by Tim LaHaye
Might it be facing the other direction on one of the auxiliary runways, having already begun taxiing back to the terminal? He could only hope it was obvious and pray there was something he could do in the event that Amanda had somehow miraculously survived. The best-case scenario, short of the pilot having had enough foresight to have landed somewhere safely, would have been if the plane had landed and either stopped or was traveling very slowly when the earthquake hit. If it had somehow been fortunate enough to be in the middle of the airstrip when the runway slipped from the surface, there was a chance it would still be upright and intact. If it was covered with sand, who knew how long the air supply would last?
It seemed to Rayford there were at least ten people dead for every one alive near the terminal. Those who had escaped had to have been outside when the quake hit. It didn’t appear anyone inside the terminal had survived. Those few Global Community uniformed officers who patrolled the area with their high-powered weapons looked as shell-shocked as anyone. Occasionally one shot Rayford a double take as he moved past, but they backed off and didn’t even ask to see identification when they noticed his uniform. With hanging threads where the buttons should have been, he knew he looked like just another lucky survivor from the crew of some ill-fated plane.
To get to the runway in question, Rayford had to cross paths with a zombied and bleeding queue of fortunates who staggered out of a crater. He was grateful none of them pleaded for help. Most appeared not to even see him, following one another as if trusting that someone somewhere near the front of the line had an idea where he might find help. From deep in the hole, Rayford heard the wailing and moaning he knew he would never be able to forget. If there was anything he could do, he would have done it.
Finally he reached the near end of the long runway. There, directly in the middle, lay the sand-blown but easily recognizable humpbacked fuselage of a 747.
There might have been an hour’s worth of sunlight left, but it was fading. As he hurried along the edge of the canyon the sinking runway had gorged out of the sand, Rayford shook his head and squinted, shading his eyes as he tried to make sense of what he saw. As he came to within a hundred feet of the back of the monstrous plane, it became clear what had happened. The plane had been near mid-runway when the pavement simply dropped at least fifty feet beneath it. The weight of that pavement pulled the sand in toward the plane, which now rested on both wingtips, its body hanging precariously over the chasm.
Someone had had the presence of mind to get the doors open and the inflatable evacuation chutes deployed, but even the ends of those chutes hung several feet in the air over the collapsed runway.
Had the walls of sand at the sides of the plane been any farther apart, no way could the wings have supported the weight of the cabin. The fuselage squeaked and groaned as the weight of the plane threatened to send it plummeting. The plane might be able to drop another ten feet without seriously injuring anyone, and hundreds could be saved, Rayford believed, if only it could settle gradually.
He prayed desperately that Amanda was safe, that she had been buckled in, that the plane had stopped before the runway gave way. The closer he got, the more obvious it was that the plane must have been moving at the time of the cave-in. The wings were buried several feet in the sand. That may have kept the craft from dropping, but it also would have provided a killing jolt for anyone not fastened in.
Rayford’s heart sank when he drew close enough to see that this was not a Pan-Con 747 at all but a British Airways jet. He was struck with such conflicting emotions that he could barely sort them out. What kind of a cold, selfish person is so obsessed with the survival of his own wife that he would be disappointed that hundreds of people might have been saved on this plane? He had to face the ugly truth about himself that he cared mostly for Amanda. Where was her Pan-Con flight?
He spun and scanned the horizon. What a cauldron of death! There was nowhere else to look for the Pan-Con jet. Until he knew for sure, he would not accept that Amanda was gone. With no other recourse and the inability to call Mac for an earlier pickup, he turned his attention back to the British Airways plane. At one of the open doors a flight attendant, staring ghostlike from the cabin, helplessly surveyed their precarious position. Rayford cupped his hands and called out to her, “I am a pilot! I have some ideas!”
“Are we on fire?” she screamed.
“No! And you should be very low on fuel! You don’t seem to be in danger!”
“This is very unstable!” she shouted. “Should I move everyone to the back so we don’t go nose down?”
