Desecration: Antichrist Takes The Throne (6 page)

Suddenly Fortunato stepped beside his boss and tried to mimic his pose. He could hold it only so long before having to scratch his backside or his ankle. Some in the crowd seemed to develop sympathetic itches. “Behold the lamb who takes away the sins of the world!” Fortunato bellowed.

Buck gritted his teeth and looked away, noticing that Chaim’s breath now came in short gasps.

The sky blackened, and people pulled their collars up and looked around for shelter. “You need not move if you are loyal to your risen ruler!” Fortunato said. “I have been imbued with power from on high to call down fire on the enemies of the king of this world. Let the loyalists declare themselves!”

Buck froze. While thousands jumped and screamed and waved, he stood stock-still, fearing that just about anyone would be able to tell he opposed Carpathia. Chaim crossed his arms and stared directly up at Fortunato, as if daring the man to strike him dead.

“Today you shall have opportunity to worship the image of your god!” Fortunato shouted, but he could be seen only when lightning flashed. Buck saw rapturous looks on the faces of the crowd. “But now you have opportunity to praise him in person! All glory to the lover of your souls!”

Thousands knelt and raised their arms to Nicolae, who remained with his hands outstretched, drinking in the worship.

“How many of you will receive the mark of loyalty even this day at the Temple Mount?” Fortunato implored, now scratching in three places, including his stomach.

Buck stared at the strobelike image of Carpathia’s pitiful sycophant, wondering if he would be revealed and struck dead by the man whose power came from the pit of hell.

Thousands rose from their knees to wave, to assure the leader of Carpathianism that they would be there, taking the mark in the shadow of the image. That at least made Buck and Chaim less conspicuous.

“My lord, the very god of this world, has granted me the power to know your hearts!” Fortunato said. The people jumped and waved all the more.

“Not true,” Chaim whispered. Buck leaned close. “Carpathia-Antichrist-Satan is not omniscient. He cannot tell his False Prophet what he himself cannot know.”

Buck narrowed his eyes at Chaim. So this was it? This was the opposition? This was Moses standing against Pharaoh? Buck gestured as if Chaim should shout it out, make it clear. But Chaim looked away.

“I know if your heart is deceitful!” Fortunato said between claps of thunder, rubbing his body in the flashing light. “You shall not be able to stand against the all-seeing eye of your god or his servant!”

The hymn to Nicolae spontaneously erupted again, but Buck did not have the heart to sing even his own lyrics.

Suddenly the crowd fell deathly still, and the thunder diminished to low rolls that seemed to come from far away. Fortunato stood surveying the massive throng, still scratching, but his eyes piercing. Carpathia had somehow maintained his pose for several minutes. Heads and eyes turned toward a high, screeching voice from the base of Golgotha. The crowd evaporated from around a woman who stood pointing at Carpathia and Fortunato.

“Liars!” she railed. “Blasphemers! Antichrist! False Prophet! Woe unto you who would take the place of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! You shall not prevail against the God of heaven!”

Buck was stricken. It was Hattie! Chaim dropped to his knees, clasped his hands before his face, and prayed, “God, spare her!”

“I have spoken!” Fortunato shouted.

“Yours is the empty, vain tongue of the damned!” Hattie called out. She lifted her pointing finger from the two on the hill and raised it above her head. “As he is my witness, there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus!”

Fortunato pointed at her, and a ball of fire roared from the black sky, illuminating the whole area. Hattie burst into flames. The masses fell away, screaming in terror as she stood burning, mighty tongues of fire licking at her clothes, her hair, enveloping her body. As she seemed to melt in the consuming blaze, the clouds rolled back, the lightning and thunder ceased, and the sun reappeared.

A soft breeze made Hattie topple like a statue. People gaped as she was quickly reduced to ash, her silhouette branded onto the ground. As the fire died and the smoke wafted, Hattie’s remains skittered about with the wind.

Fortunato drew the attention back to himself. “Marvel not that I say unto you, all power has been given to me in heaven and on the earth!” Carpathia carefully made his way down the Place of the Skull, and the silent crowds moved to follow. As people passed the smoldering ashes, some spit, and others kicked at the powdery stuff.

