"Anyway, we know they were hoping she would lead them to us at the gala in Jerusalem, but she-"
"Excuse me, Rayford, but do you want me to set a course over the old safe house or just head directly for Palwaukee?"
"Depends on whether I decide to go to Colorado." "Your choice, but if I may say so, I expected you to be more decisive. I am just playacting, yet I appear more of a leader than you are. Your people admire and respect you-it's obvious." "They shouldn't. I-"
"You've reconciled with them, Rayford. They forgave you. Now become their leader again. What are you going to do about this Hattie Durham? Decide. Tell me, tell the people in the Strong Building, and do it." "I don't know, Albie."
"You'll never know. Just weigh your options, consider the pros and cons, and pull the trigger. Either way, the old safe house is fewer than ten minutes out of the way. Start with a small decision."
"Let's have a look at it."
"Good for you, Rayford."
"Don't patronize me, Albie. We're in a GC chopper. We won't look suspicious anyway."
"But you've made a decision. Now think aloud about the more important one. Are we going to Colorado?"
"I was saying, rather than lead the GC to us, she went straight there. Her family is gone, but maybe she thought she could hook up with friends in Colorado. Who knows? I couldn't even tell you whether her confounding the GC was a stroke of genius or dumb luck, but I'd lean toward the latter."
"So she may be leading you to them rather than the other way round."
Rayford turned away from Albie and looked out the window, praying silently. It hadn't been that many years since his lust for Hattie Durham had almost cost him his marriage. He took the blame for that, but since then she had been nothing but trouble. He and the others in the Tribulation Force had loved her and counseled her, provided for her, pled with her to receive Christ. But she would not be persuaded, and she pulled dangerous stunts that compromised the safety of the Force. For all he knew, she was the reason the GC had finally discovered the safe house.
Rayford's phone chirped. "Hattie?"
"I heard footsteps. They've got me in a small room in a bunker about an hour south of Colorado Springs."
"I'm a long way from there." "Oh, thank you, Rayford. I knew I could count-" "I haven't decided what I'm going to do, Hattie." "Of course you have. You won't leave me here to be sent back to prison or worse. What do I have to do, promise to become a believer?" "Not unless you mean it." "Well, if you don't come for me, you can kiss that idea good-bye."
Rayford slapped his phone shut and sighed. "What an idiot!"
"Her?" Albie said. "Or you for considering what you're considering?"
"Her! This is such a transparent attempt by the GC to lure one of us out there. Once they get me, they hold me ransom for information on the rest of the Force. Who they really want, of course, is Tsion. The rest of us are irritants. He's the enemy."
"So your choice is between this Miss Durham and Tsion Ben-Judah? You want my vote?"
"It's not that easy. We want her for the kingdom, Albie. I mean, we all really do."
"And you think if you abandon her now, she'll never believe."
"She said as much."
"This may sound cold, and I admit I'm new to this, but it's her choice, isn't it? You're not making the decision for her."
"Going out there would be the dumbest thing I've ever done. They've caught her, detained her, threatened totake her back to prison, and yet they leave her with her phone. I mean, come on."
Albie scanned the horizon. "Then your decision is easy."
"I wish."
"It is. Either you don't go, or you consider all your resources."
"What does that mean?"
"There's one it seems you've forgotten. Maybe two."
"I'll bite."
"Assign David Hassid to find out exactly where they have her and have him send through an order from a bogus commander to keep her there until further notice. You call her back and tell her you're not coming. Make her and whoever is listening in believe it. You just show up, surprise attack, just when both she and the GC think you have abandoned her."
Rayford pursed his lips. "Maybe you ought to be in charge of the Trib Force. But surprising them doesn't guarantee success. I'll still likely be killed or detained myself."
"But you've forgotten another resource."
"I'm still listening."
"Sir? Director? Are you all right?" "He's out."
"His eyes are open, Doctor." "He fell on his head, Medicine Woman." "I've asked you not to call me th-" "Sorry. I don't know how you handled fallen braves on the reservation, but this one couldn't even break his fall. He couldn't shut his eyes if he wanted to."
