A Pale Horse

by Wendy Alec

  Jason watched in wonder as cameras zoomed in on vast stockpiles of the vaccine, which were being loaded onto ships, jumbo military transport planes, and railcars.

  “As you can see on your television and computer screens,” Adrian continued, “the vaccine is, at this very moment, being released to every corner of the world. Vaccine depots already exist in every member nation.

  “Carefully selected deployed and mission-critical personnel will receive a yellow card with instructions to report to your quarantine precinct. These have been allocated to public health workers, inpatient health-care providers, outpatient and home health providers, all first responders—paramedics, firefighters, and police—manufacturers of pandemic vaccines and antivirals, pregnant women, and children under age three.

  “Stage two is the allocation of orange cards to the general public. Let me emphasize, there is enough vaccine for every human being in the ten-kingdom population zones.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Bunker, Mont St. Michel, Normandy

  Adrian paused and let his words sink in.

  “I also must emphasize that this vaccine not only protects those exposed to the disease but also reverses the disease’s effects. Let me repeat, there is enough vaccine for every citizen within the ten-kingdom axis. I have been asked by our military to inform you that martial law is now in place. All resisters will be placed under arrest.

  “On reporting to your quarantine precinct, you will receive in your right arm a chip containing the vaccine. However, it can be activated only by the activation of a digital bar code on the forehead.

  “I end this communiqué with the words of a great president and one of the great warriors in the annals of history, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. We sense at this apex of history, with all our faculties, that although colossal forces of both good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in our planet’s history, to all the peoples of the world I once more give expression to the new world order’s prayerful and continuing aspiration: My prayer is, in the great Mr. Eisenhower’s words, ‘that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth; and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.’

  “Never have we needed faith as much as in this moment.

  “I remain your leader, Adrian De Vere.”

  Adrian watched the red light of the camera switch off. He removed his suit jacket and held it out to Maxim, who took it and hung it neatly. Adrian held out his arm, and Maxim removed his cufflinks, first from the right sleeve, then from the left.

  “Pass me the ‘clean’ demarcated list,” Adrian said to Kurt Guber.

  “Thanks, Maxim.” Adrian smiled. “Went well?”

  “Master Adrian,” Maxim declared, “you have a remarkable gift. Almost hypnotic.”

  Chastenay raised his eyebrows. “Bravo!”

  “Some tea or mineral water, Master Adrian?”

  Adrian nodded. “Bring it down into the bunker library, Maxim. And bring my cigars. Damn bunker. There’s no plague within a thousand miles of Normandy, but we must play the part. You’ve moved my wardrobe?”

  Maxim bowed. “Of course, Master Adrian Your entire walk-in wardrobe is now at your disposal in the bunker. All suits, shirts, and ties pressed.”

  “Mother trained you well.”

  “Thank you, Master Adrian.”

  * * *

  Bunker Library, Mont St. Michel, Normandy

  Three senior generals appeared on a large conference screen.

  Maxim placed the tray of tea and mineral water on the cherrywood library table, then walked over to the library bar and refilled the cigar box, depositing one of Dylan Weaver’s sophisticated nano audio listening devices into the lid.

  “General, Operation Pale Horse is activated. We have reason to believe from our intelligence sources that the evacuation of Christians will occur at any moment.”

  Adrian paced the floor, hands behind his back.

  “Generals, activate the Blacklist. All dissidents, constitutionalists, patriots, Christians, gun owners who refuse to relinquish their Second Amendment rights . . . ”

  He beckoned to Maxim, who removed the plastic wrapping from Adrian’s favorite cigar brand. Adrian smiled.

  “Christians—yes, we are aware. The Mark is ineffective on them if they wear the seal, unless they recant. Unmarked jets will transport them to the internment camps.”

  Adrian took the cigar from Maxim and placed it in his mouth. Maxim picked up a silver lighter.

  Adrian winked at him. Just a minute, he mouthed.

  “Over half a million surveillance drones in the skies over the ten-kingdom axis. By Thursday, after the vaccination program kicks in, we’ll have the beginnings of three billion totally unaware genetic supersoldiers.”

