When he did not get the usual recording about the “mobile customer you have called,” he stood still and prayed Chloe would answer. When it was Loretta, he was speechless at first.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
“I’m sorry, Loretta,” he said. “Wrong number.”
“I’m glad you called, Buck. Verna was about to call you.”
“About what?”
“I’ll let her tell you.”
“Cameron, I called the office. A few people are still there, monitoring things and promising to lock up when they’re finished. Anyway, there were a couple of phone messages for you.”
“From Chloe?”
“No, I’m sorry. There was one from Dr. Rosenzweig in Israel. Another was from a man claiming to be your father-in-law. And another from a Miss White, who says she needs to be picked up at Mitchell Field in Milwaukee at midnight.”
Miss White? Buck thought. Crafty of Amanda to keep hidden how connected our little family has become.
“Thanks, Verna. Got it.”
“Cameron, how are you going to pick anyone up in Milwaukee without a vehicle?”
“I’ve still got a few hours to figure that out. Right now that much time seems like a luxury.”
“Loretta has offered her car, provided I’m willing to drive,” Verna said.
“I hope that won’t be necessary,” Buck said. “But I appreciate it. I’ll let you know.”
Buck didn’t feel much like a journalist, standing in the midst of the chaos. He should have been drinking it all in, impressing it upon his brain, asking questions of people who seemed to be in charge. But no one seemed in charge. Everyone was working. And Buck didn’t care whether he could translate this into a story or not. His magazine, along with every other major media outlet, was controlled, if not owned, by Nicolae Carpathia. As much as he strived to keep things objective, everything seemed to come out with the spin of the master deceiver. The worst part was, Nicolae was good at it. Of course, he had to be. It was his very nature. Buck just hated the idea that he himself was being used to spread propaganda and lies that people were eating like ice cream.
Most of all though, right now, right here, he cared about nothing but Chloe. He had allowed the thought to invade his mind that he might have lost her. He knew he would see her again at the end of the Tribulation, but would he have the will to go on without her? She had become the center of his life, around which everything else revolved. During the short time they had been together, she had proved more than he ever could have hoped for in a wife. It was true they were bound in a common cause that made them look past the insignificant and the petty, which seemed to get in so many other couples’ way. But he sensed she would never have been catty or a nag anyway. She was selfless and loving. She trusted him and supported him completely. He would not stop until he found her. And until he knew for sure, he would never believe her dead.
Buck dialed the number in the Range Rover. How many dozens of times had he done this now? He knew the routine by heart. When he got a busy signal, his knees nearly buckled. Had he dialed the right number? He’d had to punch it in anew because redial would have given him Loretta’s home again. He stopped dead on the sidewalk, mayhem all around him, and with fingers shaking, carefully and resolutely punched in the numbers. He pressed the phone to his ear. “The mobile customer you have called—” Buck swore and gripped Verna’s phone so tightly he thought it might break. He took a step and pulled his arm back as if to fire the blasted machine into the side of a building. He followed through but hung onto the phone, realizing it would be the stupidest thing he had ever done. He shook his head at the word that had burst from his lips when that cursed recording had come on. So, the old nature is still just under the surface.
He was mad at himself. How, in such dire circumstances, could he have dialed the wrong number?
Though he knew he would hear that recording again and that he would hate it as never before, he couldn’t keep himself from hitting the redial button yet again. Now the line was busy! Was it a malfunction? Some cruel cosmic joke? Or was somebody, somewhere, trying to use that phone?
There was no guarantee it was Chloe. It could be anyone. It could be a cop. It could be an emergency worker. It could be someone who found her wrecked Range Rover.
No, he would not allow himself to believe that. Chloe was alive. Chloe was trying to call him. But where would she call? No one was at the church. For all he knew, no one was still at the Global Community Weekly office. Did Chloe know Loretta’s number? It would be easy enough to get. The question was whether he should try calling the places she might have called, or just keep redialing her number in hopes of catching her between calls.
The senior flight attendant of a crew that was two-thirds as many people as the entire passenger list rapped on the cockpit door and opened it as Rayford taxied slowly down the runway. “Captain,” she said as he lifted the headphone from his right ear, “not everyone is seated and buckled in.”
“Well, I’m not going to stop,” he said. “Can’t you handle it?”
“The offending party, sir, is Mr. Carpathia himself.”
“I don’t have jurisdiction over him,” Rayford said. “And neither do you.”
“Federal Aviation Administration rules require that—”
“In case you haven’t noticed, ‘federal anything’ means nothing anymore. Everything is global. And Carpathia is above global. If he doesn’t want to sit down, he can stand. I’ve made my announcement, and you have given your instructions, right?”
“Right.”
“Then you go get strapped in and let the potentate worry about himself.”
