by Tim LaHaye
“Silence!” Chaim roared, and the echo reverberated off the walls and left the crowd speechless.
Three young armed and uniformed guards, including one female, jogged up. “Your papers, sir,” she said.
“I neither have nor need any documentation. I am here under the authority of the Creator of heaven and earth.”
“Your forehead is clear. Let me see your hand.”
Chaim showed the back of his right hand. “Behold the hand of the servant of God.”
The woman raised her rifle and nudged Chaim’s arm, trying to steer him to the mark application line. He would not budge. “Come, sir. You are either drunk or undernourished. Save yourself the grief and me the paperwork. Get your mark.”
“And worship the image of Carpathia?”
She glared at him and pulled back the firing mechanism on her rifle. “You will refer to him as His Excellency or His Worship or as the risen potentate.”
“I will refer to him as Satan incarnate!”
She pressed the barrel of her weapon upon Chaim’s chest and appeared to squeeze the trigger. Buck stepped forward, fearing both the blast and seeing his dear friend hit the pavement. But the young woman did not move, did not so much as blink. Chaim looked at her male partners. “When did you receive your marks?”
They both cocked their weapons. “We were among the last,” one said.
“And you worshiped the image?”
“Of course.”
“You too will soon suffer. The sores have begun to rise on your bodies.”
One looked at the other. “I do have something inside my forearm. Look.”
The other said, “Will you stop? We have cause to shoot this man, and I may just do it.”
“Shoot him!” someone hollered from the crowd. “What is wrong with your supervisor?”
Both eyed her warily, then said to Chaim, “Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to get in line to take the mark or bear the consequences.”
“I have not been called to martyrdom just yet, young man. When my time comes, I will proudly bow before the blade, worshiping the God of heaven. But now, unless you too want to be stricken motionless, you will get word to the one you worship that I demand an audience.”
One turned away and spoke into his walkie-talkie. Then, “I know, sir. But Corporal Riehl is incapacitated, and—”
“What?”
“He paralyzed her, sir, and—”
“How?”
“We don’t know! He’s demanding—”
“Shoot to kill!”
The young man shrugged, and both pointed their rifles at Chaim.
“Give me that!” Chaim said, grabbing the walkie-talkie. He depressed the button. “Whoever you are, tell your so-called potentate that Micah demands an audience with him.”
“How did you get this radio?” the voice said.
“He will find me and my assistant in the center of the Temple Mount with three catatonic guards.”
“I warn you—”
Chaim switched off the walkie-talkie. Within seconds, half a dozen more guards, two in plainclothes, advanced, weapons drawn. “You don’t demand a meeting with Potentate Carpathia,” one scolded.
“Yes, I do!” Chaim shouted, and the six studied their paralyzed compatriots.
“Well, sir, may I have your name?”
“You may call me Micah.”
“Okay, Mr. Micah, sir. The potentate is at the Knesset, where his Jerusalem headquarters have been established. If you’d like to accompany us there and request—”
“I am demanding a meeting with him here. You may tell him that if he refuses, he will face more than a decimated, suffering staff. I am prepared to return to the plagues called down from heaven by the two witnesses! Ask him if he would like his medical staff to try to treat your boils and carbuncles with water that has turned to blood.”
CHAPTER 7
David was not sure what time the noise of heavy equipment woke him, but he knew immediately what it meant. He had been nonplussed by Dr. Ben-Judah’s mentioning Petra in his worldwide post, and there was no question the enemy monitored the Web site.
David crept back to the high place in the blackness of the wee hours, the stars not providing enough illumination to keep him from skinning shins, stubbing toes, and falling several times, scraping hands and arms on the rocks. His eyes having adjusted to the darkness, far below he saw the semicircle of GC tanks and artillery forming at the perimeter. Though they kept few lights on, he was able to make out that they had closed the main foot-traffic entrance and were heavily stationed around the most likely airdrop zones as well.
