CHAPTER 19
Three Months Later
August broke hot and humid in Mount Prospect, and Rayford was nearly as motionless as the wind. The safe house was not air-conditioned, and with the death of half the world’s population since the Rapture, nothing was as it once had been.
An ominous foreboding settled over the house. Tempers were short, nerves raw. The baby was walking now and talking a bit, proving to be the only entertaining diversion. But Kenny was also cranky in the heat, and even Tsion had been known to leave the room when he fussed and Chloe wasn’t quick enough to mollify him.
If the Rapture had brought a collective global wail over the loss of loved ones and all children, and the great wrath of the Lamb earthquake had changed where people lived and how they moved about, the judgments since had been even worse. The temporary darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, the scorching of a third of the earth, the poisoning of a third of the water, and now the slaying of more than a billion people . . . well, Rayford thought, it was a wonder anyone remained sane.
Maybe they hadn’t. Maybe they had all gone mad. Rayford entertained thoughts he knew were ludicrous. Might he still wake up beside his precious but neglected and unappreciated wife Irene, with Raymie down the hall, only twelve, Rayford still with time to become the husband and father he should have been? Had this all been a Scrooge-type dream giving him a glimpse of what life would be like if he didn’t change his ways?
Could he wake up a new man, ready to give his life to God, to be the right kind of influence on his daughter, his wife, his son?
It was possible, wasn’t it? Couldn’t it still have been simply the worst imaginable nightmare? Rayford knew his finite brain had not been programmed to assimilate everything he had been through. He never again wanted to catalog all he had seen, all he had lost. It had been more than a mortal could endure, and yet here he was.
The world had been invited to the Global Gala a month hence in Jerusalem. How dare Carpathia do it? How dare he deem it acceptable to celebrate when more people had been slain in the latest plague than had been raptured three and a half years before?
Tsion warned his audience not to go, to not be tempted by the prophecies that pointed to that date as the downfall of the one-world faith, the due time for the two witnesses, and the death of even Carpathia himself. Though he lived in the same house, like everyone else who resided there, Rayford also read Tsion’s missives each day. On the subject of the despicable Global Gala, Tsion had written:
Strangely, I have been invited as an “international statesman.” All has been forgiven, amnesty declared for dissidents, our security guaranteed. Well, dear loved ones, friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ, I shall not attend. An earthquake is prophesied that will wipe out a tenth of that city. I do not fear for my own well-being, as my future is secure—as is yours if you have trusted Christ for forgiveness and eternal life.
But I do not choose to personally witness even such unique, historic events when it is clear by their very nature that Satan himself will make his presence felt. My own family was butchered in retaliation for my “sin” of going public with my belief that Jesus is the long-sought Messiah. During my flight from my homeland and even all the way to where I am exiled, I was oppressed by the awful presence of the author of death.
Death will be in the air in Jerusalem next month, my friends, regardless how the event is packaged and sold to the world. It is an outrage that a festival is the excuse given to bring these parties together. On the one hand the so-called world potentate decrees an end to sacrifices and offerings in the temple, because they violate the tenets of tolerance espoused by the Enigma Babylon One World Faith. On the other he aims to celebrate the agreement between the Global Community and Israel. How do these figure together? While it is true he has intimidated the impotent world and kept potential enemies from attacking Israel, he tramples upon her centuries-old traditions and betrays her heritage and religious autonomy.
Like the rest of the world, I will follow the proceedings on the Internet or on television. But no, dear ones, I shall not accept the invitation to attend. This event portends the second half of the Tribulation, called the Great Tribulation, which will make these horrific days seem languorous.
Even the GC-controlled news media can no longer sugarcoat what we know to be true. Crime and sin are beyond control. The necessities of life are in short supply due to lack of a workforce and ways to manufacture and distribute them. Yet there is not a neighborhood on earth that does not have a brothel, a séance and fortune-telling parlor, or a pagan temple expressly for worshiping idols. Life is cheap, and our fellow citizens die every day as marauders loot their homes and businesses and persons. There are not enough Peacekeepers still alive to do police work, and the ones who are on the job are either overwhelmed or corrupt.