"Help me get him onto – "
"There you go again, sweetie. I'm not an orderly."
"And there you go again, Doctor! We can let him lie here and bleed to death, or I can remind you that our patients way outnumber the help."
David's tongue was swollen, and he could not maneuver it to form the word. All he wanted was water, but he knew his head required attention too.
"Spray!" the dark nurse called out, and someone tossed her a bottle. She sprayed three bursts of lukewarm water directly into David's face, and he couldn't even blink. Compared to the heat of the asphalt, which he estimated at 120 degrees, the water felt icy. A few drops reached his mouth and he panted, trying to drink them in.
The doctor and nurse gently rolled him to his back, and in his mind he was squinting against the harsh sun. Yet he knew his eyes were wide open and burning. He wanted to plead for another spray, but he felt paralyzed. The nurse mercifully laid his cap over his face, and when feeling returned, he tried not to move so as to keep the cap in place.
If he could find his voice he would plead for Annie, but he was helpless. She was probably somewhere looking for him.
When David was lifted to a canvas cot, the hat slipped off his face, but he was able to blink and was soon under the shade of a crowded tent. He had been assigned the last sliver of shadow. "Critical?" someone asked.
"No," the doctor said. "But sew that head up soon."
The first syringe that plunged into his scalp made his whole body jerk and shudder, but still he could not call out. In seconds the top of his head was numb. "You can do this?" the doctor said.
The nurse said, "It's not exactly cosmetic, is it?"
"Give him threads like a football-I don't care. He can always wear a hat."
In truth, David didn't care what his head looked like, and it was a good thing, because the nurse quickly shaved an inch on each side of the laceration, splashed more liquid on him, and began opening a huge needle.
"How bah?" David managed, his tongue lolling.
"You'll live," she said. "Strictly superficial. Tough skull. But you really yanked the flesh away from the bone. Five inches at least, laterally at the top."
"Watah?"
"Sorry."
"Little?"
She quickly removed the top of the spray bottle, which had an inch of water left in it. "Open up."
Most of it ran down David's neck, but it loosened his tongue. "Looking for Chief Christopher," he said.
"Don't know him," she said. "Now hold still."
"Her. Annie Christopher."
"Director, I've got about five minutes for you, and if you're lucky, I'll find an IV to re-hydrate you. But while I'm sewing, you're going to have to shut up and hold still if you don't want to look worse."
"Do you see what I see?" Albie squinted into the distance.
Rayford followed his gaze and was surprised by a gush of emotion. A black tower of smoke billowed several hundred feet in the air. "You think?" he said.
Albie nodded. "Gotta be."
"Get as close as you can," Rayford said. "That was my home for a long time."
"Will do. Now, you going to use every resource available? Or did I waste my money on this uniform and all the credentials?"
THREE
Buck awoke at noo
n, Chicago time, and felt twice his age. As had been true every day since the Rapture, he knew exactly where he was. In the past it was not uncommon to wake up in a foreign city and have to remind himself where he was, who he was, and what he was doing there. No more. Even when exhausted and injured and barely able to function, somehow the self-preservation flywheel kept spinning in his otherwise unengaged mind.
He had slept soundly, but at the first flutter of his eyelids and that initial glance at his watch, he knew. It all made sense in a ludicrous way. Buck stared at the wall next to an elevator in a bombed-out skyscraper in Chicago, heard muffled voices from around the corner, smelled coffee and a baby. Kenny had his own aroma, a fresh, powdery sweetness that Buck conjured when they were far apart.
But Kenny was here, barricaded from the outer hallways exposed to the windows that let in the midday sun. Buck rolled to his back and propped himself up on his elbows. Kenny had apparently given up trying to climb the makeshift barrier and sat contentedly playing with one of his loose shoelaces.
"Hey, Kenny Bruce," Buck whispered. "Come see Daddy."
