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| Stylised photo of Don't Shoot the Messenger |
For the previous chapters of Daniel Grant Newton's online book Don't Shoot the Messenger, click below:
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Hey Shambhala Heroes! Can
you do something for me? As you no doubt know, I am giving Don't Shoot the Messenger to you for free because I
think it is a great story (bias I know!) that some people out there
would love. Thing is, I am not sure who they are -
well, there's YOU... and my mum, Anabel, my coolest friends that I met in
Vietnam, the readers who have written to me, and David Hasselhoff, but that's all I know for sure... So if you know anyone who would like this book, please send them the trailer or the first chapter. After all, a great story is only great when it is read - and your support will definitely encourage me to share more stories with you. Thanks in advance, and I hope you continue enjoy reading it (and keep sending me those lovely messages)! :-)
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“Who are you? And what do you want?” Irene hissed in
Hebrew at the man in blue. She was
bound with rope, and sitting against the wall inside a cave on a high hill.
The man was kneeling at
the entry to the cave, near his tied up horse, stoking a fire.
As she spoke, he glanced
back at her with amber eyes that reflected the kindling flames, but did not
answer her.
She repeated her
questions in Aramaic, then Latin and Greek. Still he did not answer. Just chuckled softly.
“You can either release
me, or someone I know will come and really make you pay,” she growled in
Hebrew.
Once again he glanced at
her, and once again he simply sniggered.
“I know you can
understand me,” she continued, “and you don't want to mess with this man who is
coming for me. And now that the
sun is coming up you won't have any shadows to slink into.”
“I know the man you talk
about,” said the man in Aramaic.
“He is one of the men with strange weapons who have taken a keen
interest in the teacher in the village.”
The man paused, before adding:
“But he will not find me.
By the time he comes looking for me, I will be gone.”
“What do you want with
me?” Irene asked. “He can pay you
very well for my release.”
Even though the doctor
could not see much of the man-in-blue's face, she could tell by the crinkling
at the corners of his eyes that he was enjoying her threats.
“He could not pay me or
my men enough,” said the bandit.
“I see you have a Roman
sword, do they pay you? How much
do you want for my release?”
He stood up and strolled
towards her. The man then produced
a blue scarf and bound her mouth with it.
“This shall keep your
pretty little mouth quiet,” he laughed, before returning to his fire.
He moved past her into
the cave, and returned with a bowl of dates and a dead fowl.
Her belly rumbled and her
eyes followed the fowl being put over the fire.
Noticing her attention,
the bandit smiled. “This food is
for you, not me. I will make life
as pleasant as possible before they come for you.”
After roasting the fowl,
he placed the bowl of dates, a wooden bowl of water and the cooked meat by her
side and sat before her. He then
unbound her mouth.
“That is so you can eat,”
he explained, moving his hands away to avoid her snapping at him.
“Can you unbind me so I
can eat?” she replied.
“If I did that, then I'm
sure you would try to escape, and I may kill you,” he said flatly.
“What if I said that I
wouldn't?” Irene lowered her gaze
and raised her eyebrows. “Or are
you the sick type of bandit who would take advantage of my position, and enjoy
feeding me by hand?”
The man sighed, and
leaned around Irene to untie the knot.
She could feel his breath on her back.
As soon as her hands were
free she shoved him off her and drew his sword from its scarab. She held it at him.
“Get back or I'll kill
you,” her shaky voice warned.
“You are so predictable,”
he growled before launching himself at her.
They rolled on the floor,
both struggling to get a hold of the sword. He pinned her and the sword down on the cave floor and
stared into her eyes.
Irene scowled at the man
in blue, before kneeing him in the crutch and pushing him off her. He watched her sprint out of the cave.
But before the dust she
kicked up could settle, she hurried back in.
“We've got to get out of
here,” she screamed at the man.
“The men with 'the strange weapons' are coming.”
The man picked himself up
off the ground and dusted himself off.
“I know, I saw them coming.
That is why I didn't bother chase after you.”
“We got to go,” she said,
pulling at his sleeves, “you don't understand how dangerous they are.”
“Very dangerous, I hope,”
the man replied. “I would not like
to see your beautiful looks go to waste.”
Irene stared at the man
for a second, before trying to run further into the cave. The bandit however grabbed her and held
her tight.
