CHAPTER 7
“How did you endure the people’s constant complaining and rebellions against God?” Gloria tilted her head as she gazed at Moishe. The cool night breeze caressed her cheek, and ruffled her hair and the two preachers’ beards. The moonbeams softly illuminated the landscape and the two witnesses.
Moishe shook his head. “It wasn’t easy, but the Lord helped me. The rebellions weren’t really against me--they were against Him, and the Lord helped me to remember that.”
Gloria nodded. “Yes--they were.” She clasped her hands in her lap.
Eli looked her in the eye. He raised a long, sinewy arm to emphasize his point. “As an angel, you’ve surely had occasion to experience that.”
Gloria nodded. “Some--yes. But please remember, I’ve only been around for a little over a year, so I don’t have the wealth of experience with humans that Tess, Monica, and Andrew all have.”
Eli nodded back, an amused expression in his eyes. “We would like to hear about your experiences, Gloria.”
Gloria shrugged. “OK.” She paused, thinking. “Well, my very 1st assignment, after I was created, was given to me when I met a little girl whose mother was looking for a job. Her name was Madeleine. She had no father, you see, and Madeleine and her mother were homeless. It was my assignment to stay with her until she got a home.” Sadness welled up in her heart. “Only, she never got one--not on this earth. Someone rigged an explosion in the building where her mother was going to make calls. It killed her mother, and later, Madeleine.” She bit her lip. “I stayed with her until she died. Andrew took her and her mother Home. Monica disappeared for a time--the tragedy shook her faith in people, so that she didn’t want to get involved with them anymore.”
Moses nodded. “Many wicked people, down through history, have taken the lives of those who were innocent. Beginning with Cain and Abel.”
Gloria smiled ruefully. “Yes, they have.” She paused. “Another time, God sent Monica and me to minister His love to this man who was afraid to get involved with people--with life. To stick his neck out, as his grandmother put it. His name was Chuck Parker; he was a postman--he delivered mail to people’s homes.” Moses and Elijah nodded. “Well, his grandmother died, and Andrew took her Home, then Monica had to help him deal with his grief.” Gloria paused to watch a shooting star zoom across the sky overhead; it disappeared into the star-dotted expanse. “I had much to learn about death, in those days. Andrew took me on a ride-along, to watch how people handled death and how Andrew handled his assignments.” She pressed her fingers against the bench’s rough surface. It felt cold.
Elijah nodded. “That was a useful lesson.”
“Yes.” She paused. “Well, while Monica, Andrew, and I were on our assignment, Tess had one of her own. She had to befriend and comfort a little girl whose father was abusing her and her brother. The two assignments intersected, when the little girl’s brother received from Chuck Parker a gun he’d ordered from the Internet; he was going to kill their father, to make the abuse stop. Andrew persuaded him to not do it, so he ran outside and got killed. Chuck accidentally ran into him in his car.”
She leaned against the rough stone wall the bench stood next to. Her shoulder flattened a small patch of lichen growing there. “Then we had to stop Chuck Parker from killing himself. Monica talked to him, persuaded him not only to live, but to help the little girl by reporting her father. He did, and the father was taken into custody. The child was sent to a foster home. I suppose she’s in Heaven now.” Moses and Elijah nodded agreement.
For a few minutes, Gloria sat in silence, remembering. Then she proceeded to tell Moses and Elijah several more stories--the story of the family who was hurting in the aftermath of September 11th; the ex-high school teacher who needed to learn that he’d made a difference in the lives of his students; the young woman who yearned to find romantic love during “happy hour”; the first assignment God gave Gloria to handle herself, when He sent her to dissuade a successful businessman who plotted to get even with a former high-school classmate; and the little girl who wanted to find her father, who’d been separated from her mother for some years.
She told the two witnesses about the widowed college professor who’d had an obsession to find the long-missing Ark of the Covenant, and how, just two weeks after God had created her, she and the other angels had finally accompanied him on an expedition to Mount Nebo, where they’d met another angel, Micah, and where they’d found the hidden ark in a cave. She described the time when she accompanied a young teenage boy from a troubled family to a rave where both she and the boy had made the mistake of taking a drug called ecstasy. That assignment had been conducted around Thanksgiving.
“I acted like a teenager myself during that assignment,” she told them, biting her lower lip. “Being a brand-new angel, I was so naive; I had some hard lessons to learn.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Moses and Elijah nodded, understanding etched on their lined faces. Gloria sensed they were remembering the hard lessons they’d been forced to learn during their early earthly lives.
She finished by telling the two witnesses about the two assignments God had given her and the other angels, to minister to the Dalys and the Whittakers during the past few months. The preachers listened attentively until she finished.
Moses smiled approvingly. “You have learned much in your short year. As an angel who was created just a year before the Tribulation, you still have much to learn, but you have the others angels to teach you, and more importantly, God Himself.”
