"Chapter 9" - читать интересную книгу автора (BeauSeigneur James - The Christ Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts of God 1.5.html)

Chapter 9

The Christ Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts Of God

By

James Beau Seigneur

CHAPTER NINE

 
Donafin

Decker sat quietly for a few minutes, unsure of what might come next. When nothing happened, he got up to look out the window. The guards that had been posted outside were gone. For a while, he just watched and waited. There was no place to go except out into Petra, so what was the point? After all, though it was larger than the cage he had been in for the previous three days, Petra was still a cage. Besides, whether he stayed in the cabin or not, the risk was the same. Whatever the KDT had in mind for him, they were going to do it whether he stayed or left. He decided to leave. Better to die in the sunshine, he thought, though he could not give a reason why that should be so.

Stepping carefully from the room and taking only what he was wearing and the leather satchel that held Elizabeth's Bible, Decker was surprised to see that not even the jailer was anywhere to be found. His mind flashed back to his escape from captivity in Lebanon when his guards had all mysteriously disappeared. This was not quite so mysterious; Rosen had said he was free to leave. Still, the feeling ofdeja vu was strong.

At first, Decker stayed near the cabin but the inclination to do so quickly faded, and he decided the safest thing was to quickly get lost in the surroundings. He knew that trying to avoid Rosen and the KDT would ultimately be hopeless: there was no escape from this island in the desert. And what if Rosen had been telling the truth and he really did intend to have someone take Decker to Israel on Sunday? If so, then he needed to stay where Rosen could find him. Still, Decker found it hard to convince his feet of any of that. For nearly 45 minutes he bobbed and weaved his way erratically through the rows of tents and their crowded inhabitants. Everyone he passed greeted him with a traditional Shabbat shalom, meaning 'Sabbath peace.' But for Decker there was no peace: he just wanted to lose anyone who might be following him.

Finally, he slowed down. He had to: he was too tired to continue. Only now did he began to allow his mind to focus on the beauty of the natural and man-made wonders that surrounded him. Stopping to rest, Decker sat down on the excavated stones of a two-millennia-old structure and surveyed his surroundings. From his location at what archaeologists called the Roman House, he could see most of Petra. In the west the sun hung just above the jagged red-faced mountain that surrounded the city. Under other circumstances, Decker might have lost himself in the study of the archaeology and architecture of this ancient, but now thriving metropolis. Then he noticed something else: a young boy, perhaps eleven or twelve years old. Decker had seen him before. The first time had been right after leaving the cabin. Thinking back, he remembered that he had seen him again some time later. Both times it had appeared as though the boy had just been out walking, but here he was again. Decker had made too many turns along the way for this to be a coincidence. The boy must be following him. A wave of disgust passed over him at the thought that Rosen would recruit one so young as a spy.

Pretending not to notice the boy, Decker looked around for the best avenue of escape to slip away from his unwanted follower. It would probably be impossible to simply outrun the boy; Decker was just too old. But now that he knew who his pursuer was, Decker thought he could probably lose him. He was about to leave his perch when he heard a woman's voice. He wasn't sure, but it sounded like she was calling his name. There were scores of people within earshot, all crowded into this self-imposed exile, and many voices competed for the ear's attention. Still, it truly had sounded as though a woman's voice had called his name.

"Decker!" he now heard distinctly.

Decker did not recognize the voice.

"Decker!" it called again. Finally the woman came around a row of tents and into view. Decker was certain he did not recognize her. Stranger still was that she headed not toward Decker, but for the boy who had been following him.

The woman and the boy obviously knew each other and they talked for a moment, and then both looked at Decker, who was very conspicuously watching them. The eye contact was undeniable and the woman, apparently believing some explanation was required, came over with the boy in tow to where Decker sat.

"Are you Decker Hawthorne?" the woman asked.

Decker could find no good reason to deny it. "Yes," he answered.

"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Hawthorne," the woman said. "I'm afraid my son has been following you. He didn't mean any harm."

Decker wanted to ask her why her son had been following him, but there was something even more perplexing he wanted to know. "Did I hear you call the boy Decker?"

"Yes," the woman answered. "I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Rhoda Donafin. Tom Donafin was my husband." Decker sat stunned, unable to respond. But there was more.

"And this is my youngest son, Decker. Tom named him after you."

Decker felt as though he had been hit by a blast of cold water, thrusting him into an unexplored reality. Here was evidence of a past of which he had obviously been a part — hence a child named in his honor — and yet it was totally unknown to him beyond the fact that Torn had told him before he died that he was married and had children.

"Decker has been asking about you since we found out that you were in Petra," Rhoda said of her son. "He really wanted to meet you."

"How did you know I was here?" Decker managed to ask.

"My brother, Joel Felsberg, and Scott Rosen are good friends," she answered. "Besides," she added, "I'm a doctor: Scott came to see me the other day. Seems he walked into a door or something with his eye," she said.

Decker couldn't tell if she was making a joke or if because of the boy she was avoiding acknowledgment that Scott Rosen's injury had come as the result of a meeting with Decker's fist.

Rhoda Donafin looked toward the western rim of the city at the sun that would soon be setting. "It's almost Shabbat," she said, referring to the Jewish day of rest. "My children and I would be honored if you would join us for dinner."

"I... uh," Decker stammered. This was all happening so fast. He felt a little uncomfortable imposing on the hospitality of someone he had just met, and yet he had so much to ask this woman. "Thank you," he said finally. "I'd like that."

