Free Nicolae: The Rise Of The Antichrist by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins Page A

right. He could hardly believe how clear the sailing was with all the arteries leading into Sheridan Road blocked off. The question now was what he would find on Lake Shore Drive.
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    Frustrated was too mild a word for the way Rayford felt as he landed the Condor 216
    in San Francisco and taxied to a private jetway. There he sat with the unenviable task of carrying Antichrist himself wherever he wanted to go. Carpathia had just told bald-faced lies to the largest audience that had ever listened to a single radio broadcast. Rayford knew beyond doubt that shortly after takeoff toward New Babylon, San Francisco would be devastated from the air the same way Chicago had been. People would die. Business and industry would crumble. Transportation centers would be destroyed, including that very airport. Rayford’s first order of business was to get Amanda off that plane and out of that airport and into the Chicago area. He didn’t even want to wait for the jetway to be maneuvered out to the plane. He opened the door himself and lowered the telescoping stairs to the runway. He motioned for Amanda to hurry. Carpathia made some farewell small talk as she hurried past, and Rayford was grateful that she merely thanked the man and kept moving. Ground personnel waved at Rayford and tried to get him to pull the stairs back up. He shouted, “We have one passenger who needs to make a connection!”
    Rayford embraced Amanda and whispered, “I checked with the tower. There’s a flight to Milwaukee leaving from a gate at the end of this corridor in less than twenty minutes.
    Make sure you’re on it.” Rayford kissed Amanda and she hurried down the steps.
    He saw the ground crew waiting for him to pull the stairs back up so they could get the jetway into position. He could think of no legitimate reason to stall, so he simply ignored them, walked back into the cockpit, and began postflight checks.
    “What’s going on?” his copilot asked. “I want to switch places with your guy as soon as I can.”
    If you only knew what you were walking into, Rayford thought. “Where are you headed tonight?”
    “What possible business is that of yours?” the young man said.
    Rayford shrugged. He felt like the little Dutch boy with his thumb in the dike. He couldn’t save everyone. Could he save anyone? A Carpathia aide poked his head into the cockpit. “Captain Steele, you’re being summoned by the ground crew.”
    “I’ll handle it, sir. They’ll have to wait for our postflight check. You realize that with a new plane there’s a lot we need to be sure of before we attempt a trans-Pacific flight.”
    “Well, we’ve got McCullum waiting to board, and we’ve got a full flight crew waiting besides. We’d kind of like to have some service.”
    Rayford tried to sound cheery. “Safety first.”
    “Well, hurry it up!”
    While the first officer double-checked items on his clipboard, Rayford checked with the tower on the status of the outbound flight to Milwaukee. “Behind schedule about twelve minutes, Condor 216. It shouldn’t affect you.”
    But it will, Rayford thought.
    Rayford stepped into the cabin. “Excuse me, sir, but isn’t Mr. Fortunate joining us for the next leg of the flight?”
    “Yes,” an aide said. “He left Dallas half an hour after we did, so he shouldn’t be long.”
    He will be if I can help it.
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    Buck finally hit the brick wall he knew would be inevitable. He had bounced over a couple of curbs and couldn’t avoid smashing one traffic barrier where Sheridan Road jogged to meet Lake Shore Drive. All along the Drive he saw cars off the road, emergency vehicles with lights flashing, and disaster relief specialists trying to flag him down. He floored Verna Zee’s little car, and no one dared step in front of him. He had most of the lanes open all the way down the Drive, but he heard people shouting, “Stop!
    Road closed!”
    The radio told him that gridlock within the city proper had ground all fleeing traffic