"Slow down, Ming. What's started?"
"Application of the mark! The equipment arrived at Buffer this morning, and they're already using it tonight."
"Prisoners are getting the chip?"
"Yes! I can't imagine it will be much longer for us staff. I need to bolt soon, but I wanted to check."
"Any believers there? Anyone refusing the mark?"
"Not a one. They're lining up for this thing as if they've been loyal scouts forever. I think they're hoping they'll get good behavior points. Truth is, they'll still be rotting here, but with a mark on head or hand."
David told her of his conversation with Viv and what he had done about it. "Oh, no, no," she said. "At nine you must make Chang disappear. Get him out of there." "We're not prepared to leave yet, Ming." "What are you going to do?"
"I'll have to make up something, I guess. Some reason why he is just not ready. Maybe I'll say I found evidence of immaturity, that I just think he's too young to fit in."
"You're a director, David. Make it convincing. This has to work."
"I have all night to think about it." "And I have all night to pray about it." "I'll take all I can get, Ming. Listen, let me do something for you. I can get you reassigned to USNA." "You could?"
"Of course. I just do it through the computer and no one questions it. They see it's approved by someone higher than their level, and they don't rock the boat. Where do you want to go?"
"There are prisons all over the States," she said. "But I'm never actually going to get to one, right?"
"Right. We get you assigned, get you on a plane, but then lose you somehow. You run off and we can't find you. But then you're on your own. You need to get to the safe house in Chicago." "Would they have me?"
"Ming! Leah has told everyone about you. They can't wait to welcome you. They knew you and your brother would eventually have to wind up there. We can use you both. Now where shall I assign you in the States? Somewhere close enough to Chicago so you can get to the safe house but not so suspiciously close that people start putting two and two together.",/ "I don't know the States," she said. "There is a huge facility in Baltimore that always needs personnel."
"That's a long way from Chicago. Wait! Can you get to Greece?"
"When?"
"As soon as possible, even tonight."
"I guess that's up to you. Make my transfer highest priority, and if you want GC here to get me to Greece, they'll have to do it. But David, Greece is a hot spot right now, crawling with GC and making an example of political prisoners. I don't want to work or hide there."
David told her how she would get to the States from Greece, and it would appear GC was escorting her.
"There is a God," she said. "Where do I meet these men?"
"Get to the airport at Kozani. They'll find you."
"Can you get Chang there too? Please, David, do it! Get him out of my parents' quarters, get him assigned somewhere, and have one of your pilots get him to Greece. We can go to the safe house together."
"Ming, please. It has to make sense. I pull a stunt like that, your parents lose track of Chang, and it all comes back to me-not to mention you! You both are sent somewhere and then wind up lost? Think, Ming. I know you're desperate and that you care, but let me work on the logistics. The last thing I want is for the GC spotlight to turn on us."
"I know, David. I understand. I'm thinking with my heart."
"Nothing wrong with that," he said. "Until we quit thinking at all and make things worse."
"We in trouble?" a Greece-based GC Peacekeeping chief at the detention center asked Buck when he saw he was accompanied by a deputy commander. "We do everything by the book."
"This looks like a madhouse, frankly," Buck said, surveying the complex of five rather plain, industrial buildings that had probably once been factories. The windows were covered with bars, and the perimeter was a tangle of fence and razor wire. But the place was crowded with GC in lines, peering at printouts in the night, using flashlights to see where various prisoners were located.
"We do all we can with what we have to work with," the chief said, nervously eyeing Albie.
Buck continued to do the talking. "How many prisoners at this facility?"
"About nine hundred."
"You've got that many GC here."
"Well, not quite, sir."
"What are they all doing? Are they assigned?"
"Most are running the mark center in the middle building."
"What is in the other buildings?"
"Teenagers through early twenties in the first building, males in the west wing, females in the east."
"Individual cells?"
"Hardly. Prisoners are incarcerated in large, common areas that used to be production lines."
"And in the other buildings?"
"Women in the next. None in the center. Men in the last two."
"What are the majority of these people charged with?"
"Mostly felonies, some petty theft, larceny."
"Any violent criminals?"
The chief nodded back over his shoulder. "Murderers, armed robbers, and the like, right there."
"Political prisoners?"
"Mostly in the second building, but religious dissidents, at least the men, are right here too." He motioned to the last building again.
"You've got dissidents in with violent criminals?" Buck said, leaning forward as if to get a better look at the man's nameplate.
"Where they're placed is not my call, sir. I'm coordinating the loyalty mark application. And I need to be in that center building in about five minutes. You want to help- I've got a crew of six moving from building to building, starting with the west, doing preliminary sorting."
"Meaning?"
"Determining whether any plan to refuse the mark."
"And if so?"
"They are to identify themselves immediately. We're not going to waste time letting people wait until they're in line to decide whether they want to live or die."
"What if some change their minds in line?"
"Decide at the last minute they don't want the mark after all? I don't foresee that!"
"But what if they do?"
"We deal with that quickly. But for the most part, we want to know in advance so we don't hold things up. Now, gentlemen, I have orders. Will you help with the culling or not?"
"Will this be going on simultaneously in all the buildings?" Buck asked, not wanting to miss the pastor or Mrs. Miklos.
"No. We're starting in the west building. Prisoners will be escorted to the center building for processing, then back before those in the next building go. And so forth." "We'll help," Buck said.
The chief shouted, "Athenas!" and a stocky, middle-aged Peacekeeper with a one-inch, black crew cut stepped up, three men and two women in uniform behind him. "Ready, Alex?"
"Ready, sir," Alex said, with a high-pitched voice that didn't match his physique.
"Take Jensen and Elbaz here with you." "I have sufficient staff, sir." The chief lowered his head and stared at Athenas. "They're here from USNA, and if you didn't notice, A. A., Mr. Elbaz is a dep-u-ty com-man-der?" "Yes, sir. Would Mr. Elbaz care to lead?" Albie stuck out his lower lip and shook his head.
It was two in the afternoon in Chicago, and the remaining Trib Force members crowded around the television. The local GC news reported that mark applications had begun at local jails and prisons.
Zeke sat rocking before the TV, his hands over his mouth. Rayford asked if Chaim's Jerusalem disguise was ready. Zeke kept his eyes on the screen and took his hands from his mouth only long enough to say, "All but the robe. Done by tonight."