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  Buck could see that Nicolae was succeeding in changing Jacov’s mind. “This is hard to argue with,” the driver said. “He has worked wonders.”

  “But Jacov,” Buck said, “you have been exposed to the teaching of Dr. Ben-Judah. Surely you must be convinced that the Scriptures are true, that Jesus is the Messiah, that the disappearances were the rapture of Christ’s church.”

  Jacov stared ahead, gripping the wheel tightly, his arms shaking. He nodded, but he looked conflicted. Buck no longer cared about rudeness. He would talk over Nicolae; he would not allow the enemy to steal this soul through slick talking.

  “What did you think of the teaching tonight?”

  “Most impressive,” Jacov admitted. “I cried. I felt myself drawn to him, but mostly drawn to God. I love and respect Dr. Rosenzweig, and he would never understand if I became a believer in Jesus. But if it is true, what else can I do?”

  Buck prayed silently, desperately.

  “But, Mr. Williams, I had never before heard the verse that Dr. Ben-Judah said was the reason for this meeting. And he was interrupted, was he not? He did not finish the verse.”

  “You’re right, he didn’t. It was John 3:16, and it goes, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only—’”

  But Buck got no further than Tsion had when Jacov held up a hand to silence him. “The potentate is finishing,” he said.

  Carpathia seemed to be wrapping up his remarks, but something was strange about his voice. Buck had never heard him struggle to speak, but he had grown hoarse. Carpathia turned away from the mike, covered his mouth, and attempted to clear his throat. “Pardon me,” he said, his voice still raspy. “But I wish you and the rabbi here all the best and welcome you, ahem, ahem, once again, excuse me—”

  Nicolae turned pleadingly to Tsion, who was still ignoring him. “Would someone have some water?”

  Someone passed a fresh bottle to the stage, where Nicolae nodded his thanks. When he opened it, the release of the pressure was magnified over the loudspeaker. But when he drank, he gagged and spit the water out. His lips and chin were covered in blood, and he held the bottle at arm’s length, staring at it in horror. Jacov jumped from the car and moved closer to the monitor. Buck knew why. Even at that distance, it was obvious the bottle contained blood.

  Buck followed as they heard Carpathia swearing, cursing Tsion and his “evil gaggle of enemies of the Global Community! You would humiliate me like this for your own gain? I should pull from you my pledge of protection and allow my men to shoot you dead where you stand!”

  From the middle of the stunned crowd came the shouted, unison voices of Eli and Moishe. Without need of amplification, everyone within a block of the place could hear them. The crowd fell back from around them, and the two stood in the eerie light of the stadium, shoulder to shoulder, barefoot and in sackcloth.

  “Woe unto you who would threaten the chosen vessel of the Most High God!”

  Carpathia threw the water bottle onto the floor of the stage, and clear, clean water splashed everywhere. Buck knew the witnesses had turned only Nicolae’s water to blood and that they had likely caused him to need the drink in the first place. Nicolae pointed at Eli and Moishe and screamed, “Your time is nigh! I swear I will kill you or have you killed before—”

  But the witnesses were louder, and Carpathia had to fall silent. “Woe!” they said again. “Woe to the impostor who would dare threaten the chosen ones before the due time! Sealed followers of the Messiah, drink deeply and be refreshed!”

  The bottle in Buck’s pocket suddenly felt cold. He pulled it out and felt the sting of frigidity in his palm. He twisted off the top and drank deeply. Icy, smooth, rich, thirst-quenching nectar cascaded down his throat. He moaned, not wanting to pull the bottle from his lips but needing to catch his breath. All around he heard the sighs of satisfied believers, sharing cold, refreshing bottles.

  “Taste this, Jacov!” Buck said, wiping off the top and handing it to him. “It’s very cold.”

  Jacov reached for the water. “It doesn’t feel cold to me,” he said.

  “How can you say that? Feel my hand.” Buck put his hand on Jacov’s arm, and Jacov flinched.

