The 13: Fall

by ROBBIE CHEUVRONT

  “I’ve only got one thing to say to you. But it’s the very thing that you need to hear.”

  Keene just stared at him.

  “Jesus Christ loves you.”

  Keene let out a laugh. “That’s it? That’s all you got for me, chapy? Kindergarten Sunday school?”

  “Jon … Jesus Christ loves you.”

  “Seriously—” Keene couldn’t help himself. The absurdity of it took him. A couple seconds of laughter gave way to a hard cough. He rubbed his shoulder. “Ouch! Laughing makes it hurt.” Then, “You get that from a greeting card?”

  “Laugh if you want to. But it’s true.”

  “Okay, chapy. You wanna go there? Let’s go there.”

  Keene sat forward on the chair and gave him a hard stare. “What about my life makes you think your Jesus loves me? To be quite honest with you, my life has been one big suckfest after another. Dad left when I was twelve. Mom died when I was eighteen. Had a recruiter boldface lie to me about all the great things I would see and do in the Marines. Two months later I’m getting shot at in Afghanistan. Where was your Jesus then? He wasn’t there, I can tell you that.”

  “I’m sorry you—”

  “Oh, no, no, no—you wanna know what’s sorry? How ‘bout the fact that I spend six months training for a mission that should’ve gone down without a hitch, but instead I get a bureaucrat in Washington—trying to make himself look important—who goes and shoots his mouth off to some people he shouldn’t have, and I end up walking four of the best men this country’s ever seen into an ambush and getting them killed. Or how ‘bout the fact that despite all the garbage this world has thrown me, I somehow end up with the most incredible, beautiful woman—inside and out—I’ve ever known. And she gets ripped away from me because some idiot believed his god told him to go hijack a bus and blow it up in front of Times Square! You wanna know sorry? How’s that for sorry?”

  “You done? You feel better now? Now that you got that out?”

  Keene bit his lip and shook his head. “No, I’m not done. Why do you care so much about a God who, apparently, couldn’t give two cares about this world, let alone you or me? Tell me, Boz. Where’s God when all these wars are going on and people are killing each other? Where’s God when you see little kids starving to death or thousands of people being killed by an earthquake or tsunami? Explain to me why a twenty-year-old gets cancer and dies, while a child rapist gets acquitted on a technicality. Where’s God in that? Huh?” He slammed his fist on the armrest. “Now I’m done!” He sat back in the chair. “Though I could go on.”

  Boz pursed his lips and nodded. “So let me get this straight. You blame God for everything bad in the world. Who gets the credit for the good stuff?”

  “From where I sit I don’t see—”

  “No, no, no—you had your time. Now I get mine. All those things you’ve listed, all these things you’ve brought up, can be explained by people’s choices. The problem is not with God. The problem is with sin. Bottom line: people choose to sin against God. We’ve been doing it since Adam and Eve. And make no mistake. God is one hundred percent in control. But the problem is, it’s really en vogue and convenient to blame God for the sins of man. Which, by the way, man is absolutely responsible for.”

  “Okay,” Keene said. “I’ll give you that people do horrible things to each other. But what about diseases, earthquakes—those things?”

  “Same answer. Sin”

  “See …” Keene gave a dismissive wave. “You don’t have an answer. Sin! That’s your payoff pitch.”

  “It’s absolutely the answer. What I’m trying to get you to see is that sin is the root of every problem this world faces. The Bible says that because of sin, the whole world is messed up. The Bible acknowledges everything you just said! It’s why it says that all of creation groans like the pains of childbirth, waiting for its redemption. It’s why Jesus said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ But the problem is, you’re too busy blaming God for earthquakes and cancer, and you’ve never stopped ask if maybe you’re to blame for any of it. You’ve never stopped and acknowledged your own sin. The fact that your sin, my sin—our sin—is the reason why the world is the way it is. It doesn’t make you someone special because you recognize all the problems in this world. It makes you special when you acknowledge One who is the answer to the problems.”

  “And your answer to the problem is God.”

  “Yes, it is. This is the very reason why God the Father sent his Son. To redeem what you recognize is broken. And what’s more, He came to redeem what you fail to see is broken: you.”

  “Oh, so now I’m broken?”

  “Seriously? Did you hear anything you just said to me a minute ago? Yeah, you’re broken. And you’re deceived, rebellious, self-serving, self-dependent, self-centered—”

  “You done?”

  “Yeah, I’m done … though I could go on.”

  The fact that Boz had thrown his own words back at him annoyed him. But he was tired. And his shoulder hurt. And he had a plane to catch in the morning. He guessed everything Boz was saying made sense on some level. But he just didn’t feel like dealing with it right now.

  “You know what?” Keene finally said. “You’re right. I am all of those things. Even more reason why I was right earlier, that your Jesus doesn’t love me.”

  “No,” Boz sighed. “It’s all the reason why I’m right. Because, while you are everything you just admitted you are, the Bible says that Christ showed His love for you by dying for you. Not because you deserve it. But because you are all of those things. And because one day, God’s going to come to collect a debt that you owe Him and can’t pay. But His Son has. If you put your faith and trust in Him. So, I’ll say it again: Jesus loves you.”

