Assassins: Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist

  Without warning the dead men stirred. Buck held his breath. One by one the crazies shrieked, fell back, and drew the attention of the rest of the throng. Word spread that the corpses were moving, and the inner circle stampeded back while those hearing the commotion from farther back surged forward.

  The music stopped, the singing turned to screams and agonizing wails. Many covered their eyes or hid their faces. Thousands fled. Thousands more came running.

  Eli and Moishe struggled to their knees, filthy bodies in slow motion, chests heaving. Rugged, long-fingered hands on their thighs, they blinked and turned to take in the sight. In tandem they each put one hand on the pavement and straightened, slowly rising, eliciting terrible moans from the paralyzed onlookers.

  As they deliberately rose to full height, the dried puddles around them stirred into liquid. Their gaping wounds mended, skin—stretched and split from swelling—contracted, purple and black blotches fading, fading. Hair and tissue from the fence and wall beyond disappeared as the men became whole.

  Buck heard every screech from the crowd, but he could not take his eyes from Eli and Moishe. They gathered the folds of their robes into their fists at the chest, and the rest of the sackcloth fluttered clean in the breeze. They were again tall and strong, victorious and noble and stately.

  Eli and Moishe looked on the crowd with what Buck read as regret and longing, then turned their faces heavenward. They looked so expectant that Buck noticed many in the crowd looking skyward too.

  Snow-white clouds rolled in deep blue and purple skies. The sun was hidden, then reappeared in a beautiful sky of moving colors and pure white vapors.

  A voice from above, so loud people covered their ears and ducked from it, said, “COME UP HERE!”

  Faces still upturned, Eli and Moishe rose. A collective gasp echoed through the Temple Mount as people fell to their knees, some onto their faces, weeping, crying out, praying, groaning. The witnesses disappeared into a cloud that rose so quickly it soon became a speck before it too vanished.

  Buck’s knees buckled and he dropped to the soft soil, tears finally coming. “Praise God,” he breathed. “Thank you, Lord!” All around, thousands lay prostrate, keening, lamenting, pleading with God.

  Buck began to rise, but before his legs were straight the ground snapped beneath him like a towel. He flew back into a tree, scraping his neck and back as he tumbled. He leapt to his feet to see hundreds of people landing after being thrown even higher.

  The sky turned black, and cold rain pelted the area. From blocks away came the ominous crash of buildings, the crack and boom of falling trees, the smash of metal and glass as vehicles were tossed about.

  “Earthquake!” people shouted, running. Buck tottered out of his hiding place, amazed at how short and severe had been the tremor. The sun peeked through fast moving clouds, creating an eerie green atmosphere. Buck walked in a daze in the direction of Chaim’s home.

  Rayford had been watching on television from his hotel room. The quake cut the power and threw everything to the floor, including him. Almost immediately GC public address trucks rolled through the streets.

  “Attention, citizens! Volunteers are needed on the east side of the city. Closing ceremonies will take place tonight as planned. Zealots have made off with the bodies of the preachers. Do not fall for fairy tales of their disappearing or their having had anything to do with this act of nature. Repeat: Closing ceremonies will take place tonight as planned.”

  Mac had slept late, then turned on the television to watch the day’s news. He wept as TV cameras showed Eli and Moishe resurrect and rise into the clouds. How would the GC refute what had been broadcast around the globe? David Hassid had reported that he had seen Carpathia’s eerie interruption on TV Monday night, but that the incident did not appear on any tapes of the event. And now, no replays of the resurrections appeared on the news.

  What power, Mac thought. What pervasive control, even of technology. If by some stretch Carpathia left Israel alive, Mac would not allow him to land alive. Not on any plane he was piloting. But should he wait that long? He dug in the bottom compartment of his flight bag and fingered the contraband pistol just like the one Abdullah also carried. If Mac carried it that night, he would have to stay far from the metal detectors.

  Chaim’s neighborhood had been hit hard. Bricks had been loosened and a section of his garage had disintegrated, but unlike the flattened residences around his, Chaim’s house had largely escaped damage.

