Tsion responded, “It’s me. We could use the audio and talk to each other, if you’re in a secure area.”
“Better not,” Buck tapped in. “Did you want something specific?”
“I would like a companion for breakfast,” Tsion said. “I’m feeling much better today, but I’m getting a little claustrophobic here. I know you can’t sneak me out, but could you get in without Loretta suspecting?”
“I’ll try. What would you like for breakfast?”
“I have cooked up something American just for you, Buck. I’m turning my screen now to see if it can pick it up.”
The machine was not really built to pan around a dark, underground shelter. Buck typed in: “I can’t see anything, but I’ll trust you. Be there as soon as I can.” Buck told the receptionist he would be gone for a couple of hours, but as he was heading to the Range Rover, Verna Zee caught him. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
“I want to know where you’ll be.”
“I’m not sure where all I’ll be,” he said. “The desk knows I’ll be gone for a couple of hours. I don’t feel obligated to share specifics.”
Verna shook her head.
Rayford slowed as he reached the grand entrance of Global Community headquarters. The compound had been set in an unusual area where upscale residences surrounded it. Something had caught Rayford’s attention. Animal noises. Barking. He had been aware of dogs in the area. Many employees owned expensive breeds they enjoyed walking and tethering outside their places. They were showpieces of prosperity. He had heard one or two barking at times. But now they were all barking. They were noisy enough that he turned to see if he could detect what was agitating them so. He saw a couple of dogs jerk away from their owners and race down the street howling.
He shrugged and entered the building.
Buck considered swinging by Loretta’s house and picking up Chloe. He would have to think of a story to tell Loretta at the church office. He wouldn’t be able to park or walk into the church without her seeing him. Maybe he and Chloe would just spend some time with her and then appear to be leaving the church the back way. If no one was watching, they could slip down and see Tsion. It sounded like a plan. Buck was halfway to Mt. Prospect when he noticed something strange. Roadkill. Lots of it. And more potential roadkill skittering across the streets. Squirrels, rabbits, snakes. Snakes? He had seen few snakes in the Midwest, particularly this far north. The occasional garter snake was all. That’s what these were, but why so many of them? Coons, possum, ducks, geese, dogs, cats, animals everywhere. He lowered the window of the Range Rover and listened. Huge clouds of birds swept from tree to tree. But the sky was bright. Cloudless. There seemed to be no wind. No leaf even shivered on a tree. Buck waited at a stoplight and noticed that, despite the lack of wind, the streetlights swayed. Signs bent back and forth. Buck blew the light and raced toward Mt. Prospect.
Rayford was ushered into Carpathia’s office. The potentate had several VIPs around a conference table. He quickly pulled Rayford aside. “Thank you for stopping in, Captain Steele. I just wanted to reiterate my wish that I not have to face Ms. Durham. She may want to talk to me. That will be out of the question. I—”
“Excuse me,” Leon Fortunato interrupted, “but Potentate, sir, we’re getting some strange readouts on our power meters.”
“Your power meters?” Carpathia asked, incredulous. “I leave maintenance to you and your staff, Leon—”
“Sir!” the secretary said. “An emergency call for you or Mr. Fortunato from the International Seismograph Institute.”
Carpathia looked irritated and whirled to face Fortunato. “Take that, will you, Leon? I am busy here.”
Fortunato took the call and appeared to want to keep quiet until he blurted, “What? What?!”
Now Carpathia was angry. “Leon!”
Rayford moved away from Carpathia and looked out the window. Below, dogs ran in circles, their owners chasing them. Rayford reached in his pocket for his cell phone and quickly called McCullum. Carpathia glared at him. “Captain Steele! I was talking to you here—”
“Mac! Where are you? Start ’er up. I’m on my way now!”
Suddenly the power went out. Only battery-operated lights near the ceiling shined, and the bright sun flooded through the windows. The secretary screamed. Fortunato turned to Carpathia and tried to tell him what he had just heard. Carpathia shouted above the din. “I would like order in here, please!”
