"Oh."

Jenny looked at her. "He may not like me much after he gets up this morning, but after I found out your husband was over in Turkey and that you had called Joey to come get Chris-" she took a deep breath- well, I didn't want him to be alone."

"That was very considerate of you."

"Joey's a nice guy."

"I'm glad you think so."

Jenny waved to her attire. "It's not that I don't date nice guys, Mrs. Gander. I just don't date."

For a brief moment, Megan saw pain glint in the young woman's eyes. But the emotion was quickly hidden away, like a person with a long-standing injury would pull away from a casual touch from someone who didn't know better.

"Your car wasn't his fault either," Jenny said. "The driver of the truck that ran into us was one of the people that disappeared last night."

Only then did Megan remember that the car was a disaster. "I'll have to call the insurance company."

"I don't know if you'll be able to get through. There are reports all over that the phone lines are messed up. In a lot of places, lines are down due to wrecks, fires, and other kinds of damage. A lot of phone company employees left work after the disappearances happened. Or they disappeared themselves. Nobody wants to go to work today because everything is just so weird."

"I can understand that." Now that the hot chocolate had reached the proper frothy state, Megan removed the pan from the stove. She took two cups down from the cupboard and poured hot chocolate into both. "Were you able to get in touch with your family?"

"Not yet." The toaster popped the four bagel pieces up, and the smell of fresh bread rolled through the kitchen.

"Don't you need to call?"

Jenny was quiet. "If he wakes up, my dad might be worried."

Megan placed the hot chocolate on the table, then found a serving plate for the bagels. "You live with your parents."

"Just my dad. My mom left a long time ago."

"Oh." Megan felt immediately awkward. She took butter, cream cheese, and strawberry and blueberry preserves from the refrigerator, placing them on the table as well. "Have you tried the phone again?"

"A lot," Jenny said. "It won't be a problem till noon. That's probably when he'll get up." She hesitated. "He's kind of between jobs right now."

"It happens." Megan knew there was more to the story, but she also knew Jenny wasn't going to say any more until she was ready.

"With my dad, it happens a lot." A trace of bitterness scored her words.

Megan left the statement alone, sensing that the territory was better left unexplored unless the young woman wanted to go there.

"Let's eat," Megan suggested. They sat at the table.

For a moment, with the bitterness coiled in her heart, Megan considered not giving thanks for the meal. But she knew that was wrong. She had to believe that God had a hand in all the confusion that was now filling her life, even with Chris's disappearance. If she didn't believe that, there was nothing left for her to believe.

She bowed her head and said a brief prayer. When she reached "Amen," she was a little surprised to find that Jenny echoed her.

Jenny took one of the bagel halves and spread cream cheese over the open face. "What do you think happened to all of them?"

"Who?" Megan picked up one of the bagels, too, enjoying the feel of the warm, soft bread in her hands as well as the aroma. There had always been something innately relaxing about fresh bread.

"All the people that disappeared," Jenny answered.

"I don't know."

Jenny nodded toward the small television set. Closed captions carried the news stories across the bottom of the screen. "Some of the people they have interviewed feel like the disappearances were caused by some secret weapon of mass destruction. Others feel like aliens kidnapped all the people. But what if those weren't the answer?"

"Do you have another answer in mind?" Megan caught herself too late and hoped that Jenny hadn't noticed that she had lapsed into counselor mode.

A troubled frown appeared on Jenny's face. The expression looked disturbingly comfortable there. "There was a book in the living room that I found. Something about the end times. The pre-Rapture days, before God comes and takes all the believers from the world."

Megan remembered that the book was one that Bill Townsend had given her to read before he and Goose had left to go over to Turkey.

From what Goose had said during that time, Bill had become convinced more than ever that the world was on the eve of being Raptured.

"You read that book?" Megan asked.

"Some of it," Jenny admitted. "It was interesting and really easy to follow. Have you read it?"

"No," Megan admitted. There had never seemed to be enough time, what with holding the household down with Goose gone and trying to meet all her commitments as a base counselor.

"If you do, I'd like to hear what you have to say about it." Jenny pinched a piece of her bagel off and popped it into her mouth. She chewed mechanically and swallowed. "The book really makes you think."

"About what?" Megan asked.

"About all of this." Jenny pointed to the television, then made a vague circular motion. "About everybody disappearing. About only their clothes being left behind. About all the kids disappearing."

"God didn't have anything to do with this." Despite her best intentions to remain neutral during the conversation, Megan heard the coldness in her voice. "God wouldn't have taken my baby away from me."

"Not even to protect him from the seven years of death and destruction that are going to follow the Rapture?" Jenny asked the question calmly and quietly.

Megan glanced away from the young woman and looked through the kitchen window into the backyard. The sun was bright and cheerful. The sky was blue. Outside, it looked like a normal day. Except it was a day without Chris in it. She thought furiously, trying to make what Jenny was saying make sense.

"Do you believe in God, Mrs. Gander?" Jenny asked.

