"02 - Birth of an Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (BeauSeigneur James)

In His Image
-> Birth of an Age
Acts of God





Birth of an Age, Book Two of The Christ Clone Trilogy Copyright й 1997 by James Beau Seigneur All Rights Reserved

For Gerilynne, Faith, and Abigail who sacrificed so much to allow this trilogy to become a reality;

But most of all for Shiloh, who sacrificed far more. May it serve you well.

This novel is a work of historic and prophetic fiction. While well known and widely reported historic events and public personalities are referenced, only those events which have been widely reported by reliable nonfiction sources should be assumed to be true; all others should be assumed to be the product of the author's imagination. Additionally, incorporated into this work are the names of several institutions and organizations such as the United Nations and numerous national governments, as well as the names of a few "public persons," including political and religious leaders and celebrities. References to events involving any such persons, institutions, organizations, or governments following the date of publication of this book are entirely the product of the author's imagination.

With the exceptions noted above, all other names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

D o a

James BeauSeigneur has been writing professionally for fifteen years. His published works include technical manuals on strategic defense and military avionics, newspaper articles, speeches for U.S. Congressional and Senatorial candidates, and lyrics for several published songs. Formerly involved full-time in politics, Mr. BeauSeigneur has managed several campaigns and in 1980 ran for U.S. Congress against Al Gore, now the Vice President. He has four years of experience in military intelligence, including two and a half years with the National Security Agency.

"Are these the shadows of things that will be, or are they the shadows of things that may be?"

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

"For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect Ч if that were possible."

Matthew 24:24

Prologue1

The Power Within Him Ч The Power Within Us All

January 20, 2021 Ч Israel

It was just after dawn. Robert Milner acted as navigator while Decker Hawthorne drove the rented jeep through the mountain pass toward the point where Milner said they would meet Christopher. In the jeep Decker had brought food, bottled water, and a first aid kit. His thoughts alternated between worry about the condition in which they would find Christopher and anticipation of what Robert Milner had told him in the lobby of the Ramada Renaissance forty days earlier. The barren countryside brought back memories of Decker's own wilderness experience eighteen years earlier, when he and Tom Donafin had made their way through Lebanon toward Israel before being rescued by Jon Hansen. He recalled the powerful shift of his emotions in that moment as he lay on the ground, tangled in barbed wire, with three rifles pointed at his head, expecting to be shot; and then suddenly recognizing the U.N.

1 Chapter 28 from In His Image, Book One of The Christ Clone Trilogy is included here as a prologue.

2 Birth of an Age

emblems on the soldiers' helmets, and realizing that he and Tom were safe.

In the past, when he recalled that moment, he thought of it as just another case of being in the right place at the right time. Now he could not help but believe it was much more. If it had not happened, he would not have met Jon Hansen and he surely would never have become his press secretary. And had he not worked for Hansen, who then became Secretary-General, Christopher would not have had the opportunities he had to work in the U.N. and later to head a major U.N. agency, and then to become a U.N. ambassador serving on the Security Council. Surely this was more than chance.

And, it occurred to him, this chain of events had not just started on that road in Lebanon. There was the destruction of the Wailing Wall, and being taken hostage. And before that, the events which had allowed him to go to Turin, Italy, in the first place. If he had not gone, he certainly would never have been called by Professor Harry Goodman on that cold November night back in 1988, to come and see what he had discovered on the Shroud.

As he continued to think through the chain of circumstances that had brought him to this point, he tried to find the single weakest link in the chain, the seemingly least important event which, had it not occurred, would have averted any of the later events.