“You’ll see how small it is,” Bruce said. “I’m encouraging families to build their own. It would be chaos if the church body showed up here in a time of danger.”
Buck was astounded at how small the shelter was, but it seemed to have everything they would need to survive for a few weeks. The Tribulation Force was not made up of people who would hide out for long.
The five huddled to compare schedules and discuss when they might see each other again. Carpathia had devised a minute-by-minute schedule for the next six weeks that would have Rayford flying him all over the world, finally to Washington. Then Rayford would have a few days off before flying back to New Babylon. “Amanda and I could get here from Washington during that break,” he said.
Buck said he and Chloe would come to Chicago then, too. Bruce would be back from a swing through Australia and Indonesia. They set the date, four in the afternoon, six weeks later. They would have a two-hour intensive Bible study in Bruce’s office and then enjoy a nice dinner somewhere.
Before they parted, they held hands in a circle and prayed yet again. “Father,” Bruce whispered, “for this brief flash of joy in a world on the brink of disaster, we thank you and pray your blessing and protection on us all until we meet back here again. Bind our hearts as brothers and sisters in Christ while we are apart.”
Nicolae Carpathia seemed thrilled about Rayford’s marriage and insisted upon meeting his new wife. He took both her hands in greeting and welcomed her and Rayford to his opulent offices, which covered the entire top floor of the Global Community headquarters in New Babylon. The suite also included conference rooms, private living quarters, and an elevator to the helipad. From there, one of Rayford’s crew could ferry the potentate to the new airstrip.
Rayford could tell that Amanda’s heart was in her throat. Her speech was constricted and her smile pasted on. Meeting the most evil man on the face of the earth was clearly out of her sphere of experience, though she had told Rayford she knew a few garment wholesalers who might have fit the bill.
After pleasantries, Nicolae immediately approved Rayford’s request that Amanda accompany them on the next trip to the U.S. to see his daughter and new son-in-law. Rayford did not say who that son-in-law was, not even mentioning that the young newlyweds lived in New York City. He said, truthfully, that he and Amanda would visit the couple in Chicago.
“I will be in Washington at least four days,” Carpathia said. “Enjoy whatever of that time you can. And now I have some news for you and your bride.” Carpathia pulled a tiny remote control from his pocket and pointed it at the intercom on his desk across the room. “Darling, would you join us a moment, please?”
Darling? Rayford thought. No pretense anymore.
Hattie Durham knocked and entered. “Yes, sweetie?” she said. Rayford thought he would gag.
Carpathia leaped to his feet and embraced her gently as if she were a porcelain doll. Hattie turned to Rayford. “I’m so happy for you and Amelia,” she said.
“Amanda,” Rayford corrected, noticing his wife stiffen. He had told Amanda all about Hattie Durham, and apparently the two were not going to become soul mates.
“We have an announcement too,” Carpathia said. “Hattie will be leaving the employ of Global Community to prepare for our new arrival.”
Carpathia was beaming, as if expecting a joyous reaction. Rayford did what he could to not betray his disgust and loathing. “A new arrival?” he said. “When’s the big day?”
“We just found out.” Nicolae gave him a broad wink.
“Well, isn’t that something?” Rayford said.
“I didn’t realize you were married,” Amanda said sweetly, and Rayford fought to keep his composure. She knew full well they were not.
“Oh, we will be,” Hattie said, beaming. “He’s going to make an honest woman of me yet.”
Chloe broke down when she read her father’s e-mail about Hattie. “Buck, we have failed that woman. We have all failed her.”
“Don’t I know it,” Buck said. “I introduced her to him.”
“But I know her too, and I know she knows the truth. I was right there when Daddy was sharing it with you, and she was at the same table. He tried, but we have to do more. We have to get to her somehow, talk to her.”
“And have her know that I’m a believer, just like your dad is? It doesn’t seem to matter that Nicolae’s pilot is a Christian, but can you imagine how long I would last as his magazine publisher if he knew I was?”
“One of these days we have to get to Hattie, even if it means going to New Babylon.”
“What are you going to do, Chloe? Tell her she’s carrying the Antichrist’s child and that she ought to leave him?”
“It may come to that.”
Buck stood over Chloe’s shoulder as she tapped out an e-mail message back to Rayford and Amanda. Both couples had taken to writing obscurely, not using names. “Any chance,” Chloe wrote, “that she will come with him on the next trip to the capital?”
It was seven hours later, New Babylon time, when the message was sent, and the next day they received a reply: “None.”
“Someday, somehow,” Chloe told Buck. “And before that baby is born.”
Rayford found it difficult to take in the incredible change in New Babylon since the first time he had visited following the treaty signing in Israel. He had to hand it to Carpathia and his sea of money. A lavish world capital had sprung up out of the ruins, and now it teemed with commerce, industry, and transportation. The center of global activity was moving east, and Rayford’s homeland seemed headed for obsolescence.
The week before his and Amanda’s flight to Washington with Nicolae and his entourage, Rayford e-mailed Bruce at New Hope, welcoming him back from his trip and asking some questions.
