Mark of Evil (4 page)

The guards held back at the entrance of the glass doors. Ho Zhu went through the same security clearance process, and when the airlocks opened for him too, he joined his boss in the lobby. The lab chief led them to an open testing space the size of two football fields. A hundred cubicles were filled with a hundred data engineers, digital architects, network specialists, and electronic image designers.

As the chief strolled with the two men through the maze of cubicles, he described the progress to date. “We’re approaching completion of the first phase. At this stage all we have is just a great deal of computer code and schematics and the single prototype system here in this facility. But we are quickly nearing completion.”

Colliquin smiled. “The world is about to become a better place. And you, Chief, can be part of this historic evolution.”

The chief smiled. “Yet,” he replied, “the problem still remains. We need a central data hub with enough computing power, speed, memory, storage capacity, and network reach to serve as the nerve center for the kind of global transmissions you are proposing. And no such
data center—at least none within the jurisdiction of the ten-nation global alliance—currently exists.”

Colliquin nodded toward Ho Zhu. “Mr. Ho here has located such a data center, have you not, Mr. Ho?”

Ho nodded with a grin. “I have. To be sure.”

“And where would this great data center be located?” the chief wondered.

Ho replied. “In Utah.”

The chief blinked. “But . . . ,” he stammered. “You are referring to the highly secure government surveillance complex at the United States Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah?”

“We are,” Colliquin said.

“But that is under the control of the United States government.”

“Presently, yes,” Colliquin agreed with the nonchalance of someone who had a plan.

A stunned look settled on the chief’s face. “But as we all know”—he stammered a bit as he said it—“the American president has refused to become part of your Global Alliance, Chancellor.”

If the chief expected a response to that, Colliquin wasn’t giving one. Instead, he simply stared at the chief and with a calm voice, like an elementary school teacher, explained the next step. “Mr. Ho here has discovered something important. Isn’t that right, Mr. Ho?”

Ho nodded.

Colliquin continued, “And Mr. Ho will be transmitting, directly to you, the information he is gathering on the U.S. Data Center at Bluffdale. Correct, Mr. Ho?”

“Certainly,” Ho agreed without emotion.

Colliquin abruptly dismissed his deputy chancellor, who turned on his heel and left. Colliquin continued his conversation with the head of his radical Internet project. “Now, about the imagery details . . .”

The lab chief nodded energetically and talked as he led Colliquin to a separate, locked laboratory. “The cloud-networked, holograph
-to-human interactive digital program. Yes, of course. We’re all very excited about that. The concept is at the very frontier of technology—the idea of physically linking humans to the Internet and then using a web-based holographic image to influence neural responses in the brain.”

After inputting code into the trio of computers connected to the digital image laser tubes, the chief waved his hand over a few tabs on the master screen. Then he turned to Colliquin. “Where in the room would you like it?”

Colliquin smiled and pointed to the space above a storage cabinet at the far end of the laboratory. “Let’s start there.”

“Easy enough,” the chief said. He activated the 3-D GPS locator function on the screen and touched the spot that showed an outline of the room and the cabinet. Then he pressed an icon on the screen. That was when the 3-D image of the face appeared, hovering over the cabinet.

Colliquin smiled. “Make it bigger. Much bigger.”

The chief tapped a tab on his screen and the hologram suddenly filled the entire room, eclipsing Colliquin and the technology chief with the giant human likeness that seemed to have a life of its own.

Colliquin grinned broadly and raised his hands in a kind of strange blessing at what he saw. He could have cried for joy, but he didn’t have the ability. Not because of some physiological defect of the tear ducts, but rather because of something else altogether—something deep inside of him that was invisible to the eye, but very dark. And it was growing unchecked with the passage of time, like a malignancy.

SIX

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL

A young bearded man named Micah walked at a hasty clip, his eyes darting around him. He was on his way to a clandestine meeting just off Bab as-Silsila Street, formally the dividing point between what used to be called the Jewish Quarter and the Arab Quarter. But then, those kinds of geographical labels didn’t make much sense anymore since the migration of most Arabs and Palestinians out of Israel following the spectacularly failed Arab-Russian invasion several years back.

