Desecration: Antichrist Takes The Throne (22 page)

Abdullah woke Rayford again. He sat up, his hearing still gone. “Your son-in-law has requested transportation for Dr. Rosenzweig and himself from Masada to Petra, and he says you personally requested permission to convey them. Is that still your wish?”

Rayford nodded, wiped his face, and climbed into a seat. George descended to the staging area outside Masada, and they sat waiting until nearly everyone was gone save Chaim and Buck and a man standing behind them in a robe similar to Chaim’s.

“Who is that?” Rayford asked, pointing.

“Dr. Rosenzweig and Mr. Williams,” Abdullah said.

“No, the other,” Rayford said.

“I do not understand.”

“Who is with them?”

Rayford saw Abdullah glance at George, and George meet his gaze. “I see no one,” Abdullah said, but Rayford assumed he meant he didn’t know either.

Later, when GC vehicles began arriving at the site and finally only Buck, Chaim, and the other man remained outside, Abdullah stepped out of the chopper and held the door open. Chaim walked wearily, Buck with a hand on his arm. The third stayed a pace behind. As they boarded, it seemed to Rayford that Abdullah very nearly slammed the door on the unknown man.

They sat as George turned in his seat and Rayford introduced Chaim and Buck to him. “And introduce your friend,” Rayford said.

Buck smiled. “I’m sorry?”

“Your friend. Introduce your friend. Who is this?” Rayford gestured toward the third man, who merely looked at him. Chaim and Buck looked to where he had gestured and then back to Rayford. “Well?” he said.

“What are we missing?” Buck said.

Rayford wondered if he was dreaming. He leaned toward the man as the man leaned toward him. “So, who are you?” Rayford said.

“I am Michael,” he said. “I am here to restore and heal you.”

Rayford stiffened as Michael cupped Rayford’s head in his hands, his palms over the ears. Rayford’s hearing was restored, and he felt a surge of life and energy that made him sit up straight. “You mean Michael the … I mean, the Michael?”

But the man was gone.

RAYFORD
FELT
twenty years younger and wished he were piloting his own chopper. But George was doing fine. Abdullah sat next to him, scanning the sky and the ground with a serious, worried look. Buck sat next to Chaim on the long side bench, his head back, mouth open, sound asleep.

“You must be exhausted too, Dr. Rosenzweig,” Rayford said.

“For the first time today, yes, and you know I was up most of last night.”

“I heard. God has stood by you, hasn’t he?”

“Captain, I confess I am famished! It is as if I have been fueled b’y the energy of the angels to whom God gave charge over me.”

“Did you see them, sir?”

“Me? No. But you know Miss Durham saw Michael the archangel.”

Rayford nodded. There would be time to tell his own story. “Abdullah?” he said, and the Jordanian turned. “Were there any foodstuffs in what we loaded?” He had been heating something over a flameless stove just before they left Mizpe Ramon.

“There were! Yes!” Abdullah was shouting and enunciating.

“I can hear, Smitty. I’ve been healed.”

“Really!?” He leaned back and quit shouting, but still talked loudly enough to be heard above the din of the craft. “I have pita bread warm in an insulated box, along with sauce for the dipping.”

“You sound like a waiter in a swanky restaurant.”

“How would I know?”

Chaim leaned in. “That sounds like milk and honey to me.”

Abdullah unbuckled himself and squeezed back between them, kneeling to retrieve the box. He pivoted and opened the lid, revealing a stack of nearly twenty round pitas about ten inches in diameter, steam rising.

The aroma permeated the helicopter and woke Buck. Big George even reached back without looking. Rayford slapped a couple of pitas into his open palm. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” the pilot said, though he hadn’t said a word for an hour. All dug in, tearing at the chewy bread with their teeth.

“Lord, you know we are grateful!” Chaim said, his mouth full, and the others amened.

Abdullah was still kneeling by the box when he nudged Rayford and nodded outside. The sky was full of Operation Eagle choppers and GC craft, both fixed-wings and whirlybirds. Below, the streets were jammed with fleeing vehicles, careening around corners, bouncing over curbs and torn-up streets, pursued by GC vehicles with flashing lights.

The others turned to peer out. “How are we doing on fuel?” Chaim asked.

