The Left Behind Collection: All 12 Books Page 34

  What was this? It was not what Buck expected, but it was so affirming, so flattering. He was not part of any team, and no rights or privileges should be conferred upon him! He shook his head slightly to signal that Carpathia was again confused, that he had apparently mistaken Buck for someone else. But Nicolae nodded slightly and smiled all the more, looking more deeply into Buck’s eyes. He knew what he was doing.

  “May you display to me and to those in your charge the consistency and wisdom that have brought you to this position.”

  Buck wanted to stand taller, to thank his mentor, his leader, the bestower of this honor. But no! It wasn’t right! He didn’t work for Carpathia. He was an independent journalist, not a supporter, not a follower, and certainly not an employee. His spirit resisted the temptation to say, “Thank you, sir,” as everyone else had. He sensed and read the evil of the man and it was all he could do to keep from pointing at him and calling him the Antichrist. He could almost hear himself screaming it at Carpathia.

  Nicolae still stared, still smiled, still gripped his hand. After an awkward silence, Buck heard chuckles, and Carpathia said, “You are most welcome, my slightly overcome and tongue-tied friend.” The others laughed and applauded as Carpathia kissed him, but Buck did not smile. Neither did he thank the secretary-general. Bile rose in his throat.

  As Carpathia moved on, Buck realized what he had endured. Had he not belonged to God he would have been swept into the web of this man of deceit. He could see it in the others’ faces. They were honored beyond measure to be elevated to this tier of power and confidence, even Chaim Rosenzweig. Hattie seemed to melt in Carpathia’s presence.

  Bruce Barnes had pleaded with Buck not to attend this meeting, and now Buck knew why. Had he come in unprepared, had he not been prayed for by Bruce and Chloe and probably Captain Steele, who knows whether he would have made his decision and his commitment to Christ in time to have the power to resist the lure of acceptance and power?

  Carpathia went through the ceremony with Steve, who gushed with pride. Nicolae eventually covered everyone in the room except the security guard, Hattie, and Jonathan Stonagal. He returned to his place and turned first to Hattie.

  “Ms. Durham,” he said, taking both her hands in his, “you shall be introduced as my personal assistant, having turned your back on a stellar career in the aviation industry. I welcome you to the team and confer upon you all the rights and privileges that go with your new station. May you display to me and to those in your charge the consistency and wisdom that have brought you to this position.”

  Buck tried to catch Hattie’s eye and shake his head, but she was zeroed in on her new boss. Was this Buck’s fault? He had introduced her to Carpathia in the first place. Was she still reachable? Would he have access? He glanced around the room. Everyone stared with beatific smiles as Hattie breathed her heartfelt thanks and sat down again.

  Carpathia dramatically turned to Jonathan Stonagal. The latter smiled a knowing smile and stood regally. “Where do I begin, Jonathan, my friend?” Carpathia said. Stonagal dropped his head gratefully and others murmured their agreement that this indeed was the man among men in the room. Carpathia took Stonagal’s hand and began formally, “Mr. Stonagal, you have meant more to me than anyone on earth.” Stonagal looked up and smiled, locking eyes with Carpathia.

  “I welcome you to the team,” Carpathia said, “and confer upon you all the rights and privileges that go with your new station.”

  Stonagal flinched, clearly not interested in being considered a part of the team, to be welcomed by the very man he had maneuvered into the presidency of Romania and now the secretary-generalship of the United Nations. His smile froze, then disappeared as Carpathia continued, “May you display to me and to those in your charge the consistency and wisdom that have brought you to this position.”

  Rather than thanking Carpathia, Stonagal wrenched his hand away and glared at the younger man. Carpathia continued to gaze directly at him and spoke in quieter, warmer tones, “Mr. Stonagal, you may be seated.”

  “I will not!” Stonagal said.

  “Sir, I have been having a bit of sport at your expense because I knew you would understand.”

  Stonagal reddened, clearly chagrined that he had overreacted. “I beg your pardon, Nicolae,” Stonagal said, forcing a smile but obviously insulted at having been pushed into this shocking display.