Kenny's head jerked up, and then he went to all fours before righting himself and toddling to the bed. "Da-da."
Buck reached for him, and the chubby bundle climbed atop him and stretched out on his stomach and chest. Buck let his head fall back again and wrapped his arms around Kenny. The boy seldom had the patience to simply rest in his father's arms, but now he seemed almost ready to nap himself. With the baby's tiny heart beating against his own, Buck wished he could lie there forever.
"Da-da bye-bye?" Kenny said, and Buck could not stop the tears.
Rayford had made a decision, several in fact. After watching the old safe house burn to the ground, he instructed Albie to turn back to Kankakee, where they would fly the GC fighter to Colorado.
"Now you're talking, Captain," Albie said.
"Now I'm talking," Rayford groused. "Now I'm probably getting us all killed."
"You're doing the right thing."
Unable to reach David in New Babylon, Rayford left a message asking him to get back to them with Hattie's exact whereabouts. He also asked David to inform GC personnel holding her that, should their current operation fail, they should keep Hattie there until assigned personnel could come for her.
David often overrode other GC systems to send such directives in a way that they could not be traced back to him. He was the one who assigned security codes to keep such transmissions from "enemies of the Global Community," so he was also able to use the channels without detection. "As soon as you can," Rayford recorded on David's private machine, "get back to Albie and me to confirm you've paved the way for us."
Before long Rayford would have to transmit his picture, with his new look and name, to David Hassid so the young Israeli could "enlist" him in the GC Peacekeeping Forces too. Meanwhile, he and Albie would put down at what was once Peterson Air Force Base, appropriate a GC jeep David would reserve, follow his directions to this bunker, if that's what it was, and pick up the prisoner.
By the time Albie had stalled his landing until the fighter was short of fuel, Rayford had been dozing more than two hours. Albie woke him with the news that they had not yet heard back from David.
"Not good," Rayford said, placing yet another call to New Babylon. No answer. "You have a computer, Albie?"
"A subnotebook, but it's got satellite capability."
"Programmed to communicate with David?" "If you've got his coordinates, I can make it work." Rayford found the machine in Albie's flight bag. "Batteries are low," he said.
"Plug in to the plane's power," Albie said. "I don't do heavy-duty stuff on batteries anyway."
"Keep the power on after we land," Rayford said. "This could take a while."
Albie nodded and got on the radio to the GC outpost. "GC NB4047 to Peterson Tower."
"You ought to know we're now Carpathia Memorial, GC," came the reply.
"My mistake, tower," Albie said. "First time here in I don't know how long." He winked at Rayford, who glanced up from his computer work. Albie had never been in the States before.
"Gonna hafta take the Memorial out of our name, aren't we, 4047?"
"Come back?"
"He is risen."
Albie rolled his eyes at Rayford. "Yeah, I heard. That's something, eh?"
"You're supposed to reply with 'He is risen indeed.' "
Rayford pantomimed sticking his finger down his throat. Albie shook his head. "Well, I sure believe that, tower," he said, glancing at Rayford and pointing up.
"Business here?"
"Deputy Commander with confidential orders."
"Name?"
"Marcus Elbaz."
"One moment." "Low on fuel, tower."
"Short on people here, Commander Elbaz. Give me a minute."
"We're putting down either way," Albie told Rayford, who was busy pecking in the details that would orient Albie's computer global-positioning hardware to a satellite that would link him directly with David's computer. "There you are, sir," the tower said. "I see you on the system." "Roger."
"Don't have you assigned out this way, though. You been to Kankakee?"
"That's where I came from." "And your business here?" "Repeat, confidential orders." "Oh, yes, sorry. Anything we can help with?" "Refueling and a ground vehicle should have been arranged."
"As I say, sir, we don't have your disposition here. We can refuel you, no problem, with the proper authorization code. Ground transportation is scarce."
"I'll trust you to figure something out." "We're very shorthanded and-" "You mentioned that." "-and frankly, sir, there's no one here near your rank."
