Caelyn’s hand shot up to her mouth. “But why, baby, why? Why us? Why here?”
He didn’t want to answer as he eased onto the nearest chair. His eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, his shoulders drooping, his hands resting on his lap. “It’s getting crazy out there, Caelyn. Groups of thugs have come down from the cities. Other gangs have moved up from the south, most of them from across the border. They’re rampaging and stealing, taking everything they can find.”
“No, no!” Caelyn shot back. “That isn’t why they were here last night. This wasn’t about food or money. They knew what they were doing. They had to be watching the house! They knew where Ellie slept! They knew they could get into her bedroom from the roof. This had to be planned out. The voices in the dark, designed to lure us out. Someone had to be on the roof even when we ran across the backyard. Don’t try to sugarcoat this for me, honey; I’m strong enough to take it, but I want to know what we’re up against!”
Bono closed his eyes and leaned his head back. She studied him carefully, noting the creased lines around his eyes, the heavy hands and heavy voice. He was frightened, she could see that, and she realized that she’d never seen him scared before.
She knelt beside the chair and grabbed his hand. “Tell me what we’re up against,” she asked again as she held desperately onto his dirty fingers.
“All the demons and evil of the world,” he finally whispered as he stared blankly down at her.
Chapter Nineteen
Four Miles West of Chatfield
Twenty-One Miles Southwest of Memphis, Tennessee
You’re not going to leave me here, baby. No way you’re going to leave me and Ellie here all by ourselves.”
They were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table. Greta was down the hall, in the living room with Ellie. The old man was on the porch, staring at a blank television screen and cursing the fact he couldn’t watch his Yankees or Padres, as if anyone was playing baseball anymore. The house was quiet and Bono knew that Greta was listening, so he kept his voice low. There was tension in the air, palpable and edgy. Bono felt as if he were suffocating. He actually had to work to breathe. His expression was crestfallen, confusion clouding his eyes. Caelyn was just as emotional, her face tight, her lips pressed, her hands moving constantly. “You can’t leave us here,” she whispered, her eyes unflinching. No more pleading. No more asking. She was demanding, and in this matter she would get what she needed, no matter what the cost. “We can’t take care of ourselves, you can see that. Look at what happened last night. Can you even imagine if it had been just me and Mom? They would have taken Ellie! Someone would have been hurt, maybe one of them, maybe one of us, it doesn’t matter—someone would have been hurt or killed.”
Bono shook his head but didn’t answer, thinking for a long moment. “What do you want me to do, Caelyn? What can I do?”
“I want you to stay here. I want you to act like every other father, like every other husband, like every other man!”
The words cut him and he sucked another breath, his heart racing with uncertainty and frustration. Caught in the middle of two impossible choices, two mutually exclusive paths, he felt like he was being split in two, cut through the middle with a jagged knife. He couldn’t desert the army. For one thing, they would come and find him and arrest him. A run-of-the-mill officer who worked in admin or supply or logistics or something deep within the bowels of the machine might get away with it . . . maybe, with all the chaos that was going on. But not a Special Forces soldier, especially a member of the Cherokees. He was a national asset. They would come looking for him. Far more important, he couldn’t shame his honor or his brothers. To even think about it cut his heart out, making him feel dirty and ashamed.
Yet he couldn’t desert his family, either. He couldn’t leave them here, not in the situation they were in.
The knife cut. He felt the tendons stretching. He was being ripped in two.
And though his emotions welled inside him, he wasn’t angry at Caelyn. Quite the opposite. He knew that she was right—or at least that she had the right to be demanding. All she was concerned about was the safety of their child. And a mother’s instinct for protection was not to be ignored. No, he didn’t want to argue with her. He couldn’t argue with her. There was just nothing for him to say.
Caelyn leaned toward him, resting her arms on the table. Her eyes were softer now, but her face was just as determined. “This isn’t going to work, babe, not the way things are. You understand me; it isn’t going to work to leave us here all by ourselves. A month ago, a year ago, hey, a week ago, you could have left us and we’d have been okay.” Her eyes glanced toward the back door and the darkness. “But not now, not with the way things are going. Mom and Dad will be okay, I think people are going to leave them be, but not us, not me and Ellie.”
She sat back and fell silent, her heart sinking as she considered what her husband had told her about the things he’d seen the night before. And he hadn’t told her everything; that too was very clear. He didn’t want to tell her—and frankly, she didn’t want to hear. All she knew was that he had come back more frightened and discouraged than she’d ever seen him. In her innocent mind, she couldn’t imagine what he might have learned, but the fact that someone had come after Ellie told her everything she needed to know.
She watched her husband, thought a moment, then looked away. Sitting there, she realized something about herself she hadn’t considered before.
Ever since the afternoon out in the straw field, she hadn’t been quite the same. She thought differently. She felt different. She was different in almost every way.
She didn’t trust the world. Skittish and withdrawn now, she never felt relaxed. Worst of all, she lived in mortal fear for Ellie, crushed by the burden of trying to protect her from all the evil and blackness in the world. She was a mother and her defensive instincts had kicked into hyper gear. But in order to protect her daughter, she had to take care of herself, which was nearly impossible right now.
