The Remnant: On The Brink of Armageddon (13 page)

Positive. what is going on? He called Chang and filled him in. What do you think Stefanich is up to? I’m in his mainframe, Mac, and there’s nothing there. Could be as bad as they’re onto you, or he’s still trying to cover.  But what’s he need all these people in the woods for? They mustering here for the midnight raid?

Seems out of the way. Sure does. Unless they’re wrong about the location of the underground headquarters. We’re not far from where the pastor hid out Rayford. You think they’ve finally discovered that? You’re a good thirty miles from there, Mac. I’ll stay on it, but I don’t know what to tell you. Aristotle said, All right, let’s go. Plato shoved George up. Someone opened his door, and it seemed Plato and Aristotle each took an arm and guided him, while Elena opened doors. They led him about fifteen feet, up three concrete steps, and inside. Then about twenty steps down a corridor that from the echoes seemed narrow.

Finally into a larger room. Aristotle let go of George and walked a few steps away. Ach! I can’t reach it. Plato? Give me that. George heard what sounded like metal being slotted into metal, then a couple of loud clicks.

Plato grunted. What’s the secret here? he said. Let me get the other side, Aristotle said, and he was replaced at George’s side by Elena. I f only I weren’t cuffed, George thought. That was when he would have taken his chances. Coldcock the girl, whip off the blind fold, race back down that corridor and outside, and hope for the best. But not with his hands behind his back.

Any hesitation and she would shoot him, he was sure. Plato and Aristotle grunted and Aristotle said, Push him in, Elena. Come on, Plato and I have to get back. Elena guided George forward, turned him sideways, and tried to force him through an opening apparently being held on each side by the men. He didn’t fit. Give me another couple of inches, she said, and they grunted louder. She pushed George through. Hold on now, Aristotle said. I don’t want him found cuffed and blindfolded. Hands reached in and unlocked the cuffs. Toss me the blindfold, Elena said.

George slipped it off and saw he was inside a dark elevator. Elena had a weapon pointed at him. Good thing for them, George thought, because Plato and Aristotle were totally occupied holding the doors open. Elena took the blindfold, shoved it in a pocket, and pulled a bottle of water from another. She tossed it in and said, Cheers, as the doors slammed shut.

George let the bottle bounce on the floor and tried to get his fingers between the doors. Just when he had found purchase he heard the key slide into its hole again and the throwing of the lock. He heard water sloshing and felt around in the dark for the bottle.

He uprighted it and decided to save what was left for as long as he could With his arms spread, George could touch the walls on each side, and as he made a quarter turn, he realized the enclosure was square. It didn’t surprise him that the buttons on a panel were not working, but he could tell from the pattern that he was in a four story building. The ceiling was less than a foot above his head. George felt for loose panels, missing screws, anything.

Everything felt secure. A thin, plastic panel had to be the cover for the light. He removed that and felt a small, circular double fluorescent tube. Next to that was a mesh panel. He pushed up hard on the side until it gave way, then ripped it down. Now he could feel the fan blades, dusty, oily. His body was already heating, and his breath was short. Were these people crazy?

A malfunctioning elevator might make a perfect prison cell, but did they want him to suffocate? George shed his sweater and boots and socks and sat down, his back against the door. He found a boot and began swinging it backward over his shoulder against the door. Knock it off or I’ll put you out of your misery, Elena called out.

So they had left her alone to guard him. He wanted to tell her that if they didn’t want a dead hostage to show to the brass, they’d better at least get the fan running. But he was committed not to speak. Not a word. And so he kept banging.

Chang had a bad feeling. Since the day he had been left as the only mole at the GC Palace, he had never felt so helpless. Was it possible Stefanich was playacting? They seemed to have him intimidated, eager to please. Even if he had checked on Mac, Chang had everything in place to make Howie Johnson look legit. He was certain Stefanich was embarrassed to find he had doubted this high level Johnson character and should now be trying to cover that he had ever doubted him.

Chang was desperate to find out hove vulnerable Mac and Chloe and Hannah were. Could they be walking into an ambush? Time was against him, but it might be wrong to just tell Mac to abort. Maybe they could hotwire the car at the shack and get back to the airport, but Chang knew Mac wouldn’t abandon Sebastian.

