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_________
The Adventures of Kevin Krämer in Communist Europe
- The Escape from Communist Europe -
By: Justin Brown (a pen name)
Recommended reading for ages 14 and older.
This is a novel for teens and adults.
This novel contains some violence (such as gunshots and fights); intense chase scenes;
clean romantic elements (i.e. clean conversations between a guy and his girlfriend);
and themes appropriate for teenagers and adults.
You will not find any profanity, immorality, or gore in this novel.
It is written to edify the reader, and not to provoke sinful thoughts.
This story is free to be copied, printed, and distributed, but it must remain unaltered.
_________________________
Synopsis
Europe has been invaded, the superpower across the sea is no more, and the country of "Baltania" is controlling Europe through communistic puppet governments. Under the oppressive cloud of communism, a small group of underground Christians faces a powerful crime organization bent on their capture and destruction.
Under this heavy, oppressive cloak, Kevin Kramer, a 30-year-old, and Maritza, his attractive, 27-year-old girlfriend, must decide who they will serve as they fall in love with each other, start a romantic relationship, and try to evade the unrelenting and dangerous members of a criminal organization, which seeks to kidnap underground Christians to sell to the secret police.
Together with some friends, Kevin and Maritza must do their best to avoid being captured as they learn to trust God and follow His guiding hand in these last days just before the rise of the Antichrist. This fast-paced story is designed to be fascinating. But, don't just take our word for it...
[Note: Baltania is a fictional country within the Eurasian land mass. At one time, it had a communistic past. During a third world war, communism revived in this country as it's armies conquered Europe. Since we do not want to point fingers at any particular country, we will not name this country or coalition of countries.]
[Note: Baltania is a fictional country within the Eurasian land mass. At one time, it had a communistic past. During a third world war, communism revived in this country as it's armies conquered Europe. Since we do not want to point fingers at any particular country, we will not name this country or coalition of countries.]
Chapter 12
"Night Attack"
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___________________
Going Northeasterly
“Are we going north?” Kevin
asked Konrad as they hiked through the Kühnburg forest under the gaze of
the moon.
“We are going in a
northeasterly direction,” Konrad said as he pushed a low-hanging pine branch
out of his face. “That is the direction God is showing me to take.”
“That may take us longer to
get to Daniel and Monika’s house,” Maritza said, ducking beneath another
needle-laden branch.
The forest undergrowth and
tree spacing were now fairly dense, and the woods presented several obstacles,
such as boulders, fallen trees, deep shadows, and the occasional shallow pit
where a tree once stood.
“Yes, but we won’t have to
find a way of crossing the Braun river because it turns toward the northwest,”
Konrad replied. “A couple miles to the east of us, according to my map and
memory, the river curves off to the northwest. Going to the northeast will get
us around the river and keep us in the cover of the forest.”
“What about wolves?” Kevin
said. “I just remembered hearing stories of wolves attacking people. Ever since
they were released into the wild, they have multiplied in number and have been
on the prowl for easy prey.”
“I didn’t even think about
that much,” Maritza said. Looking at Konrad, she said, “Konrad, do you think we
will meet a wolf pack?”
“We might, but God is for us,
and He is protecting us,” Konrad said, looking back at her, “just like He did
for Daniel when he was in the lion’s den, in Daniel chapter 6.”
Just then, Kevin noticed a
sound wafting through the trees. He paused to listen for a few seconds. It
sounded to him like the drone of a distant airplane, so he ignored it and
continued walking to keep pace with Maritza and Konrad. But, the sound was
growing louder.
“Konrad, Maritza,” Kevin
said, “do you hear that sound?”
“What sound?” Maritza said,
turning toward him with a questioning look.
“Listen,” Kevin said. “I
think I hear an airplane.”
Konrad stopped walking and
held his breath to listen. Maritza did the same. As they listened, Maritza’s
face went from being curious to showing concern. And, Konrad’s expression
matched her.
“That sound… It isn’t a
plane,” Konrad said with concern in his face. “The Braun River isn’t far from
us, but we can’t see it through all these trees and bushes. Someone must be
plying down that river in a motor boat!”