"Then I expect whoever's in command to obey my order for transportation."
A long pause.
"I'll, uh, pass that word along, sir."
"Thank you."
"And you're cleared to land."
David awoke in the palace hospital, his head throbbing so he could barely open his eyes. He shared a room with two sleeping patients. His clothes had been removed, and he lay there in a flimsy gown, an IV in his hand, his watch on a stand next to him. Holding it before his bleary eyes was almost more than he could bear. Twenty-one hundred hours. It couldn't be!
He tried to sit up and was aware of bandages around his head and over his ears. He heard his own pulse and felt pain with every beat. It was dark outside, but a silent TV monitor showed pilgrims still in the courtyard, passing by, kneeling, bowing, worshiping, praying to the gigantic statue of Nicolae.
On David's other side was the remote control. He didn't want to wake the other patients, but the captioning system was in Arabic. He fiddled with it until it changed to English, and the captions merely represented songs piped into the courtyard as people slowly passed by the image. He stared as the camera pulled back to show the immense crowd, seemingly as big as for the funeral, snaking a mile outside the palace.
David panicked. He had been away from his phone and computer longer than he had been in months. He craned his neck looking for a phone, and the pain nearly drove him to his pillow again. He pulled a cord ostensibly connected to the nurses' station, but no one came. He knew the ratio between nurses and patients was ridiculously low, but surely they knew he was a director. That should count for something, However they were hydrating him was working, because he had to relieve himself in a bad way. No bedpan for him. He played with the controls on the side of the bed until one railing lowered. He grimaced as he swung his legs off the side, pausing to let the throbbing subside and catch his breath.
Finally he put both hands on the edge of the bed and eased himself to the floor. The marble was incongruously cold for such a hot part of the world, but it felt good. He stood, swaying, dizzy, waiting for his equilibrium to catch up. When he felt steadier he stepped toward the bathroom, reminded by a tug at his wrist that he was still hooked to the IV. He stepped back and wiggled the metal stand on rollers away from the wall and the end of the bed, but as he dragged it with h
im, it caught.
A monitor cord was plugged into the wall. He tried to remove it, but it wouldn't budge from the connection or the stand. David knew there had to be some simple trick to it. Maybe it was screwed opposite of normal or you had to push to pull it, or something. All he knew was, he had to go. Painful as it might be, he yanked at the tape, which pulled hairs on his hand, then pulled the needle out with one motion. The sting brought tears to his eyes, and as the solution dripped on the floor, he made one feeble attempt to turn the stopper, then just tied the cord and headed for the bathroom.
Within seconds he heard the alarm informing the nurses' station that an IV had come loose. He opened the closet on his way back, and though his clothes were there, his phone was not. His mind nearly went blank from pain and fear. Was this the end? Would someone dial back the numbers of Trib Force members who may have tried to reach him? He could have already been discovered. Should he just find Annie and get out of there? What if she was already dead? She would want him to escape and not risk his life in a vain attempt to be sure of her.
Not a chance. He would not leave without her or without knowing for sure whether she was dead.
"What are you doing out of bed?" It was not a nurse but a female orderly.
"Bathroom," he said.
"Back to bed," she said. "What have you done with your IV?"
"I'm fine," he said.
"We have bedpans and-"
"I already went-now just-"
"Sir! Shh! I can hear you and so can everyone else on this floor. Your roommates are sleeping."
"I just need-"
"Sir, do I need to get someone in here with restraints? Now quiet down!"
"I am being quiet! Now-" Suddenly David realized the bandages over his ears made him talk louder.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm Director Hassid. I need to find-"
"Oh! You're the director. Are you a lightning victim?"
"Yeah, I took a bolt right through the top of my head, but here I stand."
"You don't have to-"
"Sorry. No, I just fainted in the heat, and I'm fine."
"You had surgery."
"Minor, now-"
"Sir, if you're the director, I'm supposed to tell someone when you're awake."
The Mark: The Beast Rules the World Page 3
