by Tim LaHaye
He turned and whispered briefly to Leon, who then stepped to the mike and spread his hands wide, the folds of his robed arms creating great wings. “Beloved, while this sadly preempts and concludes today’s activities in Tel Aviv, tomorrow’s agenda shall remain in place. We look forward to your presence in Jerusalem.”
Buck hurried to his car and phoned Rayford. “The ship is down on the shore. No one could have survived it. On my way back to the voice that will cry in the wilderness.”
Buck was struck by an unusual emotion as he merged into traffic that crawled toward the ancient city. It was as if he had seen his comrades go down in that plane. He knew it was empty, yet there had been such a dramatic finality to the ruse. He wished he knew whether it was the end of something or the beginning of something. Could he hope the GC was too busy to thoroughly investigate the site? Fat chance.
All Buck knew was that what he had endured in three and a half years was a walk in the park compared to what was coming. The entire drive back he spent in silent prayer for every loved one and Trib Force member. Buck had little doubt that the indwelt Antichrist would not hesitate to use his every resource to quash the rebellion scheduled to rise against him the next day.
Buck had never been fearful, never one to back down in the face of mortal danger. But Nicolae Carpathia was evil personified, and the next day Buck would be in the line of fire when the battle of the ages between good and evil for the very souls of men and women would burst from the heavens, and all hell would break loose on earth.
To Murf, Timmy Mac, and Mary,
with gratitude.
Special thanks to David Allen
for expert technical consultation.
CHAPTER 1
Rayford Steele slept fitfully and awoke tangled in a prickly woolen blanket, knees drawn to his chest and fists balled under his chin. He bolted from the cot and peered out of his tiny makeshift quarters near Mizpe Ramon in the Negev Desert.
The sun cast an eerie, orange glow, but it would soon grow harsh and yellow, shimmering off rock and sand. The thermometer would exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit by noon—another typical day in the United Carpathian States.
Engaged in the riskiest endeavor of his life, Rayford had cast his lot with God and the miracle of technology. There was no hiding a jury-rigged airstrip on the desert floor—not from the stratospheric cameras of the Global Community. Ridiculously vulnerable, Rayford and his ragtag team of flying rebels—having arrived by the dozens from around the globe—were at the mercy of the most audacious ruse imaginable.
His comrade in the enemy’s lair had planted evidence in the Global Community database that the massive effort at Mizpe Ramon was an exercise of the GC’s. As long as GC Security and Intelligence personnel bought the great “lie in the sky,” Rayford and his extended Tribulation Force would continue what he called Operation Eagle. The name was inspired by the prophecy in Revelation 12:14: “The woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.”
Dr. Tsion Ben-Judah, spiritual mentor of the Tribulation Force, taught that the “woman” represented God’s chosen people; the “two wings,” land and air; “her place,” Petra—the city of stone; “a time,” one year—thus “a time and times and half a time” to be three and a half years; and the “serpent,” Antichrist.
The Tribulation Force believed that Antichrist and his minions were about to attack Israeli Christ-followers and that, when they fled, Rayford and his recruited fellow believers would serve as agents of rescue.
He dressed in a khaki shirt and shorts and went looking for Albie, his second-in-command. The helpers, rallied via the Internet by Rayford’s daughter, Chloe, from the safe house in Chicago, had only recently finished the landing strip. They had alternated shifts; some were instructed in flight plans by the same personnel who had checked them in and verified the mark of the believer on their foreheads, while others ran heavy equipment or toiled as laborers.
“Here, Chief,” Albie said, as Rayford took in the row after row of helicopters, jets, and even the occasional prop plane lining the far side of the strip. “First mission accomplished.”
The small, dark, former black marketer, nicknamed after his home city of Al Basrah, wore his bogus GC deputy commander uniform and had in tow a large young man who, Rayford was not surprised to learn, was from California.
“George Sebastian,” the tall, thick blond said, extending a powerful hand.
“Rayf—”
“Oh, I know who you are, sir,” George said. “Pretty sure everybody here does.”
“Let’s hope nobody outside here does,” Rayford said. “So you’re Albie’s choice for chopper lead.”
“Well, he, uh, asked that I refer to him as Commander Elbaz, but yes, sir.”
“What do we like about him?” Rayford asked Albie.
“Experienced. Smart. Knows how to handle a bird.”
“Fine by me. Wish I had time to socialize, George, but—”
“If you have just another minute, Captain Steele . . .”
Rayford glanced at his watch. “Walk with us, George.”
They headed to the south end of the new airstrip, Rayford’s eyes and ears alert for unfriendly skies. “I’ll make it quick, sir. It’s just that I like to tell people how it happened with me.”
“It?”
“You know, sir.”
Rayford loved these stories, but there was a time and place for everything, and this was neither.
“Nothing dramatic, Captain. Had a chopper instructor, Jeremy Murphy, who always told me Jesus was coming to take Christians to heaven. ’Course, I thought he was a nutcase, and I even got him in trouble for proselytizing on the job. But he wouldn’t quit. He was a good instructor, but I didn’t want a thing to do with the other stuff. I was loving life—newly married, you know.”