"1 used to think so," Megan answered honestly. "But after I was up on that building with Gerry Fletcher, after I had the chance to save him and couldn't-" She shook her head. "After Chris disappeared, I just don't know what to believe anymore."

"I thought about that, too," Jenny said.

"Did you get any sleep last night?"

"Not much. My head is just too full of stuff right now." Jenny took a deep breath. "Mrs. Gander, I hope you'll forgive me, but I think I'm seeing something here that you're not. Maybe it's that book, or maybe it's just that I haven't gotten much sleep. I think maybe you did save him."

Megan clamped down on the angry response that welled in her throat.

"When you were up on that rooftop with Gerry Fletcher," Jenny said, "you caught him. You stopped him from falling."

"Not for long."

"No," Jenny agreed, "but it was long enough that you held on and kept Gerry from hitting the ground before the Rapture occurred. Gerry was taken before he hit the ground."

The young woman's words struck home in Megan's heart with the force of a multiton steel vault slamming shut.

"I've never been much of one for God and churches," Jenny said. "After everything I've seen and been through, I really didn't think He cared much for me." Tears slid down her face and her lip trembled. "But I've seen you and Joey. Both of you are good people. For some reason I was with him last night. If I'd been with someone else, maybe I would have been one of the traffic fatalities that occurred when everyone disappeared. Maybe I would never have read that book. I don't know."

"God does love you, Jenny," Megan said, fresh tears stinging her eyes. "God loves all his children."

"Do you really believe that?" Challenge rang like naked steel in Jenny's voice. "Or are you just saying it?"

"1 believe it," Megan said, and she was surprised at the strength of the conviction in her voice.

"Do you realize the difference you made in Gerry's life?" Jenny asked. "You held onto him long enough that he didn't die painfully, long enough that God had time to take him in an eye blink."

In that instant, Megan did see that. Some of the anger she felt at God lessened, and even a small part of the pain that she felt over the loss of Chris eased.

"More than that," Jenny said in a hoarse voice, "you got to see Gerry disappear. Do you know how many people are reporting disappearances on the television who didn't see their family or friends or anyone else disappear?"

"No." Megan reached across the table, drawn by the young woman's pain, and smoothed her hair from her face. Twenty-three years old; so alone and so scared. What has happened to you? "No, I don't."

"Hundreds, Mrs. Gander," Jenny said. "Probably thousands. But you saw the disappearance. There was no alien ray beam. No weapon. Nothing. Gerry just-left. You were shown what happened to Chris. If you hadn't been called in last night, if Gerry hadn't ended up on that building and you hadn't gone up after him, you wouldn't have seen anything. You would have woken this morning to find Chris vanished and his crumpled clothes left behind in his bed. You wouldn't have had the answer you have now. Don't you see?"

"I do," Megan said, tasting the salt of her own tears on her lips. "I do see. I also see that God put you here with me to help me."

Jenny was silent. More tears ran down her face. "I wish I could believe that, because I am so scared right now."

"You can believe it," Megan said. "What other reason could there be for you to go out on a non-date with a teenaged boy and his fake ID last night?"

Jenny shook her head. "I don't know. But God-God has never been part of my life."

Megan smoothed the young woman's hair from her face, unable to stop herself, wanting so badly to take her fears and pain away. "God has always been part of your life, Jenny. Whatever you've been through, God helped you survive it to get to this moment. To be with Joey. To read that book Bill left that I have never seemed to find the time to get to." She took a shuddering breath. "To help me believe. And I will help you to believe. I promise."

Unable to sit in her chair anymore, Megan got up and walked around the table. She put her arms around Jenny and held her tight, then was surprised at how fiercely the young woman held her back.

The doorbell rang.

Breaking the embrace after a final squeeze, Megan walked to the front door. After last night, she wouldn't have been surprised to find a group of MPs or Boyd Fletcher on her front porch.

Instead, Melinda Dawson stood there. Melinda was one of the kids that Megan counseled on a regular basis. Tall and gangly, with punk-cut, brilliant red hair and Goth-style clothing, not quite fitting in with the base kids, Melinda was prone to violent displays that unnerved her mother, a single parent who worked at the base commissary.

"Mrs. Gander," Melinda said hesitantly. Then she burst into tears. "My mom is gone! I found her clothes in her bed! She was gone! Just like all the other missing people! " Her voice shattered and she stepped toward Megan with her arms outstretched. "I don't know what to do! Nobody can help me find her! "

Wrapping her arms around the young girl, Megan held her tightly. "It's okay, Melinda. We'll figure out what to do. I promise. We'll figure out what to do."

"I didn't know where else to go!" Melinda said.

"You came here, Melinda. That was the right thing to do." Glancing up from the girl, Megan looked out into the street in front of her house. She saw other kids then, all of them clients of hers. All of them were coming to her.

If Jenny had not helped her see the truth of what had happened, Megan knew she would have been overwhelmed by the arrival of the kids. Instead, she was ready, and she knew then the task that the Lord had put before her.

