The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (372 page)

“Something’s on your mind,” Naomi said, as she and Chang walked hand in hand. He had just finished transmitting to Rayford’s helicopter a schematic of Jerusalem with various potential put-down spots.

Chang shrugged. “Sometimes I’m glad I’m here and safe and can sleep—unlike at the palace—but other times I feel I’m taking the easy way out. Everyone else is gearing up for the battle.”

“Oh, Chang. Don’t say that. You put in your years of frontline work. And anyway, you know full well you’re much more valuable here in the center than out there shooting or being shot at. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

“You were getting along fine before I got here.”

She dropped his hand and put her hands on her hips, cocking her head at him. “You have a short memory, Chang Wong. How can you forget that I spent a good portion of every day on the computer with you, though we were more than five hundred miles apart? I would have been nowhere without your teaching me, which is the way I feel now.”

“Everything’s up and running here. I could be gone a few weeks.”

“I wasn’t talking technically, Chang. Call me selfish, but I’m glad you’re not venturing out. Father loves me, but not like you do.”

“I should hope not.”

She smiled. “And I enjoy spending time with him, which is something a lot of women my age can’t say about their fathers. But I would rather be with you. Remember, we want to survive so we can be together for a millennium. Let’s not risk that for the sake of your conscience.”

“You don’t think I’d be good in combat.”

“Actually I do, Chang. I know you’re half the size of that Sebastian character and much more rational than Buck Williams. But I believe a person’s personality and character come out when the pressure is on, and I’ve seen you under pressure. With a little training, you could hold your own.”

Rayford was studying Chang’s transmissions and trying to discuss with Buck the best place to land. Buck was busy digging through what he’d brought and said, “It’s your call, Ray. I can’t imagine one spot is going to be any less treacherous than another.”

“Remember that all these GC are expected to be in Megiddo tomorrow,” Rayford said. “Not today. They might still like a plum arrest.”

“I disagree,” Buck said. “Their directive told them to immediately cease and desist and head toward where they had to be. I don’t know a guy in uniform who wouldn’t take them up on that.”

“Just take me to the Wailing Wall, Rayford,” Tsion said. “I want to be preaching when I get off this thing.”

“Could you think of a more dangerous place?”

“Danger is not the issue now, Captain. Time is. The Day of the Lord is at hand. Let us not be setting up camp when the enemy attacks.”

“Easy for you to say,” Rayford said.

“Not unless I am on the ground. Now, for once, do what I ask.”

Rayford came within sight of the Temple Mount. It was crawling with people. “Agh!”

“They will move,” Tsion said. “Trust me. Put this thing down, and they will get out of the way. Wouldn’t you?”

The instantaneous drying up of the Euphrates proved good news to only the kings of the East, who transported their weapons directly into Israel across dry land. The rest of the Fertile Crescent was no longer fertile. Irrigation dried up, hydroelectric plants shut down, factories closed. In short, everything that depended on the massive power of the great river was immediately diagnosed as terminal.

Chang’s prediction of GCNN’s carrying accounts of reporters standing in the middle of the dry riverbed proved accurate. But all the fancy pronouncements and isn’t-it-something-that-I’m-standing-here-where-yesterday-I-would-have-been-a-hundred-feet-below-the-surface did not amuse millions who depended upon the Euphrates for their very existence.

It didn’t surprise Buck that Tsion proved to be right. When Rayford lowered the chopper into a clearing at the Temple Mount, hundreds of angry people scattered, raising their fists at him.

Buck grabbed his bag and tucked his Uzi behind his back and under his jacket. He leaped from the chopper and scampered to safety in underbrush near the Wall. He looked back to see Tsion doing the same and was amazed at the agility of this newly trained guerilla.

They knelt, catching their breath and watching Rayford lift off. The chopper whirling out of sight took the attention off them. Buck looked around. “This is where I saw the two witnesses taken into heaven three and a half years ago,” he said.

That old curiosity was back. Rayford couldn’t shake it. No way he could be this close to Armageddon—he guessed less than seventy miles—and not do a flyover. It was crazy, he knew. He might find himself in an air traffic jam. But the possibility of seeing an aerial view of what he had been hearing and reading and praying about drew him like an undertow. And if the result was that he plunged into the abyss like a rafter over the falls, it was worth the risk.

“Cameron, look,” Tsion said. “Look at all the unmarked men! They proudly parade around, beaming at each other, as if defying the GC.”

Global Community Peacekeeping and Morale Monitor forces were nowhere to be seen, of course. But war was in the air. For all the posturing of the devout Jews at the Temple Mount, it was clear that terror pervaded the place. These people knew where the GC were, and they knew they would soon be Carpathia’s targets.