With people simply gone from every walk of life, it is amazing what continues to flourish. New movies and television programming are virtually nonexistent, but there is no shortage of pornography and perversion on the hundreds of channels still available to anyone with a receiver.
We are not surprised that these are dark days, brothers and sisters, and I pray you would hold on and maintain and continue to try to share the truth of Jesus until he comes. Merely surviving from this point will occupy most of your time. But I urge you to prepare, have a plan for what you will do when that inevitable day arrives where it is not just illegal to tap into this Web site or declare yourself a believer. Be ready for that day when the insidious mark of the beast is required on your forehead or hand for you to legally buy or sell.
And above all, do not make the fatal mistake of thinking that you can take that mark for the sake of expediency while privately believing in Christ. He has made plain that those who deny him before men, he will deny before God. And in later teachings I will elucidate on why the mark of the evil one is irrevocable.
If you have already trusted Christ for your salvation, you have the mark of the seal of God on your forehead, visible only to other believers. Fortunately, this decision, mark, and seal is also irrevocable, so you never need fear losing your standing with him. For who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. With the apostle Paul, I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In spite of and in the midst of every trial and tribulation, let us continue to give thanks to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And as the Scriptures say, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
Steadfast in love for you all, your friend,
Tsion Ben-Judah.
Hattie was in prison and without knowledge of her sister’s death, and Rayford felt responsible for her.
The murders of Dwayne and Trudy Tuttle had broken his heart.
The reaction of Bo Hanson to the loss of his brother served only as another nail in the coffin that bore Rayford’s despair. Rayford and T had agreed that T should break the news to Bo. T had befriended him, despite their differences, while Rayford had estranged him. Rayford hoped that T might open a door of witness to Bo by compassionately bearing the awful news. Then perhaps Rayford would be able to apologize for his behavior and have a part in seeing Bo come to Christ.
T had returned encouraged from his meeting with Bo. He had called him, met him in his apartment, and told him what had happened. He reported that the tearful Bo had asked, “What about the note I got from Sam?”
“I told him it had been forged by the GC, Ray,” T said. “He seemed to be all right. He cried a lot, blamed himself. Said he sold his brother out just for money. But he hadn’t sold him out. He had merely made the mistake of getting him involved in an ill-conceived plan. He was down when I left him, but he let me pray with him. I thought that was a huge step.”
“I’m sure it was,” Rayford said, “but you didn’t ask to see me so you could give me good news. What happened?”
T sat back and sighed. “Bo killed himself last night, Ray. Drank himself sick at a bar, waved a gun around, cursed Carpathia and the world, and shot himself.”
Rayford had been inconsolable for days. “I might as well have pulled the trigger myself,” he said.
The rest of the Trib Force offered the usual “can’t blame yourself” speeches, and in the end he came to agree. He turned the blame on the one who had all the blame he needed: Nicolae Carpathia.
Rayford immersed himself in the prophetic passages about the death of Antichrist, never seeking Tsion’s counsel or interpretation. In his feverish state he interpreted the Scripture the way he wanted to, shoehorning himself into the agent God would use to do the deed. When he read that “He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword,” and knew that even Tsion believed this was a reference to Antichrist, Rayford shuddered. Was this a message just for him? A later verse referred to “the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.” That had to be a reference to one of the heads of the beast “as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed.”
He didn’t understand it all. Who could? But without Tsion’s analysis, Rayford believed he had figured out these verses. Carpathia was to be mortally wounded in the head by a sword and then come back to life. A sword? What was it Albie called the superb killing machine Rayford had stashed behind loose bricks in the basement? Saber.
Could he—would he do it? Was it his duty? He shook his head. What was he thinking?
