“Oh, Chang. Don’t say that. You put in your years of frontline work. And anyway, you know full well you’re much more valuable here in the center than out there shooting or being shot at. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“You were getting along fine before I got here.”
She dropped his hand and put her hands on her hips, cocking her head at him. “You have a short memory, Chang Wong. How can you forget that I spent a good portion of every day on the computer with you, though we were more than five hundred miles apart? I would have been nowhere without your teaching me, which is the way I feel now.”
“Everything’s up and running here. I could be gone a few weeks.”
“I wasn’t talking technically, Chang. Call me selfish, but I’m glad you’re not venturing out. Father loves me, but not like you do.”
“I should hope not.”
She smiled. “And I enjoy spending time with him, which is something a lot of women my age can’t say about their fathers. But I would rather be with you. Remember, we want to survive so we can be together for a millennium. Let’s not risk that for the sake of your conscience.”
“You don’t think I’d be good in combat.”
“Actually I do, Chang. I know you’re half the size of that Sebastian character and much more rational than Buck Williams.
But I believe a person’s personality and character come out when the pressure is on, and I’ve seen you under pressure. With a little training, you could hold your own.”
________
Rayford was studying Chang’s transmissions and trying to discuss with Buck the best place to land. Buck was busy digging through what he’d brought and said, “It’s your call, Ray. I can’t imagine one spot is going to be any less treacherous than another.”
“Remember that all these GC are expected to be in Megiddo tomorrow,” Rayford said. “Not today. They might still like a plum arrest.”
“I disagree,” Buck said. “Their directive told them
to immediately cease and desist and head toward where they had to be. I don’t know a guy in uniform who wouldn’t take them up on that.”
“Just take me to the Wailing Wall, Rayford,” Tsion said. “I want to be preaching when I get off this thing.”
“Could you think of a more dangerous place?”
“Danger is not the issue now, Captain. Time is. The Day of the Lord is at hand. Let us not be setting up camp when the enemy attacks.”
“Easy for you to say,” Rayford said.
“Not unless I am on the ground. Now, for once, do what I ask.”
Rayford came within sight of the Temple Mount. It was
crawling with people. “Agh!”
“They will move,” Tsion said. “Trust me. Put this thing down, and they will get out of the way. Wouldn’t you?”
NINETEEN
THE INSTANTANEOUS drying up of the Euphrates proved good news to only the kings of the East, who transported their weapons directly into Israel across dry land. The rest of the Fertile Crescent was no longer fertile. Irrigation dried up, hydroelectric plants shut down, factories closed. In short, everything that depended on the massive power of the great river was immediately diagnosed as terminal.
Chang’s prediction of GCNN’s carrying accounts of reporters standing in the middle of the dry riverbed proved accurate. But all the fancy pronouncements and isn’t-it-something-that-I’m-standing-here-where-yesterday-I-would-have-been-a-hundred-feet-below-the-surface did not amuse millions who depended upon the Euphrates for their very existence.
________
It didn’t surprise Buck that Tsion proved to be right. When Rayford lowered the chopper into a clearing at the Temple Mount, hundreds of angry people scattered, raising their fists at him.
Buck grabbed his bag and tucked his Uzi behind his back and under his jacket. He leaped from the chopper and scampered to safety in underbrush near the Wall. He looked back to see Tsion doing the same and was amazed at the agility of this newly trained guerilla.
They knelt, catching their breath and watching Rayford lift off.
The chopper whirling out of sight took the attention off them. Buck
looked around. “This is where I saw the two witnesses taken into heaven three and a half years ago,” he said.
________
That old curiosity was back. Rayford couldn’t shake it. No way he could be this close to Armageddon—he guessed less than seventy miles—and not do a flyover. It was crazy, he knew. He might find himself in an air traffic jam. But the possibility of seeing an aerial view of what he had been hearing and reading and praying about drew him like an undertow. And if the result was that he plunged into the abyss like a rafter over the falls, it was worth the risk.
________
“Cameron, look,” Tsion said. “Look at all the unmarked men!
They proudly parade around, beaming at each other, as if defying the GC.”
Global Community Peacekeeping and Morale Monitor forces were nowhere to be seen, of course. But war was in the air. For all the posturing of the devout Jews at the Temple Mount, it was clear that terror pervaded the place. These people knew where the GC
were, and they knew they would soon be Carpathia’s targets.
