by Tim LaHaye
“I need to talk to you about that.”
“We’ll have time in the air.”
“I appreciate your giving me so much flying time on this trip,” Mac said as he and Rayford left the plane.
“I had an ulterior motive. I know the FAA rules are out the window now that Carpathia is a law unto himself, but I still follow the maximum flying hours rules.”
“So do I. You going somewhere?”
“As soon as you teach me how to get around in the Challenger. I’d like to drop in on my daughter and surprise her. Buck gave me directions.”
“Good for you.”
“What are you gonna do, Mac?”
“Hole up here awhile. I got some buddies I might look up a couple hundred miles west. If I can track them down, I’ll use the chopper.”
Ken Ritz’s Suburban came rumbling around the back of the house just before nine.
“Somebody wants to see you when you’re halfway conscious,” Buck said.
“Find out if he wants to arm wrestle,” Chloe said.
“Aren’t you getting frisky?”
Tsion was on his way down the stairs when Buck met Ken at the back door. Ken wore cowboy boots, blue jeans, a long-sleeve khaki shirt, and a cowboy hat. “I know we’re in a hurry,” he said, “but where’s the patient?”
“Right here, Dr. Airplane,” Chloe said. She hobbled to the kitchen door. Ken tipped his hat.
“You can do better than that, cowboy,” she said, extending her good arm for a hug. He hurried to her.
“You sure look a lot better than the last time I saw you,” he said.
“Thanks. So do you.”
He laughed. “I am a lot better. Notice anything different about me?”
“A little better color, I think,” Buck said. “And you might have gained a pound in the last day or two.”
“Never shows on this frame,” Ritz said.
“It has been a long time, Mr. Ritz,” Tsion said.
Ritz shook the rabbi’s hand. “Hey, we all look healthier than last time, don’t we?”
“We really need to get going,” Buck said.
“So nobody notices anything different about me, huh?” Ken said. “You can’t see it in my face? It doesn’t show?”
“What?” Chloe said. “Are you pregnant too?”
As the others laughed, Ken took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “First day I’ve been able to get a hat on this sore head.”
“So that’s what’s different?” Buck said.
“That, and this.” Ken ran his hand through his hair again, and this time left it atop his head with his hair pulled out of the way. “Maybe it shows on my forehead. I can see yours. Can you see mine?”
CHAPTER 16
Rayford made the approach for yet another landing in the Challenger 3. “They’re getting tired of me hogging this runway. If I can’t get it right, you may have to fly me to Illinois.”
“Dallas Tower to Charlie Tango, over.”
Rayford raised an eyebrow. “See what I mean?”
“I’ll get it,” Mac said. “This is Charlie Tango, over.”
“Tango X-ray message for Condor 216 captain, over.”
“Go ahead with TX message, tower, over.”
“Subject is to call Supreme Commander at the following number. . . .”
Mac wrote it down.
“What now?” Rayford wondered aloud. He put the screaming jet down for his smoothest landing of the morning.
“Why don’t you take her back up,” Mac said, “then I’ll take over while you call Captain Kangaroo.”
“That’s Supreme Commander Kangaroo to you, pal,” Rayford said. He lined up the Challenger and hurtled down the runway at three hundred miles an hour. Once he was in the air and leveled off, Mac took the controls.
Rayford reached Fortunato at the ambassador’s residence. “I expected an immediate call,” Leon said.
“I’m in the middle of a training maneuver.”
“I have an assignment for you.”
“I have plans today, sir. Do I have a choice?”
“This is straight from the top.”
“My question remains.”
“No, you have no choice. If this delays our return, we will inform the respective ambassadors. His Excellency requests that you fly to Denver today.”
Denver?
“I’m not ready to fly this thing solo yet,” Rayford said. “Is this something my first officer can handle?”
“Intelligence sources have located the subject we asked you to communicate with. Follow?”
“I follow.”
“His Excellency would appreciate his message being delivered as soon as possible, in person.”
