Chapter 20
The General
"General, the courier is here," a tall broad shouldered man announced into the third story chambers of the Old Badger.
Young Herod walked slowly up the winding stairs and felt like he would have a heart attack from fear before he made it to the top. As he walked through the massive wooden doors, he saw a white-haired man looking out of the street window. He knew, now, that he had been watched the whole time from the window and from surveillance cameras at every nook and cranny. The General had a file in one hand and Young Herod's picture in the other.
"I'm Joe, sir. My wife worked for you for years. Do you remember her?" he spoke, nervously.
He still didn't turn to face him, "Of course, I may be hundreds of years old, but I'm definitely not senile. She was too much of a Little Miss Goody Two Shoes for me. She must have loved you a lot to resist my years of advances and flirtations. That takes a lot of strength. I really was sorry about the accident."
He never turned around and continued, "Did she ever say anything about me?"
Young Herod found himself with a sarcastic opportunity that made him say something impulsive and unusual, "She said you were a pig. She said that you were a sadistic, bloodthirsty pig."
There was complete silence in the room, and Young Herod couldn't believe what he said. What made him say that? How could he take a chance like that? There was some laughing outside the door behind Young Herod. The guards found it funny, but he still might get killed for it.
The General laughed, riotously, "You Americans. I can't believe your humor. A Brit' would never say it that way. Just because you lived in England didn't make you one of us. You're still an American to me. You Americans have such a brash humor. I love it. I absolutely love it!" he said as he turned to face Young Herod.
Young Herod jumped back in shock. It was Hitler incarnate, except aged, but it was still Hitler. His face was perfect, with the ridiculous hair swung to one side and plastered to his head, except white, pure white. Even, his sawed-off mustache was white. Young Herod didn't know whether to laugh or cry after he got used to it.
"Do you approve of my favorite god looks from the past? You'd better. You'd better not be brash enough to say what you think this time," was his warning. "Oh by the way. I appreciate the pig compliment. I am a sadistic, bloodthirsty pig. She had me pegged as you Americans say."
"Yes, sir. She was very astute about people."
"How did she ever get an American to live with her at Land's End? Isn't that where you lived most of the time?"
"Yes, but we had a London flat so the family could spend time with her when she worked. You were far ahead of your times with three-day weeks and just little longer hours. I admire that ingenuity," replied Young Herod, milking his tidbit information he got from the real Joe.
"Yes, you're right. I am ahead of my time. Now let us get to this CD thing. I forgot to tell you the bad news," he replied as he smiled sneakily.
"Yes, sir," he said as he prepared himself for betrayal of some kind.
"There aren't ten of us. We told you that to throw you off. We thought you wouldn't do it for three million, but for ten million, sure. I'm your last stop," he replied coldly while holding a German Luger at Young Herod after taking the CDs from him.
"You're kidding! I heard that you were the Old Badger, and you're proving it right now. Betrayal, just like those 500 Nephilims you killed in France. Just like cattle," he replied angrily while trying to do something to give him time to think. Two guards walked in behind him with guns pulled.
"Oh, shut up. You can't rattle me. You're cattle just like they were. You're nothing but a weak human, worse than cattle," he replied, and the guards moved to the far sides of the room to avoid stray bullets.
"Oh, don't worry. Those who call me the Old Badger will be dead soon too. I'm bored with their little pretenses. I've kept them alive to entertain me, including those two midgets in Paris."
"Wrong!" Young Herod shouted. He changed to his own face and stood upright. "We know about your plans, even in America. Surprise!" he shouted.
"It won't do you any good!" yelled the General and fired twice, but Young Herod wasn't there, or was he? Young Herod moved close to a guard and sped past him and back to the other. The General fired again, thinking Young Herod was in front of a guard, then in front of the other one. Both guards screamed and hit the floor. One clutched at his bleeding chest, and the other was already dead from a forehead shot.
The General looked confused and bewildered and finally stopped firing. In one lightning sprint, Young Herod bolted the door shut as he heard other people pounding on it. There weren't supposed to be that many shots.
Young Herod stood behind the General and tapped him on the shoulder, then snatched the gun from him as he turned around. Hitler disappeared, revealing a rather milk-toast man with modestly harmless looks. Looks were deceiving. Young Herod pushed the gun into the General's mouth and played with the trigger finger as he watched the General sweating profusely.
