Rise of the Beast: A Novel (The Patmos Conspiracy Book 1) Read online

  THE RISE OF THE BEAST

  The Patmos Conspiracy – Book 1

  Copyright © 2016 Mark Gilroy Creative LLC

  www.mkgilroy.com

  Published by Sydney Lane Press, a Division of Gray Point Media LLC.

  2000 Mallory Lane, Suite 130-229

  Franklin, Tennessee 37067

  www.sydneylanepress.com

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Version: SLP.006.2016.01

  EDITIONS

  Paperback: 9780975866221

  E-Book: 9780975866238

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016937545

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, celebrities, or locales are used only for a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.

  International English Language Version

  Dedicated to my lovely and loving wife, Amy

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to early manuscript reviewers who provided invaluable feedback on bringing the beast to life! My heartfelt thank you to Allen Deaver, Bob DeMoss, Sid Frost, Brian Henson, Lanny Hester, Julie Jayne, Danny McGuffey, Kim Russell, David Sams, and Jeane Wynn!

  Contents

  Prologue

  1: Jersey City, New Jersey

  2: Northern Yemen

  3: Bentonville, Arkansas

  4: New York City

  5: Los Angeles, California

  6: New York City

  7: Turin, Italy

  8: Bentonville, Arkansas

  9: The Isle of Patmos

  10: Northern Yemen

  11: Devil’s Den Hiking Trail, Ozark National Forest

  12: New York City

  13: Hodeidah, Yemen

  14: The Isle of Patmos

  15: Devil’s Den Hiking Trail, Ozark National Forest

  16: New York City

  17: The Isle of Patmos

  18: Devil’s Den Hiking Trail, Ozark National Forest

  19: Bentonville, Arkansas

  20: Arlington, Virginia

  21: The Mediterranean Sea

  22: Tikrit, Iraq June 25, 2003

  23: The Ozark National Forest

  24: New York City

  25: Los Angeles, California

  26: Boston, Massachusetts

  27: New York City

  28: Devil’s Den Hiking Trail, the Ozark National Forest

  29: New York City

  30: New York City

  31: New York City

  32: New York City

  33: The Ozark National Forest

  34: Bentonville, Arkansas

  35: New York City

  36: Sana’a, Yemen

  37: Washington, D.C.

  38: The Isle of Patmos

  39: New York City

  40: Alexandria, Virginia

  41: New York City

  About the Author

  M.K. Gilroy Novels

  The Kristen Conner Mystery Series

  Cold As Ice

  Cuts Like a Knife

  Every Breath You Take

  Under Pressure – Coming August 2016

  The Patmos Conspiracy

  The Rise of the Beast—Book 1

  Voice of the Dragon – Book 2 – Coming Fall 2016

  Mark of the Beast – Book 3 – to be announced

  The Blood Red Horse – Book 4 – to be announced

  The Final Battle – Book 5 – to be announced

  Just Before Midnight: A Christmas Eve Novella

  I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet.

  Revelation 1:9-10, NLT

  Patmos is a small, lightly populated Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Christian tradition identifies it as the place where the Apostle John was banished by the Roman government, and the place where he received the Revelation of Christ. The Cave of the Apocalypse is a popular destination for Christian pilgrims.

  Book 1

  Rise of the Beast

  Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.

  Revelation 13:1, NLT

  Prologue

  From the Journal of Jonathan Alexander

  Some things are true but can’t be said out loud.

  I learned that lesson the first time I told my dad he was a drunken bum. My dad wasn’t so bad. He wasn’t a mean drunk. I simply shouldn’t have spoken the truth of his miserable existence when he was sober. That’s when he got mean.

  Western Civilization is dying. That means the death of invention, productivity, learning, beauty, and peace—at least an acceptable level of peace. Total peace is not in the best interests of progress.

  The death of Western Civilization means no more rule of law. I have not always followed the law, but I respect the law.

  What will the world be like when the only quarter of humanity that brings value to human existence gives way to the savages?

  The direction the world is traveling must be stopped, no matter what it takes or what the cost.

  See, I told you some things are true but can’t be said out loud. I can see your revulsion to what I write. I can picture the uncomfortable flicker of your eyes. You want to turn away from me.

  But be honest. Confess what you know to be true in your heart. Deep down, you feel a glimmer of recognition… maybe even a twinge excitement, don’t you? Somewhere beneath the veneer of political correctness and feigned compassion, you can almost feel and believe that which is authentic in my words. Can the world continue as it is and be home to a thriving civilization?

  You know the answer. The world cannot continue on its present demographic course. The exponential aggregate of population growth alone is unsustainable. I feel a twinge of sadness that some must die for no other reason than the profligacy of their forebears. I feel no sadness for the necessary deaths of others. If not eradicated, the global death throes created by brutal peoples and cultures that offer nothing of beauty, will be horrific.

