“Not supposed to,” Zeke said. “But you gotta brace it on somethin’. The window ledge will do. Want any help?”
“No thanks, Z. I appreciate it. Let me figure it out for myself. It’s way past your bedtime too, isn’t it?”
“Way past.”
CHAPTER 10
The sores had so decimated Carpathia’s staff that Buck thought anyone could walk right past security at the Knesset and take him out. The weak, scratching, wincing crew looked up wearily at Buck and Chaim but barely acknowledged their presence. Not only was Buck not searched, but he was also not even asked his name. He and Chaim were ushered into a small conference room, where Nicolae sat with Fortunato on his right and Moon on his left. They looked like refugees from a quarantine camp, both hunched over the table, heads in their hands, barely able to keep their eyes open.
As the door shut behind Buck, Carpathia said sarcastically, “Forgive me for not standing.” He pointed to two chairs. Buck sat quickly, then felt conspicuous when Chaim remained standing.
“I represent the one true God and his Son, Jesus, the Christ,” the old man said. “I prefer to stand.”
Carpathia appeared so angry he couldn’t speak. His jaw muscles protruded as he ground his teeth, glaring. Chaim merely met his gaze.
“All right,” Nicolae said, “I am letting these people run off to the hills. When do the sores go away? I upheld my end of the bargain.”
“We had a bargain?” Chaim said.
“Come, come! We are wasting time! You said you would lift this spell if I—”
“That is not my recollection,” Chaim said. “I said that if you did not let them go, you would suffer yet a worse plague.”
“So I let them go. Now you—”
“It is not as if you had a choice.”
Carpathia slammed an open palm on the table, making his cohorts jump. “Are we here to play word games? I want the sores on my people healed! What do I have to do?”
“Make no attempt to stop Israeli Messianic believers from getting to Petra.”
Carpathia stood. “Have you not noticed? I am the only full-time employee of the Global Community not suffering from the plague!”
Chaim remained calm. “And that only because you have not taken your own mark, though I daresay you worship yourself.”
Nicolae rushed around the table and bent to face Chaim from just inches away. “Our medical experts have determined there is no connection between the application of the mark of loyalty and—”
“Why does your bad breath not surprise me?”
“You do not dare to lift the curse for fear your fate will be the same as that of your two associates at the Wall.”
“If your medical experts know so much,” Chaim said, “how is it that they have been able to offer no relief?”
Carpathia sighed and sat on the table, his back to Fortunato and Moon. “So you are not here to negotiate? You are here to tell me I am at your mercy and that there is nothing I can do to ease the pain of my people?”
“I am here to remind you that this script has already been written. I have read it. You lose.”
Carpathia stood again. “If I am not god,” he said, “I challenge yours to slay me now. I spit in his face and call him a weakling. If I remain alive for ten more seconds, he, and you, are frauds.”
Chaim smiled. “What kind of a God would he be if he felt compelled to act on your timetable?”
Buck loved seeing Carpathia speechless. He seemed to tremble with rage, staring and shaking his head. Behind him, Moon tapped Fortunato’s shoulder, making the reverend recoil. “Sorry,” Moon whispered and leaned close to his ear.
“Excellency,” Fortunato rasped, “a word, please.”
“What? What is it?”
Fortunato struggled to his feet, clasped his hands before him, and bowed. “Please, Your Worship. A moment.”
Nicolae looked as if he were about to detonate. He moved back behind the table, making Moon stand too. Fortunato pleaded with him in a voice too faint for Buck to hear.
“I suppose you concur, Moon,” Nicolae said.
Moon nodded and Fortunato added, “It was his idea,” which made Moon’s face drop, and he shot Leon a look.
“You two get out of here. I want a meeting, you know where, with the full cabinet.”
“Not here?”
“No! I said you know where! These walls have ears!”
The two gingerly made their way out. Carpathia looked down at Buck. “This one makes me nervous,” he said. “Does he have to be here?”
“He does.”
“My people are pleading for respite,” Nicolae said. “I recognize that I am forced to concede something.”
“And that would be?”
Carpathia’s eyes danced, as if he hated with his entire being what he had to say. “That . . . I . . . must . . . submit to you in this. I am prepared to do what I have to do to enable a lifting of the plague.” He lowered his head as if pushing against an invisible force.
“You are under the authority of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, maker of heaven and earth. You will allow this exodus, and when I am satisfied that the people under my charge are safe, I will pray God to lift the affliction.”
Buck wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke rise from Carpathia’s ears. “How long?” Nicolae said.
“This is a huge undertaking,” Chaim said. “Six hours should be telling.”
Carpathia looked up hopefully.
“But should you attempt to lay a hand on one of the chosen,” Chaim warned, “the second judgment will rain down.”
“Understood,” Carpathia said, a little too quickly. He thrust out his hand.
Chaim ignored it, glanced at Buck, and left.
Buck rose to follow and wondered if Carpathia recognized either of them. He avoided eye contact, but as Buck slipped past Antichrist, Nicolae growled, “Your days are numbered.”
