CHAPTER 14

Buck, thrilled but also grieving and exhausted, caught another cab to within two blocks of Chaim Rosenzweig’s. Still wearing his headgear, he walked close enough to see that the GC were long gone. The gateman, Jonas, dozed at his post.

Knowing neither Jonas nor Chaim professed faith yet, Buck hesitated. He knew Chaim was at least learning the truth about Carpathia and would not turn Buck in. Jonas was a gamble. Buck didn’t know if the man spoke or understood English, having heard him speak only Hebrew. The man had to know some English, didn’t he? Serving as the first contact with visitors?

Emboldened by the exhilarating challenges of Eli and Moishe, Buck took a deep breath, gently touched an itching stitched wound below his eye, and walked directly to the gatehouse. He didn’t want to startle the man, but he had to wake him. He tossed a pebble at the window. Jonas did not stir. Buck knocked lightly, then more loudly. Still he did not rouse. Finally Buck opened the door and gently touched Jonas’s arm.

A burly man in his late fifties, Jonas leaped to his feet, eyes wild. Buck whipped off his disguise, then realized his face had to look horrible. Red, blotched, swollen, stitched, he looked like a monster.

Jonas must have taken the removal of the headdress as a challenge. Unarmed, he grabbed a huge flashlight from his belt and reared back with it. Buck spun away, wincing at the very thought of a blow to his tender face. “It’s me, Jonas! Cameron Williams!”

Jonas put his free hand to his heart, forgetting to lower the flashlight. “Oh, Mr. Williams!” he said, his English so broken and labored that Buck hardly recognized his own name. Finally Jonas put the light away and used both hands to help communicate, gesturing with every phrase. “They,” he said ominously, pointing outside and waving as if to indicate a sea of people, “been looked for you.” He pointed to his own eyes.

“Me personally? Or all of us?”

Jonas looked lost. “Personal?” he said.

“Just for me?” Buck tried, realizing he was copying Jonas and pointing to himself. “Or for Tsion and my wife?”

Jonas closed his eyes, shook his head, and held up one hand, palm out. “Not here,” he said. “Tsion, wife, gone. Flying.” He fluttered his fingers in the air.

“Chaim?” Buck said.

“Sleeps.” Jonas demonstrated with a hand to his cheek and his eyes shut.

“May I go in and sleep, Jonas?”

The man squinted at this puzzle. “I call.” He reached for the phone.

“No! Let Chaim sleep! Tell him later.”

“Later?”

“Morning,” Buck said. “When he wakes up.” Jonas nodded, but still had his hand on the phone as if he might dial. “I’ll go in and sleep,” Buck added, acting it out like charades. “I’ll leave a note on Chaim’s door so he won’t be surprised. OK?”

“OK!”

“I’ll go in now?”

“OK!”

“All right?”

“All right!”

Buck watched Jonas while backing away and heading for the door. Jonas watched him too, let go of the phone, waved, and smiled. Buck waved, then turned and found the door locked. He had to go back and explain to Jonas that he would have to let Buck in. Finally, for the first time since the chopper had left the roof hours before, Buck could relax. He left a note on Chaim’s door with no details—just that he was in the guest room with much to tell him and that he would likely see him late morning.

Buck looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. It was worse than he thought, and he prayed the so-called clinic he had visited at least had a modicum of sterility. The stitching looked professional enough, but he was a mess. The whites of his eyes were full of blood. His face was a patchwork of colors, none close to his complexion. He was glad Chloe didn’t have to see him like this.

He locked the bedroom door, let his clothes fall by the bed, and stretched out painfully. And heard the soft chirp of his phone. It had to be Chloe, but he didn’t want to stand up again. He rolled over, reached for his pants, and as he struggled to free the phone from the back pocket, his weight shifted, and he tumbled out of bed.

He wasn’t hurt, but the racket woke Chaim. As Buck answered his phone, he heard Chaim crying over the intercom: “Jonas! Jonas! Intruders!”

By the time it was sorted out, he and Chloe were up-to-date, Chaim had heard the whole story, and the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. It was agreed that Chloe and Tsion and Rayford would go on home to Mount Prospect and that Chaim would work on finding a way for Buck to get back when he had recuperated.

Chaim was even angrier than Buck had seen him on the phone to Leon. He said the TV news had been running and rerunning the videotape of Buck talking with the GC guard who was killed a few seconds later. “The tape makes it obvious you were unarmed, that he was fine when you left him, and that you neither turned around nor returned. He fired over your head, and moments later he was spun around by bullets from high-powered rifles at close range. We all know they had to have come from the weapons of his own compatriots. But it will never get that far. It will be covered up, he will be accused of working with you or for you, and who knows what else will come of it?”

