Assassins: Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist (26 page)

Rayford crashed down the steps three and four at a time, nearly overtaking Trudy, who was moving as fast as she could one step at a time. When Rayford reached the second floor, he grabbed the banister and, despite his protesting knee, swung into the middle of the staircase. He dropped to the floor as Trudy reached the last step. She moaned as she ran as if certain she was about to be shot. Rayford felt a tingling in his back as if he, too, expected a bullet to rip through him.

Trudy had left her car idling, the door open, directly in front of the apartment building. Dwayne had noticed it and pulled up behind it, clearly puzzled. He looked up as Rayford and his wife hurried toward him, and he called out, “What the … ?”

“Go!” Rayford waved at him. “We’ll catch up with you!”

Rayford ran to the driver’s side and Trudy opened the passenger door as shots came from the third floor. As soon as Rayford heard her door shut, he floored the accelerator and threw dirt and stones as the car fishtailed down the street.

His instincts had saved them, he knew, but as his heart shoved blood through him faster than ever, Rayford was unable to feel gratitude for that presence of mind. He knew God had been with him, protected him, helped spare him. But all Rayford felt was a resurgence of the rage that had plagued him for months.

This, all of it, started and ended with Nicolae Carpathia. He wanted to murder the man and he would, he decided, if it was the last thing he did on earth. And he didn’t care if it was. He would spend whatever he had to for that weapon from Albie, and regardless what it took, he would be where he needed to be when the time came.

Trudy, gasping, wrestled her seat belt on. As Rayford followed Dwayne through the narrow streets, she fished around on the floor and came up with his phone. “Is- is-is there a sp-sp-speed dial number for Mac McCu―”

“Two.”

She punched it and Rayford heard it ring, then Mac’s voice. “Mrs. Tuttle?”

“M-m-mission accomplished!” Trudy said, and she handed Rayford the phone as she burst into tears.

David was spent.

He and Mac had listened to Rayford’s debriefing as the two cars zipped through Le Havre on their way back to the hotel. All agreed that if they had not been followed they were safe briefly at the hotel under their aliases, but that they should leave the country as soon as possible. Rayford had used both his phony and his real name with “Samuel,” who, of course, turned out to be a GC plant. Provided he hadn’t bled to death from window injuries, he would have already spread the word that Rayford was in France.

That made it unlikely that Rayford could get out of the airport through customs. Fortunately, he had separated from the “Hills” as they passed through customs and was not linked to their party on the computer.

“We can’t help you from here,” David told him.

“I’ll stay in touch,” Rayford said. “But I’m not going straight home.”

Buck left Israel without visiting the Wailing Wall. Neither had he reported to Tsion the details of his encounter with Chaim Rosenzweig. He wanted to do that in person, knowing Tsion would be as heavy-hearted as he was. How they had grown to love Chaim! It wasn’t enough to say that you couldn’t make a person’s decision for him. The believers who loved Chaim wanted to do just that.

Buck enjoyed a warm reunion with Lukas Miklos and his wife. In her broken English, Mrs. Miklos told Buck with relish, “Laslos loves the intrigue. He tells me day and night for week, remember our friend be Greg North, not you-know-who.”

Laslos had done his homework. He had made his lignite business so profitable that he was stockpiling profits and planned to sell the operation to the Global Community just before trading restrictions were predicted to go into effect.

Laslos showed Buck an expansive site at a new location where he would house trucks and loading equipment to ship commodities to co-op locations. His new concern would look like a GC-sanctioned shipping business, but it would be ten times larger than it appeared and would be the hub of co-op activity in that part of the world.

Buck also visited Laslos’ underground church, a vast group of believers led by a converted Jew whose main dilemma was how large the body had grown. Buck flew back to the States encouraged by what he had seen in Greece but saddened by the lack of spiritual movement on Chaim Rosenzweig’s part.

At home he found Tsion and Chloe skittish about a decision they had come to about Leah. Buck thought it a great idea, but they wondered whether they should have proceeded without consulting Rayford. Due to the near disaster with Rayford and the complexity of the communications between Force members from all over the world, Tsion suggested putting one person in charge of centralized information. Leah immediately volunteered, saying she found herself looking for things to do between preparing meals. Chloe had spent hours with her, bringing her up to speed on the computer, and Leah said she had never felt more fulfilled.