She shook her head in frustration.
She needed her husband’s help.
A cup of warm water sat on the table, and she pressed it to her lips to hide the grim tightness of her mouth.
It was demoralizing and insulting to think about, but the truth was that they had slipped back to her great-great-grandmother’s world, back to a time when it was virtually impossible for a woman alone to take care of herself.
From the beginning of recorded time, from the very first caveman (if there even was such a thing) through the ancient peoples who built the first cities along the Euphrates, from the Egyptians to the Hebrews, from the Assyrians to the ancient Greeks, from these very beginnings all the way down to medieval Europe and the frontiers of the American West, a woman wasn’t anything without a man. She wasn’t listened to, she wasn’t considered, she wasn’t a person, not in any real sense. In a world where food and shelter and safety and protection were the only concerns, where the luxury of a full stomach and a safe place to sleep were never taken for granted, where there was always some army or king or thick-necked thief threatening to take it all away, a woman always found herself in need of the protective custody of a man. The more beautiful the woman, the more that this was true. And as much as she hated the feeling of dependence, she knew that it was as true now as it had ever been. She needed her husband’s muscles and defensive skills. She needed his ability to navigate through a brutal world.
She sat there, angry and confused, her emotions boiling over in a way she couldn’t understand.
But why was she so angry?
She really didn’t know.
Why was all her fury directed at the only man she’d ever loved?
Again, she didn’t know.
* * *
Though she couldn’t understand what she was feeling, the dark angel who stood beside her understood it very well. His powerful whisperings were the source of her anger, and he was concentrating on her spirit with all of his dar
k and forceful might.
This was the last chance he had to get her, his best chance to take her down.
What he was doing wasn’t original—he was a faithful servant but not creative or innovative—and the things he whispered to her now had been taught him long before.
Incite her rage and anger. Confuse her. Convince her she is alone. Get her to blame the one who loves her, the one who would sacrifice his very life to save her. Get her to turn her anger on him and her soul will rebel, pushing her further from her loved ones. Then she’ll feel forgotten and abandoned and the cycle will start again.
These were the emotions that could kill the love between them. And if the adversary could destroy the trust between them, it would leave them with nothing else.
So far, with these young mortals, it had proven difficult. But the dark angel was persistent, for he truly loved the evil plan.
* * *
Caelyn looked at her husband intently, fighting the inexplicable emotions that were boiling now inside her. “I understand your position, honey, but you’ve got to think about your family now,” she said. “Me and Ellie . . .” her eyes wandered to the hall. “It’s impossible for us now and it’s only going to get worse. And think about this, baby. I’m the last person in the world to complain. I’ve been independent all my life, you know that—you know me. I’ve never, from day one, complained about the time you’ve had to be away, about the way you’ve had to leave us for months at a time, not knowing where you were, what you were doing, when you’d be back home. I’ve never said a word. But this is different. Surely you can see that. I can’t take care of Ellie. We won’t survive a week here by ourselves.”
Bono lifted his face to look at her but there was nothing he could say.
“We’ve got to do something,” she continued. “We’ve got to come up with another plan. There’s got to be someplace you can take us, someplace where the army can protect us. I mean, is that asking too much? If the army demands that you leave us, don’t they have a responsibility to take care of the family members you leave behind?”
Bono breathed again, grasping for her hand, but she pulled back. “We’ve got to think of something. If we stay here, I don’t know, I have the worst feeling. Things will not be all right. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it will not be good.”
Bono sat back against the chair. “We’ll figure something out,” was all he offered.
Caelyn watched him, forcing herself to calm down. Finally she reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “I love you, babe. I always have. I always will. I love you more than anything and I’m so proud of the man you are. I understand your position. I know you can’t stay here, but we’ve got to think of something. And we’ve only got a couple of days.”
Chapter Twenty
Offutt Air Force Base
Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command
Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska
The day and night passed slowly. The family was told to remain in the small office, able to leave only for showers in the gym and to eat. After some begging and ordering and finally some fairly believable threats, Sam convinced the old tech sergeant who had been assigned to look after them to let him use the gym. He spent the next three hours running, boxing on the shadow bag, and lifting weights. Sweating and completely exhausted, he showered and fell asleep.
The next morning he was as agitated as he’d ever been. This time, he wasn’t alone. Sara paced as well. Luke and Ammon watched them, leaning against the far wall. Azadeh sat on the rolled-out sleeping bags, reading to work on her English skills.
“Unbelievable,” Ammon muttered as he watched his brother pace.
Sam shook his head, thinking on the broadcast they’d watched the previous day. “How do you describe it?” Sam asked in an incredulous voice. “Swearing him in and then impeaching him, all in the same day!”
Sara kept on pacing. “It looks that way,” she said.
