"This is my new employee, Chang Wong," David told Annie. Chang was an Asian boy who looked to be about seventeen. Annie thought that it was unusual for someone that young to be working in David's department, but that wasn't the most unusual thing about him. Annie saw that Chang had the same cross on his forehead that David had, but beside the cross was another mark, one that she'd never seen before.
David saw the look of confusion on Annie's face and quickly explained.
"Chang's a believer just like us," he told Annie. "His father forced him to take the mark of the beast. He had Chang anesthetized, and he was given the mark while he was still unconscious. Since he has it, he'll be able to take over my job, using his superior technological skills to spy on Nicolae and his followers and thwart their plans whenever possible."
Nicolae planned to return to Jerusalem, the city in which he had been assassinated, and defile the temple by riding a pig into it. He also planned to set up a mark application site there, and the airplane that would supposedly carry Mac, Abdullah, David, Annie, and Hannah was loaded down with guillotines, biochip injectors, and an enormous live pig. The tribulation force members had deliberately overloaded it so that there would be a logical reason for it to go down over the ocean. In fact, it would be remotely controlled by Mac, who would program it to go down at the appropriate time. In the meantime, Mac, Abdullah, David, Annie, and Hannah would take a second airplane to Mitzpe Ramon in southern Israel, where they planned to meet up with the rest of the tribulation force to prepare for the modern-day exodus of believers from Jerusalem to Petra.
David had stressed to Annie how important it was that their disappearance appear to be entirely unplanned so that nobody would suspect that they were really running away from having to take the mark. She made a dentist appointment for the week the five were scheduled to return and dropped off a couple of uniforms at the dry cleaners, scheduling to pick them up upon her return. She also left leftovers in her refrigerator and unopened mail on her kitchen table.
"It's just a little bit exciting, isn't it?" she said to David as they were boarding the airplane. "Like setting out on a whole new adventure."
"It's that, all right," David agreed with a chuckle. "For me, it'll be a relief to be out from under the constant fear that my cover will be blown."
"Chang will have to worry about that now," Annie reminded him.
"He's a tough kid, and very bright," David told her. "I have no doubt he'll be able to handle whatever comes his way."
On the way to Mitzpe Ramon, Annie got to know Hannah better.
"I grew up on a Cherokee reservation," Hannah told her. "My family didn't go to church, but a lot of my friends did. One of my teachers was a Christian, and she used to talk to me about Jesus a lot. I didn't pay it much attention. Then when the disappearances happened, all that came back to me, and I wished like anything that I had believed her."
"I first decided that I wanted to be a nurse when I worked as a veterinary assistant when I was in high school," Hannah continued. "I was trained in how to inject biochips into animals so that if they went missing they could be more easily found. I'm supposedly traveling to Jerusalem to help train new employees on the application of the mark of the beast."
"I have only the vaguest of memories of my family," Annie said. "I remember what my parents looked like, and that I had two younger brothers. I know that they're no longer alive, but I can't remember what happened to them." What Annie couldn't tell Hannah was that she had a real fear of remembering what had happened to her family. If it turned out that they had died very gruesome or painful deaths, she didn't think that she'd be able to take it.
At last the airplane was landing at the airport in Mitzpe Ramon.
"Leah Rose is here to pick us up in a van," David told Annie. "We'll have to hide in the floorboard so that we won't arouse suspicion."
"I feel like an illegal alien trying to sneak across the border," Annie giggled.
"Get used to it," David told her. "Sneaking and hiding are going to be a way of life for us for awhile."
