CHAPTER 4

Enoch Dumas led more than a hundred of The Place followers around the back of the abandoned Illinois shopping center. Just before eight in the morning he had begun to teach, trying to inform his people and a few interested others what should precede the Glorious Appearing. None of the heavenly preliminaries had begun, and he sensed the disappointment, doubt, and fear on the part of his little band of believers. But mostly he found himself looking over his shoulder at the main road.

Though there were few vehicles of any type about, given the fuel shortage and the crippled economy, he knew the local GC had not shut down completely. They would have to investigate a meeting of this size. And the discovery of that many people, not one bearing the mark of loyalty to Carpathia, would result in a bloodbath.

There was no longer any earthly excuse not to bear the mark, and punishment was execution on the spot by any means. Even a civilian had the right to put to death an insurgent. All that was required for exoneration from the crime of homicide was either to drag the victim to a local GC headquarters and prove he or she bore no visible mark, or to flag down a patrolling Morale Monitor or GC Peacekeeper and get him to confirm the same.

In fact, there was a healthy bounty on such offenders, and citizens loyal to the potentate competed for cash prizes. Many made their living as vigilantes, and some were famous for their impressive number of kills.

Perhaps that was why Enoch found his usually bold congregation willing to follow him from the public light of day to the relative seclusion of the other side of the empty mall. “If we knew Jesus would get here before the GC, we could stay where we are. But I, for one, do not want to have survived seven years, only to die just before He comes back.”

The group crowded into an inner court, where it was obvious they all felt safer. But they had questions.

“When’s it gonna happen?”

“What’d we miss in the prophecies?”

“Did you only think the ‘weeks’ meant ‘years,’ or what?”

“Could we be off by a long ways?”

“I don’t think so,” Enoch said. “But I don’t know. I was never a scholar or a theologian. I’m sort of a blue-collar student of all this, just like you all are. But I have been reading and studying for years. While there is a lot of disagreement and debate, so far everything, every element of the prophecies, has been fulfilled literally, the way it was spelled out. I have to believe today is the day.”

“Ho’d on!” a woman shouted from the back. She was peering into a cell phone. “Look like somebody done took over the GC’s airwaves again.”

People crowded around.

“That Micah guy,” she said, “runnin’ things at Petra, is gonna speak about what comes next.”

Others pulled cell phones from their pockets and bags. “Should we listen, Brother Enoch? Will you be offended?”

“Hardly,” Enoch said, digging out his own. “What could be better than this? Dr. Rosenzweig is a scholar’s scholar. Let’s have church.”

The assembled put their tiny screens together on a concrete bench and turned them up so the combined volume reached everyone.

Mac saw the narrowing of Carpathia’s eyes and feared someone else was about to catch his rage. His attention had been drawn to the entrance of the room.

“Yes, what is it?” Carpathia said.

An underling said, “Begging the potentate’s pardon, but, Excellency, you asked to be informed.”

“What? What!”

“The zealots at Petra, the Judah-ites—”

“I know who is at Petra! What now?”

“They have pirated their way onto GC television again.”

Carpathia flushed and leaned over the table, resting on his palms. His jaw muscles tightened. “Turn it on,” he said through clenched teeth.

Leon nearly toppled trying to pull out a chair. He sat heavily and made a show of reaching far up under his robe and producing a remote-control laser, which he aimed at the wall behind Nicolae. A screen descended and the picture appeared: Chaim Rosenzweig seated on a simple set, deep in the confines of Petra. His open Bible was before him, and he bore a pastoral smile. A timer showed that he would begin in less than a minute.

Carpathia looked over his shoulder at the screen, then turned back and slammed both fists on the table. “First,” he shouted, “confirm that Ipswich is dead! Then tell Tenzin I have changed my mind about Akbar! I want him dead too! Finally, get hold of Security at Al Hillah. Inform them of the demise of their chief and tell them the following order comes directly from me.

“Whatever it takes, I want Security to take over our broadcast center. I want the management personnel shot to death through both eyes, one administrator at a time, from the top down through the chain of command, one every sixty seconds until someone has wrested back control of the airwaves. Understood?”

No one moved or spoke.

“Understood?!”

“Yes, Excellency!” Leon said, reaching for his phone.

“I’m on it,” Viv Ivins said, phone already to her ear.

Carpathia whirled and faced the screen. “Does no one understand?” he railed. “Does no one recognize this man? This is the one who assassinated me! And while I raised myself from the dead and reign as your living lord, he remains a thorn in my side. Well, no longer! Not after today! A third of our entire army will overrun Petra tonight, and he shall be my personal target!”

