Ted Dekker - White

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WHITE

TED DEKkER

WESTB0W

P R E S S

A Division of Thomas Nelson Publishers

Since 1798

visit us at www.westbowpress.eom

a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—

electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except

for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior writ-

ten permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or

used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people

living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dekker, Ted, 1962

White : the great pursuit / by Ted Dekker.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-8499-1792-1 (HC)

ISBN 1-5955-4011-3 (IE)

I. Title.

PS3554.E43W485 2004

813'.6—dc22 2004010579

Printed in the United States of America

04050607 QW 7654321

For my children.

May they always remember

what lies behind the veil.

Dear Reader,

Thomas Hunter's story begins in Black, Book One of The Circle Trilogy, and continues in

Red, Book Two. If you've yet to read Black and Red, I strongly encourage you to start there.

White is far richer once you've fully experienced Thomas's prior journeys into two realities.

There are numerous plot twists that deserve grounding before you plunge into the pages ahead.

Once you've read Black and Red, you're ready to step into White. But be forewarned: nothing

will prepare you—or Thomas—for what awaits him in this conclusion to the epic trilogy.

Publisher, WestBow Press

North Dakota

FINLEY, population 543. That's what the sign read.

Finley, population 0. That's what the sign could very well read in two weeks, Mike Orear

thought.

He stood on the edge of town, hot wind blowing through his hair, fighting a gnawing fear that

the gray buildings erected along these vacated streets were tombstones waiting for the dead. The

town had bustled with nearly three thousand residents before he'd gone off to school in North

Forks and become a football star.

The last time he'd visited, two years earlier, the population had dwindled to under a thousand.

Now, just over five hundred. One of countless dying towns scattered across America. But this

one was special.

This was the town where his mother, Nancy Orear, lived. His father, Carl, and his only sister,

Betsy, too. None of them knew he'd come. They'd talked every day since he'd broken the news of

the Raison Strain, but yesterday Mike had come to the terrible conclusion that talking was no

longer enough.

He had to see them again. Before they died. And before the march on Washington ramped up.

Mike left his car, slung his jacket over his shoulder, and walked up Central Avenue's

sidewalk. He wanted to see without being seen, which, in Finley, was easier done on foot than in

a flashy car. But there wasn't a soul in sight. Not one.

He wondered how much they knew about the virus. As much as he did, of course. They were

glued to their sets at this moment, waiting for word of a breakthrough, like every other

American.

His feet felt numb. Working 24/7 around the studio in Atlanta, he had thought of himself as a

crusader on the front lines of this mess, slashing the way to the truth. Stirring the hearts of a

million viewers, giving them hope. Breathing life into America. But his drive north along

deserted highways awakened him to a new reality.

America was already dying. And the truth was killing them.

The truth that they were about to die, regardless of what the frantic talking heads said. Middle

America was too smart to believe that grasping at straws was anything more than just that.

His feet crunched on the dust-blown pavement. Citizens State Bank loomed on his right.

Closed, the sign said. Not a soul.

He'd once held an account at this bank. Saved up his first forty dollars to. buy the old blue

Schwinn off Toby. And where was Toby today? Last he'd heard, his friend had taken a job in Los

Angeles, defying his fear of earthquakes. Today earthquakes were the least of Toby's worries.

The sign in the window of Finley Lounge said it was open—the one establishment probably

booming as a result of the crisis. For some the news would go down better with beer.

Mike walked by, unnerved by the thought of going in and meeting someone he might know.

He wanted to talk to his mother and his father and Betsy, no one else. In a small inexplicable

way, he somehow felt responsible for the virus, though simply letting America in on the dirty

little secret that they were all doomed hardly qualified him.

He swallowed and walked on by Roger's Heating. Closed.

Still not a soul on Central or any of the side streets that he could see.

Mike stopped and turned around. So quiet. The wind seemed oblivious to the virus it had

breathed into this town. An American flag flapped slowly over the post office, but he doubted

any mail was being delivered today.

Somewhere a thousand scientists were searching for a way to break the Raison Strain's back.

Somewhere politicians and heads of states were screaming for answers and scrambling to explain

away the inconceivable notion that death was at their doorstep. Somewhere nuclear warheads

were flying through the air.

But here in Nowhere, America, better known as Finley, incorporated July 12, 1926, all Mike

could hear was the sound of wind. All he could see were vacant streets and a blue sky dotted

with puffy white clouds.

