When he was in his twenties, he had gone through a six-week army reconnaissance course on an island off the coast of South Carolina. At the end of the training period, you had to catch a wild boar with a snare, stab the squealing animal with your commando knife and butcher it on the spot. That was just a test, one more way to show that you could deal with any problem. Thirty years later, nothing had changed. He was compelled to take one last step to prove his strength and invulnerability.

Boone punched in the address on his GPS, but it wasn’t necessary. The moment he turned off La Cumbre Road, he remembered the way. It was about five o’clock in the afternoon when he arrived at his destination. School had been out for several hours; only a handful of cars were in the parking lot.

Valley Elementary School was over forty years old, but it still looked cheaply made and unsubstantial. Each of the six grades had their own brick building with an asphalt roof. Covered walkways connected the buildings. Everywhere you looked there were planters filled with ivy and the spiky orange flowers called Birds of Paradise.

Boone strolled past a classroom with drawings of rainbows taped to the windows. Some of the rainbows were scrawled across the construction paper while others displayed the different colors in distinct bands.

Jennifer drew rainbows and everything else with wild loops and curves. Her cows were red. Her horses were blue. When she drew her father, Boone became an assemblage of lines and circles with crooked eyeglasses and an up-turned grin.

The children ate lunch in a central quadrangle surrounded by the class buildings. A lost sweatshirt was on the ground and a thermos bottle with a unicorn had been left, sad and lonely, in the middle of a picnic table. This was where she sat. This was where she and others had died. There was no plaque or memorial statue to acknowledge what had happened here.

Boone was ready to test his toughness and his bravery, but his body betrayed him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. It felt as if his head had exploded and a scream of sadness and pain had finally been released.

38

Maya and Gabriel stood in the auditorium of Playa Vista Elementary School and watched a class of eight year olds receive their Guardian Angel.

A medical area had been set up on the auditorium stage. Folding screens blocked a direct view, so Maya went to the front of the room and stood against the wall. First, a nurse injected each child with a local anesthetic in their right forearm. When the children lost sensitivity, a second nurse led them over to a doctor wielding a silver device that resembled a dentist’s drill. A spurt of compressed gas injected the RFID chip between the skin and the muscle, and then a bandage was placed on the wound.

Each child received a button that said: I got an Angel watching me! A handful of parents sat quietly as a teacher’s aide led the students back to their friends. Maya wondered what the mothers had told their children. Some of the eight year olds looked frightened, and one little boy was crying. All they knew was that they were being forced to walk up some steps and receive a quick jab of pain. The true lesson was implicit in the matter-of-fact behavior of the adults. We know best. Everyone is doing it. You don’t have a choice.

Maya rejoined Gabriel in the rear of the auditorium.” Seen enough?” she asked.

“Yes. They’re well organized. Josetta said the plan for the injections was announced three days after Michael made his speech.”

Maya nodded. “The Evergreen Foundation was already using the Protective Link tracking device with their employees. The Guardian Angel is just the same chip with a different name.”

They left the school auditorium and walked back out to the street. Josetta Fraser, Vicki’s mother, was waiting for them in a car decorated with Isaac T. Jones bumper stickers. Josetta was a heavy-set woman with a broad face who hadn’t smiled since picking them up at the Los Angeles Airport. “You see them doing it?” she asked when they got back in the car.

“They’re processing a child every two minutes.”

“And that’s just one elementary school.” Josetta turned the car back onto the street. “They’re doing it at clinics and at some churches, too.”

“But not at your church?” Maya asked.

“Reverend Morganfield preached against it. He said Isaac Jones warned us about the Mark of the Beast. But it’s up to the parents, and most of them are going along with the plan. People get angry if they don’t see a bandage on your child’s arm. It‘s like: ‘What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you a good mother? Don’t you want to stop this killer?’” Josetta sighed loudly. “You could argue with them, but there’s no point to that. The Prophet wrote: ‘Don’t waste time singing songs to the deaf.””