The Left Behind Collection

by Tim LaHaye

  “You got it?” Aristotle said. “Let me see it.”

  “And it goes where?”

  “About a foot below the top of the right door.”

  “I never noticed before.”

  “Can I sit him up?” Plato said.

  “Better wait.”

  Chloe stopped fifty feet in back of Socrates and guessed they were close to five hundred meters from the shack. He was bent over, hands on his thighs, breathing heavily. His pace had slowed the last hundred meters or so, and maybe he was trying to come up with an approach to his comrades that would gain him sympathy rather than hostility.

  She was watching him carefully when she froze at the sound of footsteps on the gravel. Several. Not hurrying. Not sneaking. Just coming. She backed into the underbrush about ten feet off the road and knelt, the knees of her camouflage pants immediately soaked through and cold. She fought the temptation to hold her breath, fearing she would exhale right when whoever was behind her came by. Chloe knew it couldn’t be Mac and Hannah. There were too many.

  She was out of sight of Socrates now and hated not knowing whether he was off again. If he was, he would find his team without her knowing where. And here came half a dozen Peacekeepers, weapons in hand. They were in no hurry, chatting, a couple smoking. Chloe tried to make it make sense. They seemed to have an idea where they were going. Same spot? She could follow them, and maybe more easily because of the noise they made.

  They were ten feet past her, and she would wait another thirty seconds before venturing out. Her walkie-talkie gave two quick, staticky squawks, startling her. The Peacekeepers kept walking and talking, but she panicked. Though they hadn’t heard the sounds, if someone started talking to her, they’d hear that.

  She reached in her pocket to turn off the radio, but in feeling for the right knob turned it up. Frantic to shut it off, she lurched, lost her balance, and flopped onto her seat. “Johnson or Irene, come in, please.”

  Too loud!

  Chloe leaped to her feet, yanked out the radio, squeezed the transmit button twice, shut it off, and set herself, readying the Uzi. The Peacekeepers had stopped and now crept her way.

  Mac pulled out his radio and whispered, “Johnson here, Jinnah. What’s your ten-twenty?”

  “One hundred yards northeast of rendezvous point.”

  “You okay?”

  “Ten-four. GC troops in the woods, sir.”

  “Irene with you?”

  “Negative.”

  “The DEW?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “On my way. How many?”

  “Guessing two dozen, sir.”

  “Come back?”

  “Minimum twenty-four.”

  “Roger. Be sure you’re clear, cease radio transmission, and return to rendezvous ASAP.”

  “Roger.”

  So much for bluffing Stefanich. Either he wasn’t buying or he’s royally stupid.

  “Johnson to Irene . . . Johnson to Irene . . . Johnson to Irene. Do you read?”

  Mac looked at his watch, kicked the ground, pressed his lips together, and waited for Hannah.

  Chloe stood in the bramble, finger on the trigger, feet spread in the mushy ground. The Peacekeepers stopped on the road, facing her position, close enough that she could hear their breathing. All six set their weapons at the same time. She could barely see them and assumed they could not see her. She held her breath and did not move.

  “GC!” one called out. “Who goes there?”

  Chloe entertained the hope that they would all six decide they hadn’t really heard anything.

  “Show yourself or we spray the area!”

  “Friend!” she called out. “GC here too. Sister on assignment. Cool your jets.”

  “Armed?”

  “Holding it over my head, Peacekeeper. Ten-to-one I outrank you, so don’t do anything rash.”

  A big flashlight made her squint. Holding the Uzi over her head, she said, “Turn that thing off! We’re all here on the same assignment.”

  The light went off. “Hand over the weapon, ma’am, and we’ll sort this out.”

  “No, we’ll sort it out first. Now I’m tucking it under my arm to show my papers. Stand down now. So far you’ve been by the book and I can’t fault you.”

  “Thank you. I’m going to need to turn the light onto your docs, ma’am.”

