The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (344 page)

Sixty-Eight Months into the Tribulation

Chang was intrigued to hear of an unscheduled meeting in Carpathia’s conference room. Leon had actually called the meeting, much to Carpathia’s frustration, but Suhail Akbar, Viv Ivins, and Nicolae’s secretary Krystall all quickly came to Leon’s defense. “This is about water, Excellency,” Leon began. “Because you no longer need nourishment, including water, perhaps you don’t underst—”

“Listen to me, Leon. There is water in food. Are you people not eating enough food?”

“Potentate, the situation is dire. We try to harvest water from the seas and convert it. But even getting new ships out there is a chore.”

“It is true, unfortunately,” Akbar said, “and our troops everywhere are suffering.”

“
I’m
suffering,” Viv said. “Personally, I mean. There are times I think I should die if I don’t find a swallow of water.”

“Ms. Ivins,” Carpathia said, “we shall not allow the administration of the Global Community to grind to a halt because you are thirsty. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Highness. Forgive that selfish expression. I don’t know what I—”

“In fact, do you have a whit of expertise in this area?”

“Sir?”

“In the matter before us! Do you bring anything to the table that helps get us to a solution? Are you an expert? a scientist? a hydrologist? There is no need to shake your head. I know the answers. If you do not have pressing business in your office, why do you not just sit and listen and be grateful that you draw a paycheck here?”

“Would you prefer I leave?”

“Of course!”

Chang heard her chair push back from the table.

“A little tie with my family,” Nicolae said, “and you ride that horse as if it is your own! Do not turn from me when I address you!”

“I thought you wanted me to leave!” she whimpered.

“I do not cater to subjects, employees, friends, or otherwise who disrespect their sovereign. This same attitude made you think you could sit on
MY THRONE
in
MY TEMPL
E
!”

“Your Lordship, I have apologized over and over for that indiscretion! I am humiliated, repentant, and—”

“Excellency,” Leon said softly, “that
was
more than two years ago. . . .”

“You!” Carpathia roared. “You call this meeting and now you counter me as well?”

“No, sir. I apologize if it sounds as if I am c—”

“What would you call it? Would you like to join
Aunt Viv
and return to your office to work on what you have been assigned? You are head of the church, man! What happens to Carpathianism while you worry about water? Where are the scientists, the technologists who have something to offer here?”

Leon did not respond.

“Ms. Ivins,
why
are you still here?”

“I—but I thought you—”

“Go! For the love of all—”

“Sir,” Suhail began, as if the voice of reason, “I did consult the experts before coming, and—”

“Finally! Someone who uses the brain I gave him! What do you have?”

“If you’ll notice here, Your Highness . . .”

Chang heard the rattle of paper, as if Akbar was spreading a document.

“Satellite photography has detected a spring in the middle of Petra that has apparently been producing freshwater since the day of the bombings.”

“So we are back to Petra, are we, Director Akbar? The site of so many billions of Nicks poured into the desert sands?”

“It has been a boondoggle, sir, but notice what the aerial photography shows. Apparently the missile struck an aquifer that supplies thousands of gallons of pure water every day. It only stands to reason that the source of this spring extends far outside the city of Petra, and our people see no reason why we could not access it as well.”

“Where do they believe it extends?”

“To the east.”

“And how deep?”

“They are not able to tell from this kind of technology, but if a missile could tap into it in Petra, surely we could drill—or even use another missile—east of there.”

“Use a missile to tap into a spring? Suhail, have you heard of using too much equipment for a job?”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but two daisy cutter bombs and a Lance missile produced only drinking water for a million of our enemies.”

Mac had called Abdullah to tell him of the news of the finishing of a new Co-op airstrip, “beautifully hidden” just east of Ta’izz, north of the Gulf of Aden in southern Yemen. “Albie’s got a shipment he’d like to deliver to Petra, if you could run it down there sometime in the next day or so.”

“Me?” Abdullah said. “By myself?”

“Need me to hold your hand there, Smitty?”

“No. It is not that. It is just that such errands are so much more fun with company.”

“Yeah, I’m a barrel o’ laughs, but that’s a quick one-man run you can do with one of the lighter planes.”

“One of Mr. Whalum’s people left a Lear here. Can the new strip take a Lear?”

