The Mark: The Beast Rules The World (9 page)

Hickman!”

A month, David thought. A month to get out of Dodge. What would become of him and Annie and Mac and Abdullah? And Hannah Palemoon?

Viv said that over the next few days she would be sure each director knew his or her part in the rollout of images of Carpathia and the application of the mark of loyalty. Meanwhile, she said, “His Excellency has a closing comment.” ^

“Thank you, Viv,” Nicolae said. “Allow me to tell you just one story of a family I met today, and you know I met thousands. We have such a nucleus of loyal citizenry! This was a beautifully loyal Asian family named

Wong.”

David fought to maintain his composure. “Their daughter already works for us at Buffer in Brussels. The parents are well-to-do and great supporters of the Global Community. The father was quite proud of his family and of his record of loyalty. But I was most impressed with the seventeen-year-old son, Chang. Here is a boy who, according to his father, loves me and everything about the world as we see it today. He wants nothing more than to work for me here at the palace, and though he has another year of high school, would rather bring his talents our way.

“And such talents! I will arrange for the completion of his schooling here, because he is a genius! He can program any computer, analyze and fix any procedural or operational or systems problem. And this is not just a proud father talking. He showed me documents, grades, letters of recommendation. This kind of boy is our future, and our future has never looked brighter.”

That boy, David thought, would die before he took the mark.

S I X

As Rayford followed the wheelchair down the hall, barely able to breathe, his mind reeled with his mistakes. Were it somehow possible to extricate himself from this, he would be the most decisive leader the Tribulation Force could imagine.

They repaired to an office even smaller than the original. Pinkerton Stephens opened the door and neatly pivoted his chair so he could hold it open and leave room for Rayford and Albie to enter. He pointed Rayford to a steel gray chair near the wall, facing a desk of the same color and material. Albie sat to Rayford’s left.

Stephens let the door shut and locked it, breathed something nasally about the room being secure and not bugged, then steered himself to the other side of the desk, plowing a standard chair out of the way. He maneuvered his wheelchair up to and under the desk, leaned forward and rested his elbows atop it, and folded his hand and a half under his chin.

Part of Rayford could hardly bear to look at the man; another part could not take his eyes off him. “Now then,” Stephens began slowly, “Deputy Commander Elbaz-if that’s your real name-you may restrap your side arm and keep your hand off it. We’re both on the same team, and you have nothing to fear. As for you, Mr. Berry, while you may be out of uniform and likely using an alias yourself, neither do you have anything to fear. You are about to be pleasantly surprised to find that the three of us are on the same team.”

Rayford wanted to say, “I doubt it,” but feared he would emit no sound if he tried.

“Shall we start over, gentlemen?” Stephens said. If only . . ., Rayford thought.

“Mr. Elbaz, as the superior officer, I believe it falls to you to begin our session with the proper protocol.”

“He is risen,” Albie said, miserably in Rayford’s opinion.

“Who is risen indeed?” Stephens responded, and Rayford attributed the mispronunciation to the man’s malady, whatever it was. Albie just stared at Stephens. Rayford noticed that while Albie had taken his hand off his gun, he had not fastened the strap. Rayford wondered if he could grab the gun, kill them both, and get away with Hattie.

“Commander Elbaz, you have business here, and I will let you get to it after I satisfy the curiosity on both your parts. I realize that I am difficult to look at, that you

both have to be wondering what happened to me, and that as hard as I have worked on my speech, I am difficult to understand. Have either of you ever seen someone with most of his face missing?”

Both shook their heads, and Stephens placed his good thumb beneath his chin. “Once I remove my prosthesis, I will be unable to be understood at all, and so I will not attempt to speak.” Snap!

Rayford flinched as Stephens unsnapped the plastic covering under his chin. Snap! Snap!

As he continued, it became clear that the prosthesis was all one piece that substituted for most of his chin, nose, eye sockets, and forehead. It was held in place by metal fasteners embedded in what was left of the original facial bones. Stephens kept it in place with his stub-fingered hand and said, “Prepare yourselves; I won’t make you look long.”

