“Attention, ladies and gentlemen! I have been asked by the Global Community supreme commander to remind citizens of the proclamation from His Excellency, Potentate Nicolae Carpathia—” here the crowd erupted into cheering and applause—“that the two men you see before you are under house arrest. They are confined to this area until the end of the Meeting of the Witnesses Friday night. If they leave this area before that, any GC personnel or private citizen is within his rights to detain them by force, to wound them, or to exterminate them. Further, if they are seen anywhere, repeat anywhere, after that time, they shall be put to death.”
The crowd near the fence cheered wildly again, laughed, taunted, pointed fingers, and spat toward the witnesses. But still the crowd hung back at least thirty feet, having heard of, if not seen, those whom the witnesses had killed. While many claimed the two capriciously murdered people who got too close, Buck himself had seen a mercenary soldier charge at them with a high-powered rifle. He was incinerated by fire from the witnesses’ mouths. Another man who had leaped toward them with a knife had seemed to hit an invisible wall and fell dead.
The witnesses, of course, seemed unaffected by the proclamation or the guard with the bullhorn. They remained motionless and back-to-back, but there was a vast difference between how they now appeared and how they had looked when Buck first saw them. Because of the incredible interest drawn to them by the meetings televised from Kollek Stadium and their being mentioned by both Leon Fortunato and Carpathia himself, the news media had converged upon this place.
Gigantic klieg lights illuminated the area, a glaring spotlight bathing the witnesses. But neither squinted nor turned from the glare. The extra light only served to emphasize their unique features: strong, angular faces, deep-set dark eyes in craggy sockets under bushy brows.
No one ever saw them come or go; none knew where they were from. They had appeared strange and weird from the beginning, wearing their burlap-like sackcloth robes and appearing barefoot. They were muscular and yet bony, with leathery skin; dark, lined faces; and long, scraggly hair and beards. Some said they were Moses and Elijah reincarnate, but if Buck had to guess, he would have said they were the two Old Testament characters themselves. They looked and smelled centuries old, a smoky, dusty aroma following them.
Their eyes were afire, their voices supernaturally strong and audible for a mile without amplification.
An Israeli shouted a question in Hebrew, and the GC guard translated it into all the languages. “He wants to know if he would be punished for killing these men now, where they stand.” The crowd cheered anew as each people group understood what he said. Finally, the GC guard answered.
“If someone was to kill them this very night, he would be punished only if an eyewitness testified against him. I don’t know that there are any eyewitnesses here at all.”
The crowd laughed and agreed, including the other guards. Buck recoiled. The GC had just given permission for anyone to murder the witnesses without fear of reprisal! Buck was tempted to warn anyone so foolish that he had personally seen what happened to previous would-be assassins, but Eli beat him to it.
Barely moving his lips but speaking so loudly he seemed to be shouting at the top of his lungs, Eli addressed the crowd. “Come nigh and question not this warning from the Lord of Hosts. He who would dare come against the appointed servants of the Most High God, yea the lampstands of the one who sits high above the heavens, the same shall surely die!”
The crowd and the guards stumbled back at the force of his voice. But they soon inched forward again, taunting. Eli erupted again. “Tempt not the chosen ones, for to come against the voices crying in the wilderness is to appoint one’s own carcass to burn before the eyes of other jackals. God himself will consume your flesh, and it will drip from your own bones before your breath has expired!”
A wild, cackling man brandished a bulky, high-powered rifle. Buck held his breath as the man waved it above the crowd, and the rest screamed warnings at him. The weapon had a sight on the stock that identified it as a sniper’s rifle with kill power from a thousand yards. Why, Buck wondered, would a man with such a weapon risk showing it within reach of the witnesses and their proven power to destroy?
The GC guard stepped between the man and the wrought-iron fence, behind which the witnesses stood. He spoke to the man in Hebrew, but it was clear he did not understand. “English!” the man screamed, but he did not sound American. Buck couldn’t make out his accent. “If you do this thing,” the guard started over in English, “as a service to the Global Community, you must take full responsibility for the consequences.”
