 24
apostles, not 12, and that half of them were women called “she-apostles.” Eleven she-apostles have been reincarnated in modern times as female children, and are revealing new female-oriented gospels about the life of Jesus, stories that were omitted from the Bible by male church authorities who decided what to include in the Bible and what to leave out of it, in order to assert the power and dominance of men over women. According to evidence in the hands of the radical women, the ancient gospels of the she-apostles were stolen by such men and relegated to the rubbish heaps of history.
At the monastery, Lori develops a paranormal relationship with one of the reincarnated children (eliciting a valuable scriptural story from the child)—and Lori soon begins to suspect that she may have been connected to the female apostles of Jesus in ancient times, when the Son of God walked the earth and preached to the people of the Holy Land.
While information about Lori’s past is unfolding, she finds herself caught in a BOI-UWW war, a violent conflict that has immense historical repercussions. Powerful, brutal men want to suppress the emerging gospels of the she-apostles, men who are hell-bent on destroying United Women of the World and their heretical texts. The women race to get their material completed and published before they are annihilated, but they have another big problem: the twelfth she-apostle—Martha of Galilee—has not been found yet, and the other she-apostles say she holds a dark secret that could do enormous damage to the cause of women, and to the entire planet.
Lori is given some freedom to move around the monastery, but not to leave. She finds herself falling in love with Alex Jackson (the son of Dixie Lou), a young man who dislikes his own mother. Alex brings Lori into a conspiracy to rescue the she-apostles, who are being abused by the UWW in their obsession to extract new gospels from them. The rescue attempt fails, and the two of them (along with their co-conspirators) are imprisoned. Before their capture, Lori and Alex witness a murder committed by Dixie Lou.
Soon afterward, the monastery is attacked by the Bureau of Ideology. Lori, Alex, Dixie Lou, the eleven she-apostles, and a handful of others escape in four small aircraft, and fly north across the Mediterranean Sea. . . .
Part One
WILDERNESS
Chapter 1
The unknown is a double-edged sword, concealing both the sublime and the terrible.
—Amy Angkor-Billings, before her capture and crucifixion by the Bureau of Ideology
March 2, 2034 . . .
Satellites were of no use in the powerful storm, as thick, raging clouds prevented electronic eyes from observing the battlefield in the mountains of Greece. At his Bureau of Ideology office across the world in Washington state, a large, blond-haired man hung onto hope, but he felt extreme frustration. Styx Tertullian needed to see, needed immediate information—but the communication systems had gone offline, including the Internet, the radio, and phone services. For all he knew, the enemy headquarters at Monte Konos had already been completely destroyed, along with the heretical women and their blasphemous Holy Women’s Bible. He prayed it was so.
Or his archenemy might have pulled off something startling, turning the tables on his attack forces and annihilating them. The vile United Women of the World were resourceful enough, and God knew they could very well accomplish something like that, especially under the cover of bad weather. They might even show up here at BOI headquarters for a surprise onslaught.
Despite all of the intelligence reports he had received, the Bureau of Ideology leader harbored a nagging worry that the UWW headquarters in Greece was just a decoy, a diabolical facade designed to divert BOI attention and conceal the women’s true military intentions. The thought chilled him to the core. His defensive forces were on full alert here, but were they enough?
It was one of the problems he’d experienced with his former boss, Minister Culpepper, a father figure to him, but a man who had been foolishly incapable of grasping the terrible extent of the danger from these women—leaving Styx no option except to stab the old man to death and get him out of the way.
During his tenure, Culpepper had treated the UWW as little more than an annoyance, like insects to be swatted occasionally. He had procrastinated, fumbled, and made bad decisions. Styx, on the other hand, had a better way of dealing with those women, using decisive, deadly force. Pursue them to the ends of the earth; leave them no place to hide, nowhere to breathe. Exterminate them.
My attack squadron should be reporting something to me by now . . . unless there’s no one to do it . . . unless they’re all dead.
It was a preposterous thought, he tried to convince himself. He was worrying too much. In his position, a leader shouldn’t panic; he had to remain composed at all times—not only in the outward face he revealed to others, but internally, in the face he showed God.
The thought of God’s presence always comforted Styx Tertullian, calming him immeasurably. He tried to tell himself the Lord Almighty would not allow anything to go wrong now, at this critical point in time. God would not allow heretics to destroy the sacred Bureau.
Agonizing minutes passed, and finally Styx received a phone signal over the secure line. Nervously, he held the receiver in his hand, and heard the deep voice of the unit commander, Major Allion Smithee. “Monte Konos destroyed, sir. We blew the top off the bloody mountain!”
“Fantastic! And the women?”
“They must be dead, sir. Except for those aboard four small aircraft that escaped and disappeared into the storm.”
“Escaped, you say? Disappeared?” Styx wanted to strangle the man for his incompetence and stupidity.
Chapter 2
We have unconfirmed reports of military action in the Macedonian mountains of northern Greece. The Greek government denies any knowledge of this, but refuses to allow reporters into the region.
—From an Associated Press news story
Buffeted by strong winds, the helicopter followed three other stealth aircraft through a night storm, with the female pilot remaining as far back as she could without losing contact. Fifteen year old Lori Vale sat behind her in the low illumination of the cockpit, with a handgun on her lap. She wore khaki jeans and a heavy knit sweater.