“Several hours’ worth,” George reported.

“Captain Steele,” Chaim said, “could we remain in this area and monitor this?”

Rayford told George to find a friendly altitude, and they hovered in a wide-box pattern. A GC chopper moved in behind them at one point and summoned them with an all-frequency transmission. “Civilian chopper, you are advised to leave Israel airspace immediately.”

“Captain,” George said, “what frequency can they hear me on?”

Rayford told him and asked what he had in mind.

“I just think I should be courteous, don’t you?”

“Don’t antagonize them.”

Everybody in the chopper laughed at that, and Rayford realized how absurd it was. The GC couldn’t be any more antagonized.

George switched to the frequency Rayford suggested. “GC chopper, this is the civilian bird. Over which part of your populated city did you plan to send our flaming wreckage?”

“Civilian, you are violating a curfew established by Potentate Carpathia himself.”

“I don’t recognize the authority.”

“Repeat, Carpathia! His Excellency himself!”

“I recognize the name, GC. I repeat, I don’t recognize the authority.”

Abdullah’s eyes were alive. “You Americans are crazy brave!”

The radio crackled again. “By authority of the Global Community and its risen potentate and lord, His Excellency Nicolae Carpathia, you are commanded to land at once in the first available area and surrender yourself, your passengers, your cargo, and your craft.”

“No thanks,” George said.

“That is not a request, civilian. That is an order sanctioned by the potentate.”

“Sorry, GC, but we’re on a mission from the real risen Lord, and we have both human and edible cargo we don’t wish to surrender.”

“Repeat?”

“The part about the people or the pita bread?”

“Be forewarned, civilian chopper, we are fully armed and prepared to destroy your craft if you do not comply immediately.”

“Right now?”

“Affirmative.”

“Just a minute.”

“You request time to comply?”

“No, I just need a minute.”

“You have sixty seconds.”

“I can’t have a minute?”

“Fifty-five seconds, civilian.”

“Let me make sure I get over the busiest streets here, GC, in case I’m not as invulnerable as I think I am.”

“Coming up on forty-five seconds. Put that chopper down.”

“We’re eating and we have no airsick bags. If we have to use evasive measures, we could make a mess.”

“Final warning. Thirty seconds.”

“We won’t be hearing from you again, then?”

“Negative.”

“Not at all?”

“Correct.” –

“Not one word?”

“Twenty seconds.”

“That’s two words.”

Rayford had to wonder if George was as scared as he was. The big man obviously believed they were safe because Chaim was aboard, and Rayford had more than enough reason to trust God. But when he saw the GC chopper back off to where a missile explosion would not damage the shooting craft, he believed they were about to be fired upon. “Buckle in, Smitty,” he shouted.

Abdullah leaped into his seat while Rayford secured the food box. Buck looked as focused as Rayford, but Chaim seemed bemused. “We belong to God,” the old man said. “His will be done.”

Mac hadn’t had this much fun since he was a schoolkid and his pet snake found his sister’s room. He bounced along Jerusalem streets with a truckload of Israeli believers and two nurses from America. The scene reminded him of the Keystone Kops. Operation Eagle drivers simply would not be stopped. They swung around barricades, over boulders, through earthquake residue, and past GC Peacekeeper vehicles.

Back in Texas when Mac was a kid, you could drive a farm vehicle at twelve. By the sixth grade, he was driving tractors and combines, pickups and dump trucks. And now he had drawn a new personnel transport from France, driven in by an International Commodity Co-op volunteer who had ridden back to get another.

This was a fancy rig with power and the ability to be driven in automatic or manual. The former would come in handy on the open road, once they got south of the city, but in the chaos in which he now found himself, Mac enjoyed the six-speed stick. Even more, he was entertained-though that seemed too light a word for it under the circumstances-by the spectacle of the freshly healed GC personnel thumbing their noses at the Micah-Nicolae agreement and trying to get in the way of the exodus of a million people.

Nearly all the Operation Eagle vehicles were four-wheel drive and could pick their way around any obstacle. When the road filled with stopped cars and trucks, those in the back just swung out and around and made their own routes and paths. GC Peacekeepers and Morale Monitors-the former in uniform, the latter wearing their badges and bright orange sashes-tried to direct traffic, stop civilian cars, check papers, and inform everyone they were violating the martial-law curfew. They were ignored, and Mac wondered how God was doing it. He saw a lot of weapons but heard little gunfire. No one allowed himself to be pulled over, and when GC vehicles blocked the path of a civilian car or truck, the latter just backed up and went around.