“The old men are at the Wall,” Tsion said, “praying fervently and openly as they have not been able to do for so long. How my heart breaks for them. The young men are talking, planning, looking for arms. They are determined to defend this city, as I am.”
“But the city is to fall, Tsion,” Buck said. “You’ve said so yourself.”
“Only temporarily, and the more of these people we can keep alive, the more can come into the kingdom. That is all I care about.”
________
Mac was still not sure what to make of Otto Weser. He was a good man, no doubt, but he was amateur in his thinking. He may have been a successful timber businessman in Germany, but Mac would not want to have served under him in combat.
“But don’t you see, Mr. McCullum,” Otto was saying, “if we are already on the ground at the palace airstrip when the supernatural announcement comes, we’ll be that much more ready to quickly get people on board and out of there.”
“And what if we never hear that announcement, or people can’t get to the airstrip? There we sit with the city coming down around us.”
“But will we not be protected as believers?”
“Think, man! If believers were protected, why would God be calling his own people out of there before he levels the place?”
________
“I want to wait no longer, Cameron. I’m going to the Wall and I will simply begin preaching.”
“But what if—”
“There is no more time to think things through,” Tsion said.
“We are here for one purpose, and I am going to do it. Now are you going to cover me? Go with me? What?”
“I’ll go with you. No one will give me a second glance, once you open your mouth.”
Tsion pressed a yarmulke onto his head and handed one to Buck. “No sense getting stoned for a technicality,” Tsion said.
“We are going to a holy place.”
They stuffed their bags between a tree and a black wrought-iron fence. Wearing loose-fitting, canvas-type clothing and jackets, Uzis at their sides, they crawled out of the bushes and jogged toward the Wall.
“Hey, old man, two hundred Nicks for that gat!”
“I’ll go three hundred!” someone else said.
“The weapon is not for sale!” Tsion hollered. “Come hear what I have to offer!”
The area before the Wailing Wall was crowded with people in traditional garb, eager to push their prayers into the cracks between the stones. Many began praying even before they got close. The place would have been deserted the day before. And anyone caught in religious clothing, even with the mark of Carpathia, would have been sent to a concentration camp or executed.
As soon as Buck and Tsion began to shoulder their way
toward the Wall, men glared at them and grumbled. Tsion did not hesitate.
He bellowed, “Men of Israel, hear me! I am one of you! I come with news!”
It was clear people thought it was news of the impending attack, as they immediately began gathering. Tsion climbed a short precipice, where he could better be seen and heard.
“We will fight to the death!” someone shouted.
“I know you will, and so will I!” Tsion said. “You see me with my head covered and no mark on my forehead or hand.”
The men cheered.
“Many of us will die in this conflict,” Tsion continued. “I am willing to give my life for Jerusalem!”
“So are we!” many shouted in unison.
“We need arms!”
“We need information!”
“What you need,” Tsion boomed, “is Messiah!”
The men cheered and many laughed. Others murmured. This was plainly not what they expected to hear.
“Many of you know me! I am Tsion Ben-Judah. I became
persona non grata when I broadcast my findings after being commissioned to study the prophecies concerning Messiah.”
Many remembered and applauded. Although they obviously disagreed with his conclusions or they would have been believers, they seemed to admire him.
“My family was slaughtered. I was exiled. A bounty remains on my head.”
“Then why are you here, man? Do you not know the Global Community devils are coming back?”
“I do not fear them, because Messiah is coming too! Do not scoff! Do not turn your backs on me!” Many did not. “Listen to our own Scriptures. What do you think this means?” He read Zechariah 12:8-10: “‘In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
“‘And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.’”
“You tell us what it means!”
“God is saying he will make the weakest among us as strong as David. And he will destroy the nations that come against us. My dear friends, that is all the other nations of the earth!”
“We know. Carpathia has made it no secret!”
“But God says we will finally look upon ‘Me whom they
pierced,’ and that we will mourn him as we would mourn the loss
of a firstborn son. Messiah was pierced! And God refers to the pierced one as ‘Me’! Messiah is also God.
“Beloved, my exhaustive study of the hundreds of prophecies concerning Messiah brought me to the only logical conclusion.
Messiah was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. He lived without sin.
He was falsely accused. He was slain without cause. He died and was buried and was raised after three days. Those prophecies alone point to Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah. He is the one who is coming to fight for Israel. He will avenge all the wrongs that have been perpetrated upon us over the centuries.
