The Indwelling: The Beast Takes Possession (25 page)

“Just call him Doctor. He’ll hear you.”

Someone tossed Buck a blanket, and he saw more workers sprinting down the runway to the other half of the plane. He tried to stand. Everything hurt. His head throbbed. He was dizzy. He pulled the blanket around himself, feeling every muscle and bone, and staggered out the front of the wreckage to solid ground. He stood there, swaying, assuring everyone he was all right. He had to get to T.

There was nothing he could do for Chaim. If the worst he had was a racing pulse and facial lacerations, he should be all right. It was too late to toll him not to use his own name.

Buck started toward the other end of the runway, but he moved so slowly and shook so much that he wondered if he could make it. The ground beckoned and almost took him several times. But though he knew he had to look like a drunk, he kept forcing one foot in front of the other. An emergency medical technician ran toward him from the cockpit half and another came from the tail end. As they got close to Buck, he thought they were going to carry him the rest of the way.

He would not have resisted.

But they ignored him and shouted to each other. The one from behind him told the other, “Old guy back there looks like the Israeli who died in a house fire last night.”

“He gets that a lot,” Buck said, realizing that neither heard him.

“How’s the pilot?” the first
EMT
said, but Buck didn’t hear the response.

“What’d he say?” he called after the man, who was now running for the cockpit.

“He didn’t!”

Buck hadn’t seen the man shake his head in response either, but maybe he hadn’t been watching carefully enough. At long last he arrived at the front end of the plane. No one was working on T. That could be good or bad. He heard someone call for a body bag.

That couldn’t be. If he and Chaim had survived the jolt, surely T had. He was in better shape than either passenger. One of the workers tried to block Buck’s way into the plane, but Buck gave him a look and a weak shove, and the man knew there would be no dissuading him. “Please don’t touch the body,” the man said.

“It’s not a body,” Buck slurred. They had for sure misread this one, hurriedly misdiagnosed whatever the problem was. “It’s a friend, our pilot.”

The cockpit portion had come to rest directly under a huge runway lamp, which filled the wreckage with light.

Buck saw no blood, no bones, no twisted limbs. He stepped behind T, who was sitting straight up, still strapped in. His left hand lay limp on his lap, his right hung open-palmed in the space between the seats. T’s head hung forward, chin on his chest.

“T,” Buck said, a hand on his shoulder, “how we doin’, pal?”

T felt warm, thick, and muscly. Buck put a finger to the right pressure point in the neck. Nothing. Buck felt the blanket slide from his shoulders. He slumped painfully into the seat across from T and grabbed the lifeless hand in both of his. “Oh, T,” he said. “Oh, T.”

The rational part of his brain told him there would be more of this. More friends and fellow believers would die. They would reunite within three and a half years.

But though he didn’t know T the way Rayford had, this one still hurt. Here was a quiet, steady man who had risked his life and freedom more than once for the Tribulation Force. And now he had made the ultimate sacrifice.

“We need to remove the body and the wreckage, sir. I’m sorry. This is an active runway.”

Buck stood and bent over T, taking his head in his arms. “I’ll see you at the Eastern Gate,” he whispered.

Buck dragged his blanket out of the plane but could walk no farther. He tried to sit on the edge of the runway but couldn’t catch himself and rolled on his back.

A stiff breeze chilled the back of his neck, and he didn’t have the energy to protest when he felt a hand in his pocket. “Anyone meeting you here, Mr. Staub?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“Miklos.”

“Lukas Miklos, the lignite guy?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s in the terminal. Can you make it?”

“No.”

“We’ll get a gurney out here.”

Buck watched as T’s body was lifted out in a bag.

“Take care of the old guy back there,” Buck managed, pointing the other way.

“We’ve got the old man,” someone said. “Bloody nose and a jittery heart, but he’ll make it.”

And Buck was out again.

The skies began to darken in Chicago at around seven, but Rayford decided to wait until eight to venture out.

He wanted the skies black and no one even looking their direction. The city had been abandoned, condemned, and cordoned off for months, and it wouldn’t have surprised him to know that not even a leftover drunk walked those streets.

Radiation or not, decaying bodies littered many streets. It might be a safer place to hide out, but it was not going to be a fun place to live.

