by Tim LaHaye
“Better simply to have those whose names have not been called identify themselves,” Nicolae said.
As they were doing that, Otto touched Rayford’s arm and mouthed that he was tempted to call out his own name and see what kind of havoc that might wreak.
“If you gentlemen would kindly attempt to keep your outbursts to a minimum,” Carpathia began, “Director of Security and Intelligence Suhail Akbar has the first item.”
“Thank you, Excellency. Oh! Forgive me, sir, but I am in pain as well. Ah!”
“Suhail, please!”
“Apologies, Highness, but I don’t know what to—”
“Control yourself, man!”
“I shall try, sir. Our primary concern, ladies and gentlemen, besides the obvious, is that a—”
“What’s more important than the obvious?” someone with an Indian accent said. “We’ve got to find a solution to this—”
“Who is that?” Carpathia demanded. “Raman Vajpayee, is that you?”
“Yes, sir, I simply want to know—”
“Raman, I simply want you to be quiet. How dare you interrupt a member of my cabinet?”
“Well, sir, it is most important that—”
“What is most important is that the only response to your offense is an abject apology, and it had better be immediately forthcoming.”
“I am sorry, Potentate, but—”
“That was hardly abject. At a time of international crisis, I cannot imagine such insubordination. I am of a mind—”
“To what?” Vajpayee said. “To put me to death as you do anyone who speaks his mind? I tell you, I would rather be dead than to live like this! In the dark! In pain! No relief in sight. And yet you carry on—”
“Show yourself, Raman! Do it now!”
The Indian rushed forward, pushing others out of his way. It was clear to Rayford that he was simply following the sound of Carpathia’s voice, unable to see even the glow. “I am here, within arm’s length of you! Kill me for daring to speak my mind, or reveal yourself as a coward!”
“Suhail,” Carpathia said, “take this man out and execute him!”
“So you are a coward! You will not do it yourself! At least give me that much respect.”
“I have only contempt for you, Raman. You have disgraced your position with the Global Community and I—”
“Kill me yourself, you impotent—”
And with that, Carpathia thrust himself toward the Indian, finally allowing both to see one another. As the others listened in horror, the two men struggled, and Carpathia succeeded in getting the man’s head in his hands. With a violent twist he broke Vajpayee’s neck, and the dead man slid to the floor.
“Any other dissidents?” Carpathia said. “Anyone who would rather be dead than suffer for the cause? Hmm? If not, Suhail, proceed, and when you are finished, get this corpse out of here.”
Somehow a shaken Akbar was able to control his own outcries of pain as he reported that an aircraft had landed at the New Babylon airstrip that very afternoon. “We can only assume it was a miracle of autopiloting,” he said, “but we have no record of what plane it is and urge caution on everyone’s part, as we may have subversives among us.”
“If we cannot accomplish having the occupants of that plane identify themselves,” Carpathia said, “I will personally inspect it at the end of this meeting.”
“That’s our cue,” Rayford whispered to Otto. “We’ve got to be out of here before then.”
As they began to surreptitiously make their way out of the room, Carpathia continued. “As you know, I am determined to put an end to our Jewish problem, and if that includes the cowardly Judah-ites who remain hidden in the mountains, so much the better. I am hereby calling for a meeting of all ten heads of the global regions in six months’ time. We shall meet in Baghdad to map our strategy to rid the world of our enemies. Meanwhile, we will move our command post into the light at Al Hillah. As many of you know—and if this is news to you, I expect full confidentiality—Al Hillah is the location of our vast storehouse of nuclear weaponry, voluntarily surrendered to us by the rest of the world as a condition of my accepting my position. That will prove most useful to us in this ultimate effort and final solution.
“Until the rest of the world is on the same page with me, I plan to begin amassing fighting forces in Israel. All available military personnel in the United Carpathian States who are not already assigned as Peacekeepers or Morale Monitors will be expected to report for duty in the Jezreel Valley for combat training.
“As for our relocation to Al Hillah, be ready to move out in twenty-four hours. Take anything that will assist you in this transfer.”
“What about our workers, our departments?”
“They will stay, and they must not know where we are going or even that we are going. Is that understood?”
Rayford was just outside the door when he heard that no one had responded.
“Understood?”
“Yes,” a few muttered.
“Then go about your business. Mr. Akbar, Reverend Fortunato, and I will make our way to the airstrip.”
Rayford motioned for Otto to follow, and he began running toward the elevators. “Call every car and push every button on each. Stall those elevators for as long as you can. I’ll take the stairs. I have no idea where my friends are, but I need to leave a note at Chang’s place in case they head back there. We have to be out of here before Carpathia finds out the identity of our plane and where we are. Got it?”
“Got it. Thanks for trusting me.”
“Were you hoping to come with us? Because unless you can get—”
“No, we’ll arrange that later. I wouldn’t come without my people anyway.”
“If you happen to see any of my friends before I do, send them to the plane.”
Rayford bounded down the stairs, drawing screams and squeals from people suffering in the stairwells. They called out, asking how he could run like that in the dark. He hated ignoring them.