“You said there were no eyewitnesses!”
“Sir, the whole world is watching on television and the Internet.”
“Then I’ll be a hero! Out of my way!”
The guard did not move until the man leveled the weapon at him. Then the guard skipped into the darkness, and the man stood alone, facing the fence. And nothing else. The witnesses were gone.
“Threaten to burn my flesh, will you?” the man raged. “Face this firepower first, you cowards!”
The GC guard came back on the bullhorn, speaking urgently. “We shall search the area behind the fence! If the two are not there, they are in violation of the direct order of the potentate himself and may be shot at will by anyone without fear of indictment!”
CHAPTER 8
Though it was now the wee hours of Thursday morning on the Temple Mount, the atmosphere was festive. Hundreds milled about, chattering about the gall of two old men to defy Carpathia and make themselves vulnerable to attack by anyone in the world. They were fair game, and within minutes they would surely be dead.
Buck knew better, of course. He had sat under the teaching of Bruce Barnes and then Tsion Ben-Judah, and he knew what the witnesses meant by “the due time.” Bible prophecy called for the witnesses to be given the power by God to prophesy one thousand, two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. Both Bruce and Tsion held that those days were counted from the time of the signing of an agreement between Antichrist and Israel for seven years of peace—which also coincided with the seven-year tribulation. Such an agreement had been signed only a little more than two years before, and 1,260 days divided by 365 equaled three and a half years. Buck calculated that the due time was more than a year away.
Suddenly, from high on the hillside called the Mount of Olives came the loud preaching of the two in unison. The crowds began to run that way, murder in their throats. Despite the confusion and noise and armed guards engaging their weapons while on the run, the witnesses spoke with such volume that every word was clear.
“Harken unto us, servants of the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth! Lo, we are the two olive trees, the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. If any man will hurt us, fire proceedeth out of our mouths and devoureth our enemies. If any man dare attempt to hurt us, he must in that manner be killed! Hear and be warned!
“We have been granted the power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of our prophecy. Yea, we have power over waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as we will.
“And what is our prophecy, O ye generation of snakes and vipers who have made the holy city of Messiah’s death and resurrection likened unto Egypt and Sodom? That Jesus of Bethlehem, the son of the Virgin Mary, was in the beginning with God, and he was God, and he is God. Yea, he fulfilled all the prophecies of the coming Messiah, and he shall reign and rule now and forevermore, world without end, amen!”
The rabid cries of angry Israelis and tourists filled the air. Buck followed, his own panting filling his ears. No media lights had reached the witnesses, and nothing illuminated them from the sky, yet they shone bright as day in the dark grove of olive trees. It was an awesome, fearful sight, and Buck wanted to fall to his knees and worship the God who was true to his word.
As the crowd reached the base of the sloping hill and slipped in the dewy grass, Buck
caught up. “It is ours to bring rain,” the witnesses shouted, and a freezing gush of water poured from the skies and drenched the crowd, including Buck. The place had not seen a drop in twenty-four months, and the people craned their necks, pointed their faces to the sky, and opened their mouths. But the rain had stopped the instant it began, as if Eli and Moishe had opened and shut a tap in one motion.
“And it is ours to shut heaven for the days of our prophecy!”
The crowd was stunned, complaining and murmuring, grumbling threats anew. As they started again toward the illumined pair on the hillside, now less than a hundred yards away, the prophets stopped them with their voices alone.
“Stand and hear us, O ye wicked ones of Israel! You who would blaspheme the name of the Lord God your maker by sacrificing animals in the temple you claim to have erected in his honor! Know ye not that Jesus the Messiah was the lamb that was slain to take away the sins of the world? Your sacrifices of animal blood are a stench in the nostrils of your God! Turn from your wicked ways, O sinners! Face yourselves for the corpses you already are! Advance not against the chosen ones whose time has not yet been accomplished!”
