It had been a month since the disappearances. Every day that passed seemed surreal because I knew we were closer to the Glorious Appearing than we were the day before. Jesus was going to come back and the world would mourn because the kings of the Earth who treated people unfairly for their own personal gain would know at that moment that their time was up. But according to my understanding, we still had six years and eleven months left.

I wasn't sure if I would live to see the day. This thought weighed down on me as I sat and talked with Ramirez at a table in the dining area of the soup kitchen before the early evening Wednesday service. It had to end before the sun went down because of curfew. Turned out Ramirez's job at the mission was that of a cook. He had been homeless but the owner who had been raptured took him in, gave him a job so he could pay rent, and even accompanied him when he found an apartment to let the landlord know Ramirez was a dependable tenant. No one remained to run the mission, which meant no one could object to Ramirez running the place.

I looked him in the eye. "So, Ramirez. What makes you think they've killed them? Have you seen evidence?"

"No." Ramirez gave me a deadpan expression. "And stop calling me by my last name. If we're gonna be brothers in Christ, start calling me Joe."

"Alright. Joe it is." This guy had a straight forwardness that made me like him. But the graveness of our conversation kept my mood grounded and my brows furrowed. "What leads you to believe the worst?"

"Look bro," Joe said, "I've been around, and I've learned that when someone disappears without a trace, without a word, they didn't just go on a vacation. They end up in a body bag with a tag on their toe. Besides, you've been gone a month. Our numbers have grown. People are being saved left and right. I have men and women who are branching out and sharing the gospel with people who are hurting right now. They've lost loved ones. Either in the rapture or in the accidents that followed. Have you seen that apartment building that got hit by the plane? It's still a burned-out shell. People died, man. While you've been gone, they've still been pulling bodies out from under the debris as they remove it and haul it off."

I nodded. "Do you know where they're taking them? The people they arrest."

"Thought you'd never ask." Joe grew more serious. "There's an abandoned building several blocks down where the National Guard has set up a headquarters. It's got an underground parking deck and they've fenced off the entire block, topped off with razor wire. There's a gate with guards posted, and a patrol that sweeps the perimeter every thirty minutes."

"You've been reconning."

"Bro, I was in the marines. Before we pulled out of Iraq, I was part of a search and rescue team. If we got word of a kidnapping, we'd go door-to-door in some of the worst bombed out places you could think of and go get 'em. I ain't saying none of our soldiers didn't have a demented streak, but we were the good guys. Now, our guys ain't so good."

"So... you've killed people?"

"Look bro, I don't feel right about offing someone." He grimaced and looked away. "I ain't never killed no one on the streets of New York, but I've wanted to. It haunts me every day, but I killed a few men in Iraq. To save some, I had to kill some. But I'm not about that now." A tear streamed down his face, and he wiped it away. "I won't kill anyone, but..."

"But what?"

"Me and Martinez have decided to go in tonight after the service."

"Are you serious?"

"As ever." Joe's eyes hardened. "We want to go in light and tight, just me and Martinez."

"I want to go."

"You got military training?"

"No. But I'm an architect, and I got access to city plans through certain channels. I can even pull up the plans on my phone on the go. You get me to the building and get me an address, I can tell you where every restroom is and all the doors, in and out. Offices. Etcetera."

Joe smiled for the first time tonight. "You'll stick close to me. So close, like I'm giving you a piggyback ride."

"You got it."

After the service, in which Joe had preached to a standing room only crowd in the mission's small chapel, he introduced me to Martinez. Her soft angled jawline and long dark hair reminded me a lot of Hannah, except I picked up on a toughness about her that told me she could handle herself in tough situations. She tied her hair back in a ponytail and then tightened her bootstraps.

"She was in the marines too," Joe said. "Chopper pilot. Different platoon. But same brotherhood. You can call her Gabriela."

"I rescued Joe and his team once," she said. "He got pinned down and needed a lift out of trouble."

"That's where we met, in Iraq. A coincidence we were both from Brooklyn." Joe raised a brow. "After the marines, I came home and couldn't cope. Ended up on the streets. That's when she happened upon me and pointed me to the soup kitchen. She checked on me regularly. Made sure I was okay."

"So, are y'all two together?" I asked.

Gabriela and Joe laughed. "No," he said. "She's like a sister to me."

"And my brother from another mother," she added. "And now, he's my spiritual brother too."

"When do we leave?" I watched the last person who had attended the service, exit the mission.

"At sundown," Joe replied.

His reply amped up my nerves because I knew that meant we'd be out after curfew, which could get us arrested in and of itself. In the back of the kitchen, we geared up with flashlights and other necessities and then made our way to the dark alley behind the burned-out apartment building. A few minutes later, the sun set, casting us in eerie shadows in the fading light. Joe and Gabriela packed Glocks under their jackets, which made my eyes grow big.

