by Tim LaHaye
Chaim pointed Buck to a parking place in the middle of a row of cars and vans that lined a crowded street. It was after midnight now, and Buck was suddenly overcome with fatigue. “The Harem?” he said, reading the neon sign. “You sure this is only a bar?”
“I’m sure it is not, Cameron,” Rosenzweig said. “I don’t want to think about what else goes on in there. I’ve never been inside. Usually I wait out here while my security chief goes in and drags Jacov out.”
“That’s why I’m here?”
“I would not ask you to do that. But you may need to help me with him because if he resists, I am no match for him. He will not hurt me, even when drunk, but a little old man cannot make a thick mule of a young man go anywhere he does not want to go.”
Buck parked and sat thinking. “I’m hoping you’re wrong, Dr. Rosenzweig. I’m hoping Jacov will not be here.”
Chaim smiled. “You think because he became a believer he will not get drunk after being shot at? You are too naive for an international journalist, my friend. Your new faith has clouded your judgment.”
“I hope not.”
“Well, you see that green truck there, the old English Ford?” Buck nodded. “That belongs to Stefan of my valet staff. He lives between here and Teddy Kollek Stadium, and he is Jacov’s drinking partner. Stefan does not suffer as Jacov does. He can hold his liquor, as we like to say. He was off work today, but if I was a man of wagers, I would bet Jacov ran to him while escaping the Global Community guards. Naturally shaken and scared out of his wits, he no doubt allowed Stefan to take him to their favorite place. I cannot hold this against Jacov. But I want him safe. I don’t want him making a spectacle of himself in public, especially if he is a fugitive from the GC.”
“I don’t want him to be here, Dr. Rosenzweig.”
“I don’t either, but I am not a young man with stars in his eyes. Wisdom is supposed to come with age, Cameron. I wish less came with it, frankly. I have gained wisdom I cannot now recall. I have what I call ‘mature moments,’ where I recall in detail something that happened sixty years ago but cannot remember that I told the same story half an hour before.”
“I’m not even thirty-three yet, and I have my share of those.”
Chaim smiled. “And your name again was?”
“Let’s go look for Jacov,” Buck said. “I say he’s not in there, even if Stefan is.”
“I hope Jacov is,” Chaim said, “because if he is not, that means he is lost or caught or worse.”
Dr. Floyd Charles’s story was so similar to Rayford’s it was eerie. He too had had a wife serious about her faith, while he, a respected professional, played at the edges of it. “Fairly regular church attendee?” Rayford asked from experience. “Just didn’t want to get as deep into it as your wife?”
“Exactly,” Floyd said. “She was always telling me my good works wouldn’t get me into heaven, and that if Jesus came back before I died, I’d be left behind.” He shook his head. “I listened without hearing, you know what I mean?”
“You’re telling my story, brother. You lose kids too?”
“Not in the Rapture. My wife miscarried one, and we lost a five-year-old girl in a bus accident her first day of school.” Floyd fell silent.
“I’m sorry,” Rayford said.
“It was awful,” Floyd said with a thick voice. “Gigi and I both saw her off at the corner that morning, and LaDonna was happy as she could be. We thought she would be shy or scared—in fact, we kinda hoped she would be. But she couldn’t wait to start school with her new outfit, lunch box, and all. Gigi and I were basket cases, nervous for her, scared. I said putting her on that big old impersonal bus made me feel like I was sending her off to face the lions. Gigi said we just had to trust God to take care of her. Half an hour later we got the call.”
Rayford shook his head.
“Made me bitter,” Floyd said. “Drove me farther from God. Gigi suffered, sobbed her heart out till it almost killed me. But she didn’t lose her faith. Prayed for LaDonna, asked God to take care of her, to tell her things, all that. Real strain on our marriage. We separated for a while—my choice, not hers. I just couldn’t stand to see her in such pain and yet still playing the church game. She said it wasn’t a game and that if I ever wanted to see LaDonna again, I’d ‘get right with Jesus.’ Well, I got right with Jesus all right. I told him what I thought of what he let happen to my baby girl. I was miserable for a long time.”
