Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle Of The Ages (9 page)

“Your husband is also a former employee of His Excellency and now publishes a contraband magazine. They’re deeply connected with Tsion Ben-Judah and the traitor assassin Rosenzweig. And you, Mrs. Williams, are no retiring bride either. No. You run the Judah-ite black market, keeping alive millions without the mark, who have no legal right to buy or sell..

“No ma’am, you should be offered nothing, no plea bargain, no break, nothing even for your child. Because more than that, you were involved in an operation in Greece where you impersonated a Global Community officer.”

“How did you know that?” It was out before Chloe could think. Was there a mole in their own operation? She couldn’t have been recognized.

“I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me something.”

“Never mind.”

“It’s the beauty of iris-scan technology. Normal secu-rity cameras, like the ones in our headquarters in Ptole-maIs, can get a good enough read on your iris to match it with the one recorded when you enrolled at Stanford. It has four times as many points of reference as a finger-print, and there has never been a recorded error. Lucky for the one among your number who murdered one of our operatives in that very building that we weren’t able to trace you to him. But he’s from right here in town, isn’t he? How far away can he be? How far from where you were jogging?”

Buck could barely believe what he was hearing. And from Sebastian, of all people, who was sitting there because of the selfless, heroic efforts of the Tribulation Force, Chloe in particular.

“It’s not easy to say, Buck,” George said. “But we have to weigh the welfare of two hundred people against springing one person in the face of almost impossible odds.”

“First,” Buck said, “you’re assuming the GC has her. She could be anywhere. But even if you’re right, how is that any more impossible than the situation you were in?”

“Buck, I know, okay? And there’s no way I want to just do nothing. But there’s one big difference here too. The prisoner in that situation was a very big and strong man, trained to kill. And, you’ll recall, for all Mac and Hannah and Chloe did on my behalf, it came down to me against one of my captors. Even then the odds were bad, and it could have gone either way. Let’s say I’d failed and the three of them had been compromised. We lose four people. We blast into local headquarters here, we could wind up giving away everything.”

“So, what, we let her rot while we move to Petra?”

“Here’s what I have in mind for your child, Mrs. Will-iams,” Jock said, “in the event you come to your senses and help us a little. I’m guessing you would prefer your son or daughter to remain in the tradition you and your husband have begun. Obviously, that would be counter-productive to our aims. We would like to see all children enrolled in Junior GC before they start school.

“But in your case, we’re willing to treat your child as a nonentity until he or she is twelve years old.”

“And who would raise him?” Chloe said, wincing, realizing hunger was an effective tactic after all.

“So we’re talking about a boy, then. Fair enough. Want to give me a name to make it less awkward to carry out negotiations?”

Chloe didn’t answer. These weren’t negotiations. All she had to do was protect Kenny for one more year and the GC wouldn’t have a chance at him.

“Come now, Mrs. Williams. You’re a bright woman. You have to see what a prize you are to us. We have been inconvenienced and, I’ll admit it, embarrassed by the Judah-ites. There is little doubt you people are some-how behind our little problem in New Babylon right now. You can help us. I’m not naive enough to think you want to do that, but I’m trying to give you a reason. You have some huge bargaining chips.”

“May I stand?”

“You may, but I need to warn you that we are locked in. I’m three times your size, but just for smiles, let’s say you overpower me, get the drop on me. You could break my neck and kill me, but you’re not getting out of here.”

“I just want to move a little, sir.”

“Feel free. And call me Jock.”

Yeah, you’re my best friend now.

“Hey, you want some breakfast?”

“Of course.”

“Me too. What do you like?”

“I’m not fussy.”

“I am. I go for the old artery-clogger special. Eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, pancakes with lotsa syrup. Want some?”

He had to be kidding. Chloe stood with her arms folded and turned away.

“Come on! Can’t get you to call me by my first name. Can’t get you to tell me what you want to eat. How ‘bout it? Will you join me? Will you have what I’m having?”

“I told you, I’m not fussy.”

“You also told me you were hungry. I’ll order for us, eh, Chloe? You mind if I call you Chloe?”

“Actually, I’d rather you not.”

