Apollyon: The Destroyer Is Unleashed

  Stefan tried to shake hands with everybody behind him, and Chaim raised both hands in resignation, shrugging and shaking his head. “I won’t know for sure unless it happens to me.”

  Buck saw GC guards running toward the intersection. “Go, Stefan!” he said.

  Stefan turned back to see the traffic director still holding him. “But—”

  “Trust me, Stefan! Go now!”

  Stefan stomped on the accelerator, and the Mercedes shot forward. The guard stepped in front of it with both arms raised but leaped aside as Stefan bore down on him.

  “Get us to Chaim’s as fast as you can,” Buck said. Stefan rose to the challenge.

  “So, Ken,” Rayford said, “as an economics expert, do you still trust the banks?”

  “I didn’t trust the banks before Carpathia came to power.”

  “Where’d you stash your bullion then?”

  “Some bullion. Mostly coins. Who’s got change for a brick of gold?”

  Rayford snorted. “Who’s got change even for a gold piece? You’d have to buy out a store to keep from getting hundreds in change.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come to actually having to spend the gold as currency. As for where I put it, let’s just say if I do buy Palwaukee, I’ll be buyin’ one valuable piece of real estate.”

  “You’re not saying . . .”

  “I know what you’re thinkin’. Guy who’s s’posed to know money loses out on more millions by putting it where it can’t grow.”

  “Exactly. Even I have a little portfolio.”

  “Only recently have I put all of it underground. Right under my Quonset hut. For years I stored only the gain. After the Rapture, which I knew only as the disappearances then, I could see what was going to happen to the economy.” Ken laughed.

  “What?”

  “I thought I’d lost it all in the earthquake. Dang near killed myself goin’ after it, my stash that is. Ground was all broke up, and my bullion and boxes of coins slipped through one fissure and wound up twenty feet lower’n I’d buried ’em. It could have just as easily been a hundred feet or all the way to the center of the earth. I didn’t know it meant that much to me, I honestly didn’t. Digging through that cave-in was about the dumbest thing a man could do after a quake, all those aftershocks rumblin’ and such. But I was in such a state that I figured if I couldn’t find my gold, I might’s well die anyway. I’d be buried underground either way. I found it, and I was like a schoolkid who found his long-lost marbles. That’s when I knew I had it bad. Started gathering that from your son-in-law.”

  “How?”

  “I thought he’d got religion, and while I didn’t buy any of it, I couldn’t argue that he sure had different priorities than me or anybody else I knew. I mean, I knew he’d bought the whole package, that was for sure. My future was tied up in the security of my assets. His whole life was trustin’ in Jesus. Man, that sounded stupid, but he wore it well. I envied him, I really did. After that earthquake I wound up in the hospital with my brains ’bout hangin’ out, and all I could think of was that I could not picture the Williams kid scratching through the rubble for his possessions. Then he showed up, and was off on another of his wacky capers.”

  “I wish this were just a caper,” Rayford said. “No matter how you slice it, this is going to be a long night.”

  “Should we put down in Greece or Turkey instead of trying to go all the way back tonight? There’s a coupla guys I trust over there, one in each country. Not believers yet, I don’t guess, but they’d never give us up, if you know what I mean.”

  Rayford shook his head. “We get enough fuel, I’d just as soon scoot all the way back.”

  “Your call.”

  As Stefan pulled into Chaim’s complex, the old man asked Stefan in Hebrew to say something to Jonas, the gateman. When Jonas also responded in Hebrew, Buck asked Tsion what they were saying. The rabbi put a finger to his lips. “Later,” he said.

  Inside they watched the coverage and commentary on TV while one by one, so as not to be obvious, Tsion, Buck, and Chloe slipped away to pack. They surreptitiously synchronized watches.

  Buck sensed Chaim was now as eager to pursue the spiritual discussion as Tsion was. Perhaps more so, as Tsion had escape on his mind. Buck knew, however, that winning souls was more important to Tsion than his own life. He would not pass up this opportunity to plead his case for Rosenzweig’s heart.