Tall and auburn-haired, Lori was old beyond her years, having survived a startling series of events in which the female apostles of Jesus had come back to life in the form of children, and had dictated the new gospels of a sacred book, the Holy Women’s Bible. Now the caretakers of the young she-apostles, the United Women of the World, were fleeing a brutal military attack on their headquarters by the ultra-conservative Bureau of Ideology, who wanted to murder the children and prevent their gospels from being released. Lori and the other passengers aboard the squadron of aircraft had barely escaped with their lives.
The window at her side was rain-streaked and foggy, and in the surface she saw her own shadowed reflection. She wiped the glass, but the rainy darkness outside prevented her from seeing where they were going, or their companion craft. The pilot, Rea Janeg, could be heard transmitting code words over the radio, gibberish that made Lori think of ancient Aramaic—the language of Jesus that was spoken by the she-apostle babies and toddlers.
On a round screen, Lori watched the progress of the escaping aircraft as they crossed the Mediterranean Sea in the middle of the night, heading southwest. A stocky brunette, the pilot answered questions about the equipment, and the answers seemed to make sense to Lori. Even though these were all covert aircraft, the pilots in the squadron sent encrypted transponder signals to each other, and data appeared on their navigation screens, showing the formation.
“If we stop sending signals, they can’t see us anymore in this weather,” the pilot said.
Lori found the comment interesting. “Why are you telling me so much?” she asked.
“Because I admire you. A lot of the women do. I’ve heard them talking.” She was referring to Lori’s attempt to free the young apostles from the captivity imposed on them by the United Women of the World and its ambitious, brutal leader, Dixie Lou Jackson.
“Thank you.” For the moment, Lori didn’t let her guard down, but knew she would have to trust someone, sometime. Barring that, she would never be able to sleep. She couldn’t go off on her own, and felt honor-bound to remain with the four toddler she-apostles on this helicopter, to make certain they were protected. She had Mary Magdalene, Veronica, and two of the other children, along with a couple of members of the UWW council—Fujiko Harui and Wendy Zepeda. Lori had to take a chance and trust someone, but whom? Alex Jackson, Dixie Lou’s rebellious son, had been her most trusted confidante, but he’d gotten into trouble, along with Lori, for trying to free all of the children. Now he was aboard one of the other aircraft, under guard.
As she considered this, she peered through the windshield while the stealth vessel flew toward the northern coast of Africa. In the darkness she could not see any sign of land yet, only glints of white on the cold vault of the sea, as whitecaps rolled beneath them. To the naked eye, her helicopter seemed to be alone out here. Overhead, storm clouds blocked the stars, but in the distance a patch of sky came into view just above the horizon, where she saw a few faint stars and a flash of lightning.
“Could our helicopter stop sending transponder signals and still pick up theirs?” Lori asked.
“Absolutely,” Rea Janeg responded. She glanced back, showing curiosity in her expression.
“Interesting,” Lori said. “Shut it off, and don’t reply if they radio us.”
The pilot changed settings on the instrument panel.
Over the ensuing minutes, the radio made intermittent static sounds, and voices crackled over the air. “Number three, do you read me?” a voice asked.
Following Lori’s orders, her pilot did not respond.
Then Lori changed her mind, and said, “Tell them we’re fine, and we’re tracking their signals.”
The pilot nodded, sent the message.
“Roger,” came the response. Then: “Say, shouldn’t we use a woman’s name instead of Roger?”
“How about Rogerette?” another pilot suggested.
Women’s laughter, followed by static. Then one of them said, “Hold on. The wind is increasing.”
Lori’s aircraft jerked and pitched as her pilot fought to maintain control.
And over the radio, the pilot in the command helicopter said, “It’s hard to stay in the air. We’d better touch down at the first landfall.”
Moments later, hearing a commotion inside the passenger compartment, Lori opened the door and peered out, warily. She saw the two councilwomen wrestling in the aisle, screaming at one another and pulling hair as the helicopter pitched around in the storm. Wendy Zepeda was much larger than Fujiko Harui, but the smaller woman was holding her own.
“Stop it!” Lori shouted, waving her gun at them. She had to hold onto the door jamb.
“Wendy has a knife in her purse!” Fujiko yelled, as the two councilwomen separated. “She reached for it when we were arguing, and I stopped her.”
“She’s telling the truth,” said a bespectacled woman with red, braided hair. Michelle Renee was the on-board translator of the Aramaic spoken by the she-apostles.
Lori scowled. “Where is the knife?”
“Under that seat,” Fujiko said, pointing.
Lori saw it.
“Use your foot and slide it out into the aisle,” Lori said to Fujiko. “Then kick it toward me.”
Fujiko did this, and Lori picked up the weapon, a hunting knife.
“Now tie Zepeda up and put her with the guards,” Lori ordered.
“With pleasure,” Fujiko said. “Then I must talk with you.”
Five minutes later, Fujiko sat with Lori in the passenger compartment, while the helicopter continued its bumpy ride across the sea. Still not trusting the councilwoman, even though she seemed to be cooperative, Lori kept her hand on her gun.
“There’s something you need to know,” the Japanese woman said. “Back at Monte Konos, one of the she-apostles said something important.” Nervously, Fujiko secured her shoulder harness as the aircraft was buffeted by winds, and then she continued. “Lydia said that Dixie Lou Jackson developed false gospels with a fake Martha of Galilee. Lydia says that the real Martha remains missing.”
“I thought there was something strange about that Martha,” Lori said, remembering that she’d felt an extrasensory sensation when touching the skin of the Apostle Veronica, but had felt nothing like that when making contact with the twelfth female apostle, the latest arrival. And beyond that, Lori had been troubled about Martha, sensing something about her that she could not quite identify.
