Assassins: Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist (11 page)

She shrugged. “This area wasn’t as hard hit as yours. No one’s hiding here. Everybody knows everybody else.”

They agreed Rayford should park a couple of blocks away and that they should move through the shadows to Leah’s town house. He pulled a large canvas bag and a flashlight from the back of the Rover.

At the edge of her property, Leah stopped. “They didn’t even shut the door,” she said. “The place has to be ransacked.”

“If the GC didn’t trash it, looters did,” Rayford said. “Once they knew you were on the run, your place was fair game. Want to check it out?”

She shook her head. “We’d better be in and out of that garage fast too. My neighbors can hear the door going up.”

“Is there a side entrance?”

She nodded.

“Got the key?”

“No.”

“I can break in. No one will hear unless they’re in there waiting for you.”

When Mac met Abdullah in the hangar to bring him up to speed on the Condor 216, Annie was already there, supervising cargo handlers. “More, Corporal?” Mac said.

“Yes, Captain. The purchasing director would like us to transport this tonnage of surplus foodstuffs to Kuwait. He got a spectacular deal on fuel, so while you’re taking on fuel, you can off-load this.”

Abdullah was silent inside the plane until they reached the cockpit and Mac showed him the reverse intercom bug. “Imagine the methods of our dismemberment if they found out,” he said.

At ten to eight in the morning, Mac and Abdullah finished their preflight checks and contacted the palace tower. Three figures in white aprons ran toward the plane. “Kitchen staff,” Mac said. “Let ‘em in.”

Abdullah opened the door and lowered the stairs. The cook, a sweating middle-aged man with stubby fingers, carried a steaming pan covered with foil. “Out of the way, out of the way,” he said in a Scandinavian accent. “Nobody told me the commander wanted breakfast aboard.”

Abdullah stepped back as the cook and his two aides hurried past. “Then how did you know?” he said.

The cook hurried into the galley and barked orders. Distracted by Abdullah’s hovering, he turned. “Was that rhetorical, sarcastic, or a genuine question?”

“I am not familiar with the first two,” Abdullah said.

The cook leaned on the counter as if he couldn’t believe he was about to waste his time answering the first officer. “I meant,” he said slowly, as if indulging a child, “that no one told me before now, and then the supreme commander himself told me. If he’s looking forward to eggs Benedict once airborne, it’s eggs Benedict he’ll get. Now, was there anything else?”

“Yes, sir.”

The cook looked stunned. “There is?”

“Would you like to impress the supreme commander?”

“If I didn’t I wouldn’t have run to the plane with a tray of hot food, would I?”

“I happen to know Commander Fortunato does not mean airborne when he says airborne.”

“Indeed?”

“No, you see, we have a brief stop in Kuwait after takeoff, and that would be the perfect time to serve him. Quieter, more relaxed, no danger of spilling.”

“Kuwait?”

“Just moments after takeoff, really.”

“Children!” the cook hollered to his aides. “Keep it hot. We’re servin’ breakfast in Kuwait!”

As Rayford expected, the side door to Leah’s shared garage was flimsy enough to be forced open without a lot of racket. But when he crept inside and asked her to point out the safe, he was alone. Rayford caught himself before he called to her, not wanting to compound the situation if something was wrong. He turned slowly and tiptoed back to the door. At first Rayford didn’t see her, but he heard her hyperventilating. She was kneeling near him in the moist grass and mud, her torso heaving with the strain of catching her breath. “I-I-I-,” she gasped.

He crouched beside her. “What is it? Are you all right? See someone?”

She wouldn’t look up, but in the darkness she fearfully pointed past Rayford. He took a good grip on the flashlight and whirled to see if someone was coming. He saw nothing.

“What did you see?” he said, but she was whimpering now, unable to say anything.

“Let me get you inside,” he said.

Helping her up and getting her into the garage was like picking up a sleeping child. “Leah!” he said. “Work with me. You’re safe.”

She sat on the floor, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging her legs. “Are they still out there?” she said.’ “Can you lock the door?”

“I broke the door,” he said. “Who’s out there?”

“You really didn’t see them?”

“Who?” he whispered loudly. She was shivering. “You need to get off that cold floor.”

