Assassins: Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist

  Revelation 18 predicted that Babylon will be the center of commerce, religion, and world rule, but also that it will eventually fall to ruin, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

  This current plague, the Bible indicates, will result in the deaths of a third of the population left after the Rapture. Simple math portends a horrible result. One-fourth of the remaining population already died from plague, war, and natural disaster. That left, of course, 75 percent. One third of 75 percent is 25 percent, so the current wave of death will leave only 50 percent of the people left behind at the Rapture.

  I must clarify that what follows is speculation. My belief after studying the original languages and the many commentaries on this prophecy is as follows: God is still trying to persuade mankind to come to him, yes, but this destruction of another third of the remaining unbelievers may have another purpose. In his preparation for the final battle between good and evil, God may be winnowing from the evil forces the incorrigibles whom he, in his omniscience, knows would never have turned to him regardless.

  The Scriptures foretell that those unbelievers who do survive will refuse to turn from their wickedness. They will insist on continuing worshiping idols and demons, and engaging in murder, sorcery, sexual immorality, and theft. Even the Global Community’s own news operations report that murder and theft are on the rise. As for idol and demon worship, sorcery, and illicit sex, these are actually applauded in the new tolerant society.

  Sadly this last judgment before the second half of the Tribulation may well continue four more months until the three-and-a-half-year anniversary of the accord between the Global Community and the nation of Israel. That also coincides with the end of the ministry of the two witnesses. And it will usher in a period when believers will be martyred in multiples of the numbers who die now.

  Many of you have written and asked me how I explain that a God of love and mercy could pour out such awful judgments upon the earth. God is more than a God of love and mercy. The Scriptures say God is love, yes. But they also say he is holy, holy, holy. He is just. His love was expressed in the gift of his Son as the means of redemption. But if we reject this love gift, we fall under God’s judgment.

  I know that many hundreds of thousands of readers of my daily messages must visit this site not as believers but as searchers for truth. So permit me to write directly to you if you do not call yourself my brother or sister in Christ. I plead with you as never before to receive Jesus Christ as God’s gift of salvation. The sins that the stubborn unbelievers will not give up (see above) will be rampant during the last half of the Tribulation, referred to in the Bible as the Great Tribulation.

  Imagine this world with half its population gone. If you think it is bad now with millions having disappeared in the Rapture, children gone, services and conveniences affected, try to fathom life with half of all civil servants gone. Firemen, policemen, laborers, executives, teachers, doctors, nurses, scientists . . . the list goes on. We are coming to a period where survival will be a full-time occupation.

  I would not want to be here without knowing God was with me, that I was on the side of good rather than evil, and that in the end, we win. Pray right now. Tell God you recognize your sin and need forgiveness and a Savior. Receive Christ today, and join the great family of God.

  Sincerely,

  Tsion Ben-Judah

  CHAPTER 11

  Mac and Leon helped Abdullah toward the chaotic Johannesburg terminal.

  “Rehoboth was behind the assassination attempt,” Leon said. “He told me so himself. He thought His Excellency was on board. We must get help and regain authority here without risking our lives.”

  “A little late for that, isn’t it?” Mac said. “Couldn’t you have made it clear in advance that Carpathia was not with us?”

  “We had our reasons to let Mr. Ngumo believe His Excellency—which is how you should refer to him, Captain—was aboard. Regional Potentate Rehoboth was invited, but we did not know he was subversive to His Excellency.”

  “I believe you’re going to find Ngumo and his secretary dead,” Mac said, and he told Leon of the phone call.

  “We had better hope we find Rehoboth dead,” Abdullah said. “He cannot afford to leave us alive.”

  Leon stopped, and his face blanched. “I assumed I spoke to him at his palace. He would not be here, would he?”

  “We need to keep moving,” Mac said, about to collapse. “If Rehoboth wants us dead, all he has to do is say the word to any one of these guards.” But the guards looked as frightened as anyone else, gagging, coughing, attending to fallen comrades. Throughout the terminal people screamed, bodies lay about, luggage was strewn. The counters were empty, arrival and departure monitors blank.

