Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle Of The Ages (22 page)

“
I’M
NEVER
going to let this happen again, Dad,” Buck said. They stood outside their two-seater jet in remote western Wisconsin at dawn, monitoring a miniature TV and a radio and waiting for Krystall’s call. “We could find out Chloe was half an hour away in St. Paul, and there wouldn’t be a blessed thing we could do about it. No car, no disguises, no IDs, nothing. Never again, Dad, and I mean it.”

Rayford didn’t appear to have anything to say, and Buck felt sorry for him. “I don’t know what else could have been done,” Buck said. “But anything more than sitting on our hands, waiting for something to happen.”

“I don’t know why Krystall hasn’t called,” Rayford said. “She’s had all day.” He looked at his watch. “It’s the middle of the afternoon in New Babylon.”

“You’d better hope they’re not on to her, haven’t bugged her phone or something. They’d know about Otto, know we know where the big confab is going to be, everything.”

“I don’t know,” Rayford said. “David and Chang have always said the GC doesn’t tap its own phones.”

“So everybody in Al Hillah’s been in meetings all day and there’s no one to tell Krystall the truth about where Chloe is? You should have given her some kind of a time frame. Doesn’t she assume we’d like to know before the execution?”

“It’s not like she works for us, Buck. She’s been a god-send.”

“Interesting thing to say about someone bearing the mark of the beast.”

Mac dropped off Zeke in Petra at about two in the afternoon. Abdullah had already readied the bigger plane for Mac and then took charge of getting Zeke settled. “I plan to get in and get out of that apartment as fast as I can,” Mac said. “Then I’m picking up Weser and his clan and getting back here. I’d like to get all that done before the
GCNN
goes on the air with Chloe. I won’t watch ‘em kill her, but I want to see what leads up to it anyway.”

In pervasive darkness, Chloe had no idea of the passage of time. Occasionally she pressed her ear against the steel door to listen for activity in the solitary unit. So far, nothing.

She thought waiting for one’s execution would be like waiting to see the principal or facing a punishment you knew was coming, only multiplied on a mortal scale. And yet she found herself relatively calm. Her heart broke for Buck, not so much for the prospect of his missing her, but for how wrenching it would be to have to explain this to Kenny.

He was too young, and there would be no explaining it, she knew. But the daily questions, the need of a boy for his mother, the fact that no surrogate could love him like she did … all that worked on her.

Chloe felt the presence of God, though she didn’t see the messenger she had the night before. Her muscles ached from the positions she found herself in for prayer and then just trying to get comfortable. Hunger was a distraction she succeeded in pushing from her mind. Soon, she told herself, she would be dining at the banquet table of the King of kings.

Most gratifying was that she had fewer doubts and more assurance as the hours passed. She had put all her eggs in this basket, she had always liked to say. If she was wrong, she was wrong. If it was all a big story, she had bought it in its entirety. But for her the days of questioning and misgivings were gone. Chloe had seen too much, experienced too much. She had been shown, like everyone else on the planet, that God was real, he was in control, he was the archenemy of Antichrist, and in the end God would win.

Early on in her spiritual walk, Chloe had entertained a smugness, particularly when people berated or derided her for her beliefs. She was too polite to gloat, but she couldn’t deny some private satisfaction in knowing that one day she would be proved right.

But that attitude too had mercifully been taken from her. The more she learned and the more she knew and the more she saw examples of other believers with true compassion for the predicaments of lost people, the more Chloe matured in her faith. That was manifest in a sorrow over people’s souls, a desperation that they see the truth and turn to Christ before it was too late.

She didn’t even know what to do with her feelings of love and concern and sympathy for people who had already taken Carpathia’s mark and were condemned for eternity. They were beyond help and hope, and yet still she grieved for them. Flashes of humanity in Florence, in Nigel, in Jesse, in Jock … what did those mean? She couldn’t expect unbelievers to live like believers, and so she was left without the option to judge them-only to love them. Yet it was hopeless now.

