by Tim LaHaye
These are the tribulation saints. Now follow me carefully. In a later verse, Revelation 9:16, the writer numbers the army of horsemen in a battle at two hundred million. If such a vast army can be numbered, what might the Scriptures mean when they refer to the tribulation saints, those who come to Christ during this period, as “a great multitude which no one could number” [emphasis mine]?
Do you see why I believe we are justified in trusting God for more than a billion souls during this period? Let us pray for that great harvest. All who name Christ as their Redeemer can have a part in this, the greatest task ever assigned to mankind. I look forward to interacting with you again soon.
With love, in the matchless name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, Tsion Ben-Judah.
Rayford could barely keep his eyes open, but he was thrilled with Tsion’s boundless enthusiasm and insightful teaching. He returned to the bulletin board and blinked. The number at the top of the screen was in the tens of thousands and rising. Rayford wanted to add to the avalanche, but he was exhausted.
Nicolae Carpathia had addressed the globe on radio and television. No doubt the response would be monumental. But would it rival the reaction to this converted rabbi, communicating from exile to a new, growing family?
Buck reminded himself that, for the moment, he was not just a doctor, but also an egomaniac. He strode to room 335 without so much as a nod to the two Global Community guards. As he pushed open the door, they stepped into his path.
“Excuse me!” he said with disgust. “Miss Ashton’s alarm rang, so unless you want to be responsible for the death of my patient, you will let me pass.”
The guards looked at each other, appearing uncertain. The woman reached for Buck’s ID tag. He pushed her hand away and entered the room, locking the door. He hesitated before turning around, prepared to respond if they began banging. They didn’t.
Draperies hid both patients. Buck pulled back the first to reveal his wife. He held his breath as his eyes traveled over the sheet from feet to neck. It felt as if his heart was literally breaking. Poor sweet Chloe had no idea what she was getting into when she agreed to marry him. He bit his lip hard. There was no time to emote. He was grateful she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Her right arm was in a cast from wrist to shoulder. Her left arm lay motionless at her side, an IV needle in the back of her hand.
Buck set the clipboard on the bed and slipped his hand under hers. The baby-soft skin he cherished made him long to gather her in his arms, to soothe her, to take her pain. He bent and brushed her fingers with his lips, his tears falling between them. He jumped when he felt a weak grip and looked at her. She stared at him. “I’m here!” he whispered desperately. He moved to where he could caress her cheek. “Chloe, sweetheart, it’s Buck.”
He leaned close. Her gaze followed him. He forced himself not to look at her shattered right side. She was his sweet, innocent wife on one side and a monster on the other. He took her hand again.
“Can you hear me? Chloe, squeeze my hand again.”
No response.
Buck hurried to the other side and pulled back the drape to peek through to the other bed. A. Ashton was in her late fifties and appeared to be in a coma. Buck returned, grabbed his clipboard, and studied Chloe’s face. Her look still followed him. Could she hear? Was she conscious?
He unlocked the door and stepped quickly into the hall. “She’s out of danger for the moment,” he said, “but we’ve got a problem. Who told you Miss Ashton was in bed B?”
“Excuse me, doctor,” the woman guard said, “but we have nothing to do with the patients. Our responsibility is the door.”
“So, you’re not responsible for this screwup?”
“Absolutely not,” the woman said.
Buck pulled the adhesive strips from the door and reversed them. “Ma’am, can you handle this post yourself while this young man finds me a marker?”
“Certainly, sir. Craig, get him a marker.”
CHAPTER 13
Buck slipped back into Chloe’s room, desperate to let her know he was there and she was safe.
He could hardly bear to look at her black and purple face with the eye so swollen. He gently took her hand and leaned close. “Chloe, I’m here, and I won’t let anything happen to you. But I need your help. Squeeze my hand. Blink. Let me know you’re with me.”
No response. Buck laid his cheek on her pillow, his lips inches from her ear. “Oh, God,” he prayed, “why couldn’t you have let this happen to me? Why her? Help me get her out of here, God, please!”