A few things still puzzle me about the future—a lot, actually. Could you explain for us the fifth and seventh?
He didn’t write seals, not wanting to tip off any interloper. Bruce would know what he meant.
I mean, the second, third, fourth, and sixth are self-explanatory, but I’m still in the dark about five and seven. We can’t wait to see you. “A” sends her love.
Buck and Chloe had settled in Buck’s beautiful Fifth Avenue penthouse, but any joy normal newlyweds might have received from a place like that was lost on them. Chloe kept up her research and study on the Internet, and she and Buck kept in touch with Bruce daily via e-mail. Bruce was lonely and missed his family more than ever, he wrote, but he was thrilled that his four friends had found love and companionship. They all expressed great anticipation of the pleasure they would enjoy in each other’s company at their upcoming reunion.
Buck had been praying about whether to tell Chloe of President Fitzhugh’s warning about New York City and Washington. Fitzhugh was well connected and undoubtedly accurate, but Buck couldn’t spend his life running from danger. Life was perilous these days, and war and destruction could break out anywhere. His job had taken him to the hottest hazard spots in the world. He didn’t want to be reckless or foolishly put his wife in harm’s way, but every member of the Tribulation Force knew the risks.
Rayford was grateful that Chloe had begun getting to know Amanda better by e-mail. When Rayford and Amanda were dating, he had monopolized most of Amanda’s time, and while the women seemed to like each other, they had not bonded other than as believers. Now, communicating daily, Amanda seemed to be growing in her knowledge of Scripture. Chloe was passing along everything she was studying.
Between Bruce and Chloe, Rayford found his answers about the fifth and seventh seals. It was not pleasant news, but he hadn’t expected any different. The fifth seal referred to the martyrdom of Tribulation saints. In a secured mail package, Bruce sent to Chloe—who forwarded it on to Rayford—his careful study and explanation of the passage from Revelation which referred to that fifth seal.
John sees under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held.
They ask God how long it will be until he avenges their deaths. He gives them white robes and tells them that first some of their fellow servants and their brethren will also be martyred. So the fifth Seal Judgment costs people their lives who have become believers since the Rapture. That could include any one or all of us. I say before God, that I would count it a privilege to give my life for my Savior and my God.
Bruce’s explanation of the seventh seal made it clear that it was still a mystery even to him.
The seventh seal is so awesome that when it is revealed in heaven, there is silence for half an hour. It seems to progress from the sixth seal, the greatest earthquake in history, and serves to initiate the seven Trumpet Judgments, which, of course, are progressively worse than the Seal Judgments.
Amanda tried to summarize for Rayford: “We’re looking at a world war, famine, plagues, death, the martyrdom of the saints, an earthquake, and then silence in heaven as the world is readied for the next seven judgments.”
Rayford shook his head, then cast his eyes down. “Bruce has been warning us of this all along. There are times I think I’m ready for whatever comes and other times when I wish the end would simply come quickly.”
“This is the price we pay,” she said, “for ignoring the warnings when we had the chance. And you and I were warned by the same woman.”
Rayford nodded.
“Look here,” Amanda said. “Bruce’s last line says, ‘Check your e-mail Monday at midnight. Lest you find this all as depressing as I have, I am uploading a favorite verse to comfort your hearts.’”
Bruce had sent it so it would be available to both couples just before they left for their trips to Chicago to meet up with him. It read simply, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
Rayford shifted in the pilot’s seat, eager to talk to Amanda and find out how she was faring on the grueling nonstop flight from New Babylon to Dulles International. She was spending as much of the time as she could in Rayford’s private quarters behind the cockpit, but she had to be sociable enough with the rest of the contingent so as not to appear rude. That, Rayford knew, meant hours of small talk.
She had already been asked about the new import/export business she was starting, but then the mood in Global Community One seemed to shift. During one of the few breaks Rayford shared alone with her, she said, “Something’s up. Someone keeps bringing Carpathia printouts. He studies them and scowls and has private, heated meetings.”
“Hmph,” Rayford said. “Could be something. Could be anything. Could be nothing.”
Amanda smirked. “Don’t doubt my intuition.”
“I’ve learned that,” he said.
Buck and Chloe arrived in Chicago the night before the scheduled rendezvous with the Tribulation Force. They checked into the Drake Hotel and called New Hope to leave a message for Bruce, telling him they had arrived and that they would see him the following afternoon at four. They knew from his e-mails that he was back in the States from his Australia/Indonesia trip, but they had heard nothing from him since.
They also e-mailed him that Rayford and Amanda were going to come to the Drake for lunch the next day and that the four of them would travel to Mount Prospect together that afternoon. If you want to join us for lunch in the Cape Cod Room, we’d be delighted, Buck had written.
A couple of hours later, when they still had received no response to either the e-mail or the phone message, Chloe said, “What do you think it means?”
“It means he’s going to surprise us at lunch tomorrow.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Count on it,” Buck said.
“Then it won’t really be a surprise, will it?”
