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 charges 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.
Every evening Chaim would ask new believers to identify themselves and talk about their old lives and their newfound faith. This gathering always culminated in singing, praying, and celebrating.
One night, still high from the meeting that spotlighted the new believers, Rayford was enjoying a lesson taught by Naomi, the young computer whiz. She was teaching anyone who wanted to learn how to access the various databases and get news from around the world.
Rayford was just one of several gathered to learn what they could, but he was summoned from the session by none other than Chaim himself, who wanted to introduce a new friend.
Rayford followed Chaim a couple of hundred yards, and all along the way, people reached out to “Micah,” blessing him, thanking him, telling him they were praying for him and appreciated his leadership. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Chaim said, gripping hands and shoulders as he went. “Praise God. Bless the Lord. Blessings on you.”
Finally they reached a clearing where several young people of different races and cultures sat chatting. They appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties. “Ms. Rice?” Chaim said quietly, and when the short black woman excused herself, the others watched with interest as she joined Chaim and Rayford.
“I know you, don’t I?” Rayford said, bending to shake her hand. “Don’t tell me. You’re a friend of—no, you’ve been on television.”
“Bernadette Rice,” she said, with a clipped British accent and a gleaming smile. “Reporting from Petra, but no longer for the GCNN.”
Rayford didn’t know what to say. So she was here on assignment—or not?—or what? He smiled at her and glanced at Chaim. “I’ll let her tell you,” Chaim said.
The three sat on rocks. “I was at the Temple Mount for GCNN the day that Micah, well, Dr. Rosenzweig, first emerged. I didn’t recognize him. None of us did. I don’t know what I would have thought had I known who he was. It was well known, of course, that he was the one who had assassinated Carpathia.
“But I was not even thinking of that when I was called to the scene. A woman, a GC Peacekeeping corporal named Riehl—forgive me, but I remember everything and talk this way as a means of organizing my thoughts—pulled me away from a story I was doing about families visiting the Temple Mount that day. To tell you the truth, I was none too pleased when she insisted that Rashid—that was my cameraman—and I wrap it up and come with her. I demanded to know what was going on.
“As she dragged me across the plaza, she said Rashid and I were about to get a rare privilege. A high-ranking Morale Monitor was about to carry out an order from the potentate himself. When we got there, the tall young man, dressed as the MM do—dressy casual, you know—was standing with what looked to me like a frail, little old man. Forgive me, Dr. Rosenzweig, but that is my recollection.
“Well, sometimes non-journalists have different ideas of how exciting a particular story is. I didn’t even know if they expected this to show live or if we were to record it. This MM gentleman just wanted to get on with it, so I asked central control—who was producing the broadcast—what I should do. They wanted to know who the MM guy was, and before I knew it, he was insisting that we roll.
“He said he was Loren Hut, new head of the Morale Monitors, and that he had been ordered by Carpathia to execute this Micah person for refusing to take the mark and for resisting arrest. I do a fast lead-in, Rashid focuses on the pair, and it goes live over GCNN.
“You’ll recall that everyone was starting to get the boils around this time, and Hut was suffering. He was wriggling and scratching and making me do the same just watching. Did you happen to see it, Captain Steele?”
“No, but I heard about it from my—”
“Then you know what happened. Hut shot Micah several times from point-blank range, and except for the deafening sound, the bullets had no impact. The crowd laughed and accused Hut of using blanks. He shot a man through the heart for saying that, proving he was using real bullets. The crowd dived for cover and I fell right to the ground, scared to death. Then Carpathia himself showed up. When I could compose myself at all, I crawled away—toward the loyalty mark application lines, in case anyone was looking.
“But from there I went straight to my hotel. I was so glad I had not gotten around to accepting the mark yet. This man was an enemy of Carpathia’s, and he had some sort of supernatural protection I wanted. My superiors thought I was suffering from the boils like everyone else, but nothing was going to keep me from following Micah. I watched from my hotel room, learned about the meeting at Masada, disguised myself, went there, and came here as part of the airlift. Only recently did I finally pray for salvation.”
“Praise God,” Rayford said. “May I ask what took you so long? You were here when the bombs were dropped. You were protected by God though—”
“Set afire.”