Konrad motioned for them to
follow him before he increased his walking speed. They brushed through some
leafy bushes and stepped over a rotting, fallen tree. Kevin could tell that
Konrad was in no mood for playing games, and Kevin perceived that the
41-year-old knew there was danger.
(Some conversions between metric units and English-system units) Right click the picture and select "Open link in new tab." |
Without saying another word,
Konrad walked eight meters from them and he mostly vanished from sight in the
deep shadows of a large, old spruce tree. Kevin whispered to Maritza, “I’m
going to seek God too.” She nodded and turned away from them to stand near a
tree twelve meters from Konrad.
“Father God, what do we do?”
Kevin said silently from his place between his two friends. While he was
audibly silent, his heart was crying out. “You helped me and Maritza to escape
the two gangsters dressed as plumbers. Will you allow crooks to kidnap Maritza,
Konrad, and me? I ask you, Father God, to deliver us from our enemies and to
lead us safely to Daniel and Monika’s home. Let your glorious name be magnified
in this night, I pray. What would you say now?”
“My son,” God’s loving voice
said, “you are precious to Me. I will tell you this. I will allow these men to
come, but I will deliver you, and I the Lord your God and Abba Father have
spoken.”
“I wonder what that means,”
Kevin said.
“Just trust Me,” God said.
The motor grew louder. Then,
it suddenly cut off. Kevin’s heart beat faster. ‘Someone may have just pulled
up along the bank of the Braun River,’ he thought.
___________________
Leaving the Boat
Python, sitting in the bow of
the watercraft, had spotted something with his special night vision goggles. He
had alerted Wolf, who had slowed the boat down to a crawl. Then, Wolf had shut
off the electric motor. They had only gone just a little over 16 kilometers*
down the river before stopping. [* Or, 10 miles.]
(Click on this link to read brief descriptions about some of the characters from this novel.) |
“Wolf, I saw three human heat
signatures, to the starboard side, but they were partially obscured by foliage,”
Python said.
“Alright, we’ll row to
shore,” Wolf ordered, facing his men. “We will catch these Christians yet.”
Python remained at the bow
and flipped his night vision goggles down while Scorpion and Cobra took up oars
lying in the bottom of the boat. Slowly, and as quietly as possible, they rowed
to the nearest bank on their immediate right.
Once the boat reached the
shore, Python hopped out and his boots quietly splashed in some shallow water.
He had a rope in hand to fasten the vessel to a nearby tree. Once this was
done, the rest disembarked. Wolf then had them split up into two teams. Cobra
would follow Wolf, and Scorpion would follow Python.
“Wolf, I promise I won’t fail
you,” Cobra said as he followed the taller man through the trees.
“Be quiet and listen to the forest,” Wolf said sharply, glancing back at the younger man with the Mohawk. “We need to catch these Christians off guard.”
“Be quiet and listen to the forest,” Wolf said sharply, glancing back at the younger man with the Mohawk. “We need to catch these Christians off guard.”
___________________
The Sound
Just as Kevin was thinking
about the boat motor shutting off, he noticed another sound. Some distance
away, a howling sound came echoing through the trees. It sounded distinctly
like a wolf. ‘I almost forget we are in wolf country,’ Kevin thought to
himself.
“Dear Father God, I ask you
to protect us from the wolves. In Jesus Christ’s name, amen,” Kevin said
quietly.
The howl repeated, and
Maritza turned back in the direction it came from behind them. She whispered to
Kevin, “That howling. It sounds like a wolf.”
“I know,” he said, swallowing
hard.
“My son,” God’s voice said,
“don’t be afraid of the wolves. I will protect you. Just stay where you are and
see the salvation of the Lord. And, I the Lord your God and Abba Father have
spoken.”
“Thank you, Father God,”
Kevin said. “I choose to trust you. After all, you and Jesus are one God, like
Jesus said in John 10:30. I have tried to memorize that verse.”
“That is good, My son,” God’s
loving voice said to Kevin’s spirit, “I am indeed one with Jesus Christ, who is
your Lord. And, I am your Father. Now, rest in Me and watch what I will do.”
