“This breaks my heart,” he whispered to the German.
“Not mine,” the man said, “but I’m working on it.”
Rayford knocked lightly on Chang’s door and heard the
conversation inside die. “It’s me,” he said, just above a whisper.
“And don’t be alarmed. I have someone with me.”
Abdullah opened the door just wide enough to accommodate one eye and the barrel of a .45-caliber Glock. That eye, satisfied with seeing Rayford, surveyed the German side to side and head to toe. Apparently noticing the mark of the believer on the man’s forehead, Abdullah swung the door open.
Once inside, it seemed the man couldn’t be still. After looking at everyone and the computers and stacks of miniature disks, he said, “I can talk? We are okay here?”
Chang nodded and, though he seemed overwhelmed by the
man’s effusiveness, he and Naomi kept working.
“Otto Weser is my name,” he said. “German timberman,
Judah-ite, head of a small band of believers right here in New Babylon.”
He embraced Abdullah. “Watch that side arm now, would
you?” Otto said, laughing. He nearly lifted Chang off the floor.
“Look at us! You are Asian. Our turbaned friend is, what, Egyptian?” Abdullah corrected him. “Ah, Jordanian. I was close. I am German. Mr. Steele, your name is Western and you told me you were American, but your appearance is Egyptian also.”
“A disguise.”
“And the young lady, you are Middle Eastern too, are you not?
Of course you are. I will not hug you without the permission of your father.”
Otto pointed first to Rayford, who shook his head, and then to Abdullah, who looked insulted. “Oh, you are old enough even if she is not yours.” He turned to Chang. “I know she does not belong to you, unless by marriage.”
Naomi approached him, arms spread. “My father is not here, but if the permission is mine to give, you have it.”
“Ah, I love the young ones who appreciate the old movies.”
When he had learned everyone’s name, Otto said, “I will be brief. I know you are on a mission and you must go. I did not know if I would find any brothers or sisters inside the palace, but I am so glad I did. My friends and I, we consider ourselves fulfillments of prophecy. Do you want to know why? We were holed up in Germany, hiding mostly but fighting the GC when we could, and God—who else?—led me to Revelation 18. It dumbfounded me; what else can I say? You know the passage. I have it memorized.
“I’m no scholar, no student, no theologian, but I try to stay a step ahead of my people so I can teach them a little. Well, Revelation 18 talks about the coming destruction of this city, this one right here. Beginning at the fourth verse it says, ‘I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’ Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.”’
“Well, you could have knocked me over. ‘Come out of her, my people’? What were we to make of that except the obvious? People
of God—at least some—were going to be here until just before this happens! Who were they? I could not imagine believers being here, and if they were, not for long. How could they be? If the GC
and the Morale Monitors are killing people all over the world for not bearing the mark of Carpathia, what chance would someone stand here?
“We didn’t know, but we wanted to find out, and I tell you, playing hide-and-seek with the GC in Germany was getting old.
Nearly forty of us packed up and headed this way—no easy trip, I want to say. It has not been easy living here either, but we knew it would not be when we came. We have lost six of our members since we have been here—four all at once, and two, I have to say, were my fault, to my eternal shame. But we will see them again, will we not? And I cannot wait.
“Something else I could not wait for was this plague of darkness. When it came and we realized that everyone was blind but us, I got it in my head I wanted to see this place—the compound, the courtyard, the palace and all—especially the potentate’s office. I could not get any of the others to come with me, so here I am, and who should I run into but you? Well, if we are fulfilling prophecy by being at least some of God’s people who must come out of here before the end, you are an answer to prayer if I ever saw one. We need a place to go if we are to come out, and what better place than where we will finally be safe? If you have connections at Petra, that is where we want to be, if they will have us.”
“Excuse me, Rayford,” Chang said. “This is all very interesting and exciting, but I need to show Naomi the, you know, inner workings David set up here, and then I think we need to get going.”
“Right,” Rayford said, “and I’ll feel more comfortable if Abdullah stays with you two. I want to head back to Carpathia’s
office and see if Otto and I can crash the big meeting and see what’s going on.”
“Oh! I’d love that! As I said, I wanted to see his office anyway.
That’s why I was there when you were, but I was so startled to see someone with the mark of the be—”
“Otto,” Rayford said, “we’ve got to move.”
________
Chloe had crouched by the passenger-side door long enough to almost talk herself out of what she planned. What if she rose into view of a driver waiting for his charges? She likely had the drop on him, and then what was she going to do? Disarm him? Keep him from the radio? Make him tell her where his people were and what they were up to? That would do nothing but give away the underground compound unless Chloe was willing to kill the man and try to run off the rest of them—provided he told the truth about where they were.
She finally told herself that if the truck was empty, she would merely make one wide reconnaissance loop around the compound to make sure the GC weren’t close or on to them or about to be; then she would head back for help.
Chloe released the safety on the Uzi, put her right index finger on the trigger, cradled the barrel in her other palm, and rose quickly.
