Mark of Evil (9 page)

His Allfone watch buzzed on his wrist. He looked down at the little screen and saw the encryption code for Pack. He tapped in the confirmation and the
okay
for the video feed. Pack’s square face and salt-and-pepper hair appeared.

Ethan gave him a warm hello and they exchanged pleasantries. Pack explained that he’d been roaming the planet.

“Sightseeing?” Ethan said with a smile.

“No. Dreary places, mostly,” Pack said. “And some depressing news.”

“Shoot.”

“Over the last few weeks I’ve discovered a series of murders and disappearances,” McHenry explained. “All of them computer-tech gurus from ICANN—the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Back around 2010, ICANN, which is a private agency that governs the tech side of the Internet, decided it needed a plan in
the event there was some kind of worldwide cyberattack that brought everything down. So they created a start-up code for the entire Internet and then divided up parts of that code among seven very high-tech players—insiders with ICANN—giving each of the seven a keycard with parts of the code. If everything crashed, they were to meet at some global network site and put their code cards together, input the code, and restart the Internet.”

Ethan was looking over the blue waters below his veranda. But he was thinking farther east, to New Babylon. “And how many of these high-tech cardholders are involved?”

“Five so far. Either dead or gone missing. All very recently. I’ve located a sixth cardholder, Professor Fin Luxendorf, who teaches in the Netherlands. I’m on my way right now to reach him. Try and keep him safe. And try to figure out whether all of this is connected with the Global Alliance. And some kind of Internet power grab.”

Ethan urged Pack to keep him closely advised and said his goodbyes. Then he put in a call to Chiro up in White Horse, in the Yukon. Ethan was glad to hear his friend’s familiar voice on the other end of the call.

“Hi, Ethan! So great to talk,” Chiro said. “I have been working hard with my new friend Mr. John Galligher up here at our communications center.”

“Chiro,” Ethan replied, “you’ve got a good man in Galligher. Josh Jordan thought very highly of him.”

“Okay,” Chiro said, going right to the heart of the matter. “So you’ve been telling me about the intel we keep getting from our inside source in New Babylon. About some kind of digital doomsday plan. Do we have any more data on that?”

But Ethan didn’t respond. Not at first. His eyes searched the blue horizon from his view on the porch. “Did you know,” he said with a half smile, wonder in his voice, “that the Bible says when God creates His new heaven and new earth, there won’t be any oceans?”

Chiro was silent at the other end. Then, “No, Ethan. I didn’t know that.”

“And no more tears. Or pain. Or death.”

More silence on the other end.

Ethan answered Chiro’s question. “The doomsday plan. Yes, I’m getting more data from some reliable sources. I can’t say anything more at this point. When I get specifics, I will tell you. But the hub of this global connection sounds like it’s going to be located at some high-level computer facility. Apparently Alexander Colliquin needs that computer capacity if he’s going to implement his plan.” Then Ethan added, “Do me a favor, will you?”

“Anything.”

“Have Galligher get in touch with another FBI buddy of his—Ben Bolling. Another retired special agent. He should still be back in America. Find out if John thinks he’s a good candidate for our crew.”

“I will be glad to.”

“And one other thing: ask John whether he or Ben Bolling still have any contacts within the Secret Service. The White House detail.”

“This is sounding
very
interesting,” Chiro said with a laugh.

Ethan took a deep breath as he calculated the furious battle ahead. “I could describe it another way.”

“I will pray for you, Ethan March,” Chiro said.

“I wish I could tell you where I am right now,” Ethan said. “And describe it for you. It’s beautiful and . . . restful. I know it won’t last. But for now it’s a good place to be.”

They said their good-byes. Shortly after that, Nick Akonos, a tall man in a flowing white shirt and pants and leather sandals, strolled out onto the veranda. “Didn’t want to disturb you.”

“You didn’t, Nick. My call is done. Thanks again for making this fantastic villa a safe house for us. I had to get out of Athens quickly, and I figured I’d be sleeping out under the stars in a field somewhere. This is almost too good to be true.”

“I want to do more. Much more.”

“Be careful what you promise. We Remnant people are a pretty needy bunch!”

Nick laughed. “Well, they are all inside and ready to hear from you. There must be close to two hundred, filling up every corner of my place. Every night, a new bunch. It’s a good thing I am a man of means. The authorities think because I am wealthy that I’m just throwing big parties. And that meeting where you spoke down along the harbor last week, someone tried to count and said there were more than two thousand who happened to show up. I don’t know how this is happening.” He grabbed Ethan by his shoulders and gave a bigger laugh. “But it’s a miracle. Especially the way the crowd had already disbanded by the time the Global Alliance police showed up.”

“Yes,” Ethan said. “God’s stirring the hearts of men and women, and boys and girls, around the world. It’s a battle between darkness and light.” He reached and clapped Nick on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re part of the light.”

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

Dillon Ritzian finished the last bite of his cheeseburger and wiped a blotch of ketchup off his Hawaiian shirt as he walked down the Vegas Strip, basking under the neon light from the marquees overhead. He had his Allfone to his ear; he’d put a call in to his contact, but now he was on hold.

A couple of prostitutes approached him in tight micro skirts, but he waved them off. On a better night he would have paid for an allnight party, as long as he was sure his girlfriend, Darlene, wouldn’t find out. But things being as they were, Ritzian wasn’t flush. Maybe soon.