Turkish-Syrian Border 40 Klicks South of Sanliurfa, Turkey Local Time 1526 Hours When he topped the small ridge in the Hummer he'd requisitioned from the motor pool, Goose saw that one of the news teams had beaten him to the site and were even now setting up their satellite relay equipment on the big truck carrying the OneWorld Communications logo.

The dirty-brown stream occupied the ragged center of the small depression. Almost thirty feet across and no more than four feet deep, the slow-moving stream snaked through the depression in gentle undulations between the moderately steep sides. In several places, animal runs and bare areas showing high foot and vehicle traffic had scoured the rough riverbank. A few small trees grew along the banks, stubbornly not giving in to the heat and the sun and the barrenness that plagued the land. Weeds grew in clumps, like knotted scabs from a fungal disease.

Over three hundred people-Rangers, U.N. peacekeeping troops, Turkish army soldiers, and even a few nomadic tribesmen who lived outside the cities-stood along the hills leading to the stream. There were a few vehicles, military jeeps and trucks, but for the most part it was obvious the spectators had arrived on foot. Under the sparse shade offered by the anemic trees, litters bearing wounded from all three military forces sat with groups waiting to move them forward in the long lines that had formed at the stream's edges and met in the middle where Baker stood baptizing people.

Corporal Tommy Bono sat behind the Hummer's steering wheel. He was young and lean, his angular face a mask of dirt and grease. He'd come from Brooklyn, from a long line of firemen, but he'd wanted to see the world before he settled into the old neighborhood at one of the firehouses. His bloody knuckles showed how hard and fast he had been working in the motor pool to get vehicles ready for the night's evacuation.

"Man, Sarge," Tommy said in a dazed voice. "Have you ever seen the like?"

"No," Goose answered. But he'd heard of events like this one. His father had been baptized in the Satilla River in Waycross, Georgia, when he'd been fifteen years old.

The man who had baptized Wesley Gander had been a traveling revival speaker who had worn a white seersucker suit and played a guitar. The man had favored bluesy gospel, and threw in a few hot licks that had scandalized the mothers in the crowds and won over the hearts of the youngsters. He'd arrived in a battered orange Ford pickup that advertised handyman work and carried the tools of his trade in the back. Before doing the revival, the man had worked around town, mending fences, cleaning out garages, and doing small carpentry jobs in exchange for lodging and meals.

On the final day of the week-long revival, after the man had delivered a standing, shouting oration under the tent that had been borrowed from the farmers' marketplace, interspersed the whole time with music and anecdotes, he had called for those who wanted to know Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior. Wes Gander didn't tell the story much, but when he did, Goose was still able to see the fires of conviction in his father's eyes. The revival had been a come-to-Jesus success that was never again equaled in Waycross, Georgia.

According to the local story, there were so many who came forward that day, and the spirit was so strong among them, that the revivalist had led them on a three-mile walk to the Satilla River. There the baptisms had begun. The man had dunked everyone who came forward, the symbolic resurrection of a person after accepting the Son of God's most precious gift.

"Get us closer," Goose said.

Tommy put the Hummer in gear again and crept toward the stream. "What are you gonna do about this, Sarge?"

Goose surveyed all the people around him. "I don't know."

Corporal Joseph Baker stood waist deep in the stream water. Tall and broad with flat features and a round face, Baker looked like a gentle bear. He stood six feet eight inches tall, the tallest man in the company.

Baker gripped the nose and mouth of the man standing beside him, put a hand under his back as the man folded his arms over his chest, and lowered him into the water. A moment later, he brought the man back up.

The man fiercely hugged Baker, then sloshed through the loose mud of the streambed to where he'd left his gear with a compatriot who was already soaked. The freshly baptized man wore the uniform of a Turkish soldier. The man holding his weapon was a U.N. trooper.

Tommy stopped the jeep thirty yards from the river. "I can't go any farther, Sarge."

"This is good enough, Tommy." Goose lifted his M-4A1 from the floorboard between his feet and slung the assault rifle over his shoulder. He stepped from the Hummer and felt his injured knee nearly buckle under him as it refused to take his weight, even with the brace. But he took another step and the knee loosened up. The pain was sharp and edged enough to bite ferociously.

When Tommy switched off the Hummer's engine, Goose heard the singing.

"Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, 0 Lamb of God, I come, I come. "

The music swelled across the stream, filling the depression with hope. As Goose slowed and looked around, the music grew stronger as more people joined in.

"Just as I am, and waiting not To rid my soul of one dark blot, To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, 0 Lamb of God, I come, I come."

For the first time, Goose noticed that the faces of the soldiers and the people around him were free of worry and fear and tension. They weren't like the faces of the soldiers he had left back along the border.

"Just as I am, though tossed about With many a conflict, many a doubt, Fightings and fears within, without, 0 Lamb of God, I come, I come."

Electricity scurried along Goose's neck as he listened to the song. In the stream, Bakern kept baptizing the men who stepped forward. He took the first of a line, then switched to the other line. The effort the man made at lowering all those people into the stream water and pulling them back up again was nothing short of Herculean.

"Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind; Sight, riches, healing of the mind, Yea, all I need in Thee to find, 0 Lamb of God, I come, I come."