Apollyon: The Destroyer Is Unleashed (16 page)

“Rosenzweig’s still holding out for Carpathia’s being a misunderstood good guy. He’ll be as surprised as anyone when we disappear in the middle of the night. He’s usually one of the first to bed, so we’re all going to make sure of that. We can’t pack or do anything that might tip him off until we’re sure he’s asleep. If worse comes to worse, though, he’d keep quiet until we were long gone.”

A strange wrinkle in the Friday night plan was that everyone, it seemed, wanted to go to the stadium. The threats against the witnesses, the public feud between Carpathia and Ben-Judah, everything had come to a head. The place would be jammed. While Chloe had assured Buck she was glad to have taken a night off, she wanted to be there and promised to be careful and take it easy. Yes, she said, she would even sit through the meeting.

Jacov was back on driving detail, Dr. Rosenzweig deciding the sanction against him was ludicrous. “But what if the GC escort sees him behind the wheel?” Buck asked, not wanting to create unnecessary turmoil.

“Then they can report it to Fortunato, and I will insist on talking personally with Nicolae. But, Cameron, they don’t care. They will see him brazenly behind the wheel and will assume a new deal has been made. You know his wife will be along.”

“What?”

“And Stefan.”

“Oh, Chaim! This is getting to be a circus.”

“And their boss.”

“Their boss? Now who’s that?”

Chaim smiled at him. “You don’t know who my driver and valet’s boss is?”

“You? You want to go?”

“I not only want to, I shall. And I want us all jammed into that Mercedes, just like a school trip. It will be festive and grand!”

“Chaim, this is not advisable.”

“Don’t be silly. You and Tsion have been begging me to go. I have been watching. I am intrigued. I might even give Tsion his audience tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight. He is speaking on some more terrible things supposedly coming from the heavens. He will be in a mood to keep going and to try to convince his old friend that Jesus is the Messiah.”

“But he’ll be very tired later, Chaim. And won’t you be also?”

“Too tired for a good debate? You don’t know the Jews, Cameron. And you certainly don’t know your own rabbi. I’m surprised at you! A good, ah, missionary, ah, what do you call it, evangelist like you and you want now to postpone the appointment with a prospective convert?”

“Are you really?”

“Probably not, but who is to say? You must not treat lightly the curious, am I right?”

Buck shook his head. “Under normal circumstances. But you are just having fun with us.”

“A promise is a promise, my young friend. I am a man of my word.”

“You know Tsion must prepare for the noon meeting at the Temple Mount tomorrow.”

“That’s not until noon! He’s a dozen or so years older than you, my friend, but he is almost thirty years younger than I. He is robust. And who knows? If he is right, he has the power of God on him. He’ll survive. He can talk to an old man until the wee hours and still be prepared for his little get-together tomorrow. And I will be there too.”

Buck was frantic by the time he got alone with Tsion. The rabbi was less concerned about Rosenzweig’s presence in the stadium as with his plan to be at the Temple Mount the next day.

“But we’ll be gone by then,” Buck said. “He’ll know that meeting is off. We need to make sure everyone knows we’re gone so no one makes the mistake of being at the Mount. Nicolae could be so angry at our escape that he will trigger the attack anyway to kill your followers.”

Tsion nodded grimly. “I want to believe the sealed are protected, but I just don’t know if that protection extends beyond the judgments of God. Obviously, the Lord himself has charge over the carrying out of the judgments, and he can instruct his agents to leave alone the sealed. But he has given Antichrist tremendous latitude. I would not want to be responsible for their harm by making incorrect assumptions.”

Buck looked at his watch. In an hour they were expected at the stadium. “One thing we know for sure―if my teacher is right―is that the two witnesses at the Wall will not be harmed, regardless of what Nicolae engineers tomorrow.”

“If they’re there,” Tsion said, smiling.

“Oh, they’ll be there,” Buck said.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because Nicolae warned them not to appear in public under penalty of death. What would be more public than where they have stood for more than two years?”

“You have a point,” Tsion said, patting Buck on the shoulder. “You must have a good teacher.”

Rayford was on the phone to Dr. Floyd Charles at the safe house as Ken piloted the Gulfstream over the Atlantic. “I’m tempted to slip her a Mickey, medical-school style,” Floyd said.

