The Rapture Series
Why Do you Believe? What Do you Believe? How Do You Believe? Who Do You Believe?
“Reason to Believe”
Natszal: "Left" (3:3)
“LEFT”
THE EARTH'S LAST DAYS
TIM LAHAYE & JERRY B. JENKINS
Hattie looked embarrassed and uncomfortable, and Rayford noticed she took a sheepish peek at the other seven pilots in the copter. None seemed to return her gaze. This disaster was still too fresh and there were too many unknowns. Rayford thought he heard or lip-read one of them saying, “Christopher Smith,” but there was no way he could hear inside the raucous craft. He put his mouth next to Hattie's ear.
“Now what about Chris?” he said.
She turned and spoke into his ear. “They wheeled him past us while I was going into the lounge. Blood all over!” “What happened?” “I don't know, but, Rayford, he didn't look good!” “How bad?” “I think he was dead! I mean, they were working on him, but I'd be surprised if he
made it.” Rayford shook his head. What next? “Did he get hit or something? Did that bus crash?” Wouldn't that be ironic!
“I don't know,” she said. “The blood seemed like it was coming from his hand or his
waist or both.” Rayford tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Do you know anything about First Officer Christopher Smith?”
“He with Pan-Con?” the pilot said. “Yes!” “Was he the suicide?” Rayford recoiled. “I don't think so! Was there a suicide?” “Lots of 'em, I guess, but mostly passengers. Only crew member I heard about was
a Smith from Pan. Slit his wrists.” Rayford quickly scanned the others in the chopper to see if he recognized anyone.
He didn't, but one was nodding sadly, having overheard the pilot's shouting. He leaned forward. “Chris Smith! You know him?” “My first officer!” “Sorry.” “What'd you hear?” “Don't know how reliable this is, but the rumor is he found out his boys had
disappeared and his wife was killed in a wreck!” For the first time the enormity of the situation became personal for Rayford. He didn't know Smith well. He vaguely remembered Chris had two sons. Seemed they were young teenagers, very close in age. He had never met the wife. But suicide! Was that an option for Rayford? No, not with Chloe still there. But what if he had
discovered that Irene and young Ray were gone and Chloe had been killed? What would he have to live for? He hadn't been living for them anyway, certainly not the last several months. He
had been playing around on the edges of his mind with the girl in his lap, though he had never gone so far as touching her, even when she often touched him. Would he want to live if Hattie Durham were the only person he cared about? And why did he care about her? She was beautiful and sexy and smart, but only for her age. They had little in common. Was it only because he was convinced Irene was gone that he now longed to hold his own wife?
There was no affection in his embrace of Hattie Durham just now, nor in hers. Both were scared to death, and flirting was the last thing on their minds. The irony was not lost on him. He recalled that the last thing he daydreamed about—before Hattie's announcement—was finally making a move on her. How could he have known she would be in his lap hours later and that he would have no more interest in her than in a stranger?
The first stop was the Des Plaines Police Department, where Hattie disembarked.
Rayford advised her to ask for a ride home with the police if a squad car was available. Most had been pressed into service in more congested areas, so that was unlikely. “I'm only about a mile from here anyway!” Hattie shouted above the roar as Rayford helped her from the chopper. “I can walk!” She wrapped her arms around his neck in a fierce embrace, and he felt her quiver in fear. “I hope everyone's OK at your place!” she said. “Call me and let me know, ok?”
He nodded. “OK?” she insisted. “OK!” As they lifted off he watched her survey the parking lot. Spotting no squad cars, she
turned and hurried off, pulling her suitcase on wheels. By the time the helicopter began to swing toward Mount Prospect, Hattie was trotting toward her condominium.
Buck Williams had been the first passenger from his flight to reach the terminal at O'Hare. He found a mess. No one waiting in line for a phone would put up with his trying to plug his modem into it, and he couldn't get his cellular phone to work, so he made his way to the exclusive Pan-Con Club. It, too, was jammed, but despite a loss of personnel, including the disappearance of several employees while on the job, some semblance of order prevailed. Even here people waited in line for the phones, but as each became available, it was understood that some might try faxing or connecting directly by modem. While Buck waited, he went to work again on his computer, reattaching the inside modem cord to the female connector. Then he called up the messages that he had quickly downloaded before landing.
The first was from Steve Plank, his executive editor, addressed to all field personnel:
Stay put. Do not try to come to New York. Impossible here. Call when you can. Check your voice mail and your Email regularly. Keep in touch as possible. We have enough staff to remain on schedule, and we want personal accounts, on-thescene stuff, as much as you can transmit. Not sure of transportation and communications lines between us and our printers, nor their employee levels. If possible, we'll print on time. Just a note: Begin thinking about the causes. Military? Cosmic? Scientific? Spiritual? But so far we're dealing mainly with what happened. Take care, and keep in touch.
The second message was also from Steve and was for Buck's eyes only.
Buck, ignore general staff memo. Get to New York as soon as you can at any
expense. Take care of family matters, of course, and file any personal experience or reflections, just like everyone else. But you're going to head up this effort to get at what's behind the phenomenon. Ideas are like egos—everybody's got one.
Whether we'll come to any conclusions, I don't know, but at the very least we'll catalog the reasonable possibilities. You may wonder why we need you here to do this; I do have an ulterior motive. Sometimes I think because of the position I'm in, I'm the only one who knows these things; but three different department editors have turned in story ideas on various international groups meeting in New York this month. Political editor wants to cover a Jewish Nationalist conference in Manhattan that has something to do with a new world order government. What they care about that, I don't know and the political editor doesn't either. Religion editor has something in my in box about a conference of Orthodox Jews also coming for a meeting. These are not just from Israel but apparently all over, and they are no longer haggling over the Dead Sea Scrolls. They're still giddy over the destruction of Russia and her allies—which I know, you still think was supernatural, but hey, I love you anyway. Religion editor thinks they're looking for help in rebuilding the temple. That may be no big deal or have anything to do with anything other than the religion department, but I was struck by the timing—with the other Jewish group meeting at pretty much the same time and at the same place about something entirely political. The other religious conference in town is among leaders of all the major religions, from the standard ones to the New Agers, also talking about a one-world religious order. They ought to get together with the Jewish Nationalists, huh? Need your brain on this. Don't know what to make of it, if anything.
I know all anybody cares about is the disappearances. But we need to keep an eye on the rest of the world. You know the United Nations has that international monetarist confab coming up, trying to gauge how we're all doing with the three-currency thing. Personally I like it, but I'm a little skittish about going to one currency unless it's dollars. Can you imagine trading in yen or marks here? Guess I'm still provincial.
Everybody's pretty enamored with this Carpathia guy from Romania who so impressed your friend Rosenzweig. He's got everybody in a bind in the upper house in his own country because he's been invited to speak at the U.N. in a couple of weeks. Nobody knows how he wangled an invitation, but his international popularity reminds me a lot of Walesa or even Gorbachev. Remember them? Ha!
Hey, friend, get word to me you didn't disappear As far as I know right now, I lost a niece and two nephews, a sister-in law I didn't like, and possibly a couple of other distant relatives. You think they'll be back? Well, save that till we get rolling on what's behind this. If I had to guess, I'm anticipating some God-awful ransom demand. I mean, it's not like these people who disappeared are dead. What in the world is going to happen to the life insurance industry? I'm not ready to start believing the tabloids. You just know they're going to be saying the space aliens finally got us.
Get in here, Buck.
(blogger)
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