Desecration: Antichrist Takes The Throne (32 page)

“They never think at all,” George said. “Sorry.”

“What’re ya gonna do?” the clerk said, sighing as he tapped his fingers atop the monitor, waiting for the info. “Hey, what about all the guys goin’
AWOL
in Jordan?”

“Don’t think I wasn’t tempted,” George said. “Strangest deal I’ve ever seen.”

“You get the boils?”

“Who didn’t?”

“Here it is. You’re good. You got a number for me? Six digits.”

” Zero-four-zero-three-zero-one.”

“That’s it. And where’re your prisoners?”

“Being held up the road.”

“Need a vehicle?”

“That would be great.”

“You’re coming right back?”

“Right back. I’ll secure ‘em in the plane and bring the wheels directly to you.”

The clerk tossed him a set of keys and pointed to a Jeep. George decided he could get used to Trib Force work, if it was all this easy. Couldn’t be.

He sped a mile and a half up the road and pulled over. What was that in the distance? The girl? Alone? He turned on his brights. She was running toward him. Screaming.

He stepped out. “Georgiana?”

“George?”

“Yes!”

“We were ambushed!”

As she got closer he saw she was covered in blood.

He reached for her. “What happened? Where are the oth—”

But as the girl slumped against him, wrapping her arms around his waist, she called out, “Unarmed!” Two men, one about his size, rushed from the bushes with weapons trained on him. Another pulled a Jeep into view, doors standing open.

The big man jumped into the car George had borrowed at the airport. The other kept a weapon on him as the girl handcuffed and blindfolded him. He was tempted to drive his bulk into her, make her pay for whatever she was involved in. But he wanted to conserve his strength for any real chance to escape. They pushed him into the Jeep, and as it took off, he heard the other vehicle behind.

“We’re going to have fun with you, Yank,” the driver said. “By the time we’re through, we’ll know everything you know.”

Fat chance George thought – and wanted to say. But he had already blundered enough, leaving his plane and his weapons unprotected and venturing unarmed into enemy territory, trusting a risky plan devised by well-intentioned brothers, but civilians after all. Maybe the proverbial horse had already escaped the open barn, but too late or not, his training kicked in. Not only would he not say, “Fat chance,” but he would also not say anything. The only way these people would know he was capable of uttering a word was if they remembered he had spoken to the girl. Unless he somehow escaped, his next word would be spoken in heaven.

He bounced and lost his balance as the Jeep accelerated, and he kept bouncing off the door, then almost into the lap of the captor to his left. The man kept pushing George back upright. He could have planted his feet more firmly and kept from jostling so much, but he didn’t mind being a two-hundred-forty-pound irritant to the enemy.

“So, George Sebastian of San Diego,” the driver said, “and a newly recruited Judah-ite. A little information will buy you some dinner, and a lot will have you on your way back to the wife and little one before you know it. Hungry?

George did not respond, not even with a nod or shake of the head.

“Lonely then, perhaps?”

The man next to George, less fluent in English, said, “Do you know who is really Elbaz? Because we think we do.”

“We do!” the girl said.

George let the next curve throw him into the man, who pushed him back. “Sit up, you big stupid person!”

SOUND
ASLEEP
over the Atlantic and never so happy to be heading home, Rayford at first thought the incoming call was a dream. Then he wished it were.

The caller ID showed it originating in Colorado. Before Rayford could speak, a weird, nasal voice said, “I believe I followed your instructions on how to call you securely, but could you confirm that before I proceed?”

Rayford sat straight up. “Stand by,” he said, believing he knew whom he was talking to. He checked the tiny
LCD
readout as David Hassid had instructed him. “You’re secure,” he said.

“You’ve got trouble,” the voice said. “Do you have anybody inside at New Babylon to replace your guy that died?”

Rayford hesitated.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Who?”

“Ah, you may know me as Pinkerton Stephens. GC stationed in Colorado.”

“I need to be dead sure, Mr. Stephens.”

“Aka Steve Plank.”

“A little more, please.”

“Your grandson’s name is Kenny Bruce.”

“How did you know our guy died?”