Bushes began to rustle
fifteen meters from Kevin, in the direction where the motorboat had pulled to a
stop. Kevin, Konrad, and Maritza listened very carefully to the sounds, almost
holding their breath. Kevin could hear the rustling clearly, along with some
snapping of twigs. Then, he heard a faint sound of a man’s voice speaking.
He quickly removed his
backpack and set it beside under a bush. Maritza and Konrad followed suit. The
less weight on their backs, the better.
___________________
The Incident
“Don’t make any more sounds,
you…” Wolf said angrily as he shot another filthy insult at Cobra. “If you step
on twigs or make sudden rustling sounds, you’ll give us away.”
Cobra clenched his teeth and
restrained himself from shooting Wolf in the back of the neck with a
tranquilizer gun. Cobra was armed with a tranquilizer gun, a knife, a silenced
pistol, and two pairs of handcuffs, which Wolf had issued every man. The tranquilizer
gun was the size of a large pistol and it came with a holster.
Cobra knew that if he were to
kill Wolf, then Claw, the man in charge of the Kühnburg chapter of the Red
Venom organization, would have him brutally murdered. So, Cobra let his anger
simmer down, and he began greedily thinking about all the wealth he would
accumulate in capturing non-conformist Christians.
Wolf slowly pushed through a
bush, careful to not let the leafy branches rustle against each other, as much
as possible. Once he was through, Cobra followed him, trying to mimic his
boss’s movements. As he was most of the way through the bush, his foot caught
on a protruding root, and he lost his balance and fell toward the ground.
Not able to control his fall,
Cobra cried out as his face approached a small rock. Instantly, he dropped his
tranquilizer gun as his hands reached out to stop his impact with the ground.
Thump! His knees and hands hit the ground, and he winced in pain.
Slowly, he stood back to his
feet and wiped his hands off. He had just saved himself from striking the rock
and having a concussion, but his boss was now glaring down at him with
hate-filled rage. Wolf had flipped up his night vision goggles to see what had
happened and his teeth were clenched together in frustration and annoyance.
The muscular blond man
controlled himself as much as possible, but he quietly said to Cobra, “If you
do anything like that again, I will dump you in a landfill, plaster your face
with tar, cover you with feathers, and chain you to a 227-kilogram weight.”
“I understand, boss,” Cobra
said, gulping.
“Now,” Wolf said with a
wicked glint in his eyes, “let’s quietly and slowly move toward the Christians.
The drones are flying high overhead, and they are indicating to me the exact
location of our prey.”
___________________
“Did you hear that sound?”
“Did you hear that sound?”
Kevin said, whispering into Maritza’s ear.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I
heard snapping sounds and then two men talking.”
She slowly moved over to a
cluster of bushes to hide within them. And, Kevin slowly followed her into the
bushes, but kept himself from getting closer to her than two-thirds of a meter.
He knew he must prevent himself from touching her because of what God had told
him earlier.
In the dark shadows of the
bushes, Maritza closed her eyes and prayed silently.
Kevin suddenly heard a faint
flutter of leaves as someone slowly brushed past some foliage four meters from
him. The sound was quiet, but noticeable. He moved forward twenty centimeters
and peeked through the bushes.
Revealed in patches of
moonlight, which shone through the trees, two men were walking in his
direction. Both were wearing strange-looking night vision goggles and were
armed with what appeared to be large pistols. They were dressed in black
tactical gear.
Slowly, they approached
Kevin’s position. It seemed that they were able to see him, for one of them
pointed a finger in his direction and let out a quiet squeal of delight. The
other man raised his gun and aimed it at the bushes where the Christians were
hiding.
“I’ve got you now, you two
Christians,” the man closest to them said quietly as he slowly approached.
“Come out of the bushes and raise your hands slowly. If you both don’t comply,
you’ll be sorry.”
Maritza and Kevin swallowed,
uttered some quick prayers, and pushed their way out of the bushes and into a
small clearing. As the stepped forth, another two men slowly emerged from
behind a bush 12 meters to Kevin’s right. They both were armed with pistol-like
weapons.