He reached for her, but she wrenched away. “I won’t be able to leave,” she said, covering her face with trembling fingers. “You’ll have to bring the car for me.”

He hadn’t expected her to be this high maintenance. “Too risky.”

“I can’t, Rayford! I’m sorry.”

“Then let’s get the money and get going.”

“Forget the money. I wouldn’t be able to work the lock now anyway.”

“Why not?”

Again she pointed outside.

“Leah,” Rayford said, as soothingly as he could, “there’s nothing out there. We’re safe. We’re going to get your cash and go straight back to the car and go home, all right?”

She shook her head.

“Yes, we are,” he said, and he grabbed her elbow and pulled her up. She was incapacitated. He guided her to the wall and gently pushed her back until it supported her. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Horses,” she said. “Huge, dark horses. On the ridge behind the house, blocking the whole horizon. I couldn’t make out the riders because the horses breathed fire and smoke. But they just sat there, hundreds of them, maybe more, huge and menacing. Their faces! Rayford, their faces looked like lions with huge teeth!”

“Wait here,” Rayford said.

“Don’t leave me!” she said, grabbing his wrists, her fingers digging into flesh.

He peeled her hands away. “You’re safe.”

“Don’t go near them! They’re hovering.”

“Hovering?”

“Their feet are not touching the ground!”

“Tsion didn’t think they were real,” Rayford said.

“Tsion saw them?”

“Didn’t you read his message about this?”

“I don’t have a computer anymore.”

“These have to be the horsemen of Revelation 9, Leah! They won’t hurt us!”

“Are you sure?”

“What else can they be?”

Leah seemed to begin breathing easier, but even in the faint glow of the flashlight, she was pale. “Let me go check,” he said. “Think about the safe and the combination.”

She nodded, but she didn’t move. He hurried to the door. “To the east,” she stage-whispered. “On the horizon.” Though he felt he was safe, still he kept the door between him and the horizon. The night was cool and quiet. He saw nothing. He stepped away from the door and moved up a small incline, peeling his eyes to peer between buildings and into the open. His heart pounded, but he was disappointed he had not seen what Leah had. Had it been a vision? Why only to her?

He hurried back. She had moved away from the wall but was still not within sight of the door. “Did you see them?” she said.

“No.”

“They were there, Rayford! I wasn’t seeing things!”

“I believe you.”

“Do you?”

“Of course! But Tsion said he didn’t think they would be visible. He’ll be glad to hear it.”

“Where could they have gone? There were too many to move away that quickly.”

“Leah,” Rayford said carefully, “we’re talking about the supernatural, good and evil, the battle of the ages. There are no rules, at least not human ones. If you saw the horsemen predicted in Revelation, who knows what power they might have to appear and disappear?”

She folded her arms and rocked. “I lived through the earthquake. I saw the locusts. Did you?”

He nodded.

“You got a close look, Rayford, really close?”

“T and I studied one.”

“Then you know.”

“I sure do.”

“That was the most horrible thing I had ever seen. I didn’t get as close a look at these, but they’re monstrous. I could tell they were near the horizon, but they were so big I could see every detail. Are they not allowed to hurt us?”

“Tsion says they have the power to kill a third of the population.”

“But not believers?”

Rayford shook his head. “They kill those who have not repented of their sin.”

“If I didn’t repent before, I do now!” she said.

With the cook, his helpers, Fortunato, and his two aides aboard, Mac taxied out of the hangar and onto the airstrip south of the Global Community palace. Once airborne, he greeted the passengers over the intercom, informing them of the brief stop in Kuwait, then the four-thousand-plus mile flight to Johannesburg. Within seconds there came a loud rapping on the cockpit door.

“That would be Leon,” Mac said, nodding for Abdullah to unlock the door. “It’s time you met him anyway.”

Leon ignored Abdullah. “What’s with the stop in Kuwait, Captain? I have a schedule!”

“Good morning, Commander,” Mac said. “Our new first officer assures me we will land in plenty of time for your meeting, sir. Abdullah Smith, meet Supreme C―”

“In due time,” Fortunato said. “What’s in Kuwait?”

“Two birds with one stone, sir,” Mac said. “Director Hassid found a bargain on fuel, and our new cargo chief combined some deliveries, as long as we were headed that way. All told we’ve saved the administration thousands.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your name again, young man?”