The “what else” turned out to be a news story concocted by the GC. Television reports said that an American terrorist named Kenneth Ritz had hijacked Nicolae Carpathia’s own helicopter to stage an escape by the Tsion Ben-Judah party from house arrest at Chaim Rosenzweig’s. The reports claimed Rosenzweig had hosted Ben-Judah, murder suspect Cameron Williams, and Williams’s wife and had agreed to lock them under house arrest for the GC. Scenes of Dr. Rosenzweig’s roof access door, “clearly broken from the inside show conclusively how the Americans escaped.”

A Global Community spokesman said Ritz was shot and killed by a sniper when he opened fire on GC forces at Jerusalem Airport. The other three fugitives were at large internationally, and it was assumed that Williams, a former employee of the Global Community, was an accomplished jet pilot.

The stateside members of the Tribulation Force followed the news carefully, keeping in touch with Chaim and Buck as often as possible. Rayford was amazed at the improvement in Hattie after such a short time. Her illness and despair and stubbornness had synthesized into a fierce hatred and determination. She grieved the loss of her child so deeply that Rayford was haunted by her stifled wails in the night.

Chloe, too, battled anger. “I know we should expect nothing less from the world system, Daddy,” she said, “but I feel so helpless I could explode. If we don’t find a way to get Buck back here soon, I’m going over there myself. Have you ever wished you could be the one God uses to kill Carpathia when the time comes?”

“Chloe!” Rayford said, hoping his response sounded like scolding rather than a cover for the fact that he had prayed for that very privilege. What was happening to them? What were they becoming?

Word came from Buck that Jacov had helped him get set up undercover with Stefan. Rayford felt better about that than his staying with Chaim. It was clear Global Community security forces believed Buck had escaped with the others, but living under an alias in a lower middle-class neighborhood made him less vulnerable and gave him a chance to heal. He told Rayford by phone that within a few weeks he would attempt to return to the States commercially, probably from a major European airport. “Since they’re not looking for me over here, I should be able to slip out under a phony name.”

Meanwhile, Rayford had stayed in touch with Mac McCullum and David Hassid and used David’s leads to replace everyone’s computers and add to their bag of tricks cell phones that could both access the Internet and were solar-powered and satellite-connected globally.

Tsion often expressed to Rayford his satisfaction with his new computer—a light, thin, portable laptop with every handy accessory he could even dream of needing. It was the latest, fastest, most powerful model on the market. Tsion spent most of every day communicating with his international flock, which had exploded even before the meetings in Israel and now multiplied exponentially every day.

With Hattie improving physically if not mentally, Dr. Floyd Charles had time to take Ken’s place as the Tribulation Force’s technical adviser. He installed scrambling software that kept their phones and computers untraceable.

The toughest chore for Rayford was dealing with his emotions over Ken. He knew they all missed him, and Tsion’s message at a brief memorial service left them all in tears. Chloe spent two days on the Internet searching for surviving relatives and turned up nothing. Rayford informed Ernie at Palwaukee, who promised to pass the word to the staff there and secure Ken’s belongings until Rayford could get there to assess them. He said nothing to Ernie about Ken’s gold stash, knowing that the two, while fellow believers, had not known each other long.

Buck bought a computer so he could log onto the Net and study under Tsion without having to strain to see the tiny screen of his phone. But he was unable to find untraceable software that would allow him to communicate with Chloe except by phone. He missed her terribly but was pleased to hear she and the unborn baby were healthy, though she admitted Doc had expressed some concern over her fragility.

She kept busy building a business model based on Ken Ritz’s notes. Within a month, she told Buck, she hoped to run the business by computer, networking believers around the globe. “Some will plant and reap,” she said. “Others will market and sell. It’s our only hope once the mark of the beast is required for legal trade.” She told him her first order of business was enlisting growers, producers, and suppliers. Once that was in place, she would expand the market.

“But what about when you have a baby to take care of?” he said.

“I hope my husband will be home by then,” she said. “He has nothing to manage but a little alternative Internet magazine, so I’ll teach him.”

“Teach him what? Your business or child care?”

“Both,” she said.

Late one Friday she mentioned to Buck on the phone that Rayford was planning to visit Palwaukee Airport the next day. “He’s going to look at Ken’s planes and try to get to know this Ernie kid better. He might be a good mechanic, but Ken hardly knew him.”

