by Tim LaHaye
Rayford recognized the earrings, the necklace, the jacket. He wanted to die. He could not take his eyes from hers. The irises had lost all color, and her image was one he would fight to forget. Mac hurried to him and gripped a bicep in each hand. Rayford felt his gentle tug. Dazed, he turned to Mac.
Mac tapped urgently on Rayford’s tank. Rayford was drifting, having lost sense of what he was doing. He didn’t want to move. He suddenly became aware his heart was thudding and he would soon be out of oxygen. He didn’t want Mac to know. He was tempted to suck in enough water to flood his lungs and reunite him with his beloved.
It was too much to hope for. He should have known Mac would not have used up his own air supply as quickly. Mac pried apart Amanda’s fingers and pulled the case strap over his head so the laptop hung behind his tanks.
Rayford felt Mac behind him, his forearms under his armpits. Rayford wanted to fight him off, but Mac had apparently thought ahead. At Rayford’s first hint of resistance, Mac yanked both hands out and pinned Rayford’s arms back. Mac kicked mightily and steered them out of the carcass of the 747 and into the rushing current. He made a controlled ascent.
Rayford had lost the will to live. When they broke the surface, he spit out his regulator and with it the sobs gushed out. He cried a fierce, primal wail that pierced the night and reflected the agonizing loneliness of his soul. Mac talked to him, but Rayford was not listening. Mac manhandled him, kicking, staying afloat, dragging him toward the bank. While Rayford’s system greedily took in the life-giving air, the rest of him was numb. He wondered if he could swim if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to. He felt sorry for Mac, working so hard to push a bigger man up the muddy slope onto the sand.
Rayford continued to bawl, the sound of his despair frightening even himself. But he could not stop. Mac yanked off his own mask and popped out his mouthpiece, then reached for Rayford’s. He unstrapped Rayford’s tanks and set them aside. Rayford rolled over and lay motionless on his back.
Mac peeled back Rayford’s torn headliner to reveal blood inside his suit. With his head and face bare, Rayford’s cries turned to moans. Mac sat on his haunches and breathed deeply. Rayford watched like a cat, waiting for him to relax, to step back, to believe this was over.
But it was not over. Rayford had truly believed, truly felt Amanda had survived and that he would be reunited with her. He had been through so much in the last two years, but there had always been grace in just enough measure to keep him sane. Not now. He didn’t even want it. Ask God to carry him through? He could not face five more years without Amanda.
Mac stood and began unzipping his own wet suit. Rayford slowly lifted his knees and dug his heels deep into the sand. He pushed so hard he felt the strain deep in both hamstrings as the thrust carried him over the edge. As if in slow motion, Rayford felt cool air on his face as he dropped headfirst into the water. He heard Mac swear and shout, “Oh, no you don’t!”
Mac would have to slip off his own tanks before jumping in. Rayford only hoped he could elude him in the dark or be lucky enough to have Mac land on him and knock him unconscious. His body plummeted through the water, then turned and began to rise. He moved not a finger, hoping the Tigris would envelop him forever. But somehow he could not will himself to gulp in the water that would kill him.
He felt the shock and heard Mac splash past him. Mac’s hands brushed him as he slid past feet first. Rayford couldn’t muster the energy to resist. From deep in his heart came sympathy for Mac, who didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t fair to make him work so hard. Rayford carried his own weight enough on the way back to the bank to show Mac he was finally cooperating. As he hauled himself up onto the sand again, he fell to his knees and pressed his cheek to the ground.
“I have no answers for you right now, Ray. Just hear me. To die in this river tonight, you’re going to have to take me with you. You got that?”
Rayford nodded miserably.
Without another word, Mac pulled Rayford to his feet. He examined Rayford’s wound with his fingers in the darkness. He removed Rayford’s fins, stacked them with the mask on top of his tanks, and handed the set to Rayford. Mac picked up his own gear and led the way back to the chopper. There he stored the gear, helped Rayford out of his wet suit like a little boy getting ready for bed, and tossed him a huge towel. They changed into dry clothes.
Without warning, Rayford’s punctured scalp felt as if it were being pelted by rocks. He covered his head and bent at the waist but now felt the same sharp stings on his arms, his neck, his back. Had he pushed too far? Had he been foolish to continue a dive with an open wound? He peeked as Mac lurched toward the chopper.
“Get in, Ray! It’s hailing!”
Buck had always enjoyed storms. At least before he lived through the wrath of the Lamb. As a boy he had sat before the picture window in his Tucson home and watched the rare thunderstorm. Something about the weather since the Rapture, however, spooked him.
Dr. Charles left instructions on how to care for Hattie, then departed for Kenosha. As the afternoon steadily grew darker, Chloe found extra blankets for the dozing Hattie while Tsion and Buck closed windows.
“I am taking only half a risk,” Tsion said. “I am going to run my computer on batteries until the storm passes, but I will remain connected somehow.”
Buck laughed. “For once I am able to correct the brilliant scholar,” he said. “You forget we are running the electricity on a gas-powered generator, unlikely to be affected by the storm. Your phone line is connected to the dish on the roof, the highest point here. If you are worried about lightning, you’d be better to disconnect the phone and connect the power.”