“Yes! I’m really curious. What could give you pause after that? Surely you did not still doubt God.”
“No, that is true. I don’t know how to explain it, Captain Steele. All I can say is that the enemy has a stronghold over the mind until one surrenders it to God. I was a pragmatist, proud, a journalist. I wanted control over my own destiny. Things had to be proved to me.”
“But what more proof—?”
“I know. It mystifies me still. I suppose what comes closest to explaining the lunacy is the verse that both Dr. Rosenzweig and Dr. Ben-Judah have often quoted—how does it go, Doctor? Something about wrestling not with flesh?”
Chaim nodded. “‘We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.’”
“Yes, that’s it! And that’s why we have to wear the armor of God, right?”
“‘That you may be able to withstand the evil day, having done all, to stand.’ Amen.”
“I appreciate very much hearing your story, Ms. Rice,” Rayford said. “You know my son-in-law was—”
“There, yes. Dr. Rosenzweig told me. That’s why he thought you might like to hear it.”
Rayford looked to Chaim and back at Bernadette. “Please tell me Buck hasn’t heard this yet,” he said.
“Not from me,” Chaim said.
She shook her head.
“Then, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
Rayford hurried back past where Naomi was finishing her computer class, down through the tent area where many of the younger people preferred to sleep, and finally to a small encampment of prefabricated modular homes. They were tiny but well built, had been provided almost wholly by Lionel Whalum, the new Co-op member, and had been assembled by a team of volunteers who seemed to reshape the landscape of Petra nearly overnight.
Rayford, hoping and planning that his stay in the rock city would be only temporary, chose one of the smallest—but for him, efficient—units not far from where Abdullah stayed. Smitty liked an open fire and had opted for a tent, not much smaller than Rayford’s enclosure, on the edge of one of the bivouac villages.
Before Rayford ducked into his place, which was barely big enough for his bed and an area for his computer and transmitting equipment, he peered down the way to see if Abdullah was still awake. The Jordanian, silhouetted behind a smoky fire, waved at him, then beckoned him.
“I will join you in an hour or so, my friend!” Rayford called.
He sat before his computer with two glass jars, one containing water, the other manna. No preservative or storage was necessary for the manna. It would spoil overnight, but there was always a fresh supply every morning anyway—so saving it was considered a lack of faith, and forbidden.
Rayford entered his code, keyed in the coordinates that allowed him to interact securely with San Diego—some ten hours earlier on the clock—and typed, “Praise God for David Hassid and Chang Wong.”
He waited. Buck and Chloe’s machine would signal them that he was trying to communicate, and when one of them typed in their code, the units could talk to each other. Not only that, but they also had video capability without obvious cameras. Sensors around the edges of the respective screens stored and interpreted digital images and transmitted them back and forth, so—unless the sender turned off that feature—both parties could see each other on the screen.
A minute later Chloe came on with twenty-month-old Kenny squirming on her lap. She had to block the boy from reaching for the keys. Seeing them both made it even harder for Rayford to wait to get to San Diego.
“Hi, Dad,” Chloe said. “Say hi to Grandpa, sweetheart.”
Kenny said, “Gampa!” and stared at the screen. Rayford tried to situate himself for the best light and transmission and waved.
Kenny smiled and opened and closed his hand before the screen.
“I miss you, Kenny!”
“Miss! Big boy!” Kenny threw his hands over his head and arched his back, forcing Chloe to hold him tighter to keep him from slipping off her lap.
“Are you a big boy?” Rayford said.
But Kenny had already lost interest. He wriggled until Chloe let him down. “You need to come see him,” Chloe said.
“Maybe soon,” Rayford said. “I miss you all so much.”
They brought each other up to date. Buck was somewhere with Sebastian and Ree Woo, so Rayford told Chloe Bernadette Rice’s story.
“Buck will be thrilled,” she said. “You know Ree is headed back to China. Ming’s still not aroused any suspicion. She comes and goes as she pleases, but she sure wants to get out of there and bring her mother with her. Maybe this time.”
“They would come to San Diego?”