He pulled slowly from under the L platform with his lights off, hoping to kick up as little dust as possible.

There would be no shooting straight into the Loop on the Dan Ryan. Nothing was as it once was.

Between separate bombing raids and the great earthquake, some reconstruction had been attempted, but these were meant to be shortcuts, two-lane roads that cut straight through the city. But only a few were even half finished, so the most direct route anywhere was as straight a line as you could point-over, under, around, and through the natural and man-made obstacles in the best four-wheel-drive vehicle you could find.

Rayford guessed he had between fifteen and twenty miles to drive, his lights off most of the way, traveling at around ten miles an hour. “I hope this is all David says it is,” he said.

“Me too,” Chloe said. “For my sake. Of course, I watched his little cybertour of the place. If it’s half what it looks like, it’s going to be as close to ideal as we can find.”

Leah was asleep.

David showed up at the statue construction site a few minutes after five in the morning, Carpathia Time. Guy started in with something sarcastic about how now they could finish their work. David held up both hands.

“Sorry if I held you up. Minister Blod, a word, please?”

Guy seemed so shocked that David had addressed him with proper protocol in front of his staff that he dropped what he was doing and joined him several feet away.

David thrust out his hand, and Guy, clearly suspicious, shook it tentatively. “I want to apologize for speaking inappropriately to you, sir. I trust you’ll find me helpful and not a hindrance to your work from here on.”

“What?”

“I said I want to apologize—”

“I heard you, Hayseed. I’m waiting for the punch line.”

“That’s all I had to say, sir.”

“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop!” Guy said in a singsong tone.

“That’s all, sir. Will you forgive me?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, that’s all, sir—”

“I heard you; I’m trying to digest this. The supreme commander put you up to this, didn’t he? Well, I didn’t squeal on you. C’mon, who made you do this?”

David would have loved to have said “God” and blown Guy’s mind. “No outside influence, Minister Blod. No ulterior motives. Just want to start over on the right foot.”

“Well, count me in, mister!”

“Is that an acceptance of my apology?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be, soldier!”

“Thanks. No sense holding up the work any longer.”

“I should say not. We’re ready to roll in five.”

BUCK
struggled to open his eyes. He had never felt so beat-up.

The dawn sun peeked through the blinds in a small infirmary, he wasn’t sure where. He had awakened to the quiet praying of three men who sat holding hands.

One he recognized as Lukas Miklos. The others were a tall, dark-haired man about his own age and an older, smaller, Middle Easterner.

“How are you feeling, my friend?” Lukas said, approaching.

“I’ve been better, Laslos, but you’re a sight. Where are we, and how is Chaim?”

Lukas stepped closer and whispered. “Chaim will be all right, but we had to come up with an alias for him. His nose was severely damaged and his jaw broken. So he has not spoken, and medical personnel are not suspicious, only curious. He is being operated on right now. Our document forger pulled off the impossible, so …”

“And our pilot is gone, right? I wasn’t hallucinating.”

“That is correct. Praise God he was a believer. His papers identified him as Tyrola Mark Delanty. Was this an alias, or—?”

“Didn’t need an alias. He ran a small airport near us and was able to evade suspicious eyes.”

Laslos nodded. “The GC will not allow bodies to be transported internationally.

Let our church handle the burial.”

Buck rolled his shoulders and rotated his head. Pain shot through his neck.

“What’s your guy going to do about Chaim’s picture?”

Lukas looked over his shoulder. “Look what we planted after surgery.” He showed Buck an ID with the photograph nearly scraped off, a bit of white hair peeking through the top. “Doesn’t that look like it went through the crash? We tried to persuade officials to postpone surgery until the swelling reduced, but they’re short staffed here, like everywhere. Meanwhile, he’s Tobias Rogoff, a retired librarian from Gaza on his way to North America on a charter flight, the same one you’re on.”

“Does he know this?”

“We told him a few hours ago. Our story is that the charter insurance company has contracted with Albie Air to guarantee the completion of the trip as soon as you two are airworthy.”

“I’m airworthy now,” Buck said, looking over Laslos’s shoulder toward the little Middle Easterner. “You must be Albie.”

