“That’s all?”
Rayford watched, praying for Hattie as Floyd positioned the glaring overhead light. “Dilated. Seven or eight centimeters.”
“No section then,” Leah said.
“The baby’s gone,” he said. “I need an IV line, Ringer’s lactate solution, forty units of oxytocin per liter.”
“Incomplete abortion?”
“See how fast it all comes back to you, Leah? Normally she would deliver in an hour or two, but as far along as she is, this will be quick.”
Rayford was impressed with Leah’s speed and efficiency.
Hattie came to. “I’m dying!” she wailed.
“You’re miscarrying, Hattie,” Doctor Charles said. “I’m sorry. Work with me. We’re worried about you now.”
“It hurts!”
“Soon you won’t feel a thing, but you’re going to have to push when I tell you.”
Within minutes, Hattie was wracked with powerful contractions. What, Rayford wondered, might the offspring of the Antichrist look like?
The dead baby was so underdeveloped and small that it slipped quickly from Hattie’s body. Floyd wrapped it and pieces of the placenta, then handed the bundle to Leah. “Pathology?” she asked.
Floyd stared at her. “No,” he whispered firmly. “Do you have an incinerator?”
“Now I cannot do that. No. I have to put my foot down.”
“What?” Hattie called out. “What? Did I have it?”
Leah stood with the tiny bundle in her hands. Floyd moved to the head of the operating table. “Hattie, you expelled a very premature, very deformed fetus.”
“Don’t call it that! Boy or girl?”
“Indeterminate.”
“Can I see it?”
“Hattie, I’m sorry. It does not look like a baby. I don’t advise it.”
“But I want—”
Floyd pulled off his gloves and laid a hand gently on her cheek. “I have grown very fond of you, Hattie. You know that, don’t you?” She nodded, tears rolling. “I’m begging you to trust me, as one who cares for you.” She looked at him wonderingly. “Please,” he said. “I believe as you do that this was conceived as a living soul, but it was not viable and did not survive. It has not grown normally. Will you trust me to dispose of it?”
Hattie bit her lip and nodded. Floyd looked to Leah, who still appeared resolute. He placed the baby in a carrier and carefully examined Hattie. He beckoned Leah with a nod. “I need you to assist me with a uterine curettage to eliminate the rest of the placental tissue and any necrotic decidua.”
“Worried about endometritis?”
“Very good.”
Rayford could see by the look on her face and the set of her jaw that Leah was not going to dispose of the fetus. Apparently Floyd gathered that too. After performing the procedure on Hattie, he gently picked up the wrapped body. “Where?” he said.
“End of the hall,” she whispered. “Two floors down.”
He walked out, and Hattie sobbed aloud. Rayford approached and asked if he could pray for her.
“Please,” she managed. “Rayford, I want to die.”
“No you don’t.”
“I have no reason to live.”
“You do, Hattie. We love you.”
CHAPTER 5
Buck grew nervous in the van, waiting for Chloe and Tsion. He assumed she would hustle Tsion from the stage; thousands would have given anything for a moment with him, not to mention committee members who might want a word. And no one knew how Carpathia might respond to what had happened on stage. He initially blamed it on Tsion, but then the witnesses had appeared.
Buck thought Nicolae should realize that Tsion had no miraculous powers. Nicolae’s quarrel was with the two witnesses. It was his own fault, of course. He had not been invited, or even welcomed, on stage. And the gall to have Fortunato and the pompous Peter the Second precede him! Buck shook his head. What else could one expect from Antichrist?
Buck dialed Chloe’s number but got no answer. A busy signal he could understand. But no answer? A recorded voice spoke in Hebrew. “Jacov, listen to this. What is she saying?”
Jacov was still beaming, having craned his neck and leaned out the window to see others’ marks. He often pointed to his own and learned that fellow believers always smiled and seemed to enjoy pointing heavenward. The day would come, Buck knew, when the sign of the cross on the forehead would have to say everything between tribulation saints. Even pointing up would draw the attention of enemy forces.