“Sure.”
“He invited me to church and everything. I never went. Then the big day happens. Millions missing everywhere. Smart as I’m supposed to be, I actually tried calling him to see if my session was called off that day ’cause of all the chaos and everything. Later that night somebody found his clothes on a chair in front of his TV.”
Rayford stopped and studied George. He would have enjoyed hearing more, but the clock was ticking. “Didn’t take you long after that, did it?”
George shook his head. “I went cold. I felt so lucky I hadn’t been killed. I prayed, I mean right then, that I would remember the name of his church. And I did, but hardly anybody was there. Anyway, I found somebody who knew what was going on, they reminded me what Murphy had been telling me, and they prayed with me. I’ve been a believer ever since. My wife too.”
“My story’s almost the same,” Rayford said, “and maybe one of these days I’ll have time to tell you. But—”
“Sir,” the young man said, “I need another second.”
“I don’t want to be rude, son, but—”
“You need to hear him out, Cap,” Albie said.
Rayford sighed.
George pointed to the other end of the airstrip. “I brought samples of the cargo that’s followin’ me, soon as the strip can handle a transport.”
“Cargo?”
“Weapons.”
“Not in the market.”
“These are free, sir.”
“Still—”
“Our base trained for combat,” George said. “When Carpathia told the nations to destroy 90 percent of their weapons and send the other 10 percent to him, you can imagine how that went over.”
“The U.S. was the largest contributor,” Rayford said.
“But I’ll bet we also held on to more.”
“What’ve you got?”
“Probably more than you need. Want to see the samples?”
David Hassid sat in the front passenger seat of the rented van with his solar-powered laptop. Leah Rose was driving. Behind her,
Hannah Palemoon sat next to Mac McCullum, while Abdullah Smith lay on his back across the third seat. They had spent the night hidden behind a rock outcropping a mile and a half off the main road, midway between Resurrection Airport in Amman, Jordan, and Mizpe Ramon. The last thing they wanted was to lead the GC to Operation Eagle.
David found on the Net that he, Hannah, Mac, and Abdullah were still presumed dead from the airplane crash in Tel Aviv the day before, but Security and Intelligence personnel were combing the wreckage. “How soon before they realize we’re at large?” Hannah said.
Mac shook his head. “I hope they assume we’d a been vaporized in a deal like that. Pray they find small bits of shoes or somethin’ they decide is clothing material.”
“I can’t raise Chang,” David said, angrier than he let on.
“I imagine the boy’s busy,” Mac said.
“Not for this long. He knows I need to be sure he’s all right.”
“Worryin’ gets us nowhere,” Mac said. “Look at Smitty.”
David turned in his seat. Abdullah slept soundly. Hannah and Leah had hit it off and were planning a mobile first-aid center at the airstrip. “We all fly back to the States when the operation is over,” Leah said.
“Not me,” David said, and he felt the eyes of the others. “I’m going to Petra before anybody else even gets there. That place is going to need a tech center, and Chang and I have already put a satellite in geosynchronous orbit above it.”
His phone chirped, and he dug it from his belt. “Hey,” he heard. “You know where I am, because I’m on schedule.”
“You don’t need to talk in code, Buck. Nothing’s more secure than these phones.”
“Force of habit. Listen, somebody missed their rendezvous.”
“Just say who, Buck. If we were going to be compromised, it’s happened already.”
“Hattie.”
“She was with Leah in Tel Aviv. Then she was supposed to—”
“I know, David,” Buck said. “She was to check in with me at dawn today in Jerusalem.”
“The old man’s there and okay?”
“Scared to death, but yeah.”
“Tell him we’re with him.”
“No offense, David, but he knows that, and Hattie is a much bigger problem.”
“She’s got her alias, right?”
“David! Can we assume the obvious and deal with the problem? She’s supposed to be here, but I haven’t heard from her. I can’t go looking for her. Just let everybody know that if they hear from her, she needs to call me.”
“She crucial to your assignment?”
“No,” Buck said, “but if we don’t know where she is, we’re going to feel exposed.”
“The GC lists her deceased, just like us.”
“That could be what they want us to think they believe.”
“Hang on,” David said, turning to Leah. “What was Hattie supposed to do after you two split up?”
“Disguise herself as an Israeli, blend into the crowd in Tel Aviv, go to Jerusalem, check in with Buck, and watch for signs that Carpathia’s people recognized either Buck or Dr. Rosenzweig.”
“Then?”
“Lie low in Jerusalem until everything blew up there, then head back to Tel Aviv. Someone from the operation was going to pick her up and fly her back to Chicago while all the attention was on Jerusalem and the escape.”
David turned back to the phone. “Maybe she got spooked in Tel Aviv and never got to Jerusalem.”
“She needs to let me know that, David. I’ve got to hold Chaim’s hand for a while here, so inform everybody, will you?”
A few minutes after midnight, Chicago time, Dr. Tsion Ben-Judah knelt before his huge curved desk at the Strong Building and prayed for Chaim. The former rabbi’s confidence in his old mentor’s ability to play a modern-day Moses was only as strong as Chaim’s own. And while Rosenzweig had proved a quick and thorough study, he had left the United North American States still clearly resisting the mantle.
