by Tim LaHaye
Laslos sat on the bed, realizing the gun was gone. How could he have been such a fool? “I knew your parents, of course,” he began carefully. “I knew you too, did I not?”
“Not really,” Marcel said. “I was in a different house church from my parents.”
Laslos had seen this boy with his parents occasionally, he was sure of it. “Did you not think I’d notice you took my fake pistol?”
“Oh, sir! I was just looking at it!” He held it out and Laslos wrenched it away. “It looks and feels so real, Mr. Miklos! Is it really fake?”
“Hardly. How can you be so stupid and survive on the street? What made you think I would not just grab another weapon and shoot you dead?”
“I don’t know, sir. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Who sent you?”
“The old toothless one with the car. He calls himself K.”
“I should wring his neck.”
“Don’t blame him, please, sir. He warned me not to come during the day, but I have run out of places to go. The GC is thin here with so many assigned to Israel, but they are on their way back, and there is no more grace period for taking Carpathia’s mark. I have seen people dragged off the street.”
“Your parents, weren’t they with Pastor Demetrius and—?”
“They were. And so was I. But a believer who had infiltrated the GC accused me of being an American and dragged me out, then let me go. I gave him my parents’ names, and I have been praying ever since that he got them out too. But I know they would have found me if he had.”
“He did not. We know who he is, Marcel. He also was able to get a young woman out.”
“I have met her! Tall, brown hair. Georgiana something. But she was not from our church. She found her way to one of the co-op stations. Her story was just like mine. How did this man do it?”
Laslos sighed heavily. “Frankly, he blundered with you. He used another boy’s name for you. . . .”
“Yes, I told him the only other name I knew from in there. Paulo Ganter.”
“Well, this fake GC told authorities at the prison that you were Paulo and that he was deporting you back to the United North American States. But when Ganter took the mark of loyalty, his ID checked out, and they quickly realized someone else was gone. By process of elimination, they know your name. He must have done the same with the girl. You may not have marks they can see, but you are marked young people. Fortunately your liberator was gone before they realized what he had done.”
“How I would love to thank that man. He’s American.”
“I know,” Laslos said. “I know him.”
“Could I get a message to him?”
“It could be done.”
The boy sighed and his shoulders sagged. “What am I going to do now, Mr. Miklos? I am out of options.”
“You can see there is no room for you here.”
“We could expand.”
“We? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, son. This is no way to live. You need a new look, a new identity, and you must continue to keep from being seen by the GC at all costs.”
Rayford assigned Leah and Hannah to search out the computer savvy among the Israelis. “Tell them that once they have located the computers in Petra, our man in New Babylon will contact them on-line and provide information on how to get the network up and running.”
Rayford, Albie, Mac, and George joined dozens of others to resume chopper duty, making run after run to get Israeli believers inside. Chaim was in seclusion, preparing to address the entire populace when they were settled. Buck had temporarily taken the duties David would have had: getting building and miscellaneous supplies in and organized so builders and finishers could get started. Already volunteers were passing out blankets and helping people get settled.
Rayford was nearly overwhelmed with the attitude of the Israelis. Maybe because of their faith, maybe because of the miracles, maybe because of the novelty of what they were about, they displayed cooperation and a camaraderie Rayford found unique. Considering they were uprooted from their homeland and targeted by the entire evil world system, he would not have been surprised to see manifestations of impatience and anger.
Rayford sent Abdullah bouncing over the desert in one of the most able four-wheel-drive vehicles they could recruit to rendezvous with his co-op contact from Jordan. The contact was bringing in a long-range jet with room for everybody heading back to Chicago. All the co-op guy wanted in exchange for the loan of his plane was to be delivered to Crete on the Trib Force’s way to the States and to be brought back from there on their way back.
That gave Rayford the idea that they should stop in Greece to check on their brothers and sisters. Trouble was, Albie was the only one left with other-than-suspect papers. During one of his hops into Petra, Rayford phoned Lukas Miklos.
Chang noticed on his monitor evidence that his bug of the Phoenix 216 had kicked in. He couldn’t wait till the end of the workday to get back to his apartment and see what had been recorded. He switched to the GCNN feed and learned that Carpathia was already on his way back to New Babylon. Hiding his trail, Chang hacked into the encoded schedule for surprise inspections of GC personnel’s private computer systems. The encoding was so elementary he nearly laughed aloud. He discovered he was third on the list and could expect a “random” visit that evening at around 2000 hours.
His screen suddenly came alive with a flash from Figueroa’s office, and for an instant Chang thought he might have allowed himself to be caught using the office desktop for unapproved purposes. He covered his tracks with a burst of keystrokes and informed Figueroa he was coming.
Chang hurried to the office that had been David Hassid’s. Figueroa had rearranged the furniture and redecorated it within hours of moving in, and now he glided about in it as if he were the Global Community potentate himself.
