CHAPTER 14
Buck awoke nearly ten hours later, pleased that Tsion was still sleeping. He checked Tsion’s Ace bandage. The ankle was swollen, but it didn’t look serious. His own foot was too tender to go back into his boot. He limped forward. “How are you doing, Cap?”
“A lot better, now that we’re over American airspace. I had no idea what you guys got yourselves into, and who knew what kind of fighter pilots might have been on my tail.”
“I don’t think we were worth all that, with World War III going on,” Buck said.
“Where’d you leave all your stuff?”
Buck whirled around. What was he looking for? He had brought nothing with him. Everything he brought had been in that leather bag, which by now was charred and melted. “I promised to call my wife back, too!” he said.
“You’ll be happy to know I already talked to your people,” Ritz said. “They were mighty relieved to hear you were on your way home.”
“You didn’t say anything about my wound or about my passenger, did you?”
“Give me some credit, Williams. You and I both know your wound isn’t worth worrying about, so no wife needs to hear about that until she sees it. And as for your passenger, I have no idea who he is or whether your people knew you were bringing him home for dinner, so, no, I didn’t say a word about him either.”
“You’re a good man, Ritz,” Buck said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“I like a compliment as much as the next guy, but I hope you know you owe me battle pay on top of everything else.”
“That can be arranged.”
Because Ritz had carefully documented his plane and passenger on the way out of the country a few days before, he was on record and easily made it back through the North American radar net. He did not announce his extra passenger, and because personnel at Palwaukee Airport were not in the habit of processing international travelers, no one there paid any attention when an American pilot in his fifties, an Israeli rabbi in his forties, and an American writer in his thirties disembarked. Ritz was the only one not limping.
Buck had finally reached Chloe from the plane. It sounded to him as if she might have bitten his head off for keeping her up all night worrying and praying, had she not been so relieved to hear his voice. “Believe me, babe,” he said, “when you hear the whole story, you’ll understand.”
Buck had convinced her that only the Tribulation Force and Loretta could know about Tsion. “Don’t tell Verna. Can you come alone to Palwaukee?”
“I’m not up to driving yet, Buck,” she said. “Amanda can drive me out there. Verna isn’t even staying with us anymore. She has moved in with friends.”
“That could be a problem,” Buck said. “I may have made myself vulnerable to the worst possible person in my profession.”
“We’ll have to talk about that, Buck.”
It was as if Tsion Ben-Judah was in some international witness protection program. He was smuggled into Loretta’s home under the cover of night. Amanda and Chloe, who had heard from Rayford the news about Tsion’s family, greeted him warmly and compassionately but seemed not to know how much to say. Loretta had a light snack waiting for all of them. “I’m old and not too up on things,” she said, “but I’m quickly getting the picture here. The less I know about your friend, the better, am I right?”
Tsion answered her circumspectly. “I am deeply grateful for your hospitality.”
Loretta soon trundled off to bed, expressing her delight in offering hospitality as her service to the Lord.
Buck, Chloe, and Tsion limped into the living room, followed by a chuckling Amanda. “I wish Rayford were here,” she said. “I feel like the only teetotaler in a car full of drunks. Every chore that requires two feet is going to fall to me.”
Chloe, characteristically direct, leaned forward and reached for Tsion’s hand with both of hers. “Dr. Ben-Judah, we have heard so much about you. We feel blessed of God to have you with us. We can’t imagine your pain.”
The rabbi took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his lips quivering. “I cannot tell you how deeply grateful I am to God that he has brought me here, and to you who have welcomed me. I confess my heart is broken. The Lord has shown me his hand so clearly since the death of my family that I cannot deny his presence. Yet there are times I wonder how I will go on. I do not want to dwell on how my loved ones lost their lives. I must not think about who did this and how it was accomplished. I know my wife and children are safe and happy now, but it is very difficult for me to imagine their horror and pain before God received them. I must pray for relief from bitterness and hatred. Most of all, I feel terrible guilt that I brought this upon them. I do not know what else I could have done, short of trying to make them more secure. I could not have avoided serving God in the way he has called me.”
