“It’s Mac. Are you where you can talk?”
Buck turned away from the backstage wing and moved to a quiet area. “Shoot.”
“Do you have an evacuation plan, you and your wife and Ben-Judah?”
“We’re working on it.”
“You’ll need it. I’m telling you, boy, these guys are crazy. Carpathia spends half his day fuming about the two witnesses and the other half plotting to kill Mathews.”
“Mathews bothers him more than Tsion does?”
“I wouldn’t give a nickel for Peter Mathews’s future. And Carpathia thinks he’s got Tsion’s number. Whatever that Saturday deal is, be careful. Nicolae’s got his troops so fired up that they know they could take out Tsion and never suffer for it. Nicolae would paint it as a setup, dissension among the ranks of the believers or something, and he would still look like a hero.”
“This connection is secure, right, Mac?”
“Of course.”
“We’ll be long gone before that rally.”
“Good! Need anything? I’m in contact every day with David Hassid.”
“Rayford’s trying to get a chopper to get us from Jerusalem to one of the airports.”
“You can’t just sneak out and get a ride?”
“We trust hardly anyone, Mac.”
“Good for you. I’m going to recommend David get you a chopper that looks like ours.”
“White, with GC on it?”
“Nobody’ll mess with you if they see that.”
“Until we leave it on the runway and fly off in a Gulfstream.”
“Ritz has a Gulf? I’m jealous.”
“Come with us, Mac.”
“You know I’d love to. But somebody has to be the ears here.”
“We’re not going to be able to watch tomorrow night’s meeting, are we?” Rayford said as Ken ran him through the paces of the Gulfstream over Palwaukee Airport.
“Sure we are. Hook your iPhone to my satellite tracking system, and I can force it to lock onto the Internet feed. It’ll be a little tricky, bouncin’ around up there, but you’ll at least be able to hear it.”
Rayford completed a fourth consecutive smooth landing, and Ritz pronounced him ready. As they sat in a rebuilt hangar finalizing their route, the young mechanic approached. “Captain Steele,” Ernie said. “I took a call while you were in the air. Was your phone off or something?”
“Yeah,” Rayford said, turning it back on. “I didn’t want to be distracted.”
“I heard you had one of them wake-up features where it’ll ring even when it’s off.”
“Yeah, but you can override that too.”
“Cool. Anyways, a Miss Hattie Durham wants you to call her.”
Rayford called her on the drive back to the safe house. “I wouldn’t care if Floyd said you were fit to run a marathon, Hattie. You’re not going with us, at least not on my plane.”
“Your plane?” Ritz said, laughing from behind the wheel of the Rover.
“Or Ken’s plane, I mean.”
“It ain’t mine either, Bro!” Ken said.
“Whoever’s plane. Anyway, Hattie, there’s no way Floyd would release you to travel. Let me talk to him.”
“He doesn’t even know I’m calling. I know what he’d say. That’s why I haven’t said anything to him. And don’t you either, Rayford.”
“Hattie, you’re acting like a child. You think I’d let you go with us on a dangerous mission, sick as you’ve been? You know me better than that.”
“I thought maybe you owed me.”
“Hattie, this discussion is closed. You want a ride to the Middle East so you can kill Carpathia, find it elsewhere.”
“Let me talk to Ken.”
“He’s not going to—”
“Just let me talk to him!”
Rayford handed the phone to a puzzled-looking, scowling Ritz. “Yeah, doll,” he said. “No, sorry, that’s just an expression we old flyboys use. . . . Well, sure, I’d like to be a doll too. . . . Oh, no ma’am. I can’t see any way. Well, now, I hate to have you think less of me, but the truth is if I could be manipulated by the poutin’ of a spoiled pretty little girl, I wouldn’t be lookin’ back on two divorces now, would I? . . . You can beg and cry for someone else, honey, ’cause I sure ain’t gonna be responsible for you overseas not forty-eight hours after you miscarried. . . . Now I’m awful sorry for you, and, like everybody else in your life, I got sort of a soft spot for you. But that’s the reason I’m not going to be party to any foolishness like this. . . . Well, I understand that. I’d like to kill him myself. But I got a job to do, and it’s dangerous enough as it is. I’m gettin’ people outta there, not worryin’ about killing anybody. At least this trip. How ’bout you get yourself healthy, and I’ll see about running you over there for Nicolae target practice another time. . . . No, I’m not poking fun at you. You are being a little silly here though, don’t you think?”
Ritz shook his head and flapped the phone shut as he handed it back to Rayford. “Little spitfire hung up on me. You gotta like her spunk, though. And she is a gorgeous thing, ain’t she?”
Rayford shook his head. “Ritz, you’ve got to be on the feminists’ top ten most wanted list. Man, what a throwback!”
Rayford nearly panicked when he didn’t see Hattie in her bed as they walked in. “She in the bathroom?” he asked Floyd.
“I wish,” the doctor said. “She’s walking somewhere.”
“Walking!”
“Calm down. She insisted on walking around and wouldn’t let me help her. She’s on the other side.”
Rayford checked the empty, more damaged half of the duplex. Hattie walked slowly on the uneven floor of an unfurnished room, her arms folded. He just stared at her, not asking the obvious question. She answered it anyway.
“Just trying to build my strength.”
“Not for this trip.”
“I’ve resigned myself to that. But Ken promised to—”
“Ken was talking through his hat, and you know it. Now would you please do yourself and all of us a favor and follow Doc’s orders.”
“I know my body better. It’s time I started building back up. He said himself I may be out of the woods with the poison, whatever it was. But that’s only because my baby took the brunt of it. Nicolae has to pay for that.”
Hattie was suddenly short of breath. “See?” Rayford said. “You’re overdoing it.” He helped her back to the other side of the house, but she refused to lie down.
“I’ll just sit awhile,” she said.
Floyd was visibly angry. “She’s going to be a whole lot of fun to deal with while you guys are gone.”
“Come with us,” Ken said. “She looks like she’s getting pretty self-sufficient to me.”
“Not a chance. She may not know how sick she is, but I do.”
“Let’s hope we’re not bringing you back any more wounded,” Ken said.
Rayford nodded. “I’ve already seen enough casualties in this war to last me a lifetime.”
Mac confirmed to Buck that the plot against both the witnesses and Tsion was set for Saturday noon near the Temple Mount. “They can’t believe Tsion has played right into their hands. They’re planning what will appear to be a terrorist bombing that should kill anyone within two hundred feet of the Wall.”
“Tsion thought Carpathia wouldn’t try anything at a site so sacred to the Jews.”
“It would never be traced to him. They’re already trying to pin it on Mathews. Funny thing is, Mathews wants the credit for it. He says the witnesses and Tsion are the greatest enemies to religion he has ever seen. He’s livid. You’re going to be gone, right?”
“By 1:00 a.m.”
“Perfect. A replica chopper’s been delivered, and as far as I know, everything’s in place. And your host is none the wiser?”
“Rosenzweig’s still holding out for Carpathia’s being a misunderstood good guy. He’ll be as surprised as anyone when we disappear in the middle of the night
. He’s usually one of the first to bed, so we’re all going to make sure of that. We can’t pack or do anything that might tip him off until we’re sure he’s asleep. If worse comes to worse, though, he’d keep quiet until we were long gone.”
A strange wrinkle in the Friday night plan was that everyone, it seemed, wanted to go to the stadium. The threats against the witnesses, the public feud between Carpathia and Ben-Judah, everything had come to a head. The place would be jammed. While Chloe had assured Buck she was glad to have taken a night off, she wanted to be there and promised to be careful and take it easy. Yes, she said, she would even sit through the meeting.
Jacov was back on driving detail, Dr. Rosenzweig deciding the sanction against him was ludicrous. “But what if the GC escort sees him behind the wheel?” Buck asked, not wanting to create unnecessary turmoil.
“Then they can report it to Fortunato, and I will insist on talking personally with Nicolae. But, Cameron, they don’t care. They will see him brazenly behind the wheel and will assume a new deal has been made. You know his wife will be along.”
“What?”
“And Stefan.”
“Oh, Chaim! This is getting to be a circus.”
“And their boss.”
“Their boss? Now who’s that?”
Chaim smiled at him. “You don’t know who my driver and valet’s boss is?”
“You? You want to go?”
“I not only want to, I shall. And I want us all jammed into that Mercedes, just like a school trip. It will be festive and grand!”
“Chaim, this is not advisable.”
“Don’t be silly. You and Tsion have been begging me to go. I have been watching. I am intrigued. I might even give Tsion his audience tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight. He is speaking on some more terrible things supposedly coming from the heavens. He will be in a mood to keep going and to try to convince his old friend that Jesus is the Messiah.”
“But he’ll be very tired later, Chaim. And won’t you be also?”
“Too tired for a good debate? You don’t know the Jews, Cameron. And you certainly don’t know your own rabbi. I’m surprised at you! A good, ah, missionary, ah, what do you call it, evangelist like you and you want now to postpone the appointment with a prospective convert?”
“Are you really?”
“Probably not, but who is to say? You must not treat lightly the curious, am I right?”
Buck shook his head. “Under normal circumstances. But you are just having fun with us.”
“A promise is a promise, my young friend. I am a man of my word.”
“You know Tsion must prepare for the noon meeting at the Temple Mount tomorrow.”
“That is not until noon! He is a dozen or so years older than you, my friend, but he is almost thirty years younger than I. He is robust. And who knows? If he is right, he has the power of God on him. He will survive. He can talk to an old man until the wee hours and still be prepared for his little get-together tomorrow. And I will be there too.”
Buck was frantic by the time he got alone with Tsion. The rabbi was less concerned about Rosenzweig’s presence in the stadium than with his plan to be at the Temple Mount the next day.
“But we’ll be gone by then,” Buck said. “He’ll know that meeting is off. We need to make sure everyone knows we’re gone so no one makes the mistake of being at the Mount. Nicolae could be so angry at our escape that he will trigger the attack anyway to kill your followers.”
Tsion nodded grimly. “I want to believe the sealed are protected, but I just do not know if that protection extends beyond the judgments of God. Obviously, the Lord himself has charge over the carrying out of the judgments, and he can instruct his agents to leave alone the sealed. But he has given Antichrist tremendous latitude. I would not want to be responsible for their harm by making incorrect assumptions.”
Buck looked at his watch. In an hour they were expected at the stadium. “One thing we know for sure—if my teacher is right—is that the two witnesses at the Wall will not be harmed, regardless of what Nicolae engineers tomorrow.”
“If they’re there,” Tsion said, smiling.
“Oh, they’ll be there,” Buck said.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because Nicolae warned them not to appear in public under penalty of death. What would be more public than where they have stood for more than two years?”
“You have a point,” Tsion said, patting Buck on the shoulder. “You must have a good teacher.”
Rayford was on the phone to Dr. Floyd Charles at the safe house as Ken piloted the Gulfstream over the Atlantic. “I’m tempted to slip her a Mickey, medical-school style,” Floyd said.
“I haven’t heard that expression in ages,” Rayford said. “How does that work?”
“Just like doping somebody’s drink,” Floyd said, “only we tell ’em it’s an innocuous IV. I could put her out for twenty-four hours, but then her immune system would be all screwed up.”
“You’re not really considering it?”
“Nah. She’s driving me batty though. I had to physically restrain her to keep her from doing laps up and down the stairs.”
“The stairs!”
“That’s what I said. I’m glad she’s feeling stronger, and ironically this murderous rage she feels toward Carpathia seems to be speeding her recovery. But I can’t have her expending the exertion necessary to climb stairs while she’s this weak. Honestly, Ray, it’s like trying to corral a toddler. I look up, and there she goes again.”
“How about downstairs?”
“Downstairs what?”
“Could she just walk downstairs?”
“Ray, I’ve been through medical school, and I don’t know how a person goes downstairs without going up too.”
“You could carry her up and let her walk down. Maybe it would tire her out without overexerting her.”
There was a pause long enough for Rayford to have to ask if Floyd was still there.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’m just thinking what a good idea that is.”
“Left you speechless, did it? Every once in a while even pilots come up with something useful.”
“Problem is, Ray, I look for reasons to touch her, to hold her, to comfort her. Now you’re telling me to pick her up and carry her, and you want me to rethink my feelings for her?”
“Get a grip, Doc. You’re no teenager anymore. I hoped your obsession with her wasn’t purely physical, but I should have known. You hardly know her, and what you know drives you batty by your own admission. Just behave yourself until we can get back and help you keep your senses.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I mean it now.”
“I know. I hear you.”
“And, Doc, remember that our absolute, number one, top priority with her is her soul.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t hear any enthusiasm there, Floyd.”
“No, I got it.”
“If you care a whit about her beyond your adolescent need to have her in your arms, you’ll want above all else to make her part of the family.”
“Buck, we’ve got a problem,” Chloe said, pulling him into an empty room. “I just casually walked through our route to the helipad so there’d be no surprises, and that key is gone.”
“What?”
“The key Rosenzweig had on a nail on the frame next to the access door. It’s gone.”
“Does he suspect we’re up to something?”
“How could he? I was as casual and subtle as I could be. He brought it up. I only asked him about the history of the house.”
“Did that door look as solid to you from inside as it felt to me from the outside?”
“It’s like a brick wall, Buck. If we had to break through it or knock it down, we’d wake the dead, not to mention the guard staff and Chaim himself.”
“We’ve got to find the key or get him to tell us what he did with it.”
r /> “You think Jacov would know anything about it?”
Buck shrugged. “If I asked him, he’d sure know something was going on. I can’t get between them.”
“But he’s a brother, Buck.”
“Brand new. I’m not saying he’d betray us on purpose.”
“You heard about his wife?”
“That she’s going along tonight, yes. How does she feel about his faith?”
“So you haven’t heard.”
“No.”
“Chaim said Jacov claims his wife is now a believer too. Chaim thought it was humorous and asked me to use my Jesus vision tonight to see if she had the secret mark too.”
Buck shook his head. “Talk about a soul harvest. I’m praying for Rosenzweig himself.”
Jacov’s wife, Hannelore, proved to be a German-born Jew, sandy haired and small with shy, azure eyes. She joined Jacov, Stefan, Buck, Chloe, Tsion, and Chaim in the driveway, and the guard staff opened the doors of the Mercedes for them. Chloe embraced her tightly, and though she was a stranger, reached up to brush Hannelore’s hair from off her forehead.
Buck hugged her too, whispering, “Welcome to the family.”
“My wife, she does not understand English too good,” Jacov said.
“Well, how about it?” Chaim said, his eyes bright. “Does she have the—” and here he lowered his voice an octave and growled—“secret mark?”
“As a matter of fact, she does, Dr. Rosenzweig,” Chloe said, clearly not amused at his teasing.
“Oh, good then!” he exulted, moving to the front passenger seat. “You are all one big happy family then, are you not? And how about you, Stefan? Have you joined the ranks of the tribulation saints?”
“Maybe tonight!” Stefan said. “Almost last night!”
“My, my,” Chaim said. “I shall be left in the minority, shall I not?”
Only Jacov and Chaim fit in the front seat, so Hannelore sat directly behind Jacov with Chloe in the middle and Tsion behind Chaim. Buck and Stefan crammed into the rear compartment. Jacov had begun to pull slowly down the driveway when Jonas stepped in front of the car and signaled that Chaim should lower his window. He spoke urgently to Chaim in Hebrew.