The Mark: The Beast Rules the World Read online

  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 dumbfounded, 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’ve, 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 Palemoon. “You’re a celebrity.”

  “I am?”

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

  David was on an IV again. He felt better. “Did you change my dressing?”

  “Yes, now be quiet.”

  “I thought you were off duty.”

  “So did I, but I was yanked in here because I was the one who had stitched you up, and you know no doctor was going to be dragged out of bed.”

  “Hannah, I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “No, you should have been with us a few days anyway, and now you’ve got the chance.”

  “I can’t and neither can you.” He quickly whispered what he had learned at the meeting. “We’ve got to be out of here before thirty days from today or be prepared for the consequences.”

  “I’m prepared, David. Aren’t you?”

  “You know what I mean. I’ve got to find my fiancée and my pilots, and if you know of any other believers—”

  “Fiancée? You’re attached?”

  “The Phoenix cargo chief, Annie Christopher.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, David. If she were here, she’d be in the system by now.”

  “Would you check again for me? And see if you can get Mac McCullum and Abdullah Smith to visit me.”

  “That’s quite an alias, Albie,” Plank said. “You want me to report that a Deputy Commander Elbaz came in here with the proper credentials and that I followed the letter of the law?”

  “I’m so visible on the GC database, no one will even question it,” Albie said. “They’ll probably wonder why they haven’t met me yet.”

  “And soon enough,” Rayford said, “I’ll be enlisted and we’ll make sure Albie reports to me. I just worry about compromising our inside guy, the one who sets this stuff up for us.”

  “How will they trace it to him or even to the palace?” Albie said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s precluded that, but we’ll have to let him know what’s happening.”

  Plank led them out the door and down the hall, past the receptionist and into the cell area. “I heard a noise back there a minute ago,” Mrs. Garner called out from the desk.

  “Trouble?”

  “Somethin’ banging, that’s all.”

  Plank led the men to Hattie’s door and knocked but heard no response. “Ma’am,” he called out, “GC personnel are here to transport you back to Buffer.” He winked at Rayford and Albie. “May I come in, ma’am?”

  Plank fished for his key ring, unlocked the door, and pushed it open about an inch until it met resistance. Albie and Rayford stepped forward to help, but Plank said, “I got this.”

  He backed up his chair, then threw it forward, bashing into the door and pushing past the bed that had been wedged against it. “Oh, no!” he said, and Rayford stepped over him, driving his shoulder into the door to force his way in.

  The room was dark, but when he flipped the light switch, sparks startled him from the ceiling where the fixture had been. Light from the hall showed the fixture now on the floor, knotted at the end of a sheet. The other end was tight around Hattie’s neck, and she lay there twitching.

  “Tried to hang herself from a flimsy light,” Plank said, as Albie leaped past him and slid up to Hattie on his knees. He and Rayford dug and tore at the sheet until it came loose. Rayford gently turned her on her back, and she flopped like a dead woman. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he saw that hers were open, pupils dilated.

  “She was moving!” Albie whispered, grabbing her belt and lifting her hips off the floor. Rayford plugged her nose, forced her mouth open, and clamped his mouth over hers. Her tiny frame rose and fell as he breathed into her.

  “Shut the door,” Albie told Plank.

  “You don’t need the light?”

  “Shut it!” he whispered desperately. “We’re going to save this girl, but nobody but us is going to know it.”

  Plank steered his chair to push the bed out of the way, then shut the door.

  “She’s got a pulse,” Albie said. “You OK, Ray? Want me to take over?”

  Rayford shook his head and continued until Hattie began to cough. Finally she gulped in huge breaths and blew them out. Rayford sat heavily on the floor, his back against the wall. Hattie cried and swore. “I can’t even kill myself,” she hissed. “Why didn’t you let me die? I can’t go back to Buffer!”

  She collapsed in tears and lay rocking on the floor on her knees and elbows.

  “She doesn’t recognize anybody,” Albie said.

  Hattie looked up, squinting. Rayford leaned over and turned on a small lamp. “No, I don’t,” she said, peering at Albie and glancing at Rayford. “I know Commander Pinkerton here, but who are you losers?”

  Albie pointed to Rayford. “He saved your life. I’m just his loser friend.”