  He drew in the cigar smoke and exhaled, then flicked the screen off. He turned to Guber.

  “Now we wait. Keep me informed. I want to know the second the first Christian disappears. Hopefully, our intelligence is correct and we arrest the majority before they get “‘raptured.’”

  * * *

  Monastery of Archangels, Alexandria, Egypt

  Dylan Weaver clicked the audio feed off and sat down, hunched over his digital microscope.

  “It’s exactly what Chessler said they would do,” Jason muttered. “It’s their false flag: people receive the chip; the vaccine is released.”

  Jason froze. “Nick—what about Nick and Alex? They’re in the air.”

  Lawrence raised his hand. “Military aircraft. They have clearance. They’re perfectly safe. General Kareem is in possession of our own vaccine. But I can assure you, Jason, that Saudi Arabia has been deliberately kept clean. As has Adrian’s headquarters. Also Iraq and Israel. Adrian and Chessler will be extremely discerning as to who is destroyed at their own convenience and who remains untouched.”

  Jason frowned. “He said Egypt had been hit.”

  Lawrence nodded. “We’re perfectly safe indoors. Our radioactive containment seals were activated over an hour ago. Everyone is evacuating underground.”

  Pierre stood quietly behind them. “Received from Maxim three minutes ago.” He handed a nano to Dylan Weaver, who inserted it into his computer. He tapped the screen with a stylus, and a schematic appeared.

  “Adrian’s secret bioterror operations base below Mont St. Michel,” Pierre said. Over a mile beneath the Atlantic. Military patrols ’round the clock. Dogs trained to kill. Level-three containment laboratories. Staff of over four hundred foreign forensic toxicologists and microbiologists—North Korean, Russian, Chinese.

  “Biosafety level-three containment—one mile down.”

  The slide changed to a level filled with caged primates and dogs.

  “Animals to test the germs,” Pierre explained.

  Another slide showed thousands of vials sealed in lead containers. “Anthrax, the Marburg virus, botilinum toxin, ebola . . . ” He paused. “And the black plague.

  “Where Kurt Guber, Adrian’s autocratic director of security operations, reigns supreme.”

  Lawrence’s eyes grew hard. “You mean Kester von Slagel. Guber is merely an eager pawn in his master’s bejeweled hands. Rings on every finger,” Lawrence muttered. “Crucifixes. He is obsessed with Earth’s ‘bling.’ I’m surprised he can lift a finger with all that weight.”

  Pierre grinned. “He doesn’t, Professor. Four hundred scientists under Guber lift it for him.

  “Having Maxim in the bunker has been an absolute stroke of genius,” Pierre continued. “Here are his latest findings
. Guber based his initial work on ‘Dr Death’— Wouter Basson, former head of South Africa’s secret chemical and biological warfare project. It was called ‘Project Coast.’

  “Von Slagel’s scientists worked on the genetic modification of Clostridium perfringens in an attempt to isolate the gene responsible for the production of epsilon toxin.

  “The Pentagon’s most prestigious scientific advisory panel transferred their allegiance from the U.S. to Adrian and the one-world government during the DARPA debacle. Guber received brilliant but frustrated former DARPA scientists with open arms. Soon under Guber’s iron control, the creators of supersoldiers—enhanced warriors with superhuman physiological and cognitive abilities—now worked for Guber, who in turn worked for Adrian. Maxim is convinced that Guber intends to create the ultimate weapon. Operation Pale Horse is the equivalent of their own genetic bomb.”

  ‘What’s your take on it, Weaver?asked Jason.

  Dylan sat frozen, staring through the microscope at the chip.

  Lawrence walked up behind him. Dylan slowly swung his chair around to face Lawrence.

  “What is it, Dylan?” Lawrence whispered.

  “Guber’s implant.” He stared at Lawrence. “The Mark —the section of the chip I couldn’t decode. I’ve deciphered the formulas from the blueprints Maxim transmitted.”