Rhoda Donafin smiled, but not half so big a smile as that of young Decker Donafin.

The Donafins' tent was only a quarter mile from where they met and there was little time to talk, but once the initial surprise of meeting Tom Donafin's wife and son had settled in, Decker noticed how young Rhoda looked. "You're uh . . ."

Decker hesitated, for despite all the social mores that had changed in his lifetime, one taboo that still stood was talking about a woman's age, "quite a bit younger than Tom," he said, finally.

"I'm 55," she answered, showing no timidity about telling her age. "He was 17 years older than me. Tom was 61 and I was 44 when Decker was born. He was a surprise to both of us." Rhoda affectionately ran her hand through her son's hair.

Decker sorted through questions in his mind. It seemed that the ones he most wanted to ask would require too long a response to be given fair treatment before they reached the tent — which Rhoda assured him was just a little farther on — and everything else he might ask would seem like small talk and terribly inappropriate to the circumstances. With little choice then, Decker maintained an uneasy silence, hoping somehow that Rhoda might volunteer answers for his unspoken questions. Rhoda, however, did not oblige.

The Donafins' tent looked like so many others — plain, gray, something less than 15 feet square, with a canopy extending from the front under which the family did its cooking and had its meals. Busily working there to prepare the Sabbath dinner was a young woman who smiled as they approached.

"Mr. Hawthorne, this is Rachael," Rhoda said, giving her daughter a little hug. Rachael was a handsome girl, not what anyone would have considered a great beauty, but with strong features that were a blend of the best from both her parents.

"Rachael, this is an old friend of your father's, Mr. Decker Hawthorne." The girl was very polite and greeted Decker with great interest, though some of that interest could have simply been eagerness to find some distraction from her chores and the pot of boiling manna on the gas camp stove which seemed to be standard issue for the city's residents.

"Rachael is our middle child," Rhoda continued. "She's sixteen."

"And this is Tom, Jr.," Rhoda said, as her eldest came out of the tent carrying a pair of silver candlesticks. Tom Donafin, Jr. looked very much like his father had when Decker first met him, with the notable exception of the protruding forehead that Tom, Sr. bore as a result of the childhood automobile accident that killed the rest of his family.

"Tom, this is Mr. Decker Hawthorne."

Tom, Jr. nodded recognition of the name as he reached to shake Decker's hand. "So Scott Rosen finally let you go," he said.

"Well, that remains to be seen," Decker answered. "I'm still here."

"I wouldn't worry about that. If you're out, I'd say you were out for good."

The comment sounded as though Tom, Jr. might have some experience in the subject. Decker wanted to find out. "So does Scott Rosen do this often?" he asked.

"No, you're the only one," Tom answered with a strange tone which seemed to imply that Decker should consider the exception as some kind of honor.

"Tom is eighteen," Rhoda said, rounding off the introductions.

Dinner was soon ready and they shared a traditional Sabbath meal with Tom, Jr. filling the role of his father at the table. Finally, Decker felt he had the proper setting to ask his questions. He wanted to know what had happened during the missing twenty-one years between the time Tom was presumed dead and the day he reemerged. In the presence of Tom's children, Decker was careful to omit any mention of Tom's death, or any questions which might necessitate such a reference. Those questions could be saved for Rhoda alone. His interest was in uncovering all that he could about who Tom Donafin had become during those years.

As it turned out, however, it was not Decker Hawthorne who asked most of the questions, but Decker Donafin, so that without realizing it the elder Decker spent most of the meal telling stories. Whether the events he recounted had, in truth, been as interesting and amusing as they now seemed to be, or whether it was simply the old reporter's ability to weave a tale, even Decker did not know. What he did know was that it was delightful fun to remember and even more so to see the interest in the faces of Tom's wife and children as he told the tales.

After dinner they were joined by neighbors who had overheard Decker's stories and the Donafins' laughter and wanted to hear more. It started with just a few children but continued to grow as the children's parents 'dropped by' to meet the unusual guest. As he spoke to what had become a group of more than twenty people, Decker was struck by the incredible irony that he, the closest friend of Christopher — the man these people considered their worst enemy — would be telling them funny stories about his experiences with the man who had been Christopher's assassin.

As the evening wore on and it got to be past Decker Donafin's bedtime, the elder Decker and the Donafins went in the tent, but the conversation continued for another hour and a half. Tom, Jr. and Rachael Donafin drifted off to sleep a little before 10:00 p.m. Young Decker held on for another half hour, though it was doubtful he was really catching much of the conversation. Finally, with all but Rhoda sound asleep and her looking droopy-eyed, Decker suggested they go back outside. There were a few things he still wanted to talk about and he felt it best that their conversation be away from the children.

"I don't know if you can answer this," Decker began once they were outside. He kept his voice down so as not to be overheard by those in the neighboring tents. "I've always wondered," he asked, "why, during all those years that I thought he was dead, Tom never tried to contact me."

Rhoda nodded, understanding why Decker would want to know the answer to that question. "I can't really give you a full explanation," she said. "I wish I could. I know that he tried during and just after the war but he was never able to reach you.

After that, he never tried again. I asked him about it once because he frequently talked about you and he always watched when you had a news conference, but he said that he and Rabbi Cohen had discussed it and that they had agreed that it would be best to wait. I do know that he wanted to let you know he was all right, but he said he just couldn't, not 'until the time was right.'"

