Because of what we have been able to put together using satellite and solar technology, it is just as easy—not to mention free—for me to call you in the States as it is to call you here, from about fifty miles away. When we have worked through the mess I caused by leaving without so much as a heart-to-heart talk, would you let me call now and then? I know the time difference is significant and we would have to pick our spots. We’ll both be busy, but I’d like that if you would.
Speaking of busy, I recognize that by taking so long to deal with this, I may be getting back to you so close to the time when our real labor-intensive duties kick in that you’ll barely have time to read this, let alone respond to it. It’s kind of lonely here, no surprise, so if I find myself doing nothing but waiting for the choppers to start arriving, maybe I’ll call to make sure you got this and to save you the time of having to keyboard a response.
Anyway, because of who you are, I know you’ll understand and forgive me, and I look forward to starting over again.
Your friend,
David
Rayford felt a fool. He was no military strategist. While his preys were clearly weak and bumbling, he had allowed all three of his people to move into untenable positions. Albie had no line of fire and dared not move. Mac was out of position with only a handgun. Leah had to substitute obedience for patience or she might get herself killed. Rayford himself was the only one with the angle and a shot at the two GCs, but the fifty-caliber he cradled was a one-shot wonder. And besides, he had only reluctantly concluded he would actually kill someone if it came to that. Nothing said he had the nerve or the ability.
The weapon, however, brought to the table everything he needed. He lay over it, delicately framing through the powerful scope a spot on the rock face his targets would pass if they continued on course. His right hand brushed the trigger while his left palm lay atop the scope, steadying the piece. And now Leah was on the squawker again, pushing to be allowed to approach the edge of the ridge.
Rayford didn’t want to risk losing his aim, so he slowly reached for the radio with his left hand and drew it to his lips. “Negative. Don’t call me; I’ll call you.”
He dropped the radio and cupped the stock of the rifle in his left hand . . . waiting . . . waiting. The GC had stopped and sat together on a rock. Rayford carefully pivoted the rifle until he had them both in his sights. He turned his head slightly and saw Leah waiting. Their backs were to her. There was no reason she couldn’t take her look, if she hurried. He picked up the radio, while focusing on the targets again. They looked up and a second later he heard what drew their eyes. Yet another chopper.
“Leah, go and return quickly. Don’t reconfirm, just move.”
Rayford gently set down the radio and tried to regulate his breathing. The two logy GCs filled the lens, and he believed he saw sores on their sweaty necks from two hundred yards. He aimed inches above the head of the one on the right. They both slid off the rock and knelt on one knee, aiming their weapons at the bird about to fly directly over them. It was an oversized job, a personnel transporter from United North American States Army surplus—a multimillion-Nick machine that no doubt carried at least two dozen fleeing Israeli believers. Well-placed projectiles from as high as the GCs knelt could conceivably bring it down. The mere sound and fury of Rayford’s weapon putting a hole in the rock above them should save the helicopter, but he needed more incentive to take the risk.
It came from the radio and Leah’s flat, halting news. “It’s David . . . they butchered him . . . the birds are already upon him.”
The GC tensed as if ready to fire, and Rayford slightly dropped his sight just as the soldier on the left leaned in front of the other. If he had only let David come back to Mizpe Ramon when he wanted to, Rayford wouldn’t be in this mess. He remembered to roll up onto his toes and bend his knees, so when he squeezed the trigger the recoil merely sent him sliding back a yard or so. He had forgotten to plug his ears, however, so the explosion tearing against his shoulder was the least of his worries.
The blast stunned and deafened him. Without even the sensation of sound now, he slowly rolled his head, retrieved the toppled rifle, and looked through the lens. He feared he had permanently damaged his eardrums, but his vision had not been affected. In his periphery the big chopper continued past, and across the way both soldiers slumped, motionless, a cloud of rock dust rising behind them.
Rayford picked up his radio. “Be alert for others,” he said, aware he was speaking too loudly. His words reverberated inside, but he heard none of them. “Let’s see what we’ve got,” he said.
Albie was the first to the targets. Then Leah, Mac, and finally Rayford. He expected Leah to turn away from the carnage, but she didn’t. She said something and he asked her to repeat it. She took him by the shoulders and turned him to face her. “David looks worse than they do,” she shouted, and he read her lips.
If that was true, he didn’t want to see Hassid. But he knew they should bury the body. “Can we get him out?”
She shook her head. “Impossible.”
“That’s where these two should go too,” Mac said, or at least that’s what Rayford thought he said.
The bullet had ripped through the spine and heart of one soldier and the neck of the other before blowing a two-foot-diameter hole in the rock face. Rayford spun and caught himself, afraid he would be sick. Isolated by his deafness, he was overcome with remorse. He had done this. He had killed these two. He had lost a man in a place that was supposed to be a refuge. Now his airstrip was vulnerable, and the entrance to Petra swarmed with chopper loads of people waiting to be let in.
Rayford’s knees buckled, but he was borne up by Mac, who held him and pulled his face close. “This is war!” Mac said. “These men murdered our unarmed guy, and they would have killed any one of us. They were drawin’ a bead on that packed chopper. You saved us all, Ray!”