  Power returned quickly to that area, and Buck watched the television reports with Chaim and the rest of the household. The death toll was announced in the hundreds but quickly climbed into the thousands.

  Most of the damage indeed centered on the east side of Jerusalem, where buildings fell, apartment complexes collapsed, roads became upturned ribbons of asphalt and mud, and thousands perished. By early evening it was clear that about a tenth of the Holy City had been destroyed and that the death toll would reach at least seven thousand by morning.

  Every newscast repeated the insistence on the part of the GC that delegates should still attend the final ceremony. “It will be abbreviated,” an appropriately morose Leon Fortunato intoned. “The potentate is involved in the search-and-rescue operation, but he asked that I extend his heartfelt condolences to all who have suffered loss. These are his words: ‘Reconstruction begins immediately. We will not be defeated by one defeat. The character of a people is revealed by its reaction to tragedy. We shall rise because we are the Global Community.

  “‘There is tremendous morale-building value in our coming together as planned. Music and dancing will not be appropriate, but we shall stand together, encourage each other, and dedicate ourselves anew to the ideals we hold dear.’

  “Let me add a personal word,” Fortunato said. “It would be most encouraging to Potentate Carpathia if you were to attend in overwhelming numbers. We will commemorate the dead and the valor of those involved in the rescue effort, and the healing process will begin.”

  Buck had no interest in the maudlin imitation of the opening night—the potentates praising their fearless leader and he piously charming the crowd.

  “You promised to be there,” Chaim rasped.

  “Oh, sir, the roads will be impassable, wheelchair ramps may have been damaged. Just watch it on—”

  “Jacov can drive through anything and get me anywhere.”

  Jacov shrugged. Buck made a face as if to ask why he hadn’t supported Buck’s refusal. “He’s right,” Jacov said. “Get him and his chair into the car, and I’ll get him there.”

  “I can’t risk being recognized,” Buck told Chaim.

  “I just want to know you are in the crowd, supporting me.”

  The sun slipped out from under a bank of clouds and warmed Jerusalem. The orange highlight on the old city shocked Rayford in its beauty, but so did the devastation. Rayford couldn’t imagine why Carpathia was so determined to go through with the schedule. But the potentate was playing right into God’s hands.

  Rayford stayed behind various groups, finally camping out in a cluster of people near the speaker tower to Carpathia’s left as he faced the audience. Rayford guessed he was sixty or seventy feet from the lectern.

  “I am not going,” Abdullah announced. “I will watch on television.”

  “Suit yourself,” Mac said. “I’ll probably regret going myself.”

  Mac sat in the shuttle van for more than twenty minutes before it finally pulled away. He glanced back to see Abdullah stride quickly from the hotel, hands inside the pockets of a light jacket.

  Buck arrived at the plaza before Jacov and Chaim and waited near the entrance, emboldened by being patently ignored. His new look was working, and anyway it appeared GC workers were preoccupied preparing for a guest of honor. And here he came.

  Someone parked Chaim’s vehicle while Jacov wheeled Chaim to the metal detector at stage right. “Your name, sir,” a guard asked.

  “Jac—”

  “He?
??s with me, young man,” Chaim spat. “Leave him alone.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the guard said. “We are on heightened security alert, as you can imagine.”

  “I said he’s with me!”

  “That’s fine, sir, but once he helps you onto the platform, he’ll have to find a seat or stand elsewhere.”

  “Nonsense!” Chaim said. “Now—”

  “Oh, boss,” Jacov said quickly. “I don’t want to be up there anyway. Please.”

  Buck saw Chaim close his eyes wearily and wave with the back of his hand. “Just get me up there.”

  “You have to go through the metal detector,” the guard said. “No exceptions.”

  “Fine! Let’s go!”

  “You first, son.”

  Jacov’s keys set off the alarm. He succeeded on his second try.

  “I’ll need you out of the chair briefly, Dr. Rosenzweig,” the guard said. “My men can support you.”

  “No they can’t!” Chaim said.

  “Sir,” Jacov said, “he had a stroke Mon—”

  “I know all about that.”

