David worked his magic on the computer, patching in to the bug in room 4054. He slipped on earphones and found himself in the middle of a heated argument. He heard the television and Mrs. Wong pleading, “Shh! TV! Shh! TV!”
Her husband shouted back in Chinese. David knew there were many dialects, but he didn’t understand even one. It soon became clear that father and son were arguing and that the mother wanted to watch television. The only words David could make out from the males were an occasional GC and Carpathia. The son was soon in tears, the father berating him.
David recorded the conversation in the unlikely event he could download voice-activated software that would not only recognize the language and the dialect, but would also convert it to English or Hebrew, his two languages.
Suddenly he heard the father speak more harshly than ever, the son pleading and—it sounded like—collapsing in tears. The mother pleaded for quiet again, the father barked at her, and then it sounded to David as if someone picked up a phone and punched buttons. Finally, English!
“Missah Akbar, you speak Chinese? . . . Pakistani? Me no. English OK, OK? . . . Yes, Wong! Question for you. New worker get loyalty mark first, yah? . . . OK! How soon? . . . Not till then? . . . Maybe sooner, OK! Mrs. Wong and me get too? OK? Son, Chang Wong, want be first to get mark.”
The boy cried out in Chinese, and it sounded as if Mr. Wong covered the phone before screaming at him. Someone left the room, David assumed Chang, and slammed a door.
“Missah Akbar, you do mark on boy, mother, father? . . . You no do? Who? . . . Moon? Walter Moon? . . . Not Moon himself? . . . Moon people, OK! Son first! Picture! Take picture son! . . . When? . . . Yes. I talk to Moon people. Bye-bye.”
David heard Mr. Wong call out something more calmly, and then something from Chang, muffled. The father was angry again and had the last word. Then he whispered something in Chinese to his wife. She responded with what sounded like resignation.
David wondered if Chang had told his father why he would refuse the mark, or if he simply said no. When the apartment was silent except for the television, David saved the file and forwarded it to Ming Toy with a request. “If it’s not too much trouble or too painful, it would help me to know what was said here. I’m guessing your father is pressuring Chang to get himself hired and to be among the first to take the mark. I’ll try other sources inside to see how soon they’re going to start administering the mark, but help me with this at your earliest convenience, if you would. I regret eavesdropping, but I’m sure you want to preclude this disaster too.”
David dialed 4054. Mr. Wong answered. “Chang, please?”
“You want Chang Wong?”
“Yes, please.”
“Talk to him about GC job?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You Mr. Moon?”
“No. David Hassid. I met you last week.”
“Yes! Mr. Hassid! Chang work for you?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s what I’d like to talk to him about.”
“He here. You talk to him. You in computers, yes?”
“Much of my area is computers, yes.”
“He best. He help you! Work for you. You talk to him. Wait . . . Chang!” He switched to Chinese, and the boy argued from the other room. Finally he came to the phone.
“Hello,” the boy said, sounding as if he’d lost his best friend.
“Chang, it’s David. Just listen. Your sister told me what was going on. Let me try to help. It will get your father off your back if you get interviewed by a director, right?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll buy us some time. You don’t worry, OK?”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Don’t say anything, but we might even find a way to get you out of here.”
“Before the mark?”
“Don’t say that, Chang. Just play along for now. Understand?”
“Yes, David.”
“Call me Mr. Hassid, OK? We can’t sound like friends, and we sure don’t want to sound like fellow believers, brothers, right?”
“Right, Mr. Hassid.”
“Thataboy, Chang. Let’s do this right. You call my assistant tomorrow and arrange for an appointment with me. I’ll tell Tiffany to expect your call, and you tell her I asked you to call her. All right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Everything will be all right, Chang.”
“I hope so.”
“You can trust me.”
“Yes, Mr. Hassid.”
CHAPTER 14
Rayford and the OTHERS were invited to listen in as Tsion grilled his former professor and mentor on the history of God’s chosen people. Chaim, with the wire finally out of his mouth, slowly worked his jaw and rubbed his face, clearly relieved. He was not animated, however, and hard as it seemed Tsion tried, Chaim appeared still tormented by the same things he had discussed with Rayford a few nights before.
