American Omens
Praise for
American Omens
“In American Omens, Travis Thrasher is at the top of his game, imagining the future with the eyes of a seasoned novelist penning the story he was destined to write. As fresh and relevant as Left Behind was more than twenty years ago, American Omens may be the first of many more novels about the persecuted church from this writer. We can only hope so.”
—JERRY B. JENKINS, New York Times best-selling author of the Left Behind novels
“Thrasher’s outdone himself with this multilayered story of ultimate stakes. Written with deft and obvious passion, American Omens is a thrilling, eerie sci-fi that feels far closer to reality than fiction.”
—TOSCA LEE, New York Times best-selling author
“American Omens is, simply put, stunning. Stunning in the delivery of story that grabs you from the first paragraph. Take caution: it will root you where you stand until you finish the first chapter. Then you’ll be reluctant to wait longer to start on the rest. And it’s stunning in the quality of prose—vivid images and great dialogue. Travis Thrasher has written a novel that will take you on a roller coaster to unexpected places. When you finish, aside from wishing there was more, you’ll have a disturbing sense of where the future is headed.”
—SIGMUND BROUWER, author of the Christy Award’s 2015 Book of the Year Thief of Glory
AMERICAN OMENS
Scripture quotations and paraphrases are taken from the following versions: The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. The Message. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers Inc. The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN 9780735291782
Ebook ISBN 9780735291799
Copyright © 2019 by Travis Thrasher
Cover design by Mark D. Ford
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
MULTNOMAH® and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Thrasher, Travis, 1971- author.
Title: American omens : the coming fight for faith : a novel / by Travis Thrasher.
Description: First edition. | New York : Multnomah, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018035324 | ISBN 9780735291782 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780735291799 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Christian / Futuristic. | FICTION / Christian / Suspense. | FICTION / Suspense. | GSAFD: Christian fiction. | Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3570.H6925 A83 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018035324
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One: Blackbird
Chapter Two: We Are Accidents Waiting to Happen
Chapter Three: What We Do in Life Echoes in Eternity
Chapter Four: Consider This
Chapter Five: Bird of Prey
Chapter Six: The Beginning of the End
Chapter Seven: Darkness Sleeps
Chapter Eight: Nighthawks
Chapter Nine: Death Is Inevitable
Chapter Ten: The Charmed Watchman
Chapter Eleven: John the Baptist
Chapter Twelve: It Is Well with My Soul
Chapter Thirteen: Our Daily Bread
Chapter Fourteen: Where Did You Come from? Where Did You Go?
Chapter Fifteen: The Great Escape
Chapter Sixteen: Streaks of Red and Orange
Chapter Seventeen: The Same Page
Chapter Eighteen: State of Disrepair
Chapter Nineteen: Emorithms
Chapter Twenty: Paint It Black
Chapter Twenty-one: Flakes in a Snowstorm
Chapter Twenty-two: In Sight of Land
Chapter Twenty-three: While I’m Still Here
Chapter Twenty-four: How the Story Ends
Chapter Twenty-five: Rescued
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To Barry Smith, for making God known
Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray there will be not one but many), he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear.
—A. W. TOZER
Don’t believe what you hear, don’t believe what you see
If you just close your eyes you can feel the enemy
—U2
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
Prologue
The spiderweb cracks in the windshield made it easy to spot the old Chevy SUV in the parking lot. Jon Dowland stood next to the car and examined the black duct tape that covered a hole the size of his fist on the passenger side. One of the shots he’d fired last night had obviously connected, but it hadn’t stopped the driver from disappearing once again. Even though the Chevy looked abandoned, Dowland knew the man wasn’t likely to be far away.
The morning sun began to leak out over the Indiana countryside. Dowland had forgotten how bleak the Midwest could be in winter. The wind was cold and cut through him as he walked toward the motel sitting right next to the gas station and former truck stop in the middle of nowhere. In one of those dingy rooms, the man he’d been hunting was probably wide awake, wasting his time by praying. This little game had been interesting for the last few months, but Dowland was done with it now. Nearly getting run down on an Indiana highway by some lunatic calling himself the Reckoner had used up what little patience he had.
