Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind Series 4

Soul Harvest:

The World Takes Sides

Book 4 of the Left Behind Series

TIM LAHAYE & JERRY B. JENKINS

ONE

Rayford Steele wore the uniform of the enemy of his soul, and he hated himself for

it. He strode through Iraqi sand toward Baghdad Airport in his dress blues and was

Struck by the incongruity of it all.

From across the parched plain he heard the wails and Screams of hundreds he

wouldn't begin to be able to help. Any prayer of finding his wife alive depended on

how quickly he could get to her. But there was no quick here. Only sand. And what

about Chloe and Buck in the States? And Tsion?

Desperate, frantic, mad with frustration, he ripped off his natty waistcoat with its

yellow braid, heavy epaulettes, and arm patches that identified a senior officer of

the Global Community. Rayford did not take the time to unfasten the solid-gold

buttons but sent them popping across the desert floor. He let the tailored jacket slide

from his shoulders and clutched the collar in his fists. Three, four, five times he

raised the garment over his head and slammed it to the ground. Dust billowed and

sand kicked up over his patent leather shoes.

Rayford considered abandoning all vestiges of his connection to Nicolae Carpathia's

regime, but his attention was drawn again to the luxuriously appointed arm patches.

He tore at them, intending to rip them free, as if busting himself from his own rank

in the service of the Antichrist. But the craftsmanship allowed not even a fingernail

between the stitches, and Rayford slammed the coat to the ground one more time.

He stepped and booted it like an extra point, finally aware of what had made it

heavier. His phone was in the pocket.

As he knelt to retrieve his coat, Rayford's maddening logic returned—the

practicality that made him who he was. Having no idea what he might find in the

ruins of his condominium, he couldn't treat as dispensable what might constitute his

only remaining set of clothes.

Rayford jammed his arms into the sleeves like a little boy made to wear a jacket on

a warm day. He hadn't bothered to shake the grit from it, so as he plunged on toward

the skeletal remains of the airport, Rayford's lanky frame was less impressive than

usual. He could have been the survivor of a crash, a pilot who'd lost his cap and

seen the buttons stripped from his uniform.

Rayford could not remember a chill before sundown in all the months he'd lived in

Iraq. Yet something about the earthquake had changed not only the topography, but

also the temperature. Rayford had been used to damp shirts and a sticky film on his

skin. But now wind, that rare, mysterious draft, chilled him as he speed-dialed Mac

McCullum and put the phone to his ear.

At that instant he heard the chug and whir of Mac's chopper behind him. He

wondered where they were going.

“Mac here,” came McCullum's gravely voice.

Rayford whirled and watched the copter eclipse the descending sun. “I can't believe

this thing works,” Rayford said. He had slammed it to the ground and kicked it, but

he also assumed the earthquake would have taken out nearby cellular towers.

“Soon as I get out of range, it won't, Ray,” Mac said. “Everything's down for as far

as I can see. These units act like walkie-talkies when we're close. When you need a

cellular boost, you won't find it.”

“So any chance of calling the States—”

“Is out of the question,” Mac said. “Ray, Potentate Carpathia wants to speak to you,

but first—”

“I don't want to talk to him, and you can tell him that.”

“But before I give you to him,” Mac continued, “I need to remind you that our

meeting, yours and mine, is still on for tonight. Right?”

Rayford slowed and stared at the ground, running a hand through his hair. “What?

What are you talking about?”

“All right then, very good,” Mac said. “We're still meeting tonight then. Now the

potentate—”

“I understand you want to talk to me later, Mac, but don't put Carpathia on or I

swear I'll—”

“Stand by for the potentate.”

Rayford switched the phone to his right hand, ready to smash it on the ground, but

he restrained himself. When avenues of communication reopened, he wanted to be

able to check on his loved ones.

“Captain Steele,” came the emotionless tone of Nicolae Carpathia.

“I'm here,” Rayford said, allowing his disgust to come through. He assumed God

would forgive anything he said to the Antichrist, but he swallowed what he really

wanted to say.

“Though we both know how I could respond to your ^egregious disrespect and

insubordination,” Carpathia said, “I choose to forgive you.”

Rayford continued walking, clenching his teeth to keep from screaming at the man.

“I can tell you are at a loss for how to express your gratitude,” Carpathia continued.

“Now listen to me. I have a safe place and provisions where my international

ambassadors and staff will join me. You and I both know we need each other, so I

suggest—”

“You don't need me,” Rayford said. “And I don't need your forgiveness. You have a

perfectly capable pilot right next to you, so let me suggest that you forget me.”