“You won’t go nose down anyway! Your wings are stuck in the sand! Get everyone toward the middle and see if you can exit onto the wings without breaking up!”
“Can we be sure of that?”
“No! But you can’t wait for heavy equipment to tunnel down there and scaffold up to you! The earthquake was worldwide, and it’s unlikely anyone will get to you for days!”
“These people want out of here now! How sure are you that this will work?”
“Not very! But you have no choice! An aftershock could drop the plane all the way!”
As far as Buck knew, Chloe had been alone at Loretta’s. His only hope of finding her was to guess where she might have been in the house when it collapsed. Their bedroom in the southwest corner upstairs was now at ground level—a mass of brick, siding, drywall, glass, framing, trim, floor, studs, wiring, and furniture—covered by half of the split roof.
Chloe kept her computer in the basement, now buried under the two other floors on that same side of the house. Or she might have been in the kitchen, at the front of the house but also on that same side. That left Buck with no options. He had to get rid of a major section of that roof and start digging. If he didn’t find her in the bedroom or the basement, his last hope was the kitchen.
He had no boots, no gloves, no work clothes, no goggles, no helmet. All he had were the filthy, flimsy clothes on his back, normal shoes, and his bare hands. It was too late to worry about tetanus. He leaped onto the shifting roof. He edged up the steep incline, trying to see where it might be weak or could fall apart. It felt solid, though unsteady. He slid to the ground and pushed up under the eaves. No way could he do this by himself. Might there be an ax or chain saw in the metal shed?
He couldn’t get it open at first. The door was jammed. It seemed such a frail thing, but having shifted in the earthquake, the shed had bent upon itself and was unwilling to budge. Buck lowered his shoulder and rammed it like a football player. It groaned in protest but snapped back into position. He karate kicked it six times, then lowered his shoulder and barreled into it again. Finally he backed up twenty feet and raced toward it, but his slick shoes slipped in the grass and sent him sprawling. In a rage he trotted back farther, started slower, and gradually picked up speed. This time he smashed into the side of the shed so hard that he tore it from its moorings. It flipped over the tools inside, and he went with it, riding it to the ground before bouncing off. A jagged edge of the roof caught his rib cage as he hurtled down, and flesh gave way. He grabbed his side and felt a trickle, but unless he severed an artery, he wouldn’t slow down.
He dragged shovels and axes to the house and propped long-handled garden implements under the eaves. When Buck leaned against them, the edge of the roof lifted and something snapped beneath the few remaining shingles. He attacked that with a shovel, imagining how ridiculous he looked and what his father might say if he saw him using the wrong tool for the wrong job.
But what else could he do? Time was of the essence. He was fighting all odds anyway. Yet stranger things had happened. People had stayed alive under rubble for days. But if water was getting into the foundation of the house next door, what about this one? What if Chloe was trapped in the basement? He prayed that if she had to die, it had already happened quickly and painlessly. He did not want her life to ebb slowly away in a horrifying drowning. He also feared electrocution when water met open electric lines.
/> With a chunk of the roof gone, Buck shoveled debris away until he hit bigger pieces that had to be removed by hand. He was in decent shape, but this was beyond his routine. His muscles burned as he tossed aside heavy hunks of wall and flooring. He seemed to make little progress, huffing and puffing and sweating.
Buck twisted conduit out of the way and tossed aside ceiling plaster. He finally reached the bed frame, which had been snapped like kindling. He pushed in to where Chloe often sat at a small desk. It took him another half hour to dig through there, calling her name every so often. When he stopped to catch his breath he fought to listen for the faintest noise. Would he be able to hear a moan, a cry, a sigh? If she made the smallest sound, he would find her.
Buck began to despair. This was going too slowly. He hit huge chunks of floor too heavy to move. The distance between the floorboards of the upstairs bedroom and the concrete floor of the basement was simply not that great. Anyone caught between there had surely been smashed flat. But he could not quit. If he couldn’t get through this stuff by himself, he would get Tsion to help him.