  Just after they stepped inside, Mac heard the scream of a Super J jet. The fighter-style knockoff of a Gulfstream was sleek, black, and incredibly aerodynamic—with power to burn and lots of room inside. It was the first plane to land at Johannesburg since the Condor. Above its identifying numbers were emblazoned an Australian flag and Fair Dinkum. As soon as the plane stopped, out jumped the pilot and a woman, who both sprinted toward the terminal.

  “’Ey!” the man called out shrilly, making many turn. “’Oo called in a Mayday with believers on board!” He was tall, blond, and freckled. His Aussie accent was so thick Mac wouldn’t have been surprised if it was put on. His wife was nearly as tall with thick, dark hair.

  Mac and Abdullah glanced at each other, and Fortunato slowly turned. “I did,” Mac said, noting the marks on both the man’s and his wife’s foreheads. The Aussie stared at his as well. “I was desperate,” Mac added. “I thought that might draw someone who wouldn’t otherwise stop. Did it work?”

  “It sure did, mate,” the pilot said, eyeing Abdullah’s forehead as well. “We’re believers all right and not ashamed of it, even if you hoodwinked us to get us here. Call me Dart. First name’s not important. This here’s my wife, Olivia.”

  “Liv,” she said, “and you all need immediate attention.”

  “’Oo might you be?” Dart demanded of Fortunato.

  “I am Supreme Commander Leon For—”

  “That’s what I figured,” Dart said. “It’s too early for your boss to be dead, so I won’t ask if he’s on board that fireball out there.”

  “Thankfully not,” Fortunato said.

  “So what happened, the horsemen get you?”

  “Oh, you’re one of those?” Fortunato said. “You see them too?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Dart,” his wife said softly, “we need to get them some help.”

  “Yeah, I guess we better,” he said. “But I don’t mind tellin’ ya, I feel like I’m aidin’ and abettin’ the enemy. Personally, I’d leave you to die, but God’s gonna get you in the end anyway. Read the Book. We win.”

  Fortunato turned on him. “You could be imprisoned for speaking disrespectfully of—”

  “By the way, Mr. F.—you don’t mind me callin’ you Mr. F., do ya, because I’m gonna anyway—what’s yer major complaint? You look to be ambulatin’ all right.”

  “You are required by law, sir, to refer to me as Su—”

  “Let me tell you something, Mr. F. I don’t live under your laws no more. I answer to God. You can’t do a thing to me he dud’n allow, so take your best shot. Your man here sent up a Mayday, pretended believers were in trouble, the wife and I were intrigued believers might be on board the Antichrist’s own plane, so we—”

  “Antichrist’s?! To refer to His Excellency, Potentate Nic—”

  “You don’t get it yet, do you, F.? I think he’s the Antichrist, and you know what that makes you.”

  “I’m not a student of that folderol, but I would advise you to—”

  “Don’t need any advice there, mate, but I can get you some medical help. Looks like your biggest complaint is some torn suit pants and a coupla owies on your hands. These boys here need some real help.”

  “Honestly, I—”


  “There’s a medical office in the wing behind this one, and with your clout you oughta be able to pull somebody away from all the other victims.”

  An announcement came over the public address system. “Attention! Attention please! Global Community Supreme Commander Leon Fortunato please report to GC Peacekeeping Forces headquarters in Wing B.”

  As the announcement was repeated, Dart said, “That’s right next door to the infirmary, Mr. F. How ’bout you go on ahead and we’ll get your comrades here to the doctors.”

  “I should have you arrested, you—”

  “If that’s your priority right now, you go right ahead. But if I was you, I’d run to safety and let these boys get patched up. There’ll be plenty of time for chasin’ us once you’ve caught your breath.”

  Fortunato’s face and neck flushed, and he looked as if he might burst. He turned to Mac. “No doubt His Excellency has provided assistance for us.”

