The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (318 page)

Leon sobbed. “Thank you, lord. Thank you, Excellency.”

“Go, Leon,” Carpathia said. “Go quickly and do it now.”

George felt pretty good, considering. How long had it been since they had put him in the backseat of the Jeep? He was opposite the driver’s side with Elena in front of him, Plato beside him. The leader slid in behind the wheel and told Plato to blindfold George again. George liked the fact that he was again sitting on his hands, giving him an excuse to bounce and tumble into Plato. If he timed it right, maybe he could even bang heads with him.

The leader backed up the Jeep and stopped, idling. “Where is he?” he asked, testy.

“There, by the road.”

“What is he doing there?” A loud sigh. “Socrates! Come here!” George heard the hobbling footsteps. “Are you finished with the car?”

“Hidden, Aristotle.”

“Give me the keys.”

“Why? What if I need it?”

“That will ruin everything! Give them to me.”

George heard the jangling as Aristotle took the car keys. “Think, man!” he said. “This way, no matter what happens, you have no keys to surrender. And stay away from the road! You have no reason to be outside. Just wait in there.” Aristotle lowered his voice, as if thinking a blind Sebastian couldn’t hear either. “Remember, the closer you come to the edge, the more believable you are.”

“You know I can do it.”

“You know I do! You can still produce tears at will? Take it right to the brink. It has to look like you tried everything before you crumbled. Now, I am sorry you are hurt, but this is just as important as what we are doing.”

Chloe could see why her father so admired Mac. He was earthy and plain, but he was also meticulous. He had spread the pages of the local GC’s Sebastian file on the dashboard of his borrowed car. In the woods north of Ptolemaïs, with the other vehicle—the hot-wired Jeep—hidden deeper in the underbrush, they studied the record. Chloe leaned in from the passenger’s side; Hannah peeked over their shoulders from the backseat. All three wore GC-issue camouflage, their faces streaked with grease.

“They were thinkin’ when they got this gal that looks like the Stavros girl.”

“Georgiana,” Hannah said.

“Right. This one’s real name is Elena, last initial
A.
Hmm, the only one whose actual name is given. Guess they don’t feel any need to protect her. Then a couple of no-account locals, both of which it looks like tried to get out of Peacekeeping duty but wound up on this vigilante squad. Oh, get a load of these monikers.”

“One of them’s the leader, Mac,” Hannah said, pointing.

Mac shook his head. “Aristotle. Other one’s Socrates. Real creative. Given this, shouldn’t Elena be Helen? Of Troy, get it? And the big guy, the one that’s supposed to pass for George. Plato? Oh, for the love of all things sacred! Well, whatever you gotta do to keep track of each other. He’s French. Brought in just for this. Sebastian would be insulted. This guy’s heavy, but he’s under six-two. He’s no George.”

Mac kept glancing at his watch, and as night fell, they kept reading, memorizing. They finally had to resort to the dome light and three tiny flashlights. “The original plan wasn’t half bad,” Chloe said. “Only somebody didn’t cooperate.”

“I don’t know the boy or the other old guy, the driver,” Mac said. “But from what I know of Miklos, my money’s on him. Anyway, somebody smelled a rat. They were supposed to pick up the girl eight kilometers north of the airport, then have Plato, pretending to be Sebastian, show up just down the road.”

“But Sebastian was expecting to hook up with them closer to the airport,” Hannah said.

“They must’ve wanted to be sure the deal was done before he came looking,” Mac said. “They’re pretty proud of this change of plans. Looks like they originally wanted to take ’em all in, including George, and then threaten to kill the others if George wouldn’t talk. Then, even if he did, they were gonna execute ’em together if they wouldn’t take the mark.”

Chloe had turned the page slightly. “Did we know this?” she said.

“What’s that?” Mac said.

“The shootings, all three of them, were done by the girl.”

Chloe had that tingling sensation inside as the zero hour drew near. Mac had studied the coordinates and determined they were about forty minutes from where George was being held. At 2130 hours he called Stefanich on his cell with the number provided by Chang.

Early in the afternoon in Chicago, Buck and Enoch called their people together. “Quick update,” Buck said. “Chang has a trace on Ming, and it appears she’s probably on her way to San Diego. Then on to China. Problem is, he doesn’t know where their parents are, so she couldn’t either—far as we know.”

“How’d she get to San Diego?” Albie said.

“The long way. Guess she got a ride with some private pilot out of Long Grove to South Carolina, then was able to—”

“Whoa!” Leah said. “Hold on! Long Grove?”

