understand, Director? Just like you're doin' without tryin', 'cause you're just that good. But I wanna be able to suggest to His Excellency that if he's gonna take the gloves off and go toe-to-toe with his worst enemies, he oughta go 'em one better.'
Take the gloves off to go toe-to-toe? Annie would have loved that mixed metaphor. 'One better?' 'He ought to ride that pig into the temple!' 'Oh, my.' David could not imagine Carpathia, even at his basest, lowering himself to such a spectacle. 'Oh, my is right, Hassid. You read the Bible?'
'Ever?' 'Yeah.' 'Some.'
'Well, isn't there a story about Jesus ridin' into Jerusalem on a donkey and people singin' and throwin' leaves and whatnot?'
'I was raised Jewish.'
'So no New Testament for you. Well, anyway, there is that story, I'm pretty sure. Picture His Excellency havin' fun with that. Ridin' a pig with people paid to sing and throw stuff.'
Lord, please! 'I can't imagine.'
'I can come up with 'em, can't I, Hassid?'
'You can, sir.'
'Hey, I'd better get in there. Get on that pig for me, will ya? I'm gonna tell him it's as good as got.' 'I'll let you know.'
David was on his way out the door when Hickman called after him. 'I forgot to tell you,' he said, turning pages on his pad again. 'There's a gal in Medical Services, a nurse. Here it is. She used to be a vet or something and she's shot biochips into dogs and cats.'
'You don't say,' David said.
'You might want to check her out, see if we can take advantage of her expertise. You know, in training people how to do this.'
'I'll check her out. What's the name?'
'I don't think I have it right, Hassid. Some kind of a funny name. You'll be able to track her down.'
'I'll ask for the nurse with the funny name, sir.'
TWELVE
Rayford couldn't sleep. Pacing various floors in the cavernous Strong Building, he happened by Chaim's room. The door was wide open, and in the darkness he noticed the old man's silhouette. Chaim sat motionless on the bed, though Rayford knew he had to hear and see him in the corridor. Rayford poked his head in.
'You all right, Dr. Rosenzweig?'
A loud sigh through the wire-bound clenched teeth. 'I don't know, my friend.'
'Want to talk?'
A low chuckle. 'You know my culture. Talk is what we do. If you have time, come in. I welcome you.'
Rayford pulled up a chair and sat facing Chaim in the darkness. The botanist seemed in no hurry. Finally, he said, 'The young woman takes my wire out tomorrow.'
'Leah, yes. You can't tell me you're worried about that.'
'I can hardly contain myself waiting.'
'But something else is on your mind.'
Chaim fell silent again, but soon he began panting, then leaned to his pillow where he was racked with great sobs. Rayford pulled his chair closer and laid a hand on the man's shoulder. 'Talk to me.'
'I have lost so much!' Chaim wailed, and Rayford strained to understand him. 'My family! My staff! And it is all my fault!'
'Little is our fault anymore, sir. Carpathia is in charge of everything now.'
'But I was so proud! So skeptical! Tsion and Cameron and Chloe and you and everyone who cared about me warned me, tried to persuade me. But oh, no, I was too intellectual. I knew better!'
'But you came to the Lord, Chaim. We must not live in the past when all things have become new.'
'But look where I was not, that long ago! Tsion is joyful in spite of it all, so happy for me, so encouraging. I dare not tell him where my mind is.'
'Where is it?'
'I am guilty, Captain Steele! I could do as you say, put the past behind me, if all I was dealing with was my pride and ignorance. But it led me down paths I never believed I would walk. My dearest, most trusted friends are dead because of me. Slaughtered in my house!'
Rayford resisted platitudes. 'We have all lost much,' he whispered. 'Two wives and a son for me, many friends-too many to think about or I'd go mad.'
Chaim sat up again, wiping his face with both hands.
'That is my problem, Rayford. I have gone nearly mad with grief, but mostly remorse. I murdered a man! I know he is Antichrist and that he was destined to die and come back to life, but I didn't know that when I committed the act. I murdered a man who had betrayed my homeland and me. Murder! Think of it! I was a beloved statesman, yet I stooped to assassination.'
'I understand rage, Chaim. I wanted to murder Carpathia myself, and I knew exactly who he was and that he would not stay dead.'
'But I premeditated it, Captain, planned it many months in advance, virtually invented and manufactured the weapon myself, faked a stroke just to get myself in proximity to him without suspicion, then finished the job exactly as I had envisioned it. I am a murderer.'
Rayford leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. 'You know I almost saved you the work.'
'I don't understand.'
'You heard a gunshot before you attacked Carpathia.'
'Yes.'
'My gun.'
'I don't believe you.'
Rayford told him the story of his own anger, personality change, plotting, the purchase of the weapon, his determination to do the deed.
Chaim sat shaking his head. 'I can hardly believe that the two people who dared attack Nicolae are in the same room. But in the end you could not do it. I did it with enthusiasm, and even up to the time I finally saw my need for God, I was glad I did it. Now I suffer such regret and shame I can barely breathe.'
'Can you take no solace in the fact that this was destiny, and that you cannot be guilty of murdering a man who is alive?'
'Solace? I would give all I own for a moment of peace. It isn't whom I did this to, Rayford. It is that I did it. I did not know the depth of my own wickedness.'
'And yet God has saved you.'
'Tell me, is one supposed to feel forgiven?'
'Good question. I have faced the same dilemma. I have full faith in the power of God to forgive and forget, to separate us from our sins as far as the east is from the west. But I'm human too. / don't forget and thus often I don't appropriate the forgiveness God extends. Because we feel guilty does not mean God does not have the power to absolve us.'
'But Tsion tells me I may have a greater destiny, that I just might be the one to be used to lead my believing countrymen to safety from Antichrist. How could he say that and how could I do such a thing when I feel the way I do?'
Rayford stood. 'Perhaps the fallacy is in thinking it would have to be you who accomplishes this.'
'I would love to be out from under the weight of it, but as Tsion says, who else? He himself cannot risk it.'
'I'm saying it's something God is going to do, through you.'
'But who am I? A scientist. I am not eloquent. I don't know the Word of God. I barely know God. I was not
