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at a time. "
"I'm fine, " Rayford said.
"Are you sayin' ?"
"That's what I'm saying, Mac. No pain. No wounds. Look at me. "
Rayford tore off his bandages. Even the hole in his temple was gone, though
where Leah had shaved around the stitching, he still had no hair. He bent and
yanked at the ankle wrap. Not even a scar. He jumped up and down, then
loosened the plastic shin splint and kicked it free.
"You don't say."
Rayford whooped and hollered. "I do say! Let's get out there, Mac! Get me into
the air. "
"Now I don't know about that, Ray."
"Then sit here and watch, man, because I'm going!"
Enoch was cozy under a light blanket in his chaise lounge in the backyard when
the sign appeared. He burst into tears and lifted his arms. "Praise God,
praise God, " he said, and began singing every worship song he knew. The cross
that extended from sky to sky towered, as the hymn writer had put it, "o'er
the wrecks of time." Something about the overwhelming majesty of it simply
communicated victory.
For how long had he prayed and carried a burden for the inner-city people to
whom God had sent him to minister? And for how long had he preached and taught
and warned of this very day, this very event? He'd had no idea what form it
would take, but this was perfect. "In the cross of Christ I
glory," he said, his voice thick.
Enoch slid off the cheap, rickety lounge chair and onto his knees, bowing
before God. Though he lowered his head and closed his eyes, still the image of
the cross in the sky stayed with him, as if burned onto the insides of his
eyelids.
As soon as Chang saw the cross on every screen in the bank of monitors before
him, he shouted for Naomi and she came running. Hand in hand they raced
outside and up to their favorite spot.
They didn't speak. There were no words for this. They stretched out on their
backs and stared and stared.
"Thank You! Thank You, God!" Abdullah exulted. At the first appearance of the
sign he had pointed the jet directly at the cross and throttled to full power.
Was it there, right in front of him, as
3-D objects had appeared to be in movie theaters when he was a child? It was
as if he could reach out and touch it, but though his craft reached top speed
in seconds, the cross never appeared to grow closer. Its horizontal arms, like
those of Jesus Himself, seemed to welcome the entire world into its embrace.
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The only logical follow-up was the Lord Himself, and Abdullah couldn't wait.
For two hours Sebastian had not known what the enemy was waiting for, and
maybe the enemy didn't either. But the sign became an impromptu trigger, and
suddenly the frisky horses of the Unity
Army were on the move. Their riders, now clearly visible because of the
pulsating cross in the sky, urged their mounts to full gallop.
And here they came.
"Big Dog One to all units," Sebastian intoned into his radio. "Hold your fire.
Wait. On my command. "
Protests from every side crowded his ears. "Hold, hold, hold," he said, though
platoon leaders from all around the perimeter reported the enemy literally
yards away.
"Have you lost your mind?" Otto squealed from a quarter mile to Sebastian's
left.
"Have you lost your faith, Otto?"
"Ree Woo to Big Dog: It's time, sir."
"Hold."
"Permission to speak my mind, sir," came an urgent transmission from Razor.
"Denied. Follow orders. "
The front line of the Unity Army closed the gap in seconds. Sebastian stood
his ground, facing horsemen with rifles pointed at him and others with swords
drawn. He knew he was as visible to them as they were to him, the Petra
perimeter suddenly bright as day. Only the sky behind the rugged cross was
black with cloud cover.
The Unity Army opened fire and Sebastian winced, but he did not turn or seek
shelter. A couple hundred of his own troops stood between the army and the
hillside that led almost straight up to the rose-red city of Petra, and all
were fired upon. Shooting from a galloping horse was no small chore, but
surely some of the bullets should have found their marks.
The pings of shrapnel ricocheting off rocks filled the air, and the looks on
the faces of the horsemen were priceless. Swordsmen steered their horses
behind the mounted riflemen and one, clearly troubled but determined, came
straight for Sebastian. George raised a hand and wiggled his fingers as if in
greeting or farewell and the blade-wielding soldier swung his rapier in a wide
arc while brushing past. It was as if the blade went right through Sebastian
at the waist.
Sebastian was now adrift in the middle of the Unity Army, and horseman after
horseman rode straight at him some shooting, some hacking with their swords.
None so much as jostled him.
One stopped and spun his horse around to try again, only to be overrun by a
wave of his own comrades who had nowhere to retreat to.
George turned and watched the assault on the hillside leading to Petra. The
army had apparently underestimated the riders' ability to stay aboard their
mounts as the horses managed the steep terrain, and everything slowed to a
halt. Those on the plain below kept coming, causing a traffic jam of biblical
proportions. Soldiers shouted at one another. Commanders screamed orders that
could not be followed.
Meanwhile, Sebastian and his people blithely walked through the midst of the
enemy, unscathed.
Chang ignored his phone as long as he could. He had considered turning it off,
deciding his work was finally over. But a sense of duty prevailed. He tore
away from the magnetic sign in the sky, shot Naomi an apologetic smile, and
answered.
It was his assistant. "You'll want to see this," he said.
"I'm already seeing what I want to see," Chang said.
"But you're still interested in the Jewish question, right?"
"The Jewish question?"
"What Dr. Rosenzweig called the 'worldwide turning to Messiah'?"
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"Of course, but that's been going on since Chaim's broadcast."
"And it picked up with the lightning storm. "
"Exactly," Chang said. "So what's new?"
"You must come and see. Massive doesn't begin to describe it. There must have
been millions still undecided, but no more. They're all coming to the Lord,
and it seems every one of them is letting us know. "
Rayford had never thought about what one wears to meet Jesus. He dug through
his closet, finding also as prophesied three-and-a-half-year-old but
good-as-new khakis, socks, and boots.
He was dressed in seconds.
"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin', Ray?"
"What?"
"That we got no business skedaddlin' out of here if you're healthy enough to
fight. There's a battle comin', and the both of us were supposed to be in it.
"
"Don't do this to me now, Mac."
"I don't want to be here any more'n you do, Ray. But Sebastian and Razor and
Otto and them are all tryin' to hold the perimeter. "
"Oh, man! Well, Abdullah's gone." Rayford was transported back to his
childhood when he would plead his case with his parents. "Why does he get to
do it?"
"Abdullah can answer to his own conscience."
"And I've got to answer to yours?"
"Just do the right thing, Ray."
"You staying, either way?"
"Got to. It's the way I'm made."
"You would have to get parental on me all of a sudden. "
"Do what you got to do, Ray. I'll understand. "
"I'm not flying without you, Mac. You really think God healed me so I can help
in a battle He's already promised to win?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]