It took only two hundred dollars to bribe the bored and pimply-faced kid behind the front desk to give him a room number. A simple direct exchange, or DE, that took two seconds. Dowland could have shown his FBI credentials, but he never did that. If anybody came around asking, which wasn’t likely here of all places, he didn’t want the FBI to be a part of any conversation. Only a few people knew what Dowland was doing, and nobody knew his present location. If he was arrested or shot dead for some reason, no one could find anything on his SYNAPSYS. It’d be blank, requiring official approval to exorcise the personal data.
He found the door on the second story, stood there for a moment to look and listen for anybody nearby or in the parking lot below, then took out his customized Beretta just before kicking down the door. They no longer made doors with locks that got
old and could be so easily broken, but in this run-down motel built decades ago, Dowland felt like the star of an eighties action movie. Sure enough, nobody was in bed asleep. The covers looked untouched, with an assortment of files and papers spread out on them. The man traveling under a handful of aliases was sitting in a chair next to the table with a laptop computer open beside another set of file folders. It had been a while since Dowland had seen anybody working on one of those archaic devices.
Aiming the firearm directly at the man, Dowland nudged the door back to close it, and when it wouldn’t stay put, he took the other chair and propped it against the door. The man in the motel room held his hands up, his fingers outstretched and his eyes open wide. One corner of the glasses he wore was held together with masking tape.
“No, no, no. Hold on. Just wait. Just wait a minute!” he shouted to Dowland.
The target was out of breath and looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. He started to stand up, but Dowland shook his head to make the man stay put.
“Please, I’m not armed. I can’t do anything,” he said.
“You can mow a man down on the side of the road, can’t you?”
Along with his black eye, bruised jaw, and cut lip, Dowland nursed a shoulder injury from diving for cover to avoid the car yesterday. Good thing the mostly useless arm was his left arm, the one he didn’t need to shoot his gun.
A quick scan of all the papers confirmed what Dowland already knew. This was indeed the man he’d been hunting all this time.
“Clemente on,” Dowland said, stating the name to turn on the man’s SYNAPSYS as he held the barrels of the Beretta against his head. “Contact info.”
The customized box the size of his hand appeared to his right. The information on the augmented interface was further proof.
Robert Vasquez. I’ve finally found you.
The SYNAPSYS showed the various code names this nutjob had used during the last few years. Dowland knew the background on Vasquez—from his resignation three years ago as an Arizona senator amid allegations of sexual misconduct and fraud to his incarceration last year for vandalizing a town hall with graffiti. The latter offense had been Vasquez’s own doing, but the controversy that had ended his career in Congress was orchestrated by the same group paying Dowland’s salary. Vasquez had never shied away from his personal faith, and after years of being told to remain quiet, he eventually had pushed things too far.
No one could have imagined that he was the Reckoner, the one responsible for creating a group to deliver lies and spin stories and incite trouble in the name of Christianity. Dowland had been tracking down members of this group for the last two years and had been ordered a few months ago to take out their leader. Finally, two days ago he got a golden tip about where the man was hiding.
“You don’t have to point that at me,” Vasquez said. “I’m not dangerous.”
“So why are you calling yourself the Reckoner?” Dowland asked.
Vasquez didn’t flinch at the mention of the name. He merely shook his head. “That’s not me.”
“Of course not. And you don’t have any connections to all these operations in your files, right? Like Operation Bulls on Parade, where you created chaos in downtown Chicago by unleashing those cows. Or Operation Panic. Or how about Operation Black Waters?”
“I didn’t say I had nothing to do with those,” Vasquez stated. “But I’m not the Reckoner.”
Robert Vasquez was a typical fifty-two-year-old man in every way. He was one of the last guys anybody could imagine suddenly abandoning a successful career in politics to start being vocal about his views on Christianity.
Nobody rises from the dead, buddy. You’re going to learn that soon enough.
“Who knows you’re here?” Dowland’s eyes scanned the walls and the contents of the room.
“Nobody. Not a single soul.”
“None of your little frat brothers and sisters? Nobody in your playgroup?”
“It was better for no one to know I’m here.”
For the first time since Dowland had stepped over the state line into Indiana, something didn’t seem quite right. The way Vasquez was claiming he wasn’t the Reckoner and the few items he had in the room with him…
“I’ve been trying to find you for months,” Dowland said, the gun now at his side but still ready for any surprise. “How’d you elude me in Philadelphia?”
“That wasn’t me.”
Once again Vasquez’s demeanor made him seem believable.
This man has made telling lies a life mission. He’s mastered it.