“If you say so, Captain. But if this plane is as powerful as a 777, I wouldn’t want to be standing when you accelerate—”
But Rayford had replaced his earphones and was getting the plane into position for takeoff. As he awaited instructions from the tower, Rayford surreptitiously slipped his left hand beneath the seat and depressed the intercom button. Someone was asking Carpathia if he didn’t want to sit down. Rayford was aware of McCullum looking at him expectantly, as if he had heard something through his earphones that Rayford had not. Rayford quickly released the intercom button and heard McCullum say, “We have clearance, Cap. We can roll.” Rayford could have begun gradually and slowly picked up enough speed to go airborne. But everybody enjoyed a powerful takeoff once in a while, right? He throttled up and took off down the runway with such speed and power that he and McCullum were driven back into their seats.
“Yeehah!” McCullum cried. “Ride ’em cowboy!”
Rayford had a lot to think about, and taking off for only the second time in a new aircraft, he should have remained focused on the task at hand. But he couldn’t resist pressing that intercom button again and hearing what he might have done to Carpathia. In his mind’s eye he pictured the man somersaulting all the way to the back of the plane, and he only wished there was a back door he could open from the cockpit.
“Oh, my goodness!” he heard over the intercom. “Potentate, are you all right?”
Rayford heard movement, as if others were trying to unstrap themselves to help Carpathia, but with the plane still hurtling down the runway, those people would be pinned in their seats by centrifugal force.
“I am all right,” Carpathia insisted. “It is my own fault. I will be fine.”
Rayford turned off the intercom and concentrated on his takeoff. Secretly, he hoped Carpathia had been leaning against one of the seats at the time of the initial thrust. That would have spun him around and nearly flipped him over. Probably my last chance to inflict any justice.
No one paid attention to Buck anyway, but still, he didn’t want to be conspicuous. He ducked around a corner and stood in the shadows, punching the redial button over and over, not wanting a second to pass between calls if Chloe was using her phone. Somehow, in the brief moment it took between hearing that busy signal and hanging up and punching redial again, his own phone rang. B
uck shouted, “Hello! Chloe?” before he had even hit the receive button. His fingers were shaking so badly he nearly dropped the phone. He pushed the button and shouted, “Chloe?”
“No, Cameron, it’s Verna. But I just heard from the office that Chloe tried to reach you there.”
“Did somebody give her the number of this phone?”
“No. They didn’t know you had my phone.”
“I’m trying to call her now, Verna. The line is busy.”
“Keep trying, Cameron. She didn’t say where she was or how she was, but at least you know she’s alive.”
“Thank God for that!”
CHAPTER 5
Buck wanted to jump or shout or run somewhere, but he didn’t know where to go. Knowing Chloe was alive was the best news he’d ever had, but now he wanted to act on it. He kept pushing the redial button and getting that busy signal.
Suddenly his phone rang again.
“Chloe!”
“No, sorry, Cameron, it’s Verna again.”
“Verna, please! I’m trying to reach Chloe!”
“Calm down, big boy. She got through to the Weekly office again. Now, listen up. Where are you now and where have you been?”
“I’m on Michigan Avenue near Water Tower Place, or what used to be Water Tower Place.”
“How did you get there?”
“Sheridan to Lake Shore Drive.”
“OK,” Verna said. “Chloe told somebody in our office that she’s the other way on Lake Shore Drive.”
“The other way?”
“That’s all I know, Cameron. You’re gonna need to look off the road, lakeside, the other way from where you might expect on Lake Shore Drive.”
Buck was already moving that way as he spoke. “I don’t see how she could have gotten onto the lakeside if she was heading south on the Drive.”
“I don’t know either,” Verna said. “Maybe she was hoping to go around everything by heading that way, saw that she couldn’t, and popped a U-turn.”
“Tell anybody who hears from her that she should stay off the phone until I can connect. She’s gonna have to direct me right to her, if possible.”
Any remaining doubts Rayford Steele had about the incredible and instant evil power that Nicolae Carpathia wielded were eradicated a few minutes after the Condor 216 left the ground at San Francisco International. Through the privately bugged intercom he heard one of Carpathia’s aides ask, “Now, sir, on San Francisco?”
“Trigger,” came the whispered reply.
The aide, obviously speaking into a phone, said simply, “It’s a go.”
“Look out the window on that side,” Carpathia said, the excitement obvious in his voice. “Look at that!”
Rayford was tempted to turn the plane so he could see too, but this was something he would rather try to forget than have visually burned into his memory. He and McCullum looked at each other as their earphones came alive with startled cries from the control tower. “Mayday! Mayday! We’re being attacked from the air!” The concussions knocked out communications, but Rayford knew the bombs themselves would easily take out that whole tower, not to mention the rest of the airport and who knew what portion of the surrounding area.
Rayford didn’t know how much longer he could take being the devil’s own pilot.
Buck was in reasonably good shape for a man in his early thirties, but now his joints ached and his lungs pleaded for air as he sprinted to Chicago Avenue and headed east toward the lake. How far south might Chloe have gotten before turning around? She had to turn around. Otherwise, how could she have gone off the road and wound up on that side?
When he finally got to the Drive, he found it empty. He knew it was barricaded from the north at the Michigan Avenue exit. It had to have been blocked from the far south end too. Gasping, he hurdled the guardrail, jogged to the middle, heard the clicking of meaningless traffic lights, and raced across to the other side. He jogged south, knowing Chloe was alive but not knowing what he might find. The biggest question now, assuming Chloe didn’t have some life-threatening injury, was whether those printouts of Bruce’s personal commentaries—or worse, the computer itself—might have fallen into the wrong hands. Surely, parts of that narrative were quite clear about Bruce’s belief that Nicolae Carpathia was Antichrist.