  Boz finished talking and stood up. Keene stood up with him and walked to the door. “Listen. I appreciate you trying to look out for me. I really do. And I know you think you know how I feel and think—”

  “I didn’t come here to make you mad,” Boz interrupted. “I know you’ve got a long day tomorrow. The last thing I wanted was to come over here and get into an argument with you. I just wanted you to hear my heart. And I wanted you to know the truth. How long has it been since someone has just shot you straight? How long has it been since someone just outright told you how things are? I know. In our line of work, it’s few and far between. Most of the time we get the runaround and are left to figure everything out for ourselves. But I’m your friend, Jon. I’m not going to just leave you hanging out there. On anything. You’ve got my word. But if you’re going to trust me, and my word, you need to know where it’s coming from.” He turned the handle and opened the door. “Be safe tomorrow. I’ll see you when you get back.”

  Keene closed the door behind Boz and headed upstairs. He wanted to just jump in bed, shut his eyes, and go to sleep. But he knew that if he didn’t redress his shoulder, it was going to give him fits tomorrow.

  It took him ten minutes to put a fresh bandage over the wound and clean up. He walked the short hall into the bedroom and lay down. He still had Boz’s voice ringing in his ears. He wanted to just dismiss it all. Just push it aside and rack out. But he couldn’t. Instead, he lay there, thinking about everything Boz had said. Maybe he was tired of being angry. Maybe he did want to let it go. Maybe it wasn’t God’s fault. But where would that leave him?

  He thought about that as he finally drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER 52

  Taylor woke up early, got in a quick workout, showered, ate, and was out the door. She had only been to DHS once or twice but never upstairs. And never in Director Levy’s office. Jennings had already checked to make sure Marianne hadn’t shown up today. She hadn’t. The word from her secretary was that no one had seen or heard from her. They had sent a car around to her house to check, but she wasn’t there either. Nothing seemed to be disturbed at her house, they had been told. It just simply looked like she wasn’t home.

  The office was much the same. W
hen she arrived, she got some stares from people. They must have been wondering why all of a sudden someone who didn’t work there was rummaging through Marianne’s office. They had all been notified, of course. Jennings had made the necessary calls to take care of it. But that still didn’t explain the intrigue. The word, officially, was they were treating it as a precautionary measure. In case they decided to elevate it to a missing person status. And if anyone had any information as to Marianne’s whereabouts, they were to report directly to Director Jennings. Nobody was buying that, though. Rumors were already flying around the office that Marianne somehow had gotten herself in trouble.

  Inside the office, Taylor got to work quickly. She set up her laptop and ran the Cat-5 network cable to Marianne’s desktop. She highly doubted that she would find anything there that would be of any value. But nevertheless, she was thorough. And so she began the laborious task of sifting through the files on the drive.

  She watched as her program ran and talked to the inferior computer. Little progress bars would streak across the screen as each section took its turn. She checked the time. Keene should already be in Texas. She wasn’t sure when Boz was to meet with Jennings, but she assumed they were probably already there. She grabbed her phone and dialed the number. Keene answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, just got here. What’s up? Anything on Marianne’s computer?”

  “Nothing yet. I just got started. So nothing on the Prophet yet?”

  “I’ve only been here for about twenty minutes. I showed his picture to the guys around here at the little airstrip but nothing. I’ve got a couple maps, and I’m going to go check out some different places. But I’m more than likely just going to sit in the center of town, for the most part, and let him come to me.”

  “Trust me. He probably already knows you’re there.”

  “And how could he possibly know that?”

  She had resigned herself fully to accept that this guy was who he said he was. She was a believer. And if her heart had become hardened to the possibility that God would speak once again to His children through a messenger, then shame on her. “How do you think?”

  For the first time since she’d met him, Keene had no smart comment to shoot back. Instead, what he said actually surprised her.

  “Yeah, you may be right. I guess I’m going to have to just try and track him down.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said tenuously.

  “Uh-huh what?” Keene asked.

  “Nothing. Just never thought you’d—never mind. Anyway, I don’t know what Marianne has been doing over here, but if she’s done anything questionable, I’ll find it. You need to go and get to work. I’ll call Boz and see what’s up.”

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you talk to him?”

  “Yeah. Will do.”

  She got off the line with Keene and dialed the second number. It rang once and went immediately to voice mail. Seconds later, her phone bleeped with a new text. It was from Boz. He and Jennings were still in with the Joint Chiefs and would be out in a few minutes. The prognosis, he said, wasn’t great.

  Megan continued to watch the progress bars slide across the screen. One by one they disappeared from the screen as each program finished its analysis. Another one had just done its thing when her phone rang. It was Boz.

  “Anything?”

  “Just talked to him. Nothing. He said he just got there.”

  “What’s his plan?”

  “Said he had a couple maps and some places he wanted to check out but was thinking about sitting there in the town square and waiting for him to show up.”

