Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama Of Those Left Behind (26 page)

“And now, if you will indulge me for a moment longer, I would like to say that we clearly are at the most momentous juncture in world history. With the consolidation to one form of currency, with the cooperation and toleration of many religions into one, with worldwide disarmament and commitment to peace, the world is truly becoming one.

“Many of you have heard me use the term Global Community. This is a worthy name for our new cause. We can communicate with one another, worship with one another, trade with one another. With communications and travel advancements, we are no longer a conglomeration of countries and nations, but one complete global community, a village made up of equal citizens. I thank the leaders here who have assembled this piece of the beautiful mosaic, and I would like to make an announcement in their honor.

“With the move of the United Nations headquarters to New Babylon will come a new name for our great organization. We will become known as the Global Community!” When applause finally subsided, Carpathia concluded, “Thus the name of the new one-world religion, Global Community Faith, is precisely appropriate.”

Carpathia was being whisked away as camera and sound crews began tearing down the press conference site. Nicolae saw Buck and broke stride, telling his bodyguards he wanted to talk with someone. They formed a human wall around him as Carpathia embraced Buck. It was all Buck could do to not recoil. “Be careful of what you’re doing to my journalistic independence,” he whispered in Carpathia’s ear.

“Any good news for me yet?” Carpathia asked, holding Buck at arm’s length and looking into his eyes.

“Not yet, sir.”

“I will see you in Jerusalem?”

“Of course.”

“You will keep in touch with Steve?”

“I will.”

“You tell him what it will take, and we will do it. That is a promise.”

Buck sidled over to a small group where Peter Mathews was holding court. Buck waited until the archbishop noticed him; then he leaned forward and whispered, “What’d I miss?”

“What do you mean? You were there.”

“You said Carpathia would make some announcement about an expanded role for the next pope, something bigger and more important even than the Catholic Church.”

Mathews stood shaking his head. “Perhaps I had you overrated, friend. I am not the pope yet, but couldn’t you tell from the secretary-general’s statement that there will be need for a head of the new religion? What better place to headquarter it than the Vatican? And who better to lead it than the new pope?”

“So you’ll be the pope of popes.”

Mathews smiled and nodded. “P. M.,” he said.

Two hours later, Rayford Steele arrived at the United Nations. He had been praying silently since he phoned Bruce Barnes just before he boarded his flight. “I feel like I’m going to meet the devil,” Rayford said. “Not much in this life scares me, Bruce. I’ve always taken pride in that. But I’ve got to tell you, this is awful.”

“First, Rayford, only if you were encountering the Antichrist in the second half of the Tribulation would you actually be dealing with the person who was possessed by Satan himself.”

“So what is Carpathia? Some second-rate demon?”

“No, you need prayer support. You know what happened in Buck’s presence.”

“Buck is ten years younger, and in better shape,” Rayford said. “I feel as if I’ll fall apart in there.”

“You won’t. Stay strong. God knows where you are, and he has perfect timing. I’ll be praying, and you know Chloe and Buck will be too.”

That was of great comfort to Rayford, and it was particularly encouraging to know that Buck was in town. Just knowing he was in close proximity made Rayford feel less alone. Yet in his anxiety over meeting Carpathia face-to-face, he did not want to look past the ordeal of confronting Hattie Durham.

Hattie was waiting when he stepped off the elevator. He had hoped to have a moment to get the lay of the land, to freshen up, to take a deep breath. But there she stood in all her youthful beauty, more stunning than ever because of a tan and expensively tailored clothes on a frame that needed no help. He did not expect what he saw, and he sensed evil in the place when a flash of longing for her briefly invaded his mind.

Rayford’s old nature immediately reminded him why she had distracted him during a wintry season of his marriage. He prayed silently, thanking God for sparing him from having done something he would have regretted forever. And as soon as Hattie opened her mouth, he was brought back to reality. Her diction and articulation were more refined, but this was still a woman without a clue, and he could hear it in her tone.

“Captain Steele,” she gushed. “How wonderful to see you again! How is everyone else?”

“Everyone else?”

“You know, Chloe and Buck and everybody.”

