by Tim LaHaye
Hut threw down the rifle and staggered away, but already Buck heard the thwocking of chopper blades. Two helicopters touched down, and the crowd—which had largely retreated—cautiously returned, avoiding the corpse that lay in a pool of blood.
Carpathia was the only civilian in either bird, and he wore his jet-black, pin-striped suit over a white shirt and brilliant red tie. He strode directly to Chaim and Buck while seven uniformed Peacekeepers formed a semicircle behind him, weapons trained on Chaim.
Nicolae smiled at the crowd and turned to locate the GCNN cameraman. Bernadette was still on the ground, trembling. “Keep rolling, son,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“R-R-Rashid.”
“Well, stand right here, R-R-Rashid, so the world can see who dares mock my sovereignty.”
Carpathia approached Chaim and faced him from three feet away, arms crossed. “You are too old to be Tsion Ben-Judah,” he said. “And you call yourself Micah.” He cocked his head and squinted at Buck, who feared that Nicolae recognized him. “And this is?”
“My assistant,” Chaim said.
“Does he have a name?”
“He has a name.”
“May I know it?”
“There is no need.”
“You are an insulting dolt, are you not?” Carpathia spoke to a guard, nodding at Buck. “Get him out of here. The mark or the blade.”
Buck set himself to resist, but the guard looked petrified. He cleared his throat. “Come with me, please, sir.”
Buck shook his head. The guard looked helplessly back at Carpathia, who ignored him. Suddenly the guard dropped, wriggling on the ground, scratching himself all over.
“All right,” Carpathia said. “I concede I have you to thank for the fact that nearly my entire workforce is suffering this morning.”
“Probably all of them,” Chaim said. “If they are not, you might want to check the authenticity of their marks.”
“How did you do it?”
“Not I, but God.”
“You are looking into the face of god,” Carpathia said.
“On the contrary,” Chaim said, “I fear God. I do not fear you.”
Rayford spread a topographical map on the hood of a truck. “Let’s get Mac and Smitty in on this too,” he said. Albie phoned them.
Big George leaned in. “Anywhere we could hunker down within a couple of miles of Petra?”
Rayford shook his head. “I don’t know. Whole area looks a lot different on paper than from the air. I know you’re gung ho ho and everything, but I’m not prepared to do any killing.”
“All due respect, Cap,” George said, “but they’re going to be killing our people. You might change your mind when you see that.”
“We’re here to get people to safety, not to kill the enemy.”
Albie slapped his phone shut. “What if killing the enemy is the only way to get the Israelis to safety?”
“That’s God’s job.”
“I agree,” Albie said, “at least from what Dr. Ben-Judah says. But I’d hate to see us lose one brother or sister, and if these weapons are what it takes, I say use ’em.”
Buck would never forget a detail of this macabre meeting, and the entire world was watching.
“So, Micah,” Carpathia said, shifting his weight, “what will it take for you to lift this magic spell that has incapacitated my people?”
“There is no magic here,” Chaim said, in a voice that sounded as far from his own as Buck could imagine. “This is the judgment of almighty God.”
“All right,” Nicolae said, smiling tolerantly. “What does almighty God want in exchange for lightening up—” and here he made quotation marks with his fingers—“on this judgment?”
Chaim shook his head.
“Come, Micah. If you would negotiate on behalf of God, surely you can think of something!”
“Those who have taken your mark and worship your image shall suffer.”
Carpathia moved close, his smile gone. “Do not tell my beloved not to accept the mark of loyalty or worship me!”
“They know the consequence and can see it here.”
Rashid began to pan the camera around to take in many agonized loyalists. “Do not!” Carpathia whispered to him, grabbing his shoulder and swinging him back. Then to Chaim, “If anyone refuses my mark, I will put him to death myself!”
“The choice then,” Chaim said, “is life with excruciating pain or death at your hand.”
“What do you want?”
“You will carry out your plan for the temple,” Chaim said, “but many will oppose you for it.”
“At their peril.”
“Many have already decided against you and have pledged themselves to the one true God and his Son, the Messiah.”
“They will pay with their lives.”
“You asked what I wanted.”
“And you propose that people be allowed to shake their fists in my face? Never!”
Rashid dropped to one knee, trembling. Carpathia shot him a look. “Get up!”
“I can’t!”
“I see the 42 on your forehead, Rashid! You need not fear!”
“I am not afraid, Excellency! I am in pain!”
“Agh! Set the camera on a tripod and tend to your sores!”
Chaim continued calmly. “A million of God’s chosen people in this area alone have chosen to believe in Messiah. They would die before they would take your mark.”
“Then they shall die!”
“You must let them flee this place before you pour out revenge on your enemies.”
“Never!”
“The recompense for stubbornness is on your hands. The grievous sores on your followers shall be the least of your troubles.”
Buck looked past Carpathia to where the mark application lines had been replaced by makeshift medical tents. Lines of people waited in misery for treatment. Some held their friends as they gingerly moved about, only to collapse under their own pain. Bernadette had crawled away. Rashid was headed toward the tents. Every guard who had accompanied Nicolae staggered away. One of the helicopters stopped idling and the pilot tumbled out, whimpering. The pilot of the other was slumped over the controls.
