“I think if that safety lever is set, you’re okay,” Steve said.
“Oh, sure enough. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. You can owe me.”
It took Ferdinand a second, but that elicited a wry look. He set the restraining bar in place, none too easily, then found the release cord and surveyed the whole scene once more.
Kenny was asleep. Buck sat hunched before the TV, to which he had hooked his phone. Chang had devised some digital marvel to transmit the images from Colorado. A TV camera in a corner showed the entire area, and Chloe pointed. “That’s him, Buck. He’s right there.”
Buck’s chest felt heavy and he was short of breath. Steve was the only one before the guillotine, and a man seemed to be fiddling with it.
“Do you have a basket of some sort?” Steve said.
“Excuse me?” Ferdinand said.
“A container? Unless you wanted to just chase after my—”
“Yes! Thank you. One moment.”
Steve wanted to say, “Happy to be of service.”
Ferdinand found a corrugated box that for some reason had been lined with tinfoil. Steve didn’t even want to think about why. “Now,” the man said, looking up, “if I can get you to come here.”
Steve rolled close.
“Can you get down, or—”
“I can get myself in there,” Steve said, “though it seems a little lacking in customer service that I should be expected to—”
“I will get assistance.”
“No! I will get situated, once I’ve had my say.”
“Oh yes, your say. Now is the time. Feel free.”
“Will this be recorded?”
The man nodded.
“Well, then . . .”
Steve spun halfway around to face those in line for the mark of loyalty. Their eyes would not meet his, but he sensed a hunger on their faces for what they clearly felt privileged to soon see.
“I don’t expect you to believe me or to agree or to change your minds,” he began. “But I want to go on record for my own sake anyway. I have chosen the guillotine today so that I can be with God. I am a believer in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the maker of heaven and earth. I renounce Nicolae Carpathia, the evil one, Satan incarnate. When you take his mark today, you once and for all forfeit your chance for eternal life in heaven. You will be bound for hell, and even if you want to change your mind, you will not be able to.
“I wish more of my life had been dedicated to the one who gave his for me, and into his hands I commit myself, for the glory of God.”
Steve spun back around, launched himself out of the chair and into the guillotine. “Please just do it quickly, Ferdinand,” he said.
Buck could not take his eyes from the screen. Chloe sat next to him, her face buried in her hands. The picture disappeared, but Buck sat there for almost an hour. Finally his phone chirped. It was Chang, who also sounded shaken.
“A confidential note was added to the report from personnel at the loyalty center,” he said. “It tells Suhail Akbar, ‘You will no doubt be hearing from the Global Community command center in Colorado, which will need not only a replacement for the deceased Pinkerton Stephens, but also for his second in command, Vasily Medvedev. The latter was just found in his GC automobile. Medvedev died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.’”
Of course, neither death was reported on the Global Community News Network.
By the time Ming Toy landed in Shanghai after flying all night, she was more than exhausted. She had made the seemingly interminable flight many times before, but she could not sleep this time because she was getting to know the pilot. He was an acquaintance, if not a friend, of George Sebastian’s. And while she had not met George, they had many mutual friends by now. Her pilot, a South Korean named Ree Woo, had been a naturalized American citizen at the time of the Rapture and was stationed at the same base as Sebastian.
“Everyone knew George,” Woo said. “He was the biggest man most of us had ever seen, let alone the biggest on the base. There was nothing George couldn’t do.”
Woo had been a pilot trainer specializing in small, fast, maneuverable craft with high-fuel capacity and thus long-distance capability. “I was unusual for a Korean-American, Mr. Chow, because I acted more American than Asian, even though I did not move to America until after I was a teenager. I had no religion. I would have made a good Chinese. You grew up atheist, I bet.”
“I did,” Ming said, “but Korea, especially South Korea, is about half Christian, half Buddhist, isn’t it?”
“Yes! But I was neither. I wasn’t really an atheist either. I was just nothing. I didn’t think about religion. My feeling was, there might be a God; I didn’t know and didn’t care, as long as if there was one, he left me alone. I worshiped me, you know what I mean?”
“Of course. Didn’t we all?”
“All my friends, we all worshiped ourselves. We wanted fun, girls, cars, things, money. You too?”
“I want to hear the rest of your story, Ree,” Ming said, “but it’s time for me to use my real voice and tell you the truth.”
He leaned toward her and squinted in the darkness at the change in her tone.
“No,” she said. “I never wanted girls. I wanted boys.”
He recoiled, smiling. “Really?”
“It’s not like that,” she said. “I am a girl. In fact, I am a grown woman. I have been married. I am a widow.”
“Now you are putting me on!”
“I’m telling you the truth.” And she told her own story for the next hour or so.
“Would you believe I have heard of your brother?” Woo said.
“No!”
“It’s true! No one mentions his name, but many in our underground group in San Diego know he is there, inside the palace.”
Woo then finished his own story of how scared he was when the disappearances occurred. “I did not know such fear existed. Nothing ever bothered me before. I was a daredevil. That’s why I wanted to fly, and not big commercial jets or helicopters or props. I wanted to fly the fastest, most dangerous. I had many close calls, but they only thrilled me and never made me cautious or careful. I couldn’t wait to live on the edge of danger again.