  Hattie sat in the middle of the floor, her knees pulled up, hands clasped around them. And she swore again.

  “You’re not going to Buffer, Hattie,” Rayford said finally, and it was clear she recognized his voice.

  “What?” she said, wonder in her voice.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” Rayford said. “There are no secrets in this room.”

  “You came?” she squealed, scrambling to him and trying to embrace him.

  He held her away. She looked at Plank. “But . . .”

  “We’re all in this together,” Rayford said wearily.

  “I almost killed myself,” Hattie said.

  “Actually,” Albie said, “you did.”

  “What?”

  “You’re dead.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You want out of here? You want the GC off your back? You go out of here dead.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You called your old friend to rescue you. He refused. You were despondent. When you gave up hope and were convinced you were going to Buffer, you lost all hope, wrote a note, and hung yourself. We came to get you, discovered you too late, and what could we do? Report the suicide and dispose of the body.”

  “I did write a note,” she said. “See?” She pointed to a slip of paper that had fallen off the bed.

  Rayford picked it up and read it under the lamp. “Thanks for nothing, old FRIENDS!!!” she had written. “I vowed never to go back to Buffer, and I meant it. You can’t win them all.”

  “Sign it,” Rayford said.

  Hattie massaged her neck and tried to clear her throat. She found her pen and signed the note.

  “How long can you hold your breath?” Albie asked.

  “Not long enough to kill myself, apparently.”

  “We’re going to wheel you out of here under a sheet, and you’re going to have to look dead when we load you on the plane too. Can you pull that off?”

  “I’ll do whatever I have to.” She looked at Plank. “You’re in on this too?”

  “The less you know, the better,” he said. He glanced at Albie, then Rayford. “She never needs to know, far as I’m concerned.” They nodded.

  Plank told them to leave the sheet the way it was, with the light fixture still embedded in one end. “Use the other sheet from the bed to cover her, and do it now.”

  Rayford ripped the sheet from the bed, and Hattie lay on the bare mattress. He floated the sheet atop her and let it settle
. Plank opened the door. “Mrs. Garner!” he called, “we’ve had a tragedy here!”

  “Oh my—”

  “No, don’t come! Just stay where you are. The prisoner hanged herself, and the GC will dispose of the remains.”

  “Oh, Commander! I—is that what I heard?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Could I have done something? Should I have?”

  “There’s nothing you could have done, ma’am. Let’s let these men do their work. Bring the gurney from Utility.”

  “I don’t have to look, do I, sir?”

  “I’ll handle it. Just get it for me. I’ll dictate a report later.”

  Despite her ashen countenance and protestations, Rayford noticed that Mrs. Garner watched the “body” until it was loaded into the minivan. He was amazed at Hattie’s ability to look motionless under that sheet.

  Plank agreed to call ahead to the former Carpathia Memorial Airstrip to clear the way for Deputy Commander Elbaz and his driver to pull Judy Hamilton’s vehicle right up to their fighter jet in order to load a body for transport. No, they would not need any assistance and would appreciate as little fuss as possible over it.

  Hattie slipped back under the sheet a few miles from the airstrip, and though curious eyes peered through the windows, Rayford and Albie carried her aboard without arousing undue suspicion.

  CHAPTER 7

  Buck pulled the Hummer out of the garage under the Strong Building after dark, lights off. He had spent the afternoon rigging up a special connection to the brake lights and backup lights. Once in regular traffic outside Chicago, he didn’t want to risk getting stopped for malfunctioning rear lights, but neither did he want those lights coming on when he braked at Zeke’s place.

  Zeke himself was an expert at this and walked Buck through it by phone. It would be great when Zeke was tucked away at the new safe house, available to help with just those kinds of details. The brake lights were now disengaged, so with his lights on or off, Buck would have to manually illuminate them when applying the brake. A thin wire led from the back, through the backseat and up to the driver’s side. If he could just remember to use it.

  No one knew how frequently, if ever, the GC invested the time, equipment, and manpower to overfly the quarantined city their own databases told them was heavily radioactive. It didn’t make sense that anyone would be near the place. If the readings were true—which David Hassid and the Tribulation Force knew was not the case—no one could live there long.