The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [74]
After about three hundred yards, Tommy suddenly called for us to stop. He was peering into the distance, listening.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “We have to be careful. Keep your energy up.”
He looked into the night for a few more seconds then said, “Do you hear that?”
I shook my head.
Tommy began walking ahead. “There are people talking up there somewhere. Let’s find them.”
We made our way forward for about a hundred feet, coming to a large outcropping about thirty feet high. As we grew closer, I began to hear the talking myself. We climbed up the rock and found a place where we could look over. About thirty feet in front us of was a group of Apocalyptics huddled together, discussing something in loud tones. At the center of the group was their leader, Anish. He was talking to a short, round man in an Egyptian military uniform, telling him something in Arabic.
“I can understand this,” Tommy whispered. “That large man is Joseph’s brother. He’s telling him about the Circle of Rocks and where it is.” Tommy looked at us in alarm. “Now they know where our camp is.”
A rush of anger moved through me as I remembered Joseph telling us he wanted to contact his brother. Did he give away our location?
“We have to get back!” I said quietly, trying to control myself. “Now! Let’s go!”
We made our way back to the circle as quickly as possible, and I was fighting against going into fear. For some reason I began to remember things my father had told me about his experiences in World War II. Getting rid of the fear is impossible, he said. All you can do is focus on what you’re doing, and even if people are being killed all around you, you concentrate on the job and get it done. I never quite grasped how he did that.
As we approached the first large boulders of the circle, Coleman pulled me aside.
“You look like your energy is collapsing,” Coleman said, obviously trying to look deeply at me to reestablish the Agape connection.
I blew him off. “If the Apocalyptics get there before we do, everyone could be killed.”
When we made our way back to the circle we found the others already breaking camp. As I rushed up to Rachel, she noticed the change in me immediately.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “What happened?”
I told her what the Apocalyptics had said, then added angrily, “Joseph’s brother has sold us out. Joseph himself could be involved.”
“Calm down,” she said. “We were all getting the image that we should leave immediately, and we’re hurrying as fast as we can. But there has to be some mistake. Joseph would not have told his brother where we were camped.”
She pointed to a stack of papers that were lying on a rock near her tent. “Joseph brought us copies of the Tenth Integration he’d found, then left again. He’s still looking for his brother. Why would he betray us?”
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes were drawing me in again, and I felt the Agape and the peace come back a little, but my perception had totally crashed.
“We’ve been working on the Ninth,” she said, “at the same time you three were. We could feel you. You have to hang on to to it. We’ve even gotten into the Tenth.”
“We have to leave now!” I pressed.
“Okay, okay. Here’s the rest of your stuff.”
She was pointing toward my folded tent and a few other things I’d left behind. While I was packing, she seemed to think of something and ran over, picked up the copies of the Document, and stuffed them into my pack as well.
“There,” she said. “You can take care of these for everyone in case something happens.”
Her tone was again slightly sorrowful. This was the second time she’d said something like that. I wanted to ask her what she knew, but she had already picked up her own pack and was walking away.
“Come on,” she said. “We found a back way out of this circle.”
Before I could catch her, she glanced around and her eyes froze on something behind us.
“Do you still have that feather?” she asked.