The four gathered around the computer, and Leah showed how she had found a program that helped her consolidate everything coming into or going out from the safe house. With a little thought and a few keystrokes, she then transmitted to everyone what the others had communicated. “This way we’ll never wonder who’s in the loop, who knows what, and who doesn’t. If Mac or David writes up an incident that everyone should know about, I see that everyone gets it.”

As they hurtled toward the midpoint of the Tribulation, Buck sensed they were as prepared as they could be.

Rayford had to give Dwayne his due. He may have been a loudmouth, but he had come up with the best plan for spiriting Rayford out of Le Havre. “We didn’t get to use my ideas for ditchin’ Hattie’s boyfriend,” he said, “so this is only fair.”

It was clear Trudy was proud of what she had accomplished that morning, but she was also still shaken and wanted no responsibility for another caper on their way out of the country.

She and her husband preceded Rayford to the airport by fifteen minutes to drop off their rental and get the plane ready for takeoff. Rayford would follow and drop off his car, then casually move to the back side of the lot where a fence separated the cars from the terminal. Dwayne had noticed that the area behind the fence led around the end of the terminal building and directly out to the runway. “You can either hop that fence and run to the plane―once you’ve heard it screamin’ and know we’re ready to go―or I can bring the plane close to that fence and make it easier for you.”

“Pros and cons?” Rayford said.

“It could be a long run to the plane, and you’ve been gimpy on that knee. On the other hand, if I bring the Super J to the fence, that’ll draw a lot of eyes and maybe even some freaked-out officials trying to keep me out of that area.”

They finally decided that Dwayne would get the plane into takeoff position and then ask permission to taxi out of the sun near the terminal to check out something underneath. That would put him closer to where Rayford could vault the fence. “I’ll tell ‘em I heard a squeak in a wheel bearing and see if I can’t get ‘em to poke around under there with me while you’re slipping aboard.”

All went well until Rayford pulled into the rental lot. The Super J was on the runway, engines whining. The rental attendant asked him something in French, then translated into English. “Are you keeping it on the charge card?”

Rayford nodded as the young man printed the receipt and kept looking from the handheld machine to Rayford’s eyes. “Excuse me,” he said, turning his back to Rayford and talking into his walkie-talkie. Rayford didn’t understand much of the French, but he was certain the man was asking a coworker something about “Agee, Thomas.”

The receipt was printing as the man spoke, but when he tore it off he didn’t hand it to Rayford. “No did go through,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Rayford said. “It’s right there.”

“Please to wait and I try again.”

“I’m late,” Rayford said, backing away and aware of movement near the terminal. “Send me a bill.”

“No, must you wait. Need new card.”

“Bill me,” Rayford said, looking over his shoulder to see the Super J slowly taxiing his direction. Three men ran from the terminal toward the rental lot. Rayford sprinted toward the fence, and the agent yelled for help.

Rayford guessed the fence was four and a half feet high and the Super J more than a hundred yards away, moving slowly. If Dwayne had succeeded, an inspector would likely walk out to meet the plane. The men racing into the lot were a hundred feet behind Rayford. They all looked young and athletic.

Rayford tried to scissor-kick his way over the fence but caught his lead heel on the top. That caused him to slow enough that gravity brought his seat down on the middle of the fence, and his momentum took him over. He grabbed the top to keep from slamming to the ground, but until he extricated his heel he hung upside down for a few seconds. He wiggled free and landed hard on his shoulder, jumped up, and lit out for the plane.

A look back revealed his pursuers clearing the fence with ease. If Dwayne didn’t increase his speed, Rayford would never outrun them. Rayford heard the acceleration of rpm’s and saw a man with a clipboard waving at Dwayne to slow. Fortunately he didn’t comply, and Trudy lowered the steps as Rayford headed for the door.

