Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama Of Those Left Behind (30 page)

“Ayeee!” A young man wearing boots, khaki slacks, and a white T-shirt came screaming through the crowd. People fell to the ground when they saw his automatic weapon. He wore a gold necklace, and his black hair and beard were unkempt. His dark eyes were ablaze as he rattled off a few rounds into the air, which cleared a path for him directly to the preachers.

He shouted something in an Eastern dialect Buck did not understand, but as he lay on the pavement peeking out from under his arms, Rabbi Ben-Judah whispered, “He says he’s on a mission from Allah.”

Buck reached into his bag and turned on the tape recorder as the man ran to the front of the crowd. The two witnesses stopped preaching and stood shoulder to shoulder, glaring at the gunman as he approached. He ran full speed, firing as he ran, but the preachers stood rock solid, not speaking, not moving, arms crossed over their ragged robes. When the young man got to within five feet of them, he seemed to hit an invisible wall. He recoiled and flipped over backward, his weapon clattering away. His head smacked the ground first, and he lay groaning.

Suddenly one of the preachers shouted, “You are forbidden to come nigh to the servants of the Most High God! We are under his protection until the due time, and woe to anyone who approaches without the covering of Yahweh himself.” And as he finished, the other breathed from his mouth a column of fire that incinerated the man’s clothes, consumed his flesh and organs, and in seconds left a charred skeleton smoking on the ground. The weapon melted and was fused to the cement, and the man’s molten necklace dripped gold through the cavity in his chest.

Buck lay on his stomach, his mouth agape, his hand on the back of the rabbi, who shuddered uncontrollably. In the distance families ran screaming toward their cars and buses while Israeli soldiers approached the Wall slowly, weapons at the ready.

One of the preachers spoke. “No one need fear us who comes to listen to our testimony to the living God! Many have believed and received our report. Only those who seek to do us harm shall die! Fear not!”

Buck believed him. He wasn’t sure the rabbi did. They stood and began to move away, but the eyes of the witnesses were on them. Israeli soldiers shouted at them from the edge of the plaza. “The soldiers are telling us to move away slowly,” Dr. Ben-Judah translated.

“I want to stay,” Buck said. “I want to talk to these men.”

“Did you not see what just happened?”

“Of course, but I also heard them say they meant no harm to sincere listeners.”

“But are you a sincere listener, or are you just a journalist looking for a scoop?”

“I’m both,” Buck admitted.

“God bless you,” the rabbi said. He turned and spoke in Hebrew to the two witnesses as Israeli soldiers shouted at him and Buck all the more. Buck and Ben-Judah backed away from the preachers, who now stood silent.

“I told them we would meet them at ten o’clock tonight behind the building where they occasionally rest. Will you be able to join me?”

“Like I would pass that up,” Buck said.

Rayford returned from a quiet dinner with part of his new crew to an urgent message from Chloe. It took him a few minutes to get through, wishing she had given him some indication of what was wrong. It wasn’t like her to say something was urgent unless it really was. She picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Hello?” she said. “Buck? Dad?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“How’s Buck?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Are you going to?”

“Well, sure, I suppose.”

“Do you know what hospital he’s in?”

“What?”

“You didn’t see it?”

“See what?”

“Dad, it was just on the morning news here. The two witnesses at the Wailing Wall burned some guy to death, and everybody around hit the ground. One of the last two lying there was Buck.”

“Are you sure?”

“No question.”

“Do you know for certain he was hurt?”

“No! I just assumed. He was just lying there next to a guy in a black suit whose hat had fallen off.”

“Where’s he staying?”

“At the King David. I left a message for him. They said they had his key, so he was out. What does that mean?”

“Some people leave their keys at the desk whenever they go out. It doesn’t mean anything special. I’m sure he’ll call you.”

“Isn’t there some way you can find out if he was hurt?”

“I’ll try. Let’s leave it this way: If I find out anything either way, I’ll call you. No news will be good news, at least.”

Buck’s knees felt like jelly. “Are you all right, Rabbi?”

“I’m fine,” Dr. Ben-Judah said, “but I am nearly overcome.”

