The Mark: The Beast Rules The World Read Online Free PDF

it?”
    “Give him threads like a football-I don’t care. He can always wear a hat.”
    In truth, David didn’t care what his head looked like, and it was a good thing, because the nurse quickly shaved an inch on each side of the laceration, splashed more liquid on him, and began opening a huge needle.
    “How bah?” David managed, his tongue lolling.
    “You’ll live,” she said. “Strictly superficial. Tough skull. But you really yanked the flesh away from the bone. Five inches at least, laterally at the top.”
    “Watah?”
    “Sorry.”
    “Little?”
    She quickly removed the top of the spray bottle, which had an inch of water left in it. “Open up.”
    Most of it ran down David’s neck, but it loosened his tongue. “Looking for Chief Christopher,” he said.
    “Don’t know him,” she said. “Now hold still.”
    “Her. Annie Christopher.”
    “Director, I’ve got about five minutes for you, and if you’re lucky, I’ll find an IV to re-hydrate you. But while I’m sewing, you’re going to have to shut up and hold still if you don’t want to look worse.”

    “Do you see what I see?” Albie squinted into the distance.
    Rayford followed his gaze and was surprised by a gush of emotion. A black tower of smoke billowed several hundred feet in the air. “You think?” he said.
    Albie nodded. “Gotta be.”
    “Get as close as you can,” Rayford said. “That was my home for a long time.”
    “Will do. Now, you going to use every resource available? Or did I waste my money on this uniform and all the credentials?”

THREE

    Buck awoke at noon, Chicago time, and felt twice his age. As had been true every day since the Rapture, he knew exactly where he was. In the past it was not uncommon to wake up in a foreign city and have to remind himself where he was, who he was, and what he was doing there. No more. Even when exhausted and injured and barely able to function, somehow the self-preservation flywheel kept spinning in his otherwise unengaged mind.
    He had slept soundly, but at the first flutter of his eyelids and that initial glance at his watch, he knew. It all made sense in a ludicrous way. Buck stared at the wall next to an elevator in a bombed-out skyscraper in Chicago, heard muffled voices from around the corner, smelled coffee and a baby. Kenny had his own aroma, a fresh, powdery sweetness that Buck conjured when they were far apart.

    But Kenny was here, barricaded from the outer hallways exposed to the windows that let in the midday sun. Buck rolled to his back and propped himself up on his elbows. Kenny had apparently given up trying to climb the makeshift barrier and sat contentedly playing with one of his loose shoelaces.
    “Hey, Kenny Bruce,” Buck whispered. “Come see Daddy.”
    Kenny’s head jerked up, and then he went to all fours before righting himself and toddling to the bed. “Da-da.”
    Buck reached for him, and the chubby bundle climbed atop him and stretched out on his stomach and chest. Buck let his head fall back again and wrapped his arms around Kenny. The boy seldom had the patience to simply rest in his father’s arms, but now he seemed almost ready to nap himself. With the baby’s tiny heart beating against his own, Buck wished he could lie there forever.
    “Da-da bye-bye?” Kenny said, and Buck could not stop the tears.
    Rayford had made a decision, several in fact. After watching the old safe house burn to the ground, he instructed Albie to turn back to Kankakee, where they would fly the GC fighter to Colorado.
    “Now you’re talking, Captain,” Albie said.
    “Now I’m talking,” Rayford groused. “Now I’m probably getting us all killed.”
    “You’re doing the right thing.”
    Unable to reach David in New Babylon, Rayford left a message asking him to get back to them with Hattie’s exact whereabouts. He also asked David to inform GC personnel holding her that, should their current operation fail, they should keep Hattie there until assigned