by Tim LaHaye
“It didn’t look like 200 million, but—”
“Ah, you’ve been reading Tsion’s lesson—”
“Of course. Who hasn’t?”
Mac cocked his head. “You were daydreaming, maybe dozing. Don’t look at me like that. I’m saying just for a split second, thinking about Dr. Ben-Judah’s message—”
“You are going to offend me if you continue this, Captain.”
Mac clapped Abdullah on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, brother. You have to admit it’s possible.”
Abdullah shrank from Mac’s hand. “You have to admit it’s possible I saw horses and riders.”
Mac smiled. “What were they doing? Staging? Marshaling for the big parade?”
“Captain! You’re insulting me!”
“C’mon, Abdullah! Tsion says the horses and riders come from the pit, same as the locusts. What would they be doing up here?”
Abdullah looked disgusted and turned away.
“Do you think I’d insult you on purpose?” Mac said.
No response.
“Well, do you?”
Abdullah was silent.
“Now you’re going to pout.”
“I’m not familiar with pout.”
“Well,” Mac said, “for not being familiar with it, you’re pretty good at it.”
“If pout means being angry at someone you thought was your friend and brother, then I’m pout.”
Mac laughed aloud. “You’re pout? May I call you pout? This is my friend and brother, pout!”
And before Mac could blink, horses and riders blotted out the sky. Abdullah jerked the controls and the plane tilted nearly straight up, pinning Mac to his seat. He heard crashing and banging in the galley and lounge. Then Leon crying out.
Just as Mac realized he was going to regret being unbuckled, Abdullah overadjusted, and the plane dipped. Mac slammed into the ceiling, full force, turning his face just in time to take the damage on the left side of his head. Control knobs broke off, tearing his flesh and piercing his ear. Blood splattered onto the windshield and control panel.
Abdullah finally brought the craft under control and sat staring straight ahead. “I did not do that to get back at you for sporting with me,” he said, his voice shaky. “If you did not see what I almost hit, I am terribly sorry and hope you are not seriously injured.”
“I saw them plain as day,” Mac said, his heart thundering. “I’ll never doubt you again. I’ve got to stop the bleeding. If you see them again, don’t try to avoid them. Keep her steady. They’re floating around in space. You’re not going to hit them.”
“My apologies. It was instinct.”
“I understand.”
“Are you all right, Captain?”
“Not totally, but it’s superficial, I’m sure.”
“Good,” Abdullah said. He mimicked a flight attendant: “You should always keep your belt fastened when you are in your seat, even when the seat belt light has been turned off.”
Mac rolled his eyes.
“Now is it time for you to be pout?” Abdullah said.
Mac stood and reached for the door, just as someone banged on it from the other side.
CHAPTER 9
Buck apologized profusely to Tsion, explaining, “Rayford and Leah went to her place to get something and just now called to tell us to look out the window.”
Tsion, his hair wild, pulled on a robe and followed Buck downstairs. Chloe, holding Kenny, stood before the windows facing west. “Maybe we need the lights off,” she said. “I see nothing.”
“What are we looking for?” Tsion said.
“The 200 million horsemen,” she said.
Tsion rushed to the front of the house and pulled back the curtain. “I would not be disappointed if God moved up the Glorious Appearing a few years,” he said. “Must be cloudy. No stars. Where is the moon?”
“Back here,” Buck said.
“I cannot imagine Rayford was serious,” Tsion said, rejoining Buck and Chloe.
“He was excited,” Chloe said. “Scared even.”
Buck moseyed out the back door and looked east, where the horizon glowed red. “Wonder if this is it,” he called out.
“Something is burning somewhere,” Tsion said wearily. “But isn’t Mrs. Rose’s home in the other direction?”
“I ought to drive that way and see what I can see,” Buck said.
It was clear Chloe didn’t like that idea. “Let’s wait and see. It’s not worth the risk if it’s just a fire.”
The phone rang. Chloe handed the fussing Kenny to Buck and hurried to get it. “No, Dad,” she said. “Maybe fires in the east. . . . Are you sure it’s begun? . . . Here, talk to Tsion.”