“Have a seat, Wong,” he said. “Cigar?”
“Cigar? Do I look like a smoker to you? Anyway, isn’t the whole complex smoke free?”
“A director’s office is his domain,” Figueroa said, lighting up. Tiffany, who had also been Hassid’s assistant, looked up quickly from just outside the office window and scowled. Shaking her head, she left her desk and loudly slapped a switch on the wall between her office and Figueroa’s. A ventilation fan came on, sucking the blue smoke into the ceiling. “I love when she does that,” the director said, but Chang thought he looked embarrassed.
Figueroa leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the corner of his desk. Apparently he miscalculated, because as he pulled the huge cigar from his lips, his heel slipped off the desk and his center of gravity shifted. His boots slammed the floor and he nearly flew out of his chair. He dropped the cigar in the process and leaped from his chair to keep from burning himself.
He picked it up and brushed off the seat, quickly licking a finger that had found a hot ash. It was all Chang could do to keep a straight face when Figueroa smoothed himself, put the wet end of the cigar back in his mouth, and sat again. He leaned back but thought twice about putting his feet up and merely crossed his legs. This shifted his weight back more than he expected, and he had evidently not yet learned how to tighten the chair’s tilt, for he was suddenly leaning back, legs still crossed, but with both feet in the air.
Figueroa seemed to try to subtly lean forward, but failing that, tried to appear that this was the way he wanted to sit. He pulled the cigar out again and rested an elbow on the arm of the chair, blowing smoke toward the ceiling while trying to maintain eye contact with Chang. “So,” he began, the effort to keep his head erect clearly straining his neck. He let his head fall back as if searching the ceiling for what he wanted to say, and suddenly he was inches from toppling over backward. He quickly reinserted the cigar, gripped both arms of the chair until his knuckles were white, and pulled himself up again. He leaned forward, careful to keep his weight centered.
“I, uh, spoke too soon when I exempted you from being interrogated,” he said.
Chang m
ade a teenager’s face at him. “What? I thought you were in charge here.”
“Oh, I am. Make no mistake. But I would have to answer for it, probably to the potentate himself—we talk, you know—if I made an exception for anyone, especially in my own department.”
“So you’re going back on your word.”
“I didn’t exactly give my word.”
“No, you just said it, and apparently that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Of course it does, but you’re going to have to roll with me on this one. I’ll owe you.”
“It’s not that big a deal. Forget it.”
“No, now I want to be known as a man of his word. Tell you what—I’ll conduct the polygraph myself.”
“Now it’s a polygraph?”
“Well, not really. The type I told you about is all.”
“Fine.”
“You’re a good man, Wong.”
“Yeah, I’m great.”
“No, really, you are.”
Chang pressed his lips together and looked away, shaking his head.
“I’m trying to be friends here,” Figueroa said.
Chang looked back at him. “You are? Why would you do that?”
“You intrigue me, that’s all.”
“Oh, no. You’re not—”
“Wong! I’m a married man!”
“Thank goodness.”
“No, like most everybody else around here, I’m intrigued with your gifts and skills.”
“Which I’m not using as long as I’m sitting here.”
“Don’t be a hard guy, Wong. I’m in a position to do you some good.”
“You’re not even in a position to keep your word.”
“Hey, that was uncalled for.”
“Come on,” Chang said. “What’s this about? That would have been uncalled for only if it weren’t true.”
“Okay, fair enough. It’s just that you’re bordering on insubordination, and you don’t seem to care that as your boss, I hold your destiny.”
“What, you’re going to fire me if I don’t make nice?”
Figueroa took three short puffs and studied him. “No. But I might fire you if you don’t tell me how you knew my name.”
“I told you, I guessed.”
“Because to tell you the truth,” Figueroa continued, as if not listening, “I can’t think of a way in the world you would know that.”
“Me either. You could have denied it and I wouldn’t have known the difference.”
“Now see? That’s a level of thinking I have to admire. That’s intuitive.”
“Whatever.”
“No, because you know what? I started thinking about my personnel file, and I had to wonder if I ever gave them my full name. So, know what I did? Huh? I checked it myself. Not there.”
“What do you know.”
“So you really did guess.”
“Wow. I’m something.”
“You are.”
“Can I get back to work now?”
“One condition.”
“I’m listening.”
“Promise you won’t say anything about my telling you I’ve got your destiny in my hands or that I could fire you, any of that.”
“Already forgot it.”
“Good man. Because I know your dad and you-know-who are tight, and . . .”
“Already forgot it.”
“You want to be a project leader, a group head, anything?”
“Just want to get back to work.”
“Fair enough.”
“Three and a half years ago there was, like, a church in here,” Enoch said. “Some of us—” he turned to the group—“how many went to the church thing at least once?” About half a dozen raised their hands. “The rest of us had just seen a flyer, a brochure, about the place. We still have those, don’t we?” Someone went to get one.
