Mark of Evil (6 page)

“Whoa, whoa, cowboy,” Galligher shot back. “You don’t know that.”

“Not yet, but in a few hours,” Chiro said, glancing at his wrist Allfone, “we have an encrypted video call from Ethan March. Maybe that is when he will finally tell us that my suspicions are true.”

Galligher stepped over to Chiro and slapped him on the back. “One step at a time. Be anxious for nothing, right? That’s what it says in the Bible.”

“Book of Philippians,” Chiro added with a nod. He slid into another solemn expression. “Just so you know, when I was at IntraTonics I also helped with the robotics program. Worked on the decision-making code for the military robots—the droid-bots. I guess that was bad too.”

“You can put down your cat-o’-nine-tails and stop whipping yourself,” Galligher said. “Military hardware is value neutral. It’s who uses it, and how, that matters. But there’s something I’d like to know: How did you finally settle up with Jesus?”

“I was in the Olympic forest in my hideout. Abigail Jordan and her son, Cal, tracked me down there. I was big-time impressed, because I thought I was deep under cover, but they found me anyway. I already knew about her husband, Colonel Joshua Jordan. Who hadn’t? Well, Abby Jordan needed a fake BIDTag for a specific mission. When we talked, she told me about Jesus. And told me the signs of the end times out of the Bible. I kind of thought she was crazy at first. But she and Cal seemed like good people. Brave. Straight-up people like Josh. So I said to myself,
Okay, you need to check this Bible stuff out.
”

Chiro paused. “You know how I said that I finally saw the movie
Ice Station Zebra
and it exploded my preconceptions?”

Galligher nodded.

“Same thing with the New Testament. After Abby and Cal left, and after all those millions of other Christians disappeared—
whoosh
—just like Abby said would happen, I said to myself,
You need to actually read what the Bible says about Jesus. Don’t assume.
So I read. And I told God I believed that Jesus was the Son of God, that He died on the cross to be, like, God’s perfect recoding system through His blood, to solve the bad programming in our hearts and in our spirits because of sin. The ultimate infection, you know, that has been like a computer virus in the whole human race. And then I read how Jesus defied death and climbed out of the tomb. So I took Jesus into my heart. I became a new spiritual man.”

“Yeah. Something like that happened for me too,” Galligher said. “Minus the computer jive talk.” They both chuckled.

“Oh,” Chiro said, “and about those droid-bots I worked on with IntraTonics?”

“Yeah?”

“After I became a Christian, I asked a friend of mine—a guy who still worked in the company—to do a favor for me.”

Galligher smiled. “This sounds like it’s going to be good.”

“Oh yes. I asked him to add another override security code with a phrase that I gave to him.”

“Did he do it?”

“He said he did. But I never tested it. I haven’t ever run into one of those droid-bots on the street yet.”

“And you’re not likely to up here in Bigfoot country,” Galligher said. “Unless they’re undercover, dressing like gold miners or lumberjacks.”

“Anyway, we will be talking with Ethan March soon,” Chiro said.
“We’ve got the next regular video conference coming up. Then we’ll find out more. Ethan’s a real-life hero, I think.”

Galligher considered that for a moment before he spoke. “I know that Josh figured Ethan for his successor. And as far as I’m concerned, what Josh said goes. But I knew Josh pretty well. Worked shoulder to shoulder with him in some life-and-death deals. Real cliffhangers. Now, I don’t know Ethan well. But from what I do know, with all due respect, I don’t think Ethan is any Joshua Jordan.”

Chiro tossed him an odd look. Galligher added, “But then, what do I know, right?”

EIGHT

HONG KONG

Rivka Reuban was a slender, athletic woman in her midthirties with a pretty face and dark eyes. Anyone looking closer might notice the muscular arms and legs and a special sense of alertness and a kind of heightened quickness. It was something that came from the harsh, tensile strength she had developed in her prior profession with the Israeli Mossad.

She was in the Wan Chai district. But she had made her way off the Hennessy Road area with the nice shops and gleaming skyscrapers, where the men dressed in silk business suits and rich ladies with designer purses strolled down the avenue. Rivka was now in a grimy alley in the red-light section, outside a bar with a flickering orange-and-yellow neon sign that buzzed loudly overhead, and where the
trash barrels filled the back street with a steady stench. She was waiting for a man she had never met before, named Chow.