Buck nodded, still looking away. “That’s for sure.”
Chloe scraped a three-inch hole in the black paint at the bottom of a window. Then she placed a cushion from the couch on the marble floor and set the telescope lens against the glass, bracing it on the frame. Several minutes of trial and error finally resulted in her discovering an image in the predawn haze. She thought she had seen something in the middle of the night several days before, but she had not been able to locate it again and thus told no one. Now she slowly scanned the horizon, trying to keep the hugely powerful apparatus steady and the image in front of her eye. The image was so magnified that she guessed she was viewing just a few feet square from more than half a mile away.
The problem was, of course, that such a lens required as much light as she could find. It was designed to bring stars into focus on clear nights. All she saw were the dark silhouettes of a ravaged skyline, and no light anywhere. Frustrated, she set the scope down and refocused with the naked eye, trying to get a bead on what she had seen faintly once. At about two o’clock in her field of vision and maybe three-quarters of a mile away, a speck of light stopped her. So it wasn’t her imagination. The question was, what light would be on in a city the world thought was radiation contaminated? Was it possible Tribulation Force members were not the only intelligent life-forms in this alien universe?
She shook her head. Probably just a streetlight that somehow was still hooked up to power. Still, the scope might offer more clues. Keeping the speck in sight, she raised the instrument to the window and carefully studied the area. After a minute or two she realized she had aimed too high and was taking in the foreboding waters of Lake Michigan. Keeping the apparatus in place, she looked past it again and adjusted, then peeked through the eyepiece again.
The image jumped and moved, appeared and disappeared. It was more than a streetlight, but the harder she tried to focus on it, the more elusive it became. Her neck stiffened, her wrists cramped, her eye wearied. She realized she’d been holding her breath to minimize her movement, but that just caused her heart to bea
t harder. Finally she had to put the telescope down and move. But when she was ready to try again, the sun teased the eastern horizon. Chloe would have to try again another night.
“Mount of Olives?” Buck said, as he caught up to Chaim.
“Of course. Then to Masada to see what kind of a crowd we have attracted.”
“Question. Why six hours? You trust him?”
Chaim shot Buck a look. “Trust him? Of course! He was willing to shake on it.”
“Okay, dumb question. But there’s no way everybody will be safe by nightfall.”
“We already know he will break the agreement, Cameron. Revelation 12 is clear that Israel is given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, but that the serpent spews water out of his mouth like a flood after her. No question he will attack somehow, plague or not. Tsion believes the ‘flood’ is Antichrist’s army. That same chapter says the earth helps the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing up the flood. May the Lord forgive me, but I want to see that. Don’t you?”
Buck nodded, finally grabbing his phone and listening to see if Chang was still monitoring. “You there?” he said.
“Working on the Phoenix connection,” Chang said. “Thanks. That was spooky.”
“You’re the best.”
“I’ll call you when I’m ready to patch you in.”
Chaim waited till Buck was finished, then asked, “You know what happens after God thwarts Antichrist’s armies, do you not?”
“You mean before or after you drop the second judgment on him?”
“Before I drop it? I am merely the messenger, my friend.”
“I know,” Buck said.
“The Bible says the dragon becomes enraged with the woman and goes to make war with the rest of her offspring, ‘who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.’ To me that sounds like the other believing Jews around the world.”
“And what do we do about that?”
“I have no idea,” Chaim said. “We obey, that is all.”
Rayford was too antsy to sit at Mizpe Ramon waiting for the first arrivals. He set a course for the Mount of Olives and phoned Tsion in Chicago on the way. Rayford felt bad when it was obvious from Dr. Ben-Judah’s voice that he had been sleeping. But he said, “You are never an intrusion, Captain Steele.”
“I confess I’m troubled, Dr. Ben-Judah. My military training was during peacetime, so this is the first time I’ve been responsible for so many people in a dangerous situation.”
“But you have been through so much with the Tribulation Force!”
“I know, but I just wish I could be assured I will see no casualties.”
“We certainly have had no such guarantees in our inner circle,” Tsion said, “have we?”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“I just want to be honest, Captain. I assume that is what you want.”
“What I want is what I asked for, I’m afraid—the knowledge that I will lose no one.”
“I believe we will lose none of the 144,000, but most of those are scattered throughout the world. I am also fairly certain that the prophecies indicate that God will protect the Messianic believers who are fleeing Jerusalem. But you are asking about your operation personnel.”
“Right.”
“I can only pray and hope.”
“I’m committed to not engaging the enemy in kill strikes.”
“I am sympathetic to that, and yet you wish for no deaths on your side either. I do not know how realistic that is. Would you not feel justified in an all-or-nothing situation?”
“You mean if it’s my guy or theirs? I guess I would permit firing.”
“You know, Captain, the enemy will most certainly suffer losses. The way the verses read, many will perish in the calamities God puts in their paths.”
“I prefer leaving that work to him.”
David checked for a response from Hannah, and seeing none, keyed in a connect to Chang, who had the bugged Phoenix 216 on-line for the Trib Force.