  Buck needed to beg the key from Jacov and was glad for the chance to leave the two old friends to talk in private. But when he went looking for his new brother, he learned Jacov was off for the rest of the night. “Where can I find him?” he asked.

  “At home, I presume,” another staff member told him in broken English. He provided the number, and Buck dialed him. No answer.

  “Where else might he be?” Buck asked.

  The man spoke conspiratorially. “You did not hear it from me, but there is a bar called The Harem. It is in the—”

  “I know where it is,” Buck said. “Thanks.”

  He hurried back into the house and interrupted Chaim and Tsion. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I need a word with Jacov, and he is not at his apartment.”

  “Oh,” Chaim said. “He said something about going to Hannelore’s mother’s. He will be at the Temple Mount tomorrow though.”

  “I really want to speak to him tonight.”

  Chaim gave him the woman’s name, and Buck looked it up. A German woman answered his call and put Jacov on the line. “It will be hard for me to get away tonight, Mr. Williams,” he said. “Hannelore’s mother is not taking this well, and we have agreed to stay and talk about it. Please pray for us.”

  “I will, but Jacov, I need that key.”

  “Key?”

  “The one you’re having duplicated for Dr. Rosenzweig.”

  “He needs it sooner?”

  “I need it, and I need you to trust me enough not to ask why.”

  “You’re afraid of intrusion? The door was left locked. It is the strongest in the house.”

  “I know. I need it, Jacov. Please.”

  “I don’t even have it. I left it with Stefan. I am working tomorrow, but I am off again Monday. He said he would get it copied then.”

  “And where does he live?”

  “Near the stadium, but I saw on the news they are allowing no traffic into there tonight.”

  “We’ve been watching, and I didn’t see that.”

  “It was just on. A Global Community guard was murdered right after the meeting. That must have been the shooting we heard. The GC is looking for the killers. They believe it was done by one or more of the witnesses at the meeting.”

  “Jacov, listen to me. I told you what that shooting was about.”

  “But you didn’t say a guard was shot. Were some of the witnesses armed? Maybe they were protecting you when they thought the guard was really shooting at you.”

  “Oh, please, God, I hope not.”

  “You never know, my friend. Anyway, you will not get into Stefan’s neighborhood tonight without being stopped. And you know they will recognize you.”

  “Jacov, I need a favor.”

  “Oh, Mr. Williams, I want to help you, but I cannot go to Stefan’s tonight. We are trying to convince my mother-in-law that this whole thing was not Stefan’s idea. She has always hated him, blaming him for everything bad I have ever done. Now she is saying she wishes he and I were still drunks and not crazy religious people, enemies of the potentate. She is threatening to take Hannelore from me.”

  “I just need you to not mention to Dr. Rosenzweig that I asked for the key.” There was a long silence. “I realize I am asking you to keep something from your—”

  “From the man I owe my life to. He has been like a father to me. You must tell me all about this for me to agree to that. If I kept something from him that caused him harm, I would never forgive myself. Why would you need that key and for him to not know about it?”

  “Jacov, you know he is no
t a believer yet.”

  “I know! But that does not make him our enemy! I pray I will be the one who gets to preach to him, and yet the rabbi himself is Dr. Rosenzweig’s friend.”

  “He is not our enemy, Jacov, but he is naive.”

  “Naive. I do not know that word.”

  “He is still a friend of the potentate.”

  “He doesn’t know better yet.”

  “That’s what I mean by naive. If we use that key to slip away early, before the GC knows we’re gone, we cannot risk that he might say something to Nicolae or his people.”

  Jacov was silent another moment. “I did not know what I was getting into,” he said finally. “I would never go back, and I do believe. But I never thought I would have anything to do with fighting Nicolae Carpathia.”

  “Jacov, can you get word to Stefan that I desperately need that key? Maybe he could sneak out and bring it. He is known in that neighborhood, and it would not be unusual for him to come to work, even at this hour, would it?”

  “I’ll try. But now you have two who must keep your secret.”

  “Will he?”

  “I believe he will. But what will Dr. Rosenzweig think when he knows we helped you escape and never told him?”

