by Tim LaHaye
“Let’s find out,” Leah said, but before either could switch screens, their phones rang simultaneously. “Rayford,” Leah told Hannah.
“Mine too,” Hannah said.
Leah held up a hand. “Let me,” she said. “Med center.”
“Leah, Rayford. You two okay?”
“Yeah, except it looks like you called us both at the same time.”
“I did. Hannah there?” Leah nodded at her and Hannah answered too. “You packed up and ready to go?”
“Yes,” Leah said. “But where—”
“Just listen. I’m short on time. You know George?”
“Big guy? Calif—”
“That’s him. I just pulled him off another assignment. He’s gonna land there within three or four minutes and he’s going to need help setting up a nest of fifty-caliber rifles. Smitty will join him soon.”
“Don’t they each have a load of passengers?”
“Yes, and we need to get them as far from the airstrip and the buildings as we can.”
“They’re not going to Petra?”
“Eventually. Just listen. By the time it’s dark, those people need to be isolated and invisible from the air. After I land there briefly and take off again, any other aircraft over Mizpe Ramon will be GC, and George and Smitty will be defending the airstrip.”
“And we’ll be babysitting two loads of passengers until someone comes for them?”
“Three. I’ve got a load too, and I need to pick up a fifty myself.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve got a situation at Petra, and I’m going to need one of you to go with me. Leah, that would be you.”
“Hold on!” Hannah said. “Who’s at Petra besides David?”
“We’ve delivered no one yet. I want to be sure the area is secure before we—”
“Why wouldn’t it be? What’s the problem?”
“I don’t know yet, but—”
“But there’s a problem or David could tell you.”
“I just can’t reach him right now is all,” Rayford said. “Let’s not jump to any—”
“Then I’m coming. Leah can help George and Abdullah and herd these people somewhere.”
“Hannah,” Rayford said, “I—”
“Don’t try to talk me out of this, Captain Steele. I—”
“Hannah! This is a military operation and I am your superior officer. I decide who will do what, and I’ve told you who is going and who is staying. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but—”
“Any questions?”
“No, but, well, I think I just heard from David.”
“Either you did or you didn’t. Did he call?”
“He e-mailed.”
“You’re sure?”
“Not entirely,” Leah said. “Check it, Hannah.”
She switched screens. “Yes, it’s from him!”
“When was it sent?”
“Just a sec—oh!”
“Just now or . . . ?”
“No. Some time ago.”
“Anything pertinent? Problems? He need help?”
“No,” Hannah said, scanning it quickly. “Just personal stuff.”
Leah put a hand on Hannah’s shoulder and raised her chin at Hannah in encouragement. The younger woman looked terrified.
“Okay, Hannah? We clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me talk with just Leah now, all right?”
Hannah slapped her phone shut while reading David’s message.
“Leah,” Rayford said, “I don’t know what we’re going to find at Petra, but David tried to call me and all I heard sounded like him being shot.”
“Oh, no!”
“Bring heavy-duty, first-aid stuff and a stretcher.”
“Got it.”
“If we have to load him on the chopper, can you and I do that?”
“Worry about your end, Captain,” she said. Then, whispering and turning away from Hannah, “And you’d better start worrying about that phone and those computers.”
“Way ahead of you,” Rayford said. “Be there in a few minutes.”
Chang was studying the itchy spot on his leg under a light in his New Babylon palace apartment when Rayford called. After a fast briefing, Chang said, “Don’t worry about the phone. I can neutralize that from here.”
“What do you mean?”
Chang began tapping keys as they spoke. “I can nuke the innards, erase the mother chip. In fact, I just did.”
“Now let’s hope they haven’t found it yet.”
“When you connect with David,” Chang said, “I need to talk with him.”
“I didn’t like what I heard, Chang.”
“I know, but you can’t be sure what you were hearing.”
“I know David was unarmed.”
“I’m checking on those computers.”
“Right now? You can do that?”
“Thanks to David, we can do just about anything from here. Luckily, there’s no way they can break into the software. That’s on a revolving encoder that can only unravel itself, and it’s programmed not to.”
“Well, I don’t understand all that, but I’m more worried we’ve got a bunch of crazed GCers up there who think they’d be helping their cause by just destroying all the hardware.”
“They would be helping their cause. And they would set us way back. But there wouldn’t be a bunch of them, would there?”
“How would we know?”
“These have to be leftovers from your attack, right?”
“Probably.”
“You heard the Phoenix meeting,” Chang said. “There were two unaccounted for.”
Rayford put down well off the south end of the airstrip at Mizpe Ramon and sat talking with Mac and Albie by radio as Hannah and Leah met the chopper with medical supplies and a stretcher. As Hannah led the escapees away from the craft, first finding out who understood English and Hebrew and using them to interpret for her, Leah tossed the supplies aboard and waited outside. “Mr. Smith is bringing your weapons,” she mouthed.
Rayford nodded and told Mac and Albie to fly their charges to Wadi Musa, near Petra, and to assume they would be both seen and heard by the two GC suspected at Petra. “Tell your people to stay with the choppers until you come back for them, and then get to the footpath entrance as soon as you can. Don’t go in until I get there with weapons for you.”