“I will never be mistaken for an electrician,” Tsion said, shaking his head. “The truth is, I need not be connected to the Internet for a few hours either.” He went upstairs.
Buck and Chloe sat next to each other at the foot of Hattie’s bed. “She sleeps too much,” Chloe said. “And she’s so pale.”
Buck was lost in his thoughts of the dark secrets that burdened Hattie. What would Rayford think of the possibility that Bruce had been poisoned? Rayford always said it was strange how peaceful Bruce looked compared to the other victims of the bombing. Doctors had come to no conclusions about the illness he had brought back from the Third World. Who would have dreamed Carpathia might be behind that?
Buck also still struggled with his killing of the Global Community guard. The video had been shown over and over on television news channels. He couldn’t bear to see it again, though Chloe insisted it was clear from the tape he had had no choice. “More people would have died, Buck,” she said. “And one of them would have been you.”
It was true. He could come to no other conclusion. Why couldn’t he feel a sense of satisfaction or even accomplishment from it? He was not a battle-minded man. And yet here he was on the front lines.
Buck took Chloe’s hand and pulled her close. She laid her cheek on his chest, and he brushed the hair from her wounded face. Her eye, still swollen shut and morbidly discolored, seemed to be improving. He touched her forehead with his lips and whispered, “I love you with my whole heart.”
Buck glanced at Hattie. She had not moved for an hour.
And the hail came.
Buck and Chloe stood and watched out the window as the tiny balls of ice bounced in the yard. Tsion hurried downstairs. “Oh, my! Look at this!”
The sky grew black, and the hailstones got bigger. Only slightly smaller than golf balls now, they rattled against the roof, clanged off the downspouts, thundered on the Range Rover, and the power failed. A chirp of protest burst from Tsion, but Buck assured him, “The hail has just knocked the cord out, that’s all. Easily fixed.”
But as they watched, the sky lit up. But it wasn’t lightning. The hailstones, at least half of them, were in flames!
“Oh, dear ones!” Tsion said. “You know what this is, do you not? Let us pull Hattie’s bed away from the window just in case! The angel of the first Trumpet J
udgment is throwing hail and fire to the earth.”
Rayford and Mac had left their scuba equipment on the ground near the chopper. Now protected by the Plexiglas bubble of the tiny cockpit, Rayford felt as if he were inside a popcorn popper. As the hailstones grew, they pinged off the oxygen tanks and drilled the helicopter. Mac started the engine and set the blades turning, but he was going nowhere. He would not leave the scuba equipment, and helicopters and hailstorms did not mix.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, Ray,” he shouted over the din, “but you need to leave that wreckage and your wife’s body right where they lie. I don’t like it or understand it any more than you do, but I believe God is going to get you through this. Don’t shake your head. I know she was everything to you. But God left you here for a purpose. I need you. Your daughter and son-in-law need you. The rabbi you’ve told me so much about, he needs you too. All I’m saying is, don’t make any decisions when your emotions are raw. We’ll get through this together.”
Rayford was disgusted with himself, but everything Mac—the brand-new believer—said sounded like so many hollow platitudes. True or not, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Tell me the truth, Mac. Did you check her forehead for the sign?”
Mac pursed his lips and did not respond.
“You did, didn’t you?” Rayford pressed.
“Yes, I did.”
“And it wasn’t there, was it?”
“No, it was not.”
“What am I supposed to think of that?”
“How should I know, Ray? I wasn’t a believer before the earthquake. I don’t know that you had a mark on your forehead before that either.”
“I probably did!”
“Maybe you did, but didn’t Dr. Ben-Judah write later about how believers were starting to notice the sign on each other? That came after the earthquake. If they had died in the quake, they wouldn’t have had the mark either. And even if they had it before, how do we know it’s still there when we die?”
“If Amanda wasn’t a believer, she probably was working for Carpathia,” Rayford spat. “Mac, I don’t think I could handle that.”
“Think of David,” Mac said. “He’ll be looking to us for leadership and guidance, and I’m newer at this than he is.”
When plummeting tongues of fire joined the hailstones, Rayford just stared. Mac said, “Wow!” over and over. “This is like the ultimate fireworks!”
Huge hailstones plopped into the river and floated downstream. They accumulated on the bank and turned the sand white like snow. Snow in the desert. Flaming darts sizzled and hissed as they hit the water. They made the same sound when they settled atop the hailstones on shore, and they did not burn out right away.
The chopper lights illuminated an area of twenty feet in front of the craft. Mac suddenly unclipped his belt and leaned forward. “What is that, Ray? It’s raining, but it’s red! Look at that! All over the snow!”
“It’s blood,” Rayford said, a peace flooding his soul. It did not assuage his grief or take away his dread over the truth about Amanda. But this show, this shower of fire and ice and blood, reminded him yet again that God is faithful. He keeps his promises. While our ways are not his ways and we can never understand him this side of heaven, Rayford was assured again that he was on the side of the army that had already won this war.
