The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books (38 page)

It was Rayford Steele’s turn for a break. He pulled the headphones down onto his neck and dug into his flight bag for his wife’s Bible, marveling at how quickly his life had changed. How many hours had he wasted during idle moments like this, poring over newspapers and magazines that had nothing to say? After all that had happened, only one book could hold his interest.

The Boeing 747 was on auto from Baltimore to a four o’clock Friday afternoon landing at Chicago O’Hare, but Rayford’s new first officer, Nick, sat staring ahead anyway, as if piloting the plane.
Doesn’t want to talk to me anymore,
Rayford thought.
Knew what was coming and shut me down before I opened my mouth.

“Is it going to offend you if I sit reading this for a while?” Rayford asked.

The younger man turned and pulled the left phone away from his own ear. “Say again?”

Rayford repeated himself, pointing to the Bible. It had belonged to the wife he hadn’t seen for more than two weeks and probably would not see for another seven years.

“As long as you don’t expect me to listen.”

“I got that loud and clear, Nick. You understand I don’t care what you think of me, don’t you?”

“Sir?”

Rayford leaned close and spoke louder. “What you think of me would have been hugely important a few weeks ago,” he said. “But—”

“Yeah, I know, OK? I got it, Steele, all right? You and lots of other people think the whole thing was Jesus. Not buying. Delude yourself, but leave me out of it.”

Rayford raised his brows and shrugged. “You wouldn’t respect me if I hadn’t tried.”

“Don’t be too sure.”

But when Rayford turned back to his reading, it was the
Chicago Tribune
sticking out of his bag that grabbed his attention.

The
Tribune
, like every other paper in the world, carried the front-page story: During a private meeting at the United Nations, just before a Nicolae Carpathia press conference, a horrifying murder/suicide had occurred. New U.N. Secretary-General Nicolae Carpathia had just installed the ten new members of the expanded Security Council, seeming to err by inaugurating two men to the same position of U.N. ambassador from the Great States of Britain.

According to the witnesses, billionaire Jonathan Stonagal, Carpathia’s friend and financial backer, suddenly overpowered a guard, stole his handgun, and shot himself in the head, the bullet passing through and killing one of the new ambassadors from Britain.

The United Nations had been closed for the day, and Carpathia was despondent over the tragic loss of his two dear friends and trusted advisers.

Bizarre as it might seem, Rayford Steele was one of only four people on the planet who knew the truth about Nicolae Carpathia—that he was a liar, a hypnotic brainwasher, the Antichrist himself. Others might suspect Carpathia of being other than he seemed, but only Rayford, his daughter, his pastor, and his new friend, journalist Buck Williams, knew for sure.

Buck had been one of the seventeen in that United Nations meeting room. And he had witnessed something entirely different—not a murder/suicide, but a double murder. Carpathia himself, according to Buck, had methodically borrowed the guard’s gun, forced his old friend Jonathan Stonagal to kneel, then killed Stonagal and the British ambassador with one shot.

Carpathia had choreographed the murders, and then, while the witnesses sat in horror, Carpathia quietly told them what they had seen—the same story the newspapers now carried. Every witness in that room but one corroborated it. Most chilling, they believed it. Even Steve Plank, Buck’s former boss, now Carpathia’s press agent. Even Hattie Durham, Rayford’s onetime flight attendant, who had become Carpathia’s personal assistant. Everyone except Buck Williams.

Rayford had been dubious when Buck told his version in Bruce Barnes’s office two nights ago. “You’re the only person in the room who saw it your way?” he had challenged the writer.

“Captain Steele,” Buck had said, “we all saw it the same way. But then Carpathia calmly described what he wanted us to think we had seen, and everybody but me immediately accepted it as truth. I want to know how he explains that he had the dead man’s successor already there and sworn in when the murder took place. But now there’s no evidence I was even there. It’s as if Carpathia washed me from their memories. People I know now swear I wasn’t there, and they aren’t joking.”

Chloe and Bruce Barnes had looked at each other and then back at Buck. Buck had finally become a believer, just before entering the meeting at the U.N. “I’m absolutely convinced that if I had gone into that room without God,” Buck said, “I would have been reprogrammed too.”

“But now if you just tell the world the truth—”

“Sir, I’ve been reassigned to Chicago because my boss believes I missed that meeting. Steve Plank asked why I had not accepted his invitation. I haven’t talked to Hattie yet, but you know she won’t remember I was there.”

“The biggest question,” Bruce Barnes said, “is what Carpathia thinks is in your head. Does he think he’s erased the truth from
your
mind? If he knows you know, you’re in grave danger.”

Now, as Rayford read the bizarre story in the paper, he noticed Nick switching from autopilot to manual. “Initial descent,” Nick said. “You want to bring her in?”

“Of course,” Rayford said. Nick could have landed the plane, but Rayford felt responsible. He was the captain. He would answer for these people. And even though the plane could land itself, he had not lost the thrill of handling it. Few things reminded him of life as it had been just weeks before, but landing a 747 was one of them.

Buck Williams had spent the day buying a car—something he hadn’t needed in Manhattan—and hunting for an apartment. He found a beautiful condo, at a place that advertised already-installed wireless, midway between the
Global Weekly
Chicago bureau office and New Hope Village Church in Mount Prospect. He tried to convince himself it was the church that would keep drawing him west of the city, not Rayford Steele’s daughter, Chloe. She was ten years his junior, and whatever attraction he might feel for her, he was certain she saw him as some sort of a wizened mentor.

