“Hey, you think it’s too late to call Lionel Whalum in Illinois?”
“Nah. He’s a night owl. ’Sup?”
“I figured out Chloe’s message. She’s convinced we’ve got to get everybody out of San Diego and to Petra.”
“I was afraid of that,” Sebastian said.
“Lionel’s the only guy I know with enough planes, enough contacts, and enough experience to pull off something like that—
and fast.”
“This place was so perfect.”
“Every safe house we’ve had has been perfect until it all of a sudden wasn’t safe, George.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“Call Lionel for me, would you? I need to try to get hold of Zeke. See if he’s ready to come out of mothballs and help us in Petra.”
“What’re you thinking, Captain?”
“Something for Buck to do so he doesn’t go crazy, and
something for Mac and me to do so we feel like we’re doing something for Albie.”
“Hope I’m part of that.”
“We wouldn’t dream of trying anything without you, George.”
________
“Tired of that TV?” the night matron asked Chloe.
“Yeah. I hope I don’t miss it though.” Chloe had been
watching the congregating of armies from every country in the United Carpathian States, excluding only the city of New Babylon, which was largely ignored on the news. In the flickering light of the TV, Chloe could see the woman was black.
“I’m Florence,” she said, jangling to the TV and turning it off with her nightstick. “I’ll be the one feeding you tonight if you’ve been good. You been good?”
“I’m officially hungry, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s not what I asked you, but I do have your daily energy bar in my pocket if you want it.”
“I want it.”
“Didn’t take long for your tune to change. I heard you was all uppity and smart-alecky before, like nobody had nothin’ you needed or wanted.”
“I’d like to stay alive.”
“For how long? You better be coming up with something Jock can use or you won’t make your first hosing down.”
“And when is that?”
“Once a week. A week from now.”
“I don’t bathe for a week?”
“Bathe all you want in that sink. How’s that water taste?”
“Not like water.”
Florence cackled. “Ain’t that the truth. You’ll get to like it though. You got to have it. That two hundred fifty calories a day will keep you alive, but you won’t be good for much else.”
“What else is there in here?”
“Oh, you know, a guard or two might take a liking to you, want a date. You know what I mean.”
Chloe laughed. She couldn’t help it.
“You think it’s funny? What you going to do?”
“That would be worth dying for,” Chloe said. “They’d have to kill me first.”
“You say that now. But you ain’t going to kill me. Look at the size I got on you.”
“One of us wouldn’t come out of here alive.”
“Big talk. You’ll be singing a different song when your body weight drops and you be stinking and that jumpsuit is falling off you.”
“I’ll warn you right now, while I’m lucid, you and anybody else around here would regret trying anything with me.”
“That so?”
“That’s so, and that includes Jock.”
“Jock don’t do that kind of thing, but he knows when to look the other way.”
“Well, he’ll look back to find somebody dead. One of his people or his star prisoner.”
“Why don’t you just give a little, girl? Tell Jock something.
He’s not asking for much. And you’d be getting breaks nobody else has got for months. Come in here with no mark and still be alive? That should tell you something. You’re in a bargaining position.”
“They might as well kill me now.”
“Don’t think I wouldn’t like to.”
“You? You don’t even know me. I wouldn’t want to kill you.”
“You just said you would, missus. If I came in that cage.”
“Well, yes, if you intended me any harm, I’d defend myself.”
“I mean you all kinds of harm. You’re either with us or against us now, honey.”
“Well, I’m against you,” Chloe said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Tell me what form these two hundred fifty calories come in.”
“You know. The energy bar.”
“And that’s all I get?”
“That’s it. Once a day.”
“A person can’t live on that.”
“You said it, not me. ’Course, the more you tell, maybe the more you get.”
“Maybe?”
“But not likely. Like since you didn’t earn it today, I’m in charge of it tonight. And you only get one every twenty-four hours.
Way you been sassing me, I might just pass it on to Nigel for tomorrow.”
Chloe wanted to beg for it, but she would not. She would just fall silent and hope Florence would get some fun out of being the one in charge of the food each day.
“If you’re still awake and don’t tick me off anymore, I’ll bring it by about midnight. Now, in case you want to read or do your makeup, paint your toes, whatever, I’ll turn the lights on. And since the TV’s off, I’ll pipe in a little music to help you sleep.”
Oh, please, leave the lights and music off.
Florence waddled to the door, elbows resting on her leather equipment belt, which had everything but a gun—nightstick, can of Mace, ring of keys, empty holster, and for whatever reason, a supply of bullets. She flipped the lights on, all of them, and it seemed to Chloe it was brighter than when the sun had shone through the windows.
She could deal with that. She would turn her face to the wall.
And despite her deep, private regret that she had cost herself a bit of food for a few more hours, Chloe would handle that as well. She would pray, think of her loved ones, rehearse her Bible memory verses, and hope to drift off to sleep.
