'That's better than nothing.'
'Not if it makes me look suspicious. We're hoping to get out of here without their suspecting we are subversives.
'Great idea. Tell them you want to take Chang with you to check him out before hiring. Then, whatever happens to you happens to him. He's free and he can help you wherever you go.'
'Maybe.'
'It has to work, David. What choice is there?'
'What if they don't go for it? What if they say no, just hire him, give him the mark, and then take him on assignment?'
'You have to try. He's brilliant, but he's a child. He can't fend for himself. He can't even defend himself against my father.'
'I'll do the best I can, Ming.'
'That sounds like an excuse after everything fails.'
'I'm sorry, but I can't do better than the best I can do.'
'David, he's my brother! I know he's not your flesh, but can you pretend? If it was Annie, would you do your best? Or would you do whatever you had to do to save her?'
David couldn't speak.
'Oh, David! Forgive me! That was so wrong of me! Please! That was cruel.'
'No. I-'
'David, please blame that on my fear and my situation.'
'It's all right, M-'
'Please tell me you forgive me. I didn't mean that.'
'Ming, it's all right. You're right. I understand. You put it in perspective for me. Count on me. I will do whatever I have to do to protect Chang, all right?'
'David. Do you accept my apology?'
'Of course.'
'Thank you. I'll be praying for you and loving you in the Lord.'
When David rang off, Mac said, 'What in the world did she say, man? You looked more like me than like an Israeli there for a second.'
David told him.
'Tell you what,' Mac said, 'and Smitty you speak for yourself on this, but if that boy's a believer and he's got the mark to prove it, he's with us. And anybody else we can find before we get out of here. Right, Smitty?'
'Right, I think. If I understand. Other believers here all go with us, yes. Of course. Right?'
'That's what we're saying.'
'Mac, a question. Who else would speak for me?'
On the drive north, Buck used a secure phone to call Lukas (Laslos) Miklos. The man was distraught. 'Thank you for coming, but there is nothing you can do. Surely you did not bring weapons.'
'No.'
'You would be so hopelessly outnumbered anyway that you would never get out alive. So why the trip? What can you do?'
'I wanted to see it firsthand, Laslos. Expose it to the world through The Truth.'
'Well, forgive me, Brother Williams. I love your magazine, and I read it almost as religiously as Dr. Ben- Judah's messages. But you go to all the time and trouble and expense and danger to come all the way here, and it is for a magazine article? Did you know that the guillotines have arrived?'
'What?'
'It's true. I would pass it off as a rumor myself if it weren't for the brothers and sisters who told me. The GC is carting them through town in open trucks so the people can see the consequences of thinking for themselves. We are part of the United Carpathian States, a name I have to spit when I say. Nicolae is going to make an example of us. And you are here to write an article!'
'Brother Miklos, hear me. You knew there was nothing we could do. We would make matters only worse if we tried to free your wife and pastor and fellow believers. But I thought you'd want to know we were here so we can tell you-if we get in-what the conditions are, how their spirits are, whether they have any messages for you.'
Silence. Then Buck heard Laslos weeping.
'Are you all right, my friend?'
'Yes, brother. I understand. Forgive me. I am upset. It is all over the television that the guillotines will be set up first in the prisons, then at the mark sites. It is just a matter of days for us now. But it could be just hours for the prisoners. Please tell my wife I love her and am praying for her and long to see her again. And tell her that if I don't see her again in this life, I will meet her in heaven. Tell her,' and he began to weep aloud, 'that she was the best wife a man could have and that, that I love her with all my heart.'
'I will tell her, Laslos, and I will bring you any message she may have as well.'
'Thank you, my brother. I am grateful you have come.'
'Do you know where she and the others have been taken?'
'We have an idea, but we dare not go looking or we will all be rounded up. You know our church is made up of many, many small groups that are not so small anymore. When the GC raided the main one, they took my wife and Pastor D and about seventy others, but they missed more than ninety other groups.'
'Wow.'
'That is the good news. The worst of it is that apparently some in the original group have cracked under the strain. I can tell you without question it would not have been my wife or my pastor, but someone was tortured or scared or deceived into telling of the other groups. More raids have begun, and now they dare not meet at all. It is only a miracle I was not at the meeting with my wife, but if she becomes a martyr, I'll wish I was there to die with her.'
'We came up with a question, besides a suggestion, David, and Smitty was very helpful on this, by the way,' Mac said. 'We tease him about the language, but that's a pretty shrewd brain in there. That's a compliment, Abdullah.'
'Well, hey, cowpoke, I know that much right now!' 'I guess if I can make fun of Jordan, he can make fun of Texas. Really burned me there, didn't he? Anyway, the question is this: Do we want to play this out to the end, assumin' you're gonna have an inside track on exactly when employees have to take the mark? Or do we want some wiggle room?'
David thought about it. 'It's more than wiggle room, Mac. It's part of the impression. If we wait till the last second and still try to make it look like we were killed, the timing alone is going to make it suspicious.'
'That's what I said!' Abdullah said. 'Isn't that what I said, Mac? I said that.'
'That's what he said. Good point. OK, if we're going to do this sooner than the actual deadline, we have lots of options. Peacekeeping just started shipping its first loads of-what are they calling those contraptions now? Loyalty somethin's or other.'
'Call 'em what they are,' David said.;
'OK, they shipped guillotines into Greece last night.'
'Not from here,' David said. 'I would have known that.'
'No, these were actually manufactured in Istanbul and driven down. Pretty soon they'll be flyin' 'em here and there, and you know we'll be pressed into service. You ought to pick a particularly strategic place you want to see or a shipment you want to monitor, find a reason to bring Hannah and Chang what's-his-name, and I'll have to requisition a Quasi Two.'
'A Two? How will you justify that? We want to avoid suspicion. You can fit two pilots and three passengers in something cheaper than a 15-million-Nick aircraft.'
'Yeah, but let's say we want to take a huge load of guillotines and skids of biochips and injectors.'
'I'm listening. Still need more ammo to justify a Two.'
'Well, let's say it's somewhere that St. Nick hisself is gonna be.'
'Tell him who thought of that,' Abdullah said.
'I think you just did, big mouth.'
'Big mouth?'
