Assassins: Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist (34 page)

The crowd had gathered early, and the pre-opening act, a Latin band, was loud, the beat addictive. Half the crowd danced and sang, and more joined them as the afternoon wore on. Music, singing, and dancing, interspersed with excited predictions about the soon arrival of the potentate himself, whipped the crowd into delirium.

As the sky gradually darkened, Rayford kept moving, milling about to ensure he would remain unnoticed.

Once he nearly stopped and whipped off his sunglasses. He could have sworn Hattie had brushed past him. Heart racing, he turned and watched her go. Same height, same figure, same gait. Couldn’t be. Simply couldn’t be.

Mac and Abdullah strolled into the Gala plaza, now jammed with delegates. “You want to hang together or split up this week?” Mac said.

Abdullah shrugged. “If you want to be alone, it’s no problem.”

“It’s not that,” Mac said. “I just want you to feel free to be by yourself whenever you want.”

Abdullah shrugged again. Truth was, Mac wouldn’t have minded being alone. Alone in the huge crowd. Alone with his thoughts about how the world, and his life, had changed. He had come to a decision. If Carpathia somehow survived this event, if for some strange reason even Tsion Ben-Judah had been wrong in his assessment of the prophecies, Mac had a plan. Rayford had had a point. One of them should have pointed Nicolae’s plane toward a mountain long ago, sacrificing himself for the good of all. Mac wouldn’t be so selfish as to involve Abdullah. Somehow he would have to devise an exception that would allow him to fly the potentate by himself. He wouldn’t even need a mountain, really. All he needed was to cut the power and let gravity take over.

Could he? Would he? He looked at Abdullah and scanned the crowd. This was no way to live.

Finally, helicopters appeared. Rayford looked up as the people cheered. The choppers landed on either end of the stage, and the dignitaries bounded out to thunderous applause. All ten regional potentates, the supreme commander, and a woman in gaudy Enigma Babylon vestments trotted up the stairs. From under the stage came the burly security detail that formed a half-circle around the lectern.

Only when everyone else was in place did Carpathia arrive alone in another copter. To deafening roars he was welcomed to the stage by the standing VIPs, all seeming eager to shake his hand. Fortunato was last and led the potentate to a chair big and ornate as a throne.

The rest sat when he did, but the seemingly endless applause brought Carpathia to his feet again and again to shyly, humbly wave. Each time he stood, so did all the others on stage. Rayford was about two hundred feet from the man and twice had drawn his hands inside his robe and fingered the Saber, sliding it open an inch, then closing it. He did not have a clear shot with so many people in front of him. If he was to do this, God would have to orchestrate it. Rayford would bide his time, see if God provided an opening or opened a path to the front. If anyone in that crowd fired at Carpathia, no one would notice him until after the first shot, so enamored were they with their potentate.

Buck, having reluctantly left the Wailing Wall, arrived late and stood at the back of the crowd of nearly two million. He watched the pageant unfold but could not bring himself to applaud. He worried about Chaim, tried to call Jacov, but found he couldn’t hear anyway.

When the crowd finally quieted enough to allow Leon to have the floor, he turned to make sure Carpathia was seated for good, then mounted the lectern. “Welcome, fellow citizens of the new world,” he began and was interrupted by applause for the first of dozens of times. Every phrase elicited enthusiasm, making Buck wonder what planet the crowd was from. Did no one hold the leadership responsible for all the death and grief? The population had been cut in half in three and a half years, and these people celebrated?

“My name is Leonardo Fortunato, and it is my privilege to serve you and His Excellency as supreme commander of the Global Community. I want to introduce your regional potentates, whom I know you will welcome with the enthusiasm they deserve. But first, to seek the blessing of the great god of nature, I call upon the assistant to the supreme pontiff of Enigma Babylon One World Faith, who also has an announcement. Please welcome Deputy Pontiff Francesca D’Angelo.”

Buck was amazed that the deputy was apparently unfazed by catcalls and whistles. Suddenly Buck was overcome with a chill that made gooseflesh stand on his arms. As Ms. D’Angelo stood at the lectern, Carpathia rose and the crowd―rather than exult―fell deathly silent. Buck felt as if he were the only one able to look anywhere but at Carpathia. The potentates looked at him from where they sat, and Fortunato too turned toward him.