What if he was already dead? If Mac had been exposed, there was no reason for the GC to keep him alive. Chang slapped his forehead with both palms. Think! I f they’re onto Mac, why are they? I f you can find the connection, maybe you can figure out what they might do.

Chang started a global search, asking David Hassid’s superpowered engine to match anyone at high levels in the palace with the GC at Ptolemais. He even keyed in code breakers, in case the contact person feared someone within the palace was monitoring them. With the computer whirring away, darting through thousands of files in hundreds of locations, Chang fell to his knees. God, I have never asked you to override a piece of equipment.

But you know a servant of yours designed this, and I want to serve you too. Help me think. Speed the process. Please let me protect these brothers and sisters. I know from what happened at Petra today that nothing is beyond you. We have lost so much to the enemy, and I know we will lose more before your ultimate victory.

But don’t let the Greek believers suffer more. Not tonight. Protect the Co op. And help me get Mac and Chloe and Hannah and George out of there. Mac liked a clear mission, a black and white assignment. This one was infiltrate, then storm the gates, free your man, and hit the road. Now there was the underground complication. He wouldn’t leave Greece without his man, and now he couldn’t leave without defending the believers.

The original plan didn’t figure he and his people would be outnumbered. There were four hostage takers. Mac, his two team members, and George made four good guys.

Those odds he could live with. But to walk Hannah down the road to Chloe and six GC, knowing there were at least two dozen more in the area, well, that didn’t make sense. Hold up, he told Hannah. You know how to hotwire a car? Do I admit it or not? Just say so. Time is not on our side.

Yes  Do it. While she trotted to Sebastian’s car, Mac radioed Chloe. Johnson to Irene. Irene, go. Unforeseen delay here. Need your assistance. Ten four. Should I bring help? Negative. Let them go on. We’ll catch up. You heard the boss, gentlemen,

Chloe said. We’ll see you at the destination. We’d love to help the senior commander, ma’am. Thank you, no. Can we meet him later? I’ll see to it. And as she said it, Chloe was overwhelmed with a deep impression, and she had to express herself. If you do me a favor. Anything, ma’am. Senior Commander Johnson’s presence tonight is a surprise for Commander Stefanich. He’s going to be compensated for some of his recent actions. So . . .

Don’t let on he’s coming? Exactly.  You got it, ma’am. And you know what? We didn’t know Commander Stefanich was going to be here. Fact is, we don’t know what we’re doing here. Chloe blanched. What if Stefanich wasn’t there? It’s all part of the surprise, boys.

Chang knew God had protected him, probably more j than he realized. But he had no reason to think God owed him anything or was obligated to act in this instance, just because Chang had asked. With zero con fidence that his pleas had done any good, Chang wearily returned to his chair before the computer.

The screen was alive with red flashes. The search engine had reached secure files at the highest levels and was matching, comparing, translating languages, turning spoken word into written. A small box in the upper right hand corner showed six matches already between some element of the GC operation in Ptolemais with top brass at the palace. Top. Chang feared multitasking would slow the search, but he had to take the chance. Mac and the two women were in danger, outnumbered, without any idea what they faced. He checked the first three matches and found they were routine interactions of Ptolemais administration reporting statistics to GC command.

But the fourth was different. It was highest security interaction, a series of e mails between TB and
CST
, plus mare than one phone call, also between the same two, being reduced to typed transcription. Chang keyed in, Match logic?

The response was immediate. Meets broad, simple criteria: initials one letter removed from key personnel in GC Greece and GC Palace. Chang squinted. That’s what he had asked for: any con nection based on standard search sequences and codes.

TB was one letter away from SA. OT was one letter away from NS. Chang shot from his chair and stood hunched over the keyboard. He typed in, Show interaction, and as the files cascaded onto the screen, he called Mac. Mac heard the car running and footsteps jogging toward him from the north and the east. Ladies? he said. Yes   yep  His phone buzzed. Stand by. Hey, Chang. Mac! I’ll say this once and get back to you as fast as possible with details.