With hydration and an IV started by Leah, Rayford at last began to feel he might make it. He still felt as if he had been run over by a tank, and there would be no walking or helping himself get off this godforsaken slope. But his mental faculties were returning, and he came to believe that Leah and Abdullah could somehow get him back to the compound.

“Two things, Miss Rose,” Abdullah said.

“Shoot.”

“According to Miss Palemoon, we have a problem with the conveyance.”

“What problem? There’s a stretcher in the Co-op. And a gurney too.”

“She checked with Mrs. Woo, and they both believe these will be impossible to transport to this location.”

Leah sat back, and Rayford saw her scan the hills above her leading to Petra. “She may have a point. What’s number two?”

“She says Micah is on GC television and that we might want to tune it in.”

“Do you have a TV, Mr. Smith?”

“Of course.”

“Well, the captain is as stable as I can make him, and we may be here a while. Let’s have a look.”

Abdullah pulled his cell phone from a leather bag attached to his bike.

“You want to see this, Captain?” Leah said.

Chang was glued to his monitor, but he asked Naomi to gather around him the rest of the techies on duty.

“Check this out, people,” he said. “Look at the counter in the upper left of the screen.”

Whistles and back slaps and exultations followed the speeding numbers, racing upward by the tens of thousands a second but having already surged far past the largest television audience in history. Nothing Carpathia ever broadcast had come close; in fact, the previous three records had all been held by Tsion Ben-Judah.

“Dearly beloved,” Chaim had begun, “I speak to you tonight probably for the last time before the Glorious Appearing of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ the Messiah. He could very well come during this message, and nothing would give me greater pleasure. When He comes there will be no more need for us to fight Antichrist and his False Prophet. The work will have been done for us by the King of kings.

“But as He did not return seven years to the minute from the signing of the covenant between Antichrist and Israel, many are troubled and confused. I wish to speak to that here, but mostly I need to be brief, for as you know, we commandeer these airwaves against the wishes of our archenemy, and you must believe that he is doing everything in his power right this very instant to bump us.

“More important than discussing the timing of Messiah’s return, however—which I can summarize in a sentence: I believe He will be here before midnight, Israel Time—is the spiritual state of my fellow Jews around the globe. If you have never listened before, lend me an ear this day. This is your last chance, your final warning, my ultimate plea with you to recognize and accept Jesus as the Messiah you have for so long sought.

“You have heard many times the proclamations of my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Tsion Ben-Judah, who outlined the numerous prophecies that soon came to pass. If these never persuaded you, hear me now and know that it is likely this very day that you will see the signs in the sky heralding the Glorious Appearing of Jesus.

“The Bible says in Matthew 24:29 and 30 that ‘immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

“‘Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.’

“This is the last day of the Tribulation that was prophesied thousands of years ago! Today is the seventh anniversary of the unholy and quickly broken covenant between Antichrist and Israel. What is next? The sun, wherever it is in the sky where you are, will cease to shine. If the moon is out where you are, it will go dark as well because it is merely a reflection of the sun. Do not fear. Do not be afraid. Do not panic. Take comfort in the truth of the Word of God and put your faith in Christ, the Messiah.

“What does it mean that the powers of the heavens will be shaken? I do not know, but beloved, I cannot wait to find out! The Bible says God ‘will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.’

“I expect a show like I have never witnessed, but I will be safe as He has promised. Will you be safe? Are you ready? Are you prepared? Do not put it off another second.

“What is the sign of the Son of Man? Again, I do not know, but I know who the Son of Man is: Jesus, the Messiah. His sign could take any form. Might it be a mighty dove, as descended upon Him when John baptized Him? Might it be the form of a lion, as He has also been called the Lion of Judah? Might His sign be a lamb, as He is also the Lamb of God? The cross upon which He died? The open tomb, in which He conquered death? We do not know, but I will be watching. Won’t you?

“Who are these tribes of the earth who will mourn when they see Him coming? Those who are not ready. Those who have lingered in their rebellion, their disbelief, their sloth.

“Zechariah, the great Jewish prophet of old, foretold this thousands of years ago. He wrote, quoting Messiah: ‘I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.’

“Imagine that, people! Historians tell us Zechariah wrote that prophecy well more than four hundred years before the birth of Christ, and yet he quotes the Lord referring to Himself as ‘Me whom they pierced.’

“Zechariah goes on: ‘In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem. . . . And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves . . . all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.