“What’s the rush?”
“The subject is at a Global Community facility that can assist in determining the consequences of the response.”
“She’s at an abortion clinic?”
“Captain Steele! This is an unsecured transmission!”
“I may have to fly commercial.”
“Just get there today. GC personnel are stalling the subject.”
“Before you go, Cameron,” Tsion said, “we must thank the Lord for our new brother.”
Buck, Chloe, Tsion, and Ken huddled in the kitchen. Tsion put a hand on Ken’s back and looked up. “Lord God Almighty, your Word tells us the angels rejoice with us over Ken Ritz. We believe the prophecy of a great soul harvest, and we thank you that Ken is merely one of the first of many millions who will be swept into your kingdom over the next few years. We know many will suffer and die at the hands of Antichrist, but their eternal fate is sealed. We pray especially that our new brother develops a hunger for your Word, that he possesses the boldness of Christ in the face of persecution, and that he be used to bring others into the family. And now may the God of peace himself sanctify us completely, and may our spirits, souls, and bodies be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that he who called us is faithful, who will also do it. We pray in the matchless name of Jesus, the Messiah and our Redeemer.”
Ken brushed tears from his cheeks, put his hat on, and pulled it down over his eyes. “Hoo boy! That’s what I call some prayin’!”
Tsion trotted upstairs and returned with a dog-eared paperback book called How to Begin the Christian Life.
He handed it to Ken, who looked thrilled. “Will you sign it?”
“Oh, no,” Tsion said. “I did not write it. It was smuggled to me from Pastor Bruce Barnes’s library at the church. I know he would want you to have it. I must clarify that the Scriptures do not refer to us who become believers after the Rapture as Christians. We are referred to as tribulation saints. But the truths of this book still apply.”
Ken held it in both hands as if it were a treasure.
Tsion, nearly a foot shorter than Ken, put an arm around his waist. “As the new elder of this little band, allow me to welcome you to the Tribulation Force. We now number six, and one-third of us are pilots.”
Ritz went out to start the Suburban. Tsion wished Buck God’s speed and headed back upstairs. Buck drew Chloe to him and enveloped her like a fragile china doll. “Did you ever get hold of Hattie? Do we know her alias?”
“No. I’ll keep trying.”
“Keep following Dr. Tsion’s orders too, you hear?”
She nodded. “I know you’re coming right back, Buck, but I don’t like saying good-bye. Last time you left me I woke up in Minnesota.”
“Next week we’ll sneak Dr. Charles over here and get your stitches out.”
“I’m waiting for the day I have no more stitches, cast, cane, or limp. I don’t know how you can stand to look at me.”
Buck cupped her face in his hands. Her right eye was still black and purple, her forehead crimson. Her right cheek was sunken where teeth were missing, and her cheekbone was broken.
“Chloe,” he whispered, “when I look at you I see the love of my life.” She started to protest and he shushed her. �
�When I thought I had lost you, I would have given anything to have you back for just one minute. I could look at you until Jesus comes and still want to share eternity with you.”
He helped her to a chair. Buck bent and kissed her between her eyes. Then their mouths met. “I wish you were going with me,” he whispered.
“When I get healthy, you’re going to wish I’d stay home once in a while.”
Rayford stalled as long as possible to get more comfortable with the Challenger 3 and also to make sure Buck and Ken Ritz got to Hattie before he did. He wanted to be able to tell Fortunato she was gone when he got there. Soon he would call Buck to warn him that the GC would try to keep her from bolting.
Rayford didn’t like his instructions. Fortunato would not commit to a specific destination. He said local GC forces would give Rayford that information. Rayford didn’t care where they wanted him to take Hattie. If this worked the way he hoped, she would be jetting back to the Chicago area with Buck and Ken, and his orders would be moot.