“Abdullah Smith, sir.”

“I’m hungry anyway. Could you use some eggs Benedict this morning, Officer Smith?”

“No, thank you, sir. I ate earlier.”

“Captain McCullum, I would have appreciated knowing of the schedule change in advance.”

“As I said, sir, it’s really not a schedule change per se. Just a bit of a route ch―”

The door slapped shut. Abdullah looked at Mac with his brows raised. “Charming man,” he said.

Mac depressed the button beneath his chair and listened to the cabin. “Karl, how are my eggs coming? Enough for all of us, yourself included?”

“Yes, sir, Supreme Commander, sir. I shall serve them on the ground―well, let me rephrase that. I shall serve them when we’re on the ground temporarily in Kuwait.”

“I’m hungry now, Karl.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I was led to understand that you preferred the quiet and lack of bouncing around that might be afforded while we’re refueling.”

“Who told you that?”

“The first officer, sir.”

“The new man? He doesn’t even know me!”

“Well―”

“We’ll see about this.”

Mac clicked the button and turned a switch so he could speak directly from his mouthpiece to Abdullah’s headset. In one breath he repeated what he had just heard.

“Thank you,” Abdullah said as the door resounded yet again.

“Your name again, officer?” Leon said.

“Smith, sir.”

“You told the cook to serve breakfast in Kuwait rather than in the air?”

“I merely informed him of our slight route change and suggested that you might appreciate it more if―”

“So it was your idea. You told him what you thought I’d like, yet you and I had never met.”

“I take responsibility, sir. If I was out of order, I―”

“You were only exactly right there, Smith. I just wondered how you knew how much I hate trying to eat, especially a dish like that, while bouncing around up here. No offense, Mac―er, Captain.”

Mac was tempted to call him Leon and tell him no offense taken. But he just waved. The Condor virtually flew itself, but Mac liked to give the impression, as Rayford liked to say, “of keepin’ my eye on the road and my hand on the wheel.”

“So, how did you know that, Officer Smith?” Leon said.

“I only assumed,” he said. “I would not want egg yolk or hollandaise on my shirt in an important meeting.”

At the ensuing silence, Mac turned to see if Fortunato had left. He had not. He looked overcome. He rocked back with his mouth open so wide his eyes were shut. He lurched forward with a hacking, coughing laugh and a slap on the shoulder that drove Abdullah back into his seat. “Now that’s good!” Fortunato roared. “I like that!” And as he backed out of the cockpit, pulling the door shut behind him, he repeated, “Yolk or hollandaise on my shirt!”

Mac depressed the button again. “I did not intend to implicate the first officer,” Karl was saying.

“Nonsense! Good idea! Serve us in Kuwait. How long will that be?”

“Just minutes actually, sir, is my understanding.”

“Good. This way I’ll go into my meeting with a clean shirt. You should have thought of that, Karl.”

Leah’s safe was hidden behind her sons’ moldy pup tent high on a deck. Rayford helped her climb a perfectly vertical board ladder to it, then waited until she had pushed aside the tent and other junk. He followed and crouched behind her, aiming the light over her shoulder at the combination lock.

“How’d you get this thing up here?” he whispered. “It must weigh a ton.”

“We didn’t want the neighbors to know,” she said, her voice still shaky. “We were in here late, like now. My husband, Shannon, had had the safe delivered in a plain box, and he rented a hydraulic scaffold. One neighbor asked what it was for, and Shannon told him it was for roof repairs in the garage. Seemed to satisfy him.”

“So, once you got it up here, what, you two wrestled it into place?”

She nodded. “We worried the deck wouldn’t hold it.”

The safe was about three feet high and two feet wide, and Leah had not been joking when she said it was stuffed with cash. As she opened the door, she said, “We had to keep our other valuables at the bank.”

The safe was crammed with bundles of twenties. “We could use this at the safe house,” Rayford said.

“That’s why we’re here.”

“I mean the safe itself. We could never accept all this cash. There aren’t enough years left to spend it.”

“Nonsense. You’re going to need more vehicles, and you never know how many people might have to live with you.”

They quickly stuffed the bag with the cash. “This is going to be too heavy to carry,” he said. “Help me push it over the side.”