The problem was, the day would also come when the other side would have its own mark, and it would be visible to all. In fact, according to the Bible, those who did not bear this “mark of the beast” would not be able to buy or sell. The great network of saints would then have to develop its own underground market to stay alive.
Jacov put the phone to his ear, then handed it back to Buck. “If you want to leave a message, press one.”
Buck did. “Chloe,” he said, “call me as soon as you get this. The crowd out here hasn’t thinned a bit, so I don’t want to have to come and find you and Tsion. But I will if I don’t hear from you in ten minutes.”
As soon as he ended the call, his phone chirped. “Thank God,” he said and flipped it open. “Yeah, babe.”
Heavy static and mechanical noise. Then he heard, “Jerusalem Tower, this is GC Chopper One!”
“Hello?”
“Roger, tower, do you read?”
“Hello, this isn’t the tower,” Buck said. “Am I getting a cross frequency?”
“Roger, tower, this is a confidential transmission, so I’m using the phone rather than the radio, roger?”
“Mac, is that you?”
“Roger, tower.”
“You in the chopper with the other three?”
“Ten-four. Checking coordinates to return to pad at King David, over.”
“You trying to tell me something?”
“Affirmative. Thank you. No head winds?”
“Is it about Tsion?”
“Partly cloudy?”
“And Chloe?”
“Ten-four.”
“Are they in danger, Mac?”
“Affirmative.”
“Have they been taken?”
“Not at this time, tower. ETA five minutes.”
“They’re on the run?”
“Affirmative.”
“What can I do?”
“We’ll come in from the northwest, tower.”
“Are they outside the stadium?”
“Negative.”
“I’ll find them in the northwest corner?”
“Affirmative, that’s a go. Assistance, tower. Appreciate your assistance.”
“Am I in danger too?”
“Ten-four.”
“I should send someone else?”
“Affirmative and thank you, tower. Heading that way immediately.”
“Mac! I’m going to send someone they may not recognize, and I’m going to be waiting for him to bring them out the northwest exit. Am I all right with that?”
“As soon as we can, tower. Over and out.”
“Jacov, run in and find Tsion and Chloe and get them out of the stadium through the northwest exit.”
Jacov reached for the door handle. “Up or down?” he said. “There is an exit at ground level and one below.”
“Bring them out from below, and stop for no one. Do you have a weapon?”
Jacov reached under the seat and pulled out an Uzi. He stuffed it in his waistband and covered it with his shirt. Buck considered it obvious, but in the darkness and with the press of the crowd, maybe it would go undetected. “Someone must have assigned GC guards to grab Tsion. They don’t have him yet, but it won’t be long. Get them out of there.”
Jacov ran into the stadium, and Buck slid behind the wheel. The crowd was finally, slowly, starting to move. It was as if people didn’t want to leave. Clearly they hoped for a glimpse of Tsion. Buck didn’t understand their conversations, but the
occasional English phrase told him most were discussing the humiliation of Carpathia.
As Buck maneuvered the van carefully through the crowd he heard a chopper. He feared it brought more GC guards. He was surprised that the helicopter looked just like the one that had borne Carpathia. He grabbed his phone and hit the last-caller callback button.
“McCullum.”
“Mac! It’s Buck. What are you doing back here?”
“Ten-four, Security. We’ll check out the southeast quadrant.”
“I sent a man to the northwest corner!”
“Affirmative, affirmative! I’ll check southeast, but then I’m taking my cargo to base, over.”
“Might they be southeast now?”
“Negative! I’ll cover southeast!”
“But what can you do if they’re there?”
“Roger, I can create the diversion, Security, but then we’re gone, copy?”
“I’m confused but trusting you, Mac.”
“Just keep your people out of southeast, Security. I’ll handle.”
