“I’ll be honest with you, Michael. The last days are gonna be rough. That’s why they call these times the Tribulation. But Brother Cyrus will see us through. The man’s got a special connection to the Lord.” Lukas pointed a blunt finger at Michael’s face. “You do what Cyrus tells you, you hear? Then everything’ll be all right. We’ll be sitting by God’s throne before you know it.”
Lukas wagged his finger, almost touching Michael’s cheek. Then he pulled away and sat up straight. Michael coughed out a breath, but kept his head turned to the side. From the corner of his eye, he saw Lukas leaning back on the ammunition box, propped on his elbows. He was looking up at the sky, where the first stars had just appeared.
They drove about a mile across the desert. Then Michael saw something off to the right, a big black thing half buried in the sand. He squinted, trying to identify it in the gloom. It looked like the broken shell of an oil tank. Soon he began to see other pieces of debris: rusty beams jutting from the sand, sections of pipe strewn across the desert floor. And just beyond the debris he glimpsed a deep crater, about a hundred feet across. Its walls plunged straight down, as if the hole had been made with a giant drill. Michael shivered as he stared at it.
“Impressive, huh?” Lukas had to shout over the noise of the engine, which was louder now because the truck was climbing a sandy ridge. “It happened a long time ago, when Turkmenistan was still part of the Soviet Union. One of the biggest industrial accidents in Soviet history. And that’s saying something, because those commies had a lot of accidents.”
“What happened?” The words sounded strange in Michael’s throat. This was the first time he’d spoken since coming outside.
“The wreckage came from a Soviet drilling rig. The Karakum Desert sits on a reservoir of natural gas, see? The Russkies wanted to tap it, but they didn’t understand the local geology. When they drilled into the gas just below the surface, their rigs collapsed into the sand and formed sinkholes. And some of those sinkholes were deep enough that the methane began leaking from cracks at the bottom.”
A cold wind buffeted the truck and Michael shivered again. He gazed straight ahead, looking past Lukas, and saw the dirt track curving up the steep slope of the ridge. The twilight glow had nearly dissipated from the western sky behind them, but now Michael saw another glow coming from the east, illuminating the top of the ridge they were climbing. It was like a curtain of light filling the eastern quarter of the sky, and it grew brighter as the pickup neared the crest. He shook his head. “Is that . . . ?”
Then they reached the top of the ridge and saw the burning crater.
It was at the bottom of the slope, a quarter mile away, but it was so bright that Michael’s eyes stung when he looked at it. More than twice as big as the crater they’d just passed, it was a perfect circle almost a hundred yards wide, and flames rose from every square foot. Gaping holes at the bottom of the crater spewed billows of burning methane. They shot fifty feet into the air like great trees of fire, roiling at the top in furious eddies and surges. Smaller flames stippled the crater’s rocky floor, some flickering like pilot lights, others swirling together in the updrafts. Flames even rose from the crater’s steep walls, roaring up the cliffs. The fires leaped above the crater’s rim and cast a yellowish sheen on the surrounding desert.
As the pickup descended the slope and approached the rim, Michael felt a gust of hot air on his face. He’d never seen so much fire before. The feeling that he was inside a computer game grew stronger. The crater was so big and bright and colorful. He turned back to Lukas. “How did it catch fire?” he asked.
Lukas shrugged. “Who knows? Could’ve happened when the rig collapsed. Or maybe someone threw in a match afterward, to burn the methane so it wouldn’t poison the air. Either way, the fire’s been going for at least thirty years. And there’s enough natural gas under the desert to keep it going for centuries.”
The pickup slowed as it reached the bottom of the slope and then ground to a halt about a hundred feet from the rim. The light from the fires was so blinding here that Michael didn’t see the other vehicles at first. But as the pickup’s engine shut off he noticed two more trucks and three Land Cruisers parked nearby. A long line of soldiers stood close to the rim, their helmets and rifle barrels silhouetted against the flames.
Lukas shouted at the soldiers, and several ran toward the pickup. The men in the truck lowered the tailgate, and Michael tumbled into the arms of the other soldiers. One man grasped his armpits and another gripped his legs. Then they carried him toward the crater.