  He pushed his chair in. “It’s a masked genetic marker.”

  Weaver sat at the laptop, hunched over the screen, watching as the data downloaded in code.

  “The vaccination does work against Y. pestis. But as soon as a human being receives the chip, instantly a DNA rewriting program is activated.”

  “In plain English, Dylan,” said Jason.

  “A man or woman will receive the vaccine as a subcutaneous injection in their arm, which includes a minute chip. The vaccine is activated only by a second chip, injected into the forehead. The chip in their forehead triggers the Pale Horse program.” Lawrence sighed.

  Dylan looked up from the digital microscope, his plump fingers trembling.

  “The vaccine chip in the forehead is programmed to add another gene,” he whispered, “into the genotype of every human who accepts the Mark.”

  “You’re sure?” Lawrence whispered.

  Weaver nodded, ashen. “The Pale Horse program is a genetic rewriting program.”

  Jason frowned. “What’s a genetic rewriting program?”

  “Transgenic organisms, a subset of GMOs, are organisms with inserted DNA that originated in a different species. This initiates intracellular changes.”

  Weaver looked up. “Basically, the vaccine’s program will rewrite the human genomic code when activated. It alters our basic human source code.”

  Lawrence and Father Innocentus looked at each other.

  “They’re injecting every man and woman who receives the vaccine with the chip. Every human being will accept the Mark,” Father Innocentus said in his broken English. “No one wants to die.”

  Lawrence put his hand gently on Father Innocentus’s arm.

  “What type of gene is it programmed to add?” Lawrence’s voice was barely audible.

  Dylan Weaver gulped. “It’s adding a nonhuman gene, Professor. Not animal. Not fully human.”

  Pierre walked back into the room, holding a document. “Maxim’s final transmission. Research from Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem. It seems that five of their leading genetic scientists were working in tandem with Guber’s DNA specialists on the DNA rewriting program to be activated upon subjects’ receiving the vaccine. The geneticists were totally ignorant of the end user.”

  “And?” Lawrence asked.

  “They were murdered, the research laboratories destroyed.”

  Dylan Weaver held out his hand to Pierre, who handed him the documents. He studied the papers silently.

  “It’s everything we dreaded, and more, Professor,” he muttered. “Guber’s geneticists isolated the fallen Nephilim gene. They obtained the genetic material from the Nephilim. From Antarctica.” He looked up at Lawrence, profoundly shaken.

  “The gene that Pale Horse is programmed to add is the Nephilim gene.”

  He held out the documents to Lawrence, who took them and read, pacing up and down the laboratory.

  “Lucifer and the fallen angels failed the first time. Their genetic evil was destroyed by Earth’s great flood,” Lawrence murmured. “Now they try again.”

  He handed the documents back to Dylan.

  “A gene that first mutated mankind’s DNA thousands of years ago,” Lawrence said softly. “The extra gene in the Mark is a hybrid of fallen angels’ and human beings’ DNA. A horrifying mutation.”

  He turned to Jason, who watched soberly.

  “Adrian’s intention, Jason, is to use the pandemic to vaccinate every man, woman, boy, and girl on Earth with their so-called vaccine. They are the terrorists. Guber and his scientists created the pandemic deliberately—their intention, to activate the Mark system globally. Their intent is not only malevolent, it is immoral. They are super- criminals.”

  “Everyone’s going to take the Mark.” Pierre looked up at Weaver, Jason, and Lawrence.

  Jason stared at Lawrence, stunned. “You’re talking supersoldiers.”

  “Worse, far worse, Jason. Every human being who receives the vaccine will have their human genomic source code mutated forever, altered by the insertion of DNA belonging to the fallen angelic host.” Lawrence took a deep breath. “I’m talking billions of demonized human beings.

  “‘And he [the Beast] shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and slaves, to receive a mark on their right hands, or on their foreheads, and that none might buy or sell, unless he carried this mark, which was the beast’s name, or the number that stands for his name,’” Lawrence muttered. “‘Here is wisdom; he that has understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred and sixty-six.’”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Eons ago,” Lawrence said softly, “their attempt to mutate the human race failed. This time it will be the total annihilation of the human race as we know it. It is truly the Mark of the monsters.