“Question,” Albie said.
“Make it quick.”
“Have we been all wrong about this being a place of refuge?”
“Albie, all I know to do is to clear it for the people, get ’em in there, and trust God to take care of them.”
“And if you find Hassid’s body?”
Rayford hesitated. “Then I’m gonna assume it’s them or us, and let me tell both you guys something: It’s going to be them.”
When Rayford leaped from the chopper, Abdullah was already hurrying across the sand from the munitions storage unit. He was bent under the weight of three fifty-caliber rifles on his shoulder with a huge belt of ammunition draped over them. His other arm pointed straight out from his body for balance. Rayford and Leah ran to him and helped carry the weapons to the helicopter.
“You all right, Smitty? You ready?”
“George is giving me a course crash,” he said, “whatever that means.”
“Crash course. Quick, fast.”
Abdullah nodded. “I liked the DEWs, but I will shoot these too. George is setting up at a steep angle to take the enemy planes out of the sky, but I worry about accuracy.”
“All you’ll have to hit is one and the rest will run.”
“I hope you are right, Captain. I will be praying for you, and I am hoping you are wrong about Mr. Hassid. He is a wonderful man.”
Rayford hoped so too. He and Leah boarded, and as he guided the chopper up and away, he gazed at the Jordanian sprinting back to where George was setting up to defend the airstrip. Rayford was in the middle
of exactly what he had hoped to avoid. People were going to die. One may already have. Knowing he would again see these beloved martyrs, along with all the others he had lost in so short a time, did little to console him. There had to be a limit to the trauma a man could endure. He should have long since blown past his.
Buck had helped Chaim board one of the choppers bound for Masada, and they arrived to find tens of thousands of curious Israelis streaming up the steps into the fabled fortress. Buck had been getting sketchy reports that the airlift had hit a few snags and that the return runs from Petra to the Mount of Olives would be delayed. Rayford was undoubtedly busy and in contact with his people, because he was not answering his phone or returning Buck’s calls. Chang reported that he would rather Buck wait and talk with Rayford personally.
It was around nine in the morning in Chicago, so Buck called Chloe while Chaim was pacing behind him. Just before Chloe answered, Chaim bent and whispered, “I shall speak when this place is full.”
Rayford could not think of a way to avoid detection by whatever GC might be waiting at Petra. Three choppers would land close by inside several minutes of each other, and it wouldn’t be long before dozens more showed up. He considered rerouting the others to Mizpe Ramon, but he feared Carpathia might order an attack there even before the lifting of the plague, in retaliation for the firing upon his forces. Fearing the airstrip was targeted made him wary to risk more than the three chopper loads already waiting near there. Who knew? Maybe Carpathia or Akbar were smart enough to delay their attack until dark.
With just himself and Leah to worry about, Rayford decided to set the helicopter down on the narrow Siq that led pedestrian and hooved traffic into Petra. He carefully positioned the craft close enough to the outside walls that even if they had been seen, it would be impossible to be fired upon from inside the city.
Unless the enemy was asleep or deep in a cave, they had to be aware that outsiders were coming. Mac and Albie jogged up, the latter gasping for air. “He is so much older and yet in such better shape,” Albie said.
“I jog every day,” Mac said. “’Sides, I got about a foot on you.”
“Catch your breath,” Rayford said. “We’ve got about another mile to go on foot, and that just gets us into the city. Unless we want to be just targets, we’re going to have to climb, and you remember how heavy these babies are.”
He handed fifties and ammo to each man while Leah dragged out her box of supplies. “The stretcher,” she said. “Bring it or leave it?”
“We can always come back for it,” he said, reminding Mac and Albie to carry the weapons vertically to focus the center of gravity. “When we get inside, we’re going to split up. If there are only two of them, we’ll even the odds a little. I’m assuming they’ll be above us, which gives them the first advantage. Resist the urge to call out for David.”
“That’s your urge?” Mac said.
Rayford nodded. “I want to know what happened to him, even if it’s what I fear.”
“Let me look for him,” Leah said. “I’ll leave my stuff at the other end of the gorge. I don’t know why you couldn’t have spared another of those rifles.”
“Too much to carry,” Rayford said. “Anyway, I hope you’re busy with a patient.”
“I won’t be much good to him if I’m dead,” she said.
Mac handed her his side arm. “It’s only a .45,” he said.
“I’ll take it.”
“You know how to use it?”
“Safety on the left?”
Mac nodded.
“I know more than Captain Steele thinks I do,” she said.
“We’re only as good as the slowest man,” Rayford said. “Albie, lead the way. We need to hurry, but don’t waste all your energy.”
Albie pulled up his trousers, tightened his belt, and retied his boots. Hoisting the weapon, he swung it vertically and leaned it back into one shoulder. He started off at a fast walking pace, frustrating Rayford, but soon enough he seemed to catch a second wind and began to trot. Mac dropped in behind, loping easily. Rayford let Leah slide in front of him and had to admit he was amazed that she could lug the medical box in one hand, keep her other arm out for balance, and still trot along apace. Rayford himself had little trouble keeping up, but he felt every one of his years—and every joint as well.