But then came the music, louder than it needed to be. Much too loud. And of course it was “Hail Carpathia” on a loop that would no doubt play all night.
Buck had taught her his alternate words. That might amuse her for a few minutes. What were they again? She walked them through her mind, then began to hum along, then softly sing: Fail Carpathia, you fake and stupid thing;
Fail Carpathia, fool of everything.
I’ll hassle you until you die;
You’re headed for a lake of fire.
Fail Carpathia, you fake and stupid thing.
________
Chang had raced from Eleazar Tiberias’s mirror to the tech center, where he leaped and shouted, exulting with Abdullah and Naomi.
Eventually, however, they showed him the tape of Albie, which sobered him. And despite being fresh from the palace, even Chang was stunned at the gall of the GC to air a so-called news story about Chloe that was so patently invented. He wondered how even GC sympathizers could buy such poppycock. But Naomi showed him samples of e-mails coming in from Judah-ites around the world that showed many were going to need reassurance and to be reminded that the devil is the father of lies.
“Our writers,” Naomi told Chang, “here in this section, are composing boilerplate responses, answers to the most common questions. These will be transmitted to the keypunch people, who can pick and choose and shoot them out immediately.”
She asked a writer to print out his current list of responses, then pulled it from the printer to show Chang.
The only thing the news seemed to get right was Chloe’s name and age and the fact that she is the daughter of Rayford and the wife of Cameron “Buck” Williams. While it’s true she attended Stanford University, neither was she a campus radical nor was s
he
expelled. She dropped out after the Rapture but had a grade point average of 3.4 and had been active in student affairs.
Rayford Steele did serve, while already a believer, as pilot on the staff of Nicolae Carpathia, providing invaluable information to the cause of Christ’s followers everywhere. He was never fired and never charged with insubordination or drinking while on duty. He left after his second wife was killed in a plane crash.
The Judah-ites are anything but “the last holdouts in opposition to the New World Order.” Many Jewish and Muslim factions, as well as former militia groups primarily in the United North American States, still have refused to accept the mark of loyalty to the supreme potentate and must live clandestinely in fear for their lives.
Cameron Williams was indeed formerly a celebrated American journalist who also worked directly for the potentate, but he quit rather than “losing his job due to differences in management style.” As for his subversive cyber and printed magazine’s “limited circulation,” that, of course, is a matter of opinion. The Truth is circulated to the same audience that is ministered to daily by Dr.
Tsion Ben-Judah, at last count still more than a billion.
Rayford Steele, Cameron Williams, and Chloe Williams are not “wanted for more than three dozen murders around the world.”
The Tribulation Force acknowledges one kill for Cameron Williams and two for Rayford Steele, both in self-defense.
The International Commodity Co-op, headed by Mrs.
Williams, has never hijacked any goods, nor does it sell for any kind of profit, but rather trades for the benefit of its members.
The Williamses have amassed no fortune on the black market or otherwise. In fact if not for the generosity of its members, no such Co-op could exist.
Mrs. Williams has never had an abortion or lost a child, and has had but one pregnancy, resulting in a son, now three-and-a-half
years old. The Williamses have never claimed deity or special powers for their son, though they do believe Nicolae Carpathia is the Antichrist and that Jesus Christ will one day conquer Carpathia and bring his own kingdom to earth.
Limited contact with Mrs. Williams since her capture has confirmed that she is committed to not bargaining with the GC, and that is the policy of the Tribulation Force. Not only is she not offering anything to avoid a death sentence, but she has also been on the record many times in the past regarding her willingness to die for the cause of Christ.
There is no evidence that Mrs. Williams provided any
information about Tribulation Force activist Al Basrah, and neither is there evidence to support that he committed suicide.
“Will this do any good?” Chang said.
“Among our people it will,” Naomi said. “Even people who know better want to be reassured. Everybody else is preoccupied with troop buildup in the Jezreel Valley anyway.”
“What’s happening in San Diego?”
“Not much until Captain Steele and Mr. McCullum get there, which should be any minute now. We are gearing up for at least two hundred new arrivals over the next few days, so that should tell you something. Have you talked with your sister lately?”
“No. But I’ve been meaning to, and now, of course, I have news for her.”
“Well, she has news for you too.”
“What?”
“Oh, I can’t spoil it for her.”
“Naomi!”
“Now, no. I can’t wait to meet her, and I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot by breaking her confidence.”
“She told you something she hasn’t told me?”
“Not exactly. But my job makes me privy to information I might not otherwise know.”
“Such as . . .”
“Such as messages to the leadership. Rather than have them come and read them off the computer, often we print them out and deliver them ourselves.”
“And so from one of those you learned something about my sister that she would want to tell me herself.”
Naomi nodded.
“Well, I can take care of that in short order,” he said, pulling out his phone. “And then when will you have a few minutes?”
“Right now,” she said. “But only a few. It’s going to be a hectic day.”
“You owe me a story.”