“That’s not all, either,” Fujiko said. “According to Lydia, the real Martha of Galilee, wherever she is, has testimony about a She-Judas, a female apostle who conspired with Judas Iscariot to betray the Savior.”
Lori caught her breath. “Did Lydia say anything else?”
“Not that I know.” Fujiko looked back at the translator. “Michelle, anything more?”
The woman was wiping off her eyeglasses. “That’s the essence of it,” she said. “Lydia did not provide much in the way of details, just the broad statements you recounted.”
Deep in thought, Lori returned to the cockpit. Just as she was locking the door, the helicopter jerked, and a cabinet by her popped open, disgorging bundles of large denomination American bills. As she stuffed them back into the cabinet, she saw the pilot glance back.
“Guess they forgot to lock that,” the pilot said. “Dixie Lou likes to keep spending money all over the place.”
“How much is here?” Lori asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe five million, hidden all over this ’copter, and the same on the other aircraft. I heard a couple of councilwomen talking.”
Lori stared at the closed cabinet door, then looked away. It amazed her that the women were handling such large sums so loosely, but at the moment, money was the last thing on her mind.
An hour later, the pilot said, “We’re off the coast of Libya, and our friends are in holding patterns, circling the sand.”
“Go to complete radio and transponder silence,” Lori said.
She then ordered the pilot to veer wide around the other three aircraft, and to steer out over the desert.
* * *
An urgent voice brought Dixie Lou out of a light slumber. Straightening in her seat, the black woman didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, having lost her wristwatch somewhere in the wild confusion of the escape from Monte Konos. She had been dreaming about what she thought she saw during the BOI attack, when the she-apostle Candace vanished before bullets could hit her, and then reappeared after the deadly projectiles passed. Dixie Lou remembered exchanging gazes with Lori Vale after the incident. The teenager had seen the same thing. Curiously, no one else in Dixie Lou’s entourage had mentioned it to her. Had only the two of them seen it?
She had mixed feelings about the entire phenomenon of the reincarnated she-apostles, the gospels they brought with them, and the spectrum of paranormal events surrounding them. On one level, she was highly skeptical, not believing any of it was possible. But on another, the part of her that didn’t think—and instead sensed things—she knew otherwise. A very large unknown was opening around her; she found it fascinating and frightening at the same time.
“One ’copter dropped back,” the pilot said. “We’ve lost track of it.”
“Which one?” Dixie Lou demanded.
The answer told her it was the one with Lori Vale, two councilwomen, and four she-apostles aboard. Then she remembered that Vale had been the one to suggest that they split the she-apostles into several aircraft. Had it been the girl’s premonition of danger, or her trick? Uncertain of whether she should be angry or worried, Dixie Lou rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
She focused on a flight map on the gray screen of her laptop computer, and heard two matrons down the aisle expressing their concern over BOI satellite surveillance. While the escaping UWW aircraft had stealth capabilities, and they were in a storm, the women were worried about the Bureau having even more sophisticated technology that could still detect them. They mentioned the previous incident in which one of the UWW’s high-tech stealth planes had been shot down over the Mediterranean. Dixie Lou wondered about the security leaks that gave mere matrons such information, and felt irritated by this. But she had other priorities right now.
Overhead, the rotors of the helicopter pulsed and vibrated. Dixie Lou felt it in the seats and armrests, and in the floorboard. She blinked her eyes from a nearby flash of lightning, then saw another flash farther away over land, a jagged orange line scribed across the indigo night sky. Thunder boomed, and the helicopter jerked.
“Still no sign of the missing aircraft,” the pilot announced, her voice agitated as she watched her instruments. “Hopefully we can find it after the storm clears. But in this weather, especially with blowing sand that can cause havoc with the engines, I’d recommend that we set down, immediately.”
The Chairwoman had to make a quick decision. With Councilwoman Deborah Marvel looking on, she voice-activated her computer to bring up a detailed, secure schematic of the ground. They were over a desert region on the eastern coast of Libya, in North Africa. Once a pariah nation to much of the civilized world for sponsoring terrorism, they had changed regimes, but still had a despotic ruler and a violent secret police. Not the best place to land, but the weather was dicey.
According to the schematic, two villages were nearby. The escaping vessels had crossed the Mediterranean Sea, going in a southerly direction from Monte Konos. The big storm had worsened along the course they’d flown, giving them a rough, jolting ride and forcing them off course, away from the coast of Tunisia where they had intended to land. The weather had apparently, however, provided them with cloud cover, concealing their location from the ever-present, prying eyes of enemy patrols and satellites.
In these extended range aircraft, the Chairwoman had not expected to have to land here, but she gave the order for all of them to set down. They had ground camouflage gear on board for the aircraft, and would need to move quickly to set it up, thus making them difficult to detect on the ground through visual or other sensors.
* * *
As sand swirled around Lori’s helicopter, the craft flew over the lights of a small desert settlement. In poor visibility the pilot complained about cross winds and sand interfering with the operation of the engines, preventing her from getting full power out of them. They sputtered, and she shouted, “We need to land, quick!”
“Do it!” Lori yelled.
Still in her seat behind the pilot, she held onto a safety strap while the helicopter dove and spun, with powerful winds slamming into the hull and driving it one way and another. Metal plates around her stretched and creaked, and seemed ready to come apart. She didn’t like the feeling of helplessness as a passenger, would much rather be at the controls herself, making her own life and death decisions.