  You are looking away. I make you uncomfortable. I don’t blame you for not approving my words. You would be labeled a bigot, selfish, arrogant, barbaric, and even ignorant. All the while, barbarians create and perpetuate a world of brutality within the sphere of their ugly self-destructive existence.

  I am not the only one who believes the death of the West means a plunge into unfettered barbarism for the world. Many see the same truth and know that something must be done, but shrink back from the required confrontation in thought and deed. I’m sure some believe that benevolence and education will transform cultures of misery into enlightened beacons of hope in dark lands. I don’t criticize that sentiment. The world needs kindness, however naïve, misguided, and inefficacious it might be.

  But those who recognize the inescapability of what is happening and yet choose to do nothing, bear guilt. They are cowards who ha
ve no taste for the necessary steps to save what is good in the world in order to give hope to the future. Their only comfort will be that their mortal existence—their only existence—will pass away before the full measure of impending calamity has materialized. But what of their children and grandchildren?

  I’ve lived a reasonably long life. There is nothing more for me to attain. So why do I choose to undertake what is nearly impossible now? Well, someone must. The Creator God, if he exists, certainly doesn’t seem interested in the world condition at the moment, nor for quite some time.

  You will, of course, accuse me of insanity and evil. I say the same of you. You have fallen under the spell of the Sophists, those clever thinkers and influencers who parse minutiae while blind to seismic events and realities right before their eyes. You can no longer recognize what is good and evil. You could never understand that it is hope and truth that drives me. Am I wrong to believe that perhaps Alaric has not yet crossed the Tiber with his savages and breached the wide-open gates of Rome? Perhaps there is more time to save civilization.

  With the moral dissipation of the West, that time is short.

  I see your eyes. You look at me as if I am a madman. You somehow believe that everything will work out despite the present course. Do the math. Compare the existence of those having babies with those not having babies. Do you not see that the numbers of the savage and deficient are swelling to flood and subdue the lands of prosperity and progress?

  You may wish to cling to your belief that no one has the right to affirm cultural superiority and judge peoples that offer nothing but pain and suffering. But who is the madman?

  Who will speak the words that must be spoken? Who will perform the deeds? In the same manner as the Greek and Roman Empires of my heritage, the Western Civilization we know now has been robbed of its faith and courage. Just as the Sophists were the bedfellows of death, decay, and ruin for my forefathers in Athens, so the Sophists of today play with fanciful and irrelevant notions of progress while the world burns around them. Even now the swirling smoke from the flames blinds them and the lemmings who follow them obediently over the cliff and into the abyss of the new and final dark ages.

  Western Civilization is all that has really mattered in world history. Let the sheep of academia bleat of an enlightened fragment of a parchment or a single mathematical discovery or a shard of painted ceramic or an etching on a stone from other societies. I’m happy to recognize and give credit to the achievements and wonders of other world cultures. But deep down everyone knows Western Civilization has spawned the only world history that matters for a simple reason. No other culture, no other ethos, no other philosophy has created the pathway for the poor to create a middle class and for a burgeoning middle class to become rich—and for all to live with some modicum of decency.

  Think of that truth before judging me for what I am about to do. Test my words against all you know. Art, learning, and prosperity for the masses is unique to the ideals founded in Athens. Hate me if you will, but were I to shrink from the voice inside of me, you would learn soon enough there is no such thing as a noble savage.

  In the past one hundred years the West’s engine of upward mobility has done its work so well that even its own poor feel they are deserving of more than they are able to attain by their own sweat and guile while they already have much more than all but the wealthiest of the other world cultures, simply because of where they live and the men of courage and willfulness who built it. I want to look in their eyes and laugh when the teats of largesse and abundance dry up.

  When Socrates raised the bitter cup of hemlock to his lips, the city elders of Athens watched but did not understand what was really happening. They were not witnessing the death of a wise man but of wisdom. As they killed truth, they ordained their own death.

  The world is dying before our eyes and the ones who can do something to save what is decent and beautiful in humanity refuse to act. They know not that they drink deeply from Socrates cup. They dance with the devil in his many forms and forget that he will exact his due.

  The world needs an intercessor, whether with God or Lucifer or the sum of man’s belief in something divine.

  On the Island of Patmos, the place of my father’s birth, St. John the Apostle had a vision of a beast rising from the sea.

  What is needed today is a beast. So I have prayed to the Creator God, whether he lives or listens or exists only as a projection of human wishing. I have told him that I will do what all others fear to do. Perhaps if he exists, he will be pleased that one man has stood up to fight. The God of the Bible did flood the Earth and drown the wicked after all. He has not always sat idly by while the world falls into ruins, though I suspect he has always lacked the power or the will to do what is necessary for his children to enjoy and master the dangerous world in which he placed them.