As soon as Mac unlatched the cockpit door, Leon barged in, disheveled, swearing.
“A little turbulence,” Mac said.
“Turbulence?! What’s with the smoke, the smell? I’ve got a man down, and Karl says one of his people is unconscious! We’ve got to land, man! We’re going to suffocate! And you’re bleeding!”
Mac followed him into the lounge, where one of Leon’s aides frantically pumped the chest of the other. Karl screamed from the galley, “We’re all going to die!”
Leon covered his own mouth with a handkerchief, gagging and coughing. “Sulfur! Where’s that coming from! That’s poison, isn’t it? Won’t it kill us?”
Mac smelled nothing. He would check the control panel, but the Condor had supersensitive smoke and fume alarms, none of which had engaged. Mac knew he’d look suspicious if he were not also suffering. He covered his mouth. “I’ll turn up the ventilation system,” he said, as Karl dragged his fallen worker from the galley. “Get those two into the sleeping quarters. There are enough oxygen canisters for everyone.”
“Isn’t there somewhere we can land?” Leon said.
“I’ll find out,” Mac said.
“Hurry!”
He rushed back into the cockpit and locked the door. “What’s going on?” Abdullah said. “You’re losing a lot of blood.”
“I’m all right,” Mac said. “Those horses have power up here, even inside a pressurized cabin. Everybody smells sulfur, they’re gagging, using oxygen, passing out. Leon wants us to land.”
“We should go straight on to Johannesburg,” Abdullah said, working with Mac to check every gauge. “What is affecting them is not coming from this plane. They’d be no better off on the ground.”
“They could get medical treatment.”
Abdullah looked at Mac. “So could you, but if they are being plagued by the 200 million horsemen, no medicine will save them.”
“What’s our ETA?”
“Several hours.”
Mac shook his head, his wounds making him wince. “We’re going to have to put down or Leon is going to find out we’re invulnerable.”
Abdullah pointed to the controls, Mac took over, and Abdullah pulled charts from his flight bag.
“They will be here any minute,” Tsion said, hanging up from Rayford. “The plagues of fire and smoke and sulfur have begun. I did not expect this, but the horsemen are visible, at least to some. Rayford and Mrs. Rose saw them. And unbelievers are being slain.”
Buck turned on the television.
“Mayday! Mayday!” Mac heard over the radio.
“This is Condor, go ahead.”
“Mayday! My pilot is dead! I’m choking! Cockpit full of smoke. Agh! The smell! I can’t see! We’re losing it! Going down!”
“What’s your location?”
But all Mac heard was the unnerving wailing. This was like the day of the Rapture, only now it was unbelieving pilots whose planes would be lost, maybe a third of them.
Mayday calls filled the frequency. Mac was helpless. He was also light-headed. He switched to a news radio feed. “No one has an answer yet to the puzzling rash of fires, outbreaks of smoke, and noxious, sulfur-smelling emissions killing thousands all over the globe,” the newsman said. “Emergency medical professionals are at a loss, frantic to
determine the cause. Here’s the head of the Global Community Emergency Management Association, Dr. Jurgen Haase.”
“If this were isolated, we might attribute it to a natural disaster, a rupture of some natural gas source. But it seems random, and clearly the fumes are lethal. We urge citizens to use gas masks and work together to extinguish spontaneous fires.”
The newsman asked, “Which is more dangerous, the black smoke or the yellow?”
Haase said, “First we believed the black smoke emanated from the fires, but it appears to be independent. It can be deadly, but the yellow smells of sulfur and has the power to kill instantly.”
The reporter said he had just been handed a bulletin, and he sounded terrified. “While there are pockets in which no fire or smoke or sulfur have been reported, in other areas the death count is staggering, now estimated in the hundreds of thousands. His Excellency, Global Community Potentate Nicolae Carpathia, will address the world via radio and television and the Internet inside this half hour.”
