Desecration: Antichrist Takes the Throne is the ninth book in the Left Behind series. It was published on Tuesday, October 30, 2001 by Tyndale House. It was on The New York Times Best Seller List for 19 weeks, and was the best selling novel in the world in 2001. It takes place 42–43 months into the Tribulation and 25 days to a month into the Great Tribulation. Plot summary Nicolae Carpathia is returning to Jerusalem to claim as his own the temple there and help begin the loyalty mark program. The Tribulation Force has called in contacts from around the world to help believing Jews in Israel escape to their place of refuge in the wilderness, Petra, in Operation Eagle. Rayford Steele and his assistants meet George Sebastian at their small airstrip at Mizpe Ramon in the Negev Desert, and he tries to give them arms to use against the Global Community (GC). Buck Williams is with Chaim Rosenzweig at a hotel in Jerusalem, leading up to Chaim's taking charge of the operation as a modern Moses. Chaim has an experience similar to the calling of Moses, as God speaks to him through Buck. Carpathia sets out on a mock journey along the Via Dolorosa on a pig, stopping at Golgotha and the Garden Tomb. Hattie publicly confronts him and is burned to death by Leon, the False Prophet. Nicolae stages a gruesome and evil desecration of the temple. As millions take the Mark of the Beast, the first Bowl Judgment rains down as foul and loathsome sores appear on the bodies of all who have taken the mark, including Nicolae's inner circle. When the temple is defiled, millions of Jews and Gentiles rebel against Nicolae and many of them become believers. The Tribulation Force launches "Operation Eagle". Leading them is none other than Dr. Chaim Rozensweig turned into a modern-day Moses, who, calling himself Micah, and along with Buck Williams, confronts Nicolae and leads the faithful to refuge. Meanwhile, David Hassid, the first to arrive at Petra, is murdered by two renegade GC soldiers left over from a confrontation between the Trib. Force and the GC. The second Bowl Judgment hits as all the oceans and seas turn into blood. Chang Wong settles into his role as the solitary Trib Force mole in New Babylon. The prophetic "flood from the serpent's mouth" arrives in the form of a massive