Empty.
And so was she. She had been unaware of the effects of the adrenaline on her since she had ventured out of the service door, but the resultant crash of her system left her nearly immobile. She slumped by the truck to gather herself. Her arms and legs felt rubbery, and had Chloe’s senses not been on such high alert, she believed she could have tucked her chin to her chest and slept.
Though she couldn’t escape the feeling she was being watched—she imagined at least nine GC with scopes trained on her—she felt remarkably lucky, given how serendipitous her plan had been. That is to say, she hardly had a plan. And while she agreed with the Tribulation Force’s motto—“We don’t do luck”—
it was difficult to attribute her safety so far to God when she felt so foolish for how she had again tested her destiny.
Chloe rose and began her scouting ring of the perimeter. As she moved silently in the darkness, feeling vulnerable and trying to be more thorough than quick, all she was aware of was the pace of her breathing and her thundering pulse.
________
By the time Rayford and Otto reached Carpathia’s suite of offices, the meeting had begun and the stragglers spilled out of the doorway of his conference room. Rayford saw Carpathia’s wretched glow, but it was obvious that only Leon Fortunato stood close enough to the man to take advantage of it.
Rayford gently put his hands on men in the doorway, and they gave way to let him
slip through, Otto following. To be safe, they moved to the far end of the room, away from Carpathia. The potentate asked Krystall to call the roll, which she did almost entirely from memory. When she drew a blank on the last three names, she asked if she could read the rest of the list in Carpathia’s light.
“Better simply to have those whose names have not been called identify themselves,” Nicolae said.
As they were doing that, Otto touched Rayford’s arm and mouthed that he was tempted to call out his own name and see what kind of havoc that might wreak.
“If you gentlemen would kindly attempt to keep your outbursts to a minimum,” Carpathia began, “Director of Security and Intelligence Suhail Akbar has the first item.”
“Thank you, Excellency. Oh! Forgive me, sir, but I am in pain as well. Ah!”
“Suhail, please!”
“Apologies, Highness, but I don’t know what to—”
“Control yourself, man!”
“I shall try, sir. Our primary concern, ladies and gentlemen, besides the obvious, is that a—”
“What’s more important than the obvious?” someone with an Indian accent said. “We’ve got to find a solution to this—”
“Who is that?” Carpathia demanded. “Raman Vajpayee, is that you?”
“Yes, sir, I simply want to know—”
“Raman, I simply want you to be quiet. How dare you interrupt a member of my cabinet?”
“Well, sir, it is most important that—”
“What is most important is that the only response to your offense is an abject apology, and it had better be immediately forthcoming.”
“I am sorry, Potentate, but—”
“That was hardly abject. At a time of international crisis, I cannot imagine such insubordination. I am of a mind—”
“To what?” Vajpayee said. “To put me to death as you do anyone who speaks his mind? I tell you, I would rather be dead than to live like this! In the dark! In pain! No relief in sight. And yet you carry on—”
“Show yourself, Raman! Do it now!”
The Indian rushed forward, pushing others out of his way. It was clear to Rayford that he was simply following the sound of Carpathia’s voice, unable to see even the glow. “I am here, within
arm’s length of you! Kill me for daring to speak my mind, or reveal yourself as a coward!”
“Suhail,” Carpathia said, “take this man out and execute him!”
“So you are a coward! You will not do it yourself! At least give me that much respect.”
“I have only contempt for you, Raman. You have disgraced your position with the Global Community and I—”
“Kill me yourself, you impotent—”
And with that, Carpathia thrust himself toward the Indian, finally allowing both to see one another. As the others listened in horror, the two men struggled, and Carpathia succeeded in getting the man’s head in his hands. With a violent twist he broke Vajpayee’s neck, and the dead man slid to the floor.
“Any other dissidents?” Carpathia said. “Anyone who would rather be dead than suffer for the cause? Hmm? If not, Suhail, proceed, and when you are finished, get this corpse out of here.”
Somehow a shaken Akbar was able to control his own outcries of pain as he reported that an aircraft had landed at the New Babylon airstrip that very afternoon. “We can only assume it was a miracle of autopiloting,” he said, “but we have no record of what plane it is and urge caution on everyone’s part, as we may have subversives among us.”
“If we cannot accomplish having the occupants of that plane identify themselves,” Carpathia said, “I will personally inspect it at the end of this meeting.”
“That’s our cue,” Rayford whispered to Otto. “We’ve got to be out of here before then.”
As they began to surreptitiously make their way out of the room, Carpathia continued. “As you know, I am determined to put an end to our Jewish problem, and if that includes the cowardly Judah-ites who remain hidden in the mountains, so much the better. I am hereby calling for a meeting of all ten heads of the
global regions in six months’ time. We shall meet in Baghdad to map our strategy to rid the world of our enemies. Meanwhile, we will move our command post into the light at Al Hillah. As many of you know—and if this is news to you, I expect full
confidentiality—Al Hillah is the location of our vast storehouse of nuclear weaponry, voluntarily surrendered to us by the rest of the world as a condition of my accepting my position. That will prove most useful to us in this ultimate effort and final solution.