Amanda and Buck each moved to put a hand on Tsion’s shoulders, and with the three of them touching him, they all prayed as he wept.
They talked well into the night, Buck explaining that Tsion would be the object of an international manhunt, which would likely have even Carpathia’s approval. “How many people know about the underground shelter at the church?”
“Believe it or not,” Chloe said, “unless Loretta has read the printouts from Bruce’s computer, even she thinks it was just some new utility installation.”
“How was he able to keep that from her? She was at the church every day while it was being excavated.”
“You’ll have to read Bruce’s stuff, Buck. In short, she was under the impression that all that work was for the new water tank and parking lot improvements. Just like everyone else in the church thought.”
Two hours later, Buck and Chloe lay in bed, unable to sleep. “I knew this was going to be difficult,” she said. “I guess I just didn’t know how much.”
“Do you wish you’d never gotten involved with somebody like me?”
“Let’s just say it hasn’t been boring.”
Chloe then told him about Verna Zee. “She thought we were all wacky.”
“Aren’t we? The question is, how much damage can she do to me? She knows completely where I stand now, and if that gets back to people at the Weekly, it’ll shoot up the line to Carpathia like lightning. Then what?”
Chloe told Buck that she and Amanda and Loretta had at least persuaded Verna to keep Buck’s secret for now.
“But why would she do that?” Buck said. “We’ve never liked each other. We’ve been at each other’s throats. The only reason we traded favors the other night was that World War III made our skirmishes look petty.”
“Your skirmishes were petty,” Chloe said. “She admitted she was intimidated by you and jealous of you. You were what she had always hoped to be, and she even confessed that she knew she was no journalist compared to you.”
“That doesn’t give me confidence about her ability to keep my secret.”
“You would have been proud of us, Buck. Loretta had already told Verna her entire story, how she was the only person in her extended family not taken in the Rapture. Then I got my licks in, telling her all about how you and I met, where you were when the Rapture happened, and how you and I and Daddy became believers.”
“Verna must have thought we were all from another planet,” Buck said. “Is that why she moved out?”
“No. I think she felt in the way.”
“Was she sympathetic at all?”
“She actually was. I took her aside once and told her that the most important thing was what she decided to do about Christ. But I also told her that our very lives depended upon her protecting the news of your loyalties from your colleagues and superiors. She said, ‘His superiors? Cameron’s only superior is Carpathia.’ But she also said something else very interesting, Buck. She said that as much as she admires Carpathia and what he has done for America and the world—gag—she hates the way he controls and manipulates the news.”
“The question, Chloe, is whether you extracted from her any promises of my protection.”
“She wanted to trade favors. Probably wanted some sort of a promotion or raise. I told her you would never work that way, and she said she figured that. I asked if she would promise me that she would at least not say anything to anyone until after she had talked to you. And then, are you ready for this? I made her promise to come to Bruce’s memorial service Sunday.”
“And she’s coming?”
“She said she would. I told her she’d better be there early. It’ll be packed.”
“It sure will. How foreign is all this going to be to her?”
“She claims she’s been in church only about a dozen times in her life, for weddings and funerals and such. Her father was a self-styled atheist, and her mother apparently had been raised in some sort of a strict denomination that she turned her back on as an adult. Verna says the idea of attending church was never discussed in her home.”
“And she was never curious? Never searched for any deeper meaning in life?”
“No. In fact, she admitted she’s been a pretty cynical and miserable person for years. She thought it made her the perfect journalist.”
“She always gave me the willies,” Buck said. “I was as cynical and negative as any, but hopefully there was a balance of humor and personability there.”
“Oh yeah, that’s you all right,” Chloe teased. “That’s why I’m still tempted to have a child with you, even now.”
Buck didn’t know what to say or think. They had had this discussion before. The idea of bringing a child into the Tribulation was, on the surface, unconscionable, and yet they had both agreed to think about it, pray about it, and see what Scripture said about it. “You want to talk about this now?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m tired. But let’s not shut the door on it.”