“I am, sir,” he said with a thick accent and a slight bow. “Your father-in-law and your friend Mr. McCullum and I go way back. Also Abdullah Smith.”

“How well I know. I did not expect to see your mark. Is my father-in-law aware?”

Albie shook his head. “This was very recent, within the week. I tried to contact Rayford, but I found him impossible to connect with. Of course, now I know why.”

“And how did you come to faith, sir?”

“Nothing dramatic, I’m afraid. I have always been religious, but Rayford and Mac and Abdullah all urged me to at least consider the writings of Dr. Ben-Judah.

Finally I did. You know what reached me? His assessment of the difference between religion and Christianity.”

“I know it well,” Buck said, “if you’re referring to his contention that religion is man’s attempt to reach God, while Jesus is God’s attempt to reach man.”

“The very argument,” Albie said. “I spent a couple of days surfing the archives of Dr. Ben-Judah’s Web site, saw all his explanations of the prophesied plagues and judgments, then studied the prophecies about the coming Christ. How anyone with a functioning mind could read that and not—”

“Forgive me, Albie,” Laslos said, “but we must keep moving. We should tell you, Buck, that Dr. Rosenzweig’s eyes danced at the prospect of a new identity. We don’t know how long it will be before he can speak, but it’s clear he can’t wait to playact as someone else.”

Buck slid off the side of the bed. “Are we near the airport?”

Laslos shook his head. “We’re north of Kozani. Albie has flown the new craft to Ptolemai’s, and when you and, ah, Tobias are healthy, you’ll leave from there.

Meanwhile, as soon as we can get you out of here, you’ll stay with us at the same safe house where we harbored Rayford.”

“We have not met,” Buck said, reaching past Laslos’s hand to shake hands with the tall, willowy one.

“I’m sorry,” Laslos said. “Pastor Demeter.”

The pastor said, “Mr. Williams, I answered your phone awhile ago and talked to your wife. She and your father-in-law are checking out a new safe house, and she was very relieved to hear that you and Chaim are alive. Naturally, they are distraught over Mr. Delanty, particularly Rayford. Mrs. Williams wants to talk with you as soon as you are able.”

“I want to get home soon,” Buck said. “Albie, I’ll bet you weren’t planning on flying that far, were you?”

“I have nothing to return to Al Basrah for, Mr. Williams. Could you use another craft and another pilot?”

“Oh, I think the Trib Force might find room for the best black-market contact in the world.”

Demetrius handed Buck his phone. As Buck dialed, Laslos explained that so far they had not seemed to arouse suspicion on the parts of the local GC. “They r believe Demetrius works for me and that you are an American come to study the business.”

Chloe didn’t like the plan. “Get out of there, Buck,” she told him. “We’ve found the perfect safe house. Even my curmudgeon father hopes so. Chaim is smart, but this clandestine stuff is not his game. Let us get you two healthy here.”

“You may be right, Chlo’,” he said. “What time is it there? I’ve got to call my dad.”

She paused. “Buck, it’s after eight in the evening and earlier out west, but that was one of the reasons I wanted to talk with you.”

He read it in her voice.

“Dad?”

“Yes.”

“And—”

“Your brother too, Buck. I’m so sorry.”

“How?”

“GC.”

“Looking for us?”

“That’s what we understand.”

“But they didn’t know where we are! That’s why I never told them!”

“I know, sweetheart. There may be some good news too.”

“What?”

“Our source tells us that the first attempt to get information out of them had to be postponed. They were at church.”

“Chloe, don’t.”

“It’s true, Buck. Leah found a believer at Buffer who has access to these schemes, and she says that’s from a reliable source.”

“Why wouldn’t Dad have told me?”

“Maybe the timing wasn’t right.”

“I wish I could know for sure.”

“Leah is trying to reach the church so they know what happened and can be on guard. She’ll ask for the truth about your dad and brother.”

Rayford had had to stop driving when news came of T’s death. He walked a couple of blocks in the darkness, and when Chloe asked if she could walk with him, he thanked her but added, “I need a few minutes, hon.”

Chicago was, naturally, a mess. Buildings in piles, rotting carcasses, vehicles crashed or burned. It seemed an appropriate ambience for Rayford’s sojourn.