Rayford felt his face twist into a grimace, and he tried to form words to express that he couldn’t allow these mutilated bodies here when the place began to fill. But he could not speak, and Mac was already ahead of him. He said something to Albie, and the wiry little man stepped forward without hesitation. He stretched, then squatted to pick up the first victim. Bouncing once to settle the corpse in his arms, he moved ten feet toward the ledge and launched him into the unknown. He returned to do the same with the other.
“Get on the horn, Ray!” Mac said. “Let’s get these people in here!”
Rayford shook his head and handed the radio to Mac, pointing at him. “With pleasure,” Mac said. “Let’s gather up and get out.”
Rushing down and out was sure easier than coming in had been. Leah stayed close to Rayford, and he believed she looked the way he felt. Before they even reached the passageway, choppers were popping over the ridge and setting down to disgorge passengers. By the time they had traversed the mile through the narrow Siq back to Rayford’s craft, a huge crowd had formed at the entrance. Mac had spent much of his time on the radio on the way out, and now he and Albie were urging people not to walk but to accept the helicopter lift into Petra.
Leah helped heft the fifty-caliber, her medical box, and the stretcher into the chopper, then pulled Rayford off to the side. “You can’t fly until you can hear,” she said.
“Yes I can,” he said.
“You can hear again already?”
“You can hear for me.”
She shrugged. “Well, I sure can’t fly,” she said.
Despite his youth and his grief, Chang had the maturity and presence of mind to carefully dole out the awful news about David Hassid. The Tribulation Force agreed that neither Chaim nor Buck need know until Chaim finished his work and was safe at Petra. Chloe said she would inform Buck at the appropriate time.
For the next several hours Chang monitored the Trib Force activities. Leah treated Rayford’s ears back at Mizpe Ramon, informing everyone that time would be the best healer. The Israelis left there by George and Abdullah and Rayford
were worked into later runs, and Rayford settled in with the other two in their fifty-caliber lair. They had seen nothing of the GC.
Leah reported that Hannah had taken the news of David’s death so hard that she was unable to speak. Apparently she had steeled herself to join Leah on a flight to Masada with Mac, where they would reassemble the medical center in a tent. Meanwhile, it seemed to Chang one of God’s clear miracles that not one mechanical failure was reported on the ground or in the air during the massive relocation effort.
When night fell in Jerusalem and the world seemed to wait for the nine o’clock reprieve from the plague of boils, Chang finally stood and stretched. He stared at himself in the mirror and thanked God for clear skin all over his body. Even the itch on his leg had disappeared, and he attributed it to either an insect bite or something psychosomatic.
He returned to his computer to check his e-mail, idly wishing the Masada event had not been an afterthought. There had not been time even to arrange for a speaker system, let alone anything Chang could tap into besides Buck’s phone.
Chang was taken aback to discover a message from his mother. He quickly accessed it. It was filled with mistakes and retries, but plainly she had painstakingly taught herself how to compose and send the message, and from what she had to say, she had learned how to access Tsion Ben-Judah’s Web site too.
Father upset over Carpathia’s shameful exhibition in Jerusalem. Not know what to think. Wants me to ask what you think. What do you think? I will send this before he sees and will erase from storage. You answer careful in case he see. Carpathia seem bad, bad, bad. Ben-Judah very interesting, a prophet. How does he know in advance? I need to know how to send to Ming. Tell her I will.
Mother
Not long after dark and still an hour before 2100 hours, Chaim surveyed the packed fortress of Masada, and Buck looked out over the overflow crowd below. He agreed with the old man that almost everyone who was to come was likely there. Buck put an arm on Dr. Rosenzweig’s shoulder and bowed his head.
“God, grant me the wisdom to say what you want me to say,” Chaim said, “and may these dear ones hear what you want them to hear.”
“And God,” Buck added, “anoint his voice.”
There was neither a stage nor special lighting. Chaim merely stood on high ground at one end and raised his arms. The place immediately fell silent, and it seemed all movement stopped. Buck whispered into the phone to Chang, “At least record this. We can worry about enhancing fidelity later. The whole Trib Force will want to hear it.”
“How are you on power?”
“One and a half packs left. Should be okay.”
Chaim spoke in Hebrew, but again, Buck understood him perfectly. “My friends,” he began in a voice of vigor and authority but, Buck feared, not enough volume, “I cannot guarantee your safety here tonight. Your very presence makes you an enemy and a threat to the ruler of this world, and when the plague of sores upon his people is lifted at nine o’clock tonight, they may target you with a vengeance.”
Buck stood and looked to the far reaches of the fortress and outside below. No one seemed to have to strain to hear. No one moved or emitted a sound except Leah and Hannah, quietly arranging the small, makeshift medical center. So far no one seemed to need their services.
