Mark of Evil (10 page)

“If the King’s Bench here in London were to hear the evidence of what the Global Alliance is claiming about the disappearances and all those
supposed
mass suicides,” the bobby fired back, “in a court of law, the whole case would be thrown out. Mass suicides? Really . . .” There was ridicule in his voice.

The Alliance commander looked insulted. “Your King’s Bench and your Parliament and your prime minister are all under the Global Alliance now. You’re living in the past, Officer. But then, perhaps you are one of these Jesus people. Maybe I should arrest you too?”

The bobby took a step closer to the commander. “I’ll not be threatened. And I am not about to lift a finger to arrest this group as long as they are peaceful.”

“Very good. We don’t need your help.”

As the commander spoke, a long line of blue Global Alliance vans began to race up to the curb of the park. A moment later Alliance officers armed with riot shields, shotguns, rubber bullets, and teargas launchers began pouring out. The preacher saw what was coming but he was not deterred. His voice rose. “These disappearances are the proof of the Rapture—that God has taken His own, the followers of the Lord Christ, to be with Him,” he shouted. “But even so,
it was not too late for me. After I realized what had happened—my Christian wife disappearing before my very eyes and me left behind—I fell to my knees. I understood then all her talk about Christ and the Rapture, that it was all coming true. So I confessed to God that I was a sinner. Believing in what Jesus did on the cross for me. And declaring that He is the Son of God, who came to give us eternal life if we will only believe in Him and receive Him. And even though I don’t have much from the world’s standards, I have this priceless assurance—that regardless of what the world or the devil might throw at me, nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.”

A small army of Global Alliance commandos were getting ready to charge. The commander had a bullhorn and was ready to give the warning.

The preacher thrust his hands forward to the crowd. “Won’t you join me in bowing before the King of kings and Lord of lords, and acknowledging and receiving Him right now? Forgiving your sins . . . putting His Spirit in you . . . making you a new creature in Christ . . .” He stepped down off his little ladder and bent down to a kneeling position on the ground. At first there were dozens who followed him in prayer. Rapidly there were hundreds and soon nearly two thousand.

A small handful in the crowd who looked at the approaching blue line of helmeted Alliance commandos decided to bolt from the crowd. But the rest remained, kneeling, praying, and weeping.

And then there came an announcement from the commander that they had to disperse immediately. The crowd stayed on its knees.

Ten seconds later the order was given, and the Alliance forces began to charge toward the group.

In his office at 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister Derek Harrington watched the scene in Hyde Park unfold on his private video feed.

“Horrifying . . .”

The aide next to him remained silent.

“Magna Carta,” Harrington said. “The great legacy of English liberty. All of it is on the verge of being trampled underfoot. By international thugs. How could we have allowed it to get to this?”

“How?” the aide responded. “Adoption of the Global Alliance Treaty, Mr. Prime Minister.”

“But this is a peaceful assembly . . .”

“Not according to the Alliance, sir.”

“The British Commonwealth has lost hundreds of thousands of workers from its labor force—America even more, in the millions upon millions—as a result of the Rapture.”

His aide jerked his head around when he heard the prime minister of England actually use that word:
Rapture
. It was a dangerous word. People using it could be labeled. And with it came surveillance and suspicion. Then bad things followed.

“Industry and commerce grinding to a halt,” Harrington said. “Economic chaos everywhere . . .”

Harrington wheeled around to face his aide. “I want you to contact the White House. Try to arrange an immediate teleconference for me with President Hewbright on the secure line. I am going to put a stop to this.”

The aide turned to face his boss but he didn’t move. Not until the prime minister let loose and began shouting, red-faced, “I tell you, the sun is not going to set on the British realm! Not on my watch!”

THIRTEEN

CRETE, GREECE

Ethan March took in the friendly face on the screen of the 3-D video recorder. It was good to see his friend Josh Jordan again. But he had to wave his finger over the Pause function, just for a moment, so he could stop and digest what he had heard in the video message from his former mentor. Every once in a while he had to take a moment to mentally absorb that this was really happening. That he had been thrust into the very beginning of the final war for the souls of the human race, and as far as the millions of members of the Remnant worldwide were concerned, he had the intimidating rank of general, it would appear.

Ethan sat in his bedroom in the villa of Nick Akonos, still holed up in Crete, avoiding the Global Alliance forces and the dragnet they
had laid for him in Athens. During his stay with Nick he had been expecting a call confirming a meeting with Jo Li in Hong Kong.

While he waited for his next move, he’d made good use of the time, teaching the hundreds of new Jesus followers who regularly made their way to Nick’s elegant estate. They were hungry for information about Christ and the Bible. But they also pleaded for insight about the prophetic significance of the alarming events that swirled around them: the collapse of whole nations and their economies and the meteoric rise of this strange, tyrannical new world order—the Global Alliance. Against the backdrop of those dizzying events, Ethan repeatedly conducted two-hour teaching sessions from the Bible, trying to answer their questions, though he never felt adequate for the task.

Nick was a kind, generous man, a self-made multimillionaire in the travel business who had proven to be a friend in need to the Remnant, and especially to Ethan. But despite Nick’s hospitality and the satisfaction Ethan felt in encouraging the ever-growing flock of Jesus followers, he still felt the crushing pressures bearing down on him, making him feel as if he were trapped in a metal compactor. He remembered the days when his mentor Josh would withhold clandestine information from him until the very last moment. He’d resented being shut out, until he eventually learned that Josh did it for Ethan’s own safety.