“‘In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. And it shall come to pass in all the land . . . that two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it.

“‘I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, “This is My people”; and each one will say, “The Lord is my God.”’

“Can there be any doubt, friends, that He is who the Bible says He is? If you can still reject Him after seeing the sun snuffed out, the heavens shaken, and His sign appear, surely you are past hope, past saving. Do not wait. Be part of that one-third whom the Lord God has promised to bring through the fire.

“One of our first-century Jews, Peter, said, ‘It shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ I cannot choose more appropriate words than his when I speak to fellow Jews, saying, ‘Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.

“‘For David says concerning Him: “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.”

“‘Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

“‘Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.’

“Beloved,” Chaim raced on, “the Bible tells us that when they heard this, they were ‘cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”’

“Do you find yourself asking the same today? I say to you as Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.’

“Oh, children of Israel around the globe, I am being signaled that our enemy is close to wresting back control of this network. Should I be cut off, trust me, you already know enough to put your faith in Christ as the Messiah.

“Not knowing when this signal shall fade, let me close by reading to you one of the most loved and powerful prophecies concerning Messiah that was ever written. And should my voice be silenced, you may find it and read it for yourself in Isaiah 53. And remember, this was written more than seven hundred years before the birth of Christ!

“‘Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

“‘Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

“‘He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.

“‘Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.’”

During the broadcast, Chang had superimposed on the screen a Web site where those who were making decisions to receive Christ could let Dr. Rosenzweig know at Petra. Even before the GC reclaimed control of the television network, the Web site was being overrun with such messages. Millions around the world, most of them Jews, were acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah and putting their faith in Him for their salvation.

Mac was always moved by Scripture, and all the more so now to see Nicolae Carpathia, Antichrist himself, and his False Prophet, Leon Fortunato, squirm so.

“I wonder,” Nicolae said, “how many died in Al Hillah before we succeeded in pushing the pirates off the gangplank. Who was the next one standing, now in charge?

“Well, let me tell you something. These people can say what they want, preach what they want, believe what they want. But if they have not taken my mark, not sworn their allegiance to the living god of this world, they shall surely die. This man appeals to the Jews, the dogs of society, the ones I have declared my enemies from the first. Meanwhile I have cut them down like a rotted harvest all over the world.

“And while my assassin sits temporarily free, hiding like a coward behind stone walls, my armies are decimating his wretched brothers and sisters in their so-called Holy City. After we have stormed Petra and laid waste to our enemies there, we shall return to complete the taking of Jerusalem. The resistance thinks they own the surface above where we even now reside, but their options are gone. They have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

“Let their Savior appear! I welcome Him. I will cut Him down like a dog and ascend to my rightful throne.”

Mac’s thighs ached and quivered with fatigue. The wall behind him had lost its coolness, and he couldn’t figure it. Had his body heat finally tempered the subterranean effect? No, something was happening. The temperature was rising. How could that be? What would cause it?

Even Carpathia, immune to hunger and fatigue and thirst since his resurrection, if the reports could be believed, noticed. He tugged at his collar. “What has happened to the air-conditioning?”

“None is needed, Excellency,” Leon said. “We are forty feet below the sur—”

“I know where we are! I want to know why the temperature has risen. Do you not feel it?”

“Of course I do, exalted one. But there is no source of heat here. It has always remained a constant of—”

“Will you silence yourself! The temperature has risen, and even our collective body heat should not have resulted in that much difference.”

Could it be? Mac wondered. Was there a chance this was a sign of the imminent return? Might Jesus appear even here, in the lair of His enemy? “Lord, please!”

Maybe outside the sun had darkened.

Rayford shielded his eyes and squinted into the sky. Not one cloud. The sun had finally coursed far enough to see the temperature drop, perhaps more than ten degrees, since its brutal noontime peak. Rayford gratefully accepted Abdullah’s offer of his cap, which was a little small but served its purpose.

“If we’re not going to be able to carry you to Petra,” Leah said, “we at least need to sit you up. Can you manage it?”

“I can’t imagine,” Rayford said. “But I know you’re right. I’ll need help.”

“You’re going to be dizzy,” Leah said, which proved an understatement. When she and Abdullah sat him up, blood rushed so quickly from Rayford’s head that he felt he’d lost his bearings, though he was still firmly planted—albeit on his seat now—in the shallow grave of his own making.

“Whoa,” Rayford whispered.

“When you’re steady,” she said, “tell me what hurts most.”

