Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II by Jack Cavanaugh Page A

which is really odd.”
    “So how did you know to be here?”
    I told her that both Sue and I were here as the professor’s eyes and ears, and how I felt the clouds calling to me, and how I tested my abilities.
    “So nobody forewarned you,” she asked, “no angel, that is?”
    I shook my head.
    “What’s next?”
    “I’m writing another book.” I motioned to the laptop. “It will be about the deception at the White House while I was—”
    “I mean, what’s next on the angel’s agenda?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine. I’m not exactly on their newsletter mailing list.”
    There was a knock at the door.
    “Grant? Are you awake?”
    I looked at Jana but saw only the top of her head. Both hands were in her purse. She was packing up.
    I opened the door.
    “Good, you’re dressed,” Sue Ling said. “I just got a call—”
    She saw Jana standing at the foot of my unmade bed.
    “Oh—” Sue said.
    Jana caressed my arm in passing. “Call me if you get wind of anything,” she said, exiting the room without a word to Sue.
    “Jana was just—”
    Sue cut me off. “I’m establishing a video link to the professor,” she said without looking at me. “He wants to talk to you.”
    She turned to go.
    “Sue—Jana just stopped by to—”
    “Five minutes,” she said over her shoulder.
    The laptop sat idle on the desk. I hoped the call to the professor wouldn’t take long. Meanwhile, I had five minutes to knock out a paragraph.
    My cell phone rang. It was Christina. She said she would be briefing Senator Vogler in ten minutes on the situation in Israel and wanted to know if I’d seen the Mt. Olivet video.

    “Doesn’t anybody sleep in the States?” I grumbled. After finishing my call to Christina, I had just enough time to get to Sue’s room for the video call to the professor. “What time is it in San Diego?”
    “Ten-thirty P.M .,” Sue said, adjusting the camera on her laptop computer. “We’re a day ahead of them.”
    She had propped the door open so I wouldn’t have to knock. Her room was a mirror image of mine. She’d set her computer on my working table’s twin and was busy opening the communications software program. She avoided eye contact with me. All we needed now was the professor. He had yet to log in.
    Sue drummed her fingers impatiently on the table. She waited a minute longer, then picked up her cell phone and talked the professor through the procedure to get online. Soon afterward we had picture and sound.
    “Pull up that chair,” she told me, scooting over so that both of us would fit into the camera’s field of vision.
    “Quite a display on Mt. Olivet,” the professor began.
    His backdrop was a living room in disarray, a testimony to Sue Ling’s absence. She always kept it clean and orderly for him.
    Turning his head, the professor spoke to someone off camera. “Good, you’re here.”
    Though we couldn’t see him, we recognized Abdiel’s voice.
    The professor faced the camera again. “Grant, Sue tells me you saw the angels massing even before they revealed themselves. How did you do that?”
    I explained how the cloud called to me and described my attempts to see them. I don’t know what pleased the professor more—my initiative or my newfound ability.
    “Now that you’ve done it once,” he said, “it should be easier to do again. Have you seen any more angels?”
    I told him I hadn’t.
    He inquired about our meeting with Professor Serrafe. Sue gave him a concise report.
    “The translations. When do they expect to release them?”
    “Within the week.”
    “That soon?”
    “Since the appearance on Mt. Olivet, the Egyptians have been pressing to release the original text immediately.”
    “That’s exactly what they want,” the professor said. “They want to keep us off balance.”
    “The Egyptians?” I asked.
    “The rebel angels,” the professor replied. “Olivet tipped their hand. Until then we only suspected they were behind the manuscript. Now