were, unfaithful, ignorant, impatient, and dallying with other gods, the God of the universe himself catered to the children of Israel.
'Do you understand what that means? You could lead your people, his people, to a place that will be almost impossible to go into or out from. If you were to be there until the Glorious Appearing of the Christ, what would you eat? What would you wear? The Bible says God himself will provide as he did in the days of old! He will send food, delicious, nourishing, fulfilling food! Manna from heaven! And do you know about your clothes?'
'No, Tsion,' Chaim said wearily, a tease in his voice, 'whatever you do, do not neglect to tell me about my clothes.'
'I won't! And you will be grateful, not to mention amazed. If I amaze you, will you admit it?'
'I will admit it.'
'Promise me.'
'My word is my bond, my excitable young friend. Amaze me and I will say so.'
'Your clothes will not wear out!' Tsion stopped with A flourish, his hands in the air.
'They won't?'
'Are you amazed?'
'Maybe. Tell me more.'
'Now you want to hear it?'
'I always want to hear it, Tsion. I am just unworthy. Scared to death, unqualified, unprepared, and unworthy.'
'If God calls you, you shall be none of those! You would be Moses! The Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would go before you, and the glory of the Lord would be your rear guard.'
'I would need a rear guard? Who would be chasing me?'
'Not Pharaoh's army, I assure you. But if it were, God would make a way for you to escape. Carpathia's hordes would be pursuing you. And for all his talk of peace and disarmament, who has access to the residue of the world's weapons, surrendered willingly to the lying purveyor of peace? But if you needed the Red Sea parted yet again, God would do it! For what have we learned, my little Hebrew schoolchild?'
'Hmm?'
'Hmm? Don't hmm? me, Chaim! Tell the rabbi what you learned about the great stories, the miracles from the Torah.'
'That they are not just stories, not just examples, myths for our encouragement.'
'Excellent. But rather, what are they? What are they, my star pupil?'
'Truth.'
'Truth! Yes!'
'They actually happened.'
'Yes, Chaim! They happened because God is all-powerful. He says they happened-they happened. And if he says he will do it again, what?'
'He will.'
'He will! Oh, the privilege, Chaim! Deal with your fears. Deal with your doubts. Give them to God. Offer yourself in all your weakness, because in our weakness we are made strong. Moses was weak. Moses was nobody. Moses had a speech impediment! Chaim! Moses, the hero of our faith, had less to offer than you do!'
'He was not a murderer.'
'Yes he was! You forget! Did he not kill a man? Chaim, think! Your mind, your conscience, your heart tells you God cannot forgive you. I know the guilt is fresh. I know it is grievous. But you know, down deep, that God's grace is greater than our sin. It has to be! Otherwise we all live in vain! Is anything too hard for God? Anything too big for him? Any sin too great for him to forgive? It would be blasphemy to say so. Chaim! If you are the one who can commit a sin too great for God to forgive, you are above God. That's how we can wallow in our sin and still be guilty of pride. Who do we think we are, the only ones God cannot reach with his gift of love?
'He found you, Chaim! He pulled you from the miry clay! Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up!'
'Back to my clothes,' Chaim said. 'I could wear clothes from now until Jesus comes again, and they wouldn't wear out?'
Tsion sat back and waved dismissively. 'Chaim, if he can save you and me, of all people, forgive us our sins, bring us back from spiritual death, this clothes thing is one of his lesser miracles. Forget the extra buttons, the patches, the thread. Go there with something you like, because you'll still be wearing it when this is all over.'
David had pushed the limits of his ability to virtually set up the entire GC compound for his own remote computer monitoring. He breathed a prayer of thanks to God for allowing him to focus and work in spite of his grief. Mac and Abdullah were set to visit him in an hour to finalize the escape plan that included David and Hannah, and all four had agreed to carefully watch for believers they had been unaware of. It was already apparent that the brilliant teenager, Chang Wong, might be tagging along. David just had to figure out how to pull it off.
While waiting word from Ming Toy, David checked his archives for meetings he had recorded but never listened to. In his Carpathia file was the one with Suhail Akbar, Walter Moon, Leon Fortunato, and Jim Hickman the day he himself had chatted with Hickman. David felt a chill as he prepared to eavesdrop, and he did a quick walk- through of his area to make sure everyone was gone for the day. He could close a program and shut down with a single keystroke, but still he didn't want to be surprised by the wrong person.
Something Hannah had asked a few days before haunted him too. She had said, 'How do you know there isn't someone just as technically astute as you are who is doing exactly what you're doing?'
'Such as? 'he had said.
'Monitoring you, maybe.'
He had brushed it off. He had developed antihacking programs, antibugging devices. He had electronic ears everywhere and believed he could hear if someone breathed a word of something like that. It was impossible, wasn't it? Surely the brass wouldn't be so free to speak if they thought he was listening in. And if they were onto him, it seemed they would have shut him down long before this.
David believed the security chips he'd inserted in his phones and E-mail programs were impenetrable, and he had tried to explain it to Hannah.
'I don't pretend to have a clue, David. Maybe you are the top computer genius alive, but ought you not be very careful?'
'Oh, I am.'
'You are?'
'You bet.'
'But you tell me of phone calls and E-mails between you and your compatriots in the States.'
'Not traceable. Not hackable.' 'But you trace others. You hack others.' 'I'm good.'
'You're living on the edge.' 'There's no other way to live.'
Hannah had dropped it with a shrug. He believed the only reason she raised the issue was because she cared, and she was, after all, a civilian when it came to technology. But he almost wished she hadn't planted the seed of curiosity in his mind. With every message, every transmission, every phone call, he got the niggling feeling that someone somewhere could be looking over his shoulder. Everything he knew told him it couldn't be, but there was no accounting for intuition. He ran continuous checks on his programs, searched for intruders. So far so good, but Hannah had spooked him. If nothing else, it would keep him on his toes.
David had begun the Carpathia meeting recording before he went to see Hickman, so he discovered several minutes of Carpathia alone in his office. The last time he had listened in that way he had heard Nicolae praying to Lucifer. Now, Nicolae was Lucifer. Did Satan pray to himself?
No, but he did talk to himself. At first David merely marveled at the fidelity of the sound. He had merely arranged a simple intercom system to both transmit and receive, based on his commands, but it worked better than he had hoped. He heard when Nicolae sighed, cleared his throat, or even hummed. That was the strangest part. Here was a man who apparently did not sleep. Yet he seemed to exude energy, even when alone. David heard movement, walking, things being arranged. In the background he heard the workers he had encountered just outside Carpathia's office.
'Hmm,' Carpathia said softly, as if thinking. 'Mirrors. I need mirrors.' He chuckled. 'Why deprive myself of the joy others luxuriate in? They get to look at me whenever they want.'