“Sure. A 30 or smaller. Anyway, watch for us around noon. When do you think you’d do this?”

“Probably today. If I finish with my hair and nail appointments in time. I was going to have my face done too, but—”

“What in heaven’s name are you goin’ on about?”

Abdullah laughed. “I finally got you, Mr. Mac! I was doing a joke on you!”

“Very funny, Smitty.”

“I got you, didn’t I, cowboy?”

Abdullah was checking the weather at the communications center when Naomi called out to him. “Mr. Smith, could you tell me what you make of this?”

He hurried over.

“What does that look like to you?” she said.

Abdullah’s stomach dropped. Dare he say it? Dare he not? “That looks like incoming.”

“That’s what I thought! What do I do?”

“Get Tsion and Chaim. Code red.”

“May I tell them you said that, sir?”

“Tell them whatever you need to, but quickly.”

She pushed a button and spoke into a microphone. “Communications central to leadership.”

“Leadership here. Morning, Naomi.”

“I need Drs. Ben-Judah and Rosenzweig here ASAP on a code red, authorized by Mr. Smith.”

“I will not ask you to repeat that if you can confirm what I thought you said.”

“That’s affirmative, Leadership. Code red.”

Abdullah met Tsion and Chaim at the entrance. Several grave-looking elders accompanied them. “Abdullah,” Chaim said, “code reds are reserved for threats to the well-being of the whole.”

“Follow me.”

He took them to Naomi, where they formed a half circle behind her and stared at the screen.

“A missile?”

“Looks like it,” Abdullah said.

“Headed for the city?”

“Actually no, but close.”

“From?”

“Probably Amman.”

“Time?”

“Minutes.”

“Target?”

“Looks east.”

“Where they have been drilling?”

Abdullah nodded.

Tsion said, “They have been drilling for weeks, and we have seen nothing. No oil, no water, no blood. Now they are going to bomb the place? It is not like Carpathia to take up arms against his own forces, depleted as they are. Do we have time to watch? Would it be prudent?”

Abdullah studied the screen. “I was at ground zero for two bombs and a missile two years ago. I would not fear another missile at least a mile from here. We have field glasses on tripods at the high place north of the Siq.”

“Shall I warn the people?” Naomi said.

Tsion thought a moment. “Just tell them,” he said, “to not be alarmed by an explosion within—when would you say, Abdullah?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“This is not a surprise to the drilling crew,” Abdullah said a few minutes later, bent to look through high-powered binoculars.

“They have moved,” Tsion said.

“Quite a ways, actually. More than a mile. Maybe two. And the drill rigging has been disassembled. That tells me that they don’t want it destroyed by the missile. It is probably programmed internally for a specific coordinate.”

Chaim sat on a rock, breathing heavily. “Is it just my age or is it particularly warm today?”

“I am perspiring more than usual myself, my friend,” Tsion said.

Abdullah pulled up from the binocs and shaded his eyes with his hand. “Now that you mention it, look at the sun.”

It seemed larger, brighter, higher than it should have been.

“What time is it?” Tsion said.

“About ten.”

“Why, that could be a noonday sun! You don’t suppose . . .”

Abdullah heard a whistling sound in the distance. He looked north. A white plume appeared on the horizon. “Missile,” he said. “It will be hard to follow with the glasses, but you could try.”

“I can see it with the naked eye,” Tsion said.

“I am warm,” Chaim said.

They watched as the winding missile streaked into view and began to descend. It appeared aimed for the original drilling site. It soared past the disassembled drilling rig on the desert floor, then slammed a hundred yards south of it, raising a huge cloud of sand and soil and digging a deep, wide crater.

The rumble of the explosion reached them in seconds, and the cloud slowly dissipated. Abdullah readjusted the binoculars to study the crater. “I cannot imagine it went nearly as deep as the hole they had already been drilling,” he said. “Regardless, so far it has produced nothing.”

“I am amused,” Tsion said, “but I wonder what they thought they might accomplish. If they were hoping to strike water, would they not have simply produced a geyser of blood anyway?”

Chang took an unusual risk and surreptitiously followed the missile-for-water effort from his desk at work. He listened through headphones but kept an eye out for anyone walking by.

Nicolae swore. “What did that little project cost, Suhail?”

