Glorious Appearing: The End Of Days Read Online Free Page B

Messiah is coming.”
    Chang couldn’t turn from the screens. “I’d like to lose no one else before that. No matter how much I tell myself they’ll be dead only a short while, it all seems so pointless now. I don’t want anyone hurt, let alone suffering, then dying. Mr. McCullum’s going was my idea.”
    “But he sure jumped on it, didn’t he?”
    “I knew he would. I wish I could have gone.”
    “You know this place can’t function without your—”
    “Don’t start, Naomi.”
    “You know it’s true.”
    “Regardless, I sent him for my own vicarious thrill. No way he’s going to find Buck, and if he does, Buck will be dead. Then what’s Mac supposed to do? If he gets found out, he’s history. And for what? He could be here watching for the return with everyone else.”
    Naomi pulled a chair next to Chang and sat. “What do you hear from Mr. Smith?”
    Chang sighed. “That’s turned out to be a waste of time and manpower too. So far he hasn’t found a thing. Either Captain Steele was obliterated by a missile or he was buried in the sand.”
    “Could he have crawled to safety?”
    “There’s no safety in that sun, Naomi.”
    “That’s what I mean. Maybe he found shelter or built himself some shield against the heat.”
    Chang shrugged. “Best-case scenario, I guess. But wouldn’t he think to leave some sign for us?”
    “Maybe he was hurt too badly or simply had no resources.”
    “He could arrange sticks or rocks, even a piece of clothing.”
    “If he was able,” Naomi said.
    Chang’s phone chirping made them both jump. “Yes, Mr. Smith?”
    “I’m on his trail. He was on the move for a while, at least.”
    “What did you find?”
    “Blood, I’m afraid.”

TWO

    MAC HAD NEVER seen the ancient walls of Jerusalem in such a state. While Herod’s Gate (some still called it the Flower Gate) was somehow still held by the resistance, places on either side of the walls had been blasted from their normal forty-foot height to half that. It would be only a matter of time before the Unity Army pushed through.
    But for now the invading force seemed to be concentrating elsewhere. Mac would make sure he was last in line when the unit he was with jogged through the Damascus Gate. That way he could peel off at any time. He could find the entrance to the underground stables somehow, but not until he had at least tried to locate Buck.
    Past sixty now, Mac remained fit with a daily run. But while the borrowed uniform looked as if it were made for him, the boots were going to leave blisters. As he hurried along, invisible in a sea of similarly attired plunderers, he recognized the irony that he could easily take a bullet from snipers who didn’t realize he was on their side of the conflict.
    Mac had seen enough carnage in seven years to last an eternity, but nothing could have steeled him against the images that came into view as his little unit mince-stepped into the Old City. The narrow cobblestone streets that snaked through the markets and crowded houses were so full of broken and dead bodies that he had to keep his focus to keep from tripping over them. His eyes darted everywhere, looking for Buck, praying he was not already on the ground.
    Mac’s nostrils were assaulted by smoke, sweat, gunpowder, burning flesh, manure, and the sickly sweet stench of overturned fruit and vegetable carts. He recoiled at two quick gunshots until he saw it was a Unity Army commander putting a horse and a mule out of their misery.
    A bullhorn announced that Unity forces had occupied the Armenian Quarter to the south, the Christian Quarter to the west, and much of the Jewish Quarter outside the Temple Mount. The insurgents still held the Temple Mount to the southeast and the Muslim Quarter to the northeast, from Herod’s Gate to just east of the Church of the Flagellation. Mac wondered how Carpathia and his staff had access to Solomon’s Stables beneath the Temple Mount.
    He prayed that Buck was somewhere in the