It was more of an answer than Rhoda realized, for it confirmed Decker's assessment that Tom had somehow become a puppet of Cohen and the KDT.

"There's something . . ." Rhoda hesitated. "There's something I'd like to ask you."

"Yes?" Decker prodded. He could sense her discomfort.

"You were with Tom when he died," she said finally. "Did he suffer?"

Decker shook his head reassuringly. "No. I don't think he did."

She bit her lip to hold back the tears as she nodded both understanding and appreciation.

"I only spent a brief time with him but I know that he loved you very much," he added. In reality, Tom had said very little about Rhoda or his children, but this was not the time for strict adherence to the facts; for Rhoda's sake a little supposition seemed in order. "I have some wonderful news for you, though," Decker added. "Just before Scott Rosen had me kidnapped, Christopher told me that Tom has been born again — reincarnated — to a family in Paraguay. If you'd like, you and the children can come with me when I leave — assuming, of course, that Scott Rosen really does intend to let me go. I'll talk to Christopher for you; I'm sure that I can convince him to tell you where Tom is. He may not tell you all the specifics until Tom is older, but with patience, and if you're willing to take the communion, you and Tom could be reunited."

Rhoda shook her head politely. "I appreciate your concern, Mr. Hawthorne, but, I don't believe in reincarnation."

"You're kidding! The KDT and the fundamentalists are always talking about being 'born again.' I thought that was the one area where Christopher and the KDT agreed."

"Mr. Hawthorne, the Bible clearly teaches against the belief in reincarnation. It says,'... man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment. ' When Yeshua talked about being 'born again' he wasn't talking about reincarnation. He was talking about a spiritual change that is so complete it makes our lives as though we have been reborn as new people."

"But what about all the people who say they were reincarnated and who remember their past lives? Some of them remember things that they couldn't possibly know without having lived before," Decker replied.

"I think that in most cases what they think they remember is really just something from a dream or their imagination or perhaps something similar that happened in their own life. Or perhaps it was something that they heard or read about or saw on television. There are all sorts of possibilities. But in those cases where they really do know something that no one could know without having been there, I think that someone was there in that 'other' life. But it's not the people themselves. To use the vernacular of the New Age, I would say that an 'ascended master' or 'spirit guide' was the one who really remembered the event, and that the guide shared the memory with the person. Of course, the Bible would call that ascended master or spirit guide a demon."

"You don't really believe in demons, do you?" Decker asked with raised eyebrows.

"You don't really believe in ascended masters and spirit guides, do you?" Rhoda responded.

Decker smiled. He had left himself wide open for that. "Okay," he said, "so you don't believe in reincarnation. Are you so sure you're right that you're unwilling even to ask Christopher?"

"I would not ask Christopher even if he was standing here with us," Rhoda answered. "I know where Tom is and I'm quite certain it is not Paraguay."

Decker sighed in defeat. He could see there was no use arguing.

"Mr. Hawthorne," Rhoda said, "I knew when Tom left that I would not see him again in this world."

"You knew where Tom was going? He told you?"

"I wasn't sure exactly where he was going. But I knew he would be killed."

"And you let him go? You didn't try to stop him?"

"I know you won't understand this, Mr. Hawthorne, but I had no choice. I knew from the day I first saw Tom that he would die a violent death."

"How did you know that?"

"When Rabbi Cohen brought Tom to me to take care of, he appeared so badly injured that I didn't think I could help him. But Rabbi Cohen insisted. He said that Tom would recover— he had to — he was the Avenger of Blood."

Decker shuddered. That was what Tom had written on the note he slipped into Decker's pocket just before he died.

"I don't understand," he said. "What does that mean?"

"There's an ancient law, older even than the Ten Commandments. Its validity was recognized by Moses and by Joshua and by King David66 It allowed, within certain limitations, for a relative of a murdered person to avenge the murder by killing the murderer. It sounds rather barbaric, I suppose, by some standards, but it did keep down the number of murders, and it prevented full-fledged blood feuds between families."

"But what does that have to do with Tom?"

"Before the children were born, Tom was the last of his line, Mr. Hawthorne. He didn't even know it for most of his life, but Tom was the direct descendant of James, the brother of Jesus."

Decker's first inclination was to ask how Tom could possibly have 'discovered' such a heritage, but there was something else that needed cleared up first. "I didn't think Jesus had any brothers."

"Actually, the Bible specifically mentions that Jesus had at least four brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude, and at least two sisters, or actually, I should say half-brothers and half-sisters, since, of course, they had the same mother, but Jesus had no earthly father."

Decker found the information interesting but went back to the other question. "And just how was it that Tom 'discovered' he was related to Jesus?" he asked. "I suppose it was probably Saul Cohen who told Tom that he was the Avenger of Blood."

"I don't know how he found out," replied Rhoda. "He never told me. I think he probably realized it over a period of years."

"Okay, so even if we assume Tom was related to Jesus, what does that have to do with him deciding to assassinate Christopher?" Decker asked, getting back to the original issue. To Decker's surprise the emotion evoked by his memory of the assassination charged his voice with anger. He hoped Rhoda would not assume it was directed at her.

Rhoda apparently did not take offense. "The very first prophecy about Jesus, in the third chapter of Genesis, says that the offspring of Satan would strike the heel of the offspring of God, and the offspring of God would strike the head of Satan's offspring."

