The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (78 page)

As Rayford looked for a route that would get him near Northwest Community Hospital, the CNN/GCN correspondent came back on. “This late word: Anti–Global Community militia forces have threatened nuclear war on New York City, primarily Kennedy International Airport. Civilians are fleeing the area and causing one of the worst pedestrian and auto traffic jams in that city’s history. Peacekeeping forces say they have the ability and technology to intercept missiles but are worried about residual damage to outlying areas.

“And now this from London: A one-hundred-megaton bomb has destroyed Heathrow Airport, and radiation fallout threatens the populace for miles. The bomb was apparently dropped by peacekeeping forces after contraband Egyptian and British fighter-bombers were discovered rallying from a closed military airstrip near Heathrow. The warships, which have all been shot from the sky, were reportedly nuclear-equipped and en route to Baghdad and New Babylon.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Chloe whispered. “God help us.”

“Maybe we should just try to get to New Hope,” Amanda suggested.

“Not till we check on Bruce,” Rayford said. He asked stunned passersby if it was possible to get to Northwest Community Hospital on foot.

“It’s possible,” a woman said. “It’s right past that field and over the rise. But I don’t know how close they’ll let you get to what’s left of it.”

“It was hit?”

“Was it hit? Mister, it’s just up the road and across the street from the old Nike base. Most people think it got hit first.”

“I’m going,” Rayford said.

“Me too,” Buck said.

“We’re all going,” Chloe insisted, but Rayford held up a hand.

“We’re not all going. It’s going to be hard enough for one of us to get past security. Buck or I will have a better chance because we have Global Community identification. I think one of us with an ID should go, and the other should stay with the wives. We all have to be with someone who can get past the red tape if necessary.”

“I want to go,” Buck said, “but you make the call.”

“Stay and make sure the car is positioned so we can get out of here and get to Mount Prospect. If I’m not back in half an hour, take the risk and come looking for me.”

“Daddy, if Bruce is any better, try to bring him with you.”

“Don’t worry, Chloe,” Rayford said. “I’m ahead of you.”

As soon as Rayford had jogged through the muddy weeds and out of sight, Buck regretted agreeing to stay behind. He had always been a person of action, and as he watched shell-shocked citizens milling about and commiserating, he could hardly stand still.

Rayford’s heart sank as he came over the rise and saw the hospital. Part of the full height of the structure was still intact, but much of it was rubble. Emergency vehicles surrounded the mess, with white-uniformed rescue workers scurrying about. A long stretch of police barrier tape had been stretched around the hospital campus. As Rayford lifted it to duck under, a security guard, weapon ready, ran toward him.

“Halt!” he called out. “This is a restricted area!”

“I have clearance!” Rayford shouted, waving his ID wallet.

“Stay right there!” the guard hollered. When he got to Rayford he took the wallet and studied it, comparing the photo to Rayford’s face. “Wow! Clearance level 2-A. You work for Carpathia himself?”

Rayford nodded.

“What’s your job?”

“Classified.”

“Is he around here?”

“No, and I wouldn’t tell you if he was.”

“You’re all good,” the guard said, and Rayford headed toward what had been the front of the building. He was largely ignored by people too busy to care who did or did not have clearance to be there. Body after body was laid out in a neat row and covered. “Any survivors?” Rayford asked an emergency medical technician.

“Three so far,” the man said. “All women. Two nurses and a doctor. They were outside for a smoke.”

“No one inside?”

“We hear voices,” the man said. “But we haven’t gotten to anyone in time yet.”

Breathing a prayer, Rayford folded his wallet so his ID was facing out. He slid it into his breast pocket. He strode to the makeshift outdoor morgue where several EMTs moved among the remains, lifting sheets and taking notes, trying to reconcile patient and employee lists with body parts and ID bracelets.

“Help or get out of the way,” a heavyset woman said as she brushed past Rayford.

“I’m looking for a Bruce Barnes,” Rayford said.

The woman, whose nameplate read
Patricia Devlin
, stopped and squinted, cocked her head, and checked her clipboard. She flipped through the three top pages, shaking her head. “Staff or patient?” she asked.

“Patient. Brought into the emergency room. He was in a coma last we heard.”

“Probably ICU then,” she said. “Check over there.” Patricia pointed to six bodies at the end of a row. “Just a minute,” she added, flipping to yet one more page. “Barnes, ICU. Yep, that’s where he was. There’s still more inside, you know, but ICU was just about vaporized.”

“So he might be here and he might still be inside?”