  “Please, my friend,” Carpathia said. “Please be seated. Gentlemen, and lady, we have only a few minutes before we meet the media.”

  Buck’s eyes were still on Stonagal, who was seething.

  “I would like to present to you all just a bit of an object lesson in leadership, followership, and may I say, chain of command. Mr. Scott M. Otterness, would you approach me, please?” The guard in the corner jerked in surprise and hurried to Carpathia. “One of my leadership techniques is my power of observation, combined with a prodigious memory,” Carpathia said.

  Buck couldn’t take his eyes off Stonagal, who appeared to be considering revenge for having been embarrassed. He seemed ready to stand at any second and put Carpathia in his place.

  “Mr. Otterness here was surprised because we had not been introduced, had we, sir?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Carpathia, sir, we had not.”

  “And yet I knew your name.”

  The aging guard smiled and nodded.

  “I can also tell you the make and model and caliber of the weapon you carry on your hip. I will not look as you remove it and display it to this group.”

  Buck watched in horror as Mr. Otterness unsnapped the leather strap holding the huge gun in his holster. He fumbled for it and held it with two hands so everyone but Carpathia, who had averted his eyes, could see it. Stonagal, still red-faced, appeared to be hyperventilating.

  “I observed, sir, that you were issued a thirty-eight-caliber police special with a four-inch barrel, loaded with high-velocity hollow-point shells.”

  “You are correct,” Otterness said gleefully.

  “May I hold it, please?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Thank you. You may return to your post, guarding Mr. Williams’s bag, which contains a digital recorder, a cell phone, and a computer. Am I correct, Cameron?”

  Buck stared at him, refusing to answer. He heard Stonagal grumble about “some sort of a parlor trick.” Carpathia continued to look at Buck. Neither spoke. “What is this?” Stonagal whispered. “You’re acting like a child.”

  “I would like to tell you all what you are about to see,” Carpathia said, and Buck felt anew the wash of evil in the room. He wanted more than anything to rub the gooseflesh from his arms and run for his life. But he was frozen where he sat. The others seemed transfixed but not troubled, as he and Stonagal were.

  “I am going to ask Mr. Stonagal to rise once more,” Carpathia said, the large ugly weapon safely at his side. “Jonathan, if you please.”

  Stonagal sat staring at him. Carpathia smiled. “Jonathan, you know you can trust me. I love you for all you have meant to me, and I humbly ask you to assist me in this demonstration. I see part of my role as a teacher. You have said that yourself, and you have been my teacher for years.”

  Stonagal stood, wary and rigid.

  “And now I am going to ask that we switch places.”

  Stonagal swore. “What is this?” he demanded.

  “It will become clear quickly, and I will not need your help anymore.”

  To the others, Buck knew, it sounded as if Carpathia meant he would no longer need Stonagal’s help for whatever this demonstration was. Just as he had sent the guard back to the corner unarmed, they had to assume he would thank Stonagal and let him return to his seat.

  Stonagal, with a disgusted frown, stepped out and traded places with Carpathia. That put Carpathia to Stonagal’s right. On Stonagal’s left sat Hattie, and beyond her, Mr. Todd-Cothran.

  “And now I am going to ask you to kneel, Jonathan,” Carpathia said, his smile and his light tone ha
ving disappeared. To Buck it seemed as if everyone in the room sucked in a breath and held it.

  “That I will not do,” Stonagal said.

  “Yes, you will,” Carpathia said quietly. “Do it now.”

  “No, sir, I will not,” Stonagal said. “Have you lost your mind? I will not be humiliated. If you think you have risen to a position over me, you are mistaken.”

  Carpathia raised the .38, cocked it, and stuck the barrel into Stonagal’s right ear. The older man at first jerked away, but Carpathia said, “Move again and you are dead.”

  Several others stood, including Rosenzweig, who cried plaintively, “Nicolae!”

  “Everyone be seated, please,” Carpathia said, calm again. “Jonathan, on your knees.”

  Painfully, the old man crouched, using Hattie’s chair for support. He did not face Carpathia or look at him. The gun was still in his ear. Hattie sat pale and frozen.

