Read Online The Rapture: In The Twinkling Of An Eye by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins - Free Book Online Page B

room and reached her roommate, who told her that Chloe was at debate club but that she would give her the message.
    “Thanks, Amy,” Irene said. “And tell her it’s nothing urgent. I just miss her and love her and want to hear her voice.”
    “Oh, that’s so sweet!”
    “Well, we’ll see how sweet Chloe thinks it is if she calls me back.”
    “If she doesn’t,” Amy said, laughing, “I’ll mimic her voice and call you myself.”
    Matei Prodan was Fortunato’s most trusted operative. He was expensive, but he was ideal. Quiet. Ruthless. Above all, thorough. Somehow he never left evidence, and when he took a job, it was soon done and forgotten.
    Matei and a younger associate—Lazar—took care of Stefan’s mother first. As Lazar mounted the steps to her one-room apartment, Matei phoned her from his cell phone in the car. “Mrs. Marin?”
    “Yes, who is it?”
    “I’m calling from Fundeni Hospital, where your son has been admitted. Your son is Stefan Marin, correct?”
    “Stefan? Yes! What has happened?”
    “An accident, ma’am. I am sorry to tell you that you must come immediately.”
    “He is dying? I have no way to get there!”
    “We have sent an attendant to drive you. Can you be ready momentarily?”
    “Of course!”
    “He should be nearly at your door.”
    “But I’m undressed for the evening after a day at work! I’ll need to change!”
    “Do it quickly,” Matei said. “And you will need nothing more than identification.”
    Moments later Lazar opened the back door of Matei’s car for the bent woman, and she entered, weeping. “I am so grateful for your kindness,” she said. “What can you tell me? Will he live?”
    “Would you like to speak with him?” Matei said, handing her his phone. “It is ringing.”
    “Stefan! What happened? I am on my way! Hold on for my sake…. What? But I was told… these gentlemen are bringing me to the hospital!... What? Help me, Stefan! They told me—”
    The woman thrashed about, trying to open the back door, but it had been locked from the driver’s door. She pulled herself forward. “What is this? What are you doing? My son says he is fine!”
    Matei nodded to Lazar, who turned and said softly, “Perhaps it is a case of mistaken identity.”
    From the phone came shouts of warning from Stefan, and with that Lazar drove an elbow so savagely into the face of the woman that Matei heard bones shatter as she flopped onto the seat and then onto the floor. The shouting continued from the phone until Lazar fished it from the floor and slapped it shut.
    Matei followed the Danube out of the city and pulled off to a secluded grove. “Is she still alive?”
    Lazar nodded, and Matei motioned with his head toward the back while reaching into the glove box to trip the trunk latch. The young man got out and returned with two forty-pound blocks of concrete with handles made of bent rebar.
    Stefan’s mother breathed laboriously through blood-caked nostrils as Lazar moved to the other side of the car and forced her feet through the openings in the ersatz handles. When Matei helped heft her from the car, he wondered if she weighed much more than the concrete.
    The men carried her to a steep embankment and rolled her over the side, waiting a few seconds for the splash. By the time her body deteriorated and freed itself from the boots of death, there would be too little of her left for anyone to recognize. And who knew where she might wash up onto the bank of the rapid river?
    Matei and Lazar cleaned themselves off and reentered the car. Matei pulled a small slip of paper from his pocket and held it up to the dim dash light. “Our next stop.”
    “You tell me where my mother is and you tell me right now,” Stefan shouted, gushing profanities.
    Fortunato lowered the volume on his TV and pulled the hem of his robe over his bare feet. “Your mother?” he said, pressing the phone tight against his ear. “Don’t do this!” Stefan said. “Where is she?”