Suddenly a hard “kwummph!” sounded, and she felt the jolt of hard contact as they landed. The helicopter tilted hard to the left, then righted itself. The rotors coughed and came to a whining, grinding stop. Lori was shaken up, but not injured.
Back in the passenger cabin, people groaned, and the children cried. Lori’s first thoughts were for the welfare of the she-apostles. She rushed to check on them, and found they were upset but unharmed. Odd sensations flashed in the teenager’s brain as she looked at the children, and especially when she drew close to each one. Unable to identify her feelings, she restrained from touching the children, even though two of them reached their hands out to her.
One thing seemed certain. She wanted to spend time with them alone, away from the prying eyes . . . and ears . . . of anyone.
Through portholes, Lori saw the sky beginning to clear. As sand settled from the air she made out details of the landscape, with the milieu illuminated by starlight and a sliver of moon low over the horizon. Faintly, the regular pattern of desert dunes could be seen, and jagged escarpments topped by wizards’ caps of stone.
The pilot activated stabilizers, which whooshed into place beneath the craft. She emerged from the cockpit. “In addition to the engine problem, our ground camouflage system is out of commission,” she said. “We can be seen here.”
Lori glowered, heard the wind howling outside.
“We’ll spend the night here,” she said. “We don’t have any choice.”
“I’ll see if I can get the engines and camouflage going at first light,” the pilot said.
Lori nodded.
Hearing a foreign language spoken, she saw the translator Michelle Renee speaking to the children, presumably in ancient Aramaic. Lori did not understand the words, but they brought to mind a strange word that Veronica had mouthed to her one day in the Scriptorium.
Iktol.
It had not been Aramaic. Instead, it was from a secret language unknown to the translators. And, inexplicably, Lori had understood it.
Iktol . . . Murder.
Chapter 3
There can be tremendous beauty in a powerful storm, and a drab, predictable ugliness in serenity. Look at the woman who survives an immense force of nature, how she draws strength from it, absorbing the raw elemental power of our female deity and converting it to her own use.
—Amy Angkor Billings
After ordering the pilot into the passenger compartment, Lori locked herself inside the cockpit and tried to get some sleep. It was not easy. For more than an hour, she just sat on the deep-cushion of the pilot’s seat, with it tilted back as far as possible. Too many thoughts whirled through her mind. Countless troubles, dangerous possibilities. Across the expanse of desert, she saw the cloud cover opening up more, and a silver-sprinkling of stars against the deep indigo of the sky.
It occurred to her that the women in the back might take the four she-apostles and run off with them, might even go out in the night looking for Dixie Lou Jackson and the others. But she discounted the possibility. She had landed at least ten kilometers from Dixie Lou’s camp, and anyone on foot could get lost out there. At the minimum, she had until dawn to get a few hours of rest.
Through the windshield, she watched flashes of lightning illuminating desert escarpments for brief moments before flickering out like wicks, and saw the sliver of moon slipping below the horizon. She heard the wind picking up around the helicopter and the solid pelting of tiny, granular pieces of silica against the outside of the aircraft, as the break in the weather proved short-lived.
The fresh memory of automatic weapons fire returned, and of the tiny she-apostle Candace seeming to shift time around her . . . and avoiding certain death. Lori had so many questions about the she-apostles, and no answers.
She dozed off, and when she awoke the storm had subsided. Lori opened a small side window to allow fresh air into the cockpit, and then drifted off to sleep again. Several times, she awoke, and then slipped back into slumber.
In a dream, Lori saw flickering lights approaching on the desert, and soon realized they were lanterns, carried by people in dark robes. A woman called out from their midst, but in a language Lori didn’t understand, a tongue that rolled and flowed, like water streaming across the sands.
Lori counted six robed shapes, each with a lantern. As they drew close she saw dark skin and mysterious, glinting eyes beneath overhanging hoods. All appeared to be women. They continued to approach. In their unknown tribal language they spoke rapidly. Were they Arabs, or perhaps Berbers?
In the foreground, a toddler stood on the sand, looking at them.
With a start, Lori realized it was not a dream and she had been peering through the windshield of the helicopter. People really were standing out there, a group of women talking to one of the she-apostles, who stood by herself, with no attendant. Lori heard the women through the open side window, chattering rapidly in their language. She saw additional lanterns behind them, and the hulking shadows of camels.
Which child was it? In the low light of the lanterns, Lori saw red hair. Mary Magdalene. The toddler did not appear to be saying anything, and was just staring up at the hooded faces around her.
As Lori straightened in her seat, the women looked up at her and pointed. She also heard activity in the back of the helicopter, and voices back there.
Concerned for the safety of Mary Magdalene, Lori opened the cockpit emergency door, and was about to climb down onto the sand when she remembered the guns she had. After hesitating for a moment, she climbed down without the weapons.
“This is your child?” one of the women asked, in heavily accented English. She was quite large, the size of a big man. Her face was half in shadows, half in lantern light.
“I’m responsible for her,” Lori said, as she stepped onto the soft sand. Reaching down, she clasped one of the she-apostle’s hands, and felt a slight dizziness, which passed quickly.
“You are English?” the woman asked. She and her companions wore veils as well as hoods, but her veil was pulled to one side so that her face could be seen when the lights shifted. Lori heard the camels making noises in the background.
Lori nodded, thinking that they would not know the difference between the British and the Americans. After decades of terrorism, it was not always wise to admit that you were an American. “We had trouble in the storm and were forced to set down here.”