  “My dear,” Carpathia said, leaning toward her over Stonagal’s head, “you will want to slide your chair back about three feet so as not to soil your outfit.”

  She did not move.

  Stonagal began to whimper. “Nicolae, why are you doing this? I am your friend! I am no threat!”

  “Begging does not become you, Jonathan. Please be quiet. Hattie,” he continued, looking directly into her eyes now, “stand and move your chair back and be seated. Hair, skin, skull tissue, and brain matter will mostly be absorbed by Mr. Todd-Cothran and the others next to him. I do not want anything to get on you.”

  Hattie moved her chair back, her fingers trembling.

  Stonagal whined, “No, Nicolae, no!”

  Carpathia was in no hurry. “I am going to kill Mr. Stonagal with a painless hollow-point round to the brain which he will neither hear nor feel. The rest of us will experience some ringing in our ears. This will be instructive for you all. You will understand cognitively that I am in charge, that I fear no man, and that no one can oppose me.”

  Mr. Otterness reached for his forehead, as if dizzy, and slumped to one knee. Buck considered a suicidal dive across the table for the gun, but he knew that others might die for his effort. He looked to Steve, who sat motionless as the others. Mr. Todd-Cothran shut his eyes and grimaced, as if expecting the report any second.

  “When Mr. Stonagal is dead, I will tell you what you will remember. And lest anyone feel I have not been fair, let me not neglect to add that more than gore will wind up on Mr. Todd-Cothran’s suit. A high-velocity bullet at this range will also kill him, which, as you know, Mr. Williams, is something I promised you I would deal with in due time.”

  Todd-Cothran opened his eyes at that news, and Buck heard himself shouting, “No!” as Carpathia pulled the trigger. The blast rattled the windows and even the door. Stonagal’s head crashed into the toppling Todd-Cothran, and both were plainly dead before their entwined bodies reached the floor.

  Several chairs rolled back from the table as their occupants covered their heads in fear. Buck stared, mouth open, as Carpathia calmly placed the gun in Stonagal’s limp right hand and twisted his finger around the trigger.

  Hattie shivered in her seat and appeared to try to emit a scream that would not come. Carpathia took the floor again.

  “What we have just witnessed here,” he said kindly, as if speaking to children, “was a horrible, tragic end to two otherwise extravagantly productive lives. These men were two I respected and admired more than any others in the world. What compelled Mr. Stonagal to rush the guard, disarm him, take his own life and that of his British colleague, I do not know and may never fully understand.”

  Buck fought within himself to keep his sanity, to maintain a clear mind, to—as his boss had told him on the way in—“remember everything.”

  Carpathia continued, his eyes moist. “All I can tell you is that Jonathan Stonagal told me as recently as at breakfast this morning that he felt personally responsible for two recent violent deaths in England and that he could no longer live with the guilt. Honestly, I thought he was going to turn himself in to international authorities later today. And if he had not, I would have had to. How he conspired with Mr. Todd-Cothran, which led to the deaths in England, I do not know. But if he was responsible, then in a sad way, perhaps justice was meted out here today.

  “We are all horrified and traumatized by having witnessed this. Who would not be? My first act as secretary-general will be to close the U.N. for the remainder of the day and to pronounce my regrettable benedictory obituary on the lives of two old friends. I trust you will all be able to deal with this unfortunate occurrence and that it will not forever hamper your ability to serve in your strategic roles.

  “Thank you, gentlemen. While Ms. Durham phones security, I will be polling you for your version of what happened here.”

  Hattie ran to the phone and could barely make herself understood in her hysteria. “Come quick! There’s been a suicide and two men are dead! It was awful! Hurry!”

  “Mr. Plank?” Carpathia said.

  “That was unbelievable,” Steve said, and Buck knew he was dead serious. “When Mr. Stonagal grabbed the gun, I thought he was going to kill us all!”

  Carpathia called on the United States ambassador.

  “Why, I’ve known Jonathan for years,” he said. “Who would have thought he could do something like this?”