Abdullah shoved a map under Mac’s nose. “We are equidistant from airports that can handle a heavy in both Addis Ababa and Khartoum.”
“It’s up to Leon,” Mac said. “He’s the one who wants to land.”
Abdullah took over again, and Mac emerged from the cockpit to find Leon on the phone. Mac grabbed a cloth napkin from the galley, soaked it, and held it to his ear. He tossed another damp cloth into the cockpit so Abdullah could wipe down the window and panel.
“One moment, Excellency,” Leon said, “the captain needs me. . . . Yes, I’ll ask.” Leon covered the phone. “His Excellency asks where we are.”
“Over the Red Sea. We can either—”
Leon held up a hand to silence Mac and told Carpathia. He handed the phone to Mac. “The potentate wishes to speak with you.”
“What is your plan, Captain?”
Mac told him the options.
“Can you not turn back to either Mecca or somewhere in Yemen?”
“They have no strip that will handle a craft this large, sir.”
“Addis Ababa is in what used to be Ethiopia,” Carpathia said, as if to himself.
“Correct,” Mac said. “Khartoum is in old Sudan.”
“Go there. I will contact Potentate Rehoboth in South Af—, in Johannesburg and have him ensure that his people in Sudan extend every courtesy. If you are then able to complete this journey, it will be very beneficial to the cause.”
“May I ask how things are there?”
“Here? We have lost dozens, and the stench is abominable. I am convinced this is chemical warfare, but it will not surprise me if the opposition claims some supernatural source.”
“Me either . . . sir.”
“The Jerusalem Twosome are already carrying on about it.”
“Sir?”
“My new name for them. You like it?”
Mac did not respond. People were dying all over the world, and Carpathia was playing word games.
“They are, of course, taking credit for what is happening,” Carpathia said. “That makes my job easier. Their day will come, and the world will thank me.”
Buck sat in front of the TV with Tsion and Chloe, waiting for Rayford and Leah. From countries in daylight came images of fire and billowing smoke, people gagging, gasping, coughing, falling. Panic.
The phone rang. It was Mac calling for Rayford. Buck filled him in and was stunned to hear Mac and Abdullah’s account. Mac told him of Carpathia’s nickname for the two witnesses.
“He’s about to come on TV,” Buck said. “I’ll have Rayford call you.”
Rayford and Leah pulled in as Carpathia was being introduced. The stateside Trib Force sat before the TV, watching cosmic history. Tsion stood and paced as Carpathia solemnly looked into the camera. The potentate was at his typically parental best, assuring the horrified masses that “the situation will soon be under control. We have mobilized every resource. Meanwhile, I ask citizens of the Global Community to report suspicious activity, particularly the manufacture or transport of noxious agents. Sadly, we have reason to believe that this massacre of innocent lives is being perpetrated by religious dissidents to whom we have extended every courtesy. Though they cross us at every turn, we have defended their right to dissent. Yet they continue to see the Global Community as an enemy. They feel they have a right to maintain an intolerant, close-minded cult that excludes anyone who disagrees.
“You have the right to live healthy, peaceful, and free. While I shall remain always a pacifist, I pledge to rid the world of this cult, beginning with the Jerusalem Twosome, who even now express no remorse about the widespread loss of life that has resulted from this attack.”
“You know,” Tsion said, sitting on the arm of the couch next to Chloe, “I am going to have to ask forgiveness for the glee I will feel when this man’s due time arrives.”
Carpathia pushed a button that showed Eli and Moishe holding forth at the Wailing Wall. They spoke in unison in a loud, haunting, echoing tone that carried without amplification far across the Temple Mount.
The words flashed across the screen. “Woe to the enemies of the most high God!” they said. “Woe to the cowards who shake their fist at their creator and are now forced to flee his wrath! We beseech you, snakes and vipers, to see even this plague as more than judgment! Yea, it is yet another attempt to reach you by a loving God who has run out of patience. There is no more time to woo you. You must hearken to his call, see that it is he who loves you. Turn to the God of your fathers while there is still time. For the day will come when time shall be no more!”