  Buck thought about suggesting that they tell Rosenzweig the Tribulation Force threatened them. But it was one thing, he decided, to use any and all means to deceive Carpathia and his minions. It was another to start lying to the man they were trying to reach for God. Buck looked at his watch. It was nearly eleven. The odds were against Stefan getting to him in time anyway.

  “Jacov, can we break through that door?”

  “Not easily. Mr. Williams, I need to go.”

  Rayford was an hour outside Jerusalem Airport, casually checking in with towers along the way who would pick him up on their radar screens anyway. He identified his craft by type and call numbers only, and no one asked more details. “ETA Jerusalem Airport for refueling at 2400 hours,” he said.

  “Ten-four, Gulf. Over and out.”

  He dialed Chloe. “Everything a go, hon?”

  “We’re a little squirrelly here, Dad. I won’t bore you with the details, but stay on track. Somehow we’ll be waiting on the roof at 12:30.”

  “I can’t wait to see you, sweetheart.”

  “I miss you too, Dad. I’ll call if we have a problem.”

  “Ditto. Ken will be in the bird, so I’ll see you aboard the Gulfstream.”

  Buck lightly tapped on the door where Tsion and Chaim sat talking quietly but animatedly. Tsion gave Buck a look as if he really picked the wrong time to intrude. “I’m very sorry, gentlemen, but Tsion, I need a word.”

  “Not at all!” Rosenzweig said. “I need a moment myself. Let me leave you. I want to ask your wife if she would like to ride with me tomorrow to the Temple Mount. Jacov and I are going a little later.”

  He stepped past Buck, smiling but clearly distracted. Buck apologized to Tsion.

  “Buck, I know our time is short, but he is so close!”

  “Close enough that we can trust him?” Buck brought Tsion up-to-date.

  Tsion reached to turn the TV back on. On the screen appeared the face of the very GC guard who had fired over Buck’s head, intentionally missing. Beneath his photograph were the years of his birth and death. “I got him killed,” Buck said, his throat constricted.

  “You likely saved my life,” Tsion said. “Praise God he is in heaven now. Buck, I know this is hard, and I never want to grow callous to the high price we are called to pay. No one would put much stock in our futures now. I don’t know how long the Lord will spare any of us to do his work. But I fear if we let Carpathia hurt or kill or even detain any of us tonight, it will be a terrible blow to the cause. You know I don’t care about my own life anymore. My family is in heaven, and I long to be there too. But I don’t believe God would have us die needlessly. There is so much to do.

  “Yes, we must confide in Chaim, I’m afraid. He asked the gateman if his video surveillance equipment was running. The man told him not until midnight, as usual. And Chaim told him to turn it on now.”

  A wave of panic hit Buck in his gut. Might the camera have picked him up the night before? “We have to tell him then,” Buck said. “If his security people hear a chopper and see it’s GC, they won’t know what to do.”

  “That’s what we want, Cameron, just enough confusion to get going. Surely they wouldn’t fire on a helicopter that looks like Carpathia’s own. But it wouldn’t be long before they called to ask about it, and the GC would know we had used one of their machines.”

  “How can we convince Chaim without making him think we’re overreacting?”

  “He was there tonight, Buck. And you should hear his reaction. I’m telling you, he’s close.”

  “What’s holding him back?”

  “His admiration and love for Carpathia.”

  Buck grunted. “Then let’s tell him what Rayford heard on the Condor 216.”

  “About me, you mean?”

  “And about him.”

  “Will he believe it?”

  “That’s up to him, Tsion. It will go against everything he believes and feels about Carpathia.”

  “So be it.”

  It was pushing midnight when Rayford entered Israeli airspace, on schedule. He checked in with the Ben Gurion tower in Tel Aviv, then was cleared for landing at Jerusalem Airport for refueling. “It’s been a while since I’ve been this scared,” he said.

  “Really?” Ken said. “This kind of terror is becoming a weekly occurrence for me.”

