Jacob's Trouble 666 Read online

  Jacob’s Trouble 666

  Terry James

  Jacob’s Trouble 666

  Terry James

  CKN Christian Publishing

  An Imprint of Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  Copyright © 2018 by Terry James (as revised)

  Characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Kindle ISBN: 978-1-64119-423-5

  Contents

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  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  A Look At: The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension—The Second Coming Chronicles

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  About Terry James

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  Prologue

  The seeds were there all along for parenting the fruits that would sweeten the mouth but quickly grow bitter in the belly. The inevitable came like a flood following the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. Powerful money brokers' fanatic zeal for ever-widening margins of profit, coupled with consumers' appetites for increasingly opulent lifestyles, exploded in an orgy of uncontrolled credit spending by individuals and governments.

  A super computer innovation networked the entire planet in a geometric progression when internationalist powers-that-be determined to preempt feared global economic disaster. This resulted in a radically changed worldwide monetary system of electronic-funds transfer.

  Magnified by these advances, disparity between the haves and have-nots ripped civilization apart. Unprecedented terrorism and civil anarchy ensued, making cooperative police controls necessary on a global scale.

  New, incurable, untreatable diseases brought on by human excesses ravaged the earth. Droughts, floods, earthquakes and other phenomena struck more frequently and with greater devastation. Still, mankind, through exponential growth in knowledge and quantum leaps in science, seemed to maintain control.

  That same technology, however, ignited man's basest lusts--enslaving millions within the cyber-space realm of virtual reality by creating addictions rivaling even those caused by the mind-searing drugs that saturated every culture on earth. Western Judaeo-Christian precepts were all but absorbed by Eastern metaphysical theosophies, based on spirit guidance, reincarnation and inner-self search for knowledge, truth and power. Despite all the talk of peace, wars flared, then died to live again in other places. Israel and its neighboring Arabic nations agreed to a cessation of hostilities, and there was prosperity for a season.

  Then came the truly cataclysmic events: The Russian coalition war machine totally destroyed in a single day; the inexplicable disappearance of millions of people in a fraction of a second; and the demise of America as a superpower.

  Unified Europe, already a powerful entity within the New World Order, rushed to fill the vacuum, promising resolution to chaos created by the catastrophes. This became a promise kept, but better left unfulfilled.

  Each generation, while those people live their given increments of history, compares its circumstance to circumstances of those before, and speculates about those who will come after. Jesus assessed the lot of a future generation when He said:

  "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be."

  Jacob Zen, deeply engrossed in the old book, and contemplating the torrential calamitous events that had engulfed his miserable existence, judged that this must surely be that time. His lips moved as he read the words inaudibly.

  "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea..."

  "... And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him..."

  "... no man might buy or sell, except he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name..."

  "... and his number is six hundred, threescore and six." Revelation 13

  "Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble..." Jeremiah 30:7

  Jacob closed the thick volume while moving, almost without thinking, to the other side of the room. He lay stretched full-length on the hard plastic sofa and shut his eyes, gently massaging his aching temples with his fingertips, anticipating the only pleasure Interface had not taken from him: his memories.

  His memories of the past — a time when he could envision only right and justice, and a future filled with promise at the side of the young woman who made it possible.

  While his thoughts probed into the past, the ever-present foul smells in the room gave way — fading slowly, then more quickly — becoming the calm, crisp autumn scents of a Massachusetts countryside, during that earlier time......

  Chapter 1

  "These things never work out, Jabbo."

  "Sure they do."

  "Never have for me."

  "How many times have I fixed you up? Look, when Jabolonski does something for a friend, it's usually a masterpiece."

  Jacob smiled, knowing his stocky friend's self-assuredness, his most pronounced and, at times, his most annoying trait. Rasnick Jabolonski really believed what he was saying.

  "She's no Cinderella, but, if nothing else, you'll enjoy talking with her. You two are a lot alike, you know... have a lot in common."

  "You mean we're both human?" Jacob cocked an eyebrow to show his skepticism.

  "I know. I know! That's the same line everybody uses to pre-sell a blind date. But in this case, it's a fact. She's involved in some government stuff. You know, the kind of stuff you like."

  Jacob mentally pictured the female his friend's wife picked for him—a homely, bespectacled Ichabod Crane of womanhood, sitting snootily and shapeless in gray, drooping wool. The depression deepened when he remembered the pile of work he left at his Boston office, the most important work of his young career. He would spend the whole evening smiling and nodding in agreement with Beth, Jabolonski's former college roommate, and would never hear her words.

  "She's great, Jake. C'mon! Relax!"

  "How long have you known her?"

  "Well..."

  "Well? What's so hard about that question, Jabbo?"

  "Okay, so I haven't met her. But I trust Beth."