“I haven’t heard that expression in ages,” Rayford said. “How does that work?”

“Just like doping somebody’s drink,” Floyd said, “only we tell ‘em it’s an innocuous IV. I could put her out for twenty-four hours, but then her immune system would be all screwed up.”

“You’re not really considering it?”

“Nah. She’s driving me batty though. I had to physically restrain her to keep her from doing laps up and down the stairs.”

“The stairs!”

“That’s what I said. I’m glad she’s feeling stronger, and ironically this murderous rage she feels toward Carpathia seems to be speeding her recovery. But I can’t have her expending the exertion necessary to climb stairs while she’s this weak. Honestly, Ray, it’s like trying to corral a toddler. I look up, and there she goes again.”

“How about downstairs?”

“Downstairs what?”

“Could she just walk downstairs?”

“Ray, I’ve been through medical school, and I don’t know how a person goes downstairs without going up too.”

“You could carry her up and let her walk down. Maybe it would tire her out without overexerting her.”

There was a pause long enough for Rayford to have to ask if Floyd was still there.

“I’m here,” he said. “I’m just thinking what a good idea that is.”

“Left you speechless, did it? Every once in a while even pilots come up with something useful.”

“Problem is, Ray, I look for reasons to touch her, to hold her, to comfort her. Now you’re telling me to pick her up and carry her, and you want me to rethink my feelings for her?”

“Get a grip, Doc. You’re no teenager anymore. I hoped your obsession with her wasn’t purely physical, but I should have known. You hardly know her, and what you know drives you batty by your own admission. Just behave yourself until we can get back and help you keep your senses.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I mean it now.”

“I know. I hear you.”

“And, Doc, remember that our absolute, number one, top priority with her is her soul.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t hear any enthusiasm there, Floyd.”

“No, I got it.”

“If you care a whit about her beyond your adolescent need to have her in your arms, you’ll want above all else to make her part of the family.”

“Buck, we’ve got a problem,” Chloe said, pulling him into an empty room. “I just casually walked through our route to the helipad so there’d be no surprises, and that key is gone.”

“What?”

“The key Rosenzweig had on a nail on the frame next to the access door. It’s gone.”

“Does he suspect we’re up to something?”

“How could he? I was as casual and subtle as I could be. He brought it up. I only asked him about the history of the house.”

“Did that door look as solid to you from inside as it felt to me from the outside?”

“It’s like a brick wall, Buck. If we had to break through it or knock it down, we’d wake the dead, not to mention the guard staff and Chaim himself.”

“We’ve got to find the key or get him to tell us what he did with it.”

“You think Jacov would know anything about it?”

Buck shrugged. “If I asked him, he’d sure know something was going on. I can’t get between them.”

“But he’s a brother, Buck.”

“Brand new. I’m not saying he’d betray us on purpose.”

“You heard about his wife?”

“That she’s going along tonight, yes. How does she feel about his faith?”

“So you haven’t heard.”

“No.”

“Chaim said Jacov claims his wife is now a believer too. Chaim thought it was humorous and asked me to use my Jesus vision tonight to see if she had the secret mark too.”

Buck shook his head. “Talk about a soul harvest. I’m praying for Rosenzweig himself.”

Jacov’s wife, Hannelore, proved to be a German-born Jew, sandy haired and small with shy, azure eyes. She joined Jacov, Stefan, Buck, Chloe, Tsion, and Chaim in the driveway, and the guard staff opened the doors of the Mercedes for them. Chloe embraced her tightly, and though she was a stranger, reached up to brush Hannelore’s hair from off her forehead.

Buck hugged her too, whispering, “Welcome to the family.”

“My wife, she does not understand English too good,” Jacov said.

“Well, how about it?” Chaim said, his eyes bright. “Does she have the―” and here he lowered his voice an octave and growled―”secret mark?”

“As a matter of fact, she does, Dr. Rosenzweig,” Chloe said, clearly not amused at his teasing.

“Oh, good then!” he exulted, moving to the front passenger seat. “You’re all one big happy family then, aren’t you? And how about you, Stefan? Have you joined the ranks of the tribulation saints?”

“Maybe tonight!” Stefan said. “Almost last night!”