Tsion’s reverie was interrupted by the low tone on his computer that could be triggered by only a handful of people around the world who knew the code to summon him. He struggled to his feet and peered at the screen. “Dr. Ben-Judah, I hope you’re there,” came the message from Chang Wong, the teenager David had left in his place at Global Community headquarters in New Babylon. “I am despairing for my life.”
Tsion groaned and pulled his chair into place. He sat and pounded the keys. “I am here, my young brother. I know you must feel very much alone, but do not despair. The Lord is with you. He will give his angels charge over you. You have much to do as the point man for all the various activities of the Tribulation Force around the world. Yes, it is probably too much to ask of one so young, in years and in the faith, but we all must do what we have to. Tell me how I can encourage and help you so you can return to the task.”
“I want to kill myself.”
“Chang! Unless you have purposely jeopardized our mission, you need feel no such remorse. If you have made a mistake, reveal it so we can all adapt. But you have satellites to manipulate and monitor. You have records to keep in order, in case the enemy checks the various aliases and operations. We are nearly at zero hour, so do not lose heart. You can do this.”
Chang’s message came back: “I am in my room at the palace with everything set up the way Mr. Hassid and I designed. My machinations are filtered through a scrambler so complex that it would not be able to unravel itself. I could end my life right now and not affect the Tribulation Force.”
“Stop this talk, Chang! We need you. You must stay in position and adjust the databases depending upon what we encounter. Now, quickly, please, what is the problem?”
“The problem is the mirror, Dr. Ben-Judah! I thought I could do this! I thought the mark that was forced on me would be an advantage. But it mocks me, and I hate it! I want to take a razor blade and slice it from my head, then slit my wrists and let God decide my fate.”
“God has decided, my friend. You have the seal of God upon you, according to our trusted brothers. You did not accept the mark of Antichrist, nor will you worship him.”
“But I have been studying your own writings, Doctor! The mark of the beast brings damnation, and the Bible says we can’t have both marks!”
“It says we cannot take both.”
“But the heroes, the martyrs, the brave ones accepted death for the sake of the truth! You said a true believer would be given the grace and courage to stand for his faith in the face of the blade.”
“Did you not resist? God is no liar. I have told people that they cannot lose the mark of the seal of God and that they need not worry they will lose heart because of their human weakness, but that God will grant them peace and courage to accept their fate.”
“That proves I am lost! I did not have that peace and courage! I resisted, yes, but I did not speak out for God. I cried like a baby. My father says I pleaded fear of the needle. When it became clear they were really going to do this, I wanted to die for my faith! I planned to resist till the end, though I knew my father would then find out about my sister and expose her too. Right up until the time they stuck me, I was prepared to say no, to say that I was a believer in Christ.”
Tsion slumped in his chair. Could it be true? Was it possible God had not given Chang the power to resist unto death? And if not, was he not truly a believer? “Do me this favor,” he tapped in slowly. “Do not do anything rash for twenty-four hours. We need you, and there must be an answer. I do not want to gloss over it, for I confess it puzzles me too. Will you stay at the task and fight your temptation until I get back to you?”
Tsion stared at the screen for several minutes, worried he was already too late.
Rayford’s breath caught when he saw what George Sebastian had apparently already shown Albie. “We’re not soldiers,” he said. “We’re flyers.”
“With these you can be soldiers too,” George said. “But it’s your call.”
�
��I wish it were my call,” Albie said. “If Carpathia’s troops are not our mortal enemies . . .”
George handed Rayford a weapon more than four feet long that weighed at least thirty-five pounds and had a built-in bipod. Rayford could barely heft it horizontally. “Carry it nose up,” George said.
“I won’t be carrying it at all,” Rayford said. “What in the world kind of ammo does this thing take?”
“Fifty-caliber, Captain,” George said, digging out a clip of four six-inch bullets. “They weigh more than five ounces each, but get this, they have a range of four miles.”
“C’mon!”
“I wouldn’t lie to ya. A round leaves the chamber at three thousand feet a second, but it takes a full seven seconds to hit a target two miles away, considering deceleration, wind, all that.”
“You couldn’t hope for any kind of accuracy—”
“It’s on record that a guy put five rounds within three inches of each other from a thousand yards. At two hundred yards you can put one of these through an inch of rolled steel.”
“The recoil must be—”
“Enormous. And the sound? Without an earplug you could damage your hearing. Wanna try one?”
“Not on your life. I can’t imagine a use for these monstrosities, and I sure wouldn’t want to produce a sound that would alert the GC before the fun starts.”
George pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Should have checked with you first. I’ve got a hundred of ’em on the way with all the ammo you’d need, some with incendiary tips.”
“Dare I ask?”
“A primer inside makes the casing separate if it hits soft material.”
“Like flesh?”
George nodded.
Rayford shook his head. “My flyers would never be able to manage these from the air, and that’s top priority.”
Albie said, “We’ll store them. You never know.”