They sat at the kitchen table, where Rayford could hear Hattie’s steady, rhythmic breathing. “You know what convinced me?” Floyd said suddenly.
Rayford snorted. “Besides the Rapture, you mean? That got my attention.”
“I was actually convinced before then. I just never pulled the trigger, know what I mean?”
Rayford nodded. “You knew your wife was right, but you didn’t tell God?”
“Exactly. But what convinced me was Gigi. She never stopped loving me, through it all. I was a rascal, man. Mean, nasty, selfish, rude, demeaning. She knew I was grieving, suffering. The light had gone out of my life. I loved LaDonna so much it was as if my heart had been ripped out. But when I was trying to cover the pain by working all hours and being impossible to my coworkers and everyone else, Gigi knew just when to call or send a note. Every time, Rayford, every stinkin’ time, she would remind me that she loved me, cared about me, wanted me back, and was ready to do whatever I needed to make my life easier.”
“Wow.”
“Wow is right. She was hurting just as bad as I was, but she would invite me for dinner, bring me meals, do my laundry—and she was working too—clean my apartment.” He chuckled. “Humiliated me is what she did.”
“She won you back?”
“She sure did. Even lifted me out of my grief. It took a few years, but I became a happier, more productive person. I knew it was God in her life that allowed her to do that. But I still thought that if there was anything to this heaven and hell business, God would have to look kindly on me because I was helping people every day. I even had the right motive. Oh, I loved the attention, but I helped everybody. I did my best work whether the patient was a derelict or a millionaire. Made no difference to me. Somebody needed medical attention, they got my best.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah, good for me. But you and I both know what it got me when Jesus came back. Left behind.”
Floyd checked on Hattie. Rayford got them Cokes from the refrigerator. “I don’t want to bad-mouth an old friend,” Rayford said, “but I suggest you think about the kind of woman your wife was before you consider Hattie as a replacement.”
Floyd pursed his lips and nodded.
“I’m not saying Hattie couldn’t become that kind of person,” Rayford added.
“I know. But there’s no evidence she wants to be.”
“Know what I’m gonna do?” Rayford said, rising. “I’m gonna call my daughter and tell her I love her.”
Floyd looked at his watch. “You know what time it is where she is?”
“I don’t care. And she won’t either.”
Buck and Chaim got stares from both men and women as they approached The Harem. The place was much bigger inside than it looked from outside. Several rooms, each packed with people shoulder to shoulder—some dancing, some kissing passionately—led to the main bar where women danced and people ate and drank.
“Ach!” Rosenzweig said. “Just as I thought.”
As they made their way in, Buck looked carefully for Jacov and averted his eyes every time he was met with a “what are you looking at” glare. Not all the couples were made up of both sexes. This was not the Israel he remembered. The smoke was so thick that Buck knew he’d have done less damage to his lungs if he himself was smoking.
Buck did not realize Chaim had stopped in front of him, and he bumped into the old man. “Oh, Stefan!” Rosenzweig chided, and Buck turned in time to see a young man with a sloshing drink in his hand. His dark hair was wet and matted, and he laughed
hysterically. Buck prayed he was alone. “Is Jacov with you?” Rosenzweig demanded.
Stefan, in midcackle, could barely catch his breath. He bent over in a coughing jag and spilled some of his drink on Rosenzweig’s trousers.
“Stefan! Where’s Jacov?”
“Well, he’s not with me!” Stefan shouted, straightening up and laughing more. “But he’s here all right!”
Buck’s heart sank. He knew Jacov had been sincere in his conversion, and God had proved it with the seal on his forehead. How could Jacov desecrate his own salvation this way? Had his brush with the GC been more gruesome than Buck could imagine?
“Where?” Rosenzweig pressed, clearly disgusted.
“In there!” Stefan pointed with his drink, laughing and coughing all the while. “He’s up on a table having the time of his life! Now let me through so I don’t have an accident right here!” He lurched off, laughing so hard tears ran down his face.
