Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides (6 page)

So regardless of what you think of this or how you react to it or what you might want to say to him about it, you can’t ever let on. Understand?”

“Yes, yes! Now what?”

Mac took a breath but, maddeningly, said nothing. Rayford was about to explode.

“I gotta get out of this cockpit,” Mac said finally, unbuckling himself. “Go on, Ray. Get out. Don’t make me climb over you.”

Mac was out of his seat and standing between his and Rayford’s, bent low to keep from knocking his head on the ceiling of the Plexiglas bubble. Rayford unstrapped himself and popped the door open, jumping down into the sand. He was through begging. He simply determined he would not let Mac back in that chopper until he told him whatever it was he needed to know.

Mac stood there, hands thrust deep into his pants pockets. Light from the full moon highlighted the reddish-blond hair, the craggy features, and the freckles on his weathered face. He looked like a man on his way to the gallows.

Mac suddenly stepped forward and put both palms on the side of the chopper. His head hung low. Finally, he raised it and turned to face Rayford. “All right, here it is. Don’t forget you made me tell you… . Carpathia talks about Amanda like he knows her.”

Rayford grimaced and held his hands out, palms up. He shrugged. “He does know her. So what?”

“No! I mean he talks about her as if he really knows her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? An affair? I know better than that.”

“No, Ray! I’m saying he talks about her as if he’s known her since before she knew you.”

Rayford nearly dropped in the sand. “You’re not saying—”

“I’m telling you that behind closed doors, Carpathia makes comments about Amanda. She’s a team player, he says. She’s in the right place. She plays her role well. That kind of stuff. What am I supposed to make of that?”

Rayford could not speak. He didn’t believe it. No, of course not. But the very idea. The gall of that man to make such an implication about the character of a woman Rayford knew so well.

“I hardly know your wife, Ray. I have no idea if it’s possible. I’m just telling you what—”

“It’s not possible,” Rayford finally managed. “I know you don’t know her, but I do.”

“I didn’t expect you to believe it, Ray. I’m not even saying it makes me suspicious.”

“You don’t have to be suspicious. The man is a liar. He works for the father of lies. He would say anything about anybody to further his own agenda. I don’t know why he needs to besmirch her reputation, but—”

“Ray, I told you I’m not saying I think he’s right or anything. But you have to admit he’s getting information from somewhere.”

“Don’t even suggest—”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just saying—”

“Mac, I can’t say I’ve known Amanda long in the larger scheme of things. I can’t say she bore me children like my first wife did. I can’t say we’ve been together twenty years like I was with Irene. I can say, though, that we are not just husband and wife. We are brother and sister in Christ. If I had shared Irene’s faith, she and I would have been true soul mates too, but that was my fault.

Amanda and I met after we had both become believers, and so we shared an almost instantaneous bond. It is a bond no one could break. That woman is no more a liar or a betrayer or a subversive or a turncoat than anyone. No one could be that good. No one could share my bed and hold my gaze and pledge her love and loyalty to me that earnestly and be a liar without my suspecting. No way.”

“That’s good enough for me, Cap,” Mac said.

Rayford was furious with Carpathia. If he had not pledged to maintain Mac’s confidentiality, it would have been difficult to stop himself from jumping on the radio right then and demanding to talk directly to Nicolae. He wondered how he would face the man. What would he say or do when he saw him later?

“Why should I expect any different from a man like him?” Rayford said.

“Good question,” Mac said. “Now we’d better get back, don’t you think?”

Rayford wanted to tell Mac he was still willing to talk about the questions he had raised, but he really didn’t feel like talking anymore. If Mac raised it again, Rayford would follow through. But if Mac let him off the hook, he’d be grateful to wait for a better time.

“Mac,” he said as they strapped themselves into the chopper, “since we’re supposed to be on a rescue mission anyway, would you mind doing a twenty-five-mile circle search?”

“It’d sure be a lot easier during daylight,” Mac said. “You want me to bring you back tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but let’s do a cursory look right now anyway. If that plane went down anywhere near Baghdad, the only hope of finding survivors is to find them quick.” Rayford saw sympathy on Mac’s face.

“I know,” Rayford said. “I’m dreaming. But I can’t run back to Carpathia and take advantage of shelter and supplies if I don’t exhaust every effort to find Amanda.”

