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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] frustrated her. Everyone in the Trib Force had, at one time or another, tried to impress upon Chloe that she was among its most crucial members and that few people anywhere could do what she was doing. But she was a young woman of action. She wanted to be there in the thick of it. Tsion wished he could dissuade her. He had enjoyed the respite from his uncomfortable cot, but while he and Chloe monitored the boring TV feed from Jerusalem, waiting for the fiasco to reach the Garden Tomb, Kenny had fallen asleep. Chloe looked at Tsion apologetically as she attempted to rise with the toddler in her arms. She poked out a free hand and he reached to pull her off the couch. As she made her way to Kenny's crib, Tsion thought he heard something from his study. Chang again? He padded back and found a timed message composed two days before and sent automatically on a schedule determined by the sender. It read: Dr. Ben-Judah, Please pass this along to my brothers and sisters in Christ, old friends and new. I don't know what to make of it except that I believe I have been called of God to risk my life for the cause. It certainly was nothing I was seeking, and I hope you all know I have no grandiose view of myself. I knelt to pray in my hotel room in Tel Aviv . . . Tsion stood, his spirit recognizing that this was no frivolous imagining from a new believer. He bent over the screen and read, finally groaning and making his way back out to where Chloe was watching the end of a brief speech by Walter Moon. "I have forwarded a message to your computer that you need to read right away," he said, knowing his quavering voice scared her. "Is it Buck?" she said. He shook his head. "Chaim?" "No," he said. "Please wake the others. We will want to pray. And you will want to call Cameron." ---------- David ignored the signal that he had a message from Tsion. That could wait as he checked the upload from Chang. Not only had the young man pieced together recordings from devices in the palace, starting in the Wongs' guest apartment the morning in question, but he had also taken the time to include a translation, where necessary, from Chinese to English. David would check the tape with Ming later to be sure the translation was accurate. Chang began with the news that he remembered "only snatches of this before the so-called anesthetic. You must have known they use no such thing." David knew. But he hadn't known any more than Chang about what had really gone on. Chang's pieced- together production began with the audio of another loud argument between him and his father. Mrs. Wong kept trying to pacify her husband and son, but she failed. "You will be among the first to take the mark of loyalty!" the subtitles read, as David listened to Mr. Wong fiercely whisper to the boy in Chinese. "I will not! You are loyal to Carpathia. I am not!" "Do not speak such heresy to me, young man! My family is loyal to the international government as I have always been to my superiors. And now we know the potentate is the son of god!" "He is not! I know no such thing! He could be the son of Satan for all I Page 27 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html know!" David heard a slap and someone crashing to the floor. "That was I," Chang wrote. "You saw the man resurrected! You will worship him as I do!" "Never!" A door slammed. Then a phone call. "Missah Moon! Son talk crazy. Say he not want mark, but he just scared of needle. You got tranquilizer?" "I can get a tranquilizer, Mr. Wong, but it comes in the form of an injection." "Injection?" "Shot. Hypodermic needle?" "Yes! Yes! I can do." "You can administer the injection?" Moon said. "Pardon?" "Give the shot?" "Yes! You bring!" They rang off, and Mr. Wong apparently returned to where Chang had locked himself in a room. "You be ready to go in ten minutes!" "I'm not going!" "You will go or answer to me!" "I'm answering to you now. I'm telling you I'm not going. I don't want to work here. I want to go home." "No!" "I want to talk with Mother." "Very well! Mother will talk some sense into you." A few minutes later, a quiet knock. "Mother?" "Yes." The door opened. "Son, you must do what your father says. We cannot survive in this new world without showing loyalty to the leader." "But I don't believe in him, Mother. Neither does Ming." A long silence. "She doesn't, Mother." "She told me. I fear for her life. I cannot tell your father." "I agree with her, Mother." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |