The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (219 page)

Mac McCullum knew Buck Williams was somewhere in the crowd. Maybe he would try to make contact when it was over. Was Abdullah also there? And why had he said he wasn’t coming?

Quivering from the close call, Rayford tasted bile, Carpathia so repulsed him.

“Fellow citizens,” Nicolae began somberly, “in the very young history of our one-world government, we have stood shoulder to shoulder against great odds, as we do tonight.

“I had planned a speech to send us back to our homes with renewed vigor and a rededication to Global Community ideals. Tragedy has made that talk unnecessary. We have proven again that we are a people of purpose and ideals, of servanthood and good deeds.”

From behind Carpathia, three potentates rose. That seemed to obligate the other seven, who slowly and seemingly reluctantly stood. Carpathia noticed the attention of the crowd was behind him and turned, seeing first three, then all ten potentates stand and clap. The crowd joined the applause, and Rayford thought he saw Carpathia and Fortunato trade glances.

Was something afoot? Were those the three Mac had said might not be so loyal as Nicolae thought?

The potentates sat again, and for the first time since the meetings at Kollek Stadium, Carpathia seemed at a loss for words. He started again, paused, repeated himself, then turned back to the potentates and joked, “Do not do that to me.”

The crowd applauded anew, and Nicolae milked the situation for a bigger laugh. Obviously covering his own concern, he began to speak, looked back quickly, and turned again, engendering titters from the audience.

Suddenly the three potentates stood again and applauded as if trying to make points with Nicolae, though Rayford noticed one had reached into the inside pocket of his jacket as he rose. It was clear the crowd thought the clapping potentates were some sort of an impromptu bit. When Chaim suddenly steered his chair out of place and rolled toward Fortunato, the crowd laughed and exulted in earnest.

Rayford was distracted from his left. Hattie? There was no way. He tried to keep her in sight, but the people in front of him raised their hands again, shouting, clapping, jumping. He leveled the gun between them, aimed betwixt two security guards at Nicolae, and tried to squeeze the trigger. He could not! His arm was paralyzed, his hand shaking, his vision swimming. Would God not allow it? Had he run too far ahead? He felt a fool, a coward, powerless despite the weapon. He stood shaking, Carpathia in his sights. As the crowd celebrated, Rayford was bumped from the back and side and the gun went off. At the explosion the sea of panicked people parted around him. Rayford ran with a bunch of them, dropping the weapon and letting the other half of the box fall. People screamed and trampled each other.

As Rayford pushed his way into a gridlock of bodies, he sneaked a peek at the stage. Carpathia was not in sight. The potentates scattered and dived for cover, one dropping something as he tumbled off the platform. Rayford could not see Fortunato either, at first. The lectern had been shattered and the entire one-hundred-foot-wide back curtain ripped off its frame and blown away from the stage. Rayford imagined the bullet passing through Nicolae and taking out the backdrop.

Had God used him in spite of his cowardice? Could he have fulfilled prophecy? The shooting had been a mistake! He had not meant to do it!

Buck had ducked under a scaffold at the sound of the gun. A tidal wave of humanity swept past him on both sides, and he saw glee on some faces. Converts from the Wailing Wall who had seen Carpathia murder their heroes?

By the time Buck looked to the stage, the potentates were leaping off, the drapery was flying into the distance, and Chaim appeared catatonic, his head rigid.

Carpathia lay on the platform, blood running from eyes, nose, and mouth, and—it appeared to Buck—from the top of his head. His lapel mike was still hot, and because Buck was directly under a speaker tower, he heard Nicolae’s liquid, guttural murmur, “But I thought . . . I thought . . . I did everything you asked.”

Fortunato draped his stocky body over Carpathia’s chest, reached beneath him, and cradled him. Sitting on the stage, he rocked his potentate, wailing.

“Don’t die, Excellency!” Fortunato bawled. “We need you! The world needs you!
I
need you!”

Security forces surrounded them, brandishing Uzis. Buck had experienced enough trauma for one day. He stood transfixed, with a clear view of the back of Carpathia’s blood-matted skull.

The wound was unmistakably fatal. And from where Buck stood, it was obvious what had caused it.