“I was just wondering,” Mac said. “If there was anything to Carpathia’s claims—”

“There’s not, Mac, and I mean it. Now get off of that.”

“I’m just saying, if there is, do you think there might be a chance that he would have had her on another plane? Kept her safe somehow?”

“Oh, I get it!” Rayford said. “The upside of my wife working for the enemy is that she might still be alive?”

“I wasn’t looking at it that way,” Mac said.

“What’s the point then?”

“No point. We don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

“We sure don’t.”

But as Mac took the chopper in wider and wider concentric circles from the Baghdad terminal, all Rayford saw on the ground was shifting and sinking sand.

Now he wanted to find Amanda, not just for himself, but also to prove that she was who he knew her to be.

By the time they gave up the search and Mac promised the dispatcher they were finally on their way in, a sliver of doubt had crept into Rayford’s mind. He felt guilty for entertaining it at all, but he could not shake it. He feared the damage that sliver could do to his love and reverence for this woman who had completed his life, and he was determined to eradicate it from his mind.

His problem was that despite how romantic she had made him, and how emotional he had waxed since his conversion (and his exposure to more tragedy than anyone should ever endure), he still possessed the practical, analytical, scientific mind that made him the airman he was. He hated that he couldn’t simply dismiss a doubt because it didn’t fit what he felt in his heart. He would have to exonerate Amanda by somehow proving her loyalty and the genuineness of her faith—with her help if she was alive, and without it if she was dead.

It was midafternoon when Buck and Tsion finally ripped a big enough hole in one of the garage doors to allow Tsion to crawl through.

Tsion’s voice was so hoarse and faint that Buck had to turn his ear toward the opening. “Cameron, Chloe’s car is here. I can get the door open just far enough to put the inside light on. It is empty except for her phone and computer.”

“I’ll meet you at the back of the house!” Buck shouted. “Hurry, Tsion! If her car’s still here, she’s still here!”

Buck scooped up as many of the tools as he could carry and raced to the back.

This was the evidence he had hoped and prayed for. If Chloe was buried in that rubble, and there was one chance in a million she was still alive, he would not rest.

Buck attacked the wreckage with all his might, having to remind himself to breathe. Tsion appeared and picked up a shovel and an ax. “Should I start in at some other location?” he asked.

“No! We have to work together if we have any hope!”

“So what happened to the dusty clothes?” Rayford whispered as he and Mac were escorted into the auxiliary entrance of Carpathia’s huge underground shelter.

Far across the structure, past the Condor 216 and amongst many subordinates and assistants, Fortunato looked chipper in a fresh suit.

“Nicolae’s got him cleaned up already,” Mac muttered.

Rayford had eaten nothing for more than twelve hours but had not thought about hunger until now. The milling crowd of surprisingly upbeat Carpathia lackeys had been through a buffet line and sat balancing plates and cups on their knees.

Suddenly ravenous, Rayford noticed ham, chicken, and beef, as well as all sorts of Middle Eastern delicacies. Fortunato greeted him with a smile and a handshake. Rayford did not smile and barely gripped the man’s hand.

“Potentate Carpathia would like us to join him in his office in a few moments.

But please, eat first.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Rayford said. Though an employee, he felt as if he was eating in the enemy’s camp. Yet it would be foolish to go hungry just to make a point. He needed strength.

As he and Mac made their way around the buffet, Mac whispered, “Maybe we shouldn’t look too buddy-buddy.”

“Yeah,” Rayford said. “Carpathia knows where I stand, but I assume he sees you as a loyalist.”

“I’m not, but there’s no future for those who admit that.”

“Like me?” Rayford said.

“A future for you? Not a long one. But what can I say? He likes you. Maybe he feels secure knowing you don’t hide anything from him.”

Rayford ate even as he ladled choices onto his plate. It might be the enemy’s food, he thought, but it does the job.

He felt well fed and suddenly logy when he and Mac were ushered into Carpathia’s office. Mac’s presence surprised Rayford. He had never before been in on a meeting with Carpathia.

As was often true during times of international crisis and terror, it seemed Nicolae could barely contain a grin. He too had changed into fresh clothes and appeared well rested. Rayford knew he himself looked terrible.