“Oh, well, then, by all means. It’s all about you. Just let me know all your desires and preferences. If the pil-low in your cell is not soft enough, give me a holler. Or call the front desk.”

So the gloves were off. Chloe had convinced him she wasn’t going to cooperate, so he was done playing good cop.

Or was he? Jock moved past her and summoned Nigel again, and she overheard him ordering the very break-fasts he had described. He turned back to her.

“Food service here is about the same as at any jail, Chloe, but even a hash stinger is hard-pressed to mess up breakfast. Now listen, while we wait … I can see you’re no pushover. I didn’t expect you to be and wouldn’t have respected you if you had been. Here’s the deal. You know nothing you give us is going to set you free. How would we look to the public? But I can get your execution commuted to a life sentence, and I can get that in a livable facility. You’d have my word on it. It’d be maximum security, of course, but you would have full custody of your son until he’s twelve years old.”

The fact was, Kenny was safe with Buck, and if she could maintain her sanity, that might not have to change. If only she could get word to Buck to get everyone out of there and to Petra.

Chloe felt light-headed and hunger gnawed. “And that deal is in exchange for … ?”

“Taking the mark of loyalty would be a given. No way we would have any credibility otherwise. That gets you life instead of death. But what gets you the nice facil-ity and custody of your son is information.”

“You think I’m going to flip on my people.”

“I do, and you know why? Because you’re a loving mother. You think your people wouldn’t give you up in a second to keep their necks out from under that blade? Give me a break.”

Albie shuddered, tooling through Abadan on his scooter, cap pulled low over his eyes. Al Basrah was no better, but this had to be what Sodom and Gomorrah had been like before God torched them. Every form of sin and debauchery was displayed right on the street. What was once the seedy side of town now was the town. Row after row of bars, fortune-telling joints, bordellos, sex shops, and clubs pandering to every persuasion and per-version teemed with drunk and high patrons. Hashish permeated the air. Cocaine and heroin deals went down in plain sight.

The GC Peacekeepers and Morale Monitors had once made a noisy bust or two weekly to keep up appear-ances. But with their ranks shrunk, they now concen-trated on crimes against the government. Skip one of your thrice-daily bowings and scrapings before the image of Carpathia and you could be hauled off to jail. Caught without the mark of loyalty? Zero tolerance. They enjoyed playing with people’s minds and telling them they had one last chance. When a gratefully weep-ing soul eagerly approached the mark application site, he or she was pushed or dragged screaming to the guil-lotine as an example.

Bad as Abadan had become, there was a worse part of town, and it was where Mainyu Mazda and his kind plied their trade. In the open-air market, where loud haggling and swindling were the daytime sport, were makeshift dens of clapboard squares, which consisted of just walls and a locking door, no roof. A tarp in the corner could be hastily attached to corner posts in the event of rain, but otherwise, black marketers and their henchmen (one always standing guard outside) held court inside, meeting with people who wanted some-thing, anything, and were willing to pay a lot to get it.

Albie cut the engine but stayed aboard his scooter, straddling the seat and pushing it along with his feet through the narrow alleyways. Amid the sleeping drunks were also crazy men, women of ill repute, men and women with all kinds of wares for sale. All beckoned to the leather-clad, smallish man walking the quiet scooter.

Albie looked neither right nor left, catching no one’s eye. He knew where he was going and wanted it to appear so. He couldn’t avoid a modicum of pride that his business had never sunk this low. What he had done for years was illegal, of course, and no circumstance jus-tified it. But compared to this, he had had class. He had run an airstrip-that was his front. And his clientele had been made up as much of wealthy businessmen and pilots as it was lowlifes and crooks.

But he knew this world and its language. He needed a bad guy, someone who knew someone. Someone who had an inside track at the palace and knew where the meetings were to be held in Al Hillah. Someone who might even know where the largest ever cache of nuclear warheads was stored. Someone who, before Carpathia and his minions arrived, could get into the meeting room and bug the place, transmitting everything to a frequency accessed by only one person in the world. Only Albie and his people knew that would be Chang in Petra.

