Thinking back on all those press conferences, Remington knew that Carpathia did have that kind of power. No one had ever seen a man like him.
“Nicolae wants you to be part of that coming empire,” Felix said.
Empire. Remington liked the sound of that. “Why?”
Felix shrugged. “Because he has talked with you and he liked you. He said the two of you had kindred spirits. He admires the way you desire responsibility for the leadership of others. That is a natural thing for a man gifted with your vision and your abilities. He said all you need is someone in power who could recognize that in you.”
Remington accepted that, thinking it was high time someone saw those qualities in him.
“When Nicolae calls his army together,” Felix said, “he wants men who can be leaders. He wants you. And in order to have you, you must survive your present situation. He wants you to achieve the glory that is your due.”
“I have a plan to strike back against the Syrians,” Remington said, wanting to share what he had developed. “I know how to buy time for the people here, maybe convince the Joint Chiefs that we can hold Sanliurfa.”
“Nicolae will help you,” Felix said. “First through me, then through public support of your efforts here. Everything will come together. But sacrifices will have to be made.”
“I’ll make them,” Remington said.
“You will,” Felix told him, flashing a confident smile. “Abu Alam was only the first of many. The way will be costly, but your efforts and those sacrifices will take you to those things you most desire in this world.” He paused. “Let me help you. Let Nicolae help you.”
Remington hesitated only an instant. “All right.”
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0639 Hours
“You have to remember that I’m still studying everything I can about the Tribulation.” Corporal Joseph Baker sighed regretfully. “I’m embarrassed to tell you that I’m lacking several of the books that would help me in researching these times. During the years I stepped away from God, after I lost my family, I let many things go.”
“Losing your wife and child like that,” Goose said, “had to have been hard.”
Baker nodded. “It was, First Sergeant, but I should have been stronger. My faith should have been stronger. I was brought up in the Lord, and I should have stayed there. But I was weak.”
Goose remembered how he berated God over Chris’s disappearance, and how he continued to have his doubts about whether the Rapture really occurred or whether God cared about him. “It’s not easy.”
Baker looked at him, started to object, then obviously remembered that Goose had been through similar circumstances. The big corporal nodded. “It’s not easy. I don’t think it’s supposed to be.”
“Letting go?” Goose was surprised at how tight and hoarse his voice got. Talking like this disturbed him, like the end of the world was at hand. Like there was no way Chris would be returned to him.
“Believing,” Baker said. “If believing was easy, everyone would believe. There would have been no one left behind when the Rapture occurred.”
“Why would God make believing hard?”
“That’s the point,” Baker said. “God makes faith easy. Jesus shed His blood to save us so that we would know everlasting life. That’s all we have to believe. Nothing else. All we need is belief the size of a mustard seed. But even that little thing seems beyond most people.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “So simple a belief was beyond me for a time. Satan makes believing hard. God offers us a world beyond this one, a world of wonders that we can only begin to imagine. Eternal life. Constant happiness. No one who lives here can imagine such things. Moreover, Satan dwells here, in this world that we think we know and understand. Satan exerts his influence here in this place, and many believe in the evil that the Great Deceiver shows them and calls truth. But this place, First Sergeant, this is the real illusion.”
Goose straightened his leg and tried to find a comfortable position for his throbbing knee. His eyes felt grainy and he knew the three hours of sleep he’d managed before Baker had come to him wouldn’t be enough to get him through the coming day.
They sat at a table in the back of the small coffee shop Baker had suggested. The windows facing the street were stripped of their glass, victims of one Syrian attack or another. The owner and his wife prepared breads and coffee in the back using a bricked wood oven that the man’s father had built nearly forty years ago.
Before the Syrians had invaded, the coffee shop had also offered pizza, a concession to foreign tourists. Without electricity, meats and soft cheeses quickly spoiled. But the traditional menu was basically unchanged. The family who owned the coffee shop made their breads on a daily basis. The flour was from stockpiled stores. They used milk and eggs from the goat and chickens they kept penned out in a small lot behind the building.
Normally the family—the husband, wife, and three small children who had vanished—lived in the upstairs portion of the shop, but lately the times weren’t normal. During the nights, the husband and wife now slept in the cellar below the shop. On good nights, when they felt the military holding the city was in control of things, they slept on the floor of the shop, where they could watch their possessions better. They wouldn’t leave, Baker had said, because they wouldn’t desert the city until they had their children back—or knew that they would never return.
“I hope you find peace concerning your own son,” Baker said to Goose.
“I do too,” Goose said. He tried not to say anything more, but he couldn’t help himself. His anger at God was too strong.
