Stung (24 page)

“We could ask for a personal audience with Nicolae Carpathia,” Taylor said.

“Other than marrying you, that is the only thing I wanted to do in this life.”

“Somebody else will have the privilege,” Taylor said. “If that Thompson kid and his friends are right—”

“Judd!” Hasina said. She pulled the phone out of her pocket. “Are you still there?”

Judd picked up the phone on his end. “We're here.”

“I guess you've heard we're in a pretty tight spot.” She handed the phone to Taylor.

“I wish we could be there to help you,” Judd said. “I'm sorry. I feel responsible—”

“I made more than one mistake trying to shoot that guy down,” Taylor said. “It's not your fault I'm in this mess.”

Mr. Stein asked to talk to them, so Judd flipped on the speaker phone again. “Taylor, you may not have much longer to live. We've told you about Jesus. If you die without him—”

“Save your breath,” Taylor said. He passed the phone to Hasina.

“Hasina, I talked with you about Jesus,” Judd said. “If you ask him to forgive you—”

“I'm sorry, Judd,” Hasina said. “I appreciate your concern and your love, but a last-minute step of faith is not for me.”

“The thief on the cross asked for forgiveness and received it,” Lionel said.

Something banged in the background. The phone dropped to the floor. Guards were back. “We checked your tanks. They're not wired.”

Judd heard a smack. Hasina cried out.

“It's lipstick!” the guard sneered.

“Don't hurt her!” Taylor shouted.

A gun went off.

“Taylor!” Hasina screamed.

“You were part of the plot to kill the potentate,” the guard said.

“I would gladly pull the trigger,” Hasina said.

The gun fired again. “You will not have the chance,” the guard muttered. He clicked his walkie-talkie. “Both suspects are dead. They resisted arrest, and we were forced to kill them.”

“Liar,” Judd muttered.

Another guard entered. “What should we do with the crime scene, Commander?”

“Burn it.”

The guard ran away. Someone picked up the phone. Judd heard breathing on the other end. “Who is there?” the man said.

“You won't get away with this,” Judd said. He hung up the phone.

21

VICKI
looked at Mark's prediction on the computer. Though she was never that good at math, his numbers seemed right. At dinner she announced an all-out effort to store fuel.

“We have enough food to keep us going a few months,” Vicki said, “but if Mark is right about what's coming, we need to insulate the problem areas and get more fuel.”

“What fuel?” Janie said.

“Firewood,” Vicki said, “enough to last a couple months.”

Janie sighed. “Thought I was done with grunt labor when I escaped the GC camp.”

Vicki ignored her. “Conrad, I need you to coordinate the around-the-clock GC lookout from the tower.”

“Already done,” Conrad said. “We do three eight-hour shifts. Shelly's up there right now.”

“Any luck with the box?” Vicki said.

Conrad shook his head. “I've broken three saw blades on it so far.”

“It'll have to take a backseat to this,” Vicki said. “As a matter of fact, we'll have to postpone classes, too.”

“What happens if his predictions don't come true?” Melinda said. “We're already into spring. Summer's not far away. How's it going to get that cold this time of year?”

“Yeah,” Janie said, “we could work our tails off for nothing.”

Mark scowled. “Dr. Ben-Judah's been predicting stuff since the GC made their treaty with Israel. He hasn't been wrong yet.”

Judd was crushed by the deaths of Taylor and Hasina. He wanted to call the media and tell them the truth about what happened, but he knew the media was controlled by Nicolae Carpathia. A sense of despair set in. Not only had they lost two friends, but they had also lost their best chance of getting home.

Judd went to his room and tried to sleep, but couldn't. He composed an e-mail and sent it to Conrad, then fixed a cup of coffee. His father had been a big-time coffee drinker, but his mother had warned Judd not to start. In his senior year he had pulled several all-nighters with nothing but sheer willpower and a thermos filled with coffee.

Now, as Judd held the hot cup and thought about his family, it seemed like two different lives. Only a little more than two years had passed since the vanishings. In those two years his life had turned upside down. Nothing was constant. He seemed to always be on the run.

He longed for some kind of stability. He thought of Vicki. Maybe her idea about the school was best. Judd regretted his harsh words and disagreements with her. If he could start over again, things would be different.

A door opened behind him. Nada sat down. “Couldn't sleep?”

Judd shook his head.

“I heard about your friends. I'm very sorry.”

“I knew Taylor would go too far sooner or later,” Judd said, “but I really hoped Hasina would come to believe in Jesus.”

“It is the same way I felt about my brother,” Nada said. She tucked her feet under her and leaned back. “I talked with him the night before he died. He was so excited about seeing Leon Fortunato in the hallway.”

Judd sighed in disgust. “Leon came to my school once. The guy's a weasel.”

