Read Online Desecration: Antichrist Takes The Throne by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins - Free Book Online Page A

play tough, try to make you see the benefits. You already know, though I didn’t, that the meeting in your office was recorded too. I can send that if you need reminding, but that’s the end of this upload.”
    David sat back and realized his legs had gone to sleep. He rolled his head to release tension in his neck. By now, Chang should be busy monitoring the Garden Tomb. David clicked on the message that had been forwarded from Tsion.
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    Buck’s phone vibrated in his pocket, but he didn’t look to see who it was. He was prepared if God was calling him to take Chaim’s place, but that was foolish. Surely, the chosen one would be an Israeli believer. Maybe Chaim was calling, lost in the crowd. Buck reached in his pocket and shut off the phone. Let him find his own way. It was long past time for the man to accept his role. Nobody said it would be easy. Nothing was easy anymore. But God’s call wasn’t hard to recognize. It was clearly on Chaim. If Hattie had the courage to do what she had done, surely knowing she couldn’t survive, how could any of them shirk their duties again?
    Carpathia stepped from behind a draped curtain near the tomb, smiled, and opened his arms to the crowd. Less animated now, they merely applauded. The cheering, the kneeling, the waving were over. It seemed most just wanted to get on to the Temple Mount and get in line for their mark. That would insure them against the fiery fate of the crazy woman at Mount Calvary.
    “I was never entombed!” Carpathia announced. “I lay in state for three days for the world to see. Someone was said to have risen from this spot, but where is he? Did you ever see him? If he was God, why is he not still here? Some would have you believe it was he behind the disappearances that so crippled our world. What kind of a God would do that? And the same people would have you believe I am the antithesis of this great One. Yet you saw me resurrect myself! I stand here among you, god on earth, having taken my rightful place. I accept your allegiance.”
    He bowed and the people clapped again.
    Moon stepped back to the mike and read from his notes. “He is risen!”
    The people murmured, “He is risen indeed.”
    “Come, come,” Moon said, smiling nervously. “You can do better than that. He is risen!”
    “He is risen indeed!” the crowd responded, and someone applauded. The ovation slowly built until Moon held up a hand to silence it. “We are providing you with the opportunity to worship your potentate and his image at the Temple Mount, and there you may express your eternal devotion by accepting the mark of loyalty. Do not delay. Do not put this off. Be able to tell your descendants that His Excellency personally was there the day you made your pledge concrete.”
    Speaking softly now and making it sound like an afterthought but still clearly reading, Moon added, “And please remember that neither the mark of loyalty nor the worshiping of the image is optional.”
    A helicopter nosed into place and descended to take Carpathia and the rest of the dignitaries to the Temple Mount. Buck still had not seen Chaim since he had left him near Golgotha. The crowd dispersed quickly, and many ran in the direction of the loyalty mark application site.
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    Unable to reach Buck, Rayford called Tsion. “Hattie was the victim, then, in whatever happened at Calvary?” he said.
    “That is what we have pieced together, Rayford. We are grieving and praying, but we are also amazed at how God spoke to her.”
    Rayford had known Hattie for years, of course, and had once jeopardized his marriage over her. He asked to speak with Chloe. At first neither he nor his daughter could speak. Finally Rayford said, “It seems forever ago that you met her.”
    “Think she accomplished anything, Dad?”
    “That’s not for me to say. She obeyed God, though. That seems clear.”
    “What was he up to there?”
    “I don’t know. If someone in the crowd was wavering, who