“But when so many people disappeared, I was so scared I could not sleep. I went to bed with the light on. Don’t laugh! I did! I knew something terrible and supernatural had happened. It was as if only an event that huge could have slowed me down and made me think about anything. Why did these people vanish? Where did they go? Would I be next?
“I asked everybody I knew, and even many people who were just like me and had never even been inside a church started saying that it was something God did. If that was true, I had to know. I began asking more people, reading, looking for books in the chaplain’s office. I even found a Bible, but I couldn’t understand it. Then someone gave me one that was written in simple language. I didn’t even know for sure there was a God, but I prayed just in case. This Bible called itself the Word of God, so I said, ‘God, if you are out there somewhere, help me understand this and find you.’
“Ming—now that is your real name, right? No more surprises?”
She nodded. “No more.”
“Ming, I read that Bible the way a starving man eats bread. I devoured it! I read it all the time. I read it over and over, and if I found books and chapters that were too puzzling, I skipped and found ones I could follow. When I found the Gospels and the letters from Paul, I read and read until I collapsed from exhaustion.
“In the back of the Bible, it listed verses that showed how a person could become a Christian, a follower of Christ, and have their sins forgiven. It said you could know you were saved from your sins and would go to heaven when you died or be taken to be with Christ at the Rapture. I was heartbroken! I was too late! I believed with all my heart that this was what the disappearances were all about, and I cried and cried, regretting having missed it.
“But I followed the verses the
salvation guide listed, and I prayed to God and pleaded for him to forgive me. I told him I believed he died for me and would receive me to himself. I felt so clean and free and refreshed, it was as if I had not missed anything at all. I mean, I wish I had been a believer in time to have been raptured, but I have no doubt that I am saved anyway and that I will be in heaven someday.”
Hours later it seemed to Ming that she and Ree had been lifetime friends. Exhausted as she was, she would rather hear him talk and watch him respond to her than sleep. As the sun rose on the Yellow Sea, Ming was sickened by the vast expanse of blood that extended all the way into the harbors. The lower they flew, the more she could see the devastation, the rotting wildlife. When they landed they were issued face masks that did little to filter the stench.
Ree was delivering goods for the Co-op in Shanghai, but he agreed to take her on to Nanjing, two hundred more miles west. Chang had told his parents of an underground church there, and though it was a big city, Ming prayed God would lead her to them.
Ree stayed with her as she carefully sought out secret believers. It was not easy. They would sit in small eateries, and she would carefully tip back her cap occasionally so a fellow believer might see her mark. It was not until Ree did this at a small grocery that an old woman approached and did the same to him. The three of them met in an alley and quickly shared stories. Ming understood the woman’s dialect and translated for Ree.
The old woman said that the underground church was almost nonexistent now in Nanjing and had largely relocated to Zhengzhou, yet another three hundred-plus miles northwest. Ming finally slept on the last leg of the journey, but even unconscious, she worried Ree might doze at the controls. In the days of tighter aviation rules, he would never have been allowed to fly on so little rest.
The GC seemed on the rampage in Zhengzhou, hauling the unmarked to loyalty mark centers, rounding up Jews to take to concentration camps, and shouting through bullhorns every time a new session of worshiping the image of Carpathia came due. Even the thousands who already boasted his mark appeared weary of the constant requirements and the treatment of the undecided.
Ming and Ree found a cheap hostel that asked no questions and rented them tiny individual rooms, not much bigger than cots, where they paid too much to sleep too little. But the rest took the edge off, and when they met up again they set off to find the underground believers.
Ming finally connected with a small band of Christ followers who hid in the basement of an abandoned school. Ree had to get back to the airport and eventually to San Diego, and parting with him—though they had just met—felt to Ming like an amputation. He promised to come back and to be sure that the little church in Zhengzhou was added to the Co-op list, though they had little with which to barter.
Ming had been able to connect with Chang in New Babylon and learned of the gradual dispersion of the Tribulation Force from Chicago and the soon relocation of the Williams family to San Diego. “You must get to know them, Ree,” she said, “and become more than acquaintances with Sebastian. My dream is to find my parents and take them back there with me one day.”
It was more than a week before Ming found anyone who had heard of any Wongs, despite the popularity of the name in that area. It was a weary old man with liquid eyes who sadly told her, “We know Wongs. Late middle-aged couple. He very loyal to potentate but never took mark.”
“That’s him!” Ming said.
“I so sorry, young one. He was found out.”
“No!”
“He die with honor.”
“Please, no!”
“He was believer. Your mother grieving but okay. She with small group about fifty miles west in mountains.”
“And she is a believer too?” Ming asked through tears.
“Oh yes. Yes. I take you to her when time is right.”
CHAPTER 15
Chang never felt so isolated, so alone, as over the next five months. He grieved for his father but rejoiced that he was in heaven. He prayed for his mother and his sister, urging Ming to stay there and not try to bring the old woman out. It was, he knew, a horrible time to be in China, but escaping was more precarious.