Her hand felt like a feather, and she seemed fragile as a newborn. What a contrast to the strong woman he had loved and come to know. She was not only fearless, but she was also smart. How he wished she was up to being his ally in this.
Chloe’s breathing accelerated, and Buck opened his eyes as a tear slid past her ear. He looked her in the face. She blinked furiously, and he wondered if she was trying to communicate. “I’m here,” he said over and over. “Chloe, it’s Buck.”
The GC guard had been gone too long. Buck prayed he was out there waiting with the marker but too intimidated to knock. Otherwise, who knew whom he might bring with him and what might squash any chance Buck had to protect Chloe.
He spoke quickly. “Sweetheart, I don’t know if you can hear me, but try to concentrate. I’m switching your name with the woman’s in the other bed. Her name is Ashton. And I’m pretending to be your doctor. OK? Can you grasp that?”
Buck waited, hoping. Finally, a flicker.
“I got you those,” she whispered.
“What? Chloe, what? It’s me, Buck. You got me what?”
She licked her lips and swallowed. “I got you those, and you broke them.”
He concluded she was delirious. This was gibberish. He shook his head and smiled at her. “Stick with me, kid, and we’ll pull something off.”
“Doctor Buck,” she rasped, attempting a lopsided smile.
“Yes! Chloe! You know me.”
She squinted and blinked slowly now as if staying awake was an effort. “You should take better care of gifts.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying, sweetness, and I’m not sure you do either. But whatever I did, I’m sorry.”
For the first time, she turned to face him. “You broke your glasses, Doctor Buck.”
Buck reflexively touched the frames on his head. “Yes! Chloe, listen to me. I’m trying to protect you. I switched the names on the door. You’re—”
“Ashton,” she managed.
“Yes! And your first initial is A. What’s a good A name?”
“Annie,” she said. “I’m Annie Ashton.”
“Perfect. And who am I?”
She pressed her lips together and started to form a B, then changed. “My doctor,” she said.
Buck turned to go see if Craig, the guard, had brought the marker. “Doctor,” Chloe called out. “Wristbands.”
She was thinking! How could he forget that someone could easily check their hospital ID bracelets?
He yanked hers apart, careful not to dislodge the IV. He slipped behind A. Ashton’s curtain. She still appeared sound asleep. He carefully removed her bracelet, noticing she did not appear even to be breathing. He put his ear close to her nose but heard and felt nothing. He could find no pulse. He switched the wristbands.
Buck knew this only bought him time. It wouldn’t be long before someone discovered that this postmenopausal dead woman was not a pregnant twenty-two-year-old. But for the time being, she was Mother Doe.
When Buck emerged, the guards were talking to an older doctor. Craig, black marker in hand, was saying, “. . . we weren’t sure what to do.”
The doctor, tall, bespectacled, and gray, carried three charts. He scowled at Buck.
Buck sneaked a peek at the name sewn on his breast pocket. “Dr. Lloyd!” he exulted, thrusting out his hand.
The doctor reluctantly shook it, “Do I—?”
“Why, I haven’t seen you since th
at, uh, that—”
“The symposium?”
“Right! The one at, um—”
“Bemidji?”
“Yeah, you were brilliant.”
The doctor looked flustered, as if trying to remember Buck, yet the praise had not been lost on him. “Well, I—”
“And one of your kids was up to something. What was it?”
“Oh, I may have mentioned my son, who just got his internship.”
“Right! How’s he doing anyway?”
“Wonderfully. We’re very proud of him. Now, Doctor—”
Buck interrupted. “I’ll bet you are. Listen,” he said, pulling Ken Ritz’s pill bottles from his pocket, “I wonder if you could advise me. . . .”
“I’ll certainly try.”
“Thank you, Doctor Lloyd.” He held up the tranquilizer bottle. “I prescribed this to a patient with a severe head wound, and he inadvertently exceeded the dosage. What’s the best antidote?”