“I did not expect a gunshot,” Tsion said, staring at the television as GC Security cleared the stage and whisked Carpathia away.

Two hours later GC CNN confirmed the death and played over and over the grieving pronouncement of Supreme Commander Leon Fortunato. “We shall carry on in the courageous spirit of our founder and moral anchor, Potentate Nicolae Carpathia. The cause of death will remain confidential until the investigation is complete. But you may rest assured the guilty party will be brought to justice.”

The news media reported that the slain potentate’s body would lie in state in the New Babylon palace before entombment there on Sunday.

“Don’t leave the TV, Chloe,” Tsion said. “You have to assume the resurrection will be caught on camera.”

But when Friday became Saturday in Mount Prospect and Saturday night approached, even Tsion began to wonder. The Scriptures had not foretold of death by projectile. Antichrist was to die from a specific wound to the head and then come back to life. Carpathia still lay in state.

By dawn Sunday, as Tsion gloomily watched mourners pass the glass bier in the sun-drenched courtyard of the GC palace, he had begun to doubt himself.

Had he been wrong all along?

Two hours before the burial, David Hassid was called in to Leon Fortunato’s office. Leon and his directors of Intelligence and Security huddled before a TV monitor. Leon’s face revealed abject grief and the promise of vengeance. “Once His Excellency is in the tomb,” he said, his voice thick, “the world can approach closure. Prosecuting his murderer can only help. Watch with us, David. The primary angles were blocked, but look at this collateral view. Tell me if you see what we see.”

David watched.

Oh, no!
he thought. It couldn’t be!

“Well?” Leon said, peering at him. “Is there any doubt?”

David stalled, but that only made the other two glance at him.

“The camera doesn’t lie,” Leon said. “We have our assassin, don’t we?”

Much as he wanted to come up with some other explanation for what was clear, David would jeopardize his position if he proved illogical. He nodded. “We sure do.”

Buck braced himself with his elbow crooked around a scaffolding pole. Thousands of panicked people fleeing the scene had, like him, started and involuntarily turned away from the deafening gunshot. It had come from perhaps a hundred feet to Buck’s right and was so loud he would not have been surprised if even those at the back of the throng of some two million had heard it plainly.

He was no expert, but to Buck it had sounded like a high-powered rifle. The only weapon smaller that had emitted such a report was the ugly handgun Carpathia had used to destroy the skulls of Moishe and Eli three days before. Actually, the sounds were eerily similar. Had Carpathia’s own weapon been fired? Might someone on his own staff have targeted him?

The lectern had shattered loudly as well, like a tree branch split by lightning. And that gigantic backdrop sailing into the distance . . .

Buck wanted to bolt with the rest of the crowd, but he worried about Chaim. Had he been hit? And where was Jacov? Just ten minutes before, Jacov had waited below stage left where Buck could see him. No way Chaim’s friend and aide would abandon him during a crisis.

As people stampeded by, some went under the scaffold, most went around it, and some jostled both Buck and the support poles, making the structure sway. Buck held tight and looked to where giant speakers three stories up leaned this way and that, threatening their flimsy plywood supports.

Buck could choose his poison: step into the surging crowd and risk being trampled or step up a few feet on the angled crossbar. He stepped up and immediately felt the fluidity of the structure. It bounced and seemed to want to spin as Buck looked toward the platform over the tops of a thousand streaking heads. He had heard Carpathia’s lament and Fortunato’s keening, but suddenly the sound—at least in the speakers above him—went dead.

Buck glanced up just in time to see a ten-foot-square speaker box tumble from the top. “Look out!” he shrieked to the crowd, but no one heard or noticed. He looked up again to be sure he was out of the way. The box snapped its umbilicals like string, which redirected its path some fifteen feet away from the tower. Buck watched in horror as a woman was crushed beneath it and several other men and women were staggered. A man tried to drag the victim from beneath the speaker, but the crowd behind him never slowed. Suddenly the running mass became a cauldron of humanity, trampling each other in their desperation to get free of the carnage.

