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

TRIBULATION FORCE:
The Continuing Drama of Those Left Behind
Book 2 of the Left Behind Series

TIM LAHAYE & JERRY B. JENKINS




PROLOGUE

What Has Gone Before ...


In one cataclysmic instant, millions of people all over the world disappeared. They
simply vanished, leaving behind everything material: clothes, eyeglasses, contact
lenses, hairpieces, hearing aids, fillings, jewelry, shoes, even pacemakers and
surgical pins.
Millions vanished. But millions more remainedтАФadults, but no children, and only a
few young teens. All babies, including the unborn, disappearedтАФsome during birth.
Worldwide chaos ensued. Planes, trains, buses, and cars crashed, ships sank, homes
burned, grieving survivors committed suicide. A transportation and communications
gridlock, coupled with the disappearances of many service personnel, left most to
fend for themselves until some semblance of order returned.
Some said the world had been invaded by aliens from outer space. Others said the
disappearances resulted from an enemy attack. And yet every country on the globe
was touched by the disappearances.
Airline captain Rayford Steele and his twenty-year-old daughter Chloe were left
behind. Rayford's wife and their twelve-year-old son vanished. Rayford, piloting a
747 over the Atlantic en route to London, told his senior flight attendant, Hattie
Durham, that he didn't know what had happened. The terrifying truth was that he
knew all too well. His wife had warned him of this very event. Christ had come to
take away his own, and the rest, Rayford and Chloe included, had been left behind.
Rayford became consumed with finding the truth and making sure that he and Chloe
would not miss any second chance. He felt responsible for her skepticism, for her
believe-only-what-you-can-see-and-feel attitude.
His search took him to his wife's church, where a handful of people, including even
one on the pastoral staff, had been left behind. Visitation Pastor Bruce Barnes had
lost his wife and children, and he, above all others, knew immediately that his weak,
phony faith had failed him at the most critical instant of his life. In a single moment,
he became the most convinced skeptic on earthтАФan enthusiastic, unapologetic
evangelist.
Under Bruce's tutelage and the influence of a videotape the senior pastor had left for
just such a time, first Rayford and then Chloe came to believe in Christ. With their
new pastor they formed what they call the Tribulation Force, a core group
determined to challenge the forces of evil during the Tribulation period predicted in
the Bible.
Meanwhile, CameronтАФтАЬBuckтАЭтАФWilliams, a senior staff writer for the prestigious
newsmagazine Global Weekly, was on a quest of his own. Buck had been aboard
Rayford Steele's plane when the Rapture occurred, and he was assigned to make