Mark of Evil (26 page)

Adis grinned. “Well then, I hope that bodes well for me in my next salary review.”

The chief dropped his smile, and Adis scurried past him and exited the office on the way back to his cubicle.

THIRTY-FIVE

WHITE HORSE, YUKON TERRITORY

John Galligher happened to be gazing out at the street through the big picture window of the hotel when he noticed the white police vehicle with the RCMP—Royal Canadian Mounted Police—insignia on the door as it pulled up to the curb. There were two officers in white-shirted patrol outfits sitting in the front seat. The officer behind the wheel said something to his partner and then stepped out of the vehicle, snatched his black patrol cap off the dash and donned it, straightened his black bulletproof vest, and, with his hand resting on his sidearm, turned to survey the front of the hotel.

Galligher quickly strode over to the registration desk where Bobby Robert was leaning over a book and whispered, “We’ve got company. Get Chiro down here immediately and tell him to lock up the cyber stuff.”

Bobby Robert tapped a quick text into his Allfone for Chiro and hit Send.

When Galligher wheeled around, the Mountie had entered the lobby and was checking out the place.

“Good day to you,” the officer said with a booming voice. “I’m Captain Morganthau. I’d like to talk to the person in charge, aye?”

“He’s on his way,” Galligher said and strolled up to the officer. He extended his hand to shake. “I’m John Galligher.” The Canadian cop just looked at his outreached hand and didn’t reciprocate. So Galligher responded with an attempt at lightening the mood. “Yeah, I remember that trick. The old invisible handshake. That’s a good one.”

Bobby Robert was silently shaking his head.

“I need to speak to the person in charge,” the officer announced. “
Immediately
.” This time he sounded a little perturbed.

A voice floated down to the lobby. “I’m right here.” Chiro was making his way down the spiral staircase.

The officer pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and glanced down at it. “We’ve received a request for investigation from the Global Alliance. Need to check this place out.”

“That’s okay. Very much okay,” Chiro said with a tremor in his voice.

Galligher could see that the little computer genius was nervous so he made another stab at jocularity. As he spoke, he motioned over to Bobby Robert with his long, braided hair and then over to his Japanese computer genius friend and then pointed to himself. “So, Officer, did you ever hear the joke about the Indian, the guy from Tokyo, and the Irishman who couldn’t lose weight?”

The officer stared at Galligher. At first he said nothing. But after a moment, a smile appeared in the corner of his mouth. “I’ve heard about the
Odd Couple
. You know, that old movie. So what does that make you guys—the
Strange Trio
?”

John Galligher exploded with a belly laugh. But Chiro and Bobby Robert were still staring like a pair of deer in headlights.

“Hokay,” the officer added, “I’d better check this place out. Need to see one of the rooms.”

“Which one?” Chiro shot out with a distressed look.

The officer strolled up closer to Chiro. He flashed a relaxed look. “You pick.”

Galligher interceded. “Just follow me,” he said and grabbed a key off the board next to Bobby Robert. The officer followed him up to the second floor, where he unlocked one of the bedrooms that actually had the look of a place where someone could sleep there for the night.

The officer looked around and nodded to Galligher, who locked the door behind them. They made their way back down the staircase to the lobby, where the officer strolled over to a cabinet that hadn’t been dusted. “Looks like you need maid service here,” he said as he put his finger down on the top of the cabinet and swiped a swirl in the dust.

As the officer slowly stepped toward the front door, he added something else. “These Global Alliance people are pretty insistent. I don’t know how long they’re gonna be satisfied with my report. They may end up making a visit here themselves. And if that happens, it won’t be the friendly kind, you know what I mean, aye?”

He glanced at each of them, then threw a half wave and disappeared through the front door.

“What was that about?” Chiro asked.

Bobby Robert was shaking his head. “This is not looking good.”

But Galligher stepped over to the top of the dusty cabinet. After he studied what was in the dust, he smiled. “On the other hand,” he said, “we may have more friends than you think.”

He tapped the top of the cabinet where the Mountie had drawn in the dust with his index finger. Clearly outlined was an ichthus, the Christian symbol of the fish.

KNESSET BUILDING

Jerusalem, Israel

Jimmy Louder and Micah, Rabbi ZG’s right-hand man, sat across the desk from Joel Harmon. The member of the Knesset appeared relaxed in his spartan-looking office in the MK chambers building of the legislative complex. Harmon, an ex-fighter pilot who at thirty-nine still had a boyish look about him, seemed cordial, casual, and understanding. They had talked at first about their common connection—Joshua Jordan—and the bond of friendship that had developed between them when Joshua was living in exile in Israel.

But then matters shifted to the subject of the mistreatment of Christians by Alliance forces in Jerusalem and the incident that had just occurred in the shadow of the Temple Mount.

Harmon seemed to be in the clutches of a tough political dilemma. “With the death of a number of Global Alliance troops on the plaza,” he said, “this has now escalated to a level that is politically unmanageable.”

“And the Jesus Remnant people are being blamed for that?” Jimmy asked.