“My story, you mean? It’s really my father’s and my story, but it’s not a long one, so yes, I’ll have time to tell it.”
“I’ll see you in ten minutes then,” Chang said, punching his sister’s number.
“Hello, Chang,” Ming said when she answered. “Forgive me for whispering, but I am baby-sitting Kenny Bruce, and he is finally asleep.”
“Just wondering how you were and how things are going out there.”
“I’m sure you know.”
“Yes. I have news for you.”
“Tell me, Brother.”
“God has removed the mark of the beast from my forehead.”
“Praise God! Tell me all about it! I can’t wait to see you.”
He told her what had happened.
“That’s too wonderful for words, Chang. Too bad it had to happen on an otherwise unhappy day.”
“Yes, and you have news for me, no?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I have no idea. It’s just a hunch.”
“Oh, Chang. Ree has asked me to marry him, and I have asked Dr. Ben-Judah to officiate when we arrive.”
NINE
“LET ME SCOUT the area,” Buck said, “make sure they’re clear to land.”
George, behind the wheel of the Hummer, shot Buck a
sideward glance. “Nobody was in the area when we left the compound, there’s been no one suspicious along the way, and no one followed us. We came the last half mile in the dirt, using the lights only to make sure we were on track. Buck, the airstrip is as secure as it’s ever been.”
Buck sighed and shook his head. “When did I become the cautious one? You’re the military guy.”
“There’s cautious and prepared, and there’s paranoid,”
Sebastian said. “I know they’ve got Chloe, but that wasn’t because of some vast stakeout. It was her fault. I’m sorry, but your father-in-law said she admitted that herself. And she has a history of venturing out—”
“But why was she out? I saw guys. She must have seen ’em too. And they got her.”
“Routine reconnaissance. You said yourself they looked bored.”
“Well, they’re not bored now, are they?”
“No, Buck, they’re not bored now. I’m parking at the end of the runway. You want to go traipsing around in the woods till they get here, be my guest.”
“You’re not coming?”
“You’re the boss. If you tell me to come, I’ll come. But you distinctly said, ‘Let me scout the area.’ Well, I’m letting you scout the area.”
“Come with me.”
“You’re making me?”
“I’m asking you as a friend.”
“That’s not fair, Buck. Don’t play that card.”
“Come on. What if I find something? You’ll never forgive yourself.”
“You’re incurable.”
Buck knew Sebastian was right. The fact was, he was frazzled and needed something to do. He was ready to head straight to San Diego GC headquarters, guns blazing, and bust Chloe out. “You know Rayford will be up for going after Chloe,” Buck said as they tramped through the woods in their fatigues, Uzis at their sides.
“C’mon, he and Mac will have just spent nearly sixteen hours in the air, probably splitting the piloting duties. These guys are going to need to sack out.”
“You know Mac’s heard about Albie. He’ll be wired and ready to go.”
“He’ll be looking to get back to Al Basrah and find out what happened. Anyway, Buck, even if we do plan a raid, when are we going to do it, and who’s going to get our people to Petra in the meantime?”
“I thought Rayford was getting Lionel on that.”
/>
“Lionel will organize and supply it, sure. But we’ve got to lead these people and see the work gets done.”
Buck slapped a mosquito. “What’re we doing? There’s nothing out here. Whose idea was this anyway? You hear a jet?”
“No. Now we’re out here like you said, so let’s do a job.”
“Now you want to look for something?”
“I just don’t want to waste time, that’s all. Let’s not get too far from the landing strip.”
Buck was suddenly swarmed by bugs. He let his Uzi dangle and smacked his head and face with both hands. “Let’s get out into the open.”
They emerged at about the midpoint of the strip.
“Now we’re going to have to go all the way down to that end when they get here,” George said.
“Let’s head that way now,” Buck said. “You can occupy your time helping me plan the attack.”
“On GC headquarters?”
“Where else?”
“What do you know about the place?”
“What do you mean? We’ve been past there. You’ve seen it.”
“Buck, neither of us has ever been inside. I know it’s four floors plus a basement, but I don’t even know if they use the basement for prisoners. Do you?”
“Nope, but I remember they have bars on the windows down there.”
“Well, that’s good. That’s helpful. But the more you know, the more you should realize you don’t know.”
“What kind of GI mumbo jumbo is that?”
The big man stopped. “All right,” George said, “look. Here’s my take on San Diego GC headquarters. I know it’s one of the biggest in North America, but I have no idea how many personnel they have. Do you?”
“No.”
“Of the four floors and the basement, I don’t know which houses the jail. Do you?”
“No.”
“I’m guessing they segregate men and women prisoners, but I don’t know for sure. Do you?”
“No.”
“Well, if they do, are they all on the same floor or different floors?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“You see where we are, Buck? Nowhere. A military operation, especially a surprise first strike, is a complicated, highly planned maneuver. We’d have one objective and one only, and that is to get Chloe out alive. To accomplish that, we’d have to have someone inside.”