Buck was overwhelmed with memories of meeting Hattie, of introducing her to Carpathia. He turned and grabbed the praying Rosenzweig by the shoulder and yanked him to his feet. “That should have been you,” he hissed. “Or me! We should not have left her with the responsibility!”

He let go of the man’s robe and marched off toward the Garden Tomb, not caring whether Chaim kept up with him. If Rosenzweig would not accept the mantle, despite having been a believer even longer than Hattie, maybe Buck was being called to stand in the gap. He didn’t know what Carpathia or Fortunate had in store for the tomb, but this time, if need be, he would be the one to oppose Antichrist.

Rayford hadn’t felt as motivated or useful since he had first become a believer. Supervising the advance of his Operation Eagle troops, he had kept just an intermittent eye on what Carpathia was up to. It would be clear when Chaim revealed himself and sent the remnant toward refuge. That would be his cue to start watching for the return to Mizpe Ramon and the airlift to safety.

But now his phone was alive with messages. He took Chloe’s call first. “What was that?” she asked. “Clearly Fortunato zapped someone, but they didn’t show who!

Was it Chaim?”

“I don’t know,” Rayford said. “Let me call you back.”

David reported the same thing just before Rayford heard from Mac and then Abdullah. “I’ll call Buck,” he told them.

But Buck wasn’t answering.

David spent the next hour setting up near what he knew to be a “high place,” a site used centuries before by pagans who believed they were sacrificing to their gods by being as close to heaven as possible. He was lonely already, Albie having headed back as soon as he was unloaded. David didn’t know how long it would be before he was joined by as many as a million others. So far he had seen only from the air the stunning red-rock masterpiece of a city carved from stone. He couldn’t imagine what it would look like from close-up when he had the time to explore.

No one seemed to know what happened with Fortunato and the crowd at Calvary, and David’s occasional glances at the screen merely showed the crowds making their way to the Garden Tomb. Then he heard a tone and stood still in the lofty quiet of the high place. Someone was trying to reach him on his computer. David scrambled from a cave he had decided might be his first living quarters. He reached his computer and sat cross-legged before it. The play-by-play from Jerusalem droned on, commentators filling time before the next event, no one specific about what had gone on at the last site. He checked the encoded Operation Eagle site but found nothing new.

The tone sounded again, and he switched screens to receive a summons from Chang Wong in his apartment at the palace in New Babylon.

“I found the mother lode!” Chang had written. “Uploading so you can celebrate with me.”

Supreme Commander Walter Moon was clearly not comfortable in front of a crowd, particularly the size of the one pressing around the Garden Tomb. A microphone and sound system had been hastily rigged up for him, and he read nervously from notes. Buck had been among the first to arrive, and he had lost Chaim.

The attitude of the crowd had changed. The festive, eager anticipation had given way to dread, yet no one seemed to feel free to leave. They had seen the power delegated to Leon Fortunate, and surely no one wanted to give the impression they weren’t following through on their commitment to taking the mark of loyalty.

“Thank you for being with us today,” Moon began. “As you may know, I’m Global Community Supreme Commander Walter Moon, and I’m filling in temporarily for the Most High Reverend Father Fortunato as he goes on ahead to prepare for Potentate Nicolae Carpathia’s address at the Temple Mount an hour from now.”

“Is he all right?” someone called out.

“Oh, he’s better than all right,” Moon said, “judging by his performance at Golgotha.” He apparently thought that would elicit a laugh, and when it didn’t, he searched his notes again to find his place.

Buck called Chang. “We on secure phones, Mr. Wong?” he asked. “Be sure.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Williams, and I just communicated with Mr. Hassid by computer that-”

“Sorry, kid, no time. Check with Medical and see what’s happening with Fortunato.”

“I’m sorry?”

“What didn’t you hear?”

“I heard you all right, sir, but I was under the impression you were with the pageant there in Jerusalem. That’s where Carpathia and Fortunato are, along with-”

“Fortunato’s disappeared and they’re saying he’s gone on ahead for preparations.”