  Rosenzweig rejoined Buck and Tsion with Chloe in tow. She was in her pajamas and robe, drawing a confused stare from Buck. “Dr. Rosenzweig is insisting I get my rest for the baby’s sake,” she said. “Can’t argue with that. I just came to say good-night.”

  Buck knew she would race back to change, but he said, “Stay with us a minute, hon. We need to tell Chaim something, and you may need to corroborate it with what you have heard from your dad.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Jerusalem tower, this is Gulfstream Alpha Tango, over.”

  “Tower, go ahead, Alpha Tango. Initiate landing sequence.”

  Rayford plugged in the coordinates and put down in the busier-than-usual airstrip. To appear as casual as possible, he asked about it. The tower informed him that the wealthier commuters from the big meeting at Kollek Stadium were flying small craft to Tel Aviv for their international flights home.

  “Any delay on a refuel?”

  “Negative, Alpha. You’re clear.”

  “See the choppers?” Ray said as he lined up his approach.

  “I see one,” Ken said. “White with black block letters on the side.”

  “Don’t kid me.”

  “I’m not. It’s GC all right, but there’s only one.”

  “I don’t like it, Ken.”

  “Why hasn’t Mac called if there’s a glitch?”

  Rayford shook his head. “I don’t want to call him. He may not be where he can talk.”

  “But he might not know one of his birds is gone. Ever think of that?”

  Rayford punched in Mac’s number. “McCullum.”

  “Mac! It’s me. What’s going on?”

  “Yes, hello, Sergeant Fitzgerald. Of course you may proceed.”

  “We’re good to go?”

  “No need to wait, Sergeant. That’s affirmative.”

  “All my eggs are in your basket, Mac.”

  “You’re welcome, Sergeant. Good-bye.”

  “Take your phone, Ken!” Rayford shouted over the scream of the engines as Ritz opened the door.

  Ken smacked himself in the head and grabbed the phone out of his bag. “Another mature moment,” he said. “Don’t leave me out there hitchhikin’ now.”

  “Don’t worry.” Rayford wished he had rearview mirrors on the side of the plane so he would know when Ken got to the chopper.

  Chaim Rosenzweig had never looked older to Buck. He was tire
d, of course. It was late. But his wispy white hair, independent of control, haloed a grayish, drawn face. Buck, Tsion, and Chloe had quickly revealed to him conversations Rayford had overheard on the Condor. Chaim appeared unable to speak after hearing that his requests for Tsion’s safety following his first TV broadcast had been laughed at.

  “You realize,” Chloe said, “that you are the first outside person who knows about the bugging device on that plane. We’re putting lives in your—”

  Rosenzweig waved her off sadly. “To think that Nicolae himself would say one thing and do another, looking me in the eyes, he did, and lying. He could have prevented the slaughter of your family, Tsion. Oh God, oh God, oh God! How could I have been so blind? I know you tried to tell me.”

  “Doctor,” Tsion said quickly, “you and I will continue our discussion by phone or e-mail or in person, God willing, but we must leave now. Our sources tell us that the GC is planning a terrorist attack at the Temple Mount tomorrow, and we want to be long gone by then.”

  “Of course,” Chaim said. “I understand. I will have you driven to—”

  “It’s all arranged,” Buck said. “We need to be on the roof in ten minutes.”

  “Of course, go. I will cover for you. Don’t worry about me.”

  Chloe went to change, and Buck told Chaim the disposition of the key. “Break it down,” he said wearily. “Tools are in the utility room.”

  “Buck!” Chloe cried as she moved toward the door. “You’re on TV! Turn it up!”

  “. . . Community forces believe videotape reveals this man as the likely killer of a GC guard earlier this evening at the Meeting of the Witnesses at Kollek Stadium. He has been identified as an American, Cameron Williams, a former employee of the GC publishing division. Williams is reportedly staying with Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah at the home of Israeli Nobel Prize–winner Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig. Supreme Commander Leon Fortunato went on to say . . .”

  Tsion and Buck followed Rosenzweig toward the utility room. As soon as Buck saw where they were headed, he brushed past the old man, flipped on the light, and grabbed a hammer, a shovel, and a concrete block. “Do you have a sledgehammer?”