by Tim LaHaye
“Of course.”
“And I would like Buck cleared to be backstage as usual.” He turned to Buck. “Chloe will be all right without you?”
“More than all right, sir. The question is how will I get along without her.”
Tsion was apparently too focused to see the humor. “Daniel, I would like Dr. Rosenzweig recognized in an understated, dignified manner. He has not asked for this. It is merely a courtesy appropriate to his standing within the country.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“After your greeting and welcome, announce the Saturday rally for the local committee at the Temple Mount, recognize Dr. Rosenzweig, pray, lead in a hymn, and get me on. No fanfare this time. They know who I am.”
“But, sir—”
“Please, Daniel. We are on the front lines here, and it is becoming increasingly dangerous. We are enemies of the world system and will have many opportunities to expose them down the road. Making a fuss over me serves no purpose and merely—”
“Begging your pardon, Doctor. Mr. Williams, I’m sure you agree that these people will be eager to express themselves on what may be the last time they have opportunity to see Dr. Ben-Judah in person. Please let me—”
“If they respond spontaneously, I will accept it in the spirit offered. But I want no grand introduction. You should be able to do it without even using my name. Take that as a personal challenge.”
Daniel looked crestfallen. “Oh, sir, are you sure?”
“I know you can handle it.”
Rayford, with nothing but water in view, took a call from Floyd Charles. “What’s up, Doc?” he said.
“Never heard that one before,” Floyd said. “I hate to bother you, but this seemed important. Hattie’s spent a lot of time on the phone with a kid named Ernie, a friend of Ken’s.”
“I met him.”
“She apparently happened onto him when she was trying to reach you out there.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, she’d like to see him.”
“Does she know he’s got to be ten years younger than she is?”
“So about the same age difference as Buck and your daughter?”
Rayford paused. “What, you’re worried about a relationship? Have you talked to this kid?”
“Yeah. He’s a believer. Seems nice enough.”
“He’s a mechanical whiz, but him and Hattie? Don’t even worry about it. She’s your patient, Floyd, but she’s also a grown woman. We don’t have any authority over her.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about, Rayford. She’d like him to come here.”
“Whoops!”
“That’s what I thought. We don’t want him knowing where we are, do we?”
“No. He’s a brother and all, but we don’t know who he knows, whether he’s mature enough to keep his mouth shut, that kind of thing.”
“That’s what I thought. Just checking.”
“Don’t let her even hint at where we’re located.”
“Gotcha. I might reward her for good behavior and run her out to Palwaukee in a day or two. She can put a face to a name that way, anyway.”
“We’ll be home before that, Doc. We’ll make a picnic of it. The whole Tribulation Force, except David and Mac, of course, together at last.”
After the group prayed backstage, Tsion stood by himself, head down, eyes closed. Buck couldn’t decide whether Tsion was more or less nervous than usual. He kept an eye on Tsion until Daniel walked past him to the podium. Tsion looked up at Buck and waved him over.
“Stand with me, Cameron, would you?” Buck felt honored. He stepped up next to Tsion in the wings as they watched Daniel welcome the crowd and make his announcement about Saturday’s rally. “Most of you will have gone home, but if you live locally or can make it, please feel free. Remember, however, that this is just a thank-you to the local committee.” He then had Dr. Rosenzweig stand to warm applause.
“How will you get the key?” Tsion asked.
“I’m not sure yet, but I may simply ask Jacov for it and tell him to ask no questions. I believe he will trust me until I can explain.”
Tsion nodded. “I feel a particular burden tonight, Cameron,” he whispered suddenly. Buck didn’t know what to say. When Tsion bowed his head again, Buck put an arm around his shoulder and was shocked to find the man trembling.
Daniel prayed, then led the singing of “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
“Excellent choice,” Tsion murmured, but he did not sing. Buck tried to and nodded when Tsion said, “Pray for me.”
The song ended. Tsion looked to Buck, who lifted a fist of encouragement in his face. Daniel said, “And now I invite you to listen to a message from the Word of God.” Buck was thrilled to see the crowd rise and clap. No shouting, no cheering, no whistling. Just a long and respectful and enthusiastic season of applause that seemed to overwhelm Tsion. He waved shyly and, when he had finished arranging his notes, stepped back until the applause died out.
“God has put something on my heart tonight,” he said. “Even before I open his Word, I feel led to invite seekers to come forward and receive Christ.” Immediately, from all over the stadium and even outside, lines of people, many weeping, began streaming forward, causing the saints to burst into applause again. “You know the truth,” Tsion said. “God has gotten your attention. You need no other argument, you need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for thee.”
The seekers kept coming. Tsion asked believers to pray with anyone who wanted them to, and for an hour it seemed that anyone within the sound of Tsion’s voice—other than Global Community personnel—came looking for salvation.