Mac wondered why the GC didn’t shoot or ram these vehicles, but he figured he’d learn when he was singled out. For now, Leah was asking an Israeli in the passenger seat if she could switch places with him so she could talk to Mac.

“We going to make it?” she asked.

He shot her a glance. She was pale and her eyes darted about the scene around them. “Looks like it,” he said. “You see any of ours who are not making it?”

She shook her head and fastened her seat belt, then sat with her hands balled into fists in her lap. “Uh, Mr. McCullum, Hannah is wondering why we’re going to Petra, she and I, I mean. Obviously there’s no need for medical personnel there, and neither of us is an Israeli.”

“Me either,” Mac said. “Obviously we’re takin’ these people to their new home. Chloe’s got shipments of building materials and such that will need to be processed. Maybe you can help coordinate that while we’re gettin’ the last of the refugees delivered. That’s gonna take a while.”

“Okay.”

“That a problem?”

“No, it’s just that-”

“You’re not gonna tell me it’s not what you signed up for. I mean, we all do what we gotta d-”

“No, I know, it’s fine. It’s just that being at Petra is going to be real hard on Hannah with what happened, you know.”

“I was there.”

“So you see.”

“Have her join me up here, would ya?”

“She can hardly talk, Mr. McCullum.”

“I don’t need her to talk. I need her to listen.”

Rayford leaned as far to his right as he could and kept an eye on the GC chopper behind them. They apparently cared not a whit about who or what was below.

“Everybody secure?” he said. “Prepare for incoming.” The pursuing craft was directly in line with them in a can’t-miss situation. Rayford considered barking evasive maneuvers at George, but it would be futile. The GC flew a smaller, more agile bird. Even if George eluded the first fusillade, it would be only a matter of time.

“They’re firing!” Rayford hollered, and buried his face between his knees. He had seen the orange bursts and the white tracers and expected the instantaneous ravaging of metal and Plexiglas and fuel tanks, the gush of cold air, the ball of flame, and the free fall.

He felt the blazing, screaming bullet tips shoot past between him and Buck and Chaim, and the white-hot streaks made him look up. The ammunition flashed through the bird, and the force of the air pushed George’s head to the left and Abdullah’s to the right as both involuntarily ducked and covered their ears. But there had been no damage to the back or front of the chopper.

Rayford stared as the shots found the tail rotors of a GC craft ahead of them and sent it spinning to the ground. He shuddered and realized he was gripping the seat so tightly his fingers had locked into position.

“Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? Be of good cheer! Do not be afraid.”

Rayford turned slowly to see Michael next to him again. “You all see him this time, don’t you?” he said.

“We saw him,” Chaim said. “Praise God.”

“I heard him,” Abdullah said, turning. But again, Michael was already gone.

Mac saw the flashing lights in his side rearview mirrors. “You’re not going to stop, are you?” Hannah asked quietly.

“Take more’n that to stop me now.” The GC behind him started in on their PA system. “I don’t want to talk to them,” he said. “I want to talk to you. Did you lose a loved one today?”

“Of course. Didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Then you should understand.”

“That’s why I don’t, Hannah. I’m not sayin’ this is easy. But did you see David fold up and hibernate when he lost his fiancee? No, ma’am. I know you and David were close, but what do you think he’d want? Do I hafta remind you that Rayford lost two wives and a son? That Tsion lost his whole family? I’m not discountin’ it, and I’m not sayin’ you don’t have a reason for wanting to stay away from Petra. But David was my boss and my friend, and this is no picnic for me either.”

“I know.”

“We’re all going to need some grieving time, and we won’t likely get it until we head back to the States. Meanwhile, we need you, Hannah. We don’t have the luxury of grieving the way we used to. Too many people countin’ on us. Now there may be nothin’ for you and Leah to do inside Petra, but you know well as I do that none of us helpers are guaranteed safety. Who knows what kinda walkin’ wounded we might have showin’ up to drop people off?”