An odd sensation passed through the teenager, running from her hand holding little Mary up her arm. It made Lori feel a little light-headed, and something more that she could not quite identify.
“Your friends are setting up camp over there,” the woman said, pointing across the dark desert. “All of you seem to have experienced problems in the storm.”
Lori hesitated, then said, “They aren’t my friends.” This was not completely accurate since she did have at least one friend in their midst, Alex, and she cared about the welfare of the eight she-apostles in the group.
“They are your enemies?”
“Some of them are, very much so. It’s a very complicated story.”
“Life is like that, isn’t it?” the woman said, in her accented English. She held her lantern close to Lori’s face, looked into her eyes, and commented, “You carry truth in your face.”
“And you in yours,” Lori said, with a gentle smile. The woman appeared to be around thirty-five, with dark, sun-baked skin and glinting black eyes. Her face had a strength and hardness to it. Glancing around, Lori saw what she thought were the bulges of weapons beneath the robes of the group. She took a deep breath.
“I am a desert princess and these are my attendants,” the woman announced. She then said something to her companions in what Lori presumed to be Arabic, and they all laughed, which made Lori doubt if she really was a princess.
“Your life sounds very interesting,” Lori said.
She looked up at the portholes of the large helicopter, where dim lights were on inside and faces were pressed against the glass, peering out. She heard children crying. As Lori held little Mary’s hand a warm feeling ran through her and she felt comforted, that somehow the she-apostle was communicating with her.
“I’m sure your own story is much more interesting,” the Arab woman said, “but I will not ask you to talk about it if you don’t want to. We only wish to be of assistance to you in your time of need.”
“Thank you,” Lori said, “but I don’t know what you could possibly do. Our pilot is going to work on the engines when it is daylight, and as for my enemies, I’m afraid that is my problem.”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “There might be something I could do, if we are friends. I am called Malia Ali Khan.”
Lori considered not providing her own real name, but a small interior voice told her to take a chance—and she gave it to her, including her surname.
“Very nice to meet you.” Malia smiled broadly, revealing dark gaps in her teeth. She looked down. “And your young companion. What is your name, little one?”
When the child did not answer, Lori said, “Mary.”
“And you are not old enough to be her mother.”
“You’re right. She is not my child.”
“Jesus Christ’s mother was named Mary,” Malia said, a somewhat surprising comment. “I know something of your religion, because in Islam we respect your holy teachings.” She paused. “You are a Christian?”
“Not a very good one, I’m afraid.”
The robed woman leaned down to touch Mary’s face, then straightened and said to Lori, “Now that we are friends, I shall attack your enemies and kill them. We have many weapons, even machine guns.”
“They have more firepower than you do in those helicopters.” She nodded toward the aircraft. “Like this one. Besides, they have eight small children with them, and I don’t want them hurt.”
Malia nodded. “Very well, but I can still create a diversion for you, to give you time to get away. Would you like that?”
“Maybe. What do you have in mind?”
“We will offer them the hospitality of our village, and a very long meal. Perhaps in that time, you can get your repairs completed and leave.”
“Be very careful with the one called Dixie Lou Jackson. She is extremely dangerous.”
“But Allah is with us. And with you, too, as our special friend. There is only so much we can do in the form of a diversion, however. Perhaps only a few hours of keeping them busy, so you must hurry and get away from here.”
“Thank you. That will be a big help.”
Though she didn’t say so because she didn’t want to offend the woman, Lori wished she could fly as far away from here as she could get, with the four toddler she-apostles that she had in her care, Mary Magdalene, Veronica, Priscilla, and Sarah. It was dangerous to remain here, where Dixie Lou might find her. The other three aircraft had set down only a few kilometers away. But she couldn’t leave, not until the pilot fixed the engines, if that was even possible.
In addition, Lori had a peculiar feeling that she should remain, that she should not abandon the other eight she-apostles. The sensation confounded her, and she had difficulty imagining how to rescue them. She would have to sneak into Dixie Lou’s camp, find the children and get them out—basically by herself.
She did have a potential ally in Fujiko Harui, but she wasn’t certain she could rely on her yet. Especially not for something so critically important. Dixie Lou still had leverage on Fujiko, since she held her daughter Siana as captive, in punishment for the young woman’s participation in the attempted rescue of the she apostles. But that could go both ways, could cause Fujiko to seek vengeance against the Chairwoman.
“Please, let us pay you for your help,” Lori said. “You are going to a lot of trouble for us.”
“We do not accept payment from honored friends—such as yourself. No, there will be no charge.”
Malia means well, Lori thought, as the Arabs departed into the night with lanterns bobbing in the darkness, and boarded their camels. But she will have her hands full trying to deceive Dixie Lou.
Lori climbed back up to the cockpit, taking the silent, mysterious toddler with her.
Chapter 4
The sins within her skirts are many; her garments are the murk of twilight, her adornments are tainted with corruption.
—Manuscript from the fourth cave, Dead Sea Scrolls
Shortly before dawn, after only a few hours of fitful rest while waiting for the storm to pass, Dixie Lou activated a hatch door. It opened with a whir and a squeal, and she left the cramped quarters, descending a metal stairway to the sand. The wind blew the back of her braided hair behind her. She wore a dun-colored robe.
Following her instructions, everyone in the party met with her between the aircraft, which had been protected after they landed with chameleon camouflage, an electronic “fabric” that the pilots said utilized pulse-signals to match the nearby landscape. The ships on the ground were now invisible from the air, they said.
