The Mark: The Beast Rules the World Page 25

  “I believe I did see him and his father in here this morning with Mr. Moon.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “I have no idea. Would you like their room number? They’re staying here at—”

  “No, thanks. I really need to talk to Moon.”

  “I told you, sir, he is in a meeting with Personnel execs.”

  “It’s an emergency.”

  “So you say.”

  “Ma’am, I am a director. Would you please interrupt the meeting and tell Mr. Moon I need to speak with him immediately.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I have been in trouble for just that kind of thing before. If it’s that important, you may feel free to interrupt the meeting yourself.”

  David slammed the phone down and jogged to Personnel. He found the conference room empty, then found the receptionist. She held him off with a raised hand as she handled another call.

  “Ask them to hold a second,” he said. “This is important.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  “Thank you! Now, I—”

  “I didn’t put this call on hold to help you. I put them on hold to ask you to wait your turn.”

  “But I—”

  She held up a hand again and returned to her call. Another phone rang while she was finishing, and she went directly to it. David leaned across her desk and depressed the cradle button.

  “Director Hassid! I’ll report you for this!”

  “You’d better get me fired before I get you fired,” he said. “Now where is this meeting?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s not here; where is it?”

  “Off-site, obviously.”

  “Where?”

  “I honestly don’t know, but my guess would be the basement of Building D.”

  “That’s a quarter mile from here! Why didn’t you tell me it was there when you told me to interrupt it myself?”

  “I didn’t know you’d actually do it.”

  Her phone rang again.

  “Don’t answer that.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Answer it and it’ll be your job. Why would the meeting be in D?”

  “I don’t know that it is. I said it was a guess.”

  “Why might it be there?”

  “Because that’s where they’re setting up the loyalty mark application center.” And she answered her phone.

  David slammed both palms on her desk, making her jump and then apologize to the caller. As he pushed through the door, she called after him in a singsong tone. “Oh, Director Hassid! You might want to take this call. It’s your assistant.”

  He rushed back, only to get a condescending look. “Like I’m going to let you use my phone.” She pointed to a phone on a table in the waiting area.

  “This is David.”

  “Hey. Just got a call from Walter Moon.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I’m sorry. He didn’t say and I didn’t think to ask. Want me to find him?”

  “What did he want?”

  “He said he would be delivering your 0900 appointment personally, that he and the candidate’s father were most excited about your interest, you know the drill.”

  “What was he doing with Moon this morning?”

  “No idea, sir, but I’ll find out if you want.”

  “Find Moon and call me back on my cell.”

  David hurried to Building D and found the basement cordoned off. He had to use every line in the book to talk his way past Security. When he was finally able to peek through the double doors that led into a huge meeting room, he got his first glimpse of the setup for applying the mark. Crowd-control barricades were arranged to funnel people to processing points and finally to the cubicles where the last of the injection guns were being plugged in and tested.

  “What’s all this for?” David asked a woman arranging chairs.

  “Oh, come on, you know.”

  “But why so big? I thought they were just doing new employees first.”

  She shrugged. “The rest of us will be next. Might as well have everything in place and tested, huh? I can’t wait. This is the dream of a lifetime.”

  “Have you seen Security Chief Moon this morning?”

  “Actually he was here a while ago.”

  “With anyone?”

  “Couldn’t tell you who. Some guys from Personnel, I know.”

  “Anyone else?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t pay attention, though.”

  “Any idea where he is now?”

  She shook her head. “I suppose you’ve heard the rumors, though.”

  “Tell me.”

  She smiled. “You poor managers miss the gossip, don’t you?”

  “We often do.”

  “I figure you start most of it, or at least your decisions do.”

  “Granted. What’s the word this morning?”

  “That Moon’s in line for Supreme Commander.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I like him. I think he’d be good at it.”

  David’s cell phone vibrated and he excused himself. “Moon’s people now say he’s in with Carpathia,” Tiffany said.

  “Alone?”

  “David, I’m sorry. I didn’t ask. I’ll find out whatever you want, but I have to know in advance what I’m looking for.”

  “My fault. Did they happen to say whether Walter is still bringing Chang at 0900?”

  “Yea! I know one! Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Honest.”

  “Is Chang with him and Carpathia now?”

  “Sorry. No idea.”

  “I’m on my way back.”

  David used his cell phone as he walked and tried the Chang apartment again. This time Mr. Wong answered. Encouraged, David asked for Chang. “He not available right now. He see you at nine, yes?”

  “That’s right. Is he OK?”

  “Better than OK! Very excited! Missah Moon come get us to bring to see you.”

  “You’re coming too?”

  “If OK. May I?”

  David sighed. “Why not?”

  “No?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Back in his office, with fifteen minutes to spare, he patched in to Carpathia’s office. The first thing he heard was Nicolae’s voice. “Hickman was a buffoon! I’m better off without him. I don’t know what Leon was thinking.”

  “Probably that he was going to have your job and Jim would be easy to manage.”

