The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (214 page)

Buck flew directly into Jerusalem on a late flight and checked into a hostel under his alias. At midnight he took a cab to the Wailing Wall and found himself at the back of a crowd so large he could not see Moishe and Eli. He used the occasion to check in by phone with David, then Chloe, then Mac. Finally he called Chaim’s number, and Jacov answered.

“Oh, Buck!” he said. “I had so hoped you would call! It’s awful, terrible!”

“What?”

“Dr. Rosenzweig could not get out of bed this morning, and he could not communicate. He appeared paralyzed and afraid. He drooled and moaned and his left hand was curled, his arm straight. His mouth drooped. We called for an ambulance, but it took so long, I was afraid he would die.”

“A stroke?”

“That’s the diagnosis. They finally took him to the hospital and are running tests. We won’t know the results until tomorrow, but it does not look good.”

“Where is he?”

“I can tell you, Buck, but you will not be allowed in. Not even any of us have been allowed to see him. He’s in intensive care, and they say his vital signs look good for now, everything considered. But we are worried. All the time before the ambulance arrived, we prayed over him and pled with him to become a believer. Because he could not talk, I kept watching his forehead for evidence that he had prayed. But I saw nothing. He looked angry and frightened and kept waving me away with his good hand.”

“Jacov, I’m so sorry. Keep me posted any time there’s even a small change.”

“We don’t dare call your number from here. Your phone is secure, but ours isn’t.”

“Good thinking. I’ll check in whenever I can. And I’ll pray.”

Rayford—as Marv Berry—was detained only briefly in the busy customs area, where an agent bought his story that the heavy metal box in his suitcase was a computer backup battery. Rayford rented a tiny car and checked into a seedy hotel on the west side of Tel Aviv. He called Leah’s hotel in Brussels. It was well after midnight there, but he hoped with the time change and jet lag, she might be awake.

The hotel operator was unwilling to ring Mrs. Clendenon’s room, but “Mr. Berry” insisted it was an emergency. Leah answered groggily on the sixth ring, and Rayford was impressed that she had her wits about her. “This is Donna,” she said.

“It’s Marv. Did I wake you?”

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

“Everything’s fine. Listen, it’s going to be impossible to pick you up until Friday.”

“What?”

“I can’t get into details. Just be ready Friday.”

“Well, ah, Marv, I should be ready Tuesday.”

“Don’t try to call me before Friday, all right?”

“All right, but—”

“All right, Donna?”

“All right! You can’t tell me anything more specific?”

“I would if I could.”

Buck awoke early Monday and hurried to the Wailing Wall. The night before he had not been able to get close to Eli and Moishe, though he thrilled to see people coming out of the crowd and kneeling by the fence to receive Christ.

The witnesses had always spoken with power and urgency, but Buck could tell from their delivery that they knew as well as anyone they were running out of time. The world had been left depleted of population with the plagues wrought by the 200 million horsemen, and those who survived seemed determined as ever to continue in their sin. Now it seemed the witnesses were making their last concerted effort to wrest souls from the evil one.

Monday crowds at the Temple Mount were even bigger, because the Gala would not begin until early evening, and hundreds of thousands of delegates were curious about the preachers they had only heard about before. The sophisticated sin businesses in the center of Jerusalem were crowded too, but the majority of tourists were gaping at the strange men preaching from behind the fence.

This was their 1260th and last day to preach and prophesy before the due time. Buck felt unspeakably privileged to be there. He shouldered his way through the crowd until he popped out of the front row, striding past new converts kneeling before the fence. Buck stood close enough that he could have touched the fence, closer to Eli and Moishe than anyone else was. Some from the crowd cautioned him, reminding him that people had died for such boldness. He knelt, his eyes on the two, and settled in to listen.

Eli held forth with Moishe sitting behind him, his back against the wall of a small stone building. “Watch that one!” someone shouted. “He’s hiding the flamethrower!” Many laughed, but more shushed them. Buck was overwhelmed at the emotion in Eli’s voice. Eli cried out, near tears, loud enough to be heard for blocks, though he was also being broadcast frequently over GC CNN. TV reporters throughout Jerusalem filed stories about the excitement building for the Gala that evening, and every other one, it seemed, came from right here at the Wall.