In the illumination of portable lamps, she met the gaze of her son Alex, who stood with matrons, translators, and councilwomen, some of whom held the eight she-apostles who remained with her. She corrected herself. In reality, it was only seven, since Martha was secretly a fake. “After we set up camp,” Dixie Lou said, “I’m sending out search parties, to see if we can find the missing helicopter.”
It irked her that four of the real she-apostles were missing, along with Lori Vale, Fujiko Harui, and Wendy Zepeda. She didn’t care that much about the teenager or the little Japanese woman—the latter of whom reminded her too much of the late UWW leader Amy Angkor-Billings—but Wendy was one of her most staunch allies. Dixie Lou hoped that she and the she-apostles were safe. The lives of the children only mattered to her for what they could do for the UWW, and especially for her as Chairwoman. They were more useful alive than dead, but if they were dead, she would make the appropriate arrangements. It meant that she would have to come up with four more fake she-apostles. Things would be more complicated, but she had learned with the bogus Martha that it could be done.
From compartments in the hulls, the pilots brought out survival packs, containing tents and other articles. “Press these buttons,” one of the pilots said. This was done, and the habitats snapped together quickly in a space between the camouflaged aircraft, with alloy rods extending and clipping into frames, and sheets of weathercloth fitting and sealing over them. Dixie Lou watched as the other women put the she-apostles inside one tent. Some of the children fussed and cried, and were tended to by their handlers.
The tents were tied into the electronic camouflage system, and within moments she saw the fabric shifting in color, taking on the hues and subtle tones of the desert. It was only when close to them that she could make out the outlines of the enclosures. . . .
* * *
While helping make camp, Alex Jackson saw the approach of flickering lights . . . lanterns, he decided. He made out the shapes of robed figures on camels. At Dixie Lou’s command, her youthful guards pointed semiautomatic rifles at them. Safeties clicked off.
“Stay away from us!” Dixie Lou shouted.
A woman shouted back, in what could be Arabic.
“We don’t understand,” Dixie Lou said, impatiently. “Don’t any of you speak English? Get out of here!” She pulled a handgun from her robe, and fired a shot in the air.
They started backing the camels up.
Apparently it wasn’t quickly enough, because Dixie Lou fired a clip full of wild shots in their direction.
The camels galloped away with their riders, disappearing into the night. Someone dropped a lantern, which Alex retrieved. It was still burning.
“You didn’t need to shoot,” Deborah Marvel said. They weren’t threatening us.”
“How do we know?” Dixie Lou shrilled. “They probably speak English, and understood everything I was saying. Maybe more of them were waiting in the darkness, where we couldn’t see them.”
“We can’t suspect everybody,” Deborah insisted. “They’re just poor Arabs—probably wanted to help us.”
“They can help by staying the hell out of our way,” Dixie Lou snarled. She reloaded the gun, replaced it in her pocket.
Suddenly a heavily accented female voice broke the darkness of the night, speaking English: “You aren’t a very good shot.”
“I wasn’t trying to hit you,” Dixie Lou countered. She looked around warily, reached into her pocket but didn’t bring out the weapon. “Who are you?”
“We have guns, too,” the voice said, “and we outnumber you.” A volley of shots rang out, and Alex dove for cover along with everyone else. The camp lights were turned off, and people found cover. Children cried.
“Hiding will do no good,” the voice said. “We see in the dark.”
“Then why are your people carrying lanterns?” Dixie Lou shouted back.
The voice laughed, and to Alex it seemed to come from a different direction this time. He heard Deborah Marvel and one of the pilots talking about the possibility of getting into one of the helicopters, in order to gain access to its .50 caliber machine guns and floodlights.
“That is a good question,” the thickly accented voice shouted. “You have a quick wit.”
“Perhaps we made a mistake,” Dixie Lou said. “We didn’t understand that you only want to be friendly. That is true, isn’t it?”
“We desire only to offer assistance to you, in case any of you might be injured. We saw your aircraft having trouble as you came down. It is difficult to fly in a storm.”
“I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”
“Some of your people wear strange robes,” the voice said. “Very unsuitable for the desert, even at this time of year. Too heavy.”
“Why don’t you come out where we can see you?” Dixie Lou demanded. Alex heard her crawling along the sand.
“Why do you come here wearing strange robes?” the voice asked. “What tribe are you?”
“No tribe, and we didn’t intend to land here. The storm forced us down.”
“But the storm is past, and it would be safe to fly away now. Your behavior is most peculiar.”
“We’re not quite ready to go.” Dixie Lou looked around, trying to find the speaker’s location.
“Problems with your sophisticated equipment?”
“Just need to check the flight systems for safety.”
“And the reason you have camouflaged everything, making you invisible from a distance? We watched you land, and saw you vanish a short time afterward—until we approached to within a few meters, close enough to see that you were still there. Are you hiding from someone?”
“Of course not. Camouflage is just a secondary feature of the electronic veiling system we activated around the aircraft, to protect them from bad weather, because windblown sand can cause a lot of damage. As for the camouflaged tents, they are tied into the system, too.”
“I see,” the woman said, but Alex wasn’t certain if she believed his mother, whose lie about weather protection seemed obvious. But only to a westerner, perhaps, he told himself. This Arab might not be able to tell.
Alex approached the she-apostles’ tent, wanting to comfort the children inside, who were fussing and crying. Through the open doorway he saw the shadowy outlines of small shapes lying and sitting in air-cribs. Suddenly a guard stepped forward, and forced him away. Alex moved off to one side, but the guard didn’t leave.