“Yes.” Gloria smiled back. “I do.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose again, then glanced at the moon and at the glittering stars dotting the sky from horizon to horizon. Father, please lead the others to Daniel before it’s too late!
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“We don’t have any time to waste.” Tess turned off the ignition, then hopped out of the convertible. The others followed suit, including a sleepy-eyed Rachel; behind the Cadillac, Richard shut the door of the sedan. “So let’s hurry.”
“Yes. If we don’t succeed, Daniel will be dead very shortly.” Andrew shook his head, as he glanced down at his pocket watch.
Richard chuckled. “You know, Andrew, for an angel of death, you are certainly kind and caring towards people.”
Andrew smiled, amusement in his eyes. “I hope I am, Richard, because God is. It’s a myth that we angels of death are fearsome creatures of the dark. We love our assignments, the people we take Home. God gave us that love.” Richard nodded, pondering that. Next to him, Rachel yawned, holding her hand to her mouth as she’d been taught. Richard patted her back.
Tess led the way up the Temple Mount toward a spot hidden behind a row of bushes. The moonlight illuminated the landscape, making it easier for the adults and angels to see where they were going. Silently, Richard prayed that they would succeed in convincing Daniel to abandon his murder scheme. He was determined to get through Daniel’s thick skull, somehow. He knew, from personal experience, how difficult it could be to talk sense to someone who was determined to stick to a wrong course; he himself had been such a person only a few months before. Maybe Richard could persuade Daniel to relinquish his murder plot. After all, the Richard he’d once been had had a lot in common with Daniel.
Several feet away from that spot rested the flat incline where Moishe and Eli typically preached to the masses. A nearly-flattened rock arose from that incline. Tess stopped short; with a stern expression on her face, she ordered, “Daniel Edward Rosen! Come out of those bushes! Now!”
Soft thuds, and the loud rustling of leaves and branches, heralded a man’s approach. A moment later, a trembling Daniel crept out of the bushes and stood before the group, staring at them in evident shock. “How--how did you find me?” The moonlight highlighted the pallor on his ashen face.
Richard stepped forward. “It wasn’t hard to guess, Dan.” He approached Daniel. “Rachel, here, saw the materials you’d gathered, and she described them for us. It was easy to surmise that you were planning to build a bomb.”
Ryan nodded agreement. He inserted his fingers into his jeans pockets. “And there’s only one place here on this mount where a bomb can be planted that’ll kill those two men. We‘re here to stop you from making a terrible mistake, Dan.”
Daniel glared at him, then shifted his glare from Richard to Tess. “That’s right--it will kill those two men. And good riddance, too! And no, I’m not making a mistake!” He pursed his lip. “You’re not a Jew, Richard, and Ryan, neither are you; you don’t understand.” He pursed his lower lip, then folded his arms across his chest. “None of you do! Those men are a traitor to the Jewish faith! To see them standing here day after day, teaching such--such heresy--is an abomination! It’s more than any Jew should have to take! Those men are not going to plague us with their lies after tonight--I’m going to see to that!” He spat on the ground.
Richard and Ryan exchanged sorrowful glances. What was it going to take, to convince Daniel in time? Noticing that his shoelaces had come untied, Richard bent over to retie them. His black leather shoes, he noticed, had made shallow imprints in the dirt underneath.
When Richard straightened his back, he noticed the agitated man pacing back and forth. “BTW, did I ever tell you that my own daughter bought into that--that heresy? Just a few months before her death, she did. I--I can’t--!” He turned on Richard. “You’re not a Jew, so you’ll never understand! Neither are you, Ryan!”
Ryan shook his head. “Dan, trust me. You won’t succeed.” He took a step forward, then laid his hand on Daniel’s arm. Daniel jerked away, but Ryan kept his hand on the man’s arm. “You won’t be able to kill them, because they were sent by God. No one can, until their time comes, and it won’t come for the next three-and-a-half years. You’ll only get yourself killed, by trying.”
Richard nodded agreement; Daniel looked daggers at him. As Ryan stepped backward, Richard took a deep breath. In that moment, the breeze died down. Complete silence filled the mount until he spoke.
“Dan, there’s something about me you need to know.” He put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “You’re right; I’m not a Jew, so I can’t identify with the pain you felt when your daughter accepted Jesus. No--uh, wait, I take that back. In a way, I can.” Daniel stared at him, puzzled. Richard glanced back at his wife, then turned back to Daniel. “You see, until very recently, I was an atheist, and I would have no talk about God in my house. When Christina, here, accepted Jesus as her Savior the day after the Rapture--the mass disappearances--I was furious. I gave her a terrible time about her faith. I even threatened to divorce her.”
He glanced at Tess, who nodded permission. “It took these--these angels and the near-murder of my wife to get through to me. God finally got my attention.”
“Angels?!” Dan gaped at him, then froze as soft beams of Heavenly light began to pour onto the three angels. “What--what’s happening?” He stared at Richard, then at the others. His legs shook.
END OF CHAPTER 7