Civilians, many of whom had been among the last to take the mark and worship the image, tried to run from the Temple Mount, only to stumble with sores appearing all over their bodies.
Chaim said, “Your only hope to avoid the next terrible plague from heaven is to let Israelis who believe in Messiah go.”
Finally Carpathia appeared shaken. “And what might that next plague entail?”
“You will know when you know,” Chaim said. “But I can tell you this: It will be worse than the one that has brought your people low. I need a drink of water.”
Carpathia caught the eye of a loyalist and told him to “fetch Micah a bottle of water.” Chaim stared at the potentate as they waited.
“You are nothing but a thirsty old man in an outsized robe.”
“I am not thirsty.”
“Then why—”
“You shall see.”
“I can hardly wait.”
The man came running with the water. He gave it to Carpathia, who handed it to Chaim. The old man held it up and peered at it. “I could not drink this anyway,” he said.
“What is wrong with it?” Nicolae said.
“See for yourself.”
Chaim handed it back, and the bottle turned nearly black as the water turned to blood.
“Ach!” Carpathia said. “This again? Do you not know what happened to your two associates at the Wailing Wall?”
“Any advantages you gain are by God’s hand, and they are temporary.”
Nicolae turned to see the disaster at the Temple Mount, nearly everyone writhing. He turned back to Chaim. “I want my people healthy and my water pure.”
“You know the price.”
“Specifics.”
“Israeli Jews who have chosen to believe Jesus the Christ is their
Messiah must be allowed to leave before you punish anyone for not taking your mark. And devout Orthodox Jews must be allowed a place where they can worship after you have defiled their temple.”
“The Orthodox Jews do not even agree with you, and yet you speak for them?”
“I reserve the right to continue to attempt to persuade them.”
“Would you take them to Petra with the Judah-ites?”
“I would propose Masada as a site for them to gather. Any we are able to persuade would then join us.”
“In Petra.”
“I did not say where.”
“We already know where, you fool, and it required no intelligence on our parts.”
“You tread on dangerous ground when you call a fool one who has been granted the power to turn your water to blood.”
Carpathia screamed into the air, “I need the assistance of loyalists who have not yet taken the mark or worshiped my image!” A few civilians came running. “Follow me to the Knesset Building. Obey me, and I will reward you.”
David made his way from horizon to horizon, trying to gauge the extent of the GC presence at Petra. While there seemed to be countless vehicles and weapons, the personnel seemed to be in trouble. Most languished on the ground or on the beds of trucks, being ministered to by others thus far less affected. He called Albie to report.
Rayford headed east toward Petra in a vehicle carrying three each of the weapons George had brought to Mizpe Ramon. Albie and Mac followed in identical vehicles, similarly laden. George and Abdullah rode together in a vehicle carrying DEWs. Rayford hoped to find a spot to set up and, using David Hassid as their eyes, see how many vehicles he and Albie and Mac could destroy with the fifty-caliber rifles.
There would be no need to kill any GC, if David’s reports were accurate. As the enemy fled, George and Abdullah, from closer proximity, would try to overheat their skin, making their sores all the worse. Rayford’s biggest concern, after avoiding any intentional killing, was the five of them getting back to Mizpe Ramon in time to ferry the first escapees from Israel into Petra.
CHAPTER 8
Buck followed Chaim to the temple, where, within twenty minutes, civilians without the mark of the beast scurried to set up TV cameras and make arrangements, apparently following hastily written and reproduced instructions. From where he and Chaim sat, Buck saw others tidying up the Temple Mount, some carting off the slain heckler, some directing people either to spectator locations for what they called the “temple festivities” or to first-aid lines, and still others replacing in the medical tents GC doctors and nurses who had themselves fallen too ill to help out.
“Pray for me,” Chaim said.
“Why? What? Carpathia is not even here yet.”
Chaim stood and began to speak, again in a huge voice. “Citizens! Hear me! You who have not taken the mark of loyalty! There may still be time to choose to obey the one true and living God! While the evil ruler of this world promises peace, there is no peace! While he promises benevolence and prosperity, look at your world! Everyone who has preceded you in taking the mark and worshiping the image of the man of sin now suffers with grievous sores. That is your lot if you follow him.
“By now you must know that the world has been divided. Nicolae Carpathia is the opponent of God and wishes only your destruction, regardless of his lies. The God who created you loves you. His Son who died for your sins will return to set up his earthly kingdom in less than three and a half years, and if you have not already rejected him one time too many, you may receive him now.
“You were born in sin and separated from God, but the Bible says God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that nothing we can do will earn our salvation but that it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. The only payment for our sins was Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. Because besides being fully man, he is fully God, and his one death had the power to cleanse all of us of our sin.
“John 1:12 says that to as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God by believing on his name. How do you receive Christ? Merely tell God that you know you are a sinner and that you need him. Accept the gift of salvation, believe that Christ is risen, and say so. For many, it is already too late. I beg of you to receive Christ right now!”
