by Tim LaHaye
“Amazing.”
“I amaze myself sometimes.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
The departing crowd seemed festive, but Buck could not see his party and didn’t want to lose sight of Tsion. The rabbi stood chatting with Daniel and the local committee, but he looked agitated and distracted, as if he wanted to be on his way. Buck scanned the stadium, especially the reserved section, but he didn’t see any of the five he was looking for. He thought autograph seekers or well-wishers might surround Rosenzweig, perhaps even zealous believers who would try to convert him. But there were no clusters, just lines of people happily filing out under the stern watch of GC guards.
Buck looked back to Tsion and the others backstage. That group seemed to be thinning too, and he didn’t want Tsion left alone. He was among the most recognizable people in the world, so he wouldn’t be able to blend into any crowds.
Buck hurried to Daniel, but Tsion, now deadly serious, intercepted him. “Cameron, please! Get the others and let’s go! I want to speak with Chaim tonight, but nothing must get in the way of our schedule. Everything is set, and we can’t leave Rayford and Ken exposed.”
“I know, Tsion. I’m looking for the others, but—”
Tsion gripped Buck’s arm. “Just go and find them and let’s get to the van. I have a terrible feeling I can only assume is from the Lord. We need to get to Chaim’s place. The GC surely has it under surveillance, so we can give them a false sense of security once they know we’re there and seem to be settling down for the night.”
Daniel and only four or five committee members remained backstage. “I don’t want to leave you alone, Tsion. With no eyewitnesses, the GC could do anything they wanted with you and blame someone else.”
“Go, Cameron. Please. I’ll be fine.”
“Daniel,” Buck said, “would you keep an eye on Tsion until I get back?”
Daniel laughed. “Babysit the rabbi? I can handle that!”
Buck, stern faced, pulled Daniel close and whispered in his ear. “He may be in grave danger. Promise me.”
“I will not let him out of my sight, Mr. Williams.”
Buck jogged up the ramp and across the stage, jumping to ground level. He could see less from there than on the stage, so he began to climb back up. A GC guard stopped him. “You can’t go up there.”
Buck reached for his ID. “I’m with the program committee,” he said.
“I know who you are, sir. I would advise your not going up there.”
“But I need to get through there to get to our van, and I’m trying to find my party.”
“You can get to your van the way everyone else is getting out.”
“But I can’t leave without my people, and we have to rendezvous with someone backstage first.”
Buck began to climb the stage again when the guard called him down. “Sir, don’t make me use force. You are not allowed to go back up that way.”
Buck avoided eye contact to keep from further agitating the guard. “You don’t understand. I’m Cam—”
“I know who you are, sir,” the guard said severely. “We all know who you are, who makes up your party, and with whom you are rendezvousing.”
Buck looked him full in the face. “Then why won’t you let me pass?” The guard tipped his uniform cap back, and Buck saw the sign of the cross on his forehead. “You’re, you’re a—?”
“Just tonight,” he whispered. “Standing here. People in the crowd began to notice, and of course I saw their marks too. I had to pull my hat low to keep from being exposed. I’m as good as dead if I’m discovered. Let me come with you.”
“But you’re in a strategic spot! You can affect so many things! Fellow believers will not give you away. They’ll know what you’re doing. Is Tsion in danger?”
The guard raised his weapon at Buck. “Move along!” he barked, then lowered his voice again. “Your party is already in the van. Snipers are waiting for a clear shot of Ben-Judah backstage. I doubt you could get him out.”
“I have to!” Buck hissed. “I’m going back there!”
“You’ll be shot!”
“Then fire at me out here! Draw attention! Yell for help! Do something!”
“Can’t you call him?”
“He doesn’t carry a phone, and I don’t know the emcee’s number. Do what you have to do, but I’m going.”
“My job is to keep everyone away from backstage.”
