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.
And to be reunited with friends and loved ones. It was nearly too much to get his mind around. Best of all, of course, would be to see Jesus personally. Would he get to touch Him, to speak with Him? Mac felt so new as a believer, so limited in his knowledge of the things of God. He felt as if he had been attending seminary under the Tribulation Force’s spiritual leaders ever since Rayford had led him to faith. But there was so much he didn’t know.
All he knew was that Jesus loved him, had died for his sins, and was the reason he did not have to fear death and hell.
Chang had been called before Dr. Rosenzweig and the elders.
“Of course I can do it,” he said, “but the GC has been improving on wresting back control of the airwaves. The shorter the broadcast, the more likely I can keep it on without interruption.”
“I plan to be brief,” Chaim said.
“And if, ah, if—”
“You’re wondering what happens, hoping as I am, if Messiah returns first?”
“Or in the middle of it,” Chang said.
“Well, I should think that event would take precedence, wouldn’t you?”
Chang smiled as the elders laughed.
“Rabbi Rosenzweig is attempting,” Eleazar Tiberius said, “to persuade the rest of the Jewish population—those who have refused the mark of the beast and yet who have not acknowledged Jesus as Messiah—to do just that. He, and we agree, estimates that this may constitute a third of the remaining Jewish population. You understand that these are God’s chosen people, His children from the beginning of time. All of Scripture is His love letter to them, His plan for them.”
“Understand it?” Chang said. “I can’t say that I do. But I believe it.”
Chaim stood. “We must not delay. As I have said so many times, we know the day—today—but we do not know the hour. If we thought we did, we were wrong, were we not, Eleazar?”
The big man smiled. “I acknowledge it. But is it not also true that we know the sequence of events, so we have some idea what follows by what comes next?”
“That is what I will be talking about on the broadcast, my friends.”
Before the anesthetic took effect in his temple, Rayford fought to keep from recoiling from the thrust of the needle. He was amazed that a new twinge of pain could supersede all the others, and he was also struck by Leah’s gentleness as she cradled his head and assured him the sting would soon fade.
“You’re being much better to me than I deserve,” he said, knowing he sounded groggy and hoping she understood.
“Will you stop with that now, Captain? I have work to do, and while I know you’re trying to keep things light, I don’t need to be worrying if you’re serious.”
He reached for her hand. “Take a minute, Leah. I am serious. When you first came to us you know that we sniped at each other. I wasn’t used to your types of questions and probably was threatened by them. I never made that right, but as far as I could tell, you never made me pay.”
She pressed her lips together. “And I’m not about to now. Listen, Ray, you’re hurt more badly than you know. My job is to stabilize you, keep you from going into shock. The fact that you haven’t already is a miracle. But you apparently need to hear this, so let me tell you. My failure was that I never cleared the air between us either. Fact is, you eventually won me over. Everybody could see how much you cared for all of us, how tireless you were, how you put everybody else ahead of your own needs.”
Rayford was embarrassed. He hadn’t meant to elicit this, nice as it was. He squeezed her hand. “Okay, okay,” he said. “We’re friends again.”
“Think of the people who will be in heaven because of you,” she said.
“All right, enough,” he said. “I was just trying to thank you for not rubbing it in.”
“Now will you hush?”
“I will, ma’am.”
Mac noticed Viv Ivins look up with a start but then recover quickly. Carpathia had asked, “Photographers in place and ready, Ms. Ivins?”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“I shall be on horseback,” he said. “All Global Community Unity Army personnel in this room, plus their superiors, shall also ride. Your mounts are being saddled as we speak.”