And I was too late.
Gemma Keyes. Something has disturbed you.
I couldn’t respond. Couldn’t move. My mind filled with just one word: “Emilio.”
The nanomites heard my wounded cry, and they had been listening to Zander.
Zander Cruz says that the police have determined that our enemy, Arnaldo Soto, has taken Emilio? Will this evil man harm the boy? Is this why you are distraught?
“Yes. Yes!”
Then we will find him, Gemma Keyes. We will prevent Soto from harming Emilio.
Zander shook me. “Gemma! Gemma, snap out of it!”
“I . . . I have to find him.”
“I know you do, and I believe that you will. But think: Why would Soto take the boy? Why Emilio? It’s because of you, Gemma. Wherever Soto has taken Emilio, he will have laid a trap. For you.”
“Yes. I get that.”
“Well, then, I suggest we pray about this . . . situation. You and the nanomites are powerful, but God is more powerful. The nanomites have access to loads of information and knowledge, but they don’t know everything, especially the future. On the other hand, God already sees the entire picture—he even understands Soto’s heart and plans. We should pray for the Lord’s guidance and wisdom.”
I nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I . . . I don’t want to go off half-cocked or do something stupid that would endanger Emilio further. It . . . it’s my fault, you know.”
“What’s your fault?”
“It’s my fault that Soto took Emilio. Soto knows I care for Emilio, that he is my vulnerability . . . that I love him.”
I groaned, seeing my sense of self-righteous outrage toward Soto in a much different light. “You see, I went to Soto’s house before the FBI’s raid just so that I could . . . I don’t know, confront him? Question him? I asked him why he ordered Mateo to hurt you and Abe. Turns out it was all about getting Mateo to mess up so Soto could get rid of him.”
Swallowing on a hard lump that refused to go down, I went on. “Of course, I was angry . . . and I guess I wanted to taunt Soto, make sure he knew that I was responsible for bringing the FBI down on him. Maybe so I could feel superior to him?”
I was certain that when I confessed my faults, Zander would look at me with accusation, that he would blame me for putting Emilio in danger. But Zander’s expression, while serious, didn’t change; all he said was, “Okay . . . How does all this connect to Emilio?”
I exhaled, trying not to sob. “Soto said he used Abe’s CYFD complaint about Mateo’s neglect of ‘the boy’ to goad Mateo. And I . . . I said, ‘Emilio?’ and Soto got this look on his face, like he could tell how I felt about Emilio.”
I hung my head. “When Gamble’s people were taking Soto out of the house, Soto screamed at me. Threatened me. I remember his exact words. He said, ‘You think because I can’t see you that I can’t find you? Oh, I will find you—but first I’ll find those you love.’ I knew he was talking about Emilio.”
Feeling worse than ever, I added, “I thought with Soto in FBI custody, I didn’t need to worry about his threats.”
“But then Gamble told you . . .”
“Yeah, then Gamble told me Soto had escaped.” On a whimper I couldn’t hold in any longer, I added, “And I-I see my motives differently now.”
Zander touched my hand. “You mustn’t think I’m judging you, Gemma. You belong to the Lord now and are answerable to him, not me. Yes, he holds us accountable, but he doesn’t condemn. Instead, he corrects us by revealing the dark, hidden things in our hearts. That’s what is happening. The Lord is showing you those hidden things so that you can confess them and be forgiven.”
The waitress returned with our coffee and her order pad. “Did you decide on which pie you’d like to order?”
I couldn’t look at her, so Zander shook his head. “We’ll skip the pie after all.”
With a shrug, she collected our menus and left.
As soon as she turned her back, Zander took my hand in his. “Gemma, the way forward goes like this: You confess your failings to the Lord and ask for forgiveness—not because you deserve to be forgiven and not because you will ‘atone’ or make up for your mistakes, but because Jesus has already paid for your sin on the cross.”
“That’s it? I just ask for forgiveness?” It didn’t seem right to me. Didn’t seem like enough.