Dr. Lloyd studied the bottle. “It’s not that serious. He’ll be very sleepy for a few hours, but it’ll wear off. Head trauma, you say?”
“Yes, that’s why I’d rather he not sleep.”
“Of course. You’ll most safely counteract this with an injection of Benzedrine.”
“Not being on staff here,” Buck said, “I can’t get anything from the pharmacy. . . .”
Dr. Lloyd scribbled him a prescription. “If you’ll excuse me, Doctor—?”
“Cameron,” Buck said before thinking.
“Of course, Dr. Cameron. Great to see you again.”
“You too, Dr. Lloyd, and thanks.”
Buck accepted the marker from the chagrined Craig and changed the strips on the door from B and A to A and B. “I’ll be back soon, Craig,” he said, slapping the marker into the guard’s palm.
Buck hurried off, pretending to know where he was going but scanning directories and following signs as he went. Dr. Lloyd’s prescription was like gold at the pharmacy, and he was soon on his way back to the lobby for Ken Ritz. On the way he appropriated a wheelchair.
He found Ken leaning forward, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, snoring. Grateful for his training taking his turn giving his mother insulin injections, Buck deftly opened the package, raised Ken’s sleeve without toppling him, swabbed the area, and pulled the cap off the hypodermic needle with his teeth. As he drove the point into Ken’s biceps, the cap popped from his mouth and rattled to the floor. Someone muttered, “Shouldn’t he be wearing gloves?”
Buck found the cap, replaced it, and put everything in his pocket. Facing Ken, he thrust his wrists into the big man’s armpits and pulled him from the chair. He turned him 45 degrees and lowered him into the wheelchair, having forgotten to set the brake. When Ken hit the chair, it began rolling backwards, and Buck had no leverage to remove his hands. Straddling Ritz’s long legs, his face in Ken’s chest, Buck stumbled across the waiting room as onlookers dived out of the way. As the chair picked up speed, Buck’s only option was to drag his feet. He wound up sprawled across the lanky pilot, who roused briefly and called out, “Charlie Bravo Alpha to base!”
Buck extracted himself, lowered the footrests, and lifted Ritz’s knees to set his feet in place. Then they were off to find a gurney. His hope was that Ritz would respond quickly enough to the Benzedrine to be able to help him take Miss Ashton’s body, with Mother Doe’s wristband, to the morgue. If he could temporarily convince the Global Community delegation that their potential hostage had expired, he could buy time.
As Buck wheeled him toward the elevators, Ken’s arms kept flopping out of the chair and acting as brakes on the wheels. Buck would grab them and tuck them back in, only to find himself veering into traffic. Buck finally secured Ken’s arms by the time they backed onto an elevator, but Ritz chose that moment to let his chin drop to his chest, exposing his scalp wound to everyone aboard.
When Ritz seemed to begin coming out of his fog, Buck was able to get him out of the chair and onto a gurney he had absconded with. The sudden rise, however, had made Ken dizzy. He flopped onto his back, and his head wound brushed the sheet. “OK!” he hollered like a drunk. “All right!”
He rolled to his side, and Buck covered him to the neck, then wheeled him next to the wall, where he waited for him to fully awaken. Twice, as lots of traffic walked by, Ken spontaneously sat up, looked around, and lay back down.
When he finally came to and was able to sit and then stand without dizziness, he was still disoriented. “Man, that was some good sleep. I could use more of that.”
Buck explained that he wanted to find Ken a smock and have him play an orderly, helping Dr. Cameron. Buck went over it several times until Ken convinced him he was awake and understood. “Wait right here,” Buck said.
Near a surgical unit he saw a doctor hang a smock on a hook before heading the other way. It looked clean, so Buck took it back to Ken. But Ken was gone.
Buck found him at the elevator. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve gotta get my bag,” Ken said. “We left it outside.”
“It’s under a chair in the waiting room. We’ll get it later. Now put this on.” The sleeves were four inches short. Ken looked like the last renter in a costume shop.