But sure enough, as Buck watched in horror, two GC guards rushed past him and past the crowd, weapons raised. Slipping and sliding on the moist hillside, their uniforms became muddy and grass stained. They crawled combat style up the hill, illuminated by the light radiating from the witnesses.
“Woe unto you who would close your ears to the warnings of the chosen ones!” the witnesses shouted. “Flee to the caves to save yourselves! Your mission is doomed! Your bodies shall be consumed! Your souls shall be beyond redemption!”
But the guards pressed on. Buck squinted, anticipating the awfulness of it. The crowd chanted and raised fists at the witnesses, urging the guards to open fire. Gunshots resounded, echoing, deafening, the exploding cartridges producing yellow and orange bursts from the barrels of the weapons.
The witnesses stood side by side, gazing impassively at their attackers, who lay on their bellies a hundred feet down the slope. The crowd fell silent, as did the rifles, everyone staring, wondering how the guards could have missed from such close range. The guards rolled onto their sides, ejecting shell magazines and replacing them with loud clicks. They opened fire again, filling the valley with violent explosions.
The witnesses had not moved. Buck’s eyes were locked on them as blinding white light burst from their mouths, and they appeared to expectorate a stream of phosphorous vapor directly at the guards. The attackers had no time to even recoil as they ignited. Their weapons remained supported by the bones of their arms and hands as their flesh was vaporized, and their rib cages and pelvises made ghastly silhouettes against the grass.
Within seconds the white heat turned their rifles to dripping, sizzling liquid and their bones to ash. The would-be assassins smoldered in piles next to each other as the crowd fled in panic, screaming, cursing, crying, nearly knocking Buck over as they pushed past. His emotions conflicted, as always, when he saw humans die. The witnesses had declared that when the attackers died, their souls would be lost. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been warned.
Horrified at the loss of life and the eternal damnation the guards had gambled against and lost, Buck felt his knees weaken. He couldn’t take his eyes off the witnesses. The brightness of their killing fire still burned in his eyes, and it was as if the light that had shone from them was now gone. In the darkness, blinking against the spots and streaks that remained, he made out that they were slowly descending the mount. Why, he wondered, did they not just appear wherever they wanted to go, as they had seemed to transfigure themselves into the stadium the night before and from the Temple Mount to the Mount of Olives just now? They were beyond figuring, and as they neared him, he held his breath.
He knew them. He had talked to them. They seemed to know the people of God. Should he say anything? And what does one say? Good to see you again? What’s up? Nice job on those guards?
When he was close to them before, he had the wrought-iron fence between them. Of course, nothing could protect anyone from beings like this who carried the firepower of God himself. Buck fell to his knees as they passed within ten feet of him, and he looked up as he heard them murmuring.
Moishe said, “The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.”
At the words of God, Buck dropped face first into the grass and wept. God’s very thoughts would come to pass, and his purposes would stand. No one could come against the anointed ones of God until God decided it was time. The witnesses would carry on their ministry during the great and terrible day of the Lord, and no pronouncement or sentence or house arrest by anyone would get in the way of that.
If only Chaim Rosenzweig could have seen this, Buck thought as he made his way back to the parking lot at the Temple Mount.
Finally back at Chaim’s complex, Buck was waved in by Jonas, the gateman, who also unlocked the door for him, since no one else was awake. Buck peeked in on Chloe, grateful to find her still asleep. Then he walked out onto the veranda off their room and let his eyes grow accustomed to the dark again.
He was on the side of the main house opposite the driveway where Jonas now served as night watchman. He had seen him stroll the property every half hour or so before. Buck waited until Jonas came by again, then checked out the possibilities just past the railing of the patio.