“You’ve been waiting for someone,” Dowland said. “Who?”
Vasquez gave him a solemn smile. “You, Mr. Dowland. I knew you’d find me eventually.”
Staying in this motel so close to where Dowland had found him last night…His SYNAPSYS still on and easily accessed…Nothing in his files with more information on the Reckoner…
For a second Dowland caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the wall facing the bed. He resembled a boxer after a fight.
“Just tell me,” Dowland said as he let out a tired sigh. “Are you the one behind everything? We’re going to find out soon enough after we scour all your data.”
“I just told you I’m not.”
“Okay, fine. Get your science project together and come with me.” Dowland aimed the gun at him again. “We’re heading back to Chicago.”
“You’re being controlled. And you’re as expendable to them as the rest of us are.”
“Nobody controls me.”
“There is freedom in letting go,” Vasquez said, “in finally admitting you can’t do everything on your own.”
“You guys never turn off the switch, do you? Meeting in secret and delivering your clandestine messages.”
“We’re not the only ones who meet in secret, Mr. Dowland.”
He didn’t like hearing this guy mutter his name. Dowland stepped closer to the man, close enough to press the Beretta to his temple again.
“I know one thing about control in this world,” Dowland said. “I have it in my hand right now.”
“The Lord’s prophet is warning the rest of us. There is still time but not much. You must listen to me. Hear me out—”
“I had a grandmother who talked crazy just like you. Nobody could tell whether it was the religion or the senility talking. I think it was the vodka she had stashed away.”
Sweat covered Vasquez’s forehead, and his body odor was strong from spending a week running and hiding.
“I know you think I’m crazy, and that’s fine, but you’re holding a gun to the head of a normal, decent American who’s done nothing wrong. Do you think that maybe—possibly—you didn’t happen to find me, but rather you were led out here for a reason?”
“And what reason is that?”
“The Reckoner wants you. You have a specific purpose. That’s what he’s been told.”
Dowland gritted his teeth, then chuckled the same way he might curse. “I want you to tell me right now, this very instant. What are you doing all the way out here? And where’s the Reckoner?”
“We’ve done this to ourselves,” the shaky voice said. “We’ve turned our backs on God, and He’s had enough.”
Dowland jammed the gun even harder against the idiot’s skull. “There’s only one god in your life, and he’s standing right in front of you. But you’re right about one thing. He has had enough.”
Dowland fired the shot without further thought. This was going to be done either on the side of an Indiana country road or in this room. It didn’t matter. He’d heard enough from this guy. Now it was done. Two more shots made sure of that.
With the body crumpled on the floor beside him, Dowland leaned over and picked up a series of large photographs. After looking at half a dozen, he felt his stomach twist.
There’s no way they know all this.<
br />
He knew he couldn’t leave anything behind in this room. He also knew that things were much worse than any of them had imagined.
Apparently the Reckoner hadn’t been lying at his last public announcement when he declared, “All will be revealed soon.” The faces of the men and women in those pictures were the revelations he was talking about. Dowland needed to know how much proof they had.
And whether or not this corpse was indeed the Reckoner.
While he was piling the belongings onto the bed, a handwritten note slipped out of a stack of papers. Dowland scanned it.
Abraham approached him and said, “Will you sweep away both the righteous and the wicked?” –Genesis 18:23
He let the piece of paper gently drop down onto the dead man. Dowland could only shake his head and curse as he thought about his father. Vasquez had been as deluded as his grandmother, thinking this world still contained both the righteous and the wicked.
The only righteous thing left in this world was being honest about its absence.
ONE
Blackbird
1.
The building loomed above the other towers, pointing toward the heavens, daring to outshine the stars. Inside the mile of floors that composed Incen Tower, night and day didn’t matter, nor did sunrise and sunset. The Chicago structure contained its own universe, controlled by mankind and operated by machines. Three hundred stories could make anyone believe in the impossible.
On the 118th floor at the start of the workday, a young woman walked in the midst of the restless crowd that poured into the main atrium from the three stairless escalators that resembled multicolored waterfalls. As always and exactly on time, Cheyenne Burne headed toward Bistro #4. Even though all ten places selling coffee in the atrium had robots serving the same brand, she liked Henry at the fourth counter in the center. She swore he made her morning drink just a little better than the other machines. Plus, she liked the witty things he said each day. They resembled sayings in fortune cookies.