He suddenly thought that leaving his car had been a mistake. He should hurry back, jump in,

and head to the protest march in Washington, where he was expected by morning.

Instead, Mike turned on his heels and began to run. Past Dave's Auto. On to Lincoln Street.

To the end where the old white house his father had bought nearly forty years ago still stood.

He walked up to the door, calming his heavy breathing. No sound, no sign of life. He should

at least hear the tube, shouldn't he?

Mike bounded up the steps, yanked the screen door open, and barged into the house.

There on the sofa, facing a muted television, sat his mother, his father, and Betsy, surrounded

by scattered dishes, half-empty glasses, and bags of Safeway-brand potato chips. They were

dressed in pajamas, hair tangled. Their arms were crossed and their faces hung like sacks from

their cheekbones, but the moment they saw him, their eyes widened. If not for this sign of life,

Mike might have guessed they were already dead.

"Mikey?" His mother jerked forward and paused, as if trying to decide whether or not she

should trust her eyes. "Mike!" She pushed off the sofa and ran toward him, sobbing. Engulfed

him in a hug.

He knew then that the march on Washington was the right thing to do. There was no other

hope. They were all going to die.

He dropped his head on her shoulder and began to cry.

KARA HUNTER angled her car through the Johns Hopkins University campus, cell phone

plastered against her ear. The world was starting to fall apart, and she knew, deep down where

people aren't supposed to know things, that something very important depended on her. Thomas

depended on her, and the world depended on Thomas.

The situation was about as clear as an overcast midnight, but there was one star shining on

the horizon, and so she kept her eyes on that bright guiding light.

She snugged the cell phone between her ear and shoulder and made a turn using both hands.

"Forgive me for sounding desperate, Mr. Gains, but if you won't give me the clearance I need, I'm

taking a gun in there."

"I didn't say I wouldn't get it for you," the deputy secretary of state said. She should be

talking to the president himself, Kara thought, but he wasn't exactly the most accessible man on

the planet these days. Unless, of course, your name was Thomas. "I said I would try. But this is a

bit unconventional. Dr. Bancroft may . . . Excuse me." The phone went quiet. She could hear a

muffled voice.

Gains came back on, speaking fast. "I'm gonna have to go."

"What is it?"

"It's need to know—"

"I am need to know! I may be the only link you have to Thomas, assuming he's alive! And

Monique for that matter, assuming she's alive. Talk to me, for heaven's sake!"

He didn't answer.

"You owe me this, Mr. Secretary. You owe this to the country for not responding to Thomas

the first time."

"You keep this to yourself." His tone left her with no doubt about his frustration at having to

tell her anything. But of all people he must know that she might be on to something with this

experiment of hers.

"Of course."

"We've just had a nuclear exchange," Gains said.

Nuclear?

"More accurately, Israel fired a missile into the ocean off the coast of France, and France has

responded in kind. They have an ICBM in the air as we speak. I really have to go."

"Please, sir, call Dr. Bancroft."

"My aide already has."

"Thank you." She snapped the phone closed.

Surely it couldn't end this way! But Thomas had warned that the virus might be only part of

the total destruction recorded in the Books of Histories. In fact, they'd discussed the possibility

that the apocalypse predicted by the apostle John might be precipitated by the virus. Wasn't

Israel featured prominently in John's apocalypse?

She swerved to avoid a lone bicycler, muttered a curse, and pushed the accelerator. Dr.

Bancroft was her last hope. Thomas had been missing for nearly three days, and Monique had

disappeared yesterday. She had to find out if either was alive—if not here, then in the other

reality.

Bancroft was in his lab; she knew that much from a phone call earlier. She also knew that her

brother's records were under the control of the government. Classified. Any inquiry about his

earlier session with Dr. Bancroft would require authorization beyond the good doctor. With any

luck, Gains had given her at least that much.

Kara parked her car and ran down the same steps she'd descended over a week earlier with

CIA Director Phil Grant. The blinds on the basement door were drawn. She rapped on the glass.

"Dr. Bancroft!"

The door flew inward almost instantly. A frumpy man with bags under fiery eyes stood

before her. "Yes, I will," he said.

"You will? You'll what?"

"Help you. Hurry!" The psychologist pulled her in, leaned out for a quick glance up the

concrete stairwell, and closed the door. He hurried toward his desk.