“I can tell you that now. The ankle. Then the shin. Then the hand.”

“I’ll take them in order,” she said, “but it’s all going to be temporary and makeshift. It’s not what I would want done if I had you in a sterile environment and could do an MRI.”

As Leah cleansed and anesthetized the ankle, which had a gaping gash and obvious damage inside, she said, “A surgeon will want to work on the bone before closing this up, but you don’t need sand and air in it.” She cut away dead and damaged skin that could not be salvaged and sutured it in such a way that it could easily be accessed again.

“This is going to hurt,” she said, cutting away his khaki pants below the left knee and examining his shin with both hands. “No doubt you have a fracture, but this is not an easy bone to set. I can give it a try, but only before I numb it. You up to it?”

“I have a choice?”

“No. We may have to try to put you on one of our bikes, and without this set and splinted, you’ll pass out from the pain.”

“And what about the pain from your trying to set it?”

“No promises.”

Rayford had been severely injured before, but he could not remember agony like this. Leah failed in her first attempt to set the shinbone, but she simply said, “Sorry, I can get it,” and took another run at it. Despite a wad of gauze to chew on, Rayford screamed loud enough—he feared—to alert the Unity Army. Even once the bone was clearly in place, his leg hurt so badly that it jumped and quivered for more than ten minutes as he fought to keep from whimpering.

“I’ll let that settle down some before applying a splint,” Leah said.

“You’re so kind,” he said, and elicited a smile from her.

The splint, fortunately, was inflatable plastic and once in place provided enough stability that the pain finally started to subside. Leah busied herself cleaning and dressing the wounds on the heel of his hand, his chin, and on both arms and both knees.

“I’m going to look a sight,” he said. “Better not let Kenny see me until some of this stuff is off.”

George Sebastian was relieved to know that Rayford had been found alive, but he had to wonder how busted up his boss must be. More pressing, he was uneasy about what the Unity Army was up to. They had closed the mile gap by half, advancing on his position so slowly that the maneuver had taken hours. And now they were stopped. If it was some sort of psychological warfare, it was working. Sebastian’s people were spooked.

It was as if this roiling armada, fronted by the hundreds of thousands of mounted horsemen, was just waiting for one word from Antichrist to either open fire or charge. Bothering Big Dog One most was that he now had to turn his head more than 120 degrees just to take in the breadth of the fighting force he faced. And regardless of how high he could place himself, he could never see its full depth. The end of this army literally blotted out the horizon.

Mac was as stunned as Leon clearly was when Carpathia said, “I need a chair. Get me a chair!”

Nicolae rarely sat anymore. He was known not to have eaten or slept in three and a half years, persuading loyalists he was the true and living God, and confirming to his enemies that he was indeed Antichrist, indwelt by Satan. His rage was legendary. But no one had seen a weakness or physical frailty in him.

And now he needed a chair?

Leon Fortunato leaped from his own and slid it behind the potentate, who shakily sat. Nicolae tore at his collar and unbuttoned his shirt, feebly fanning himself with his hand. “Allow me, Excellency,” Fortunato said, and he knelt and grabbed the hem of his own ostentatious robe, lifted it to his waist, and began fanning the potentate.

Normally Carpathia would quickly tire of such obsequiousness, but he actually appeared panicky and grateful. But when Leon turned to ask Viv Ivins to pour Nicolae a glass of water, his garish fez slipped off and landed in the blousy folds of his skirt. His next tug tightened the fabric and launched the hat into Carpathia’s lap.

“Oh!” Leon cried out. “Oh, Majesty! Forgive me!” He lurched forward and tried to retrieve the fez, succeeding only in knocking it out of Nicolae’s lap and onto the floor on his other side. Leon’s momentum carried him over the potentate, and now he was stretched out across the ailing world leader, his ample belly in his boss’s lap. He grabbed the hat with both hands, and as he rocked back to his feet he jammed it atop his head again, uttering every apology imaginable.

Mac was certain Nicolae would execute his right-hand man for such a breach of etiquette, but he appeared to have hardly noticed. Carpathia was in trouble. Viv Ivins finally got a glass of water in front of him, but by now his hands were at his sides and his usually ruddy countenance had paled.

Leon grabbed the water and held it to Carpathia’s lips as the fez began to tumble yet again. This time Leon angrily batted it away with his free hand and it toppled to the floor behind them. Carpathia could barely manage to open his mouth, water sloshing down his chin.

“Get paramedics in here!” Leon squealed. “Someone, please! Hurry!”