David believed God had promised to protect the children of Israel who would flee the anger of Antichrist, but what of the volunteers who helped them? How were they to escape an enemy already a step ahead? How could Tsion have made such a blunder? David phoned Rayford but got no answer. He tried Albie.
Tsion could not be consoled. He paced, a hand over his mouth, praying silently. Ming and Chloe had tried to reason with him, reminding him that God was sovereign, but he could not make sense of what he had done. He kept the television on, dreading the news of a massacre once the flight from Jerusalem began.
Tsion finally sat on the arm of the couch in front of the television. The tall, fat young man they incongruously called Little Zeke—his recently martyred father had been Big Zeke—lumbered in with a sketchpad. “Wanna see what I’m thinkin’ about doing with Ming? I mean, it’s hard to disguise a, um, Asian woman, but I’m gonna try to make her look like a guy, I think. I’ve got a picture of her brother, and with the right haircut and clothes and, you know, wrappings and stuff—”
“Forgive me, Z, but—”
“Oh, I’ve already told her I don’t mean to insult her or anything. I mean, she’s thin and small, but I’m not saying she looks like a guy now. In fact, she’s really quite pretty and attractive, and feminine.”
“I’m preoccupied here, Z. I am sorry. I have made a terrible mistake and I’m praying that—”
“I know,” Zeke said. “That’s really why I came out here. I mean, I was working on Ming’s identity for real, but I thought maybe talking about that would take your mind off—”
“Off tipping off the other side about where our brothers and sisters are headed? Thanks, but I do not see how the GC could do anything but beat them there and lie in wait for them.”
Zeke set his pad on the couch and eased his bulk onto the floor. “You’re the Bible guy,” he said, “but something about this just seems sort of logical to me.”
“Logical? Hardly.”
“I mean, there must have been a reason, that’s all.”
“To humble me, perhaps, but this is quite a price. I never claimed to be perfect, but I pray so hard over my messages, and God knows I would never intentionally—”
“That’s what I mean, Doc. God must have wanted this to happen somehow.”
“Oh, I do not—”
“You said it yourself, you pray about this stuff. That doesn’t make your messages like the Bible, I guess, but God’s not gonna let a regular human like you mess up his plan with one mistake, is he?”
Tsion didn’t know what to think. This uneducated young man often had fresh insight. “Maybe I have myself overrated.”
“Maybe. You didn’t seem to when you were just the guy who teaches a billion people. Why didn’t you let that go to your head?”
“I do not think of it that way, Z. It’s humbling, a privilege.”
“See? You could get cocky about having this big Internet church, but you don’t. So maybe you shouldn’t start thinkin’ you’re important enough to get in God’s way.”
“Obviously I am not above mistakes,” Tsion said.
“Yeah, but come on. You think God is gonna say, ‘I had this deal all figured out till Ben-Judah went and messed it up’?”
Tsion had to chuckle. “I suppose he can overcome my blunders.”
“I hope so. You always made him out to be bi
g enough.”
“Well, thank you, Z. That gives me something to—”
“But it goes past that, even,” Zeke said. “I still think God might have had a reason for lettin’ you do that.”
“For now I am just trying to take in that God can overrule my error.”
“You wait and see, Doc. I bet you’re gonna find that either the GC doesn’t buy it because it looks like such an obvious phony lead. Or they think they’ve found something juicy and they try to take advantage of it, only to see it blow up in their faces.”
At dawn Rayford was alarmed to find Albie with Big George, uncrating several of each of the two kinds of weapons the latter had had shipped in. “What’re we doing, Albie?”
“Your phone not working?”
Rayford patted his pocket and pulled it out. “Nuts!” he said. “Used it too much yesterday.” He pulled the solar pack from it and clipped it to the outside of his shirt pocket, where the sun would rejuvenate it, and put a fresh pack in. He found he had missed several calls.
Albie said, “Let me save you checking all those out and tell you what Hassid’s and my calls were about.”
