by Tim LaHaye
“The time is short,” Tsion cried out, “and salvation is a personal decision. Admit to God that you are a sinner. Acknowledge that you cannot save yourself. Throw yourself on the mercy of God and receive the gift of his Son, who died on the cross for your sin. Receive him and thank him for the gift of your salvation.”
“Major, major problem,” Aurelio Figueroa said, steepling his fingers as he leaned back in his chair. Chang sat across the desk from him, praying silently. “It’s not just the bogus entries in the palace database, the phony personnel and checks and balances that have allowed the enemies of the GC to fool local leaders. Now we clearly have bugs in offices as high as the director of Security and Intelligence. Do you know that earlier today, while the potentate was trying to properly mourn our dead pilots, someone superseded the feed with a bogus conversation Director Akbar was supposed to have had with the pilots?”
“Bet you’re glad it was bogus.”
“I don’t follow, Wong.”
“If it was real, it could have been catastrophic. We all heard it, sir. Akbar lecturing the pilots, their disagreeing, and his having them executed.”
The tall, bony Mexican studied Chang. “Where would someone have gotten that kind of a recording?”
“You’re asking me?”
“I don’t see anyone else in the room.”
“I’m sorry. I should have said, ‘Why are you asking me?’”
This was zero hour. If Figueroa accused him, Chang might have to be out of New Babylon within hours to avoid execution.
“I’m asking everyone, of course. Don’t take it personally. You wouldn’t believe what’s been planted on the main database.”
“Tell me.”
Figueroa stood. “I’m not telling everyone this, but Akbar himself began to suspect something shaky in Chicago. You know the place was hit more than once during the war. The city was evacuated and declared off-limits, and we have virtually ignored it for months. Years.”
Chang nodded.
“We didn’t fly reconnaissance planes over it, didn’t take pictures, didn’t check heat sensors, anything.”
“Because?”
“Because someone planted on the computer that the place had been nuked and would be radioactive for years. Akbar didn’t remember it that way. He thought the city had been virtually destroyed, but not by nukes. Every time he had somebody check, they went straight to the database, checked the current levels, and said, ‘Yup, it’s radioactive all right.’ Not until recently did anybody check the archives to find out if the readings could be right. Of course, they can’t. The place is clean.”
“Wow.”
“Wow is right. You know as well as I do that there is only one reason someone would plant such information: to have the city to themselves. We’ve been able to bypass the phony readings, finally, and have tried to get a bead on what’s happening there. Precious little, of course, because everyone else was getting the same info we were. But there has been activity. Water and power usage. Planes, choppers, coming and going. Jets from an airstrip on the lake. That would be Lake Michigan.”
“Really?”
“Yes. There is evidence of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Very little, of course, but there could be up to three dozen people in the city.”
“Hardly enough to worry about,” Chang said.
“Oh, on the contrary,” Figueroa said. “These people are going to wish they’d never been born.”
Chang was dying to ask but desperate to appear remote. He waited.
“You’d think we’d just send a team of Peacekeepers sweeping in there and round them up, wouldn’t you?”
Chang shrugged. “Something like that, sure.”
“Akbar has a better idea. He says if somebody wants it to appear radioactive, let’s nuke it.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Totally.”
“Waste technology like that at a time like this?”
“It’s brilliant, Chang.”
“It’s a solution, I’ll say that. But has he thought of the freshwater that flows through there?”
“We’re harvesting Lake Michigan from northern Wisconsin. We don’t have to worry about the Chicago River.”
“People living downstream from it do.”
“Well, anyway, word is the big boss loves the idea.”
“Really.”
“You kidding? Carpath—uh, the potentate loves stuff like this.”
“We’ve got an atomic bomb we can spare?”
“Come on, Wong! Whoever these people are, they’re up to no good. If they were loyal citizens, wouldn’t they say, ‘Hey, we didn’t know this place was off-limits and we mistakenly settled here, and you know what, we’re okay’?”
Chang shrugged, wanting to know how much time he had to warn the Trib Force but not daring to ask. “I guess.”
“You guess? There’s no record of a loyalty mark application site there, of course. And nobody who’s registered with us would live there without telling us.”
“You’re right.”
“’Course I’m right. Hey, Chang, you don’t look so good.”
Chang had been surreptitiously holding his breath and not blinking. His face had reddened and his eyes watered. “Just tired,” he said, exhaling finally. “And I think I’m coming down with something.”
“You all right?”
Chang coughed, then pretended he couldn’t stop. He held up a hand as if to apologize and say he was okay. “Didn’t sleep that well last night,” he managed. “I’ll be fine. I’ll go to bed early tonight.”
“You need a nap?”
“Nah. Too much to do.”
“We’re okay. Take a break.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Want to do my share, pull my weight, all that.” He disintegrated into a coughing spell again.
“Just knock off early. You’ve got sick time left, don’t you?”
“Just used some during the, you know, plague thing.”
“Boils? Yeah, didn’t we all? Take the rest of the day off, and if you’re not in tomorrow, I’ll understand.”
