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buds and new leaves. Instead, the countryside looked like some burned scar.
    Something skittered along the ground and startled her. A half-burned tail flicked back and forth on the side of a tree. A squirrel. How he had survived the heat and fires, Vicki didn’t know, but here he was, scampering up a tree with his charred tail.
    â€œHow many friends have you lost in the last few years, little fella?” Vicki whispered. She brought her knees up to her chest. She and her friends were like this squirrel, foraging, darting into hiding places, hoping to stay alive just one more day.
    Vicki recalled the verse about God knowing even when a sparrow fell from the sky. But did God know every squirrel, raccoon, and deer that died in the heat plague? Did he see the death and devastation and hear the cries of believers who had been killed? Already the Global Community News Network reported arrests and beheadings.
    Will Judd be next?
    Vicki knew it was against the group’s rules to be outside at this time of day, so she stood and started for her cabin. Something was bothering her, and she couldn’t put a finger on it.
    She paused near a burned tree and heard movement at the bottom of the knoll. Someone was coming up the hill.

    A few minutes later Judd found Rainer sitting alone in a room set aside for prayer. Several chairs sat in an empty circle, and Judd took one directly across from the German. Someone had painted a man kneeling in prayer on the wall. On the opposite wall was a painting, torn and weathered, of an old man with a piece of bread in front of him. The old man’s hands were folded, and his eyes were shut tightly. Judd thought the picture looked familiar, then realized it was the same one that hung in his grandparents’ kitchen.
    Rainer looked up, his eyes cloudy. “I suppose you want to know what happened between Otto and me.”
    Judd nodded. “You don’t have to tell me, but it might help me understand.”
    Rainer put his head back and closed his eyes. His face was strong and handsome, and his hair reached his shoulders. Judd knew he had been an actor in Germany, but what kind?
    With his eyes still closed, Rainer spoke. “When light and dark collide and ignorance takes up the sword against understanding, what is left for weary men to do?” He paused, opened his eyes. “We, the weary, pick up pieces from the battlefield and live.”
    â€œWhat’s that from?” Judd said.
    â€œA play I was writing at the time of the disappearances. It wasn’t very good.”
    â€œSounded good to me.”
    Rainer smiled. “Do you know what an understudy is?”
    â€œA person who’s there in case the lead gets sick?”
    â€œYes. Before the vanishings, I was just an understudy at life. I knew all the lines and where to move and what to do onstage, but I was watching from behind some curtain. It took the most terrible situation in the world to bring me out of the shadows.”
    â€œYou’re talking about your relationship with God, right?”
    Rainer nodded.
    â€œHad you heard about God before the disappearances?”
    â€œMany times. I had an aunt who told my brothers and sisters and me Bible stories. She was very dramatic. I think it was because of her that I wanted to become an actor.”
    â€œWere your parents believers?”
    â€œNo. They were killed in the earthquake. On a cruise down the Rhine River, the ship capsized and all but a few drowned.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    Rainer sighed. “So am I. I went to my aunt’s house not long after she disappeared and relived some of those stories she used to tell. I still have her Bible. But I didn’t make my decision to follow God until I stumbled onto Tsion Ben-Judah’s Web site. My wife and I prayed the night after we discovered it.”
    â€œAnd your wife is back in Germany?”
    Rainer closed his eyes. “No, she is waiting for me on the other side.