Pushing the gurney, they hurried to 335 as fast as Ken could go. The woman guard said, “Doctor, we just got a call from our superiors that a delegation is on its way from the airport, and—”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Buck said, “but the patient you’re guarding has died.”
“Died?” she said. “Well, it certainly wasn’t our fault. We—”
“No one is saying it’s your fault. Now I need to take the body to the morgue. You can tell your delegation or whomever where to find her.”
“Then we don’t need to stay here, do we?”
“Of course not. Thanks for your service.”
As Buck and Ken entered the room, Craig caught sight of Ritz’s head. “Man, are you an orderly or a patient?”
Ken whirled around. “Are you discriminating against the handicapped?”
“No, sir, I’m sorry. It’s just—”
“Everybody needs a job!” Ken said.
Chloe tried to smile when she saw Ken, whom she had met at Palwaukee after Buck and Tsion’s flight from Egypt. Buck looked pointedly at Ritz. “Meet Annie Ashton,” he said. “I’m her doctor.”
“Dr. Buck,” Chloe said quietly. “He broke his glasses.”
Ritz smiled. “Sounds like we’re on the same medication.”
Buck pulled the sheet over the dead woman’s head, rolled her bed out, and replaced it with the gurney. He wheeled the bed to the door and asked Ken to stay with Chloe, “just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case those GC guys show up.”
“I get to play doctor?”
“In a manner of speaking. If we can convince them the woman they want is in the morgue, we might have time to hide Chloe.”
“You don’t want to strap her to the top of our rental car?”
Buck pushed the bed down the corridor to the elevators. Getting off were four people, three of them men, dressed in dark business suits. Tags on their jackets identified them as Global Community operatives. One said, “What are we looking for again?”
Another said, “335.”
Buck averted his face, not knowing whether his picture had been circulated. As soon as he rolled the bed onto the elevator, a doctor hit the emergency stop button. A half dozen people were in the car with Buck and the body. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” the doctor said. “Just a moment, please.”
He whispered in Buck’s ear, “You’re not a resident here, are you?”
“No.”
“There are strict rules about transporting corpses on other than the service elevators.”
“I didn’t know.”
The doctor turned to the others. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to need to take another elevator.”
“Gladly,” somebo
dy said.
The doctor turned the elevator back on, and everyone else got off. He hit the button for the subbasement. “First time in this hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Left and all the way to the end.”
At the morgue, Buck thought about leaving the body outside the door and hoping it would be misidentified temporarily as Mother Doe. But he was seen by a man behind the desk who said, “You’re not supposed to bring beds in here. We can’t be responsible for that. You’ll have to take it back with you.”
“I’m on a tight schedule.”
“That’s your problem. We’re not answering for a room bed being down here.”
Two orderlies lifted the body to a gurney, and the man said, “Papers?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Papers! Death certificate. Doctor’s sign-off.”
Buck said, “Wristband says Mother Doe. I was told to bring her down here. That’s all I know.”
“Who’s her doctor?”
“I have no idea.”
“What room?”
“335.”
“We’ll look it up. Now get this bed out of here.”
Buck hurried back to the elevator, praying the ruse had worked and that the GC contingent was on its way to the morgue to make sure about Mother Doe. He did not cross paths with them, however, on the way back.
He was almost at room 335 when they emerged. He looked the other way and kept walking.
One said, “Where’s Charles, anyway?”
The woman said, “We should have waited. He was parking the car. How’s he supposed to find us now?”
“He can’t be far. When he gets here, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
When they were out of sight, Buck pushed the bed back into 335. “It’s just me,” he said as he passed Chloe’s curtain. He found Chloe even paler and now trembling. Ken sat next to the bed, hands resting lightly atop his head.
“Are you cold, hon?” Buck asked. Chloe shook her head. Her discoloration had spread. The ugly streaks caused by bleeding under the skin nearly reached her temple.
“She’s a little shook, that’s all,” Ritz said. “Me too, though I deserve an Oscar.”