“You know I won’t, Chlo’,” he said. “I also need to tell you I’m on a different time zone. I slept all the way back.”
“Oh, Buck! I’ve missed you. Can’t you at least stay with me until I fall asleep?”
“Sure. Then I’m going to sneak over to the church and see how Bruce’s shelter turned out.”
“I’ll tell you what you ought to do,” Chloe said, “is finish reading Bruce’s stuff. We’ve been marking passages we want Daddy to read at the memorial service. I don’t know how he’ll get through all of it without taking the whole day, but it’s astounding stuff. Wait till you see it.”
“I can’t wait.”
Rayford Steele was having a crisis of conscience. Packed and ready to go, he sat reading the Global Community International Daily while awaiting word from Hattie Durham’s driver that he was in front of the building.
Rayford missed Amanda. In many ways, they still seemed strangers, and he knew that in the little more than five years before the Glorious Appearing, they would never have the time to get to know each other and develop the lifelong relationship and bond he had shared with Irene. For that matter, he still missed Irene. On the other hand, Rayford felt guilty that in many ways he was closer to Amanda already than he had ever been to Irene.
That was his own fault, he knew. He had not known nor shared Irene’s faith until it was too late. She had been so sweet, so giving. While he knew of worse marriages and less loyal husbands, he often regretted that he was never the husband to her that he could have been. She had deserved better.
To Rayford, Amanda was a gift from God. He recalled not even having liked her at first. A handsome, wealthy woman slightly older than he, she was so nervous upon first meeting him that she gave the impression of being a jabberer. She didn’t let him or Chloe get a word in, but kept correcting herself, answering her own questions, and rambling.
Rayford and Chloe were bemused by her, but seeing her as a future love interest never crossed his mind. They were impressed with how taken Amanda had been with Irene from her brief encounter. Amanda had seemed to catch the essence of Irene’s heart and soul. The way she described her, Rayford and Chloe might have thought she had known her for years.
Chloe had initially suspected Amanda of having designs on Rayford. Having lost her family in the Rapture, she was suddenly a lonely, needy woman. Rayford had not sensed anything but a genuine desire to let him know what his former wife had meant to her. But Chloe’s suspicion had put him on guard. He made no attempt to pursue Amanda and was careful to watch for any signs coming the other way. There were none.
That made Rayford curious. He watched how she assimilated herself into New Hope Village Church. She was cordial to him, but never inappropriate, and never—in his mind—forward. Even Chloe eventually had to admit that Amanda did not come off as a flirt to anyone. She quickly became known around New Hope as a servant. That was her spiritual gift. She busied herself about the work of the church. She would cook, clean, drive, teach, greet, serve on boards and committees, whatever was necessary. A full-time professional woman, her spare time was spent in church life. “It’s always been all or nothing with me,” she said. “When I became a believer, it was lock, stock, and barrel.”
From a distance, having hardly socialized with her after that first encounter when she merely wanted to talk to him and Chloe about Irene, Rayford became an admirer. He found her quiet, gentle, giving spirit most attractive. When he first found himself wanting to spend time with her, he still wasn’t thinking of her romantically. He just liked her. Liked her smile. Liked her look. Liked her attitude. He had sat in on one of her Sunday school classes. She was a most engaging teacher and a quick study. The next week, he found her sitting in his class. She was complimentary. They joked about someday team-teaching. But that day didn’t come until after they had double-dated with Buck and Chloe. It wasn’t long before they were desperately in love. Having been married just a few months before in a double ceremony with Buck and Chloe had been one of the small islands of happiness in Rayford’s life during the worst period of human history.
Rayford was eager to get back to the States to see Amanda. He also looked forward to some time with Hattie on the plane. He knew the work of drawing her to Christ was that of the Spirit and not his responsibility, but still he felt he should maximize every legitimate opportunity to persuade her. His problem that Saturday morning was that every fiber of his being fought against his role as pilot for Nicolae Carpathia. Everything he had read, studied, and learned under Bruce Barnes’s tutelage had convinced him and the other members of the Tribulation Force, as well as the congregation at New Hope, that Carpathia himself was the Antichrist. There were advantages to believers to have Rayford in the position he found himself, and Carpathia knew well where Rayford stood. What Nicolae did not know, of course, was that one of his other trusted employees, Cameron Williams, was now Rayford’s son-in-law and had been a believer nearly as long as Rayford.
