Tyndale House - The Mark - The Beast Rules the World

"I don't know 'xactly where they took him, but I know Dad, and he ain't gonna be cooperative."

"David says they're going to try out the mark on prisoners first," Buck said.

"Dad would die first."

"That might be the price."

"Ten to one he'd take a couple of 'em with him," Zeke said.

Buck's phone rang, and he was grateful when Chloe reached for it.

"Hattie?" she said. "Where are you guys?… That close? See you in a few then… Yeah, we heard Dad and Albie found a, um, friend on the inside. You ought to be grateful for all the time and expense and effort that went into-well, I don't know if you realize how risky that was. And investing Dad and Albie's time and an aircraft-I mean-it's not like you did anything to deserve it. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just saying… don't start the waterworks with me, Hattie. We go back too far. For all we know the old safe house is ashes now because of-Yeah, we can talk about it when you get here… Of course I still care about you, but you may not find all of us as soft as my dad. There's a delicate balance here and a lot more people than before. Even in a place as huge as this, it's not easy living together, especially with people who have a history of putting their needs ahead of everybody el-OK, all right. We'll see you in a minute."

Hattie clapped the phone shut and slapped it into Rayford's hand. "I take it that wasn't Buck," he said.

"She hates me!" Hattie said. "This is a bad idea. You should have left me there, let them take me back to Buffer and take my chances. I might not have lasted, but at least I'd be in heaven."

"Should we have let you kill yourself too? Then where would you be?"

"Chloe didn't sound like she's going to forgive me. Ah, I don't blame her. I deserve it."

Rayford felt Hattie sit back and she muttered something.

"Can't hear you," he said, maneuvering toward the building.

"I said she probably only said what I would have if the shoe was on the other foot."

Hannah Palemoon had dressed David's wound differently, applying a tight-fitting bandage that adhered to the shaved part of his head and did not touch his hair. It aided the stitches in keeping his scalp together for fast healing, she told him, and he didn't need the layers of gauze covering his ears and extending under his chin anymore. He felt almost normal except for the residual pain-much less-and the itching he knew he had to ignore. The best he could do was to gently press around the edges of the bandage, but as the stitches would not be removed for at least another two days, he had to be careful.

Still, his cap fit again. He stopped by his quarters for a fresh uniform, checked the mirror, and realized how incongruous he looked. His youthful, Israeli features and dark complexion went well with the tailored, form-fitting garb of the senior GC staff. But as he studied his visage, he wondered if any of the Nazis he'd seen in history books hated the swastika on their snappy uniforms as much as he hated the insignia of the Global Community. How he would love abandoning the whole look. And it wouldn't be long.

He stopped with his hand on the inside door handle.

Though he was better, he still felt the fatigue of one whose body was trying to heal itself. Part of him wanted to stretch out on the bed and not move for twelve hours, to simply lie there in his grief and embrace the gnawing emptiness. David found some solace in Hannah's insistence that Annie would not have suffered even for a split second. But why couldn't the power that obliterated her nervous system and baked her vital organs also destroy the longing in him she could now never fulfill? No lightning bolt of any magnitude could extinguish a love so pure.

He bowed his head and prayed for strength. If he had, say, two months, he might have allowed himself the luxury of another day or two to take the hardest edge off his pain. But even the time he had was not really enough for all he had to do. For Annie, he told himself as he headed for his office. And he would remind himself of that every few minutes for as long as it took to keep himself going.

His relegating Annie to a sacred, protected part of his mind was not helped when he encountered Viv Ivins in the corridor outside his office. "I need to see you," she said in her crisp, delicate voice and Romanian accent. "My office or yours?"

He was so glad she had not begun with the obligatory "He is risen," which he and Mac and Abdullah and Hannah had decided they would respond to with "He is risen indeed," privately knowing they were referring to Christ. Perhaps Vivian eschewed the formality because technically she was outside the hierarchy. She did not even wear a uniform, though her light blue, dark blue, black, charcoal, and gray suits were uniform enough. She wore sensible shoes, and her blue-gray hair was teased into a helmet-like ball.

Giving David the option of meeting with her in his own office was unusual, for while Ms. Ivins bore no official title, everyone knew she was akin to the boss's daughter, or, in this case, the boss's aunt. She was not a blood relative, as far as anyone knew, but Carpathia himself made it plain that she was as close to him as anyone in the world. She had been a dear family friend and had, from almost the beginning, helped his late parents raise their only child.

She did not overtly lord it over anyone that she had clout without title. There was simply an unspoken knowledge between her and everyone. What she wanted she got. What she said went. Her word was as good as Carpathia's, and so she didn't have to assert herself. She employed her understood power in the same way everyone else accepted it.

"Please," David said, "come in." He enjoyed the brass of having someone so close to Carpathia sitting in his office, not six feet from the computer he used to subvert the potentate's efforts.

His assistant greeted him with a concerned look as he passed. David merely said, "Good morning," but she slowed him with, "Are you all right?" "Better, Tiffany, thanks," he said. When she noticed his visitor, she lurched to her feet. "Ms. Ivins," she said. Viv merely nodded. David held the door for her, and once she was inside and he shut it, she stood waiting for him to pull out a chair for her. He imagined saying, "Is your arm broken?" But there was almost as much feminist power in her expecting his chivalry as there would have been in her not doing so.

"I heard you say you were feeling better," she said, opening a folder in her lap and pulling a pencil from behind her ear. "So I won't belabor that. I trust you're able to get past your unfortunate incident with His Excellency?"

"Throwing up on the leader of the world, you mean?" he said, eliciting a grimace from her. "Except that such news travels fast and I doubt there is an employee in New Babylon not aware of it, yes, I try not to dwell on it."

"Senior management understands," she said.

He wanted to ask if they understood that barfing on the big boss was actually an answer to a desperate prayer to be spared from pretending to worship him.

Viv made a tiny check mark after her first listed item. David wondered what she might have written there as the discussion point. Regurgitation?

"Now then," she said, "a few more items. First, your new immediate superior will be James Hickman."

"My area will report to Intelligence?"

"No, Jim has been promoted to Supreme Commander to replace Reverend Fortunato."

David mused that having had Intelligence in Hickman's previous title was similar to Fortunato now having Reverend in his. "Surely this was Leon's, er, Commander Fortunato's choice, not the potentate's." David detected the hint of a smile, but Viv wouldn't take the bait. "So Jim will be relocating to Leon's old office?" he said.

"Please don't get ahead of me, Mr. Hassid. And I would urge you to use titles or at the very least Mister when you refer to personnel at such levels. You shall be expected to refer to Mr. Hickman as Supreme Commander and Mr. Fortunato as Reverend or Most High Reverend."