Silenced

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “He’s not ready.”

  “He’ll never be ready, but time is running out. Has Magnor made any more attempts to reach him?”

  A significant pause.

  “Chapp’s not taking calls,” Lothair said.

  “That wasn’t my question, and you know it. Magnor has called, hasn’t he?”

  Silence.

  “Lothair, do you realize how important this is?”

  There was a whine in the man’s voice. “Do you realize where my loyalty lies?”

  “Of course! But all of us owe our highest loyalty to God. This is life-and-death stuff, Lothair. Confirm that Magnor has called, and I’ll take responsibility for your telling me.”

  Silence.

  “You know, Lothair, I wish we were all still teenagers and that this was some silly game. Is Chapp right there? Is that the problem?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen carefully. Yes or no. Can you tell me categorically that Magnor has not tried to call Chapp?”

  “No.”

  “You understood me?”

  “Yes.”

  “So he has called.”

  “I understood you.”

  “Good, then I understand you too. Chapp and I must meet as soon as possible. For one thing, it’s Sunday. Is he going to deprive me of the privilege of meeting with fellow believers on the Lord’s Day?”

  Lothair snorted. “You want me to ask him that?”

  “I want you to tell him I’m coming. For safety’s sake, let’s not meet in the same place, hmm? Where is your secondary meeting place?”

  Paul set his room timers and took another labyrinthine escape route, hurrying toward his rental car, when he froze. Parked at the curb across from his hotel was a sedan identical to the one Karlis Grosvenor had used to ferry him around Paris. It also matched the sedan Paul had been issued for official use. Coincidence?

  He didn’t want to be obvious, but he needed to know who was who on the street. Was he being watched? Followed? He didn’t dare proceed to his rental. He had to either get in the car issued to him, keep walking as if just sightseeing, or make his way back into the hotel.

  Paul chose the latter and ran into Grosvenor as he was coming out. “Chief!” Paul said, shaking his hand. “What brings you my way?”

  “Just dropping off your boss. You didn’t tell me she was coming.”

  My boss? “Didn’t know you needed to know.”

  Grosvenor was not amused. “Would have been nice to have a little warning. Gave her the cook’s tour of Champ-de-Mars.”

  “My apologies. I didn’t expect her to take up much of your time.”

  “Any time is too much,” Grosvenor said. “I spend more time entertaining foreigners than I do trying to get my own work—”

  “I’ve stayed out of your hair; you have to admit.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks,” the chief said. “You getting everything you need?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Think you can run her to the airport in the morning? Save me a trip?”

  “Sure,” Paul said.

  “Any reason you couldn’t have picked her up? I mean, come on, it’s Sunday. I haven’t had a day off in weeks.”

  “I just do what I’m told, Chief.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Grosvenor said. “But you’re on for airport duty in the morning, right? Orly.”

  “Got it.” What in blazes?

  Paul went inside to the counter and asked for messages. “Yes, sir. Bia Balaam just checked in and would like to see you.”

  Paul phoned her and arranged to meet her in the lobby. She approached smiling and actually embraced him. As usual, she seemed overdressed, over made-up. They sat in overstuffed chairs in the middle of an atrium that looked out on the city.

  “Surprised to see me?” she said.

  “That’s fair,” he said. “What brings you?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll stay out of your way.”

  Too late.

  “I’m representing USSA NPO at the ceremonial announcement in Bern tomorrow. Thought I’d come early and see the Eiffel site.”

  Paul nodded. I’ll bet. “What did you think?”

  Her smile died. “Tragic. Tragic.”

  Well, there was some insight for you. Paul struggled to remain cordial. Did she, did Ranold, think he was a complete imbecile? Sending her to keep an eye on him, ensconcing her in his hotel, blaming it on her interest in the attack site and her attendance in Bern? Please. If this wasn’t a blatant attempt to remind him who was in charge, he didn’t know what was. Now Paul was going to be late getting together with Chapp, if he was able to slip away at all. He couldn’t risk leading her to the underground.

  Balaam was as intimidating as she looked, with her silver hair and eyes, the unusual height, the coldness she tried to hide with the occasional toothy smile. She creeped Paul out in business settings, but the social thing never worked at all for her. She was clearly not in her element. Bia’s claim to fame—and a fast, recent rise within the NPO—was that she was a leader of men. This chitchat was disconcerting, but it did make Paul wonder if there was another dimension to the woman. He couldn’t imagine.

  He told her he had run into Grosvenor and had been handed the baton for her ride to Orly in the morning.

  “Oh, good,” she said. “Did he give you the particulars?”

  “No.”

  “You might not have been so willing.”

  As if I were willing at all. “How early?”

  “I need to leave the hotel at five, I’m afraid.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I’m sorry. I can tell Grosvenor—”

  “Happy to do it,” Paul said. Still able to lie. “Why so early?”

  “Flying the government charter. And I want to be in Bern in time for the actual announcement. They’re trying to schedule it so it hits most time zones at the best hour for network news. It’ll be taped and replayed for the sleeping countries, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Paul was antsy, wanting to get going, hoping he could figure a way to elude her, to get to his rendezvous without being noticed. But she was saying something about her son. Her son? Paul didn’t even know she had a family.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You have a son?”