As they emerged, Maritza
turned, and her face grew pale. She recognized the evil, blond man who had
chased her with a razor-sharp knife in an alley. And, as the blond man’s
accomplice, behind him, came into a patch of moonlight, she recognized his
face. Kevin did too. It was Dietmar, but now Dietmar had a Mowhawk. Kevin was
beginning to believe that Dietmar must have been part of the Red Venom
organization for some time before he had crossed paths with Kevin and Maritza
in the city park.
Seeing Dietmar again in the
company of gangsters, Kevin felt like he had been betrayed, but he realized
that Dietmar never had claimed to be a Christian. He had once told Kevin that
he worked as a security guard on a night shift, but Kevin realized that Dietmar
had been lying. All along, Kevin’s former friend had been working for the Red
Venom crime organization while maintaining an appearance of being an upstanding
citizen. Kevin had already realized this after seeing Dietmar and the two fake
“plumbers” chase him through a parking lot, but the sting of the betrayal came
back to him as he stood facing the gangster’s drawn weapons.
“Dietmar,” Kevin said as he
watched his former friend approach him, “I should have known you were working
for Red Venom all along.”
“I’m called Cobra now,”
Dietmar said with hatred in his voice. “And, since you know my civilian name, I
will have to kill you.”
Kevin felt his heart beat
even faster. “You want to kill me?”
“I can’t let you live, Kevin.
You know too much about me, and now you know where I actually work. And, your
girlfriend: she’s going to be my girlfriend. She’ll renounce her silly
religion, and I’ll have her as my perpetual girlfriend. She is mine and
only mine.”
The muscular blond man turned
toward Dietmar and scowled as he said, “I am the one who decides what will
happen to the girl. She is not yours. What happens to her is for me to decide,
not you. After I bring her back to Kühnburg, I will hand her over to the
authorities and get a nice reward. Since you’ve failed me too many times, I
will not give you even a small fraction of the reward money.”
“You double-crossing swindler
and two-faced liar,” Dietmar said viciously as he suddenly drew his silenced
pistol and trained it on Wolf’s chest. “If you don’t let her be my girlfriend,
I’ll snuff out your life like a candle. I’ve changed my mind about her. She’s
too good to be sold to the authorities. She’ll be my girlfriend, do you hear?”
Wolf glared at Dietmar,
without moving. Then, a smile slowly spread across his face, and he said,
“Okay, Cobra, you win. You get the blond girl. We won’t sell her to the
authorities. I promise.”
“You better mean that, or I
will shoot you here and now,” Dietmar said firmly.
“I promise to not turn her in
to the secret police or any member of the government,” Wolf said calmly. “And,
I’ll put it in writing for you too.”
“I don’t want either of you
near me,” Maritza said suddenly with boldness that surprised Kevin. “I am God’s
vessel. Jesus bought me with His blood. I belong to Him. If you step any closer
to me, you will be sorry you had, because God is for me and He is protecting Me
with His angels.”
The blond man turned toward
her and grinned. “Okay, girl, we won’t set one foot closer to you. We’ll let
you be with your little, Christian boyfriend.” Then, he looked at Dietmar and
laughed. Dietmar chuckled, glancing at Maritza, and let down his guard as he
did.
In that moment, Wolf whipped
out his silenced pistol and fired at Dietmar. Pow! Pow! Pow! The
younger man had been caught off guard by Maritza’s bold statement and by Wolf’s
arrogant humor. As the three suppressed shot echoed through the trees, Dietmar
collapsed to the ground, clutching his chest. He had been hit in his heart
region.
Maritza screamed and placed
her hands over her mouth.
Kevin was shocked that the
man he had once been a friend to was now dead. ‘Why would Dietmar sell his soul
to crime?’ Kevin thought with some sadness.
Wolf turned his pistol toward
Maritza and motioned with his free hand for her to walk toward him. As he did,
he said, “Blond girl, come over to me.”
Maritza was still in shock
over the murder that had just taken place. She didn’t know how to respond.
Then, Kevin stepped forward in front of her so that he was blocking the blond
man’s view of her. He took a deep breath and said boldly, “She’s not moving any
closer to you. And, if you come closer to us, you will be sorry you did. Leave
us now if you want to survive because God will fight for us. And, greater is He
who is in us than he who is in you.*” [* Note: See 1 John 4:4.]
