The Rising: Antichrist Is Born

To Frank Muller*, audio reader nonpareil

Special thanks to David Allen for expert technical consultation

*Mr. Muller’s career as the world’s most celebrated reader of audiobooks, including the Left Behind series, was interrupted in 2001 by a motorcycle accident, which left him incapacitated. His wife, Erika, cares for him and their two young children. Contributions to his astronomical medical expenses are tax deductible, and checks should be made payable to The Wavedancer Foundation (memo: The Frank Muller Fund) c/o John McElroy, 44 Kane Avenue, Larchmont, NY 10538.

The sun hung just below Rayford Steele’s glare shield, making him squint even behind his dark gray lenses. His first officer, Chris Smith, pointed and said, “Oops, how long has that been there?”

Rayford shielded his eyes and found the message screen reading “
ENGINE
#1
OIL
FILT
.”

Oil pressure was normal, even on the engine in question, the one farthest to his left. “Engine number one oil-filter checklist, please,” he said.

Chris dug into the right side pocket for the emergency manual. While Chris was finding the right section, Rayford grabbed the maintenance log he should have checked before pulling back from the gate in Chicago and heading for Los Angeles. He speed-read. Sure enough, engine number one had required an oil filter change in Miami before the leg to O’Hare, and metal chips had been detected on i he used filter. They must have been within acceptable limits, however, as the mechanic had signed off on the note. And the plane had made it to Chicago without incident.

“‘Retard thrust level slowly until message no longer displayed,’” Chris read.

Rayford followed the procedure and watched the message screen. The throttle reached idle, but the message still shone. After a minute he said, “It’s not going out. What next?”

“‘If
ENG
OIL
FILT
message remains displayed with thrust lever closed:
FUEL
CONTROL
SWITCH
. . .
CUTOFF
.’”

Rayford grabbed the control cutoff switch and said, “Confirm number one cutoff switch?”

“Confirmed.”

Rayford pulled out and down in one smooth motion while increasing pressure on the right rudder pedal. Engine number one shut down, and the auto throttle increased power on the other three. Airspeed slowly decreased, and Rayford doubted anyone would even notice.

He and Chris determined a new altitude, and he instructed Chris to call air-traffic control at Albuquerque to get clearance to descend to 32,000 feet. They then positioned a transponder to warn other traffic that they might be unable to climb or maneuver properly if there was a conflict.

Rayford had no question they could reach
LAX
without incident now. He became aware of the strain on his right foot and remembered he had to increase pressure to compensate for the uneven thrust of the remaining engines. C’mon, Rayford. Fly the airplane.

After Rayford informed Pan-Con of the situation, the dispatcher told him to be aware of low visibility at
LAX
. “You’ll want to check weather as you get closer.”

Rayford announced to the passengers that he had shut down the number one engine but didn’t expect anything but a routine landing at
LAX
. The lower the plane flew, however, the more he could tell that the power margin had increased. He did not want to have to go around, because going from near idle to full power on three engines would require a lot of rudder to counteract the thrust differential.

LAX
tower was informed of the engine issue and cleared the Pan-Con heavy for initial landing sequence. At 10,000 feet Rayford began checking descent figures.

Chris said, “Auto brakes.”

Rayford responded, “Three set.”

LAX
approach control turned Rayford and Chris over to the tower, which cleared them to land on runway 25 left and informed them of wind speed and
RVR
(runway visual range).

Rayford flipped on the taxi lights and directed Chris to zero the rudder trim. Rayford felt the pressure increase under his foot. He would have to keep up with the auto throttles as the power changed and adjust the rudder pressure to match. He was as busy as he had ever been on a landing, and the weather was not cooperating. Low cloud cover blocked his view of the runway.

Rayford worked with Chris, setting the speed to match the flap settings and feeling the auto throttles respond by reducing power to slow the plane. “Glide slope intercept,” he said, “flaps 30, landing check.” He set the speed indicator at 148, final speed for a flaps-30 approach with that much weight.

Chris followed orders and grabbed the checklist from the glare shield. “Landing gear,” he said.

“Down,” Rayford said.

“Flaps.”

“Thirty.”

“Speed brakes.”

“Armed.”

“Landing check complete,” Chris said.

The plane could land itself, but Rayford wanted to be in control just in case. It was a lot easier to be flying than to have to take over if the autopilot had to be suddenly switched off.

“Final approach fix,” Chris said.

A loud horn sounded when Rayford clicked off both the autopilot and throttles. “Autopilot disengaged,” he said.

“One thousand feet,” Chris said.

“Roger.”

They were in the middle of clouds and would not likely see the ground until just before touchdown.

A mechanical voice announced, “Five hundred feet.” It would announce again at fifty, thirty, twenty, and ten feet. They were ninety seconds from touchdown.

Suddenly Rayford overheard a transmission.

“Negative, US Air 21,” the tower said, “you are not cleared for takeoff.”

“Roger, tower,” came the answer. “You were broken. Understand US Air 21 is cleared for takeoff.”

“Negative!” the tower responded. “Negative, US Air 21! You are not cleared to take the runway!”

“Fifty feet,” the auto announcer called out. “Thirty.”

Rayford broke through the clouds.

“Go around, Cap!” Chris shouted. “A ‘57 is pulling onto the runway! Go around! Go around!”

Rayford could not imagine missing the 757. Time slowed, and he saw his family clearly in his mind, imagined them grieving, felt guilty about leaving them. And all the people on the plane. The crew. The passengers. And those on the US Air too!

In slow motion he noticed a red dot on the center screen of the instrument console with a minus 2 next to it. The auto announcer was sounding, Chris screaming, the tower shouting on the radio, “Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!”