“The Global Community Broadcasting Network is beaming this all over the world and onto the Internet,” Tsion said. “I’m sure they believe that any thinking person will see through our message and that the GC has nothing to fear by letting us proclaim it. They will say ours is not the message of ecumenism and tolerance that they promote, and I say they are right. There is right and wrong, there are absolute truths, and some things cannot and should not and shall not ever be tolerated.
“The GC Network will not turn us off, lest they appear afraid of our message, of the truth of God, of a converted rabbi who believes Jesus Christ is the long-sought Messiah. I applaud the courage of the Global Community administration and unapologetically take advantage of their largesse. At no cost to us, our message is broadcast to every nation of the world. We have not needed translators here, and reports tell us the same miracle of understanding has happened on television as well. If you understand neither Hebrew nor English but still understand every word I’m saying, I’m happy to tell you that God is working in your mind. Most of this message is in English, though I read Scripture in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. I have been amused to discover that even my coworkers are unaware of this. They hear all of it in their own tongues.
“God is also working in your heart. You do not have to be with us physically to receive Christ tonight. You need not be with anyone else, pray with anyone else, or go anywhere else. All you need is to tell God that you acknowledge that you are a sinner and are separated from him. Tell him you know that nothing you can do for yourself will earn your way to him. Tell him you believe that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for your sins, that he was raised from the dead, has raptured his church, and is coming yet again to the earth. Receive him as your Savior right where you are. I believe millions all over the world are joining the great soul harvest that shall produce tribulation saints and martyrs, a multitude that cannot be numbered.”
Tsion looked spent and stepped back to pray. When the people who had come forward finally began to disperse and head back to their seats, Tsion moved back to the lectern. He arranged his notes yet again, but his shoulders sagged and he seemed to breathe heavily. Buck was worried about him.
Tsion cleared his throat and drew in a huge breath, yet his voice was suddenly weak. “My text tonight,” he managed, “is
Revelation 8:13.” All over the stadium, tens of thousands of Bibles opened, and the unique sound of onionskin pages turning filled the air. Tsion hurried back to Buck while people looked for the passage.
“Are you all right, Tsion?”
“I think so. Are you willing to read the passage for me if I need you to?”
“Certainly. Right now?”
“I prefer to try, but I’ll call on you if I need you.”
Tsion made his way back to the podium, looked at the passage, then lifted his eyes to the crowd. He cleared his throat. “Bear with me,” he said. “This passage warns that once the earth has been darkened by a third, three terrible woes will follow. These are particularly ominous, so much so that they will be announced from heaven in advance.”
Tsion cleared his throat yet again and Buck stood ready if needed. He wished Tsion would simply ask his assistance. But suddenly he smelled the dusty, smoky robes of the two witnesses and was startled when Eli and Moishe stepped up beside him. He turned as if in a dream and found himself staring into Eli’s endless eyes. Buck had never been so close to the prophets and had to resist the urge to touch them. Eli’s eyes bore into his. “Show thyself not to thine enemy,” he said. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
Buck could not speak. He tried to nod, to indicate he had heard and understood, but he could not move. Moishe leaned between him and Eli and added, “Whom resist stedfast in the faith.”
They moved past him and stood directly behind Tsion. The crowd seemed so stunned that they didn’t cheer or applaud but pointed and stood and leaned forward to listen. Moishe said, “My beloved brethren, the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.”
To Buck it appeared as if Tsion might fall over, but he merely made way for the two. Neither stepped close to the microphone, however. Moishe loudly quoted Tsion’s passage so that every ear could hear, in the stadium and on global television.
“‘And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!’”
All around Buck came the sound of the engaging of high-powered GC rifles. Guards dropped to one knee to raise their weapons and take a bead on the two witnesses. He wanted to shout, “It’s not the due time, you fools!” but he worried for Tsion’s safety, for Chloe’s and their friends’, for his own.
But no one fired. And just when it appeared one or two might squeeze their trigger, Eli and Moishe strode off the stage, past Buck, and past the very guards who had them in their sights. The guards scrambled away from them, some falling, their weapons clattering on the concrete floor.
Buck heard Tsion say from the podium, “If we never meet again this side of heaven or in the millennial kingdom our Savior sets up on earth, I shall greet you on the Internet and teach from Revelation 9! Godspeed as you share the gospel of Christ with the whole world!”
The meeting ended early, and Tsion, as frightened as Buck had ever seen him, hurried directly to him. “Get our passengers into the van as quickly as possible!”
CHAPTER 11
Rayford and Ken sat silently during the bizarre telecast from Israel, where it was not yet nine o’clock, as they streaked toward the Middle East Friday night.
“Still on schedule to touch down at midnight,” Rayford said. “Oh, sorry, Ken. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Ken massaged his eye sockets with his thumbs. “Wasn’t really sleeping,” he said. “Just thinking. You know, if everything Ben-Judah says is true, we’re soon gonna spend half our time just trying to stay alive. What’re we gonna do when we can’t buy or sell ’cause we don’t have the mark?”
