Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama Of Those Left Behind by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins Read Free Book Online

I know I’m not up to it, apart from the Spirit’s power. I think it’s just another price I have to pay for having missed the truth the first time. But you didn’t come to hear me complain.”
    “I just have two quick things, and then I’ll let you get back to your study. First, and I’ve been pushing this from my mind the last few days, but I feel terrible about Hattie Durham. Remember her? Rayford’s flight attendant—”
    “The woman you introduced to Carpathia? Sure. The one Rayford almost had a fling with.”
    “Yeah, I suppose he feels bad about her too.”
    “I can’t speak for him, Buck, but as I recall, you tried to warn her about Carpathia.”
    “I told her she might wind up being his plaything, yes, but at the time I had no idea who he really was.”
    “She went to New York on her own. It was her choice.”
    “But, Bruce, if I hadn’t introduced them, he wouldn’t have asked to see her again.”
    Bruce sat back and folded his arms. “You want to rescue her from Carpathia, is that it?”
    “Of course.”
    “I don’t see how you could do it without putting yourself in danger. She’s no doubt enamored with her new life already. She’s gone from being a flight attendant to being the personal assistant to the most powerful man in the world.”
    “Personal assistant and who knows what else.”
    Bruce nodded. “Probably so. I don’t imagine he chose her for her clerical skills. Still, what do you do? Call her and tell her her new boss is the Antichrist and that she should leave him?”
    Buck said, “That’s why I’m here. I don’t know what to do.”
    “And you think I do.”
    “I was hoping.”
    Bruce smiled wearily. “Now I know what my former senior pastor, Vern Billings, meant when he said people think their pastor should know everything.”
    “No advice then?”
    “This is going to sound trite, Buck, but you have to do what you have to do.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning if you’ve prayed about it and feel a real leading from God to talk with Hattie, then do it. But you can imagine the consequences. The next person to know about it will be Carpathia. Look what he’s done to you already.”
    “That’s the issue,” Buck said. “Somehow I have to find out how much Carpathia knows. Does he think he wiped from my memory that I was at that meeting, the way he wiped it from everyone else’s? Or does he know I know what went on and that’s why he got me in trouble, demoted, relocated, and all that?”
    “And you wonder why I’m weary?” Bruce said. “My gut feeling is that if Carpathia knew you were a believer now and that you had been protected from his brainwashing, he’d have you killed. If he thinks he still has power over you, as he does over people without Christ in their lives, he’ll try to use you.”
    Buck sat back and stared at the ceiling. “Interesting you should say that,” he said. “That leads me to the second thing I wanted to talk with you about.”

    Rayford spent the morning on the phone finalizing arrangements for his recertification on the Boeing 757. Monday morning he was to fly as a passenger from O’Hare to Dallas, where he would practice takeoffs and landings on military runways a few miles from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.
    “I’m sorry, Chloe,” he said when he was finally off the phone. “I forgot you wanted to call Buck back this morning.”
    “Correction,” she said. “I wanted to call him back last night. In fact, I wanted to talk to him when he called.”
    Rayford held up both hands in surrender. “My mistake,” he said. “Guilty. The phone is yours.”
    “No thanks.”
    Rayford raised his brows at his daughter. “What? Now you’re going to punish Buck because of me? Call him!”
    “No, the truth is I think this worked out for the best. I wanted to talk to him last night, but you were probably right. I would have seemed too eager, too forward. And he said I should call him back at my convenience. Well, first thing in the