Buck tossed the phone onto the seat and tilted his outside mirror to watch the chopper. Leon Fortunato announced over the helicopter’s loudspeakers, “We have been asked by Global Community ground security forces at the stadium to help clear this area! Please translate this message to others if at all possible! We appreciate your cooperation!”
The mass of people did not obey. As word spread that Carpathia’s own helicopter hovered over one corner of the stadium trying to clear the area, hundreds started that way, staring into the sky. That cleared a path for Buck, who drove quickly to the northwest corner. As people streamed out, they were drawn to the helicopter and immediately began moving that way to check out the commotion.
Buck pulled near the stadium. He ignored waving armed guards, opened his door, and stepped up on the floorboard to locate the underground exit. He found the dimly lit ramp where trucks had delivered equipment the day before. On tiptoes he saw a shaft of light appear as a door burst open and someone sprinted up the ramp.
Guards moved in for a closer look as Buck realized it was Jacov. What was he running from? Why was he ignored? Was the GC watching for Tsion? As Jacov passed the guards, he appeared to spot the van. Less than fifty feet away, he looked straight at Buck. He pulled the Uzi from under his shirt and sprayed bullets into the sky as he turned left.
The guards gave chase, guns drawn, and hundreds in the area screamed and dived for cover. Buck instinctively lowered his body, now watching over the top of the van. A couple hundred feet away, Jacov turned and fired more bullets into the air. The guards returned fire, and Jacov ran off again.
Buck had not heard the van doors open, but he heard them shut and Chloe and Tsion scream, “Go, Buck! Drive! Go, now!”
He dropped into the seat and slammed the door. “What about Jacov!”
“Go, Buck!” Chloe hollered. “He’s creating a diversion!”
Buck laughed as he floored the accelerator and bounced over a curb. “So is Mac!” he said. “What a team! Where do we pick up Jacov?”
Tsion lay on the floor of the backseat, panting. Chloe lay across the seat itself. “He said he would meet us at Chaim’s,” Tsion managed.
“They were shooting at him!”
“He said he would not draw their fire until he was out of range. He was sure he’d be all right.”
“Nothing is out of their range,” Buck said, putting distance between them and the stadium. Most traffic, emergency and otherwise, headed toward instead of away from Kollek Stadium now. Roadblocks kept many civilian cars at bay as GC vehicles tried to get through. Buck was virtually ignored going the other direction.
“If they’re after you, Tsion, we don’t dare go back to Chaim’s.”
“I cannot think of a safer place,” Tsion said. “Carpathia will not threaten me there. Your wife was brilliant. She figured it out before it happened. She saw the guards coming for me, but she didn’t like their looks.”
“They were pressing their earpieces hard against their ears,” Chloe said, “while releasing the safety locks on their weapons. I figured Carpathia or Fortunato told them to get revenge on Tsion and do it in the middle of a crowd so it would look like an accident. They got so close that I heard one tell the supreme commander where we were.”
“I’m still worried about Jacov,” Buck said.
“He was resourceful,” Chloe said. “He jogged through the tunnel near us, saying, ‘I’m looking for familiar faces to follow me quickly to safety.’ We stepped out from a utility room and—”
“I immediately saw the mark on his forehead,” Tsion said. “Praise the Lord! You must tell us later what happened.”
Chloe continued, “He said you were bringing the van to the underground exit. He peeked out and saw the guards at the top of the ramp, then said he would create a diversion and we should follow twenty seconds later. He backed up and ran, bursting through that door!”
“It worked,” Buck said, “because he even distracted me. I didn’t see you get in the van.”
“Nobody saw us,” Chloe said. “Oh!”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said, hissing.
“What, Chlo’? Are you all right?”
“Just not used to running,” she said.
“Nor am I,” Tsion said. “And I would like to get off this floor as soon as it is safe, too.”
“You cannot keep her here,” Leah told Dr. Charles. “It’s impossible. I’m sorry. We could try to sneak her into a room, and I know it would be better for her, but if you think you’ll ever need this facility or my help again, you’d better get her out of here now.”
