The Rapture: Evil Advances / Before They Were Left Behind Read online

  Finally, when it appeared Carpathia had set the requirements for his acceptance impossibly high, all were met. He announced that if the public referendum could be engineered as soon as possible—and if he was permitted to rename a wing of the capitol building in honor of the outgoing president—he would surrender to the desire of the people of the nation he loved so much.

  “I just want to know,” Leon said. “Is that too much to ask?”

  “Of course not,” Nicolae said. “Be specific and I will do the same.”

  “I would like a strategic role on your leadership team. An office in the capitol. I want to be known as your most trusted adviser.”

  “Thank you for sharing that, Leon. The fact is, I have given this a great deal of thought. It might surprise you—and it might not—to know that I just yesterday had the same conversation with Viv Ivins.”

  “She sees herself in the same role?”

  “She knows better than that. But she wants to stay close, to be on staff, to be in the inner circle, to also have an office in the capitol.”

  “You can hardly blame us. We are loyal and would like to see that reciprocated.”

  “Of course. But I am going to tell you what I told her. I have need of both of you in New York.”

  “New York!”

  “You will be my advance team. You see, Leon, I have been working on my address to the U.N. since long before Jonathan secured the invitation for me. My speech there, if I may say so, will be a tour de force. If you think my acceptance of the presidency was impressive, trust me—it will pale in comparison to what will happen at the U.N. And I can see it now. On the biggest media stage in the world, Romania will suddenly become too small a venue for me. Everyone will recognize that. I will be thrust onto the international scene so fast that I may then need to send you back here to run the country while I take my place globally.”

  Leon didn’t know what to say. He felt proud. He had seen this potential in Carpathia, and he believed he had played a major role in helping him achieve it. But he wanted to stay close, not be banished to some outpost to serve as an advance man or be left to mundane matters of state while Nicolae conquered new horizons.

  “What’s in it for me if I succeed in setting up for you a welcome in New York worthy of your station? If you, as you hope and plan, take the city—and the world—by storm, then what?”

  “That, Leon, is the best part. If you are worried that you will be relegated to such a role long term, do not fret. You and Viv may be waiting in the wings for a season, but the time will come—when I truly come into power—that you will be right there with me, front and center.”

  Rayford had expressly forbidden Hattie Durham to call him at home. It wasn’t that Irene was suspicious. It was that Rayford did not need even the possibility of that eventuality in his life just now. The truth was that he had become obsessed with Hattie, which made Irene, for all her efforts to resurrect their marriage, seem old, cold, plain, and shrill.

  Rayford knew better. Yes, there were times when she reverted to the Irene of old—the one who used anger or sarcasm to try to make a point. But in his heart of hearts he knew that was his fault too. He had drifted to where the only discipline in his life showed behind the controls of the jumbo jets he piloted. He always looked right and was prepared for that work. But his marriage, he knew, was failing. He did what he wanted to when he wanted to, looking out for number one, his own wife and son largely ignored.

  And his mind, it seemed, was constantly on the young woman he so enjoyed being with in the car, in the air, at more and more private dinners, and on the phone. But only his cell phone.

  The irony was that he had still never touched Hattie. At least not on purpose. She did enough touching for the both of them, and somehow that kept her in the forefront of his mind all the time. It reminded him of crushes he’d had in high school. The difference now was that he knew Hattie Durham was attainable. She was not some impossible, far-off dream of an ideal girl. In high school he had set his sights on the same girls every other guy worshiped and only the rare guys ever got.

  But here was one of the most alluring women he had ever seen, fifteen years younger than he, and she wanted him. He could tell. He didn’t have to be a Rhodes scholar to figure that out.

  “I’m on the London run,” she announced on his cell phone that Sunday morning, and he felt his face flush, even in private.

  “Great, Hattie. I’m looking forward to that.”

  “Me too,” she said. “More than you know. More than I can say. But maybe not more than I can show.”

  There was something about going that far from home that seemed to justify in Rayford’s mind some more overt dalliance with Hattie than he had ever allowed himself. It was juvenile. Complicating. Wrong too. He knew better. Might it cost him his marriage? his son? Chloe would understand. She had the same issues with Irene that he did. Lots of people went through difficult breakups. He would survive it. And so would Raymie. Kids were resilient, right? Wasn’t that what everyone said?

  Oh, what was he thinking? Hattie was just a diversion, a mind game. He had been inappropriate, sure, with his eyes, his words, his white lies to Irene, the private times he’d spent with Hattie. But he hadn’t even touched her, and here he was thinking through the ramifications of a divorce.

  If Hattie did tear him from his family, what then? Could he ever expect her to be faithful to him? It was one thing to be over forty and have a twenty-seven-year-old wife, but what about when he was fifty? And sixty? She was clearly the kind of woman that was going to age slowly and be a knockout for years. How long would she remain interested in him? Especially when he quit playing hard to get? Now he might just be a challenge for her. Surely she couldn’t have had much experience being interested in men she couldn’t win. Would he all of a sudden become less attractive to her if he yielded to her advances and turned his back on his wife and family?