  “Your hand is freezing,” he said, “but the bottle feels warm to me.” He held it up to the light. “Agh! Blood!” And he dropped it. The bottle bounced at Buck’s feet, and he snatched it up before it emptied. It was again cold in his hands, and he couldn’t resist guzzling from it.

  “Don’t!” Jacov said. But as he watched Buck enjoy the clean water, he fell to his hands and knees. “Oh, God, I am no better than Carpathia! I want to be a child of God! I want to be a sealed one!”

  Buck squatted next to him and put an arm around his shoulder. “God wants you as part of his family,” he said.

  Jacov wept bitterly, then looked up at the whir of chopper blades. He and Buck stared at the TV monitor, where Tsion stood alone again on the stage. His hair and clothes flapped in the wind from the helicopter, and his notes were whipped into a funnel before scattering. Translators leapt onto the stage to retrieve them and set them back on the lectern. Tsion remained motionless, staring, having ignored the entire episode with Nicolae and the two witnesses.

  The camera panned to where the witnesses had appeared, but they had left as quickly as they had come. The crowd stood, mouths open, many still drinking and passing around water bottles. When they noticed Tsion back at the lectern, they quieted and sat. As if nothing had happened since he began quoting John 3:16, Tsion continued:

  “‘—begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’”

  Jacov, still on his knees, hands on his thighs, seemed glued to the TV image. “What?” he cried out. “What?”

  And as if he had heard Jacov, Tsion repeated the verse: “‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’”

  Jacov lowered his face to the pavement, sobbing. “I believe! I believe! God save me! Don’t let me perish! Give me everlasting life!”

  “He hears you,” Buck said. “He will not turn away a true seeker.”

  But Jacov continued to wail. Others in the crowd had fallen to their knees. Tsion said, “There may be some here, inside or outside, who want to receive Christ. I urge you to pray after me, ‘Dear God, I know I am a sinner. Forgive me and pardon me for waiting so long. I receive your love and salvation and ask you to live your life through me. I accept you as my Savior and resolve to live for you until you come again.’”

  Jacov repeated the prayer through tears, then rose to embrace Buck. He squeezed him so tight Buck could hardly breathe. Buck pulled away and thrust the water bottle into Jacov’s hand again.

  “Cold!” Jacov exulted.

  “Drink!” Buck said.

  Jacov held the bottle to the light again, smiling. It was clear. “And it’s full!”

  Buck stared. It was! Jacov put it to his lips and tilted his head back so far that he staggered and Buck had to hold him up. He gulped, but not fast enough, and the cool clear water gushed over his face and down his neck. Jacov laughed and cried and shouted, “Praise God! Praise God! Praise God!”

  “Let me look at you,” Buck said, laughing.

  “Do I look different?”

  “You’d better.” He took Jacov’s head in his hands and turned him toward the light. “You have the mark,” he said. “On your forehead.”

  Jacov pulled away and ran back toward the van. “I want to see it in the mirror.”

  “You won’t,” Buck said, following him. “For some reason we can’t see our own. But you should be able to see mine.”

  Jacov turned and stopped Buck, leaning close and squinting. “I do! A cross! And I have one, really?”

  “Really.”

  “Oh! Praise God!”

  They climbed back into the van, and Buck dialed Chloe’s phone. “This had better be you, Buck,” she said.

 
“It is.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “Sorry, but we have a new brother.”

  “Jacov?”

  “Want to talk to him?”

  “Of course. And don’t try to get back in, hon. It’s a madhouse. I’ll get Tsion out as soon as I can.”

  Buck handed the phone to Jacov. “Thank you, Mrs. Williams!” he said. “I feel brand new! I am brand new! Hurry and we can see each other’s marks!”

  At the safe house it was midafternoon. Rayford sat staring at the screen and shaking his head. “Do you believe this?” he said over and over. “I can’t believe Nicolae lost it like that.”

  Ken stood blocking the sun from the window. “I heard all the stories about them two witnesses, but man oh man, they are spooky. I’m glad they’re on our side. They are, aren’t they?”

  Dr. Charles laughed. “You know as well as we do that they are, if you’ve been following Tsion as closely on the Net as you say you have.”

