Left Behind Page 12

  “They’re fine.” She was crying.

  “Oh, thank God,” he said.

  Rayford wondered what had gotten into him. He said he was happy for her, but he had come to the conclusion that those who had not disappeared had missed out on the greatest event of cosmic history. But what was he supposed to say—“Oh, I’m sorry your family was left behind, too”?

  When he hung up, Rayford sat next to the phone with a nagging feeling that he had for sure missed Chloe’s call this time. It made him mad. His stomach was growling and he knew he should eat, but he had decided he would hold off as long as possible, hoping to eat with Chloe when she arrived. Knowing her, she wouldn’t have eaten a thing.

  CHAPTER 9

  Buck’s subconscious waking system failed him that evening, but by 8:45 p.m. he was back in Steve Plank’s office, disheveled and apologetic. And he had been right. He felt the resentment from veteran department editors. Juan Ortiz, chief of the international politics section, was incensed that Buck should have anything to do with the summit conference Juan planned to cover in two weeks.

  “The Jewish Nationalists are discussing an issue I have been following for years. Who would have believed they would consider warming to one world government? That they would even entertain the discussion is monumental. They’re meeting here, rather than in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, because their idea is so revolutionary. Most Israeli Nationalists think the Holy Land has gone too far with its bounty already. This is historic.”

  “Then what’s your problem,” Plank said, “with my adding our top guy to the coverage?”

  “Because I am your top guy on this.”

  “I’m trying to make sense of all these meetings,” Plank said.

  Jimmy Borland, the religion editor, weighed in. “I understand Juan’s objections, but I’ve got two meetings at the same time. I welcome the help.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Plank said.

  “But I’ll be frank, Buck,” Borland added. “I want a say in the final piece.”

  “Of course,” Plank said.

  “Not so fast,” Buck said. “I don’t want to be treated like a pool reporter here. I’m going to have my own take on these meetings, and I’m not trying to horn in on your expert territories. I wouldn’t want to do the coverages of the individual meetings themselves. I want to bring some coordination, find the meaning, the common denominators. Jimmy, your two groups—the religious Jews who want to rebuild the temple and the ecumenicalists who want some sort of one-world religious order—are they going to be at odds with each other? Will there be religious Jews—”

  “Orthodox.”

  “OK, Orthodox Jews at the ecumenical meeting? Because that seems at cross purposes with rebuilding the temple.”

  “Well, at least you’re thinking like a religion editor,” Jimmy said. “That’s encouraging.”

  “But what’s your thought?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what makes this so interesting. That they should meet at the same time in the same city is too good to be true.”

  Financial editor Barbara Donahue brought closure to the discussion. “I’ve dealt with you before on these kinds of efforts, Steve,” she said. “And I appreciate the way you let everybody vent without threat. But we all know your mind is made up about Buck’s involvement, so let’s lick our wounds and get on with it. If we each get to put our own spin on the coverage in our departments and have some input on the overall piece that I assume goes in the main well, let’s get on with it.”

  Even Ortiz nodded, though to Buck he seemed reluctant.

  “Buck’s the quarterback,” Plank said, “so keep in touch with him. He’ll report to me. You want to say anything, Buck?”

  “Just thanks a lot,” he said ruefully, causing everyone to chuckle. “Barbara, your monetarists are meeting right at the U.N., like they did when they went to the three-currency thing?”

  She nodded. “Same place and pretty much the same people.”

  “How involved is Jonathan Stonagal?”

  “Overtly, you mean?” she said.

  “Well, everybody knows he’s circumspect. But is there a Stonagal influence?”

  “Does a duck have lips?”

  Buck smiled and jotted a note. “I’ll take that as a yes. I’d like to hang around that one, maybe try to get to Diamond John.”

  “Good luck. He probably won’t show his face.”

  “But he’ll be in town, won’t he, Barbara? Wasn’t he at the Plaza for the duration last time?”

  “You do get around, don’t you?” she said.

  “Well, he only had each of the principals up to his suite every day.”

  Juan Ortiz raised a hand. “I’m going along with this, and I have nothing personal against you, Buck. But I don’t believe there is a way to coordinate this story without inventing some tie-in. I mean, if you want to lead off a feature story by saying there were four important international meetings in town almost all at once, fine. But to make them interrelated would be stretching.”

  “If I find that they aren’t interrelated, there won’t be an overall story,” Buck said. “Fair enough?”

  Rayford Steele was nearly beside himself with worry, compounded by his grief. Where was Chloe? He had been inside all day, pacing, mourning, thinking. He felt stale and claustrophobic. He had called Pan-Continental and was told his car might be released by the time he got back from his weekend flight. The news on TV showed the amazing progress being made at clearing the roadways and getting mass transportation rolling again. But the landscape would appear tacky for months. Cranes and wreckers had run out of junkyards, so the twisted wreckages remained in hazardous piles at the sides of roads and expressways.

  By the time Rayford got around to calling his wife’s church, it was after hours, and he was grateful he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. As he hoped, a new message was on their voice mail, though it was communicated by a stunned-sounding male voice.

