Hannah finished her stitch-removal work, stripped off and discarded her rubber gloves, washed and dried her hands, and pulled on another pair of gloves. She sat on a stool next to David. "Still have the staples, but we can both use a break."
"Somebody had to lead you to God. I'm dying to know where you met another believer here."
"Didn't know there was one till I saw your mark plain as day as you lay there on the ground. I tried wiping it off, then almost danced when I realized what it was. I couldn't see mine and had never seen another, just read about it."
"Where?"
"Remember when we were told that Tsion Ben-Judah's Web site was contraband?" '"Course."
"That was all I needed to hear. I was there. It was all Greek to me until he predicted the earthquake. First, it happened. Second, my whole reservation was swallowed up. Lost everybody. Mom, Dad, two little brothers, extended family. I'll bet we were one of the only places in the world that had no survivors. Zero."
"Wow."
"You can imagine how I felt. Grief-stricken. Alone. Angry. Amazed that the weird guy on the Net got it right."
"Can't imagine that convincing you, though. Seems you would have been madder than ever at God."
"In a way, I was. But I really began to see the light about Nicolae. You were here then, right? You heard the rumors."
David nodded.
"People said he bullied his way onto a chopper on the roof of the old headquarters building-which I have no problem with. I probably would have done the same.
Self-preservation instinct and all that. But no calls for help. No orders for more rescue craft. People hanging on the struts of his chopper, screaming, pleading for their lives. He orders the pilot off the roof. Probably couldn't have saved anybody anyway, the way the thing went down. But you've got to try, don't you? Isn't that true leadership?
"Then he was phony again. The remorse didn't ring true. I just started doing my job and forgetting my idealism, but I couldn't tear myself away from the Ben-Judah site. Then millions and millions joined in, and so many of them became believers. I read about the mark of the sealed believer, and I was envious. I wasn't sure I wanted in yet, but I wanted to be part of some family.
"But you know what got to me about Tsion? Listen to me, calling a man like that by his first name. But that's just it. He's clearly one of the most brilliant scholars ever born. But he had a way of putting the cookies on the lower shelf for people like me. I understood what he was saying. He made it plain and clear. And he was transparent. He lost his whole family in a worse way than I did.
"He was so loving! You could sense it, feel it right through the computer. He prayed for people, ministered to them the way the best doctors do."
"And that was what finally persuaded you?"
"Actually, no. I believed he was sincere, and I came to believe he was right. But all of a sudden I went scientific on him. I was going to take this slow, not rush into anything, study it carefully. Well, he starts predicting these plagues, and here they come. Didn't take me long after that. People suffered. These were real. And he knew they were coming."
"Did you ever see yourself as a sinner?"
She stood and found the small wire cutters.
"Uh-oh," David said.
"Just relax. Listen to the nice lady's story." She gently pressed her fingers on each side of the staple and eased the cutting edge of the clippers in. With both hands she forced the handles together, and the staple broke with a snap.
David jumped.
"You still with us?" she said.
"Didn't feel a thing. Just scared me."
"Story of my life." She snapped the other while continuing. "Tsion warned us-you know this; surely you're part of the readership."
David nodded. "I've spoken to him by phone."
"You have not!"
He nodded.
"Don't nod with loose staples in your head. And if you lie to me again, I'll twist 'em for you."
"I'm not lying."
"I know you're not. That's what makes me so jealous."
"You know you're going to get to meet him someday."
"Better bring a mop and bucket. You can just squeegee me off the floor and pour me down the drain."
"Me too."
"But you know him already! You're best buds."
"Just by phone."
She mimicked him. "Just by phone. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we talk. He calls once in a while. 'How ya doin', Dave? Just finished my message.' "
David had to laugh and quickly realized it was the first time since…
"Anyway," she continued, pulling the ends of one staple neatly from his scalp. "See? Good timing, good technique. Uh-oh, do I see brain oozing there? Nope. Must be empty."
David shook his head. "The story, Hannah."
"Oh, yeah. Tsion promises us that if we start reading the Bible, it'll be like a mirror to us and we might not like what we see. Remember that?"
"Do I?"
The other staple came out just as easily. She made a show of presenting it to him, and he waved it away. "I didn't have a Bible and you don't exactly see them lying around here anywhere. But Tsion had that site where you could call up the whole Bible in your language. Well, not Cherokee, but you know. So I'm reading the Bible on the Net in the wee hours."
"And couldn't get enough of it?"
"Urn, no. I did it wrong. I didn't read his little guide on where to start and what to look for. I just started in at the beginning and I loved all those stories in Genesis, but when I got into Exodus, and then-what's the next one?"
"Leviticus."
"Yeah. Ugh! I'm wondering, where's the mirror? I don't like what I'm seeing, all right, but it's no mirror. Finally, I go into his site where you can ask questions. Only a million people a day do that. I didn't expect him to answer personally, of course, and he didn't. Probably was on the phone with his pal Dave. But somebody pointed me to that guide place. I start with John and then Romans and then Matthew. Talk about desperate for more and seeing yourself! My besetting sin, the way Tsion described it, was pride. I was my own god. Captain of my own destiny. I got to that Romans Road thing, taking you down the path of being born in sin, separated from God, his gift is eternal life… man, I was there. Stayed up all night and didn't even feel the effects working a full shift the next day. Wanted to tell everybody, but wanted to stay alive too."
Hannah doused David's head with disinfectant and dabbed it dry with a clean towel. "I'm going to cover you with Betadyne now, friend, so you don't look like a skunk with a lateral stripe. You'll still look funny, but not from so far away. And we'd better get out of here before they send in a search party."
"Just a minute."
"Hmm?" She was dabbing at his head again.
"Just wanted to thank you. I needed to hear that. Those stories never get old."
"Thanks, David. Can you imagine how long I've wanted to tell someone that? Oh, and one more thing."
"Yeah?"
"Say hey to Tsion for me?"
"You don't either," Buck said.
"I do too!" Zeke said. "C'mere, look."
Buck followed Zeke to his room, turning to give Rayford and Chloe a do-you-believe-this? look. Sure enough, just as Zeke had claimed, hanging in his closet were four soiled, wrinkled GC uniforms. "Where in the world?"
"After that horsemen deal," Zeke said, "remember?" Buck nodded. "Dead GC all over the place. Dad cruised me around in the middle of the night, trying to stay ahead of the recovery teams. I didn't like yankin' clothes off dead bodies, but Dad and me both thought they were gifts from God. I got their IDs and everything, but you can't use the same name as goes with the uniform."
"I can't?"
Zeke sighed. "These guys turned up missin'. Unless somebody identified their naked bodies, they're listed as AWOL or unaccounted for. You show up with their name, rank, and serial number, who do you think they're gonna pin the murder on? Or the swipin' of the uni?"
"I get it."
"Yeah, huh?"
"So, what do you do, put a new name patch on? Make a new ID?"
"Yeah, only I mix and match. Well, here, first see if this one fits. It's the biggest I got."