“You have many children here,” the Arab voice said, out in the darkness. “We do not wish to harm them.”
“Come out where I can see you,” Dixie Lou said. “We’ll talk.”
Alex heard a flurry of movement behind Dixie Lou, and a muffled voice said, “We’re right behind you.” A lantern went on, and Alex saw three intruders behind his mother.
Dixie Lou whirled, but before she could get to her weapon, a robed woman put her in a headlock and jammed a knife against her throat. A veil covered the lower portion of the woman’s face, revealing only her eyes. Two smaller, hooded shapes stood with her. They lit another lantern, which showed that they were boys holding carbines.
“Permit me to introduce myself,” the woman said. “I am Malia Ali Khan. And you?”
Dixie Lou didn’t respond.
“Tell your guards to toss their weapons on the ground,” Malia said, in her heavily accented English. She was much taller than Dixie Lou.
“Do it!” the Chairwoman shouted. In the dim light, Alex saw rage and indignation on her face.
Guns and rifles thudded onto the sand.
“And the one in your pocket,” the tall woman demanded.
Dixie Lou added it to the others, and the knife was withdrawn from her throat.
“My English is not so good,” Malia said. “But I suspect it is better than your Arabic. We are Bedouin, from a village just over there.” She pointed across the sand.
Alex saw Dixie Lou staring at the weapons on the sand, and guessed she was trying to estimate how many more people were hiding in the shadows, behind waves in the sand. The boys had an air of deadly maturity about them, as if they knew how to handle the rifles they held.
“Do any of you have injuries?” the Arab woman asked.
“A few bumps and bruises,” Dixie Lou snapped, glaring at her. “We’ve administered first aid.”
Malia looked up at the pre-dawn sky. Then, lifting a finger to feel a slight breeze, she said, “By the grace of Allah, the storm is passed. You are safe now.”
Dixie Lou didn’t respond.
“We would like to offer you the hospitality of our village,” Malia said.
Studying her armed visitor, Dixie Lou responded, “Your generosity is much appreciated, but we really don’t have time.” But Alex heard something in his mother’s tone, a forced politeness and formality.
“You must make the time. Hospitality is the way of our people.”
“How large is your village?” Dixie Lou asked.
“We’ll take you there by camel, and you can see for yourself.” She pointed. “It is that way, a few kilometers.”
“By camel? We don’t know how to ride camels, and we have small children with us.”
“These are not problems. We have the means to accommodate passengers of all ages. Or, the children can remain here while we show you around the village and give you a fine Bedouin meal.”
“Do you have computers or videophones in the village?” Dixie Lou asked.
“You need them for some purpose?”
“To make an Internet connection.”
“You westerners are very amusing to us.” She stood there smiling, then said something in Arabic to her young companions. The pair nodded.
“We will be back this afternoon,” Malia said.
“You have Internet?” Dixie Lou pressed.
“Perhaps. We shall discuss it this afternoon.”
“All right.”
“It is late now, and you will want to sleep in, as you say.” She slid her veil aside and smiled, revealing black gaps where teeth were missing. “An English woman used to live in our camp, and she taught me many of your phrases.”
With a smooth motion, Malia whirled and flowed off into the cool shadows, followed by her youthful armed escort. The lanterns went out, and in the minimal light of approaching dawn, Alex saw the movement of many human shapes, boarding camels and riding away.
* * *
“Seven ball in the side pocket,” Zack Markwether announced, confidently. In his brother’s private game room at the White House, they were spending the evening together, after a long day. Zack leaned over the green felt table, lining up his shot with the cue stick. His officer’s coat and white gloves were draped over a chair, and a pair of aviator sunglasses sat open on a ledge. The walls were lined with photographs and paintings of foreign dignitaries who had visited the White House in years past—kings, queens, princes and princesses, prime ministers, premiers, presidents, shahs, dictators, ambassadors. . . .
“You don’t need to call your shots,” the President groused. “Just shoot the stupid ball, OK?”
With a self-satisfied smile, Zack snicked the purple seven ball into the designated pocket.
Chalking his own stick, the President said, “Incidentally, you need to stay away from the White House interns, Brother. I’m getting complaints.”
Calmly, Zack walked over to a side table, took a sip from a bottle of imported German beer. “You’re just trying to break my concentration. Actually, I’m only dating one of the interns, and she’s not even one of the youngsters I’m rumored to be with. She’s almost thirty.”
“Just be careful not to do anything to embarrass yourself, or me. I recall some stories about you in high school, back when I was a sophomore and you were a senior. Cheer leaders, weren’t they?”
With a broad grin, Zack said, “The old stories about me were all true. Nowadays, though, you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
“You gonna marry this one?”
He shook his head. “Not my style. Never has been.” He took another sip of beer. “Say, what about my letter to the Pope on Vatican security? Have you looked it over yet?”
“I’ll get around to it.”
Lowering his brow in displeasure, Zack said, “I didn’t do all that work for nothing, you know. Took me over a week in the Library of Congress and CIA Archives—researching old records that were never scanned for the Internet, either because they were quite old, or classified. In the Library of Congress I found information about an underground tunnel that connected Vatican City to the Castel Sant’Angelo, an impregnable fortress in Rome where popes took refuge during military attacks. Even the existence of that tunnel was a secret for centuries, though information on it eventually got out.”
He took a deep breath and continued. “But at the CIA I found more, descriptions of an even more secret, alternate tunnel system that also led from the holy city to the castle, developed because information about the main tunnel route had gotten into the wrong hands. The second route is more circuitous and longer, but the distance is still not that great, and it is a quick way to get from one place to the other undetected.”