"We're not gonna use 'em," Joe said. "Well, not with lethal intent. I told you I ain't about killing no one. But we might have to fire off a round or two to get out of a pinch."

I nodded. All I carried was a flashlight and my phone. The purple NYU T-shirt and blue jeans I wore would do good enough, although it wasn't all black like Joe and Gabriela, not to mention the school initials were stenciled in white. They had planned this outing ahead of time and had worn their stealthy clothes to the service: black T-shirts and jeans, which didn't appear out of the ordinary, although they matched.

Joe looked me up and down. I would imagine under normal circumstances, he would have given me a smirky grin, but he only gave me a tense glare and tight lips. Much like Gabriela.

Joe led the way out of the alley and took us down the backside of the burned-out building. Steet lights illuminated the sidewalks, but some had burned out, giving us short stretches of shadowy cover.

Up ahead, headlights appeared on the empty street. As soon as Joe noticed the high beams, he shot toward a dark alley. Gabriela shoved me from behind and forced me in after him. We had just vanished into the black void when the vehicle drew closer, a search light on top pointing this way and that. Fortunately, a dumpster provided cover as the fierce beam penetrated the darkness.

The engine rumbled as the vehicle crept by us.

"Hummer," Joe said, turning to us from his position at the outer edge of the dumpster. "Military patrol to enforce curfew."

"They catch us, we're toast," Gabriela said. "Especially since we're packing heat. Automatic arrest."

"Being out after dark gets us that, but you're right, if we get caught we need to ditch our Glocks."

"Let's not get caught," I said. "I'm too white collar to go to jail."

Joe huffed. "I didn't want to say anything, but maybe this experience will give you a tougher edge."

"Maybe," Gabriela added.

When the vehicle passed, I pulled out my phone and brought up the blueprints for the building in question. Everything was assessable from the city hall if you knew who to talk to and where to look.

"My white collar has its benefits." I held my phone so they could see. We were two blocks away from our destination. "At the top of the screen is the back entrance in question. As you know, the block is surrounded by a ten-foot-tall chain-linked fence. That particular block has a smaller building next to it, which means there's an alley between the two. The back entrance would be the best way in, but it will be guarded. There's no way they won't have guards crawling all over that back door."

"So, how do we get in?" Joe asked.

"According to your surveillance report, the building next door isn't in use. And it has an underground parking deck too... that's connected to the building next door by a tunnel. I don't know why a passage was built. Maybe the buildings were originally owned by the same people, and they wanted them connected so they wouldn't have to go topside. I could find out who the original owners were, but I didn't go that deep for sake of time."

"It's risky," Gabriela said. "But it's our best bet."

"Enough talking, " Joe replied. "Let's go."

He peeked around the end of the dumpster and did the same thing at end of the alley. With the street clear, he led us toward our destination. We stopped at the nearest building to survey the scene. From behind a parked van, in a spot with a darkened streetlight, we observed. A pair of soldiers guarded the back entrance as I had suspected, and two more walked the perimeter as Joe had predicted. The patrol strolled past us on the other side of the fence, their gazes turning away from us to look at their compatriots at the back door.

"Now's our time." Joe jabbed a finger toward a point halfway down in the middle of the shorter building on the same block. He raced toward the fence and kneeled and had snipped through the chain-link with wire cutters by the time me and Gabriela reached him. In an instant, we ducked under and passed through, allowing the links to reconnect as best as we could so hopefully the soldiers wouldn't see our access point.

We had to hurry, and we had to use caution. We had to reach the underground parking entrance before the patrol made their way back around to us. That shouldn't be a problem since they had just passed, but we couldn't dally.

We darted down the side street and into the alley, into the darkened parking deck. With flashlights piercing the shadows, I led the way to the tunnel entrance that connected the buildings. Once inside, we caught our breath and prepared to access the building next door. The corridor stretched ahead of us, and fluorescent lights switched on and off, activated by motion detectors, as we walked toward the entrance up ahead. The door wasn't locked because it only gave way to the other parking garage, not the interior.

Joe cracked the door open and peered inside. "I hear talking somewhere inside, but it sounds like it's coming on the other side of the parking deck."

"Our access point is a door down this side of the garage." I unlocked the screen on my phone and pointed at the south side of the building.

"Shouldn't be a problem." Gabriela removed her gun from a holster under her jacket. "Let's get to moving."

The gun made me jittery. "Just keep that thing pointed away from me."

"Don't worry," Joe said. "We're trained."

I blew out a gust from my lips. "Okay. Let's do this."