“If he’s out here, hon, he’s confirmed dead. If he’s still inside, they may never find him.”

“No chance for anybody in ICU?”

“Not so far. Relative?”

“Closer than a brother.”

“You want I should check for you?”

Rayford’s face contorted, and he could hardly speak. “I’d be grateful.”

Patricia Devlin moved quickly, surprisingly agile for her size. Her thick, white-soled shoes were muddy. She knelt by the bodies one by one, checking, as Rayford stood ten feet away, his hand covering his mouth, a sob rising in his throat.

At the fourth body, Miss Devlin began to lift the sheet when she hesitated and checked the still-intact wristband. She looked back at Rayford, and he knew. The tears began to roll. She rose and approached. “Your friend is presentable,” she said. “Some of these I wouldn’t dare show you, but you could see him.”

Rayford forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. The woman reached down and slowly pulled back the sheet, revealing Bruce, eyes open, lifeless and still. Rayford fought for composure, his chest heaving. He reached to close Bruce’s eyes, but the nurse stopped him. “I can’t let you do that.” She reached with a gloved hand. “I’ll do it.”

“Could you check for a pulse?” Rayford managed.

“Oh, sir,” she said, deep sympathy in her voice, “they don’t bring them out here unless they’ve been pronounced.”

“Please,” he whispered, crying openly now. “For me.”

And as Rayford stood in the bluster of suburban Chicago’s early afternoon, his hands to his face, a woman he had never met before and would never see again placed a thumb and forefinger at the pressure points under his pastor’s jaw.

Without looking at Rayford, she took her hand away, replaced the sheet over Bruce Barnes’s head, and went back about her business. Rayford’s legs buckled, and he knelt on the muddy pavement. Sirens blared in the distance, emergency lights flashed all around him, and his family waited less than half a mile away. It was just him and them now. No teacher. No mentor. Just the four of them.

As he rose and trudged back down the rise with his awful news, Rayford heard the Emergency Broadcast System station blaring from every vehicle he passed. Washington had been obliterated. Heathrow was gone. There had been death in the Egyptian desert and in the skies over London. New York was on alert.

Buck was nearly ready to go after Rayford when he saw a tall form appear on the horizon. From his gait and the slump of his shoulders, Buck knew.

“Oh, no,” he whispered, and Chloe and Amanda began to cry. The three of them rushed to meet Rayford and walk him back to the car.

The Red Horse of the Apocalypse was on the rampage.

It was the worst of times; it was the worst of times.

Rayford Steele’s knees ached as he sat behind the wheel of the rented Lincoln. He had dropped to the pavement at the crushing realization of his pastor’s death. The physical pain, though it would stay with him for days, would prove minor compared to the mental anguish of having yet again lost one of the dearest people in his life.

Rayford felt Amanda’s eyes on him. She laid one comforting hand on his thigh. In the backseat his daughter, Chloe, and her husband, Buck, each had a hand on his shoulder.

What now?
Rayford wondered.
What do we do without Bruce? Where do we go?

The Emergency Broadcast System station droned on with the news of chaos, devastation, destruction, and cell phone failure throughout the world. Unable to speak over the lump in his throat, Rayford busied himself maneuvering his way through the incongruous traffic jams. Why were people out? What did they expect to see? Weren’t they afraid of more bombs, or fallout?

“I need to get to the Chicago bureau office,” Buck said.

“You can use the car after we get to the church,” Rayford managed. “I need to get the word out about Bruce.”

Global Community peacekeeping forces supervised local police and emergency relief personnel directing traffic and trying to get people to return to their homes. Rayford relied on his many years in the Chicago area to use back roads and side streets to get around the major thoroughfares, which were hopelessly clogged.

Rayford wondered if he should have taken Buck up on his offer to drive. But Rayford had not wanted to appear weak. He shook his head.
There’s no limit to the pilot’s ego!
He felt as if he could curl into a ball and cry himself to sleep.

Nearly two years since the vanishing of his wife and son, along with millions of others, Rayford no longer harbored illusions about his life in the twilight of history. He had been devastated. He lived with deep pain and regret. This was so hard. . . .

Rayford knew his life could be even worse. Suppose he had not become a believer in Christ and was still lost forever. Suppose he had not found a new love and was alone. Suppose Chloe had also vanished. Or he had never met Buck. There was much to be grateful for. Were it not for the physical touch of the other three in that car, Rayford wondered if he would have had the will to go on.

