"Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind Series 2 - Tribulation Force" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

But when Rayford turned back to his reading, it was the Chicago Tribune sticking
out of his bag that grabbed his attention.
The Tribune, like every other paper in the world, carried the front-page story:
During a private meeting at the United Nations, just before a Nicolae Carpathia
press conference, a horrifying murder/suicide had occurred. New U.N. Secretary-
General Nicolae Carpathia had just installed the ten new members of the expanded
Security Council, seeming to err by inaugurating two men to the same position of
U.N. ambassador from the Great States of Britain.
According to the witnesses, billionaire Jonathan Stonagal, Carpathia's friend and
financial backer, suddenly overpowered a guard; stole his handgun, and shot
himself in the head, the bullet passing through and killing one of the new
ambassadors from Britain.
The United Nations had been closed for the day, and Carpathia was despondent over
the tragic loss of his two dear friends and trusted advisers.
Bizarre as it might seem, Rayford Steele was one of only four people on the planet
who knew the truth about Nicolae Carpathia—that he was a liar, a hypnotic
brainwasher, the Antichrist himself. Others might suspect Carpathia of being other
than he seemed, but only Rayford, his daughter, his pastor, and his new friend
journalist Buck Williams knew for sure.
Buck had been one of the seventeen in that United Nations meeting room. And he
had witnessed something entirely different—not a murder/suicide, but a double
murder. Carpathia himself, according to Buck, had methodically borrowed the
guard's gun, forced his old friend Jonathan Stonagal to kneel, then killed Stonagal
and the British ambassador with one shot.
Carpathia had choreographed the murders, and then, while the witnesses sat in
horror, Carpathia quietly told them what they had seen—the same story the
newspapers now carried. Every witness in that room but one corroborated it. Most
chilling, they believed it. Even Steve Plank, Buck's former boss, now Carpathia's
press agent. Even Hattie Durham, Rayford's onetime flight attendant, who had
become Carpathia's personal assistant. Everyone except Buck Williams.
Rayford had been dubious when Buck told his version in Bruce Barnes's office two
nights ago. “You're the only person in the room who saw it your way?” he had
challenged the writer.
“Captain Steele,” Buck had said, “we all saw it the same way. But then Carpathia
calmly described what he wanted us to think we had seen, and everybody but me
immediately accepted it as truth. I want to know how he explains that he had the
dead man's successor already there and sworn in when the murder took place. But
now there's no evidence I was even there. It's as if Carpathia washed me from their
memories. People I know now swear I wasn't there, and they aren't joking.”
Chloe and Bruce Barnes had looked at each other and then back at Buck. Buck had
finally become a believer, just before entering the meeting at the U.N. “I'm
absolutely convinced that if I had gone into that room without God,” Buck said, “I
would have been reprogrammed too.”
“But now if you just tell the world the truth—”
“Sir, I've been reassigned to Chicago because my boss believes I missed that
meeting. Steve Plank asked why I had not accepted his invitation. I haven't talked to
Hattie yet, but you know she won't remember I was there.”
“The biggest question,” Bruce Barnes said, “is what Carpathia thinks is in your
head. Does he think he's erased the truth from your mind? If he knows you know,
you're in grave danger.”