The Rapture: In The Twinkling Of An Eye by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins Page B

for a young, inexperienced man to take in.”
    “Oh yeah, right. So I’ll make my announcement, and you’ll be ready for the media onslaught?”
    “I will be ready.”
    “I just hope you’re prepared for the hue and cry, not to mention the lawsuits.”
    “I have a plan for that too, Gheorghe.”
    “Somehow I thought you might. Will you be available to appear with me at my press conference at two?”
    “No, sir, I do not believe that would be a good idea. Let us allow this to all play out in a normal fashion, which I realize—due to its unique nature—is highly unlikely. You may say that you have approached me with this idea, but it is your wish that the will of the people prevail.”
    “The will of the people.”
    “Correct, Mr. President.”
    “You are beyond words, Carpathia.”
    “Well, thank you, sir.”
    Not half an hour after Nicolae got off the phone with Vasile, Stonagal and his entourage stormed into the house.
    “You have an impeccable sense of timing, Jonathan,” Carpathia said. “Let us—you and Leon and I—meet privately, and I will bring you up-to-date on all that is going on.”
    “I have crucial team members who should be in on this, Nicolae. It’s important that they hear for themselves—”
    “They will hear what you and I want them to hear, Jonathan. And I do not have a lot of time now, because shortly after two this place will be overrun by the international press, wanting to know whether I will accept President Vasile’s invitation to succeed him.”
    “You’re convinced he’s going to make that invitation? Last time I talked to him he promised me anything if I would intercede and buy him at least another week.”
    “The deed will be done today, Jonathan. In fact, it is already done. The rest is just playacting.”
    “Well then, you had better bring me up to speed.”
    “After you,” Nicolae said, sweeping an arm toward the elevator that led to his office.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

    By the time they finished their meeting, Leon could tell that Jonathan Stonagal was aghast. On top of everything else, he had been assigned to somehow wrangle Carpathia, in his current role as a member of the lower house of Parliament in the Romanian government, an invitation to speak to the General Assembly of the United Nations.
    Fortunato sat amazed at his boss in action, laying out for Stonagal how it was going to be, how he needed introductions to heads of state all over the world during the next forty-eight hours, and how he also wanted in on the secret meetings of the world’s leading financiers. “This has gone on long enough,” Carpathia told him, “your seeing me as your man for the future and pretending that you and your secret-society cohorts are the kingmakers. I have engineered this myself, with no small contribution from my man Fortunato here. So regardless of the financial backing and political skulduggery you may have effected on my behalf, I will soon be a head of state and shall expect to be treated that way.”
    It was clear Jonathan’s wheels were turning. Fortunato decided the octogenarian had likely never been treated this way and didn’t appear eager to start enduring it now. To his credit, while his jaw was set and his temples throbbed, he held his tongue.
    “You have an assignment, Mr. Stonagal,” Carpathia said. “You may use one of our phones, but I suggest you get on it.”
    “An invitation to speak at the U.N.”
    Nicolae nodded. “Do we need to rehash everything I have said?”
    “I just want to be sure I have it.”
    “Oh, you have it. Your hearing aids are working; are they not?”
    “I do not need to be insulted, Nicolae.”
    “And I do not need to be stalled, sir. I need to be able to say, by two o’clock here, that I have the invitation in hand. And then I am prepared for a bit of a world tour with you.”
    “I have pressing business in the States.”
    “It will have to wait. Now call whomever you have to call at the U.N.”
    “It’s five o’clock