Kevin didn’t quite understand
why he said was he said, but he felt a surge of peace and supernatural strength
enter his being. It was with boldness he knew only was from God that he had
spoken that way.
The blond man laughed. “You
think you can threaten me when you don’t even have a gun, not even a plastic
water gun? And, what is your God going to do? Send a golden chariot to rescue
you. Huh?”
Python and Scorpion, standing
some distance from Wolf, laughed and glanced at each other.
“This Christian thinks he can
stop us with his silly words,” Scorpion muttered to Python, gloatingly.
“You come against us with
bullets and guns,” Kevin said loudly, “but we come against you in the name of
the Lord God of hosts, whom you have treated with spite and contempt. You will
see now the power of God to fulfill His Word like He did for David when he faced
Goliath.”
As he spoke, a guttural
howling sound came from the woods.
“You … Christian,” the blond
man said with some vulgar expletives, laughing. “I can’t believe what boldness
you have when you are weak, unarmed, and powerless. I could snap your arm in
two like a wishbone. Why, you’re so small that you probably don’t even weigh 45
kilograms.”
The other crooks laughed
raucously as Wolf said that.
Then, Wolf got serious, and
said, “I’ll tranquilize this Christian first and then his girlfriend.
The third man is already tranquilized. I’ll handcuff him soon. I didn’t do it
earlier since the cuffs might have given away our position with their distinct
clicking sounds. Once we’ve knocked out these clowns, we’ll load them in the
boat and haul them off to the cave.”
He slipped his silenced
pistol back into its holster and drew out his tranquilizer gun from another
holster on his belt. Then, as he trained it on Kevin’s chest, the bushes to
Kevin’s left rustled and five tawny Eurasian wolves suddenly shot out from the
undergrowth, running fast.
The blond man was taken off
guard by the suddenly appearance of the wolves, and, terrified, he ran for his
life. His two accomplices darted off, screaming as they tore through the
bushes.
___________________
Heading for the River
Python, Scorpion, and Wolf
didn’t bother with their gear. They threw their night vision goggles on the
ground, and forgot about their tranquilizer guns. They knew they needed as much
distance as possible to be between themselves and the hungry wolves.
As they ran, branches slapped
in their faces and stung their cheeks, but they didn’t care. A wolf ran up
beside Python and snapped near his heels. He shrieked and tried to outmaneuver
it, but the wolf kept pace with him, playing with him, trying to see what he
was made of. The strong man knew how to handle himself in an uneven fight with
other gangsters, but he didn’t know how to handle a wild wolf.
“Get away from me, you
monster,” he said with terror in his rugged face.
Scorpion, being more lithe
and wiry than Python, outran him and soon reached the riverbank. He untied the
boat and started up the motor just as his blond-haired boss reached him. The
man called Wolf jumped into the boat as it started to pull away from the
riverbank.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?”
Wolf said angrily after they had reached the middle of the river.
Scorpion just pointed to the
forest they had emerged from. Wolf turned, and his eyes widened. The riverbank
was now covered with tawny, wild wolves coldly staring at them and growling.
Scorpion was glad that the wolves were too far away to reach him and were
separated from him by moving water. Neither he nor Wolf had any interest in
waiting for Python, so Scorpion throttled up the motor and sent the boat down
the river toward the direction they had come from earlier.
Unknown to Wolf and Scorpion,
Python was gone. The wolf chasing him had seized his trouser leg in its teeth
with vice-like strength. Then, other wolves had pounced on him. Python’s
fighting skills and years of training could not save him from the wild beasts.
___________________
Seeing the Wolves
Kevin tensed up as he saw the
Eurasian wolves emerging from the bushes. But, surprisingly, they charged right
past him on either side, and none got closer to him than two meters. Maritza
drew near to Kevin and grabbed his right hand as a large pack of wolves ran
past them. But, Kevin didn’t make a move to touch her or hold her hand,
remembering what God had told him.
