The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (277 page)

“It says we cannot
take
both.”

“But the heroes, the martyrs, the brave ones accepted death for the sake of the truth! You said a true believer would be given the grace and courage to stand for his faith in the face of the blade.”

“Did you not resist? God is no liar. I have told people that they cannot lose the mark of the seal of God and that they need not worry they will lose heart because of their human weakness, but that God will grant them peace and courage to accept their fate.”

“That proves I am lost! I did not have that peace and courage! I resisted, yes, but I did not speak out for God. I cried like a baby. My father says I pleaded fear of the needle. When it became clear they were really going to do this, I
wanted
to die for my faith! I planned to resist till the end, though I knew my father would then find out about my sister and expose her too. Right up until the time they stuck me, I was prepared to say no, to say that I was a believer in Christ.”

Tsion slumped in his chair. Could it be true? Was it possible God had not given Chang the power to resist unto death? And if not, was he not truly a believer? “Do me this favor,” he tapped in slowly. “Do not do anything rash for twenty-four hours. We need you, and there must be an answer. I do not want to gloss over it, for I confess it puzzles me too. Will you stay at the task and fight your temptation until I get back to you?”

Tsion stared at the screen for several minutes, worried he was already too late.

Rayford’s breath caught when he saw what George Sebastian had apparently already shown Albie. “We’re not soldiers,” he said. “We’re flyers.”

“With these you can be soldiers too,” George said. “But it’s your call.”

“I wish it were
my
call,” Albie said. “If Carpathia’s troops are not our mortal enemies . . .”

George handed Rayford a weapon more than four feet long that weighed at least thirty-five pounds and had a built-in bipod. Rayford could barely heft it horizontally. “Carry it nose up,” George said.

“I won’t be carrying it at all,” Rayford said. “What in the world kind of ammo does this thing take?”

“Fifty-caliber, Captain,” George said, digging out a clip of four six-inch bullets. “They weigh more than five ounces each, but get this, they have a range of four miles.”

“C’mon!”

“I wouldn’t lie to ya. A round leaves the chamber at three thousand feet a second, but it takes a full seven seconds to hit a target two miles away, considering deceleration, wind, all that.”

“You couldn’t hope for any kind of accuracy—”

“It’s on record that a guy put five rounds within three inches of each other from a thousand yards. At two hundred yards you can put one of these through an inch of rolled steel.”

“The recoil must be—”

“Enormous. And the sound? Without an earplug you could damage your hearing. Wanna try one?”

“Not on your life. I can’t imagine a use for these monstrosities, and I sure wouldn’t want to produce a sound that would alert the GC before the fun starts.”

George pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Should have checked with you first. I’ve got a hundred of ’em on the way with all the ammo you’d need, some with incendiary tips.”

“Dare I ask?”

“A primer inside makes the casing separate if it hits soft material.”

“Like flesh?”

George nodded.

Rayford shook his head. “My flyers would never be able to manage these from the air, and that’s top priority.”

Albie said, “We’ll store them. You never know.”

“Wanna see the other?” George said.

“Not if it’s anything like these,” Rayford said.

“It’s not.” George carefully set the fifty-caliber back into the cargo hold. “These are designed to use from planes or ground vehicles,” he said, producing a lightweight rifle and tossing it to Rayford. “No projectiles.”

“Then what—?”

“It’s a DEW, a directed energy weapon. From a little under half a mile you can shoot a concentrated beam of waves that penetrates clothing and heats any moisture on the skin to 130 degrees in a couple of seconds.”

“What does it do to a man’s innards?”

“Not a thing. Nonlethal.”

Rayford handed it back. “Impressive,” he said. “And we appreciate it. My problem is, I don’t have combat troops, and even if I did, we’d be no match for the GC.”

George shrugged. “They’ll be here if you need ’em.”