While Chloe couldn’t understand how there could still be uncommitted people in the world, she knew there were. Those were the ones she would try to reach with whatever freedom God made the GC give her to make a last comment. How someone could see all that had gone on during the last six years and not realize that the only options were God or Satan-or worse, could know the options and yet choose Satan-she could not fathom.

But no doubt this was true. Ming had told her of Muslims who were anti-Carpathia because they were so devout in their own faith. Some practicing Jews who did not believe in Jesus as Messiah also rejected Carpathia as god of this world. George knew of militia types who refused to give allegiance to a dictator yet had not trusted Christ for their salvation either.

Was it possible, after all this time, that there were still spiritually uncommitted people who simply hadn’t chosen yet? Chloe couldn’t imagine, but she knew it had to be true. Some simply chose to pursue their own goals, their own lusts.

Chloe wondered about the others in Stateville who would die that morning. Many would be bearers of Carpathia’s mark, but surely many would not. Would she, as the prize arrest, be last on the docket?

“Clarity, Lord,” she said. “That’s all I ask for. You have already promised grace and strength. Just let my mind work better than it should under the circumstances.”

Mac dug through his luggage and found his wino outfit. No one cared to look for the mark of Carpathia under the stocking cap of a smelly man down on his luck. It had become the only ensemble Mac dared go out in during the day. He found his scooter where he had left it in the underbrush near the airstrip and rode to the outskirts of Al Basrah, chaining it securely before staggering into town.

Mac was greeted only by real drunks. He acted as if he was just wandering, but he was on a clear route. And when he got to within a block of his and Albie’s place, he ducked into an alley and found himself alone. He jogged the rest of the way and started up the stairs when he heard voices. Mac stopped and sat on the landing at the top of the stairs. Two men stood in front of his and Albie’s dingy rooms.

“You can’t be in here, old man!” one of them shouted. “Get out.”

Mac mumbled and let his head fall back, snoring.

The men laughed. “Anyway,” one said quietly, “I’m guessing he’ll come after dark. Double-M wants him alive.”

Mac recognized the nickname.

“I got two guys who can watch the entrance starting about an hour before sundown. You’re sure he wouldn’t come earlier?”

“He’s got no mark, man! Who would risk that?”

When the men moved on and Mac was sure the way was clear, he sprang to his feet and unlocked his door. The place was empty. Not a lick of furniture. None of their stuff. Now it just sat as a trap for him to return to.

Mac bounded down the stairs and ran back to his scooter, sped to the airstrip, and headed for New Babylon. He had arranged with Otto that he bring his people to the New Babylon airstrip. “Better to load up where no one can see us,” he said.

The thirty or so men and women in Otto’s charge tried individually to thank Mac, but he just smiled and kept moving them into the plane. He wasn’t going to feel at ease again until he was in Petra. Then, with a new identity courtesy of Zeke, he’d be ready for any caper Rayford could think of.

Otto was bouncing on the balls of his feet at the back of the crowd. “Once you’re on,” Mac said, “we’re off.”

“Mac, we can’t go yet.”

“Why? What now?”

“She’s dead.”

“Who?”

“Krystall.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Go see for yourself. After I was here this morning, I went back to our underground place and helped get everybody ready to meet you. When we got here, I told them to wait for you and that you would be the only person who could see enough to land. I went to thank Krystall, and that’s when I found her.”

“How do you know she’s dead?”

“I’m not a doctor, sir, but there was a stench like someone had tossed something in there. She was on the floor with the phone buzzing. I let it lie. I checked her pulse. Come see for yourself.”

“Mr. Weser, we don’t have time. If she’s dead, she’s dead, and I’m sorry. And Rayford getting her mixed up in all this may have caused it. But there’s nothing I can do for her, and we might jeopardize this mission if you and I go running off with all your people waiting on the plane.”

“You think they were on to her? Sent somebody to kill her?”

“I don’t know how they would do that if they couldn’t see.”

“I was thinking maybe they had someone who knew the palace come back and feel his way up there, make sure she was there by talking to her, and then toss poison gas or something in there.”

“Could be. That explains why Rayford never heard from her. Did you let him know?”

