But he couldn’t. Icarus’s conversation rolled through his mind like a ship at sea, tossing and turning and twisting at the mercy of an unrelenting storm. Even as he stood there, he thought of another media piece on Romanian President Nicolae Carpathia’s stunning presentation at the United Nations in New York City.
The Antichrist.
Icarus’s accusation echoed in his head. The memory of it wouldn’t go away.
According to the book of Revelation, everything over the next seven years, minus a few days if the Rapture had truly happened, would turn on events controlled by the Antichrist. Using deceit and fear, the Antichrist would pull most of the world into turmoil and away from God, away from the redemption offered by Jesus Christ when He had died for the sins of anyone who would seek His Father through Him.
“You feel the pull too, don’t you, First Sergeant?” Baker asked in a quiet voice.
Goose looked at the man. He wanted to deny the words, but he couldn’t. “There are things,” Goose said hesitantly, “that I need to know.”
Baker smiled gently. “I understand. I see that in you, First Sergeant. Come on. There’s a small shop not far from here. We can get coffee there.”
Goose picked up his gear, slid his helmet onto his head, and looked at the Bible that Baker held out to him.
“Take it, First Sergeant,” Baker urged. “You’re going to need His Word. The time we have ahead of us is not going to be easy. You’ll need everything you can get. But mostly you’ll need to know what’s coming.”
Aware that most of the men in the barracks were watching him, aware too that how he reacted to Baker was going to set the tone for stories that were told among the soldiers throughout the city, Goose hesitated. Then he was immediately ashamed. His father had never been ashamed of his beliefs. His dad had never stopped questioning things that happened that he thought should not have.
Goose took the Bible and found a place for it in his chest pack as he followed Baker out of the room.
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0617 Hours
Descending the steep wooden steps into the cellar, Captain Cal Remington ran his flashlight beam around its stone walls. The space beneath the burned-out shell of a family-owned restaurant was larger than he’d expected, but the low ceiling took away some of that sense of space.
“Captain,” Dean Hardin called out of the darkness. “Over here.”
An electric torch flared to life and illuminated the dogleg turn to the left. The harsh white light also illuminated Hardin and three other Rangers standing around a man in a nomad’s robes and burnoose seated in a straight-backed wooden chair.
Hardin and the Rangers wore full combat dress stained by dust and hard use. They all had NVGs—night-vision goggles—as well, so they could see in the dark cellar.
Remington’s flashlight was probably blinding his men. He flicked it off and opened his eyes wide so they would more quickly adjust to the light.
The man in the chair looked frightened. Blood flowed from his swollen nose into his mustache and beard. His right eye was closed, and his cheek was discolored and scraped from some kind of abrasive impact. Despite the lines of pain and fear on his face, he was young, maybe in his midtwenties. His swarthy skin and exotic attire made Remington place him as one of the locals.
The cellar floor was hard-packed earth. The room smelled like an open grave, a scent Remington knew from personal experience, but had trace odors of sprouted potatoes and rancid flour mixed in with the rot. Naked wooden beams shored up the hardwood floor above the cellar. Shelves in various states of disrepair occupied the space in the center of the room.
Remington figured that the restaurant had fallen on hard times years ago. But it had survived, only to be bombed out by Syrian artillery. Hardin had found the place and used it for his own purposes. Remington had been around the corporal long enough to know not to ask what all of those purposes were. He looked at the man seated in the chair.
“Please,” the man said fearfully, “I have done nothing. I swear to you. I have done nothing. You must let me go. I will sing your praises to Allah.”
Even under the circumstances, the man’s English was pretty good.
“Who is he?” Remington asked.
“Abu,” Hardin answered. “Got a last name I can’t pronounce.”
“Alam,” Abu said. “I am Abu Alam. I am nobody. A gnat on a camel’s rump. I assure you, sir, whatever was done was not done by me. I offer you a thousand apologies.”
“You’re sure this is the guy?” Remington asked. He already knew what Hardin’s answer would be, but sometimes it helped to throw more fear a captive’s way.
“Yeah.” Hardin spat tobacco juice between his boots, then covered it over with dirt he scraped from the floor. “I’ve been trading with him over the last few days. Almost since we got here. Reason I noticed him, he was selling used American goods and making change with American currency.” He spat again. “You know, Captain, we left a lotta dead men behind us when we retreated from the border.”
Surprise lit Abu’s face. “Those things! Those things—” He stood up from the chair.
Moving inhumanly fast, Hardin slapped the man back into the chair. Abu hit with enough force that he would have fallen over backward if Hardin hadn’t put a foot on the chair’s seat between the man’s legs and pushed the chair back down.
Abu covered his face with his hands and screamed. Unfortunately for him, his shriek wouldn’t penetrate the massive stone-lined walls. Besides being a place that guards wouldn’t go, it was the reason Hardin had selected the place.
“Abu,” Remington
