The Illuminati (49 page)

“That's it,” the driver said as he pulled up behind the big truck.

“That's it?” Elder asked.

“Yep, that's it, Pastor,” the big man said with a warm smile.

“A garbage truck?” Elder said with a puzzled look.

“Yeah, we've had better than average luck heisting garbage trucks lately. They apparently don't expect many people to swipe them.”

“I can understand that,” Elder said as the aroma drifted back to them. “Let me guess. You don't plan on me riding up front, do you?”

“You guessed right, Pastor,” the big man said as he pulled the handle to lower the compactor. “In you go.”

“You're sure you two are part of the ‘good guys' and not the Society, right?” Elder asked good humoredly as he crawled into the stinking trash pile.

“Remember what the Lord said, Pastor: ‘It's not what goes onto a man . . .'”

“Or something like that,” Elder shouted as the compactor growled closed.

The driver donned dirty coveralls and a cap, slid into the seat of the huge truck, and drove slowly away. In the passenger's seat the big man was pulling off his jacket and tie and trying to push his oversize frame into the coveralls provided for him. “They don't fit real well,” he said to the driver.

“They'll have to do. Neither of us would pass a real close inspection anyway. Now get out there and earn your pay.”

“Yeah, sure,” he responded. “If they double it, I'll still make nothing. This is
not
what I went to college for.”

The truck continued on down the street picking up dumpsters with trash in them. Each load provided better cover for Elder in the collector.

“I just hope you guys remember I'm back here,” Elder shouted as the truck began to fill up.

The government car the trio had been riding in sped away with three men inside. Rather than traveling in the opposite direction from the trash truck, the men drove directly north, intending to dump the car as far away from the transfer point as possible without pointing the search teams back to the swap point. As the three men raced through the city, they had no way of knowing that Fred Lively's secret service agents had already picked up the global positioning beacon and were tracking their movements.

“There are three men still in the car,” the agent said as he watched the car go by a block away. “Do you want us to take them out?”

“That's affirmative,” Lively said on the other end. “But we need positive identification of Elder first; no slip-ups either.”

“That's going to be a little difficult,” the agent responded. “Unless we stop them, there's no way of being absolutely sure.”

“Then stop them, you idiot!” Lively shouted into the phone.

The agent signaled his partner as they roared onto the highway in pursuit of the speeding car ahead of them. “We'll need some help,” he relayed to the control center. “Any other cars in the area?”

“Yes,” the dispatcher said as she checked her screen. “I've already flagged them to intercept the vehicle. Move in behind to block their escape if they try to double back.”

“We're in position now.”

In the car that was thought to hold Elder, the driver, Sam Rosen, said, “We've been tagged.”

“Where are they?” one of the men in the backseat asked.

“About three blocks back and coming up fast. They must have a bug on this car. They're going to try and stop us.”

“We can't let them do that,” the other man said. “They'll know the pastor got away, and they will eventually put the missing trash truck and us together. We've got to give the truck more time. It'll take a good hour before they can make the transfer.”

“Hang on!” Rosen yelled. “Let's give them a run, then.”With that, he floored the gas pedal. The powerful engine roared in response, and they sped toward the early morning traffic heading into D.C.

“He made us!” the agent shouted as he saw the car almost leap into the oncoming lane.“Man, I'm going to hate this. Hang on. This guy's not going to be easy.”He jammed the accelerator down and whipped the car into the opposite lane too.

The city motorists in the inbound lanes were used to rotten drivers, but two cars bearing down on them at breakneck speed was something for which even they were not prepared. Many whipped onto the shoulder at the last possible moment to avoid the crash. Others pulled to a full stop in the far lane.

Both cars were weaving in and out of traffic as they barreled along the crowded street headed for the Washington Parkway Bridge. The driver of the FBI car advancing on the scene from the opposite direction saw what was happening and decided to block the road ahead with his vehicle. Unfortunately, Sam Rosen was looking back at that moment and didn't see the car stopped in his path. His car slammed into the parked car at nearly eighty miles an hour, glanced off the side of the guardrail, and plunged down into the Potomac near Little Falls Dam. The car he hit spun around in the road and smashed several other vehicles before it came to rest on the opposite side of the freeway.

As soon as the report was relayed to Lively, he called Rutland. “We're sure it was Elder,” he said as the sweat beaded on his forehead. “But the car plunged into the Potomac just above the dam. The water's nearly sixty feet deep there. It'll take a couple of hours before divers can reach it.”
Nothing seems to go right these days
, Lively thought to himself. “It had to be Elder in the car though,” he lied to Rutland. “Our man made a positive ID before the car went over. Elder was in the car, I'd stake my life on it.”

“You already have,” Rutland said coldly. Even over the phone, Lively could feel those dead eyes staring at him. He shivered involuntarily.

“I'll call as soon as we have them,” Lively said with a false gusto. The line had already gone dead.

“Did they get Elder?” the dark man inquired.

“Lively says they did. But I think he is lying.”