The General mumbled in a tremble, "What do you want? I'll give you whatever you want? I'm unbelievably wealthy. You'd never want for anything again. Just tell me what you want but let me go, please," he begged.
"Okay, here are your choices. You can do what I ask or take a bullet through your head or jump out that window. The choice is yours. Do you think you can levitate fast enough to save your sorry butt if you jump?"
"Just tell me what you want, and we don't have to go that far," he replied as he got angry now; the begging having stopped. It was more of a rage, and then he changed back to Hitler.
"I want you to become a Christian, a believer Nephilim, a reborn Christian. I don't know exactly how that's done yet, but Joe's wife was one. So, I know it can be done," he said and watched him twitch when he mentioned Joe's wife. The General always thought she was too good to be a dark Nephilim.
"What? A believer? Me accept Jesus as my Savior? You've got to be kidding!" He pushed Young Herod aside and jumped out the window that left Young Herod holding his coat.
The General levitated at the last minute on the second bounce, which caused him to land on his face on the concrete walk the third time. He would have lived if he had just taken the fall without trying to levitate. Young Herod put on the General's coat and sat at his desk. He stared at a picture of the General hung on the wall; and after several minutes, he got his face perfect, even his hair went white, including growing a small Hitler mustache just for effect. He went to pick up the empty Luger, and laid it down on the floor beside the dead guards. There was a crash of splintering wood, and other guards came rushing through as they fell on top of him.
"Find the courier! He has to be around here!" the General's top lieutenant replied, then stopped when he spotted Young Herod moving and heard him groaning.
"Find the courier. He changed into me, into my god," moaned Young Herod.
They helped Young Herod to his feet, and he leaned into them while acting like his joints were old and crusty. More guards started yelling from the street below the General's window that they found his body. Those holding Young Herod looked strangely at each other, then ran to the window.
The lieutenant yelled to those on the street below, "Has he got Hitler's face?"
They looked at a bloody mess and moved some white, matted hair from his eyes, and looked up shouting, "We think so! Yes, we believe so! Most of his face is mush!"
Young Herod breathed a sigh of relief for that stroke of luck, then started breathing erratically. He clutched his chest, and with a greatly pained face, groaned, "My heart, my heart."
Several guards ran for the phones and called an ambulance. The confusion was maddening for the lieutenant. He kept looking out the window, then back at Young Herod. He couldn't figure it out. Finally, he had to know.
"General, I know you're in great pain, right now. You must answer me. Why did he jump out the window?"
Young Herod tried to garble his voice to
mimic the General. "Didn't know last stop kamikaze or...be shot...didn't know tried to get out...couldn't...went ...crazy...then...jumped."
Everyone in the building knew that Joe was dead on this stop. The lieutenant was told to wait for the sound of a shot, not shots. He now felt satisfied that the General was right. It made sense to him now.
"We need to get you to the hospital, General. Don't worry; we'll clean up this mess. Just rest. You'll be okay," replied the lieutenant.
The ambulance doctors pushed their way into the room and rolled the stretcher over one of the dead guards along the way. As they carried Young Herod out, the lieutenant saw Young Herod's Hush Puppy Loafers without socks. He also saw young, muscled calves as they hooked monitors to his legs after cutting his pants to give them room. The ambulance was already gone when he snapped his fingers. He picked up the phone and called Judas. It was the only emergency name and number he was given although he didn't know him.
"Mr. Judas," he asked, "we've had a problem. The General is dead. Joe killed him. I'm not sure how it happened. I didn't know that Joe was a Nephilim like us. He's not? Well, whomever it was, he knew how to morph and was good at it, down to the General's white hair and that mustache. What shall I do?"
Judas couldn't believe what he was hearing. He expected a call, but from the General, telling him the CDs arrived and Joe was dead. All this, after the Agrippa twins messed up and disappeared, then what happened to Cobrata. At least, he still had five Jesus Priests replaced in Jerusalem, and they could still pull it off if he it right way. He didn’t think he needed the others anyway and planned to kill them all soon. Someone else was doing his own dirty work and cutting his grass for him. He had to make a decision whether to go forward or stop so he instantly decided to move forward regardless.
He spoke curtly, "I don't know what you'll do. I think you're out of a job. Don't you think?" then slammed down the phone.
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