  “You have reached New Hope Village Church. We are planning a weekly Bible study, but for the time being we will meet just once each Sunday at 10 a.m. While our entire staff, except me, and most of our congregation are gone, the few of us left are maintaining the building and distributing a DVD our senior pastor prepared for a time such as this. You may come by the church office anytime to pick up a free copy, and we look forward to seeing you Sunday morning.”

  Well, of course, Rayford thought, that pastor had often spoken of the Rapture of the church. That was why Irene was so enamored with it. What a creative idea, to record a message for those who had been left behind! He and Chloe would have to get one the next day. He hoped she would be as interested as he was in discovering the truth.

  Rayford gazed out the front window in the darkness, just in time to see Chloe, one big suitcase on the ground next to her, paying a cabdriver. He ran from the house in his stocking feet and gathered her into his arms. “Oh, Daddy!” she wailed. “How’s everybody?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t want to hear this,” she said, pulling away from him and looking to the house as if expecting her mother or brother to appear in the doorway.

  “It’s just you and me, Chloe,” Rayford said, and they stood together in the darkness, crying.

  It was Friday before Buck Williams was able to track down Dirk Burton. He reached the supervisor in Dirk’s area of the London Exchange. “You must tell me precisely who you are and your specific relationship to Mr. Burton before I am allowed to inform you as to his disposition,” Nigel Leonard said. “I am also constrained to inform you that this conversation shall be recorded, beginning immediately.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I’m recording our conversation, sir. If that is a problem for you, you may disconnect.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “What’s to follow? You understand what a recorder is, do you?”

  “Of course, and I’m turning mine on now as well, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, I
do mind, Mr. Williams. Why on earth would you be recording?”

  “Why would you?”

  “We are the ones with a most unfortunate situation, and we need to investigate all leads.”

  “What situation? Was Dirk among those who disappeared?”

  “Nothing so tidy as that, I’m afraid.”

  “Tell me.”

  “First your reason for asking.”

  “I’m an old friend. We were college classmates.”

  “Where?”

  “Princeton.”

  “Very well. When?”

  Buck told him.

  “Very well. The last time you spoke to him?”

  “I don’t recall, OK? We’ve been trading voice-mail messages.”

  “Your occupation?”

  Buck hesitated. “Senior writer, Global Weekly, New York.”

  “Would your interest be journalistic in nature?”

  “I won’t preclude that,” Buck said, trying not to let his anger seep through, “but I can’t imagine that my friend, important as he is to me, is of interest to my readers.”

  “Mr. Williams,” Nigel said carefully, “allow me to state categorically, on both our recorders apparently, that what I am about to say is strictly off the record. Do you understand?”

  “I—”

  “Because I am aware that both in your country and in the British Commonwealth, anything said following an assertion that we are off the record is protected.”

  “Granted,” Buck said.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “You heard me. Granted. We’re off the record. Now where is Dirk?”

  “Mr. Burton’s body was discovered in his flat this morning. He had suffered a bullet wound to the head. I’m sorry, as you were a friend, but suicide has been determined.”

  Buck was nearly speechless. “By whom?” he managed.

  “The authorities.”

  “What authorities?”

  “Scotland Yard and security personnel here at the exchange.”

  Scotland Yard? Buck thought. We’ll see about that. “Why is the exchange involved?”

  “We’re protective of our information and our personnel, sir.”

  “Suicide is impossible, you know,” Buck said.

  “Do I?”

  “If you are his supervisor, you know.”

  “There have been countless suicides since the disappearances, sir.”

  Buck was shaking his head as if Nigel could see him from across the Atlantic. “Dirk didn’t kill himself, and you know it.”

  “Sir, I can appreciate your sentiments, but I don’t know any more than you did what was in Mr. Burton’s mind. I was partial to him, but I would not be in a position to question the conclusion of the medical examiner.”

  Buck slammed the phone down and marched into Steve Plank’s office. He told Steve what he had heard.

  “That’s terrible,” Steve said.

  “I have a contact at Scotland Yard who knows Dirk, but I don’t dare talk to him about it by phone. Can I have Marge book me on the next flight to London? I’ll be back in time for all these summits, but I’ve got to go.”

  “If you can get a flight. I don’t know that JFK is even open yet.”

  “How about La Guardia?”

  “Ask Marge. You know Carpathia will be here tomorrow.”

  “You said yourself he was small potatoes. Maybe he’ll still be here when I get back.”

  Rayford Steele hadn’t been able to talk his grieving daughter into leaving the house. Chloe had spent hours in her little brother’s room, and then in her parents’ bedroom, picking through their personal effects to add to the boxes of memories her father had put together. Rayford felt so bad for her. He had secretly hoped she would be of comfort to him. He knew she would be eventually. But for now she needed time to face her own loss. Once she had cried herself out, she was ready to talk. And after she had reminisced to the point where Rayford didn’t know if his heart could take any more, she finally changed the subject to the phenomenon of the disappearances themselves.