After about fifteen seconds
had passed, the last of the wolves had run past them and had vanished into the
shadows of dense undergrowth to their right. Maritza looked at Kevin with
concern in her eyes and a questioning look. She let go of his hand and backed
up from him a little. The sound of the wolves snarling and crashing through
bushes came from some distance away, and slowly grew fainter.
After a minute had passed,
the blond-haired girl looked Kevin in the eyes, placed her hands on his, and
said, “Kevin, God protected us from the wolves like He did for Daniel in the
lion’s den. I knew He would. And, I sensed Him showing me to say what I did to
that evil man.”
“I also felt God put it on my
heart to say those words,” Kevin said, feeling a little embarrassed that she
was holding onto his hands.
Then, Maritza drew closer to
him and hugged him around his chest as she said, “You’re a great friend, Kevin.
You stood up for me, and that is very manly of you.”
But, Kevin didn’t hug her
back. He awkwardly stood with his arms straight down as she embraced him. He
felt too nervous to tell her what God had showed him earlier, and the
temptation to embrace her and kiss her on the lips was starting to get
stronger. But, Kevin stopped himself from touching her or kissing her.
Instead, when she released
him from her embrace, he stepped back several steps and said, swallowing,
“Maritza, I care about you greatly. You are a very good friend to me. But, I
must tell you something that God had shown me earlier back when we were sitting
with Konrad by the campfire.”
“What’s that?” Maritza said,
looking into his eyes with love and a warm smile on her face.
“God showed me that I must
not touch you until the appointed time,” Kevin said, feeling the fear start to
leave, along with the temptation to kiss her.
“What do you mean?” Maritza
said. “What appointed time are you speaking of?”
Kevin swallowed, feeling some
nervousness return. Then, he said, “Maritza, I love you. Do you love me?”
“I love you very much, Kevin.
You are the best guy friend I’ve ever had,” she said, looking into his eyes.
“Will you marry me?” Kevin
said, hopping he didn’t make that request too soon.
Without blinking an eye,
Maritza said, “I was waiting for you to ask me that question ever since we escaped
those fake plumbers. Yes, I will marry you, Kevin.”
Kevin chuckled, feeling
relieved. Then, his smile grew. “You are a lovely girl, Maritza, and not just
because of your looks. Looks are transitory or temporary, but the beauty I see
in you is your heart and your character. I want you to be my wife. And, God
showed me that you and I will be married. But, I must not kiss you or even
touch you until the time when we are told by the minister at the wedding that
we are pronounced man and wife, and that we may kiss.”
“Thank you for sharing that
with me, Kevin,” Maritza said. “I respect you for your decision to obey God,
even though you would naturally want to kiss me. I respect you that you are
willing to control yourself and do God’s will. And, I see that you are a man of
God who is willing to do what is right, even though the authorities and the
bounty hunters seek to harm you. And, I also love you for that. But, your
personality is a great personality that I see God is working on to heal and to
transform more into Christ’s image, as He is doing with me.”
Kevin smiled again as he
said, “Thank you. It’s a relief to me to see that you understand.”
Their conversation continued
for another ten minutes as they shared with each other their thoughts and
feelings. Both stood a little over a meter apart as they talked, and both were
now more conscious of maintaining godly propriety.
Suddenly, they heard the
bushes rustle, and both turned to see a man emerge. He was in the shadows, so
Kevin couldn’t tell who it was. Kevin stepped forward in front of Maritza and
said, “Who goes there?”
“There is nothing to worry
about,” a man’s voice said from the shadows. Then, he walked into a patch of
moonlight, and Kevin and Maritza recognized their Nigerian friend.
“I was hit by a tranquilizer
dart,” Konrad said, rubbing his neck where a dart had made a small puncture. “I
was hiding in a bush one moment, and then I began to lose consciousness the
next moment. I woke up, it seemed, only seconds later. But, it must have been
longer than that.”
“It was,” Kevin said. “God
spared our lives and had a pack of wolves run past us and chase away the
gangsters. And, one of crooks shot the other one during an argument.”
“That’s too bad,” Konrad
said. “I wanted them to be saved.”
“I did too,” Kevin said.
