CHAPTER 5
Buck grew nervous in the van, waiting for Chloe and Tsion. He assumed she would hustle Tsion from the stage; thousands would have given anything for a moment with him, not to mention committee members who might want a word. And no one knew how Carpathia might respond to what had happened on stage. He initially blamed it on Tsion, but then the witnesses had appeared.
Buck thought Nicolae should realize that Tsion had no miraculous powers. Nicolae’s quarrel was with the two witnesses. It was his own fault, of course. He had not been invited, or even welcomed, on stage. And the gall to have Fortunato and the pompous Peter the Second precede him! Buck shook his head. What else could one expect from Antichrist?
Buck dialed Chloe’s number but got no answer. A busy signal he could understand. But no answer? A recorded voice spoke in Hebrew. “Jacov, listen to this. What is she saying?”
Jacov was still beaming, having craned his neck and leaned out the window to see others’ marks. He often pointed to his own and learned that fellow believers always smiled and seemed to enjoy pointing heavenward. The day would come, Buck knew, when the sign of the cross on the forehead would have to say everything between tribulation saints. Even pointing up would draw the attention of enemy forces.
The problem was, the day would also come when the other side would have its own mark, and it would be visible to all. In fact, according to the Bible, those who did not bear this “mark of the beast” would not be able to buy or sell. The great network of saints would then have to develop its own underground market to stay alive.
Jacov put the phone to his ear, then handed it back to Buck. “If you want to leave a message, press one.”
Buck did. “Chloe,” he said, “call me as soon as you get this. The crowd out here hasn’t thinned a bit, so I don’t want to have to come and find you and Tsion. But I will if I don’t hear from you in ten minutes.”
As soon as he ended the call, his phone chirped. “Thank God,” he said and flipped it open. “Yeah, babe.”
Heavy static and mechanical noise. Then he heard, “Jerusalem Tower, this is GC Chopper One!”
“Hello?”
“Roger, tower, do you read?”
“Hello, this isn’t the tower,” Buck said. “Am I getting a cross frequency?”
“Roger, tower, this is a confidential transmission, so I’m using the phone rather than the radio, roger?”
“Mac, is that you?”
“Roger, tower.”
“You in the chopper with the other three?”
“Ten-four. Checking coordinates to return to pad at King David, over.”
“You trying to tell me something?”
“Affirmative. Thank you. No head winds?”
“Is it about Tsion?”
“Partly cloudy?”
“And Chloe?”
“Ten-four.”
“Are they in danger, Mac?”
“Affirmative.”
“Have they been taken?”
“Not at this time, tower. ETA five minutes.”
“They’re on the run?”
“Affirmative.”
“What can I do?”
“We’ll come in from the northwest, tower.”
“Are they outside the stadium?”
“Negative.”
“I’ll find them in the northwest corner?”
“Affirmative, that’s a go. Assistance, tower. Appreciate your assistance.”
“Am I in danger too?”
“Ten-four.”
“I should send someone else?”
“Affirmative and thank you, tower. Heading that way immediately.”
“Mac! I’m going to send someone they may not recognize, and I’m going to be waiting for him to bring them out the northwest exit. Am I all right with that?”
“As soon as we can, tower. Over and out.”
“Jacov, run in and find Tsion and Chloe and get them out of the stadium through the northwest exit.”
Jacov reached for the door handle. “Up or down?” he said. “There is an exit at ground level and one below.”
“Bring them out from below, and stop for no one. Do you have a weapon?”
Jacov reached under the seat and pulled out an Uzi. He stuffed it in his waistband and covered it with his shirt. Buck considered it obvious, but in the darkness and with the press of the crowd, maybe it would go undetected. “Someone must have assigned GC guards to grab Tsion. They don’t have him yet, but it won’t be long. Get them out of there.”
Jacov ran into the stadium, and Buck slid behind the wheel. The crowd was finally, slowly, starting to move. It was as if people didn’t want to leave. Clearly they hoped for a glimpse of Tsion. Buck didn’t understand their conversations, but the occasional English phrase told him most were discussing the humiliation of Carpathia.
As Buck maneuvered the van carefully through the crowd he heard a chopper. He feared it brought more GC guards. He was surprised that the helicopter looked just like the one that had borne Carpathia. He grabbed his phone and hit the last-caller callback button.
“McCullum.”
“Mac! It’s Buck. What are you doing back here?”
“Ten-four, Security. We’ll check out the southeast quadrant.”