  “Nah, he probably already knows Jon’s there. He’s probably already on the move.”

  “That’s what I said. Listen, Boz, you think Jon’s all right?”

  “Why? What did he say?”

  “Nothing really. Just that when I said the Prophet probably already knew we were on our way, Jon said I was probably right. That sound like Jon Keene to you?”

  She heard a soft chuckle on the other end. “Maybe.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know. Guess we’ll see.”

  “Anyway, what’d the Joint Chiefs say?”

  “The usual. They’ve got ten operational theaters right now, and unless there is an attack, they can’t pull any troops back.”

  “That’s it? They’re just going to not do anything?”

  “They’re following orders, Megan. It’s what they do.”

  Boz was still explaining when Taylor saw the screen on the computer switch. One of her programs had found something. Multiple windows began to open up and fill the screen. She clicked through the different windows, trying to see what she was looking at. It didn’t look good.

  “Hey,” she said, interrupting him. “You and Jennings need to get over here now. I’ve found something.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Keene drove his rental out of town to the address that he had. His GPS device informed him he was only fifteen miles away. As he approached the small farmhouse, he pulled the car off the road and decided to take the last quarter mile on foot.

  There wasn’t much brush for cover, so he tried to just stay low to the ground and move slowly, using the few trees along the way to stop and look. Each time he raised the binoculars, the view was the same. The place looked abandoned.

  When he was less than a couple hundred yards out, he looked a final time and saw nothing. He waited for twenty minutes, watching to see any movement. But there was nothing. Satisfied that no one was there, he went to the house.

  He looked around back, just to make sure he was right and that there wasn’t some kind of outbuilding that the guy might be in. But the only thing back there was a wide-open landscape of dirt and loose brush. He checked the back door and found that it was open. He checked his gun and turned the knob.

  A quick sweep of the inside showed him that no one indeed was home. And given the look of the place, if anyone lived there, he did a good job of hiding it. There were some empty cans of soup and a half-eaten loaf of bread. Someone had been there. But whoever it was wasn’t planning on staying. And it didn’t look like he was planning on coming back.

  Keene spent another twenty minutes inside, looking for anything that would lead him to the Prophet, but once again came up empty. If the Prophet had been staying there, he was gone. Not so much as a toothbrush was left.

  He left the place and decided to head back into town. He was hungry, and the only confirmation they had of the Prophet being there was video footage from the town square. If there was still a chance of finding him, that was the best one. As he came back into town, a small motel and diner sat beside each other. It was still early enough for breakfast, and Keene was hungry. He parked the car and went inside.

  He found a table and grabbed a menu. When the waitress came over, he asked for coffee and said he needed a minute. She brought him a cup and set it down. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out the picture.

  “You see this guy around town lately?” he asked her.

  “Honey, ain’t you been watching the news? You’re, like, the third person who’s been in here this week. Boss is talking about shutting us down. This market crash’s got everyone scared. And with those sherriff’s deputies and other cops gone missing, everyone ‘round here’s been real tense.”

  “Sherriff’s deputies?”

  “I guess you ain’t heard. Couple days ago, bunch of cops and deputies went missing, all along the border. No one’s heard from them. Weird, huh?”

  Keene thought about that for a minute. Yes, it was peculiar. Why would a bunch of cops go missing? Probably just another drug cartel, he thought, taking advantage of the chaos going on around the country. He dismissed it and pushed the picture to her. “Sorry, ma’am. Haven’t heard about that. But can you look at this? It’s real important.”

  She studied the photo for a minute and said, “Seems like I might’ve seen him. Hang on.”

  Keene watched h
er walk around the counter and hand the photo to the only other girl working. The other girl took the photo and walked back to Keene.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen this guy. Was in here this morning.”

  “You know him?”

  “Nah, never seen him before today.” She cocked her head and squinted her eyes. “What’s your name?”

  “Jonathan Keene. Why?”

  The girl went wide eyed and stepped back a pace. “Whoa! This is too weird. That guy was right!”

  Keene sat up in his chair. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. “What do you mean?”

  She reached inside her apron and handed him an envelope. “This guy you’re looking for? Came in here real early this morning, ordered some breakfast. When he was done, he paid his bill and then handed me this. Said a guy named Jon Keene was gonna come in here today and ask me if I’d seen him. And then he told me to give you this.”

  Keene opened the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper. He unfolded it and read.

  Mr. Keene, I’m sorry you’ve come all this way for nothing. As I told you before, I am not the one you seek. I only came here to retrieve a few things. As you read this, I’m already gone. Please do not try to find me. You have other, more pressing things to deal with. When the time is right, I will be sent to you. We shall meet then. For now, you must leave immediately. You are needed in Washington.

  Until we meet,

  The Prophet

  Keene crumpled up the paper and threw it on the table. His head began to pound. He wanted to slam his fist into a wall. He pulled out his phone.

  “This is Jennings.”

  “It’s me. He’s not here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’ve spent the morning trying to find him and nothing. Then I get to this diner and show his picture to the waitress and she tells me that he was here. Early this morning. And he gave her a letter to give to me.”