  Carpathia laughed. “You’re a good judge of character, Walter. It came down to you and Suhail. He has an impressive résumé, but he’s so new to his current position.”

  “And can you trust a Pakistani? I don’t understand those types.”

  “Who can you trust these days, Walter? Now listen, I don’t know how you stand on pomp and circumstance, but I don’t want to make a big deal of this. You’ll have an appropriate office you won’t have to share with anyone, but I just want to announce your appointment and not get into a lot of ceremony.”

  “Perfect,” Walter said. “I don’t want to take any attention from you, sir.”

  David thought Walter sounded disingenuous and almost palpably disappointed. He was right, though, in pandering to Carpathia’s ego. No one was going to steal that thunder anyway.

  “Walter,” Carpathia said, “how are we coming with the GCMM?”

  Moon sounded surprised. “Sir, the Morale Monitors have been in place for a long time. I get input from them every day, and I know Suhail counts on their intelligence briefings.”

  It was clear Carpathia was impatient. “Mr. Moon, surely you caught my drift recently when I spoke of mobilizing a great enforcement throng from every tribe and nation who would—”

  “Of course, Potentate. I am working with Chief Akbar now to—”

  “I don’t believe it! You missed it! Walter, I am determined to surround myself with people who understand me intuitively!” />
  “I’m sorry, Excellency. I—”

  “For all of Leon’s foibles and idiosyncrasies, he is a man who stays with me, anticipating my needs and desires and strategies. Do you kn—”

  “That’s the kind of subordinate I want to b—”

  “Don’t interrupt me, please!”

  “I apologize.”

  “Do you know where Leon is now?”

  “I heard he had flown to the United European Sta—”

  “He is in Vatican City, Walter! He has called together the ten regional potentates and has asked each to bring his most trusted and loyal spiritual leader to join them in that former great bastion of Christianity.”

  “I don’t underst—”

  “Of course you don’t! Think, man! At this very moment I imagine Reverend Fortunato is kneeling in the Sistine Chapel, the sub-potentates and the spiritual leader from each region who will represent Carpathianism throughout the globe laying hands on him and committing him to the great task before him.”

  “I should like to have been there, Excellency.”

  “You’re my chief of security and you didn’t even know this! I’m going to make you Supreme Commander, but you have to get in step!”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Leon called me at dawn, telling me with great relish that he had ordered destroyed every Vatican relic, every icon, every piece of artwork that paid homage to the impotent God of the Bible. There were those among the potentates and even among the Carpathianists who suggested that these so-called priceless treasures at least be moved here to the palace to preserve their worth and to remind us of history. History! I don’t know when I’ve been prouder of Leon. Before he returns, the Vatican will be left no vestiges of any sort of tribute to any god but the one my people can see and touch and hear.”

  “Amen, Your Holiness. You are risen indeed.”

  “Of course, and the whole world was watching! Now when I spoke the other day of a host of enforcers, I wanted you to gather that I meant the very core of my most loyal troops, the GCMM. They are already armed. I want them supported! I want them fully equipped! I want you to marry them with our munitions so their monitoring will have teeth. They should be respected and revered to the point of fear.”

  “You want the citizenry afraid, sir?”

  “Walter! No man need fear me who loves and worships me. You know that.”

  “I do, sir.”

  “If any man, woman, young person, or child has reason to feel guilty when encountering a member of the Global Community Morale Monitoring Force, then yes, I want them shaking in their boots!”

  “I understand, Excellency.”

  “Do you, Walter? I really need to know.”

  “I absolutely do, sir.”

  “I don’t care whom you replace yourself with as chief of security. All I want you to know is that I hold you personally responsible for carrying out this wish.”

  “Of giving more muscle to the GCMM.”

  “The understatement of the century.”

  “Any budget for this?”

  “Walter, you report directly to me. I control the globe politically, militarily, spiritually, and economically. I have a bottomless sea of resources. Spare not one Nick in your effort to make the GCMM the most powerful enforcement juggernaut the world has ever seen.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Have fun with it! Enjoy it! But don’t dawdle. I want a full contingent, at least one hundred thousand fully equipped troops, in Israel when I return there in triumph.”

  “Sir, that is but days away.”

  “Do we not have the personnel?”

  “We do.”

  “Do we not have the armaments?”

  “We do. Are you lifting the embargo against showing military-style strength in the form of tanks, fighters, bombers, and other such?”

  “You’re catching on, Walter. I want to crush resistance in Israel before it even arises. From whom should I expect opposition?”

  “The Judah-ites and—”

  “You’ve already told me they are unlikely to show their faces. They take their potshots from behind the trees of the Internet. From whom shall I expect flesh-and-blood opposition within, say, Jerusalem itself? You know my plans.”

  “Not totally, sir.”

  “You know enough to know who will be outraged.”

  “The Orthodox, sir. The devout, religious Jews.”

  David heard chairs squeak, and it was obvious Carpathia had stood and Moon followed suit. “Now, Walter. I ask you. How dangerous to me will be the funny-looking men with their beards and their braids and their skullcaps once they have seen one hundred thousand heavily armed troops, there to protect me and those who worship me?”