Had the day’s prospects not been so dire and Buck not so worried about Hattie’s whereabouts, he might have chuckled at the sight of Dr. Rosenzweig. The old man opened his door to Buck’s knock at the King David Hotel wearing baggy boxer shorts, a sleeveless T-shirt, and the sandals he was to wear with the brown robe. “Cameron, my friend, forgive me; come in, come in.”

Buck was used to Rosenzweig’s normal appearance: wiry, clean shaven, slight, in his late sixties, pale for an Israeli, and with hazel eyes and wisps of wild white hair reminiscent of pictures of Albert Einstein. Normally the decorated statesman and Nobel Prize winner wore wire-rimmed glasses, bulky sweaters, baggy trousers, and comfortable shoes.

Buck found it hard to get used to his old friend with burnt amber skin, very short dark hair, a bushy beard and mustache, deep brown contact lenses, and a protruding chin caused by a tiny appliance in his back teeth. “Zeke sure did a job on you,” Buck said, aware that surviving a horrific plane crash had also left its effects on Chaim.

Dr. Rosenzweig retreated to a chair near where he had laid out his Bible and two commentaries, which he had hidden in his luggage for the flight from the United North American States. A half glass of water sat next to him on a lamp table. His roomy, hooded, monklike robe lay on the bed.

“Why not dress, brother?”

The old man sighed. “I am not ready for the uniform yet, Cameron. I am not ready for the task,” Chaim said, his speech altered not only by the appliance but also from damage to his jaw.

Buck checked the closet and found a hotel robe. “Put this on for now,” he said. “We’ve got a couple of hours.”

Dr. Rosenzweig seemed grateful to be helped into the terry-cloth garment, but it was white and a one-size-fits-all. The contrast between it and his new skin color, and the hem bunching up on the floor when he sat again, made him look no less comical.

Chaim lowered his head, then looked at the hotel name on the breast pocket. “King David,” he said. “Do you not think we should have ‘Patriarch Moses’ sewn onto the brown one?”

Buck smiled. He could not imagine the pressure on his friend. “God will be with you, Doctor,” he said.

Suddenly Rosenzweig shuddered and slid to the floor. He turned and knelt, his elbows on the chair. “Oh, God, oh, God,” Chaim prayed, then quickly tore off his sandals, casting them aside.

Buck himself was driven to his knees with emotion so deep he believed he could not speak. Just before he closed his eyes he noticed the rising sun reach between the curtains and bathe the room. He too slipped off his shoes, then buried his face in his hands, flat on the floor.

Chaim’s voice was weak. “Who am I that I should go and bring the children of Israel out?”

Buck, despite the heat of the day, found himself chilled and trembling. He was overwhelmed with the conviction that he should answer Chaim, but who was he to speak for God? He had drunk in the teaching of Dr. Ben-Judah and overheard his counsel to Chaim on the calling of Moses. But he had not realized that the dialogue had been burned into his brain.

Silence hung in the room. Buck allowed himself to peek for an instant before squeezing his eyes shut again. The room was so bright that the orange stayed in his vision the way Chaim’s question lingered in the air. The man wept aloud.

“God will certainly be with you,” Buck whispered, and Chaim stopped crying. Buck added, “And this shall be a sign to you that God has sent you: When you have brought the people out, you shall serve him.”

The old man said, “Indeed, when I come to the remnant of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

Buck pressed his fingers against his temples. “As God said to Moses,” he said, “ ‘I Am Who I Am.’ Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you. The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is God’s name forever, and this is his memorial to all generations. ‘The Lord God of your fathers has seen what has been done to you and will bring you up out of the affliction to a land of safety and refuge.’ They will heed your voice; and you shall come to the king of this world and you shall say to him, ‘The Lord God has met with me; and now, please, let us journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’ But the king will not let you go, so God will stretch out his hand and strike those who would oppose you.”

“But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice?” Chaim said, so faintly that Buck could barely hear him. “Suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’?”

