“Let me guess. Because I’m here?”
“Agh! Listen here, you! Get over here this instant or—”
“Or what? You’re going to tell my mom? I don’t recall being subordinate to you, sir. Now if you have something you need me to procure for you, and you have clearance from the Supreme Commander—”
“A purchasing agent is not subordinate to a cabinet minister? Are you from Mars?”
“Actually Israel, sir.”
“Would you stop calling me sir?”
“I thought you called me, sir.”
“I mean quit calling me that!”
“What? Sir? I’m sorry, I thought you were male.”
“You stay right where you are, Director. I’ll be right over.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it, Guy? I mean, it’s you who wants to talk with me, not the other way ’round.”
Click.
CHAPTER 3
Rocketing over the Mediterranean in the middle of the night, Rayford had about a two-hour flight to Greece. For the first fifteen minutes he monitored the radio to be sure he was not being pursued or triangulated. But the radio was full of merely repetitious requests for more aircraft to help evacuate Jerusalem in light of the earthquake and the assassination. There were also countless calls for planes available to cart the mourning faithful to New Babylon for what was expected to become the largest viewing and funeral in history.
When the Gulfstream was far enough out over the water, local tower radio signals faded. Rayford tested that by trying to call his compatriots, to no avail. He switched off phone and radio, which left him in virtual silence at thirty-one thousand feet in a smooth-as-silk jet, most of the noise of the craft behind him.
Rayford suddenly felt the weight of life. Had it really been a mere three and a half years ago that he had enjoyed the prestige, the ease, and the material comfort of the life of a 747 captain for a major airline? He’d been no prize, he knew, as a husband and father, but the cliché was true: You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
Life since the Rapture, or what most of the world called the disappearances, had been different as night and day from before—and not just spiritually. Rayford likened it to a death in the family. Not a day passed when he didn’t awaken under the burden of the present, facing the cold fact that though he had now made his peace with God, he had been left behind.
It was as if the whole nation, indeed the whole world, lived in suspended mourning and grief. Everyone had lost someone, and not a second could pass when one was able to forget that. It was the fear of missing the school bus, losing your homework, forgetting your gym clothes, knowing you’d been caught cheating on a test, being called to the principal’s office, being fired, going bankrupt, cheating on your wife—all rolled into one.
There had been snatches of joy, sure. Rayford lived for his daughter and was pleased with her choice of a husband. Having a grandchild, sobering though it was at this most awful time of history, fulfilled him in a way he hadn’t known was possible. But even thinking about Chloe and Buck and little Kenny forced reality into Rayford’s consciousness, and it stabbed.
With the Gulfstream on autopilot nearly six miles above the earth, Rayford stared into the cosmos. For an instant he felt disembodied, disconnected from the myriad events of the past forty-two months. Was it possible he’d, in essence, lived half a lifetime in that short span? He had experienced more emotion, fear, anger, frustration, and grief that day alone than in a year of his previous life. He wondered how much a man could take; literally, how much could a human body and mind endure?
How he longed to talk with Tsion! No one else had his trust and respect like the rabbi, only a few years older than he. Rayford couldn’t confide in Chloe or Buck. He felt a kinship with T Delanty at the Palwaukee Airport, and they might become true friends. T was the kind of a man Rayford would listen to, even when T felt the need to rebuke him. But Tsion was the man of God. Tsion was one who loved and admired and respected Rayford unconditionally. Or did he? What would Tsion think if he knew what Rayford had done, starting with abandoning both Leah and Buck, but worse, wanting, intending, trying to murder the Antichrist, then perhaps doing so by accident?
Something about the altitude, the coolness he allowed in the cockpit, the tension he could postpone until overflying Greece, the comfort of the seat, and the artificial respite he enjoyed from his role as international fugitive, somehow conspired to awaken Rayford to what had become of him.
At first he resisted the intrusion of reality. Whatever comfort he had found in the buffering quality of life on the edge was stripped away when he allowed raw truth to invade. He told himself to stay with the program, to keep himself as well as his plane on autopilot, to let his emotions rule. What had happened to the scientific, logical Rayford, the one who had been left behind primarily due to that inability to accede to his intuitive side?
When he heard himself speaking aloud, he knew it was time to face the old Rayford—not the pre-Rapture man, but the new believer. He had wondered more than once during the past few months whether he was insane. Now talking to himself in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere? Much as he hated the prospect, introspection was called for. How long had it been since he had indulged, at least honestly? He had questioned his sanity the past few months, but he seldom dwelt on it long enough to come to any conclusions. He had been driven by rage, by vengeance. He had grown irresponsible, unlike himself.
As Rayford allowed that to rattle in his brain, he realized that if he pursued this, turned it over in his mind like the marshmallows he had tried browning evenly as a child, it would not be himself he would face in the end. It would be God.
Rayford wasn’t sure he wanted the blinding light of God in his mental mirror. In fact, he was fairly certain he didn’t. But the hound of heaven was pursuing him, and Rayford would have to be thoroughly deluded or dishonest to turn and run now. He could cover his ears and hum as he did as a child when his mother tried to scold him. Or he could turn on the radio, pretending to see if the satellites had been realigned, or try the phone to test the global system. Maybe he could take the plane off autopilot and busy himself navigating the craft through trackless skies.