Buck would have to fly over a thousand miles to Denver, Rayford fewer than eight hundred. He throttled back, reaching nowhere near the potential of the powerful jet. An hour later, Rayford was on the phone with Buck. While they talked, a couple of calls came over his radio, but not hearing his call letters or name, he ignored them.
“Our ETA is noon at Stapleton,” Buck said. “Ken tells me I was too ambitious, promising we’d see her that early. She still has to tell us how to get there, and we haven’t been able to reach her. I don’t even know her alias.”
Rayford told him his own predicament.
“I don’t like it,” Buck said. “I don’t trust any of them with her.”
“The whole thing’s squirrelly.”
“Albie to Scuba, over,” the radio crackled. Rayford ignored it.
“I’m way behind you, Buck. I’ll make sure I don’t get there until around two.”
“Albie to Scuba, over,” the radio repeated.
“That’ll make it logical for Leon,” Rayford continued. “He can’t expect me to get there faster than that.”
“Albie to Scuba, do you read me, over?”
It finally sank in. “Hold on a minute, Buck.”
Rayford felt gooseflesh on his arms as he grabbed the mike. “This is Scuba. Go ahead, Albie.”
“Need your ten-twenty, Scuba, over.”
“Stand by.”
“Buck, I’m gonna have to call you back. Something’s up with Mac.”
Rayford checked his instruments. “Wichita Falls, Albie, over.”
“Put down at Liberal. Over and out.”
“Albie, wait. I—”
“Stay put and I’ll find you. Albie over and out.”
Why had Mac had to use code names? He set a course for Liberal, Kansas, and radioed the tower there for landing coordinates. Surely Mac wasn’t flying to Liberal on the Condor. But the chopper would take hours.
He got back on the radio. “Scuba to Albie, over.”
“Standing by, Scuba.”
“Just wondering if I could head back and meet you on your way, over.”
“Negative, Scuba. Over and out.”
Rayford phoned Buck and updated him.
“Strange,” Buck said. “Keep me posted.”
“Roger.”
“Want some good news?”
“Gladly.”
“Ken Ritz is the newest member of the Tribulation Force.”
Just before noon, Mountain Time, Ritz landed the Learjet at Stapleton Airport, Denver. Buck had still not heard from Chloe. He called her.
“Nothing, Buck. Sorry. I’ll keep trying. I called several reproductive centers there, but the ones I reached said they did only same-day surgery, no residents. I asked if they also delivered babies. They said no. I don’t know where to go from here, Buck.”
“You and me both. Keep trying her number.”
Rayford pacified suspicious tower personnel at the tiny Liberal airport by topping off his fuel tank. The base operator was surprised how little he needed.
He set his laptop near the cockpit window and sat on the tarmac surfing the Internet. He found Tsion’s bulletin board, which had become the talk of the globe. Hundreds of thousands of responses were added every day. Tsion continued to direct the attention of his growing flock to God himself. He added to his personal daily message a fairly deep Bible study aimed at the 144,000 witnesses. It warmed Rayford’s heart to read it, and he was impressed that a scholar was so sensitive to his audience. Besides the witnesses, his readers were the curious, the scared, the seekers, and the new believers. Tsion had something for everyone, but most impressive was his ability, as Bruce Barnes used to say, to “put the cookies on the lower shelf.”
Tsion’s writing read the way he sounded to Rayford in person when the Tribulation Force sat with him and discussed what Tsion called “the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus.”
Tsion’s ability with the Scriptures, Rayford knew, had to do with more than just his facility with the languages and texts. He was anointed of God, gifted to teach and evangelize. That morning he had put the following call-to-arms on the Internet:
Good day to you, my dear brother or sister in the Lord. I come to you with a heart both heavy with sorrow and yet full of joy. I sorrow personally over the loss of my precious wife and teenagers. I mourn for so many who have died since the coming of Christ to rapture his church. I mourn for mothers all over the globe who lost their children. And I weep for a world that has lost an entire generation.
How strange to not see the smiling faces or hear the laughter of children. As much as we enjoyed them, we could not have known how much they taught us and how much they added to our lives until they were gone.