“Until the rest of the world is on the same page with me, I plan to begin amassing fighting forces in Israel. All available military personnel in the United Carpathian States who are not already assigned as Peacekeepers or Morale Monitors will be expected to report for duty in the Jezreel Valley for combat training.
“As for our relocation to Al Hillah, be ready to move out in twenty-four hours. Take anything that will assist you in this transfer.”
“What about our workers, our departments?”
“They will stay, and they must not know where we are going or even that we are going. Is that understood?”
Rayford was just outside the door when he heard that no one had responded.
“Understood?”
“Yes,” a few muttered.
“Then go about your business. Mr. Akbar, Reverend Fortunato, and I will make our way to the airstrip.”
Rayford motioned for Otto to follow, and he began running toward the elevators. “Call every car and push every button on each. Stall those elevators for as long as you can. I’ll take the stairs. I have no idea where my friends are, but I need to leave a note at Chang’s place in case they head back there. We have to be out of here before Carpathia finds out the identity of our plane and where we are. Got it?”
“Got it. Thanks for trusting me.”
“Were you hoping to come with us? Because unless you can get—”
“No, we’ll arrange that later. I wouldn’t come without my people anyway.”
“If you happen to see any of my friends before I do, send them to the plane.”
Rayford bounded down the stairs, drawing screams and squeals from people suffering in the stairwells. They called out, asking how he could run like that in the dark. He hated ignoring them.
He reached the main level, vaulted over several people, and zigzagged between others. He burst out the door and sprinted across the runways toward the plane. If he could get it started and turned around, all he could do was hope and pray that Chang, Naomi, and Abdullah were on their way.
________
Buck had been sound asleep for hours before something began troubling him. He grew fitful and was suddenly wide awake. It was guilt. Letting Chloe take watch duty when she worked so hard all day with the Co-op and their son. What kind of a husband was he?
He ran his hands through his hair and sat up, calling out.
“How’s it going, babe?”
Maybe she was checking on Kenny. Or getting herself some tea in the kitchen. He padded out of the bedroom, stretching.
“Chlo’!” he called out. “You’ve got something on the motion detector here!”
He bent over the periscope and scanned quickly. He saw nothing until he got to the southwest, where he saw a lone figure, armed. He scowled. “Chloe!” he called. “Better call George. I’ve got a bogey at eight o’clock. Chloe?”
He froze. He stood and moved toward the kitchen. It was dark.
And Kenny was crying. Buck grabbed the phone on his way to Kenny’s room and punched in Ming’s number.
“Hey, big boy,” Buck said, finding the boy standing in his bed, quickly going from crying to smiling.
“Mama?”
“In a minute,” he said. “Why don’t you lie down and go back to sleep. It’s still night.”
Ming answered.
“I’m so sorry to wake you, Ming, but I’ve got a little emergency here.”
??
?Anything, Buck.”
“Could you watch Kenny for a little while? I think Chloe is outside.”
“Be there in less than a minute.”
He thanked her and got on the walkie-talkie. “George, you up?”
FOUR
RAYFORD HAD the engines started and the plane turned around when he saw Carpathia’s glow in the distance. The potentate seemed in a hurry, but he was apparently leading Suhail Akbar and Leon Fortunato, and he had to go slowly to light the way for them a few feet at a time. That would not have been as much help without the sounds of the jet engines, however, so Rayford shut down and prayed that this mostly blind threesome would veer off course before his own trio found him.
Rayford turned on his cell phone and called Mac McCullum in Al Basrah to debrief him. “Can you and Albie leave for Al Hillah today?”
“We been sittin’ here like a past-due hen.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. You’re pretty hot since Greece. How are you going to get around?”
“With bluster, charm, and only at night, of course. I figure you pretty much just want to know what NC and his boys are up to.”
“Ideal would be your finding out where they’re meeting in Baghdad and bugging the place for us.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll just tell ’em I’m his new valet and can I have a few hours in the meeting room before everyone else gets there.”
“If I thought it was easy, I’d do it myself,” Rayford said.
“Albie knows everybody. If it’s gonna get done, he’ll get it done.”
Chang, Naomi, and Abdullah appeared, each laden with boxes and cases. Naomi looked ashen. Rayford opened the door and lowered the steps. “Good timing,” he said.
“We were on it all the way, Captain,” Abdullah said. “Thanks to this young genius.”
“Just showing off,” Chang said, handing cargo in and helping Naomi aboard. “I wanted to show her how David had bugged the whole place and that we could actually listen in on Carpathia.”
“So you knew he was coming,” Rayford said, letting Abdullah edge past to the pilot’s chair.
“Could we please talk about something else?” Naomi said.