“I should have, shouldn’t I? I didn’t know what to do. I was so upset.”

“Get aboard. I’ll call Rayford.”

Buck looked on as Rayford took a call from Mac and covered his eyes with a hand. “What is it?” Buck said.

Rayford held up a finger to tell Buck to wait, and his knees buckled.

“What? Is Chloe already gone?”

“No, Buck,” Rayford said, on his knees in the grass. “But she might as well be.” He told him the news.

Buck sat and pulled his knees to his chest. “I can’t believe I’m stuck here in the middle of nowhere, waiting for my wife to die, not even knowing where she is.”

Rayford looked ashen. “We should get started for Petra.”

“But what if someone-”

“No one who knows is going to tell us, Buck. It’s time to give it up.”

“Give up, you mean.”

“Yes, Buck,” Rayford said, standing, emotion in his voice. “I have given up. She’s in God’s hands now. If he chooses to spare her somehow, he’s apparently decided to do it without our help.”

As Rayford boarded, Buck stood and spread his palms on the fuselage of the aircraft, his head hanging. “Chloe,” he rasped, “wherever you are, I love you.”

After a long night of praying, Chloe actually drifted off. She was awakened, she wasn’t sure how long later, by the unmistakable
thwock-thwock-thwock
of helicopter blades. More than one chopper. Maybe as many as three. For an instant she allowed herself to wonder if her deliverance had come.

Deep inside she knew her husband and her father, and perhaps many in the Trib Force, would work to free her until the end. But she also knew that without a miracle there was no way they could know where she was. That had been the whole point of her transfer.

Had they somehow found out? She never ceased to be amazed at the resources available to so many of her compatriots. Should she prepare to flee in the event they did break in and look for her? Did they know more than where she was? Did they know the architecture and lay-out of the prison, where solitary was, somehow which cell she might be in? And how many were there? Could they overpower the GC?

Her questions were answered in an instant when her friend reappeared and the darkness of her cell was turned to noonday.

“May I know your name?” she said.

“You may call me Caleb.”

“I am not to be rescued today, am I, Caleb?”

“You will be delivered, but not in the manner you mean.”

“Delivered?”

“Today you will be with Christ in paradise.”

That drove Chloe to her knees. “I can’t wait,” she said. “There are so many here I will miss desperately, but not much else. How I long to be with Jesus!”

Besides the choppers, Chloe heard only the loudest noises from outside and none from inside. Vehicles. Metallic hammering. Shouts. Construction of some sort. In spite of herself, she began to grow nervous. “I want to be the picture of a child of God,” she said, trying to control her emotions.

“God will keep you in perfect peace if your mind is stayed on him.”

“Thank you, Caleb. But suddenly I feel so fragile.”

Finally Chloe heard sounds from inside solitary. A rap on the steel door, the smaller door sliding open. Jock’s face appeared.

“How we doing this morning, missy? Bathroom break.”

“Give me a minute, please.”

“Oh, tough girl.”

She looked desperately to Caleb.

“`Peace I leave with you,’ says your Lord Christ,” he said. “`My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”’

Chloe knocked on the steel door. “I’m ready,” she said.

A guard opened the door. When Chloe emerged, she found Jock in his dress blues, gold buttons, the whole bit. She also faced a woman wearing a
GCNN
blazer and carrying a leather bag.

“My, my,” the woman said. “That won’t do. Let me know when I can join you in the bathroom. And, Jock, get her a clean jumpsuit.”

“Dressing me for the kill?” Chloe said.

“All pageantry, my dear,” the woman said. “Justice will be served, but it will be clear you were not mistreated.”

“I see,” Chloe said, as the woman followed her. “Snatched from my family, starved, drugged, flown half-way across the country, injected with truth serum, and held in solitary confinement overnight is your idea of fair treatment?”

“Hey, I’m just the makeup artist. Call for me when you’re ready.”

“For what?”

“I’ll fix your hair, make you up a little.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Oh, I have to.”

“You don’t have a choice?” Chloe said.

“If you were presentable, maybe, but look at you.”