  "Sure you do. You're not the one being fixed up."

  Soft yellows, greens and reds blanketed the undulant horizon, which was less brilliant than the foliage that whisked by just outside the Volvo. Jacob sat on the passenger side, staring past his own sharp features reflecting in the raised window. Something about the neglected work weighed on his thoughts. It wasn't the time line set by the National Security Council chairman. That could be met with little effort. Too, the thrust of the work he was doing in the project seemed right for tackling the problems facing the United States, Europe and Japan. He sensed instead, an undercurrent that tugged his intuition towar
d some deeper source of worry.

  "Hey! Where are you?"

  "What? Sorry." His thoughts dissipated with Jabolonski's interruption.

  "I said, she works with some group in D.C. that has something to do with national security."

  "Who?"

  "Come on, Zen! What's the matter with you? Karen Mossberg, that's who!"

  "I'm sorry, Jabbo. I was thinking about the work I have piling up."

  "Forget it for tonight, okay? Everybody's got to unwind sometime."

  "National Security, huh? Just about everything in Washington these days has something to do with national security. Which agency?"

  "I don't know. Ask her yourself. It'll give you something to talk about," Jabolonski said while he steered the Volvo onto State 114, northwestward to Middleton.

  She was not at first glance a girl of arresting good looks. Not like those he knew who made and lost careers intertwining themselves within Washington, D.C.'s society and officialdom. But she instantly made him forget the work on his desk, and drew him from his self-imposed introversion. She was, he considered while lighting a cigarette, quite simply the most appealing woman he had ever met.

  "You don't need that," Karen Mossberg admonished softly, her pretty face portraying genuine concern. The silence that followed and her unyielding gaze made him uncomfortable.

  "I've been meaning to quit."

  "Yes. I know all the clichés, Mr. Zen: 'I've been meaning to quit'; 'They're killing me'; 'It's just that I have to do something with my hands.'"

  "Yeah. Something like that, I guess," he said, grinning. "Rasnick tells me you work in government."

  "Change the subject. She'll get off my case," she said, reaching to take the cigarette from his mouth. Then her tone was gentle. "Please don't. They are killing you, you know. You're much too nice to kill yourself with these, Jacob. And if you need to do something with your hands, here, hold mine." She took his right hand and held it between her hands.

  "My work involves government, but I don't work for any agency," she said, continuing to hold his hand. "We're interested in policing the National Security Agency, in particular-- at least for the moment, that's our primary area of concern."

  "We?"

  "P. A.L. — Preservers of American Liberty."

  "Clever," Jacob said, Karen Mossberg thought, just a bit smugly.

  "You've heard of us." The defensive irritation in her voice and narrowed brows above her intense brown eyes told him to soft-pedal.

  "I only meant it's a clever name. Actually, we've spent so much time researching the NSA, I guess we haven't earned a reputation yet. But I assure you we will be heard from shortly."

  Her tone was soft again and he sensed she had to struggle with herself to keep it at that level. But the passion and the quick intellect were still there in the eyes--those lovely, dark eyes that sparked reflected light when she made her points.

  "What about you? What exactly is your contribution to our benevolent keepers?"

  "Nothing quite so stimulating as fighting to preserve our civil liberties, I'm afraid. It has its rewards on occasion, though. For lack of a better title, I guess you could say I'm an assistant consultant to the administration in international economic affairs."

  "To the President?"

  He was inwardly pleased that she brought up the question, and that she seemed duly impressed.

  "Indirectly. My boss does the vis-a-vis stuff with top White House people. I'm relegated to rear echelon duty."

  The expanded explanation was ego-deflating, but he saw her appreciation for his truthfulness. She reached to touch his arm.

  "Being a junior G-man at your age isn't all that bad. You've got a lot of time."

  "You people talking business?" Jabolonski entered the patio area of his home carrying meat prepared for the grill. The evening ended too soon for Jacob. Friendship had grown into pronounced interest by eleven o'clock, when it was time to return to Boston and the horror of his desk. A quality, an indefinable something, drew him to Karen--traits that separated her from the others. Although he was uncertain of her appraisal of him, the look she gave before they parted with a wave and her agreement to get together in Washington told him the relationship held promise.

  A shrill scream pierced his skull and reverberated over his brain, causing his eyes to pop open in a transfixed stare. His mind, as always, obeyed its masters instantaneously. He hurried to his position, as commanded.

  Bright amber computer data flashed on the rectangular Interface screen when the old woman stepped beneath the Decodscanner.

  "Look up!" commanded the stern woman across the counter, her black eyes leering from sockets surrounded by dark, sunken flesh.

  The woman obeyed nervously, turning her puffy, age-creased face upward.

