Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist Read online

  Table of Contents

  Tyndale House Novels by Jerry B. Jenkins

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  TEST YOUR PROPHECY IQ

  THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FICTION

  TEST YOUR PROPEHCY IQ—ANSWER

  Tyndale House Novels by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Riven

  Midnight Clear (with Dallas Jenkins)

  Soon

  Silenced

  Shadowed

  The Last Operative

  The Brotherhood

  The Left Behind® series (with Tim LaHaye)

  Left Behind®

  Desecration

  Tribulation Force

  The Remnant

  Nicolae

  Armageddon

  Soul Harvest

  Glorious Appearing

  Apollyon

  The Rising

  Assassins

  The Regime

  The Indwelling

  The Rapture

  The Mark

  Kingdom Come

  Left Behind Collectors Edition

  Rapture’s Witness (books 1–3)

  Deceiver’s Game (books 4–6)

  Evil’s Edge (books 7–9)

  World’s End (books 10–12)

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  Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist

  Copyright © 1997 by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. All rights reserved.

  Cover photo copyright © by Shaun Lowe/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.

  Author photo of Jerry B. Jenkins copyright © 2007 by Mikel Healy Photography. All rights reserved.

  Author photo of Tim LaHaye copyright © 2004 by Brian MacDonald. All rights reserved.

  Left Behind series designed by Erik M. Peterson

  Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920,

  www.alivecommunications.com.

  Scripture taken from the New King James Version.® Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  LaHaye, Tim F.

  Nicolae : the rise of antichrist / Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-8423-2914-9 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-8423-2924-8 (softcover)

  I. Jenkins, Jerry B. II. Title.

  PS3562.A315N53 1997

  813′.54—dc21 97-20356

  Repackage first published in 2011 under ISBN 978-1-4143-3492-9.

  To Beverly and to Dianna

  PROLOGUE

  What Has Gone Before . . .

  It has been nearly two years since the mass disappearances. In one cataclysmic instant, millions all over the globe had vanished, leaving behind everything but flesh and bone.

  Airline pilot Captain Rayford Steele had guided his jumbo jet back to Chicago, along with three hundred terror-filled passengers and crew. The plane had been fully loaded upon takeoff, but suddenly more than one hundred seats were empty, save for clothes, jewelry, eyeglasses, shoes, and socks.

  Steele lost his wife and twelve-year-old son in the vanishings. He and his college-age daughter Chloe were left behind.

  Cameron “Buck” Williams, senior writer for a weekly news magazine, had been on Rayford’s plane. Like the pilot, he launched a frantic search for the truth.

  Rayford, Chloe, and Buck, along with their mentor—young pastor Bruce Barnes—become believers in Christ, calling themselves the Tribulation Force, determined to stand against the new world leader. Nicolae Carpathia of Romania becomes head of the United Nations seemingly overnight. And while he charms much of the world, the Tribulation Force believes Nicolae is Antichrist himself.

  Through a bizarre set of circumstances, both Rayford and Buck become employees of Carpathia—Rayford his pilot; Buck, publisher of Global Community Weekly. Carpathia knows that Rayford and his new wife, Amanda, are believers, but he remains unaware of Buck’s relationship with them or of Buck’s faith.

  The Tribulation Force schedules a reunion in Chicago. Rayford pilots Global Community Potentate Nicolae Carpathia from New Babylon to Washington, D.C. (with Amanda on board). Aware of an insurrection plot, Carpathia announces conflicting and intricate itineraries to make himself hard to locate. Meanwhile, Rayford took Amanda on Global Community One to Chicago for the rendezvous with Buck, Chloe, and Bruce.

  They discover that Bruce is in the hospital, but on their way to visit him, global war erupts. American militia factions, under the clandestine leadership of Carpathia-emasculated President Gerald Fitzhugh, had joined forces with the United States of Britain and the former sovereign state of Egypt, now part of the newly formed Middle Eastern Commonwealth. American East Coast militia forces have attacked Washington, which lies in ruin.

  Carpathia, whose hotel was leveled, is spirited away safely. His Global Community forces retaliate by attacking a former Nike base in suburban Chicago, within sight of the hospital where Bruce Barnes was suffering from a deadly virus. An assault on New Babylon is quickly thwarted, and London is attacked by Global Community forces in retaliation for Britain’s collusion with the American militia.

  During all this, Rayford asks his former boss, Earl Halliday, to fly Global Community One to New York, where Rayford had assumed he himself would be asked to rendezvous with Carpathia. But as Global Community forces marshal in New York, Rayford fears he has sent his old friend to his death.

  Rayford, Amanda, Buck, and Chloe frantically try to get to the ailing Bruce Barnes at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, Illinois, when they hear a live broadcast from the Global Community Potentate:

  “Loyal citizens of the Global Community, I come to you today with a broken heart, unable to tell you even from where I speak. For more than a year we have worked to draw this Global Community together under a banner of peace and harmony. Today, unfortunately, we have been reminded again that there are still those among us who would pull us apart.

