by Tim LaHaye
Mac sucked in deep breaths as he surveyed Buck’s injuries, gaping wounds that left Buck in a deep pool of black blood so sticky that it had barely begun to run down the wall when it coagulated. His whole right side had been torn open, and wounds also disfigured his hip and neck.
A bullhorn called for assignees to the potentate, and Mac knew he might be identified as an imposter if he didn’t report. As he reluctantly pulled away from Buck he prayed that the same fate had not befallen Rayford. It just wouldn’t be right if no one from the original Trib Force had survived to see the Glorious Appearing.
It was four o’clock.
CHAPTER 3
Despite his substantial injuries, Rayford had managed to crawl several hundred yards to an outcropping of rock. With his free hand—though its heel had been scraped raw—he somehow had scooped away enough topsoil from behind the rocks to allow himself to stretch out away from the relentless sun and beyond anyone’s view.
He had exhausted every reserve of strength and had to trade the hope of being seen by his own people for fighting off dehydration and blood loss long enough to survive until the Glorious Appearing. He gingerly positioned his body in the shallow grave in such a way that if he lost consciousness, his gashed temple would remain pressed against his hand. Every time he thought he had stanched the blood flow long enough for it to stop pulsing, he was proven wrong when he released his palm for even an instant.
It was a relief to be out of the sun, but the benefit of the slightly lower temperature with the topsoil gone did not last. Within half an hour Rayford’s mouth and tongue were dry, and he felt his lips swelling. He fought drowsiness, knowing that unconsciousness was his enemy. His wounds stabbed, and he worried about going into shock.
Delirium soon followed, and Rayford daydreamed about people spotting the ATV and following the trail of blood, only to find his lifeless body being pecked at by vultures. At times he discovered he had roused himself to consciousness by singing, praying, or just babbling.
As he stiffened and his temperature rose, he began to feel the deep pang of each injury, and he prayed God would just take him. I wanted to see it from this side of heaven, but what’s the difference? Relief, please. Relief.
He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think he could bleed to death from any wound other than the one to his temple. When it seemed everything had ebbed from him but his last breath, Rayford considered releasing his hand and letting his life’s blood slip away too. But he could not.
He quickly lost all sense of time and had to remind himself that his watch seemed to be functioning properly, despite his fast-fading ability to focus. Rayford was stunned to see how little time had passed since he went careening. The sun was still high in the sky, but he would have bet hours had passed. It had been a mere fifty minutes.
When he awoke groaning, he realized he had actually dozed with enough presence of mind to keep the pulsing temple dammed. His neck was stiff, and he had the feeling he would be unable to stand or even roll into a crawling position if his life depended on it. If someone didn’t find him soon, his life would depend on moving yet again. But that simply wasn’t in the cards.
It seemed hours later, and Rayford was bereft of hope. He heard the advancing Unity Army and was surprised to see the sun still nearly directly overhead. It would remain that way until late afternoon, he knew, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to open his eyes to dusk. No such luck.
Far in the distance he heard the high-pitched whine of a powerful dirt bike, the type Abdullah Smith rode. The Jordanian would buzz about Petra, careful in the crowds, then find his way out to the desolate slopes, where he would really open it up. Rayford could only pray that what he heard was Smitty searching for him. He tried to sit up but could not. If he had to guess, he’d have said Smitty was in the area where the ATV had finally landed. That was a long, long way from Rayford’s meager shelter. He tried to stay conscious so he could call out if the dirt-bike sound grew nearer, but he knew it would also have to be shut off if the rider was to hear him.
Rayford realized his pain had spread past the spots that had taken the most direct abuse. His head throbbed all over. His eyes had become supersensitive to light, and he could barely open them to peek at his watch. His neck hurt, his shoulders were tight and achy, his back felt as if hot pokers were piercing his ribs. He was hungry, nauseated, and alternated between overheating and shivering. His leg muscles and even his toes cramped.