“Just be ready when he lands,” Carpathia said, the first hint of frustration in his

voice.

“The only place I would accept a ride to is the airport,” Rayford said. “And I'm

almost there. Don't have Mac set down any closer to this mess.”

“Captain Steele,” Carpathia began again, condescendingly, “I admire your irrational

belief that you can somehow find your wife, but we both know that is not going to

happen.”

Rayford said nothing. He feared Carpathia was right, but he would never give him

the satisfaction of admitting it. And he would certainly never quit looking until he

proved to himself Amanda had not survived.

“Come with us, Captain Steele. Just reboard, and I will treat your outburst as if it

never—”

“I'm not going anywhere until I've found my wife! Let me talk to Mac.”

“Officer McCullum is busy. I will pass along a message.”

“Mac could fly that thing with no hands. Now let me talk to him.”

“If there is no message, then, Captain Steele—”

“All right, you win. Just tell Mac—”

“Now is no time to neglect protocol, Captain Steele. A pardoned subordinate is

behooved to address his superior—”

“All right, Potentate Carpathia, just tell Mac to come for me if I don't find a way

back by 2200 hours.”

“And should you find a way back, the shelter is three and a half clicks northeast of

the original headquarters. You will need the following password: 'Operation

Wrath.'”

“What?” Carpathia knew this was coming?

“You heard me, Captain Steele.”

Cameron “Buck” Williams stepped gingerly through the rubble near the ventilation

shaft where he had heard the clear, healthy voice of Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah, trapped

in the underground shelter. Tsion assured him he was unhurt, just scared and

claustrophobic. That place was small enough without the church imploding above it.

With no way out unless someone tunneled to him, the rabbi, Buck knew, would

soon feel like a caged animal.

Had Tsion been in immediate danger, Buck would have dug with his bare hands to

free him. But Buck felt like a doctor in triage, having to determine who most

urgently needed his help. Assuring Tsion he would return, he headed toward the

safe house to find his wife.

To get through the trash that had been the only church home he ever knew, Buck

had to again crawl past the remains of the beloved Loretta. What a friend she had

been, first to the late Bruce Barnes and then to the rest of the Tribulation Force. The

Force had begun with four: Rayford, Chloe, Bruce, and Buck. Amanda was added.

Bruce was lost. Tsion was added.

Was it possible now that they had been reduced to just Buck and Tsion? Buck didn't

want to think about it. He found his watch gunked up with mud, asphalt, and a tiny

shard of windshield. He wiped the crystal across his pant leg and felt the crusty

mixture tear his trousers and bite into his knee. It was nine o'clock in the morning in

Mt. Prospect, and Buck heard an air raid siren, a tornado warning siren, emergency

vehicle sirens—one close, two farther away. Shouts. Screams. Sobbing. Engines.

Could he live without Chloe? Buck had been given a second chance; he was here

for a purpose. He wanted the love of his life by his side, and he prayed—selfishly,

he realized—that she had not already preceded him to heaven.

In his peripheral vision, Buck noticed the swelling of his own left cheek. He had felt

neither pain nor blood and had assumed the wound was minor. Now he wondered.

He reached in his breast pocket for his mirror-lensed sunglasses. One lens was in

pieces. In the reflection of the other he saw a scarecrow, hair wild, eyes white with

fear, mouth open and sucking air. The wound was not bleeding, yet it appeared

deep. There would be no time for treatment.

Buck emptied his shirt pocket but kept the frames—a gift from Chloe. He studied

the ground as he moved back to the Range Rover, picking his way through glass,

nails, and bricks like an old man, assuring himself solid purchase.

Buck passed Loretta's car and what was left of her, determined not to look.

Suddenly the earth moved, and he stumbled. Loretta's car, which he had been

unable to budge moments before, rocked and disappeared. The ground had given

way under the parking lot. Buck stretched out on his stomach and peeked over the

edge of a new crevice. The mangled car rested atop a water main twenty feet

beneath the earth. The blown tires pointed up like the feet of bloated roadkill.

Curled in a frail ball atop the wreckage was the Raggedy Ann-like body of Loretta,

a tribulation saint. There would be more shifting of the earth. Reaching Loretta's

body would be impossible. If he was also to find Chloe dead, Buck wished God had

let him plunge under the earth with Loretta's car.

Buck rose slowly, suddenly aware of what the roller-coaster ride through the

earthquake had done to his joints and muscles. He surveyed the damage to his

vehicle. Though it had rolled and been hit from all sides, it appeared remarkably

roadworthy. The driver's-side door was jammed, the windshield in gummy pieces

throughout the interior, and the rear seat had broken away from the floor on one

side. One tire had been slashed to the steel belts but looked strong and held air.

