by Tim LaHaye
She put her hands in her pockets, the handgrip of the Luger nestled in her right palm. The camera stayed on her as she moved closer to the window, and the lens moved only enough to keep her centered, the faint whine telling her it was also adjusting constantly to keep her in focus. At long last, throwing caution to the wind, she bent at the waist and peered inside the window.
A squawk box crackled to life. “Identify yourself and explain your mark.”
There, just above the heads of the people at the front of the crowd, stood the man Rayford knew to be Michael. He was dressed similarly to Chaim, though he was taller. He held both hands aloft, and such a hush fell over the Israelis that everyone could hear him, though he spoke in normal, conversational tones. Rayford stood far beyond the edge of the throng, yet it sounded as if Michael spoke directly into his ear.
If the effect on the crowd was the same as on Rayford, they were filled with a sacred peace.
Michael began, “Fear not, children of Abraham. I am your shield. Fear not, for God has heard your voice. He says to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham your father: fear not, for I am with you, and will bless you.’
“Behold, the Lord your God has set the land before you: go up and possess it, as the Lord God of your fathers has said unto you; fear not, neither be discouraged. Hear, O Israel, you approach this day unto battle against your enemies: let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble, neither be terrified because of them; be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord your God, he it is that goes with you; he will not fail you, nor forsake you.
“Peace be unto you; fear not: you shall not die. Turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. God your Father says, ‘You shall eat bread at my table continually. Be courageous, and be valiant.’ Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
“You shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem, for the Lord will be with you. God shall hear you, and afflict them because therefore they fear not his name. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you.’”
Michael stepped down and began walking through the masses, who backed away and followed with their eyes. As he strode past, he continued to encourage. “For the Lord your God will hold your right hand, saying unto you, ‘Fear not; I will help you, people of Israel.’ So says the Lord, and your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
“Thus says the Lord that created you, O Israel, ‘Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.’ It shall be well with you. Be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things. The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: you are of more value than many sparrows.
“The Lord God says, ‘Fear not, for I am the first and the last.’ Stand firm then, remnant of Israel. Fear not! Fear not! Fear not! Fear not!”
The crowd began to take up the chant, louder and louder, as Michael found his way to the edge of the people, facing what was now the middle column of desert dust, fast approaching. He stood grasping his robe at the chest, chin raised toward the advancing armies of the evil one, and behind him the teeming thousands matched his pose.
Rayford and Buck and Abdullah and Chaim hurried down and fell into the crowd behind Michael. Rayford couldn’t know how the others felt. As for him, fear was gone and he had never rested more surely in God.
Chloe found her throat constricted, but they could see her mark! She was able to croak, “If you can see it, it does not need to be explained.”
“Identify yourself.”
“What more do you need to know than that I am a sister in Christ?”
“How are you able to survive the radiation? Are you supernaturally protected?”
“I will answer only when I know whether you are all brothers and sisters.”
“Persuade us you are not radioactive and we will welcome you inside.”
“I must know if any enemy is among you.”
“We are all believers. No Carpathianists, no GC.”
“The radiation is a ruse perpetrated by the Judah-ites.” Chloe had crossed a line she could not retreat from. Any more information that might be secreted to the enemy, and she would be giving away the safe house and her comrades.
“To what purpose?”
“You should be able to surmise.”
“Are you alone, sister?”
“You mean—”
“Is anyone with you now?”
“No.”
There was a long silence. The camera remained on her, the light on in the empty room. It had a ratty, gray, short-nap industrial carpet, a green countertop built into a wall, and three Plexiglas-windowed transaction stations, all long since retired from use.
A door in the far corner opened slowly, and a black man in bare feet, beltless suit pants, and a white, sleeveless T-shirt emerged. Maybe in his late twenties and muscular, he moved cautiously across the carpet, standing directly under the light, looking out, not smiling but not scowling either. Chloe detected hope, curiosity, perhaps bemusement in his eyes. He invited her closer to the window with a wave, and she lowered her face to within inches of it. He broke into a huge grin. “Greetings, sister!” he called out, and she saw the mark of God on his forehead.
He hurried back to the door and called to others. A black girl came out, about Chloe’s age, wearing shorts and socks and an oversized man’s white shirt. Chloe felt on display, as if at the zoo. And here came two middle-aged Latino women—one big boned but gaunt, the other thin and short.
“You’re okay?” the young black woman called out. “How long you been outside?”
“Almost an hour. But I’ve been out before. Lots of times.”
“And you’re okay?”
Chloe smiled. “I’m okay! Not contagious!”
“Let her in!”
“Yeah, let her in!”
“Get Enoch! He’ll decide.”
First in line, Rayford noticed, in each of the three massive divisions of GC battalions, were full-track tanks, chewing up rocks and dirt and sand, bouncing and rolling over the uneven ground. Behind them, beyond the clouds of dust, from what he had seen from the air, were missile launchers. Then came artillery, then armored personnel carriers, trucks, jeep-type vehicles with gun-toting soldiers, then smaller cars.