"By 'Satan's offspring' I suppose you mean Christopher?" Decker asked with a sigh of resignation.

"Yes," Rhoda answered. "And, of course, the offspring of God is Jesus. The striking of Jesus' heel took place at the crucifixion when nails were driven into his wrists and feet. And then, adding insult to the injury, it was the cells from the wound to his heel that were used to create Christopher."

The expression on Decker's face asked how she could have known that bit of information.

"You mentioned in an interview after Christopher's resurrection that Professor Goodman had found the cells on a slide from the heel," Rhoda answered in response to his unspoken question.

"And why do you say that that added insult to injury?" Decker asked.

"Well, think about it. Satan used cells from the wounds that paid the price for the sins of the world to give life to the Antichrist."

"I suppose if I believed that story, I'd find it rather ironic, yes. But how can you call Christopher the Antichrist? I know that when John wrote about Christopher in the book of Revelation, he called him the Antichrist. But can't you see that Christopher and Jesus are the same person? Christopher is Jesus, an exact duplicate of Jesus with all of his memories, all of his powers, and all of his love for Humankind!"

Rhoda laughed. It was not an unfriendly laugh, but it was clear she did not agree. "Hearing you say that, I can't help but be amazed at just how detailed and exact the prophecies about the Antichrist really were. At one point in the book of Revelation," she explained, "John was talking to an angel who told him that one of the reasons the world would follow the Antichrist is 'because he once was, now is not, and yet will come"'

"Meaning what?" Decker asked.

"Meaning just what you were saying. You say Christopher is Jesus — that he came to earth, he was gone for 2000 years, and now he's back in the form of Christopher. Or from the perspective of John and the angel in about 90 A.D., he once was, but at the time they were talking he was not, and yet he was to come in the future. And because of this, the world trusts Christopher and follows him, even while rejecting everything the real Jesus ever said or did."

Decker let Rhoda's musings go unanswered.

"Somewhere — " Rhoda continued, "it was probably in the same interview after Christopher's resurrection — you said that Professor Goodman had named Christopher not after Christ, but after Christopher Columbus. You said that Goodman believed Jesus was an alien observer from a highly advanced planet, and he hoped that by cloning Jesus he would be able to learn about and maybe even contact these aliens. You said Professor Goodman named him Christopher because he hoped that like Columbus, Christopher would lead us to a new world."

Decker nodded affirmation to Rhoda's recitation of the facts.

"You say that Jesus and Christopher are the same, but the story of how Christopher was named illustrates that there is an important difference. Jesus was God who became a man to provide the means by which we could be reunited with God. But Christopher was created by a man who denied the existence of God and who hoped to further separate man from God by replacing belief in God with belief in super-advanced aliens. But Christopher has taken what Professor Goodman intended one step further. Christopher makes God out to be the enemy of mankind — the one force that stands in man's way, preventing him from achieving godhood.

"In short," Rhoda said, "Jesus was God made in the image of man, sent to reconcile man to God; Christopher is a man-made god created to separate man from the true God. So you see, when Tom shot Christopher, he was acting as Jesus' Avenger of Blood, striking the head of Satan's offspring in accordance with the prophecy in Genesis."

Decker paused for a moment as he shook his head at Rhoda's explanation, then he spoke. "I just wish you could meet Christopher and get to know him. If you did you'd realize what you're saying about him could not possibly be true."

"I just wish you could have met John and Cohen," Rhoda responded.

"I did meet them," Decker replied, "on the streets of Jerusalem."

"That's not what I meant. If you could have really gotten to know them, then you'd know that they were kind, generous men." It was obvious to Rhoda she was failing miserably to make her point. Quickly she turned to an example to strengthen her case. "You knew that Tom was blind for several months before God instructed Rabbi Cohen to heal him?" she asked.

"Tom mentioned that," Decker answered.

"But you didn't believe him?"

"I had no reason to disbelieve him. Cohen was a very powerful man, but I'm not so sure that he did it for Tom's benefit. I think he used Tom for his own purposes; that he convinced him of this Avenger of Blood story in order to get him to kill Christopher. After all, if Tom had remained blind, he would not have been able to shoot Christopher, and Tom would still be alive today."

Rhoda looked at Decker and Decker at Rhoda. Both could see that neither was going to convince the other. Even though they disagreed, however, Decker found Rhoda not at all disagreeable. She was, in fact, quite pleasant to be with. He could easily see how Tom could love her. Ultimately, they each resolved to let the matter pass. As for Decker, at least he had gotten an answer to what Tom's note had meant. There was one other thing he hoped Rhoda might be able to explain.

"Just before he died," Decker said, "Tom's last words to me were, 'He was going to leave me.' Does that mean anything to you?"

Rhoda shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know."

When Decker arrived back at the cabin he was greeted at the door.

"Welcome back, Mr. Hawthorne."

"Jailer, I thought you were gone," Decker responded.

The jailer shook his head. "Nah," he said. "I can't leave. I run this place. Besides, I still haven't perfected my manna manicotti recipe for you, but I'm working on it. I hope to have it done before you leave."

Decker was still far from certain that Rosen was really going to let him go, but it was beginning to seem as if everyone else believed it. "I'd like that," he said.

"There's just one thing, Mr. Hawthorne," the jailer said. "Now that you're free to come and go as you like, would it be all right if you didn't call me 'jailer' any more? My name is Charlie."

