The Wreck Emerged

by Joseph Webers

  “Yes, exactly. What are your thoughts?”

  “I should have told her when I was twelve. I couldn’t then, but I can now. I owe her that, and it will be in keeping with our new relationship. Including my forgiving Charles. About being your daughter, I don’t know what I should do.”

  “Do you still treasure that?”

  “Oh, yes! Every single part of it. I don’t ever want to give that up.”

  “I feel the same way. Maybe it’s best to save that part for tomorrow, after she sees how changed you are. You could drop little hints along the way, so it’s not like a bomb going off when you tell her.”

  They spent the rest of the day telling Charlotte about their experiences, including Maggie’s two weeks in Macon, Georgia.

  The next afternoon, Matt returned from his walk to find two puffy-eyed but deliriously happy women and a wastebasket full of used tissues.

  “Matt,” Charlotte said, “with all that Maggie told me about you, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have to walk her down the aisle.”

  “Mum!” Maggie started laughing. “Matt, guess who gave herself to Jesus this afternoon?”

  “I have a new sister?”

  “Yes!” Maggie said. “Mum! She’s going to call her friend in Cheltenham. Oh, that reminds me, I got two phone calls this afternoon. A fellow teacher wants to bring some friends over to hear our story tomorrow afternoon. I told her yes, but she’d have to bring chairs.

  “The other call was from a Bristol talk radio station. They want to record me giving our story next Thursday in Cheltenham at the Doubletree Hotel. I told him yes, too. I grew up in Cheltenham, so I know a lot of people there. He said he picked the Doubletree because it can hold four hundred people. They’ll call again on the fifteenth or sixteenth with the details.”

  “Wonderful! If the teachers are all ladies tomorrow, I think you’d be able to tell them things that they would be uncomfortable hearing if I were there. Maybe I’ll plan another walk, just in case.”

  “After your meeting tomorrow,” Charlotte said, “let’s go to Cheltenham. I have much more room and a full fridge.”

  The next afternoon, as Matt had anticipated, nine women came, three from Maggie’s school and six she didn’t recognize. Her friend introduced them as teachers from other schools in Bristol. Charlotte served tea while Maggie introduced Matt and Jenny. Matt took his leave, explaining he had gotten a text from a business partner, and had a lot of emails to catch up on.

  For the next several hours, Maggie told her story of the previous two weeks. One of her fellow teachers, whom Maggie had always thought of as a little odd, grinned knowingly at different points, smiling with delight as Maggie related how she had received Jesus into her life.

  As Maggie was finishing up, one of the teachers wept as she explained that her daughter had cut herself on several occasions. “Would you speak to her? We don’t know why she does it or what we should do.”

  “Yes, I would be glad to. How old is she?”

  “She’s sixteen, and started cutting herself when she was thirteen. She’s visiting relatives in Scotland and will be back in a few weeks.”

  “I hope I can help her. I’ll give you my phone number after we’re finished.”

  The meeting over, they packed up Charlotte’s Mini Cooper and the four of them headed to Cheltenham.

  Matt said, “The text I mentioned was from Larry Williams. He apologized for not getting back with me by Tuesday like he promised, but there was more to consider. We traded emails a couple times. He thinks ten conexes a year for eight years, then two a year after that, to the island and back, would be about right, as long as he could dock a cargo ship there every so often. He wants to visit the island, though, before he makes any firm commitments.”

  “Those boys are going to get so much good experience,” Maggie said.

  “Larry went on to say that they would stockpile the nodules rather than try to ship them out in the conexes. It would be more work that way, which was perfect for his purposes. And get this, he said it would be more realistic from a business standpoint if they had to make payments to the owner of the property they were working, so he will send us money whether we want it or not.”

  “What is all this about?” Charlotte asked.

  “Didn’t Maggie tell you we are each half-owner of a one-hundred-and-twenty-five-square-mile island?”

  “If she did, it went right over my head!”

  Maggie and Matt took the rest of the trip to describe Emergent, its assets, and Larry’s passion to help certain disadvantaged young men.

  Charlotte went to bed at her usual time, but Matt and Maggie were still beset by jet lag and chatted in the kitchen.

  “Tell me about your mom yesterday,” Matt said as they started a midnight snack.

  “I completely blew it not too long after you left. I don’t even remember what started it, I think something about Jenny. She fussed at me about something, and I fussed back more. Then it was her turn. It felt so strange. Suddenly, I realized what I was doing. I stopped, put my hand over my mouth, and remembered your warning that this might happen. I apologized and told her how sorry I was. That took her completely by surprise. To her, that was such a foreign thing for me to do. We hugged and made up.

  “Later, she fussed at me again, but I just loved her. When she saw the apology was genuine, she asked me where this amazing change came from. I told her, and a little later she said she wanted that change, too.”

  “That’s wonderful. Do you see how God is using you? It fills you with joy, doesn’t it, Maggie?”

  “That first joy just kind of disappeared. I woke up one morning and it was gone, and I didn’t even notice. You’re right, though. There’s a deeper joy seeing God bless others. When they receive Jesus as their Lord, are filled with his Holy Spirit, and come to know God as Father, there is such a joy in that.”