David Hassid, hiding in the rocks atop Petra, tried to coordinate with Rayford and his cohorts two miles away. They were so well hidden that he couldn’t see them, though he thought he had seen plumes of dust south of the village of Wadi Musa, immediately east of Petra. They conferenced up on their secure phones, and Rayford told him George and Abdullah were trying to get close enough to use the directed energy weapons. David couldn’t spot them from his perch either.
“We can see the GC hardware from three different locations,” Rayford reported. “Anybody manning those weapons?”
“Not that I can see,” David said, whispering because he had no idea how his voice might carry down the mountainside. “They’re likely waiting for word from Jerusalem that the Israelis are on their way.”
“It’s hard to tell the location of personnel,” Rayford said.
“To my right and your extreme left,” David said, “the first six or so vehicles appear unmanned. Only a few of all the soldiers are still ambulatory, and they seem to be tending to the others either directly below me or to my left.”
“Take cover,” Mac said, cutting in. “These things take a while to aim. It’s going to be hit-and-miss at first, and probably more miss than hit.”
“Just don’t overshoot,” David said. “I’ve got a small cave staked out. When we’re done, I’ll be incommunicado for a while.”
“We’ll each fire two rounds from the big guns,” Rayford said. “After you’ve heard six, come out and try to reconnect. We’re trying to drive the personnel to your left so we can safely take out some of the vehicles. If we can get the soldiers on the run, George and Smitty will try to make ’em miserable.”
“They’re already miserable,” David said. “But I hear you. If they think staying put is going to get ’em killed, they’ll start walking back to Israel! Okay, I’m out.”
He ducked into the cave and sat waiting for the first blast.
Rayford tried to remember everything George had told him about the fifty-calibers. He set up two in the truck bed, side by side and loaded. Fifty yards away, Albie had the same setup. And fifty yards farther, Mac was ready. They would fire once in that order, then start over for the second round. Each would watch through high-powered telescopes to try to gauge the adjustment for the second shot. Six rounds were perfect to start, Rayford thought, because at some point the miserable GC would wonder if the barrage would ever stop and whether they had a prayer of surviving. All he wanted was to destroy their weapons and their transportation, send them running, and discourage any hope of ambushing the Israelis.
George had told him it was impossible to judge the wind between weapon and target and so to aim high, accounting for the effect of gravity over two miles, and to not expect accuracy within more than twenty or thirty yards. Rayford worried that an errant shot would kill someone, including David. He lay on his stomach in the bed of the truck, made his final adjustments, and locked in on the left-most vehicle. If he missed left, the bullet would at least spook the soldiers. If he missed right, he had all kinds of vehicles he might hit, yet he should still avoid hitting personnel.
Rayford had his finger on the trigger and the stock pressed hard against his right shoulder. The scope showed him dialed up forty feet above the target. Just before he squeezed, he reminded himself to keep his eyes open—not that it would make any difference in trajectory. Only amateurs shut their eyes.
Thinking about his eyes reminded him of his ears and George’s desperate admonition to plug them somehow. How close had he come to deafening himself? Rayford rolled to his side, ripped a strip from his shirttail, tore it in half, and forced a bunched-up wad of material
into each ear. As he was settling in again, hoping he had not affected the aim, his phone chirped.
It was Albie. “You going first or what?”
“Yeah. Almost forgot my earplugs.”
“Oh, man! Thanks for reminding me!”
“Ten seconds.”
“Give me thirty,” Albie said. “We want to fire in close succession, but I’ve got to get something in my ears too. Remind Mac, eh?”
Rayford dialed Mac. “Another half minute while we get earplugs in.”
“Say again?”
“Did you remember earplugs?”
“Just a second. Let me get this out of my ear! Now, what?”
“A few more seconds. Ready?”
“Been ready, boss. Let’s commence.”
Rayford looked at his watch and settled back in. How loud could it be? How much recoil? The stories had become legends. People shot these all the time. Should be interesting, that’s all. He would squeeze off the round and stay put, watching through the scope to see where it hit.
It was as if he had not protected his ears. If his eyes were open when he pulled the trigger, they were driven shut when the stock drove deep into his shoulder, sending him sliding on his belly until his boots slammed into the back of the cab. The explosion was so loud and the heat so intense from a six-inch burst of fire shooting out the side that Rayford found himself dazed, ears ringing, head buzzing, hands vibrating.
The weapon flew forward off the resistance from his shoulder until the legs of the bipod dropped off the edge of the truck. Rayford had meant to count one-thousand-one up to one-thousand-seven while looking through the scope, but all he could do was groan, hearing himself as if in an echo chamber, his ears not really working yet.
His other weapon had rattled off its bipod and lay on its side, and Rayford was glad it had not gone off. Albie was to wait three seconds from the sound of Rayford’s shot, and Mac another three after that. Rayford heard the boom from Albie’s rifle and figured he had four seconds to get the second weapon into place and still see where his first bullet hit.