Buck rolled onto his back and sat up, suddenly frustrated and impatient with Chaim. He stared at the old man kneeling there, and Buck’s head was abuzz, his eyes full of the color permeating the room. Buck had not felt so close to God since he had witnessed Dr. Ben-Judah’s conversing with Eli and Moishe at the Wailing Wall. “Reach out your hand and take the water,” he said, suddenly feeling authoritative.

Chaim turned to stare at him. “Cameron, I did not know you knew Hebrew.”

Buck knew enough not to argue, though he knew no Hebrew and was thinking and forming his words in English. “The water,” he said.

Chaim held his stare, then turned and grasped the glass. The water turned to blood, and Chaim set it down so quickly that it sloshed onto the back of his hand.

Buck said, “This is so that they may believe the Lord God has appeared to you. Now take the water again.”

Chaim timidly reached for the glass, and when he touched it, the blood became water, even on his hand.

“Now turn your hand toward God’s servant,” Buck said. Chaim set the water down again and gestured questioningly toward Buck. And Buck was paralyzed, unable even to move his lips.

“Cameron, are you all right?”

Buck could not respond, light-headed from having stopped breathing. He tried to signal Chaim with his eyes, but the man looked terrified. Chaim pulled his hand back to his chest, as if afraid of its power, and Buck dropped, gasping, his palms on the floor. When he had caught his breath, he said, “Then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign.”

“Cameron! I am sorry! I—”

But Buck continued, “And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. And the water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land.”

Buck sat back on his haunches, hands on his thighs, exhausted.

Chaim said, “But I am not eloquent, even now since God has spoken to me. I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

“Who has made man’s mouth?” Buck said. “Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Has not the Lord? Now therefore, go, and he will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”

Chaim turned away again and knelt at the chair. “O my Lord,” he cried out, “is there no other you can send?”

Buck knew the story. But there was no Aaron. Tsion was at the safe house, not having felt led to help in person. The only other member of the Trib Force with Jewish blood, though he had grown up in Poland, was David Hassid, and he had his own special skills and assignment. Anyway, there was no time to disguise him. If David suddenly appeared in public, he would expose the others who were assumed dead in the plane crash—at least for now.

Buck waited for God to give him an answer for Chaim, but nothing came.

Just before 9 a.m. and about an hour east of Mizpe Ramon, David told Leah to pull over. “I’m sorry, everyone,” he said, “but I just got something from Tsion you need to hear, and I have to get a message to Chang. It’s too hard with this thing bouncing in my lap.”

“Better hide the van,” Mac said. “We’re pretty conspicuous.”

Leah checked her mirrors, switched into four-wheel drive, and aimed toward the sand. Abdullah sat up, fastened his seat belt, and said, “You would think it was the end of the world.”

“Hilarious,” Mac said.

Leah stopped a couple of miles off the road in the shadow of a small crag and two scraggly trees. David set his machine on the seat and stood outside, leaning in. The others stretched, then gathered to hear him read Tsion’s copy of his back-and-forth with Chang.

“That does not sound so good,” Abdullah said. “What to do?”

“I’d take a tone with that boy,” Mac said.

“Just what I was thinking,” David said. “Somebody update Rayford while I’m working here.”

“Got it covered,” Mac said, flipping open his phone.

David wrote:

Bottom line, Chang, is that you don’t have time for this right now. Too many people are counting on you, and the very success of a life-and-death operation is in your hands. Doing harm to yourself because you can’t figure out why God might have let something happen would be the most royally selfish act you could conjure up.

Now as soon as I transmit this, I want a reply from you that you’re still on the job. If it is not forthcoming, I’ll be forced to initiate the codes that destroy your setup and all the stuff I built there and explained to you. You know we can’t risk your doing yourself in and leaving evidence that something was amiss. We need to know Suhail Akbar’s plans on investigating the crash site. You need to hack into Sandra’s files and be sure we’re up-to-date on Carpathia’s schedule. And if he holds meetings anywhere you can tap into, you’ve got to direct that transmission to Chicago, to Mizpe Ramon, and to me. Where’s the 216, who’s flying it, and is Carpathia using it for meetings?

