"In the meantime, though," the Turkish captain said, "know that you have my friendship. For what it's worth." He extended his hand.

"It's worth a lot," Goose said, taking the other man's hand. "I don't take friendships lightly."

"Nor do I. God keep you, First Sergeant Gander, for I fear you and I have only begun to see the horrific things that are in store for us." Mkchian released his hand and walked back to his jeep.

"God keep you, Captain." Goose stared after the Jeep. Unease stirred through his mind, leavening his thoughts and building with each passing second. He was concerned about his relationship with Remington. The captain had been mad at him before, even back when they had both been sergeants, but they had never been in circumstances like these. He'd never seen Remington take things so personally.

Mkchian's final thoughts were very disturbing as well. The man had sounded sure of himself, like he knew what was coming and it was more than just the hasty withdrawal from the Syrian front. And whatever it was, Goose had the definite feeling that it was much, much worse.

United States of America Washington Dulles International Airport, Washington D.C.

Local Time 5:43 P.M.

From the instant Delroy Harte left the helipad aboard USS Wasp in the Mediterranean Sea and flown west, time turned backward. In Turkey, the clock had moved forward into tomorrow, and the local time there was 0043. He knew that because as he arrived in the restricted airspace over Washington, he realized he'd forgotten to set his watch to local time.

But in the nation's capital, the time was 5:43 P.m., and harsh afternoon sunlight poured through the jet's windows. He'd flown for over fourteen hours, in the helicopter from Wasp to the C-9 Skytrain Captain Falkirk had requisitioned for him at Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily, Italy. The navy primarily used the Skytrain for cargo and passenger transportation as well as forward deployment logistic support.

Delroy closed his father's Bible gently, pulling the cloth bookmark into place in the book of Revelation. During the long flight he had slept off and on. He'd eaten, too, but the skeleton crew had left him alone.

Large enough to seat 115 commercial passengers, the C-9 was presently set up with half its space allotted to cargo and the other half to passengers. Delroy was the only passenger. It felt odd to be sitting on an empty plane.

Once, about halfway through the flight, he had awakened to find himself alone. He'd remembered how Chief Mellencamp's body had disappeared with him sitting right beside it and how he and the other crewmen aboard Wasp sorted through the piles of clothing left throughout the ship's decks after the disappearances. For a moment, he'd thought everyone had vanished from the Skytrain. Thankfully, that hadn't been the case.

The pilot's cabin opened and a young lieutenant stepped through. Usually the C-9 carried only two pilots and necessary attendants. Evidently this flight was carrying three pilots; this man wasn't one of the two Delroy had seen since the last leg of the flight had begun.

"Chaplain Harte," the young man said.

"Yes?" Delroy scratched his chin, feeling the stubble that had grown there during the flight.

"We're going to begin our descent in five minutes. You might want to put your seat belt on.

They had a lot of damage at Dulles when the, uh, incident occurred. They haven't gotten it all cleaned up."

"Will there be any problems?" Delroy preferred the sea, calm and wide open. And as long as a person stayed on top of it, the sea was a fine place to be. Flying, in his view, was a necessary evil. "None that we can see," the lieutenant assured him. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

"You're welcome." The lieutenant looked at all the papers and books that Delroy had scattered around. "Will you need help putting things away?"

"No," Delroy answered. "No, I'm fine. You go on and take care of your business, Lieutenant."

The lieutenant nodded and started back to the pilot's cabin. "Lieutenant," Delroy called.

"Yes, sir."

"There is one thing."

"Yes, sir."

"I've got a meeting with the joint chiefs as soon as I can get there." Delroy touched his face. "After a flight this long, I'm not exactly presentable."

"Captain Falkirk had us set up a liaison for you as soon as you're on the ground, sir. You'll be met at the runway with a fresh uniform and toiletries. "

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Delroy turned his attention back to his papers. He should have known: Falkirk was a very able and thorough captain.

The C-9 hit a patch of turbulence. His papers and books scattered everywhere. Delroy pushed himself up from his seat and started gathering them. Before he knew it, the lieutenant was kneeling in front of him, picking up the papers and study guides.

"I can get this," Delroy said hurriedly.

"It's all right. Frank can land the plane by himself if he needs to. This won't take us but just a moment."

Then Delroy realized he was trying to keep all of his research to himself. He felt embarrassed to have God's Word scattered around, out there for everyone to see what he'd been doing. Embarrassed-he couldn't believe it. How long has it been since I felt like that?

The young lieutenant flipped through the end-times prophecy book Delroy had been referencing "The end of the world, Chaplain?" the lieutenant asked with a small smile. "Is that what you've been reading about?"

Delroy heard the lieutenant's inflection. Was the man trying to be sarcastic? Anger replaced the embarrassment that Delroy had felt. He knew he was having a hard time of it. He'd had little sleep in the last forty-eight hours, what with Mellencamp's death and the flight in to Washington. Colonel Donaldson's response had weighed heavily in the chaplain's mind as well. There was no guarantee the joint chiefs would listen any more than the Marine colonel had. That thought settled into Delroy's brain with a vengeance.