Rayford mashed the go-around buttons on the throttles twice for maximum power and called out, “God, help me!”

Chris Smith whined, “Amen! Now fly!”

Rayford felt the descent arresting, but it didn’t appear it would be enough. Rayford imagined the wide eyes of the US Air passengers on the ground. “Flaps twenty!” he barked. “Positive rate. Gear up.” Smith’s hands were flying, but the gap was closing.

The plane suddenly dipped left, the three good engines causing the slight roll. Rayford had not added enough rudder to counteract them. If he didn’t adjust, the wing-tip would hit the ground. They were a split second from the 757’s tail—standing nearly four stories—and about to bottom out. Rayford closed his eyes and braced for impact. He heard swearing in the tower and from Chris. What a way to go …

h2=.Chapter 1

Marilena Titi’s union with Sorin Carpathia was based on anything but physical passion. Yes, they had had what the vulgar in the West would call a fling. But as his student and eventually his assistant at the University of Romania at Bucharest, Marilena had been drawn to Sorin’s intellect.

The truth, she knew, was that there was little prepossessing about either of them. He was short and thin and wiry with a shock of curly red hair that, despite its thickness and his aversion to haircuts, could not camouflage the growing bald spot at his crown.

She was thick and plain and eschewed makeup, nail polish, and styling her black hair. Colleagues, who she was convinced had been wholly enculturated by outside influences, teased that her frumpy clothing and sensible shoes harkened to previous centuries. They had long since abandoned trying to make her into something she could never be. Marilena was not blind. The mirror did not lie. No amount of paint or spritz would change her, inside or out.

And inside was where she lived, physically and mentally. She would not have traded that for all the patrician the butcher could stuff. In recent decades, a tsunami of progress had transformed her quaint motherland from that with the lowest standard of living in Europe to a technological marvel. Marilena could have done without it all. She resided in the horn of plenty of her own prodigious mind, fertilized by an inexhaustible curiosity.

Perhaps she had been born a century late. She loved that no other Eastern European nations traced their lineage to the ancient Romans. And while she knew that modern Romanian women looked, dressed, spoke, danced, and acted like their Western icons, Marilena had resisted even the fitness craze that sent her peers biking, hiking, jogging, and climbing all over her native soil.

  Marilena knew what was out there, outside the book-lined, computer-laden, two-room flat she shared with her husband of six years. But save for the occasional foray by bus, for reasons she could not now remember, she rarely felt compelled to travel farther than the university, where she too was now a professor of literature. That was a four-block walk to a ten-minute bus ride.

Sorin preferred his ancient bicycle, which he carried to his office upon arriving each day and four floors up to their apartment upon his return. As if they had room for that.

But hiding the bike reflected his mistrust of mankind, and Marilena could not argue. For all their decrying of religion, particularly branches that espoused innate sin-fulness, everyone Marilena knew would have taken advantage of their best friends given the slightest chance. Everyone, perhaps, but the mysterious Russian emigre who ran the Tuesday night meetings in the anteroom at a local library, After several months of attending, Marilena had not yet formed an opinion of the thirty or so others who attended, but something deep within her resonated with Viviana Ivinisova.

Ms. Ivinisova, a handsome, tailored woman in her mid-thirties, seemed to take to Marilena too. Short with salt-and-pepper hair, Viviana seemed to be speaking directly to Marilena while gazing at the others just enough to keep their attention. And sure enough, when the younger woman stayed after her twelfth meeting to ask a question, the leader asked if she cared to get a drink.

With her load of books and folders gathered to her chest as she walked, Ms. Ivinisova reminded Marilena of her university colleagues. But Viviana was no professor, bright as she was. “This,” she said, nodding to her pile of resources, “is my full-time job.”

How delicious, Marilena thought. She herself had never imagined a cause more worthy than expanding one’s mind.

They found a nearly deserted bistro a block from Marilena’s bus stop, were seated at a tiny, round table, and Viviana wasted no time starting the conversation. “Do you know the etymology of your name?”

Marilena felt herself redden. “Bitter light,” she said.

Viviana nodded, holding her gaze.

Marilena shrugged. “I don’t put any stock in—”

“Oh, I do!” Viviana said. “I do indeed. Bitter,” she said slowly. “It doesn’t have to be as negative as it sounds. Sadness perchance, a bit of loneliness? emptiness? a hole? something incomplete?”

Marilena reached too quickly for her glass and sloshed the wine before drawing it to her lips. Swallowing too much, she coughed and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. She shook her head. “I feel complete,” she said.

Marilena could not meet the older woman’s eyes. Viviana had cocked her head and was studying Marilena with a closed-mouth smile. “There is the matter of light,” she said. “The bitterness, whatever that entails, is counterbalanced.”

“Or my late mother just liked the name,” Marilena said. “She was not the type to have thought through its meaning.”

“But you are.”

“Yes,” Marilena wanted to say. “Yes, I am. I think through everything.” But agreeing would appear boastful.

Where was the European reserve? Why were Russians so direct? Not as crass as Americans, of course, but there was little diplomacy here. In spite of herself, Marilena could not hold this against Ms. Ivinisova. Something within the woman seemed to care for Marilena in a way that both attracted and repelled her. She might not abet the Russian in her attempt to violate personal borders, but she could not deny the dichotomy that the attention also strangely warmed her.

“Your husband does not attend with you anymore,” Viviana said.

It was meant, Marilena decided, to sound like a change of subject. But she knew better. It was an attack on her flank, a probe, an attempt to get to the bitter part of her. Clearly Ms. Ivinisova believed in the portent of one’s name. It seemed anti-intellectual to Marilena, but then that was what kept Sorin from the weekly meetings.