Buck walked back to the car with him. “I need to tell you something,” he said. “I believe your Messiah has already come.”
“I know you do, young man. I will be interested to hear what the two preachers say when you tell them that.”
Rayford checked with Steve Plank to see if his people had heard any more about another death at the Wailing Wall. He didn’t ask specifically about Buck, still not wanting to let on about their friendship.
“We heard all about it,” Plank said angrily. “The secretary-general believes those two should be arrested and tried for murder. He doesn’t understand why the Israeli military seems so impotent.”
“Maybe they’re afraid of being incinerated.”
“What chance would those two have against a sniper with a high-powered weapon? You close the place down, clear out the innocent bystanders, and shoot those two dead. Use a grenade or even a missile if you have to.”
“That’s Carpathia’s idea?”
“Straight from the horse’s mouth,” Plank said.
“Spoken like a true pacifist.”
CHAPTER 15
Rayford watched the news and was certain Chloe had been correct. It had indeed been Buck Williams, not more than thirty feet from the witnesses and even closer to the gunman, who was now little more than charred bones on the pavement. But Israeli television stayed with the images longer, and after watching the drama a few times, Rayford was able to take his eyes from the fire-breathing witnesses and watch the edge of the screen. Buck rose quickly and helped the dark-suited man next to him. Neither appeared hurt.
Rayford dialed the King David Hotel when Buck’s cell went to voice mail. He took a cab to the King David and sat waiting in the lobby. Knowing better than to be seen with Buck, he planned to slip away to a house phone as soon as he saw him.
“In the long history of Judaism,” Rabbi Ben-Judah was saying, “there have been many evidences of the clear hand of God. More during Bible times, of course, but the protection of Israel against all odds in modern wars is another example. The destruction of the Russian Air Force, leaving the Holy Land unscathed, was plainly an act of God.”
Buck turned in the seat of the car. “I was here when it happened.”
“I read your account,” Ben-Judah said. “But by the same token, Jews have learned to be skeptical of what appears to be divine intervention in their lives. Those who know the Scriptures know that while Moses had the power to turn a stick into a snake, so did Pharaoh’s magicians. They could also imitate Moses’ turning water into blood. Daniel was not the only dream-interpreter in the king’s court. I tell you this only to explain why these two preachers are being looked upon with such suspicion. Their acts are mighty and terrible, but their message an anathema to the Jewish mind.”
“But they are talking about the Messiah!” Buck said.
“And they seem to have the power to back up their statements,” Ben-Judah said. “But the idea of Jesus having been the Jewish Messiah is thousands of years old. His very name is as profane to the Jew as racial slurs and epithets are to other minorities.”
“Some have become believers here,” Buck said. “I’ve seen it on the news, people bowing and praying before the fence, becoming followers of Christ.”
“At great cost,” the rabbi said. “And they are very much in the minority. No matter how impressive are these witnesses of Christ, you will not see significant numbers of Jews convert to Christianity.”
“That’s the second time you have referred to them as witnesses,” Buck said. “You know that this is what the Bible—”
“Mr. Williams,” Rabbi Ben-Judah interrupted, “do not mistake me for a scholar of only the Torah. You must realize that my study has included the sacred works of all the major religions of the world.”
“But what do you make of it, then, if you know the New Testament?”
“Well, first of all, you may be overstating it to say that I ‘know’ the New Testament. I cannot claim to know it the way I know my own Bible, having become steeped in the New Testament mostly only within the last three years. But secondly, you have now crossed over the line journalistically.”
“I’m not asking as a journalist!” Buck said. “I’m asking as a Christian!”
“Don’t mistake being a Gentile for being a Christian,” the rabbi said. “Many, many people consider themselves Christians because they are not Jewish.”
“I know the difference,” Buck said. “Friend to friend, or at least acquaintance to acquaintance, with all your study, you must have come to some conclusions about Jesus as the Messiah.”
The rabbi spoke carefully. “Young man, I have not released one iota of my findings to anyone in three years. Even those who commissioned and sponsored my study do not know what conclusions I have drawn. I respect you. I admire your courage. I will take you back to the two witnesses tonight as I promised. But I will not reveal to you any of what I will say on television tomorrow.”
“I understand,” Buck said. “More people may be watching than you think.”
“Perhaps. And maybe I was being falsely modest when I said the program would not likely compete with the normal fare. CNN and the state agency that commissioned my study have cooperated in an international effort to inform Jews on every continent of the coming program. They tell me the audience in Israel will be only a fraction of the Jewish viewers around the world.”
Rayford was reading the International Tribune when Buck hurried past him to the desk and retrieved his key and a message. Rayford loudly rattled the paper as he lowered it, and when Buck glanced his way Rayford motioned he would call him. Buck nodded and went upstairs.