Chaim, appearing overcome, strained to see into the main room, from which music blared and strobe lights flashed. “Oh, no!” he moaned, backing into Buck. “He’s totally drunk. This shy, young man who hardly looks you in the eye when he greets you is carrying on in front of everyone! I can’t take this. I’ll bring the car up. Could you just get him down off that table and drag him out? You’re bigger and stronger than he is. Please.”
Buck didn’t know what to say. He’d never been a bouncer, and while he had once enjoyed the nightlife himself, he had never liked loud bars, especially ones like this. He jostled past Chaim as the old man hurried out. Buck shouldered his way through several clusters of revelers until he came to dozens whose attention was on the crazy young Israeli holding forth atop a table. It was Jacov all right.
Rayford hurried to the basement and found Ken with Donny Moore’s telescope in his lap and his microscope on the desk. Ken was reading Donny’s technical journals. “Kid was a genius, Ray. I’m learning a ton that’s gonna help us. If you can get this stuff to your other pilot and your inside techie over there, they can have us up to speed when their cover is blown and we’re all just tryin’ to stay alive. What can I do you for?”
“I want to go with you Friday to Israel.”
“You barely escaped. Didn’t your friend Mac say you were as good as dead if you had stayed?”
“It’s not like me to run. I can’t hide from Carpathia for the rest of my life anyway, short as it may be.”
“What the heck’s got into you, Ray?”
“Just talked with Chloe. I smell trouble. No way Nicolae is going to let them out of Israel alive. We have to go get them.”
“I’m game. How do we do it?”
Buck quit excusing himself; he was being cursed anyway. Finally, he was close enough to hear Jacov, but he was railing in Hebrew and Buck understood none of it. Well, almost none. Jacov was shouting and gesturing and trying to keep people’s attention. They laughed at him and seemed to curse him, whistling and throwing cigarette butts at him. Two women splashed him with their drinks.
His face was flushed and he looked high, but he was not drinking, at least then. Buck recognized the word Yeshua, Hebrew for Jesus. And Hamashiach, the word for Messiah.
“What’s he saying?” he asked a man nearby. The drunk looked at him as if he were from another planet. “English?” Buck pressed.
“Kill the English!” the man said. “And the Americans too!”
Buck turned to others. “English?” he asked. “Anyone know English?”
“I do,” a barmaid said. She carried several empties on a tray. “Make it quick.”
“What’s he saying?”
She looked up at Jacov. “Him? Same thing he’s been saying all night. ‘Jesus is the Messiah. I know. He saved me.’ All that nonsense. What can I tell you? The boss would have thrown him out long ago, but he’s entertaining.”
Jacov was little more than entertaining. His motive might have been pure, but he was having zero impact. Buck moved close and grabbed his ankle. Jacov looked down. “Buck! My friend and brother! This man will tell you! He was there! He saw the water turned to blood and back again! Buck, come up here!”
“Let’s go, Jacov!” Buck said, shaking his head. “I’m not coming up there! No one is listening! Come on! Rosenzweig is waiting!”
Jacov looked amazed. “He is here? Here? Have him come in!”
“He was in. Now let’s go.”
Jacov climbed down and eagerly followed Buck out, accepting cheers and slaps on the back from the merrymakers. They were near the front door when Jacov spotted Stefan heading the other way. “Wait! There’s my friend! I must tell him I’m leaving!”
“He’ll figure it out,” Buck said, steering him out the door.
In the car Rosenzweig glared at Jacov. “I was not drinking, Doctor,” he said. “Not one drop!”
“Oh, Jacov,” Rosenzweig said as Buck pulled away from the curb. “The smell is all over you. And I saw you atop the table.”
“You can smell my breath!” he said, leaning forward.
“I don’t want to smell your breath!”
“No! Come on! I’ll prove it!” Jacov breathed heavily into Rosenzweig’s face, and Chaim grimaced and turned away.
Rosenzweig looked at Buck. “He had garlic today, but I do not smell alcohol.”
“Of course not!” Jacov said. “I was preaching! God gave me the boldness! I am one of the 144,000 witnesses, as Rabbi Ben-Judah says! I will be an evangelist for God!”
Chaim slumped in his seat and raised both hands. “Oy,” he said. “I wish you were drunk.”
