White

  You’ve heard about the critical raves,

  but here’s what real readers are saying about

  The Books of History Chronicles

  (Black, Red, White, Showdown, Saint)

  on Amazon.com

  This trilogy is a MUST READ! Suspenseful, insightful, fast-paced, and certainly lifeimpacting. Ted Dekker is a master of bringing Truth close to home, in a way that causes us the readers to see and feel it in a fresh way.

  D. Guimaraes (Pittsburgh, PA USA)

  Whew, ok I’ve read all three books in the Circle Trilogy back to back and all I can say is man what a ride. Ted Dekker has to be one of our generations great story tellers, this story of Thomas Hunter’s fight to save mankind from a terrible virus intended to destroy the world is sure to become a Christian fiction classic much like Lewis’s “Narnia” Series and Frank Perretti’s “This Present Darkness”.

  Todd Sullivan (Mount Vernon, WA)

  This was the first book by Ted Dekker that I’ve ever read. It was all I needed to be hooked for life! Ted Dekker has a way with words and storytelling that not many authors have anymore. He draws you in and you have to make yourself stop for daily functions such as eating and occasional breathing!

  J. Hosmer (South Carolina)

  I cannot say enough good things about this book and series. It can change how you think. If a book can do that it is an amazing thing. I recommend it without reservation. The Circle Trilogy was my first Ted Dekker book, but it will not be the last.

  Teresa L. Wilkinson (Parkersburg, WV USA)

  This guy is truly amazing. He’s written straight novels, romance thrillers, psychological suspense, and now a fantasy thriller. He stretches and stretches, yet never becomes distorted, uneven, or sloppy. I suspect that a generation from now, Dekker’s writings will be essential reading for those who wish to study spiritually motivated literature.

  Tommy C Ellis (Federal Way, WA United States)

  Absolutely a terrific trilogy! I got the first book, “Black” from the library, and when I finished it and realized it was a trilogy, ordered all three books the same day...next day! Incredible book full of drama, mystery, and beautiful love stories...both for people and God. You won’t regret reading them...

  June A. Halladay (Florida)

  This may be one of my top 5 books of all time. The whole thing was engaging and out-standing. There was no lull anywhere. Each page and each chapter had interesting things happening. I’ve since read other’s of Ted’s including Red, White, Heaven’s Wager, and Three. All awesome.

  Sgun73 (Carmel, IN)

  This is the first of a trilogy - but don’t be intimidated by the fact that you must read three books to journey through all of Dekker’s tale. This is an incredible fantasy, written with such a furious pace that it is hard to put down. I was wise enough to not start any of the three books until I had all of them - unfortunately for my wife I did have all of them when I started reading them, and I just went from one to the next to the final one. Incredible!

  Zachary Jones (Wake Forest, NC)

  I am addicted to great story telling. Ted Dekker is now my main drug dealer. I’m halfway through Red, the second book of the Circle Trilogy, and have now put Mr. Dekker in my pantheon with Robert Jordan, Stephen Lawhead, C. S. Lewis and Professor Tolkien. This guy writes literary heroine.

  Mike Vickers (Centreville, Alabama)

  WHITE

  teddekker.com

  DEKKER FANTASY

  BOOKS OF HISTORY CHRONICLES

  THE LOST BOOKS

  Chosen

  Infidel

  Renegade (MAY 2008)

  Chaos (MAY 2008)

  THE CIRCLE TRILOGY

  Black

  Red

  White

  PROJECT SHOWDOWN

  Showdown

  Saint

  Sinner (OCTOBER 2008)

  Skin

  House (with Frank Peretti)

  DEKKER MYSTERY

  Blink of an Eye

  MARTYR’S SONG SERIES

  Heaven’s Wager

  When Heaven Weeps

  Thunder of Heaven

  The Martyr’s Song

  THE CALEB BOOKS

  Blessed Child

  A Man Called Blessed

  DEKKER THRILLER

  THR3E

  Obsessed

  Adam (APRIL 2008)

  © 2004 Ted Dekker

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in 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 written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, organizations, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dekker, Ted, 1962–

  White : the great pursuit / by Ted Dekker.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-8499-1792-9 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-011-9 (international)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-035-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-435-3 (repackage)

  I. Title.

  PS3554.E43W485 2004

  813'.6—dc22

  2004010579

  Printed in the United States of America

  07 08 09 10 11 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

  For my children.

  May they always remember

  what lies behind the veil.

  CONTENTS

  North Dakota

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  EPILOGUE

  COMING FULL CIRCLE

  ANEXCERPT FROM CHOSEN

  DEKKER UNLEASHES HIS MOST RIVETING NOVEL YET

  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,

  Thomas Nelson Fiction

  North Dakota

  Finley, population 543. That’s what the sign read.

  Finley, population 0. That’s what the sign could very well rea
d 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.

  1

  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 in
quiry 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.”