[_Chloe and Buck _]are [_everybody, _]he thought, but he didn’t say so.

“Everybody’s fine.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful.”

“Is there a private place we can talk?”

She led him to her work area, which was disconcertingly open. No one was around to overhear them, but the ceilings were at least twenty feet high. Her desk and tables and file cabinets were set in a cavernous area, much like a railway station, with no confining walls. Footsteps echoed, and Rayford had the distinct impression that they were a long way from the offices of the secretary-general.

“So, what’s new with you since I saw you last, Captain Steele?”

“Hattie, I don’t want to be unkind, but you can stop with the ‘Captain Steele’ and the pretending to not know what’s new. What’s new is that you and your new boss have invaded my job and my family, and I seem powerless to do anything about it.”

Stanton Bailey gripped the armrests of his big chair and rocked back, studying Buck Williams.

“Cameron,” he said, “I have never been able to figure you. What was that sack lunch business all about?”

“It was just a cookie. I was hungry.”

“I’m always hungry,” Bailey roared, “but I don’t eat on TV!”

“I wasn’t sure I could be seen.”

“Well, now you know. And if Carpathia and Plank still let you at the signing table in Jerusalem, no sack lunches.”

“It was a cookie.”

“No cookies either!”

After years as Hattie Durham’s captain, Rayford now felt like her subordinate, sitting across from her impressive desk. Apparently his coming straight to the point had sobered her.

“Rayford, listen,” she said, “I still like you in spite of how you dumped me, all right? I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“Trying to get a complaint about me into my personnel file is not going to hurt me?”

“That was just a joke. You saw right through it.”

“It brought me a lot of grief. And the note waiting for me in Dallas about the new [_Air Force One _]being a 757.”

“Same thing, I told you. A joke.”

“Not funny. Too coincidental.”

“Well, Rayford, if you can’t take a little teasing, then fine, I won’t bother. I just thought, friend to friend, a little fun wouldn’t hurt.”

“Come on, Hattie. You think I’m buying this? This is not your style. You don’t pull practical jokes on your friends. It’s just not you.”

“OK, I’m sorry.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Well, excuse me, but I don’t answer to you anymore.”

Somehow Hattie Durham had the capacity to rattle Rayford more than anyone else did. He took a deep breath and fought for composure. “Hattie, I want you to tell me about the flowers and candy.”

Hattie was the worst bluffer in the world. “Flowers and candy?” she repeated after a guilty pause.

“Stop with the games,” Rayford said. “Just accept that I know it was you and tell me why.”

“I only do what I’m told, Rayford.”

“See? This is beyond me. I should be asking the most powerful man in the world why he sent my daughter, someone he has never met, flowers and candy? Is he pursuing her? And if he is, why doesn’t he sign his name?”

“He’s not pursuing her, Rayford! He’s seeing someone.”

“What does that mean?”

“He has a relationship.”

“Anybody we know?” Rayford gave her a disgusted look.

Hattie seemed to be fighting a grin. “It’s safe to say we’re an item, but the press doesn’t know, so we’d appreciate it—”

“I’ll make a deal with you. You quit with the anonymous gifts to Chloe, tell me what the point was, and I’ll keep your little secret—how’s that?”

Hattie leaned forward conspiratorially. “OK,” she said, “here’s what I think, all right? I mean, I don’t know. Like I said, I just do what I’m told. But that’s one brilliant mind in there.”

Rayford didn’t doubt that. He just wondered why Nicolae Carpathia was spending time on such trivia.

“Go on.”

“He really wants you as his pilot.”

“OK,” Rayford said tentatively.

“You’ll do it?”

“Do what? I’m just saying I follow you, though I’m not sure I really do. He wants me as his pilot, and so … ?”

“But he knows you’re happy where you are.”

“Still with you, I think.”

“He wants to provide not just a job that might lure you away, but also something on your end that might push you from where you are.”

“My daughter being pursued by him would push me toward him?”

“No, silly. You weren’t supposed to find out who it was!”

“I see. I would be worried that it was someone from Chicago, so I would be inclined to move and take another job.”

“There you go.”

“I’ve got lots of questions, Hattie.”

“Shoot.”