Mac missed Rayford. He had been the voice of reason, a mentor, a spiritual model. Mac enjoyed David and Annie. Great kids. But hard to identify with. Abdullah was a good first officer and a wonderful flyer, but he could go days without saying anything except in response to Mac.
Life was interesting, but it sure wasn’t fun anymore. Flying to the major capitals and listening in on Fortunato’s incessant courting of the ten kings was as sickening as it was fascinating. Behind a podium on the tarmac at the airport in Nairobi, Leon grandly welcomed to “His Excellency Nicolae Carpathia’s cabinet of esteemed regional potentates, the honorable Mr. Enoch Litwala. How this great leader and renowned pacifist was overlooked during the initial search for a regional potentate of the United States of Africa will go in the embarrassment file of the history of the Global Community. We may have come to him late, but we found him, didn’t we?”
The crowds cheered their favorite son. Leon continued, “His Excellency sends his heartfelt greetings to Africa and his highest compliments on your achievement of international goals. And it is my singular pleasure, on his behalf, to personally invite your new potentate to Jerusalem in September for the Global Gala!”
After waiting for the crowd to quiet, Leon affected a serious tone. “We have endured rough times and much loss of life. But His Excellency is sparing no expense for an international festival like nothing ever seen before. Besides celebrating the halfway mark of the agreement with Israel, and I am so pleased he has given me permission to share this publicly with you, His Excellency is guaranteeing—you heard that right—guaranteeing an end to killer plagues. You ask how can he do this? The potentate is on record that if the two so-called witnesses at the Wailing Wall do not cease and desist their torment of Israel and the rest of the world, he will personally deal with them.”
This message was repeated in every capital to enthusiastic response. Mac believed people were so tired of death and devastation and so addicted to their own sin that they looked forward to a return to life before the two prophets of doom had seemed to unleash the anger of heaven. Was it possible Carpathia would literally kill the pair? Hadn’t he threatened to do that before? They had made a fool of him. But now he was making a guarantee. And he was also pledging to help people get to the Gala in spite of the disastrous loss of public services due to the decreased population.
“We are about to see a dramatic turn back toward our goals and ideals for a utopian society,” Fortunato quoted Carpathia, and the Global Gala would mark the first step.
Bizarre, Mac thought, to see Antichrist himself in a public relations nightmare, trying to salvage his image.
In the capitals, Leon followed his praising of the regional potentates with promises from the Global Community for better services. “We’re going to work smarter and harder,” he would say, “to meet your needs. Within a decade, the only memory of the population attrition will be sadness for those we have lost. Inconvenience will be a thing of the past as we work together until cutting-edge technology brings us to a higher level of services than we ever dreamed.”
There were always photo opportunities for the Carpathia-controlled press, in which Fortunato gravely studied underdeveloped areas due to the widespread deaths. Then he would kiss babies and hold them aloft, proclaiming “the future of the Global Community.” Finally, with people in the area encouraged and inspired, he would invite the potentate back onto the opulent Phoenix 216 for “a high-level confidential meeting where your leader can best represent the needs of this region.”
Fortunato would listen to the potentates, of course, and make promises a million Carpathias could never keep. But each private confab eventually centered on the “Enigma Babylon situation.” As Mac listened in, he found that most of the potentates knew exactly what Leon was talking about as soon as he raised the issue. A few wanted to know, “What situation is that?” but either way, by the time Leon took off for his next appearance, it was clear which potentates could be counted on. Stunning to Mac was that every one was on record in opposition to the overbearing Peter II.
That was so amazing that Mac requested a private phone chat with Tsion, despite the time difference. He went through Leah, as did all communication now, and assured her that he would understand if Tsion didn’t have the time. But within a day, the two were on secure phones together.
“Captain McCullum, my friend, I am so grateful for all the inside information you have sent my way. It makes my work so much easier and gives me insights into the inner workings that I would never otherwise have. What can I do for you?”