  “I’m just glad you’re all right, Mr. Secretary-General,” Chaim Rosenzweig said.

  “Well, I am not all right,” Carpathia said. “And I will not be all right for a long time. These were my friends.”

  And that’s how it went, all around the room. Buck’s body felt like lead, knowing Carpathia would eventually get to him and that he was the only one in the room not under Nicolae’s hypnotic power. But what if Buck said so? Would he be killed next? Of course he would! He had to be. Could he lie? Should he?

  He prayed desperately as Carpathia moved from man to man, making certain they had all seen what he wanted them to see and that they were sincerely convinced of it.

  Silence, God seemed to impress upon Buck’s heart. Not a word!

  Buck was so grateful to feel the presence of God in the midst of this evil and mayhem that he was moved to tears. When Carpathia got to him Buck’s cheeks were wet and he could not speak. He shook his head and held up a hand. “Awful, was it not, Cameron? The suicide that took Mr. Todd-Cothran with it?”

  Buck could not speak and wouldn’t have if he could. “You cared for and respected them both, Cameron, because you were unaware that they tried to have you killed in London.” And Carpathia moved on to the guard.

  “Why could you not keep him from taking your gun, Scott?”

  The old man had risen. “It happened so fast! I knew who he was, an important rich man, and when he hurried over to me I didn’t know what he wanted. He ripped that gun right out of my holster, and before I could react he had shot himself.”

  “Yes, yes,” Carpathia said as security rushed into the room. Everyone talked at once as Carpathia retreated to a corner, sobbing over the loss of his friends.

  A plainclothesman asked questions. Buck headed him off. “You have enough eyewitnesses here. Let me leave you my card and you can call if you need me, hmm?” The cop traded cards with him and Buck was permitted to leave.

  Buck grabbed his bag and sprinted for a cab, rushing back to the office. He shut and locked his office door and began furiously banging out every detail of the story. He had produced several pages when he received a call from Stanton Bailey. The old man could hardly catch his breath between his demanding questions, not allowing Buck to answer.

  “Where have you been? Why weren’t you at the press conference? Were you in there when Stonagal offed himself and took the Brit with him? You should have been here. There’s prestige for us having you in there. How are you going to convince anybody you were in there when you didn’t show up for the press conference? Cameron, what’s the deal?”

  “I hurried back here to get the story into the system.”

>   “Don’t you have an exclusive with Carpathia now?”

  Buck had forgotten that, and Plank hadn’t reconfirmed it. What was he supposed to do about that? He prayed but sensed no leading. How he needed to talk to Bruce or Chloe or even Captain Steele! “I’ll call Steve and see,” he said.

  Buck knew he couldn’t wait long to make the call, but he was desperate to know what to do. Should he allow himself to be in a room alone with Carpathia? And if he did, should he pretend to be under his mind control as everyone else seemed to be? If he hadn’t seen this for himself, he wouldn’t have believed it. Would he always be able to resist the influence with God’s help? He didn’t know.

  He dialed Steve’s cell and the call was returned a couple of minutes later. “Really busy here, Buck. What’s up?”

  “I was wondering if I’ve still got that exclusive with Carpathia.”

  “You’re kidding, right? You heard what happened here and you want an exclusive?”

  “Heard? I was there, Steve.”

  “Well, if you were here, then you probably know what happened before the press conference.”

  “Steve! I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “You’re not following me, Buck. I’m saying if you were here for the press conference, you heard about the Stonagal suicide in the preliminary meeting, the one you were supposed to come to.”

  Buck didn’t know what to say. “You saw me there, Steve.”

  “I didn’t even see you at the press conference.”

  “I wasn’t at the press conference, Steve, but I was in the room when Stonagal and Todd-Cothran died.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Buck. It’s not funny. You were supposed to be there, you weren’t there. I resent it, Carpathia is offended, and no, no exclusive.”

  “I have credentials! I got them downstairs!”

  “Then why didn’t you use them?”

  “I did!”

  Steve hung up on him. Marge buzzed and said the boss was on the line again. “What’s the deal with you not even going to that meeting?” Bailey said.