Buck pushed past him and took the steps two at a time. From behind he heard the guard yell, “Wait! Stop! Assistance!” As Buck reached the stage, he stole a glance back to see the guard on his walkie-talkie, then cocking his weapon. Buck dashed backstage and headed straight for Tsion, who stood precariously with only Daniel now. Daniel saw Buck and moved away, as if his job was over. Buck was about to scream at him to stay close, when gunfire erupted.
Tsion and Daniel immediately went down, as did a few stragglers several feet away. GC guards ran for the stage at the sound of the gunfire. Buck rushed to help Tsion up. “Daniel, help me get him into the van!”
They shouldered through panicky people and out to the Mercedes. Outside people screamed and pushed to get as far from the stadium as they could. The back door and the backseat side door stood open. Buck jumped in the back as Daniel pushed Tsion in and shut the door.
They all kept their heads below window level until Stefan pulled out onto the street. From inside the stadium came the pop pop pop of more shooting, and Buck could only pray that the GC was not taking out its frustration by creating more martyrs.
Tsion wept as he watched the crowds sprint from the area. “This is what I feared,” he said. “Bringing these people into the enemy camp, leading them to the slaughter.”
Chaim was strangely quiet. He neither spoke nor seemed to move. He sat facing straight ahead. At a traffic light he seemed distracted when Stefan took his hands off the wheel, made fists with both hands, and shook them before his own face as if celebrating. Chaim glanced at him and looked away.
The light changed, but a GC guard still held the traffic, letting a line go from the other way. Stefan took the moment to turn the rearview mirror toward himself. He pushed his hair back and stared at his forehead. Chaim looked at him with a bored expression. “You can’t see your own, Stefan. Only others can see yours.”
Stefan turned around in his seat. “Well?” he said.
“Yes,” Chloe said, and Tsion nodded.
Stefan tried to shake hands with everybody behind him, and Chaim raised both hands in resignation, shrugging and shaking his head. “I won’t know for sure unless it happens to me.”
Buck saw GC guards running toward the intersection. “Go, Stefan!” he said.
Stefan turned back to see the traffic director still holding him. “But—”
“Trust me, Stefan! Go now!”
Stefan stomped on the accelerator, and the Mercedes shot forward. The guard stepped in front of it with both arms raised but leaped aside as Stefan bore down on him.
“Get us to Chaim’s as fast as you can,” Buck said. Stefan rose to the challenge.
“So, Ken,” Rayford said, “as an economics expert, do you still trust the banks?”
“I didn’t trust the banks before Carpathia came to power.”
“Where’d you stash your bullion then?”
“Some bullion. Mostly coins. Who’s got change for a brick of gold?”
Rayford snorted. “Who’s got change even for a gold piece? You’d have to buy out a store to keep from getting hundreds in change.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to actually having to spend the gold as currency. As for where I put it, let’s just say if I do buy Palwaukee, I’ll be buyin’ one valuable piece of real estate.”
“You’re not saying . . .”
“I know what you’re thinkin’. Guy who’s s’posed to know money loses out on more millions by putting it where it can’t grow.”
“Exactly. Even I have a little portfolio.”
“On
ly recently have I put all of it underground. Right under my Quonset hut. For years I stored only the gain. After the Rapture, which I knew only as the disappearances then, I could see what was going to happen to the economy.” Ken laughed.
“What?”
“I thought I’d lost it all in the earthquake. Dang near killed myself goin’ after it, my stash that is. Ground was all broke up, and my bullion and boxes of coins slipped through one fissure and wound up twenty feet lower’n I’d buried ’em. It could have just as easily been a hundred feet or all the way to the center of the earth. I didn’t know it meant that much to me, I honestly didn’t. Digging through that cave-in was about the dumbest thing a man could do after a quake, all those aftershocks rumblin’ and such. But I was in such a state that I figured if I couldn’t find my gold, I might’s well die anyway. I’d be buried underground either way. I found it, and I was like a schoolkid who found his long-lost marbles. That’s when I knew I had it bad. Started gathering that from your son-in-law.”
“How?”
