An hour passed before a guard handcuffed her and led her to an upstairs interrogation room. “Please, God,” she prayed, “I just want to tell Claudia the truth. I know she’s been pro-Carpathia ever since we’ve been roommates, but I’ve never told her what I really believe. Give me the chance today.”
Claudia Zander was tall, blonde, and caught the eye of every male Morale Monitor in the building. Natalie had noticed a slight change in the girl’s behavior in the past week. She seemed moody, and the two had talked late one night. Natalie had asked questions but didn’t offer any information about her own beliefs.
Natalie heard a door close in the observation room behind her as Claudia walked in. No doubt Henderson and his crew were back there listening. She would give them an earful.
“Thanks for coming,” Natalie said.
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard. They say you’re a Judah-ite and you helped people escape.”
“I knew they’d ask you about me, and I wanted to make sure they don’t suspect you.”
Claudia scooted back from the table. “You can’t be serious. You’re really working with the enemy?”
“Let me explain.” Natalie began at the disappearances and told Claudia how she had come to know the truth about God. When the kids in the Young Tribulation Force had gotten into trouble, she helped.
Natalie leaned forward and whispered, “I want you to know how to begin a relationship with God. All you have to do is pray and ask him to forgive—”
“Shut up!” Claudia looked at the mirror behind Natalie. “I want out of here. She’s not telling me anything about the ones who escaped.”
Natalie wished she could touch the girl or give some gesture of kindness, but her hands were cuffed behind her. “At least look up the Young Trib Force Web site.”
Claudia shook her head and scowled. “You’re crazy. I don’t know how you could betray all of us like this, but you’ll pay.”
A guard opened the door and Claudia ran out. Deputy Commander Henderson walked in, smiling. “We have your little group cornered in Iowa. It won’t be long now. And since you’re being charged with a crime against the Global Community, you’re now a prisoner. You know what that means.”
Natalie stared at the man. “Sir, I want you to know I’m sorry I misled you. I’ve lied to you in order to make sure my friends stayed free. But I’m finally ready to tell the truth.”
Henderson pulled the chair around and straddled it. “I’m listening.”
“God loves you so much, he was willing to die for you. …”
When the helicopter passed overhead, Vicki and the others gathered around Colin. “Jim was able to shut the power down at the satellite building briefly so we were able to hide before they located the van. That’s the good news. Of course, they’re still looking.”
“If we don’t show up on the satellite, they’ll figure we’re hiding,” a girl said. “Won’t they check here at some point?”
Colin nodded. “That’s why we need to get this van back on the road. I’ll take it and leave you—”
“No way,” Vicki interrupted. “You have a wife back in Wisconsin.”
“I’m also the senior member of this group.”
“Which is another reason you shouldn’t go,” Mark said.
“They’re right,” Conrad said. “One of us should do it.”
Colin shook his head. “What if we convince the guy at the front desk to drive it somewhere?”
“The GC will be all over him,” Vicki said.
“But he’s a Carpathia lover. You should have seen his face light up when he saw my uniform.”
Vicki bit her lip. She and Darrion had tricked a man in Des Plaines and it still haunted her. “I don’t like getting others mixed up in our problems. What if he has a change of heart and wants to trust God? He’ll remember how we treated him.”
Mark took off his watch. “What if we give him The Cube and tell him not to look at it until he gets to his destination?”
Vicki scowled. “Sounds like a cop-out.”
“All right, you have a better idea?” Mark said.
Vicki shook her head.
“Then it’s settled,” Colin said. “Write the note.”
Vicki mingled with the new kids, asking their names and where they were from. The newest believer, Cheryl Tifanne, was from Des Moines. Global Community Peacekeepers had arrested her for stealing food from a grocery store. “I’ve been so hungry lately. Sometimes I can find a place in line at one of the shelters, but recently I haven’t had much luck.”
“We’ll make sure you get enough to eat,” Vicki said.
Vicki phoned Darrion in Wisconsin and asked if she had heard anything from Natalie. Darrion said she hadn’t but that she’d watch the Web.
The phone rang a few moments later, and Kelly said they were an hour away. “We just heard about you guys on the radio. Better make sure the people at that storage place aren’t listening.”
Vicki volunteered to talk with the man at the front. She walked around the building and approached from the other side.
The lobby had two plastic chairs and an old candy dispenser. The carpet looked like it had been through a couple of floods. Paneling covered the walls and every few feet Vicki noticed cobwebs. There was no TV in the office, but the man behind the counter was listening to the radio.
“How’s it going?” Vicki said.
The man took his feet off the desk and nearly fell backward. “You scared me. What can I do for you?”
“What’s going on with the helicopter and everything?”
“It’s a Global Community thing. I can’t really say.”
“You heard it on the radio?”
“No. I just know, that’s all.”
Vicki saw a few tapes scattered across the desk. “Do you like country? I sure do.”
“Yeah, I got quite a collection here.”