"Sure, Charlie," Decker said.

Chapter 9

The Christ Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts Of God

By

James Beau Seigneur

CHAPTER NINE

 
Donafin

Decker sat quietly for a few minutes, unsure of what might come next. When nothing happened, he got up to look out the window. The guards that had been posted outside were gone. For a while, he just watched and waited. There was no place to go except out into Petra, so what was the point? After all, though it was larger than the cage he had been in for the previous three days, Petra was still a cage. Besides, whether he stayed in the cabin or not, the risk was the same. Whatever the KDT had in mind for him, they were going to do it whether he stayed or left. He decided to leave. Better to die in the sunshine, he thought, though he could not give a reason why that should be so.

Stepping carefully from the room and taking only what he was wearing and the leather satchel that held Elizabeth's Bible, Decker was surprised to see that not even the jailer was anywhere to be found. His mind flashed back to his escape from captivity in Lebanon when his guards had all mysteriously disappeared. This was not quite so mysterious; Rosen had said he was free to leave. Still, the feeling ofdeja vu was strong.

At first, Decker stayed near the cabin but the inclination to do so quickly faded, and he decided the safest thing was to quickly get lost in the surroundings. He knew that trying to avoid Rosen and the KDT would ultimately be hopeless: there was no escape from this island in the desert. And what if Rosen had been telling the truth and he really did intend to have someone take Decker to Israel on Sunday? If so, then he needed to stay where Rosen could find him. Still, Decker found it hard to convince his feet of any of that. For nearly 45 minutes he bobbed and weaved his way erratically through the rows of tents and their crowded inhabitants. Everyone he passed greeted him with a traditional Shabbat shalom, meaning 'Sabbath peace.' But for Decker there was no peace: he just wanted to lose anyone who might be following him.

Finally, he slowed down. He had to: he was too tired to continue. Only now did he began to allow his mind to focus on the beauty of the natural and man-made wonders that surrounded him. Stopping to rest, Decker sat down on the excavated stones of a two-millennia-old structure and surveyed his surroundings. From his location at what archaeologists called the Roman House, he could see most of Petra. In the west the sun hung just above the jagged red-faced mountain that surrounded the city. Under other circumstances, Decker might have lost himself in the study of the archaeology and architecture of this ancient, but now thriving metropolis. Then he noticed something else: a young boy, perhaps eleven or twelve years old. Decker had seen him before. The first time had been right after leaving the cabin. Thinking back, he remembered that he had seen him again some time later. Both times it had appeared as though the boy had just been out walking, but here he was again. Decker had made too many turns along the way for this to be a coincidence. The boy must be following him. A wave of disgust passed over him at the thought that Rosen would recruit one so young as a spy.

Pretending not to notice the boy, Decker looked around for the best avenue of escape to slip away from his unwanted follower. It would probably be impossible to simply outrun the boy; Decker was just too old. But now that he knew who his pursuer was, Decker thought he could probably lose him. He was about to leave his perch when he heard a woman's voice. He wasn't sure, but it sounded like she was calling his name. There were scores of people within earshot, all crowded into this self-imposed exile, and many voices competed for the ear's attention. Still, it truly had sounded as though a woman's voice had called his name.

"Decker!" he now heard distinctly.

Decker did not recognize the voice.

"Decker!" it called again. Finally the woman came around a row of tents and into view. Decker was certain he did not recognize her. Stranger still was that she headed not toward Decker, but for the boy who had been following him.

The woman and the boy obviously knew each other and they talked for a moment, and then both looked at Decker, who was very conspicuously watching them. The eye contact was undeniable and the woman, apparently believing some explanation was required, came over with the boy in tow to where Decker sat.

"Are you Decker Hawthorne?" the woman asked.

Decker could find no good reason to deny it. "Yes," he answered.

"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Hawthorne," the woman said. "I'm afraid my son has been following you. He didn't mean any harm."

Decker wanted to ask her why her son had been following him, but there was something even more perplexing he wanted to know. "Did I hear you call the boy Decker?"

"Yes," the woman answered. "I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Rhoda Donafin. Tom Donafin was my husband." Decker sat stunned, unable to respond. But there was more.

"And this is my youngest son, Decker. Tom named him after you."

Decker felt as though he had been hit by a blast of cold water, thrusting him into an unexplored reality. Here was evidence of a past of which he had obviously been a part — hence a child named in his honor — and yet it was totally unknown to him beyond the fact that Torn had told him before he died that he was married and had children.

"Decker has been asking about you since we found out that you were in Petra," Rhoda said of her son. "He really wanted to meet you."

"How did you know I was here?" Decker managed to ask.

"My brother, Joel Felsberg, and Scott Rosen are good friends," she answered. "Besides," she added, "I'm a doctor: Scott came to see me the other day. Seems he walked into a door or something with his eye," she said.

Decker couldn't tell if she was making a joke or if because of the boy she was avoiding acknowledgment that Scott Rosen's injury had come as the result of a meeting with Decker's fist.

Rhoda Donafin looked toward the western rim of the city at the sun that would soon be setting. "It's almost Shabbat," she said, referring to the Jewish day of rest. "My children and I would be honored if you would join us for dinner."

"I... uh," Decker stammered. This was all happening so fast. He felt a little uncomfortable imposing on the hospitality of someone he had just met, and yet he had so much to ask this woman. "Thank you," he said finally. "I'd like that."