“I thought he’d got religion, and while I didn’t buy any of it, I couldn’t argue that he sure had different priorities than me or anybody else I knew. I mean, I knew he’d bought the whole package, that was for sure. My future was tied up in the security of my assets. His whole life was trustin’ in Jesus. Man, that sounded stupid, but he wore it well. I envied him, I really did. After that earthquake I wound up in the hospital with my brains ’bout hangin’ out, and all I could think of was that I could not picture the Williams kid scratching through the rubble for his possessions. Then he showed up, and was off on another of his wacky capers.”
“I wish this were just a caper,” Rayford said. “No matter how you slice it, this is going to be a long night.”
“Should we put down in Greece or Turkey instead of trying to go all the way back tonight? There’s a coupla guys I trust over there, one in each country. Not believers yet, I don’t guess, but they’d never give us up, if you know what I mean.”
Rayford shook his head. “We get enough fuel, I’d just as soon scoot all the way back.”
“Your call.”
As Stefan pulled into Chaim’s complex, the old man asked Stefan in Hebrew to say something to Jonas, the gateman. When Jonas also responded in Hebrew, Buck asked Tsion what they were saying. The rabbi put a finger to his lips. “Later,” he said.
Inside they watched the coverage and commentary on TV while one by one, so as not to be obvious, Tsion, Buck, and Chloe slipped away to pack. They surreptitiously synchronized watches.
Buck sensed Chaim was now as eager to pursue the spiritual discussion as Tsion was. Perhaps more so, as Tsion had escape on his mind. Buck knew, however, that winning souls was more important to Tsion than his own life. He would not pass up this opportunity to plead his case for Rosenzweig’s heart.
Buck needed to beg the key from Jacov and was glad for the chance to leave the two old friends to talk in private. But when he went looking for his new brother, he learned Jacov was off for the rest of the night. “Where can I find him?” he asked.
“At home, I presume,” another staff member told him in broken English. He provided the number, and Buck dialed him. No answer.
“Where else might he be?” Buck asked.
The man spoke conspiratorially. “You did not hear it from me, but there is a bar called The Harem. It is in the—”
“I know where it is,” Buck said. “Thanks.”
He hurried back into the house and interrupted Chaim and Tsion. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I need a word with Jacov, and he is not at his apartment.”
“Oh,” Chaim said. “He said something about going to Hannelore’s mother’s. He will be at the Temple Mount tomorrow though.”
“I really want to speak to him tonight.”
Chaim gave him the woman’s name, and Buck looked it up. A German woman answered his call and put Jacov on the line. “It will be hard for me to get away tonight, Mr. Williams,” he said. “Hannelore’s mother is not taking this well, and we have agreed to stay and talk about it. Please pray for us.”
“I will, but Jacov, I need that key.”
“Key?”
“The one you’re having duplicated for Dr. Rosenzweig.”
“He needs it sooner?”
“I need it, and I need you to trust me enough not to ask why.”
“You’re afraid of intrusion? The door was left locked. It is the strongest in the house.”
“I know. I need it, Jacov. Please.”
“I don’t even have it. I left it with Stefan. I am working tomorrow, but I am off again Monday. He said he would get it copied then.”
“And where does he live?”
“Near the stadium, but I saw on the news they are allowing no traffic into there tonight.”
“We’ve been watching, and I didn’t see that.”
“It was just on. A Global Community guard was murdered right after the meeting. That must have been the shooting we heard. The GC is looking for the killers. They believe it was done by one or more of the witnesses at the meeting.”
“Jacov, listen to me. I told you what that shooting was about.”
“But you didn’t say a guard was shot. Were some of the witnesses armed? Maybe they were protecting you when they thought the guard was really shooting at you.”
“Oh, please, God, I hope not.”
“You never know, my friend. Anyway, you will not get into Stefan’s neighborhood tonight without being stopped. And you know they will recognize you.”
“Jacov, I need a favor.”
“Oh, Mr. Williams, I want to help you, but I cannot go to Stefan’s tonight. We are trying to convince my mother-in-law that this whole thing was not Stefan’s idea. She has always hated him, blaming him for everything bad I have ever done. Now she is saying she wishes he and I were still drunks and not crazy religious people, enemies of the potentate. She is threatening to take Hannelore from me.”