Where were Buck's phone and laptop? He had set them on the front seat. He hoped

against hope neither had flown out in the mayhem. Buck opened the passenger door

and peered onto the floor of the front seat. Nothing. He looked under the rear seats,

all the way to the back. In a corner, open and with one screen hinge cracked, was his

laptop.

Buck found his phone in a door well. He didn't expect to be able to get through to

anyone, with all the damage to cellular towers (and everything else above ground).

He switched it on, and it went through a self-test and showed zero range. Still, he

had to try. He dialed Loretta's home. He didn't even get a malfunction message from

the phone company. The same happened when he dialed the church, then Tsion's

shelter. As if playing a cruel joke, the phone made noises as if trying to get through.

Then, nothing.

Buck's landmarks were gone. He was grateful the Range Rover had a built-in

compass. Even the church seemed twisted from its normal perspective on the

corner. Poles and lines and traffic lights were down, buildings flattened, trees

uprooted, fences strewn about.

Buck made sure the Range Rover was in four-wheel drive. He could barely travel

twenty feet before having to punch the car over some rise. He kept his eyes peeled

to avoid anything that might further damage the Rover—it might have to last him

through the end of the Tribulation. The best he could figure, that was still more than

five years away.

As Buck rolled over chunks of asphalt and concrete where the street once lay, he

glanced again at the vestiges of New Hope Village Church. Half the building was

underground. But that one section of pews, which had once faced west, now faced

north and glistened in the sun. The entire sanctuary floor appeared to have turned

ninety degrees.

As he passed the church, he stopped and stared. A shaft of light appeared between

each pair of pews in the ten-pew section except in one spot. There something

blocked Buck's view. He threw the Rover into reverse and carefully backed up. On

the floor in front of one of those pews were the bottoms of a pair of tennis shoes,

toes pointing up. Buck wanted, above all, to get to Loretta's and search for Chloe,

but he could not leave someone lying in the debris. Was it possible someone had

survived?

He set the brake and scrambled over the passenger seat and out the door, recklessly

trotting through stuff that could slice through his shoes. He wanted to be practical,

but there was no time for that. Buck lost his footing ten feet from those tennis shoes

and pitched face forward. He took the brunt of the fall on his palms and chest.

He pulled himself up and knelt next to the tennis shoes, which were attached to a

body. Thin legs in dark blue jeans led to narrow hips. From the waist up, the small

body was hidden under the pew. The right hand was tucked underneath, the left lay

open and limp. Buck found no pulse, but he noticed the hand was broad and bony,

the third finger bearing a man's wedding band. Buck slipped it off, assuming a

surviving wife might want it.

Buck grabbed the belt buckle and dragged the body from under the bench. When the

head slid into view, Buck turned away. He had recognized Donny Moore's blond

coloring only from his eyebrows. The rest of his hair, even his sideburns, was

encrusted with blood.

Buck didn't know what to do in the face of the dead and dying at a time like this.

Where would anyone begin disposing of millions of corpses all over the world?

Buck gently pushed the body back under the pew but was stopped by an

obstruction. He reached underneath and found Donny's beat up, hard-sided

briefcase. Buck tried the latches, but combination locks had been set. He lugged the

briefcase back to the Range Rover and tried again to find his bearings. He was a

scant four blocks from Loretta's, but could he even find the street?

Rayford was encouraged to see movement in the distance at Baghdad Airport. He

saw more wreckage and carnage on the ground than people scurrying about, but at

least not all had been lost.

A small, dark figure with a strange gait appeared on the horizon. Rayford watched,

fascinated, as the image materialized into a stocky, middle-aged Asian in a business

suit. The man walked directly toward Rayford, who waited expectantly, wondering

if he could help. But as the man drew near, Rayford realized he was not aware of his

surroundings. He wore a wing-tipped dress shoe on one foot with only a sock

sliding down the ankle of the other. His suit coat was buttoned, but his tie hung

outside it. His left hand dripped blood. His hair was mussed, yet his glasses

appeared to have been untouched by whatever he had endured.

“Are you all right?” Rayford asked. The man ignored him. “Can I help you?”

The man limped past, mumbling in his own tongue. Rayford turned to call him

back, and the man became a silhouette in the orange sun. There was nothing in that

direction but the Tigris River. “Wait!” Rayford called after him. “Come back! Let

me help you!”

The man ignored him, and Rayford dialed Mac again. “Let me talk to Carpathia,” he

said.

“Sure,” Mac said. “We're set on that meeting tonight, right?”