“When I was a non-Christian, I would have wished all of them dead. But, as a
Christian, I desire that they live so that they can repent before God and
receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord. If there is still a
chance for them to be saved, if they are not too hardened against God to
repent, then may they repent.”
“I agree with you,” Maritza
said. “But, I want them to be arrested and imprisoned, for the good of
society.”
“They do need to be arrested
and put behind bars,” Kevin said. “But, now they have escaped.”
“Not all of them have
escaped, Kevin,” Konrad said soberly. “I saw some grisly remains of a man not
too far from the edge of the river. It must have been that the wolves you had
seen had apprehended him.”
“Should we continue walking?”
Kevin said.
“Yes, let’s continue moving
due northeast,” Konrad said.
He walked over to the bush
where they had stowed their backpacks and grabbed his. Then, Kevin and Maritza
did the same. All three donned their backpacks and started hiking again through
the shadowy forest. Konrad had a sense of urgency, so he decided he would do
his best to make double time.
___________________
On the River
“Python is gone, thanks to
those rotten wolves,” Scorpion said angrily as he steered the motorboat between
some river boulders. “He was a good player on our team. I hate to see him go
like that.”
The moonlight shimmered and
sparkled off the water as the lunar body slowly traveled through the night sky.
The willow trees cast dark shadows over the banks of the river, possibly hiding
more vicious wolves. Scorpion had no desire to set foot within the forest
unless he was armed with a silenced machine gun and plenty of ammunition.
“I should have planned
better,” Wolf said, for once admitting his failure. He was standing in the bow
of the boat, looking out over the frothing water. Then, he turned back toward
Scorpion and said, “We will track these Christians to their final destination.
Then, we will seize them when they are at their weakest. And, we will be better
prepared. None of us will have to face the wolves like we did tonight.”
“Cobra was unwise to confront
you with his gun,” Scorpion said. “What did he think you were? A pushover?”
“He was power-hungry,” Wolf
said. “But, I taught him a lesson he’ll never forget. Now, I want you to know
that I will promote you to a higher pay grade if you and I successfully capture
those …” He said some expletives and finished with: “… Christians.”
“I’ll do my best, Wolf,”
Scorpion said.
“Good. And, I’ll have Claw
send me Stingray, Jackal, Whiplash, Vulture, and Grizzly. With you, Rat,
the others, and I, we will form a powerful team for apprehending the three
Christians. And, we will also ensnare any Christians at the place they are
fleeing to.”
“Jackal is good at
deception,” Scorpion said. “He’ll deceive anyone foolish enough to listen to
his clever words and friendly persona. I’ve seen him lead many people into his
snares with a winsome smile and smooth words.”
“We will need a smooth-talker
to trick the Christians,” Wolf said.
“And, Jackal will appear
godly and very religious so that he will seemed to be a genuine Christian,”
Scorpion added.
“With our clever strategy,”
Wolf said, “we will capture those foolish enough to follow Jackal.”
“Yes,” Scorpion chuckled. “No
one will be able to escape from his and my iron grip.”
“Or mine,” Wolf said,
arrogantly.
“That’s right, boss,”
Scorpion said, glancing up at the muscular man standing in front of him.
A cruel grin appeared on the
blond-haired man’s face before Wolf flexed his right arm muscle and said,
arrogantly, “Especially mine.”
___________________
AN EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 13 ("Before a Guillotine" // "Divine Miracle"):
'... A heavy, razor-sharp guillotine blade, sparkling in a bright, overhead light, hung in slotted tracks over Svenja’s head. The time displayed on a large, digital clock, which was fastened to one of the concrete walls of the execution room, was 5:28:03 A.M. On the wall beside it was an electric buzzer. A row of fifteen guillotines sat empty to Svenja’s left.
At 5:30, a guard was scheduled to pull a metal chain which would release the heavy guillotine blade, which hung menacingly over her neck. ...'
(Note: I do not make any money from this story. It is free to be read, printed, and distributed, but the text must remain unaltered.)
➠➠ ➠ If you would like to know Abba God the Father and Jesus Christ (God the Son), and be saved from sin, click here to read more.
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