Up one side was a metal drainpipe, old but still intact and solid. On the other side was a wire, embedded into the stucco with wire brads. The wire, he assumed, was either for telephone or television. Regardless, it would not support him. The drainpipe, however, had protruding seams every few feet that made it a natural for climbing. If, that is, a man was fearless.
Buck had never put himself in that category, but he was reluctant to arouse Rosenzweig’s suspicions by asking for house plans, and he was certain he had never seen a passageway to the roof. He had to know whether a chopper could set down there, and this was the only way he knew to find out.
Buck rubbed his hands until they felt sufficiently dry. He tied his canvas shoes tighter and hitched up his pants. Standing on the edge of the railing, he hoisted himself up and began shinnying up the drainpipe. When he was ten feet above the veranda and passing a small, mottled glass window on the third floor, he made the mistake of looking down. He still had ten feet to go to reach the roof, but even if he fell from where he was, the railing was likely to cut him in two.
He was not in trouble, but a wave of panic showed up on the doorstep of his mind. There was no wiggle room here, no leeway, no margin for error. A slip, a weak section, a fright that knocked him off balance would leave him no options. He would drop and could only hope to land close enough to the middle of the patio to keep from flopping over the rail. If he hit the ground, he was dead. If he hit the patio, he was probably dead.
So, now what to do? Proceed and finish the mission, or quickly move back to safety? He decided he would be just as safe up ten feet, so he kept going. Three feet from the roof he felt precarious, but also knew the only danger he could be in now would be of his own making. If he got wobbly, scared, panicky, or looked down, he would freeze because he had made himself look. As he lifted his left leg over the lip at the flat roofline, he gained a mental picture of himself, a human fly, by his own design hanging from the edge of the roof of a three-story building.
I’m an idiot, he decided, but he felt much better with the roof solidly beneath him. It was a bright, starry night now, crisp and calm. He detected utility boxes, fans, exhausts, ductwork, and vents here and there. What Rayford, or whoever, would need, he decided, was a fairly large, unencumbered area in which to set down a chopper.
Buck tiptoed across the roof, knowing that footsteps from above are often magnified below, and found pay dirt on the other side. In fact, to his surprise, he discovered an ancient helipad. The markings were faded, but whatever this building had been
before it was bequeathed to the national hero, it had required a landing area for a helicopter. He assumed Rosenzweig knew that and could have easily saved him this adventure.
He also deduced that if someone once used the helipad, there had to be easy access to and from it within the house. Buck looked and felt around the area until he found a heavy, metal door. It was rusted and bent, but it was not locked. He could only imagine how the creaking and groaning of metal would sound inside if he was not careful in forcing it open.
Buck played with it for several minutes, getting it to budge just a fraction each time. When he felt he had sufficiently prepared it for a wider push, he set his shoulder against it and wrapped his fingers around the edge to keep it from moving too far too fast. With a grunt and one driving step, he made the door move about eight inches. It made a noise, but not much of one. He assumed no one had heard it. If guards came running or if he roused someone inside, well, he’d just quickly identify himself and explain what he was up to.
Buck tried to slither through the opening, but he needed another couple of inches. These he accomplished by nudging the door a quarter inch or so at a time. When he finally got through, he found himself at the top of a wood staircase, musty and dusty and cobwebbed. It was also creaky, as he learned with his first step on the top landing. He felt for a light switch in the pitch-dark, not hoping for much. Finding nothing, he gingerly felt for the edge of the top step with a tentative foot. He was startled when something brushed his forehead. He nearly fell back on the stairs but held himself by pressing against the hoary wood walls. He had to fight to keep his balance, the backs of his legs pressing against the steps.
Feeling around in the dark, he grabbed a single, swaying bulb with a twist switch in its housing. Was it possible it still worked? How fortunate could a man be in one night? He turned the switch, and the light sprang to life. Buck quickly shut his eyes against the intrusion and heard the telltale pop of the filament breaking. He should have expected nothing less from a bulb that probably hadn’t been used in years.