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nuts. Then, wham, bang, my head's split open, and all of a sudden the only guy
I know crazier than me is the one that had the thing figured out.
So you wanted to get hold of me. Here I am.
Good. 'Cause I figure if what the globe just went through was the wrath of
the
Lamb, I better make friends with that Lamb.
Buck always thought Ritz was too smart to miss all the signs. I can help you
there, he said.
I kind of thought you might.
It was close to noon by the time Buck came out of the ditch where Green Bay
Road used to be and drove slowly over the flattened fence and around the
crumpled landing lights at the Waukegan Airport. The runways had not just sunk
or twisted.
They lay in huge chunks from end to end.
There, in one of the few open spaces, was Ken Ritz's Lear jet, apparently none
the worse for wear.
Ritz moved slowly, but he was able to gingerly taxi the thing between hazards
to the fuel pump. She'll take us to Minneapolis and back more than once with
a full tank, he said.
The question is how fast? Buck said.
Less than an hour.
Buck looked at his watch. Where are you gonna take off from?
It's sloped, but from the cockpit I saw one patch across Wadsworth on the
golf course that looks like our best bet.
How are you gonna get across the road and through those thickets?
Oh, we'll do it. But it's gonna take longer than flying to Minneapolis.
You're gonna be doing most of the work. I'll steer the jet, and you'll clear
the way. It's not gonna be easy.
I'll hack my way to Minneapolis if I have to, Buck said.
ELEVEN
RAYFORD was learning joy in the midst of sorrow. His heart told him Amanda was
alive. His mind told him she was dead. As for her betrayal of him, of the
Tribulation Force, and ultimately of God himself, neither Rayford's head nor
heart accepted that.
Yet with his conflicting emotions and turmoil of spirit, Rayford was as
grateful for
Mac's conversion as he had been for his own, for Chloe's, and for Buck's. And
the timing of God's choosing to put his mark on his own! Rayford would be
eager to get
Tsion Ben-Judah's input on that.
It was late Wednesday evening in New Babylon. Rayford and Mac had been working
side by side all day. Rayford had told him the whole story of the
Tribulation Force and each of their accounts of their own conversions. Mac
seemed especially intrigued that God had provided them a pastor/teacher/mentor
from the beginning in Bruce Barnes. And then, following Bruce's death, God
sent a new spiritual leader with even more biblical expertise.
God has proven personal to us, Mac, Rayford said. He doesn't always answer
our prayers the way we think he will, but we've learned he knows best. And we
have to be careful not to think that everything we feel deeply is necessarily
true. I don't follow, Mac said.
For instance, I can't shake the feeling that Amanda is still alive. But I
can't swear that is from God. Rayford hesitated, suddenly overcome. I want
to be sure that if it turns out I'm wrong, I don't hold it against God.
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Mac nodded. I can't imagine holding anything against God, but I see what you
mean.
Rayford was thrilled by Mac's hunger to learn. Rayford showed him where to
search on the Internet for Tsion's teachings, his sermons, his commentaries on
Bruce
Barnes's messages, and especially his end-times chart that plotted where he
believed the church was in the sequence of the seven-year tribulation.
Mac was fascinated by evidence that pointed to Nicolae Carpathia as the
Antichrist.
But this wrath of the Lamb and the moon turning to blood, man, if nothing
else convinced me, that sure did.
Once their route plans were finished, Rayford E-mailed Buck his itinerary.
After picking up Peter Mathews in Rome, he and Mac were to fly him and Leon to
Dallas to pick up a former Texas senator. He was the newly installed
ambassador to the
Global Community from the United States of North America. You have to wonder,
Mac, whether this guy ever dreamed when he got into politics that he would one
day be one of the ten kings foretold of in the Bible.
A little more than half the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport was still operational,
and the rest was quickly being rebuilt. To Rayford, reconstruction around the
world already clipped along at a staggering pace. It was as if Carpathia had
been a student of prophecy, and though he insisted that events were not as
they seemed, he seemed to have been prepared to begin rebuilding immediately.
Rayford knew Carpathia was mortal. Still, he wondered if the man ever slept.
He saw Nicolae around the compound at all hours, always in suit and tie, shoes
polished, face shaved, hair trimmed. He was amazing. Despite the hours he
kept, he
was short-tempered only when it served his purpose. Normally he was
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