Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

The eastern gate, whispered a voice in my head. Jerusalem.

Never had I experienced a vision while awake. I opened my eyes and saw Rachel staring at the dash¬board. I closed my eyes again, but the city vanished like the afterimage of a flashbulb.

"David? What's wrong with your eyes?"

"Nothing."

I rubbed my temples and tried to open my mind to whatever was coming. I'd felt drawn to specific places before. During my twenties, I'd traveled a lot, and while I was usually driven by student wanderlust, there were times when something deeper had pulled me off my planned track.

While visiting Oxford University, I'd awakened one morning with a feeling that I needed to get to Stonehenge-not just to see it, but to be in the presence of the sarsen stones. My companion assured me that there was no rush; the stones had been standing for five thousand years and would surely wait another few days. But still I rented a car and drove south until I reached Salisbury Plain. After darkness fell, I approached the ancient ring alone and did what tourists can do no longer: walked among the stones in the moonlight and lay upon the sacrificial altar. I was no New Age dilet¬tante, but a medical student from the University of Virginia, looking toward a stable career. Yet this wasn't the only time such a thing had happened. I was drawn to Chichen Itza the same way. And on a drive to the Grand Canyon, I changed course and camped at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico for a week instead. In Greece it was Delphi over Athens. In all these situations I had felt an external pull, as though something were calling me to a specific place.

What I felt now was different, an internal compulsion to travel to Jerusalem, whatever the consequences. That the city was sacred to three great religions was irrele¬vant. I had nothing in common with the faithful millions planning pilgrimages to the Holy Land. I sensed only that the city held answers for me, answers that could be found nowhere else.

"Where are we going?" Rachel asked irritably.

"Israel," I said.

"What?"

"Jerusalem."

"David-"

"It's because-"

"Don't tell me. Because of your hallucinations, right?"

"Yes."

She reached out and lifted my chin, then looked deeply into my eyes. "David, people are trying to kill us. The government is trying to kill us. You've been having hallucinations for reasons we don't understand, but which may have been caused by damage to your brain. And you want to use those hallucinations to guide you in trying to save our lives?"

"Whoever will save his life shall lose it."

"What?"

I turned up my palms. "I'm not saying this will save our lives. I'm saying that if I'm going to be hunted down and killed, I'd rather it happen while I'm trying to learn the meaning of something I believe has meaning."

"You truly believe your hallucinations have meaning?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I can't explain it logically. It's just something I know. Like a bird flying south."

She sighed like an exhausted mother talking to a child. "Try, okay? Try to explain."

I closed my eyes and searched for words to explain the inexplicable. "I feel as though I've been chosen."

"For what?"

"I'm not sure."

"Chosen by whom?"

"God."

"God God?"

"Yes."

She took a deep breath and folded her hands in her lap. She was clearly struggling to remain calm. "I think it's time you told me what these recent hallucinations have been about. Are you still dreaming that you're Jesus?"

"Yes."

"What's different about these visions as compared to the older ones? Why have you hidden them from me?"

We'd finally arrived at the line between sanity and the rubber room. I was glad we were in a truck on a highway and not in Rachel's office. There was no one she could call to have me committed. "Because I no longer believe they're hallucinations. Or dreams. I think they're memories."

She expelled air in a frustrated rush. "Memories? My God, David. What's happening in these dreams?"

"I'm reliving parts of Jesus' life. His travels to Jerusalem. His experiences there. I hear voices. My own… the disciples. Rachel, what I see in my head is more real than what I see around me. And events are moving rapidly. I'm approaching the crucifixion."

She was shaking her head in disbelief. "How could you have two-thousand-year-old memories that only entered your mind in the past six months?"

"I don't know."

"These dreams make you feel some urgency to get to Israel?"

I hadn't thought of my feeling as urgency before, but that was what it was. What I'd perceived as generalized anxiety was really a slowly developing compulsion to travel to the setting of my dreams.

"To the Holy Land," I said. "Yes."

"Are you afraid you'll die in real life if you don't get there before you dream of the crucifixion?"

"Maybe. Mainly I have a sense that if I don't get there soon, I'll lose the chance to understand what my dreams are trying to tell me."

Rachel stared at the oncoming traffic, her head rock¬ing back and forth. Then she suddenly turned to me, her eyes bright and wide.

"Do you realize what day it is?"

"No."

"We're less than a week away from the Easter holi¬day."

I blinked. "So?"

"We're approaching the traditional dates of Jesus' death and resurrection. Not only in your dreams, but also in the real world."

"You're saying the two are connected?"

"Of course. Somehow, the approach of Easter is caus¬ing you to have these dreams, this anxiety. You're like the people who thought the world would end when the millennium turned. Don't you see? This is all part of a delusional system."

I shook my head and smiled. "You're wrong. But you're right about the dates. They could be important."

Rachel was watching me as she would someone who was playing an elaborate joke on her. "What about meeting the president?"

"We'll do it when we get back. What difference does a couple of days make? Especially if it keeps us alive?"

She closed her eyes and spoke softly. "Did you tell Andrew Fielding about your hallucinations?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He told me to pay attention to them. Fielding always said that in trying to build Trinity, we were walk¬ing in the footprints of God. He didn't know how right he was."

"Perfect. Two peas in a pod." Rachel put her hands on the wheel as though to pull onto the road, but she left the truck in park. "You really intend to follow these hal¬lucinations to Israel?"

"Yes."

"And you admit they might be the result of brain damage?"

"Not brain damage, as you think of it." I thought of Fielding's excitement as he expounded his theory of consciousness. "Disturbances to the quantum processes in my brain."

Rachel was squeezing the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were white. "You're like someone who dreamed he was once a pharaoh deciding to go to Egypt to find the meaning of his life!"

"I suppose I am. I know how crazy it sounds. The thing is, we don't have a better alternative. If it makes you feel better, we're going because we need to do some¬thing the Trinity computer can't possibly predict."

"It can't predict you'd go to Israel?"

"No. It was my Super-MRI scan that caused my dreams to start. My neuromodel has no memory of dreams that occurred after that. There's not even any mention of Jerusalem in your medical records, because I stopped going to you before the city took center stage in my dreams."

Rachel looked thoughtful. "Going to Israel isn't like going to Paris, you know. The country's in a permanent state of war. I've been there. They pay close attention to who goes in and out. El Al has four times the security of other airlines. And we're being hunted by the American government. As soon as we tried to book a ticket, they'd be waiting for us at the airport."