“Everybody back off.” The newest arrival to the Temple Mount was a tall, athletic-looking, dark-haired plainclothesman with the outline of a handgun under his jacket. “Who’re you?” he said to Buck, as the rest of the Morale Monitors and Peacekeepers, including the three who had been paralyzed, stepped back.
Buck thought he had been prepared for everything, but he felt his pockets as if about to produce his ID, then pointed to Chaim. “I’m with him. Who are you?”
“Name’s Loren Hut, and I’m chief of the Global Community Morale Monitors. I have the potentate on the phone for the troublemaker.” He looked at Chaim, making the pressing crowd laugh. “For some reason my people can’t seem to get through to a demented old man. That has to be you.”
Chaim said, “Tell your boss I do not care to speak to him except in person.”
“Not possible, Mr.—”
“Micah.”
“Best you’re going to get is this call, Mr. Micah. Now I’m not feeling well this morning, and you’re already pressing your luck.”
“Not feeling well how, Mr. Hut?”
“Do you want to talk to His Excellency or—”
Chaim looked away, shaking his head.
Hut scowled and put his phone to his ear. “False alarm. Apologize to the potentate for me. . . . Well, sure, I’ll talk to him, but I don’t want to waste his—good morning, sir. Yes . . . I don’t know . . . I’ll be sure to get full reports from everyb—well, yes, I can get it done. . . . You want me to do that? I—yes, I know, but it’s not as if he poses a real threat . . . yes, sir. Nine in the clip . . . if that’s what you want . . . I don’t disagree, it’s just that he’s a frail . . . I could do that. . . . Affirmative, you can count on me.”
Hut slapped his phone shut and swore. “You,” he said to Buck, “keep your distance. Be glad for your sake I kept you out of this. And you people—” he gestured toward the crowd—“stay back!” Some moved; most didn’t. “Don’t say you weren’t warned!”
“Sores starting to get to you, young man?” Chaim said.
“Shut up! You’re about to die.”
“That will not be up to you, son.”
“Actually, yes it will. Now be quiet! Corporal Riehl, are you all right?”
“A little foggy,” she said flatly. “What do you need?”
“Find a GCNN camera crew and get ’em over here. The potentate wants me to put nine in this guy, but he wants to see it.”
“So do I,” she said, trotting off.
“Mr. Hut,” Chaim said, “will you be able to do your duty? You are getting worse by the second.”
Hut bent over and vigorously scratched his abdomen and belly. “I don’t have to be a hundred percent to kill a man at point-blank range.”
“That will not happen.”
“You think you can paralyze me?”
“I never know how God will act.”
“Well, I know how you will act. You’ll be squirming and screaming and pleading for your life.”
“My life is not my own. If God wishes it, he may have it. But as I have further responsibilities, including talking in person to the coward who would ignore me, God will spare me.”
Corporal Riehl returned with a turbaned man with a camera on his shoulder. With him was a short black woman carrying a microphone. “What are we doing?” she asked with a British accent.
“Just tell me when you’re rolling,” Hut said. “This is for His Excellency.”
“Live or disc?”
“I don’t care! Just cue me!”
“All right! Hang on!” She spoke into a small radio. “Yes!” she said. “Carpathia himself. Just a minute.” She turned to Hut. “Central wants to know your authority.”
Hut swore again and scratched himself from abdomen to shoulders. “Hut!” he said. “GCMM! Now let’s go!”
“Okay,” the woman said, stepping in front of the camera. “This is Bernadette Rice, live from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where we are about to witness an execution ordered personally by His Excellency Nicolae Carpathia. Behind me, Loren Hut, new chief of the Global Community Morale Monitors, will administer the sentence to a man known only as Micah, who has refused the mark of loyalty and resisted arrest.”
When people from other areas of the Temple Mount saw on the giant TV monitors what was going on, they flooded the area around Chaim and Buck and Hut.
“Don’t let Kenny see this!” Zeke called out. “But come quick, both of you!”
It was after midnight in Chicago, and Tsion had slipped off the arm of the couch to a cushion, where he sat hunched forward, peeking at the screen between his fingers. “God, please . . .”