“Give me another sedative then,” Floyd said. “I want her out before we go.”
Hattie slept all the way to the safe house, and Dr. Charles put her to bed near the TV, where they were quickly brought up to date on the activity in Jerusalem. “His Excellency the potentate, Nicolae Carpathia, will address the world in twenty minutes,” the announcer said. “As most of you saw on live television in the Eastern Hemisphere and many saw on a Cell/Sol Internet hookup that covered the rest of the globe, an attempt to poison His Excellency was foiled. The potentate is healthy, though shaken, and wishes to assure global citizens he is all right. We expect his remarks may also cover what sort of retribution he might exact from the perpetrators of the attempt on his life.”
The journalist in Buck wished he was still at the stadium. He would have loved to have seen how long Mac kept Carpathia, Fortunato, and the clownish Mathews in the air while giving Tsion a chance to escape. He wished he could see for himself the water and blood on the stage and ask eyewitnesses if anyone saw the two from the Wailing Wall come or go.
He had learned not to baby Chloe; she was as brave and strong as he was. But she was also carrying their child, and she had been through a horrible physical ordeal that had left her wounded. This trauma couldn’t have been good for her.
Buck was relieved to see Israeli rather than GC guards at Chaim’s gates. Admittedly, it was this same force that had been behind the massacre of Tsion’s family and the chasing of him from his homeland. But now he was here as Chaim’s guest, and Chaim was just short of deity in Israel.
As soon as they were inside, a pale, trembling Chaim greeted them with embraces and demanded to know where Jacov was. Buck left the explaining to Tsion, knowing Chaim would need assurances that his protégé had not planned the disgracing of Carpathia. “You assured me you would remain neutral,” Chaim said. “Otherwise I would not have urged him to attend.”
“You knew he was coming and did not tell me?” Tsion said.
“He wanted an element of surprise. Surely you must have expected him.”
“I had hoped he would wait until tomorrow or the next night. You should have prepared me.”
“You appeared more than prepared.”
Tsion sat wearily. “Chaim, the man interrupted the quoting of Scripture. It was as if he had planned his entrance for the worst
possible instant. I am going to hold you to your promise to hear me out, and very soon. I am not up to it this evening, but as a brilliant and reasonable man, you will not be able to refute the evidence I have for Jesus as Messiah and Carpathia himself as Antichrist.”
Rosenzweig settled into a large, soft chair and sighed heavily. “Tsion, you are as a son to me. But what you just said could get you killed.”
“How well I know!”
“Of course, and I am still grieved and heartbroken over your losses. But to come to Israel to proclaim the deity of Jesus is as foolhardy as those troublemakers at the Wall playing tricks with our water and our weather. And, Tsion, calling Nicolae the Antichrist when he is visiting the Holy City is the height of arrogance and insensitivity. I have told you before, I would sooner believe Carpathia was the Messiah and one of those two so-called witnesses the Antichrist.”
Tsion sat shaking his head wearily, and Buck took the occasion to beg off for the evening. “If you’ll excuse us . . .”
“Of course,” Chaim said.
“I would like to know when Jacov arrives, no matter when,” Buck said.
“Thank you for your concern,” the older man said. “We will get word to you.”
Rayford kept one eye on the television while trying to reach someone in Israel. Neither Buck’s nor Chloe’s phone was answered, and he couldn’t raise Mac either. Forgetting himself for a moment, he swore under his breath. Hattie roused. “That’s the Rayford Steele I once knew,” she said, her voice airy and weak.
“Ah, I’m sorry, Hattie. That’s not like me. I’m worried about what’s happened over there, and I want to be sure everybody’s all right.”
“It’s nice to know you’re still human,” she whispered. “But you never were and you never will be as human as I am.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m going to kill Nicolae.”
“I’m sorry about your baby, Hattie, but you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Rayford, would you lean closer?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t be afraid of me. I’m not going to be around much longer anyway.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I just don’t have the energy to talk louder, so would you lean closer?”