In and out of consciousness now, when he finally heard the dirt bike slowly approaching, Rayford was certain he was imagining it. When the engine died, Rayford tried to move, to grunt, to do anything to let Smitty, or whomever, know he was there.
“Big Dog One, this is Camel Jockey. . . . And, Techie, are you there? . . . I’ve spotted Captain Steele. Or at least I think I have. The trail stops here, and I do not expect to like what I see. Hold on.”
Rayford’s breathing was so shallow he was certain Abdullah would not be able to tell he was alive. He couldn’t move a muscle, let alone turn his head, wave, or wiggle a foot. When he heard Smitty’s steps in the sand he fought to open an eye. Nothing was working. Was Smitty really there, or was this some sort of a near-death experience?
“Agh, I think he is gone,” Abdullah said. “I mean, no, he is here, but I do not think he made it.”
Rayford felt the index finger on his free hand bouncing, but clearly Smitty wasn’t looking at it. “Oh, Captain Steele,” the Jordanian said as he gently rolled Rayford onto his back. He sounded so grief-stricken that Rayford was moved.
Rayford kept his palm locked against his temple, but rather than persuading Abdullah he was alive, it must have made him think rigor mortis was already setting in. And so Rayford did the only thing he could manage. He pulled his hand away an inch. By now the blood had clotted enough that it did not immediately squirt from the wound.
And Abdullah apparently had not noticed the movement.
Rayford felt the pressure building in his temple, and as Smitty straightened Rayford’s legs, the wound broke loose.
“Well, hello!” Abdullah said. “Dead men do not bleed. You are there, are you not?”
Rayford clamped his hand over the wound again and managed a “Yeah. Good to see ya.”
“Do not talk, Captain. I do not want to lose you before the big event.”
“Thought this was the big event.”
But Abdullah was back on the phone. “Chang, he is alive. I need help here as quickly as you can send it. . . . Yes, Leah would be perfect. Ask her to bring everything she can carry. I will launch a flare in ten minutes.”
Mac fell in with Unity Army troops in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City and followed them to an obscure but lavishly guarded entrance underground. No one even got close without proper credentials, and Mac fought to maintain his composure as two sentinels held his photo ID next to his cheek and studied it. He could only hope none of Zeke’s dye had worn off in the skirmishes.
He and those with him were directed to a pressed-dirt path at least thirty feet wide and lined on either side with narrow wood steps that led deep under the northern wall and past the Temple Mount. They continued directly beneath the only ground in Jerusalem still held by the resistance, and it was, of course, surrounded by the Unity Army. Were the rebels holding their own, or were they virtually imprisoned?
Mac worried about Rayford and wished he’d had an opportunity to call Chang or Sebastian or Abdullah. Ree Woo was leading a platoon on the opposite side of Petra’s perimeter. Maybe he’d seen Rayford. But now Mac had to turn off his phone.
The passageway to Solomon’s Stables was so dimly lit that he and the others were immediately forced to raise their tinted visors. Still the effect was like coming into a dark theater from the bright sun, and the soldiers slowed and felt their way along so as not to fall down the stairs. Mac was grateful the edge of his helmet rode low over his eyebrows, not exposing that he bore no mark of loyalty.
Being a few steps out of the afternoon
sun cooled his face and neck, and he was tempted to remove his gloves. He was nearly overcome by the reek of horse manure and urine, which grew worse as they neared the stables.
As they reached the southeast corner of the Temple Mount, some forty feet underground, they came within sight of Solomon’s Stables, a series of pillars and arches that had once supported the southeastern platform of the courtyard above. The halls, made up of a dozen avenues of pillars, were a little over thirty yards wide, sixty yards long, and nearly thirty feet high. At least a hundred men, not in uniform, seemed to be tending more than a thousand horses.
The odor alone took Mac back to his childhood, and he wondered how he had ever grown used to it.
“Attention!” someone shouted. “Silence for your potentate!”
