'Madam President,' Christopher began, addressing Ambassador Lee, 'as you have just read in the dispatch, within the last hour a contingent of approximately twenty-seven thousand Indian infantry have crossed their mutual border with Pakistan in apparent response to continued border crossings by Pakistani refugees seeking food. They appear to be headed toward the three U.N. relief camps. In response to the incursion, United Nations forces under the direction of Lieutenant General Robert McCoid have engaged the Indian forces.'
The room erupted. Members of the media tried to move to get a better shot of Christopher as he spoke; several staff personnel hurried from the room. Both the ambassador from Saudi Arabia, representing the Middle East, and the ambassador from India attempted to be recognized by the chair. But Ambassador Lee refused to recognize anyone and Christopher continued. 'No report of casualties is yet available, but Indian troops in the area outnumber U.N. forces by six to one. General McCoid has ordered reinforcements into the area, but their arrival is not expected for several hours and the General warns that such movement will weaken U.N. strength at other points along the border.'
Christopher completed his report to the Security Council and then, exercising his right as an Alternate member, proceeded to make his request to remove General Brooks and to take emergency authority over the WPO. It probably would not have made any difference if he had made the request four days earlier. Still, these new events would make it much more complex and difficult to correct the problems.
Wednesday, August 21,2019 – Israel
Scott Rosen was not sure how he knew it, but there was no doubt in his mind that he was supposed to be here. On a grassy hill on the northern shore of the sea of Galilee near Capernaum, he sat and waited, though not at all sure of what it was he was waiting for. He had been there for nearly an hour just sitting and waiting, and now the sun was beginning to set. The terrain around him formed a natural amphitheater with acoustic qualities that allowed a person on the hillside to clearly hear someone speaking at the bottom of the hill.
According to the local tour guides, this was the spot where Jesus had taught his followers.
When Scott arrived there had been tourists walking the slopes around him but as evening set in he had briefly been left nearly alone. Now, over the last fifteen minutes, a steady flow of people, all men, had begun to fill the hillside. But these were not tourists; there were no cameras, no binoculars, no yapping tour guides. In fact, though their number grew into the hundreds, and then thousands, no one spoke at all. Each man simply found what seemed like a good place and sat down.
Over the next few minutes the trickle became a flood: now thousands arrived every minute. And still not an utterance was heard. Scott saw several people he knew. The first was Rabbi Eleazar ben David, to whom he had talked a few days earlier about Joel. Then he saw Joel – his hand and wrist in a cast, the result of their last meeting. Joel had searched Scott out from among all the men on the hill and smiled broadly when he found him. Scott returned an anxious smile, and Joel sat down nearby. Neither said anything.
At the end of an hour there were more than a hundred thousand, and still no one spoke. Soon there were no more arriving and the crowd's attention turned toward some movement at the bottom of the hill. Two men stood up and one of them began to speak. His voice was deep and rich and measured. Scott was too far away to see him clearly, but he could be heard by all. Scott recognized the voice at once. It was Saul Cohen.
Standing at Cohen's side, the other man remained silent as he looked up at the crowd and thought back to that pivotal summer day when he and his brother and father had fished these very waters two thousand years before.
Chapter 25
Old Enemy, Old Friend
Sixteen months later: December 8,2020 – Northern Israel
The frigid, rain-starved ground cracked beneath the weight as the old man walked along at a steady, purposeful pace toward the west. Even his gaunt appearance and wind-dried skin did not reveal the man's true age, which was thirty years beyond what anyone might have guessed. As he crested the top of a small hill, he could see, still some miles distant, the silhouette of the gold-domed Bohd'l temple above the terraced city of Haifa which marked the end of his trek. After fourteen days in the Galilasan wilderness he looked forward to a few days of regular meals, human contact, and a much-needed bath. The nearly- empty pack on his back had been overstuffed with dried fruits and nuts when he started. His canteens, now empty, had added quite a bit of weight to his initial load two weeks earlier.
Normally, after a brief stay at the temple, he would be off again for another week or two in the wilderness, but this time there were other tasks which required his attention. For over a year, since the cremation of his close friend and confidante Alice Bemley, Robert Milner, the former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, had lived the life of a monk, going off into the wilderness of Israel for up to three weeks at a time before returning to the civilization of the Baha'i temple. His only companion on these journeys was the Tibetan, Master Djwlij Kajm, Alice Bernley's former spirit guide. During Bernley's cremation Djwlij Kajm had come to Milner and spoken to him in Bernley's voice. Up until that time Milner had known the Tibetan only through Alice, his channel to the physical world. Now Milner knew him in a much more intimate way. Over the last sixteen months, Master Djwlij Kajm had taught and trained Milner for the work to be done. Finally, on this most recent journey, Milner had completed his spiritual apprenticeship and had received into himself a guiding spirit who united with his own and the two had become one. The mission that called Robert Milner out of the wilderness at this time would take him in a few days to the city of Jerusalem, where he would await the arrival of Christopher Goodman and Decker Hawthorne.
New York
'We cannot afford to compound our mistake by letting this go on any longer!' French Ambassador Albert Moore declared as he brought his fist down on the table before him. Nearby, Moore's chief of staff, Gerard Poupardin silently surveyed the reactions of the other Security Council members. From his perspective, the address seemed to be going well. 'It has been nearly sixteen months since this body voted to give emergency authority to the ambassador from Italy to personally direct the operations of the World Peace Organization. At that time we were assured by the ambassador that he had substantial evidence to corroborate his charges of corruption by the WPO's commanding general. No doubt the decision of this body came in part as a result of the incursion of Indian forces into Pakistan and in part because of our shared concern for the plight of the Pakistani refugees. And yet now, sixteen months later, we have still been given no concrete evidence of any complicity in, nor culpability for, any wrongdoing of any sort by General Brooks. Indeed, while the losses of materiel have dropped dramatically, there is every reason to believe that this has been solely due to new security measures which General Brooks was in the process of implementing even as Ambassador Goodman stood before this body requesting emergency authority to place General Brooks on administrative leave, and then took direct control of the WPO into his own, far less-experienced hands.
'And is it possible that a more pernicious hour could have been chosen by the Italian ambassador for making his charges, than at the very moment that the incursion into Pakistan had begun? Charges whose only result was to undermine the structure of authority, incite derision, and weaken the esprit de corps of our forces when the leadership and guidance of General Brooks was most critically needed?
'And so, what began with the incursion of a few thousand troops has grown into what must be considered a full-fledged war between two peace-loving regions, and which threatens the borders of a third, China. And ironically, though the drought which led to the war has now lessened, still the war goes on, prolonging the famine by diverting resources and energy into fighting instead of into planting crops.'
For twenty-five minutes this went on. Moore held nothing back. His intent was to ascribe to Christopher as much responsibility for the war as he possibly could. All of his charges hinged on Christopher's inability to produce conclusive evidence proving that General Brooks was responsible for the losses of equipment and supplies incurred