That night Buck logged on to find Tsion’s teaching for the day. The rabbi seemed down, but Buck realized that people who didn’t know him personally probably wouldn’t notice. He wrote about the heartbreak of losing friends and family and loved ones. He didn’t mention Ken by name, but Buck read between the lines.

Tsion concluded his teaching for the day by reminding his readers that they had recently passed the twenty-four-month mark since the signing of the peace pact between the Global Community (known two years before as the United Nations) and the State of Israel. “I remind you, my dear brothers and sisters, that we are but a year and a half from what the Scriptures call the Great Tribulation. It has been hard, worse than hard, so far. We have survived the worst two years in the history of our planet, and this next year and a half will be worse. But the last three and a half years of this period will make the rest seem like a garden party.”

Buck smiled at Tsion’s insistence at always ending with a word of encouragement, regardless of the hard truth he had to convey. He closed by quoting Luke 21: “‘There will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.’”

The next morning at seven in Israel, Buck was watching a television news report of Nicolae Carpathia’s response to Eli and Moishe, who were still wreaking havoc in Jerusalem. The reporter quoted Supreme Commander Leon Fortunato, speaking for the potentate, “His Excellency has decreed the preachers enemies of the world system and has authorized Peter the Second, supreme pontiff of Enigma Babylon One World Faith, to dispose of the criminals as he sees fit. The potentate does not believe, and I agree, that he should involve himself personally in matters that should be under the purview of the Global Community’s religious division. His Excellency told me just last night, and I quote, ‘Unless, that is, we discover that our Pontifex Maximus is impotent when it comes to dealing with those who use trickery and mass hypnosis to paralyze an entire country.’”

Of course, it being a “balanced” broadcast, Buck was not surprised to see a furious Peter Mathews spitting a reply. “Oh, the problem is mine now, is it? Has His Excellency finally ceded authority to where it belongs? Of course, not until it was proven his military had no power over these impostors. When the two lie dead, the rains will fall again in Israel, clear, pure, refreshing water will cascade once more, and the world will know where the true seat of power resides.”

A week before, Buck had gotten Chaim to visit the preachers at the Wall, and the old man admitted coming away shaken by the experience and more disillusioned with Carpathia. “But still, Cameron, as long as Nicolae upholds his end of the bargain and honors the pact with Israel, I will trust him. I have no choice. I want to and I need to.”

Buck had pressed him. “If he should betray Israel, what would you think of all you have heard and learned from Tsion and what you know from what my father-in-law heard behind the scenes? Might you defect and join us?”

Rosenzweig would not commit. “I am an old man,” he said, “set in my ways. I regret I am a hard sell. You and your fellow believers are most impressive, and I hope against hope you are not proven right in the end, for I will be most miserable. But I have cast my lot with the world I can touch and feel and see. I am not ready to throw over intellectualism for blind faith.”

“That is what you think Tsion has done?”

“Please don’t tell him I said that. Tsion Ben-Judah is a brilliant scholar who does not fit the image I have of believers. But then neither do any of you in his immediate circle. That should tell me something, I suppose.”

“God is trying to get your attention, Dr. Rosenzweig. I hope it doesn’t take something drastic.”

Rosenzweig had waved him off. “Thank you for caring.”

Now Buck sat shaking his head at the TV report, knowing it was eleven at night in Illinois and that his family and friends would not have seen this yet. He wished he could leave them a message on e-mail that would tell them to be sure to watch. But he couldn’t transmit from this location without leaving Stefan and himself exposed to the GC.

He thought about calling or texting a message, but Chloe had begun sleeping so lightly that she always answered, even text beeps in the middle of the night. She needed her sleep.

With his housemate off at work, Buck stepped out into the morning sunshine. He felt such a longing to be back at the safe house that he nearly wept. He squinted at the brilliance of a cloudless sky and enjoyed the pleasant warmth of a windless day. And suddenly it seemed someone pulled a shade down on the heavens.

With the sun still riding high in the clear sky, the morning turned to twilight and the temperature plummeted. Buck knew exactly what it was, of course: the prophecy of Revelation 8:12. The fourth angel had sounded, “and a third of the sun was struck.” The same would befall a third of the moon and the stars. Whereas the sun shone for around twelve hours every day in most parts of the world, it would now shine no more than eight, and at only two-thirds its usual brilliance.