“Come, come, Chaim!” Tsion said. “This is exciting, dramatic, miraculous stuff. This is the greatest story ever told! I know where God has provided a place of refuge for his children, but I am not going to tell you until you are ready. You must be prepared in case God calls you to be a warrior for the Lord, to go into a battle of words and wit. Your knowledge would help carry you, but God would have to be your strength. I believe that if he confirms in your heart that you shall be his vessel, he will empower you with supernatural abilities to fight the satanic miracles of Antichrist. Can you envision the victory, my friend? How I wish I were the one going!”
“How I wish that too,” Chaim said.
“No, no! If you are God’s man in God’s time, you must never want out of this most sacred duty and calling! The history of this country carries much discussion of a manifest destiny. Well, my brother, if ever a people had a manifest destiny, it is our people! Yours and mine! And now we include our Gentile brothers who are grafted into the branch because of their belief in Messiah and his work of grace and sacrifice and forgiveness on the cross. Jesus is Messiah! Jesus is the Christ! He is risen!”
“He is risen indeed,” Chaim said, but he did not match Tsion’s energy.
“Do you hear yourself?” Tsion mimicked Chaim, mumbling, “He-is-risen-indeed. No! He is risen, indeed! Amen! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! You could go to Jerusalem, a leader of men, a conqueror! You would stand up to the lying, blaspheming enemy of the Lord Most High. You would expose Antichrist to the world as the evil man indwelt by Satan and rally the devout believers to repel the mark of the beast!
“Oh, Chaim, Chaim! You are learning so much. That old brain is still good, still facile, still receptive. You are getting this—I know you are! If not you, who shall go? You seem uniquely qualified, but much as I dream it, I cannot presume to make this assignment. How I wish I were the one and could be there in person to see it! If it is you, I will want every detail. Should the forces of evil come against you and you should be overwhelmed by the power of the enemy, God would provide a way, a place, and you, you my friend, would lead the people to that place. And the Lord God himself would protect you and care for you and watch over you and provide for you. Do you realize, Chaim, that God has promised that it will be as in the days of old? Think of it! Weak and frail and wicked as they were, unfaithful, ignorant, impatient, and dallying with other gods, the God of the universe himself catered to the children of Israel.
“Do you understand what that means? You could lead your people, his people, to a place that will be almost impossible to go into or out from. If you were to be there until the Glorious Appearing of the Christ, what would you eat? What would you wear? The Bible says God himself will provide as he did in the days of old! He will send food, delicious, nourishing, fulfilling food! Manna from heaven! And do you know about your clothes?”
“No, Tsion,” Chaim said wearily, a tease in his voice, “whatever you do, do not neglect to tell me about my clothes.”
“I won’t! And you will be grateful, not to mention amazed. If I amaze you, will you admit
it?”
“I will admit it.”
“Promise me.”
“My word is my bond, my excitable young friend. Amaze me and I will say so.”
“Your clothes will not wear out!” Tsion stopped with a flourish, his hands in the air.
“They won’t?”
“Are you amazed?”
“Maybe. Tell me more.”
“Now you want to hear it?”
“I always want to hear it, Tsion. I am just unworthy. Scared to death, unqualified, unprepared, and unworthy.”
“If God calls you, you shall be none of those! You would be Moses! The Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would go before you, and the glory of the Lord would be your rear guard.”
“I would need a rear guard? Who would be chasing me?”
“Not Pharaoh’s army, I assure you. But if it were, God would make a way for you to escape. Carpathia’s hordes would be pursuing you. And for all his talk of peace and disarmament, who has access to the residue of the world’s weapons, surrendered willingly to the lying purveyor of peace? But if you needed the Red Sea parted yet again, God would do it! For what have we learned, my little Hebrew schoolchild?”
“Hmm?”
“Hmm? Don’t hmm? me, Chaim! Tell the rabbi what you learned about the great stories, the miracles from the Torah.”