“He is worse than that,” Nada said. “My father believes he is the false prophet.” She waved her hand. “Enough about Fortunato. My brother could not stop talking about the lavish lifestyle the Global Community provided him. He was only a guard, but he said his apartment was like a palace compared to our house.”

“It's hard for people to think about heaven when they feel like they have it here,” Judd said.

“I think in his heart, he knew the truth. He told me he had seen and heard things that troubled him. The potentate seemed loving and giving to the public, but behind the scenes he could be ruthless.”

“So your brother was coming around.”

“Not quickly enough. I told him about Dr. Ben-Judah and his teaching. My brother knew all about him. He said he was Public Enemy Number One with the GC.”

“Had he read anything Tsion wrote?”

“He saw the news broadcast when Dr. Ben-Judah announced that Jesus was the true Messiah of the Jews,” Nada said.

“Mr. Stein said you received a personal letter from the potentate after his death.”

Nada went to a cabinet just inside the front door and found a photo album. She turned the pages carefully until she came to Kasim's picture. “This is us on holiday in Greece when we were kids.” Standing beside a huge sand castle, Nada and Kasim smiled at the camera. Jamal and his wife knelt behind them, the Mediterranean Sea in the background.

Judd stared at the photo. He thought of his own family album and photos at their cottage on Lake Michigan or on vacation in Florida.

Nada flipped the pages and couldn't hold back the tears. “When I see my brother, I can only think of what might have been. What God might have done through him.”

Judd put an arm around her. He wanted to say something, anything, but he could think of nothing. They spent the rest of the night looking through the album and telling stories of their families.

Vicki showed Conrad Judd's e-mail about Taylor. Conrad pursed his lips. “I knew it would happen if he didn't change, but it's still hard.”

Vicki put an arm around him. “If you need to take some time, I understand.”

Over the next few days, Vicki supervised the storing of wood near the schoolhouse while Mark, Conrad, and Charlie worked in the forest, gathering firewood. Each evening Mark would fill Vicki in on how much help Charlie had been.

“I know I complained about him coming here at first,” Mark said, “but that guy can really handle an ax!”

Vicki's most difficult task was keeping an eye on Janie. She was constantly taking a rest and grumbling about doing so much manual labor. Melinda even commented in private about Janie's poor attitude.

As the temperature rose one day, Vicki went to the kitchen to fix some cool drinks. Vicki found Janie in the main meeting room, her feet on the table, watching a music video on the computer.

“What are you doing?” Vicki said.

Janie whirled, her feet hitting the floor hard. “You almost scared me to death!”

“Why aren't you outside helping?”

“Do you know how hot it is out there?” Janie said. “And we're stacking firewood like our lives depend on it.”

“Our lives may very well depend on it,” Vicki said.

Janie scoffed. “Even back at the camp, we got to watch videos and stuff. Here, all we do is work.”

“You know this computer's not for entertainment,” Vicki said, disconnecting from the Web site.

“I'm going to my room,” Janie shouted. “I need a day off.”

Vicki recalled how difficult Janie had been at Bruce's house. She wouldn't follow the rules there either. Nothing had changed in her life except her move toward the Enigma Babylon Faith. Vicki wondered if she would hang on to that belief after the next judgment hit.

Lionel noticed Judd and Nada were spending more time together. They talked till late at night. Many afternoons they exercised together on the rooftop. Lionel asked Mr. Stein if he should say something to Judd.

“What would you say?” Mr. Stein said. “These things happen between males and females.”

“I understand that,” Lionel said, “but if he gets too involved here, he may not want to go back to the States.”

“Perhaps that is what God wants,” Mr. Stein said. “None of us knows what will happen in the future.”

Jamal asked Mr. Stein, Judd, and Lionel to remain with them until they heard from Yitzhak. “As long as you're here, you should be safe,” Jamal said. Lionel knew he and Judd would be on their own if Yitzhak were released.

Jamal kept quiet about the mountain of boxes Judd and Lionel had carried to the apartment. Things were getting tight in many of the rooms, but Jamal wouldn't reveal the contents or his plan.

One afternoon while Judd and Nada were exercising, Lionel took a call from Samuel. “I have been thinking about what Dan and Nina said before they died, and the verse you gave me.”

Lionel had almost forgotten about the words he had handed to Samuel. It was the strangest verse he had ever given a nonbeliever, but he thought it applied.

The words of Jesus were found in Luke 12. “From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or the other way around. There will be a division between father and son. …” Lionel had finished the note by writing,
The truth may divide you and your father, but it's always best to stick with the truth
.

Samuel said, “I have read that verse over and over. I had always thought to obey my father was the best thing I could do as a son.”

“You're supposed to honor your father,” Lionel said. “But if your dad believes something that's wrong, or asks you to do something that goes against what God wants, you have to disobey him.”