Joe resumed the lead and directed us to the correct door. The voices he had heard were soldiers, but they were far enough away that we couldn't see them. He tested the door and found it to be a stairwell to the first floor that led to higher levels of the building. At the first landing, we stopped and checked my phone again before entering, not wanting to walk into a beehive of soldiers, but also wanting to confirm where we were going.

Joe and Gabriela peered over my shoulder at the lit up screen in the dark stairwell. The glow made me squint at first, but soon my eyes adjusted.

"The hallway on the other side of this door wraps around the building and has intersections with interior corridors," I said. "At the front of the building, there's a receptionist counter and what used to be a gift shop. There are offices and restrooms too. But further toward the backside, there's a conference room and a large auditorium. I'm thinking, these guys aren't afraid of being exposed because of the fence and the security detail outside. Hence all the unlocked exterior doors we've encountered so far."

"I like the way you're thinking," Joe replied. "They're probably using the offices for holding cells and the auditorium for larger scale needs."

"I don't wanna think about what those large-scale needs are," Gabriela said.

"No speculating. We see this for ourselves, and we decide what to do after that." Joe peeked into the hallway and pulled back to face us. "It's lit up but clear."

With that, we followed him into the hall and darted toward the back of the building toward the conference room. That's where we found a large space with rolling hospital beds and IV stands. All three beds were empty and the fluid bags drained. Gabriela closed the door behind us.

"Do you think this was for sick prisoners?" I asked.

"The bags don't have labels and there aren't any pillows or sheets on the beds." Joe stood beside me.

I glanced at Gabriela. "What do you think?"

"You don't wanna know," she replied.

Laughter erupted outside the conference room door. Soldiers passing by. Joe held a finger to his lips.

"Quit playing around," a man shouted. "We have to get the bodies out of here before the smell kicks in."

"Yes sir," another man replied.

"Push the gurney, will ya?" a third man said, his voice distinct from the other two men by the higher pitch. "I'm not pulling this thing all by myself."

I cringed inside, realizing the implication of what we were hearing. Gabriel false started like she planned to do something to the soldiers. Joe held her back, wagging his head. Once the commotion had passed the conference room, the situation struck me head on and I felt faint.

"How can they be so cruel?" I asked. "Don't they have hearts? Just a month ago these guys were serving our country with honor. Weren't they?"

"It's the times we're living in bro." Joe put a hand on my shoulder to steady me. "The Bible says the Holy Spirit was the restraining force before the rapture. When the rapture occurred, second Thessalonians says he, the Holy Spirit, would step out of the way and allow lawlessness to become unrestrained. That's the only way the lawless one, the Antichrist, could come on the scene. That means people can fall prey to the influence of the adversary, Satan, like never before. It means if people have already made up their minds about God, if their names aren't written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundation of the world, that means they're under Satan's influence. All manner of wickedness becomes possible. Like what we believe is going on here. God knows those who will choose him, and he knows those who won't."

"You've been studying your Bible while I was gone," I replied.

"From the foundation of the world?" Gabriela said. "That sounds like predestination. Like their names have always been in the Lamb's book, even when a person isn't saved yet, but at some future time they're going to be saved. I thought whoever called on the name of the Lord would be saved."

"They are. But God knows those who will call on him and those who won't. He knows everything. People have free will. And if their heart is hard towards God, and they refuse to believe or call on him, they're susceptible to the evil one. That simple."

"Let's get to the auditorium," Gabriela said. "I'm ready to bust some heads."

"We're not busting anything," Joe replied. "God knows everything, but we don't. We don't want to kill someone who might get saved, before they get saved."

"You're making my head hurt."

Joe ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. "Engaging the enemy will only get us killed and that's not what God wants for us. Revelation says if we live by the sword, we die by the sword. The patience of the saints is to not take revenge. Vengeance belongs to God. We'll let him deal with retribution."

Gabriela shook her head. Ground her teeth. "Fine, Mr. Study-Your-Bible-All-The-Time Man. You lead the way."

Joe peeked into the corridor and waved us to follow him. Down the hall, we hustled toward the auditorium, hoping a solider didn't round a corner at any second.

One of the doors to the auditorium was open, making it possible to see inside the enormous room. We kneeled on both sides of the open door and peeked inside. Down every aisle, all around the seating area, in every available space, gurney after gurney sat, holding human forms that were draped from head to toe with white sheets, all waiting for a soldier to wheel them out the back door, which was in the far corner of the room, off to the right of the stage. One by one, a soldier would come and get them and roll the bodies into the back of a trailer of a semi-truck.

We couldn't get out of that building quick enough, taking the same route we entered by our hearts breaking with despair. On the way out, we checked in a few offices, hoping to find someone who was still alive, but we found nothing but empty rooms.