“That they are not just stories, not just examples, myths for our encouragement.”
“Excellent. But rather, what are they? What are they, my star pupil?”
“Truth.”
“Truth! Yes!”
“They actually happened.”
“Yes, Chaim! They happened because God is all-powerful. He says they happened—they happened. And if he says he will do it again, what?”
“He will.”
“He will! Oh, the privilege, Chaim! Deal with your fears. Deal with your doubts. Give them to God. Offer yourself in all your weakness, because in our weakness we are made strong. Moses was weak. Moses was nobody. Moses had a speech impediment! Chaim! Moses, the hero of our faith, had less to offer than you do!”
“He was not a murderer.”
“Yes he was! You forget! Did he not kill a man? Chaim, think! Your mind, your conscience, your heart tells you God cannot forgive you. I know the guilt is fresh. I know it is grievous. But you know, down deep, that God’s grace is greater than our sin. It has to be! Otherwise we all live in vain! Is anything too hard for God? Anything too big for him? Any sin too great for him to forgive? It would be blasphemy to say so. Chaim! If you are the one who can commit a sin too great for God to forgive, you are above God. That’s how we can wallow in our sin and still be guilty of pride. Who do we think we are, the only ones God cannot reach with his gift of love?
“He found you, Chaim! He pulled you from the miry clay! Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up!”
“Back to my clothes,” Chaim said. “I could wear clothes from now until Jesus comes again, and they wouldn’t wear out?”
Tsion sat back and waved dismissively. “Chaim, if he can save you and me, of all people, forgive us our sins, bring us back from spiritual death, this clothes thing is one of his lesser miracles. Forget the extra buttons, the patches, the thread. Go there with something you like, because you’ll still be wearing it when this is all over.”
David had pushed the limits of his ability to virtually set up the entire GC compound for his own remote computer monitoring. He breathed a prayer of thanks to God for allowing him to focus and work in spite of his grief. Mac and Abdullah were set to visit him in an hour to finalize the escape plan that included David and Hannah, and all four had agreed to carefully watch for believers they had been unaware of. It was already apparent that the brilliant teenager, Chang Wong, might be tagging along. David just had to figure out how to pull it off.
While waiting word from Ming Toy, David checked his archives for meetings he had recorded but never listened to. In his Carpathia file was the one with Suhail Akbar, Walter Moon, Leon Fortunato, and Jim Hickman the day he himself had chatted with Hickman. David felt a chill as he prepared to eavesdrop, and he did a quick walk-through of his area to make sure everyone was gone for the day. He could close a program and shut down with a single keystroke, but still he didn’t want to be surprised by the wrong person.
Something Hannah had asked a few days before haunted him too. She had said, “How do you know there isn’t someone just as technically astute as you are who is doing exactly what you’re doing?”
“Such as?” he had said.
“Monitoring you, maybe.”
He had brushed it off. He had developed antihacking programs, antibugging devices. He had electronic ears everywhere and believed he could hear if someone breathed a word of something like that. It was impossible, wasn’t it? Surely the brass wouldn’t be so free to speak if they thought he was listening in. And if they were onto him, it seemed they would have shut him down long before this.
David believed the security chips he’d inserted in his phones and e-mail programs were impenetrable, and he had tried to explain it to Hannah.
“I don’t pretend to have a clue, David. Maybe you are the top computer genius alive, but ought you not be very careful?”
“Oh, I am.”
“You are?”
“You bet.”
“But you tell me of phone calls and e-mails between you and your compatriots in the States.”
“Not traceable. Not hackable.”
“But you trace others. You hack others.”
“I’m good.”
“You’re living on the edge.”
“There’s no other way to live.”
Hannah had dropped it with a shrug. He believed the only reason she raised the issue was because she cared, and she was, after all, a civilian when it came to technology. But he almost wished she hadn’t planted the seed of curiosity in his mind. With every message, every transmission, every phone call, he got the niggling feeling that someone somewhere could be looking over his shoulder. Everything he knew told him it couldn’t be, but there was no accounting for intuition. He ran continuous checks on his programs, searched for intruders. So far so good, but Hannah had spooked him. If nothing else, it would keep him on his toes.
