Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides (19 page)

The girl left the desk and poked her head through a door behind her. Buck was tempted to just head into the main hospital and find Ritz, especially when he overheard the conversation.

“Absolutely not. You know the rules.”

“But he lost his home and his ID and—”

“If you can’t tell him no, I’ll have to.”

The candy striper turned and shrugged apologetically. She sat as her supervisor, a striking, dark-haired woman in her late twenties, stepped into view. Buck saw the mark on her forehead and smiled, wondering if she was aware of it yet. She smiled shyly, quickly growing serious when the girl turned to look. “Who was it you wanted to see, sir?”

“Ken Ritz.”

“Tiffany, please show this gentleman to Ken Ritz’s room.” She held Buck’s gaze, then turned and went back into her office.

Tiffany shook her head. “She’s always had a thing for blonds.” She walked Buck to the ward.

“I have to make sure the patient wants visitors,” she said.

Buck waited in the hall as Tiffany knocked and entered Ken’s room. “Mr. Ritz, are you up to a visitor?”

“Not really,” came the gravelly but weak voice Buck recognized. “Who is it?”

“A Herb Katz.”

“Herb Katz, Herb Katz.” Ritz seemed to turn the name over in his mind. “Herb Katz! Send him in, and shut the door.”

When they were alone, Ken winced as he sat up. He thrust out an extended hand and shook Buck’s weakly. “Herb Katz, how in the world are ya?”

“That’s what I was gonna ask you. You look terrible.”

“Thanks for nothing. I got hurt in the stupidest possible way, but please tell me you’ve got a job for me. I need to get out of this place and get busy. I’m going stir-crazy. I wanted to call you, but I lost all my phone numbers. Nobody knows how to get a hold of you.”

“I’ve got a couple of jobs for you, Ken, but are you up to them?”

“I’ll be good as new by tomorrow,” he said. “I just got banged on the head with one of my own little fixed-wingers.”

“What?”

“The danged earthquake hit while I was in the air. I circled and circled waitin’

for the thing to stop, almost crashed when the sun went out, and finally put down over here at Palwaukee. I didn’t see the crater. In fact, I don’t think it was there until after I hit the ground. Anyway, I was almost stopped, just rolling a couple miles an hour, and the plane fell right down into that thing.

Worst of it is I was OK, but the plane wasn’t anchored like I thought it was. I jumped out, worrying about fuel and everything and wanting to see how my other aircraft were and how everybody else was, so I hopped up top and ran down the wing to jump out of the hole.

“Just before I took my last step, my weight flipped that little Piper right over and the other wing conked me on the back of the head. I was hanging there on the edge of the hole, trying to get all the way up, and I knew I’d been sliced pretty deep. I reach back there with one hand and feel this big flap of scalp hanging down, and then I start getting dizzy. I lost my grip and slid down underneath that plane. I was scared I was gonna make it fall on me again, so I just stayed put till somebody pulled me out. Dang near bled to death.”

“You look a little pale.”

“Aren’t you full of encouragement today.”

“Sorry.”

“You want to see it?”

“See it?”

“My wound!”

“Sure, I guess.”

Ritz turned so Buck could see the back of his head. Buck grimaced. It was as ugly an injury as he had seen. The huge flap that had been stitched into place had been shaved, along with an extra one-inch border around the area.

“No brain damage, they tell me, so I still got no excuse for bein’ crazy.”

Buck filled him in on his dilemma and that he needed to get to Minneapolis before the GC did something stupid with Chloe. “I’m gonna need you to recommend somebody, Ken. I can’t wait till tomorrow.”

“The heck I’ll recommend somebody else,” Ken said. He unhooked the IV and yanked the tape off.

“Slow down, Ken. I can’t let you do this. You’ve got to get a clean bill of health before—”

“Forget me, will ya? I may have to go slow, but we both know if there’s no brain trauma, there’s little danger I’m gonna hurt myself worse. I’ll be a little uncomfortable, that’s all. Now come on, help me get dressed and get out of here.”

“I appreciate this, but really—”

“Williams, if you don’t let me do this, I’m gonna hate you for the rest of my life.”

“I sure wouldn’t want to be responsible for that.”