The first voice was Walter Moon’s. “I should be in bed, Excellency. I hate to complain, but I might have wished this meeting had been held at the Knesset. The incessant moving about—”
“Oh, stop your blubbering, Walter. I am not discounting your discomfort, but you make it sound as if you are at death’s door.”
“It feels like we are, Lordship,” Leon said. “I am not one to—”
“Of course you are! Now I laid down the law to this Micah character and got him to guarantee a lifting of this disease by nine tonight or there would be consequences.”
“You did? Well, how—”
“He had better tread lightly with me.”
“But I thought—”
“That is your problem, gentlemen. Sometimes you must act viscerally and do what needs to be done. Is everyone here?”
“Many are being pulled from sickbeds,” Walter said. “Which is where—”
“You should be, yes, I know. Here are Viv and Suhail. Let me know when we are all here.”
“How long will it take to recover, once the affliction has been lifted?” Viv asked.
“I do not know,” Carpathia said. “But even if there is residual fatigue or pain, you must all fight through it and encourage your people to do the same.”
“Mr. Hut completes the contingent, Potentate.”
“You look terrible, son,” Nicolae said.
“I feel worse,” Hut said.
“I cannot imagine. So how is my inaccurate-shooting friend?”
“Very funny.”
“Excuse me,” Nicolae said, “but was that two times consecutively you addressed me without title?”
“Well, pardon me, your highness.”
David heard movement and assumed Carpathia had stood. “You would employ sarcasm with me?”
“I shot that man eight times at point-blank range, worshipfulness! The heckler I killed from two feet away. You couldn’t have killed Micah yourself.”
“Mr. Akbar, your side arm, please.”
“Oh, Excellency, is this nec—”
“Is everyone planning to disrespect me? I have death pills enough for the lot of you, and I deliver them through the barrel of this gun.”
“If you could have killed Mr. Micah,” Hut said, “why didn’t you?”
“Oh, you honor him with a title, but not me—no, not your risen lord.”
“You are nothing to me, Carpathia.”
“On your feet, boy.”
“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”
BOOM!
Cries and gasps followed the sound of the body’s tumbling. “Walter, have the stewards get him out of here. Now who is next?”
Silence.
“Is there then someone here who would care to fire upon me?”
“No!”
“No, Excellency!”
“Please, Potentate!”
“No!”
“Is there another among you who retains some notion that this is not serious business? I remind you that I was dead three days and raised myself! I have demanded your freedom from these sores, and though we cannot be certain until the time comes, I believe you will enjoy immediate healing. Regardless, you and yours will be ambulatory and able enough again to carry out my battle plan.”
“Wouldn’t an attack bring back the plague, Excellency?” Moon asked.
“Viv, do you see what I have to work with here? Mr. Moon is my supreme commander, my executive vice president, if you will, yet he wants to know if—” and here he mimicked Moon with a ridiculous plaintive whine—“an attack wouldn’t bring back the plague! Honestly, Walter, do you think I am new to the negotiating game?”
“No, sir, I—”
“Spare me! The curse will be lifted at 2100 hours, and the hundreds of thousands of cowards will be in one of four places. Anyone? Come on! Someone?”
Suhail Akbar said, “The Mount of Olives, en route to Mizpe Ramon, Masada, or Petra
.”
“Excellent! Someone is thinking! And what is unique about so many people in so few places? Suhail?”
“They are together, and they are vulnerable.”
“Precisely. I want the whole of Israel declared a no-fly zone for all but Global Community aircraft at 2115 hours.”
David heard Suhail calling his people.
“And while you are at it, Director,” Carpathia said, “establish a curfew at the same time in all of the United Carpathian States for civilian vehicular traffic. Prepare a retaliatory strike for the damage we suffered at Petra earlier today, assuming until further knowledge that that wanton ambush was initiated by the Judah-ites.”
“Where will we attack, Potentate?” Akbar said.
“Masada at 2130 hours. Did you not predict attendance of more than one hundred thousand?”
“But those are not Judah-ites, Excellency.”
“They are potential converts, man! And this Micah himself will address them! He will surely have followers with him, but he has unwittingly put them all in one box for us and tied a ribbon around it. What would it take to ensure annihilation?”
“We have the firepower, sir.”
“No arrests on the road. No warnings in the air. Illegal vehicles will be destroyed on sight and invading planes shot from the sky. This Mizpe Ramon site was camouflaged to somehow make it appear a GC operation. Let us make use of it then. And if anyone remains on the Mount of Olives after 2100, they are fair game.”
“Sir?” Moon said. “What if Mr. Micah does call down the plague of sores again?”
“He will know the consequences if we act with dispatch.”
“But what if he follows through on his threat to turn the water—”
“The what-ifs will do you in one day, Walter. You serve the ruler of the universe, and we shall prevail. I have tricked this wizard into breaking his spell, and before he realizes his mistake, we will have regained the advantage. We can virtually eliminate the Jerusalem Orthodox Jewish population and cripple the Judah-ites to the point of extinction. Ideally, we will flush out Ben-Judah himself, and this time he will not find me so hospitable.”