And as if someone had flipped a switch, the day went black. Now even the grown men moaned and shrieked. Those battery-operated lights in the corner cast a haunting glow on the building, which began to shudder. Rayford made a dash for the door. He sensed someone right behind him. He pushed the elevator button and then smacked himself in the head, remembering there was no power. He dashed upstairs to the roof, where McCullum had the chopper blades whirring.
The building shifted under Rayford like the surf. The chopper, resting on its skis, dipped first to the left and then to the right. Rayford reached for the opening, seeing Mac’s wide eyes. As Rayford tried to climb in, he was pushed from behind and flew up behind Mac. Nicolae Carpathia was scrambling in. “Lift off!” he shouted. “Lift off!”
McCullum raised the chopper about a foot off the roof. “Others are coming!” he shouted.
“No more room!” Carpathia hollered. “Lift off!”
As two young women and several middle-aged men grabbed the struts, Mac pulled away from the building. As he banked left, his lights illuminated the roof, where others came shrieking and crying out the door. As Rayford watched in horror, the entire eighteen-story building, filled with hundreds of employees, crashed to the ground in a mighty roar and a cloud of dust. One by one the screaming people hanging from the chopper fell away.
Rayford stared at Carpathia. In the dim light from the control panel he saw no expression. Carpathia simply appeared busy about strapping himself in. Rayford was ill. He had seen people die. Carpathia had ordered Mac away from people who might have been saved. Rayford could have killed the man with his bare hands.
Wondering if he wouldn’t have been better off to have died in the building himself, Rayford shook his head and resolutely fastened his seat belt. “Baghdad!” he shouted. “Baghdad Airport!”
Buck had known exactly what was coming and had been speeding through lights and stop signs, jumping curbs, and going around cars and trucks. He wanted to get to Chloe at Loretta’s house first. He reached for his phone, but he had not stored speed-dial numbers yet, and there was no way he could drive this quickly and punch in an entire number at the same time. He tossed the phone on the seat and kept going. He was going through an intersection when the sun was snuffed out. Day went to night in an instant, and power went out all over the area. People quickly turned on their headlights, but Buck saw the crevasse too late. He was heading for a fissure in the road that had opened before him. It looked at least ten feet wide and that deep. He figured if he dropped into it he would be killed, but he was going too fast to avoid it. He wrenched the wheel to the left and the Range Rover rolled over completely before plunging down into the hole. The passenger-side air bag deployed and quietly deflated. It was time to find out what this car was made of.
Ahead of him the gap narrowed. There would be no going out that way unless he could start going up first. He pushed the buttons that gave him all-wheel drive and stick shift, shifted into low gear, crimped the front wheels slightly to the left, and floored the accelerator. The left front tire bit into the steep bank of the crevasse, and suddenly Buck shot almost straight up. A small car behind him dropped front first into the hole and burst into flames.
The ground shifted and broke up. A huge section of sidewalk pushed up from the ground more than ten feet and toppled into the street.
The sound was deafening. Buck had never raised his window after listening to the animals, and now the thunderous crashing enveloped him as trucks flipped over and streetlamp
s, telephone poles, and houses fell.
Buck told himself to slow down. Speed would kill him. He had to see what he was encountering and pick his way through it. The Range Rover bounced and twisted. Once he spun in a circle. People who had, for the moment, survived this were driving wildly and smashing into each other.
How long would it last? Buck was disoriented. He looked at the compass on the dash and tried to stay pointed to the west. For a moment there seemed almost a pattern in the street. He went down then up then down then up as if on a roller coaster, but the great quake had just begun. What at first appeared as jagged peaks the Rover could handle quickly became swirling masses of mud and asphalt. Cars were swallowed up in them.
Horror was not a good enough word for it. Rayford could not bring himself to speak to Carpathia or even to Mac. They were headed toward Baghdad Airport, and Rayford could not keep from staring at the devastation below. Fires had broken out all over the place. They illuminated car crashes, flattened buildings, the earth roiling and rolling like an angry sea. What appeared a huge ball of a gasoline fire caught his eye. There, hanging in the sky so close it seemed he could touch it, was the moon. The bloodred moon.