“How stupid,” Luke muttered. “It seems like—”
Sara cut him off. “No, it wasn’t stupid. It was brilliant. I mean, think of this. They found out Secretary Marino was out here. With him holed up here at Offutt, there was no way to get him short of a military attack upon the base. Were they willing to risk that? Clearly not. Would they be able to assassinate him like the others? Highly unlikely. Brucius isn’t stupid. His security forces can take care of him. And this was better anyway, much better. By swearing him in and then impeaching him, they utterly removed him as a threat. Fuentes is the president. Legally, Brucius is completely powerless. There is nothing he can do.”
“But why? Why would the Congress do that?” Luke asked. He kept his face down, a little bit embarrassed that he didn’t understand. He’d spent too many weekends climbing rocks, too many nights texting all his buddies, too much time chasing the babes whose pictures used to fill his cell phone, too much of all of that to pay attention to the things that mattered. His father had tried to warn him, tried to get him to take life a little bit more seriously, but he had always figured he would have time to grow up later on. “I don’t see what we can do now,” he finished. “I don’t think there’s anything . . . I mean, I don’t see how we’re going to win.”
Sara stared at him. “I still don’t think it’s hopeless,” she said. “We’re not fighting the whole world, Luke. I don’t think there are a lot of them. It’s a tiny group, maybe no more than a handful of people. And I don’t believe they’ve been plotting this for very long. They have been waiting, men of like mind, but I don’t think they’ve been plotting, not actively, anyway. I think they’ve been watching for the opportunity, and when the attack took place, they took action, knowing the time to strike was now.” She kept pacing as she talked, turning toward him now. “No, I don’t think we’re facing more than a handful of men. But they’re powerful. Very powerful. And growing more and more so.
“It’s going to take a miracle to stop them.”
She smiled, trying to look hopeful. But her eyes showed how she really felt.
Sam watched his mother, then clenched his jaw. “You want to know what I think?” he asked.
They turned to him and waited.
“I think God showed us a couple of miracles. For that, I think we’re all grateful. But I think it’s time to create some of our own miracles now.”
Sara looked closely at him.
By the end of the day, she would know that it was true.
Chapter Twenty-One
Offutt Air Force Base
Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command
Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska
The soldier came for Sara and Sam. It was late at night, but none of the family was asleep. Instead, they lay awake inside the tiny office they’d been mostly confined to since they’d been rescued from the rooftop in East Chicago, talking quietly in the total darkness about the future that looked so bleak. The colonel opened the door, the thin beam of his penlight intruding in the night. “Lieutenant Brighton,” he said.
Sam sat up on his sleeping bag and looked at him.
The colonel shifted his eyes, looking for the women. “Mrs. Brighton?” he asked gently.
Sara was sitting with her back against the wall, her knees pulled up, her arms around her legs. “Yes,” she answered simply.
The colonel moved into the room, his light flashing a narrow beam of white that illuminated his outline as a shadow behind it. “Will you please come with me?”
Sara stood up. Sam stood up beside her. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“Secretary Marino needs to see you.”
Sara looked down at her other sons. “What about them?”
The colonel moved the thin beam of light. “Guys, if you’ll just stay here?” He said it like it was a question, but it was clearly a statement. Luke and Ammon nodded at him. “Okay, sir,” they said.
The beam of light moved again. Azadeh had been sitting next to Sara. She remained on the floor, her eyes down. The colonel stared
at her a long moment, started to say something then seemed to change his mind. Turning, he motioned to Sam and Sara while glancing at his watch impatiently. “Please hurry,” he urged them, his voice on edge. “The Secretary is waiting. Believe me, guys, the dirt or whatever is flying out there has hit the fan.”
Sam took his mother by the arm. “Come on,” he said.
Sara glanced down at Ammon and Luke again, patted Azadeh on the shoulder, and followed the officer to the door.
They walked down the hall. Sara caught a look at Sam as he moved. He looked both relieved and excited.
This was what he’d been waiting for.
* * *
Sam and Sara followed the colonel into the Operations Center (OC). It was a large room stuffed with computers, video screens, telephones, encryption equipment, and open workstations. The lighting was dim and a red DEFCON ALPHA sign was illuminated in the front corner. The floor sloped gently downward and rows of theater chairs lined both sides of the central aisle. A large projection screen and elevated stage took up most of the front wall, with multiple smaller monitors on both sides of the main screen. The SecDef, Brucius Theodore Marino, was talking with some military aides at the front of the room. Half a dozen officers waited in the chairs, a few civilians scattered among them.
The colonel led Sam and Sara through the metal doors at the back of the room, gestured to the SecDef, then disappeared. The two of them waited, looking around anxiously. Time passed and no one spoke to them. Brucius continued huddling with his aides, his face tense. Ten minutes passed. Finally a young lieutenant colonel broke away from Brucius, came to the back of the room, asked them to follow, escorted them to the front row, and invited them to sit down. Brucius caught Sara’s eye as she moved forward and nodded at her.
A three-star general moved to Marino’s side. “We’re ready, sir,” he whispered at his ear.
Brucius immediately stopped talking to the officers and turned around. “Okay,” he said. He turned and walked toward Sara, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. “Sara, are you okay?”
The Great and Terrible Page 153