“Yes. I think she’s sweet on Ree.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. I got to meet him, you know, on one of his runs here.”
“Nobody told me that!”
“Yeah, he talks about her. Seems preoccupied with her. I thought I told you.”
“No. ’Course I’m buried with Co-op stuff most of the day. It’s getting harder and harder, Dad. Has Tsion said anything about the lifting of the plague? Or are these things permanent?”
“The previous ones haven’t been. But this has held the longest. Tsion thinks the Bowl Judgment on the lakes and rivers is imminent. That one is for sure not permanent.”
“It’s not? How does he know?”
“He says there’s a later judgment, one of those that ushers in the Battle of Armageddon and the Glorious Appearing, that calls for the drying up of the Euphrates River. And it clearly says it dries up its waters.”
“That’s a relief, but if the rivers and lakes turn to blood soon and don’t happen to turn back to water until almost Armageddon, I don’t know. Should the seas clear up before the rivers and lakes turn, or does that even make sense?”
“No one knows, Chloe. And what happens if the seas do turn back to salt water? How long would it take to replenish them?”
“And what would we do with everything that’s dead now? The cleanup alone would take a hundred years. At least we might be able to treat salt water and make it potable, because if the lakes and rivers turn too—and if the seas are still affected—I don’t know how anybody or anything stays alive.”
“Tsion says God will winnow out many who have the mark of the beast so they can’t continue to evangelize for the evil side. I guess he wants to even the odds a little for the last battle.”
“As if he needs to do that, Dad.”
“How are you holding up, honey?”
“Exhausted, that’s all. But we love the Sebastians and the body of believers here. If you have to live through this time, this is the place to be.”
It was well after midnight in Zhengzhou, and Ming was homesick. For where, she was uncertain. She had no home anymore. She wanted to be with Ree Woo, though they had never so much as held hands. He had visited her—more than once—as he had promised, and they had become dear friends, a brother and sister in Christ.
Ming didn’t know whether it made sense to think of him in romantic terms anyway, with only three years left before the Glorious Appearing. Besides, Ree had a ridiculously dangerous job, and who wanted to risk being widowed twice within a few years? On the other hand, what might it be like if they both survived? She would have to study what Dr. Ben-Judah had to say about married couples entering into the millennial kingdom.
Though Ming was with her mother, still she did not feel at home. Sure, she understood the language, even some of the more obscure dialects, because she had grown up in China. But the believers lived in constant fear, slept in communal rooms with little privacy, and never knew who might come knocking in the dead of night.
Her mother seemed remarkably at peace in spite of the recent loss of her husband, though she told Ming she wished she could have died with him. Though Mrs. Wong was a new believer, she was a worrier by nature, and she had grown fatalistic over the past several weeks. Ming tried to talk her into sneaking out of China and going to live in San Diego, but her mother would not hear of it. This was her home—such as it was—and California sounded like a different planet. She worried about Chang, and she worried about Ming, both playacting as employees of the Global Community.
Ming, still masquerading as Chang Chow and living essentially as a man when away from the underground shelter, was constantly on edge. Her brother offered to set it up in the computer that she was a full-fledged employee, entitled to a paycheck and benefits. She refused for his sake, knowing how intense the scrutiny had to be in New Babylon. A little money would allow her to complete the ruse and live in her own small place, but it would not be worth it if it left Chang vulnerable at the palace. And so she scraped by on the meager pool of resources among the believers.
Ming tried to keep her distance from other Peacekeepers, though some wanted to be chums and invited her to various places with them. She always found excuses. Hardest for her was being randomly assigned duties by anyone superior to her in rank. She herself had been a top official at the Belgium Facility for Female Rehabilitation (BFFR), a women’s prison better known among the GC as Buffer. But now, in her male Peacekeeper uniform, Ming was just a grunt, someone for most of the others to boss around.
At least this gave her some access to information, and she was able to warn fellow believers about raids and surprise canvasses.