Buck could not help. The entire scaffolding was pivoting, and he felt himself swing left. He hung on, not daring to drop into the torrent of screaming bodies. He caught sight of Jacov at last, trying to make his way up the side steps to the platform where Carpathia’s security detail brandished Uzis.

A helicopter attempted to land near the stage but had to wait until the crowd cleared. Chaim sat motionless in his chair, facing to Buck’s right, away from Carpathia and Fortunato. He appeared stiff, his head cocked and rigid, as if unable to move. If he had not been shot, Buck wondered if he’d had another stroke, or worse, a heart attack. He knew if Jacov could get to him, he would protect Chaim and get him somewhere safe.

Buck tried to keep an eye on Jacov while Fortunato waved at the helicopters, pleading with one to land and get Carpathia out of there. Jacov finally broke free and sprinted up the steps, only to be dealt a blow from the butt end of an Uzi that knocked him off his feet and into the crowd.

The impact snapped Jacov’s head back so violently that Buck was certain he was unconscious and unable to protect himself from trampling. Buck leaped off the scaffold and into the fray, fighting his way toward Jacov. He moved around the fallen speaker box and felt the sticky blood underfoot.

As Buck neared where he thought Jacov should be he took one more look at the platform before the angle would obscure his view. Chaim’s chair was moving! He was headed full speed toward the back of the platform. Had he leaned against the joystick? Was he out of control? If he didn’t stop or turn, he would pitch twelve feet to the pavement and certain death. His head was still cocked, his body stiff.

Buck reached Jacov, who lay splayed, his head awkwardly flopped to one side, eyes staring, limbs limp. A sob worked its way to Buck’s throat as he elbowed stragglers out of the way and knelt to put a thumb and forefinger to Jacov’s throat. No pulse.

Buck wanted to drag the body from the scene but feared he would be recognized despite his extensive facial scars. There was nothing he could do for Jacov. But what about Chaim?

Buck sprinted left around the platform and skidded to a stop at the back corner, from where he could see Chaim’s wheelchair crumpled on the ground, backstage center. The heavy batteries had broken open and lay twenty feet from the chair, which had one wheel bent almost in half, seat pad missing, and a footrest broken off. Was Buck about to find another friend dead?

He loped to the mangled chair and searched the area, including under the platform. Besides splinters from what he was sure had been the lectern, he found nothing. How could Chaim have survived this? Many of the world rulers had scrambled off the back of the stage, certainly having to turn and hang from the edge first to avoid serious injury. Even then, many would have had to have suffered sprained or broken ankles. But an elderly stroke victim riding in a metal chair twelve feet to concrete? Buck feared Chaim could not have survived. But who would have carried him off?

A chopper landed on the other side of the platform, and medical personnel rushed the stage. The security detail fanned out and began descending the stairs to clear the area.

Four emergency medical technicians crowded around Carpathia and Fortunato while others attended the trampled and the crushed, including the woman beneath the speaker box. Jacov was lifted into a body bag. Buck nearly wept at having to leave his brother that way, yet he knew Jacov was in heaven. He ran to catch up with the crowd now spilling into the streets.

Buck knew Jacov was dead. From the wound at the back of Carpathia’s head, he assumed Nicolae was dead or soon would be. And he had to assume Chaim was dead too.

Buck longed for the end of all this and the glorious appearing of Christ. But that was still another three and a half years off.

Rayford felt a fool, running with the crowd, the hem of his robe in his hands to keep from tripping. He had dropped the Saber and its box and wanted to use his arms for more speed. But he had to run like a woman in a long skirt. Adrenaline carried him, because he felt fast as ever, regardless. Rayford really wanted to shed the robe and turban, but the last thing he needed just then was to look like a Westerner.

Had he murdered Carpathia? He had tried to, intended to, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Then, when he was bumped and the gun went off, he couldn’t imagine he’d been lucky enough to find his target. Could the bullet have ricocheted off the lectern and into Carpathia? Could it also have passed through him and taken out the backdrop? It didn’t seem possible.

If he had killed the potentate, there was certainly no satisfaction in it, no relief or sense of accomplishment. As he hurried along, the screams and moans of Carpathia’s faithful all around him, Rayford felt he was running from a prison of his own making.

