Read Online Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins - Free Book Online Page B

from Israel. Not all of them will. Many will come from tribes all over the globe. But the greatest source of Jews is Israel. These will be zealous as Paul but new to the faith and untrained. I feel a call to meet them and greet them and teach them. They must be mobilized and sent out. They are already empowered.”
    “Let’s assume I get you to Israel. How do I keep you alive?”
    “What, you think you kept me alive on our flight across the Sinai?”
    “I helped.”
    “You helped? You amuse me, Cameron. In many ways, yes, I owe you my life. But you were as much in the way as I was. That was God’s work, and we both know it.”
    Buck stood. “Fair enough. Still, taking you back to where you are a fugitive seems lunacy.”
    He helped Tsion stand. “Send word ahead that I was killed in the earthquake,”
    the rabbi said. “Then I can go in disguise under one of those phony names you come up with.”
    “Not without plastic surgery you won’t,” Buck said. “You’re a recognizable guy, even in Israel where everybody your age looks like you.”
    The sunlight softened and faded as they finished picking through the kitchen.
    Tsion found plastic bags and wrapped food he would store in the car. Buck wrenched a few clothes out of the mess that had been his and Chloe’s bedroom while Tsion collected Chloe’s computer and phone from the garage.
    Neither had the strength to climb over the pavement barrier, so they took the long way around. When they reached the Range Rover, both had to get in the passenger side.
    “And so what do you think now?” Tsion said. “If Chloe were alive somewhere in there, she would have heard us and called out to us, would she not?”
    Buck nodded miserably. “I’m trying to resign myself to the fact that she’s at the bottom. I was wrong, that’s all. She wasn’t in the bedroom or the kitchen or the basement. Maybe she ran to another part of the house. It would take heavy equipment to pull all the trash out of that place and find her. I can’t imagine leaving her there, but neither can I think about more digging tonight.”
    Buck drove toward the church. “Should we stay in the shelter tonight?”
    “I worry it is unstable,” Tsion said. “Another shift and it could come down on us.”
    Buck drove on. He was a mile south of the church when he came to a neighborhood twisted and shaken but not broken. Many structures were damaged, but most still stood. A filling station, illuminated by butane torches, serviced a small line of cars.
    “We’re not the only civilians who survived,” Tsion said.
    Buck pulled into line. The man running the station had a shotgun propped up against the pumps. He shouted over a gasoline generator, “Cash only!
    Twenty-gallon limit! When it’s gone, it’s gone.”
    Buck topped off his tank and said, “I’ll give you a thousand cash for—”
    “The generator, yeah, I know. Take a number. I could get ten thousand for it by tomorrow.”
    “Know where I could get another one?”
    “I don’t know anything,” the man said wearily. “My house is gone. I’ll be sleeping here tonight.”
    “Need some company?”
    “Not especially. If you get desperate, come back. I wouldn’t turn you away.”
    Buck couldn’t blame him. Where would you start and end taking in strangers at a time like this?
    “Cameron,” Tsion began when Buck got back in the car, “I have been thinking. Do we know whether the computer technician’s wife knows about her husband?”
    Buck shook his head. “I met his wife only one time. I don’t remember her name.
    Wait a minute.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out the church directory.
    “Here it is,” he said. “Sandy. Let me call her.” He punched in the numbers, and while he was not surprised the call did not go through, he was encouraged to get as far as a recorded message that all circuits were busy. That was progress, at least.
    “Where do they live?” Tsion said. “It’s not likely standing, but we could