“Not quite. There’s also what the Bible calls ‘repentance.’ Repentance has two parts: It means that you are truly sorry for what you’ve done; it also means that you make a sincere decision to turn away from it. That’s why it’s important to verbalize what the sin is. First, you allow the Lord to reveal your failing, then you express your sorrow and make a decision of the heart to turn from it. Then you ask for forgiveness.”
“But, shouldn’t I make things right? Shouldn’t I fix the mess I’ve made?”
“To the extent that you can, yes, you should; however, repairing the damage we cause follows after repentance and forgiveness. If we don’t repent and allow Jesus to wash us clean before we rush off to fix the mess we’ve made? Well, we’ll just make the same mistake again.
“What you expressed to me about confronting Soto . . . that sounds like retribution. You wanted to pay Soto back for what he’d had Mateo do to Abe. To me.”
“Well, what he did was wrong!”
“Yup. It was. But we don’t get to deliver our own form of justice. That’s what the law and its punishments are for. Sure, the law isn’t perfect; sometimes the system gets it wrong—but, wherever the law fails, God doesn’t. No one ever ‘gets away with it,’ Gemma, because God is just and, in the end, everyone gets the justice they deserve. When we try to exact our own brand of ‘justice,’ we do a lousy job. On top of that, our hearts get messed up—which is precisely what you are struggling with at the moment.
“Our God is the God of hearts, Gemma; we need him to correct what is wrong on the inside before we address the problem we’ve created on the outside. Part of what he wants to correct inside you is your ‘need’ for retribution. He would like you to give that need to him.”
“I guess so.”
I wasn’t crazy about the idea of God “correcting” me, and maybe it showed on my face, because Zander cracked a tiny smile.
“Nobody likes correction, Gemma. No one likes being told when they are wrong. We all fear it. But God says in the Bible that he is our Father, and all good fathers correct their children—for their own benefit as well as for God’s purposes in our lives.”
He squeezed my hand. “So, shall we pray, now?”
Reluctantly, I nodded.
“Okay, this is your part: Just like you’ve confessed to me, you confess to God our Father. Whatever he’s revealed about your heart, you admit it before him, tell him you are sorry and that you turn from it. Then ask for forgiveness and help.”
My mouth wouldn’t move; my tongue was cemented to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t get a word out.
Zander seemed to understand. “This is between you and the Lord, so pretend I’m not here. You might start like this: ‘Lord, you’ve shown me some things in my heart that aren’t right. I see them now, and they are . . .’ then you fill in the blank. Try that, Gemma.”
With a deep breath, I dove in. “Lord . . . I see . . . some things now that I didn’t see before. I-I see that I wanted to punish Soto for hurting Abe and Zander. And I guess that’s wrong because it caused this awful situation with Emilio and it messed me up, too. I see that I can’t make Soto pay, that I have to let you do it. Um, I’m sorry I tried to do your job, and I’m going to try really hard not to do that again.”
I was surprised. It wasn’t hard, once I’d begun. It was liberating. I glanced up at Zander.
He whispered, “Repentance isn’t the ugly, hard, mean thing the world has said it is. Repentance is a gift from God, the first step in his setting us free. Repentance pulls down the strongholds in our lives. When repentance has its full sway, Jesus is able to free us from fear and
condemnation.”
Tears—unexpected and bewildering—dribbled down my cheeks, and a weird sense of sorrow filled my heart. I actually was sorry! The smoldering rage I’d held against Soto lit up like a beacon; the wrong in my heart became clear. Evident.
“I’m sorry, Lord, I really am!” I sobbed. I turned away from my self-righteous need to make Soto suffer, from the gratification I’d felt when I broke his hand; I turned my back on those feelings.
As a shudder ran through me, a hard place within me broke.
“Now you can ask for forgiveness, Gemma.”
“Jesus, please forgive me. Please.” Like hot water dissolving salt-crusted ice, the tension and shame of my mistake eroded away.