“Like Tsion said, we have to start stockpiling now.”
“You realize what that means? We’re going to be a whole separate, like invisible, society of believers. There may be a billion of us, but we’re still going to be in the minority, and we’re still going to be seen as criminals and fugitives.”
“Don’t I know it!”
“We won’t be able to trust anybody with the other mark.”
“Don’t forget, there’ll be a lot of people with neither mark.”
Ken shook his head. “Food, power, sanitation, transportation—all controlled by the GC. We’ll be scrambling around, scratching out an existence in a huge, underground black market. How much money have we got?”
“The Trib Force? Not much. Buck and I made good salaries, but that’s gone. Tsion and Chloe have no sources of income either. We can hardly expect Mac and David to have to worry about us, though I’m sure they’ll do what they can. I haven’t talked to Floyd about any reserves he might have had.”
“I have a good bit stashed away.”
“So do Buck and I, but nothing like we’re going to need for aircraft and fuel, let alone survival.”
“This ain’t gonna be pretty, is it, Ray?”
“You can say that again, but please don’t.”
Ken pulled a yellow legal pad from his flight bag. Rayford noticed the pages were dog-eared with handwriting on more than half of them. “I know we never signed anything or made any pledges when we joined,” Ken said, “but I been doin’ a lot of thinkin’. I was never one for socialism or communism or even communal living. But it seems to me we’re going to be pretty much a commune from now on.”
“In the New Testament sense, like Tsion says.”
“Right, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a problem with that.”
Rayford smiled. “I’ve learned to believe the Bible completely,” he said. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
“I don’t know what you’re going to do about future members and all that, but we may have to get formal about giving everything we have to the cause.”
Rayford pursed his lips. So far that had not been an issue. “Sort of like asking everybody to make all their resources available to everybody else?”
“If they’re serious about joining.”
“I’m willing, and I know Buck and Chloe and Tsion would be. It’s just that we bring relatively little materially. Between Buck and me we wouldn’t have more than a million dollars. That used to sound like a lot, but it won’t last long, and it won’t finance any offensive against Carpathia.”
“You’d better get that converted to gold—and fast.”
“Think so?”
“I’m 90 percent precious metal,” Ritz said. “As soon as we went to three currencies, I could see what was coming. Now we’re down to one, and no matter what happens, I’ve got a tradable commodity. I got absolutely obsessed with saving when I turned forty. Don’t even know why. Well, I mean, I do now. Tsion believes God works in our lives even before we acknowledge him. For almost twenty years I’ve been living alone and running charters. I’ve been a miser. Never owned a new car, made clothes last for years. Wore a cheap watch. Still do. I don’t mind telling you, I’ve made millions and saved almost 80 percent of it.”
Rayford whistled through his teeth. “Did I mention the annual dues for being a member of the Tribulation Force?”
“You joke, but what else am I gonna do with millions’ worth of gold? We’ve got, what, less than five years left. Vacations seem frivolous just now, wouldn’t you say? Bottom line, Ray, I want to buy a couple of these Gulfstreams, then I want to put in an offer on Palwaukee.”
“The airport?”
“It’s virtually a ghost strip now anyway. Owner tells me I run more flights out of there than anybody. I know he’d like to sell, and I’d better do it before Carpathia makes it impossible. The place would come with several small planes, a couple of choppers, fuel tanks, tower, sundry equipment.”
“You have been thinking, haven’t you?”
Ken nodded. “About more th
an that, too.” He held up his notepad. “This here’s filled with ideas. Farming co-ops, a sea-harvesting operation, even private banking.”
“Ken! Back up! Sea harvesting?”
“I read about Carpathia doling out royalties to his ten guys—the ten kings, Tsion calls ’em—for the rights to harvest their waterways for food and oil, and I got thinking they were onto something. He could easily shut down somebody’s farm, bomb it, raid it, burn it, confiscate equipment, all that. But how can he patrol all the oceans? We get believers who have fishing experience and equipment—I’m talking about commercial guys here—and we provide ’em a market of millions of saints. We somehow coordinate this, help process the shipping and billing, take a reasonable percentage, and finance the work of the Tribulation Force.”
Rayford checked his settings and then turned to stare at Ken. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“Thought I was a clod-kicker, didn’t you?”
“I knew better because Mac likes to play that role and he’s smart as a whip. But do you have background in this, or—?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told ya.”
“I’d believe anything right now.”
“London School of Economics.”
“Now you’re putting me on.”
“Told ya. You don’t believe me.”
“What’re you, serious?”
“It was thirty-five years ago, but, yeah. Mustered out of the air force, planned to go commercial but wanted to bum around Europe first. Wound up liking England; I really don’t remember the whys of that now, but I knocked over LSE with my high school records.”
“You did well in high school?”
“Salutatorian, baby. Made the speech and everything. Thought I was gonna be an English teacher. I only talk like this ’cause it’s easier, but yours truly is eminently cognizant of the grammatical parameters.”