  “Hold on, I got a smaller beam. Going into the pocket.”

  With the weapon tucked and pointing her small flashlight at her papers, Chloe’s heart drumrolled against her chest.

  “Superior officer, guys,” the leader said. “Salute.”

  “No need,” Chloe said. “Good job. A little sloppy on the march, but at least you’re on time.”

  “What were you doing in the bushes, ma’am?”

  “Following orders. Now wait here for my CO and another officer, and we’ll go together.”

  “That Uzi’s not official issue, is it?”

  “Something to look forward to.”

  “Really?”

  “At my level it is.”

  “Wow.”

  “We still reasonably on schedule?” she said.

  “About twenty minutes early, ma’am.”

  “Stand by, gentlemen.” Chloe pulled out her radio and turned it on. “Officer Irene to Senior Commander Johnson.”

  “Johnson! Oh, man!”

  “Senior Commander!”

  Chloe turned to the Peacekeepers. “A little decorum, please.”

  “Johnson, go ahead.”

  “Sir, I’ve met up with six Peacekeepers who will join us on the assignment. Standing by for you approximately 480 meters east of your position.”

  “Six?”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Everything copacetic, Irene?”

  “Ten-four.”

  “For all I know, we could be surrounded,” Mac told Hannah. “You sure you weren’t seen?”

  “Positive.”

  “What is going on?” He called Chang and filled him in. “What do you think Stefanich is up to?”

  “I’m in his mainframe, Mac, and there’s nothing there. Could be as bad as they’re onto you, or he’s still trying to cover.”

  “But what’s he need all these people in the woods for? They mustering here for the midnight raid?”

  “Seems out of the way.”

  “Sure does. Unless they’re wrong about the location of the underground headquarters. We’re not far from where the pastor hid out Rayford. You think they’ve finally discovered that?”

  “You’re a good thirty miles from there, Mac. I’ll stay on it, but I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Aristotle said, “All right, let’s go.”

  Plato shoved George up. Someone opened his door, and it seemed Plato and Aristotle each took an arm and guided him, while Elena opened doors. They led him about fifteen feet, up three concrete steps, and inside. Then about twenty steps down a corridor that from the echoes seemed narrow. Finally into a larger room.

  Aristotle let go of George and walked a few steps away. “Ach! I can’t reach it. Plato?”

  “Give me that.”

  George heard what sounded like metal being slotted into metal, then a couple of loud clicks. Plato grunted. “What’s the secret here?” he said.

  “Let me get the other side,” Aristotle said, and he was replaced at George’s side by Elena. If only I weren’t cuffed, George thought. That was when he would have taken his chances. Coldcock the girl, whip off the blindfold, race back down that corridor and outside, and hope for the best. But not with his hands behind his back. Any hesitation and she would shoot him, he was sure.

  Plato and Aristotle grunted, and Aristotle said, “Push him in, Elena. Come on, Plato and I have to get back.”

  Elena guided George forward, turned him sideways, and tried to force him through an opening apparently being held on each side by the men. He didn’t fit. “Give me another couple of inches,” she said, and they grunted louder. She pushed George
through.

  “Hold on now,” Aristotle said. “I don’t want him found cuffed and blindfolded.”

  Hands reached in and unlocked the cuffs. “Toss me the blindfold,” Elena said.

  George slipped it off and saw he was inside a dark elevator. Elena had a weapon pointed at him. Good thing for them, George thought, because Plato and Aristotle were totally occupied holding the doors open. Elena took the blindfold, shoved it in a pocket, and pulled a bottle of water from another. She tossed it in and said, “Cheers,” as the doors slammed shut.

  George let the bottle bounce on the floor and tried to get his fingers between the doors. Just when he had found purchase he heard the key slide into its hole again and the throwing of the lock. He heard water sloshing and felt around in the dark for the bottle. He uprighted it and decided to save what was left for as long as he could.