A large man who looked like an American Indian sidled up to
him as he walked by and made a few obvious references to a drug buy. Ritzian was sad he had to dismiss him too. Still, he had a flicker of hope.

I could be rolling in the cash pretty soon
.

Henry Bender answered the call on the other end—a gruff-talking guy with a voice that sounded like a hacksaw cutting metal. “What can I do for you?”

“You can tell me what your guys need. Then I supply it. Then I get rich. That’s more or less what I got in mind.”

“Don’t we all,” Bender growled.

“So I’m taking orders,” Ritzian said brashly. “What’ll you have?”

“My people want two things.”

“Just two? Is that all?”

“Why don’t you shut up and listen first. When I tell you what they want, then you can play the part of the big-talking gas bag.”

“Fine. Shoot.”

“They want the control codes and the passwords to get inside the tech support files in the mainframe computers at the administration building. Open access to digital roaming.”

Ritzian stopped walking. He stopped fussing over the ketchup stain on his shirt. “That’s pretty heavy.”

“You’re the big talker. Time to put up or shut up.”

“Listen, I’ve given you data before. I can do it again. I was the electrical whiz kid for Triple T Construction over at Bluffdale, remember? But I’m gonna ask for a whole lot of money.”

“Don’t worry. They’ve got it.”

“What’s the timeline?”

“Like, a week ago. Get the picture?”

“Yeah. Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

Ten seconds later Ritzian made another call. This time to the bet makers in Vegas. “Good news,” he announced. “I’ll be getting you the money I owe you, real soon.”

“Okay. And here’s your good news,” the man on the other end replied in a monotone. “Now your kneecaps won’t get broken.”

Ritzian tried to laugh, but the loan shark on the other end had already hung up.

NEW JERSEY

While Dillon Ritzian tried to exude a confident air as he strolled down the Vegas Strip, in New Jersey Henry Bender was placing a call of his own. Overseas.

At the other end, in New Babylon, Iraq, Ho Zhu picked up his Allfone in his massive office. Against the backdrop of stone archways and the sounds of fountains gushing water from the eaves of the palatial headquarters, he waved his finger over the one-way video option, and Henry Bender’s face showed up on his little screen. Only then did Ho speak. “Did you get the information?”

“I met with my source, and I think he can get it.”

“This is a rush.”

“He knows that. I’m pushing him.”

“Is he discreet?”

Henry Bender took a second before he answered that. “I’ll make sure he keeps his mouth shut.”

Ho asked, “This man was involved in the construction at the Utah data center?”

“Very deep. Has top-level security clearance. Worked with this defense construction company that dropped cable and connected the computer lines there at the National Security Agency’s complex in Bluffdale. He was involved in the sync control between the nerve center in Bluffdale and the other surveillance centers through the country and around the world—the four NSA facilities, including the main
one at Fort Meade, Maryland, and the connections to all the defense satellites. Links to the CIA, Pentagon, even the White House. And the connections to several listening stations in England and Australia and a bunch of other countries. All of them tied into Bluffdale. All of them wired to something they call the main matrix out there in nowhere’s-ville in Utah. And this yahoo, this Ritzian guy, is the one who ended up tying a lot of the hardwire together.”

“This isn’t just about the hardwire!” Ho Zhu screamed. He collected himself. “I want the codes and the passwords. Don’t you understand?”

“Sure I do. Nothing to worry about,” Bender said in his gravelly voice. “And I told him all that. But Ritzian has been telling me something about the system there in Utah that you need to know.”

“Explain.”

“He says that even if he gets you the codes and the passwords, that’s not enough. He says the system is impossible to break into from the outside. Some kind of electromagnetic field or something that would stop any hacker located
outside
the walls of the facility at Bluffdale. Has to be done
inside
the walls. The only other way would be to locate the underground—”

Deputy Chancellor Ho Zhu interrupted him. “Never mind about any of that,” he said as he straightened where he stood. Now he smiled. “That won’t be a problem.”

TWELVE

HYDE PARK, LONDON

In the northeastern section of the park near Marble Arch, in the famous speaker’s corner, a preacher in a tattered tweed jacket and pants with a patch on the knee was poised on top of a short stepladder. He was preaching in front of a wrought-iron fence. As he delivered an impassioned sermon, his backdrop was a row of trees and beyond those, the fine marble buildings of the Shrewsbury Business Park area. A crowd of nearly two thousand had gathered around the preacher. And the numbers were still growing. As he spoke, his booming voice carried unaided by a megaphone or sound system.

An English bobby with nightstick in hand stood a hundred yards off. As he studied the scene, a Pakistani Global Alliance patrol commander in a blue helmet tried to make a point to him, but the bobby
kept gazing off at the swelling crowd and finally interrupted. “I’ve never seen the likes of this, I haven’t,” the bobby told him. “All manner of crackpots and homespun philosophers regularly show up and try to get an audience. A few dozen onlookers show up to hear them. An audience of fifty or sixty would be a rare occurrence. But to see thousands like this is astounding. These Jesus preachers have been getting these kinds of throngs ever since the disappearances occurred.”

The Alliance commander snapped back, “I need to remind you of Global Alliance directive number PS458. Jesus groups are declared to be a risk to public order. A dangerous religious cult. Mass suicide. Very bad. And very dangerous. Even taking the children with them. Premeditated murder.”