  The screen displayed:

  INterface Response Unity

  U.S. SECTOR 781

  PROCEED — INPUT

  The checker herded a few canned grocery items onto the conveyor, then pressed a button located at waist level behind the counter.

  Fumbling through her cracked vinyl purse, the older woman retrieved a tissue and applied it to her cold-infected nose.

  "Look, lady! There are other citizens besides you in the P.C.," the checker said icily. "Move along!"

  Her eyes betraying fear, she gathered the sack into her arms, coughed into the tissue, and exited the Product Center under the suspicious glare of a black-uniformed controller.

  An old man shuffled tentatively into the checkout lane, avoiding the gaze of the checker. His broad head was bowed as if he sought to hide beneath the upturned collar of the ragged gray coat he wore. "You got an IN, mister?" Her question cut the air in a tone of disgust.

  "Yes... Yes... See here." The man let his eyes meet hers fleetingly while he pulled back the sleeve on his right arm and moved his hand to a position beneath the countertop Decodscanner, activating an ultraviolet light which made visible a bar code tattooed on the back of his hand. At the same time, the number appeared on the INRU screen:

  5DD197920- J

  Looking at the screen, the checker pushed a button, and data was added to the display.

  5D019792O-J IN5DR - O - CREDIT LINE - D

  "You don't have any drawing rights, Jew! Take these and put them back where they belong!"

  The little man shrunk deeper into the oversized coat, although he made a meek protest. "Please... but madam... I..."

  "Just get these things back on the shelves, Jew!" She shoved the items roughly at him, cursing beneath her breath. Her outburst drew the attention of others in the Product Center and caused the controller to stiffen to alertness from his position near the exit.

  While all eyes were on the frightened man, he moved from the counter and nervously replaced the foodstuffs on their various shelves. His face taking on the bloodless look of a man terminally ill, his only wish was to be gone from the Product Center.

  "Are you Jew?" The controller collared him, snarling the question through clenched teeth.

  "Answer me, old man!"

  He slammed the smaller man hard against a nearby wall, then pushed his elbow into the captive's throat. Unable to answer and growing dizzy because of pressure exerted on his windpipe, the man ceased to struggle against his powerful captor, who jerked and ripped at the overcoat, sending buttons flying when the coat tore open.

  The controller pulled the coat apart, exposing a yellow, thread-stitched Star of David on the gray, tattered shirt.

  "Why are you hiding this?" the angry policeman demanded, jabbing his finger into the center of the symbol. "You know it's forbidden to conceal being Jew!"

  A crowd had gathered, the people's faces reflecting collective hatred.

  "Please, sir! I didn't mean to conceal it. It will not happen again, sir."

  His plea, in a heavy Slavic accent, brought mumbled cursing from the mob. The controller smiled stiffly while pushing the terrified man through the doorway and onto the concrete walk area in front of the Product Cen
ter.

  "It won't happen again, because there is no more 'again' for you, my kike friend," growled the bigger man.

  "Please, sir..." The prisoner's voice cracked with emotion.

  "This is IN Controller Unit six, eight, two, two, two," the policeman said, talking into a hand-held communicator and holding his captive with his other hand. "Dispatch a Decap Unit to seven, seven, zero, one-hundred forty-fifth, J... uh..." He jerked the man violently toward himself, ripped open the prisoner's shirt, and read the number tattooed above the man's left breast.

  "Make that five, zero, zero, one, nine, seven, nine, two, zero, Jew." The female operator at the other end of the transmission replied, "Affirmative, Controller six, eight, two, two, two. Dispatching Decap Unit now." The crowd grew larger and was demonstratively pleased with the proceedings. Several among them shouted obscenities at the prisoner, who tried to hide behind the controller like a teased or frightened child might hide behind his parent.

  In less than five minutes, a white van rounded a corner in the distance, then stopped seconds later in the middle of the badly deteriorating street near the mob. Two men in uniform similar to that worn by the controller exited the vehicle and walked to its rear.

  One of them opened a panel on the right rear portion of the van and pushed a series of buttons, causing the back doors to swing open. He pressed another, activating machinery that swung out through the rear of the van and unfolded a section at a time, forming, finally, a large metal platform.

  Two thick telescoping poles erected from the floor of the platform and extended upward six feet before stopping. A rectangular box-like device emerged from the center of the platform, rising three feet before halting between the two vertical poles. Within seconds, a large contrivance appeared from within the van's body and whirred to a stop between the poles at their highest points. The rectangular device opened and appendages extended from either side to make attachment to the vertical beams. A glistening, chrome-like blade of knife-sharp metal descended slowly from the device's lower position. Another projection ascended from the box on the floor of the platform, three feet wide, three inches thick and notched at its center, a half-circle bite having been taken from it by its machine-creator.