Albie held up a hand. “Mr. Stephens, this is unnecessary. We have business here, yes, and I don’t see the need

to-”

He stopped when Stephens pulled the piece away from his face, revealing a monstrous cavity. Only what was left of his lips hinted at anything human, and Rayford fought to keep from covering his own eyes. The man had no nose and his entire eyeballs were exposed. Through gaps in his forehead, Rayford believed he could see through to the brain.

Rayford could breathe again when Stephens refastened the appliance. “Forgive me, gentlemen,” he said, “but just as I assumed, neither of you really saw what I wanted you to see.”

“And what was that?” Albie said, clearly shaken.

“Something that explains what I see on your faces.”

“I’m lost,” Rayford said.

“Oh, but you’re not,” Stephens said with a twisted smile. “You once were lost, but now you’re found. Would you like me to remove the prosthesis again and-”

“No,” Rayford and Albie said in unison. And Albie added, “Just get to the point.”

Pinkerton folded his hands beneath his chin again, and his eyes seemed to bore into Albie. “How did I respond when you said, ‘He is risen’?”

Albie seemed to have regained his voice and composure. “Sounded like you said, ‘Who is risen indeed?’ ”

“That’s what I said. What’s your answer?”

Albie shifted and cleared his throat. “I believe the protocol is that I say, ‘He is risen,’ and that you respond, ‘He is risen indeed.’ ”

“Fair enough, but my question remains. Who is risen indeed?”

So, Rayford concluded, somehow he’s onto me. And yet he sat silent, knowing a moment of truth had arrived and waiting to see what would come of it.

“Humor me one more time, Commander.”

Albie sighed and glanced at Rayford. Albie’s phony mark sure looked real. “He is risen,” Albie muttered.

“Who is risen indeed?” Stephens said, forcing another smile through the misshapen lips.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Albie said. “I’m tired of this

game.”

“Christ!” Stephens whispered excitedly. “Come on, brothers! The answer to the question is ‘Christ!’ Christ is risen indeed! I see the marks of the believer on both your foreheads! You missed mine for the horror of the rest of my face. Now look!”

He unfastened the prosthesis from the top this time and merely peeled it back. Rayford and Albie leaned forward, and there, amidst the gore, the mark was clear. As Stephens reapplied the piece, Rayford turned and grabbed Albie’s head in both hands. He cupped the back with his left hand and rubbed the forehead hard with his right. “Satisfied?” Albie said, smiling. Rayford felt like jelly. He flopped back in his chair, panting and unable to move.

“So who are you anyway?” Stephens said. Rayford leaned forward, “I’m-” “Oh, I know who you are. I knew almost immediately, though I like the new look. But who’s this character?” Albie introduced himself.

Stephens leaned forward and shook his hand. He nodded to Rayford. “I’ve got Mr. Steele completely dumb-founded, don’t I?”

“That’s an understatement,” Rayford said. “You and I both worked for Carpathia at the same time, Rayford, and before that your son-in-law worked for me.” “Steve Plank?”

“In the flesh, or what’s left of it. Crushed, chopped up, burned, and left for dead by the wrath of the Lamb earthquake. I’d been on the edge for weeks, reading Buck’s stuff, realizing things about Carpathia. I decided that if Buck and other believers were right about a global earthquake, I was in at the sound of the first tremor. I was praying the prayer as the building came down.”

Rayford shook his head. “But why the ruse-why work for the GC again?”

“It came to me in the hospital. No one, including me, knew who I was. When my memory returned, I made up a name and a history. That was twenty-one months ago, and all through a year of therapy and rehab, I had time to think about where I wanted to land. I wanted to take Carpathia down from the inside.”

“But why not tell anyone? Everyone thought you were dead.”

“The best secrets are kept between two people, providing one of them is dead. One of the most shameless stunts Carpathia pulled was how he treated Hattie Durham. I got myself into the Peacekeeping Force and kept my eye on her till I tracked her out here. I prayed this day would come. I’ll follow orders, obey the rules, do my job, and you’ll rescue her.”

David panicked. After sitting through the surreal performance by Carpathia, Fortunato, and Viv Ivins, he was in line to leave with the others. But Carpathia stood by the

door, accepting embraces, handshakes, kisses, and bowing from each director. The shameless Hickman fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around Nicolae’s knees, weeping loudly. The potentate rolled his eyes and gave Fortunato a look that would have put a wart on a gravestone.