How long could it last? Rayford wondered. Was he endangering Buck’s and Chloe’s lives? Amanda’s? His own? He knew the day would come when what Bruce referred to as “tribulation saints” would become the mortal enemies of the Antichrist. Rayford would have to choose his timing carefully. Someday, according to Bruce’s teaching, to merely have the right to buy and sell, citizens of the Global Community would have to take the “mark of the beast.” No one knew yet exactly what form this would take, but the Bible indicated it would be a mark on the forehead or on the hand. There would be no faking. The mark would somehow be specifically detectable. Those who took the mark could never repent of it. They would be lost forever. Those who did not take the mark would have to live in hiding, their lives worth nothing to the Global Community.
For now, Carpathia seemed merely amused by and impressed with Rayford. Perhaps he thought he had some connection, some insight to the opposition by keeping Rayford around. But what would happen when Carpathia discovered that Buck was not loyal and that Rayford had known all along? Worse, how long could Rayford justify in his own mind that the benefits of being able to eavesdrop and spy on Carpathia outweighed his own culpability in abetting the work of the evil one?
Rayford glanced at his watch and speed-read the rest of the paper. Hattie and her driver would be there in a few moments. Rayford felt as if he had undergone sensory overload. Any one of the traumas he had witnessed since the day the war broke out might have institutionalized a normal man during normal times. Now, it seemed, Rayford had to take everything in stride. The most heinous, horrible atrocities were part of daily life. World War III had erupted, Rayford had discovered one of his dearest friends dead, and he had heard Nicolae Carpathia give the word to destroy major cities and then announce his grief and disappointment on international television.
Rayford shook his head. He had done his job, flown his new plane, landed it thrice with Carpathia aboard, had gone to dinner with an old friend, gone to bed, had several phone conversations, rose, read his paper, and was now ready to blithely fly home to his family. What kind of a crazy world had this become? How could vestiges of normality remain in a world going to hell?
The newspaper carried the stories out of Israel, how the rabbi who had so shocked his own nation and culture and religion and people—not to mention the rest of the world—with his conclusions about the messiahship of Jesus, had suddenly gone mad. Rayford knew the truth, of course, and looked forward with great anticipation to meeting this brave saint.
Rayford knew Buck had somehow spirited him out of the country, but he didn’t know how. He would be eager to get the details. Was this what they all had to look forward to? The martyrdom of their families? Their own deaths? He knew it was. He tried to push it from his mind. The juxtaposition between the easy, daily, routine life of a jumbo-jet pilot—the Rayford Steele he was a scant two years ago—and the international political pinball he felt like today was almost more than his mind could assimilate.
The phone rang. His ride was here.
Buck was astonished at what he found at the church. Bruce had done such a good job camouflaging the shelter that Buck had almost not been able to find it again.
Alone in the cavernous place, Buck headed downstairs. He walked through the fellowship hall, down a narrow corridor, past the washrooms, and past the furnace room. He was now at the end of a hallway with no light—it would have been dark there at noon. Where was that entrance? He felt around the wall. Nothing. He moved back into the furnace room and flipped on the switch. A flashlight rested atop the furnace. He used it to find the hand-sized indentation in one of the concrete blocks on the wall. Setting himself and feeling the nagging sting in his right heel from his recent wound, he pushed with all his might, and a section of block wall slid open slightly. He stepped in and pulled it closed behind him. The flashlight illuminated a sign directly in front of him and six stair steps down: “Danger! High Voltage. Authorized Personnel Only.”
Buck smiled. That would have scared him off if he hadn’t known better. He moved down the steps and took a left. Four more steps down was a huge steel door. The sign at the landing of the stairs was duplicated on the door. Bruce had shown him, the day of the weddings, how to open that seemingly locked door.