“Well, sir, just a quick question, I hope. I know David has kept everybody up-to-date, through Leah, about the plot to rally the ten kings against Peter the Second. We know that not all the kings are even loyal to Carpathia, but every one of them is on board with this anti-Peter thing. Are they just blowing smoke with Fortunato, or am I naive to believe what sounds like true anger and agreement?”
“Excellent question, Captain, and the only reason I have not dealt with it on the Net is that I feel it might be too revealing and I would then be inserting myself into history in the making. That is a dangerous precedent, and we must guard against trying to help God, as it were, fulfill his promises. If he says it will happen, it will happen.
“But as for the ten kings and their willingness to conspire against Peter the Second: This is biblical. God is working out his eternal plan. Just as in the Old Testament he used pagan armies to punish his own people and today he uses demon hordes to get the attention of unbelievers, he is also using these kings. Revelation 17 says, ‘And the ten horns which you saw on the beast’ (these are the kings, Mac), ‘these will hate the harlot’ (that is the false religion, represented now by Peter the Second), ‘make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire.’
“Now get this, Captain. The next verse answers your question. The reason they are agreeing on this when in truth they are all egomaniacs who agree on little—not even on Carpathia—is this. Listen as I read. ‘God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.’”
“Wow.”
“Isn’t that something? It is amazing to witness the fulfillment of prophecy.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You will find these kings of one mind, because God said so. And you know it will mean the demise of Peter, don’t you?”
“I figured that.”
“The question is how and where it will happen.”
“I have an idea,” Mac said.
“Really,” Tsion said.
Mac told him of the private conversation between Leon and the newest king, Kenyan Enoch Litwala. Fortunato had listened through Litwala’s list of suggestions and demands, taking notes, telling him what he thought he heard him saying, and so forth, then got to the Peter the Second issue:
“His Excellency has asked that I raise with you personally a most delicate situation. He most admires your wisdom and ability to size up circumstances, but this is a matter with which you may not be familiar. Are you aware of any, shall we say, hesitation on the part of the other regional potentates concerning the, ah, visibility of Peter the Second?”
Litwala had responded so quickly that Mac had sat up in the cockpit and pressed the earphone tighter. “I don’t know or care what my colleagues think,” Litwala said, “but I will speak my own heart. I despise the man. He is egotistical, legalistic, self-possessed. He has appropriated huge amounts of money for his Enigma Babylon that should have been used in my country for my people. I do not find him loyal to His Excellency the potentate, and—”
“Indeed?”
“As soon as he heard I was being considered for this post he came to see me, flew all the way here, I believe on this very plane. Was this not his before?”
“It was.”
“He tried to elicit my support for his playing a larger role in world governance, aside from religion. I said nothing. I believe he has too much influence now. Why would I want him to have more? I told him I would study his proposals and, should I be so honored as to be chosen for this position, I would consult more experienced regional potentates about their views. That seemed to please him. He tried to pry from me any negative thoughts I had about His Excellency, but I just listened. I did not challenge or counter him, but neither did I reveal precisely where I stood. That might prove valuable later.”
“It’s good, Potentate Litwala. He believes he has the support of the others and likely assumes you will fall in line. Do you agree he is potentially a danger to the harmony of Global Community leadership?”
“Not potentially. Presently.”
“What would you propose we do about it? That is His Excellency’s question of you.”
“He would not appreciate my deepest feelings.”
“You might be surprised.”
“If the potentate appreciates that I believe Peter needs to be eliminated, yes, that would surprise me.”
“By eliminated, you mean diplomatically removed from—”
“By eliminated, Supreme Commander, I mean eliminated.”
There was silence over the reverse intercom for a moment. Litwala spoke first. “My problem is that I trust few. After what I have endured with Rehoboth and others . . .”
“I’m telling you the other potentates are agreed on this,” Leon said.
“They would have him eliminated?”
“They would.”
Another pause. “But who would do it?”
“You need to talk with them about that.”
“There must be a way to ensure we’re in it together, without the possibility of betrayal. We must all be equally culpable.”