“Everybody knows, man. Didn’t he go down with three others right in front of Carpathia?”

“Not really, Steve.”

“Not bad, Captain. But anyway, New Babylon thinks he’s dead, so he’s clearly not inside.”

“We’re covered inside.”

“Good. Then maybe you know this.”

“What?”

“About your trouble. Where are you?”

Rayford told him.

“And you have not been brought up to speed by the palace?”

“I thought I had.”

“You’ve been compromised.”

“Me personally?” Rayford said.

“Actually, no. Depending on what alias you’re using, I think you’re okay. But I just got a high-level, for-your-eyes-only briefing from Intelligence, and for the first time I thought I’d better take you up on your request to be informed.”

“I’m listening.”

“The alias your friend, the one I met, is using has been exposed. I and S is speculating that Deputy Commander Marcus Elbaz is actually a former black marketer out of Al Basrah.”

“How?”

“This is mostly coming out of Greece, Rayford.”

“Oh no. Tell me we weren’t wrong about the guy we sent in there.”

“Sebastian? No, he’s solid. But they’ve got him.”

“Oh no. Start from the top.”

“First, you’ve got your Elbaz character flying your plane right now, right? And the craft is ostensibly a GC issue.”

“Right.”

“His name and that bird are on everybody’s screens, so don’t-”

“Got it. Don’t land as GC or as Elbaz.”

“You’re scheduled into Kankakee, right?”

“You got it. What happened in Greece, Steve?”

“Stay with me. First, I think I’ve found a way to get you close to where you want to go. Back to Chicago, correct?”

“Affirmative.”

“Okay, listen up. I put in a request for cargo out of Maryland with a stop at the auxiliary field near where Midway used to be. That’s as close to Chicago as they’ll let anybody land, due to the radiation, you know.”

“Right.”

“You know as well as I do that you could put down at Meigs.”

“On the lake?”

“Sure.”

“Not if your guy keeps the phony radiation levels up to speed on the database.”

“This is a pretty big jet to land at Meigs, the way I remember it.”

“You’ve got reverse thrusters, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“It can be done. But there’s nobody on the ground there, of course. But listen, Ray, if your guy is still keeping track of Chicago and what the GC thinks about it, he’d better get in there and tinker.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I doubt anybody else has checked lately, but just to be sure I wasn’t leading you into a trap, I looked up that area, and something was giving off moving heat signals down there within the last several hours.”

“We always tell him before we go out, walking, driving, or with the chopper. That way he can head off any readings we emit.”

“Well, somebody’s on the move down there. Not much, but it’ll arouse suspicion like it did with me.”

“So back to Greece, Steve. We know Buck’s Jack Jensen ID is history.”

“That’s not the worst of it. He cut loose a couple of kids from a detention center and one of ‘em-the girl, Stavros-got herself caught. You can’t blame her; she’s just a teenager, but apparently she cracked and gave up a lot. Story she told matched up with what they figure happened with the boy, who had used the name Paulo Ganter. ‘Course Ganter was still in there, so they figured out by process of elimination who got sprung. Kid named Papadopoulos. His parents both refused to take the mark. GC in Greece plants a young woman with similar looks to this Stavros in the underground. She starts askin’ around about the boy, somebody gets ‘em connected, and she tells him her story-which is just like his. Bada-bing, she had to be freed by the same guy, nobody checks her out, she stays away from people who would know she wasn’t who she claimed to be, and-”

“-she walks our people into an ambush.”

“Yeah, and it’s bad, Rayford.”

“Just tell me.”

“GC says the ruse went squirrelly at the end and their operatives wind up having to kill an old man named Kronos, a big fish-name of Miklos-and the boy.”

Rayford sat in the screaming jet with the phone to his ear, head in his hand, eyes shut. “And Sebastian?”

“Alive and well, but they’re confident they can get what they need from him to lead them to Ben-Judah. He’s former military, so he might be tougher than they think.”

“Plus he doesn’t know that much.”

“He was supposed to bring the kids to you, though, right? He’s got to know enough to hurt you.”

“He does. Any idea about the disposition of the real Stavros?”