He reached the main level, vaulted over several people, and zigzagged between others. He burst out the door and sprinted across the runways toward the plane. If he could get it started and turned around, all he could do was hope and pray that Chang, Naomi, and Abdullah were on their way.
Buck had been sound asleep for hours before something began troubling him. He grew fitful and was suddenly wide awake. It was guilt. Letting Chloe take watch duty when she worked so hard all day with the Co-op and their son. What kind of a husband was he?
He ran his hands through his hair and sat up, calling out. “How’s it going, babe?”
Maybe she was checking on Kenny. Or getting herself some tea in the kitchen. He padded out of the bedroom, stretching. “Chlo’!” he called out. “You’ve got something on the motion detector here!”
He bent over the periscope and scanned quickly. He saw nothing until he got to the southwest, where he saw a lone figure, armed. He scowled. “Chloe!” he called. “Better call George. I’ve got a bogey at eight o’clock. Chloe?”
He froze. He stood and moved toward the kitchen. It was dark. And Kenny was crying. Buck grabbed the phone on his way to Kenny’s room and punched in Ming’s number.
“Hey, big boy,” Buck said, finding the boy standing in his bed, quickly going from crying to smiling.
“Mama?”
“In a minute,” he said. “Why don’t you lie down and go back to sleep. It’s still night.”
Ming answered.
“I’m so sorry to wake you, Ming, but I’ve got a little emergency here.”
“Anything, Buck.”
“Could you watch Kenny for a little while? I think Chloe is outside.”
“Be there in less than a minute.”
He thanked her and got on the walkie-talkie. “George, you up?”
CHAPTER 4
Rayford had the engines started and the plane turned around when he saw Carpathia’s glow in the distance. The potentate seemed in a hurry, but he wa
s apparently leading Suhail Akbar and Leon Fortunato, and he had to go slowly to light the way for them a few feet at a time. That would not have been as much help without the sounds of the jet engines, however, so Rayford shut down and prayed that this mostly blind threesome would veer off course before his own trio found him.
Rayford called Mac McCullum in Al Basrah to debrief him. “Can you and Albie leave for Al Hillah today?”
“We been sittin’ here like a past-due hen.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. You’re pretty hot since Greece. How are you going to get around?”
“With bluster, charm, and only at night, of course. I figure you pretty much just want to know what NC and his boys are up to.”
“Ideal would be your finding out where they’re meeting in Baghdad and bugging the place for us.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll just tell ’em I’m his new valet and can I have a few hours in the meeting room before everyone else gets there.”
“If I thought it was easy, I’d do it myself,” Rayford said.
“Albie knows everybody. If it’s gonna get done, he’ll get it done.”
Chang, Naomi, and Abdullah appeared, each laden with boxes and cases. Naomi looked ashen. Rayford opened the door and lowered the steps. “Good timing,” he said.
“We were on it all the way, Captain,” Abdullah said. “Thanks to this young genius.”
“Just showing off,” Chang said, handing cargo in and helping Naomi aboard. “I wanted to show her how David had bugged the whole place and that we could actually listen in on Carpathia.”
“So you knew he was coming,” Rayford said, letting Abdullah edge past to the pilot’s chair.
“Could we please talk about something else?” Naomi said.
That made everyone uncomfortably quiet. Rayford sneaked a peek. The pale orange silhouette was moving more quickly now. He must have abandoned Akbar and Fortunato or they were ailing anew. The pain didn’t seem to reach Carpathia. Maybe God was saving his best till last for him.
Rayford and Abdullah eschewed a formal checklist for a quick confirmation of the cockpit flow by checking the critical switch positions. “Crank ’er up,” Rayford said.
But Abdullah just sat there, craning his neck to watch the glow grow larger as it neared the plane.
“What’re you waiting on, Smitty? Let’s move out.”
“A moment, please, Captain. How far do you assume he can see?”
“About as far as he glows. Now let’s go.”
“A moment, please.”
“What are you doing, Mr. Smith?” Naomi called out. “Isn’t that Carpathia?”
“He does not know where he is going. But I do.”
“Once we start up, he can do nothing,” Rayford said. “But I’d rather he not know who we are.”
“He won’t,” Abdullah said.
Rayford leaned past Abdullah and saw Carpathia hurry across the runway about twenty feet behind the craft.
“Here we go,” Abdullah said, firing up the engines and blowing the orange glow to the ground over and over until Nicolae was just an ember in the distance.
Once in the air, Naomi leaned forward. “Can I talk to you?” she said. Rayford removed his headphones.
“Is that stuff normal for you guys?” she said.
“Nothing’s normal anymore, Naomi. You’ve been through a lot yourself.”
“I never heard a man being murdered before. And I’ve never walked by so many hurting people without a thing I could do for them. We’re isolated in Petra, and I wanted to be where the action is. But if I never see anything else like this, it’ll be all right with me. And we can do more from our computer center than anywhere I can think of.”
“I’m sorry it was hard,” Rayford said. “It was for me too.” He told her of the woman he had tried to help and of his conversation with Nicolae’s assistant.