The men behind yelled at him to halt, and as Trudy leaned out, reaching, he heard their footsteps. Just as he left the ground to leap for the steps the fastest of the men dove and slapped Rayford’s trailing foot. He was thrown off balance and nearly flipped off the side of the stairs, but Trudy proved stronger than she looked. Rayford grabbed her wrist and was afraid he would pull her out the door with him, but as his weight dragged her to the floor, she turned lengthwise, her shoulders on one side of the opening and her knees on the other. He vaulted over her, Dwayne throttled up, and Rayford helped Trudy shut the door.

“That’s twice today you’ve saved my bacon,” Rayford said.

She smiled, shaking as she collapsed into a seat. “It’s the last time, too. I just retired.”

Dwayne whooped and hollered like a rodeo cowboy as the Super J shot into the sky. “She’s somethin’, ain’t she? Whoo boy!”

“Quite a machine,” Rayford said, dreading what he was going to feel like the next morning.

Dwayne gave him a puzzled look. “I wudd’n talkin’ about the Super J, pardner. I was talkin’ about the little woman.”

Trudy leaned forward and wrapped both arms around her husband’s neck. “Maybe you’ll quit calling me that now.”

“Darlin’,” he said, “I’ll call you anything your little ol’ heart desires. Whoo boy!”

“You heading west?” Rayford said suddenly.

“I can head any direction you want, Rafe. Say the word.”

“East.”

“East it is, and I’ll stay below the radar level awhile so they can forget about tracking us. Buckle up and hang on.”

He wasn’t kidding. Dwayne made the Super J change direction so fast, Rayford’s head was pinned to the chair.

“Like a roller coaster, eh? You gotta love this!”

Rayford muttered to himself.

“How’s that, Cap?” Dwayne said.

“I said you need to work up a little enthusiasm.”

Dwayne laughed until tears rolled.

Late in the day David received a private E-mail message from Annie, reporting that the head of her department and a couple of the other higher-ups had met briefly in Fortunato’s office. David wrote back, “I’d love you with all my heart even if you weren’t the most valuable mole in the place.”

While he skipped around his hard drive trying to retrieve the audio of the meeting in question, his status bar told him he had another message. Again it was from Annie. “I never dreamed of so lofty a compliment from the love of my life. Thank you from the bottom of my moley little heart. Love and kisses, AC.”

When David found the recording, he recognized the voice of his peer, the head of Annie’s department. He rambled through the obligatory kissing up, then turned the floor over to his intelligence analysis chief. Jim Hickman was brilliant but self-possessed and clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice.

“These cultists,” Hickman began, “are what I like to call literalists. They believe ancient writings, particularly the Jewish Torah and the Christian New Testament, and they make no distinction between historical records―many of which have proved accurate―and figurative, symbolic languages of the so-called prophetic passages.

“For instance, anyone―myself included―with even a cursory background in the history of ancient civilizations knows that much of the so-called prophetic books of the Bible are not prophetic at all. Oh, after the fact of some strange natural phenomenon one could make some of the imaginative and descriptive language fit the event. For instance, the current rash of death by fire, smoke, and sulfur―which is clearly poison-vapor warfare, probably by this very group―becomes the fulfillment of what they believe is a prophecy that includes monstrous horses with lions’ heads, ridden by 200 million men.”

“Are we going somewhere with this, Jim?” Fortunato said. “His Excellency is looking for specifics.”

“Oh, yes, Commander. All that to say this: as these people take these writings literally, they attribute to these two crazy preachers―”

“The potentate calls them the Jerusalem Twosome!” Fortunato said.

“Yes!” Hickman cried. “I love that! Anyway, the Ben-Judah-ites believe that these old coots are the so-called witnesses of the eleventh chapter of the book of Revelation. In their precious old King James translation the operative verse reads like this: ‘And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.’”

“So that’s why those two dress in those burlap bags,” Fortunato said. “They’re trying to make us think they’re these―what did it say?―witnesses.”

Hickman dripped with condescension. “Exactly, Commander. And Ben-Judah has always held that this period began the day the one-world government entered into a peace agreement with Israel. You count exactly twelve hundred and sixty days from then, and you must have what the preachers themselves call the ‘due time.’”