  “You should go on ahead, Commander,” Mac said. “Find out about Rehoboth, check in with Carp—, with the potentate.”

  “I don’t trust this man.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Mr. F. I’m harmless as a dove. Much as I’d like to kill a couple of your staff, I promise I won’t. We’ll get ’em where they’re goin’ and be on our way.”

  Dart gently pushed Fortunato away from Abdullah and stuck his head under the Jordanian’s arm. Liv grabbed Mac’s belt with one hand and his left elbow with the other, leaving Fortunato free to go.

  “You, sir,” Fortunato said as he reluctantly strode on ahead, “are a disgrace to the Global Community.”

  “We’ll wear that one as a badge of honor, won’t we, Liv?”

  “Oh, Dart,” she said.

  “Thanks for not giving us away,” Mac said when Leon was out of earshot.

  “Inside saints,” Dart said, his accent now Southern U.S., more like Mac’s. “I couldn’t believe it. I almost blew it. I saw yours and the little guy’s marks and figured the big man might be with us too. As soon as I saw him I knew who he was and had to cover.”

  “It was brilliant,” Mac said, introducing himself and Abdullah.

  “And how’d you like Dart and Olivia?” Dart said.

  “That even threw me,” Liv said.

  “You covered perfectly, honey,” Dart said. “‘Liv’ was a stroke of genius.”

  They introduced themselves as Dwayne and Trudy Tuttle from Oklahoma. “I change the flag and motto on that plane every few days. We’ve been Germans, Norwegians, Brits. We’re with the International Commodity Co-op. Heard of it?”

  “If big-mouth here doesn’t get us killed,” Trudy said.

  “Never thought I’d get a chance to tell the False Prophet what I thought of him to his face.”

  “The False Prophet?” Mac said. “Leon?”

  “Claims Carpathia raised him from the dead, didn’t he? Worships the guy, calls him His Excellency. You watch and see if it doesn’t turn out that way. So, what’s your story? You infiltrate, or find Jesus after you were already with the GC?”

  Buck looked in the mirror. His facial scars were still red and prominent more than a year after his injuries. The surgery he’d found in a makeshift Jerusalem clinic may have been better than he expected, but there was no hiding his disfigurement. Chloe appeared behind him and handed Kenny to him. “Stop thinking that,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t play dumb. You think you can use your new face to your advantage.”

  “Of course,” Buck said.

  He wondered if handing him the baby was her way of making him want to stay put. But they had been through this before too. She had accepted that her frontline globe-trotting was over. She wasn’t about to drag a baby into danger, much as she wanted to be where the action was. Her running the Commodity Co-op was crucial not only to the Tribulation Force, but also to the millions of new believers who would soon have no other source for trade.

  Chloe had told Buck she wished he could be content with his behind-the-scenes work, countering the propaganda of Global Community Weekly with his own The Truth. But with the new technology provided by David Hassid, Buck could do that from anywhere without being traced. The expansion of the cellar was nearly finished, and Buck felt needed in so many other places.

  They had also discussed his responsibility to the baby. Sure, this was different from normal child rearing, knowing that Kenny’s real growing-up years would be in Christ’s earthly kingdom. Still, it was important for a young child to have both parents present as much as possible. Buck had argued that though he might be gone two to three weeks at a time, when he was home he was home twenty-four hours a day. “It’s a wash,” he’d say. “I’d net the same hours with him as I would if I were working away from home.”

  Buck took the baby to the kitchen and Chloe followed him. “You’ve got that look in your eye,” she said. “A few more days cooped up here and there’ll be no stopping you. Where you going?”

  “You know me too well,” he said. “Truth is, Tsion wants someone to go back to Israel. Check in on Chaim. He’s encouraged by the e-mails they trade, but he believes someone has to be there face-to-face before the old man will make his decision.”

  Chloe shook her head. “I want to disagree, but I can’t. Daddy can’t risk it. He’s got it in his head to track down Hattie before she blows our cover or gets herself killed. Tsion certainly can’t go. I don’t know what the world would do without him. I know God has everything under control and I suppose he could raise up someone like he did to replace Bruce, but—”

  “I know. We ought to be hiring armed guards and moving him out of sight.”