“I think that goes without saying, now that they have a connection to you guys. She’s served her purpose.”

“We don’t have to assume the worst.”

“Oh, sure we do, Rayford. Of course we do. I always do.”

Plank asked if Rayford had anybody on board whose face was not known to the GC. “Well, I’ve got three people aboard who are thought dead.”

“Can any of ‘em look like a Middle Easterner?”

“One’s a Jordanian.”

“Perfect. Does he have a turban?”

Rayford leaned over and woke Abdullah. “Do you have a turban, or can you make yourself one?” Abdullah gave him a thumbs-up and went back to sleep. “That’s affirmative, Steve.”

“Can you put him on the radio and pretend he’s your pilot?”

“He flies.”

“Perfect. Here’s his new name and a refueling docket number for Maryland. Your next stop after that should be Resurrection Field here, south of Colorado Springs. I won’t expect you.”

“No, but you’ll log us in as if we made it.”

“Of course.”

“Words aren’t adequate, Steve. ...”

“Hey, one of these days I’m gonna need a place to hole up … if I survive that long.”

With Buck, Hannah, Leah, and Mac also asleep, Rayford chose to tell only Albie what was going on. There would be plenty of time for Abdullah and Albie to switch seats. Rayford called Chang.

Twelve hours later Chang sat at his terminal in the office, grateful he’d been able to sleep after a flurry of emergency activity in the night. He wondered how David had managed this on his own and prayed that God would either deliver him or send someone to help him. Chang was unaware of any other believers in New Babylon, but still he held out hope. While he sat monitoring the overwhelming reports of death and ruin on the bloody high seas, he was recording the meeting of the ten regional potentates with Carpathia, Akbar, Fortunate, and Viv Ivins.

The workday was interminable, but Chang walked a fine line. He had to appear above reproach while maintaining a typically irreverent attitude. David had warned him that if he appeared too good to be true, someone would assume he was. And new as he was in assisting the Tribulation Force, he feared he would be unable to keep pace emotionally. Losing David had rocked him. He couldn’t imagine how the others dealt with the loss of Miss Durham, then their main contact in Greece. Things were supposed to get worse and worse. Fear and loneliness didn’t begin to describe his feelings. He prayed that until he was rescued from this assignment, God would somehow allow him to stay rested, stay strong, and be able to carry on despite the danger and tragedy.

In Petra Chaim felt as if he were already in heaven. How was it that God could make it so that a million believers could live together in harmony? Chaim reminded the people that Tsion Ben-Judah had promised to come and address them in person, and they lifted such a roar that he himself could barely wait for that day.

“You know, do you not,” he said, unamplified yet miraculously able to be heard by all under his charge, “that the Word of God tells us we will live here unmolested, our clothes not wearing out, and we will be fed and quenched until the wrath of God against his enemies is complete. John the Revelator said he saw ‘something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God.’ Beloved, those John would have seen in his revelation of heaven and who had victory over the beast are those who had been martyred by the beast. Death is considered victory because of the resurrection of the saints!

“Sing with me the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: ‘Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before you, for your judgments have been manifested.’

“John said he heard the angel of the waters saying, ‘You are righteous, O Lord, the One who is and who was and who is to be, because you have judged these things.’

“And what,” Chaim continued, “of our enemies who have shed the blood of saints and prophets? God has turned the oceans into blood, and one day soon he will turn the rivers and lakes to blood as well, giving them blood to drink. For it is their just due.

“But what shall we his people eat and drink, here in this place of refuge? Some would look upon it and say it is desolate and barren. Yet God says that at twilight we shall eat meat, and in the morning we shall be filled with bread. In this way we shall know that he is the Lord our God.”

That evening a great flock of quails invaded and a million saints enjoyed roasting them over open fires. In the morning, when the dew lifted, there on the rocky ground were small, round flakes as fine as frost. “We need not ask ourselves, as the children of Israel did, ‘What is it?’” Chaim said. “For we know God has provided it as bread. Take, eat, and see that it is filling and sweet, like wafers made with honey. As Moses said to them, ‘This is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.’