Now that shoe was on his foot. He didn’t want any of these eager Christians to be privy to information that could get them arrested or tortured, or worse. Ethan had heard the stories about the Global Alliance moving Remnant members into “Jesus Ghettos.” Then they started disappearing. A few showed up dead.

But one of Ethan’s pressure points, the meeting with Jo Li, was settled. Earlier that day he had received a call from a Hong Kong contact for the underground entrepreneur, giving Ethan an address and the name of Jo Li’s Hong Kong representative. Ethan’s small suitcase
on the bed was already packed. He traveled light. Soon he hoped to have a way for millions of Jesus Remnant folks to buy necessities and provide for their families.

But then, there was Ethan’s second pressure point. The bigger mission. And the most dangerous one of all.

As Ethan studied Josh’s face on his video recorder, he could see that Josh had recorded it in his apartment in Tel Aviv. On the screen, Josh was smiling and seemed relaxed, even though the subject matter he was discussing was beyond intense, beyond anything Ethan could have imagined back then. Ethan moved his index finger over the Forward prompt on the screen, and Josh’s face came to life as he spoke.

Ethan, now that I’m up here after the Rapture and you’re still down there, and the beginning of the end has started, you need to remember the endgame of the evil one: he wants every human soul under his control. The Bible gives us a glimpse of that and how he is going to do it. First, unification of all government, all religion, and all of the world’s economies. We’ve gone over that. You’ll remember when I was still down there with you, I was beginning to see this with the worldwide currency, the CReDO, followed by the mass BIDTagging of citizens in every nation, supposedly for security purposes.

But you have to be prepared for what comes next—the cruelest tactic of all. The truly demonic one.

Remember what Revelation 13:14–15 says about the first part of that ploy. There will be a communications marvel of unparalleled proportions. Those who “dwell on the earth”—the inhabitants of the entire planet earth—will be ordered to “make an image to the beast.” So just think about your ancient history for a minute.

Joshua stopped and wrinkled his brow a bit. “Ancient history—yeah, never your favorite subject, was it, Ethan?”

Ethan guffawed. True enough. He practically had an allergic reaction to it.

“But by now, I’m hoping that you’ve followed my advice on reading Josephus, the famous Jewish historian. And a few of the Roman commentators. And more important, the writing of the early church fathers.”

Ethan waved a finger at the screen, forgetting for a moment that this wasn’t a live Allfone video call with his friend. “Hey, Josh, you’d be proud of me. In the last two-plus years after you and your family and all of the other believers in Christ got raptured, I’ve actually dug into all of those books—”

But Ethan was jarred back into reality when Josh cut in and kept rolling on the video. “Remember? In ancient times, physical idols were constructed by pagans who believed the idols were invested with the divine powers of the gods. The Greeks had their statues.”

“Acts
chapter 17
,” Ethan spoke out loud to the empty bedroom, thinking back to his meeting up at Mars Hill in Athens when he’d recounted the New Testament story to Gikas about Paul and the Greek philosophers.

But again, on the video screen Josh was plowing ahead.

I don’t think that prophetic verse in Revelation is talking about people making idols out of wood or stone. That’s a first-century kind of idolatry. I think it’s referring to the kind of advanced technology that would have been unthinkable before the second half of the twentieth century, and only feasible in the twenty-first. Look, Ethan, my expertise and my training at MIT and the DOD was in lasers and aeronautics, not virtual imagery. But my prayer is that God will bring some brilliant people to you who can help you stay ahead of the curve on this and slow it down. Even though you can’t stop it, maybe there’s some chance to use it to your own advantage.
To get the truth out to mankind. The evil one intends it for evil, but God can use it for good.

“Already on it,” Ethan said quietly to the screen. He gave a smiling nod to his friend’s face. But Josh’s eyes now began to narrow as he explained what to expect.

“But there’s also that other prophetic part in verse fifteen: ‘And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak.’ ”

“Right,” Ethan said, nodding to the screen, his voice rising. “What’s your take on that?”

“So a second beast, the false prophet, is somehow involved in the casting of the image of the first beast—the Antichrist—around the world. A global system of visual communication, instantaneously, to every sector of the planet.”

“I’m tracking you, Josh. And I have an idea on how they are going to do it.”

“But, Ethan, don’t forget this: the worldwide visual communication of the image, that’s only half of the story. Then comes the real nightmare for the human race. We see it in the rest of that Scripture verse. Something hideous and unimaginable . . .”

A polite knock on the closed bedroom door. Ethan straightened in his chair. He pressed his thumbprint to the upper quadrant of the screen and Josh’s face disappeared; the video machine went dark. “Come in.”

Nick Akonos opened the arched wooden door and stood in the doorway. He glanced over at the suitcase on the bed. “Leaving? So soon?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know
when
—” He quickly smiled and corrected himself. “I mean,
if
you’ll be coming back?”

Ethan shook his head. “I can’t predict.”

“Unlike the prophets,” Nick added with a chuckle.

“Right,” Ethan replied. He smiled. Nick had been a great host. His time on Crete had been a welcome retreat.

But in the back of his mind he still heard the voice of his mentor, Joshua Jordan . . . and thought of the terrors that were yet to come.

FOURTEEN

LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS

Pack McHenry had traveled across the globe to the Dutch city of Leiden in a mad rush to connect with Professor Fin Luxendorf, the sixth holder of the secret Internet code card issued by ICANN. Pack needed to get Luxendorf on board before he turned up missing or dead like five of the other computer experts who also held parts of the doomsday key code.