Apollyon: The Destroyer Is Unleashed (36 page)

Buck could not imagine what Hattie was up to. He had long since quit trying to figure her out. Where would she go in the middle of the night besides crazy? Maybe that was it. She’d got cabin fever and just had to escape. It’d be just like her to get lost and wind up leading someone to the safe house.

Chloe gripped his hand and grunted. Buck looked to Doc, who had attached a fetal monitor to the baby’s skull through the uterus. He said it was as accurate as it could be and that he was encouraged. “We’re going to have a baby tonight,” he said. “And it’s going to be all right.”

Buck sighed heavily, too excited to notice his fatigue. He also held out a sliver of realism, knowing that for the sake of the patient it was just like Floyd to sound more optimistic than he felt. Buck was glad he was there, no matter what happened. He would not have wanted Chloe to go through this alone, regardless of the outcome.

“So Ernie really is a gold digger,” Rayford said.

T nodded. “And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts we’ll find Bo has been released from Young Memorial too. Shall I find out?”

“Sure.”

“Humph,” T said a few minutes later, his hand over the phone. “They say he’s still registered.”

“Ask to talk with him. No wait, ask for Leah and let me talk to her.” T did and handed him the phone. “Leah, it’s Rayford Steele, friend of Dr. Charles.”

“What now?” she said, but not unpleasantly.

“We just need to know if a patient who has not checked out or been released might be gone anyway. Name’s Bo something. Just a minute, I’ll get the―”

“Beauregard Hanson,” she said. “We don’t get a lot of Bos, you know. Yeah, he’s still here.”

“You’re sure?”

“You want me to check?”

“Would you?”

“I’ve done more than that for you guys.”

“That’s why we love you.”

“Hang on.”

Doc Charles seemed elated, and that made Buck feel better. “We’re doing the right thing,” Doc said. “This could not have waited, but the pulse is steady and has been for a while. We’re going to be OK. You doing all right, Mom?”

Chloe nodded the perspiring nod of the extremely pregnant.

“He’s gone?”

“Cleared out,” Leah said. “I didn’t like him anyway, him or that kid who was in the same room. He disappeared earlier today without a word, so I should have known.”

“We owe you one, Leah,” Rayford said.

“One?”

“Touché. Someday we’ll make this all up to you.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m guessing in five years or so.”

“I wish Daddy could be here,” Chloe said.

“Maybe he’ll be back in time,” Buck said. “What’s your guess on timing, Doc?”

“I don’t want to rush her. Sometimes even a moderate drip will cause fast action. All depends on mother and child. But we’re still doing well, and that’s what counts.”

“Amen,” Tsion said. And Buck thought the rabbi looked as excited as Buck felt.

“Do you believe this?” Rayford said, shaking his head. “Like the idiots they are, they don’t even know they’ve been followed.”

The Rover sat idling in front of the Quonset hut that had housed Ken and now Ernie and the temporary guest, Abdullah. T parked the jeep back about fifty feet and turned off his engine and lights. They sat watching. “Abdullah can take care of himself,” Rayford said, “but he is outnumbered.”

T got out. “Let’s see what they’re up to.”

When they got to the Quonset hut, they heard conversation. “Let the Rover idle,” Rayford whispered, “so they don’t know we’re here.”

They crouched near the curtained window and listened.

“Let me get this straight,” Abdullah was saying. “You’ll give me a brick of gold bullion for flying you to New Babylon.”

“That’s right,” Hattie said.

“And this gold belongs to you?”

“It belongs to my fiance.”

“This young man is your fiance?”

“Yes, I am!” Ernie said. “Soon’s I give you this gold. Now take it.”

“Do you realize,” Abdullah said, “that this gold is worth ten times the cash I would charge for the same flight?”

“But we want to go now,” Hattie said. “And I know that’s worth something.”

“If you want to go now, you picked the wrong pilot. I cannot fly for twenty-four hours.”

“Carpathia rescinded international air laws,” Hattie said. “I know. I used to work for him.”

“You did more than that for him, ma’am. Were you not engaged to him, too? How many fiances do you have?”

“One fewer if we don’t get going,” she said.

Rayford signaled T to follow him about a hundred feet away. He phoned Abdullah.

“Hello, yes?”

“Abdullah, it’s Rayford Steele, but don’t say anything. Just repeat after me, all right?”

“All right.”

“Global Community Militia? ... A stolen Range Rover? .. . Gold? .. . Prison? . . . Yes, you come and question me, but all the gold is here and the automobile too. . . . Yes, I will be here when you get here. . . . No, I do not want to go to prison.”

Abdullah broke in. “It’s working, Rayford.”

“Rayford?” he heard Hattie scream. “Ernie, wait!”

But Ernie and Bo were already riding double on the motorbike, leaving a plume of dust as they hightailed it from the airport.

Rayford and T found Abdullah looking fatigued but proud of himself, sitting across from Hattie, who sat on the floor with her back pressed against an army cot. “Let’s go, Hattie,” Rayford said. “Maybe we can get you back in time to see the new baby.”

Four hours later, in the darkest hour of the morning, Chloe Steele Williams gave birth to a healthy son. In tears she suckled him and announced his name.

Kenneth Bruce.

Even Hattie wept.

“One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things.

“Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’

“So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released. . . .”

Revelation 9:12-15