  This was crazy, he told himself. Ludicrous. He was going to have to put it out of his mind. At least until he again picked her up for work, watched her get into the car, felt her hand on his arm, looked into those huge, inviting eyes.

  Rayford had it bad.

  In fact, he was feeling guilty, his mind occupied with the other woman who had not yet really become the “other woman,” while his wife and son were at church without him. He would need to steel himself against their insipid and always-renewed enthusiasm as soon as he heard Irene’s car pull up.

  Guilt had caused Rayford to hurriedly set the table with paper plates and plasticware, in anticipation of the drive-through chicken bucket Irene brought home every Sunday. This time Rayford would resist already being parked in front of the TV. Often he had insisted on taking his lunch there, knowing full well that Irene wanted just a brief sit-down at the table together. He could manage that—at least today.

  Next weekend he would go one better. He had promised Raymie he would go to church. How he had let the kid finagle that out of him, he couldn’t even recall. But he was way past the point where he could renege even one more time. Going once couldn’t hurt, he decided.

  Unless it made him feel even guiltier about his obsession with Hattie Durham. The fact was, he wasn’t ready to give that up yet . . . or her.

  Anticipation, Buck Williams had come to realize, was his favorite part of the job. Buck simply liked the planning of his days as much—if not more—than the days themselves. Nothing fulfilled him more than taking a Sunday afternoon, idly watching sports on television and scoping out his next week on his computer, then downloading his schedule to his personal digital assistant.

  As each task—rated by order of importance—was checked off, he felt better and better about himself. Someone had referred to him as an overachiever, but he didn’t see it that way. He believed the difference between him and a thousand other guys—stalled or stuck in jobs they didn’t like—had less to do with luck than it did with doing a thousand little things right.

  He knew he lived a charmed life. He tr
aveled extensively; met interesting, important people; drew great assignments; and was paid well. More than well. He lived way beyond a level that would have easily satisfied him. His tastes were simple, yet his apartment in Manhattan was unattainable for anyone below his station.

  Buck left little to chance. Everything was planned and plotted. And as he made his lists and double-checked them to be sure he had what he needed, he imagined each experience. If it was a tense reunion, as was scheduled with Lucinda Washington in Chicago this week, he knew it was time to take her up on her promise to expose him to her culture in a great restaurant on the South Side of Chicago.

  And then, thanks to Marge Potter’s finding a direct Pan-Continental flight out of Chicago, it would be on to London to see Dirk. His quirky friend had been the source of some great and some not-so-great leads over the years, but this one was sure worth pursuing. Second to reuniting with Dirk, though, was the prospect of all those hours in first class over the Atlantic. Sometimes Buck believed he was getting old because of how much he looked forward to the simple things in life—the really simple things. Like being able to plug in his laptop, ignore a chatty seatmate, skip the movie, and catch up on myriad tasks uninterrupted as a 747 tore through the skies.

  The highlights of my life are solitude and work in a comfortable leather seat? Old, old, old.

  But Buck was barely thirty.

  Irene and Raymie had come home from church psyched up before, but this was ridiculous. Irene, apparently encouraged by Rayford’s table-setting gesture, did not intervene when Raymie started in about how incredible the sermon had been.

  “You’ve got to get the tape, Dad. Really. You’d love it.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Promise.”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  “That’s two promises now, Dad.”

  “How well I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure.”

  “Next Sunday?”

  “Yep. Promise.”

  Raymie spent the rest of the meal, not to mention the Bulls game, regaling Rayford with point after point from Pastor Billings’s sermon. Amazingly, Rayford actually found it interesting and wondered if perhaps he should have gone. But he wasn’t about to admit that. Who knew what a torrent of information that would unleash?

  Why couldn’t he just have a normal life, a normal family, a normal wife, a normal son? Nobody he knew had a kid this interested in church. Maybe they went, but what happened in church stayed in church. It wasn’t something you discussed ad nauseam at meals and while watching ball games on TV.

  FIFTEEN

  LEON FORTUNATO had never been a ladies’ man. And while he respected, even somewhat admired, the elderly (to him) Viv Ivins, he was not excited about enduring an international flight with her. He had been impressed by her efficiency and especially her loyalty to Nicolae. But as so often happens with teammates on a powerful person’s staff, jealousies arose.

  They had never had words, but Leon found himself passive-aggressively ignoring her suggestions and comments, unless they clearly reflected Nicolae’s wishes. In truth, he had little to fear, because he had learned a few things about Carpathia. First, he was a chauvinist of the old school. Second, though Nicolae called Ms. Ivins “Aunt Viv”—Leon was aware of their interesting background and connection—Nicolae did not treat her with familial respect.

  Viv was close to him, obviously—part of his inner circle. And Nicolae relied on her a great deal. But Leon had never heard him say anything affectionate or even affirming to her. Neither did Leon feel slighted because Viv had known Carpathia longer. Viv’s role had certainly shifted from spiritual adviser and parental figure to day-to-day logistical assistant and manager of the private household. She had become more of a background person, a servant.