“I sent a man to the northwest corner!”
“Affirmative, affirmative! I’ll check southeast, but then I’m taking my cargo to base, over.”
“Might they be southeast now?”
“Negative! I’ll cover southeast!”
“But what can you do if they’re there?”
“Roger, I can create the diversion, Security, but then we’re gone, copy?”
“I’m confused but trusting you, Mac.”
“Just keep your people out of southeast, Security. I’ll handle.”
Buck tossed the phone onto the seat and tilted his outside mirror to watch the chopper. Leon Fortunato announced over the helicopter’s loudspeakers, “We have been asked by Global Community ground security forces at the stadium to help clear this area! Please translate this message to others if at all possible! We appreciate your cooperation!”
The mass of people did not obey. As word spread that Carpathia’s own helicopter hovered over one corner of the stadium trying to clear the area, hundreds started that way, staring into the sky. That cleared a path for Buck, who drove quickly to the northwest corner. As people streamed out, they were drawn to the helicopter and immediately began moving that way to check out the commotion.
Buck pulled near the stadium. He ignored waving armed guards, opened his door, and stepped up on the floorboard to locate the underground exit. He found the dimly lit ramp where trucks had delivered equipment the day before. On tiptoes he saw a shaft of light appear as a door burst open and someone sprinted up the ramp.
Guards moved in for a closer look as Buck realized it was Jacov. What was he running from? Why was he ignored? Was the GC watching for Tsion? As Jacov passed the guards, he appeared to spot the van. Less than fifty feet away, he looked straight at Buck. He pulled the Uzi from under his shirt and sprayed bullets into the sky as he turned left.
The guards gave chase, guns drawn, and hundreds in the area screamed and dived for cover. Buck instinctively lowered his body, now watching over the top of the van. A couple hundred feet away, Jacov turned and fired more bullets into the air. The guards returned fire, and Jacov ran off again.
Buck had not heard the van doors open, but he heard them shut and Chloe and Tsion scream, “Go, Buck! Drive! Go, now!”
He dropped into the seat and slammed the door. “What about Jacov!”
“Go, Buck!” Chloe hollered. “He’s creating a diversion!”
Buck laughed as he floored the accelerator and bounced over a curb. “So is Mac!” he said. “What a team! Where do we pick up Jacov?”
Tsion lay on the floor of the backseat, panting. Chloe lay across the seat itself. “He said he would meet us at Chaim’s,” Tsion managed.
“They were shooting at him!”
“He said he would not draw their fire until he was out of range. He was sure he’d be all right.”
“Nothing is out of their range,” Buck said, putting distance between them and the stadium. Most traffic, emergency and otherwise, headed toward instead of away from Kollek Stadium now. Roadblocks kept many civilian cars at bay as GC vehicles tried to get through. Buck was virtually ignored going the other direction.
“If they’re after you, Tsion, we don’t dare go back to Chaim’s.”
“I cannot think of a safer place,” Tsion said. “Carpathia will not threaten me there. Your wife was brilliant. She figured it out before it happened. She saw the guards coming for me, but she didn’t like their looks.”
“They were pressing their earpieces hard against their ears,” Chloe said, “while releasing the safety locks on their weapons. I figured Carpathia or Fortunato told them to get revenge on Tsion and do it in the middle of a crowd so it would look like an accident. They got so close that I heard one tell the supreme commander where we were.”
“I’m still worried about Jacov,” Buck said.
“He was resourceful,” Chloe said. “He jogged through the tunnel near us, saying, ‘I’m looking for familiar faces to follow me quickly to safety.’ We stepped out from a utility room and—”
“I immediately saw the mark on his forehead,” Tsion said. “Praise the Lord! You must tell us later what happened.”
Chloe continued, “He said you were bringing the van to the underground exit. He peeked out and saw the guards at the top of the ramp, then said he would create a diversion and we should follow twenty seconds later. He backed up and ran, bursting through that door!”
“It worked,” Buck said, “because he even distracted me. I didn’t see you get in the van.”
“Nobody saw us,” Chloe said. “Oh!”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said, hissing.
“What, Chlo’? Are you all right?”
“Just not used to running,” she said.
“Nor am I,” Tsion said. “And I would like to get off this floor as soon as it is safe, too.”
“You cannot keep her here,” Leah told Dr. Charles. “It’s impossible. I’m sorry. We could try to sneak her into a room, and I know it would be better for her, but if you think you’ll ever need this facility or my help again, you’d better get her out of here now.”