Rhoda Donafin smiled, but not half so big a smile as that of young Decker Donafin.

The Donafins' tent was only a quarter mile from where they met and there was little time to talk, but once the initial surprise of meeting Tom Donafin's wife and son had settled in, Decker noticed how young Rhoda looked. "You're uh . . ."

Decker hesitated, for despite all the social mores that had changed in his lifetime, one taboo that still stood was talking about a woman's age, "quite a bit younger than Tom," he said, finally.

"I'm 55," she answered, showing no timidity about telling her age. "He was 17 years older than me. Tom was 61 and I was 44 when Decker was born. He was a surprise to both of us." Rhoda affectionately ran her hand through her son's hair.

Decker sorted through questions in his mind. It seemed that the ones he most wanted to ask would require too long a response to be given fair treatment before they reached the tent — which Rhoda assured him was just a little farther on — and everything else he might ask would seem like small talk and terribly inappropriate to the circumstances. With little choice then, Decker maintained an uneasy silence, hoping somehow that Rhoda might volunteer answers for his unspoken questions. Rhoda, however, did not oblige.

The Donafins' tent looked like so many others — plain, gray, something less than 15 feet square, with a canopy extending from the front under which the family did its cooking and had its meals. Busily working there to prepare the Sabbath dinner was a young woman who smiled as they approached.

"Mr. Hawthorne, this is Rachael," Rhoda said, giving her daughter a little hug. Rachael was a handsome girl, not what anyone would have considered a great beauty, but with strong features that were a blend of the best from both her parents.

"Rachael, this is an old friend of your father's, Mr. Decker Hawthorne." The girl was very polite and greeted Decker with great interest, though some of that interest could have simply been eagerness to find some distraction from her chores and the pot of boiling manna on the gas camp stove which seemed to be standard issue for the city's residents.

"Rachael is our middle child," Rhoda continued. "She's sixteen."

"And this is Tom, Jr.," Rhoda said, as her eldest came out of the tent carrying a pair of silver candlesticks. Tom Donafin, Jr. looked very much like his father had when Decker first met him, with the notable exception of the protruding forehead that Tom, Sr. bore as a result of the childhood automobile accident that killed the rest of his family.

"Tom, this is Mr. Decker Hawthorne."

Tom, Jr. nodded recognition of the name as he reached to shake Decker's hand. "So Scott Rosen finally let you go," he said.

"Well, that remains to be seen," Decker answered. "I'm still here."

"I wouldn't worry about that. If you're out, I'd say you were out for good."

The comment sounded as though Tom, Jr. might have some experience in the subject. Decker wanted to find out. "So does Scott Rosen do this often?" he asked.

"No, you're the only one," Tom answered with a strange tone which seemed to imply that Decker should consider the exception as some kind of honor.

"Tom is eighteen," Rhoda said, rounding off the introductions.

Dinner was soon ready and they shared a traditional Sabbath meal with Tom, Jr. filling the role of his father at the table. Finally, Decker felt he had the proper setting to ask his questions. He wanted to know what had happened during the missing twenty-one years between the time Tom was presumed dead and the day he reemerged. In the presence of Tom's children, Decker was careful to omit any mention of Tom's death, or any questions which might necessitate such a reference. Those questions could be saved for Rhoda alone. His interest was in uncovering all that he could about who Tom Donafin had become during those years.

As it turned out, however, it was not Decker Hawthorne who asked most of the questions, but Decker Donafin, so that without realizing it the elder Decker spent most of the meal telling stories. Whether the events he recounted had, in truth, been as interesting and amusing as they now seemed to be, or whether it was simply the old reporter's ability to weave a tale, even Decker did not know. What he did know was that it was delightful fun to remember and even more so to see the interest in the faces of Tom's wife and children as he told the tales.

After dinner they were joined by neighbors who had overheard Decker's stories and the Donafins' laughter and wanted to hear more. It started with just a few children but continued to grow as the children's parents 'dropped by' to meet the unusual guest. As he spoke to what had become a group of more than twenty people, Decker was struck by the incredible irony that he, the closest friend of Christopher — the man these people considered their worst enemy — would be telling them funny stories about his experiences with the man who had been Christopher's assassin.

As the evening wore on and it got to be past Decker Donafin's bedtime, the elder Decker and the Donafins went in the tent, but the conversation continued for another hour and a half. Tom, Jr. and Rachael Donafin drifted off to sleep a little before 10:00 p.m. Young Decker held on for another half hour, though it was doubtful he was really catching much of the conversation. Finally, with all but Rhoda sound asleep and her looking droopy-eyed, Decker suggested they go back outside. There were a few things he still wanted to talk about and he felt it best that their conversation be away from the children.

"I don't know if you can answer this," Decker began once they were outside. He kept his voice down so as not to be overheard by those in the neighboring tents. "I've always wondered," he asked, "why, during all those years that I thought he was dead, Tom never tried to contact me."

Rhoda nodded, understanding why Decker would want to know the answer to that question. "I can't really give you a full explanation," she said. "I wish I could. I know that he tried during and just after the war but he was never able to reach you.

After that, he never tried again. I asked him about it once because he frequently talked about you and he always watched when you had a news conference, but he said that he and Rabbi Cohen had discussed it and that they had agreed that it would be best to wait. I do know that he wanted to let you know he was all right, but he said he just couldn't, not 'until the time was right.'"