The light at the end of
the tunnel was blocked by the shadows of six men. These men ducked their heads and made their way into the
cave.
It was the soldiers minus
Zhang (and Jude).
Spider carried two suit
cases and placed them on the floor.
He unclipped them and waved a hand over the contents inside.
One suitcase displayed
two rows of grenades, and one row of chemical gas canisters. The other suitcase was filled with
bullets.
Spider then motioned
towards five rifles and a pile of C4 now leaning up against the cave wall.
“What on earth are you
doing, Spider?” spat Irene.
“I am swapping you for a
few toys,” the tall Brit responded.
“Alexander was well aware that Jude and you may not follow orders. It was a possibility in the holographic
matrix.”
The bandit pushed Irene
into Spiders arms, and the big man led her out with a pistol to her back. “So he had me bring a note to give to
this man. The 'man in blue', the
Robin Hood of the Roman Empire. If
anything was to go wrong, I would deliver this letter to his associates, show
them our weapons, and meet him here to swap some excess weaponry for you.”
Spider led Irene down the
hill with his five comrades flanking him.
“You swapped technology
that is two thousand years more advanced for Jude and myself.”
“No, just you,” Spider
grinned. “The matrix showed us
that he would help you escape, and try to stop us by himself like the hero he
thinks he is.
"And capturing you
was always going to be a problem.
We knew he would be able to get you past us, evasion is a specialty of
his. However, the 'man-in-blue' is
one of the best guerrilla fighters in this area. In this time, he is as much a legend as he is a man. The matrix indicated he would get you where
we would have failed.”
“I don't understand,”
Irene muttered. “What do you want
with me, anyway?”
“You are bait for Mr.
Stone. He is a difficult fish to
catch, but use someone he cares about, and he loses perspective and takes
stupid risks. It is a weakness he
recognises and tries to guard himself against.”
Spider chuckled. "That was your main purpose for
coming along. Sure, your know-how
was integral and much appreciated, but getting Jude 'Stone-Heart' Stone to care
about somebody, that was tricky.
The matrix indicated we had to get someone halfway around the world for
that."
There was a silence as
they moved down the hill and towards the village.
“Look, you can't just
give someone advanced weapons like this, Spider,” protested Irene, breaking the
silence. “Killing Jesus is one
thing, but giving a man like this that kind of weaponry is insane. You have no idea what repercussions it
could have.”
“We do actually,” Spider
grinned. “Jude is a great soldier
and a great strategist, but he is very erratic. We have to keep him out of the loop sometimes, and we had to
keep you out of the loop, too, of course.
But that doesn't mean this wasn't also part of the original plan.
“You see, by giving this
rebel group a few guns and bombs, the Roman Catholic Church, or any derivative
of it, will never eventuate. It is
literally saving the mental enslavement of billions of people, and put the
progress of the world hundreds or thousands of years ahead.
“As you said, it wasn't
Jesus who wanted the church and organised religion. So cutting out his tongue would simply stop Christianity,
but another much more violent Abrahamic church would rise in its place. You need to cut the weed at the roots.”
“So what if you didn't
kill Jesus, but destroyed the church?”
“If that were to happen,
then, although there would be only small pockets of it, Christianity would
still exist. And the possibilities
for such a church rising up could come about in the future. So it is important he is dead, but it
is by no means the main game.”
Spider smirked. “We have
thought of everything, doctor.”
“Who do you mean by we? I can't imagine anyone on the research team to recommend
this extreme cause of action. I
know each member, most on a personal level, and none of them are this crazy,”
exclaimed Irene.
“You are right,” said
Spider, now leading Irene up the stairs of the village's temple. “This further research was done by
Alexander and me. Scientists don't
have the balls to make decisions like this.”
Irene struggled to break
free, but Spider held strong. One
of the soldiers came to Irene with a needle and injected it into her neck. After a few moments of struggle she
slumped into the soldier's arms.
“Take her to the chamber
and set the bomb to go off just before Yēšûă speaks,” said Spider, handing her
limp body to Chernova. “We don't
want him to try to stop us killing Yēšûă before the fireworks.”
“Come in Team ‘B’, over,”
he repeated the order forcefully.
Still no answer.