“I know the feeling.”

“I want to believe those men are of God.”

“I believe they are,” Buck said.

“Do you? Are you a student of the Scriptures?”

“Only recently.”

“Come. I want to show you something.”

When they got back to the car, the rabbi’s driver stood with his door open, ashen faced. Tsion Ben-Judah spoke reassuringly to him in Hebrew, and the man kept looking past him to Buck. Buck tried to smile.

Buck got into the front seat, and Ben-Judah quietly guided the driver to park as close as possible to the Golden Gate at the east of the Temple Mount. He invited Buck to walk with him to the gate so he could interpret the Hebrew graffiti. “See here,” he said. “It says, ‘Come Messiah.’ And here, ‘Deliver us.’ And there, ‘Come in triumph.’

“My people have longed for and prayed for and watched and waited for our Messiah for centuries. But much of Judaism, even in the Holy Land, has become secular and less biblically oriented. My research project was assigned almost as an inevitability. People have lost sight of exactly what or whom they are looking for, and many have given up.

“And to show you how deep runs the animosity between the Muslim and the Jew, look at this cemetery the Muslims have built just outside the fence here.”

“What’s the significance?”

“Jewish tradition says that in the end times, Messiah and Elijah will lead the Jews to the temple in triumph through the gate from the east. But Elijah is a priest, and walking through a graveyard would defile him, so the Muslims have put one here to make the triumphal entry impossible.”

Buck reached for his tape recorder and was going to ask the rabbi to repeat that tidbit of history, but he noticed it was still running. “Look at this,” Buck said. “I got the attack on tape.”

He rewound the machine to where they heard gunfire and screaming. Then the man fell and the weapon clattered. In his mind’s eye, Buck recalled the blast of fire coming from the witness’s mouth. On the tape it sounded like a strong gust of wind. More screaming. Then the preachers shouted loudly in a language Buck couldn’t understand.

“That’s Hebrew!” Rabbi Ben-Judah said. “Surely you hear that!”

“They spoke in Hebrew,” Buck acknowledged, “and the tape recorder picked it up in Hebrew. But I heard it in English as sure as I’m standing here.”

“You did say you heard them promise no harm to anyone who came only to listen to their testimony.”

“I understood every word.”

The rabbi closed his eyes. “The timing of this is very important to my presentation.”

Buck walked back to the car with him. “I need to tell you something,” he said. “I believe your Messiah has already come.”

“I know you do, young man. I will be interested to hear what the two preachers say when you tell them that.”

Rayford checked with Steve Plank to see if his people had heard any more about another death at the Wailing Wall. He didn’t ask specifically about Buck, still not wanting to let on about their friendship.

“We heard all about it,” Plank said angrily. “The secretary-general believes those two should be arrested and tried for murder. He doesn’t understand why the Israeli military seems so impotent.”

“Maybe they’re afraid of being incinerated.”

“What chance would those two have against a sniper with a high-powered weapon? You close the place down, clear out the innocent bystanders, and shoot those two dead. Use a grenade or even a missile if you have to.”

“That’s Carpathia’s idea?”

“Straight from the horse’s mouth,” Plank said.

“Spoken like a true pacifist.”

Rayford watched the news and was certain Chloe had been correct. It had indeed been Buck Williams, not more than thirty feet from the witnesses and even closer to the gunman, who was now little more than charred bones on the pavement. But Israeli television stayed with the images longer, and after watching the drama a few times, Rayford was able to take his eyes from the firebreathing witnesses and watch the edge of the screen. Buck rose quickly and helped the dark-suited man next to him. Neither appeared hurt.

Rayford dialed the King David Hotel. Buck was still out, so Rayford took a cab to the King David and sat waiting in the lobby. Knowing better than to be seen with Buck, he planned to slip away to a house phone as soon as he saw him.

“In the long history of Judaism,” Rabbi Ben-Judah was saying, “there have been many evidences of the clear hand of God. More during Bible times, of course, but the protection of Israel against all odds in modern wars is another example. The destruction of the Russian Air Force, leaving the Holy Land unscathed, was plainly an act of God.”