“There’s Buck!” Chloe said, pointing.
Tsion thought Cameron looked weird, standing casually, hands in his pockets.
The GCMM chief pulled his side arm from its holster, paused to scratch himself with his left hand and right elbow, then prepared the weapon. He spread his legs and held the gun in both hands, aiming at Chaim’s hands, which were clasped in front of him. Hut’s angle would make the bullet pass through them without hitting his body.
The explosion of the first shot made Buck skip out of the way and the crowd recoil, but Chaim didn’t move, except to flinch at the sound. Hut stared in disbelief at Chaim’s unmarred hands and moved to his opposite side, aiming the second shot at them again. The crowd scattered. BLAM! Another apparent miss from just inches away.
Hut, scratching himself all the way to the knees between shots now, aimed at Chaim’s foot and fired. Nothing. Not even a hole in the robe. Hut lifted the hem with his left hand and fired at the other foot. Moaning in agony and apparently fear, Hut scratched with his free hand, pressed the muzzle onto one of Chaim’s knees, then the other. The shots produced only noise.
The crowd laughed. “This is a joke!” someone said. “A put-on! He’s shooting blanks!”
“Blanks?” Hut screamed, whirling to face the heckler. “You’d bet your life on that?” He fired shot number seven into the man’s sternum. The back of the victim’s head hit the ground first, the sickening crush of his skull clear on the TV reporter’s microphone.
With the crowd running for cover and Bernadette Rice falling out of the picture, Loren Hut fired at Chaim’s left shoulder from six inches, then pressed the gun to the unharmed old man’s forehead. Chaim looked sympathetically at the shaken, writhing Hut, and casually plugged his ears. The barrel of the gun left a small indentation on Chaim’s skin. The bullet proved harmless.
Hut tossed the gun away and threw his arms around a tree, rubbing his body against it for relief. He cried out in agony, then turned and summoned Corporal Riehl. He reached for her rifle and pointed it under his own chin. Chaim approached calmly.
“No need for that, Mr. Hut,” he said. “The death you have chosen will overtake you in due time. Put down the weapon a
nd summon Carpathia for me.”
Hut threw down the rifle and staggered away, but already Buck heard the thwocking of chopper blades. Two helicopters touched down, and the crowd—which had largely retreated—cautiously returned, avoiding the corpse that lay in a pool of blood.
Carpathia was the only civilian in either bird, and he wore his jet-black, pin-striped suit over a white shirt and brilliant red tie. He strode directly to Chaim and Buck while seven uniformed Peacekeepers formed a semicircle behind him, weapons trained on Chaim.
Nicolae smiled at the crowd and turned to locate the GCNN cameraman. Bernadette was still on the ground, trembling. “Keep rolling, son,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“R-R-Rashid.”
“Well, stand right here, R-R-Rashid, so the world can see who dares mock my sovereignty.”
Carpathia approached Chaim and faced him from three feet away, arms crossed. “You are too old to be Tsion Ben-Judah,” he said. “And you call yourself Micah.” He cocked his head and squinted at Buck, who feared that Nicolae recognized him. “And this is?”
“My assistant,” Chaim said.
“Does he have a name?”
“He has a name.”
“May I know it?”
“There is no need.”
“You are an insulting dolt, are you not?” Carpathia spoke to a guard, nodding at Buck. “Get him out of here. The mark or the blade.”
Buck set himself to resist, but the guard looked petrified. He cleared his throat. “Come with me, please, sir.”
Buck shook his head. The guard looked helplessly back at Carpathia, who ignored him. Suddenly the guard dropped, wriggling on the ground, scratching himself all over.
“All right,” Carpathia said. “I concede I have you to thank for the fact that nearly my entire workforce is suffering this morning.”
“Probably all of them,” Chaim said. “If they are not, you might want to check the authenticity of their marks.”
“How did you do it?”
“Not I, but God.”
“You are looking into the face of god,” Carpathia said.
“On the contrary,” Chaim said, “I fear God. I do not fear you.”