The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (109 page)

“An earthquake, yes, I know.”

“Will that convince you?”

Verna turned in her chair and stared out the window. “I suppose that would be pretty hard to argue with.”

“I have some advice for you,” Chloe said. “If that earthquake is as devastating as the Bible makes it sound, you may not have time to change your mind about all of this before
your
time is up.”

Verna stood and walked slowly to the door. Holding it open, she said softly, “I still don’t like the idea of Buck’s pretending to Carpathia to be something he’s not.”

Buck and Chloe followed her out toward the front door. “Our private lives, our beliefs, are none of our employer’s business,” Buck said. “For instance, if I knew you were a lesbian, I wouldn’t feel it necessary to tell your superiors.”

Verna whirled to face him. “Who told you that? What business is that of yours? You tell anybody that and I’ll—”

Buck raised both hands. “Verna, your personal life is confidential with me. You don’t have to worry that I’ll ever say anything to anybody about that.”

“There’s nothing to tell!”

“My point exactly.”

Buck held the door open for Chloe. In the parking lot, Verna said, “So we’re agreed?”

“Agreed?” Buck said.

“That neither of us is going to say anything about the other’s personal life?”

Buck shrugged. “Sounds fair to me.”

The funeral director was on the phone with Rayford. “So,” he was saying, “with the backlog of deaths, the scarcity of grave sites, and so forth, we’re estimating interment no sooner than three weeks, possibly as late as five weeks. We store the bodies at no charge to you, as this is a matter of public health.”

“I understand. If you could simply inform us once the burial has occurred, we’d appreciate it. We will not have a service, and no one will attend.”

Loretta sat at the dining room table next to Rayford. “That seems so sad,” she said. “Are you sure not even one of us should go?”

“I’ve never been much for graveside services,” Rayford said. “And I don’t think anything more needs to be said over Bruce’s body.”

“That’s true,” she said. “It’s not like that’s him. He’s not going to feel lonely or neglected.”

Rayford nodded and pulled a sheet from a stack of Bruce’s papers. “Loretta, I think Bruce would have wanted you to see this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s from his personal journal. A few private thoughts about you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“I mean, are you sure he’d want me to see it?”

“I can go only by my
own
feelings,” he said. “If I had written something like this, I would want you to see it, especially after I was gone.”

Loretta, her fingers shaking, pulled the sheet to where she could read it with her bifocals. She was soon overcome. “Thank you, Rayford,” she managed through her tears. “Thank you for letting me see that.”

“Buck! I had no idea Verna was a lesbian!” Chloe said.

“
You
had no idea? Neither did I!”

“You’re kidding!”

“I’m not. You think that little revelation was of God too?”

“I’d sooner think it was a wild coincidence, but you never know. That tidbit may have saved your life.”

“
You
may have saved my life, Chloe. You were brilliant in there.”

“Just sticking up for my man. She rattled the wrong cage.”

A week and a half later, as Rayford was preparing to head back to New Babylon to resume his duties, he got a call from Leon Fortunato. “You haven’t heard anything from the potentate’s woman, have you?”

“The potentate’s woman?” Rayford repeated, trying to let his disgust show.

“You know who I’m talking about. She flew over there on the same flight you did. Where is she?”

“I wasn’t under the impression I was responsible for her.”

“Steele, you don’t really want to withhold information about somebody Carpathia wants to know about.”

“Oh,
he
wants to know where she is. In other words, he hasn’t heard from her?”

“You know that’s the only reason I’d be calling you.”

“Where does he think she is?”

“Don’t play games with me, Steele. Tell me what you know.”

“I don’t know precisely where she is. And I don’t feel the liberty to be reporting on her whereabouts or even where I think she is, without her knowledge.”

“I think you’d better remember who you work for, pal.”

“How can I forget?”

“So, you want me to imply to Carpathia that you’re harboring his fiancée?”

“If that’s what you’re worried about, I can put your mind at ease. The last time I saw Hattie Durham was at Mitchell Field in Milwaukee when I arrived.”

“And she went on where?”

“I really don’t think I should be sharing her itinerary if she chose not to.”

“You could regret this, Steele.”

“You know what, Leon? I’ll sleep tonight.”

“We’re assuming she went to see her family in Denver. There was no war damage there, so we don’t understand why we can’t get through by phone.”

“I’m sure you have many resources for locating her. I’d rather not be one of them.”

“I hope you’re financially secure, Captain Steele.”

Rayford did not respond. He didn’t want to get into more of a war of words with Leon Fortunato.

“There’s been a slight change of plans by the way, as it relates to your picking up Supreme Pontiff Mathews in Rome.”

“I’m listening.”

“Carpathia will be going with you. He wants to accompany Mathews back to New Babylon.”

“How does that affect me?”

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t leave without him.”

Buck had already had his tongue-lashing by phone from Steve Plank about having allowed his passport and ID to fall into the wrong hands in Israel. “They tortured that Shorosh guy within an inch of his life, and he still swore you were just a passenger on his boat.”

“It was a nice big, wood boat,” Buck had said.

“Well, the boat is no more.”

“What was the point of destroying a man’s boat and torturing him?”

“Are we on the record?”

“I don’t know, Steve. Are we talking as journalists, friends, or is this a warning from a colleague?”

Steve changed the subject. “Carpathia still likes the copy you’re sending out from Chicago. He thinks
Global Community Weekly
is the best magazine in the world. Of course, it always has been.”