Buck had put off going to the office. He wasn’t expected there until the following Monday anyway, and he didn’t relish facing Verna Zee. When it had been his assignment to find a replacement for veteran Lucinda Washington, the Chicago bureau chief who had disappeared, he had told the militant Verna she had jumped the gun by moving into her former boss’s office. Now Buck had been demoted and Verna elevated. Suddenly, she was
his
boss.

But he didn’t want to spend all weekend dreading the meeting, and neither did he want to appear too eager to see Chloe Steele again right away, so Buck drove to the office just before closing. Would Verna make him pay for his years of celebrity as an award-winning cover-story writer? Or would she make it even worse by killing him with kindness?

Buck felt the stares and smiles of the underlings as he moved through the outer office. By now, of course, everyone knew what had happened. They felt sorry for him, were stunned by his lapse of judgment. How could Buck Williams miss a meeting that would certainly be one of the most momentous in news history, even if it hadn’t resulted in the double death? But they were also aware of Buck’s credentials. Many, no doubt, would still consider it a privilege to work with him.

No surprise, Verna had already moved back into the big office. Buck winked at Alice, Verna’s spike-haired young secretary, and peered in. It looked as if Verna had been there for years. She had already rearranged the furniture and hung her own pictures and plaques. Clearly, she was ensconced and loving every minute of it.

A pile of papers littered Verna’s desk, and her computer screen was lit, but she seemed to be idly gazing out the window. Buck poked his head in and cleared his throat. He noticed a flash of recognition and then a quick recomposing. “Cameron,” she said flatly, still seated. “I didn’t expect you till Monday.”

“Just checking in,” he said. “You can call me Buck.”

“I’ll call you Cameron, if you don’t mind, and—”

“I do mind. Please call—”

“Then I’ll call you Cameron even if you
do
mind. Did you let anyone know you were coming?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“An appointment?”

“With me. I have a schedule, you know.”

“And there’s no room for me on it?”

“You’re asking for an appointment then?”

“If it’s not inconvenient. I’d like to know where I’m going to land and what kind of assignments you have in mind for me, that kind of—”

“Those sound like things we can talk about when we meet,” Verna said. “Alice! See if I have a slot in twenty minutes, please!”

“You do,” Alice called out. “And I would be happy to show Mr. Williams his cubicle while he’s waiting, if you—”

“I prefer to do that myself, Alice. Thank you. And could you shut my door?”

Alice looked apologetic as she rose and moved past Buck to shut the door. He thought she even rolled her eyes. “
You
can call me Buck,” he whispered.

“Thanks,” she said shyly, pointing to a chair beside her desk.

“I have to wait here, like seeing the principal?”

She nodded. “Someone called here for you earlier. Didn’t leave her name. I told her you weren’t expected till Monday.”

“No message?”

“Sorry.”

“So, where
is
my cubicle?”

Alice glanced at the closed door, as if fearing Verna could see her. She stood and pointed over the tops of several partitions toward a windowless corner in the back.

“That’s where the coffeepot was last time I was here,” Buck said.

“It still is,” Alice said with a giggle. Her intercom buzzed. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Would you two mind whispering if you must talk while I’m working?”

“Sorry!” This time Alice did roll her eyes.

“I’m gonna go take a peek,” Buck whispered, rising.

“Please don’t,” she said. “You’ll get me in trouble with you-know-who.”

Buck shook his head and sat back down. He thought of where he had been, whom he had met, the dangers he had faced in his career. And now he was whispering with a secretary he had to keep out of trouble from a wannabe boss who had never been able to write her way out of a paper bag.

Buck sighed. At least he was in Chicago with the only people he knew who really cared about him.

Despite his and Chloe’s new faith, Rayford Steele found himself subject to deep mood swings. As he strode through O’Hare, passed brusquely and silently by Nick, he suddenly felt sad. How he missed Irene and Raymie! He knew beyond doubt they were in heaven, and that, if anything, they should be feeling sorry for him. But the world had changed so dramatically since the disappearances that hardly anyone he knew had recaptured any sense of equilibrium. He was grateful to have Bruce to teach him and Chloe and now Buck to stand with him in their mission, but sometimes the prospect of facing the future was overwhelming.

That’s why it was such sweet relief to see Chloe’s smiling face waiting at the end of the corridor. In two decades of flying, he had gotten used to passing passengers who were being greeted at the terminal. Most pilots were accustomed to simply disembarking and driving home alone.

Chloe and Rayford understood each other better than ever. They were fast becoming friends and confidants, and while they didn’t agree on everything, they were knit in their grief and loss, tied in their new faith, and teammates on what they called the Tribulation Force.

Rayford embraced his daughter. “Anything wrong?”

“No, but Bruce has been trying to get you. He’s called an emergency meeting of the core group for early this evening. He’s swamped till then, but he’d like us to try to get hold of Buck.”

“How’d you get here?”

“Cab. I knew your car was here.”

“Where would Buck be?”

“He was going to look for a car and an apartment today. He could be anywhere.”

“Did you call the
Weekly
office?”