  With his arms spread, George could touch the walls on each side, and as he made a quarter turn, he realized the enclosure was square. It didn’t surprise him that the buttons on a panel were not working, but he could tell from the pattern that he was in a four-story building. The ceiling was less than a foot above his head.

  George felt for loose panels, missing screws, anything. Everything felt secure. A thin, plastic panel had to be the cover for the light. He removed that and felt a small, circular double fluorescent tube. Next to that was a mesh panel. He pushed up hard on the side until it gave way, then ripped it down. Now he could feel the fan blades, dusty, oily.

  His body was already heating, and his breath was short. Were these people crazy? A malfunctioning elevator might make a perfect prison cell, but did they want him to suffocate? George shed his sweater and boots and socks and sat down, his back against the door. He found a boot and began swinging it backward over his shoulder against the door.

  “Knock it off or I’ll put you out of your misery,” Elena called out. So they had left her alone to guard him. He wanted to tell her that if they didn’t want a dead hostage to show to the brass, they’d better at least get the fan running. But he was committed not to speak. Not a word. And so he kept banging.

  Chang had a bad feeling. Since the day he had been left as the only mole at the GC Palace, he had never felt so helpless. Was it possible Stefanich was playacting? They seemed to have him intimidated, eager to please. Even if he had checked on Mac, Chang had everything in place to make Howie Johnson look legit. He was certain Stefanich was embarrassed to find he had doubted this high-level Johnson character and should now be trying to cover that he had ever doubted him.

  Chang was desperate to find out how vulnerable Mac and Chloe and Hannah were. Could they be walking into an ambush? Time was against him, but it might be wrong to just tell Mac to abort. Maybe they could hot-wire the car at the shack and get back to the airport, but Chang knew Mac wouldn’t abandon Sebastian. What if he was already dead? If Mac had been exposed, there was no reason for the GC to keep him alive.

  Chang slapped his forehead with both palms. Think! If they’re onto Mac, why are they? If you can find the connection, maybe you can figure out what they might do.

  Chang started a global search, asking David Hassid’s superpowered engine to match anyone at high levels in the palace with the GC at Ptolemaïs. He even keyed in code breakers, in case the contact person feared someone within the palace was monitoring them. With the computer whirring away, darting through thousands of files in hundreds of locations, Chang fell to his knees.

  “God, I have never asked you to override a piece of equipment. But you know a servant of yours designed this, and I want to serve you too. Help me think. Speed the process. Please let me protect these brothers and sisters. I know from what happened at Petra today that nothing is beyond you. We have lost so much to the enemy, and I know we will lose more before your ultimate victory. But don’t let the Greek believers suffer more. Not tonight. Protect the Co-op. And help me get Mac and Chloe and Hannah and George out of there.”

  Mac liked a clear mission, a black-and-white assignment. This one was infiltrate, then storm the gates, free your man, and hit the road. Now there was the underground complication. He wouldn’t leave Greece without his man, and now he couldn’t leave without defending the believers.

  The original plan didn’t figure he and his people would be outnumbered. There were four hostage takers. Mac, his two team members, and George made four good guys. Those odds he could live with. But to walk Hannah down the road to Chloe and six GC, knowing there were at least two dozen more in the area, well, that didn’t make sense.

  “Hold up,” he told Hannah. “You know how to hot-wire a car?”

  “Do I admit it or not?”

  “Just say so. Time is not on our side.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do it.”

  While she trotted to Sebastian’s car, Mac radioed Chloe. “Johnson to Irene.”

  “Irene, go.”

  “Unforeseen delay here. Need your assistance.”

  “Ten-four. Should I bring help?”

  “Negative. Let them go on. We’ll catch up.”

  “You heard the boss, gentlemen,” Chloe said. “We’ll see you at the destination.”

  “We’d love to help the senior commander, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, no.”

  “Can we meet him later?”