Ready? Go  Akbar and Stefanich have communicated personally several times today. Click. Busted, Mac said. Listen up. No time for questions. Hannah, you’re driving. Chloe, you’re riding. Take the
DEW
, Uzi, and a side arm each, phones on, radios on.

Get to the Co op now. Clear ‘em out, including anything they don’t want found in a midnight raid. Then straight to the airport and wait out of sight for Sebastian and me, ready to hightail it to his plane. If we don’t show, that means we’re dead and you’re on your own.

Mac bent and heaved the Fifty up against his chest. Time to go to work, big boy, he said. Hannah and Chloe ran around the shack to the idling car.

THANK
YOU
, Lord, Chang said, still standing as his fingers danced on the keyboard. In seconds he had opened the transcripts of four phone conversations on a line so secure that Carpathia himself had once said even he didn’t have access to it. But David Hassid cracked it, Nichy. Access that. Chang also had copies of e-mails that showed up on neither the palace nor the Ptolemais mainframe and were supposedly guaranteed to disappear from every record after they had been read. Hassid’s master disk probably had the only copies in existence, including the correspondents’. Though he was curious, Chang knew it was irrelevant how someone at Stefanich’s level had personal access to the director of Security and Intelligence.

The way they interacted evidenced some history, but if the box in the corner had not begun flashing again, Chang would not have wasted the time tracking it down until the crisis was over. He quickly clicked on the box to find 100 percent primary match, no decode necessary. He opened the manifest and sped read: Straight correlation from List A to List B: Suhail Akbar and Nelson Stefanich registered at Madrid Military School, overlapping tenures. From the years listed, Chang calculated they had been there together as teenagers, more than twenty five years before. That would get a phone call returned. Chang was flying now, his eyes darting over the copy, looking for how the ruse fell apart. Stefanich had asked whether Howie Johnson was a fair man. Akbar responded that the name didn’t ring a bell. Stefanich told him, Senior Commander under Konrad. I’ll look him up. Akbar found him and reported, Stellar record, but our paths have not crossed. Unusual for someone at that level, but it happens. Don`t vvant to be a best, Stefanich tiad followed, but does Konrad vouch for him?

Want to be sure before exposing him to prisoner. what prisoner? And who’s Konrad? The Judah ite, George Sebastian. Still nothing out of him? We’ll break him or kill him. Break him. I know you can. You’re not Konrad’s immediate superior ?  No. Do I need to look him up too?  You’d better. He’s supposed to be your top guy, deputy commander, office on your floor. Send documentation. Later, Akbar told Stefanich, You’re being duped. Johnson and Konrad are in the system, everything adds up, except they don’t exist. Permission to reverse sting them? With my best wishes. Bring them in, dead or alive, and I’ll move you to the palace. As the phone calls and e mails progressed, the women’s identities proved phony too. The one from Montreal was in my office.

By early afternoon, Akbar had decided, If Sebastian is worth all this, they’re tied in tight with the underground. Announce a raid and see if they reveal location. Chang called Mac. The raid’s phony. If you warn the believers, you could give them away. Call Chloe or Hannah. I’m occupied. Your location is a trap too, Mac. All right, listen, Chang. You saved our lives. But whatever you do, find Sebastian. I’ll get him out or die tryin’. Chloe answered her phone. It was Chang. Raid was a setup so you’d lead the GC to the underground. Abort. Hannah, you were right What?  Hannah was right,

Chang. She suspected we were being followed. I didn’t notice a thing and thought she was paranoid. I told you! Ditch them or lead them nowhere, Chang said. From what I can tell, the GC has no clue where the Co op is or that it’s the meeting place. I gotta go. Mac is calling. Go, Mac. Question. If this is a trap, why wouldn’t Peacekeepers have come back with Chloe and taken me then? I don’t follow. Mac told him of her encounter with the half doyen. You got me. I’m still reading the back and forth between Akbar and Stefanich. Possible not everybody knows.  That could be. It’s to your advantage. Confirm if you can. Will do. Mac had moved east far enough to see the lean to, if there was one. He saw nothing. Not even the GC Hannah or Chloe had seen.