Buck dragged the tools out to the front and tossed them over the pavement wall. Getting over from this side was a lot harder than from the other because the mud was slippery. He looked up one way and down the other and couldn’t see the end of where the road had been flipped vertical. He dug his feet into the mud and finally got to where he could reach the asphalt on the other side at the top. He pulled himself up and slid over, landing painfully on his elbow. He tossed the tools into the back of the Rover and slid his muddy body behind the wheel.
The sun was dropping in Iraq as several survivors of other crashes joined Rayford to watch the plight of the British Air 747. He stood helpless, hoping. The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for injury or death to anyone. But he was certain that exiting onto the wings was their only hope. He prayed they could then climb the steep banks of sand.
Rayford was encouraged at first when he saw the first passengers crawl onto the wings. Apparently the flight attendant had rallied the people and gotten them to work together. Rayford’s encouragement soon turned to alarm when he saw how much motion they generated and how it strained the fragile support. The plane was going to break up. Then what would happen to the fuselage? If one end or the other tipped too quickly, dozens could be killed. Those not strapped in would be hurtled to one end of the plane or the other, landing atop each other.
Rayford wanted to shout, to plead with the people inside to spread out. They needed to go about this with more precision and care. But it was too late, and they would never hear him. The noise inside the plane had to be deafening. The two on the right wing leaped into the sand.
The left wing gave way first but was not totally sheared off. The fuselage rotated left, and it was clear passengers inside fell that way too. The rear of the plane was going down first. Rayford could only hope the right wing would give way in time to even it out. At the last instant, that happened. But though the plane landed nearly perfectly flat on its tires, it had dropped much too far. People had to have been horribly bounced against each other and the plane. When the front tire collapsed, the nose of the plane drove so hard into the pavement that it shook more sand avalanches loose from the sides, which quickly filled the gorge. Rayford stuffed his phone in his pants pocket and tossed his jacket aside. He and others dug with their hands and began burrowing to the plane to allow air and escape passages. Sweat soaked through his clothes. The shine of his shoes would never return, but when might he ever again need dress shoes anyway?
When he and his compatriots finally reached the plane, they met passengers digging their way out. Rescuers behind Rayford cleared the area when they heard helicopter blades. Rayford assumed, as everyone probably did, that it was a relief chopper. Then he remembered. If it was Mac, it must be ten already. Was it because he cared, Rayford wondered, or was he more concerned with their meeting?
Rayford phoned Mac from deep in the gorge and told him he wanted to be sure no one had been killed on board the 747. Mac told him he’d be waiting on the other side of the terminal.
A few minutes later, relieved that all had survived, Rayford climbed back to the surface. He could not, however, find his jacket. That was just as well. He assumed Carpathia would soon fire him anyway.
Rayford picked his way through the flattened terminal and around the back. Mac’s helicopter idled a hundred yards away. In the darkness, Rayford assumed a clear path to the small craft and began hurrying. Amanda was not here, and this was a place of death. He wanted out of Iraq altogether, but for now he wanted away from Baghdad. He might have to endure Carpathia’s shelter, whatever that was, but as soon as he was able he would put distance between himself and Nicolae.
Rayford picked up speed, still in shape in his early forties. But suddenly he somersaulted into what? Bodies! He had tripped over one and landed atop others. Rayford stood and rubbed a painful knee, fearing he had desecrated these people. He slowed and walked to the chopper.
“Let’s go, Mac!” he said as he climbed aboard.
“I don’t need to be told that twice,” Mac said, throttling up. “I need to talk to you in a bad way.”
It was afternoon in the Central Standard Time zone when Buck pulled within sight of the wreckage of the church. He was coming out the passenger door when an aftershock rumbled through. It lifted the truck and propelled Buck into the dirt on his rear. He turned to watch the remains of the church sift, shift, and toss about. The pews that had escaped the ravages of the quake now cracked and flipped. Buck could only imagine what had happened to poor Donny Moore’s body. Perhaps God himself had handled the burial.
Buck worried about Tsion. What might have broken loose and fallen in his underground shelter? Buck scrambled to the ventilation shaft, which had provided Tsion’s only source of air. “Tsion! Are you all right?”