After Rivka had waited nearly a half an hour, a young girl in a green satin dress slit way too high up her thighs walked out from the bar and into the alley. “You waiting for Chow?” she asked with a voice devoid of emotion, matching eyes that were listless and unfocused.

Rivka nodded.

“Wait here. He coming out.”

The young girl turned to leave, but Rivka reached out and touched her skinny arm. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” the girl asked, half turning.

“I know you are owned by the Triad. Working in the brothel. You don’t have to, you know.”

“Who says?”

“God says.”

“Hmmm.” The girl shrugged. Rivka figured she was on drugs, though she didn’t see any needle marks. Probably one of the designer meth cocktails.

Rivka stepped closer. “You can be free. Jesus came so that you can be free from sin, from drugs, from selling your body. All of it.”

“Free?” the young girl said. And then she turned and disappeared through the back door. The sounds of the noisy bar inside could be heard for a second or two until the door closed.

A few minutes later an extremely wide man who looked like he could have been a sumo wrestler sauntered out into the alley. He took a last drag from his cigarette, looked down both ends of the alley, then tossed it down on the ground.

“What you want? You want work? I can give you work. Plenty. You’ve got a pretty face. Men would like you.”

“No. I don’t want work. I need to talk to Jo Li.”

“Who?”

“I’ve been told that you know him.”

“I don’t know nothing.”

“I think you do.”

“You’re making me angry. You don’t want to make me mad, little lady.” Chow strode up to Rivka until he was just inches away from her face. “I don’t like the way you disrespect me.”

“I don’t want trouble, Chow. I just want to know what you know about Jo Li. About his underground financial system. Are you connected with him? Do you run your business through his barter exchange?”

Chow leaned a little closer. “And if I did, why would I tell you?” Without warning, he brought his massive right hand up and wrapped his fingers around Rivka’s neck, squeezing.

“Let go of me,” she said through gritted teeth. “Don’t want . . . trouble.”

He squeezed tighter. “Too late. You’ve just found it. I am going to take you for myself right now,” he grunted. “After that, I’m putting you to work for me.”

Rivka stared him in the eye. She’d had enough. She let loose with a furious right kick that dislocated his left leg at the hip. Then she brought her left knee up like a hammer into his groin. He let go and started falling backward, but before he hit the ground she let loose with another roundhouse kick to the side of the head. His immense bulk collapsed onto the concrete of the alley with a
thud
.

Dropping down with the heel of her boot jammed onto Chow’s neck, Rivka tried again. “How do I get a hold of Jo Li?”

He was seriously dazed. She slapped his face and he started to sharpen. “Englishman . . . ,” he grunted slowly, choking under her boot.

“What Englishman?”

“Lawyer . . . or something.”

“What’s his name?”

“Hadley Brooking.”

“Where is he?”

“Here in Hong Kong . . . Office on Hennessy.” Chow’s face was turning purple “I’m choking . . .”

Rivka lifted her boot off his neck. “I have just one more question. The young girl in the green dress—what is her name?”

“Suzi.”

“No,” Rivka said. “Her
real
name.”

“Meifeng.”

Rivka stepped back and watched as Chow rolled over onto his uninjured side like a beached walrus and slowly tried to get back up on one leg. He grabbed a drainpipe that ran down the building and groaned as he pulled himself to a semistanding position. By the time he looked around for Rivka, she had vanished.

An hour later, in the lobby of a small office furnished with cheap knockoffs of English and Oriental artifacts, Rivka sat looking at Meifeng, who had sunk back into the two-seater sofa with her eyes almost closed. “It will take a day or two for your body to get rid of the drugs,” Rivka said, trying to be reassuring.

Meifeng blinked slowly. Rivka asked, “Do you understand?”

“Sure, sure,” Meifeng replied drearily. “Know English a lot. Lot of my man customers speak English. America. Canada. England. Australia . . .”

Rivka shook her head and wondered at this sad, lost girl.
Good heavens
. “Are you afraid of running away from Chow?”

“Maybe.”

Rivka grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “With God’s help, I’ll protect you.”

A tall, thin man with fair skin walked into the lobby. He had a mop of silver hair that looked like it needed a good trim and was wearing a rumpled linen suit and an ascot. “May I help you?” he asked.

