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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, I give thanks to Mary, the blessed Virgin, our Mother, on whose inspiration, guidance, and under whose watchful eyes the completion of this project was made possible.
To my wife, Angela, who has endured countless hours of lost husband time without complaining; her encouraging words still echo in my ears.
To my children Ife, Emeka, Anthony, and Adora; the latter two would take turns sitting on my lap many a time while some of the typing was in progress.
To my brothers and sisters Godwin, Obi, Marci, Felicia, Mike, Theresa, Cecelia, and Ben; they lent their support and encouragement.
To my brilliant editor, Bob Gleason, for his superb editing.
Thanks to Pam Nelson, my vicarious agent, who agreed to read my book and believed in it from the start. Without her, none of this would have been possible. Keep up the good work, Pam.
Thanks to Sherra Stubbs for typing the original draft of the manuscript and the subsequent corrections that followed.
Thanks to my partner Dr. Mary Okam-Ubanwa and my staff at Broadway Medical Corporation, especially Carla Toney, Rose Graddick, Mary Hernandez, Gloria, Kim, Ebony, Dorothy, and Deloris, who have been with me all these years and have tolerated my constant nagging for perfection.
Also thanks to State Senator Ed Charbonneau, for his insightful foreword.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Part I
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Part II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Part III
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part IV
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part V
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Part VI
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part VII
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part VIII
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part IX
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part X
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part XI
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part XII
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part XIII
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
FOREWORD
I have known Dr. Anekwe both as a professional physician and as a distinguished member of our medical staff. Once in a while a book comes along that makes me stop and think. In Mark of the Beast, Dr. Anekwe took medical science to a whole new level, to an area beyond our ordinary imagination.
Imagine for a second the discovery of the real location in the body where the number 666 can be found among those chosen.
The prospects and questions raised by Mark of the Beast are exciting and provocative, to say the least. This discovery in the body of the actual location of 666 is not your everyday discussion.
I have read a lot of books in my life, but Mark of the Beast actually challenged me on a personal and professional level. I thought to myself, What would I do if Mark of the Beast was actually a true story? I really do not have any good answers.
Mark of the Beast brings issues to the limelight in such a succinct way that it provokes as well as entertains.
It shows evil in its raw form, the type of evil we face here on earth on a day-to-day basis.
The other interesting aspect of this brilliantly written book is the dynamics at play throughout the chapters of the book: human emotions, Christianity, conscientious objectors, morality, and, most interestingly, the interplay between government and religion.
This book will keep you on a constant emotional high, and I highly recommend it.
—Ed Charbonneau, Indiana state senator
PART
I
Prologue
SIGNUM MAGNUM
A great sign appeared in the sky—a woman, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant with child, and she wailed in pain as she labored to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in the sky—a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. On its heads were seven crowns. The dragon’s tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to earth.
The dragon—also known as the ancient serpent—stood before the woman, who was about to give birth, ready to devour the child. This child, a son, her first male child, was destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.
The child, however, was rescued from the dragon, and taken up to the Almighty and His throne, the woman fleeing into the desert, where she would subsist for years to come.
A war broke out in the Kingdom. Michael, the valiant rescuer, and his soldiers battled the dragon. The serpent and his disciples fought back, but they were driven out of the Kingdom.
The dragon, also called the devil, which would deceive the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and all its disciples were thrown down with it. There was a big rejoicing in the Kingdom, and a voice could be heard proclaiming that the false accuser was gone, but woe to earth and the sea for the dragon had come down to them with great fury, and had but a limited time.
The dragon pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman, however, was in the desert, far from the dragon. But the dragon, still in pursuit, spewed a torrent of water out of its mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with the current. The earth, in an effort to help the woman, opened its mouth and swallowed the flood made by the dragon.
The dragon, who was furious, waged war against her and her offspring.
The dragon commanded a beast to come out of the sea. The beast
had ten horns and seven heads. On its horns were ten crowns, and it looked like a leopard with a bear’s feet and a lion’s mouth.
The dragon gave the beast its power, along with great authority. A mortal wound on the beast’s head was easily healed in the presence of earth’s inhabitants. Fascinated by it, the inhabitants followed after the beast. They worshiped the dragon because it gave its authority to the beast.