Hear me, Chang. Something you wrote to Dr. Ben-Judah reminded me of something you said to me about this whole dual mark thing. I know you didn’t take it on purpose, though you wanted me to think you got used to it right away and see, as you called it, the “upside.” But it’s not so easy, is it, when we’re all so new at this and something doesn’t jibe with what God seems to say about it? Dr. Ben-Judah’s the expert, and you’ve got him baffled, so I won’t pretend to have an answer for you. But obviously something’s not right, and I don’t blame you for wanting to find out how God sees you now.

There’s no doubt in my mind that nothing can separate you from God and his love, but you’re not going to have peace until you know for sure what really happened that morning. Now, again, let me be clear: This is not your top priority. Most important for you is to complete the tasks I listed above and make sure we’re all safe and still undetected. Last we knew, Carpathia was to make his public appearance in Jerusalem at 11:00 a.m. Carpathian time.

But once you’re sure everything is under control and that we are all up to speed, try the coordinates I list below. It’s a long shot, but I programmed in a string that might allow access to surveillance equipment I did not install. It’s possible there’s a record, video or audio or both, of what went on that day. The problem is that Building D was a maintenance facility that the brass rarely, if ever, visited. I didn’t bother planting bugs there, but for all I know, something was already in place.

You told me in person, and Dr. Ben-Judah a little while ago, that you were trying to get out of taking the mark and were even prepared to tell the truth right up to the time they “stuck” you. I took that to mean up to the time you were given the mark. Maybe that
is
what you meant, but that’s not the way most people refer to the application of the tattoo and the embedding of the chip. I don’t know. Maybe I’m reaching. But maybe something else was going on. You never told me what happened from the time you got to the basement of Building D until you got to my office. Do you remember? And if not, why not?

So, first, tell me you’re there and doing your job. Give us everything we need. Then see what you can find for Building D. Answer back as soon as you’ve read this.

David transmitted the message, then let Mac read it before they headed off for Mizpe Ramon. Mac nodded. “How much time do you give him?”

David shrugged. “Not much, but I don’t want to nuke the system because he’s on a bathroom break either.”

Within minutes of their return to the road, David had a reply from Chang: “Following orders. And, Mr. Hassid, I thought the mark was administered in the basement of the palace. Blueprints show Building D several hundred yards from here. I have no memory of having been there. And by being ‘stuck,’ I meant the anesthetic they gave me prior to the procedure. I thought that was done in the palace too.”

Rayford was encouraged to hear how close the Quasi Two quartet and Leah were to Mizpe Ramon. He told Mac about the weapons George Sebastian was having flown in.

“Smitty will want to see those,” Mac said. “He was a combat man before he flew fighters, you know.”

Rayford hadn’t known, and he could hear Abdullah in the background, demanding to know what they were talking about.

“Just keep a rein on that camel there, desert boy,” Mac said.

“You watch it, Texas-cowboy boy. I will learn some slurs about you and torment your ancestors.”

“Just a minute, Ray,” Mac said. “Smitty, you mean my descendants. My ancestors are dead.”

“So much the better. I will make them turn over in their tombs.”

“Albie’s a gun guy too,” Rayford said. “But I’ve had my fill. Anyway, I need both him and Abdullah in the air.”

He was glad to hear of Leah and Hannah’s plans, but he fell silent at the news that David wanted to precede everyone to Petra. In the background he heard Hassid say, “I wanted to tell him that myself, Mac.”

But as Rayford turned it over in his mind, David’s setting up Petra for Chaim and the Israeli believers made sense. He asked Mac what anyone knew about Carpathia’s latest plans. Mac brought him up-to-date on the troubles with Chang.

“I need to know as soon as possible,” Rayford said. “The parade or whatever you want to call it, the desecration, and the attack could all happen this week.”