“I will keep my remarks brief,” Chaim said, “but I will be asking you to make a decision that will change your destiny. If you agree with me and make this commitment, cars, trucks, and helicopters will ferry you to a place of refuge. If you do not, you may return to your homes and face the gruesome choice between the guillotine or the mark of loyalty to the man who sat in your temple this very day and proclaimed himself god. He is the man who defiled God’s house with murder and with the blood of swine, who installed his own throne and the very image of himself in the Holy of Holies, who put an end to all sacrifices to the true and living God, and who withdrew his promise of peace for Israel.
“I must tell you sadly that many of you will make that choice. You will choose sin over God. You will choose pride and selfishness and life over the threat of death. Some of you have already rejected God’s gift so many times that your heart has been hardened. And though your risky sojourn to this meeting may indicate a change of mind on your part, it is too late for a change of heart. Only God knows.
“Because of who you are and where you come from, and because of who I am and where I come from, we can stipulate that we agree on many things. We believe there is one God, creator of the universe and sustainer of life, that all good and perfect things come from him alone. But I tell you that the disappearances that ravaged our world three and a half years ago were the work of his Son, the Messiah, who was foretold in the Scriptures and whose prophecies did Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, fulfill.”
Not a murmur or a word of dissent from all these Jewish people, Buck thought. Could this be Chaim Rosenzweig, the diminutive, soft-spoken scientist, commanding an audience of tens of thousands with the mere power of his unamplified voice and the authority of his message?
It was darker than dark at Mizpe Ramon, so Rayford couldn’t even read lips. Fortunately, if George or Abdullah spoke directly at him, he was starting to be able to make out their words.
“I realize I’m the new guy and everything, Captain,” George said, “but I been wonderin’. Is there anything here worth protectin’ from the GC? I mean, let ’em concentrate their efforts on tearin’ up the dirt we worked so hard to smooth out. And these temporary quarters aren’t worth a nickel either. What say we get back where the action is and start flyin’ some more people to safety instead of lyin’ here waitin’ for an enemy that might not show?”
Rayford rolled onto his back and stared at the star-filled sky. Abdullah waded in with his opinion, and Rayford had to push up on one elbow and get him to start over louder.
“I was just saying, boss, that I agree. As much as I would enjoy shooting the big guns and maybe knocking someone out of the sky who deserves it anyway, why waste ammunition? We might need it to protect ground troops or flights later.”
Rayford’s chopper was the only one left. George’s and Abdullah’s had been pressed into service. The captain rolled onto his back again and ran it all through his mind. The truth was, he didn’t care if the GC attacked here. Let them waste their time. He was burned out, desolate, and needed the break. If someone else would fly his craft, and if perhaps Mac would take over running the operation, at least for a while, he could hang on till daybreak. Mac was temporarily in charge anyway, with Rayford’s temporary—he hoped—handicap.
“Let’s break camp,” he said finally, and the other two quickly broke down the weapons and loaded them. Rayford asked George to fly and Abdullah to tell Mac what was going on. He lay on the floor of the chopper and covered his face with his hands. The problem, Rayford told himself, was that he had a hero complex. He knew anything good that happened in a time such as this was God’s doing and not his. But running out of gas before a mission was over was not his idea of what a leader would or should do.
Was it possible that God had allowed him to forget something so simple as earplugs just to put him out of commission long enough to restore his strength? He despaired over losing David and having to kill two men. But it all worked together to drain him. He was not even aware of dozing, but a moment later Abdullah woke him with a yank on the arm.
“Please to forgive me, but we are needed at Masada. Mr. McCullum believes that many, many more will need rides to Petra.”
Buck found himself thrilled to the point of bursting. Much as Tsion Ben-Judah had done on international television years before, Chaim made the case for Jesus as the Messiah the Jews had sought for so long. As he ticked off the 109 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus alone, first one, then another in the crowd stood. Soon the entire crowd was on its feet. Still they were silent and no one moved around. A holy hush filled the place.
“He is the only One who could be Messiah,” Chaim proclaimed. “He also died unlike anyone else in h
istory. He gave himself willingly as a sacrifice and then proved himself worthy when God raised him from the dead. Even skeptics and unbelievers have called Jesus the most influential person in history.
“Of the billions and billions of people who have ever lived, One stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of influence. More schools, colleges, hospitals, and orphanages have been started because of him than because of anyone else. More art was created, more music written, and more humanitarian acts performed due to him and his influence than anyone else ever. Great international encyclopedias devote twenty thousand words to describing him and his influence on the world. Even our calendar is based on his birth. And all this he accomplished in a public ministry that lasted just three and a half years!
“Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, Savior of the world, and Messiah, predicted that he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Centuries after his public unmerciful mocking, his persecution and martyrdom, billions claimed membership in his church, making it by far the largest religion in the world. And when he returned, as he said he would, to take his faithful to heaven, the disappearance of so many had the most profound impact on this globe that man has ever seen.
“Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem to a virgin, to live a sinless life, to serve as God’s spotless Lamb of sacrifice, to give himself willingly to die on a cross for the sins of the world, to rise again three days later, and to sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Jesus fulfilled these and all the other 109 prophecies, proving he is the Son of God.