The beast then blasphemed the Almighty—His name and His Kingdom and all those who dwelled in the Kingdom.
The beast was also allowed to wage war against the other inhabitants who were not followers, in order to conquer them. The beast was given authority over the conquered tribes, people, tongues, and nations. The conquered people, especially those who were destined to be conquered, worshiped the beast.
A second beast was commanded out of the earth. It had only two horns, like a lamb, but spoke like a dragon. It wielded all the authority of the first beast and made all the conquered inhabitants worship the first beast that came out of the sea.
It was then permitted to breathe life into the first beast’s image so that the beast’s image could speak and have everyone else who did not worship the beast and the dragon put to death. It forced all people, the famous and the unknown, the rich and the poor, the free and the imprisoned, to be given a stamped image of the beast in their body, so that no one could buy or sell except those who had the stamped image of the beast’s name, or the number that stood for the beast.
Wisdom is necessary. One who understands can calculate the number of the beast, for it is a number that stands for a person. That number is 666.
—Adapted from Revelation
1
DR. REGINA DICKERSON WAS SITTING on the aisle side at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church on Mount Pleasant Street in La Jolla, California, listening to Father Yarderos delivering the sermon on a cloudy Sunday morning.
“In the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians from today’s second reading, St. Paul teaches us one thing”—Father Yarderos’s piercing voice interrupted Dickerson’s deep thoughts—“that there are people who rejoice at others’ misfortunes. We see this every day in our daily life, especially in this competitive world. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with competition—after all, competition is the fabric of American society, but the Lord will not take kindly to those who feel glee when their neighbor is suffering. Whatever happened to Christ’s teaching of loving thy neighbor as thyself?”
Immediately Dickerson thought about Dr. Peter Millons. That jerk.
She remembered the conversation they had had on Friday, when Millons appeared to be rejoicing at her misfortune.
* * *
“How is Manuel?” Dr. Millons asked in the crowded doctors’ lounge at the university hospital.
“Peter, I’ve told you for the tenth time, we are no longer together,” Dickerson responded, while still flipping through the morning newspaper.
“I didn’t know you’re divorced.”
“We’re not divorced yet, but we’re planning on it.”
“I like that guy; I thought it was a marriage made in heaven.” Millons smiled sarcastically.
“Well, then, you should have married him.”
“Come on, Dickerson, I am strictly pusa-bagged,” Millons answered, using the new California subtle slang for a nonhomosexual male.
“Whatever that means … and for your wife and children’s sake I hope you remain that way.”
“I thought you were a Catholic?” Millons persisted.
“So … and…?”
“They don’t believe in divorce, do they?”
To mask her obvious anger, Dickerson very noisily sipped the hot coffee she was holding, and then replied, “You know what, Peter, if they sell brains at Sears, yours must have been purchased from the Idiot Department.”
She got up to leave, heading back to finish rounds with the residents.
“Well, I’m still married.” Millons was hoping to sneak in the last word.
“You call that marriage?” Dickerson replied, in obvious reference to the rumor circulating around the hospital that Mrs. Millons enjoyed one-night stands with young residents.
Dickerson couldn’t help but ask how Millons could be so naïve—or did he just surreptitiously choose to ignore it?
* * *
Driving home from church, Dickerson thought about her life.
Here she was, a forty-something, still-attractive medical doctor, and one of the top research scientists at the University of California, La Jolla Medical School; she had no children, no obligations, yet her life appeared to be in shambles. However, she got along very well with her patients. She had long figured out that her patients were the key to her success.
Treating patients the way you would like to be treated, regardless of each patient’s status in life, she thought, was the key. She could communicate with patients in ways no other doctor could.
Those difficult, know-it-all, Internet-educated, question-every-test patients were her most treasured. She delighted in explaining to them in her most simple verbiage the hard-to-comprehend medical terminologies and tests, and those patients loved her for that. They knew they could talk to her and be able to get an understandable answer.
Her marriage to Manuel was wonderful for a while, but then a major crisis had erupted.