  “This thing’s going to have the biggest TV audience in history tomorrow,” Rayford said, turning to see what Hattie thought of it. She too stared at the screen, but her face was deathly pale, and she appeared to try to speak. Her mouth was open, her lips quivering. She looked terrified. “You all right, Hattie?” he said.

  Floyd turned as Hattie emitted a piercing scream. She flopped onto her back, cradled her abdomen with both hands, and rolled to her side, gasping and groaning.

  Dr. Charles grabbed his stethoscope and asked Rayford and Ken to hold Hattie down. She fought them but seemed to know enough to try to stay quiet so Floyd could listen for the baby’s heartbeat. He looked grave. “What did you feel?” he asked.

  “No movement for a long time,” she said, gasping. “Then sharp pain. Did it die? Did I lose my baby?”

  “Let me listen again,” he said. Hattie held still. “I can’t tell with just a stethoscope,” he said. “And I don’t have a fetal monitor.”

  “You could tell if it was there!” Hattie said.

  “But I can’t be sure if I hear nothing.”

  “Oh, no! Please, no!”

  Floyd shushed her and listened carefully again. He felt all around her abdomen and then lay his ear flat on her belly. He straightened up quickly. “Did you tighten your abdominal muscles on purpose?” She shook her head. “Did you just feel a labor pain?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Cramping? Tightening?”

  She nodded.

  “Phone!” Floyd barked, and Ken tossed him his. The doctor dialed quickly. “Jimmy, it’s me. I need a sterile environment and a fetal monitor. . . . Don’t ask! . . . No, I can’t tell you that. Assume I’m within fifty to sixty miles of you. . . . No, I can’t come there.”

  “How ’bout Young Memorial in Palatine?” Ken whispered. “There’s a believer there.” Rayford looked up, surprised.

  Floyd covered the phone. “How close?”

  “Not that far.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy. Sorry to bother you. We found a place. I owe you one.”

  The doctor began barking orders. “Decide who’s gonna drive, and the other get me two blankets.”

  Rayford looked at Ken, who shrugged. “I’m easy,” he said. “I can drive or—”

  “Sometime today, gentlemen!”

  “You know where it is, you drive,” Rayford said, and he dashed upstairs. When he returned with the blankets, the Rover idled near the door, and Dr. Charles backed out of the house with Hattie in his arms. She squirmed and cried and screamed.

  “Should you move her?”

  “No choice,” Floyd said. “I’m afraid she’s about to spontaneously abort.”

  “No!” Hattie screeched. “I’m only staying alive for my baby!”

  “Don’t say that,” Rayford said as he squeezed past and opened the car door.

  “Yes, say that,” the doctor said. “Whatever it takes, keep fighting. Ray, get one blanket on the backseat and put the other over her as soon as I get her in there.”

  He wrestled Hattie into the car, her head near the far rear door. When Rayford draped the other blanket over her, Floyd got in and lay her feet across his lap. Rayford jumped into the front seat, and Floyd said, “Don’t hold back, Ken. Get us there as fast as you can.”

  Apparently that was all Ken needed to hear. He gunned the engine and backed out the way he had pulled in. He slid to a dusty stop, then spun over the ruts in the torn-up road in front of the house. They bumped and banged and nearly rolled a couple of times as he set a course for Palatine.

  “Am I bouncin’ too much?” he asked.

  “You’re not going to do either of them any more harm. Speed is more important than comfort now!” Floyd said. “Ray, help me.”

  Rayford twisted in his seat and grabbed Hattie’s wrist as the doctor wrapped both arms around her ankles. They steadied her as Ken pushed the car to its limits. Only one short stretch of paved road existed between the house and the hospital. Ken opened the Rover all the way over that quarter mile, and when he hit dirt at the end of it, the vehicle nearly went airborne.

  When the hospital came into view, Floyd said, “Find Emergency.”

  “Can’t do that,” Ken said. “I don’t know the woman’s name. I just saw her mark, and she works up front near Reception, not in Emergency. I say we pull up there and let me run in and find her. If she can get us an operating room, the fastest way would be to take Hattie right through the front door.”