  “And a daughter,” she said. “I’m long divorced. Not a happy story, though the kids are good. Leya is a professor. Taj goes back to Georgetown tomorrow. He’s doing well.”

  Paul studied her. She actually did seem to soften when speaking of her children. Who would have guessed? “Well, listen,” he said, “had I known you were coming I would have arranged for dinner tonight, but—”

  “Oh, no,” she said, “don’t change your schedule at all for me. I have tons of work and want to turn in early because of the, well, you know.”

  “Early flight.”

  And with that she was off, pretending to simply be in town on her way to Bern. Paul wondered if she had staff with her, crack tails he would have never noticed as they followed him into the French countryside and directly to the underground. Well, if such animals were there, Paul would make them work.

  On his way to the Paris bureau staff car, Paul called Lothair and updated him on his estimated time of arrival. He chose not to tell him why. The last thing Chapp needed was another reason to be spooked.

  Paul drove around Paris, watching for any shadows. Seeing none, he returned to the hotel, went to his room, left by yet another route, called Straight, learned the location of another car-rental agency—this one a long walk. Enjoying a pastry in a fountain square and again certain he was not being watched, he rented another car under another alias and drove a circuitous route out of the city. Finally he was on his way to see Raison, in the same general area where he had met him before, but in a new hideout.

  21

  “SO, WHAT DID HE HAVE to say? What’s the deal? What’s going on?”

  “Why didn’t you listen in like you wanted to, Dad?” Jae said. She had stayed in
her room rather than running down to report the phone conversation to him. She hoped her mother would bring the kids up so she could busy herself putting them to bed and avoid the third degree. No such luck.

  “I was just hanging up the phone,” Ranold said. Past retirement age and he still couldn’t tell the truth.

  “He’s fine, I’m fine, we’re all fine.”

  “You were able to keep it together, not give away that—”

  “That what? That I’ve been told he’s the same promiscuous rascal he’s always been, and on top of that, a traitor?”

  “What’s the matter, Jae? Losing your resolve?”

  “What made you think I had any resolve to start with, Dad? You think this is easy? That I would hear a few disappointing details and then just sign up with the vigilantes to do in my own husband? That wasn’t very insightful—”

  “A few disappointing details? Do you realize that the man you married may be the biggest enemy to freedom the United Seven States has ever seen? Worse than Benedict Arnold. Worse than Alger Hiss. Worse than—”

  “You call him the man I married as if I should have seen this coming. You forget how high you were on him when we were dating and engaged, Dad. You even beamed at the wedding. Not that long ago you sat on the stage at the Pergamum Medal ceremony, busting your buttons like the award was going to you.”

  Ranold sighed. “He was that good, Jae. He’s not going to be easy to bring down. But we’re trying. And we need your help.”

  Jae wanted to reiterate that she hadn’t been close to convinced yet, but she didn’t want to get into it. She heard her mother and the kids on the stairs and excused herself.

  “As you’re going to be part of the team now,” Ranold said, “I should tell you we have a scheme in the works right now over there.”

  Jae hesitated but she wouldn’t bite. Her father wouldn’t be able to keep it from her anyway. She could get back to the subject anytime she wanted.

  The idyllic setting for the Sunday midday meeting reminded Paul of country farms in the Midwest. It seemed incongruous to see several cars parked under the trees, a pleasant clapboard house in the shade, the winter fields lying fallow in the sun.

  Chappell Raison and his leadership team met in the parlor, and this time Paul faced a much tougher crowd. Whatever it was in Chapp’s bearing that so endeared him to these people, they rallied round him now, eyeing Paul with suspicion. Paul realized immediately that an all-out offensive was his only hope.

  The little group began by singing choruses and praying, but it was all Paul could do to keep from interrupting. Even talking to God, they sounded defeated. Rather than asking for wisdom and guidance and courage, all they pleaded for now was protection and peace. There was going to be precious little of that soon enough. When the worship segment was over, Paul stood and faced wary eyes, except for Chapp’s. He apparently couldn’t bring himself to look at Paul.

  Paul began quietly, earnestly, planning to warm to his topic as he took cues from the body language of his audience. “Chappell,” he began, “what’s happened to you? I was told one thing about you before I got here, that you were intense. That suggested I might have a hard time keeping up with you, that you would set a pace and a tone that would inspire me to do what I had to do in a tough and dangerous situation.

  “At first I found you that way, talking fast, thinking fast, earnest, passionate. I give you some inside information, tell you what’s coming from the government tomorrow, expect you to lead by example, get your troops fired up, lead the charge in the name of Christ, and what do I get? You’re folding your tents, man.”

  Chapp had at least raised his head and was looking at Paul now.

  “And then I hear of the tragedy that has befallen the body here. It’s awful. It’s maddening. It’s enough to make you want to kill or quit. Well, frankly I expected the former, not the latter. Nothing we can do will bring that young woman back, but we can conduct ourselves in such a way that she will not have died in vain. We can, in her memory, get our backs up and oppose this evil world system, can’t we?