Rayford judged their speed at about thirty-five miles an hour, and he assumed they would soon synchronize a stopping point where every weapon in their arsenals would have maximum kill power. But there seemed no slowing as they drew within half a mile, then a quarter mile. They bore down on the unarmed civilians.
Rayford suddenly had a sinking feeling. He had only assumed the rest of the Operation Eagle forces would merely stand in confidence behind Michael. But what if they acted on old information? What if Albie or Mac or someone else had provided them weapons and they returned fire, or worse, initiated it?
He wanted to grab his phone and his walkie-talkie and confirm with his people that they were to stand down, to remain unarmed. But the GC were nearly upon them now. The noise reverberated off the rock walls and the dust blew all around them. Still, neither side opened fire. Rayford finally ducked and turned, covering his eyes against the dust and peeking back to be sure none of his people took overt action. As far as he could see, the Israelis and the Operation Eagle forces remained calm, standing firm, trusting in God’s protection.
Rayford had to fight a smile. In his humanness he allowed that he could be in heaven within seconds, and his survival instinct wanted him to defend himself. But the promises of God also rang in his ears. He shook his head at the lunacy of Carpathia’s ego. Clearly this three-pronged army had been instructed not to fire unless fired upon, and they intended to run over the Israelis and grind them into the ground!
They were within a hundred feet
now, yet Rayford heard not a sound from behind, not a cry from anyone’s lips. This flood from the serpent’s mouth was going to hit an invisible wall or be swept away by some wall of water from nowhere, or the Israelis and their helpers would prove so ethereal that the weapons of destruction would pass harmlessly through them.
Ten feet and ground zero, and suddenly the entire mass of God’s people fell to their knees and covered their ears at the thunderous peals that resounded like mountains falling. All around the sea of people, right at the feet of those in the front on every side, the earth split and ripped open for a mile in every direction away from Petra.
The echoes from the shattering of the earth were as loud as the actual cleaving, and as the tanks and missiles and cannons and personnel armaments were fired in panic or from being shaken to their core, the projectiles rose vertically and eventually dropped back down onto the plunging armies. Smoke and fire rose in great belches from the colossal gorge that appeared to reach the bowels of hell. The roar of racing engines, whose drivetrains propelled steel tracks or wheels that merely spun in thin air, could not cover the screams of troops who had been just seconds from squashing their prey and now found themselves hurtling to their deaths.
Rayford and all those around him pulled their hands from their ears and thrust them out wide to keep their balance as, still on their knees, they were rocked by aftershocks. It was as if they surfed on unsolid ground as the earth slowly healed itself. The walls of the chasm came back together as the Red Sea must have millennia before, and the loose, rocky topsoil was suddenly new. The dust settled, and quietness wafted over the assembled.
Michael was gone. Chaim slowly rose and addressed the people. “As long as you are on your knees, what better time to thank the God of creation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Thank him who sits high above the heavens, above whom there is no other. Thank the One in whom there is no change, neither shadow of turning. Praise the holy One of Israel. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”
Enoch turned out to be an incongruously named Spaniard who carried, of all things, a cheap, hardbound Bible, the kind you would find in a hotel or a pew. He too was strangely dressed, wearing expensive shoes with missing laces and no socks, khaki pants, and a tank top–type shirt. These people, Chloe decided, looked like they had raided a Salvation Army barrel.
Enoch conferred with the others, then motioned Chloe around the corner to the main entrance, where she waited while he released lock after lock. Finally the inner door was open, and Enoch crossed the shallow lobby to push open the outer door. “We have limited food supplies,” he said, as he held the door for her.
“I’m not looking for food,” she said. “I was just curious about the light.”
“We thought we were the only ones left in the city,” he said. “We run the camera just in case but are just days from shutting it down to conserve energy.”
“I have so many questions,” Chloe said.
“So do we.”
“I’m afraid I can’t say much,” she said. “I’ll understand if you choose not to, either.”
“We have nothing to hide,” Enoch said.
“What is this place?”
“It was once a currency exchange. But it adjoins the basement of an old office building that was abandoned. Since they were connected, we thought it would be safer for us to stay largely underground, especially since there was a safe standing open. We never found the combination, so we do not close it all the way, but some prefer to sleep in it.”
Enoch led Chloe through the old exchange lobby, where the curious who had eyed her through the window now shyly greeted her and stared. Just past the door and down the hall stood the huge, walk-in vault, and she had to assume this was a bank in one of its first manifestations. No currency exchange, even in Chicago, would need a vault that large.
“How many of you are there?” Chloe asked.
“As of last night, thirty-one.”
“You’re not serious.”
Enoch cocked his head and smiled. “Why would I not be?”
“What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
“Well,” he said, pushing open a door that led to a large-pillared basement room, “I’m sure that’s what my friends and I want to know from you.” She stepped in to meet everyone’s curious and wary eyes.
