Assassins: Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist (37 page)

“Nonsense!” Chaim said. “Now―”

“Oh, boss,” Jacov said quickly. “I don’t want to be up there anyway. Please.”

Buck saw Chaim close his eyes wearily and wave with the back of his hand. “Just get me up there.”

“You have to go through the metal detector,” the guard said. “No exceptions.”

“Fine! Let’s go!”

“You first, son.”

Jacov’s keys set off the alarm. He succeeded on his second try.

“I’ll need you out of the chair briefly, Dr. Rosenzweig,” the guard said. “My men can support you.”

“No they can’t!” Chaim said.

“Sir,” Jacov said, “he had a stroke Mon―”

“I know all about that.”

“Do you want to insult an Israeli, and may I say, global statesman?”

The guard appeared at a loss. “I have to at least search him.”

“Very well,” Chaim growled. “Be quick!”

The guard felt Chaim’s arms and legs and back, patting him down all over. “Your getaway would have been a little slow anyway,” he said.

Jacov and three guards lifted the chair to the stage and rolled Chaim to the left end of the row of chairs. The guard signaled Jacov to return. “I’m to leave him up here alone now?”

“I’m sorry,” the guard said.

Jacov shrugged. Chaim said, “Go on! I’ll be fine.”

Jacov descended and joined Buck near the front. They watched as Chaim amused himself by steering the motorized wheelchair back and forth across the vast, empty stage, to the delight of the growing crowd.

The sky was dark, but the vast lighting system bathed the plaza. Rayford guessed the crowd bigger than on opening day, but subdued.

Their helicopters having been pressed into earthquake relief, the VIPs were transported in a motor coach. No fanfare or music or dancing, no opening prayer. The potentates mounted the steps, shook hands with each other and with Chaim, and waited in front of their chairs. Leon walked Nicolae up, surrounded by the security detail. The assembled broke into warm, sustained applause, no cheering or whistling.

Leon quickly introduced the potentates, then said, “There is one other very special guest we are particularly pleased to welcome, but His Excellency has requested that privilege. And so, with heartfelt thanks for your support during this time, I give you once again, His Excellency, Nicolae Carpathia.”

Rayford reached inside his robe with both hands, separated the Saber, and silently told God he was prepared to produce it at the right moment.

A restrained Carpathia quickly quieted the applause. “Let me add my deep thanks to that of our supreme commander’s and also my abject sympathies to you who have suffered. I will not keep you long, because I know many of you need to return to your homelands and are concerned about transportation. Flights are going from both airports, though there are, of course, delays.

“Now before my remarks, let me introduce my guest of honor. He was to have been here Monday, but he was overtaken by an untimely stroke. It gives me great pleasure to announce the miraculous rallying of this great man, enough so that he joins us tonight in his wheelchair, with wonderful prospects for complete recovery. Ladies and gentlemen of the Global Community, a statesman, a scientist, a loyal citizen, and my dear friend, the distinguished Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig!”

The crowd erupted as Carpathia pointed toward Chaim, and Rayford sensed his opportunity. People in front of him lifted their arms to clap and wave, and he quickly raised the weapon and took aim. But Chaim reached with his good arm as if to offer it to Carpathia, and Nicolae bounded over to the wheelchair to embrace the old man.

No way Rayford would fire that close to Rosenzweig. He lowered the weapon, hidden under the folds of his billowy sleeve, and watched the awkward embrace. Nicolae raised Chaim’s good arm, and the crowd cheered again. Carpathia returned to the lectern and the moment was lost.

Mac McCullum knew Buck Williams was somewhere in the crowd. Maybe he would try to make contact when it was over. Was Abdullah also there? And why had he said he wasn’t coming?

Quivering from the close call, Rayford tasted bile, Carpathia so repulsed him.

“Fellow citizens,” Nicolae began somberly, “in the very young history of our one-world government, we have stood shoulder to shoulder against great odds, as we do tonight.

“I had planned a speech to send us back to our homes with renewed vigor and a rededication to Global Community ideals. Tragedy has made that talk unnecessary. We have proven again that we are a people of purpose and ideals, of servanthood and good deeds.”

From behind Carpathia, three potentates rose. That seemed to obligate the other seven, who slowly and seemingly reluctantly stood. Carpathia noticed the attention of the crowd was behind him and turned, seeing first three, then all ten potentates stand and clap. The crowd joined the applause, and Rayford thought he saw Carpathia and Fortunato trade glances.

Was something afoot? Were those the three Mac had said might not be so loyal as Nicolae thought?

The potentates sat again, and for the first time since the meetings at Kollek Stadium, Carpathia seemed at a loss for words. He started again, paused, repeated himself, then turned back to the potentates and joked, “Do not do that to me.”