David had begun the Carpathia meeting recording before he went to see Hickman, so he discovered several minutes of Carpathia alone in his office. The last time he had listened in that way he had heard Nicolae praying to Lucifer. Now, Nicolae was Lucifer. Did Satan pray to himself?
No, but he did talk to himself. At first David merely marveled at the fidelity of the sound. He had merely arranged a simple intercom system to both transmit and receive, based on his commands, but it worked better than he had hoped. He heard when Nicolae sighed, cleared his throat, or even hummed.
That was the strangest part. Here was a man who apparently did not sleep. Yet he seemed to exude energy, even when alone. David heard movement, walking, things being arranged. In the background he heard the workers he had encountered just outside Carpathia’s office.
“Hmm,” Carpathia said softly, as if thinking. “Mirrors. I need mirrors.” He chuckled. “Why deprive myself of the joy others luxuriate in? They get to look at me whenever they want.”
He pushed the intercom button and his assistant answered immediately. “Excellency?” Sandra said.
“Is that foreman still out there?”
“He is, Lordship. Would you like to speak with him?”
“No, just pass along a message. Better yet, step in a moment.”
“My pleasure,” she said, as if she meant it with all of her being. Sandra had always seemed so cold and bored to David that he wondered how she interacted with Carpathia. She was more than twenty years his senior. David heard the squeak of a chair, as if Carpathia had sat.
Simultaneous with a soft knock, the door opened and closed. “Your Excellency,” she said, to the sound of rustling.
“Sandra,” Carpathia said, “you need not k
neel every time you—”
“Pardon me, sir,” she said, “but I beg of you not to deprive me the privilege.”
“Well, of course not, if you wish, but—”
“I know you don’t require it, sir, but to me it is a privilege to worship you.”
He sighed without a trace of impatience, David thought.
“What a beautiful sentiment,” he said at last. “I accept your devotion with deep satisfaction.”
“What may I do for you, my lord?” she said. “Do me the honor of asking anything of me.”
“Merely that I want several full-length mirrors in the remodeled office. I will leave it to those in charge of such matters to position them, but I believe it would add a nice touch.”
“I couldn’t agree more, sir. I shiver at the thought of multiple images of you in here.”
“Oh, well, I thank you. Run along and deliver that message now.”
“Right away, sir.”
“And then you may go for the day.”
“But your meeting—”
“I will welcome them. Do not feel obligated.”
“As you wish, sir, but you know I would be more than happy—”
“I know.”
The door opened and shut, and it sounded as if Carpathia rose once more. Just loud enough for David to hear he said, “I too shiver at the thought of multiple images of me, you homely old wench. But you do know how to make a man feel worshiped.”
Now it sounded as if he was moving chairs into position. “Akbar, Fortunato, Hickman, Moon. No, Moon, Akbar, ah . . . must let Leon wonder about his proximity and access, keep him nimble. Hickman needs assurances. All right.”
Back to his intercom. “Are you still out there, Sandra?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Before you go, get Mr. McCullum on the phone for me, please.”
David froze, then chastised himself. He didn’t care that Nicolae communicated with Mac. If David couldn’t trust Mac, he couldn’t trust anyone.
“Captain McCullum,” Carpathia said a few minutes later. “How good to speak with you. You are aware, are you not, that 10 percent of all weapons of war were ceded to the Global Community when we were known as the United Nations? . . . The rest were destroyed, and I am satisfied that our monitoring has confirmed that this was largely carried out. If any munitions remain, they are few and are likely in the hands of factions so small as to pose little threat. My question to you is, do you know where we stockpiled the armaments we received? . . . You had nothing to do with that? . . . Well, yes, of course I know, Captain! The question is merely probative. You are former military, you are a pilot, and you get around. I want to know if the word has leaked out where we inventory our weapons. . . . Good. That is all, Captain.”