  Leon wondered if she resented that and anyone who got between her and her boss. He detected a certain coolness in her, perhaps even suspicion of his motives. But Leon did not feel the need to defend himself. His proximity to Carpathia—despite this temporary and necessary separation—brought with it great capital, which he intended to invest wisely.

  He was pleasantly surprised, then, during the trip to New York, to find Viv Ivins remarkably warm and effusive and even solicitous. She proved polite, self-effacing, helpful, and curious about him and his background. Leon sensed no ulterior motive in this, though he was careful to not be too forthcoming. Nicolae was the only person who really needed to know Leon’s history, and he was fully aware of it.

  “My expectation,” Viv said after they had enjoyed their first in-flight meal, “is that you will handle the more public arrangements and I the private. I am open to suggestion and correction, of course, but in other words, I will make certain Nicolae’s accommodations are acceptable, including all the amenities and so forth. Correct me if I am wrong, but I assumed you would handle diplomatic arrangements, the press, and the like.”

  Leon nodded. “All I know, ma’am, is that budget is to be no object, that we are all to stay and set up headquarters at the Plaza, and that President Carpathia expects to be accorded the privileges commensurate with his office.”

  To Leon’s delight, he and Viv worked separately and efficiently, and within a day of their arrival, nearly everything had been set in motion for a successful visit by the new president and guest U.N. speaker. The Carpathia retinue took over an entire wing of an upstairs floor, augmenting Romanian securitate with New York policemen and both U.N. and U.S. security personnel.

  Leon and Viv enjoyed beautiful rooms on either end of the corridor, and a set of rooms turned into an office separated Viv’s quarters from Nicolae’s. Every technological marvel known to man was installed in the office suite within twenty-four hours, and Leon busied himself arranging meetings for Nicolae with a list of dignitaries that covered three computer printout sheets.

  Leon’s most strategic private meeting was with U.N. Secretary-General Mwangati Ngumo. The large, very dark Botswanan, known for a beatific smile, exhibited no warmth. While he vigorously shook Fortunato’s hand, he did not utter any variation of the normal nice-to-meet-you sentiments. He seemed busy and preoccupied, and within minutes of Leon’s being seated—across from Ngumo, who stayed behind his desk, despite two separate, more informal meeting tables—they were interrupted by a reminder that the secretary-general had fewer than twenty minutes.

  “That should be enough,” Leon said.

  “I certainly hope so,” Ngumo said.

  “This is just a get-acquainted session.”

  “I trust we can accomplish more than that and eliminate the need for redundancy.”

  “I’ll certainly try. First, of course, I bring you greetings from the honorable Dr. Nicolae Jetty Carpathia, president of the Republic of Romania.”

  “Thank you. What an unusual middle name. One of its meanings is ‘black,’ as you may know. But I have seen photographs of President Carpathia, and he is anything but dark. Do you know the origin of that name?”

  “I do not.”

  Ngumo waved him on.

  “President Carpathia thanks you for your kind invitation, and—”

  “Can we, in the interest of time, dispense with these rote sentiments? I accept his greetings; I send mine back; he’s been invited; he’s thankful; he’s welcome—all right?”

  “Well, uh, sure. Is there a problem, Mr. Secretary-General? Something I should be aware of?”

  “You are his chief of staff and you are not aware of how this invitation came to him?”

  “I suppose I’m not, if there was anything untoward about it.”

  “Untoward? Only that it was coerced from outside standard diplomatic channels. It was suggested not by a friend or associate of this body but rather by an international financier with whom, I am without doubt, you are acquainted.”

  “Jonathan Stonagal, sure. And that is a problem?”

  “It doesn’t have to be. But neither should I be expected to celebrate it. The invitation has been treated by the
international press at its face value: the U.N. seeking to familiarize itself with a new leader. Fine. Misleading. Untrue. But fine. We will adjust.”

  Leon crossed his legs, shifting his weight and making the chair squeak. “I can assure you that President Carpathia had nothing to do with angling for an invitation, sir.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I find that difficult to believe. We have file cabinets full of such requests. But even if that is true, that is all the worse. It makes some sense, a head of state wishing to address us. The interests of a billionaire, on the other hand . . .”

  “Then why did you acquiesce?”

  Ngumo shook his head. “You’re asking a question to which you know the answer.”

  “Because you, like anyone else, have to be concerned about a bottom line.”

  Ngumo cocked his head at Leon, as if to say, So we do understand each other.

  “Well, let me tell you my goal for this event, Mr. Secretary. In spite of how it came about, I hope you will be glad you extended the invitation and that President Carpathia will prove a worthy occupant of the lectern.”

  “We shall see.”

  Leon told the man of Nicolae’s fascination with the U.N. and his savantlike memory of its history. “Trust me, sir, he will be able to tell you the day of your inauguration, how many five-year terms you have served, and how many you are expected to serve.”

  Buck Williams was off the plane and headed for his rental car at O’Hare when Steve Plank called.

  “We’re clear that you’re making nice with Lucinda, right?”

  “That’s why I’m here, chief. And to see if I can scoop her and her people on another story.”