  “That’s a reward, all by itself.”

  “Yes, and speaking of rewards, Matt, I still want to do something special for you. Something to honor you as my father.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. I also want to honor you as my daughter. Here’s what I’d like us to do. Let’s each take our story and write it down in detail, including what we were thinking and feeling, especially things happening before we met each other, things which contributed to us ending up on the GSM. Then send it to each other.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea! We can give Jenny a copy when she’s old enough.”

  “And it will help you when you write the book.”

  “Matt, I got a letter from Louis Moore while I was gone.”

  “Jenny’s daddy.”

  “I haven’t heard from him for nine months. He started off telling me what a fool he had been, a selfish obnoxious twit.”

  “That’s kind of how you described him. When was it posted?”

  “About the time I flew over to visit Clarice. He asked how I was doing, and about the baby girl. He doesn’t even know her name. He wants to tell me about something brilliant that happened to him.”

  “What do you think?”

  “He sounded rather upbeat. I believe he wants to see Jenny, and I’d like him to. I want to tell him our story, and of course, show him her new foot.”

  “Just to be on the safe side, Maggie, have your mother there when he comes to visit. Does she know he is Jenny’s father?”

  “No. I absolutely refused to tell her, and it has never come up since. Do you think I should tell her now?”

  “No, Maggie, not yet. Don’t let Louis tell her either. That will let her form an unbiased opinion of him. If she knew, who knows what she would try when she meets him. Wait until later.”

  The next morning, Maggie took her mother’s car after breakfast and went to visit Charles at his home. “Aren’t you going with her?” Charlotte asked.

  “No,” Matt said. “This is something she has to do by herself. Charles told her Ted and Billy would be there this morning. I want to meet your son, but
it will have to be another time.”

  “There has been such a brilliant change in Maggie. She said you wouldn’t take any of the credit, but she also said if you hadn’t been there, she would be at the bottom of the ocean and Jenny would still be in the shark.”

  “God put me in the right place at the right time. I don’t know what she was like before, but it was God who did that brilliant change. I do know a little. She told me about Charles.”

  “Yes, she told me. At the time, I suspected Charles had something to do with it. He never would admit anything, though. Maggie was so convincing at pretending she didn’t remember. We were always on our tiptoes around it. I think Adam, my husband, blamed himself somehow. When he died in the mine, it wasn’t like him to be so careless. There were witnesses who said, no, it wasn’t a suicide, but he had gotten so lax in everything leading up to it. Maggie might have told you how hard he was on her. I could never figure out why.”

  “He’s gone now,” Matt said, “but I believe God has healed all her memories. The things that caused so much pain in her don’t hurt anymore.”

  About that time, the object of their discussion entered Charles’ house. After warmly greeting Sylvia and the kids, Maggie went with Charles to the study where two other men were seated. She noticed all three had open Bibles at their places at the table. Charles offered her the fourth seat.

  “Wow,” she said after she sat down. “I hardly recognized you both. It’s been a long time.”

  They all looked a little nervous. “We have something we want to talk to you about,” Charles said.

  Maggie could tell by looking at them what it was. “Before you do,” she said, “I have a confession to make. For over sixteen years, I’ve been telling everyone that I didn’t remember what happened to me on my twelfth birthday. But this whole time it’s been a lie. There’s never been a time I didn’t blame you three for everything that happened to me.”

  She paused a moment to let that sink in. There were tears starting to form in four sets of eyes. “I blamed you for what I did to myself. I hated you all, and I was secretly plotting my revenge for when the right time came. But something happened two weeks ago yesterday. Everything changed. I met Jesus face to face, and he loves all four of us too much to allow this to fester any longer. I gave myself to him, and gave up any right I felt I had to do you harm. I forgave you completely, and I’ve been praying for you ever since.”

  “What did Jesus say to you?” Ted asked.

  “I’ll tell you in a little bit. I want to tell you everything he said. But he didn’t say anything about you. He didn’t say anything about what I did to myself. He didn’t even say anything about the curse I had put myself under. That all came later.”

  Maggie reached into her handbag and pulled out a small satchel of tissues. She passed them around. “We all need one. Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “We all wanted to tell you how sorry we are for what we did to you,” Charles said. “It was terrible what we did. We were going to tell you, not knowing you knew the whole time. We have no excuses, and there’s nothing we can say that can make it any less bad. Since we became followers of Jesus Christ, we have been asking God how we can make it up to you.”

  “You can’t make it up to me, ever. I know that, because we can never make it up to God. He forgave me, and so I absolutely and voluntarily have forgiven you three. But you can do this. Stand up.”

  They all stood up, and she hugged each one, looking into their faces and saying, “By God’s grace, I forgive you totally.” After more tears and more hugs, the restoration was complete.

  She learned that Ted had given his life to Jesus about a month earlier at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes rally in Manchester and had immediately told Charles, who did likewise the day before she left to visit her cousin Clarice. Billy said he had the strangest urge during the evening of June 28, so he called Ted, whom he hadn’t seen in months. Ted told him all about that urge, and Billy had given himself to the Lord that morning.