Buck carried his Corporal Jack Jensen GC Peacekeeper ID, but he wore civilian clothes and counted on his own new hair and eye color, not to mention his severely scarred face, to throw off anyone who might otherwise recognize him. He and Chaim left the King David by car at 9:30 and picked their way through heavy traffic to within walking distance of the Old City. Chaim’s robe was gathered at the waist by a braid of rope, but the hem brushed the ground and hid his feet, making it appear he was gliding.

The two were soon enveloped by the masses who lined the Via Dolorosa, where Carpathia was expected an hour before noon. Buck was struck by the crowds, despite the waning population around the world. The city still showed residue from the earthquake that had leveled a tenth of it, but nothing stopped the opportunists. On every corner hawkers presented Carpathia memorabilia, including real and plastic fronds to toss before him as he would make what was becoming known as his triumphal entry.

Apparently, Nicolae Carpathia the pacifist was no more. Convoys of tanks, military trucks, fighters and bombers on flatbed trucks, and even missiles slowly rolled through the streets. Buck knew they wouldn’t fit within the Old City without choking the tiny thoroughfares, but they were pervasive everywhere else.

Buck kept an eye out for Hattie and a hand on his phone, but he had long since despaired of a reasonable explanation for her disappearance. He tried not to think the worst, but reaching him or anyone else in the Trib Force should have been easy for her.

Chaim trudged along beside him, hunched, hands deep in the folds of his brown robe, his nearly bald head hidden by the hood. He had uttered not a word since the hotel-room experience. He had merely traded the King David terry cloth for the burlap-looking but soft flannel robe and slipped into his sandals.

It seemed the city was short of Peacekeepers, local or international. Many shopwindows were boarded up, and anything and everything served as a taxi, even dilapidated private vehicles. At the occasional open appliance store, TVs blared from the windows as onlookers gathered and gaped. Buck put a hand on Chaim’s shoulder and nodded toward such a place. They joined the crowd to watch a replay of the crash of the Quasi Two, coverage of rubber-gloved technicians picking through the wreckage, and the somber statements from Potentate Carpathia, Most High Reverend Father Leon Fortunato, Supreme Commander Walter Moon and, finally, Security and Intelligence Director Suhail Akbar.

“Unfortunately,” the latter said, “while the investigation continues, we have been unable to confirm the evidence of any human remains. It is, of course, possible that four loyal patriots of the Global Community were vaporized upon impact in this tragedy. Medical personnel tell us they would have died without pain. Once we have confirmed the deaths, prayers will go to the risen potentate on behalf of their eternal souls, and we will extend our sympathies to their families and loved ones.”

The news anchor intoned that further investigation revealed pilot error on the part of Captain Mac McCullum and that a New Babylon–based loadmaster had warned the crew of a cargo weight-and-balance problem and had begged them not to take off.

Buck knew he should dread what was coming, but having felt the presence of God at the King David, he was filled with courage. He didn’t know how he and Chaim were going to avoid detection or what might happen once Carpathia had initiated his awful deed. He only wished he detected some evidence that Chaim had derived the same confidence from what had happened while they were on their knees.

David and the others in the van listened to Suhail Akbar’s conclusions on the radio as Leah followed careful directions and pulled to within sight of the landing strip outside Mizpe Ramon. David was moved by the shock and sadness in the voice of Tiffany, his assistant, as she was interviewed about him. He wished he could tell her he was all right, but he feared some might already suspect that.

He embraced Rayford, shook hands with Albie, and introduced Hannah all around. As the rest were briefed on plans wholly dependent on the unpredictable Carpathia, David was pointed to Rayford’s quarters, where he cleared a table and set up his computer to monitor Chang Wong’s success at keeping up with the potentate.

The young man had succeeded in getting the latest copy of Carpathia’s itinerary. It showed a meeting including NC, LF, WM, SA, and LH on the FX at 1000 hours. “I know that’s now,” Chang reported, “but I’m lost after the initials for the four we know. Help?”