Tsion hurried to the back of the house and watched the flames melt the hail and set the grass afire. It burned a few moments, and then more hail put the fire out. The entire yard was black. Balls of fire dropped into the trees that bordered the backyard. They burst into flames as one, their branches sending a giant orange mushroom into the air. The trees cooled as quickly as they had ignited.
“Here comes the blood,” Tsion said, and suddenly Hattie sat straight up. She stared out the window as blood poured from the skies. She struggled to kneel on the bed so she could see farther. The parched yard was wet with melted hail and now red with blood.
Lightning cracked and thunder rolled. Softball-size hailstones drummed the roof, rolling and filling the yard. Tsion shouted, “Praise the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth! What you see before you is a picture of Isaiah 1:18: ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’”
“Did you see it, Hattie?” Chloe asked.
Hattie turned and Buck saw her tears. She nodded but looked woozy. Buck helped her lie back down, and she was soon asleep.
As the clouds faded and the sun returned, the results of the light show became obvious. The bark on the trees had been blackened, the foliage all burned off. As the hail melted and blood seeped into the ground, the charred grass showed through.
“The Scriptures told us that one-third of the trees and all of the green grass in the world would be burned,” Tsion said. “I cannot wait until we have power so we can see what Carpathia’s newsmen make of this.”
Yet another clear movement of God’s hand had moved Buck. He longed for Hattie to stay healthy so she could pursue the truth. Whether Bruce Barnes had been poisoned by Nicolae Carpathia or had lost his life in the first volley of bombs in World War III made little difference in the larger scheme of things. But if Hattie Durham had information about Amanda that could confirm or deny what Tsion had stumbled onto in Bruce’s computer files, Buck wanted to hear it.
Mac left the chopper running, but Rayford was cold. With nothing green to scorch in that part of the world, the fire and blood had been overcome by the hail. The result was the chilliest night in the history of the Iraqi desert.
“Stay put,” Mac said. “I’ll get the stuff.”
Rayford reached for the door handle. “That’s all right, I’ll do my share.”
“No! Now I mean it. Just let me do this.”
Rayford wouldn’t admit it, but he was grateful. He stayed inside as Mac sloshed in the melting hail. He stored the scuba equipment behind the seats. When he reboarded he had Amanda’s waterlogged laptop computer.
“What’s the point, Mac? Those things aren’t waterproof.”
“True,” Mac said. “Your screen is shot, your solar panels are ruined, your keyboard won’t function, the motherboard is gone. You name it, that much water had to kill it. Except for the hard drive. It is encased and waterproof. Experts can run a diagnostic and copy any files you want.”
“I don’t expect any surprises.”
“I’m sorry to be blunt, Rayford,” Mac said, “but you didn’t expect to see her in the Tigris. If I were you, I’d look for evidence to prove Amanda was everything you thought she was.”
Rayford wasn’t sure. “I’d have to use someone I know, like David Hassid or someone else I can trust.”
“That narrows it to David and me, yes.”
“If it’s bad news, I couldn’t let a stranger discover it before I do. Why don’t you handle it, Mac? In the meantime, I don’t even want to think about it. If I do, I’m going to break your confidence and go straight to Carpathia and demand he clear Amanda’s name with anybody he ever talked to about her.”
“You can’t do that, Ray.”
“I might not be able to help myself if I have exclusive access to that computer. Just do it for me and give me the results.”
“I’m not an expert, Ray. How about if I supervise David, or let him run me through it? We won’t look at one file. We’ll just find whatever is available.”
Nicolae Carpathia announced a postponement of travel due to “the strange natural phenomenon” and its effect on airport reconstruction. Over the next few weeks, as the expanded Chicago contingent of the Tribulation Force grew closer to their departure date for Israel, Buck was dumbfounded at the improvement in Chloe. Floyd Charles took her casts off, and within a few days, atrophied muscles began to come back. It appeared she might always have a limp, residual pain, and a slightly cockeyed face and frame. But to Buck, she had never looked better. All she talked about was going to Israel to see the incredible mass rally of the witn
esses.
The first twenty-five thousand to arrive would meet with Tsion in Teddy Kollek Stadium. The rest would gather at sites all over the Holy Land, watching on closed-circuit television. Tsion told Buck he planned to invite Moishe and Eli to join him in the stadium.
Following God’s shower of hail, fire, and blood, remaining skeptics were few. There was no longer any ambiguity about the war. The world was taking sides.
Rayford’s head healed quickly, but he still had an aching heart. He spent his days mourning, praying, studying, following Tsion’s teaching carefully on the Internet, and e-mailing Buck and Chloe every day.
He also kept his mind occupied with route plans, mentoring David Hassid, and discipling Mac. For the first few days, of course, their roles had been reversed as Mac helped Rayford through the worst period of grief. Rayford had to admit God gave him just enough strength for each day. No extra, none to invest for the future, but sufficient for each day.
Nearly a month from the night Rayford had discovered Amanda’s body, David Hassid presented him with a high-tech disk with all of Amanda’s computer files listed. “They’re all encrypted and therefore inaccessible without decoding,” David told him.
Rayford was so quiet around Carpathia and Fortunato, even when pressed into flying them here and there, that he believed they had become bored with him. Perfect. Until God released him from this assignment, he would simply endure it.