  “Daddy, in California they’re actually buying into the space invasion theory.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. Maybe it’s because you were always so practical and skeptical about all that tabloid newspaper stuff, but I just can’t get into it. I mean, it has to be something supernatural or otherworldly, but—”

  “But what?”

  “It just seems that if some alien life force was capable of doing this, they would also be capable of communicating to us. Wouldn’t they want to take over now or demand ransom or get us to do something for them?”

  “Who? Martians?”

  “Daddy! I’m not saying I believe it. I’m saying I don’t. But doesn’t my reasoning make sense?”

  “You don’t have to convince me. I admit I wouldn’t have dreamed any of this even possible a week ago, but my logic has been stretched to the breaking point.”

  Rayford hoped Chloe would ask his theory. He didn’t want to start right in on a religious theme. She had always been antagonistic about that, having stopped going to church in high school when both he and Irene gave up fighting with her over it. She was a good kid, never in trouble. She made grades good enough to get her a partial academic scholarship, and though she occasionally stayed out too late and went through a boy-crazy period in high school, they had never had to bail her out of jail and there was never any evidence of drug use. He didn’t take that lightly.

  Rayford and Irene knew Chloe had come home from more than one party drunk enough to spend the night vomiting. The first time, he and Irene chose to ignore it, to act as if it didn’t happen. They believed she was levelheaded enough to know better the next time. When the next time came, Rayford had a chat with her.

  “I know, I know, I know, OK, Dad? You don’t need to start in on me.”

  “I’m not starting in on you. I want to make sure you know enough to not drive if you drink too much.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “And you know how stupid and dangerous it is to drink too much.”

  “I thought you weren’t starting in on me.”

  “Just tell me you know.”

  “I think I already said that.”

  He had shaken his head and said nothing.

  “Daddy, don’t give up on me. Go ahead, give me both barrels. Prove you care.”

  “Don’t make fun of me,” he had said. “Someday you’re going to have a child and you won’t know what to say or do either. When you love somebody with all your heart and all you care about is her welfare—”

  Rayford hadn’t been able to continue. For the first time in his adult life, he had choked up. It had never happened during his arguments with Irene. He had always been too defensive, concerned too much about making his point to think about how much he cared for her. But with Chloe, he really wanted to say the right thing, to protect her from herself. He wanted her to know how much he loved her, and it was coming out all wrong. It was as if he were punishing, lecturing, reprimanding, condescending. That had caused him to break.

  Though he hadn’t planned it, that involuntary show of emotion got through to Chloe. For months she had been drifting from him, from both her parents. She had been sullen, cold, independent, sarcastic, challenging. He knew it was all part of growing up and becoming one’s own person, but it was a painful, scary time.

  As he bit his lip and breathed deeply, hoping to regain composure and not embarrass himself, Chloe had come to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, just as she had as a little girl. “Oh, Daddy, don’t cry,” she had said. “I know you love me. I know you care. Don’t worry about me. I learned my lesson and I won’t be stupid again, I promise.”

  He had dissolved into tears, and so had she. They had bonded as never before. He didn’t recall ever having to discipline her again, and though she had not come back to church, he had started to drift by then himself. They had become buddies, and she was growing up to be just like him. Irene h
ad kidded him that their children each had their own favorite parent.

  Now, just days after Irene and Raymie had disappeared, Rayford hoped the relationship that had really begun with an emotional moment when Chloe was in high school would blossom so they could talk. What was more important than what had happened? He knew now what her crazy college friends and the typical Californian believed. What else was new? He always generalized that people on the West Coast afforded the tabloids the same weight Midwesterners gave the Chicago Tribune or even the New York Times.

  Late in the day, Friday, Rayford and Chloe reluctantly agreed they should eat, and they worked together in the kitchen, rustling up a healthy mixture of fruits and vegetables. There was something calming and healing about working with her in silence. It was painful on the one hand, because anything domestic reminded him of Irene. And when they sat to eat, they automatically sat in their customary spots at either end of the table—which made the other two open spots that much more conspicuous.

  Rayford noticed Chloe clouding up again, and he knew she was feeling what he was. It hadn’t been that many years since they had enjoyed three or four meals a week together as a family. Irene had always sat on his left, Raymie on his right, and Chloe directly across. The emptiness and the silence were jarring.

  Rayford was ravenous and finished a huge salad. Chloe stopped eating soon after she had begun and wept silently, her head down, tears falling in her lap. Her father took her hand, and she rose and sat in his lap, hiding her face and sobbing. His heart aching for her, Rayford rocked her until she was silent. “Where are they?” she whined at last.

  “You want to know where I think they are?” he said. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Of course!”

  “I believe they are in heaven.”

  “Oh, Daddy! There were some religious nuts at school who were saying that, but if they knew so much about it, how come they didn’t go?”

  “Maybe they realized they had been wrong and had missed their opportunity.”

  “You think that’s what we’ve done?” Chloe said, returning to her chair.

  “I’m afraid so. Didn’t your mother tell you she believed that Jesus could come back some day and take his people directly to heaven before they died?”