When he was about sixth in line, David prayed desperately. What was he to do? In the flesh he wanted to fake whatever he had to fake in order to not be found out and jeopardize the rest of the Force. But he could not, would not, bow the knee to Antichrist. It was impossible that his breach of etiquette would go unnoticed. From what he could tell, it appeared he would be the only director who did not gush over the resurrected leader.

“God, help me!” he prayed silently. Was this the end? Should he merely bolt now and hope for the best? Or shake Carpathia’s hand and say something neutral: “Glad you’re feeling better after that dying thing” ? “Welcome

back”?

Except for his obvious disgust with Hickman, Carpathia oozed graciousness and humility as his people poured on the sugar. “Oh, thank you. I am grateful for your partnership and support. Great days ahead. Yes.

Yes.”

Now second in line, David was nauseated. Literally. His tender scalp vibrated against the bandages with every beat of his heart. He tried to pray, tried to be sensitive to what God wanted him to do. But as the director in front of him finally pulled away from a long embrace of the potentate, David stood there blankly.

Carpathia spread his arms and said, “David, my beloved David.”

David could not move and sensed the turning heads of those nearby. Carpathia looked puzzled, seeming to beckon him. David said, “Pothen-potenth-Exshell-” and pitched forward. His last image before crashing to the floor, head banging the marble, was that he had vomited all over Carpathia.

“How you doing, Zeke?” Buck said.

He pictured the all-black-wearing, flabby forger huddled underground at his dad’s one-pump filling station in ravaged Des Plaines. “I’m OK,” came the whispered reply. “I been watchin’ TV to keep from gettin’ bored, and I got all kinds of food down here. Kinda dark though. And ‘course there’s nothing on but all this Carpathia junk.”

“Have you been keeping an eye on the GC?”

“Yeah, every time I hear a car I scoot over to my monitor and watch what they do. Some of these people aren’t even our real customers. They just see the pump and stop in. Then the GC car swings over from across the road and parks right in front of ‘em.”

“A jeep?”

“No, it’s a little four door, a dark compact.”

“Good.”

“Why’s that good, Mr. Williams?”

“Because when I come for you, I’m going to be in a white Hummer, and it’ll squash a compact like a bug.”

“It’s not a VW, sir. It’s-” “That was just an expression, Zeke.” “Oh, I getcha.”

“So they don’t pull up in front and behind the car?” “No, there’s only one GC car over there. I looked.” “You did?”

“Yeah. I know I shouldn’t have, but I was real bored, so I sneaked up the stairs where I was still in the dark and could see across the way. You know this road never really got rebuilt. They threw some asphalt on it a little over a year ago, but there was no real base, so it went to potholes and now it’s just chunks of pavement. We don’t get much traffic.”

“You don’t think the GC knows you’re there, do you?” “Nope, and I’m real sure they don’t know there’s a basement. There didn’t use to be. Dad and I dug it ourselves.” “Where’s the debris?” “Out back, through the door at the back of the service

bay.”

“Hmm, never noticed it. How close are the secret

stairs to the underground?”

“Maybe ten feet. It’s kinda hidden in the corner.”

“So if I was to drive to the back of the station, I’d see a door right about in the middle of the building, a door you could get to by sneaking up the stairs and moving about ten feet along the back wall.”

“Yeah.”

“So if you knew exactly when I was coming, you could sneak out the back without the GC stakeout guys seeing you.”

“They’d probably see you, though.”

“I’ll worry about that. We don’t want them to know you were ever in the underground. You come out and crawl in the back and I’ll have a blanket you can hide under.”

“I’ll have a lot of my stuff.”

“That’s OK. If they see me and stop me, I’ll bluff my way out of it, but I’m going to try to do it in a way where they won’t even know I’m there.”

A beep told Buck he had another call. It was Rayford. “Zeke, let me call you back. It could be a while, so be packed.” He pushed the button. “Buck here.”

“Buck, you’re not going to believe who I just prayed with.”

“Hattie?”

“No, you’d never guess.”

David awoke in the palace hospital during the wee hours to someone caressing his hand.

“Don’t speak,” she whispered. It was Nurse Pale-moon. “You’re a celebrity.”

“lam?”

“Shh. It’s all over the palace that you blew chunks on Carpathia.”