  “Do you want to insult an Israeli, and may I say, global statesman?”

  The guard appeared at a loss. “I have to at least search him.”

  “Very well,” Chaim growled. “Be quick!”

  The guard felt Chaim’s arms and legs and back, patting him down all over. “Your getaway would have been a little slow anyway,” he said.

  Jacov and three guards lifted the chair to the stage and rolled Chaim to the left end of the row of chairs. The guard signaled Jacov to return. “I’m to leave him up here alone now?”

  “I’m sorry,” the guard said.

  Jacov shrugged. Chaim said, “Go on! I’ll be fine.”

  Jacov descended and joined Buck near the front. They watched as Chaim amused himself by steering the motorized wheelchair back and forth across the vast, empty stage, to the delight of the growing crowd.

  The sky was dark, but the vast lighting system bathed the plaza. Rayford guessed the crowd bigger than on opening day, but subdued.

  Their helicopters having been pressed into earthquake relief, the VIPs were transported in a motor coach. No fanfare or music or dancing, no opening prayer. The potentates mounted the steps, shook hands with each other and with Chaim, and waited in front of their chairs. Leon walked Nicolae up, surrounded by the security detail. The assembled broke into warm, sustained applause, no cheering or whistling.

  Leon quickly introduced the potentates, then said, “There is one other very special guest we are particularly pleased to welcome, but His Excellency has requested that privilege. And so, with heartfelt thanks for your support during this time, I give you once again, His Excellency, Nicolae Carpathia.”

  Rayford reached inside his robe with both hands, separated the Saber, and silently told God he was prepared to produce it at the right moment.

  A restrained Carpathia quickly quieted the applause. “Let me add my deep thanks to that of our supreme commander’s and also my abject sympathies to you who have suffered. I will not keep you long, because I know many of you need to return to your homelands and are concerned about transportation. Flights are going from both airports, though there are, of course, delays.

  “Now before my remarks, let me introduce my guest of honor. He was to have been here Monday, but he was overtaken by an untimely stroke. It gives me great pleasure to announce the miraculous rallying of this great man, enough so that he joins us tonight in his wheelchair, with wonderful prospects for complete recovery. Ladies and gentlemen of the Global Community, a statesman, a scientist, a loyal citizen, and my dear friend, the distinguished Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig!”

  The crowd erupted as Carpathia pointed toward Chaim, and Rayford sensed his opportunity. People in front of him lifted their arms to clap and wave, and he quickly raised the weapon and took aim. But Chaim reached with his good arm as if to offer it to Carpathia, and Nicolae bounded over to the wheelchair to embrace the old man.

  No way Rayford would fire that close to Rosenzweig. He lowered the weapon, hidden under the folds of his billowy sleeve, and watched the awkward embrace. Nicolae raised Chaim’s good arm, and the crowd cheered again. Carpathia returned to the lectern and the moment was lost.

  Mac McCullum knew Buck Williams was somewhere in the crowd. Maybe he would try to make contact when it was over. Was Abdullah also there? And why had he said he wasn’t coming?

  Quivering from the close call, Rayford tasted bile, Carpathia so repulsed him.

  “Fellow citizens,” Nicolae began somberly, “in the very young history of our one-world government, we have stood shoulder to shoulder against great odds, as we do tonight.

  “I had planned a speech to send us back to our homes with renewed vigor and a rededication to Global Community ideals. Tragedy has made that talk unnecessary. We have proven again that we are a people of purpose and ideals, of servanthood and good deeds.”

  From behind Carpathia, three potentates rose. That seemed to obligate the other seven, who slowly and seemingly reluctantly stood. Carpathia noticed the attention of the crowd was behind him and turned, seeing first three, then all ten potentates stand and clap. The crowd joined the applause, and Rayford thought he saw Carpathia and Fortunato trade glances.

  Was something afoot? Were those the three Mac had said might not be so loyal as Nicolae thought?

  The potentates sat again, and for the first time since the meetings at Kollek Stadium, Carpathia seemed at a loss for words. He started again, paused, repeated himself, then turned back to the potentates and joked, “Do not do that to me.”

