The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (383 page)

“You
love
this, Leah! I can tell.”

“You’re delirious.”

“What kind of conveyance, Miss Rose?” Abdullah said.

“I need him prone.”

Abdullah got back on the phone.

“You could be just a little rougher with me than you might be with another patient, just to get back at me.”

Rayford was teasing and trying to smile, but Leah clearly wasn’t biting. “Back at you for what?”

“For how I used to talk to you.”

“Well, maybe you owe me too,” she said.

“Maybe I do, but I’m in no position to exact revenge.”

“And I have your flesh wounds in my hands. Now keep quiet and let me work.”

It was all Mac could do not to burst out laughing when he saw Carpathia. Had the man been wearing a black hat, he would have looked like Zorro. A shirt with a frilly collar represented the only white in his ensemble. Everything else, from his knee-length boots to his leather pants, vest, and thigh-length, capelike coat, was black.

Leon was in his most resplendent, gaudiest, Day-Glo getup, including a purple felt fez with multiple hangy-downs and a cranberry vestment with gold collar, appliquéd with every religious symbol known to man, save the cross of Christ and the Star of David. A turquoise ring on his right middle finger was so large it covered the adjoining knuckles.

If only God had scheduled the Glorious Appearing on Halloween . . .

Carpathia stood at the head of an enormous, polished wood table, around which sat—if Mac could guess from their native garb—the sub-potentates from each of the ten international regions, their entourages, and Carpathia’s brain trust, sans Chief Akbar, of course. There had to be more than fifty gathered.

Viv Ivins sat demurely in her customary sky blue suit (with hair to match) six chairs from Nicolae on his far left side. She seemed even paler than Mac had remembered, and he thought he detected a trembling in her fingers as she busied herself taking notes. The others, despite their positions of high authority on Carpathia’s cabinet and around the world, also seemed tentative in his presence. The outburst against Suhail Akbar had clearly shaken them all.

Mac was near the entrance, one of the last few to have entered, and he realized that the six sentries he and his platoonmates had replaced had filled out a contingent of another fifty or so who lined the walls of the long room. Knowing what it had taken even to be allowed underground, he had to wonder against whom they were protecting Carpathia. Was he afraid of his own people?

Chang had walked Naomi back into the tech center. “What am I going to do?” he said. “I’ll never sleep tonight, and I’m wasted.”

“Surely you don’t think we’ll have to wait another day.”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Today is the day, love. There’s no question.”

“I hope you’re right. I’m wired, but at some point I’m going to crash. Dr. Rosenzweig wants me to get him on international TV just before dark. You may have to prop me up.”

“You’ll rise to it. You always do.”

The wall at his back, made of large blocks of stone, cooled Mac through his uniform jacket. He desperately wanted to peek at his watch. He knew it was well after 1600 hours now, and he believed Jesus could come any second. This was the last place he wanted to be when that happened, but being here was part of the price he paid to find Buck. And there was the prospect of seeing the look on Carpathia’s face.

Mac tried to appear focused on his menial task—providing showy security where none was needed—but when he ran through his mind what he really wanted to be doing, he found it difficult to concentrate. Besides being in broad daylight in the Holy City when the Lord Christ appeared, Mac’s second choice was opening fire on Carpathia from his perfect vantage point. There would be none of that, he knew. It fit no prophetic scenario, but how fulfilling it would be!

Nothing would come of such foolhardiness, of course. The man had been murdered once, and was he now even a man? Drs. Ben-Judah and Rosenzweig had said he was now indwelt by Satan himself, a spirit-being using a human body—albeit a dead one.

In addition, Mac simply wanted to take a load off. The idea of sliding to his seat on the floor, of stretching out with his hands behind his head . . . well, that was something that would come once Jesus had taken His rightful place. Mac’s friends and comrades often talked about what kind of a world they would live in soon, but he kept to himself the idea that what he most longed for was simply rest.

He was certain he was not alone in this. Others had hinted at it. They had all been so busy, so stressed, so sleep deprived, and all that had only worsened as the days grew nearer to the Glorious Appearing. The idea of living in a world of peace and safety so appealed to Mac that he could barely imagine it. To be able to sleep without half an eye or ear figuratively open to danger . . . well, talk about heaven on earth.

And to be reunited with friends and loved ones. It was nearly too much to get his mind around. Best of all, of course, would be to see Jesus personally. Would he get to touch Him, to speak with Him? Mac felt so new as a believer, so limited in his knowledge of the things of God. He felt as if he had been attending seminary under the Tribulation Force’s spiritual leaders ever since Rayford had led him to faith. But there was so much he didn’t know.

All he knew was that Jesus loved him, had died for his sins, and was the reason he did not have to fear death and hell.

Chang had been called before Dr. Rosenzweig and the elders.

“Of course I can do it,” he said, “but the GC has been improving on wresting back control of the airwaves. The shorter the broadcast, the more likely I can keep it on without interruption.”

“I plan to be brief,” Chaim said.

“And if, ah, if—”

“You’re wondering what happens, hoping as I am, if Messiah returns first?”

“Or in the middle of it,” Chang said.

“Well, I should think that event would take precedence, wouldn’t you?”

Chang smiled as the elders laughed.

“Rabbi Rosenzweig is attempting,” Eleazar Tiberius said, “to persuade the rest of the Jewish population—those who have refused the mark of the beast and yet who have not acknowledged Jesus as Messiah—to do just that. He, and we agree, estimates that this may constitute a third of the remaining Jewish population. You understand that these are God’s chosen people, His children from the beginning of time. All of Scripture is His love letter to them, His plan for them.”

“Understand it?” Chang said. “I can’t say that I do. But I believe it.”

Chaim stood. “We must not delay. As I have said so many times, we know the day—today—but we do not know the hour. If we thought we did, we were wrong, were we not, Eleazar?”

The big man smiled. “I acknowledge it. But is it not also true that we know the sequence of events, so we have some idea what follows by what comes next?”

“That is what I will be talking about on the broadcast, my friends.”

Before the anesthetic took effect in his temple, Rayford fought to keep from recoiling from the thrust of the needle. He was amazed that a new twinge of pain could supersede all the others, and he was also struck by Leah’s gentleness as she cradled his head and assured him the sting would soon fade.

“You’re being much better to me than I deserve,” he said, knowing he sounded groggy and hoping she understood.

“Will you stop with that now, Captain? I have work to do, and while I know you’re trying to keep things light, I don’t need to be worrying if you’re serious.”

He reached for her hand. “Take a minute, Leah. I am serious. When you first came to us you know that we sniped at each other. I wasn’t used to your types of questions and probably was threatened by them. I never made that right, but as far as I could tell, you never made me pay.”

She pressed her lips together. “And I’m not about to now. Listen, Ray, you’re hurt more badly than you know. My job is to stabilize you, keep you from going into shock. The fact that you haven’t already is a miracle. But you apparently need to hear this, so let me tell you. My failure was that I never cleared the air between us either. Fact is, you eventually won me over. Everybody could see how much you cared for all of us, how tireless you were, how you put everybody else ahead of your own needs.”

Rayford was embarrassed. He hadn’t meant to elicit this, nice as it was. He squeezed her hand. “Okay, okay,” he said. “We’re friends again.”

“Think of the people who will be in heaven because of you,” she said.

“All right, enough,” he said. “I was just trying to thank you for not rubbing it in.”

“Now will you hush?”

“I will, ma’am.”