Even knowing it was coming did not prepare Buck for the awe he felt at God’s power. A lump formed in his throat, and his chest grew tight. He hurried into the empty house and fell to his knees. “God,” he prayed, “you have proven yourself over and over to me, and yet I find my faith strengthened all the more every time you act anew. Everything you promise, you deliver. Everything you predict comes to pass. I pray this phenomenon, publicized all over the world by Tsion and the 144,000 witnesses, will reach millions more for you. How can anyone doubt your power and your greatness? You are fearsome but also loving and gracious and kind. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for Chloe and our baby, and for her dad and Tsion and Doc. Thank you for the privilege of having known Ken. Protect our people wherever they are, and give me the chance to meet Mac and David. Show us what to do. Guide us in how to serve you best. I give myself to you again, willing to go anywhere and do anything you ask. I praise you for Jacov and Hannelore and Stefan and these new brothers and sisters who have taken me in. I want Chaim for you, Lord. Thank you for being such a good and great God.”

Buck was overcome, realizing that the darkening would affect everything in the world. Not just brightness and temperatures, but transportation, agriculture, communications, travel—everything that had anything to do with him and his loved ones reuniting.

He wanted to warn the Tribulation Force, but he waited until seven o’clock in the morning Chicago time. They liked to rise with the sun, but it wasn’t going to rise for them. Buck wondered what darkened stars looked like. It wouldn’t be long.

He dialed Chloe and woke her up.

Rayford had awakened early and looked at his watch. It was quarter to seven and still dark. He lay staring at the ceiling, wondering if they were in for some bad weather or just a cloudy day. At seven he heard Chloe’s phone ring. It would be Buck, and Rayford wanted to talk to him. He would give her a few minutes, then go down and give her the high sign.

Rayford lay back and breathed deeply. He wondered what Palwaukee would produce that day. Did he dare raise with young Ernie the subject of hidden treasure? That would depend on how their conversations went. He assumed it would take a while to develop trust. Ernie was very young.

Chloe sounded agitated. And she was calling for him. He sat up. It was way too early for anything with her baby. Was something wrong with Buck? “Dad! Come down here!” He dragged on a robe.

She met him at the bottom of the stairs, the cell phone to her ear. “Look a little dark for seven?” she said. “Buck says the sun was struck at seven in the morning over there. While we were sleeping. Talk to Daddy, hon. I’m going to start getting people up around here.”

To Buck, Rayford sounded stunned. “Incredible,” he said, over and over. “We’re going to have to determine what this means to all our solar-powered stuff.”

“I thought Doc was already working on that.”

“He was. We just didn’t like his conclusions. For some reason, the sum is not equal to its parts in a deal like this. You can’t just figure you’re going to have a third less power. He put his big calculator to it and said it’s a third less power on top of being a third less time every twenty-four hours. He sketched out a model of what it will mean just to us, and we didn’t like it. Couldn’t argue with it and couldn’t store much power in advance, but we sure hope he’s wrong.”

“He won’t be,” Buck said. “Smart guys never are. Hang on a second, Rayford. I’ve got another call. Oh, it’s Rosenzweig. I’d better call Chloe back.”

“I’ll tell her. Watch your phone power now.”

“Right.” He hit the switch. “Dr. Rosenzweig!”

“Cameron, I need to see you. I need some counsel.”

“You want to meet now?”

“Can you manage it?”

“I suppose you know what’s really happening,” Buck said.

“Of course I do! I was at the last meeting when Tsion spoke of this prophecy.”

“You admit it’s too obvious to be anything else.”

“What thinking man would not know that?”

Thank you, God! Buck thought.

“The problem, and what I need to talk to you about, is what do I say? The media is all over this and wants a comment for tomorrow’s broadcasts. I told a half dozen that I am a botanist, and the best I can tell them is what it will mean to photosynthesis.”

“What will it mean, by the way?”

“Well, it will bollix it all up, if you want my technical response. But the newspeople are reminding me that I have always spoken out on scientific subjects, even outside my area of expertise. You will recall Nicolae had me speculating on the causes of the disappearances. I almost convinced myself with that spontaneous atomic reaction blather.”

“You almost convinced me too, Doctor, and I was an international news correspondent.”

“Well, I just heard from Fortunato, and he wants me to corroborate the Global Community view of this phenomenon.”

“How can I help?”

“We need to strategize. I am considering bursting their bubble. I might imply that I will endorse their view—wait till you see it—and when I get on the air, I will say what I want. I owe at least that to Leon.”

“You’re worried what Carpathia will think.”

“Of course.”

“It will be a test of your relationship.”