  The Mark of the Fallen.”

  He turned to Jason, deeply shaken.

  “It is the Mark of the Beast.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Damman, Saudi Arabia

  Alex stared up at the mile-long, high-walled compound of monolithic buildings. The Jordanian soldiers moved rapidly up the marble walkway toward a massive forty-foot gilt door, outside the foyer of the palace. The door was riddled with bullet holes, open and swinging at a strange angle.

  A soldier waved the others back as six of the Jordanian security forces entered, submachine guns raised. Alex and Nick followed at a distance. General Kareem waved them inside the palace.

  The palace’s marble floors were stained with blood. At least eight of Mansoor’s private army lay dead on the floor, brutally executed. The Jordanians dragged the unconscious bodies out of sight as General Kareem, Safwat’s brother, submachine gun at the ready, moved forward through the empty corridors, followed by Nick, with Alex close behind.

  “It’s deserted,” said Nick.

  “Someone beat us to it,” General Kareem replied. “There has been a massacre.”

  Nick gazed at him in horror. “Jotapa!”

  The party continued to move in silence under forty-foot ceilings, past shattered gilt marble pillars, down seemingly unending bloody corridors, until they reached a smaller grouping of palaces. They stopped outside a soaring silver door. General Kareem nodded and gestured to four swarthy men wearing ghutrah headdresses and black uniforms, lying dead on the marble floor. Part of Mansoor’s brutal private army.

  Kareem nodded, and his soldiers broke through the doors, submachine guns raised.

  A bearded youth of about twenty, with long, matted black hair, stood, machine pistol raised, violent hatred in his eyes.

  “Don�
��t shoot!” General Kareem shouted at his forces. “Don’t shoot!”

  He stood opposite the fierce youth. The youth’s finger rested on the trigger, his hands shaking violently.

  General Kareem gazed at the young man in horror. His face was bloodied and bruised, his shoulder bandaged with an old piece of cloth. Kareem laid his gun carefully on the floor, took a step forward, and held out his hand to the youth.

  “I’ll shoot!” shouted the youth, tears streaming down his face. “If you touch me or her, I’ll blow your head off!”

  “You don’t have to, Your Majesty.” General Kareem dropped to one knee, his voice even. “Your brother King Faisal is dead. I am General Ahmed Kareem of the Jordanian forces—Safwat’s brother.”

  “Safwat?” Trembling uncontrollably, Jibril stared at General Kareem, dazed.

  “Jordan awaits its new king.” The battle-worn general smiled up at Jibril compassionately, tears in his eyes. “We have come to take you and the princess home.”

  Jibril turned toward a canopied bed in the far corner of the room. Nick stood in the doorway, following Jibril’s line of sight. A slight figure lay under bedclothes, stirring from a deep drugged sleep.

  Jibril dropped the machine pistol and, running to the bedside, grasped the figure’s arms and pulled her toward him until she sat groggily upright in the four-poster bed, staring at him in bewilderment.

  Nick ran over and clasped the frail figure in his arms. She stared up at him, speechless with joy, tears streaming down her bruised and bloodied cheeks.

  It was Jotapa.

  * * *

  Alex’s Apartment, Meatpacking District, New York

  Four a.m.

  Polly sat bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding. This was it—she sensed it with all her being.

  Pulling on her tracksuit pants, she padded over to the window in bare feet and stared down ten floors, through the blinds, at the enormous black military vans drawing up outside the apartment building. She ran back to the bedside table in semidarkness and switched on the light. Nothing.

  She fumbled for her cell phone, then hit Alex’s number. The circuit was dead. She picked up the landline. There was a crackling sound, then a loud click, and the line went dead. She slammed down the receiver, then ran over to the window, staring up at the black helicopters circling overhead. “They,” whoever they were, were jamming the frequencies. A black-operations mission.