He was sucking wind by the time the crowd thinned and began to disperse, and when he stopped to bend at the waist, hands on his hips, to catch his breath, a couple hurrying past said, “Isn’t it awful? They think he’s dead!”

“It’s awful,” Rayford gasped, not looking at them.

Assuming TV cameras had caught everything, especially him with the gun raised, it wouldn’t be long before he would be sought. As soon as he was away from the busy streets, he shed the garb and stuffed it in a trash barrel. He found his car, eager to get to Tel Aviv and out of Israel before it became impossible.

Mac stood near the back of the throng, far enough from the gun that the report didn’t reach his ears until after the massive crowd began to move. While others near him shrieked and gasped and pleaded to know what was going on, he kept his eyes on the stage, relief washing over him. So, he would not have to sacrifice himself and Abdullah to be sure Carpathia was dead. From the commotion down front and from his view of the platform via jumbo screens nearby, it was clear to Mac that Nicolae had suffered the massive head wound believers knew was coming.

Ever the professional, Mac knew what would be expected of him. He slid his cell phone from his jacket and dialed Tel Aviv Operations. “You got a pilot rated to shuttle the 216 to Jerusalem and is it light enough to land and take off on the short runway?”

“Already looking, sir, and it’s light enough to do it. This is a tragedy.”

“Yeah.”

Mac dialed Abdullah. From the limited noise in the background, he could tell his first officer was not at the Gala. “You hear, Ab?”

“I heard. Shall I go get the Phoenix?”

“Hang loose; they’re trying to get it here. I saw you leave the hotel. Where are you?”

“Doctor Pita’s. I suppose I’ll look suspicious finishing my meal when the big boss is dying and everyone else has run into the streets looking for a TV.”

“Stick it in your pocket, and if you don’t hear from me, meet me at Jerusalem Airport in an hour.”

Mac made his way to the front of the plaza as the place emptied in a frenzy. He flashed his ID when necessary, and by the time he reached the platform, it was clear Carpathia was in the final throes of life. His wrists were drawn up under his chin, eyes shut tight and bleeding, blood trickling also from his ears and mouth, and his legs shook violently, toes pointed, knees locked.

“Oh, he’s gone! He’s gone!” Leon wailed. “Someone do something.”

The four emergency medical technicians, portable monitors beeping, knelt over Carpathia. They cleared his mouth so they could administer oxygen, studied a blood pressure gauge, pumped his chest, cradled his head, and tried to stanch the flow from a wound that left them kneeling in more blood than it seemed a body could hold.

Mac peeked past the panicky Fortunato to see Carpathia’s normally tanned hands and face already pale. No one could survive this, and Mac wondered if the bodily movements were merely posthumous reflexes.

“There is a hospital nearby, Commander,” one of the EMTs said, which threw Fortunato into a rage. He had just made eye contact with Mac and seemed about to say something when he turned on the EMT.

“Are you crazy? These—these
people
are not qualified! We must get him to New Babylon.”

He turned to Mac. “Is the 216 ready?”

“On its way from Tel Aviv. Should be able to lift off in an hour.”

“An hour?! Should we helicopter him straight to Tel Aviv?”

“Jerusalem Airport will be faster,” Mac said.

“There’s no room to stabilize him in a chopper, sir,” the EMT said.

“We have no choice!” Fortunato said. “An ambulance would be too slow.”

“But an ambulance has equipment that might—”

“Just get him into the chopper!” Fortunato said.

But as the EMT turned away looking disgusted, a female colleague looked up at him. Carpathia was still. “No vitals,” she said. “He’s flat lined.”

“No!” Leon bellowed, bullying his way between them and kneeling in Nicolae’s blood. Again he leaned over the body, but rather than holding Carpathia to him, he buried his face in the lifeless chest and sobbed aloud.

Security Chief Walter Moon dismissed the EMTs with a nod, and as they gathered up their equipment and went for the gurney, he gently pulled Leon away from Carpathia. “Don’t drape the body,” he said. “Let’s load ’im up now. Say nothing about his condition until we’re back home.”

“Who did this, Walter?” Fortunato whined. “Did we catch him?”

Moon shrugged and shook his head.