Buck was not thinking of himself. He was thinking of Chloe. He was thinking of Loretta. He was thinking of Tsion. Could God have brought them through all this only to let them die in the great earthquake, the sixth Seal Judgment? If they all went to be with God, so much the better. Was it too much to ask that it be painless for his loved ones? If they were to go, he prayed, “Lord, take them quickly.”
The quake roared on and on, a monster that gobbled everything in sight. Buck recoiled in horror as his headlights shone on a huge house dropping completely underground. How far was he from Chloe at Loretta’s? Would he have a better chance of getting to Loretta and Tsion at the church? Soon Buck found his the only vehicle in sight. No streetlights, no traffic lights, no street signs. Houses were crumbling. Above the road he heard screams, saw people running, tripping, falling, rolling.
The Range Rover bounced and shook. He couldn’t count the times his head hit the roof. Once a strip of curb rolled up and pushed the Range Rover on its side. Buck thought the end was near. He was not going to take it lying down. There he was, pressed up against the left side of the vehicle, strapped in. He reached for the seat belt. He was going to unfasten it and climb out the passenger’s-side window. Just before he got it unlatched, the rolling earth uprighted the Range Rover, and off he drove again. Glass broke. Walls fell. Restaurants disappeared. Car dealerships were swallowed. Office buildings stood at jagged angles, then slowly toppled. Again Buck saw a gap in the road he could not avoid. He closed his eyes and braced himself, feeling his tires roll over an uneven surface and break glass and crumple metal. He looked around quickly as he took a left and saw that he had driven over the top of someone else’s car. He hardly knew where he was. He just kept heading west. If only he could get to the church or to Loretta’s house. Would he recognize either? Was there a prayer that anyone he knew anywhere in the world was still alive?
Mac had caught a glimpse of the moon. Rayford could see he was awestruck. He maneuvered the chopper so Nicolae could see it too. Carpathia seemed to stare at it in wonder. It illuminated his face in its awful red glow, and the man had never looked more like the devil.
Great sobs rose in Rayford’s chest and throat. As he looked at the destruction and mayhem below, he knew the odds were against his finding Amanda. Lord, receive her unto yourself without suffering, please!
And Hattie! Was it possible she might have received Christ before this? Could there have been somebody in Boston or on the plane who would have helped her make the transaction?
Suddenly there came a meteor shower, as if the sky was falling. Huge flaming rocks streaked from the sky. Rayford had seen it go from day to night and now back to day with all the flames.
Buck gasped as the Range Rover finally hit something that made it stop. The back end had settled into a small indentation, and the headlights pointed straight up. Buck had both hands on the wheel, and he was reclining, staring at the sky. Suddenly the heavens opened. Monstrous black and purple clouds rolled upon each other and seemed to peel back the very blackness of the night. Meteors came hurtling down, smashing everything that had somehow avoided being swallowed. One landed next to Buck’s door, so hot that it melted the windshield and made Buck unlatch his seat belt and try to scramble out the right side. But as he did, another molten rock exploded behind the Range Rover and punched it out of the ditch. Buck was thrown into the backseat and hit his head on the ceiling. He was dazed, but he knew if he stayed in one place he was dead. He climbed over the seat and got behind the wheel again. He strapped himself in, thinking how flimsy that precaution seemed against the greatest earthquake in the history of mankind.
There seemed no diminishing of the motion of the earth. These were not aftershocks. This thing simply was not going to quit. Buck drove slowly, the Range Rover’s headlights jerking and bouncing crazily as first one side and then the other dropped and flew into the air. Buck thought he recognized a landmark: a low-slung restaurant at a corner three blocks from the church. Somehow he had to keep going. He carefully drove around and through destruction and mayhem. The earth continued to shift and roll, but he just kept going. Through his blown-out window he saw people running, heard them screaming, saw their gaping wounds and their blood. They tried to hide under rocks that had been disgorged from the earth. They used upright chunks of asphalt and sidewalk to protect them, but just as quickly they were crushed. A middle-aged man, shirtless and shoeless and bleeding, looked heavenward through broken glasses and opened his arms wide. He screamed to the sky, “God, kill me! Kill me!” And as Buck slowly bounced past in the Range Rover, the man was swallowed into the earth.
