"Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind Series 11 - Armageddon" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

Chang thought, the good guys finally had even a better deal than they had when
the daylight hours belonged solely to them.
Now, for as long as God tarried, for as long as he saw fit to keep the
shades pulled down and the lights off, everything was in the believers' favor.
"God," Chang said, "just give me a couple more days of this."
 ONE

FOR THE FIRST TIME since takeoff, Rayford Steele had second thoughts
about his and Abdullah Smith's passenger. "We shouldn't have brought her,
Smitty," he said. He stole a glance at Abdullah behind the controls.
The Jordanian shook his head. "That's on you, Cap-tain, I am sorry to say.
I tried to tell you how important she was to Petra."
The darkness enveloping only New Babylon, but visible from more than a
hundred miles, was unlike anything Rayford had ever seen. By the time Abdullah
initiated the descent of the Gulfstream IX toward Iraq, the clock read 1200
hours, Palace Time.
Normally the magnificent structures of the new world capital gleamed
stunningly in the noonday sun. Now a stark and isolated column of blackness
rose from New Babylon's expansive borders into the cloudless heavens as high
as the eye could see.
Chang Wong was Rayford's mole inside the palace. Trusting the young
man's assurances that they would be able to see where others could not,
Rayford traded glances with Abdullah as he guided the craft into the dark from
the whiteness reflecting off the desert sand. Abdullah flipped on his landing
lights.
Rayford squinted. "Do we need an ILS approach?"
"Instrument landing system?" Abdullah said. "Don't think so, Captain. I can
see enough to fly."
Rayford compared the freakish darkness to the beau-tiful day they had left
in Petra. He peeked over his shoulder at the young woman, whom he expected
to look afraid. She didn't. "We can still turn back," he said. "Your father looked
reluctant when we boarded."
"That was probably for your benefit," Naomi Tiberias said. "He knows I'll be
fine."
The teenage computer whiz's humor and self-confidence were legendary.
She seemed shy and self-conscious around adults until she got to know them;
then she interacted like a peer. Rayford knew she had brought Abdullah up to
speed in computer savvy, and she had been in nearly constant touch with Chang
since the lights went out in New Babylon.
"Why is it dark only here?" Naomi said. "It's so strange."
"I don't know," Rayford said. "The prophecy says it affects `the throne of
the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness.' That's all we know."
Rayford's every visit to Petra had found Naomi grow-ing in influence and
responsibility among the Remnant. She had emerged early as a technological
prodigy, and as she taught others, Naomi had become the de facto head of the
vast computer center. Quickly rising from go-to person to the one in charge,
she'd finally become the teacher who taught teachers.
The center that had been designed by Chang's pre-decessor, the late David
Hassid, was now the hub that kept Petra in touch with more than a billion souls
every day. Thousands of computers allowed that many men-tors to keep up with