Free Fuse of Armageddon by Sigmund Brouwer, Hank Hanegraaff

across the United States—responded with cries of “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!”
    “Picture it,” Silver said, dropping his voice dramatically. “An army of two hundred million, gathered in this valley for the battle of Armageddon.”
    Silver was a large man with a beautiful mane of almost-white hair to match his distinctive name. Although he was nearing sixty, he appeared much younger, fueling tabloid gossip that he’d had discreet nips and tucks. Great tailoring hid the inevitable sags of aging. This was important. Every Sunday morning as he preached the gospel, Jonathan’s image was broadcast to millions of viewers across the world.
    The doctor with the false name tag knew all of this and much more about Jonathan Silver. He knew about the six security men dispersed among the group.
    “Yes,” Silver continued in the hypnotic voice that had lost no power with age, “hear the words of the vision given to John: ‘So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs.’”
    The amens and hallelujahs grew louder.
    Khaled Safady raised his hand and waited respectfully for Jonathan Silver to acknowledge the question.
    “In miles, how long is that river of blood?” Safady asked. He spoke with a Middle Eastern accent that no one found strange because of his assumed identity. Over the first few days of the tour, no one had yet looked at him twice or suspected where he’d been born.
    “Roughly two hundred miles,” Silver answered. “Incredible, isn’t it? The blood of our enemies!”
    This was the answer Safady expected, of course. It was the answer in all of Silver’s books on end-times prophecies. Although Safady was an Islamic radical, he’d spent hours and hours studying Silver’s Christian theology. Know thy enemy.
    “Incredible,” Safady agreed. He held his hand at the height of an imaginary horse’s bridle. “This high?”
    “That high,” Silver confirmed. “Four and a half feet.”
    “And how wide?” Safady asked.
    “Twenty-five feet.” Silver’s deep voice was confident in the answer.
    “Incredible,” Safady repeated. “You know, as a medical doctor, I have a rough idea of how much blood a human body holds. Has anyone calculated how many people it would take for a river with that much blood?”
    While his questions had no relevance to what Safady had planned for the group, there was little time remaining before the sniper fired. He could finally afford to vent some of his anger at the people around him.
    “It will take the blood of the two hundred million,” Silver said with great certainty. “The Battle of Armageddon will be a horror we can hardly comprehend.”
    “Two hundred million,” Safady said. “Is that all the blood of all two hundred million people?”
    “As I said, a horror we can hardly comprehend,” Jonathan Silver said. “But let me be quick to add, a justified horror. Both the righteous and the unrighteous will receive what they deserve.”
    “But I’m a physician. I’ve seen horrible accidents. I’ve seen people die. Any wound with enough blood loss to lead to death stops the heart long before the heart can pump the body dry. How will Christ squeeze the remaining blood from the two hundred million bodies?”
    “Come on,” a large-bellied man said, his arm around his wife. He spoke in a condescending tone. “With God, anything is possible.”
    Some in the group echoed that with more amens. Other tourists around Safady squirmed, giving him some space, making it clear they did not want to be associated with his pointed doubts of the great Jonathan Silver.
    “I’m sorry.” Safady smiled at the large-bellied man. This will be the sniper’s victim, he decided. He walked over and patted the man’s shoulder. The touch of