Carpathia came back into view with a condescending smile. “The day will come, my friends, when these two shall no longer disseminate their venom. They shall no longer turn water to blood, hold back rain from the clouds, send plagues to the Holy Land and the rest of the globe. I upheld my end of the bargain negotiated with them months ago, allowing certain dissidents to go unpunished. Here is my reward. Here is how we are repaid for our largesse.
“But the gift train stops here, loyal citizens. Your patience and steadfastness shall be recompensed. The day will yet come when we live as one world, one faith, one family of man. We shall live in a utopia of peace and harmony with no more war, no more bloodshed, no more death. In the meantime, please accept my deepest personal condolences over the loss of your loved ones. They shall not have died in vain. Continue to trust in the ideals of the Global Community, in the tenets of peace, and in the genius of an all-inclusive universal faith that welcomes the devout of any religion, even that of those who now oppose us.
“Just four months from now we shall celebrate in the very city where the preachers now taunt and warn us. We shall applaud their demise and revel in a future without plague and disease and suffering and death. Keep the faith, and look forward to that day. And until I address you again, thank you for your loyal support of the Global Community.”
The ultimate in medical technology was housed in two fully equipped ambulances that waited at the end of the primary runway in Khartoum. With the wet cloth still pressed against his left ear, Mac helped Abdullah open the door and lower the stairs as Leon and Karl staggered out, each with a failing aide in tow and each leaving a dying comrade aboard. Emergency medical technicians, gloved and gas-masked, hurried aboard, lugging metal boxes. Mac and Abdullah stood on the tarmac, refusing assistance until everyone else was attended to. The other four were treated in the ambulances, and soon the EMTs deplaned, then reboarded with gurneys. They emerged with both victims covered head to toe with sheets.
Fortunato stood sans suit coat outside an ambulance, tie loose, shirt sweat drenched. He wiped his brow, breathing heavily. “Precautionary?” he asked the EMTs as the victims rolled by.
They shook their heads.
“They aren’t . . .”
“Yes, they are,” one said. “Asphyxiated.”
Leon turned to Mac. “Get that wound taken care of, and have the plane thoroughly checked out. We can’t have anot
her episode like that.”
Mac had three puncture wounds in his scalp, a deep laceration in his neck that required twenty stitches, and a nearly severed ear requiring forty more. “That’s going to smart something awful when the painkiller wears off,” he was told.
Two young people were dead, four other passengers deathly ill, and the world in chaos. Mac decided he could live with pain.
Rayford sat in the living room at the safe house in the wee hours as the others drifted back to their beds. He had limped into the house behind Leah, wet, cold, and aching all over. After having run into her at full speed, he could only imagine her pain. The immediate concern and attention of the others—even during the broadcast of Carpathia’s address—wounded him in its sweetness. Truly they were brothers and sisters in Christ, and there would be no surviving without them.
After they heard Rayford and Leah’s story and thanked God for the provision of the money, Tsion had shared a little of what he would transmit the next day. He seemed especially intrigued that believers could see the horses and horsemen while the victims could not. Even on camera, people were shown recoiling from snakebites, enveloped by clouds of smoke, and consumed, seemingly by spontaneous fire from thin air. “I had envisioned the horsemen as one vast army riding together,” Tsion said, “and perhaps at some point they will. But so far it appears they are assigned to various locations. How long this will continue, I do not know. Frankly, I am disappointed to not have seen them yet myself.”
Eventually Rayford and Chloe were the only ones left in the living room. “Going to bed, Dad?” she said at last.
“In a while. Just need to unwind. Unique day, you know. Never saw anything like that before. Don’t care to again.”
She moved around behind him and massaged his neck and shoulders. “You need rest,” she told him.
“I know.” He patted her hand. “I’ll be all right. You get your sleep so you can take care of that baby.”
As he sat in the darkness, Rayford ran through the events of the last several days. His question had been how much more they could take. This was only the beginning, and he couldn’t imagine enduring the next few years. He would lose more comrades, and at an accelerating pace.