"Yes," Delroy said, "the end of the world. That's what I'm reading about."

The lieutenant handed the books over. "My grandmother used to try to scare me into being a better kid with that stuff."

"With what?" Delroy stared into the young man's ice-blue eyes.

"The end of the world," the young man said. "The-" he held up his hands and made quotation marks in the air- "Apocalypse." He laughed. "Like anybody could really believe in that."

"You don't believe the Apocalypse is going to happen?" Delroy stood.

"I think it's a story," the young lieutenant said.

"A story." Delroy couldn't believe his ears.

"Yeah," the young lieutenant said. "Every culture has a story about what's going to happen when the world ends. If you don't like the Apocalypse, maybe you could tune in to Ragnarok. The Norse invented a mythology for the end of the world, too. And if you don't want to hang your hat on the truly ancient beliefs, you can also go for the scientific end of the world as we know it." He smiled. "Take your pick. The hole in the ozone. The melting polar caps. Getting hit by a meteor. Or even the slow death of the sun eventually burning itself out." He shrugged. "The last one could be dull but festive."

"What's wrong with you?" Delroy drew himself up to his full height, towering above the other man. "How dare you talk to me like that. I am a superior officer, Lieutenant."

"Are you a superior officer, Chaplain Harte?" the lieutenant mused.

"You've been sent on an important mission." He made his voice deep.

"Convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff that God has come and taken his children." He laughed. "Do you know how pathetic that sounds?" "I'll have your name, mister," Delroy said gruffly. "Sure. Read it for yourself."

Delroy looked at the man's name badge but couldn't quite make it out. The letters seemed to be squirming, constantly staying just ahead of his ability to focus.

"You don't believe God exists," the smiling lieutenant said. "You've served aboard Wasp for five years, and you haven't believed." "Shut up!" Delroy roared.

"You haven't believed," the man taunted. "That's why Colonel Donaldson didn't buy into your story."

"Donaldson is afraid," Delroy said in a voice that was only somewhat below a shout. He didn't understand why one of the other pilots didn't come back to find out what was going on. Unless they are all in on it. The thought filled him with fear.

The lieutenant grinned. He whispered, "Maybe I killed them all." "Who are you?" Delroy demanded.

The man shook his head. "The question isn't who am I, it's who do you think you are? How can you be a chaplain if you don't believe?"

Delroy walked to the pilot's cabin door and tried to open it. The handle didn't turn. Knotting a fist, he pounded on the door. "Open this door."

"How can you expect anyone to believe you," the man asked, "when you don't even believe yourself?"

Delroy whirled on the man, barely maintaining the panic that filled him. "I do believe!"

"Why? Because a lot of people turned up missing sixteen-plus hours ago and you don't have an answer? Oh, man, if you can't explain it, if things don't go the way you want them to, it must be God. Are ignorance and fear and a need for some kind of immortality what it takes to make you a believer, Chaplain Harte?"

Guilt washed over Delroy, so grim in its perfection that he felt himself crumbling before it like an earthen dam before the raging torrent of an unexpected flood.

The man shook his head. "I can't believe they sent you. There's no excuse. "

Delroy trembled, held powerless by the accusations that poured from the man. Every one of them rang true. He had been guilty of exactly what the man said. He hadn't believed. Not for a long time. And was that what it took to make him believe? The disappearance of millions of people?

It only took the death of one to make you doubt. The realization shook Delroy to his core.

"And what message are you going to take to the joint chiefs, Chaplain Harte?" the man taunted. "Lock up the women and children, the Antichrist is coming." He covered his mouth as if in embarrassment. "Oops, forgot. All out of children, aren't we?" He paused. "Including you, Chaplain Harte? God took poor little Terry in the prime of his life."

Tears filled Delroy's vision, and pain wracked his heart.

"That's how you look at it, isn't it?" the man asked. "That God took your son?" He took a step forward, thrusting his face into Delroy's. "Then why doesn't he give him back? What right did he have to take your son?"

The sorrow broke out of Delroy in long, draining sobs. "I don't know! God help me, I don't know!"

"Well,," the man said in a relieved voice, "then maybe you should give some thought to why you're here." He reached for Delroy's face.

Before Delroy could block the man's hand, it wrapped around his head, smothering him. He felt powerless in the impossible grip, listening to the evil, confident chuckle that sounded right in his ear.

"Go home, Chaplain," the man said in a bestial snarl. "Go home and live in misery the way you have for the last five years. You'll be more comfortable there."

Shoved backward, off-balance, he fell. His head hit the carpeted floor hard enough to send black comets crashing through his vision.