“Please,” Carpathia said expansively, “Captain Steele and Officer McCullum.

Sit.”

“I prefer to stand, if you don’t mind,” Rayford said.

“There is no need. You look weary, and we have important items on the agenda.”

Rayford reluctantly settled into a chair. He did not understand these people.

Here was a beautifully decorated office that rivaled Carpathia’s main digs, now in a pile less than half a mile away. How was it this man was prepared for every eventuality?

Leon Fortunato stood at a corner of Carpathia’s desk. Carpathia sat on the front edge, staring down at Rayford, who decided to beat him to the punch. “Sir, my wife. I—”

“Captain Steele, I have some bad news for you.”

“Oh, no.” Rayford’s mind immediately went on the defensive. It didn’t feel as if Amanda was dead, and so she wasn’t. He didn’t care what this liar said—the same man who dared call her his compatriot. If Carpathia said Amanda was dead, Rayford didn’t know if he could keep Mac’s confidence and refrain from attacking him and making him retract the slander.

“Your wife, God rest her soul, was—”

Rayford gripped the chair so tight he thought his fingertips might burst. He clenched his teeth. The Antichrist himself bestowing a God-rest-her-soul on his wife? Rayford trembled with rage. He prayed desperately that if it was true, if he had lost Amanda, that God would use him in the death of Nicolae Carpathia.

That was not to come until three and a half years into the Tribulation, and the Bible foretold that Antichrist would then be resurrected and indwelt by Satan anyway. Still, Rayford pleaded with God for the privilege of killing this man.

What satisfaction, what revenge he might exact from it, he did not know. It was all he could do to keep from executing the deed right then.

“As you know, she was aboard a Pan-Continental 747 flight from Boston to Baghdad today. The earthquake hit moments before the plane was to touch down. The best our sources can tell is that the pilot apparently saw the chaos, realized he could not land near the airport, pulled up, and turned the plane around.”

Rayford knew what was coming, if the story was true. The pilot would not have had power to regain altitude if he both pulled up and turned around that quickly.

“Pan-Con officials tell me,” Carpathia continued, “that the plane was simply not airworthy at that speed. Eyewitnesses say it cleared the banks of the Tigris, hit first nearly halfway across the river, flipped tail up, then plunged out of sight.”

Rayford’s whole body pulsed with every heartbeat. He lowered his chin to his chest and fought for composure. He looked up at Carpathia, wanting details, but could not open his mouth, let alone utter a sound.

“The current is swift there, Captain Steele. But Pan-Con tells me a plane like that would drop like a stone. Nothing has surfaced downriver. No bodies have been discovered. It will be days before we get equipment for a salvage operation. I am sorry.”

Rayford no more believed Carpathia was sorry than that Amanda was dead. He believed even less that she had ever acted in concert with Nicolae Carpathia.

Buck worked like a madman, his fingers nicked and blistered. Chloe had to be in there somewhere. He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to dig. But Tsion enjoyed hashing things over. “I do not understand, Cameron,” he said, “why Chloe’s car would have been in the garage where Loretta’s car usually sits.”

“I don’t know,” Buck said dismissively. “But it’s there, and that means she’s here somewhere.”

“Perhaps the earthquake plunged the car right into the garage,” Tsion suggested.

“Unlikely,” Buck said. “I don’t really care. I’m still kicking myself for not noticing her car missing when I got here.”

“What would you have surmised?”

“That she had driven away! Escaped.”

“Is that not still possible?”

Buck straightened up and pressed his knuckles into his back, trying to stretch sore muscles. “She wouldn’t have gotten anywhere on foot. This thing hit so suddenly. There was no warning.”

“Oh, but there was.”

Buck stared at the rabbi. “You were underground, Tsion. How would you know?”

“I heard rumblings, a couple of minutes before the shaking began.”

Buck had been in his Range Rover. He had seen roadkill, dogs barking and running, and other animals not usually seen in the daytime. Before the sky turned black he had noticed not a leaf moving, yet stoplights and traffic signs swayed. That was when he knew the earthquake was coming. There had been at least a brief warning. Was it possible Chloe had had an inkling? What would she have done? Where would she have gone?