He heard a faint, breathy voice. “Thank God you have returned, Cameron! I was lying here with my nose next to the vent when I heard the rumble and something clattering its way toward me. I rolled out of the way just in time. There are pieces of brick down here. Was it an aftershock?”
“Yes!”
“Forgive me, Cameron, but I have been brave long enough. Get me out of here!”
It took Buck more than an hour of grueling digging to reach the entrance to the underground shelter. As soon as he began the tricky procedure to unlock and open the door, Tsion began pushing it from the inside. Together they forced it open against the weight of cinder blocks and other trash. Tsion squinted against the light and drank in the air. He embraced Buck tightly and asked, “What about Chloe?”
“I need your help.”
“Let us go. Any word from the others?”
“It could be days before communication opens to the Middle East. Amanda should be there with Rayford by now, but I have no idea about either of them.”
“One thing you can be sure of,” Tsion said in his thick Israeli accent, “is that if Rayford was near Nicolae, he is likely safe. The Scriptures are clear that the Antichrist will not meet his demise until a little over a year from now.”
“I wouldn’t mind having a hand in that,” Buck said.
“God will take care of that. But it is not the due time. Repulsive as it must be for Captain Steele to be in proximity to such evil, at least he should be safe.”
In the air, Mac McCullum radioed back to the safe shelter and told the radio operator, “We’re involved in a rescue here, so we’re gonna be another hour or two. Over.”
“Roger that. I’ll inform the potentate. Over.”
Rayford wondered what could be so important that Mac would risk lying to Nicolae Carpathia?
Once Rayford’s headset was in place, Mac said, “What the blazes is going on? What is Carpathia up to? What’s all this about the ‘wrath of the Lamb,’ and what in the world was I lookin’ at earlier when I thought I was lookin’ at the moon? I’ve seen a lot of natural disasters, and I’ve seen some strange atmospheric p
henomena, but I swear on my mother’s eyes I’ve never seen anything make a full moon look like it’s turned to blood. Why would an earthquake do that?”
Man, Rayford thought, this guy is ripe. But Rayford was also puzzled. “I’ll tell you what I think, Mac, but first tell me why you think I would know.”
“I can tell, that’s all. I wouldn’t dare cross Carpathia in a million years, even though I can tell he’s up to no good. You don’t seem to be intimidated by him at all. I about lost my lunch when I saw that red moon, and you acted like you knew it would be there.”
Rayford nodded but didn’t expound. “I have a question for you, Mac. You knew why I went to the Baghdad airport. Why didn’t you ask me what I found out about my wife or Hattie Durham?”
“None of my business, that’s all,” Mac said.
“Don’t give me that. Unless Carpathia knows more than I do, he would have wanted to know about Hattie’s whereabouts as soon as either of us knew anything.”
“No, Rayford, it’s like this. See, I just knew—I mean, everybody knows—that it wasn’t likely either your wife or Miss Durham would have survived a crash at that airport.”
“Mac! You saw yourself that hundreds of people were going to get off that 747. Sure, nine out of ten people died in that place, but lots survived, too. Now if you want answers from me, you’d better start giving me some.”
Mac nodded toward a clearing he had illuminated with a spotlight. “We’ll talk down there.”
Tsion brought only his phone, his laptop, and a few changes of clothes that had been smuggled in to him. Buck waited until they parked near the torn-up pavement in front of Loretta’s house to tell him about Donny Moore.
“That is a tragedy,” Tsion said. “And he was—?”
“The one I told you about. The computer whiz who put together our laptops. One of those quiet geniuses. He had gone to this church for years and was still embarrassed that he had this astronomical IQ and yet had been spiritually blind. He said he simply missed the essence of the gospel that whole time. He said he couldn’t blame it on the staff or the teaching or anything or anyone but himself. His wife had hardly ever come with him in those days because she didn’t see the point. They lost a baby in the Rapture. And once Donny became a believer, his wife soon followed. They became quite devout.”