“Right, now let me talk to him.”

“I mean our personal meeting, right?”

“Yes! I don't know what you want, but yes, I get the point. Now I need to talk to

Carpathia.”

“OK, sorry. Here he is.”

“Change your mind, Captain Steele?” Carpathia said.

“Hardly. Listen, do you know Asian languages?”

“Some. Why?”

“What does this mean?” he asked, repeating what the man had said.

“That is easy,” Carpathia said. “It means, 'You cannot help me. Leave me alone.'”

“Bring Mac back around, would you? This man is going to die of exposure.”

“I thought you were looking for your wife.”

“I can't leave a man to wander to his death.”

“Millions are dead and dying. You cannot save all of them.”

“So you're going to let this man die?”

“I do not see him, Captain Steele. If you think you can save him, be my guest. I do

not mean to be cold, but I have the whole world at heart just now.”

Rayford slapped his phone shut and hurried back to the lurching, mumbling man.

As he drew near, Rayford was horrified to see why his gait was so strange and why

he trailed a river of blood. He had been impaled by a gleaming white chunk of

metal, apparently some piece of a fuselage. Why he was still alive, how he survived

or climbed out, Rayford couldn't imagine. The shard was imbedded from his hip to

the back of his head. It had to have missed vital organs by centimeters.

Rayford touched the man's shoulder, causing him to wrench away. He sat heavily,

and with a huge sigh toppled slowly in the sand and breathed his last. Rayford

checked for a pulse, not surprised to find none. Overcome, he turned his back and

knelt in the dirt. Sobs wracked his body.

Rayford raised his hands to the sky. “Why, God? Why do I have to see this? Why

send someone across my path I can't even help? Spare Chloe and Buck! Please keep

Amanda alive for me! I know I don't deserve anything, but I can't go on without

her!”

Usually Buck drove two blocks south and two east from the church to Loretta's. But

now there were no more blocks. No sidewalks, no streets, no intersections. For as

far as Buck could see, every house in every neighborhood had been leveled. Could

it have been this bad all over the world? Tsion taught that a quarter of the world's

population would fall victim to the wrath of the Lamb. But Buck would be surprised

if even a quarter of the population of Mt. Prospect was still alive.

He lined up the Range Rover on a southeastern course. A few degrees above the

horizon the day was as beautiful as any Buck could remember. The sky, where not

interrupted by smoke and dust, was baby blue. No clouds. Bright sun.

Geysers shot skyward where fire hydrants had ruptured. A woman crawled out from

the wreckage of her home, a bloody stump at her shoulder where her arm had been.

She screamed at Buck, “Kill me! Kill me!”

He shouted, “No!” and leaped from the Rover as she bent and grabbed a chunk of

glass from a broken window and dragged it across her neck. Buck continued to yell

as he sprinted to her. He only hoped she was too weak to do anything but superficial

damage to her neck, and he prayed she would miss her carotid artery.

He was within a few feet of her when she stared, startled. The glass broke and

tinkled to the ground. She stepped back and tripped, her head smacking loudly on n

chunk of concrete. Immediately the blood stopped pumping from her exposed

arteries. Her eyes were lifeless as Buck forced her jaw open and covered her mouth

with his. Buck blew air into her throat, making her chest rise and her blood trickle,

but it was futile.

Buck looked around, wondering whether to try to cover her. Across the way an

elderly man stood at the edge of a crater and seemed to will himself to tumble into

it. Buck could take no more. Was God preparing him for the likelihood that Chloe

had not survived?

He wearily climbed back into the Range Rover, deciding he absolutely could not

stop and help anyone else who did not appear to really want it. Everywhere he

looked he saw devastation, fire, water, and blood.

Against his better judgment, Rayford left the dead man in the desert sand. What

would he do when he saw others in various states of demise? How could Carpathia

ignore this? Had he not a shred of humanity? Mac would have stayed and helped.

Rayford despaired of seeing Amanda alive again, and though he would search with

all that was in him, he already wished he had arranged an earlier rendezvous with

Mac. He'd seen awful things in his life, but the carnage at this airport was going to

top them all. A shelter, even the Antichrist's, sounded better than this.

TWO

Buck had covered disasters, but as a journalist he had not felt guilty about ignoring

the dying. Normally, by the time he arrived on a scene, medical personnel were

usually in place. There was nothing he could do but stay out of the way. He had

taken pride in not forcing his way into situations that would make things more

difficult for emergency workers.