His heart beat faster as they left the vehicles behind and moved toward the silhouettes near the rim. The air was hotter here and it pressed against his face, prickling his cheeks and pushing into his mouth. Soon they were just a dozen feet from the crater’s edge. Michael could look down into the bowl and see the flames rising from every crack and rock pile. They were close, too close! The game was scaring him now and he wished he could end it, but the only thing he could do was scream.
Then he saw Tamara. She stood about six feet from the edge. The soldiers carrying Michael dropped him at her feet, and she crouched beside him. She clutched his right arm above the elbow and made a shushing noise in his ear. “It’s all right, Michael, it’s all right. I’m here now, see?”
He screamed louder and kicked away from her. But Tamara held on to his arm. “No, don’t do that!” she yelled. “We’re near the edge and it could crumble! Then we’d both fall into the crater and die!”
He looked past her, staring at the edge. It was sandy and jagged. Shadows jumped in its crevices as the flames rose and fell in the crater. He saw that Tamara was telling the truth, so he stopped kicking.
“Come on, Michael, stand up. You’re getting all dirty on the ground.”
She rose to her feet and pulled him up. At the same time, another soldier appeared at his left. It was Angel, the man with the curved scar on his neck, but now he seemed larger than Michael remembered because he was in full combat gear. He wore a flak jacket that bulged with half a dozen pouches for bullets and binoculars and fragmentation grenades. He grasped Michael’s left arm without looking at him. His grip was tighter than Tamara’s.
They turned him around until he faced away from the crater. Michael noticed that the other soldiers were backing up, moving farther from the crater’s edge. He felt a stab of hope—they were leaving now! And Michael could get away from this crater and go back to the camp! But then he realized that the soldiers were simply stepping aside to make room for someone else, a man emerging from the darkness. It took Michael a few seconds to recognize the man because his black clothes blended in with the sky behind him. The only color was in his eyes, which showed clearly through the slit in his head scarf. Each of his pupils reflected the crater’s yellow glow.
Brother Cyrus stopped a few feet in front of them. “Hello, Michael,” he said in his muffled voice. “Do you know where we are?”
Michael didn’t say anything. Now that he wasn’t facing the crater, he was less afraid. He stared at the folds of Cyrus’s head scarf, wishing that he could tear it off the man’s head.
Cyrus pointed one of his gloved hands at the crater. “That’s the Burning Gas Crater of Darvaza. The Turkmen people call it the Door to Hell. A dramatic name, don’t you think?”
Again, Michael didn’t answer. None of the soldiers spoke either. The only sound was the roar of the fires inside the crater.
“Unfortunately, the name isn’t accurate. Hell isn’t below us.” Cyrus shook his masked head. Then he extended both hands and swept them in a circle. “Hell is right here. It’s all around us. Our world is a slaughterhouse, a foul sty of sin and death. But the Lord has promised to deliver us from this hell and lead us into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Tamara and Angel shouted, “Yes, Brother!” The other soldiers said nothing. Michael realized they were standing too far back to hear Cyrus above the noise of the gas fires.
Cyrus folded his arms across his chest. “Michael, I want to talk to you about God. I’ll put it in scientific terms so it’ll be easier for you to understand.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black book. “In scientific terms, God is the organizing principle. He’s the theorem, the program, the alpha and omega. His will was made flesh in the flames of Creation, spawning stars and planets and all living things, and He speaks to us from within our minds, because our thoughts are simply manifestations of His love. And although His universe is now corrupted to its core, the beauty of God’s design is that the flaws can be corrected.”
Tamara and Angel shouted “Yes, Brother!” again, but Cyrus kept his eyes trained on Michael.
“God made His promise to us two thousand years ago,” he said. “He promised to redeem the world at the End of Days, and to resurrect the dead from their long sleep so they could live forever in the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s all written right here, for anyone to see.” He waved his black book in the air. “But the sinful world forgot God’s promise. Priests and ministers constructed their own idea of heaven, the place in the clouds, the so-called afterlife. They preached that a person’s soul could fly to this heaven as soon as the person died, which is a doctrine that not only contradicts God’s word but defies logic as well. They claim that their heaven can’t be seen from earth because it exists on some mystical plane of reality. But the real reason is simpler. Their heaven is imaginary.”