“You’d better call Chloe,” Rayford said when he reached Buck on the house phone a couple of minutes later. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Rayford, I was right there!”
“I saw you.”
“The rabbi I was with is a friend of Rosenzweig. He’s the one who’ll be on TV tomorrow afternoon. Get anyone you can to watch that. He’s a really interesting guy.”
“Will do. I promised Chloe one of us would call her as soon as I knew anything.”
“She saw it?”
“Yeah, on the morning news.”
“I’ll call her right now.”
Buck placed the call and left a message for Chloe to call him. Meanwhile he slumped on the edge of the bed and lowered his head. He shuddered at what he had seen. How could the rabbi have seen the same, heard the same, and then imply that these men could just as easily be magicians or seers as from God?
The phone rang. “Yes!”
“Buck!”
“I’m here, Chloe, and I’m fine.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Well, thank you!”
Chloe sounded emotional. “Buck, those witnesses know the difference between believers and their enemies, don’t they?”
“I sure hope so. I’ll find out tonight. The rabbi is taking me back to see them.”
“Who’s the rabbi?”
Buck told her.
“Are you sure it’s wise?”
“Chloe, it’s the chance of a lifetime! No one has spoken to them individually.”
“Where does the rabbi stand?”
“He’s Orthodox, but he knows the New Testament, too, at least intellectually. Be sure you and Bruce watch tomorrow afternoon—well, it would be six hours earlier for you, of course. Tell everybody in the church to watch. It should be interesting. If you want to watch the covenant signing first, you’re going to have to be up early.”
“Buck, I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. More than you know.”
Rayford returned to his hotel to find an envelope from Hattie Durham. The note inside read:
Captain Steele, this is no practical joke. The secretary-general wanted you to have the enclosed ticket to the festivities tomorrow morning and to express to you how impressed he was with the service on Global Community One. While he may not be able to speak with you p
ersonally until tomorrow afternoon on the way to Baghdad, he thanks you for your service. And so do I. Hattie D.
Rayford slid the ticket into his passport wallet and threw the note in the trash.
Buck, still out of kilter with the time change and the trauma of the morning, tried to get a few hours sleep before dinner. He dined alone, eating lightly and wondering if there had ever been such a thing as protocol for meeting with two men sent from God. Were they human? Were they spirits? Were they, as Bruce believed, Elijah and Moses? They called each other Eli and Moishe. Could they be thousands of years old? Buck was more anxious about talking with them than he had ever been about interviewing a head of state or even Nicolae Carpathia.
The evening would be chilly. Buck put on a wool sport coat with a heavy lining and pockets big enough that he wouldn’t need a bag. He took only pen and pad and recorder and reminded himself to check with Jim Borland and others at the Weekly to be sure photographers were at least getting long shots of the two when they preached.
At 9:45 Rayford sat straight up in his bed. He had dozed in his clothes with the television droning, but something had caught his attention. He’d heard the word Chicago, maybe Chicago Tribune, and it roused him. He began changing to his pajamas as he listened. The newscaster was summarizing a major story out of the United States.
“The secretary-general is out of the country this weekend and unavailable for comment, but media moguls from around the world are corroborating this report. The surprising legislation allows a nonelected official and an international nonprofit organization unrestricted ownership of all forms of media and opens the door to the United Nations, soon to be known as Global Community, to purchase and control newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cable, and satellite communications outlets.
“The only limit will be the amount of capital available to Global Community, but the following media are among many rumored to be under consideration by a buyout team from Global Community: New York Times, Long Island News Day, USA Today, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Houston . . .”
Rayford sat on the edge of the bed and listened in disbelief. Nicolae Carpathia had done it—put himself in a position to control the news and thus control the minds of most of the people within his sphere of influence.
The newscaster droned on with the list: Turner Network News, the Cable News Network, the Entertainment and Sports Network, the Columbia Broadcast System, the American Broadcasting Corporation, the Fox Television Network, the National Broadcasting Corporation, the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Family Radio Network, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Time-Warner, Disney, U.S. News and World Report, Global Weekly, Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, and a host of other news and feature syndicates and magazine groups.
“Most shocking is the initial reaction from current owners, most of whom seem to welcome the new capital and say they take Global Community leader Nicolae Carpathia at his word when he pledges no interference.”
Rayford thought about calling Buck. But surely he had heard the news before it had come over television. Someone from the Global Weekly staff would have had to have informed him, or at least he would have heard it from one of the hundreds of other media employees in Israel for the signing. But maybe everybody thought everybody else was calling Buck. Rayford didn’t want him to be the last to find out.
He reached for the phone. But still he was unable to reach Buck.