The crowd applauded anew, and Nicolae milked the situation for a bigger laugh. Obviously covering his own concern, he began to speak, looked back quickly, and turned again, engendering titters from the audience.

Suddenly the three potentates stood again and applauded as if trying to make points with Nicolae, though Rayford noticed one had reached into the inside pocket of his jacket as he rose. It was clear the crowd thought the clapping potentates were some sort of an impromptu bit. When Chaim suddenly steered his chair out of place and rolled toward Fortunato, the crowd laughed and exulted in earnest.

Rayford was distracted from his left. Hattie? There was no way. He tried to keep her in sight, but the people in front of him raised their hands again, shouting, clapping, jumping. He leveled the gun between them, aimed betwixt two security guards at Nicolae, and tried to squeeze the trigger. He could not! His arm was paralyzed, his hand shaking, his vision swimming. Would God not allow it? Had he run too far ahead? He felt a fool, a coward, powerless despite the weapon. He stood shaking, Carpathia in his sights. As the crowd celebrated, Rayford was bumped from the back and side and the gun went off. At the explosion the sea of panicked people parted around him. Rayford ran with a bunch of them, dropping the weapon and letting the other half of the box fall. People screamed and trampled each other.

As Rayford pushed his way into a gridlock of bodies, he sneaked a peek at the stage. Carpathia was not in sight.

The potentates scattered and dived for cover, one dropping something as he tumbled off the platform. Rayford could not see Fortunato either, at first. The lectern had been shattered and the entire one-hundred-foot-wide back curtain ripped off its frame and blown away from the stage. Rayford imagined the bullet passing through Nicolae and taking out the backdrop.

Had God used him in spite of his cowardice? Could he have fulfilled prophecy? The shooting had been a mistake! He had not meant to do it!

Buck had ducked under a scaffold at the sound of the gun. A tidal wave of humanity swept past him on both sides, and he saw glee on some faces. Converts from the Wailing Wall who had seen Carpathia murder their heroes?

By the time Buck looked to the stage, the potentates were leaping off, the drapery was flying into the distance, and Chaim appeared catatonic, his head rigid.

Carpathia lay on the platform, blood running from eyes, nose, and mouth, and―it appeared to Buck―from the top of his head. His lapel mike was still hot, and because Buck was directly under a speaker tower, he heard Nicolae’s liquid, guttural murmur, “But I thought … I thought… I did everything you asked.”

Fortunato draped his stocky body over Carpathia’s chest, reached beneath him, and cradled him. Sitting on the stage, he rocked his potentate, wailing.

“Don’t die, Excellency!” Fortunato bawled. “We need you! The world needs you!
I
need you!”

Security forces surrounded them, brandishing Uzis. Buck had experienced enough trauma for one day. He stood transfixed, with a clear view of the back of Carpathia’s blood-matted skull.

The wound was unmistakably fatal. And from where Buck stood, it was obvious what had caused it.

“I did not expect a gunshot,” Tsion said, staring at the television as GC Security cleared the stage and whisked Carpathia away.

Two hours later GC
CNN
confirmed the death and played over and over the grieving pronouncement of Supreme Commander Leon Fortunato. “We shall carry on in the courageous spirit of our founder and moral anchor, Potentate Nicolae Carpathia. The cause of death will remain confidential until the investigation is complete. But you may rest assured the guilty party will be brought to justice.”

The news media reported that the slain potentate’s body would lie in state in the New Babylon palace before entombment there on Sunday.

“Don’t leave the TV, Chloe,” Tsion said. “You have to assume the resurrection will be caught on camera.”

But when Friday became Saturday in Mount Prospect and Saturday night approached, even Tsion began to wonder. The Scriptures had not foretold of death by projectile. Antichrist was to die from a specific wound to the head and then come back to life. Carpathia still lay in state.

By dawn Sunday, as Tsion gloomily watched mourners pass the glass bier in the sun-drenched courtyard of the GC palace, he had begun to doubt himself.

Had he been wrong all along?

Two hours before the burial, David Hassid was called in to Leon Fortunato’s office. Leon and his directors of Intelligence and Security huddled before a TV monitor. Leon’s face revealed abject grief and the promise of vengeance. “Once His Excellency is in the tomb,” he said, his voice thick, “the world can approach closure. Prosecuting his murderer can only help. Watch with us, David. The primary angles were blocked, but look at this collateral view. Tell me if you see what we see.”

David watched.

Oh, no! he thought. It couldn’t be!

“Well?” Leon said, peering at him. “Is there any doubt?”

David stalled, but that only made the other two glance at him.

“The camera doesn’t lie,” Leon said. “We have our assassin, don’t we?”

Much as he wanted to come up with some other explanation for what was clear, David would jeopardize his position if he proved illogical. He nodded. “We sure do.”