Buck gripped the knob and turned it first right and then left. He pushed the handle in about a quarter of an inch, then back out half an inch. It seemed to free itself, but still it didn’t turn right or left. He pushed in as he turned it slightly right and then left, following a secret pattern devised by Bruce. The door swung open, and Buck faced what appeared to be a man-sized circuit-breaker box. Not even a church the size of New Hope would carry that many circuit breakers, Buck knew. And as real as all those switches were, they led to no circuits. The chassis of that box was merely another door. It opened easily and led to the hidden shelter. Bruce had done an amazing amount of work since Buck had seen it just a few months before.
Buck wondered when Bruce had had the time to get in there after hours and do all that work. No one else knew about it, not even Loretta, so it was a good thing Bruce was handy. It was vented, air-conditioned, well-lit, paneled, ceilinged, floored, and contained all the necessities. Bruce had sectioned the twenty-four-by-twenty-four-foot area into three rooms. There was a full bath and shower, a bedroom with four double bunk beds, and a larger room with a kitchenette on one end and a combination living room/study on the other. Buck was struck by the lack of claustrophobia, but he knew that with more than two people in there—and being aware of how far underground you were—it could soon become close.
Bruce had spared no expense. Everything was new. There was a freezer, a refrigerator, a microwave, a range and oven, and it seemed every spare inch possible had been converted into storage space. Now, Buck wondered, what did Bruce do about connections?
Buck crawled along the carpet and looked behind a sleeper sofa. There was a bank of wireless routers that had to lead somewhere. He traced the wiring up the wall and tried to spot where it would come out in the hallway. He turned off the lights, closed the circuit-breaker door, closed the metal door, jogged up the steps, and slid the brick door shut. In a dark corner of the hallway he shined the flashlight and saw the section of conduit that led from the floor up through the ceiling. He moved back into the fellowship hall and looked out the window. From the lights in the parking lot, he could make out that the conduit went outside at the ceiling level and snaked its way up toward the steeple.
Bruce had told Buck that the reconditioned steeple had been the one vestige of the old church, the original building that had been torn down thirty years before. In the old days it actually had bells that beckoned people to church. The bells were still there, but the ropes that had once extended through a trapdoor to a spot where one of the ushers could ring them from the foyer had been cut. The steeple was now just decorative. Or was it?
Buck lugged a stepladder from a utility room up into the foyer and pushed open the trapdoor. He hoisted himself above the ceiling and found a wrought-iron ladder that led into the belfry. He climbed up near the old bells, which were covered with cobwebs and dust and soot. When he reached the section open to the air, his last step made his hair brush a web, and he felt a spider skitter through his hair. He nearly lost his balance swatting it away and trying to hang on to the flashlight and to the ladder. It was just yesterday that he had been chased across the desert, rammed, shot at, and virtually chased through flames to his freedom. He snorted. He would almost rather go through all that again than have a spider run through his hair.
Buck peeked down from the opening and looked for the conduit. It ran all the way up to the tapered part of the steeple. He reached the top of the ladder and stepped out through the opening. He was around the side of the steeple not illuminated from the ground. The old wood didn’t feel solid. His sore foot began to twitch. Wouldn’t this be great? he thought. Slip off the steeple of your own church and kill yourself in the middle of the night.
Carefully surveying the area to be sure no cars were around, Buck briefly shined the flashlight at the top of where the conduit ran up the steeple. There was what appeared to be a miniature satellite dish, about two-and-a-half inches in diameter. Buck couldn’t read the tiny sticker applied to the front of it, so he stood on tiptoe and peeled it off. He stuck it in his pocket and waited until he was safely back inside the steeple, down the ladder, and through the trapdoor to the stepladder before pulling it out. It read “Donny Moore Technologies: Your Computer Doctor.”