“The time is short. The day of salvation is here. You may not have time to study this for yourselves. Messiah is God’s promise to us. Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. He is coming. Let him find you ready!”
________
Rayford’s was not the only craft over the Plain of Megiddo. It was all he could do to pick his way through the traffic, but he also found it difficult to avert his eyes from the ground. He climbed to where he could see the 14-by-25-mile valley in its entirety, some 350 square miles.
The dust seemed to rise a mile as tanks, trucks, personnel carriers, missile launchers, cavalries, and ground troops moved into the area. Rayford had never seen as large an assembly of people in one place. It appeared as if an army of millions was marshaling in the vast staging area. From there he could also see the bustling seaport at Haifa, where great ships filled the harbor and fanned out in massive lines, waiting to disgorge armaments and troops.
From every direction personnel and equipment flooded into the region. Massive as it was, there seemed no way it could hold more.
And yet the armies kept coming.
________
Buck feared at first that Tsion was only offending the devoutly Jewish crowd. Many tried to shout him down and many walked away, but others tried to hush the rest, and still others called more to come and hear him. The crowd kept growing, despite the noise and confusion.
Tsion seemed energized. He began quoting Scripture and explaining it, not waiting for the crowd’s response. His message went from dialogue to monologue, and yet people seemed riveted.
“Yes, the armies of the world are coming. Even as we speak, they are rallying to the north. They aim to destroy Jerusalem and destroy us. But I beg of you, ‘do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’ Yes, you know of whom I speak.
Messiah is coming! Messiah shall overcome! Be ready for his arrival!
“If you want to know how to be prepared for him, gather here to my left and my associate will tell you. Please! Come now! Do not delay! Now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation.”
Buck was stunned. He had not been prepared for this, but as the Jews gathered around him, looking expectant, he breathed a desperate silent prayer, and God gave him the words.
“When Jewish people such as yourselves come to see that Jesus is your long-sought Messiah,” he said, “you are not converting from one religion to another, no matter what anyone tells you. You have found your Messiah, that is all. Some would say you have
been completed, fulfilled. Everything you have studied and been told all your life is the foundation for your acceptance of Messiah and what he has done for you.”
Buck moved into the plan of salvation, telling these hungry and thirsty men to tell God they acknowledged that Jesus was Messiah.
“He comes not only to avenge Jerusalem but to save your soul, to forgive your sins, to grant you eternal life with God.”
________
“Naomi!” Chang called out. “Come watch this.”
She joined him to see Carpathia being interviewed by GCNN.
It was clear he was not at Armageddon yet, but he was on a colossal black stallion and brandishing a sword so wide and long it appeared its weight alone would have pulled a smaller man from the saddle. He wore thigh-high boots and leathers, and he seemed unable to quit grinning.
“We have the absolute latest in technology and power at our fingertips,” he shouted as the reporter reached as high as she could with her microphone. “My months of strategy are over, and we have a foolproof plan. That frees me to encourage the troops, to be flown to the battle sites, to mount up, to be a visual reminder that victory is in sight and will soon be in hand.
“It will not be long, my brothers and sisters in the Global Community, until we shall reign victorious. I shall return to rebuild my throne as conquering king. The world shall finally be as one! It is not too early to rejoice!”
________
As word spread that Tsion Ben-Judah was at the Wailing Wall preaching to the Jews, more and more streamed in.
“These Scriptures foretell what is going to happen soon!” he said. “Listen again to the words of Peter: ‘The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevert
heless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.’
“That is our promise, what we have been looking for! For how many generations have we prayed for peace? Soon, after the conflict, eternal peace!
“Messiah will return as King of kings. He promised to return, to conquer Satan, and to set up his millennial kingdom, reestablishing Israel and making Jerusalem the capital forever!
“With probably a billion of Messiah’s followers already removed from this earth, and with the disappearances of seven years ago that were predicted more than two thousand years before, many Jews and Gentiles have turned to Jesus Christ as the true Messiah.
“Our own prophet Joel foretold of these very days. Listen to the words of Holy Scripture: ‘It shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
“‘And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that
whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.’
“You are that remnant, people of Israel. Turn to Messiah today!
Listen further to the prophecy of Joel and see if it does not reflect these very days! ‘For behold, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel.’
“This massive international force that the evil ruler of this world calls the One World Unity Army will break up from its staging area and pass through the very Valley of Jehoshaphat Joel writes of, and when they find the city of refuge impossible to overthrow, the fighting will spill back into that valley.”