  Floyd nodded, and Ken steered up onto the sidewalk near the entrance. “Go, Ken. Ray, help me with her.”

  Rayford jumped out and opened the door near Hattie’s head. She was unconscious. “I don’t like this,” the doctor said.

  “Let me take her,” Rayford said. “Just push her toward me, and then you lead the way in and talk to the woman if Ken’s found her.”

  “I’ve got her, Ray.”

  “Just do it!”

  “You’re right,” Floyd said, and he pushed as Rayford pulled and gathered Hattie to him. She felt as light as a little girl, despite her pregnancy. He wrestled with the blanket and charged up the steps behind Floyd. The woman with the mark of the cross on her forehead followed Ken toward the door, terror on her face.

  “You brothers are going to get me in trouble,” she said. “What have we got here?”

  “She’s about to miscarry,” Floyd said. “Are you certified in the OR?”

  “Years ago. I’ve been behind a desk since—”

  “I can’t trust anyone else. Lead us to an OR now.”

  “But—”

  “Now, dear!”

  The receptionist, a teenager, stared at them. The woman said, “Point those eyes elsewhere and keep your mouth shut. Got it?”

  “Didn’t see a thing,” the girl said.

  “What’s your name, ma’am?” Floyd said as they followed her down a corridor.

  “Leah.”

  “I recognize your risk, Leah. We appreciate it.”

  Leah peered at Hattie as she opened the operating room door and pointed at the table. “I’m not her sister, apparently.”

  Floyd stared at her. “So we let her die, is that it?”

  “I didn’t mean that, Doctor. You are a doctor?” He nodded. “I just meant, you’re going to a lot of trouble and danger for someone who isn’t, you know—”

  “One of us?” he said, rushing to the scrubbing area. He grabbed a gown from a stack and headed to the sink. “Scrub with me. You’re going to assist.”

  “Doctor, I—”

  “Let’s go, Leah. Now.”

  She stepped beside him at the sink. Ken stood near the still unconscious Hattie. Rayford felt useless, waiting between the table and the scrub room. “Are we messing up the sterile environment in here?” he asked.

  “Try not to touch anything,” Floyd said. “We’re breaking a lot of rules.”

  “I wasn’t implying—,” Leah began.

  “Faster,” Floyd said, scrubbing more quickly than Rayford imagined it could be
done. “We want to give this girl every chance to become one of us before she dies.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  “Let’s concentrate on the patient. As soon as you’re ready, I want you to paint her with Betadine from sternum to thighs, and I mean paint. Use a liter if you have to. You don’t have time to be precise, so just don’t miss a thing. And have a fetal monitor on her by the time I get in there. If that baby is alive, I may try to take it C-section. You’ll have to handle anesthesia.”

  “I have no experience—”

  “I’ll walk you through it, Leah. How about we rise to the occasion?”

  “I’m going to lose my job.”

  “Humph,” the doctor said. “I hope that’s the worst thing that happens to you. You see the people in this room? I lost mine the other day. So did Captain Steele. Ken lost his home.”

  “I know him. He was a patient here.”

  “Really?” He followed her into the operating theater.

  “And how about the patient?” she asked, quickly applying the fetal monitor.

  “Hattie too. We’re all in the same boat. Prep her.”

  Ken and Rayford moved closer to the door. Floyd checked the fetal monitor and shook his head. He hooked her to other various monitors. “Actually, her respiration is not bad,” he said. “BP’s low. Pulse high. Go figure.”

  “That’s weird, Doctor.”

  “She’s been poisoned.”

  “With what?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Doctor, did you call her Hattie?”

  He nodded.

  “She’s not who I think she is, is she?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said, moving into position. “You ever hear of another Hattie?”

  “Not in this century. Does her, um, boyfriend know what’s going on, or should we plan a trip to a gulag somewhere when he finds out?”

  “He did this to her, Leah. When you got the mark you became his archenemy, so now you’re on the front lines, that’s all.”

  “That’s all?”

  Rayford watched, praying for Hattie as Floyd positioned the glaring overhead light. “Dilated. Seven or eight centimeters.”