Mark of Evil (17 page)

Not only did Malatov know that the professor had been KGB himself once upon a time, but in fact Kasparovich had actually been at the FSB for a short while when Malatov first started as a new agent in that spy agency. Malatov was a little surprised that Dr. Kasparovich didn’t recognize him. But then he realized Kasparovich had retired to the quiet life of a cyber intelligence professor
before
Malatov underwent what a few of his FSB superiors called his “extreme makeover.”

Of course Malatov knew that even with his intense pain, the professor could still have been playing a game. On the other hand, when the professor asked Malatov whether he was with the CIA, Malatov
had been checking very closely the iris of each of his victim’s eyes. There were no visual signs of deception. The questions the Russian professor asked must have been genuine.

So now the time had come. Malatov prepared to thrust his razor-sharp knife deep into the left quadrant of the doctor’s chest and puncture the heart. After that he would clean off his knife and strip off his super-thick latex gloves and then make an exit from the scene.

The old cargo warehouse had grown quiet. The birds up in the steel rafters must have either flown out of the place or for some reason grown silent. But something happened that caused Malatov to look up at the sound of the birds above him. In one large flock they fluttered out of their nests on the steel girders and began to soar out of the warehouse through the open cargo door.

Vlad Malatov stood motionless as he listened. Now there was a sound, like feet stepping on gravel—stepping carefully and quietly, but heading nevertheless in the direction of the large cargo door. Malatov clicked his knife closed and dropped it into the pocket of his fatigues. He snapped his rubber gloves off his hands and stuffed them into his other pocket as he began to sprint toward a square opening in the floor that had a bar mounted across it, with a chain that hung down to the basement level below. Fifty feet away from the bottom of the chain, there was a sewer pipe that led away from the building.

Twenty seconds later Pack McHenry stood in the open cargo door with his Beretta semiautomatic in his hand and pointing into the empty warehouse. Russian FSB agent Pavel Liztokoff was right behind him with a riot shotgun. But Malatov had disappeared.

Pack spotted Dr. Kasparovich strapped down on the table and
raced over to his side. He put his finger to the doctor’s neck to see if he was still alive.

But Dr. Kasparovich blinked open his eyes, and even though the pallor of his skin was a ghostly white from the pain, his voice was clear. “Don’t waste your time. I’m still here. But please unstrap me. My back and my insides are killing me. I’m not as young as I used to be. And watch my fingers; they’re broken, I think.”

“Where else are you hurt?” Pack asked.

“I think both lungs are punctured. And my spleen too, maybe.”

“We’ve already called for a medical crew to follow us. They’ll be here any moment. Did he get your ICANN Internet card?” Pack asked.

“I am afraid yes,” Dr. Kasparovich replied. “And I ended up telling him how to use it.”

Pack shrugged. “At least you’re alive.”

“Thanks to you,” he said, grimacing and groaning as Pack and Pavel unstrapped the leather restraints. “I got your encrypted message. But not soon enough. He got to me at my office first.”

“Do you have any idea who the man was?” Pavel asked.

“Yes,” Dr. Kasparovich replied, gritting his teeth. “I only know
of
him . . . A new recruit at the operations division . . . Russian FSB . . . when I was about to leave . . . Name is . . . Vlad Malatov.”

Pack realized the doctor was slipping into unconsciousness and elevated his head slightly as he heard the sound of the EMT vehicle pulling up outside. “The medics are here, Doctor. Hold on.”

“Oh,” Kasparovich replied with a voice that was suddenly weaker. “I think . . . I . . . pass out . . .”

TWENTY-TWO

HONG KONG

Ethan didn’t expect a call so soon from Pack McHenry. But Pack was on the line less than twelve hours after the video conference call. At the time, Ethan was talking with Rivka and Zhang Lee in the living room of his big penthouse. When the call came, Zhang smiled and followed the established protocol and politely left the room.

“We’ve found Dr. Kasparovich,” Pack reported.

“Do you have him in a safe location?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Pack replied. “Vicky located his last known address, and with the help of my Russian FSB contact we traced him to the warehouse where he had been taken and worked over pretty bad. He’s being cared for in a Moscow hospital under a security detail,” Pack explained. “The bad news is that the guy torturing him obtained his ICANN key code card.”

“So is there a silver lining in any of this?”

“I think so. We have a fix on the identity of the guy who roughed up Kasparovich.”

After Ethan hung up with Pack, he immediately placed a call to a cell number in New Babylon, Iraq. Dr. Iban Adis, a scientist at the digital imagery laboratory of the Global Alliance, answered it on the second ring.

“Hello, Quiet Partner,” Ethan announced.

“I am surprised at your call,” Adis replied in a hushed voice.

“I know this isn’t our prearranged time. But something has come up,” Ethan said. “I need to know how things look from your end.”

“Not good,” Dr. Adis replied. “I think they are entering some kind of final stage in the plan.”

“Why do you think so?”

“They’re beginning the testing phase. Getting closer to human trials.”

Ethan needed the full picture. “What else can you tell me?”

“This much I know,” Dr. Adis answered. “First, the computing capacity of what we have here in Iraq at the headquarters is not sufficient to create the kind of massive digital net that the Global Alliance is trying to throw over the entire human race. They would need a much larger system. There are several possibilities for large-capacity computer systems they could access around the world, but I just don’t know which one they’ve chosen. The only person who would know would be our chief here in the digital imaging lab. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“What kind of computing power are you talking about?”

