Arrived (22 page)

“All right, why?”

“Your heavenly Father knows your needs. He has heard the cry of your heart and has sent me.”

Mark sat up. “Is this a rescue? Are you taking me out of here and past all these Peacekeepers?”

The man looked at the floor. “This is the message I was sent to give you. ‘When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.' ”

“Who are you talking to?” the bus driver said, looking in his mirror.

The man nudged Mark. “Don't worry. He can't see me. At least, not yet.”

Mark ignored the driver and lowered his voice. “What does that verse mean? That you're not going to get me out of here?”

“The Father has not promised to snatch you away from trouble. But he has promised to be with you every step. You have served him well, Mark. You will serve him yet.”

Mark moved his leg and noticed he had feeling below the knee. He quickly untied the belt and removed it. No pain. “Did you do that?”

The man put an arm around Mark's shoulder. “In Proverbs it says, ‘An unreliable messenger stumbles into trouble, but a reliable messenger brings healing.' ”

Mark flexed his leg. The torn ligaments were healed and without surgery—at least normal surgery. It was all he could do to sit still. “What do you mean, I'll serve him? I don't even know where these guys are taking me. How am I going to serve God from some GC jail?”

The angel—for Mark knew this was what he was— closed his eyes and spoke. It was like a whisper to Mark's heart. “ ‘Have you never heard or understood? Don't you know that the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth? He never grows faint or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to those who are tired and worn out; he offers strength to the weak. Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up. But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.' ”

Mark was overwhelmed by the words and felt a sense of hope. “I have to know if my friends are okay. Can you tell me?”

The angel stood. “Your actions and the actions of friends far away enabled them to escape. They are safe.”

“Thank you.”

The man turned. He was only inches away from a Peacekeeper, but the GC soldier kept sleeping.

Mark wondered if the angel had caused the others to sleep. “Do you have to go?”

“We will see each other again before the end.” He leaned toward Mark and with a twinkle in his eye said, “‘The Lord is my strength, my shield from every danger. I trust in him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.' ”

The angel turned and walked toward the bus driver. Mark pulled himself up for one more glimpse, but the angel was gone.

The bus driver slammed on his brakes and shouted, “Hey, take care of your prisoner! He's gotten his handcuffs off!”

“How did you get out of those?” a Peacekeeper said, pouncing on Mark.

Mark just smiled and held out his hands. He remembered Vicki's favorite chorus that the group had sung at the first hideout in Wisconsin and began singing.

Laughing, crying, and singing to God.

It was a song of joy and thanksgiving.

Lionel watched news reports from the United North American States alone. Using codes Chang had given him, he was able to tap into a live feed from an unnamed prison.

The female reporter began with footage of the night before when a camera crew had caught the action in Minnesota. As far as Lionel could tell, these were militia members and not believers, though the reporter labeled them “suspected Judah-ites.”

“Another raid early this morning brought the arrest of a high-level member of what the Global Community called a rebel youth movement responsible for many deaths and destruction of Global Community property.”

“We're looking forward to interrogating our prisoner,” Commander Fulcire said with a wink.

“Why aren't you going to execute him for not taking the mark?” the reporter said.

“Normally we would, but we believe this prisoner has valuable information. What we have here is a troubled young man who has been brainwashed to believe our lord Carpathia is evil. I'm not making excuses for his crimes, but if we can go inside his head and get information about other members of this dangerous group, we'll be that much closer to the kind of world peace we've been striving for the last few years.”

The camera cut to a shot of Mark being led off a bus, handcuffed and shackled at the ankles. He saw the camera and started to say something, but the Peacekeeper behind him hit him on the head with the butt of his rifle and Mark fell.

Lionel closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The reporter parroted the GC's lies.
If they knew the truth about Mark and the others in the Young Trib Force
… He shook his head.
No, if they knew the truth, they'd still report lies because they're under the control of the biggest liar of them all
.

The woman concluded her report and threw it back to the anchor at the Global Community News Network. Lionel kept watching the live feed, wondering if she would say anything once she was off the air.

“How did that come off?” the woman said. “Did you get a shot of the guy yelling about Jesus?”

“Yeah,” someone said from behind the camera. “But we cut the audio out of his Jesus line. The producer didn't want anyone saying that name.”

Though GC officials tried everything to get Mark to give his name and information, he kept silent. He didn't want to be traced to Nicolae High School and his friends in the Young Trib Force.

After they processed him, Mark spent hours waiting in an interrogation room. He finally got so tired that he put his head on the table and went to sleep.

His dreams the past few years had been filled with nightmares of GC raids and fires, huge, dragonlike creatures chasing him, and the one repeating dream of being caught by Nicolae himself. But this time he dreamed of golden streets filled with light, love, and laughter.