Carpathia spoke in the haunting, hypnotic voice Buck had heard only one time. Three and a half years before, Nicolae had committed a double murder after having told everyone in the room what they would remember and what they would not. Buck, as a brand-new believer, had been the only one protected from that mind control. Later, no one else even remembered Buck had been in the room.

Now the potentate spoke, yet his voice was not projected over the loudspeakers. Buck, as far from the stage as anyone could get, heard him plain as day, as if standing next to him.

“You will not remember that I have interrupted,” Nicolae said.

“Oh, God,” Buck prayed silently, “protect me! Don’t let me be swayed.”

“You are about to hear of a death that will surprise you,” Carpathia said, and no one moved. “It will strike you as old news. You will not care.”

Carpathia sat down and the crowd buzz picked up where it left off. Ms. D’Angelo said, “Before I pray to the great one-gender deity in whom we all rest and who also rests in all of us, I have an announcement. Pontifex Maximus Peter the Second died suddenly earlier today. He was overtaken by a highly contagious virus that made it necessary that he be cremated. Our condolences to his loved ones. A memorial service will be held tomorrow morning at this site. Now let us pray.”

Tomorrow morning? Buck thought. The Gala program called for a “debate” between Carpathia and “the Jerusalem Twosome” at 10 A.M. Tuesday, followed by a “noon to midnight party” in the hedonist district. Buck looked into the faces of delegates around him. They seemed unfazed. Buck was shaken. So Nicolae was capable of controlling the minds of two million at once.

The crowd applauded the prayer―which seemed to pay homage to every living cell. They cheered the introduction of each subpotentate, especially the newest, Mr. Litwala from Africa. The delegates seemed equally impressed with each potentate’s samish speech, which praised Carpathia in every other sentence. Finally the moment came for the man of the hour.

“And now,” Fortunato began, and the assembled sent up a roar that drowned out the rest of his introduction, except that Buck was standing under one of the speaker towers. “The man God chose to lead the world from war and bloodshed to a single Utopian community of harmony, your supreme potentate and mine, His Excellency, Nicolae Carpathia!”

The rest of the VIPs―save Fortunato―humbly left the platform, leaving Carpathia waving with both hands and smiling, striding back and forth behind the sober security team. Leon, leading the ovation, stood behind Nicolae in front of a chair to the right of the throne.

If anything, Buck decided, the speaking gift Nicolae Carpathia had first demonstrated at the United Nations three and a half years before had only improved with time. Back then he had used his prodigious memory, grasp of facts and history, and mastery of several languages to wow even the press. Who could remember when the working media had risen as one to endorse a rousing speaker?

Of course, that first internationally publicized speech had come within days of the disappearance from the earth of millions of people, including all babies and most children. Carpathia had appeared the perfect man for the perfect moment, and a terrified world―including at first Buck―embraced him. The globe seemed as one to look to Carpathia as a voice of peace, harmony, and reason. He was young, handsome, dynamic, charismatic, articulate, brilliant, decisive, and―incongruously―humble. It appeared he reluctantly accepted the mantle of leadership thrust upon him by an adoring populace.

Nicolae had reinvented the world, dividing it into ten regions, each with its own potentate. In the midst of increasing strife that impacted the globe even worse than the loss of millions at the Rapture, he stood as the paternal voice of comfort and encouragement. Through World War 3, famine, the great wrath of the Lamb earthquake, meteor strikes, maritime disasters, contamination of waterways, global darkening and cooling, swarms of scorpion locusts, and more recently the plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that had taken yet another third of the population, still Carpathia held firm control.

There were rumors of insurrection on the parts of at least three subpotentates, but nothing had yet come of that. Grieving, desperate people often railed about the new world and why it seemed to get worse, only to have Nicolae calm them over the airwaves with promises, sympathy, and pledges of tireless effort.

They believed him, especially those whose lives were dedicated to personal freedom at all cost. While the Global Community rebuilt cities and airports and roadways and communications systems, murder, theft, sorcery, idol worship, and sexual sin were on the rise. These latter three were actually applauded by Carpathia and by all who called bad good and good bad.

