"Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind Series 7 - The Indwelling" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

course, but if they expected Chaim, wouldn't someone be left to guard the place?
Buck crept to the back, suddenly aware of his fatigue.
Grief and trauma did that to a person, he told himself.
He had not gotten to know Jacov well, but how he had thrilled to the young man's
coming to belief in Christ! They had kept up some, not as much as either had liked,
due to the risk of discovery. And though he knew he would see Jacov at the
Glorious Appearing-if not before-he dreaded having to break the news to Jacov's
friend and coworker, Stefan.
Buck had the advantage of knowing, really knowing, this house. He feared he might
be walking into a trap.
He didn't think the GC knew he was in Israel, but one could never be sure. Maybe
they lay in wait for Chaim or even Jacov. It was possible Jacov's death had not
made the GC databases yet, though that was unlikely. But where was everyone else?
Buck found the back door unlocked, and he slipped in.
A rechargeable flashlight was usually plugged into a socket near the floor, behind
the food preparers' table.
Buck felt for it and found it, but he didn't want to test it until he was confident no
one was waiting to ambush him. He took it into the pantry and waited until he shut
the door to turn it on. Then he felt foolish, reckless. He'd never been comfortable
with the role he had been thrust into, still part journalist but also freedom fighter,
raconteur. What kind of a swashbuckling Trib Force veteran backs himself into a
closet with nothing more to defend himself with than a cheap flashlight? He tried
the light switch on the pantry wall. Nothing.
So the power had been cut. Buck flipped the flashlight on, then off quickly.
Something in his peripheral vision froze him. Did he dare shine the light that way?
He let out a quavery breath. Who would lie in wait in a pantry? Buck aimed the
light that direction and turned it on.
Just an unusual arrangement of boxes and cans. He doused the light and moved
quietly to the door. Creeping through the kitchen into the dining room, the parlor,
and then the front room, Buck held the flashlight in front of him as if it were on, but
it served more like a blind man's cane. As his eyes began adjusting to the darkness,
he became aware of pinpoints of light from the street, and he still heard sirens in the
distance.
Later Buck would wonder whether he had smelled the blood before he heard it. Yes,
heard it. He knew something was wrong as soon as he reached the front room. It
was in the air. Heat? A presence? Someone. He stopped and tried to make out
shapes. He felt his own heart, but something reached his ears more insistently even
than that thumping. Dripping. Drip, drip, pause, drip-drip, drip. From two sources?
Part of him didn't want to know, to see. He turned his back to windows at the front,
pointed the flashlight toward the sounds, and braced himself, ready to defend
himself with bare hands and the flashlight, if necessary.
He turned on the light but immediately shut his eyes to the horror. He dropped to his
knees, the wind gushing from him. “Oh, God,” he prayed. “No! Please!” Was there
no end to the carnage? He would rather die than find his friends, his comrades
(someday his own family?) like this. In the split second he had allowed himself to
take in the scene, it became clear that two victims sat side by side in wood chairs,
Hannelore on the left, her mother on the right. They were bound and gagged, heads
tilted back, blood dripping into pools on the floor. Buck did not want to reveal
himself to anyone outside.
Plainly, this scene was created to “welcome” someone home; certainly the