Then Zander took both my hands and prayed for both of us. “Lord Jesus, we come to you with humble and grateful hearts, thanking you for your grace that covers all our sins. Thank you for dying to make that grace and mercy available not once, but every time we need it. Thank you for making our hearts free.”
When he finished praying, I was crying, and the peace Jesus had poured over me when I surrendered to him had grown. Gotten . . . bigger. Wider. Deeper. More precious. Nearly tangible.
We looked at each other, and I knew Zander felt it, too, because his eyes sparkled with wet tears of joy. And I’d never felt so connected. To anyone.
“What is this? This . . . tie we have?” I looked away, not wanting to open the can of worms that was our “love” relationship but needing to understand—because this feeling was, well, different. “I don’t mean, um, romancy-schmancy, but the other thing.”
Zander smiled. “It’s what the Bible calls ‘fellowship,’ Gemma. It happens when Christ’s fellow believers worship together, pray together, grow together. Fight spiritual battles together.” The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Pretty powerful stuff, huh?”
“You have no idea! When Aunt Lucy talked about fellowship, I didn’t know she meant this.”
In that moment, Aunt Lu’s voice in my head, all the memories of her from my childhood, felt like a treasure trove of good things, a wealth of spiritual knowledge, encouragement, and support that I could draw on. Because of my fledgling faith, I was finding value in my recollections of her.
“I brought you something, Gemma. A little gift.”
“Oh?”
He lifted it from the booth’s seat where it had been waiting: a book bound in dark-blue leather.
A Bible.
I took it in my hands and, for the first time, felt the need for what this volume contained.
“This is God’s word, Gemma. Read it every day, and it will feed your soul; it will speak to your heart, correct you when you are wrong, and challenge you to come up higher. Study it, and you will not only learn who God is, he will also transform you into his image.”
Transformation.
When Zander had first spoken to me about his faith, he’d said, “The Good News is about change. About transformation—a transformation of the heart and soul. It’s about letting God peel off the old, ugly, scarred man and letting him give you a new life, a life Jesus died to give you.”
And, when I’d scoffed at him amid my perceptions of church, he’d answered, “I dislike religion, Gemma. Religion does a lot of damage to people. It takes what should be the simplest, purest expression of God’s love, something even a child can understand, and replaces it with some kind of formula—a complex and impossible set of rules and behaviors—when it is really about God’s gift of grace and his power to transform us.”
Zander wasn’t finished. “Study in God’s word is important to your growth as a Christian, Gemma. It is so important that if you don’t make a habit of delving into it every day, you’ll find that the living, breathing relationship you have with him at this moment—this connection with him that gives you such joy—has become stale. With Jesus, it’s all or nothing.”
“Aunt Lucy started every morning with coffee and her Bible. She never varied. I-I didn’t get it.”
But I was beginning to get it now. Jesus was nothing like I’d made him out to be. I took the Bible, caressed it with my hand, and nodded.
“Thank you, Zander. Really. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Let’s pray once more, and ask the Lord to lead and guide you.”
We joined hands across the table, and Zander prayed, “And now, Lord, we ask that you help Gemma find Emilio. We know that with you all things are possible, so we are asking that you direct her steps. And, Father God, please keep Emilio safe from harm. We ask these things in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.”
Deep inside, in the place where Jesus lived in me, I added, I don’t want to mess up again, Lord. I don’t want to make another mistake because of my ego—I don’t want to ever again endanger those I love. Please show me what to do—and what not to do.
***
I didn’t waste any time when I returned to Dr. Bickel’s safe house: Sleep could wait. At the same time, the understanding that God could and would help me stayed in the forefront of my thoughts.
Lord, I’m still very new to all this. Please lead me—lead us, the nanomites and me. Like Zander said, with you all things are possible. Thank you.
I got to work, and tried not to think about how many days Emilio had been missing.
“Nano. Let’s jump into APD’s network and download the case file for Emilio’s kidnapping. We need every detail they’ve confirmed: The date, time, and place where Soto took Emilio. The description of the vehicle.”