“Yeah. Then she—”

“Buck! Was the pilot this Whalum guy?”

“I don’t know. The point is, she—”

“The point is, if it
is
him, he’s the guy who wants to ship housing modules to Petra.”

That stopped Buck. “I don’t get it.”

“She might be going to Petra.”

“She’ll never make it. Security’s too tight.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Maybe she just caught a ride with a guy who’s going on to Petra, but she isn’t.”

“That’s worth praying about,” Leah said.

“That’s why we’re here.”

“So Ming used a Co-op contact . . .”

“Can we move on here, Leah?”

“Sure, but we haven’t even checked him out yet. Don’t know if he’s legit. And here I thought when Ming was reading through all these records that she was just helping out.”

Buck cocked his head at Leah. “Weren’t you the one who said Ming was an adult and free to do what she wants?”

Mac was surprised when the phone rang four times. GC policy was that command officers always be available to the brass.

“This is Nelson Stefanich,” he heard finally, “and the only reason I’m answering a call from a hidden number is because of a current operation, so state your business.”

“Well, Nelly diggin’-a-ditch Stefanich, how in the world are ya?”

“Who—?”

“Sorry I missed ya today. Howie Johnson, here.”

“Yes, sir, Commander. Have we met?”

“Naw, but I hear such good things about ya, I feel like I know ya, know what I mean?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“’Preciate the info you gave my aide today.”

“No problem.”

“We’re ’bout ready to roll here, Nels, and I just wanted to give you a heads-up so you can let your guy Aristotle know we’re on our way. I’m assumin’ your phone’s secure.”

“Of course, Commander.”

“Good, good. Now I don’t want them gettin’ spooked. They should be expecting us and not start shootin’ the minute they hear us. We want to protect them too, so we won’t be drivin’ right to their door. We’ll approach on foot, and when we’re within range I’ll give out two loud whistles. They should respond with one, and we’ll know it’s safe to come on ahead.”

“Got it. You whistle twice; they whistle once.”

“And they understand that as soon as I’m on the scene, I am the ranking officer.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely.”

“Pretty creative, the code names, by the way.”

“Thank you. I—”

“Listen, we keep forgettin’ to ask about the original target, a G. Stavros, female, escapee from the pen there. What’s the dispo on her?”

“Well, you know she was the source of much of what we know about the Judah-ite underground here, sir.”

“So she’s a valuable commodity.”

“Yes, she was.”

“Past tense?”

“Affirmative. Deceased.”

“That so?”

“Yes, sir. Still refused the mark, even after providing a lot of information.”

“Guillotine?”

“Actually, no, sir.”

“You understand the blade is protocol, don’t you, Commander Stefanich?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes, sir.”

“And the difference here was . . . ?”

“She, ah, well, she began giving us false information.”

“Such as?”

“Well, we never did get a straight answer on the location of the underground now. She was one of them caught in the raids of their original meeting places, so we know when she came back she had to know at least one of the new locations.”

“Makes sense. Wouldn’t give it up, eh?”

“No, sir. In fact, after the third wild-goose chase, that was when she was . . .”

“Executed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How?”

“Firing squad.”

“It took a squad to shoot a teenage girl?”

“
Squad
is a euphemism we use, sir.”

“I’m listening.”

“Anyone past a certain level is authorized to attack enemy personnel with extreme prejudice.”

“Shoot them dead?”

“Exactly.”

“And then whoever did it shares the credit with the rest of the team? The squad?”

“Right.”

“You shot her, didn’t you, Commander?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Well, that showed remarkable, almost indescribable, fortitude there, Nelson.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I know you did it on behalf of and with the deep gratitude of the Global Community, starting right at the top.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Don’t thank me, Commander Stefanich. The fact is that I wish I could personally reward you for that act—”

“Merely doing my duty, sir—”

“Pay you back, as it were, for that service to the cause.”

“Well, I don’t know what to say. That would be just—”

“All right, Nelly, time’s a wastin’ here. You inform the Greek philosophers and their lady friend that we’ll drop by to see ’em in a bit, hear?”

“Will do. Uh, sir?”

“I’m here,” Mac said.

“We’re hoping you can help, of course, but you need to know we’re pretty happy with this operation.”

“Oh, I can see how you would be.”

“Well, I may have read something into it, but I got the impression from your aide that you might want to express some impatience with the crew because the prisoner has not yet been forthcoming. We’re planning to honor them for what they’ve accomplished.”

“I hear you, Commander. I wouldn’t worry about that. I think it’s fair to say that we want to respond proactively to their actions as well.”