Buck turned in the seat of the car. “I was here when it happened.”

“I read your account,” Ben-Judah said. “But by the same token, Jews have learned to be skeptical of what appears to be divine intervention in their lives. Those who know the Scriptures know that while Moses had the power to turn a stick into a snake, so did Pharaoh’s magicians. They could also imitate Moses’ turning water into blood. Daniel was not the only dream-interpreter in the king’s court. I tell you this only to explain why these two preachers are being looked upon with such suspicion. Their acts are mighty and terrible, but their message an anathema to the Jewish mind.”

“But they are talking about the Messiah!” Buck said.

“And they seem to have the power to back up their statements,” Ben-Judah said. “But the idea of Jesus having been the Jewish Messiah is thousands of years old. His very name is as profane to the Jew as racial slurs and epithets are to other minorities.”

“Some have become believers here,” Buck said. “I’ve seen it on the news, people bowing and praying before the fence, becoming followers of Christ.”

“At great cost,” the rabbi said. “And they are very much in the minority. No matter how impressive are these witnesses of Christ, you will not see significant numbers of Jews convert to Christianity.”

“That’s the second time you have referred to them as witnesses,” Buck said. “You know that this is what the Bible—”

“Mr. Williams,” Rabbi Ben-Judah interrupted, “do not mistake me for a scholar of only the Torah. You must realize that my study has included the sacred works of all the major religions of the world.”

“But what do you make of it, then, if you know the New Testament?”

“Well, first of all, you may be overstating it to say that I ‘know’ the New Testament. I cannot claim to know it the way I know my own Bible, having become steeped in the New Testament mostly only within the last three years. But secondly, you have now crossed over the line journalistically.”

“I’m not asking as a journalist!” Buck said. “I’m asking as a Christian!”

“Don’t mistake being a Gentile for being a Christian,” the rabbi said. “Many, many people consider themselves Christians because they are not Jewish.”

“I know the difference,” Buck said. “Friend to friend, or at least acquaintance to acquaintance, with all your study, you must have come to some conclusions about Jesus as the Messiah.”

The rabbi spoke carefully. “Young man, I have not released one iota of my findings to anyone in three years. Even those who commissioned and sponsored my study do not know what conclusions I have drawn. I respect you. I admire your courage. I will take you back to the two witnesses tonight as I promised. But I will not reveal to you any of what I will say on television tomorrow.”

“I understand,” Buck said. “More people may be watching than you think.”

“Perhaps. And maybe I was being falsely modest when I said the program would not likely compete with the normal fare.
CNN
and the state agency that commissioned my study have cooperated in an international effort to inform Jews on every continent of the coming program. They tell me the audience in Israel will be only a fraction of the Jewish viewers around the world.”

Rayford was reading the [_International Tribune _]when Buck hurried past him to the desk and retrieved his key and a message. Rayford loudly rattled the paper as he lowered it, and when Buck glanced his way Rayford motioned he would call him. Buck nodded and went upstairs.

“You’d better call Chloe,” Rayford said when he reached Buck on the house phone a couple of minutes later. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Rayford, I was right there!”

“I saw you.”

“The rabbi I was with is a friend of Rosenzweig. He’s the one who’ll be on TV tomorrow afternoon. Get anyone you can to watch that. He’s a really interesting guy.”

“Will do. I promised Chloe one of us would call her as soon as I knew anything.”

“She saw it?”

“Yeah, on the morning news.”

“I’ll call her right now.”

Buck placed the call through the hotel operator and hung up, waiting for the call that would tell him his party was on the line. Meanwhile he slumped on the edge of the bed and lowered his head. He shuddered at what he had seen. How could the rabbi have seen the same, heard the same, and then imply that these men could just as easily be magicians or seers as from God?

The phone rang. “Yes!”

“Buck!”

“I’m here, Chloe, and I’m fine.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“Well, thank you!”

Chloe sounded emotional. “Buck, those witnesses know the difference between believers and their enemies, don’t they?”

“I sure hope so. I’ll find out tonight. The rabbi is taking me back to see them.”

“Who’s the rabbi?”