I am also melancholy this morning because of the results of the wrath of the Lamb. It should be clear to any thinking person, even the nonbeliever, that prophecy was fulfilled. The great earthquake appears to have snuffed out 25 percent of the remaining population. For generations people have called natural disasters “acts of God.” This has been a misnomer. Eons ago, God the Father conceded control of Earth’s weather to Satan himself, the prince and power of the air. God allowed destruction and death by natural phenomena, yes, because of the fall of man. And no doubt God at times intervened against such actions by the evil one because of the fervent prayers of his people.
But this recent earthquake was indeed an act of God. It was sadly necessary, and I choose to discuss this today because of one thing that happened where I am hiding in exile. A most bizarre and impressive occurrence that can be credited to the incredible organizational, motivational, and industrial abilities of the Global Community. I have never hidden that I believe the very idea of a one-world government, or currency, or especially faith (or I should say nonfaith) is from the pit of hell. That is not to say that everything resulting from these unholy alliances will be obviously evil.
Today, in my secret part of the world, I learned via radio that the astounding Cellular-Solar network had made it possible already for television to be returned to certain areas. A friend and I, curious, turned on the television set. We were astounded. I expected an all-news network or perhaps also a local emergency station. But as I am sure you know by now, where television has returned, it is back full force.
Our television accesses hundreds of channels from all over the world, beamed to it by satellite. Every picture on every channel representing every station and network available is transmitted into our home in images so crisp and clear you feel you could reach inside the screen and touch them. What a marvel of technology!
But this does not thrill me. I admit I was never an avid TV watcher. I bored others with my insistence on watching educational or news programs and otherwise criticizing what was offered. I expressed fresh shock every month or so at how much worse television had become.
I shall no longer apologize for my horror at what has become of this entertainment medium. Today, as my friend and I sampled the hundreds of stations, I was
unable to even pause at most offerings, they were so overtly evil. Stopping even to criticize them would have subjected my brain to poison. I concede that approximately 5 percent was something as inoffensive as the news. (Of course, even the news is owned and controlled by the Global Community and carries its unique spin. But at least I was not subjected to vile language or lascivious images.) On virtually every other channel, however, I saw—in that split second before the signal changed—final proof that society has reached rock bottom.
I am neither naive nor prudish. But I saw things today I never thought I would see. All restraint, all boundaries, all limits have been eradicated. It was a microcosm of the reason for the wrath of the Lamb. Sexuality and sensuality and nudity have been part of the industry for many years. But even those who used to justify these on the basis of freedom of expression or a stand against censorship at the very least made them available only to people who knew what they were choosing.
Perhaps it is the very loss of the children that has caused us not to forget God but to acknowledge him in the worst possible way, by sticking out our tongues, raising our fists, and spitting in his face. To see not just simulated perversion but actual portrayals of every deadly sin listed in the Scriptures left us feeling unclean.
My friend left the room. I wept. It is no surprise to me that many have turned against God. But to be exposed to the depths of the result of this abandonment of the Creator is a depressing and sorrowful thing. Real violence, actual tortures and murders, are proudly advertised as available twenty-four hours a day on some channels. Sorcery, black magic, clairvoyance, fortune-telling, witchcraft, séances, and spell casting are offered as simple alternatives to anything normal, let alone positive.
Is this balanced? Is there one station that carries stories, comedies, variety shows, musical entertainment, education, anything religious other than Enigma Babylon One World Faith? For all the trumpeting by the Global Community that freedom of expression has arrived, the same has been denied those of us who know and believe the truth of God.
Ask yourself if the message I write today would be allowed on even one of the hundreds of stations broadcast to every TV around the world? Of course not. I fear the day that technology will allow the Global Community to silence even this form of expression, which no doubt soon will be considered a crime against the state. Our message flies in the face of a one-world faith that denies belief in the one true God, a God of justice and judgment.