“Why would someone pursuing my daughter make me want to run? She’s almost twenty-one. It’s time she was pursued.”

“But we did it anonymously. That should have seemed a little dangerous, a little upsetting.”

“It was.”

“Then we did our job.”

“Hattie, did you think I wouldn’t put two and two together when you sent Chloe’s favorite mints, available only at Holman Meadows in New York?”

“Hmph,” she said, “maybe that wasn’t too swift.”

“OK, let’s say it worked. I think my daughter’s being stalked or pursued by someone who seems sinister. As close as Carpathia is to the president, doesn’t he know they’re after me to pilot
Air Force One
?”

“Rayford! Duh! [_That’s _]the job he wants you to take.”

Rayford slumped and sighed. “Hattie, for the love of all things sacred, just tell me what’s going on. I get hints from the White House and Pan-Con that it’s Carpathia who wants me in there. I’m approved sight unseen to fly the U.N. delegation to Israel. Carpathia wants me as his pilot but first he wants me to be the captain of
Air Force One
?”

Maddeningly, Hattie turned a tolerant and condescending smile on him. “Rayford Steele,” she said in a schoolmarmish tone, “you just don’t get it yet, do you? You don’t really know who Nicolae Carpathia is.”

Rayford was stunned for a second. He knew better than she did who Nicolae Carpathia really was. The question was whether [_she _]had any inkling. “Tell me,” he said. “Help me understand.”

Hattie looked behind her, as if expecting Carpathia at any moment. Rayford knew no one could sneak up on them in this echoing, marble-floored edifice. “Nicolae is not going to give back the plane.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. It’s already been flown to New York. You’re going to see it today. It’s being painted.”

“Painted?”

“You’ll see.”

Rayford’s mind reeled. The plane would have been painted in Seattle before being flown to D.C. Why would it be painted again?

“How’s he going to get away with not returning it?”

“He’s going to thank the president for the gift, and—”

“He already did that the other day. I heard him.”

“But this time he will make it obvious he’s thanking the president for a gift, not for a
loan
. You get hired by the White House first, and you come with the plane, on the president’s salary budget. What can the president do, look betrayed? Say Nicolae is lying? He’ll just have to find a way to look as generous as Nicolae makes him out to be. Is that brilliant?”

“It’s boorish. It’s thievery. Why would I want to work for a man like that? Why would you?”

“I’ll work with and for Nicolae for as long as he’ll let me, Rayford. I have never learned so much in so short a time. This is not thievery at all. Nicolae says the United States is looking for ways to support the U.N. now, and here is a way. You know the world is coming together, and someone is going to lead the new one-world government. Getting this plane is one way to show that President Fitzhugh defers to Secretary-General Carpathia.”

Hattie sounded like a parrot. Carpathia had taught her well, if not to understand, at least to believe.

“OK,” Rayford summarized, “Carpathia somehow gets Pan-Con and the White House to put me at the top of the list of pilots for [_Air Force One. _]He has you agitate me at home so I’ll want to move. I take the job, he gets the plane and never gives it back. I’m the pilot, but I’m paid by the U.S. government. And this all ties in with Carpathia eventually becoming the leader of the world.”

Hattie rested her chin in her entwined fingers, elbows on the desk. She cocked her head. “That wasn’t so complicated, was it?”

“I don’t get why I’m so important to him.”

“He asked who was the best pilot I ever worked for and why.”

“And I won,” Rayford said.

“You won.”

“Did you tell him we almost had a fling?”

“Did we?”

“Never mind.”

“Of course I didn’t tell him that, and neither will you if you want to keep a good job.”

“But you told him I was a Christian.”

“Sure, why not? You tell everyone else. I think [_he’s _]a Christian, anyway.”

“Nicolae Carpathia?”

“Of course! At least he lives by Christian principles. He’s always concerned for the greater good. That’s one of his favorite phrases. Like this airplane deal. He knows the U.S. wants to do this, even if they didn’t think of it. They might feel a little put out for a while, but since it is for the greater good of the world, they’ll eventually see that and be glad they did it. They’ll look like generous heroes, and he’s doing that for them. That’s Christian, isn’t it?”