“Well, as an example, I think something around the range of five exabytes of information represents the sum total of all human information accumulated from the dawn of time until about twenty years ago. That was an estimate at the time from the head of Google. This system that our lab is working on now will have to handle about three
thousand exabytes of information all at once. It will contain a veritable catalog of information on every living person on the planet and will be formatted in a way that could target and locate any one particular person at any one time at any place on the planet.”

Ethan sank back into the couch in the living room. Sitting next to him, Rivka was studying his sober expression. Ethan now contemplated the magnitude of what Alexander Colliquin must be planning. The whole thing seemed way too big for him. And, it seemed, probably unstoppable. After a moment of silence Ethan directed Dr. Adis, “Tell me more.”

“They are bringing in many, many cages. Taking them into the secured inner lab.”

“Animals?”

“Chimpanzees. A large number of them.”

“So,” Ethan said, “it’s true after all.”

“I am afraid so,” Dr. Adis said. His voice had a heaviness to it.

“How long will it take for them to finish the animal testing protocol?”

“They are working around the clock. This project is moving at light speed.”

“Months?” Ethan asked hopefully.

“I don’t think so,” Dr. Adis replied. “More like days, or weeks at the most. This is not like your FDA testing in America, where the goal is to minimize unreasonable risk to citizens. Here it is very different. There is no concern for human safety. The point is just the opposite—achieving human behavioral control, regardless of the risk.”

Ethan asked Dr. Adis to keep him posted. Then he ended by saying, “Please stay safe. You are in a very dangerous position where you are. We will be praying for you.”

“I will be fine,” Dr. Adis said at the other end.

“You are a courageous man. We appreciate your service to the cause of freedom, and for the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“Without the strength I get from Jesus, my Savior,” Dr. Adis said, “all of this would be futile.”

After Ethan clicked off his cell, Rivka took his hand and squeezed it. “So, from the first call from Pack, it sounds like they got to the seventh man. And they now have his Internet card.”

Ethan nodded.

“And from your second call, I take it the Global Alliance is speeding up their project.”

“It’s behemoth, gigantic,” Ethan answered with a weariness to his voice. “I’d like to talk privately to Rabbi ZG soon.”

“Anything you can let me in on?”

“Yes. I would like to ask him something: I just wonder whether the End Times situation we’re in is better left entirely to God’s control.”

“I didn’t think it was ever out of His control,” she said with a smile.

Ethan chuckled at that. It was one of the things he liked about Rivka. She always seemed to be able to shake him out of his uncertainty. “Yes,” he said. “Point well taken. But I’m talking about
our
role in this.”

“Oh, you mean like lowering Paul down the side of the wall in a basket when his enemies were after him—the incident at Damascus in the book of Acts.
That
kind of thing that we’re doing? But instead of one basket for one apostle, we are trying to launch an ark to rescue the entire Jesus Remnant from torture. Isn’t that what all of this is about?”

Ethan pondered this. “I get the feeling once in a while that Josh Jordan picked the wrong guy to lead all of this. Maybe God had other plans, someone else in mind.”

“I recall Moses had the same complaint,” she said slyly.

“I’m no Moses.”

“True. He had Aaron at his side.”

“Also true,” Ethan said. Then he smiled back. “On the other hand, I’ve got you. And I bet you’re a whole lot cuter than Aaron ever was—and a better kickboxer too!”

They both had a laugh. It felt good to loosen up. Finally Ethan said, “We have to find out how the Global Alliance is going to link this global communications system together. Dr. Adis says that the core computer system won’t be located in New Babylon. It’ll be somewhere else. We need to know exactly where. And the second order of business—we also need to get this meeting with Jo Li underway. Our Jesus Remnant is going to need a buying-and-selling system that is outside the control grid of Colliquin and his Alliance. And it has to be soon.”

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

The young Christian mother had her two sons ages four and six in tow with her that day. She stood in front of the small grocery store and looked in the window, calculating her chances. This little shop had been selected because she had heard it would still honor payments made with global CReDO currency accessed the old-fashioned way, from account cards, rather than demanding payment from a BIDTag laser imprint. This was crucial for her, because she had refused to be BIDTagged. It had seemed obvious to her and a few of her friends that the human skin imprints were a precursor to the biblical sign of the Antichrist prophesied in the book of Revelation. Some of her family thought she was crazy for refusing to get it and becoming a nontagger. But she was willing to endure the ridicule.

She entered and strolled through the shop with a plastic basket, picking up milk, breakfast cereal, bread, some lunch meat, and a few other necessities. It had become nearly impossible to survive financially ever since Australia had joined the Global Alliance and had begun to enforce the rule requiring payments and purchases to be made only through the BIDTag process. But she was hoping this store would be an island of refuge.

The mother brought her two children close to her as she laid the basket on the laser scan counter across from the smiling store clerk. The total lit up on a small digital screen.

“G’day,” the clerk said greeting her. “Hand, please.” He motioned to the BIDTag scanner that hung down over the counter like a curved flashlight. “You’ll need to put the back of your hand under there,” he added, pointing to the digital lens. “You’ve done this before, right?”