Rayford had lost hope. Part of him was praying that the helicopter would drop from the sky and crash. The irony was, he knew Nicolae Carpathia was not to die for yet another twenty-one months. And then he would be resurrected and live another three-and-a-half years. No meteor would smash that helicopter. And wherever they landed, they would somehow be safe. All because Rayford had been running an errand for the Antichrist.
Buck’s heart sank as he saw the steeple of New Hope Village Church. It had to be less than six hundred yards away, but the earth was still churning. Things were still crashing. Huge trees fell and dragged power lines into the street. Buck spent several minutes wending his way through debris and over huge piles of wood and dirt and cement. The closer he got to the church, the emptier he felt in his heart. That steeple was the only thing standing. Its base rested at ground level. The lights of the Range Rover illuminated pews, sitting incongruously in neat rows, some of them unscathed. The rest of the sanctuary, the high-arched beams, the stained-glass windows, all gone. The administration building, the classrooms, the offices were flattened to the ground in a pile of bricks and glass and mortar.
One car was visible in a crater in what used to be the parking lot. The bottom of the car was flat on the ground, all four tires blown, axles broken. Two bare human legs protruded from under the car. Buck stopped the Range Rover a hundred feet from that mess in the parking lot. He shifted into park and turned off the engine. His door would not open. He loosened his belt and climbed out the passenger side. And suddenly the earthquake stopped. The sun reappeared. It was a bright, sunshiny Monday morning in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Buck felt every bone in his body. He staggered over the uneven ground toward that little flattened car. When he was close enough, he saw that the crushed body was missing a shoe. The one that remained, however, confirmed his fear. Loretta had been crushed by her own car.
Buck stumbled and fell facedown in the dirt, something gashing his cheek. He ignored it and crawled to the car. He braced himself and pushed with all his might, trying to roll the vehicle off the body. It would not budge. Everything in him screamed against leaving Loretta there. But where would he take the body if he could free it? Sobbing now, he crawled through the d
ebris, looking for any entrance to the underground shelter. Small recognizable areas of the fellowship hall allowed him to crawl around what was left of the flattened church. The conduit that led to the steeple had been snapped. He made his way over bricks and chunks of wood. Finally he found the vent shaft. He cupped his hands over it and shouted down into it, “Tsion! Tsion! Are you there?”
He turned and put his ear to the shaft, feeling cool air rush from the shelter. “I am here, Buck! Can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Tsion! Are you all right?”
“I am all right! I cannot get out the door!”
“You don’t want to see what’s up here anyway, Tsion!” Buck shouted, his voice getting weaker.
“How is Loretta?”
“Gone!”
“Was it the great earthquake?”
“It was!”
“Can you get to me?”
“I will get to you if it’s the last thing I do, Tsion! I need you to help me look for Chloe!”
“I am OK for now, Buck! I will wait for you!”
Buck turned to look in the direction of the safe house. People staggered in ragged clothes, bleeding. Some dropped and seemed to die in front of his eyes. He didn’t know how long it would take him to get to Chloe. He was sure he would not want to see what he found there, but he would not stop until he did. If there was one chance in a million of getting to her, of saving her, he would do it.
The sun had reappeared over New Babylon. Rayford urged Mac McCullum to keep going toward Baghdad. Everywhere the three of them looked was destruction. Craters from meteors. Fires burning. Buildings flattened. Roads wasted.
When Baghdad Airport came into sight, Rayford hung his head and wept. Jumbo jets were twisted, some sticking out of great cavities in the ground. The terminal was flattened. The tower was down. Bodies strewn everywhere.