Through the Flames (11 page)

“Perfect,” Judd said. “Talia tells us LeRoy will be home late morning. I’ll let you know when to expect him.”

At eleven-thirty the four kids finished a prayer meeting, piled into Judd’s minivan, and drove to Ryan’s house. The plan was to call LeRoy from there, just in case he grew suspicious and tried to trace the call.

Ryan let them in, and he and Lionel and Judd sat quietly while Vicki dialed. She threw on a very adult-sounding voice. Cornelius Grey answered the phone.

“Mr. Grey, this is Maria Diablo from the law offices of Thomas Fogarty in Chicago. Mr. Fogarty is representing the insurance company handling the settlements in the destruction by fire of your apartment building last week.”

“Yeah, what do we get?”

“Well, sir, I’m not at liberty to discuss the amount over the phone, but I can tell you it is substantial. Unfortunately, the payout must go to the payer of the rent over the last several months, and our records indicate that it has not been you.”

“No, the rent’s been paid lately by a friend of mine, helpin’ me out. Name is LeRoy Banks.”

“Would I be able to speak to him?”

“Sure!”

Judd and the others heard Cornelius Grey quickly filling in LeRoy on their huge stroke of luck. “Let me have that phone,” LeRoy said, clearly doubtful.

“Who is this?” he demanded.

Vicki went through the same routine with him, in its entirety, just the way Judd had scripted it. Rather than let LeRoy build on his doubts, she made the prize a little harder to get.

“Of course, sir, we would not be able to issue a check of this magnitude unless you were able to prove to us that you are the same LeRoy Banks who has been paying the rent on Cornelius Grey’s apartment.”

“Oh, I’ll be able to prove it all right. What time did you say Mr. Fogarty could see me?”

On the way back to Judd’s house, Lionel and Ryan congratulated Judd for his idea and Vicki for her performance. When they arrived, Judd went to call Sergeant Fogarty to fill him in on how things went. Not only did he want to tell Fogarty when to expect to see LeRoy Banks and Cornelius Grey, but he also wanted to beg to be there himself to see the big arrest. It was only fair that Vicki be allowed to be there too, but he couldn’t imagine the Chicago Police Department risking having civilians so close to what could become a dangerous situation.

Still, he would ask. He wanted above anything to see the look on LeRoy’s face when he found out he was not getting a check but rather getting arrested for murder. When he reached for the phone, however, it rang.

“Are you watching channel nine?” Bruce Barnes asked Judd.

“No, we’re in the middle of—”

“Turn on nine,” Bruce insisted. “I’ve got a hunch the guy they’re interviewing could be the one we’re supposed to watch out for.”

“You mean the Antichrist?” Judd asked, grabbing the remote control. He wanted to tell Bruce the story of the sting, but that would have to wait until he talked to Fogarty.

He thanked Bruce and turned on the television, watching in fascination. “You’d better call the sergeant,” Vicki suggested.

“Yeah!” he said, turning down the volume and dialing the number.

Fogarty was ecstatic, and he wasn’t closed to the idea of Judd and Vicki being there when it all happened. “We have a one-way mirror at the back where my backups will be. That’s where they’ll come from to surprise these two when I give the signal. I think if you two agree to stay there until it’s all over, you could have a great view and stay safe. I think it’d be too risky to have your young friend there, and we don’t want the murder victim’s nephew in the neighborhood at all that day, just in case.”

“But Vicki and I can come, really?”

“Sure. Just be sure you’re an hour early and park far away.”

Judd couldn’t wait. As he hung up he looked at his watch and decided he and Vicki would have to leave within the hour to be downtown in time to be in place. He turned up the TV and watched more of the interview with the man Bruce now suspected could be the Antichrist.

Boy, would he and Bruce have a lot to talk about the next time they got together!

Jerry B. Jenkins
(
www.jerryjenkins.com
) is the writer of the Left Behind series. He owns the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild, an organization dedicated to mentoring aspiring authors. Former vice president for publishing for the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, he also served many years as editor of
Moody
magazine and is now Moody’s writer-at-large.

His writing has appeared in publications as varied as
Reader’s Digest, Parade, Guideposts,
in-flight magazines, and dozens of other periodicals. Jenkins’s biographies include books with Billy Graham, Hank Aaron, Bill Gaither, Luis Palau, Walter Payton, Orel Hershiser, and Nolan Ryan, among many others. His books appear regularly on the
New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal,
and
Publishers Weekly
best seller lists.

Jerry is also the writer of the nationally syndicated sports story comic strip
Gil Thorp,
distributed to newspapers across the United States by Tribune Media Services.

Jerry and his wife, Dianna, live in Colorado and have three grown sons.

Dr. Tim LaHaye
(
www.timlahaye.com
), who conceived the idea of fictionalizing an account of the Rapture and the Tribulation, is a noted author, minister, and nationally recognized speaker on Bible prophecy. He is the founder of both Tim LaHaye Ministries and The PreTrib Research Center. He also recently cofounded the Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy at Liberty University. Presently Dr. LaHaye speaks at many of the major Bible prophecy conferences in the U.S. and Canada, where his current prophecy books are very popular.

Dr. LaHaye holds a doctor of ministry degree from Western Theological Seminary and a doctor of literature degree from Liberty University. For twenty-five years he pastored one of the nation’s outstanding churches in San Diego, which grew to three locations. It was during that time that he founded two accredited Christian high schools, a Christian school system of ten schools, and Christian Heritage College.

Dr. LaHaye has written over forty books that have been published in more than thirty languages. He has written books on a wide variety of subjects, such as family life, temperaments, and Bible prophecy. His current fiction works, the Left Behind series, written with Jerry B. Jenkins, continue to appear on the best seller lists of the Christian Booksellers Association,
Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal, USA Today,
and the
New York Times.

He is the father of four grown children and grandfather of nine. Snow skiing, waterskiing, motorcycling, golfing, vacationing with family, and jogging are among his leisure activities.