Left Behind: A Novel Of Earth's Last Days (15 page)

“It’s just you and me, Chloe,” Rayford said, and they stood together in the darkness, crying.

It was Friday before Buck Williams was able to track down Dirk Burton. He reached the supervisor in Dirk’s area of the London Exchange. “You must tell me precisely who you are and your specific relationship to Mr. Burton before I am allowed to inform you as to his disposition,” Nigel Leonard said. “I am also constrained to inform you that this conversation shall be taped, beginning immediately.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m taping our conversation, sir. If that is a problem for you, you may disconnect.”

“I don’t follow.”

“What’s to follow? You understand what a tape is, do you?”

“Of course, and I’m turning mine on now as well, if you don’t mind.”

“Well, I do mind, Mr. Williams. Why on earth would you be taping?”

“Why would you?”

“We are the ones with a most unfortunate situation, and we need to investigate all leads.”

“What situation? Was Dirk among those who disappeared?”

“Nothing so tidy as that, I’m afraid.”

“Tell me.”

“First your reason for asking.”

“I’m an old friend. We were college classmates.”

“Where?”

“Princeton.”

“Very well. When?”

Buck told him.

“Very well. The last time you spoke to him?”

“I don’t recall, OK? We’ve been trading voice-mail messages.”

“Your occupation?”

Buck hesitated. “Senior writer, Global Weekly, New York.”

“Would your interest be journalistic in nature?”

“I won’t preclude that,” Buck said, trying not to let his anger seep through, “but I can’t imagine that my friend, important as he is to me, is of interest to my readers.”

“Mr. Williams,” Nigel said carefully, “allow me to state categorically, on both our tapes apparently, that what I am about to say is strictly off the record. Do you understand?

“Because I am aware that both in your country and in the British Commonwealth, anything said following an assertion that we are off the record is protected.”

“Granted,” Buck said.

“Beg pardon?”

“You heard me. Granted. We’re off the record. Now where is Dirk?”

“Mr. Burton’s body was discovered in his flat this morning. He had suffered a bullet wound to the head. I’m sorry, as you were a friend, but suicide has been determined.”

Buck was nearly speechless. “By whom?” he managed.

“The authorities.”

“What authorities?”

“Scotland Yard and security personnel here at the exchange.”

Scotland Yard? Buck thought. We’ll see about that. “Why is the exchange involved?”

“We’re protective of our information and our personnel, sir.”

“Suicide is impossible, you know,” Buck said.

“Do I?”

“If you are his supervisor, you know.”

“There have been countless suicides since the disappearances, sir.”

Buck was shaking his head as if Nigel could see him from across the Atlantic. “Dirk didn’t kill himself, and you know it.”

“Sir, I can appreciate your sentiments, but I don’t know any more than you did what was in Mr. Burton’s mind. I was partial to him, but I would not be in a position to question the conclusion of the medical examiner.”

Buck slammed the phone down and marched into Steve Plank’s office. He told Steve what he had heard.

“That’s terrible,” Steve said.

“I have a contact at Scotland Yard who knows Dirk, but I don’t dare talk to him about it by phone. Can I have Marge book me on the next flight to London? I’ll be back in time for all these summits, but I’ve got to go.”

“You can get a flight. I don’t know that
JFK
is even open yet.”

“How about La Guardia?”

“Ask Marge. You know Carpathia will be here tomorrow.”

“You said yourself he was small potatoes. Maybe he’ll still be here when I get back.”

Rayford Steele hadn’t been able to talk his grieving daughter into leaving the house. Chloe had spent hours in her little brother’s room, and then in her parents’ bedroom, picking through their personal effects to add to the boxes of memories her father had put together. Rayford felt so bad for her. He had secretly hoped she would be of comfort to him. He knew she would be eventually. But for now she needed time to face her own loss. Once she had cried herself out, she was ready to talk. And after she had reminisced to the point where Rayford didn’t know if his heart could take any more, she finally changed the subject to the phenomenon of the disappearances themselves.