“I’m on it.” Buck heard him tapping at a keyboard. “Good call, Mr. Williams,” he said. Now reading, “‘Classified, top secret, director-level eyes only . . . Most High Reverend, blah, blah, blah, under care of palace surgeon in chief, mobile unit, Jerusalem, blah, blah.’ Ah, here it is. ‘Preliminary diagnosis rash, several boil-like epidermal eruptions, testing for carbuncles.’ That’s all that’s here for now.”

TSION
WORRIED
about Chloe. She had a lot on her mind, sure, and the pressure had to be enormous. But she seemed so distracted. No doubt she dreaded Buck’s being in yet another dangerous situation, but if Tsion had to guess, being so far from the action frustrated her. Everyone in the Trib Force had, at one time or another, tried to impress upon Chloe that she was among its most crucial members and that few people anywhere could do what she was doing. But she was a young woman of action. She wanted to be there in the thick of it. Tsion wished he could dissuade her.

He had enjoyed the respite from his uncomfortable cot, but while he and Chloe monitored the boring TV feed from Jerusalem, waiting for the fiasco to reach the Garden Tomb, Kenny had fallen asleep. Chloe looked at Tsion apologetically as she attempted to rise with the toddler in her arms. She poked out a free hand and he reached to pull her off the couch. As she made her way to Kenny’s crib, Tsion thought he heard something from his study. Chang again?

He padded back and found a timed message composed two days before and sent automatically on a schedule determined by the sender. It read:

Dr. Ben-Judah,

Please pass this along to my brothers and sisters in Christ, old friends and new. I don’t know what to make of it except that I believe I have been called of God to risk my life for the cause. It certainly was nothing I was seeking, and I hope you all know I have no grandiose view of myself.

I knelt to pray in my hotel room in Tel Aviv . . .

Tsion stood, his spirit recognizing that this was no frivolous imagining from a new believer. He bent over the screen and read, finally groaning and making his way back out to where Chloe was watching the end of a brief speech by Walter Moon. “I have forwarded a message to your computer that you need to read right away,” he said, knowing his quavering voice scared her.

“Is it Buck?” she said. He shook his head. “Chaim?”

“No,” he said. “Please wake the others. We will want to pray. And you will want to call Cameron.”

David ignored the signal that he had a message from Tsion. That could wait as he checked the upload from Chang. Not only had the young man pieced together recordings from devices in the palace, starting in the Wongs’ guest apartment the morning in question, but he had also taken the time to include a translation, where necessary, from Chinese to English. David would check the tape with Ming later to be sure the translation was accurate. Chang began with the news that he remembered “only snatches of this before the so-called anesthetic. You must have known they use no such thing.”

David knew. But he hadn’t known any more than Chang about what had really gone on. Chang’s pieced-together production began with the audio of another loud argument between him and his father. Mrs. Wong kept trying to pacify her husband and son, but she failed.

“You will be among the first to take the mark of loyalty!” the subtitles read, as David listened to Mr. Wong fiercely whisper to the boy in Chinese.

“I will not! You are loyal to Carpathia. I am not!”

“Do not speak such heresy to me, young man! My family is loyal to the international government as I have always been to my superiors. And now we know the potentate is the son of god!”

“He is not! I know no such thing! He could be the son of Satan for all I know!”

David heard a slap and someone crashing to the floor. “That was I,” Chang wrote.

“You saw the man resurrected! You will worship him as I do!”

“Never!”

A door slammed. Then a phone call. “Missah Moon! Son talk crazy. Say he not want mark, but he just scared of needle. You got tranquilizer?”

“I can get a tranquilizer, Mr. Wong, but it comes in the form of an injection.”

“Injection?”

“Shot. Hypodermic needle?”

“Yes! Yes! I can do.”

“You can administer the injection?” Moon said.

“Pardon?”

“Give the shot?”

“Yes! You bring!”

They rang off, and Mr. Wong apparently returned to where Chang had locked himself in a room. “You be ready to go in ten minutes!”

“I’m not going!”

“You will go or answer to me!”

“I’m answering to you now. I’m telling you I’m not going. I don’t want to work here. I want to go home.”

“No!”

“I want to talk with Mother.”

“Very well! Mother will talk some sense into you.”

A few minutes later, a quiet knock. “Mother?”

“Yes.” The door opened. “Son, you must do what your father says. We cannot survive in this new world without showing loyalty to the leader.”