“Exactly. I’ll find out how free a citizen I am. I have given Leon nothing short of grief for making it appear I had worked with him on detaining the three of you. I could have exposed the whole strong-arm regime, but Nicolae apologized personally and asked that I not embarrass him.”

“He did? You never told me that.”

“It didn’t seem appropriate. You have no idea how close I came to telling him that I would trade a friend’s free passage out of the country for my agreeing to let that news report slide. I just couldn’t muster the courage to ask.”

“Probably wise,” Buck said. “I can’t see him making that kind of trade. Finding out I’ve been here right under their noses would have infuriated him.”

“I did have the audacity to ask if he had considered that his tactics against Ben-Judah and his people might be the reason for all the plagues and judgments. He chided me for buying into all that fiction. Now I must meet with you, Cameron.”

“Can we meet somewhere private?”

Rosenzweig suggested a dank, underground eatery appropriately called The Cellar. Buck asked for a table in the corner under a dim light where they could look at Chaim’s document without being disturbed. Rosenzweig produced a printout of the official Global Community assessment of what had struck that morning. It was all Buck could do to keep from howling.

The document contained all kinds of legalese, insisting on its confidentiality, its for-your-eyes-only nature, its personal direction to Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig only, and all this under penalty of prosecution by the supreme commander of the Global Community under the authority of His Excellency, blah, blah, blah.

It read: “Dr. Rosenzweig, His Excellency wishes me to convey his deep personal appreciation for your willingness to endorse the official policy statement of the Global Community Aeronautics and Space Administration regarding the natural astronomical phenomenon that occurred 0700 hours New Babylon time today.”

“Of course, I agreed only to review it, but Leon proceeds with his typically presumptuous tone. Anyway, here’s the party line.”

Buck read, “The GCASA is pleased to assure the public that the darkening of the skies that began this morning is the result of an explainable natural phenomenon and should not be cause for alarm. Top scientific researchers have concluded that this is a condition that should rectify itself in forty-eight to ninety-six hours.

“It should not significantly affect temperatures, except in the short run, and the lack of brightness should not be misconstrued as lack of solar power and energy. While there may be some short-term impact on smaller solar-powered equipment such as cell phones, computers, and calculators, there should be no measurable impact on the power reserves held by Global Community Power and Light.

“As for what happened in space to cause this condition, experts point to the explosion of a massive star (a supernova), which resulted in the formation of a magnetar (or supermagnetized star). Such a heavenly body can be up to fifteen miles across but weigh twice as much as the sun. It is formed when the massive star explodes and its core shrinks under gravity. The magnetar spins at a tremendous rate of speed, causing the elements in its core to rise and become intensely magnetic.

“Flashes from such events can emit as much energy as the sun would produce in hundreds of years. Normally these bursts are contained in the upper atmosphere, which absorbs all the radiation. While we have not detected harmful levels of radiation, this flash clearly occurred at an altitude low enough to affect the brightness of the sun. Current readings show a decrease in light between 30 and 35 percent.

“The GCASA will maintain constant watch on the situation and report significant changes. We expect the situation to normalize before the end of next week.”

Rosenzweig shook his head and looked into Buck’s eyes. “A convincing piece of fantasy, no?”

“I’d buy it if I didn’t know better,” Buck said.

“Well, this is not my field, as you know. But even I can see through this. The creation of a magnetar would have no effect on the brightness of the sun, moon, or stars except maybe to make them brighter. It would affect radio waves, maybe knock out satellites. If it happened low enough in our atmosphere, as they imply, to affect earth, it would probably knock the earth off its axis. Whatever this was, it was not the creation of a magnetar from a supernova.”

“What do you mean, ‘Whatever this was’? You know as well as I do what it was.”

“As a matter of fact, I think I do.”

Dr. Rosenzweig tried out on Buck what he planned to say live on the air when asked about the event. “I’ll even carry the document solemnly in my hand, rolled up and dog-eared, as if I have been agonizing over it for hours.”

“I love it,” Buck said. He phoned the States, something that grew increasingly difficult as the hours of darkness continued and would become nearly impossible within days.

Chloe answered. “Yes, dear,” she said. “Your phone call from Chaim lasted this long?”

“No, sorry. Got tied up. I just wanted to tell you to watch for him on the news with his assessment of what happened.”

“What is his assessment?”

“I don’t want to spoil it for you. Just make sure nobody misses it. It’ll make your day.”

“We’re having power problems here already, Buck, and this connection isn’t the best.”

“Save enough to watch Chaim. You’ll be glad you did.”