At two o’clock one morning the local GC had planned a raid not of Christ followers but of a small Muslim contingent who lived in the northeast corner of the city in caverns where the subway once ran. Ming was surprised to hear of this group, as she had been largely unaware of holdouts against Carpathianism besides the so-called Judah-ites and the mostly Orthodox Jews. At a meeting rallying the GC troops to root out the dissidents, Ming learned that these “zealots” still read the Koran, wore their turbans, almost totally covered their female population, and practiced the five pillars of Islam.
She had not seen anyone bowing toward Mecca five times a day, but Intelligence had determined that this group still followed that dictum in private. They also contributed alms—a communal giving and sharing of resources that would have been necessary anyway, given the current political climate. It was not known whether these adherents—more prevalent in western China—still fasted during Ramadan. It seemed everyone was fasting in one way or another since the seas had turned to blood. There was no getting to Mecca at least once in a lifetime anymore either, not since the Global Community and Carpathianism had leveled the Muslims’ sacred city.
The pillar of their faith that so enraged the potentate and thus the Global Community Peacekeepers and Morale Monitors was the first and foremost tenet of the Islamic religion. Their profession of faith declared a monotheistic god—“There is but one God, Allah . . .”—and the high status of the founder of the religion—“. . . and Muhammad is his prophet.”
Of course, that flew in the face of Carpathianism, which was also monotheistic. Neither were the Muslims idol worshipers, so not only were there no statues associated with their practice of faith, but they were also loathe to pay homage to the image of Carpathia.
“That will be their choice in about half an hour,” the local leader, a thick man named Tung, told the GC troops. “We’ll storm their little enclave, fully armed and prepared to shoot unmarked people on sight. But our wish and our hope are that they do not resist. I have it on good authority from high levels in the Global Community Palace that a certain someone at the highest level wants these people used as living examples.
“We will march them to the loyalty mark application site about six blocks from their hideout, and there they will spend the night deciding what they will do in the morning. As the sun rises on the beautiful, jade, life-size image of Supreme Potentate Carpathia, these infidels will either bow the knee to him—prepared to accept his mark of loyalty—or they will be executed in full view of the public. Little do they know that regardless of their decision, they will be executed anyway. GCNN plans to air this live.”
The GC all around Ming burst into cheers and applause. They then lined up to be issued weapons; hers turned out to be a grenade launcher she would not use, no matter what. If that meant the end of her life too, so be it.
Rayford found Abdullah Smith warming himself by his fire. Smitty, who had become much more expressive and emotional over the past few months, rose quickly and embraced Rayford. “It is as if I am already in heaven, my friend,” he said. “I miss the flying, but I love all this teaching. And the food! Who would have guessed that the same meal three times a day would be something I so looked forward to?”
Rayford didn’t know how Abdullah could sit so flat and comfortably cross-legged. He made it look normal and easy, yet Rayford seemed to creak and groan going down, and cramped up as he sat. He always gave way to unfolding himself and leaning on one hand with his legs out to the side. This amused Abdullah to no end.
“You westerners brag so much about working out, and yet it has not made you limber.”
“I think you sit on a magic carpet,” Rayford said.
Abdullah laughed. “I wish Mac were here. He inspires me to think of earthy . . . of earthy what? Comebacks? Is that what he calls them?”
“Probably. With Mac, you never know. Did you see him today?”
“Of course. He and Albie always look me up when they get here, tease me about getting fat on the manna, and want to know when I will join their little band of fliers. The day will come soon, I hope. For now, the elders think it is too dangerous, but my guess is that you too are eager to get going.”
“More than you know,” Rayford said. “And while I am content to submit to the authority here, still I wonder.”
“So do I! God is clearly supernaturally protecting those who fly in and out of here, despite all the efforts of the enemy. You would think that would give the GC an idea to stop wasting bullets and missiles. Have they hit anyone or anything?”
Rayford shook his head. “Not yet. And the stories. Have you heard the stories?”
Abdullah let his head fall back and gazed at the stars. “I have heard them, Captain. I want to be part of one. I want the Lord to once again protect me from harm and death by sending one of his special visitors. The flight here, when the GC were shooting right through our craft? That was like living in the Bible days. I felt like Daniel in the den of the lions. I could see the missiles coming and I knew we were in the way, yet they passed right through.
“Captain, what must the GC think when they see this happen in the light of the sun almost every day?”