A tentative crowd milled about in the darkness, some fifty yards from the Wailing Wall. Remains of the would-be assassin had been removed, and the local military commander told the news media that he and his charges were unable to take action “against two people who have no weapons, have touched no one, and who have themselves been attacked.”
No one from the crowd seemed willing to move any closer, though the two preachers could be seen in the faint light, standing near one end of the Wall. They neither advanced nor spoke.
As Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah’s driver pulled into a nearly empty parking area, Buck was tempted to ask if the rabbi believed in prayer. Buck knew the rabbi would say he did, but Buck wanted to pray aloud for the protection of Christ, and that was simply something one would not ask an Orthodox rabbi to pray for. Buck prayed silently.
He and Tsion left the car and walked slowly and carefully, far around the small crowd. The rabbi walked with his hands clasped in front of him, and Buck couldn’t help doing a double take when he noticed. It seemed an unusually pious and almost showy gesture—particularly because Ben-Judah had seemed disarmingly humble for one holding such a lofty position in religious academia.
“I am walking in a traditional position of deference and conciliation,” the rabbi explained. “I want no mistakes, no misunderstanding. It is important to our safety that these men know we come in humility and curiosity. We mean them no harm.”
Buck looked into the rabbi’s eyes. “The truth is we are scared to death and don’t want to give them any reason to kill us.”
Buck thought he saw a smile. “You have a way of knifing to the truth,” Ben-Judah said. “I am praying that we will both be healthy on the way back as well and able to discuss our shared experience here.”
Me too, Buck thought, but he said nothing.
Three Israeli soldiers stepped in front of Buck and the rabbi, and one spoke sharply in Hebrew. Buck began to reach for his press pass, then realized it carried no weight here. Tsion Ben-Judah moved forward and spoke earnestly and quietly to the leader, again in Hebrew. The soldier asked a few questions, sounding less hostile and more curious than at first. Finally he nodded, and they were able to pass.
Buck glanced back. The soldiers had not moved. “What was that all about?” he asked.
“They said only the Orthodox are allowed past a certain point. I assured them you were with me. I am always amused when the secular military tries to enforce religious laws. He warned me of what had happened earlier, but I told him we had an appointment and were willing to take the risk.”
“Are we?” Buck asked lightly.
The rabbi shrugged. “Perhaps not. But we are going to proceed anyway, are we not? Because we said we would, and neither of us would miss this opportunity.”
As they continued, the two witnesses stared at them from the end of the Wailing Wall, some fifty or so feet away. “We are headed for the fence over there,” Ben-Judah said, pointing to the other side of the small building. “If they are still willing to meet us, they will come there, and we will have the fence between us.”
“After what happened to the assassin today, that wouldn’t be much help.”
“We are not armed.”
“How do they know?”
“They don’t.”
When Buck and Ben-Judah were within about fifteen feet of the fence, one of the witnesses held up a hand, and they stopped. He spoke, not at the top of his voice as Buck had always heard him before, but still in a sonorous tone. “We will approach and introduce ourselves,” he said. The two men walked slowly and stood just inside the iron bars. “Call me Eli,” he said. “And this is Moishe.”
“English?” Buck whispered.
“Hebrew,” Ben-Judah responded.
“Silence!” Eli said in a hoarse whisper.
Buck jumped. He recalled one of the two shouting at a rabbi to be silent earlier that day. A few minutes later another man lay dead and charred.
Eli motioned that Buck and Tsion could approach. They advanced to within a couple feet of the fence. Buck was struck by their ragged robes. The scent of ashes, as from a recent fire, hung about them. In the dim light from a distant lamp their long, sinewy arms seemed muscled and leathery. They had large, bony hands and were barefoot.
Eli said, “We will answer no questions as to our identities or our origin. God will reveal this to the world in his own time.”
Tsion Ben-Judah nodded and bowed slightly from the waist. Buck reached into his pocket and turned on the recorder. Suddenly Moi
she stepped close and put his bearded face between the bars. He stared at the rabbi with hooded eyes and a sweat-streaked face.
He spoke very quietly and in a low, deep voice, but every word was distinct to Buck. He couldn’t wait to ask Tsion whether he had heard Moishe in English or Hebrew.
Moishe spoke as if he had just thought of something very interesting, but the words were familiar to Buck.
“Many years ago, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Like you, this man came to Jesus by night.”
Rabbi Ben-Judah whispered, “Eli and Moishe, we know that you come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”
Eli spoke. “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Rabbi Ben-Judah said, and Buck realized he was quoting New Testament Scripture. “Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Moishe answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”
Eli spoke up again: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Right on cue, the rabbi said, “How can these things be?”
Moishe lifted his head. “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness. If we have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if we tell you heavenly things?”
Eli nodded. “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”