“Daddy, in California they’re actually buying into the space invasion theory.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. Maybe it’s because you were always so practical and skeptical about all that tabloid newspaper stuff, but I just can’t get into it. I mean, it has to be something supernatural or otherworldly, but—”

“But what?”

“It just seems that if some alien life force was capable of doing this, they would also be capable of communicating to us. Wouldn’t they want to take over now or demand ransom or get us to do something for them?”

“Who? Martians?”

“Daddy! I’m not saying I believe it. I’m saying I don’t. But doesn’t my reasoning make sense?”

“You don’t have to convince me. I admit I wouldn’t have dreamed any of this even possible a week ago, but my logic has been stretched to the breaking point.”

Rayford hoped Chloe would ask his theory. He didn’t want to start right in on a religious theme. She had always been antagonistic about that, having stopped going to church in high school when both he and Irene gave up fighting with her over it. She was a good kid, never in trouble. She made grades good enough to get her a partial academic scholarship, and though she occasionally stayed out too late and went through a boy crazy period in high school, they had never had to bail her out of jail and there was never any evidence of drug use. He didn’t take that lightly.

Rayford and Irene knew Chloe had come home from more than one party drunk enough to spend the night vomiting. The first time, he and Irene chose to ignore it, to act as if it didn’t happen. They believed she was levelheaded enough to know better the next time. When the next time came, Rayford had a chat with her.

“I know, I know, I know, OK, Dad? You don’t need to start in on me.”

“I’m not starting in on you. I want to make sure you know enough to not drive if you drink too much.”

“Of course I do.”

“And you know how stupid and dangerous it is to drink too much.”

“I thought you weren’t starting in on me.”

“Just tell me you know.”

“I think I already said that.”

He had shaken his head and said nothing.

“Daddy, don’t give up on me. Go ahead, give me both barrels. Prove you care.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” he had said. “Someday you’re going to have a child and you won’t know what to say or do either. When you love somebody with all your heart and all you care about is her welfare—”

Rayford hadn’t been able to continue. For the first time in his adult life, he had choked up. It had never happened during his arguments with Irene. He had always been too defensive, concerned too much about making his point to think about how much he cared for her. But with Chloe, he really wanted to say the right thing, to protect her from herself. He wanted her to know how much he loved her, and it was coming out all wrong. It was as if he were punishing, lecturing, reprimanding, condescending. That had caused him to break.

Though he hadn’t planned it, that involuntary show of emotion got through to Chloe. For months she had been drifting from him, from both her parents. She had been sullen, cold, independent, sarcastic, challenging. He knew it was all part of growing up and becoming one’s own person, but it was a painful, scary time.

As he bit his lip and breathed deeply, hoping to regain composure and not embarrass himself, Chloe had come to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, just as she had as a little girl. “Oh, Daddy, don’t cry,” she had said. “I know you love me. I know you care. Don’t worry about me. I learned my lesson and I won’t be stupid again, I promise.”

He had dissolved into tears, and so had she. They had bonded as never before. He didn’t recall ever having to discipline her again, and though she had not come back to church, he had started to drift by then himself. They had become buddies, and she was growing up to be just like him. Irene had kidded him that their children each had their own favorite parent.

Now, just days after Irene and Raymie had disappeared, Rayford hoped the relationship that had really begun with an emotional moment when Chloe was in high school would blossom so they could talk. What was more important than what had happened? He knew now what her crazy college friends and the typical Californian believed. What else was new? He always generalized that people on the West Coast afforded the tabloids the same weight Midwesterners gave the Chicago Tribune or even the New York Times.

Late in the day, Friday, Rayford and Chloe reluctantly agreed they should eat, and they worked together in the kitchen, rustling up a healthy mixture of fruits and vegetables. There was something calming and healing about working with her in silence. It was painful on the one hand, because anything domestic reminded him of Irene. And when they sat to eat, they automatically sat in their customary spots at either end of the table-which made the other two open spots that much more conspicuous.

Rayford noticed Chloe clouding up again, and he knew she was feeling what he was. It hadn’t been that many years since they had enjoyed three or four meals a week together as a family. Irene had always sat on his left, Raymie on his right, and Chloe directly across. The emptiness and the silence were jarring.