He could hardly imagine not having come to know and love Bruce Barnes. He had learned more and been enlightened and inspired more by Bruce than anyone else he’d ever met. And it wasn’t just Bruce’s knowledge and teaching that made the difference. It was his passion. Here was a man who immediately and clearly saw that he had missed the greatest truth ever communicated to mankind, and he was not about to repeat the mistake.

“Daddy, those two guards by the overpass seem to be waving at you,” Chloe said.

“I’m trying to ignore them,” Rayford said. “All these nobodies-trying-to-be-somebodies think they have a better idea about where the traffic should go. If we listen to them, we’ll be here for hours. I just want to get to the church.”

“He’s hollering at you with a bullhorn,” Amanda said, and she lowered her window a few inches.

“You in the white Lincoln!” came the booming voice. Rayford quickly turned off the radio. “Are you Rayford Steele?”

“How would they know that?” Buck said.

“Is there any limit to the Global Community intelligence network?” Rayford said, disgusted.

“If you’re Rayford Steele,” came the voice again, “please pull your vehicle to the shoulder!”

Rayford considered ignoring even that but thought better of it. There would be no outrunning these people if they knew who he was. But how did they know?

He pulled over.

Buck Williams pulled his hand from Rayford’s shoulder and craned his neck to see two uniformed soldiers scampering down the embankment. He had no idea how Global Community forces had tracked down Rayford, but one thing was certain: it would not be good for Buck to be discovered with Carpathia’s pilot.

“Ray,” he said quickly, “I’ve got one set of phony IDs in the name of Herb Katz. Tell ’em I’m a pilot friend of yours or something.”

“OK,” Rayford said, “but my guess is they’ll be deferential to me. Obviously, Nicolae is merely trying to reconnect with me.”

Buck hoped Rayford was right. It made sense that Carpathia would want to make sure his pilot was all right and could somehow get him back to New Babylon. The two uniforms now stood behind the Lincoln, one speaking into a walkie-talkie, the other on a cell phone. Buck decided to go on the offensive and opened his door.

“Please remain in the vehicle,” Walkie-Talkie said.

Buck slumped back into his seat and switched his phony papers with his real ones. Chloe looked terrified. Buck put his arm around her and drew her close. “Carpathia must have put out an all points bulletin. He knew your dad had to rent a car, so it didn’t take long to track him down.”

Buck had no idea what the two GC men were doing behind the car. All he knew was that his entire perspective on the next five years had changed in an instant. When global war broke out an hour before, he wondered if he and Chloe would survive the rest of the Tribulation. Now with the news of Bruce’s death, Buck wondered if they
wanted
to survive. The prospect of heaven and being with Christ sure seemed better than living in whatever remained of this world, even if Buck had to die to get there.

Walkie-Talkie approached the driver’s-side window. Rayford lowered it. “You
are
Rayford Steele, are you not?”

“Depends on who’s asking,” Rayford said.

“This car, with this license number, was rented at O’Hare by someone claiming to be Rayford Steele. If that’s not you, you’re in deep trouble.”

“Wouldn’t you agree,” Rayford said, “that regardless who I am, we’re all in deep trouble?”

Buck was amused at Rayford’s feistiness, in light of the situation.

“Sir, I need to know if you are Rayford Steele.”

“I am.”

“Can you prove that, sir?”

Rayford appeared as agitated as Buck had ever seen him. “You flag me down and holler at me through a bullhorn and tell me I’m driving Rayford Steele’s rental car, and now you want me to prove to you that I’m who you think I am?”

“Sir, you must understand the position I’m in. I have Global Community potentate Carpathia himself patched through to a secure cell phone here. I don’t even know where he’s calling from. If I put someone on the phone and tell the potentate it’s Rayford Steele, it had blamed better be Rayford Steele.”

Buck was grateful that Rayford’s cat-and-mouse game had taken the spotlight off the others in the car, but that didn’t last. Rayford slipped from his breast pocket his ID wallet, and as the GC man studied it, he asked idly, “And the others?”

“Family and friends,” Rayford said. “Let’s not keep the potentate waiting.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to take this call outside the car, sir. You understand the security risks.”

Rayford sighed and left the car. Buck wished Walkie-Talkie would disappear too, but he merely stepped out of Rayford’s way and pointed him toward his partner, the one with the phone. Then he leaned in and spoke to Buck. “Sir, in the event that we transport Captain Steele to a rendezvous point, would you be able to handle the disposition of this vehicle?”

Do all uniformed people talk this way?
Buck wondered. “Sure.”