  I will seek his favor. If he denies me his blessing, I will do what others before me have done. I will bend his will to my will.

  I have not lost my courage… I have not lost my will to rule… I will rise from the sea. I will ride the blood red horse of the Apocalypse. I will be the Beast who destroys the world in order to save it.

  1

  Jersey City, New Jersey

  BURKE HAD DONE THE ROUTINE a thousand times. Ten thousand times. Raise the gun, set the site on the center of the torso or head—the correct placement of a kill shot is always situational—and pull the trigger.

  The Heckler and Koch 45 caliber handgun weighed just over two pounds. The kickback was manageable. Many inexperienced shooters opted for 40 caliber or 9mm handguns, following the logical but false assumption that a smaller load meant less recoil. Burke fought with the Desert Eagle 50 caliber in Afghanistan and Iraq—recoil was not an issue for him. Lean and muscular, highly trained and naturally skilled, the weight and kickback of the HK45 was no problem.

  His target was ninety feet away. He lifted the gun, opted for a headshot, and squeezed the trigger. The roar of the discharge created no loss of aim for Burke. The barrel pulled up and left; to be expected. But with right arm ramrod straight, left arm slightly bent to provide stability for the classic two-handed shooting stance, he made the subtle adjustment of his site line, firmed his hold, pulled the trigger, and discharged nine more bullets in less than five seconds. He was confident he fired ten kill shots.

  Burke flipped the switch and a chain rattled as it pulled the small target to him. There was only one hole in the head, four centimeters in diameter. All ten cartridges had zeroed in on the same spot. He shot a squirrel with a .22 at a more than a hundred-yard range when he was eight. He still had the master marksman’s gift of physical calm in the midst of a violent explosion.

  And he needed it now. He was nervous. If he were personally out on the front lines of a dangerous operation, he would be fine. But putting an amateur into the battlefield—and knowing this was D-Day—was grating across his nerves like nails on a chalkboard.

  She was perfect for what needed to be done. But she was in over her head. She knew what she was getting into, I told her myself, he repeated in his mind for the thousandth time.

  I didn’t sugarcoat any of the risks. I was completely honest with her.

  But he knew better. Is it honesty if the person you are speaking to cannot truly fathom the meaning of your words? Concepts like danger and risk aren’t visceral when discussed in a coffee shop. You don’t go up against the kind of adversary they were facing if you really knew the danger. You would have to be a fool.

  What does that make me?

  When fighting a monster, all of us are amateurs, all of us are in over our head, he thought.

  Tall and slender, generously endowed, full lips, large hazel eyes flecked with golden amber, creamy skin, high check bones, thin aquiline nose, luxuriant honey-colored hair—a beauty queen—she was not without natural defenses … nor weapons. Could she pull off what he tasked her to do? He would know soon enough.

  Another thought gnawed at him no matter ho
w hard he willed it to slink back into the darkness of his subconscious. He liked her. He wanted her to be okay. He wanted to know her. He somehow sensed she was his path back to decency. This was certainly no time for sentiment, but there it was, refusing to surrender to his iron will.

  Maybe his feelings were simple biological reaction to her feminine allure.

  You can’t think like that and survive in this business, he repeated to himself. Again.

  He pinned a new target to the holder, hit the switch to send the chain rattling away, popped the spent magazine from the handle of the Heckler, and jammed a fresh spring-loaded holder with ten more rounds in his German designed instrument of death.

  The mathematical law of regression to the mean suggested his next ten shots would not be as accurate as his marks from the first magazine. But laws were meant to be broken. When he took a surreptitious glance behind him at the viewing window, he saw that he had attracted a small group of spectators—not what he wanted, but he might as well put on a show.

  He racked the first bullet in the chamber, switched to a one-handed stance, and squeezed off ten rounds. He was certain the new target would come back with ten shots clustered in a single hole.

  So why keep practicing? Why not? What else am I going to do while I wait except go crazy?

  The chain clattered back with a target bearing a four-centimeter hole in the chest. He wadded it up and dumped it in the trash can. He broke the Heckler and Koch down and cleaned it carefully, pushing the bristle brush in and out of barrel. He laid the polymer frame gently in the hard shell carry case. He walked over to the corner of shooters alley, picked up the broom, and swept the spent shell casings into a dustbin. He exited the two doors leading to the lobby, took off the Howard Leight earmuff set, and nodded quickly at a few gawkers. He kept his eye contact to a split second, announcing he wasn’t in the mood to socialize.

  “Nice shooting,” the kid working behind the ammunition counter remarked.