The only chink in Carpathia’s armor was that he seemed impotent before the two witnesses in Jerusalem. That he would schedule his Global Gala to usher in “the first day of the rest of Utopia” in the city where the two had held sway for so long appeared the height of cheek. If Nicolae was again humiliated by his inability to control them, if they could not be stopped from turning the water to blood and withholding rain, the fabric of his leadership might finally begin to fray.

Yet here he was, facing cameras that broadcast his image to international TV and the Internet. Now thirty-six, confident and charming as ever, he strode back and forth across the stage behind his security team. Not content to stay at the lectern, he kept moving, making sure his wave and smile reached every segment of the live audience that seemed unable to get enough of him.

Finally, finally he raised his hands and received undivided attention. Without notes, without pause, without a misspeak, Carpathia performed for forty-five minutes. He was interrupted by enthusiastic applause with nearly every phrase, and if he was animated at the beginning, he seemed even more energized by the end.

He acknowledged the hardships, the grief and sadness that came with individual loss, and the work that still needed to be done. He allowed a tear in his voice as he spoke of so many of “you beloved compatriots who have suffered bereavement.”

As Carpathia surged toward his dramatic, flourishing conclusion, he spoke louder, more directly, even more confidently. To Buck it seemed the crowd was ready to burst with love. They trusted him, believed in him, worshiped him, counted on him for sustenance.

Nicolae took one dramatic interlude where he strode back to the side of the lectern, leaned against it with one hand, crossed his feet at the ankles, and put his other fist on his hip. His look, on the giant screens throughout the plaza, was cocky and arrogant and pregnant with promise. With an are-you-ready-for-this smirk that created murmurs of excitement, laughter, whistles, and applause, plainly he was ready to make some bold pronouncement. Carpathia let the tension build, then stepped purposefully behind the lectern and gripped it with both hands. “Tomorrow morning,” he said, “as you can see on your program, we will reassemble near the Temple Mount. There we shall establish the authority of the Global Community over every geographic location.” Cheers and more cheers. “Regardless who is proclaiming this or warning that or taking credit for all manner of insidious attacks on this city, this area, this state … I will personally put an end to the religious terrorism perpetrated by two murderous imposters. I, for one, am tired of superstitious oppression, tired of drought, tired of bloody water. I am tired of pompous so-called prophecies, of gloom and doom, and of pie in the sky by and by!

“If the Jerusalem Twosome does not cease and desist tomorrow, I shall not rest until I have personally dealt with them. And once that is accomplished, we shall dance in the streets!”

The throng surged toward the stage, lustily cheering and chanting, “Nicolae, Nicolae, Nicolae!”

He shouted over the din, “Have fun tonight! Indulge yourselves! But sleep well so tomorrow we can enjoy the party that shall have no end!”

As the helicopters reappeared and people were cleared from the landing area, Carpathia waved and smiled as he headed toward the steps. Leon followed quickly and knelt, thrusting out his arms and waving in gestures of unworthiness. To Buck’s amazement, most of the crowd followed suit. Tens of thousands dropped to their knees and worshiped Carpathia as they would an athlete or a performer … or a god.

Rayford was beside himself. To keep from being conspicuous in his refusal to kneel, he kept moving. Each step brought him closer to the front, and inside his robe he pulled the Saber from its block. The heavy, solid, lethal feel both invigorated and scared him. He felt as if he were dreaming, watching himself from afar. Had it come to this? Had he become this crazy man who had won out over the pragmatist? Unless he could somehow be sure this was God’s plan, he didn’t dare inject himself into history. Whoever was the assassin, he would never again be free, that was sure. The perpetrator would be identified on tape and wouldn’t get far.

Rayford was within fifty feet of the stage when Carpathia gave a final wave, ducked, and disappeared aboard the helicopter. The chopper lifted off directly over Rayford’s head, and he could have shot it from the sky. He gritted his teeth and slammed the Saber back into the block. He replaced it in the big inside pocket, pushed his hands back out through the armholes. Clenched teeth made his temples throb.