  “I’ll see to it.” And as she said it, Chloe was overwhelmed with a deep impression, and she had to express herself. “If you do me a favor.”

  “Anything, ma’am.”

  “Senior Commander Johnson’s presence tonight is a surprise for Commander Stefanich. He’s going to be compensated for some of his recent actions. So . . .”

  “Don’t let on he’s coming?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You got it, ma’am. And you know what? We didn’t know Commander Stefanich was going to be here. Fact is, we don’t know what we’re doing here.”

  Chloe blanched. What if Stefanich wasn’t there? “It’s all part of the surprise, boys.”

  Chang knew God had protected him, probably more than he realized. But he had no reason to think God owed him anything or was obligated to act in this instance, just because Chang had asked. With zero confidence that his pleas had done any good, Chang wearily returned to his chair before the computer.

  The screen was alive with red flashes. The search engine had reached secure files at the highest levels and was matching, comparing, translating languages, turning spoken word into written. A small box in the upper right-hand corner showed six matches already between some element of the GC operation in Ptolemaïs with top brass at the palace. Top.

  Chang feared multitasking would slow the search, but he had to take the chance. Mac and the two women were in danger, outnumbered, without any idea what they faced.

  He checked the first three matches and found they were routine interactions of Ptolemaïs administration reporting statistics to GC command. But the fourth was different. It was highest security interaction, a series of e-mails between TB and OT, plus more than one phone call, also between the same two, being reduced to typed transcription.

  Chang keyed in, “Match logic?”

  The response was immediate. “Meets broad, simple criteria: initials one letter removed from key personnel in GC Greece and GC Palace.”

  Chang squinted. That’s what he had asked for: any connection based on standard search sequences and codes. TB was one letter away from SA. OT was one letter away from NS. Chang shot from his chair and stood hunched over the keyboard. He typed in, “Show interaction,” and as the files cascaded onto the screen, he called Mac.

  Mac heard the car running and footsteps jogging toward him from the north and the east. “Ladies?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Yep.”

  His phone buzzed. “Stand by. Hey, Chang.”

  “Mac! I’ll say this once and get back to you as fast as possible with details. Ready?”

  “Go.”

  “Akbar and Stefanich have communi
cated personally several times today.” Click.

  “Busted,” Mac said. “Listen up. No time for questions. Hannah, you’re driving. Chloe, you’re riding. Take the DEW, Uzi, and a sidearm each, phones on, radios on. Get to the Co-op now. Clear ’em out, including anything they don’t want found in a midnight raid. Then straight to the airport and wait out of sight for Sebastian and me, ready to hightail it to his plane. If we don’t show, that means we’re dead and you’re on your own.”

  Mac bent and heaved the Fifty up against his chest. “Time to go to work, big boy,” he said.

  Hannah and Chloe ran around the shack to the idling car.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Thank you, Lord,” Chang said, still standing as his fingers danced on the keyboard. In seconds he had opened the transcripts of four phone conversations on a line so secure that Carpathia himself had once said even he didn’t have access to it.

  But David Hassid cracked it, Nicky. Access that.

  Chang also had copies of e-mails that showed up on neither the palace nor the Ptolemaïs mainframe and were supposedly guaranteed to disappear from every record after they had been read. Hassid’s master disk probably had the only copies in existence, including the correspondents’.

  Though he was curious, Chang knew it was irrelevant how someone at Stefanich’s level had personal access to the director of Security and Intelligence. The way they interacted evidenced some history, but if the box in the corner had not begun flashing again, Chang would not have wasted the time tracking it down until the crisis was over. He quickly clicked on the box to find “100 percent primary match, no decode necessary.”

  He opened the manifest and sped read: “Straight correlation from List A to List B: Suhail Akbar and Nelson Stefanich registered at Madrid Military School, overlapping tenures.”

  From the years listed, Chang calculated they had been there together as teenagers, more than twenty-five years before. That would get a phone call returned.