It was more of an answer than Rhoda realized, for it confirmed Decker's assessment that Tom had somehow become a puppet of Cohen and the KDT.

"There's something . . ." Rhoda hesitated. "There's something I'd like to ask you."

"Yes?" Decker prodded. He could sense her discomfort.

"You were with Tom when he died," she said finally. "Did he suffer?"

Decker shook his head reassuringly. "No. I don't think he did."

She bit her lip to hold back the tears as she nodded both understanding and appreciation.

"I only spent a brief time with him but I know that he loved you very much," he added. In reality, Tom had said very little about Rhoda or his children, but this was not the time for strict adherence to the facts; for Rhoda's sake a little supposition seemed in order. "I have some wonderful news for you, though," Decker added. "Just before Scott Rosen had me kidnapped, Christopher told me that Tom has been born again — reincarnated — to a family in Paraguay. If you'd like, you and the children can come with me when I leave — assuming, of course, that Scott Rosen really does intend to let me go. I'll talk to Christopher for you; I'm sure that I can convince him to tell you where Tom is. He may not tell you all the specifics until Tom is older, but with patience, and if you're willing to take the communion, you and Tom could be reunited."

Rhoda shook her head politely. "I appreciate your concern, Mr. Hawthorne, but, I don't believe in reincarnation."

"You're kidding! The KDT and the fundamentalists are always talking about being 'born again.' I thought that was the one area where Christopher and the KDT agreed."

"Mr. Hawthorne, the Bible clearly teaches against the belief in reincarnation. It says,'... man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment. ' When Yeshua talked about being 'born again' he wasn't talking about reincarnation. He was talking about a spiritual change that is so complete it makes our lives as though we have been reborn as new people."

"But what about all the people who say they were reincarnated and who remember their past lives? Some of them remember things that they couldn't possibly know without having lived before," Decker replied.

"I think that in most cases what they think they remember is really just something from a dream or their imagination or perhaps something similar that happened in their own life. Or perhaps it was something that they heard or read about or saw on television. There are all sorts of possibilities. But in those cases where they really do know something that no one could know without having been there, I think that someone was there in that 'other' life. But it's not the people themselves. To use the vernacular of the New Age, I would say that an 'ascended master' or 'spirit guide' was the one who really remembered the event, and that the guide shared the memory with the person. Of course, the Bible would call that ascended master or spirit guide a demon."

"You don't really believe in demons, do you?" Decker asked with raised eyebrows.

"You don't really believe in ascended masters and spirit guides, do you?" Rhoda responded.

Decker smiled. He had left himself wide open for that. "Okay," he said, "so you don't believe in reincarnation. Are you so sure you're right that you're unwilling even to ask Christopher?"

"I would not ask Christopher even if he was standing here with us," Rhoda answered. "I know where Tom is and I'm quite certain it is not Paraguay."

Decker sighed in defeat. He could see there was no use arguing.

"Mr. Hawthorne," Rhoda said, "I knew when Tom left that I would not see him again in this world."

"You knew where Tom was going? He told you?"

"I wasn't sure exactly where he was going. But I knew he would be killed."

"And you let him go? You didn't try to stop him?"

"I know you won't understand this, Mr. Hawthorne, but I had no choice. I knew from the day I first saw Tom that he would die a violent death."

"How did you know that?"

"When Rabbi Cohen brought Tom to me to take care of, he appeared so badly injured that I didn't think I could help him. But Rabbi Cohen insisted. He said that Tom would recover— he had to — he was the Avenger of Blood."

Decker shuddered. That was what Tom had written on the note he slipped into Decker's pocket just before he died.

"I don't understand," he said. "What does that mean?"

"There's an ancient law, older even than the Ten Commandments. Its validity was recognized by Moses and by Joshua and by King David66 It allowed, within certain limitations, for a relative of a murdered person to avenge the murder by killing the murderer. It sounds rather barbaric, I suppose, by some standards, but it did keep down the number of murders, and it prevented full-fledged blood feuds between families."

"But what does that have to do with Tom?"

"Before the children were born, Tom was the last of his line, Mr. Hawthorne. He didn't even know it for most of his life, but Tom was the direct descendant of James, the brother of Jesus."

Decker's first inclination was to ask how Tom could possibly have 'discovered' such a heritage, but there was something else that needed cleared up first. "I didn't think Jesus had any brothers."

"Actually, the Bible specifically mentions that Jesus had at least four brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude, and at least two sisters, or actually, I should say half-brothers and half-sisters, since, of course, they had the same mother, but Jesus had no earthly father."

Decker found the information interesting but went back to the other question. "And just how was it that Tom 'discovered' he was related to Jesus?" he asked. "I suppose it was probably Saul Cohen who told Tom that he was the Avenger of Blood."

"I don't know how he found out," replied Rhoda. "He never told me. I think he probably realized it over a period of years."

"Okay, so even if we assume Tom was related to Jesus, what does that have to do with him deciding to assassinate Christopher?" Decker asked, getting back to the original issue. To Decker's surprise the emotion evoked by his memory of the assassination charged his voice with anger. He hoped Rhoda would not assume it was directed at her.

Rhoda apparently did not take offense. "The very first prophecy about Jesus, in the third chapter of Genesis, says that the offspring of Satan would strike the heel of the offspring of God, and the offspring of God would strike the head of Satan's offspring."