There was no way to sneak out. Buck put his arm around Ken and tucked his hand in Ken’s armpit. They moved as quickly as possible, but a male nurse came running. “Whoa! He’s not allowed out of bed! Help! Someone! Get his doctor!”

“This ain’t prison,” Ken called out. “I signed in, and I’m checkin’ out!”

They were headed through the lobby when a doctor hurried toward them. The girl at the desk summoned her supervisor. Buck pleaded with his eyes. The supervisor glared at him but stepped directly in front of the doctor, and he stumbled trying to avoid her. “I’ll handle this,” she said.

The doctor left with a suspicious look, and the candy striper was sent to the pharmacy to get Ken’s prescriptions. The supervisor whispered, “Being a believer doesn’t guarantee you’re not stupid. I’m making this happen, but it had better be necessary.”

Buck nodded his thanks.

Once in the Rover, Ken sat still, gently cradling his head in his fingers. “You OK?” Buck asked.

Ritz nodded. “Run me by Palwaukee. I got a bag of stuff they’re keepin’ for me.

And we’ve got to get to Waukegan.”

“Waukegan?”

“Yeah. My Learjet got blown around over there, but it’s OK. Only problem is, the hangars are gone. Their fuel tanks are fine, they tell me. One problem, though.”

“I’ll bite.”

“Runways.”

“What about’em?”

“Apparently they don’t exist anymore.”

Buck was cruising as quickly as he could manage. One advantage of no roads was that he could drive from one place to another as the crow flies. “Can you take off in a Learjet without pavement beneath you?”

“Never had to worry about it before. We’ll find out though, won’t we?”

“Ritz, you’re crazier than I am.”

“That’ll be the day. Every time I’m with you I’m sure you’re gonna get me killed.” Ritz fell silent for a moment. Then, “Speakin’ of getting killed, you know I wasn’t just calling you because I needed work.”

“No?”

“I read your article. That ‘wrath of the Lamb’ thing in your magazine.”

“What did you think?”

“Wrong question. It isn’t what I thought when I read it, which frankly wasn’t much. I mean, I’ve always been impressed with your writing.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“So sue me, I didn’t want you to get the big head. Anyway, I didn’t like any of the theories you came up with. And no, I didn’t believe we were going to suffer the wrath of the Lamb. But what you ought to be asking is what do I think about it now?”

“All right. Shoot.”

“Well, a guy would have to be a fool to think the first worldwide earthquake in the history of mankind was a coincidence, after you predicted it in your article.”

“Hey, I didn’t predict it. I was totally objective.”

“I know. But you and I talked about this stuff before, so I knew where you were comin’ from. You made it look like all those Bible scholar guys were just giving more opinions to stack up against the space aliens and the conspiracy 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.

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.”

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 gregarious, smiling, confident. When appropriate, he feigned grief and empathy.

Handsome and charming, it was easy to see how he could deceive so many.

Earlier that evening, Carpathia had broadcast a live global television and radio address. He told the masses: “Brothers and sisters in the Global Community, I address you from New Babylon. Like you, I lost many loved ones, dear friends, and loyal associates in the tragedy. Please accept my deepest and most sincere sympathy for your losses on behalf of the administration of the Global Community.

“No one could have predicted this random act of nature, the worst in history to strike the globe. We were in the final stages of our rebuilding effort following the war against a resistant minority. Now, as I trust you are able to witness wherever you are, rebuilding has already begun again.

“New Babylon will, within a very short time, become the most magnificent city the world has ever known. Your new international capitol will be the center of banking and commerce, the headquarters for all Global Community governing agencies, and eventually the new Holy City, where Enigma Babylon One World Faith will relocate.

“It will be my joy to welcome you to this beautiful place. Give us a few months to finish, and then plan your pilgrimage. Every citizen should make it his or her life’s goal to experience this new Utopia and see the prototype for every city.”

With a couple of hundred other GC employees, Rayford and Mac had watched on a television high in the corner of the mess hall. Nicolae, in a small studio down the hall, played a virtual reality disk that took the viewer through the new city, gleaming as if already completed. It was dizzying and impressive.

Carpathia pointed out every high-tech, state-of-the-art convenience known to man, each blended into the beautiful new metropolis. Mac whispered, “With those gold spires, it looks like old Sunday school pictures of heaven.”