  “Chapp, are you done? Are you finished? Should the torch be passed to Lothair or one of these other younger, braver, brasher people? Because your intensity is just a memory now. If I were part of the leadership team here—and worse, if I were part of the rank and file—your example would inspire me to do what? Oh, I don’t know. Quit?”

  He was making Chapp mad now; Paul could see that. That was better than nothing. “If you’ll all bear with me, I want to tell you the story of what happened in Los Angeles.” Paul could tell he finally had their ears. They had been scowling at him, and some still were, probably out of loyalty to their besieged leader. But they were plainly interested now.

  He told them of the underground factions in L.A. and how they had been beaten down again and again, suffering losses, even slaughter. “It would have been easy to cave, to give in and give up. No one, not even I, would have faulted them if they had. How much should people be expected to take?

  “That’s what I wondered when I heard your story, Chapp. I don’t know where I’d be if I had lost my wife and kids simply because I wanted to exercise a right that was privileged in my country—and yours—not so many years ago. I have to wonder if I would still be a part of the underground, of the resistance. Well, here you are. You’re still here. But are you leading the charge, or are you in the way?

  “From a human standpoint, the L.A. underground was whipped. This wasn’t even Gideon against the Midianites anymore. Those would have seemed favorable odds compared to a bunch of loosely organized, petrified, clandestine groups facing the military strength of the United Seven States of America. And so they did the only thing they could think of. They called on their one final resource, the unconquerable King.

  “They prayed that God would smite their enemies. And then they told their enemies they had prayed that and warned them that if they didn’t stop killing believers, God would act. And He did. Do you know what the USSA has done about Los Angeles? They have abandoned it. No one but a believer can survive there anyway, so the government pretends it doesn’t exist.

  “Chapp, listen to me. I’m in no position to tell you how to feel or react. But I am here as your brother, telling you that come tomorrow, the clock begins ticking toward the end of the underground resistance as we know it. Maybe that’s a good thing. No longer will we have a choice. Within sixty days, remaining underground will not be an option. Shall we put the chairs on the wagon ’cause the meeting’s over? Or do we carry our colors into the public square and declare ourselves?

  “Frankly, I’m no more eager to do that than you are, except that I know we have the victory in hand. I don’t know how God is going to do it; I know only that He has to, because we can’t. Chapp, if you could ask God to do in Europe something like He did in Los Angeles, what would it be?”

  Paul sat and let the question hang in the air. If anyone but Chapp began to speak, Paul was prepared to shush them. The question had been put to their leader, and Paul wanted an answer.

  “Well, one thing I wouldn’t do,” Chapp said, his voice tight, “is ask Him to help me flush out Styr Magnor.”

  Several nodded, but Paul sighed through his nose. “That wasn’t the question. We’ll deal with that in a minute.” Starting over, slowly and articulately, and yes, he realized, condescendingly, Paul asked the question again: “Chapp, if you could ask God to do in Europe something like He did in Los Angeles, what would it be?”

  “It’s not going to sound loving,” Chapp said.

  “And why should it?” Paul said. “Do you think God’s shutting off the water supply to Los Angeles was loving? That was vehemence. That was judgment.”

  “I don’t know if He even still does things like this,” Chapp said.

  “‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,’” Paul said. He could tell he had caught Chapp’s imagination at last. But then, just as it seemed Chapp was about to speak, he sat forward and buried
his face in his hands, shaking his head. “This is just an exercise, brother,” Paul added. “There’s no wrong answer.”

  “Yes, there is,” Chapp said. “All I can think of is mayhem and ruin. There’s nothing loving about what I am thinking.”

  “Again I remind you of Los Angeles, friend. God woos His own in love, but He judges His enemies in wrath and anger. Who are we to say which is preferred?”

  Chapp looked up again, his face red and wet with tears. “I feel such rage. I want God to act. I want Him to take a stand on the part of His people. I want Him to deal a blow to the enemy.”

  “Say it, Chapp.”

  “I want Him to rain down judgment on those who punish us for believing in Him.”

  Paul said, “Have you considered that you have not because you ask not?”

  “I don’t know that I dare to ask.”

  “Tell us,” Paul said. “Let us decide whether we want to pray with you for this.”

  “Yes,” someone else said. “Tell us, Chapp.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please.”

  “All right,” he said. “But I confess it does not make me feel better to think it and can likely only make me feel worse to express it. I compare the International Government to Egypt and us to the children of Israel. Chancellor Dengler is Pharaoh. . . . ”

  The rest glanced at each other, and Paul was getting the drift.

  “What I want,” Chapp said, “is a plague on the house of our oppressor.”

  “A plague?” someone said, making a face. “Chapp, that’s awful.”

  “You see?” Chapp said. “You’re right. I’m in the flesh. This is no good.”

  Paul sat silent. It had rocked him too, but he had been the one who encouraged this thinking. Was God really the same yesterday, today, and forever?

  “I am not willing to pray for that,” Lothair said.

  In the midst of some murmuring, another said, “Neither am I. It sounds more mean than just.”