But now it was just him. Sounds of sirens told him others were at work somewhere,

but surely there were too few rescuers to go around. He could work twenty-four

hours finding barely breathing survivors, but he would not make a dent in the

magnitude of this disaster. Someone else might ignore Chloe to get to his own loved

one. Those who had somehow escaped with their lives could hope only that they

had their own hero, fighting the odds to get to them.

Buck had never believed in extrasensory perception or telepathy, even before he had

become a believer in Christ. Yet now he felt such a deep longing for Chloe, such a

desperate grief at even the prospect of losing her, that he felt as if his love oozed

from every pore. How could she not know he was thinking of her, praying for her,

trying to get to her at all cost?

Having kept his eyes straight ahead as despairing, wounded people waved or

screamed out to him, Buck bounced to a dusty stop. A couple of blocks east of the

main drag was some semblance of recognizable geography. Nothing looked like it

had before, but ribbons of road, gouged up by the churning earth, lay sideways in

roughly the same configuration they had before. The pavement of Loretta's street

now stood vertically, blocking the view of what was left of the homes. Buck

scrambled from his car and climbed atop the asphalt wall. He found the upturned

street about four feet thick with a bed of gravel and sand on its other side. He

reached up and over and dug his fingers into the soft part, hanging there and staring

at Loretta's block.

Four stately homes had stood in that section, Loretta's the second from the right.

The entire block looked like some child's box of toys that had been shaken and

tossed to the ground. The home directly in front of Buck, larger even than Loretta's,

had been knocked back off its foundation, flipped onto its front, and collapsed. The

roof had toppled off upside down in one piece, apparently when the house hit the

ground. Buck could see the rafters, as he would have had he been in the attic. All

four walls of the house lay flat, flooring strewn about. In two places, Buck saw

lifeless hands at the ends of stiff arms poking through the debris.

A towering tree, more than four feet in diameter, had been uprooted and had crashed

into the basement. Two feet of water lay on the cement floor, and the water level

was slowly rising. Strangely, what appeared to be a guest room in the northeast

corner of the cellar looked unmolested, neat and tidy. It would soon be under water.

Buck forced himself to look at the next house, Loretta's. He and Chloe had not lived

there long, but he knew it well. The house, now barely recognizable, seemed to have

been lifted off the ground and slammed down in place, causing the roof to split in

two and settle over the giant box of sticks. The roofline, all the way around, was

now about four feet off the ground. Three massive trees in the front yard had fallen

toward the street, angled toward each other, branches intertwined, as if three

swordsmen had touched their blades together.

Between the two destroyed houses stood a small metal shed that, while pitched at an

angle, had nonsensically escaped serious damage. How could an earthquake shake,

rattle, and roll a pair of five-bedroom, two-story homes into oblivion and leave

untouched a tiny utility shed? Buck could only surmise that the structure was so

flexible it did not snap when the earth rolled beneath it.

Loretta's home had shrunk flat where it sat, leaving her backyard empty and bare.

All this, Buck realized, had happened in seconds.

A fire truck with makeshift bullhorns on the back rolled slowly into view behind

Buck. As he hung on that vertical stretch of pavement, he heard: “Stay out of your

homes! Do not return to your homes! If you need help, get to an open area where we

can find you!”

A half-dozen police officers and firefighters rode the giant ladder truck. A

uniformed cop leaned out the window. “You all right there, buddy?”

“I'm all right!” Buck hollered.

“That your vehicle?”

“Yes!”

“We could sure use it in the relief effort!”

“I've got people I'm trying to dig out!” Buck said.

The cop nodded. “Don't be trying to get into any of these homes!”

Buck let go and slid to the ground. He walked toward the fire truck as it slowed to a

stop. “I heard the announcement, but what are you guys talking about?”

“We're worried about looters. But we're also worried about danger. These places are

hardly stable.”

“Obviously!” Buck said. “But looters? You are the only healthy people I've seen.

There's nothing of value left, and where would somebody take anything if they

found it?”

“We're just doing what we're told, sir. Don't try to go in any of the homes, OK?”

“Of course I will! I'm gonna be digging through that house to find out if somebody I

know and love is still alive.”

“Trust me, pal, you're not going to find survivors on this street. Stay out of there.”

“Are you gonna arrest me? Do you have a jail still standing?”

The cop turned to the fireman driving. Buck wanted an answer. Apparently, the cop

was more levelheaded than he was, because they slowly rolled away. Buck scaled

the wall of pavement and slid down the other side, covering his entire front with

mud. He tried wiping it off, but it stuck between his fingers. He slapped at his pants

to get the bulk of it off his hands, then hurried between the fallen trees to the front

of the fractured house.

Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind Series 4 - Soul Harvest

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