Rayford was ravenous and finished a huge salad. Chloe stopped eating soon after she had begun and wept silently, her head down, tears falling in her lap. Her father took her hand, and she rose and sat in his lap, hiding her face and sobbing. His heart aching for her, Rayford rocked her until she was silent. “Where are they?” she whined at last.

“You want to know where I think they are?” he said. “Do you really want to know?”

“Of course!”

“I believe they are in heaven.”

“Oh, Daddy! There were some religious nuts at school who were saying that, but if they knew so much about it, how come they didn’t go?”

“Maybe they realized they had been wrong and had missed their opportunity.”

“You think that’s what we’ve done?” Chloe said, returning to her chair.

“I’m afraid so. Didn’t your mother tell you she believed that Jesus could come back some day and take his people directly to heaven before they died?”

“Sure, but she was always more religious than the rest of us. I thought she was just getting a little carried away.”

“Good choice of words.”

“Hm?”

“She got carried away, Chloe. Raymie too.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“I do.”

“That’s about as crazy as the Martian invasion theory.”

Rayford felt defensive. “So what’s your theory?”

Chloe began to clear the table and spoke with her back to him. “I’m honest enough to admit I don’t know”

“So now I’m not being honest?”

Chloe turned to face him, sympathy on her face. “Don’t you see, Dad? You’ve gravitated to the least painful possibility. If we were voting, my first choice would be that my mom and my little brother are in heaven with God, sitting on clouds, playing their harps.”

“So I’m deluding myself, is that what you’re saying?”

“Daddy, I don’t fault you. But you have to admit this is pretty far-fetched.”

Now Rayford was angry. “What’s more far-fetched than people disappearing right out of their clothes? Who else could have done that? Years ago we’d have blamed it on the Soviets, said they had developed some super new technology, some death ray that affected only human flesh and bone. But there’s no Soviet threat anymore, and the Russians lost people, too. And how did this … this whatever it was—how did it choose who to take and who to leave?”

“You’re saying the only logical explanation is God, that he took his own and left the rest of us?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“Chloe, our own family is a perfect picture of what happened. If what I’m saying is right, the logical two people are gone and the logical two were left.”

“You think I’m that much of a sinner?”

“Chloe, listen. Whatever you are, I am. I’m not judging you. If I’m right about this, we missed something. I always called myself a Christian, mostly because I was raised that way and I wasn’t Jewish.”

“Now you’re saying you’re not a Christian?”

“Chloe, I think the Christians are gone.”

“So I’m not a Christian either?”

“You’re my daughter and the only other member of my family still left; I love you more than anything on earth. But if the Christians are gone and everyone else is left, I don’t think anyone is a Christian.”

“Some kind of a super Christian, you mean.”

“Yeah, a true Christian. Apparently those who were taken were recognized by God as truly his. How else can I say it?”

“Daddy, what does this make God? Some sick, sadistic dictator?”

“Careful, honey. You think I’m wrong, but what if I’m right?”

“Then God is spiteful, hateful, mean. Who wants to go to heaven with a God like that?”

“If that’s where your mom and Raymie are, that’s where I want to be.”

“I want to be with them, too, Daddy! But tell me how this fits with a loving, merciful God. When I went to church, I got tired of hearing how loving God is. He never answered my prayers and I never felt like he knew me or cared about me. Now you’re saying I was right.”

He didn’t. “I didn’t qualify, so I got left behind.”

“You’d better hope you’re not right.”

“But if I’m not right, who is right, Chloe? Where are they? Where is everybody?”

“See? You’ve latched onto this heaven thing because it makes you feel better. But it makes me feel worse. I don’t buy it. I don’t even want to consider it.”

Rayford dropped the subject and went to watch television. Limited regular programming had resumed, but he was still able to find continuing news coverage. He was’ struck by the unusual name of the new Romanian president he had recently read about. Carpathia. He was scheduled to arrive at La Guardia in New York on Saturday and hold a press conference Monday morning before addressing the United Nations.