"By 'Satan's offspring' I suppose you mean Christopher?" Decker asked with a sigh of resignation.

"Yes," Rhoda answered. "And, of course, the offspring of God is Jesus. The striking of Jesus' heel took place at the crucifixion when nails were driven into his wrists and feet. And then, adding insult to the injury, it was the cells from the wound to his heel that were used to create Christopher."

The expression on Decker's face asked how she could have known that bit of information.

"You mentioned in an interview after Christopher's resurrection that Professor Goodman had found the cells on a slide from the heel," Rhoda answered in response to his unspoken question.

"And why do you say that that added insult to injury?" Decker asked.

"Well, think about it. Satan used cells from the wounds that paid the price for the sins of the world to give life to the Antichrist."

"I suppose if I believed that story, I'd find it rather ironic, yes. But how can you call Christopher the Antichrist? I know that when John wrote about Christopher in the book of Revelation, he called him the Antichrist. But can't you see that Christopher and Jesus are the same person? Christopher is Jesus, an exact duplicate of Jesus with all of his memories, all of his powers, and all of his love for Humankind!"

Rhoda laughed. It was not an unfriendly laugh, but it was clear she did not agree. "Hearing you say that, I can't help but be amazed at just how detailed and exact the prophecies about the Antichrist really were. At one point in the book of Revelation," she explained, "John was talking to an angel who told him that one of the reasons the world would follow the Antichrist is 'because he once was, now is not, and yet will come"'

"Meaning what?" Decker asked.

"Meaning just what you were saying. You say Christopher is Jesus — that he came to earth, he was gone for 2000 years, and now he's back in the form of Christopher. Or from the perspective of John and the angel in about 90 A.D., he once was, but at the time they were talking he was not, and yet he was to come in the future. And because of this, the world trusts Christopher and follows him, even while rejecting everything the real Jesus ever said or did."

Decker let Rhoda's musings go unanswered.

"Somewhere — " Rhoda continued, "it was probably in the same interview after Christopher's resurrection — you said that Professor Goodman had named Christopher not after Christ, but after Christopher Columbus. You said that Goodman believed Jesus was an alien observer from a highly advanced planet, and he hoped that by cloning Jesus he would be able to learn about and maybe even contact these aliens. You said Professor Goodman named him Christopher because he hoped that like Columbus, Christopher would lead us to a new world."

Decker nodded affirmation to Rhoda's recitation of the facts.

"You say that Jesus and Christopher are the same, but the story of how Christopher was named illustrates that there is an important difference. Jesus was God who became a man to provide the means by which we could be reunited with God. But Christopher was created by a man who denied the existence of God and who hoped to further separate man from God by replacing belief in God with belief in super-advanced aliens. But Christopher has taken what Professor Goodman intended one step further. Christopher makes God out to be the enemy of mankind — the one force that stands in man's way, preventing him from achieving godhood.

"In short," Rhoda said, "Jesus was God made in the image of man, sent to reconcile man to God; Christopher is a man-made god created to separate man from the true God. So you see, when Tom shot Christopher, he was acting as Jesus' Avenger of Blood, striking the head of Satan's offspring in accordance with the prophecy in Genesis."

Decker paused for a moment as he shook his head at Rhoda's explanation, then he spoke. "I just wish you could meet Christopher and get to know him. If you did you'd realize what you're saying about him could not possibly be true."

"I just wish you could have met John and Cohen," Rhoda responded.

"I did meet them," Decker replied, "on the streets of Jerusalem."

"That's not what I meant. If you could have really gotten to know them, then you'd know that they were kind, generous men." It was obvious to Rhoda she was failing miserably to make her point. Quickly she turned to an example to strengthen her case. "You knew that Tom was blind for several months before God instructed Rabbi Cohen to heal him?" she asked.

"Tom mentioned that," Decker answered.

"But you didn't believe him?"

"I had no reason to disbelieve him. Cohen was a very powerful man, but I'm not so sure that he did it for Tom's benefit. I think he used Tom for his own purposes; that he convinced him of this Avenger of Blood story in order to get him to kill Christopher. After all, if Tom had remained blind, he would not have been able to shoot Christopher, and Tom would still be alive today."

Rhoda looked at Decker and Decker at Rhoda. Both could see that neither was going to convince the other. Even though they disagreed, however, Decker found Rhoda not at all disagreeable. She was, in fact, quite pleasant to be with. He could easily see how Tom could love her. Ultimately, they each resolved to let the matter pass. As for Decker, at least he had gotten an answer to what Tom's note had meant. There was one other thing he hoped Rhoda might be able to explain.

"Just before he died," Decker said, "Tom's last words to me were, 'He was going to leave me.' Does that mean anything to you?"

Rhoda shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know."

When Decker arrived back at the cabin he was greeted at the door.

"Welcome back, Mr. Hawthorne."

"Jailer, I thought you were gone," Decker responded.

The jailer shook his head. "Nah," he said. "I can't leave. I run this place. Besides, I still haven't perfected my manna manicotti recipe for you, but I'm working on it. I hope to have it done before you leave."

Decker was still far from certain that Rosen was really going to let him go, but it was beginning to seem as if everyone else believed it. "I'd like that," he said.

"There's just one thing, Mr. Hawthorne," the jailer said. "Now that you're free to come and go as you like, would it be all right if you didn't call me 'jailer' any more? My name is Charlie."

"Sure, Charlie," Decker said.