“Yeah, yeah. If you forget about objectivity and journalistic credibility—”

“We all forgot about that years ago,” Plank had said. “Even before we were owned by Carpathia, we still had to dance to somebody’s tune.”

Buck brought Amanda, Chloe, Rayford, and Tsion up to speed on their new laptop computers. Tsion had been using his secure phone to talk to everyone at Loretta’s place, which they began calling their “safe house.” More than once Loretta said, “That man sounds like he’s next door.”

“That’s cellular technology for you,” Buck said.

Tsion required daily visits from his fellow Tribulation Force members, just to keep his spirits up. He was fascinated by the new technology, and he spent much of his time monitoring the news. He was tempted to try to communicate via e-mail to many of his spiritual children around the world; however, he feared they might be tortured in attempts to determine his whereabouts. He asked Buck to ask Donny how he might go about communicating widely without the recipients of his missives suffering for it. The solution was simple. He would merely put his messages on a central bulletin board, and no one would know who was accessing them.

Tsion spent much of his days poring over Bruce’s material and getting it into publishable shape. That was made easier by Buck’s getting it to Tsion on disk. Frequently Tsion uploaded portions and in essence broadcast them to certain members of the Tribulation Force. He was especially impressed with what Bruce had to say about Chloe and Amanda. In his personal journal Bruce frequently mentioned his dream that they work together, researching, writing, and teaching cell groups and house churches. Eventually it was agreed that Amanda would not return to New Babylon until after Rayford got back from his flight to Rome. That would give her a few more days with Chloe to plan a ministry similar to what Bruce had outlined. They didn’t know where it would take them or what the opportunities would be, but they enjoyed working together and seemed to learn more that way.

Buck was glad Verna Zee was keeping her distance. Much of the staff of the Chicago office was deployed to various bombed-out cities to report on the resultant chaos. There was no doubt in Buck’s mind that the black horse of plagues and famine and the pale horse of death had come galloping in on the heels of the red horse of war.

On Wednesday evening, Amanda drove Rayford to Milwaukee for his flight to Iraq. “Why couldn’t Mathews fly on his own plane to see Carpathia?” she said.

“You know Carpathia. He likes to take the upper hand by being the most deferential and kind. He not only sends a plane for you, he also comes along and accompanies you back.”

“What does he want from Mathews?”

“Who knows? It could be anything. The increase in converts we’re seeing has to be very troubling for Mathews. We are one faction that doesn’t buy into the one-world faith routine.”

At six Thursday morning, Loretta’s household was awakened by the phone. Chloe grabbed it. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and told Buck, “Loretta’s got it. It’s Hattie.”

Buck leaned close to listen with her. “Yes,” Loretta was saying, “you woke me, darlin’, but it’s all right. Captain Steele said you might call.”

“Well, I’m flying through Milwaukee on my way back to New Babylon, and I purposely scheduled a six-hour layover. Tell anybody there who cares that I’ll be at Mitchell Field if they want to talk to me. They shouldn’t feel obligated, and I won’t be offended if they don’t come.”

“Oh, they’ll come, hon. Don’t you worry about that.”

That same hour was three o’clock in the afternoon in Baghdad when Rayford’s commercial flight landed. He had planned to stay onboard to wait for the short flight on to New Babylon a little over an hour later, but his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He wondered if this would be the call from Buck, or from Carpathia about Buck, that would end the speculation and suspicion of the Tribulation Force. They all knew it couldn’t be long before Buck’s position was jeopardized past the point of safety.

Rayford also had a fleeting thought that this might be a call from Hattie Durham. He had waited as long as he could before heading back, hoping to connect with her before her return. Like Carpathia and Fortunato, he had no luck trying to reach her by phone in Denver.

But the call was from his copilot, Mac McCullum. “Get off that plane, Steele, and stretch your legs. Your taxi is here.”

“Hey, Mac! What’s that mean?”

“It means the big boss doesn’t want to wait. Meet me at the helipad on the other side of the terminal. I’m coptering you back to headquarters.”

Rayford had wanted to put off his return to New Babylon as long as possible, but at least a helicopter ride was a diversion. He envied McCullum’s ability to easily switch back and forth between copiloting jumbo jets and flying whirlybirds. Rayford hadn’t piloted a helicopter since his military days more than twenty years before.

Global Community Weekly
was released to the public every Thursday, with the following Monday’s date on the cover. Buck tingled with excitement merely anticipating that day’s issue.

At the safe house it was decided that Amanda and Chloe would drive up to Milwaukee to pick up Hattie. Loretta would come home from the church office in time to host a small luncheon for her. Buck would go to the office to see the first copies of the magazine and head for Loretta’s house when he got the call from Chloe that she and Amanda and Hattie were home.

Buck had gone out on a limb with his cover story. Purporting, as usual, to take a neutral, objective, journalistic viewpoint, Buck started with much of the material Bruce would have preached the Sunday morning of his own funeral. Buck did the writing, but he assigned reporters from every
Global Community Weekly
office still standing in several countries to interview local and regional clergymen about the prophecies in the book of Revelation.

For some reason, his reporters—most of them skeptics—went at this task with glee. Buck was faxed, modemed, phoned, couriered, and mailed dispatches from all over the world. His cover story title, and the specific question he wanted his reporters to ask religious leaders, was “Will we suffer the ‘wrath of the Lamb’?”