Read The Mark: The Beast Rules The World for Free Online Page B

ambulatory, you were to be there.” “I see.”
    “I’m glad someone does. You, sir, should be a patient. I wouldn’t be running around so soon-”
    “I was told this was superficial, minor surgery.”
    “Minor surgery is an operation on someone else. You’ve heard that, I’m sure. You know a nurse did the procedure, and good as she was, she was pressed into duty-”
    “Do you know who that was? I’m pretty sure she was Native-”
    “Hannah Palemoon,” she said.
    “I wonder if she’s got my phone. It was in my-”
    “I doubt it, Director. You’ll find your wallet and keys and ID unmolested. We know better than to confiscate things from someone at your level.”
    “I appreciate that, but-”
    “No one took your phone, sir. Could you have dropped it where you fell, left it in your vehicle?”
    David cocked his head. Possible, but unlikely. He had not been talking on the phone when he fell, best he could remember, so it would have been in his pocket. “Where would I find Nurse Palem-”
    “I told you, Director. She would not have your phone, and I’m not going to tell you where she is. We’re working twenty-four on and twenty-four off here, and she’s off. If she’s like me, she sleeps the first twelve of those twenty-four hours off, and she ought to be allowed to.”
    David nodded, but he couldn’t wait to get back to his computer and look her up in the personnel directory. “Ma’am, I have to find an employee I’m worried about. Name’s Annie Christopher. Cargo chief of the Phoenix but assigned crowd control at sector 53 today.”
    “That’s not good.”
    “So I’ve heard. Lightning there?”
    “Bad. Several deaths and injuries. I can check to see if she’s in our system. You might check the morgue.” David flinched. “I’d appreciate it if you’d check your
    system.”
    “I will, sir. Then you had better get to your quarters and relax before your meeting. You know as well as I do you’re in no condition to be sitting at a table, thrilling as it may be to meet with a man who was dead this morning and is alive tonight. Follow me.” She led him to the nurses’ station, where she searched the computer. “No Christopher,” she said, “but our entries have been hopelessly delayed.”
    “She would have had an employee badge,” David said. “And it should have been swiped by a wand.” “So the morgue?” he said, again trying to cover his
    emotion.
    “Look on the bright side,” she said. “Maybe she
    wasn’t a victim at all.”
    That would almost be worse, David decided. Why could he not reach her, and why would she not have tried to reach him? Well, maybe she had. He had to find his phone before the meeting.
    “Nothing,” Rayford said. “David hasn’t accessed his computer for hours, and I’m getting no answer on his phone. Now it’s not even letting me leave a message, as it he’s turned it off.”
    “Strange,” Albie said. “So Pueblo doesn’t even know
    we’re coming.”

    “And we’re not going if we don’t know where it is.”
    “We’ll find out.”
    “You’re a resourceful guy, Albie, but-”
    “I love the impossible. But you’re the boss. I need your permission.”
    “What’s your plan?”
    “To find out if your new look and ID work.”
    “Oh, boy.”
    “C’mon, man. Confidence.”
    “The plan, Albie.”
    “I’ll be the ranking officer down there. I blame the computer delay on all the excitement or the incompetence in New Babylon. Who can argue that? You’re with me. If they demand ID, you’ve got it. You’re no longer just a civilian helping out, though. You’re a recruit, a trainee.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Not only do I insist on a car, but I’ll get out of them the location of the bunker.”
    “This I’ve got to see.”
    “I love showing off.”
    Rayford slapped Albie’s computer shut. “Tell me about it.”
    Kenny Bruce tried to tug Buck toward the barrier, as if knowing his dad could get him past it. But Buck was anchored to the