Mark of Evil by Tim Lahaye, Craig Parshall

reached out to shake her hand. Shenoticed his initials—HJB—monogrammed on his French cuffs, but the ends of the cuffs were a bit frayed. This English lawyer had seen better days.
    Brooking glanced over at Meifeng. “Would she like an Orangey water?”
    Meifeng shook her head no.
    “Very well, then . . .” His voice trailed off.
    Rivka asked to see him privately in his office, and the two of them stepped into an adjacent room filled with Oriental vases and framed reproductions of English landscapes. Brooking sat down behind his mahogany desk and smiled. Rivka noticed that the varnish on the aged desk was peeling.
    Rivka started. “Are you a lawyer?”
    “Of sorts. Used to be a solicitor in the U.K. But nowadays I engage in other pursuits.”
    “Your sign on the door says Consultations—Imports/Exports. Perhaps you can explain that.”
    “Perhaps you can explain what it is that you need help with, Miss . . .”
    “Call me Rivka. I need advice about markets, buying and selling.”
    “Not currency, of course,” he said. “Now that the whole world ditched the paper CReDO and went electronic— skin transactions , I call them—currency exchanges don’t exist. But you know that, I’m sure.”
    “Yes. But what if someone doesn’t want to engage in those kinds of electronic transactions?”
    “Well then,” he said, “you’re not going to get very far. Bit of a jam, that.” After taking the time to size her up, he continued, “You don’t have a laser tag ID, do you? No BIDTag?”
    She smiled.
    “Are you one of those . . . Jesus followers? The Remnant?”
    “Why do you ask?”

    “Oh, I hear things.”
    “I want to find out about Jo Li’s underground barter system,” she said.
    “He’s a popular fellow.”
    “Oh?”
    “Another Jesus person apparently wants to meet him too. Some kind of rebel leader of the Remnant group has made inquiries. You know, those chaps seem to be popping up everywhere lately. Can’t remember his name, though.”
    “No matter,” Rivka said. She kept her face placid, but she knew he was talking about Ethan March, and she had an idea why he would want to come to Hong Kong. She struggled not to smile. There was a history between them in Israel. For a while, when Ethan became a Jesus follower after the Rapture and then she did a little later, their paths had seemed to follow an identical trajectory. Getting closer and closer. She’d been falling for him hard and fast. But then, somehow, things started getting in the way and it all disintegrated between them. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the stress of survival in a world that had gone from dangerous to insanely brutal. Maybe it was because they were both type A personalities, mission driven. Both of them demanding and perhaps a bit controlling? Yes, that too. They found themselves rushing into the fray, helping fellow Remnant members, fighting the good fight, but growing further apart as they did.
    When Rivka looked over at Hadley Brooking, he seemed to be drifting in his own thoughts. He stared into space and muttered, “Strange times, these.” Then he paused, patting the desk lightly with both hands, and went on. “Back in the U.K., I was raised in the Church of England. Pretty ‘stiff upper lip’ and formal, and all that. Oh yes, it had some meaning for me, but . . . well, I had my own questions. I rather sensed that something was out there. But nothing like what’s going on now. Those mass disappearances. And what has followed. By the way, I was here in Hong Kong as a young solicitor way back in 1997when Britain gave the island back to China. I was so impressed with it all, thought the whole thing was a thoroughly revolutionary state of affairs. But since then, well, the world seems to have become even more confusing. And more dangerous. And yet the same questions are still there. It can cause a man to think.”
    Across the desk, Rivka saw a man who was searching. But she was there with her own questions and