“Like all contributing to the remuneration for the—”
“No,” Litwala said. “We must all have equal responsibility and liability.”
After Litwala left the aircraft, Mac heard Fortunato on the phone with Carpathia. “Did you pick a winner with the new African potentate! . . . You did? . . . You’re not serious. . . . You are! . . . That is amazing. Have you ever done that to me? . . . Planted thoughts? . . . Tell me what he’ll suggest. . . . All ten of them? At the same time? So no one can point the finger at another. Brilliant.”
Mac called David. “Have you got a tap on Carpathia’s phone?”
“Always.”
“Check it. You remember the story Buck Williams tells about how Nicolae told people what they saw and what they would remember? I think Nicolae just revealed to Leon that he’s done something like that again.”
“They’re talking now?”
“Right now.”
“I’ll listen to ’em live, Mac. Safe trip.”
By the time David got patched in to Carpathia’s phone, Nicolae and Leon were finishing their conversation.
“I can be totally free of it that way,” Carpathia was saying. “No one willing to talk, no weapon, no body. Enough DNA in the ashes to identify the body if there is any question, but as Peter will never turn up again, I cannot imagine there being a doubt.”
“And who would corroborate the disease? Dare they involve yet another party?”
“Leon! Think! Od Gustav.”
“Ah, yes! Doctor Gustav. Who needs an outsider when one of the ten can sign the death certificate? Did I say you were brilliant, Excellency?”
“Probably, but even the confident man can take hearing that more than once.”
“Well, the ice idea. I mean, really. There’s no other word for that.”
“Thank you, Commander. Safe trip.”
David smirked at the repeat of how he had signed off with Mac. Two buddies saying good-bye. Dave and Mac; Nick and Lee. Both pairs playing games, outsmarting the competition. He sighed. The difference between the pairs of friends was only eternal.
David quickly moved from listening live to listening to the recording from the beginning, when Fortunato had said, “Did you pick a winner with the new African potentate!”
“How well I know,” Carpathia said. “I handpicked him the day I first visited the U.N. I knew I would have to wait while we worked our way through either Ngumo or Rehoboth. I found him very suggestible.”
“You did?”
“From the beginning. I hypnotized him on the phone once. Told him he would be unswervingly loyal to me, that my enemies would be his enemies and my friends his friends.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Shall I prove it? He is willing to eliminate Peter, and he means eliminate.”
“You are!”
“But he wants them all in on it, all ten of them. How am I doing?”
“That is amazing. Have you ever done that to me?”
“Done what?”
“Planted thoughts?”
“I do not need to, Leon. You are my most trusted friend and adviser. With Enoch I have even verbally implanted a whole plan in his mind. He will think about it, and when he comes back, he will suggest what is already in his head.”
“Tell me what he’ll suggest,” Leon said.
“A meeting in Jerusalem the morning before the gala. He will invite Peter and tell him it is to discuss his succession to my role if a certain plan of theirs is carried out. It would be a meeting of just Peter and the potentates.”
“All ten of them?”
“Yes. And it will be at the fancy new Global Community Grand Hotel, where the ice sculptures have become so popular. For the meeting they will order the large sculpture of Peter himself, the one that depicts him as a mighty angel, life size, with the huge wings with pointed feathers. As the ten are admiring it, each will break off one of those thick feathers with the sharp ends, and as Peter is wondering what in the world it is all about, each will plunge his into him from different angles—neck, eye, temple, heart.”
“At the same time?” Leon said. “So no one can point the finger at another. Brilliant.”
“The weapons will melt, the body will be transported to a crematorium in a bag brought in Scandinavian Potentate Gustav’s briefcase. The body will be burned to avoid the spread of the deadly disease that causes one to bleed to death through his mucus membranes.”
“Which will explain any blood in the meeting room.”
“Exactly. I can be totally free of it that way. No one willing to talk, no weapon, no body. Enough DNA in the ashes . . .”