“He is alive,” Razzak agreed, as he sat back in the president's chair. “I know it.”

26

T
HE
M
ARK

“Pastor, we have some clean clothes for you,” Randy Cross said as John Elder entered the old farmhouse on the outskirts of Clayton, Georgia.

“I appreciate that, Randy,” Elder said. “I'm beginning to smell a little ripe . . . maybe even a little overripe.”

After hiding in the garbage truck for nearly two hours, Elder had been transferred to a semitruck, owned by a CRC hauling produce into Atlanta.

It was obvious from what was said that most Americans still believed the general roundup was exactly what it was reported to be: legal arrests of suspected terrorists. The media played a key role in convincing the public that no one's civil rights were being violated. Key officials within the Alton administration testified that no indiscriminate arrests could, or would, ever be made in America. Since most of the Christian leaders were targeted for immediate arrest, there was virtually no one able to come forward and refute the official position. Anyone who might have cared to check would have seen obvious indicators to the contrary: the hundreds of thousands of Christians and Jews who were missing.

With each passing week, the noose tightened as the Data-Net system was augmented by the magnetic ID system. Anyone attempting to use the system without the proper ID risked immediate arrest, since magnetic scanners were appearing in virtually every city in America. As the food that had been stored during the early days began to dwindle, the leaders of the movement began to wonder what their next step would be.

Amir Razzak was maniacal when it was confirmed that Elder was not in the car recovered from the Potomac. He redoubled his efforts to ferret out the Christians. All pretext of the ID system being voluntary was abandoned.

“Disallow all users without a permanent ID,” Razzak ordered.

President Alton announced the immediate implementation of the system, declaring the Insta-pol results were a mandate from the people of America. It became Public Law Number 186, passed by interim legislation until the Congress reconvened.

Randy Cross related as much as they knew at that point to John Elder. Then he told him,“Pastor, you were brought here because the CRC needs your help. We're going to expose the Society to America and the world.”

“I don't see how I can help much,” Elder said as the enormity of what he was told sunk in. “I can contact some of our local group, but without funds and IDs we can't contact other groups.”

“The country has become a virtual dictatorship since President Alton took office,” the other man said. “If we're to stop it, we need your help.”

“And who are you?” Elder asked.

“I'm Don Shepperd. I was one of the FBI agents on loan to the attorney general's office to help round up the terrorists.”

“Don's help has been a godsend,” Randy added. “He planned your escape, as well as the escapes of several other key people.”

“But how do I fit?” Elder asked. “I'm just a pastor without a church.”

“You're being a little too modest, John,” Bill Frost said as he stepped into the room.

“Bill! I thought you had been captured,” Elder said as he hugged his long-time friend.

“I was. They took me to a facility in Arizona. Don helped arrange my escape.”

“What about your wife?” Elder asked, as he thought about his own wife.

“She's somewhere in another camp, John. We can't spare the men to rescue her, at least not right now. We're in a struggle for survival. It's a battle we can't afford to lose,” Seeing the anguish on Elder's face, Frost added, “Your wife, Julia, is safe, though. She's doing fine; just worried about you.”

“You mean she's not in custody?” Elder said as his legs buckled a little.

“Sit down, John,” Randy said. “You've been through a lot. We'll fill in the details later. For now you can be assured Julia is safe. We wouldn't let the Society get their hands on her. They would have tried to use her to get to you.”

“They, or rather Razzak, already tried,” Elder said as he relaxed a little. “I'm fine, just a little tired.”

“Nothing a good hot shower won't cure, then,” Frost said. “We have that much.”

“You said Razzak?” Shepperd interrupted. “Was that Amir Razzak?”

“That's what he calls himself,” Elder said as he gritted his teeth involuntarily. “But I rather suspect he is known by another name.”

“What do you mean?” Shepperd asked.

“Oh . . . nothing,” Elder replied solemnly. “It's one of those ideas that labels a Christian as a radical. Perhaps even a nut!” Elder added as he looked around the room at the pitifully small group committed to facing the might of the government.

“John, we have something in mind that is so radical that it just might work,” Randy said. “We want you to help organize Christians throughout the country to win back their freedoms.”

“I don't know if you have noticed,” Elder said with a smile. “But I'm not exactly the most popular man in the country right now. In fact, I understand that I am dead.” Immediately Elder wished he hadn't said that. He knew three good men had died to gain his freedom.

Seeing the grimace on Elder's face, Bill Frost commented, “All of us here would lay down our lives if it would help the cause of freedom. The men who died knew the risks; they were more than willing to take them.”

“I know how you feel,” another voice added from the next room. As he spoke, Jeff Wells stepped into the room.

“This is Jeff Wells,” Randy said to Elder.

“I know the name from somewhere,” Elder responded, trying to put the two together.

“Jeff is, or was, in charge of the Data-Net program,” Shepperd said.

“Oh yes, Wells. Now I know who you are,” Elder said as he raised an eyebrow, signaling his confusion. “You're the young computer wizard who predicted the earthquake.”