  “It is no secret that I am, always have been, and always will be, a pacifist. I do not believe in war. I do not believe in weaponry. I do not believe in bloodshed. On the other hand, I feel responsible for you, my brother or my sister in this global village.

  “Global Community peacekeeping forces have already crushed the resistance. The death of innocent civilians weighs heavy on me, but I pledge immediate judgment upon all enemies of peace. The beautiful capital of the United States of North America has been laid waste, and you will hear stories of more destruction and death. Our goal remains peace and reconstruction. I will be back at the secure headquarters in New Babylon in due time and will communicate with you frequently.

  “Above all, do not fear. Live in confidence that no threat to global tran
quility will be tolerated, and no enemy of peace will survive.”

  As Rayford looked for a route that would get him near Northwest Community Hospital, the Cable News Network/Global Community Network correspondent came back on. “This late word: Anti–Global Community militia forces have threatened nuclear war on New York City, primarily Kennedy International Airport. Civilians are fleeing the area and causing one of the worst pedestrian and auto traffic jams in that city’s history. Peacekeeping forces say they have the ability and technology to intercept missiles but are worried about residual damage to outlying areas.

  “And this now from London: A one-hundred-megaton bomb has destroyed Heathrow Airport and radiation fallout threatens the populace for miles. The bomb was apparently dropped by peacekeeping forces after contraband Egyptian and British fighter-bombers were discovered rallying from a closed military airstrip near Heathrow. The warships, which have all been shot from the sky, were reportedly nuclear-equipped and en route to Baghdad and New Babylon.”

  “It’s the end of the world,” Chloe whispered. “God help us.”

  Rayford remained desperate to check on Bruce in the hospital. A passerby told him Northwest Community was “through that field and over the rise. But I don’t know how close they’ll let you get to what’s left of it.”

  “It was hit?”

  “Was it hit? Mister, it’s just up the road and across the street from the old Nike base. Most people think it got hit first.”

  Rayford’s heart sank as he walked alone over the rise and saw the hospital. It was mostly rubble.

  “Halt!” a guard called out. “This is a restricted area!”

  “I have clearance!” Rayford shouted, waving his ID wallet.

  When he got to Rayford, the guard took the wallet and studied it, comparing the photo to Rayford’s face. “Wow! Clearance level 2-A. You work for Carpathia himself?”

  Rayford nodded and headed toward what had been the front of the building. Body after body was laid out in a neat row and covered. “Any survivors?” Rayford asked an emergency medical technician.

  “We hear voices,” the man said. “But we haven’t gotten to anyone in time yet.”

  “Help or get out of the way,” a heavyset woman said as she brushed past Rayford.

  “I’m looking for a Bruce Barnes,” Rayford said.

  The woman checked her clipboard. “Check over there,” she said, pointing to six bodies. “Relative?”

  “Closer than a brother.”

  “You want I should check for you?”

  Rayford’s face contorted and he could hardly speak. “I’d be grateful,” he said.

  She knelt by the bodies one by one, checking, as a sob rose in Rayford’s throat. At the fourth body, she began to lift the sheet when she hesitated and checked the still intact wristband. She looked back at Rayford, and he knew. The tears began to roll. The woman slowly pulled back the sheet, revealing Bruce, eyes open, but otherwise still. Rayford fought for composure, his chest heaving. He reached to close Bruce’s eyes, but the woman said, “I can’t let you do that. I’ll do it.”

  “Could you check for a pulse?” Rayford managed.

  “Oh, sir,” she said, deep sympathy in her voice, “they don’t bring them out here unless they’ve been pronounced.”

  “Please,” he whispered, crying openly now. “For me.”

  And as Rayford stood in the bluster of suburban Chicago’s early afternoon, his hands to his face, a stranger placed a thumb and forefinger at the pressure points under his pastor’s jaw. Without looking at Rayford, she took her hand away, replaced the sheet over Bruce Barnes’s head, and went back about her business. Rayford’s knees buckled, and he knelt on the muddy pavement. Sirens blared in the distance, emergency lights flashed all around him, and his family waited less than half a mile away. It was just him and them now. No teacher. No mentor. Just them.

  As he rose and trudged back down the rise with his awful news, Rayford heard the Emergency Broadcast System station from every vehicle he passed. Washington had been obliterated. Heathrow was gone. There had been death in the Egyptian desert and in the skies over London. New York was on alert.

  The Red Horse of the Apocalypse was on the rampage.

  “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.

  “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

  Matthew 24:4-8

  CHAPTER 1

  It was the worst of times; it was the worst of times.