After hearing what had gone on behind the scenes in Israel, Ken agreed it was likely Carpathia would manufacture “some tragedy outside his control, somethin’ he can blame on somebody else, but no matter how you slice it, people we care about are gonna die.”
“I don’t want to be foolhardy, Ken,” Rayford said. “But I’m not going to hide here and just hope they get out.”
“I been sky-jockeyin’ that son-in-law of yours since the disappearances, and you’d have to go some to be more foolhardy than that boy. We’re gonna hafta get in touch with your copilot over there though. I can teach you a lot about the Gulfstream, but nobody can put it down without a runway.”
“Meaning?”
“You’re gonna be looking at a quick pickup, right? Probably from this Rosen-whatever estate?”
“Yeah, I’m going to suggest to Tsion that he announce plans for Saturday, something Carpathia will believe he wouldn’t want to miss. Then we get in there after midnight Friday and get them out of there.”
“Unless they meet us somewhere near the airport, we’re going to have to drop in and get ’em. And that means a chopper.”
“Can’t we rent one? I could ask David Hassid, our guy inside the GC, to have one waiting for us at Jerusalem or Ben Gurion.”
“Fine, but we’re gonna need two fliers. No way McCullum can get away to help us.”
“What am I, chopped liver?”
Ken smacked himself in the head. “Listen to me,” he said. “What an idiot! You’re trained in a copter, then?”
“Mac brought me up to speed. I land near the complex and shuttle them to you at the airport, right?”
“You’d better get a layout of the place before we go. You’re going to have precious little time as it is, puttin’ one of them noisy jobs down in a residential area. Somebody sees you in their yard, the gendarmes’ll be there before you can get airborne again.”
“Does your wife know where you’ve been?” Rosenzweig asked Jacov as Buck pulled in front of his apartment building.
“I called her. She wants to know what in the world I’m talking about.”
“Why did you go to that awful place first?”
“I escaped to Stefan’s house. He wanted to go. I thought, what better place to start preaching?”
“You’re a fool,” Rosenzweig said.
“Yes I am!”
Buck tossed Jacov his cell phone. “Call your wife so you do
n’t scare her to death when you walk in.”
But before Jacov could dial, the phone rang. “What’s this?” he said. “I didn’t do that.”
“Push Send and say, ‘Buck’s phone.’”
It was Chloe. “She needs to talk with you right away, Mr. Williams.”
Buck took the phone and told Jacov, “Wait here until we can warn your wife you’re coming.”
Chloe told Buck about the call from her father and his request for a schematic of Rosenzweig’s estate. “I’ll bring it up when it’s appropriate,” Buck whispered.
Later, when he finally drove through the gates at Chaim’s place, the time didn’t seem right to raise the issue of the schematic. Rosenzweig was still a Carpathia sympathizer and would not understand. He might even spill the beans. Buck remained in the car as Rosenzweig got out.
“You’re not coming in?”
“May I borrow your car for a while?”
“Take the Mercedes.”
“This will be fine,” Buck said. “If Chloe is still up, tell her she can call me.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’d rather not say. If you don’t know, you don’t have to lie if anyone asks.”
“This is entirely too much skullduggery for me, Cameron. Be safe and hurry back, would you? You and your friends have another big day tomorrow. Or I should say today.”
Buck drove straight to the Wailing Wall. As he expected, after the squabbling between the two witnesses and Carpathia and the threats Nicolae made on international television, huge crowds pressed near the fence where Eli and Moishe held court. The GC was well represented, armed guards ringing the crowd.
Buck parked far from the Temple Mount and moseyed up like a curious tourist. Moishe and Eli stood back-to-back with Eli facing the crowd. Buck had never seen them in that position and wondered if Moishe was somehow on the lookout. Eli was speaking in his forceful, piercing voice, but at that moment he was competing with the head of the GC guard unit and his bullhorn. The guard was making his announcement in several languages—first in Hebrew, then in Spanish, then in an Asian tongue Buck couldn’t place. Finally, he spoke a broken English with a Hebrew accent, and Buck realized the GC guard was an Israeli.