Micah didn’t dare break into a run. That would catch too much attention from the Global Alliance police force. And there were a dozen of them in their blue helmets, some shouldering automatic weapons, stationed here and there on the plaza adjoining the old Western Wall where Micah now crossed quickly, head down. Micah
also knew that it wasn’t just the Alliance police on the ground that posed a threat, or even the drone-bots that patrolled the airspace. There were also the heavily armed droid-bots patrolling Jerusalem on foot. He had walked past a few of the big droids from time to time, though he hadn’t been stopped by one.

Not yet.

The Alliance authorities still permitted pedestrians to cross the plaza under the shadow of the huge temple in order to enter the crowded, winding alleys of the commercial
souk
. Because of the negotiations between Prime Minister Sol Bensky and the Global Alliance’s Alexander Colliquin, the Jews had finally been given complete control of their most sacred piece of geography: the Temple Mount. Up there on the Mount they had completed construction of their replica of the ancient Herodian temple. But in exchange, Israel had paid dearly.

Micah paused for a moment on the edge of the open plaza to gaze up at the monumental Jewish temple. He saw the smoke spiraling up from the altar of burnt sacrifices that lay between the entrance to the massive porch of the temple and the Court of the Priests near the second eastern gate—that place where animal sacrifices were now being offered for the first time in more than two thousand years. A few animal rights activist groups had tried to protest at first, but they didn’t have a clue about the significance of it all. Micah shook his head at the sight of the temple. He was someone who knew what it meant and the thought of it made him mutter to himself.

“The coming cataclysm.”

But Micah’s delay was a mistake. An Alliance officer with a machine gun slung over his shoulder called out to him.

Micah froze. The officer, joined by another blue-helmeted policeman with a sidearm, jogged over to him.

The officer with the automatic weapon spoke with the hint of a French accent. “Speak English? Hebrew?”

“Both,” Micah answered.

“Papers, please.”

Micah pulled out his IIA certificate with his International Identification Agency number on it. He had received his BIDTag and IIA number back before the Great Disappearance of the Christians.

While the cop looked over his papers, Micah kept cool, managing to look nonchalant until the officer passed his IIA number over to his partner and said to him, “
Vous verifiez ceci avec
la
liste
.”

That’s when Micah swallowed hard. Because he understood the command for the other officer to check his number against the list. Micah knew French, but they hadn’t asked him that.

Micah also knew exactly what the two Alliance cops would find on the list. And then it would be all over. They would learn how he was an Orthodox Jew and that he had recently become a follower of Jesus and a member of the Remnant—which had now been labeled internationally as a subversive terror group. After all, hadn’t the Alliance concluded, based on media reports, that the Christians had committed the world’s most bizarre and horrendous act of mass suicide, even dragging children into it? And doing it in desolate areas to avoid detection? According to the Alliance, those like Micah and others becoming Jesus followers after the “disappearance” posed a similar threat to the “peace and order of the global community.”

Micah had just a few seconds to make a decision. He knew what arrest would mean. He glanced over at the entrance to the covered souk to his left where he could disappear in the complex of marketplace alleys. It was only about thirty feet away. He was a fast runner. He could make it.

Micah kept up his calm smile and tightened his calf muscles as he silently gave himself the order.

Now!

He barreled off toward the entranceway, his arms pumping like a machine. Behind him the officer with the automatic weapon yelled
for him to stop. Then yelled again. As Micah reached the entrance to the souk, he dodged to the left and heard the sickening sound of several
pops
. A paving stone ahead of him and to the right exploded from the bullets.