Buck didn’t know how he was able to put one foot in front of the other, but on he ran, pushing redial and holding the phone to his ear as he went. When he could go no further, he slumped into the sand and leaned back against the outside of the guardrail, gasping. Finally, Chloe answered her phone.
Having not planned what to say, Buck found himself majoring on the majors. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Where are you?” He hadn’t told her he loved her or that he was scared to death about her or that he was glad she was alive. He would assume she knew that until he could tell her later.
She sounded weak. “Buck,” she said, “where are you?”
“I’m heading south on Lake Shore Drive, south of Chicago Avenue.”
“Thank God,” she said. “I’m guessing you’ve got about another mile to go.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m afraid I am, Buck,” she said. “I don’t know how long I was unconscious. I’m not even sure how I got where I am.”
“Which is where, exactly?”
Buck had risen and was walking quickly. There was no running left in him, despite his fear that she might be bleeding or in shock.
“I’m in the strangest place,” she said, and he sensed her fading. He knew she had to still be in the vehicle because that phone was not removable. “The airbag deployed,” she added.
“Is the Rover still driveable?”
“I have no idea, Buck.”
“Chloe, you’re gonna have to tell me what I’m looking for. Are you out in the open? Did you elude that cop?”
“Buck, the Range Rover seems to be stuck between a tree and a concrete abutment.”
“What?”
“I was doing about sixty,” she said, “when I thought I saw an exit ramp. I took it, and that’s when I heard the bomb go off.”
“The bomb?”
“Yes, Buck, surely you know a bomb exploded in Chicago.”
One bomb? Buck thought. Maybe it was merciful she was out for all the bombs that followed.
“Anyway, I saw the squad car pass me. Maybe he wasn’t after me after all. All the traffic on Lake Shore Drive stopped when they saw and heard the bomb, and the cop slammed into someone. I hope he’s all right. I hope he doesn’t die. I’ll feel responsible.”
“So, where did you wind up then, Chloe?”
“Well, I guess what I thought was an exit wasn’t really an exit. I never hit the brake, but I did take my foot off the gas. The Range Rover was in the air for a few seconds. I felt like I was floating for a hundred feet or so. There’s some sort of a dropoff next to me, and I landed on the tops of some trees and turned sideways. The next thing I knew, I woke up and I was alone here.”
“Where?” Buck was exasperated, but he certainly couldn’t blame Chloe for not being more specific.
“Nobody saw me, Buck,” she said dreamily. “Something must have turned my lights off. I’m stuck in the front seat, kind of hanging here by the seat belt. I can reach the rearview mirror, and all I saw was traffic all racing away and then no more traffic. No more emergency lights, no nothing.”
“There’s nobody around you?”
“Nobody. I had to turn the car off and then back on to get the phone to turn on. I was just praying you’d come looking for me, Buck.”
She sounded as if she were about to fall asleep. “Just stay on the line with me, Chloe. Don’t talk, just keep the line open so I can be sure I don’t miss you.”
The only lights Buck saw were emergency flashers far in the distance toward the inner city, fires still blazing here and there, and a few tiny lights from the boats on the lake. Lake Shore Drive was dark as midnight. All the streetlights were out north of where he had se
en the traffic light flashing. He came around a long bend and squinted into the distance. From the faint light of the moon he thought he saw a torn up stretch of guardrail, some trees, and a concrete abutment, one of those that formed an underpass to get to the beach. He moved slowly forward and then stopped to stare. He guessed he was two hundred yards from the spot. “Chloe?” he said into the phone.
No response.
“Chloe? Are you there?”
He heard a sigh. “I’m here, Buck. But I don’t feel so good.”
“Can you reach your lights?”
“I can try.”
“Do. Just don’t hurt yourself.”
“I’ll try to pull myself up that way by the steering wheel.”
Buck heard her groan painfully. Suddenly in the distance, he saw the crazy, vertical angle of headlights shining out onto the sand.
“I see you, Chloe. Hang on.”
Rayford assumed that McCullum assumed that Rayford was sleeping. He was slouched in his pilot’s chair, chin to his chest, breathing evenly. But his headphones were on, and his left hand had depressed the intercom receiver. Carpathia was talking in low tones, thinking he was keeping his secrets from the flight crew.
“I was so excited and so full of ideas,” the potentate said, “that I could not stay seated. I hope I do not have a bruise to show for it.” His lackeys all roared with laughter.
Nothing funnier than the boss’s joke, Rayford thought.
“We have so much to talk about, so much to do,” Carpathia continued. “When our compatriots join us in Baghdad, we will get right to work.”
The destruction of the San Francisco airport and much of the Bay Area had already made the news. Rayford saw the fear in McCullum’s eyes. Maybe the man would have felt more confident had he known that his ultimate boss, Nicolae Carpathia, had most everything under control for the next few years.