A little more than ten minutes later, the narrow, high-walled gorge opened into the stunning sight of Al-Khasneh—the Treasury, once purported to hold the riches of the pharaoh at the time of the Exodus. Under different circumstances, Rayford would love to have gawked at the towering façade cut out of solid rock, but he and his people—not to mention the million that were to follow—were at a point of no return.
Albie stopped and bent over, sucking for air. The rest quietly set down their loads. Rayford moved ahead of them and squatted, peeking out into the vast opening. It was then that he realized that either by dumb luck or the subtle leading of God, he had done something right. He heard the thwocking of at least one more helicopter and knew that more could not be far behind. All those birds had to give the GC, if that’s who was here, pause. Where would they hide but in a cave? Unless they went on an immediate offensive, they would be quickly outnumbered and had to assume they would be easily overrun.
Rayford turned and whispered, “Leah, leave the med box here, take a hard right, stay low and out of sight as much as you can. Circle around as far as you can go before having to ascend. If that gives you too much exposure, find a place to stay hidden. Our main objective is to find David and get him out of here. He usually called me from one of the high places for best reception.”
“Have you tried calling him again?” Leah said.
“Chang already nuked his phone to be safe.”
“Safe for whom? What if he’s trying to contact us?”
“We couldn’t risk it, Leah,” Rayford said. “Albie’s going to be going left. Mac and I will cover each other and try to see what’s straight ahead past the main monuments. We’re all trying to get as high as we can without becoming targets. If you find David, click your radio twice and we’ll find you. If you encounter the enemy, keep clicking till you see us. Questions?”
They looked at each other in the cool dimness of the gorge and shook their heads. As they moved out into the brighter but fading sun before twilight, Rayford was overwhelmed with the feeling he was in someone’s crosshairs. It was nothing unique. He had felt the same way years before in weekend paintball games. There was just something about knowing you were likely beneath your enemy that made you feel you could be seen without being able to see.
Rayford must have seemed as slow to Mac as Albie had to Rayford, because as soon as they reached a clearing wide enough for him to get by, Mac easily moved on ahead. He was headed for the shadow of an outcropping of rock, and Rayford accelerated to stay with him. They knelt there, panting, and Mac squinted across the high horizon behind them. Two more choppers flew over, and almost immediately, Rayford heard two clicks on his radio. He and Mac caught each other’s eye. “Who?” Mac mouthed, leaning out and looking to his left, where Albie would have gone.
Rayford leaned the other way and saw Leah behind a rock maybe a hundred yards away and thirty or forty yards up a rocky path. He elbowed Mac and they stared at her as she held up an open palm to them and kept her eyes in the direction of whatever she had seen. She pulled the .45 from her belt with her free hand, but her open palm and her gaze did not stray.
Finally she turned and looked directly at Rayford and Mac. She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then her index finger above her and to the left, which would put the target almost directly above the men. She held up two fingers. “Two directly above us?” Rayford whispered.
Mac nodded. “I’m guessin’ she’s lookin’ a couple hundred yards up.”
Rayford kept his eyes on Leah as he started to scoot out from under the rock overhang, but she held up her palm again, stopping him as she continued to watch. Suddenly she showed him the back of he
r hand and beckoned him out with her fingers. He hesitated, and she looked at him and nodded, then looked back up.
Rayford duck-walked out and turned to look. He stared at the sheer face of a rock wall and looked back at Leah to see if he could keep coming out. She nodded, and he heard two more clicks on his radio. That made him and Mac and Leah look to where Albie was climbing. He signaled the same as Leah from his vantage point. Rayford backed away from Mac, who stayed in position, until he saw the two GC with their backs to him on a high ridge. Both were uniformed and armed, but they looked lethargic, following the helicopters and checking the valleys below too.
Rayford signaled to both Leah and Albie to keep moving, then nodded to Mac to follow him. They hurried out and between building walls to a small gorge that led to a path toward higher ground. They waited at a bend where they were out of the line of vision of the two on the ridge far above. “They’re too far from Leah and Albie to hear their radios,” Mac whispered.
Rayford mashed the button and said, “How sure are we there are only two?”
“No idea,” Leah said.
“They’re not on assignment,” Albie said. “They’re hurting, and they don’t seem to be answering to anyone. They’re not doing anything specific. Just hanging around, waiting.”
“You’d bet there are no others?”
“Not sure I’d stake my life on it,” Albie said.
Mac clicked in. “That’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said. “Make the call.”
“If we had to decide, I’d say it’s worth the chance. But what’s the rush?”
“Hundreds of people starting to line up outside,” Rayford said. “And they’ve got to be an hour above us.”
Two clicks interrupted and Leah came on. “I see about a hundred yards I can advance without their seeing me. Shall I go for it?”
Rayford glanced at Mac, who nodded. “Affirmative. Three clicks when you’re in place, but don’t speak unless you know they’re far enough away.”
As soon as he said that, Leah began a long but smooth ascent, the side arm in her hand. The two GC abruptly turned and walked the other way. “They’re headed your way, Albie,” Rayford said.