Mark of Evil Read Online Free PDF

of the temple. He was someone who knew what it meant and the thought of it made him mutter to himself.
    “The coming cataclysm.”
    But Micah’s delay was a mistake. An Alliance officer with a machine gun slung over his shoulder called out to him.
    Micah froze. The officer, joined by another blue-helmeted policeman with a sidearm, jogged over to him.
    The officer with the automatic weapon spoke with the hint of a French accent. “Speak English? Hebrew?”

    “Both,” Micah answered.
    “Papers, please.”
    Micah pulled out his IIA certificate with his International Identification Agency number on it. He had received his BIDTag and IIA number back before the Great Disappearance of the Christians.
    While the cop looked over his papers, Micah kept cool, managing to look nonchalant until the officer passed his IIA number over to his partner and said to him, “ Vous verifiez ceci avec la liste .”
    That’s when Micah swallowed hard. Because he understood the command for the other officer to check his number against the list. Micah knew French, but they hadn’t asked him that.
    Micah also knew exactly what the two Alliance cops would find on the list. And then it would be all over. They would learn how he was an Orthodox Jew and that he had recently become a follower of Jesus and a member of the Remnant—which had now been labeled internationally as a subversive terror group. After all, hadn’t the Alliance concluded, based on media reports, that the Christians had committed the world’s most bizarre and horrendous act of mass suicide, even dragging children into it? And doing it in desolate areas to avoid detection? According to the Alliance, those like Micah and others becoming Jesus followers after the “disappearance” posed a similar threat to the “peace and order of the global community.”
    Micah had just a few seconds to make a decision. He knew what arrest would mean. He glanced over at the entrance to the covered souk to his left where he could disappear in the complex of marketplace alleys. It was only about thirty feet away. He was a fast runner. He could make it.
    Micah kept up his calm smile and tightened his calf muscles as he silently gave himself the order.
    Now!
    He barreled off toward the entranceway, his arms pumping like a machine. Behind him the officer with the automatic weapon yelledfor him to stop. Then yelled again. As Micah reached the entrance to the souk, he dodged to the left and heard the sickening sound of several pops . A paving stone ahead of him and to the right exploded from the bullets.
    The other Alliance cop fired a second round from his handgun, but by then Micah was already inside the twisting, covered alleyways of the souk, running through a crowd of people. A shop owner and a few pedestrians screamed at him as he plowed his way through them, bumping into shoppers and almost tipping over a fruit stand in the narrow, shadowy passageway. He passed by the entrance to Men’s Delight, one of several brothels that had recently been permitted along the souk, much to the outrage of the Orthodox and Christians alike. He raced past the Amsterdam Café, where marijuana and hashish were now sold, and almost tripped over a dazed man lying next to the café entrance.
    Fifty yards into the heart of the souk he took a hard right, up a worn set of stone steps to an aged metal door with a modern keypad attached to it. It led to the upper terrace of the Old City. He frantically typed four numbers and two letters into the pad. The door clicked open, and he swung through and closed it tight behind him. Then he raced up the tall flight of stone steps, taking them two at a time. He was almost to the top, where there was daylight and possible safety on the upper street level.
    Micah burst out from underneath the covered stairs and paused, taking a second to catch his breath in the warm sunlight. But as he bent over, panting heavily, he became aware of a presence standing very close to him.