The phone rang. “So much for surprises.” Buck said. “That has to be him.”
But it wasn’t.
Rayford had illuminated the Fasten Seat Belt sign and was five minutes from touchdown at Dulles when he was contacted through his earphones by one of Carpathia’s communications engineers. “The potentate would like a word with you.”
“Right now? We’re close to final approach.”
“I’ll ask.” A few seconds later he came back on. “In the cockpit with you alone after engine shutdown.”
“We have a postflight checklist with the first officer and the navigator.”
“Just a minute!” The engineer sounded peeved. When he came back on, he said, “Run the other two out of there after shutdown and do the postflight jazz after your meeting with the potentate.”
“Roger,” Rayford muttered.
“If you recognize my voice and will talk to me, call me at this pay phone number, and make sure you call from a pay phone.”
“Affirmative,” Buck said. He hung up and turned to Chloe. “I’ve got to run out for a minute.”
“Why? Who was that?”
“Gerald Fitzhugh.”
“Thank you, gentlemen, and forgive me for the intrusion,” Carpathia said as he passed the first officer and navigator on his way into the cockpit. Rayford knew they were as annoyed as he at the breach of procedural protocol, but then Carpathia was the boss. Was he ever.
Carpathia slipped deftly into the copilot chair. Rayford imagined that along with all his other gifts, the man could probably learn to fly a jet in an afternoon.
“Captain, I feel the need to take you into my confidence. Our intelligence has discovered an insurrection plot, and we are being forced to circulate false itineraries for me in the United States.” Rayford nodded, and Carpathia continued. “We suspect militia involvement and even collusion between disgruntled American factions and at least two other countries. To be on the safe side, we are scrambling our radio communications and telling the press conflicting stories of my destinations.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Rayford said.
“Most people think I will be in Washington for at least four days, but we are now announcing that I will also be in Chicago, New York, Boston, and perhaps even Los Angeles over the next three days.”
“Do I hear my little vacation slipping away?” Rayford said.
“On the contrary. But I do want you available on a moment’s notice.”
“I will leave word where I can be reached.”
“I would like you to fly the plane to Chicago and have someone you trust return it to New York the same day.”
“I know just the person,” Rayford said.
“I’ll get to New York somehow, and we can leave the country from there on schedule. We’re just trying to keep the insurrectionists off balance.”
“Hey,” Buck said when President Fitzhugh picked up on the first ring. “It’s me.”
“I’m glad you’re not at home,” Fitzhugh said.
“Can you tell me more?”
“Just that it’s good you’re not at home.”
“Gotcha. When can I return home?”
“That could be problematic, but you’ll know before you head back that way. How long are you away from home?”
“Four days.”
“Perfect.”
Click.
“Hello? Mrs. Halliday?”
“Yes. Who’s—?”
“This is Rayford Steele calling for Earl, but please don’t tell him it’s me. I have a surprise for him.”
In the morning Buck took a call from one of the women who helped out in the office at New Hope. “We’re a little worried about Pastor Barnes,” she said.
“Ma’am?”
“He was gonna surprise y’all by comin’ down there for lunch.”
“We thought he might.”
“But he picked up some kinda bug in Indonesia and we had to get him to the emergency room. He didn’t want us to tell anyone, because he was sure it was something they could fix real quick and he could still get down there. But he’s slipped into a coma.”
“A coma!?”
“Like I say, we’re a little worried about him.”
“As soon as the Steeles get here
, we’ll head out there. Where is he?”
“Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights.”
“We’ll find it,” Buck said.
Rayford and Amanda met Earl Halliday at O’Hare at ten that morning. “I’ll never forget this, Ray,” Earl said. “I mean, it’s not like carting around the potentate himself, or even the president, but I can pretend.”
“They’re expecting you at Kennedy,” Rayford said. “I’ll give you a call later to see how you liked flying her.”
Rayford rented a car, and Amanda answered a call from Chloe. “We have to pick them up and go straight to Arlington Heights.”
“Why? What’s up?”
Buck and Chloe were waiting at the curb in front of the Drake when Rayford and Amanda pulled up. After quick embraces all around, they piled into the car.
“Northwest Community is on Central, right, Chlo’?” Rayford said.
“Right. Let’s hurry.”
Despite their concern for Bruce, Rayford felt a little more whole. He had a four-person family again, albeit a new wife and a new son. They discussed Bruce’s situation and brought each other up to date, and though they were all aware that they were living in a time of great danger, for the moment they simply enjoyed being together again.
Buck sat in the backseat with Chloe, listening. How refreshing to be with people who were related and yet loved each other, cared about each other, respected one another. He didn’t even want to think about the small-minded family he had come from. Somehow, someday, he would convince them they were not the Christians they thought they were. Had they been, they would not have been left behind, as he was.
Chloe leaned against Buck and slipped her hand into his. He was grateful she was so casual, so matter-of-fact, about her devotion to him. She was the greatest gift God could have granted him since his salvation.
“What’s this?” he heard Rayford say. “And we’ve been making such good time.”