Deceived (40 page)
“Let's talk about it in the morning,” Colin said.
Shelly and Darrion stayed with Vicki until late, then went to their cots. Vicki watched the continuing coverage with a sense of awe and terror. The love and protection of God overwhelmed her, but she couldn't believe people still clung to the hope that Nicolae Carpathia was the answer to the world's problems.
In the midst of stories about the bloody seas and the GC's defeat in the air over Israel, Vicki saw an announcement for those who had not taken the mark of Carpathia. New application sites were opening, and Dr. Neal Damosa had scheduled a young people's rally at different sites around the world where kids could watch the next day's celebration
and
receive the mark.
Vicki shook her head. Only the Global Community could celebrate when there was so much death and destruction.
The motion alarm rang again and Vicki quickly flipped a switch, turning it off. She pulled up video of different sensors around Colin's property and noticed something moving in one of the frames. She enlarged the picture and saw an animal with a long tail crawling up a tree near the camera. She focused on the two eyes and long snout and recognized an opossum, with several little ones clinging to its back. The animal moved up and out of the frame and Vicki smiled. They were ugly creatures, but the babies were sort of cute.
The sensor beeped again so Vicki clicked back to the full list of camera shots. Some showed the dim glow of lights in houses several hundred yards away. The activated sensors were in the wooded area behind the house.
Vicki was about to turn everything off and go to bed when something caught her eye in a corner of the screen. A tree branch moved. Was it the wind? She enlarged the picture and moved closer. The image was grainy and slightly green.
A shadow moved in the moonlight. Was it another animal?
Vicki noticed something strange hanging behind one of the branches. At first it looked like Spanish moss, but the more she studied it, the more convinced she became that it was moving forward. The branch moved againâ was that someone's arm?
A face!
It filled the screen, and long, black hair covered the camera. Vicki jumped back and knocked some books off the table behind her. When she turned, the screen was blank.
Judd awoke early to a flurry of activity in the hotel room. Though it was still dark, Westin had a bag packed and Lionel was eating a bagel and some fruit he had brought from downstairs.
“Get dressed,” Westin said. “It's time to go.”
Westin took them underground to the Humvee and they drove into the smoky streets. Debris from downed choppers littered the roadside. Rescue crews worked on several buildings damaged by falling aircraft.
“Did you talk with Z-Van?” Lionel said.
Westin shook his head. “I didn't want him to know I was in town. But I did see his buddy, Lars Rahlmost.”
“The guy making that movie about Nicolae's resurrection?” Judd said.
“Yeah. And he says he got some great footage last night. He's supposed to be at the celebration this morning, but I have my doubts about them pulling it off, what with half the GC troops injured or unaccounted for.”
Judd's heart raced as they neared the airport. When they were back with their friends, they wouldn't have to worry about Carpathia's attacks. Judd was sure there would be danger, but nothing like they had seen in Israel and New Babylon. He didn't know how Chang could stand working in the same building with the most evil man on earth.
Judd thought of Vicki. He hoped she hadn't changed her mind about him. She had seemed excited about the possibility of them working on their relationship, and he wanted one more chance to prove himself.
Westin pointed out more wreckage, and Judd feared there might be debris on the airport runway. He sighed when a plane rose into the air.
“Won't be long now,” Westin said.
They returned the Humvee and took a shuttle to the terminal. Westin showed his pass at the checkpoint and located the hangar where Z-Van's plane was stored. The three jogged toward it.
“I'm going to get in touch with Chang as soon as we're in the air,” Judd said.
Westin stopped. “Oh no.”
“What's wrong?” Judd said.
Westin gestured to the hangar. From the side it had looked okay, but now, as they neared the front, Judd saw a gaping hole in the roof and emergency crews at work.
The familiar insignia of The Four Horsemen lay on the ground, burning.
Z-Van's plane had been destroyed.
Jerry B. Jenkins
(
www.jerryjenkins.com
) is the writer of the Left Behind series. He owns the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild, (
www.ChristianWritersGuild.com
), an organization dedicated to mentoring aspiring authors, as well as Jenkins Entertainment, a filmmaking company (
www.Jenkins-Entertainment.com
). Former vice president of publishing for the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, he also served many years as editor of
Moody
magazine and is now Moody's writer-at-large.
His writing has appeared in publications as varied as
Time
magazine,
Reader's Digest, Parade, Guideposts
, in-flight magazines, and dozens of other periodicals. Jenkins's biographies include books with Billy Graham, Hank Aaron, Bill Gaither, Luis Palau, Walter Payton, Orel Hershiser, and Nolan Ryan, among many others. His books appear regularly on the
New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal
, and
Publishers Weekly
best-seller lists.
He holds two honorary doctorates, one from Bethel College (Indiana) and one from Trinity International University. Jerry and his wife, Dianna, live in Colorado and have three grown sons and three grandchildren.
Dr. Tim LaHaye
(
www.timlahaye.com
), who conceived the idea of fictionalizing an account of the Rapture and the Tribulation, is a noted author, minister, and nationally recognized speaker on Bible prophecy. He is the founder of both Tim LaHaye Ministries and The PreTrib Research Center.
He also recently cofounded the Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy at Liberty University. Dr. LaHaye speaks at many of the major Bible prophecy conferences in the U.S. and Canada, where his prophecy books are very popular.
Dr. LaHaye earned a doctor of ministry degree from Western Theological Seminary and an honorary doctor of literature degree from Liberty University. For twenty-five years he pastored one of the nation's outstanding churches in San Diego, which grew to three locations. During that time he founded two accredited Christian high schools, a Christian school system of ten schools, and Christian Heritage College.
There are almost 13 million copies of Dr. LaHaye's fifty nonfiction books that have been published in over thirty-seven foreign languages. He has written books on a wide variety of subjects, such as family life, temperaments, and Bible prophecy. His current fiction works, the Left Behind series, written with Jerry B. Jenkins, continue to appear on the best-seller lists of the Christian Booksellers Association,
Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal, USA Today
, and the
New York Times
. LaHaye's second fiction series of prophetic novels consists of
Babylon Rising
and
The Secret on Ararat
, both of which hit the
New York Times
bestseller list and will soon be followed by
Europa Challenge
. This series of four action thrillers, unlike
Left Behind
, does not start with the Rapture but could take place today and goes up to the Rapture.
He is the father of four grown children and grandfather of nine. Snow skiing, waterskiing, motorcycling, golfing, vacationing with family, and jogging are among his leisure activities.