“Interesting.”
“Obviously you didn’t read the research documents I provided to you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“All right,” Zack said, “but those subterranean passageways worry me. “Maybe I should just send the letter to him directly, to make sure any tunnels are permanently blocked off, and can’t be reopened.”
“You could do that, but he might never see it. Some lower level functionary could just round file it. A letter from my office, on the other hand, would not be thrown in the trash.”
“OK, but get around to it, all right?”
“A President has many responsibilities.”
“If I miss the next shot, will you look at it this afternoon?”
President Markwether laughed, a boisterous cachinnation. “I’ll bet they have security you can’t begin to imagine, big brother. The Vatican has to be one of the top terrorist targets in the world.”
“Still, I suspect our Catholic friends may have grown complacent, overconfident. I get gut feelings about these things based upon a few observations—the chatting guards, the emphasis on ceremony over substance, the perimeter defensive gaps—and it makes me wonder about the rest of the operation. Are people manning the security cameras, watching every screen every second, or are there lapses? What are the backup systems? Some of my comments have to do with morale, with esprit de corps. I’ve been right about these things before, and you know it. The security program I developed for our federal buildings has saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. My concept for a—”
“I know, and we all appreciate that. Your White House suggestions were excellent, too, except for the flack from some of my staff who resent your presence.” He sighed. “So much politics to wade through, on all levels. All right, I’ll move your letter up on my priority list.”
Setting his beer aside, Zack bent over the pool table to line up his next shot. He hesitated, looked peripherally at his brother and asked, “Say, your delay wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you aren’t Catholic, would it?”
The President responded in his most statesmanlike voice, “My non-adherence to the faith and your embrace of it has nothing—I repeat, nothing—to do with my actions.”
“Have you even looked at my letter?”
“Of course.”
“Then what does it say about St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and—”
“Do not interrogate me! I am the President of the United States!”
Irritated, Zack shanked his shot, making a shuddering sound with his cue stick as it glanced off the white cue ball. In disgust, he threw the stick down on the table and left.
* * *
Following the departure of the Arabs, the female pilots finished setting up Dixie Lou’s camp, using the extensive survival gear that had been kept in these aircraft for contingencies, by order of Amy Angkor-Billings. Seven tents were arranged between the camouflaged aircraft, and electric lanterns were set up to provide yellowish illumination, along with separate units to zap insects, causing little fizzes and pops. The lanterns would not be needed for much longer; daylight was creeping across the sands from the east.
During this work, Dixie Lou sat off to one side, speaking to Alex energetically, moving her hands for emphasis. She brought the handgun out of her robe pocket, fiddled with it in a way that made him nervous.
“Did you have anything to do with Lori getting away?” she demanded.
“Of course not. I just hope she’s safe, that her helicopter didn’t crash.”
Looking at him skeptically, she said, “I wish I could trust my own son.”
Alex didn’t hold gazes with her as forcefully as he would have liked, because the expression on her face was crazier than usual, with her dark gaze darting around wildly. He wanted to kick himself for not handling the whole situation better, and getting Lori in trouble. His mother was crafty, deadly clever, and the teenager was always in her cross hairs. For all he knew, Dixie Lou had arranged for her to be killed, maybe even with everyone else aboard the missing aircraft.
She waved the gun at him. “I’d better not find out you’ve been lying to me.”
“Or you’ll kill your baby boy?” Alex said, his tone almost taunting. He’d always done better in his relationship with his mother whenever he showed strength, not cowering to her.
But Dixie Lou said, “Worse than that.” Without warning, she swung the gun and hit him on the side of the neck with the barrel. Recoiling, Alex glared back at her. Pain devils burned his neck.
She didn’t show any concern, and instead went on to describe in detail what horrendous tortures she would inflict upon him if he dared to defy her. “Your death will not be quick or painless,” she warned.
After his mother went inside her tent and closed the flap, Alex crossed the campsite and stared out into the awakening desert, worrying more about Lori than about himself. His neck throbbed, and he cursed his misfortune for being born of a monster like Dixie Lou Jackson. He no longer considered her his mother, would rather have no mother at all than her.
A bug fizzled into the zapper near him. He heard his mother bumping around inside her tent, making angry grunts. She was not in a good mood.
He noticed two guards a distance away, watching him. Rookies like most of the other guards in this party, they had been in training just before the attack on Monte Konos, and were all his mother could salvage. If the women were attacked again—maybe even by those Arabs—the guards were not going to be much protection for anyone.
But if Alex saw an opportunity to get away, they might fit the bill nicely, with their inexperience. Perhaps he could slip by them when his mother was away in the village, and escape.
He needed to find Lori and make certain she was safe. He prayed that her helicopter had not crashed in the storm.
* * *
Alone in her tent, and in her thoughts, Dixie Lou cursed and slammed things around: her bedding, a pair of binoculars, clothing. Daylight seeped into the tent. She still felt agitation at having a knife held to her throat, and was troubled by the missing helicopter, and by her inability thus far to get the Holy Women’s Bible published on the Internet.
The Chairwoman had one more big concern. She had convinced herself that one day, probably soon, Lori would give birth to the missing twelfth she-apostle, the one the others called Martha of Galilee. She sensed this very strongly, even though the teenager wasn’t even pregnant yet. Or was she? Lori had associated with undesirables in Seattle, street people. Maybe one of them had gotten to her. Maybe the missing she-apostle wasn’t from Mexico, after all.