  The crowd applauded anew, and Nicolae milked the situation for a bigger laugh. Obviously covering his own concern, he began to speak, looked back quickly, and turned again, engendering titters from the audience.

  Suddenly the three potentates stood again and applauded as if trying to make points with Nicolae, though Rayford noticed one had reached into the inside pocket of his jacket as he rose. It was clear the crowd thought the clapping potentates were some sort of an impromptu bit. When Chaim suddenly steered his chair out of place and rolled toward Fortunato, the crowd laughed and exulted in earnest.

  Rayford was distracted from his left. Hattie? There was no way. He tried to keep her in sight, but the people in front of him raised their hands again, shouting, clapping, jumping. He leveled the gun between them, aimed betwixt two security guards at Nicolae, and tried to squeeze the trigger. He could not! His arm was paralyzed, his hand shaking, his vision swimming. Would God not allow it? Had he run too far ahead? He felt a fool, a coward, powerless despite the weapon. He stood shaking, Carpathia in his sights. As the crowd celebrated, Rayford was bumped from the back and side and the gun went off. At the explosion the sea of panicked people parted around him. Rayford ran with a bunch of them, dropping the weapon and letting the other half of the box fall. People screamed and trampled each other.

  As Rayford pushed his way into a gridlock of bodies, he sneaked a peek at the stage. Carpathia was not in sight. The potentates scattered and dived for cover, one dropping something as he tumbled off the platform. Rayford could not see Fortunato either, at first. The lectern had been shattered and the entire one-hundred-foot-wide back curtain ripped off its frame and blown away from the stage. Rayford imagined the bullet passing through Nicolae and taking out the backdrop.

  Had God used him in spite of his cowardice? Could he have fulfilled prophecy? The shooting had been a mistake! He had not meant to do it!

  Buck had ducked under a scaffold at the sound of the gun. A tidal wave of humanity swept past him on both sides, and he saw glee on some faces. Converts from the Wailing Wall who had seen Carpathia murder their heroes?

  By the time Buck looked to the stage, the potentates were leaping off, the drapery was flying into the distance, and Chaim appeared catatonic, his head rigid.

  Carpathia lay on the platform, blood running from eyes, nose, and mouth, and—it appeared to Buck—from the
top of his head. His lapel mike was still hot, and because Buck was directly under a speaker tower, he heard Nicolae’s liquid, guttural murmur, “But I thought . . . I thought . . . I did everything you asked.”

  Fortunato draped his stocky body over Carpathia’s chest, reached beneath him, and cradled him. Sitting on the stage, he rocked his potentate, wailing.

  “Don’t die, Excellency!” Fortunato bawled. “We need you! The world needs you! I need you!”

  Security forces surrounded them, brandishing Uzis. Buck had experienced enough trauma for one day. He stood transfixed, with a clear view of the back of Carpathia’s blood-matted skull.

  The wound was unmistakably fatal. And from where Buck stood, it was obvious what had caused it.

  “I did not expect a gunshot,” Tsion said, staring at the television as GC Security cleared the stage and whisked Carpathia away.

  Two hours later GC CNN confirmed the death and played over and over the grieving pronouncement of Supreme Commander Leon Fortunato. “We shall carry on in the courageous spirit of our founder and moral anchor, Potentate Nicolae Carpathia. The cause of death will remain confidential until the investigation is complete. But you may rest assured the guilty party will be brought to justice.”

  The news media reported that the slain potentate’s body would lie in state in the New Babylon palace before entombment there on Sunday.

  “Don’t leave the TV, Chloe,” Tsion said. “You have to assume the resurrection will be caught on camera.”

  But when Friday became Saturday in Mount Prospect and Saturday night approached, even Tsion began to wonder. The Scriptures had not foretold of death by projectile. Antichrist was to die from a specific wound to the head and then come back to life. Carpathia still lay in state.

  By dawn Sunday, as Tsion gloomily watched mourners pass the glass bier in the sun-drenched courtyard of the GC palace, he had begun to doubt himself.