Down deep he could never live with himself if he resorted to those evasive tactics, so Rayford endured a shudder of fear. He was going to face this, to square his shoulders to God and take the heat. “All right,” he said aloud. “What?”
Buck straightened to relieve the aching in his joints from kneeling to check the lifeless women. Standing in the darkness of his old friend’s sepulchral home, he knew he had never been cut out to be a hero. Brave he was not. This horror had brought a sob to his throat he could not subdue. Rayford was the hero; he was the one who had first come to the truth, then led the way for the rest of them. He was the one who had been rocked only temporarily by the loss of their first spiritual mentor but stood strong to lead.
What might Rayford have done in this same situation? Buck had no idea. He was still upset with the man, still puzzled over his mysterious self-assigned task that had left Buck and Leah on their own. Buck believed it would all be explained one day, that there would be some sort of rationale. It shouldn’t have been so surprising that Rayford had grown testy and self-absorbed. Look what he had lost. Buck stubbornly left him on the pedestal of his mind as the leader of the Tribulation Force and as one who would act honorably in this situation.
And what would that entail? Finding Stefan, of course. Then challenging whoever was watching this house of death, fighting them, subduing them, or at least eluding them. Eluding didn’t sound so heroic, but that was all Buck was inclined to do. Meanwhile, the most heroic he would get would be to finish the task inside—finding Stefan and Chaim, if they were there—and then running for his life.
The running part was the rub. It would be just like the GC—even decimated by population reduction, busy with the Gala, pressed into extraordinary service by the earthquake, and left in a shambles
by the assassination—to dedicate an inordinate number of troops to this very house. It would not have surprised Buck an iota if the place was surrounded and they had all seen him enter, watched him find what he found, and now waited to capture him upon his departure.
On the other hand, perhaps they had come and pillaged and slaughtered and left the place a memorial husk.
Feeling ashamed, as if his wife and son could see him feeling his way in the dark, fighting a whimper like a little boy rather than tramping shoulders-wide through the place, Buck stepped on flesh. He half expected the victim to yelp or recoil. Buck knelt and felt a lifeless arm, tight and muscular. Was it possible the GC had suffered a casualty? They would not likely have left one of their own behind, not even a dead one.
Buck turned his back to the windows and switched on the flashlight again. The mess the enemy had left of Stefan made Buck’s old nature surge to the fore. It was all he could do to keep from screaming obscenities at the GC and hoping any one of them was within earshot. Revolting as it was, Buck had to look one more time to believe what he saw. Stefan lay there, his face a mask of tranquility, eyes and mouth closed as if he were asleep. His arms and legs were in place, hands at his sides, but all four limbs had been severed, the legs at the hips, the arms at the shoulders. Clearly this had been done after he was dead, for there was no sign of struggle.
Buck dropped the light, and it rolled to a stop, luckily pointing away from the windows. His knees banged painfully on the floor, and when he threw his palms before him to break his fall, they splashed in thick, sticky blood. He knelt there on hands and knees, gasping, his belly tightening and releasing with his sobs and gasps. What kind of a weapon would it have taken and how long must the enemy have worked to saw through the tissue of a dead man until he was dismembered? And why? What was the message in that?
How would he ever tell Chaim? Or would his dear old friend be his next discovery?
At four o’clock in the afternoon Friday in Illinois, Tsion sat near the TV, trying to sort his emotions. He was still able to enjoy, if that was an appropriate word anymore, the ceaseless curiosity and antics of a one-year-old boy. Kenny cooed and talked and made noises as he explored, climbing, grabbing, touching, looking to his mother and to “Unca Zone” to see if he would get a smile or a no, depending on what he was doing.
But Kenny was Chloe’s responsibility, and Tsion didn’t want to miss a second of the constant coverage of the assassination. He expected news of Carpathia’s resurrection and allowed himself only brief absences from the screen. He had moved his laptop to the living room, and his phone was close by. But his main interest was in Israel and New Babylon. It would not have surprised him if Carpathia was loaded onto his plane dead in Jerusalem and worshiped as he walked off under his own power in New Babylon.
Tsion was most upset at hearing nothing from other members of the Trib Force, and he and Chloe traded off trying to raise them, each of them, by phone. The last word they had heard from overseas was that Leah had not seen Hattie in Brussels, that she had told Buck Hattie was gone, and that she had not been able to communicate with Rayford. Since then, nothing.
Worried about the ramifications, Tsion and Chloe left most of the lights off, and they double-checked the phony chest freezer that actually served as an entrance to the underground shelter. Tsion normally left strategy and intrigue to the others and concentrated on his expertise, but he had an opinion on the security of the safe house. Maybe he was naive, he told Chloe, but he believed that if Hattie were to give them away, it would be by accident. “She’ll more likely be followed to us than send someone for us.”
“Like she did with Ernie and Bo.”
Tsion nodded.
“And who knows whom they might have told before they died?”