  “When are you going, Buck?”

  She had a way of cutting to the chase.

  “Tsion wants to talk to you about it.”

  She smiled. “Like having a friend ask your parents for a favor? He thinks I can’t turn him down.”

  “Well, can you?”

  She snorted. “I can’t even turn you down. But if you get yourself killed, I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.”

  “Thought I’d go see Zeke after dark.”

  She reached for Kenny. “That’s what I thought. Stock up on stuff for the baby. I’ll make a list of other stuff we need. Talk to Leah too. She says we’re low on some basics.”

  That night Buck rolled into a dilapidated one-pump gas station in what had once been downtown Des Plaines. Believers knew the station as a source for fuel, foodstuffs, and assorted sundries. Zeke managed the place with Zeke Jr.—who went by Z—a middle-twenties longhair covered with tattoos. He had made his living tattooing, pinstriping cars and trucks, and airbrushing monsters and muscle cars onto T-shirts. He also airbrushed the occasional mural on the side of an 18-wheeler. That business, needless to say, had dried up long ago.

  The Zekes had lost the Mrs. and two teenage daughters in a fire resulting from the disappearances. They had been led to Christ by a long-haul trucker. Zeke and his son now attended an underground meeting of believers in Arlington Heights, carefully keeping their faith hidden from unbelievers so they could serve as a major supplier and helper. Z had been a no-account druggie whose on-again off-again tattooing and art merely financed his daily high. Now he was the emotional, soft-spoken artist behind most of the fake IDs local Christians used to survive.

  Zeke was filling the tank of Buck’s Rover and watching for strangers or customers without the mark of God on their foreheads. “Need some stuff,” Buck said. “Including Z’s handiwork.”

  “Gotcha,” Zeke said. “He’s down there watchin’ TV and doin’ his Ben-Judah study. Lemme have your list. I’ll drive your rig into the garage and load it for ya.”

  Buck got out to venture inside when another car pulled in behind his. “You got enough to fill me?” the man called out. “Or are you rationing today?”

  “I can handle it,” Zeke said. “Let me get this transmission job on the rack and I’ll be right with you.”

  Buck empathized with the daily tension of
living a lie just to stay alive. He moseyed inside, which to unknowing eyes looked a typical greasy station. Brand-name calendars, pictures of cars, an oily phone book, everything dingy. A panel in the tiny washroom, however, was a ruse. The sign said, Danger. High Voltage. Do Not Touch. And a low-level buzz in the fingers awaited anyone who doubted it.

  That, however, was the extent of the danger. Knowing where to push and slide the panel opened one into a wooden staircase that led to Zeke’s own shelter, fashioned out of the earth beneath and behind the station. Deep in the back, Zeke would fill Buck’s list and transport the goods up a rickety staircase into the garage, where he would transfer them to the Rover. In a cozy though windowless and cool earthen room dominated by an oversized ventilation shaft sat the fleshy Z, wearing black cowboy boots, black jeans, and a black leather vest over bare arms and chest. As Zeke had said, Z was watching the news while scribbling notes on a dog-eared spiral notebook with his laptop open.

  “Hey, Buck,” Z said flatly, putting his stuff away and slowly rising. “What can I do ya for?”

  “Need a new identity.”

  Z squatted behind a sagging lime green couch and swung open a noisy two-drawer filing cabinet that was clearly off its track. He finger-walked his way through about ten files and yanked them out. When the door wouldn’t shut all the way, Z resorted to slamming it with his boot. Papers stuck out of the tightly jammed drawer, and Z smiled sheepishly at Buck.

  “Choose yer pick,” he said, fanning the folders onto the couch.

  Buck sat and looked at each folder under the lamp. Z’s filing system may have been makeshift, but he sure knew where everything was. Each folder had vital statistics on white males approximately Buck’s size and age. “Inventory’s getting bigger,” Buck said.