“I just need you to not mention to Dr. Rosenzweig that I asked for the key.” There was a long silence. “I realize I am asking you to keep something from your—”
“From the man I owe my life to. He has been like a father to me. You must tell me all about this for me to agree to that. If I kept something from him that caused him harm, I would never forgive myself. Why would you need that key and for him to not know about it?”
“Jacov, you know he is not a believer yet.”
“I know! But that does not make him our enemy! I pray I will be the one who gets to preach to him, and yet the rabbi himself is Dr. Rosenzweig’s friend.”
“He is not our enemy, Jacov, but he is naive.”
“Naive. I do not know that word.”
“He is still a friend of the potentate.”
“He doesn’t know better yet.”
“That’s what I mean by naive. If we use that key to slip away early, before the GC knows we’re gone, we cannot risk that he might say something to Nicolae or his people.”
Jacov was silent another moment. “I did not know what I was getting into,” he said finally. “I would never go back, and I do believe. But I never thought I would have anything to do with fighting Nicolae Carpathia.”
“Jacov, can you get word to Stefan that I desperately need that key? Maybe he could sneak out and bring it. He is known in that neighborhood, and it would not be unusual for him to come to work, even at this hour, would it?”
“I’ll try. But now you have two who must keep your secret.”
“Will he?”
“I believe he will. But what will Dr. Rosenzweig think when he knows we helped you escape and never told him?”
Buck thought about suggesting that they tell Rosenzweig the Tribulation Force threatened them. But it was one thing, he decided, to use any and all means to deceive Carpathia and his minions. It was another to start lying to the man they were trying to reach for God. Buck looked at his watch. It was nearly eleven. The odds were against Stefan getting to him
in time anyway.
“Jacov, can we break through that door?”
“Not easily. Mr. Williams, I need to go.”
Rayford was an hour outside Jerusalem Airport, casually checking in with towers along the way who would pick him up on their radar screens anyway. He identified his craft by type and call numbers only, and no one asked more details. “ETA Jerusalem Airport for refueling at 2400 hours,” he said.
“Ten-four, Gulf. Over and out.”
He dialed Chloe. “Everything a go, hon?”
“We’re a little squirrelly here, Dad. I won’t bore you with the details, but stay on track. Somehow we’ll be waiting on the roof at 12:30.”
“I can’t wait to see you, sweetheart.”
“I miss you too, Dad. I’ll call if we have a problem.”
“Ditto. Ken will be in the bird, so I’ll see you aboard the Gulfstream.”
Buck lightly tapped on the door where Tsion and Chaim sat talking quietly but animatedly. Tsion gave Buck a look as if he really picked the wrong time to intrude. “I’m very sorry, gentlemen, but Tsion, I need a word.”
“Not at all!” Rosenzweig said. “I need a moment myself. Let me leave you. I want to ask your wife if she would like to ride with me tomorrow to the Temple Mount. Jacov and I are going a little later.”
He stepped past Buck, smiling but clearly distracted. Buck apologized to Tsion.
“Buck, I know our time is short, but he is so close!”
“Close enough that we can trust him?” Buck brought Tsion up-to-date.
Tsion reached to turn the TV back on. On the screen appeared the face of the very GC guard who had fired over Buck’s head, intentionally missing. Beneath his photograph were the years of his birth and death. “I got him killed,” Buck said, his throat constricted.
“You likely saved my life,” Tsion said. “Praise God he is in heaven now. Buck, I know this is hard, and I never want to grow callous to the high price we are called to pay. No one would put much stock in our futures now. I don’t know how long the Lord will spare any of us to do his work. But I fear if we let Carpathia hurt or kill or even detain any of us tonight, it will be a terrible blow to the cause. You know I don’t care about my own life anymore. My family is in heaven, and I long to be there too. But I don’t believe God would have us die needlessly. There is so much to do.