Brother Cyrus moved a step closer. Michael felt his courage failing.
“But God’s promise isn’t imaginary,” Cyrus said, tapping the cover of his book. “And the True Believers haven’t forgotten it. They know that the Kingdom of Heaven will be a real place, as real as the ground we’re standing on, and that the Lord has called on us to hasten its coming. He’s given us all the tools we need, the tools of science and mathematics, and now we don’t have to wait anymore. We can cast away the sinful world and make way for God’s eternal reign.” He took another step toward Michael and spread his arms. “Don’t be afraid, my child. Yes, we will die, but we will be born again in God’s kingdom. All the clocks will stop running and time will stand still. The whole past of our universe will be compressed into one moment, and the Lord will embrace us all forever.”
He took one more step forward, but Michael screamed before the man could touch him. Cyrus stood there for several seconds, his arms spread wide. Then he looked at the crater again, peering over Michael’s shoulder. The yellow fires flashed in his eyes. “You must serve the Lord now, Michael. You must tell us the code. We need to know the entire program so we can unsheathe Excalibur, God’s holy sword. Tamara has told me that you’ve refused to cooperate, so I’ve arranged a demonstration. I will show you what happens to those who try to stop the Almighty from fulfilling His promise.”
Then he turned around to face his men and shouted, “Bring him forward!”
Michael saw some movement in the darkness beyond the crater, and after a few seconds three figures emerged from the shadows. Two of Cyrus’s soldiers escorted a tall, sturdy man whose hands were tied behind his back and whose head was covered with a black hood. The soldiers held their prisoner by his elbows and he stumbled across the sand, dragging his left foot. At one point he fell to his knees and Michael saw bloody bandages on both his hands. He wore a U.S. Army uniform and as he got closer Michael saw a patch on his left shoulder saying
75-RANGER-RGT.
The name tag on his chest said
RAMSEY.
The soldiers stopped beside Cyrus, who placed his right hand on top of the prisoner’s hood and muttered a few words that Michael didn’t understand. Then Cyrus pointed at the crater again and shouted, “Go!”
Tamara and Angel turned Michael around so he could watch the soldiers drag the prisoner to the crater’s edge. The man thrashed his legs and jackknifed his body, but the soldiers lifted him off the ground, raising him so high that his feet pedaled the air. For a moment Michael thought they were lifting the prisoner to give him a better view of the fires. But this couldn’t be right—because of the hood, the man couldn’t see a thing. Then the soldiers threw the prisoner into the crater.
Michael could still see the fires, but he couldn’t see the man. It was as if the computer game had suffered a program error that froze the screen and erased all the data. He heard a noise, though, above the roar of the flames, a long tumbling wail. Then he saw a man-size cylinder of fire come to rest amid the smaller flames on the crater’s floor.
“Forgive us, Lord!” Cyrus shouted. “We are coming! We will be with You soon!”
Michael wanted to cover his ears, but he couldn’t—Tamara and Angel were still gripping his arms. They pulled him toward Brother Cyrus, who placed his right hand on Michael’s forehead. In his left hand was a small silver device that looked a bit like an iPod. Cyrus flicked a switch on the device and held it under Michael’s chin.
“Tell us the code,” he said. He leaned so close that Michael could see the black threads in his head scarf. “Just speak into the recorder. I know you can see the program in your mind. The Lord has revealed the key to you, and now you must pass it on.”
It was true, Michael could see the program. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to see it. The lines of software code flashed within his field of vision, scrolling upward. They ascended between Michael’s face and Brother Cyrus’s, the quantum variables and operators gleaming brilliantly against the black scarf. But Cyrus couldn’t see them. Only Michael could. It was his secret, his treasure.
“Everything has a purpose, Michael. The code will tell us how to wield Excalibur, how to aim God’s sword at the weakest part of this broken world. And then, with one stroke, we will put an end to it, and the Kingdom of Heaven will take its place. Just as God promised.”
Michael shook his head. He didn’t care about heaven. He’d made his own promise, his promise to David Swift. And he was going to keep it.
Cyrus said nothing at first. He held his recorder under Michael’s chin and waited. Then he lowered his hand and stepped backward. “All right, I’m not going to waste any more time.” He turned to Tamara. “Throw him in.”