“Give me another sedative then,” Floyd said. “I want her out before we go.”
Hattie slept all the way to the safe house, and Dr. Charles put her to bed near the TV, where they were quickly brought up to date on the activity in Jerusalem. “His Excellency the potentate, Nicolae Carpathia, will address the world in twenty minutes,” the announcer said. “As most of you saw on live television in the Eastern Hemisphere and many saw on a Cell/Sol Internet hookup that covered the rest of the globe, an attempt to poison His Excellency was foiled. The potentate is healthy, though shaken, and wishes to assure global citizens he is all right. We expect his remarks may also cover what sort of retribution he might exact from the perpetrators of the attempt on his life.”
The journalist in Buck wished he was still at the stadium. He would have loved to have seen how long Mac kept Carpathia, Fortunato, and the clownish Mathews in the air while giving Tsion a chance to escape. He wished he could see for himself the water and blood on the stage and ask eyewitnesses if anyone saw the two from the Wailing Wall come or go.
He had learned not to baby Chloe; she was as brave and strong as he was. But she was also carrying their child, and she had been through a horrible physical ordeal that had left her wounded. This trauma couldn’t have been good for her.
Buck was relieved to see Israeli rather than GC guards at Chaim’s gates. Admittedly, it was this same force that had been behind the massacre of Tsion’s family and the chasing of him from his homeland. But now he was here as Chaim’s guest, and Chaim was just short of deity in Israel.
As soon as they were inside, a pale, trembling Chaim greeted them with embraces and demanded to know where Jacov was. Buck left the explaining to Tsion, knowing Chaim would need assurances that his protégé had not planned the disgracing of Carpathia. “You assured me you would remain neutral,” Chaim said. “Otherwise I would not have urged him to attend.”
“You knew he was coming and did not tell me?” Tsion said.
“He wanted an element of surprise. Surely you must have expected him.”
“I had hoped he would wait until tomorrow or the next night. You should have prepared me.”
“You appeared more than prepared.”
Tsion sat wearily. “Chaim, the man interrupted the quoting of Scripture. It was as if he had planned his entrance for the worst possible instant. I am going to hold you to your promise to hear me out, and very soon. I am not up to it this evening, but as a brilliant and reasonable man, you will not be able to refute the evidence I have for Jesus as Messiah and Carpathia himself as Antichrist.”
Rosenzweig settled into a large, soft chair and sighed heavily. “Tsion, you are as a son to me. But what you just said could get you killed.”
“How well I know!”
“Of course, and I am still grieved and heartbroken over your losses. But to come to Israel to proclaim the deity of Jesus is as foolhardy as those troublemakers at the Wall playing tricks with our water and our weather. And, Tsion, calling Nicolae the Antichrist when he is visiting the Holy City is the height of arrogance and insensitivity. I have told you before, I would sooner believe Carpathia was the Messiah and one of those two so-called witnesses the Antichrist.”
Tsion sat shaking his head wearily, and Buck took the occasion to beg off for the evening. “If you’ll excuse us . . .”
“Of course,” Chaim said.
“I would like to know when Jacov arrives, no matter when,” Buck said.
“Thank you for your concern,” the older man said. “We will get word to you.”
Rayford kept one eye on the television while trying to reach someone in Israel. Neither Buck’s nor Chloe’s phone was answered, and he couldn’t raise Mac either. Forgetting himself for a moment, he swore under his breath. Hattie roused. “That’s the Rayford Steele I once knew,” she said, her voice airy and weak.
“Ah, I’m sorry, Hattie. That’s not like me. I’m worried about what’s happened over there, and I want to be sure everybody’s all right.”
“It’s nice to know you’re still human,” she whispered. “But you never were and you never will be as human as I am.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m going to kill Nicolae.”
“I’m sorry about your baby, Hattie, but you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Rayford, would you lean closer?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t be afraid of me. I’m not going to be around much longer anyway.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I just don’t have the energy to talk louder, so would you lean closer?”
Rayford felt conspicuous, though it was only the two of them in the room. He pursed his lips, looked around, and turned his ear to her. “Go ahead,” he said.
“Rayford, I was not with that man long enough for him to have affected me this much. I know I was no better or worse than the next girl. You knew that as well as anybody.”