He shrugged. “If she was to give us up just by telling someone, she would have done it before she was imprisoned.”
“If she was imprisoned,” Chloe said. And suddenly she was fighting tears.
“What is it, Chloe?” Tsion asked. “Worried about Cameron, of course?”
She nodded, then shook her head. “Not only that,” she said. “Tsion, can I talk with you?”
“Need you ask?”
“But, I mean, I know you don’t want to miss anything on TV.”
“I have DVR. Talk to me.”
Tsion was alarmed at how much it took for Chloe to articulate her thoughts. They had always been able to talk, but she had never been extremely self-revelatory. “You know I will keep your confidences,” he said. “Consider it clergy-parishioner privilege.”
Even that did not elicit a smile. But she managed to shock him. “Maybe I’ve been watching too much TV,” she said.
“Such as?”
“Those staged rallies, where everyone worships Carpathia.”
“I know. They’re disgusting. They refer to him as ‘Your Worship’ and the like.”
“It’s worse than that, Tsion,” she said. “Have you seen the clips where the children are brought to him? I mean, we all know there’s not a child among them as old as three years, but they’re paraded before him in their little GC outfits, saluting over their hearts with every step, singing praise songs to him. It’s awful!”
Tsion agreed. Day care workers and parents dressed the kids alike, and cute little boys and girls brought flowers and were taught to bow and wave and salute and sing to Carpathia. “Did you see the worst of it?” he asked.
Chloe nodded miserably. “The prayer, you mean?”
“That’s what I mean. I was afraid of lightning.”
Tsion shuddered, remembering the knockoff of the Lord’s Prayer taught to groups of children barely old enough to speak. It had begun, “Our Father in New Babylon, Carpathia be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done. . . .” Tsion had been so disgusted that he turned it off. Chloe, apparently, had watched the whole debacle.
“I’ve been studying,” she said.
“Good,” Tsion said. “I hope so. We can never know enough—”
“Not the way you think,” she said. “I’ve been studying death.”
Tsion narrowed his eyes. “I’m listening.”
“I will not allow myself or my baby to fall into the hands of the enemy.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying just what you’re afraid I’m saying, Tsion.”
“Have you told Cameron?”
“You promised you would keep my confidence!”
“And I will. I am asking, have you told him your plans?”
“I have no plans. I’m just studying.”
“But you will soon have a plan, because it is clear you have made up your mind. You said, ‘I will not . . . ,’ and that evidences a course of action. You’re saying that if we should be found out, if the GC should capture us—”
“I will not allow Kenny or me to fall into their hands.”
“And how will you ensure this?”
“I would rather we were dead.”
“You would kill yourself.”
“I would. And I would commit infanticide.”
She said this with such chilling conviction that Tsion hesitated, praying silently for wisdom. “Is this a sign of faith, or lack of faith?” he said finally.
“I don’t know, but I can’t imagine God would want me or my baby in that situation.”
“You think he wants you in this situation? He is not willing that any should perish. He would that you would have been ready to go the first time. He—”
“I know, Tsion. I know, all right? I’m just saying—”
“Forgive me for interrupting, but I know what you are saying. I just do not believe you are being honest with yourself.”
“I couldn’t be more honest! I would kill myself and commit inf—”
“There you go again.”
“What?”
“Buffering your conviction with easy words. You’re no better than the abortionists who refer to their unborn babies as embryos or fetuses or pregna
ncies so they can ‘eliminate’ them or ‘terminate’ them rather than kill them.”
“What? I said I would com—”
“Yes, that’s what you said. You didn’t say what you mean. Tell me.”
“I told you, Tsion! Why are you doing this?”
“Tell me, Chloe. Tell me what you are going to do to—” He hesitated, not wanting to alert Kenny they were talking about him. “Tell me what you’re going to do to this little one, because obviously, you have to do it to him first if it’s going to get done. Because if you kill yourself, none of the rest of us will do this job for you.”
“I told you what I would do to him.”
“Say it in plain words.”
“That I will kill him before I let the GC have him? I will.”
“Will what?”
“Kill him.”
“Put it in a sentence.”
“I will. I will . . . kill . . . my own baby.”
“Baby!” Kenny exulted, running to her. She reached for him, sobbing.
Quietly, Tsion said, “How will you do this?”
“That’s what I’m studying,” she managed over Kenny’s shoulders. He hugged her tight and scampered away.
“And then you will kill yourself, why?”
“Because I cannot live without him.”
“Then it follows that Cameron would be justified in killing himself.”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “The world needs him.”
“The world needs you, Chloe. Think of the co-op, the international—”
“I can’t think anymore,” she said. “I want done with this! I want it over! I don’t know what we were thinking, bringing a child into this world. . . .”
“That child has brought so much joy to this house—” Tsion began.
“—that I could not do him the disservice of letting him fall into GC hands.”
Tsion sat back, glancing at the TV. “So the GC comes, you kill the baby, kill yourself, Cameron and your father kill themselves . . . when does it end?”
“They wouldn’t. They couldn’t.”
“You can’t. And you won’t.”