“It’s kinda simple, just a regular piece of paper folded in half and then printed on the four pages in black and white.”
Someone handed Chloe one. On the front it read “The Place.” Inside, it said “Jesus loves pimps, whores, crackheads, drunks, players, hustlers, mothers with no husbands, and children with no fathers.”
On the next page it told who made up the people of The Place, mostly people who had once been like those listed on the previous page. “We talk about Jesus and what the Bible says about him and you. Come as you are. Address and time on the back.”
Chloe looked at the back, where, besides the address and times, the brochure also said “Food, clothes, shelter, work, counseling.” She looked up at Enoch and realized she was blushing. Everybody in the room seemed amused.
Enoch reached for the brochure and faced his people. He read off the list of who Jesus loves, one by one, pausing after each for a show of hands. Everyone raised a hand at least once, and several did many times, always with huge smiles. Enoch carefully set down the brochure, looked meaningfully at Chloe, and rose. With lips trembling and tears streaming, he gestured to the assembled and whispered, “And such were some of you.”
They nodded and amened.
“But you were washed . . .”
“Amen, hallelujah!”
“But you were sanctified . . .”
“Praise Jesus!”
“But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
And they stood with hands raised, humming and singing,
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost but now am found,
was blind but now I see.”
“Rayford, my friend, how are you?” Laslos exulted. “You will not believe who is here with me. Is Cameron there?”
“Unavailable just now. So who is with you?”
When Laslos told him, Rayford said, “I’ll have Buck call. He wondered what happened with those kids.”
“Marcel tells me Georgiana remains on the run too. It is as if God himself told you to call. You must come get these children and get them out of here.”
“Nowhere is safe, Laslos.”
“But your safe house! Your man with the disguises and the papers! We are literally one wrong look from death here.”
Rayford hesitated. “We’re stopping on Crete. If you could somehow get them there . . .”
“Captain Steele, you have not seen the oceans! There is no water travel. None. Could we not somehow try to get them to the airport your people flew into last time? It would be risky, but we could—”
“It would be a death trap for us, Laslos. We will have virtually everyone with us.”
“There must be some way. Someone.”
“Let me noodle that,” Rayford said.
“I don’t understand ‘noodle.’”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Almost every one of us has the same story,” Enoch explained to Chloe. “The streets, these neighborhoods, were our lives. A lot of us had some kind of religious background as kids, but obviously we moved a long way from that. More than half of us served time, and almost all of us should have. The line between legal and illegal didn’t exist for us. We called everything we did a matter of survival.
“Most of us had seen this place and knew something churchy went on here. What surprised us were the people who came and went. All colors and nationalities and people we’d known. We all saw the brochure and, though we didn’t admit it then, it enticed us, you know? Something that straightforward, that in-your-face, calling things what they are. When you’re at the end of yourself, wondering in the night what’s to become of you in the morning, you start wondering if there’s hope anywhere or if you are too far gone. You remember yourself as a kid and recall that there was something still innocent about you, and you wonder what happened to that person.
“Any of these people will tell you that they either came here once or twice to try to work the system and get something free, or they even came sincerely and sat through a meeting or two. But all of
us, even those who never came once—me, for one—were fixin’ to get around to it. One of these days, we were going to check out The Place.
“You know the rest. End of the world. People disappearing. We all lost somebody, and this place just about lost everybody. Well, where did we run to first? Right here. Empty clothes all over the place and nobody to tell us what was what. But this poor little church must have had some money from somewhere because they thought to record everything they did. Audio and video. Here we are—two, three dozen no-account street people, some of us women who lost babies—and somebody finds those discs, man, and the players. It didn’t take us long to learn the truth. It was all there.
“Most of us stayed, sleeping in here, watching, listening, studying, praying to get Jesus, and all of a sudden, World War III. Chicago’s toast. We’ve got one TV and one computer hooked up. First we hear it was not nuclear; then the next wave is, and we expect to die of radiation poisoning. It doesn’t happen, but we don’t dare test the atmosphere outside. We knew if it was full-blown radiation, we were not protected just because we were inside some basement, but we figured we were safer in than out. Till now.”
Rayford called George and asked if he wanted a mission on his way back to San Diego. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said.
Rayford gave him the gist of the assignment and said, “I can’t give you papers on short notice, but if I can reach our guy in New Babylon, you can bluff your way around in Greece. If they check on you, you’ll appear to be in the system.”
“I can come up with some reason why I don’t have papers. And you want these kids delivered to Chicago?”
“Unless you’re prepared for them in California.”
Knowing what was coming that evening, Chang felt out of touch with the Trib Force. Not until after his “surprise” visit at about eight o’clock could he key in the stuff Rayford wanted for this George Sebastian, nor could he find out what had happened on the Phoenix 216. He made sure he was watching GCNN and reading a book at the time, but even he was surprised at the nature of the drop-in.