“No, now really, Mr. Figueroa, I’ll be fine. See? I feel better already.”
“What is it with you, Wong? I mean, I’m all for gung ho, but—”
“Just don’t like being a wimp.”
“You’re anything but that.”
“Thanks,” Chang said, covering his mouth and coughing longer than he had before.
“Stop by Medical and get something.”
Chang waved Figueroa off. “I’m going back to my desk,” he wheezed.
“No, you’re not. Now that’s a directive.”
“You’re making me leave work early?”
“Come on! You think I’m thinking only of you? Get over yourself. I don’t want a department full of coughers, and I think you’ve contaminated my office enough too. Get going.”
“I really—”
“Chang! Go!”
It was the crack of dawn in Colorado, and Steve Plank, aka Pinkerton Stephens, was asleep in his quarters. He had spent until midnight firing off warnings to his friends in the Tribulation Force that something big was coming for Chicago and that if they knew what was good for them, they would escape, and fast. He had reached Rayford Steele by phone in Petra and urged him to stay there and not let Abdullah Smith or anyone else go back to Chicago either.
When the insistent banging on his door woke him, his first thought was that in his haste he had not used a secure phone or that his computer had been bugged. If they caught him, they caught him. Warning the Trib Force was the most productive thing he’d done since becoming a believer—or at least since helping them get Hattie Durham out of his custody and to a place where she became a believer.
Plank tried to call out to see who it was and what they wanted, but his facial appliance was next to the bed, and without it, he could not make himself heard. The best he could do was grunt, and he felt for th
e plastic pieces in the dark.
“Mr. Stephens, sir, no need to open the door.” It was Vasily Medvedev, Steve’s second in command. “I just wanted to give you fair warning. New Babylon is cracking down on the handful of employees around the world who have not yet received the loyalty mark. You’re expected to have yours applied by noon mountain time at Carpathia Resurrection Field. Just acknowledge that you got that.”
Steve slung himself into his motorized wheelchair and rolled to the door, then tapped twice on it.
“Thank you, sir. This puts me in an awkward spot, but I’ve been ordered to accompany you and see to it.”
Steve rolled back to the bed stand and quickly snapped on his appliances. “Hold on a second, Vasily!” He opened the door and waved him in.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the Russian said. “What could I do or say?”
“Tell them I already have it.”
“There’s no record of it.”
“You know it cannot be applied to synthetic. You want to see it?” Plank began to unsnap the forehead piece.
“No! Please! Now, sir, I’m sorry, but I tried looking once, and that was more than enough. Forgive me.”
“Well, I’m going to see if the administrator of the marks wants a look,” Steve said.
“Come, sir, there’d be a record, wouldn’t there?”
“I should be exempted. Can you imagine the pain of having it applied to the membrane—”
“Please! I was told to inform you and to—”
“See to it, yeah, I know.”
“Sir? Why don’t you just have it applied to your hand?”
“My hand? My hand, you say? You forget my hand was also donated to the cause?”
Steve held up the stub, and Vasily recoiled. “I am so stupid,” he said. “Can you forget I—”
Steve waved him off. “Don’t worry about it.”
“When would you like to leave, sir? They open at eight and we’re about an hour away.”
“I know how far away we are, Vasily.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll let you know.”
When Medvedev left, Steve bowed his head, weeping. “God, what should I do? Bluff them? See if I can get a waiver? Is this it? Is it over? Can I be of no more service to the believers around the world?”
Steve spent the morning communicating with Chang in New Babylon, where it was late afternoon. They worked frantically to come up with suggestions as to where the Chicago-based Trib Force might go. No one anywhere could take them all. The Strong Building had been perfect, if only briefly.
Neither Chang nor Steve had yet been able to ascertain when the bombing of Chicago might commence, but clearly speed was of the essence. Only after they had informed everyone and made their recommendations did Steve tell Chang what was happening with him.
“I knew they were cracking down,” Chang said, “but I had no idea how soon. Let me put in the database that you’ve had the mark applied. I can copy you on the documentation.”
“Can’t let you do that, brother.”
“Why? I just did it for a Co-op flier the other day. He didn’t even know till it was done.”
“With the way they’re watching at the palace right now? I go from no documentation one day to totally clear the next?”
“It doesn’t have to be at Resurrection. I could say it came from anywhere.”
Steve paused. It was intriguing, enticing even. But it didn’t resonate. “Maybe if you’d thought of it before—if it had just showed up, like an accident, like you did with the other guy. But this would be like my choosing the mark. I couldn’t do that.”
“Then you’re getting out of there, right? Where will you go and how will you get there? Should I send someone for you? appropriate a ride?”
“It’s not going to work, Chang. That’ll make you vulnerable. And you know they’ve got to be watching me.”
“No one’s on to me yet,” Chang said. “I don’t think they’re even suspicious.”
“You need to keep it that way.”
“Can you get to Petra? There’s a Co-op flight out of Montana today. I could have him—”
“I’ll let you know, Chang. I appreciate it, but it may be time to take my stand.”