Chang was intrigued by Ree Woo and helped Chloe arrange Co-op flights and connections for him. But for the most part, Chang lay low, especially on the computers. Suhail Akbar had made it a personal quest to ferret out the mole in the palace. All employees were interrogated again and again, but Chang was certain he had aroused no more suspicion than anyone else. He longed for the day when he could be as free to keep up with the Trib Force as he once had.
The day was likely over when he could pave the way for them with phony credentials. And he had to ask Buck to go easy with what he provided him from the palace for The Truth. It was one thing for Buck to write what he knew, but quite another to prove it with recordings and video feeds that could have come only from bugs in New Babylon itself.
Chang was thrilled that the dark-of-night relocations of the Trib Force had gone smoothly. So far they had lost no one since Steve Plank, who had never officially been part of the Force but was mourned as if he were.
Leah and Hannah were staying close to their new home in Long Grove. Their occasional missives about Lionel Whalum and his wife proved them to be the type of couple the Trib Force, and the Co-op, needed.
Albie and Mac flew recklessly all over the world in aircraft Albie seemed to trade on a new black market. Chang worried that they didn’t have solid phony credentials anymore, but Mac, at least, seemed to feel invincible after the triumph in Greece.
Zeke, from what Chang could tell, flourished in a country environment the GC seemed to have forgotten. Many secret believers traveled for miles to be transformed by the young man with the master’s touch.
Word from Enoch and his charges from The Place was less encouraging. The group had been split up and parceled out to various underground homes, individuals, and families. Most of them were still active in trading via the Co-op, but many despaired of ever having the kind of camaraderie they had enjoyed in Chicago.
That city had been devastated again, this time by the real thing—a nuclear bomb that hit three days after Buck and Chloe and Kenny had rendezvoused with Sebastian and flown to San Diego. GCNN reported a thousand casualties, all Judah-ites, but viewers realized that confirming the deaths or numbers would have jeopardized the very people who claimed the count.
Most thrilling to Chang was keeping up with Buck and Chloe and Kenny, who now lived literally underground in a bunker near San Diego. Sebastian and his family had smoothed the transition, and the secret church there seemed one of the most vibrant Chang knew of. There Kenny was just one of several babies born since the Rapture.
With the military technology still mostly intact, Buck was able to re-create the setup he had enjoyed in Chicago, and he broadcast his cyberzine every few days. He had been careful to stay close to home but envied Rayford’s getting to live at Petra.
Now there was where the real action was.
Four Years into the Tribulation; Six Months into the Great Tribulation
While the atmosphere was still festive and the daily messages from both Tsion and Chaim inspiring, Rayford would not say Petra was entirely cocooned from the real world. The million there were reminded daily of the havoc wrought by Carpathia all over the globe. From everywhere came reports of miracles by thousands of deities who seemed loving, kind, inspiring, and dynamic. It was easy to watch them live on the Internet, reattaching severed limbs, raising the dead, taking blood from the sea and turning it into water so pure and clear that many stepped forward to drink it without harm.
“False!” Ben-Judah preached every day. “Charlatans. Fakers. Deceivers. Yes, it is real power, but it is not the power of God! It is the power of the enemy, the evil one. Do not be misled!” But many were, it was plain.
Jews were mistreated, persecuted, tortured, and killed on every continent. They were paraded across the screen of the Global Community News Network and trumped-up c
harges leveled. They were traitors, commentators said, enemies of the risen potentate, would-be usurpers of the throne of the living god.
Over the months, New Babylon’s policy on those found without the mark of loyalty changed from one that gave violators one last chance to have it applied immediately to one of zero tolerance. There was no longer any excuse to have neglected one’s duty. Most barbaric to Rayford was the vigilante law that now allowed a loyal citizen with a valid mark to kill an unmarked resident on sight. The act was the opposite of a crime. It was lauded and rewarded, and all that was required was to deliver to a local GC facility the body of a victim who clearly bore no mark on forehead or hand.
Pity the citizen who was mistaken, however. The murder of a loyal Carpathianite was itself punishable by death, and trials were unheard of. If you could not produce an alibi against a charge of murdering a marked loyalist, you were dead within twenty-four hours.
Rayford terribly missed his family and the other Trib Force members, but what was good for one was good for all. They had relocated and were staying put for a time. He knew it would not, could not, always be that way. He wanted so badly to get to San Diego, he could taste it.
The highlight of his day, beyond hearing the teaching and keeping up with the scattered Force, was the evangelistic message delivered every day by one of the two preachers. Had he been asked if he would enjoy a daily diet of preaching that laid out the plan of salvation and gave unbelievers the chance to receive Christ, he might have predicted it would wear thin.
But every day, day after day, Tsion insisted on either Chaim or himself delivering just such a message—following the normal teaching for the majority who were already believers. And every day, Rayford found himself thrilled to hear it.
It wasn’t only because someone was saved every day—and usually more than one. But also, the defiant ones and the undecideds often fell in anguish, battling, fighting God. Rayford marveled to watch the spiritual warfare as selfish, sinful men and women couldn’t evade the preaching and yet would not give in, even for their own benefit.