“Well, I—”
“Just let me finish, because Floyd obviously drugged me and I’m about to fall asleep. I’m telling you, Nicolae Carpathia is evil personified.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Oh, I know you people think he’s the Antichrist. Well, I know he is. I don’t think he has an ounce of truth in him. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. You saw him acting like he was a friend of Mathews? He wants him dead. He told me that himself. I told you he poisoned Bruce. He sent people to murder me after I was poisoned, just to make sure. The poison had to have killed my baby. Anyway, I hold him responsible. He made me do things I should never have done. And you know what—while I was doing them, I enjoyed it. I loved his power, his appeal, his ability to persuade. When I was making Amanda look like a plant, I actually believed I was doing the right thing. And that was the least of it.
“I want to die, Rayford. And I don’t want to be forgiven or go to heaven to be with God or any of that stuff. But I will fight this poison, I will work with Floyd, I will do whatever I have to do to stay alive long enough to kill that man. I have to get healthy, and I have to somehow get to where he is. I’ll probably die in the process with all the security he’s got. I don’t care. As long as I get to be the one who does it.”
Rayford put a hand on her shoulder. “Hattie, you need to relax. Doc Charles did give you more anesthetic before we brought you home, so you may not even remember what you’re saying here. Now, please, just—”
Hattie wrenched away from Rayford’s hand, and her frail fingers grabbed his shirt. She fiercely pulled him closer and rasped in his face, spittle landing on his cheek. “I’ll remember every word, Rayford, and don’t think I won’t. I will do this thing if it’s the last thing I do, and I hope it will be.”
“All right, Hattie. All right. I won’t argue with you about it now.”
“Don’t argue with me about it ever, Rayford. You’ll be wasting your time.”
Carpathia would soon be on the screen, and Hattie was quickly dozing again. Rayford was glad she would be spared his image and whatever he would say about his debacle in Israel. Something cold ran through Rayford’s soul. She had forced him to face himself.
Rayford was relieved beyond description to find out that Amanda was all he believed her to be: a loving, trustworthy, loyal wife. But since discovering what Carpathia had done to Bruce, to Amanda, to Hattie, he was again battling with his own desires. He had once prayed for the permission, the honor, of being the one assigned to assassinate Carpathia at the halfway point of the Tribulation. Now, truth be told, he found himself angling to be in position at that time.
He knew he had to talk sense to Hattie, to keep her from doing something so reckless and stupid. But that was also why he would not confide in Mac or Tsion or his daughter and son-in-law, why he would not say a word to his new friend, Ken, or to Floyd, about his own murderous leanings. They would, of course, want to show him the folly of his ways. But he wanted to entertain the thoughts longer.
Only when Buck was alone with Chloe in the privacy of one of Chaim Rosenzweig’s guest rooms did he realize how worried he had been about her. Trembling, he gathered her in his arms and held her close, careful not to hug her too tight because of her injuries. “When I didn’t know where you were,” he began, “all I could think of was how I felt after the earthquake.”
“But I wasn’t lost this time, darling,” she said. “You knew where I was.”
“You didn’t answer your phone. I didn’t know if someone had grabbed you, or—”
“I turned it off when we were being chased. I didn’t want it to give us away. That reminds me, I never turned it back on.”
She started to pull away. “Don’t worry about it now,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be on now, does it?”
“What if Daddy tries to call? You know he had to be watching.”
“He can reach me on my phone.”
“Where is it?”
“Agh! I left it in the van. I’ll go get it.”
Now it was her turn to not let him go. “I’ll just turn mine on,” she said. “I don’t want to be apart from you again right now either.”
Their mouths met, and he held her. They sat on the edge of the bed and lay back, her head resting in the crook of his arm. Buck imagined how silly they looked, staring at the ceiling, feet flat on the floor. If she was as tired as he, it wouldn’t be long before she nodded off. This probably wasn’t the time to bring up a delicate subject, but Buck had never been known for his timing.
As had become the custom, Global Community Supreme Commander Leon Fortunato introduced His Excellency, Potentate Nicolae Carpathia, to the international television audience. Rayford was stunned at how straightforward and overt Leon was in telling his own story. Tsion had warned Rayford that Nicolae’s supernatural abilities would soon be trumpeted and even exaggerated, laying a foundation for when he would declare himself God during the second half of the Tribulation. So far the widespread pronouncements had been circumspect, and Nicolae himself had personally made no such claims. But on this day, Rayford had to wonder how Nicolae would respond to Fortunato’s obsequious opening. And he also had to concede that the pair had done a masterful, if not supernatural, job of choreographing the ultimate spin on Nicolae’s most public embarrassment.