Mark awoke to a slamming door and looked at the clock. Had he really been asleep six hours, or had they changed the clock?

Commander Fulcire placed a plate of food on the table and sat. Chinese. One of Mark's favorites. He tried not to look hungry, but his stomach growled.

“I heard you wouldn't tell us your name,” Fulcire said. He took a mouthful of fried rice, chomped into an egg roll, and wiped his mouth. “I know you think we're evil, but we can be quite nice to people who give information.” Mark was determined not to say anything that would hurt his friends, and he didn't want to talk at all, but he couldn't resist this chance. “My mom always taught me not to talk with my mouth full.”

“She did? And what was your mother's name?”

Mark stared at him.

“Let me tell you something about this facility. There are isolated cells where you'd be alone, and there are general population cells where we put you with other … how should I say this? … criminals like yourself. These aren't nice people. They don't believe in much of anything other than their own survival. We put a nice young man like you in with them, and who knows what awful things could happen.”

Mark sat back and thought of what the angel had said. God was going to use him in some way.

“Tell us your name or you'll go into one of those cells.”

Mark stared straight ahead.

“Suit yourself,” Fulcire said. He finished the meal, scraping every piece of rice from the plate, and walked out of the room.

When he was gone, Mark bent over and tried to lick some of the sauce from the plate, but that only fueled his hunger.

A round man in a green sweater walked in with another plate of food. He glanced through the window on the door, put the plate in front of Mark, and took Mark's handcuffs off.

“You need to hurry and eat that,” the man said. “They could be here to get you any minute.”

Mark grabbed a plastic fork and pushed some fried rice into his mouth. He was so hungry he almost inhaled the food. The man seemed fascinated with how quickly Mark could eat.

“Why are you helping me?” Mark said.

The man shook his head. “Can't stand the way they treat people. I don't care if you don't have Carpathia's mark, you're a human being.” He held out a hand. Mark shook it and kept eating.

“Fulcire is a decent man. He just wants to know some information so we can process—”

“So he can process my neck with the blade,” Mark said.

“We're getting information from the others who were staying with you.”

Mark smiled. “You didn't catch anyone because there wasn't anyone to catch.”

“I'm just trying to help. I don't want to see you suffer any more than you have to. If there's something you'd like to talk about, tell the guard you want to talk to me—”

The door opened and Fulcire barged in. “Cummings, what do you think you're doing?”

“I'm sorry, sir. I was just—”

Fulcire swatted the half-eaten plate of food from the table, and rice flew onto the walls and floor. “Get him out of here!”

A guard rushed in, seized Mark, and took him through a series of doors. Another guard released Mark's feet and pushed him toward a row of cells. The room stank, and Mark thought he would throw up at the smell. The guards took him to the largest cell where at least five people slept on cots pushed against the walls. They handed Mark an energy bar, shoved him inside, and slammed the door.

Two large men stood and approached him. One was bald, and Mark guessed he weighed three hundred pounds. The other was a smaller black man with a stubbly beard.

The bigger one pulled something sharp from his pocket and held it out. “Give me that food or we'll cut you!”

23

JUDD
and Vicki sat in their home, wondering what Mark was going through. They had seen the video report Lionel had recorded and read the messages Commander Fulcire had written. No doubt the GC was gloating about this new arrest.

Judd felt confident that Mark wouldn't tell the GC anything important, and even if he did, their friends were headed to safety. The two prayed for Mark again, asking God to help Mark be strong.

“Do you think they'll torture him?” Vicki said.

“They'll do anything to get information.” Judd took Vicki's hand. “You know how this is going to end.”

Vicki nodded and tears welled in her eyes. “I hate this. We all know it can happen after watching Chloe. I still remember the feelings I had when they caught Pete. You hope something miraculous happens, you pray that God will step in, but deep down you know your friend is as good as gone.”

Judd sighed. “I can't imagine what Buck is going through after losing Chloe.”

“I talked with Priscilla Sebastian earlier. She's watching Kenny when he's not with Buck or Rayford. She said Buck basically spends his waking hours taking care of Kenny or writing.”

“Makes sense. Staying busy probably keeps him sane.”

“I've volunteered to watch Kenny whenever they need a break.”

“He really likes you,” Judd said. “You'd make a good mom.”

Vicki grinned. “I don't know. It seems like such a huge responsibility.” She paused. “But if that's what God has for us, to be parents, I'm up for the challenge.”

Judd touched her shoulder. “I've been thinking about all that time before the Rapture. My parents wanted me to become a godly man—I didn't even know what that meant, didn't care. I think I want the chance to pass God's love on to other people, kids. And maybe they're not ours. Maybe they're kids without parents like you're talking about.”

Vicki smiled and hugged him. “Sometimes I see my mom's face in my dreams. She loved me so much, and I didn't even know it.”