“It wasn’t cheap, Excellency, but let’s not assume failure just yet.”

“Assume? The Lance we sent to Petra immediately produced a gusher that flows to this day! This is a disaster plain as day!”

“You may be right.”

“I am always right! Face it. You are going to have to attack this water thing another way.”

Chang heard a knock and Krystall’s voice. “Begging your pardon, sir, but we are getting strange reports.”

“What kind of reports?”

“Some kind of a heat wave. The lines are jammed. People are—”

Chang heard shouting and realized it came from his office and not from the surveillance. He quickly exed out and removed his earphones. He followed his coworkers to the windows, where they crowded to look outside.

“Get back!” Mr. Figueroa screamed as he burst from his office. “Get away from the windows!”

But like toddlers, these people wanted to do whatever they were told not to, and anyway, they were curious. What was causing all the explosions outside? Fortunately for the crowd around the window Chang peered out from, it wasn’t the first to go. But two of their coworkers—the cocky, condescending Lars and a young woman—were impaled with shards of glass when the window before them gave way.

As they lay writhing, pale and panicked, the steamy desert air blew in. The first woman who knelt to aid the injured immediately reddened from the heat, and as she surrendered and tried to evade it, her hair curled, produced sparks, burst into flames, and was singed off.

Others tried to drag the first two to safety, but they too had to scamper from the heat.

“What
is
this?” someone shrieked. “What’s happening?”

Those in front of Chang quickly backed away from the window, and he saw what was going on below. Car tires exploded. People leaped from their cars, then tried to get back in, burning their hands on the door handles. Windshields melted, greenery turned brown, withered, then became torches. A dog yanked loose from its leash, raced in circles, then dropped, panting, before being incinerated.

“To the basement!” Figueroa shouted, and to people who seemed reluctant to leave the fallen injured, “It’s too late to help them!”

People watched over their shoulders as they hurried away, and by the time they reached the door, they saw Lars and the young woman flailing at flames that would soon consume them.

Chang was one of the last out of the room, because he was only faking the effects of the heat. He saw the results, but aside from being aware that the temperature outside seemed higher than normal, he was impervious to the killing force.

He was glad to reach the elevator just as the doors were closing. “I’ll catch the next one,” he said and ran to his quarters instead.

At midnight in San Diego, Rayford was awakened by insistent tones from his computer. He dragged himself out of bed and turned on the monitor. Tsion was informing his cyberaudience around the world that the terrible fourth Bowl Judgment had struck, as prophesied in the Bible, and would affect every time zone on the earth as the sun rose. “Here in Petra,” he wrote, “by ten in the morning, people out in the sun without the seal of God were burned alive. This may seem an unparalleled opportunity to plead once again for the souls of men and women, because millions will lose loved ones. But the Scriptures also indicate that this may come so late in the hearts of the undecided that they will have already been hardened.

“Revelation 16:8-9 says, ‘Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.’”

Rayford keyed in a request to interact privately with Tsion or Chaim; he did not care which. “I know both of you will be terribly busy just now, but if either can spare a moment for the sake of the Tribulation Force, I would appreciate it.”

Three Quonset huts away, Ming Toy had been awakened by a call from Ree Woo. Ree had promised to look up her mother, so maybe this was his update, but Ming was alarmed at the hour. She rested in the promise Christopher had given about her and her mother surviving until the Glorious Appearing, but that—she knew—was no guarantee that her mother might not live out her days imprisoned.

“Is everyone all right?” she said.

“Better than all right,” Ree said. “Although I was not so sure when I arrived. I was warned to stay away from the underground shelter, because rumor had it that the GC had found them out and were planning a raid. The believers were busy packing and were going to sneak away in the night. They were praying the GC would raid them later—as is the custom—when they were supposed to be sleeping.

“But as the sun rose, they realized they heard very little noise from the street. Some ventured out and saw the damage from the sun. Everything is scorched, dried up, burned, melted, wasted. No one was on the street, though charred remains were scattered. The believers are protected, but the GC and the Carpathian loyalists cannot face the sun. The underground moved by the light of day, and if the GC come for them in the night, they will be disappointed. The believers did not move far away, but it is a better hiding place.