“The old men are at the Wall,” Tsion said, “praying fervently and openly as they have not been able to do for so long. How my heart breaks for them. The young men are talking, planning, looking for arms. They are determined to defend this city, as I am.”

“But the city is to fall, Tsion,” Buck said. “You’ve said so yourself.”

“Only temporarily, and the more of these people we can keep alive, the more can come into the kingdom. That is all I care about.”

Mac was still not sure what to make of Otto Weser. He was a good man, no doubt, but he was amateur in his thinking. He may have been a successful timber businessman in Germany, but Mac would not want to have served under him in combat.

“But don’t you see, Mr. McCullum,” Otto was saying, “if we are already on the ground at the palace airstrip when the supernatural announcement comes, we’ll be that much more ready to quickly get people on board and out of there.”

“And what if we never hear that announcement, or people can’t get to the airstrip? There we sit with the city coming down around us.”

“But will we not be protected as believers?”

“Think, man! If believers were protected, why would God be calling his own people out of there before he levels the place?”

“I want to wait no longer, Cameron. I’m going to the Wall, and I will simply begin preaching.”

“But what if—”

“There is no more time to think things through,” Tsion said. “We are here for one purpose, and I am going to do it. Now are you going to cover me? Go with me? What?”

“I’ll go with you. No one will give me a second glance, once you open your mouth.”

Tsion pressed a yarmulke onto his head and handed one to Buck. “No sense getting stoned for a technicality,” Tsion said. “We are going to a holy place.”

They stuffed their bags between a tree and a black wrought-iron fence. Wearing loose-fitting, canvas-type clothing and jackets, Uzis at their sides, they crawled out of the bushes and jogged toward the Wall.

“Hey, old man, two hundred Nicks for that gat!”

“I’ll go three hundred!” someone else said.

“The weapon is not for sale!” Tsion hollered. “Come hear what I have to offer!”

The area before the Wailing Wall was crowded with people in traditional garb, eager to push their prayers into the cracks between the stones. Many began praying even before they got close. The place would have been deserted the day before. And anyone caught in re religious clothing, even with the mark of Carpathia, would have been sent to a concentration camp or executed.

As soon as Buck and Tsion began to shoulder their way toward the Wall, men glared at them and grumbled. Tsion did not hesitate. He bellowed, “Men of Israel, hear me! I am one of you! I come with news!”

It was clear people thought it was news of the impending attack, as they immediately began gathering. Tsion climbed a short precipice, where he could better be seen and heard.

“We will fight to the death!” someone shouted.

“I know you will, and so will I!” Tsion said. “You see me with my head covered and no mark on my forehead or hand.”

The men cheered.

“Many of us will die in this conflict,” Tsion continued. “I am willing to give my life for Jerusalem!”

“So are we!” many shouted in unison.

“We need arms!”

“We need information!”

“What you need,” Tsion boomed, “is Messiah!”

The men cheered and many laughed. Others murmured. This was plainly not what they expected to hear.

“Many of you know me! I am Tsion Ben-Judah. I became persona non grata when I broadcast my findings after being commissioned to study the prophecies concerning Messiah.”

Many remembered and applauded. Although they obviously disagreed with his conclusions or they would have been believers, they seemed to admire him.

“My family was slaughtered. I was exiled. A bounty remains on my head.”

“Then why are you here, man? Do you not know the Global Community devils are coming back?”

“I do not fear them, because Messiah is coming too! Do not scoff! Do not turn your backs on me!” Many did not. “Listen to our own Scriptures. What do you think this means?” He read Zechariah 12:8-10: “‘In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

“‘And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.’”

“You tell us what it means!”

“God is saying he will make the weakest among us as strong as David. And he will destroy the nations that come against us. My dear friends, that is all the other nations of the earth!”

“We know. Carpathia has made it no secret!”

“But God says we will finally look upon ‘Me whom they pierced,’ and that we will mourn him as we would mourn the loss of a firstborn son. Messiah was pierced! And God refers to the pierced one as ‘Me’! Messiah is also God.

“Beloved, my exhaustive study of the hundreds of prophecies concerning Messiah brought me to the only logical conclusion. Messiah was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. He lived without sin. He was falsely accused. He was slain without cause. He died and was buried and was raised after three days. Those prophecies alone point to Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah. He is the one who is coming to fight for Israel. He will avenge all the wrongs that have been perpetrated upon us over the centuries.

“The time is short. The day of salvation is here. You may not have time to study this for yourselves. Messiah is God’s promise to us. Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. He is coming. Let him find you ready!”