Rivka stood. “Mr. Hadley Brooking?”

“At your service,” he said and reached out to shake her hand. She
noticed his initials—HJB—monogrammed on his French cuffs, but the ends of the cuffs were a bit frayed. This English lawyer had seen better days.

Brooking glanced over at Meifeng. “Would she like an Orangey water?”

Meifeng shook her head no.

“Very well, then . . .” His voice trailed off.

Rivka asked to see him privately in his office, and the two of them stepped into an adjacent room filled with Oriental vases and framed reproductions of English landscapes. Brooking sat down behind his mahogany desk and smiled. Rivka noticed that the varnish on the aged desk was peeling.

Rivka started. “Are you a lawyer?”

“Of sorts. Used to be a solicitor in the U.K. But nowadays I engage in other pursuits.”

“Your sign on the door says Consultations—Imports/Exports. Perhaps you can explain that.”

“Perhaps you can explain what it is that you need help with, Miss . . .”

“Call me Rivka. I need advice about markets, buying and selling.”

“Not currency, of course,” he said. “Now that the whole world ditched the paper CReDO and went electronic—
skin transactions
, I call them—currency exchanges don’t exist. But you know that, I’m sure.”

“Yes. But what if someone doesn’t want to engage in those kinds of electronic transactions?”

“Well then,” he said, “you’re not going to get very far. Bit of a jam, that.” After taking the time to size her up, he continued, “You don’t have a laser tag ID, do you? No BIDTag?”

She smiled.

“Are you one of those . . . Jesus followers? The Remnant?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I hear things.”

“I want to find out about Jo Li’s underground barter system,” she said.

“He’s a popular fellow.”

“Oh?”

“Another Jesus person apparently wants to meet him too. Some kind of rebel leader of the Remnant group has made inquiries. You know, those chaps seem to be popping up everywhere lately. Can’t remember his name, though.”

“No matter,” Rivka said. She kept her face placid, but she knew he was talking about Ethan March, and she had an idea why he would want to come to Hong Kong. She struggled not to smile. There was a history between them in Israel. For a while, when Ethan became a Jesus follower after the Rapture and then she did a little later, their paths had seemed to follow an identical trajectory. Getting closer and closer. She’d been falling for him hard and fast. But then, somehow, things started getting in the way and it all disintegrated between them. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the stress of survival in a world that had gone from dangerous to insanely brutal. Maybe it was because they were both type A personalities, mission driven. Both of them demanding and perhaps a bit controlling? Yes, that too. They found themselves rushing into the fray, helping fellow Remnant members, fighting the good fight, but growing further apart as they did.

When Rivka looked over at Hadley Brooking, he seemed to be drifting in his own thoughts. He stared into space and muttered, “Strange times, these.” Then he paused, patting the desk lightly with both hands, and went on. “Back in the U.K., I was raised in the Church of England. Pretty ‘stiff upper lip’ and formal, and all that. Oh yes, it had some meaning for me, but . . . well, I had my own questions. I rather sensed that something was out there. But nothing like what’s going on now. Those mass disappearances. And what has followed. By the way, I was here in Hong Kong as a young solicitor way back in 1997
when Britain gave the island back to China. I was so impressed with it all, thought the whole thing was a thoroughly revolutionary state of affairs. But since then, well, the world seems to have become even more confusing. And more dangerous. And yet the same questions are still there. It can cause a man to think.”

Across the desk, Rivka saw a man who was searching. But she was there with her own questions and she needed answers, and she needed them quick. So she pressed. “Is Jo Li’s barter system mixed in with the Triad here in Hong Kong? The brothels and drug trade? That’s what I’m worried about. Or is there a legitimate way to buy and sell, underground, without worrying about being part of all that dirty money?”

Brooking studied her closely. “In the old days, when someone gave you a dollar or a pound note or some other currency, did you ever have any assurance that the last person who used that currency before him wasn’t a criminal? I don’t know you very well, Rivka. For a stranger, you’re asking some very intriguing questions.” Then he added, “From everything that I’ve heard, Jo Li is an economic genius. And a pure capitalist. I know plenty of people, good solid people, who say his system works—and it avoids the unpleasantness of knowing that all your transactions are being watched by Big Brother.”