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Chloe Steele told her father of her plans to finally look into Internet classes that Monday.
90s gold!
“Is Todd-Cothran here?” Buck said. “Of course. Right there in the light gray.” The Brit looked insignificant enough.
There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the Antichrist of the Bible was in this room. And despite all he knew about Stonagal and what the man had engineered in England and despite the ill feeling that came over him as he observed his smugness, Buck sensed the truest, deepest, darkest spirit of evil as he watched Carpathia take his place.
Nicolae Carpathia stepped out from his place at the table and went to each person individually. He greeted each by name, asking him to stand, shaking his hand, and kissing him on both cheeks.
Once everyone knows your shtick is listing things, you have to spice it up a little.
Emily liked this
He sensed and read the evil of the man and it was all he could do to keep from pointing at him and calling him the Antichrist. He could almost hear himself screaming it at Carpathia.
Buck, are you sure you need to worry about Carpathia brainwahing you? Seems like you've already got a Manchurian Candidate thing going on from your one-day excursion into Christianity.
Had he not belonged to God he would have been swept into the web of this man of deceit. He could see it in the others’ faces. They were honored beyond measure to be elevated to this tier of power and confidence, even Chaim Rosenzweig.
Not sure how I feel about the only Jewish character getting literally brainwashed by the Antichrist. It's far from good, don't get me wrong. I'm just having trouble identifying all the specific flavors of bile in my mouth.
Emily liked this
Carpathia was in no hurry. “I am going to kill Mr. Stonagal with a painless hollow-point round to the brain which he will neither hear nor feel. The rest of us will experience some ringing in our ears. This will be instructive for you all. You will understand cognitively that I am in charge, that I fear no man, and that no one can oppose me.”
Todd-Cothran opened his eyes at that news, and Buck heard himself shouting, “No!” as Carpathia pulled the trigger. The blast rattled the windows and even the door. Stonagal’s head crashed into the toppling Todd-Cothran, and both were plainly dead before their entwined bodies reached the floor.
“What we have just witnessed here,” he said kindly, as if speaking to children, “was a horrible, tragic end to two otherwise extravagantly productive lives. These men were two I respected and admired more than any others in the world. What compelled Mr. Stonagal to rush the guard, disarm him, take his own life and that of his British colleague, I do not know and may never fully understand.”
I'm not above giving compliments when earned, and I gotta say that I dig this speech.
Rayford repeated himself, pointing to the Bible. It had belonged to the wife he hadn’t seen for more than two weeks and probably would not see for another seven years.
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.
Book hits the ground running
People I know now swear I wasn’t there, and they aren’t joking.”
Gaslighting, maybe
He tried to convince himself it was the church that would keep drawing him west of the city, not Rayford Steele’s daughter, Chloe. She was ten years his junior, and whatever attraction he might feel for her, he was certain she saw him as some sort of a wizened mentor.
Oh, right. This.
Emily liked this
the militant Verna
Add it to the list of epitaphs, along with "matronly Marge Potter" and "trusted by Rozentzweig" Nicolae Carpathia
“Cameron,” she said flatly, still seated. “I didn’t expect you till Monday.” “Just checking in,” he said. “You can call me Buck.” “I’ll call you Cameron, if you don’t mind, and—” “I do mind. Please call—” “Then I’ll call you Cameron even if you do mind.
Is that technically harassment? Genuinely unsure.
Alice looked apologetic as she rose and moved past Buck to shut the door. He thought she even rolled her eyes. “You can call me Buck,” he whispered.
Okay, that one definitely feels like harassment. Too bad all of HR got raptured at this newspaper.
He thought of where he had been, whom he had met, the dangers he had faced in his career.
I am caught off-guard by the correct usage of "whom" in this sentence. Not that I've seen LaHaye make that error before, but it just seems like the kind of thing he would do.
Buck sighed. At least he was in Chicago with the only people he knew who really cared about him.
You have a family, Buck. What about them? Was the anti-trucking angst so bad that your creepy, two weeks young church friends are all you have?
Chloe and Rayford understood each other better than ever. They were fast becoming friends and confidants, and while they didn’t agree on everything, they were knit in their grief and loss, tied in their new faith, and teammates on what they called the Tribulation Force.
If you took this paragraph out of context, it would sound like Rayford and Chloe had just formed a BDSM club. Even the name "Tribulation Force" works a little too well.
Alice sat at her desk leaning forward, her head cocked, gazing at Buck and trying not to laugh aloud as he regaled her with whispered wisecracks.
Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for our first female POV character in the series.
[clapclapclapclapclap…]
As soon as he was seated Verna sweetly informed him that he would no longer be the world-traveling, cover-story-writing, star headliner of Global Weekly.
LaHaye looking the audience in the eye and telling us the tables have turned. No more fun and games; we've got some serious drama to dive into. And office politics that I'm looking forward to reading.
“I’ll tell you what I want, Verna. I want—” “I expect all my subordinates to call me Ms. Zee.” “You have no subordinates in this office,” Buck said. “And aren’t you—” “You’re dangerously close to the line, Cameron.” “Aren’t you afraid Ms. Zee sounds too much like Missy?” She stood. “Follow me.” She bristled past him, stomping out of her office and down the long hallway in her sensible shoes.
*popcorn munching intensifies*
Glad we found out that her shoes were sensible.
Emily liked this
“Thanks for getting back to me right away, Ray. You and I go back a long way.”
“You and I go back a long way” is the clunkiest line in this book so far.
“Well, they don’t make it obvious you’re listening in, either. You just shut off the transmit button, like this, and then if something happens to hit the speakerphone button, oops, then you can hear a conversation without being heard.”
It would be incredibly convenient if Buck needed to know this exact information later on in this book...
Buck wanted to say that he was going to find it hard to pass up the digs she had prepared for him, but he was already feeling guilty about having eavesdropped on her conversation. This was something new. Guilt.
Only Christians feel guilt. It is known.
Anthony Michaelson and 1 other person liked this
And what was this meeting about? The Tribulation Force was scheduled to meet regularly, so a specially called meeting had to mean something.
These two sentences tell us no new info, and should have been cut in editing.
And yet wasn’t that exactly what he was—a fool? How could it have taken him so long to learn anything about Christ when he had been a stellar student, an international journalist, a so-called intellectual?
“So-called intellectual” is such a blatant dog-whistle
We know Nicolae Carpathia is the Antichrist. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Buck’s story of Carpathia’s supernatural hypnotic power and the murder of those two men is ridiculous. Even so, there’s plenty of evidence that Carpathia fits the prophetic descriptions. He’s deceptive. He’s charming. People are flocking to support him. He has been thrust to power, seemingly against his own wishes. He’s pushing a one-world government, a one-world currency, a treaty with Israel, moving the U.N. to Babylon. That alone proves it. What are the odds that one man would promote all those things
...more
“Carpathia is apparently making deals. I don’t know what he’s offering, but an announcement is expected by the end of the week from the religious leaders. I’m guessing we’ll see a one-world religion.” “Who’d fall for that?” “Scripture indicates that many will.”
Am I still allowed to complain about how silly this is if I'm already two books into the series?
Rayford actually knew two people—Buck and Hattie—who had personally met the Antichrist! How bizarre was that?
in an instant he had gone from skeptical cynic, neglectful father, and lustful husband with a roving eye, to fanatical believer in Christ.
Well, none of those are mutually exclusive
“If that announcement says anything about a promise from Carpathia that Israel will be protected over the next seven years, it officially ushers in the Tribulation.”
I wonder if the author of Revelation counted on leap years. What if Jesus showed up a day or two early, because the prophecy didn't include February 29? That'd be embarassing.
