"Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind Series 9 - Desecration" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

PROLOGUE

From The Mark

"WE CAN all keep our fingers crossed," Mac said. "I've seen those Quasis do amazing things based
solely on what the flight management system onboard computer tells it to do. But this is a long
flight on its own, and I've asked it to do some interesting stuff, barring turbulence."

"Cross our fingers?" Hannah said. "Only God can make this work. You're the expert, Captain
McCullum, but if this thing goes down anywhere but deep in the Mediterranean, it won't take long
for someone to discover no one was aboard."

This plane was not free-falling toward the Mediterranean. No, this multimillion-Nick marvel of
modern technology was accelerating, her burner cans hot, the vapor shimmering in a long trail. The
strange attitude and angle sent the craft careening toward the shore approximately three-quarters
of a mile south of the crowd.

The Quasi and ostensibly her two-man crew and two passengers slammed the beach perfectly
perpendicular at near the speed of sound. The first impression of the shocked-to-silence crowd had
to be the same as Buck's. The screaming jet engines still resonated even after the plane
disintegrated, hidden in a billowing globe of angry black-and-orange flames. An eerie silence
swept in, followed less than half a second later by the nauseating sound of the impact, a
thundering explosion accompanied by the roar and hiss of the raging fire.

Buck hurried to his car and phoned Rayford. "The ship is down on the shore. No one could have
survived it. On my way back to the voice that will cry in the wilderness."

Buck was struck by an unusual emotion as he merged into traffic that crawled toward the ancient
city. It was as if he had seen his comrades go down in that plane. He knew it was empty, yet there
had been such a dramatic finality to the ruse. He wished he knew whether it was the end of
something or the beginning of something. Could he hope the GC was too busy to thoroughly
investigate the site? Fat chance.

All Buck knew was that what he had endured in three and a half years was a walk in the park
compared to what was coming. The entire drive back he spent in silent prayer for every loved one
and Trib Force member. Buck had little doubt that the indwelt Antichrist would not hesitate to use
his every resource to quash the rebellion scheduled to rise against him the next day.

Buck had never been fearful, never one to back down in the face of mortal danger. But Nicolae
Carpathia was evil personified, and the next day Buck would be in the line of fire when the battle
of the ages between good and evil for the very souls of men and women would burst from the
heavens, and all hell would break loose on earth.

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out the bowls
of the wrath of God on the earth."

So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon
the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.