“My, my,” Chaim said. “I shall be left in the minority, shan’t I?”

Only Jacov and Chaim fit in the front seat, so Hannelore sat directly behind Jacov with Chloe in the middle and Tsion behind Chaim. Buck and Stefan crammed into the rear compartment. Jacov had begun to pull slowly down the driveway when Jonas stepped in front of the car and signaled that Chaim should lower his window. He spoke urgently to Chaim in Hebrew.

Buck, with his face inches from Tsion’s head, whispered, “What’s going on?”

Tsion turned toward the window and spoke softly. “They’ve gotten a call from Leon. He’s sending a helicopter. The roads are more jammed than ever; the stadium is already full. They had to open the gates two hours ahead.” He listened some more. “The gateman told Fortunato there were seven of us, too many for a helicopter anyway. Apparently Fortunato told him to tell Chaim we were on our own if we refused GC assistance.

“Chaim is saying the gateman did the right thing. Just a minute. He’s whispering. Oh, no.”

“What?”

“Fortunato has warned that Jacov not be in our party. Chaim is angry, demanding that the gateman get Leon back on the phone.”

Jonas signaled that Jacov should pull the vehicle to the guardhouse at the gate. A phone was extended to Chaim, who immediately began arguing passionately in Hebrew.

“Then I will speak in English, Leon. I thought you knew every language in the world, as your boss seems to. I may call him potentate because I have always admired him, but I will not even call you sir, let alone supreme whatever-you-are. Now you listen to me. I am a personal friend of the potentate. He has pledged the security of my guests. I will be sitting with Jacov in the stadium tonight, and―yes, out in the crowd! I will not hide backstage. ... To you he may be only a driver or a valet. To me he is part of my family, and he will not be threatened. Running from your guards and shooting harmlessly into the air may have been foolhardy, but he would not have done it if he didn’t feel our guests were in danger from the very people who had promised their safety!”

Tsion reached up and laid a hand on Rosenzweig’s shoulder as if to calm him. Buck could see the blood rise on the back of the old man’s neck and the veins bulge in his temple. “I need not remind you that it was not so long ago that Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah lost his family for merely expressing his beliefs on television! He was chased from his homeland like a common criminal! . . . Yes, I know how offensive it must have been for the Jews! I am a Jew, Leon! That’s more than I can say for you. . . . Tsion assures me his belief is founded on more than faith but also scholarship, but that is not the point! . . . No! I am not one of them, as you say. But if I find that Nicolae looks upon these devout and passionate seekers of God with the contempt that you do, I might just become one of them!

“Now we are proceeding to the stadium in my well-known vehicle. We will take our chances with the traffic because we know shortcuts, and I also assume Tsion’s followers will make way for us. ... As a compromise to you, yes, I will use an alternate driver―” Chaim signaled quickly for Jacov and Stefan to switch places― “but we are on our way, and we expect the protection pledged by the potentate himself.

“. . . Am I sorry? Sorry that you make so much of titles, Leon. But no, not sorry that I have offended you. You have offended me, how about that? I have tried to keep my wits about me and have maintained as normal a lifestyle as possible despite the accolades and the wealth that have come with my formula. ... I am not insisting on some new title or a higher pedestal, and frankly it does not wear well on you either. We are pulling away, Leon, and my new driver seems unaware that I am on a cord phone! Good-bye!”

He laughed. “Stefan, you snake! You nearly pulled the phone away from the cord!”

“I’m a snake?” Stefan said, smiling. “You put me in the target seat!”

Chaim wrenched around in the seat. “Tsion, my son, you know what Leon was saying when we pulled away?”

“I can only imagine.”

“That he would be happy to work on a more appropriate title for a man of my station! Have you ever encountered anyone so out of touch with the point of a conversation?”

“Never,” Tsion said.

Buck was awestruck that such a dangerous ride could turn so festive.

Rayford handled the bulk of the flying across the Atlantic, scheduling his arrival to allow the least amount of time on the ground. Mac had informed him that Carpathia and his entourage were still at the King David, but that the Condor 216 was hangared at Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv. Rayford figured security was tighter at Ben Gurion, but Carpathia was being ferried about on a GC chopper primarily out of Jerusalem Airport.