The other Alliance cop fired a second round from his handgun, but by then Micah was already inside the twisting, covered alleyways of the souk, running through a crowd of people. A shop owner and a few pedestrians screamed at him as he plowed his way through them, bumping into shoppers and almost tipping over a fruit stand in the narrow, shadowy passageway. He passed by the entrance to Men’s Delight, one of several brothels that had recently been permitted along the souk, much to the outrage of the Orthodox and Christians alike. He raced past the Amsterdam Café, where marijuana and hashish were now sold, and almost tripped over a dazed man lying next to the café entrance.

Fifty yards into the heart of the souk he took a hard right, up a worn set of stone steps to an aged metal door with a modern keypad attached to it. It led to the upper terrace of the Old City. He frantically typed four numbers and two letters into the pad. The door clicked open, and he swung through and closed it tight behind him. Then he raced up the tall flight of stone steps, taking them two at a time. He was almost to the top, where there was daylight and possible safety on the upper street level.

Micah burst out from underneath the covered stairs and paused, taking a second to catch his breath in the warm sunlight. But as he bent over, panting heavily, he became aware of a presence standing very close to him. Startled, he looked up and stumbled backward. A six-foot, seven-inch semihuman-looking droid was standing within arm’s reach of him. It was plated on the outside with glistening blue bulletproof Kevlar with a blue-and-white Global Alliance logo on its chest where the ends of short-barreled automatic weapons spouted out. Behind its black-screened face, two red digital eyes flashed out at him. Then it spoke.

“Halt, suspect Micah Schotze. You have been visually identified and matched with a terrorist religious group. You are under arrest. I am authorized to use deadly force if you resist.”

Micah settled himself. He knew what to do. He had heard rumors about it and its success. But now it would mean the difference between life and death. The droids had the strength of six men, speed and agility that would put Olympic athletes to shame, and were armed with forty-five-caliber weaponry. There was only one way out.

Micah spoke the words out loud, bending a little closer to the copbot, as his friends would call these global police robots. He said it as clearly as he could, this short phrase he had been told would override the security code in the electronic brain of the droid. And then he stood perfectly still, staring at the black plastic shield that covered the face of the droid. Waiting for the verdict.

A few seconds later the droid spoke again in a perfect human voice tinged with only a slight digital echo. “You are free to go. Have a good day.”

“Thank You, God,” Micah said out loud and sprinted off.

Ten minutes later he quietly slipped into an apartment safe house belonging to Rabbi Zechariah Gamaliel. Rabbi ZG, as the Remnant followers called him, was pointing to an electronic screen behind him as he lectured the group of thirty or so who had crammed into the room. There was a picture of the Temple Mount on the screen. He was recapping how Israel’s prime minister, Sol Bensky, had arm-twisted the Knesset into supporting his decision to give international supervision of Jerusalem over to the Global Alliance of nations and granted generous oil leases to that body so it could distribute the oil from Israel’s newly discovered shale oil deposits. In return, the Alliance negotiated for the Temple Mount to be handed over to Israel and the historic Muslim edifices—the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock—to be dismantled and moved to Saudi Arabia. In addition, the Alliance pledged to help Israel fend off all terrorist
incursions. In the end an empty gesture, since the massive defeat of the Arab-Russian invasion had already taken care of much of that problem.

The rabbi touched a tab on his handheld control and the screen lit up with footage of the newly completed construction project on the Temple Mount. He raised a finger in the air as his voice grew intense. “The rebuilding of the Jewish temple on the Temple Mount. Can’t you see the fulfillment of the prophetic words of
Yeshua
, Jesus the Messiah? In Matthew
chapter 24
, the Lord Jesus predicted the desecration that will take place in the Holy of Holies, clearly referring to the temple, which presupposes that the temple had to be rebuilt. In the same way, beloved friends, 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4 predicts the same thing, the ultimate fulfillment foreshadowed by the prophet Daniel. This temple construction, taken in conjunction with the Lord’s Rapture of His Church from the earth a little more than two years ago, signals the approach of something dark and terrible. The rise of the Antichrist. The lawless one. And the beginning of the first half of the seven-year Tribulation period on the earth—God’s judgment on the unrighteousness that is rampant.”