“We’ll watch for her uncle’s name on the system,” she said. “And I suppose we’ll hear from Mr. Weser too.”
“Hope so. What a character.”
She leaned closer, and while she had to raise her voice over the engines, Naomi seemed to speak so only Rayford could hear. “Chang’s not doing well, you know.”
“Why’s that?”
“This has been his home, crazy as it’s had to have been. It’s got to be strange leaving.”
“I should think he’d be glad to be gone.”
“I wish I could have met Mr. Hassid, the one Chang talks about so much. What they did in the palace and the setup at our place . . .”
Rayford nodded. “You going to be able to do the same thing—monitor this place—from Petra now?”
“With Chang, yes. It’s going to be wonderful to have him in our shop.”
“Is he going to be competition?”
“Hardly. I’ll just let him do what he wants. He likes the technical stuff, keyboarding and inside the box, more than managing people. But he can teach if he wants to.”
Rayford’s phone chirped. It was George Sebastian. “Been trying to get hold of you. Your phone down?”
“Had it off for the palace mission. I was going to report in when I knew you guys were up. It’s still early there, isn’t it?”
“We’ve got a situation.”
“Why are you whispering? Where are you?”
“Outside.”
“What time is it there?”
“Just before five in the morning. We can’t find Chloe.”
It hit Buck that the figure on the periscope had been Chloe, so where was she? It was just like her to be out without a walkie-talkie or a phone, which he attributed to strategy rather than impetuousness. He would have a hard time convincing anyone else of that, though.
He and George had split up, fully armed and in constant touch with each other. George had found the empty GC personnel carrier—which had to be some sort of a decoy—but no GC or Chloe. Buck hoped he wouldn’t have to call for more help and further expose his people or their location.
Two hours later, when the sun left Buck and George with no choice but to retreat inside, they had covered two square miles with nothing to show for it. In the compound, everybody was up, worried, praying, and eager to be brought up to speed. Ming Toy took Kenny and George’s daughter, Beth Ann, to her place “for as long as is necessary.”
George and Priscilla set up a command center in the workout room. Ree Woo sat at a small folding table in the corner, digging through files to see if any of their aliases had been underused or uncompromised.
Buck admitted he was going to be of little help. “I’m paralyzed.”
“Snap out of it,” George said. “You do Chloe and us no good that way.”
Buck glared at him, knowing he was right. “Easy for you to say, Sebastian. It’s not your wife out there.”
Priscilla looked away. George let his papers fall on a table and approached Buck. He put a hand on each arm of Buck’s chair and leaned close to his face. “I’m only gonna say it once. If it was my wife out there, I wouldn’t be sitting in here with my hands in my lap. I owe your wife big time. She risked her life for me in Greece. I can only imagine how you feel. Not knowing anything is worse than knowing the worst, but we know nothing. Maybe you’re just a little mad at her because she didn’t seem to follow protocol and skipped a lot of steps here.
“Maybe you’re feeling guilty about being angry with her because you’re scared to death she’s into something over her head. I don’t blame you. I don’t. I’m telling you, we need everybody on this, especially somebody with your brain. Now, you want to find her so we can get her back safe and sound, or you want to assume the worst and start grieving now?”
“George!” Priscilla scolded.
“I’m not trying to be a hard case,” George said. “It’s just that there’s nothing we can do outside in the daylight unless we know the coast is clear and we’ve got someone with a good disguise and alias. Meanwhile, we’ve got to rest and strategize, and we don’t need Buck sitting here feeling sorry f
or hims—”
“All right, George, I got it! Okay?”
“You and I are all right then?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, you think I was out there in the middle of the night for my health?”
“Not so good news,” Ree said. “Chloe’s ‘Chloe Irene’ and Mac’s ‘Howie Johnson’ are no good after Greece. Hannah’s ‘Indira Jinnah’ might still be okay, but only she can use it and she’s too far away. Rayford and Abdullah’s Middle Eastern brothers IDs may still be okay, but Abdullah is staying in Petra and Rayford will need R and R when he gets here.”
“Don’t be so sure,” George said. “He’ll go till he drops.”
“Tell me about it,” Buck said.
“Has Albie’s ‘Commander Elbaz’ been exposed yet?” Ree asked.
Buck nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Too far away too,” George said. “What else have we got?”
“One more. Ming’s guy persona, ‘Chang Chow.’”
“Let’s not risk Ming,” Buck said.
“Why not?” George said. “She’s still got the uniform. She can cut her hair and—”
“Hey!” Ree said. “You’re talking about my fiancée.”
“So?”
“She at least ought to be consulted.”
“No, Ree,” George said. “I thought we’d just drag her in here, hold her down, and cut her hair.”
“Cool down, boys,” Priscilla said. “Nobody knows who I am. I could be given an alias and—”
“No you don’t,” George said.
“Shoe’s on the other foot now, eh?” Buck said. “Prospect of sending your wife out there—”
“Stop it!” George said. “I’m just saying she’s inexperienced and not all that healthy.”
“Ming is not very physical,” Ree said. “Not trained in weapons.”
“Don’t give me that,” Buck said. “She worked at Buffer.”