Had he more than a day to get this done, Albie might have been able to do it himself with his own contacts, people less risky, less volatile. But there were times in a man’s life when he had to weigh his options and throw the dice. And while that analogy was foreign to his new life, this was one of those times.

“Please sit at the table while the door is opened briefly, Chloe,” Jock said. The smell of the breakfasts over-whelmed her, and she sat with her back to the door.

“Right over here, Nigel, if you would.”

Jock sat facing her. He tossed her a cloth napkin and made a show of tucking his over his tie and spreading it to cover the expanse of his chest and belly. Chloe opened her napkin and laid it in her lap as Nigel set the heaping tray between them.

Nigel put a stack of pancakes in front of Jock. A pitcher of syrup. A plate of toast with butter and jelly. A large coffee cup, into which he poured steaming black coffee, and he left the pot there too. A massive plate of scrambled eggs with bacon and sausage links. He set Jock’s silver on either side of his main plate, then put knife, fork, and spoon in front of Chloe. And there she sat, only silver before her and napkin in her lap. Nigel removed the tray and left, locking the door.

Jock rubbed his hands together, grinning. “Does this look great or what? I hardly know where to begin.” He pulled each plate a little closer, then picked up his knife and fork and began manipulating the eggs into a huge first bite.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Where are my manners? Did you want to say grace? Ask a blessing? No? I will then. Thank you, Excellency, for what I am about to enjoy.”

Jock shoveled the bite of eggs into his mouth, stored it in his right cheek, followed it with half a link of sausage, and spoke with his mouth full. “Nigel must have forgot yours, eh, Chloe? Oh, that’s right. You haven’t been a cooperative prisoner yet, have you? Well, that’s your call.”

The big man sat there, knifing, forking, spooning, smacking his lips, chugging coffee, and grinning. “Sure you don’t want some? Huh? It’s good. I mean it. ‘Sup to you. Otherwise, Nigel will keep an eye on you and that energy bar will be delivered to your cell, oh, I’d say about an hour, maybe two, after you’ve given up on it. And
energy
may not be the right word. It’s designed to keep you alive until we can put you to death. There’s nutrition, but not energy per se. You’ll get to love it though, look forward to it. I mean, come on, it’s not bacon and eggs, but it’s going to be your only treat.”

Albie rolled up in front of a tiny structure that appeared to be a mass of incongruously faded yellow boards wired and nailed together. The padlock was conspicuous on the door, which was guarded by a tall, thin rasp of a man Albie recognized from years before. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, the name was Sahib and he was Mainyu’s for-mer brother-in-law. Former because he was the brother of the wife Mainyu had murdered. Talk about loyalty.

Albie stepped off the scooter and thrust out a hand. Sahib ignored it and squinted at him in the darkness. “Looking to sell that bike? You came to the right place.”

“No. I want to see Mainyu, Sahib.”

That provoked a double take. “Albie?”

And now the man shook his hand. He held up a fin-ger, unlocked the door, and disappeared. Albie heard a low, intense conversation. A stranger emerged, hard and cold eyes darting before he hurried off.

Sahib came out, shutting the door behind him. “Two minutes, Albie,” he said, and made a motion indicating Mainyu was on the phone. “Fifty Nicks to guard your bike.”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Deal. And if it is not as I left it, I split your skull.”

“I know, Albie. Pay in advance.”

“Ten now, fifteen later.”

“Fifteen now.”

Albie peeled off the Nicks. The negotiation, even the threats, was expected. A throat clearing from behind the door spurred Sahib to usher Albie in, but as Albie fol-lowed, he saw a small woman striding their way from a similar cubbyhole a hundred feet away. “Wait,” he said. “Sahib. Watch the bike.”

“I said I would. Oh, this is just a guest who will be joining you.”

The young woman, robed head to toe, big eyed and severe looking with a 42 on her forehead, carried a satchel. Sahib pulled her in as he slid out, locking the door.

Mainyu, illuminated by a battery-powered lamp, sat behind a flimsy wood desk, a mug of something before him, his smile exhibiting surprisingly white teeth. “Albie, my friend, how are you?” he said, reaching with both hands.

“I am well, Mainyu. But I must insist that my business with you is private.”