Manuel was the senior sales representative for Atira Pharmaceutical, in the San Diego region. Mike Smith, the drug representative who normally called on Dickerson, had brought his senior manager along on one of his details.
Dickerson always liked to challenge the drug reps on the merits of whatever article they quoted in support of the use of a particular drug. Dickerson, a published researcher herself, loved these exchanges. That day, however, Manuel volunteered to answer all Dickerson’s questions.
The exchange was a little testy at first, but finally, Manuel asked, “Can I invite you to an evening at a medical conference in the Hilton La Jolla hotel, sponsored by University of California, Los Angeles Medical School? The conference may shed light on some of your concerns.”
Dickerson accepted.
At the conference, Manuel was surprised to see Dr. Dickerson drink as much as she did without getting drunk. Eventually the conversation turned personal.
“Are you from San Diego?” Manuel asked.
“No, I’m from Vermont,” Dickerson said, “a little town called Bellows Falls.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Manuel said, excited.
“How?” Dickerson asked, looking at Manuel askance.
“When we were at the company headquarters in New Jersey for training, one of the guys came from that town, and they used to tease him by calling the town…”
Dickerson did not let Manuel finish, for she had heard that joke several times. “Fellows Balls,” Dickerson matter-of-factly finished. “Yeah, we know.”
“I’m sorry, go ahead,” Manuel urged.
“After my medical school training at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, and residency at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Boston, I did a fellowship in Immunology and Genetics at San Francisco General Hospital. From there, I was hired in San Diego.”
“You like it here?” Manuel asked.
“Yeah, I love it.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“Oh, nothing. I had my marriage annulled after sixteen months because my ex-husband, who wasn’t Catholic, refused to convert, and like a typical man, no offense intended, also refused to zip up his pants.” Dickerson paused. “Since then, I’ve buried myself in my work, and I’m near a breakthrough in a new HLA-antigen and its linkage.”
“That sounds interesting,” said Manuel.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Do you like Mexican food?”
“Living in San Diego, I’ve learned to love it.”
“What’s your favorite Mexican restaurant?” Manuel asked, leaning on the table.
“Let me think.” Dickerson closed her eyes for a second. “Cantina Mar
ina Don Bravo restaurant.”
“That big restaurant located on University Drive?” Manuel’s face lit up.
“So you know it?”
“Yeah I do,” Manuel answered, “but let me tell you, the best Mexican restaurants around here are in Tijuana.”
“You know, that’s one place I’ve never visited.”
“You haven’t been to Tijuana and you live in San Diego?” Manuel sounded surprised. “You should go.”
“I will, one of these days.”
“I’ll take you whenever you are ready,” Manuel freely offered.
That was the beginning of a short, but romantic courtship that cumulated in marriage six months later.
* * *
Dickerson’s recent marital problems started about two years ago when she stumbled upon an HLA antibody found on a young, drug-addicted prisoner under police custody at the Veterans Administration Hospital.
Mr. Pedrosa had been arrested for public intoxication and also the alleged brutal strangulation of two homeless men. The prisoner died less than twenty-four hours after admission, and Dickerson was given a blood sample for analysis and evaluation of a possible genetic explanation of the sudden death.
On the gel test studies of the HLA, a nice band rested on the B locus at position sixty-six. This is new! she thought.
No previous tests had clearly defined this band, although Dr. Abramhoff, writing in the July issue of The Journal of Immunology, talked about predestined behaviors that he claimed could be traced to the HLA B locus.
What is this drunk predestined for? Dickerson asked.
Is he destined to kill somebody? Or is he just predestined to be an alcoholic?
Does this HLA type make people kill?
When Dickerson called her friend Marie Pinkett—Pinky, for short—the lead detective with the San Diego Police Department, the conversation was initially about marriage, with Dickerson trying to convince Marie to get married, and how wonderful that would be for her career.
“You’ve been telling me that for a long time,” Pinkett answered.
“And I’ll keep telling you until you do it.”
“When I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Listen,” Dickerson said, “I need to talk to you about the Pedrosa case.”
“What about it?” Detective Pinkett asked.
“I was running a test on his blood sample the other day, you know, the HLA test.”
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