Guilt washed over Delroy, so grim in its perfection that he felt himself crumbling before it like an earthen dam before the raging torrent of an unexpected flood.
The man shook his head. “I can’t believe they sent you. There’s no excuse.”
Delroy trembled, held powerless by the accusations that poured from the man. Every one of them rang true. He had been guilty of exactly what the man said. He hadn’t believed. Not for a long time. And was that what it took to make him believe? The disappearance of millions of people?
It only took the death of one to make you doubt. The realization shook Delroy to his core.
“And what message are you going to take to the joint chiefs, Chaplain Harte?” the man taunted. “Lock up the women and children, the Antichrist is coming.” He covered his mouth as if in embarrassment. “Oops, forgot. All out of children, aren’t we?” He paused. “Including you, Chaplain Harte? God took poor little Terry in the prime of his life.”
Tears filled Delroy’s vision, and pain wracked his heart.
“That’s how you look at it, isn’t it?” the man asked. “That God took your son?” He took a step forward, thrusting his face into Delroy’s. “Then why doesn’t he give him back? What right did he have to take your son?”
The sorrow broke out of Delroy in long, draining sobs. “I don’t know! God help me, I don’t know!”
“Well, ,” the man said in a relieved voice, “then maybe you should give some thought to why you’re here.” He reached for Delroy’s face.
Before Delroy could block the man’s hand, it wrapped around his head, smothering him. He felt powerless in the impossible grip, listening to the evil, confident chuckle that sounded right in his ear.
“Go home, Chaplain,” the man said in a bestial snarl. “Go home and live in misery the way you have for the last five years. You’ll be more comfortable there.”
Shoved backward, off-balance, he fell. His head hit the carpeted floor hard enough to send black comets crashing through his vision.
When Delroy’s eyesight cleared, the man was gone. Shaking, nauseous, the chaplain pushed himself to his knees. For a moment he thought he was going to throw up. But he made himself stand and go to the pilot’s cabin. When he tried the door this time, the handle turned easily. He followed the door inside the cabin.
The two pilots looked back at him with curiosity. Both of them were men Delroy had seen earlier.
“Where is he?” Delroy demanded in a shaking and hoarse voice.
“Who?” the pilot asked.
“The other man,” Delroy said. “The other pilot. The one who came back to tell me about the seat belt.”
The pilots swapped looks. “Chaplain,” the pilot said in a deliberately calm and nonthreatening voice, “there are just us two. No other pilots. No one has gone back to notify you yet. We were about to.”
“I saw him,” Delroy said. He felt the man’s hand against his face, and this time he felt the slither of scales instead of flesh. His voice choked down. “I saw him.”
The copilot got up. “Let me help you back to your seat, Chaplain. If you ask me, you look about done in. Have you rested during this flight?”
Delroy looked at the two men. They were telling the truth.
“I haven’t rested enough,” he said. He looked at the pilot who had offered to help him to his seat. “I’m fine.”
The pilot hesitated. “All right, chaplain. But we’re going to be touching down in ten or fifteen minutes. As soon as the tower gives us clearance. We need you to get belted in.”
“All right.” Delroy turned and went, knowing that the two men would probably report this incident to Falkirk. And what would that report do to the captain’s faith?
Delroy returned to his seat and belted himself in. He stared out the window, feeling the C-9 sink into its final approach pattern only a few short minutes later. Smoke still curled from fires in the distance around the city.
Had he been struggling with his own personal demons, trapped in some warped nightmare of his own doubts? Or had it been something else? If all the believers had been taken from the world during the Rapture, did that mean that something else might have slipped back into the world? Something darker? Something evil? Or had that evil been here all along and only now was freed to rise up?
Delroy didn’t know. What he was certain of, though, was that he was scheduled to speak to the joint chiefs in the next hour—and he was in no shape for it.
Turkish-Syrian Border
40 Klicks South of Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0101 Hours
The thrum of the generator only twenty yards away rattled through Cal Remington’s skull. His eyes felt like they were filled with broken glass as he stared at the notebook computer on the small folding desk he’d brought into the campsite along the ridge overlooking the border area.
His anger was still stoked from the confrontation with Goose and Captain Mkchian that had taken place hours ago. Goose ticked him off plenty. Over the years that they had been good friends, then gotten to be an effective captain and first sergeant team, he and Goose had experienced plenty of differences of opinion. Usually those differences of opinion had taken place over personnel, never over implementation of details of an operation—never over organization or timing or equipment. They’d always disagreed over people.
And those differences of opinion had never been publicly aired in any theater they’d been involved in.
Remington accepted some share of the blame. After all, he’d chosen to dress Goose down in front of the Rangers he’d brought with him. Getting the chance to do it in front of the Turkish captain had been a bonus.
That had backfired, though. Mkchian had taken