“Of course!” Harmon shot back. “The Alliance is saying that those so-called Two Witnesses used some kind of stealth weapon. And they’re part of your group, aren’t they? Preaching the same message? Babylon is calling this an act of war. And considering the fact that Jerusalem is under the international control of the Global Alliance as part of the rotten treaty struck between our PM, Sol Bensky, and Alexander Colliquin, they may actually have a point. Tragically, I’ll admit.”

“What happens,” Micah asked, “when the Lord God sends you two messengers, like the two angels sent to Abraham who were on
their way to Sodom and Gomorrah? Their message was pure truth, yet their mission was also a very stern one—and even a scary one. When that happens, Mr. Harmon, isn’t it time to choose? Do we stand with the Lord, or against Him?”

Harmon countered, “Micah, first, you’re assuming that God has sent these two men. And I’m just Joel, thanks,” and there was a flicker of a smile.

“I was there when it happened,” Micah said with passion in his throat. “I saw it all. It was fire, falling from the sky. The right arm of God.”

Jimmy leaned forward and added something. “Joel, you and I are both pilots. We’ve both flown combat sorties using the world’s most advanced weaponry. We know something about warfare. I’ve talked to people who were there that day. Witnesses say this was no military weapon. It was a supernatural event, pure and simple. And that leaves only one conclusion.”

It was clear to Jimmy that Harmon was trying to be objective, to sort the problem out from a technical standpoint, conducting an event analysis, looking for the technology to explain it—typical aviator approach. He could see it in Harmon’s face. But there was always that point, just as there had been in Jimmy’s own life, when the laws of physics and science had to open up to something else—the metaphysics of God. When that happened, there was always that profound and awesome choice to be made.

Micah seemed to notice something too. “Joel, you and I are both Jews. The only difference is that I’ve already met the Messiah. He was here in this city two thousand years ago, but He’s coming back. This incident at the plaza was an attack by over two hundred soldiers firing on two unarmed men. By any sane person’s definition, the Global Alliance was the one committing a war crime.” He paused and added another thought. “I know you are an observant son of Israel. I know you’ve read the Scriptures. These Two Witnesses . . . Joel, go back to
the book of Malachi and read about one of those two men for yourself. And then ask yourself this: Are we rushing headlong toward that great and dreadful day?”

Harmon had a startled look, like a boy who had just realized he’d forgotten his homework assignment. Just as quickly, that look vanished from his face.

“I know your schedule is tight, and we appreciate your meeting with us,” Jimmy said, wrapping up the meeting. “Here is why we came to you: we need some legal protection for the followers of Jesus here in Jerusalem. Also, Rabbi ZG has been wrongly arrested. He’s done nothing wrong and he needs to be located and released. We were hoping you could bring these matters to the attention of Prime Minister Bensky.”

Harmon rose to shake both of their hands, saying he could make no promises but that he would think on it and see if there was anything he could do.

As soon as they had left, Harmon strode over to his bookshelf and pulled out his copy of the Scriptures. He flipped to Malachi 4:5–6. It had been a long time since he had read it. But he was reading it now, and the full impact of that text became self-evident, so much so that he unconsciously mouthed the words aloud to himself as he read, “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the L
ORD
. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”

THIRTY-SIX

ANIMAL TESTING ROOM #5—DIGITAL IMAGERY LAB

New Babylon, Iraq

Behind the big viewing window in his command station, the lab chief stared at two of the
pan paniscus
species—the bonobo chimpanzees—on the other side of the pane of glass. One was sixteen years old, the other eighteen. They roamed freely in the little room that was furnished with a climbing apparatus, a rope hanging from the ceiling, and a few toys.

The bonobos, rather than common chimpanzees, had intentionally been selected for the experiments. First, they had been supplied en masse and for free, as a gesture of appreciation by the Democratic Republic of the Congo for Alexander Colliquin’s help in jump-starting that nation’s economy with the Ultra-Extreme Fight Matches and the
numerous sex trade and recreational drug resorts. But there was a clinical reason too. The bonobo was an animal with a nearly insatiable desire for sex. Because of that, the research team thought that in its behavior, and perhaps even in some aspect of its brain functioning, this type of chimp was the closest match to twenty-first-century humans.

The test subjects, both males, were numbered 137 and 138. One of them, 137, had been given a BIDTag laser imprint on the back of his right hand, similar to the type administered to nearly all of the world’s eight billion inhabitants, but with a few modifications.

At first, the little matrix within the invisible laser imprint on the chimp’s hand had contained a QR code typical of the ones used for imprinting and tracking the human race. When it was first devised, the QR coding system for the BIDTag was based on those little black-and-white squares with squiggly lines that had been used for two decades to digitally link people to products on the Internet. But in a later experiment, the chimp’s BIDTag code had been altered successfully by a wireless command sent from the chief’s remote station behind the glass.

The old QR codes for human BIDTags had always been just a one-dimensional code design. Now test subject 137’s BIDTag had been brilliantly converted, remotely, to a three-dimensional digital cube design, still invisible to the naked eye. This new cube configuration increased exponentially the amount of data that could be input into the subject’s BIDTag. And a higher data capacity was critical because of the new, high-powered commands that would soon be input into the brains and central nervous systems of human subjects.