Buck put the stepladder away and began shutting off the lights. He grabbed a concordance off the shelf in Bruce’s office and looked up the word housetop. Bruce’s installing that crazy mini-satellite dish made him think of a verse he once heard or read about shouting the good news from the housetop. Matthew 10:27-28 said, “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Wasn’t it just like Bruce to take the Bible literally? Buck headed back to Loretta’s house, where he would read Bruce’s material until about six. Then he wanted to sleep until noon and be up when Amanda brought Rayford home from Mitchell Field in Milwaukee.
Would he ever cease to be amazed? As he drove the few blocks, he was struck by the difference between the two vehicles he had driven within the last twenty-four hours. This, a six-figure Range Rover with everything but a kitchen sink, and that probably still-smoldering bus he had “bought” from a man who might soon be a martyr.
More amazing, however, was that Bruce had planned so well and prepared so much before his departure. With a little technology, the Tribulation Force and its newest member, Tsion Ben-Judah, would soon be proclaiming the gospel from a hidden location and sending it via satellite and the Internet to just about anybody in the world who wanted to hear it, and to many who didn’t.
It was two-thirty in the morning, Chicago time, when Buck returned from the church and sat before Bruce’s papers on the dining room table at Loretta’s home. They read like a novel. He drank in Bruce’s Bible studies and commentary, finding his sermon notes for that very Sunday. Buck couldn’t speak publicly in that church. He was vulnerable and exposed enough already, but he could sure help Rayford put together some remarks.
Despite his years of flying, Rayford had never found a cure for jet lag, especially going east to west. His body told him it was the middle of the evening, and after a day of flying, he was ready for bed. But as the DC-10 taxied toward the gate in Milwaukee, it was noon Central Standard Time. Across the aisle from him, the beautiful and stylish Hattie Durham slept. Her long blonde hair was in a bun, and she had made a mess of her mascara trying to wipe away her tears.
She had wept off and on almost the entire flight. Through two meals, a movie, and a snack, she had unburdened herself to Rayford. She did not want to stay with Nicolae Carpathia. She had lost her love for the man. She didn’t understand him. While she wasn’t ready to say he was the Antichrist, she certainly was not as impressed with him behind closed doors as most of his public was with him.
Rayford had carefully avoided declaring his starkest beliefs about Carpathia. Clearly Rayford was no fan and hardly loyal, but he didn’t consider it the better part of wisdom to state categorically that he agreed with most Christian believers that Carpathia fit the bill of the Antichrist. Of course, Rayford had no doubt about it. But he had seen broken romances heal before, and the last thing he wanted was to give Hattie ammunition that could be used against him with Carpathia. Soon enough it wouldn’t matter who might bad-mouth him to Nicolae. They would be mortal enemies anyway.
Most troubling to Rayford was Hattie’s turmoil over her pregnancy. He wished she would refer to what she was carrying as a child. But it was a pregnancy to her, an unwanted pregnancy. It may not have been at the beginning, but now, given her state of mind, she did not want to give birth to Nicolae Carpathia’s child. She didn’t refer to it as a child or even a baby.
Rayford had the difficult task of trying to plead his case without being too obvious. He had asked her, “Hattie, what do you think your options are?”
“I know there are only three, Rayford. Every woman has to consider these three options when she’s pregnant.”
Not every woman, Rayford thought.
Hattie had continued: “I can carry it to term and keep it, which I don’t want to do. I can put it up for adoption, but I’m not sure I want to endure the entire pregnancy and birth process. And, of course, I can terminate the pregnancy.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“What do you mean ‘what does that mean?’” Hattie had said. “Terminate the pregnancy means terminate the pregnancy.”
“You mean have an abortion?”
Hattie had stared at him like he was an imbecile. “Yes! What did you think I meant?”
“Well, it just seems you’re using language that makes it sound like the easiest option.”
“It is the easiest option, Rayford. Think about it. Obviously, the worst scenario would be to let a pregnancy run its entire course, go through all that discomfort, then go through the pain of labor. And then what if I got all those maternal instincts everybody talks about? Besides nine months of living in the pits, I’d go through all that stuff delivering somebody else’s child. Then I’d have to give it up, which would just make everything worse.”