  “The very time Matt and I were praying for you in the middle of the ocean!” Maggie said.

  She told them about being with Jesus at the time she received him and he received her. It was exhilarating to retell it, and they were all quiet for a few moments.

  “You said you cursed yourself?” Ted asked.

  “Yes,” Maggie said. “I made a vow because of what you all did to me, and that’s why I cut myself. But Matt helped me break the vow, the curse, by God’s power, after I became Jesus’s. God healed Jenny and me at the same time, and he did another miracle in me so I could start nursing her.”

  “We watched your interview,” Charles said. “It’s on YouTube, so we watched it several times. You did great! We couldn’t wait to tell you about us.”

  “Was that the surprise you told me about?”

  “Yes. We were anxious and excited to tell you about our faith, and that spurred us on to confess what we did to you.”

  “Have you told Mum about belonging to Jesus yet?”

  “No, not yet. I’m not sure what she’d say.”

  She decided to let her mother tell Charles about her newfound faith. “Give her a call, Charles. Let her know. She’d love to hear from you. Now I need to get back to Mum’s. No telling what she’ll try to feed Jenny, who’s probably hungry and complaining about it.”

  “Promise you’ll come back and tell us the whole story?”

  “No, you come to Mum’s and meet Matt. You’ll love him! Come tomorrow. Come early, we have a lot of catching up to do. Besides, Mum has a surprise for you.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Matt was waiting for Maggie on the front porch, rocking Jenny, when he heard the voice. “She’s ready.” He heard the voice again. “I still have a job for you.”

  138

  On Monday, July 15, Phil Henry reconvened the VTC. All of the original participants were present, but JC Smalley was attending from a location in Phil’s building instead of the Chicago FBI Field Office.

  “Ten days ago,” Phil said, “Jon Whitaker of our WMD Directorate and his team took down the California element of the International Bread Consortium. We discovered this group because of the fine work of Bob McGee’s team of chemical and electrical engineers and his international investigative teams.”

  “I’d like to add,” Bob said, “that we wouldn’t have been able to do any of that if that island hadn’t appeared, giving us the plane back. Without that, we might have that nerve gas swirling around in our atmosphere for years.”

  “From the evidence we found in Bakersfield,” Phil said, “we were able to track down three other cells in eastern Europe, India, and China, as well as the headquarters cell of the mastermind of all this in Allahabad, India. Bob’s folks passed along the information to the appropriate agencies, and those other three cells were taken down without incident. We were also able to connect the cell in Brazil to the IBC, although we haven’t determined why they were there. Barry, would you comment on the money?”

  Barry Mantile, Treasury Department, addressed the group. “In my email, I reported thirteen accounts received the two hundred thirty-two million dollars. Only six of those accounts were discovered when the six cells were captured. Over two hundred million dollars remains unaccounted for.”

  “The mastermind, an Indian scientist named Rishaan Chabra, remains at large,” Phil said. “Interpol and every intelligence agency in the free world have been notified, as well as all countries within a thousand miles of India. Based on all of the evidence so far, his plan was to use the nerve gas his cells would produce to annihilate twenty of the most polluted cities in the world. He would then threaten the rest of the world, in order to stop the pollution that was causing global warming. We have no idea what would motivate a person to plan this, or to think this would be effective.”

  Kirby Drinkard of the National Counterterrorism Center was concerned for the future. “Could there be sleeper cells that might also t
ry to use the same chemical agents?” she asked.

  “We don’t think so,” Bob said. “Over the past week, we’ve been getting reports from the other locations. The production of the binary chemicals at the sources matches the deliveries at the cells. In other words, there were no other delivery locations. We have instructed all the major chemical companies to be on the lookout for orders of these chemicals, and to notify us or their own national intelligence services.

  “The documents obtained from these cells mention the other cells, but none mention a cell we have not captured. On the other hand, we have not discovered any technical documents at the Allahabad site on the chemical structure or production processes. That data is still out there somewhere. Chabra may have taken it with him when he escaped from Allahabad.”

  Phil was ready to end the meeting. “We have been in contact with the other locations. They continue to question the cell members, as we are doing here also. They all report that the chemicals they captured are being neutralized and destroyed. I don’t see a need to meet again by VTC. All that remains is to capture Chabra and see what he will tell us. I’ll keep you all informed by email of anything significant. Or you’ll hear it on the news.”

  139

  Rishaan Chabra checked his watch. Two p.m., right on schedule. He had arrived at the Temple Meads train station a short time earlier and was getting a bite at Starbucks, his haunt of choice since leaving Allahabad. His bus to the Cheltenham Coach Station would leave in thirty minutes. While he waited, he contemplated his flight from India.

  He had thought about calling Dasya, but his flight left Delhi too early. In Zagreb, he had paid cash for a train ticket to Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he converted his million rupees into ten thousand euros, using ten different currency kiosks to avoid being seen with so much money. He bought a European rail pass and slowly made his way west, sometimes sleeping on the train and sometimes finding a cheap hotel. The black cloud, which had started haunting him in Allahabad, accompanied him relentlessly and was accusing him mercilessly.