Rayford was on his walkie-talkie to Operation Eagle personnel. “Let’s step it up, people. I want constant rounds of chopper hops to get these people inside Petra. Building materials and miscellaneous stuff flown or carried in. We believe Carpathia made a major blunder and used our Mizpe Ramon airstrip rather than destroying it, so we can use it to take off and get back to our homelands before he finds out what happened here. No one is left to tell him, so for now he has to assume he has simply lost radio contact.
“When Micah is inside, our mission is accomplished. Good-bye and Godspeed.”
Rayford clicked off the walkie-talkie and conference-phoned Trib Force members, old and new, among the crowd. “Let’s be ready to get home and get Tsion. He’s got a speaking engagement scheduled here.”
CHAPTER 16
Chloe sat in a cheap metal folding chair surrounded by a wide-eyed mix of cross-cultural people in their twenties and thirties. She had many questions, but they insisted on asking theirs first. Clearly they were true believers, but still she prayed silently, pleading with God for peace about telling them of the Tribulation Force.
“None of you have been outside since the bombing of the city?” she said.
They shook their heads. Enoch carried the conversation. “If we come to believe it is safe, all of us will take a walk before dawn. Now tell us more.”
Chloe took a deep breath. “You vouch for everyone in here, Enoch?”
“Check our marks,” he said.
Chloe knew that was unnecessary. And she saved her two biggest revelations till last. “The spiritual mentor I have told you about is Jewish. He was a rabbi. He is Dr. Tsion Ben-Judah.”
The group sat, obviously stunned, many smiling, others shaking their heads. Finally a Latino said, “Ben-Judah lives in Chicago?”
She nodded. “And I am Chloe Steele Williams.”
Enoch leaned toward her, trembling. “And we are hungry,” he said, making the others laugh.
“You look it,” she said. “What have you been living on?”
“Canned goods and dry goods. We’ve been slowly rationing them, but they’re fast running out. If Dr. Ben-Judah is right and we have three and a half years to go, we’re not going to make it. Do you think the co-op might—”
“Send a couple back with me and I’ll load them up with enough to feed you for a month. Then we’ll figure a way you can contribute to the co-op and start trading for food and supplies.”
Several stood to volunteer. “We also want to travel,” Enoch said, “to help other people, to tell them the truth. We’re desperate for a chance to do that.”
“We ought to be able to manage it, in time,” she said. “Now tell me your story.”
Laslos Miklos had been used to an affluent lifestyle, owning a lucrative lignite-mining business in Ptolemaïs, Greece, before the disappearances. But when he and his wife became believers in Christ, his hundreds of trucks and dozens of buildings became fronts for the efforts of the Greek underground church, which became the largest in the United Carpathian States.
The Greek Jesus-followers lived on the edge of danger, but for a time it seemed Nicolae Carpathia was more interested in projecting an image of tranquillity in the region named for him than in rooting out dissidents. Laslos did not think he and his fellow believers became overconfident, but somehow one of their secret meeting places had been discovered, someone caved, and the largest assembly had been raided. Many were martyred, the rest scattered.
Laslos lost his wife to the guillotine—also his pastor and his pastor’s wife, plus dozens more adults and many teenagers. He had not been at the meeting the night of the raid and now lived with guilt. Was there s
omething he could have done? Though he still felt the hand of God on his life, the Lord was strangely silent about his blame. Laslos was the most prominent among those who had escaped and immediately went into hiding, north of the city.
He feared that a hideout connected in any way to his business would easily be discovered. But he knew of a long-abandoned dump surrounded by mountains of debris, including soil and gravel and chunks of concrete. With the help of trusted friends, he dug himself a dirt-walled chamber where he slept during the day, far below ground and with just enough room for plumbing, a cot, and a small television. In the dead of night, when the walls seemed to close in on him, he would steal away to connect with other believing desperadoes, who then hooked up with clandestine members of the International Commodity Co-op, where they were supplied with food and other necessities.
From those brief, terror-filled meetings grew tiny replicas of the former underground church that had been so vibrant. Laslos and his friends shared with each other what they knew of the rest of the surviving church and passed precious messages back and forth. The few who had wireless computers and enough power downloaded and printed Tsion Ben-Judah’s daily messages and Buck Williams’s The Truth cyberzine. To Laslos these were more priceless than food and water.
The squat, heavyset, fifty-six-year-old widower retained huge, rocklike muscles from his early days of manual labor in the mines. Now he stayed out in the night for as long as he dared, keeping to side and back streets. Sleeping during the day helped keep his claustrophobia in check. More than once he found himself praying that he would wake up in heaven, reunited with his wife and other loved ones.
Late one morning he was awakened by footsteps in the gravel above his hideaway. As quietly as a man of his girth and age could manage, Laslos moved to the edge of his bed and slipped onto all fours on the wood floor. He painfully crept a few feet to where he could reach his handgun, a classic revolver he had never fired, not even on a practice range. It was, however, loaded and—he believed—in working order. A man of peace all his life, he no longer wondered whether he would shoot to kill a Global Community Peacekeeper or Morale Monitor who threatened him or any believer.