"I've been poring over this data on Thomas for a week now. I've called a dozen colleagues—

not idiots, mind you—and not one of them has heard of a silent sleep brain."

"Did the deputy secretary of state—"

"Just talked to them, yes. What's your idea?"

"What do you mean by a `silent sleep brain'?" she asked.

"My coined term. A brain that doesn't dream while sleeping, like your brother's."

"There has to be some other explanation, right? We know he's dreaming. Or at least aware of

another reality while he's sleeping."

"Unless this"—Bancroft indicated the room—"is the dream." He winked.

The doctor was sounding like Thomas now. They'd both gone off the deep end. Then again,

what she was about to suggest would make this dream business sound perfectly logical by

comparison.

"What's your idea?" he asked again.

She walked to the leather bed Thomas had slept on and faced the professor. The room's lights

were low. A computer screen cast a dull glow over his desk. The brain-wave monitor sat dormant

to her left.

"Do you still have the blood you drew from Thomas?" she asked.

"Blood?"

"The blood work—do you still have it?"

"That would have gone to our lab for analysis."

"And then where?"

"I doubt it's back."

"If it is—"

"Then it would be in the lab upstairs. Why are you interested in his blood?"

Kara took a deep breath. "Because of something that happened to Monique. She crossed over

into Thomas's dreams. The only thing that links the realities other than dreams is blood, a

person's life force, as it were. There's something unique about blood in religion, right? Christians

believe that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. In this metaphysical

reality Thomas has breached, blood also plays a critical role. At least as far as I can tell."

"Go on. What does this have to do with Monique's dreams?"

"Monique fell asleep with an open wound. She was with Thomas, who also had an open

wound on his wrist. I know this sounds strange, but Monique told me she thought she crossed

into this other reality because her blood was in contact with his when she dreamed. Thomas's

blood is the bridge to his dream world."

Bancroft lifted a hand and adjusted his round glasses. "And you think that . . ." He stopped.

The conclusion was obvious.

"I want to try."

"But they say that Thomas is dead," Bancroft said.

"For all we know, so is Monique. At least in this reality. The problem is, the world might still

depend on those two. We can't afford for them to be dead. I'm not saying I understand exactly

how or why this could work, I'm just saying we have to try something. This is the only thing I

can think of."

"You want to re-create the environment that allowed Monique to cross over," he stated flatly.

"Under your supervision. Please ..."

"No need to plead." A glimmer of anticipation lit his eyes. "Believe me, if I hadn't seen

Thomas's monitors with my own eyes, I wouldn't be so eager. Besides, I've been tested positive

for the virus he predicted from these dreams of his."

The psychologist's willingness didn't really surprise her. He was wacky enough to try it on

his own, without her.

"Then we need his blood," she said.

Dr. Myles Bancroft headed toward the door. "We need his blood."

IT TOOK less than ten minutes to hook her up to the electrodes Bancroft would use to measure

her brain activity. She didn't care about the whole testing rigmarole—she only wanted to dream

with Thomas's blood. True, the notion was about as scientific as snake handling. But lying there

with wires attached to her head in a dozen spots made the whole experiment feel surprisingly

reasonable.

Bancroft tore off the blood-pressure cuff. "Pretty high. You're going to have to sleep,

remember? You haven't told this to your heart yet."

"Then give me a stronger sedative."

"I don't want to go too strong. The pills you took should kick in any moment. Just try to

relax."

Kara closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind. The missile that France had fired at Israel

had either already landed or was about to. She couldn't imagine how a nuclear detonation in the

Middle East would affect the current scenario. Scattered riots had started just this morning,

according to the news. They were mostly in Third World countries, but unless a solution

surfaced quickly, the West wouldn't be far behind.

They had ten days until the Raison Strain reached full maturity. Symptoms could begin to

show among the virus's first contractors, which included her and Thomas, in five days.

According to Monique, they had those five days to acquire an antivirus. Maybe six, seven at

most. They were all guessing, of course, but Monique had seemed pretty confident that the virus

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WHITETEDDEKkERWESTB0WPRESSADivisionofThomasNelsonPublishersSince1798visitusatwww.westbowpress.eomCopyright©2004byTedDekkerAllrightsreserved.Noportionofthisbookmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans—electronic,mechanical,photocopy,recording,scanning,orother—except...

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