“Mind if I listen to one? I’m waiting for some friends to pick me up.”
“Sure,” the man said. “Take your pick.”
Vicki picked up a cassette and popped it in the player. The man said it was one of his favorites. As the music played, Vicki asked more questions and found out the man lived with his wife and small baby a few miles away. The more she learned, the worse she felt about the plan to let him drive the van.
She excused herself, saying she wanted to check on her ride, and walked back to the storage room. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. He’s really sweet, and he has a wife and baby. What if the GC hurt him?”
Colin sighed. “I don’t want anything to happen to him, but if we’re caught, we’re dead.”
Colin’s cell phone rang. It was Kelly calling to say they were only a few minutes away.
Natalie sat stone-faced, looking at Deputy Commander Henderson. She had answered all of his questions except ones about other members of the Young Tribulation Force and where the four escaped prisoners were hiding. The truth was, she didn’t know for sure. She had purposefully not asked anyone for the information so she wouldn’t have to lie.
Henderson berated her, accused her of treason and blasphemy against Potentate Carpathia.
“I don’t argue with any charge except the last one. You can’t blaspheme someone who’s not God.”
Henderson seethed, pointing a finger and asking about the location of the Tribulation Force’s safe house. “You know where this Ben-Judah is hiding, don’t you?”
“I don’t, sir, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Someone knocked on the door and Henderson slipped outside. Natalie wondered if these were her last moments. Perhaps they would question her more or try to torture information out of her.
She closed her eyes and thought of Zeke Sr. He had faced Henderson and the others with such courage. She wondered how he could possibly do it, but now, instead of feeling anxious and nervous about what was going to happen, she felt calm. She knew there was a Bible verse for this, but she couldn’t remember the exact wording. It
was something about Jesus giving peace to everyone who trusts in him.
Natalie sat back, relaxed her arms, and let her head rest on the back of the chair. She had never felt so focused and alive. Though others had the power to take her life, she knew God truly held her destiny in his hands.
“If you rescue me from this, I’ll praise you,” Natalie whispered. “And if you don’t, I’ll praise you in heaven. I’m yours, God.”
Vicki heard a loud click from the van as Colin raised the door to the storage room. Conrad tried to get in one of the side doors but couldn’t. “It’s locked!”
The van started and Vicki ran to the front. Pete sat in the driver’s seat, his window rolled down a couple of inches.
“Pete, get out of there!” Vicki screamed.
“I agree with what you said about that guy in the front,” Pete said, carefully backing out through the open door.
Vicki ran after him but Colin grabbed her. “It’s okay. He knows what he’s doing.”
“You can’t let him go! The GC will catch him.”
Pete tossed a piece of paper out the window and waved at the group. Out of the parking lot, he turned left and headed back the way they had come.
Vicki sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Why did he do that?”
“Because he cares more about us than he does about himself,” Mark said. “And he cares about the guy in the office.”
Vicki shook her head and prayed that somehow she would be able to see Pete again.
One of the kids handed her the piece of paper from the ground. Her name was scrawled on the front. Vicki stashed the note in her pocket.
9
VICKI watched Pete drive out of sight. More vehicles approached from the other direction.
Mark ran toward the office with the note the kids had written. “I’m going to give this to the guy up front!”
A green minivan and two other cars pulled to the back of the storage facility. Vicki recognized Kelly when she got out of the van and hugged her.
“No time for reunions,” Colin said. “Everybody get in. Keep some distance between cars and keep in touch with the radios.”
Mark hurried out and jumped in the minivan with Vicki, Shelly, Conrad, and several others. The rest filled the cars.
“Did you give the note to him?” Vicki said.
Mark nodded. “I didn’t have time to talk. I just told him that there was information he needed to read and share with his family. I gave him my watch so he could see The Cube.”
“But he doesn’t know how to pray,” Vicki said.
“I put the Web site address on the note. He has enough information now.”
As Kelly drove along the road, Vicki kept looking behind them and checking overhead. Several times she thought she heard helicopters, but none appeared.
“Who are the other drivers?” Vicki asked.
“We’ve known about some older believers who live a few miles from the school. I ran there this morning. Two volunteered to drive, and the rest are praying for us now.”
“Where are we going?” Mark said.
“It’s better if we split up to different houses,” Kelly said. “Neighbors won’t be suspicious.”
“We’ll have to go into hiding anyway,” another girl said. “They’ll be giving the mark to the rest of the population soon.”
Vicki knew they were right, but she had hoped to get back to Wisconsin soon. Natalie needed to get away from the GC, plus it was possible Judd and Lionel were coming back. She didn’t want to miss that.
Vicki pulled the bloody paper from her pocket and held it a moment. She prayed the GC wouldn’t spot Pete and asked God to keep him alive. “We’ve lost so many already. Don’t let us lose Pete.”
Vicki took a breath. The bloodstains were mostly on the outside of the paper where Pete had folded it. He had scrawled the note on the back of Colin’s fake GC orders for the Iowa prisoners.