“Something they saw along the way would have been amusing, had it not been so sad. A small faction of GC had apparently tried to use fireproof suits and boots and helmets to protect themselves from the enormous heat. They lasted long enough to travel about a hundred yards; then they split up as their suits caught fire. Piles of burning material are dotted here and there in the streets.”

“Will you hurry back, Ree? I miss you terribly.”

“I miss you too, Ming, and I love you. This will allow me to leave during the daytime, so I should be back early.”

“Be safe, love,” she said.

Rayford sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, enveloped in the unmatched darkness provided by an underground shelter. Rayford was tired and knew he should get more sleep. But he would not sleep. This plague, perhaps unlike any leading to it, might provide unique opportunities for him and his team.

Finally the signal came, and Tsion was on the other end of the private messaging system. “Forgive me for not turning on the video,” Rayford said, “but it’s the middle of our night here.”

“Quite all right, Captain. Let me ask, need this be a private conversation? I am in the tech center and others may overhear.”

“No problem, Tsion. Is everyone all right there?”

“We are fine. We feel some extra warmth and some are fatigued, but we are apparently protected against the real effects of this plague.”

“I know you’re busy, but I need confirmation. Do you believe those of us with the mark of the seal of God are immune to the heat?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see what this could mean for the Tribulation Force, Tsion? We could do what we wanted during the daylight hours. As long as we are hidden again by the time the heat of the day subsides and the GC venture out again, they would be powerless to interfere.”

“I see. I would caution that God has never been predictable with these things. We know the sequence, and we used to think that one plague began and ended before another started. But the curse on the oceans lasted well past when the same curse hit the lakes and rivers, and the oceans turned back not too long before this one hit. I would not want to see you some bright day when the curse ends. You would be most vulnerable.”

“Point taken. I’d like to think this would last long enough to allow us some elbow room. I’ve never seen the world in worse shape or more people in need of help.”

“Oh, Rayford, the world is a spent cartridge. Even before God unleashed this curse, the globe was in the worst condition imaginable. It makes me wonder how the Lord can tarry until the end of the seven years. Really, what will be left? Poverty is rampant. Law and order are relics. Even Global Community loyalists have lost faith in their government and their Peacekeepers. The Morale Monitors are all on the take, it seems. The people who are to be out and about do not even dare venture into the streets without being armed.

“Cameron tells me he does not know one common citizen who does not own and carry a weapon. I hardly hear from countries where there are not marauding bands of thieves and rapists, not to mention vandals and terrorists. The best things we have out there are the 144,000 evangelists and the increase in angelic activity the Lord has so graciously allowed.

“Remember, Rayford, we are down to three kinds of people now: those of us with the mark of God, those who bear the mark of Antichrist, and the undecided. There are fewer and fewer of these, but they are the ones we must reach out to. They are suffering now, but oh, how they will suffer as the sun rises each day. Imagine the turmoil, the devastation. Power shortages, air conditioning overloads, breakdowns. And all this coming with half the population already gone.

“We are not far from anarchy, my friend. The GC does not care to crack down because they benefit. I am amazed there remain any loyal to Carpathia. Look what he has wrought.”

“Dr. Ben-Judah, how does this square with your contention that these judgments are as much about God’s mercy and compassion as they are about his wrath? The angel that announced the rivers and lakes turning to blood said it was to avenge the blood of the prophets.”

“God is just and God is holy, Rayford, but I do not believe he would send any more judgments on the world now if he weren’t still jealous that some repent. No doubt some will. I know the majority will not, because of what the Scripture says about their blaspheming the name of God. Obviously, by now everyone knows these judgments are from God, yet many refuse to repent of their sins.”

“I agree with you, Tsion. No one could possibly argue that God doesn’t exist. There’s overwhelming evidence of his presence and power—yet most still reject him. Why?”

“Captain Steele, that is the question of the ages. You remember the Old Testament story of when Moses grew up and refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, even though he could have? The Bible says he chose ‘rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.’

“Well, these people certainly are not Moses. They will suffer torment and lose their souls, all to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season—and what a short season. I applaud your thinking that this may be the time for the Tribulation Force to step up its efforts, to help struggling believers, to find the remaining undecided and help the evangelists and the angels bring them in before it is too late. I wish you Godspeed with whatever you decide.”