Everything and everyone stopped, and Mac wondered where Nicolae could be. Mac and several other uniforms had their backs pressed up against a wall, standing at attention. He recognized Carpathia’s voice coming from inside a pillared room. “Gentlemen and ladies, you will be pleased to know that several months of renovations here were accomplished in the space of fewer than three weeks. The sanitation facilities are second to none, at least for humans, and best of all—per my instructions—they empty into the legendary Cradle of Jesus.”
Leave it to Carpathia to sicken Mac with his first words. Mac had never heard of the Cradle of Jesus, at least in the context of the Temple Mount. Many others apparently hadn’t either, for Leon Fortunato was called upon to explain.
“Thank you, Excellency. The Cradle of Jesus can be accessed down a winding staircase in the southeast corner. This leads to a chamber approximately fifty by seventy feet where in the past there have been both a basilica named for Saint Mary and a mosque. There is also, on the west wall, some ancient Byzantine art. Should you care to view the chamber, be forewarned of its current use, which we feel is more appropriate to something bearing its name. You will want to hold your nose. You’ll be glad to get back to the odor of mere horses.”
Suhail Akbar was next, Carpathia’s chief of Security and Intelligence. “Having just arrived from Mount Megiddo,” he began, “I am pleased to report that everything and everyone is in place for our soon unequivocal victory. Despite reports of discord due to the destruction of New Babyl—”
Suddenly a shout, more of a scream, but Mac clearly recognized Carpathia’s voice. He cursed and cursed again. “Tell me, Suhail!” he raged. “Tell me you are not going to violate my specific order to never again mention the name of—”
“But, sir, I merely meant to—”
“You dare interrupt me? Do you see yourself above corporal punishment?”
“No, sir, I—”
Something slammed the table. “I should have you executed this instant! I should do it myself!”
“Excellency, please! I was saying that despite what we have heard, the truth is—”
“The truth is that I will rebuild New Babylon right here in Jerusalem. She shall be restored to a thousand times her former beauty and majesty. I have decreed there shall be no more mention of what has become of her.”
“My humble apologies, Potentate. I—”
“Silence! I have spoken. Back to your quarters, Chief Akbar. Your services will not be required again until further notice.”
The commander in charge of Mac’s unit quickly stepped forward and conferred with a colleague at the entrance to the meeting room. He backed away as a half-dozen guards led out an ashen Suhail Akbar. The commander then silently pointed to six uniformed men at attention, including Mac, and directed them inside to replace those who had left.
Rayford’s lucidity had returned somewhat after Abdullah slowly worked a liter of water into him. Leah arrived on a small ATV with two coolers full of supplies and tossed a clipboard to Abdullah. “Would you do the honors, sir?”
“The honors?”
“Take notes.”
“Of course.”
Rayford kept interrupting her. “What’s the buzz at Petra? They think Jesus is late?”
“Hush.”
“C’mon, Leah. I gotta know if we’ve all been off by a day.”
“Nobody’s off,” she said distractedly, coolly inventorying his injuries. “Chaim has everyone calmed down.”
“How? What’s he saying?”
“God’s ways are not our ways. He’s on His own clock. That kind of thing.”
“Leah, you love this, don’t you?”
“Sorry?”
“Having me at your mercy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. We—”
“Mr. Smith,” she said, “I’ll be suturing the head wound. The chin, the arms, the right hand, and the knees can wait. The left shinbone may be broken, but I won’t attempt to set it until we can be sure. I’m going to need to study the right ankle and probably suture that too. And we’re going to need some kind of conveyance to get him back up to the compound, probably within half an hour.”
“You love this, Leah! I can tell.”
“You’re delirious.”
“What kind of conveyance, Miss Rose?” Abdullah said.
“I need him prone.”
Abdullah got back on the phone.
“You could be just a little rougher with me than you might be with another patient, just to get back at me.”