Amanda leaned over. “I’m Mrs. Steele,” she said. “Wherever Mr. Steele is going, I’m going.”

“That will be up to the potentate,” the guard said, “and providing there’s room in the chopper.”

“Yes, sir,” Rayford said into the phone, “I’ll see you soon then.”

Rayford handed the cell phone to the second guard. “How will we get to wherever we’re supposed to go?”

“A copter should be here momentarily.”

Rayford motioned for Amanda to pop the trunk but to stay in the car. As he shouldered both their bags, he leaned in her window and whispered. “Amanda and I have to rendezvous with Carpathia, but he couldn’t even tell me where he was or where we would meet. That phone is only so secure. I get the feeling it’s not far away, unless they’re coptering us to an airfield from which we’ll fly somewhere else. Buck, you’d better get this car back to the rental company soon. It’ll be too easy to connect you with me otherwise.”

Five minutes later Rayford and Amanda were airborne. “Any idea where we’re going?” Rayford shouted to one of the Global Community guards.

The guard clapped the chopper pilot on the shoulder and shouted, “Are we at liberty to say where we’re going?”

“Glenview!” the pilot hollered.

“Glenview Naval Air Station has been closed for years,” Rayford said.

The chopper pilot turned to look at him. “The big runway’s still open! The man’s there now!”

Amanda leaned close to Rayford. “Carpathia’s in Illinois already?”

“He must have been out of Washington before the attack. I thought they might have taken him to one of the bomb shelters at the Pentagon or the National Security Administration, but his intelligence people must have figured those would be the first places the militia would attack.”

“This reminds me of when we were first married,” Buck said as Chloe snuggled close to him.

“What do you mean ‘when we were first married’? We’re still newlyweds!”

“Shh!” Buck said quickly. “What’re they saying about New York City?”

Chloe turned up the radio. “. . . devastating carnage everywhere here in the heart of Manhattan. Bombed-out buildings, emergency vehicles picking their way through debris, Civil Defense workers pleading with people over loudspeakers to stay underground.”

Buck heard the panic in the reporter’s voice as he continued. “I’m seeking shelter myself now, probably too late to avoid the effects of radiation. No one knows for certain if the warheads were nuclear, but everyone is being urged to take no risks. Damage estimates will be in the billions of dollars. Life as we know it here may never be the same. There’s devastation as far as the eye can see.

“All major transportation centers have been closed if not destroyed. Huge traffic jams have snarled the Lincoln Tunnel, the Triborough Bridge, and every major artery out of New York City. What has been known as the capital of the world looks like the set of a disaster movie. Now back to the Cable News/Global Community News Network in Atlanta.”

“Buck,” Chloe said, “our home. Where will we live?”

Buck didn’t answer. He stared at the traffic and wondered at the billowing clouds of black smoke and intermittent balls of orange flame that seemed to hover directly over Mt. Prospect. It was like Chloe to worry about her home. Buck was less concerned about that. He could live anywhere and seemed to
have
lived everywhere. As long as he had Chloe and shelter, he was all right. But she had made their ridiculously expensive Fifth Avenue penthouse flat her own.

Finally, Buck spoke. “They won’t let anybody back into New York for days, maybe longer. Even our vehicles, if they survived, won’t be available to us.”

“What are we going to do, Buck?”

Buck wished he knew what to say. He usually had an answer. Resourcefulness had been the trademark of his career. Regardless of the obstacle, he had somehow made do in every imaginable situation or venue in the world at one time or another. Now, with his new, young wife beside him, not knowing where she would live or how they would manage, he was at a loss. All he wanted to do was to make sure his father-in-law and Amanda were safe, in spite of the danger of Rayford’s work, and to somehow get to Mt. Prospect to assess what was happening to the people of New Hope Village Church and to inform them of the tragedy that had befallen their beloved pastor.

Buck had never had patience for traffic jams, but this was ridiculous. His jaw tightened and his neck stiffened as his palms squeezed the wheel. The late-model car was a smooth ride, but inching along in near gridlock made the huge automotive power plant feel like a stallion that wanted to run free.

Suddenly an explosion rocked their car and nearly lifted it off its tires. Buck wouldn’t have been surprised had the windows blown in around them. Chloe shrieked and buried her head in Buck’s chest. Buck scanned the horizon for what might have caused the concussion. Several cars around them quickly pulled off the road. In the rearview mirror Buck saw a mushroom cloud slowly rise and assumed it was in the neighborhood of O’Hare International Airport, several miles away.