  Rayford Steele’s knees ached as he sat behind the wheel of the rented Lincoln. He had dropped to the pavement at the crushing realization of his pastor’s death. The physical pain, though it would stay with him for days, would prove minor compared to the mental anguish of having yet again lost one of the dearest people in his life.

  Rayford felt Amanda’s eyes on him. She laid one comforting hand on his thigh. In the backseat his daughter, Chloe, and her husband, Buck, each had a hand on his shoulder.

  What now? Rayford wondered. What do we do without Bruce? Where do we go?

  The Emergency Broadcast System station droned on with the news of chaos, devastation, destruction, and cell phone failure throughout the world. Unable to speak over the lump in his throat, Rayford busied himself maneuvering his way through the incongruous traffic jams. Why were people out? What did they expect to see? Weren’t they afraid of more bombs, or fallout?

  “I need to get to the Chicago bureau office,” Buck said.

  “You can use the car after we get to the church,” Rayford managed. “I need to get the word out about Bruce.”

  Global Community peacekeeping forces supervised local police and emergency relief personnel directing traffic and trying to get people to return to their homes. Rayford relied on his many years in the Chicago area to use back roads and side streets to get around the major thoroughfares, which were hopelessly clogged.

  Rayford wondered if he should have taken Buck up on his offer to drive. But Rayford had not wanted to appear weak. He shook his head. There’s no limit to the pilot’s ego! He felt as if he could curl into a ball and cry himself to sleep.

  Nearly two years since the vanishing of his wife and son, along with millions of others, Rayford no longer harbored illusions about his life in the twilight of history. He had been devastated. He lived with deep pain and regret. This was so hard. . . .

  Rayford knew his life could be even worse. Suppose he had not become a believer in Christ and was still lost forever. Suppose he had not found a new love and was alone. Suppose Chloe had also vanished. Or he had never met Buck. There was much to be grateful for. Were it not for the physical touch of the other three in that car, Rayford wondered if he would have had the will to go on.

  He could hardly imagine not having come to know and love Bruce Barnes. He had learned more and been enlightened and inspired more by Bruce than anyone else he’d ever met. And it wasn’t just Bruce’s knowledge and teaching that made the difference. It was his passion. Here was a man who immediately and clearly saw that he had missed the greatest truth ever communicated to mankind, and he was not about to repeat the mistake.

  “Daddy, those two guards by the overpass seem to be waving at you,” Chloe said.

  “I’m trying to ignore them,” Rayford said. “All these nobodies-trying-to-be-somebodies think they have a better idea about where the traffic should go. If we listen to them, we’ll be here for hours. I just want to get to the church.”

  “He’s hollering at you with a bullhorn,” Amanda said, and she lowered her window a few inches.

  “You in the white Lincoln!” came the booming voice. Rayford quickly turned off the radio. “Are you Rayford Steele?”

  “Ho
w would they know that?” Buck said.

  “Is there any limit to the Global Community intelligence network?” Rayford said, disgusted.

  “If you’re Rayford Steele,” came the voice again, “please pull your vehicle to the shoulder!”

  Rayford considered ignoring even that but thought better of it. There would be no outrunning these people if they knew who he was. But how did they know?

  He pulled over.

  Buck Williams pulled his hand from Rayford’s shoulder and craned his neck to see two uniformed soldiers scampering down the embankment. He had no idea how Global Community forces had tracked down Rayford, but one thing was certain: it would not be good for Buck to be discovered with Carpathia’s pilot.

  “Ray,” he said quickly, “I’ve got one set of phony IDs in the name of Herb Katz. Tell ’em I’m a pilot friend of yours or something.”

  “OK,” Rayford said, “but my guess is they’ll be deferential to me. Obviously, Nicolae is merely trying to reconnect with me.”

  Buck hoped Rayford was right. It made sense that Carpathia would want to make sure his pilot was all right and could somehow get him back to New Babylon. The two uniforms now stood behind the Lincoln, one speaking into a walkie-talkie, the other on a cell phone. Buck decided to go on the offensive and opened his door.

  “Please remain in the vehicle,” Walkie-Talkie said.

  Buck slumped back into his seat and switched his phony papers with his real ones. Chloe looked terrified. Buck put his arm around her and drew her close. “Carpathia must have put out an all points bulletin. He knew your dad had to rent a car, so it didn’t take long to track him down.”

  Buck had no idea what the two GC men were doing behind the car. All he knew was that his entire perspective on the next five years had changed in an instant. When global war broke out an hour before, he wondered if he and Chloe would survive the rest of the Tribulation. Now with the news of Bruce’s death, Buck wondered if they wanted to survive. The prospect of heaven and being with Christ sure seemed better than living in whatever remained of this world, even if Buck had to die to get there.

  Walkie-Talkie approached the driver’s-side window. Rayford lowered it. “You are Rayford Steele, are you not?”