Rayford was teasing and trying to smile, but Leah clearly wasn’t biting. “Back at you for what?”
“For how I used to talk to you.”
“Well, maybe you owe me too,” she said.
“Maybe I do, but I’m in no position to exact revenge.”
“And I have your flesh wounds in my hands. Now keep quiet and let me work.”
It was all Mac could do not to burst out laughing when he saw Carpathia. Had the man been wearing a black hat, he would have looked like Zorro. A shirt with a frilly collar represented the only white in his ensemble. Everything else, from his knee-length boots to his leather pants, vest, and thigh-length, capelike coat, was black.
Leon was in his most resplendent, gaudiest, Day-Glo getup, including a purple felt fez with multiple hangy-downs and a cranberry vestment with gold collar, appliquéd with every religious symbol known to man, save the cross of Christ and the Star of David. A turquoise ring on his right middle finger was so large it covered the adjoining knuckles.
If only God had scheduled the Glorious Appearing on Halloween . . .
Carpathia stood at the head of an enormous, polished wood table, around which sat—if Mac could guess from their native garb—the sub-potentates from each of the ten international regions, their entourages, and Carpathia’s brain trust, sans Chief Akbar, of course. There had to be more than fifty gathered.
Viv Ivins sat demurely in her customary sky blue suit (with hair to match) six chairs from Nicolae on his far left side. She seemed even paler than Mac had remembered, and he thought he detected a trembling in her fingers as she busied herself taking notes. The others, despite their positions of high authority on Carpathia’s cabinet and around the world, also seemed tentative in his presence. The outburst against Suhail Akbar had clearly shaken them all.
Mac was near the entrance, one of the last few to have entered, and he realized that the six sentries he and his platoonmates had replaced had filled out a contingent of another fifty or so who lined the walls of the long room. Knowing what it had taken even to be allowed underground, he had to wonder against whom they were protecting Carpathia. Was he afraid of his own people?
Chang had walked Naomi back into the tech center. “What am I going to do?” he said. “I’ll never sleep tonight, and I’m wasted.”
“Surely you don’t think we’ll have to wait another day.”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Today is the day, love. There’s no question.”
“I hope you’re right. I’m wired, but at some point I’m going to crash. Dr. Rosenzweig wants me to get him on international TV just before dark.
You may have to prop me up.”
“You’ll rise to it. You always do.”
The wall at his back, made of large blocks of stone, cooled Mac through his uniform jacket. He desperately wanted to peek at his watch. He knew it was well after 1600 hours now, and he believed Jesus could come any second. This was the last place he wanted to be when that happened, but being here was part of the price he paid to find Buck. And there was the prospect of seeing the look on Carpathia’s face.
Mac tried to appear focused on his menial task—providing showy security where none was needed—but when he ran through his mind what he really wanted to be doing, he found it difficult to concentrate. Besides being in broad daylight in the Holy City when the Lord Christ appeared, Mac’s second choice was opening fire on Carpathia from his perfect vantage point. There would be none of that, he knew. It fit no prophetic scenario, but how fulfilling it would be!
Nothing would come of such foolhardiness, of course. The man had been murdered once, and was he now even a man? Drs. Ben-Judah and Rosenzweig had said he was now indwelt by Satan himself, a spirit-being using a human body—albeit a dead one.
In addition, Mac simply wanted to take a load off. The idea of sliding to his seat on the floor, of stretching out with his hands behind his head . . . well, that was something that would come once Jesus had taken His rightful place. Mac’s friends and comrades often talked about what kind of a world they would live in soon, but he kept to himself the idea that what he most longed for was simply rest.
He was certain he was not alone in this. Others had hinted at it. They had all been so busy, so stressed, so sleep deprived, and all that had only worsened as the days grew nearer to the Glorious Appearing. The idea of living in a world of peace and safety so appealed to Mac that he could barely imagine it. To be able to sleep without half an eye or ear figuratively open to danger . . . well, talk about heaven on earth.