“What are you saying?”
“You know.”
“Oh, Steve, at least make them catch you. We need you, man.”
“On the lam? What good would I be?”
“We need everybody we can get.”
Buck debated waking the Greek contingent and decided against it, though it meant more work for everyone else. Chloe, Mac, Hannah, and Sebastian had staggered in during the wee hours.
Buck could tell Kenny was fascinated by all the activity. People scurried everywhere, deciding what they absolutely had to have, packing small boxes, ignoring printouts, notes—anything that was in a computer anyway. The person allowed to take more than anyone else was Zeke. There were things he simply could not do without: his files, his wardrobes, the tools of his trade.
Leah spent most of her time on a secure phone to Co-op people all over the country. She told Buck, “Everyone is resigned to the fact that they may have to take a few people in, and they honestly seem honored, but no one is excited about it. They are stretched to the limit for space and necessities as it is.”
“We have no choice, Leah. It’s time to call in the chips. I hate to say it, but a lot of these people owe us nothing less. We have run the Co-op from here and provided them with stuff that keeps them alive.”
Albie seemed glum. And why not? Buck wondered. The only place Albie could think of to go—and wanted to go—was back to Al Basrah. “But I don’t want to take a plane when so many of you have places to go.”
“Do what you have to, Albie,” Buck said. “See if Leah can get you a ride with someone delivering supplies to Petra. You know we’ll be calling on you frequently.”
“You’d better,” Albie said.
Enoch’s people were under the building, checking vehicles, seeing how many were in running condition. He had traded the privilege of choosing cars and SUVs as a concession against trying to get all thirty of the others from The Place onto planes. Leah had already lined up for them several underground centers within driving distance, Enoch himself in Palos Hills, Illinois.
“You know the danger of a caravan pulling out of here in broad daylight,” Buck said.
“I sure do. But we also know the danger of being here when the GC hits.”
Steve Plank had communicated to Vasily that he wanted to leave the GC compound at 11 a.m. He spent much of the rest of the morning behind closed doors, agonizing in prayer. Finally he called Buck. What a strange turn, he thought. Seeking solace and counsel from a young man who had once been his best—and most challenging—employee. The glory days of Global Weekly were long gone.
Steve’s news was met with silence. Then a subdued Buck: “Steve, don’t do it. Please.”
“You think I want to? C’mon, man! Don’t get personal with me now, Buck. I just wanted to say good-bye.”
“Well, I don’t want to, all right? I’ve said enough good-byes for one lifetime. Anyway, we need you. This is no time to be giving up.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“I’ll do what I have to, to keep you from this, Steve.”
“I had hoped for more from you.”
“I could say the same,” Buck said.
“You think I’m taking the easy way out? Don’t do this to me.”
“What’re you saying, Steve? That I’m supposed to just support you, wish you the best, say I’ll see you on the flip side?”
“That would help. Tell me you trust my judgment.”
“When I think you’ve lost your mind?”
Steve sighed. “Buck, I’ve got no one else to call. If I tell you that you can’t talk me out of it and that’s why I’m calling, will you just tell me you’re with me?”
“Of course I’m with you, but—”
“I’m not a cowar
d, Buck. You’ve seen me. You know I should have died. I was buried underground for almost a week. I live in pain every hour of every day, but I’ve misled, I’ve conspired, I’ve finagled, I’ve double-crossed the enemy every way I know how. Well, there’s something I won’t do. I won’t run like a child and I won’t deny Christ.”
“I know you won’t.”
“Well, that’s something. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Don’t tell me I have to like this, Steve.”
“Will you pray for me?”
“Of course, but I’d pray you come to your senses.”
“I’m going through with this, Buck. And I won’t pretend I’m not scared. The GC considers this an oversight, a timing thing, something to do with my limitations. But when they make it official, make me make my decision and take my stand, I don’t want to fail God.”
“You won’t. He promises grace beyond measure and a peace that passes understanding.”
“I gotta tell ya, Buck, I’m not feeling any of that yet.”
“God,” Buck began, but Steve could tell he had to compose himself before he could continue, “please be with your child. Give him your grace, your peace. I confess I don’t want him to do this. I hate it. I’m tired of losing people I love. But if this is what you’re calling him to do, give him courage, give him words, give him power over the enemy. I pray that people who see this will be so moved that they will make the same choice.”
Buck was so shaken that his comrades seemed to gather round him spontaneously. When they learned what was going on, they knelt and prayed for Steve. Buck called Chang.
“He’ll be going to the center at Resurrection south of the Springs,” Buck said. “Any chance they monitor that visually?”
“They do.”
“Could that be transmitted here?”
“I can do it.”
“I don’t know why I want to see it, but I’ll feel like I’m there with him.”
Steve was aware of Vasily’s double take when Steve rolled up in the parking lot in casual clothes. In fact, less than casual. He wore slip-on shoes, khaki pants, and a white undershirt.
“You’re wondering about protocol,” Steve said as Vasily lifted him into the car.