“You just called it a child there,” Rayford had said.
“Hmm?”
“You had been referring to this as your pregnancy. But once you deliver it, then it’s a child?”
“Well, it will be someone’s child. I hope not mine.”
Rayford had let the matter drop while a meal was served. He had prayed silently that he would be able to communicate to her some truth. Subtlety was not his forte. She was not a dumb woman. Maybe the best tack was to be direct.
Later in the flight, Hattie herself had brought up the issue again. “Why do you want to make me feel guilty for considering an abortion?”
“Hattie,” he had said, “I can’t make you feel guilty. You have to make your own decisions. What I think about it means very little, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I care what you think. I respect you as someone who’s been around. I hope you don’t think that I think abortion is an easy decision, even though it’s the best and simplest solution.”
“Best and simplest for whom?”
“For me, I know. Sometimes you have to look out for yourself. When I left my job and ran off to New York to be with Nicolae, I thought I was finally doing something for Hattie. Now I don’t like what I did for Hattie, so I need to do something else for Hattie. Understand?”
Rayford had nodded. He understood all too well. He had to remind himself that she was not a believer. She would not be thinking about the good of anyone but herself. Why should she? “Hattie, just humor me for a moment and assume that that pregnancy, that ‘it’ you’re carrying, is already a child. It’s your child. Perhaps you don’t like its father. Perhaps you’d hate to see what kind of a person its father might produce. But that baby is your blood relative too. You already have maternal feelings, or you wouldn’t be in such turmoil about this. My question is, who’s looking out for that child’s best interest? Let’s say a wrong has been done. Let’s say it was immoral for you to live with Nicolae Carpathia outside of marriage. Let’s say this pregnancy, this child, was produced from an immoral union. Let’s go farther. Let’s say that those people are right who consider Nicolae Carpathia the Antichrist. I’ll even buy the argument that perhaps you regret the idea of having a child at all and would not be the best mother for it. I don’t think you can shirk responsibility for it the way a rape or incest victim might be justified in doing.
“But even in those cases, the solution isn’t to kill the innocent party, is it? Something is wrong, really wrong, and so people defend their right to choose. What they choose, of course, is not just the end of a pregnancy, not just an abortion, it’s the death of a person. But which person? One of the people who made a mistake? One of the people who committed a rape or incest? Or one of the people who got pregnant out of wedlock? No, the solution is always to kill the most innocent party of all.”
Rayford had gone too far, and he had known it. He had glanced up at Hattie holding her hands over her ears, tears streaming down her face. He had touched her arm, and she had wrenched away. He had leaned further and grabbed her elbow. “Hattie, please don’t pull away from me. Please don’t think I said any of that to hurt you personally. Just chalk it up to somebody standing up for the rights of someone who can’t defend him- or herself. If you won’t stand up for your own child, somebody has to.”
With that, she had wrenched fully away from him and had buried her face in her hands and wept. Rayford had been angry with himself. Why couldn’t he learn? How could he sit there spouting all that? He believed it, and he was convinced it was God’s view. It made sense to him. But he also knew she could reject it out of hand simply because he was a man. How could he understand? No one was suggesting what he could or could not do with his own body. He had wanted to tell her he understood that, but again, what if that unborn child was a female? Who was standing up for the rights of that woman’s body?
Hattie had not spoken to him for hours. He knew he deserved that. But, he wondered, how much time is there to be diplomatic? He had no idea what her plans were. He could only plead with her when he had the chance. “Hattie,” he had said. She hadn’t looked at him. “Hattie, please let me just express one more thing to you.”
She had turned slightly, not looking fully at him, but he had the impression she would at least listen.
“I want you to forgive me for anything I said that hurt you personally or insulted you. I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I would not do that intentionally. More important, I want you to know that I am one of a few friends you have in the Chicago area who loves you and wants only the best for you. I wish you’d think about stopping in and seeing us in Mt. Prospect on your way back. Even if I’m not there, even if I have to go on back to New Babylon before you, stop in and see Chloe and Buck. Talk to Amanda. Would you do that?”
