Glenn Kleier
The Last Day
1
WNN Television Studios, Times Square, New York 4:38 P.M., Friday, December 24, 1999
Jesus Christ!” the first man exclaimed.
“More or less,” the second responded.
The two well-dressed TV executives sat alone in a World News Network editing suite as a series of bizarre, silent scenes played out on the huge video wall before them.
Towering on the screen was the face of a grinning, feverish-eyed, middle-aged man with a scruffy beard. He was dressed in a tattered robe. His long stringy hair was matted with blood that trickled from a laurel wreath of rusted barbed wire on his head. As the camera pulled back, a heavy wooden cross became visible across his shoulder. Behind him, a street sign read “Via Dolorosa.” A title font on the screen identified the man as “Douglas Bandy, former stockbroker from San Jose, CA.”
The first executive nodded appreciatively.
Emerging next on the large screen was a young family of five, also shabbily dressed, seated on the worn cobble-stones of what appeared to be an ancient market bazaar. The family extended their upturned palms to every passerby, and ultimately, to the camera taking the video. The font read: “The Etien Dubois family, formerly of Orleans, France.”
The video then cut to a wide scene of a highway choked with cars, buses, bicycles and animal-driven vehicles. Beyond, the contorted skyline of Jerusalem loomed in the distance.
“Here's where we come in with the historical material,” the second executive explained in a genteel English accent.
Obligingly, the video screen presented sweeping footage of a beautiful, elaborately embroidered wall tapestry. As the camera moved in to slowly migrate down the full length of the mural, an epic story unfolded.
“The Catastrophic Millennium Pilgrimages of A.D. 999,” the title font described it. The sequence began with wealthy, medieval European families giving away their belongings to the poor and setting off for the Holy Land. On their journey, the travelers soon fell victim to terrible hardships. The tapestry depicted graphic scenes of marauders waylaying, pillaging, raping, enslaving and murdering the pilgrims. Those fortunate enough to survive the trek were then shown arriving, destitute, in the forbidden Jerusalem of the Muslims, left to starve in frustrated desolation.
“We'll add the voice-overs next week,” the Englishman commented, “and that will finish it.”
“An outstanding piece,” his cohort acknowledged, an expression of admiration spreading across his face. “It looks like your Millennium Eve special will be a huge success. Airtime's selling well all over the globe.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” the Englishman said, feigning surprise.
His associate emitted a short, snorting laugh. “I'll tell you what, Nigel, when you first proposed this whole idea, a lot of us here in the States thought you were crazy. I mean, forming special news teams, sending them all over the world at such expense to chase after a bunch of religious fanatics! I honestly thought corporate was going to take a bath on this one. But once again, you've shown your knack for creating news. You developed this millenarian craze into a major international story. Hell, if things go as well as we anticipate, maybe we'll run it again next year for the
“To be quite honest,” Nigel confessed, “it falls short of my expectations.”
“What do you mean?” the fellow executive protested. “The setup couldn't be more perfect! Your coverage of the millenarian movement over the last six months-the growing insanity in the Holy Land, Rome, Salt Lake City. All the crazy speculation about what's going to happen when the world odometer ticks over to the year 2000. The TV audience can't get enough of it! You were light-years ahead of the other networks, Nigel. You had the foresight.”
The Englishman remained unconvinced, wagging his head slowly. “The story lacks substance. These zealots may be entertaining, but they have no true credibility with our audience. They're a sideshow. A curiosity. I was hoping we'd eventually find something with a harder edge.”
“Like what?” his associate wondered.
“If only we'd been successful in getting one of the heavyweight religions aboard. A choice, ominous statement from the pope would have been nice. Or perhaps the discovery of some foreboding new Dead Sea Scroll. What our report needs is a jolt of drama. Something to give the evening a little more… impact.”
2
Mount Ramon Observatory, Negev Desert, southern Israel 11:57 P.M., Friday, December 24,1999
At this late hour, four Japanese astronomers were hunched over an assortment of infrared monitors, spectroscopes and optical instruments, gazing skyward from the open deck of Israel's only celestial observatory. Bundled against the cold, the men were special guests of the Israeli Ministry of Science, on leave from Kyoto University, Japan. The latitude and dry atmosphere of the southern Israeli desert was ideal for studying this, the largest meteor phenomenon in two thousand years, as the earth passed tonight through the Geminids asteroid belt. Already the astronomers had recorded hundreds of encounters.
“With all this activity, you would think a few might survive the descent,” one colleague commented in Japanese to no one in particular.
“Yes,” another replied. “It would be exciting to collect a fresh specimen.”
In fact, at the very foot of Mount Ramon lay the scars of several ancient meteorite craters, the only such sites in the Middle East, stretching for miles across the great rift of the Negev Valley. But the scientists were uninterested in things terrestrial. Their eyes were fixed firmly on the heavens.
Quite unexpectedly, the most senior fellow of the group noticed in his instrument one meteor far brighter and larger than typical. Lips trembling, he rose slowly from his chair to confirm the sighting with unaided eyes. Certain of himself now, he blurted out in exhilaration, “Gentlemen, I think we have an impact!”
He and his associates gaped with fascination as the light grew rapidly in size and intensity. It hurtled directly toward them on a flat trajectory, from approximately thirty degrees above the eastern horizon. The younger men remained spellbound only long enough for the danger to register, then abruptly abandoned their posts for the questionable cover of a nearby table. The senior astronomer, however, stood his ground, avidly absorbing every detail as the object passed well overhead.
In its flight across the Negev, the fiery mass illuminated a large swath of craggy mountains and rambling desert valleys. Its brilliant passing scattered the livestock of bewildered nomads, frightened an elderly Bedouin couple traveling in a donkey-driven cart and roused various camps of millenarian pilgrims paused on their way to the Holy City of Jerusalem to celebrate the New Year 2000.
Nor did the meteor elude the detection of Israeli Air Defense. Coincidental with the astronomers’ first sighting, an image was captured on radar at an Israeli military airfield, located near the southern side of the mountain.
“God damn!” a stunned sentry shouted in alarm, jolted out of his complacency by a conspicuous blip emerging on his screen. His fellow sentries were at his side in an instant, squinting closely at the object, each finding it hard to accept that the peaceful state of Jordan was the seeming point of origin.
“Code D, hostile,” a telemetry specialist made the call. But having never seen the likes of this, he couldn't identify it. “Too small for a plane,” he decided, “too fast for a cruise missile, too low to be a Scud.”
