Glorious Appearing: The End Of Days Read Online Free PDF Page B

all be over.
    They could see it coming, see it happening, and Mac read it in their eyes. None turned away. There would be no escaping. Many apparently decided to go down fighting. They death-gripped their Uzis, rattling off loud bursts even as the first mortar shell hit and sent dozens of them flying in pieces.
    The next hit a split second later and the place became a crater, with a hundred dead or dying and three times that many scurrying for the closest gate. As had been the plan, those who opted for the Lion’s Gate to the east were quickly killed or sent scampering back by yet another mortar round. Now, as scripted, those resistance forces remaining were running for their lives toward Herod’s Gate. The last vestiges of those guarding the gate had heard the blasts and seen the bloodbath, clearly realizing their compatriots had nowhere to go but toward their own positions. With the invaders on their heels, the gate had to be opened or they would all be pinned to the wall and slaughtered.
    From Mac’s vantage point he could plainly see what awaited the fleeing rebels outside the gate. While he and the others had entered the Damascus Gate, surreptitious Unity personnel had slipped into place with what appeared to be colossal Catling guns on massive caissons. From the looks of the barrels, Mac guessed the guns could accommodate fifty-caliber shells.
    Those in the front of the advancing Unity forces were now shooting the rebels in the back, and the more who fell, the more were fired upon. Mac stole a glance behind him. He was bringing up the rear. “Lord, forgive me, ” he breathed, spraying his Uzi and dropping at least a dozen GC from behind. He felt no remorse. All’s fair … It was only fitting, he decided, that the devil’s crew were dressed in all black. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
    Unity personnel in front of him parted like the Red Sea as their counterparts outside the walls opened fire with the big guns. Mac, too, dived for cover, watching in horror as dozens of rebels were ripped to pieces.
    It seemed to be over as quickly as it had begun. Rogue GC stepped among the bodies shooting this one and that who seemed to still be moving. Others fanned out and began helping themselves to weapons and whatever keepsakes they could find on the shattered bodies. This was Mac’s chance.
    He quickly pretended to do what the GC were doing, but he was pickier. He used his weapon or his boot to roll over only those dead or dying who were the right size to possibly be Buck. Mac picked up a weapon occasionally and rifled a pocket or two, just in case anyone was watching. He didn’t really want to find Buck now, not unless he remained alive in the Temple Mount. No rebels had survived in the Muslim Quarter, as far as he could see.
    It was the strangest battle George Sebastian had ever been part of. One could hardly call it a battle at all. It was just he and his ragtag bunch of earnest, impassioned believers, ringing part of the Petra perimeter with a handful of fairly sophisticated armaments—some directed energy weapons that burned the skin of soldiers and horses from long distances, and too few long-range fifty-caliber rifles—against the largest fighting force in the history of mankind.
    The Global Community Unity Army, spearheaded by Antichrist himself, filled the horizon, even when George backed up onto the slopes and looked through solar-powered uberbinoculars. Hundreds of thousands of black-clad troops on horseback seemed to undulate under the shimmering desert vapors, steeds champing at the bit and high-stepping in place, appearing eager to carry their charges in an attack on the hopelessly outnumbered defenders.
    Yet Sebastian felt little fear. He couldn’t deny a certain trepidation, scanning the tanks and armored personnel carriers, the foot soldiers, the fighters and bombers and choppers that backed up the cavalry as far as the eye could see. It was no exaggeration to call his enemy a sea of humanity, and