When Delroy's eyesight cleared, the man was gone. Shaking, nauseous, the chaplain pushed himself to his knees. For a moment he thought he was going to throw up. But he made himself stand and go to the pilot's cabin. When he tried the door this time, the handle turned easily. He followed the door inside the cabin.

The two pilots looked back at him with curiosity. Both of them were men Delroy had seen earlier.

"Where is he?" Delroy demanded in a shaking and hoarse voice.

"Who?" the pilot asked.

"The other man," Delroy said. "The other pilot. The one who came back to tell me about the seat belt."

The pilots swapped looks. "Chaplain," the pilot said in a deliberately calm and nonthreatening voice, "there are just us two. No other pilots. No one has gone back to notify you yet. We were about to."

"1 saw him," Delroy said. He felt the man's hand against his face, and this time he felt the slither of scales instead of flesh. His voice choked down. "I saw him."

The copilot got up. "Let me help you back to your seat, Chaplain. If you ask me, you look about done in. Have you rested during this flight?"

Delroy looked at the two men. They were telling the truth.

"I haven't rested enough," he said. He looked at the pilot who had offered to help him to his seat. "I'm fine."

The pilot hesitated. "All right, chaplain. But we're going to be touching down in ten or fifteen minutes. As soon as the tower gives us clearance. We need you to get belted in."

"All right." Delroy turned and went, knowing that the two men would probably report this incident to Falkirk. And what would that report do to the captain's faith?

Delroy returned to his seat and belted himself in. He stared out the window, feeling the C-9 sink into its final approach pattern only a few short minutes later. Smoke still curled from fires in the distance around the city.

Had he been struggling with his own personal demons, trapped in some warped nightmare of his own doubts? Or had it been something else? If all the believers had been taken from the world during the Rapture, did that mean that something else might have slipped back into the world? Something darker? Something evil? Or had that evil been here all along and only now was freed to rise up?

Delroy didn't know. What he was certain of, though, was that he was scheduled to speak to the joint chiefs in the next hour-and he was in no shape for it.

Turkish-Syrian Border 40 Klicks South of Sanliurfa, Turkey Local Time 0101 Hours The thrum of the generator only twenty yards away rattled through Cal Remington's skull. His eyes felt like they were filled with broken glass as he stared at the notebook computer on the small folding desk he'd brought into the campsite along the ridge overlooking the border area.

His anger was still stoked from the confrontation with Goose and Captain Mkchian that had taken place hours ago. Goose ticked him off plenty. Over the years that they had been good friends, then gotten to be an effective captain and first sergeant team, he and Goose had experienced plenty of differences of opinion. Usually those differences of opinion had taken place over personnel, never over implementation of details of an operation-never over organization or timing or equipment. They'd always disagreed over people.

And those differences of opinion had never been publicly aired in any theater they'd been involved in.

Remington accepted some share of the blame. After all, he'd chosen to dress Goose down in front of the Rangers he'd brought with him. Getting the chance to do it in front of the Turkish captain had been a bonus.

That had backfired, though. Mkchian had taken Goose's side, and that had been totally unexpected. Remington had believed the Turkish captain would be against Christian practices.

Since that mistake, Remington had made it a point to research Captain Tariq Mkchian's file more thoroughly. He'd been surprised to learn that the Turkish captain was a Christian. In a country that was overwhelmingly Muslim, the odds were heavily against such an occurrence.

But that was how things were with Goose. He'd always been lucky, always in the right place at the right time. He'd always gotten to know the right people.

Remington knew for a fact that Goose had been recruited for OCS. Goose had turned it down, and Remington knew why. As an officer, Goose would end up dealing with paper more than he dealt with people.

Remington knew the names of every man in his company, but Goose knew each man. The first sergeant knew them through families, kids, sports, training, or church.

Remington had never wanted that kind of familiarity with the people he commanded. Familiarity bred contempt. Familiarity forced an officer to think of the unit he was about to sacrifice as human beings instead of numbers that got crunched in the final equation.

The notebook computer screen blinked for his attention. A popup menu floated up and let him know he had an incoming call.

Remington pulled on the headset and tapped the Open button. He made sure the button cam attached to the notebook monitor pointed at him. The picture at the other end wouldn't be good because the light level inside the tent was low. The light inside couldn't be seen from the outside at all because of the thick tarp.

When the screen cleared, Remington found he was looking at Captain Mark Falkirk. The connection was provided through a satphone managed by the Romanian communications company.

"Captain," Remington greeted.

"I take it you're at the front," Falkirk said.

"Yes.

"Intel has marked movement among the Syrian troops."

The message had come in eighteen minutes ago. Remington wasn't surprised that Wasp wasn't quite up to speed in the sit-rep along the border. With her manpower cut drastically, Wasp been hard-pressed to get set up for the arrival of the Marine Harriers and Sea Cobra helicopter gunships. There were also more Sea Knights providing transportation for Marine troops into the area.