What People Are Saying about the Left Behind Series
“This is the most successful Christian-fiction series ever.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins … are doing for Christian fiction what John Grisham did for courtroom thrillers.”
—TIME
“The authors’ style continues to be thoroughly captivating and keeps the reader glued to the book, wondering what will happen next. And it leaves the reader hungry for more.”
—Christian Retailing
“Combines Tom Clancy–like suspense with touches of romance, high-tech flash and Biblical references.”
—The New York Times
“It’s not your mama’s Christian fiction anymore.”
—The Dallas Morning News
“Wildly popular—and highly controversial.”
—USA Today
“Bible teacher LaHaye and master storyteller Jenkins have created a believable story of what could happen after the Rapture. They present the gospel clearly without being preachy, the characters have depth, and the plot keeps the reader turning pages.”
—Moody Magazine
“Christian thriller. Prophecy-based fiction. Juiced-up morality tale. Call it what you like, the Left Behind series … now has a label its creators could never have predicted: blockbuster success.”
—Entertainment Weekly
Tyndale House products by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
The Left Behind® book series
Left Behind®
Tribulation Force
Nicolae
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Apollyon
Assassins
The Indwelling
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Desecration
The Remnant
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Glorious Appearing
Coming Soon: Prequel and Sequel
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Perhaps Today
Are We Living in the End Times?
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Tyndale House books by Tim LaHaye
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Why You Act the Way You Do
Tyndale House books by Jerry B. Jenkins
Soon
Silenced (July 2004)
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Copyright © 2004 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph © 2003 Creatas/PictureQuest. All rights reserved.
Author photo by Michael Patrick Brown
Written and developed in association with Tekno Books, Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Designed by Dean H. Renninger
Edited by James Cain
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc. 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.
Published in association with the literary agency of Sterling Lord Literistic, New York, NY.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Left Behind is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Odom, Mel.
Apocalypse crucible / Mel Odom.
p. cm. — (Apocalypse series)
ISBN 0-8423-8776-5 (sc)
1. Rapture (Christian eschatology)—Fiction. 2. End of the world—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3565.D53A855 2004
2004000464 813’.54—dc22
Printed in the United States of America
07 06 05 04
5 4 3 2 1
Contents
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1
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0403 Hours
“Incoming!”
First Sergeant Samuel Adams “Goose” Gander heard the cry from the spotter/sniper teams he had set up along the nearby rooftops. As the warning was repeated over the radio communications system his team used, he gathered his thoughts, feeling the adrenaline slam through his system.
“All right, Rangers,” Goose barked over the ear/throat headset he wore, “stand sharp.”
“Standing sharp, First Sergeant,” one of the nearby soldiers responded. Others chimed in, letting Goose know they had heard him. Despite the constant threat they had been under for days, all of the men stood tall and solid. They were men Goose had trained, men he had placed on special assignment, and men he had promised to die with if that should become necessary.
Goose stood behind the barricade of cars and farm equipment the Rangers had set up at the edge of the city when they had arrived in Sanliurfa two days ago. The soldiers had barely escaped an avalanche of Syrian troops—Soviet-made tanks, a horde of infantrymen, and squadrons of jet fighters.
Since then, United States military personnel as well as the remaining local citizenry had added to the barricade, using abandoned vehicles and everything else that came to hand. The military teams and the locals fighting for their homes stayed busy filling sandbags and shoring up the defenses. Sandbags filled the cracks and crevices, made machine-gun nests, and reinforced primary buildings used for defense and tactical information. For the time being, all roads south out of Sanliurfa were closed.
The Syrians were coming. Everyone knew it. Their arrival was only a matter of time. Apparently, that time was fast approaching.
Goose closed down the manpower and equipment lists he’d been reviewing on his PDA and tucked the device inside a protected pocket on his belt at his back. The low-lit LCD screen had temporarily robbed him of his full night vision, but he had to check it. A sergeant should always know where his men and materials were, and where they were needed. The PDA made that task almost doable.
He ran a practiced eye down the line of soldiers who stood at battlefield positions along the barricade. Like him, they wore the battledress uniforms they had worn for days. All of the BDUs showed hard use in the form of rips and tatters covered by a layer of the everpresent dirt and grit that shifted across the sun-blasted lands. Every man in the field had been under fire during the last three days.
They’d had neither the time nor supplies to allow them the luxury of rest or fresh clothing. Thankfully, they’d had plenty of socks, and Goose had seen to it that each man changed socks frequently. A foot soldier was only as good as his feet. An infantry that couldn’t march was no help to an army seeking survival and was often a burden.
Goose took pride in the way his men stood at their posts despite their hardships. His unit was undermanned, underequipped, and too far away from reinforcements that wouldn’t have been sacrificed on