  “Not very, Excellency.”

  “Not very indeed, Walter. Good day to you.”

  David guessed Walter still had time to make their appointment. His goal was to schmooze Walter, flatter Mr. Wong, and somehow get rid of them so he could plot with Chang how to get out of there with the other four believers. He sat, earphones in place, ready to shut down his computer. But then he heard Carpathia humming, then singing, as if he were writing a song, trying a line, improving it, starting over. David listened, transfixed.

  Finally perfecting it, to a military-sounding tune Carpathia softly sang:

  Hail Carpathia, our lord and risen king;

  Hail Carpathia, rules o’er everything.

  We’ll worship him until we die;

  He’s our beloved Nicolae.

  Hail Carpathia, our lord and risen king.

  Just before midnight in Chicago only Rayford and Tsion were awake. All were excited about the expected return of Buck and Albie and their next new member, Ming Toy. Chloe and Leah asked to be awakened as soon as the chopper arrived.

  Tsion had been working all day on a new, though brief, message. “I’m about to transmit it,” he told Rayford. “But I’d appreciate your looking at it. It’s an interesting study, but it’s not for the beginners. We have hundreds of thousands of new believers joining our ranks every day, but I have to think also about moving the more mature ones from milk to meat. Perhaps the day will come when someone like Chaim can take over the teaching of the newest.”

  Rayford eagerly accepted Tsion’s hard copy, always feeling privileged when he was among the first to get a glance at something a billion people would benefit from.

  Dear ones in Christ:

  From your letters to the message board, I sense some questions about certain passages and doctrines, one of which I address today. I am most encouraged that you are reading, studying, curious, and that you so plainly want to learn and grow as believers in Messiah. If you have placed your trust in Christ alone for salvation by grace through faith, you are a true tribulation saint.

  While we all rejoice in our new positions before God—we went from old to new, from death to life, from darkness to light—no doubt all are sobered by the reality that we are living on borrowed time, now more than ever.

  I have gathered from many that one of your loftiest goals is to survive until the Glorious Appearing. I share that longing but wish to gently remind you that that is not our all in all. The apostle Paul said that to live is Christ but that to die is gain. While it would be thrilling beyond words to see the triumphant Lord Christ return to the earth and set up his thousand-year reign, I believe I could learn to deal with it if I were called to heaven in advance and saw it from that perspective instead.

  Beloved, our top priority now is not even thwarting the evils of Antichrist, though I engage in that effort every day. I want to confound him, revile him, enrage him, frustrate him, and get in the way of his plans every way I know how. His primary goal is ascendancy for himself, worship of himself, and the death and destruction of any who might otherwise become tribulation saints.

  So, as worthy and noble a goal as it is to go on the offensive against the evil one, I believe we can do that most effectively by focusing on persuading the undecided to come to fait
h. Knowing that every day could be our last, that we could be found out and dragged to a mark application center, there to make our decision to die for the sake of Christ, we must be more urgent about our task than ever.

  Many have written in fear, confessing that they do not believe they have the courage or the character to choose death over life when threatened with the guillotine. As a fellow pilgrim in this journey of faith, let me admit that I do not understand this either. In my flesh I am weak. I want to live. I am afraid of death but even more of dying. The very thought of having my head severed from my body repulses me as much as it does anyone. In my worst nightmare I see myself standing before the GC operatives a weakling, a quivering mass who can do nothing but plead for his life. I envision myself breaking God’s heart by denying my Lord. Oh, what an awful picture!

  In my most hated imagination I fail at the hour of testing and accept the mark of loyalty that we all know is the cursed mark of the beast, all because I so cherish my own life.

  Is that your fear today, friend? Are you all right as long as you are in hiding and somehow able to survive? But have you a foreboding about that day when you will be forced to publicly declare your faith or deny your Savior?

  I have good news for you that I have already admitted is difficult to understand, even for me, who has been called to shepherd you and exposit the Word of God for you. The Bible tells us that once one is either sealed by God as a believer or accepts the mark of loyalty to Antichrist, this is a once-and-for-all choice. In other words, if you have decided for Christ and the seal of God is evident on your forehead, you cannot change your mind!

  That tells me that somehow, when we face the ultimate test, God miraculously overcomes our evil, selfish flesh and gives us the grace and courage to make the right decision in spite of ourselves. My interpretation of this is that we will be unable to deny Jesus, unable to even choose the mark that would temporarily save our lives.

  Isn’t that a blessed thought? I could no more do this in my flesh than I could swim the Pacific. I have heard stories of believers from the past who were asked at gunpoint to denounce their faith, and yet they stood firm, dying for it. I never envisioned myself with that kind of fortitude.

  Even since writing to you last, I have heard the story of one who was among the first to face this test. We have no eyewitness account, no one to tell us how the scene unfolded. Yet we know that of all the people herded through the mark application process at this specific venue (which I naturally have to keep confidential), only one man rejected the mark. Knowing the consequences, he chose to die rather than to deny Jesus Christ.