Dear Vicki,
Forgive my shaky handwriting. I agree with what you said about that guy in the office. We shouldn’t use others who aren’t believers just to keep ourselves safe. We’re here to reach out to people who don’t know God.
That’s why I’m leaving with the van. I don’t know if I’ll escape, but know this. No matter what happens, I’ll be waiting for you kids on the other side.
Vicki, I want you to know, if I ever had a daughter, I’d want her to be just like you. If your parents can see you from heaven, I know they’re looking on with pride. God has planned something special for you. I know that.
I’d better stop writing because the people are almost here to pick you up.
I love you, Vicki. Tell Judd, Mark, Lionel, and all the others that I feel the same about them. Stay steady. Trust God. Celebrate him with abandon every day and never stop telling the truth. Remember, God wins in the end, so we’re fighting a defeated enemy.
Pete
Vicki closed her eyes and let the tears fall. Pete had been like a big brother to her. Having friends like him who cared helped her go on each day.
She shook her head. She wasn’t giving up on him. Though he was hurt and vulnerable to the Global Community, she decided not to entertain the idea that she had seen him for the last time. Pete would be back. He had to come back. She folded the paper, shoved it in her pocket, and wiped away the tears.
Mark put a hand on her shoulder and asked if she was okay.
“I’ll be all right.”
Judd waited for word from Chang as he sat in front of the computer. Lionel and Westin had gone to bed, but Judd couldn’t sleep. Z-Van was entertaining guests, so Judd sat at the small desk in the bedroom and put on headphones as he surfed the Internet.
Judd logged on to the official GC Web site and discovered the numbers of prisoners who had been executed in different areas around the world. He checked the States first and recognized Zeke’s father’s name from the Des Plaines facility. He felt bad for Zeke and wondered where he was.
There were also several prisoners in Arizona, California, and Texas who had decided against taking Carpathia’s mark. Judd scrolled through the different regions and, to his surprise, found that many had chosen the guillotine in the former country of Greece, now part of the United Carpathian States.
Judd was stunned when he found Anton Rudja’s name on the list of prisoners who had been executed. Anton Rudja’s son was Pavel, Judd’s friend who had first invited him to New Babylon.
When he recovered, Judd checked back to the kids’ Web site and found an e-mail from Buck Williams.
Friends,
I’m sending this quick note so you can be the first to know that there are now many martyrs for the faith in Greece. I will write further about the specifics in The Truth when I can complete the story, but know that the believers there were brave.
The underground church in Ptolemaïs, Greece, was probably the largest in the United Carpathian States. The Greek believers were careful, even though local GC Peacekeepers seemed to look the other way for a while. Sources tell me the reason for the crackdown was that Carpathia wanted the region that bore his name to have the lowest reports of Christ-followers of the ten global supercommunities. Rather than pretend the rebels didn’t exist, many were rounded up from local meetings and forced to make a decision for or against Carpathia.
I cannot begin to tell you the amount of courage those believers exhibited. GC authorities tried to scare people by carting guillotines through the streets in open trucks. They’re ugly contraptions, and there isn’t much to them. Just wood, screws, blade, spring, and rope. They will put these at the mark application sites to make people comply, but if others act the way our brothers and sisters in Greece did, they won’t back down.
When prisoners were told they would be taking the mark, people cheered and many young people started chanting and singing about Carpathia. The GC handled the mark application and the biochip injection with great efficiency. It won’t surprise me if they take what they learned here and create a fast-moving s
ystem that will get people in and out of the process in a few minutes.
I witnessed the most inhuman treatment of the believers. One woman who knelt to pray was treated savagely by her captors. Though she was beaten and bloody, she did not obey. And as the man who led the group asked for those who would not take the mark, more stepped forward, some of their marks appearing as they raised their hands to change lines.
When the first woman knelt in front of that ugly machine, the room fell silent. This woman began to sing “My Jesus, I Love Thee” but had only finished a few words when the blade came down to end her life.
I have never seen such courage, such resolve, and such bravery. I know we will see those women again in heaven, but their deaths, so jarring, have caused me to write you.
Pray for other believers who may even now be going through the same fate.
Judd shuddered as he read the rest of Buck’s eyewitness account. He wondered how Buck had managed to be inside a prison, but he knew the Tribulation Force had many contacts in many lands.
He also wondered how many in the next few weeks would unknowingly seal their eternal fate by taking Carpathia’s mark. The process would be simple. Get in line, take the biochip and tattoo, and go on with your life. Little did they know that taking the mark meant eternal death, and kneeling before the bloody guillotine was the only other option.
Judd returned to a passage in Tsion Ben-Judah’s latest e-mail. Tsion had suggested everyone memorize Revelation chapter 20, verse 4:
“I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus, for proclaiming the word of God. And I saw the souls of those who had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their forehead or their hands. They came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”
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