We delved into the police files and downloaded the data. Specifics for the car were spotty. Five-year-old Sean had been unable to provide a description other than “a big car,” “black,” and “windows you couldn’t see through.”
The street where Soto had taken Emilio ran deep within a residential area, and the police had found no video footage of the abduction. Notes in the file indicated that APD technicians had set a half-mile radius around the point of abduction and searched video from the nearest traffic cameras hoping to discover a vehicle that fit Sean’s broad description.
Unfortunately, the nearest cameras were blocks from where the crime had taken place. So far, the police had found nothing helpful. I figured Soto had taken a winding, circuitous route through as many residential areas and back roads as he could to prevent his vehicle from being video recorded and identified.
“We can do better than that, Nano.”
Yes, Gemma Keyes. We can.
We got busy.
Did you know? The earth’s atmosphere is heavy with satellites. More than 4,000 satellites are presently in orbit; however, two-thirds of that number are inoperative, nothing more than “space junk”—dead, useless debris hurtling about the planet.
The remaining 1,419 operational satellites belong to civil, commercial, governmental, and military users. Of that number, only 374 are “earth observation and science” satellites—meaning 374 satellites have cameras focused on the earth. Terra firma is a great, big place for only 374 satellites to cover!
With APD’s details in hand, we bored into the feeds of the satellites that had been overhead when Emilio was taken.
We combed through the take from those satellites, sifting for usable photos or video, scanning for the right overhead view. With the nanocloud’s tremendous computing strength, our search took less time and effort than you might expect it to. Although the images we zeroed in on provided a brief and distant snapshot of the event, the nanomites enhanced, sharpened, and combined those images to produce a single composite photo of Soto’s vehicle.
The photo was clear enough for us to search for and find its match in the footage of Albuquerque traffic and commercial security cameras. Inside a few hours from the start of our search, we spotted the black SUV three miles from where Emilio was taken.
“Gotcha,” I whispered. I could breathe again.
“Nano, keep tracking that car. Get a license plate number as soon as possible.”
I hoped APD planned to transfer the responsibility of the
case to the FBI’s Albuquerque field office; if the FBI took point on the investigation, it might be possible for Gamble to get involved—and Gamble’s involvement would make it easier for me to disclose whatever I discovered.
I truly was contrite that my own need to confront Soto had placed Emilio in danger. This time, I intended to share my findings with the FBI, wherever they led, with no ulterior motives involved.
“No going into this on my own,” I vowed. “No personal agenda or vendetta.”
The past forty-eight hours had been long and exhausting, even for me. With mere minutes before day broke, I threw myself onto the cot in the basement and pulled a blanket up and over my shoulders. And slept.
~~**~~
Chapter 9
As dawn broke, an executive jet belonging to an unnamed branch of the federal government sped toward Albuquerque. It touched down at 7:23 a.m. on a little-used Kirtland Air Force Base runway. Seven plainclothesmen deplaned and entered the two black SUVs waiting for them on the tarmac; two passenger vans, empty except for their drivers, also waited.
A mere seventeen minutes later, the line of vehicles drew up in front of the Albuquerque FBI field office. The drivers did not park in the designated lot far back from the entrance; they pulled their respective vehicles alongside the barriers and braked, leaving their engines idling.
Two of the men from the plane emerged and stationed themselves outside the vehicles. The other five men strode up the walkway to the FBI’s front entrance. The man leading the way carried a thick briefcase and walked with a brisk, authoritative step.
The formation of stone-faced men glanced at workers sweeping up broken glass outside the building. The lobby windows and doors had shattered and spewed bits of thick safety glass everywhere. Although a worker was carefully knocking the last glass shards from the front doors, the five visitors did not pause. One of them nudged the worker aside and opened the door for the leader of the group.
The inside of the lobby could have been the aftermath of a terrorist attack. No part of it was unscathed: Every window had been broken, every piece of furniture, potted plant, and wall hanging damaged. The security turnstile hung crooked and useless.
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