Eli shouted, “How the Messiah despaired when he looked out over this very city! God the Father promised to bless Jerusalem if her people would obey his commandment and put no other god before him. We come in the name of the Father, and you do not receive us. Jesus himself said, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’”

The crowd had fallen silent. Eli continued, “God sent his Son, the promised Messiah, who fulfilled more than one hundred ancient prophecies, including being crucified in this city. Christ’s love compels us to tell you that he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

“We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Though this world and its false rulers promise that all religions lead to God, this is a lie. Jesus is the only way to God, as he himself declared, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’”

Eli appeared exhausted and backed away from the fence. Moishe rose and proclaimed, “This world may have seen the last of us, but you have not seen the last of Jesus the Christ! As the prophets foretold, he will come again in power and great glory to establish his kingdom on this earth. The Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

“His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Come to him this day, this hour! The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Thus saith the Lord.”

Eli rose and joined Moishe and they called out in unison, “We have served the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his only begotten son. Lo, we have fulfilled our duty and finished our task until the due time. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . .”

The two stood before the fence, unmoving, not blinking; their hair, beards, and robes wafting gently in the breeze. The crowd grew restless. Some called out for more preaching; others taunted. Buck slowly rose and backed away, knowing the two were finished with their proclamations. To many it would appear that Nicolae Carpathia had won. He had brought his Global Gala to Jerusalem and silenced the preachers.

Rayford was as afraid to run into Buck as into the GC. He had purposely not shaved the day of the flight or since. Late Monday he drove to Jerusalem, parked on the outskirts, and walked into the city. He wore a drab green turban over a longish gray wig, and dark sunglasses with tiny holes that allowed him to see almost as well as normal while hiding his eyes.

He wore a light ankle-length robe, common to the area. Deep in an inside pocket he carried the Saber. The robe was roomy enough that he could pull his hands inside through the armholes and separate the weapon without anyone seeing. Though he saw metal detectors on either side of the great stage, the thousands and thousands of onlookers were allowed into the area without being searched. He felt a tingle from the back of his head to his tailbone, knowing he was carrying a high-powered weapon with kill power from hundreds of feet away. After having been so eager to do this thing, he now pleaded with God to spare him the task. Would he be willing to follow through and kill Carpathia if God made
that
clear?

The crowd had gathered early, and the pre-opening act, a Latin band, was loud, the beat addictive. Half the crowd danced and sang, and more joined them as the afternoon wore on. Music, singing, and dancing, interspersed with excited predictions about the soon arrival of the potentate himself, whipped the crowd into delirium.

As the sky gradually darkened, Rayford kept moving, milling about to ensure he would remain unnoticed. Once he nearly stopped and whipped off his sunglasses. He could have sworn Hattie had brushed past him. Heart racing, he turned and watched her go. Same height, same figure, same gait. Couldn’t be. Simply couldn’t be.

Mac and Abdullah strolled into the Gala plaza, now jammed with delegates. “You want to hang together or split up this week?” Mac said.

Abdullah shrugged. “If you want to be alone, it’s no problem.”

“It’s not that,” Mac said. “I just want you to feel free to be by yourself whenever you want.”

Abdullah shrugged again. Truth was, Mac wouldn’t have minded being alone. Alone in the huge crowd. Alone with his thoughts about how the world, and his life, had changed. He had come to a decision. If Carpathia somehow survived this event, if for some strange reason even Tsion Ben-Judah had been wrong in his assessment of the prophecies, Mac had a plan. Rayford had had a point. One of them should have pointed Nicolae’s plane toward a mountain long ago, sacrificing himself for the good of all. Mac wouldn’t be so selfish as to involve Abdullah. Somehow he would have to devise an exception that would allow him to fly the potentate by himself. He wouldn’t even need a mountain, really. All he needed was to cut the power and let gravity take over.