Now she had looked at him. She had pressed her lips together and shook her head apologetically. “Probably not. I appreciate your sentiments, and I accept your apology. But no, probably not.”
And that’s the way it had been left. Rayford was angry with himself. His motives were pure, and he believed his logic was right. But maybe he had counted too much on his own personality and style and not enough on God himself to work in Hattie’s heart. All he could do now was pray for her.
When the plane finally stopped at the gate, Rayford helped Hattie pull her bag from the overhead rack. She thanked him. He didn’t trust himself to say anything more. He had apologized enough. Hattie wiped her face one more time and said, “Rayford, I know you mean well. But you drive me nuts sometimes. I should be glad nothing ever really developed between us.”
“Thanks a lot,” Rayford said, feigning insult.
“I’m serious,” she said. “You know what I mean. We’re just too far apart in age or something, I guess.”
“I guess,” Rayford said. So, that was how she summarized it. Fine. That wasn’t the issue at all, of course. He may not have handled it the best way, but he knew trying to fix it now would accomplish nothing.
As they emerged from the gateway, he saw Amanda’s welcome smile. He rushed to her, and she held him tight. She kissed him passionately but pulled away quickly. “I didn’t mean to ignore you, Hattie, but frankly I was more eager to see Rayford.”
“I understand,” Hattie said flatly, shaking hands and looking away.
“Can we drop you somewhere?” Amanda said.
Hattie chuckled. “Well, my bags are checked through to Denver. Can you drop me there?”
“Oh, I knew that!” Amanda said. “Can we walk you to your gate?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I know this airport. I’ve got a little layover here, and I’m just gonna try to relax.”
Rayford and Amanda said their good-byes to Hattie, and she was cordial enough, but as they walked away, she caught Rayford’s eye. She pursed her lips and shook her head. He felt miserable.
Rayford and Amanda walked hand-in-hand, then arm-in-arm, then arms around each other’s waist, all the way to the escalators that led down to baggage claim. Amanda hesitated and pulled Rayford back from the moving stairway. Something on a TV monitor had caught her eye. “Ray,” she said, “come look at this.”
They stood watching as a CNN/GNN report summarized the extent of the damage from the war around the world. Already, Carpathia was putting his spin on it. The announcer said, “World health care experts predict the death toll will rise to more than 20 percent internationally. Global Community Potentate Nicolae Carpathia has announced formation of an international health care organization that will take precedence over all local and regional efforts. He and his ten global ambassadors released a statement from their private, high-level meetings in New Babylon outlining a proposal for strict measures regulating the health and welfare of the entire global community. We have a reaction now from renowned cardiovascular surgeon Samuel Kline of Norway.”
Rayford whispered, “This guy is in Carpathia’s back pocket. I’ve seen him around. He says whatever Saint Nick wants him to say.”
The doctor was saying, “The International Red Cross and the World Health Organization, as wonderful and effective as they have been in the past, are not equipped to handle devastation, disease, and death on this scale. Potentate Carpathia’s visionary plan is not only our only hope for survival in the midst of coming famine and plagues, but also it seems to me—at first glance—a blueprint for the most aggressive international health care agenda ever. Should the death toll reach as high as 25 percent due to contaminated water and air, food shortages, and the like, as some have predicted, new directives that govern life from the womb to the tomb can bring this planet from the brink of death to a utopian state as regards physical health.”
Rayford and Amanda turned toward the escalator, Rayford shaking his head. “In other words, Carpathia clears away the bodies he has blown to bits or starved or allowed to become diseased by plagues because of his war, and the rest of us lucky subjects will be healthier and more prosperous than ever.”
Amanda looked at him. “Spoken like a true, loyal, employee,” she said. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. They stumbled and nearly tumbled when the escalator reached the bottom.
Buck embraced his new father-in-law and old friend like the brother he was. He considered it a tremendous honor to introduce Tsion Ben-Judah to Rayford and to watch them get acquainted. The Tribulation Force was together once more, bringing each other up-to-date and trying to plan for a future that had never seemed less certain.