by Chuck Holton
John agreed. “I think she’s found us a friend.”
Sweeney snorted. “We’re not home yet.”
LIZ SAT ON ONE of the two single beds in the small room the pharmacist had given to Valor for their use. Doc, Rip, and Buzz lay on their backs on the floor, sound asleep. Frank was sprawled on the other single bed, dead to the world.
She couldn’t stop smiling. She had done something right in getting them this safe spot. It was almost as if she were part of the team. Granted the four kids who slept in this bedroom weren’t the world’s happiest campers, but the exciting presence of a team of Special Operators should go a long way toward making things right in their eyes.
She pushed back until she rested against the wall. The smell of food being prepared drifted in the air, and her stomach growled its approval.
Aside from breathing and the occasional stomach growl from the sleeping men, the room was quiet. All the team had turned off their radios since batteries needed to be conserved. Liz leaned her head back, letting her eyes shut. She was almost asleep when the bed shook as John sat beside her.
“You’re looking very pleased with yourself.”
She grinned at him but didn’t explain. “Did your call go through?”
He made a disgusted sound. “I’m going to try again in a few minutes.”
“What happens if you can’t get through?”
“We’ll worry about that after we eat.”
They were quiet a minute, and the silence was filled by Rip’s gentle snores. Liz was very aware of John, aware that his shoulder was pressed against hers. When he was near, something shimmered in the air between them, a glimmer of possibilities barely seen but recognized, like a faint rainbow arcing over a lake.
What it all meant, she had no idea, but she wanted to find out in spite of the apprehension that she’d be hurt again. If she held back out of fear, she’d wonder all her life what might have been. All they needed to do was find Julie and get out of Lebanon alive. Then they could see what happened.
“How can they fall asleep so fast?”
“You live this life long enough, and you’d be surprised how your body adapts,” John said.
She pushed her hair off her face, feeling tangles and leaves. How she’d love a brush. “You guys are amazing. You wouldn’t let me write a story about you, would you?”
He just looked at her.
She sighed. “That’s what I thought.” Talk about the one that got away. “I’ll just write the stories I was assigned and Julie’s story.” Please, Lord, may it have a happy ending.
“Who are you writing for? When we met, you had just finished graduate school and were waiting on a couple of job possibilities.”
“I work for the Philadelphia Inquirer.” She couldn’t keep the pride from her voice.
He looked at her. “The Enquirer? Huh. Wouldn’t have thought it of you.”
Liz elbowed him in the side, “Inquirer, not Enquirer.”
He grinned down at her, and she knew she’d been had. She grinned back. “I might have upset my dad by becoming a Christian, but he’s proud I can write. According to my mother, he brags about me to everyone in the English department.”
John’s grin faltered. “Must be nice.”
There it was again, that sadness. “Your father must be proud of you.” What father wouldn’t be?
John shrugged. “He knows I’m an Operator, but in the general’s mind it’s not the same as carrying on family tradition at West Point.”
Liz didn’t think she liked the general.
“But the colonel’s impressed.” John gave a halfhearted smile.
“Who’s the colonel?”
“My godfather: Colonel Michael LaFontaine, U.S. Army retired. A classmate of Dad’s.” John’s smile turned bittersweet. “I’ve always gotten more encouragement from him than my father.”
Liz pulled her knees up to her chest, her skirt pooling on the bed. She wrapped her arms around her legs. “It’s amazing to me how we can love our fathers and yet be so at odds with them over such important things as our careers and our faith.”
They were quiet for a few moments, thinking about fathers. At least Liz was. She pictured Charles when she had tried to explain why she had become a Christian. He had looked at Annabelle. “I thought we raised an intelligent daughter, not some naïve idiot who could be taken in by some snake-handling cult.”
Liz stared, appalled at the viciousness of his comment. “It’s not like that, Charles.” How did she explain to him the impact of the highly intelligent and highly committed kids from the Christian fellowship group?
It all began when two girls from down the hall stopped at Liz’s dorm room to invite her to a Bible study.
“A Bible study?” Liz had never heard of people studying the Bible outside of a comparative religion class or Sunday school, not that she’d ever been to one. Curious to see what this group of college kids did at a “Bible study” and all too anxious to get away from reading Beowulf, she went. She found that they did just what they said—they studied the Bible, verse by verse no less. And most fascinating to her, Dr. Charles Fairchild’s daughter, they believed in absolutes.
Jesus was THE way.
God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the Allah of Mohammed.
Jesus wasn’t a victim; He let them take His life—for her.
You couldn’t earn salvation. It was a gift from God paid for at great cost with the blood of His Son.
If that last was true, pity all the Islamist martyrs who thought they were earning heaven by blowing up innocents and themselves—though she never understood that mindset either.
When she first heard about the exclusivity of the Gospel claim, all she could think was that Charles would eat these passionate college students for breakfast. She could hear him say, “Whatever a person’s heart tells him, that is his truth. To claim anything else is patently ridiculous.”
But the longer she hung around with her new friends, the more she had to admit that, narrow though they were, there was a reality to their faith, a true kindness to their lives.
“You guys are so politically incorrect,” she told them. “You’re so exclusive.”
“Hey, we didn’t write the Bible; we just believe it,” one answered, grinning unrepentantly. “We’re not the ones who said Jesus was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus said it. So He either is what He said, or He’s a liar.”
Now there was a thought. What about all the Good Teacher stuff people said about Him, even Charles?
Over the course of several months, Liz returned again and again to the Bible study, drawn by something she didn’t comprehend. Slowly, slowly she began to understand that absolutes did exist, and they not only provided answers to some of the hard questions; they also gave life order. There was such a thing as Truth, and Jesus was at its center.
With a racing heart, she chose to believe. It gave her a feeling of stepping off into the unknown, but with that decision she found a peace she had never expected and a moral and ethical compass to guide her life.
“Charles, it’s God reaching down and offering salvation, not us working like crazy, maybe even blowing ourselves up, to try and earn salvation,” she told her father. “What a difference!”
After a warning glare from Annabelle, Charles had curbed his anger, but he still hadn’t reconciled himself to his daughter’s loving Jesus. Many days Liz wondered if he ever would.
John yawned again. “So what’s your trouble with your father?”
“I disappoint him.”
“I don’t know why.” John looked at her. “You seem pretty terrific to me.”
Liz felt her cheeks flush. Wow! “He thinks I’m an idiot to be a Christian. Up until recently I’ve always felt strong enough and close enough to God to withstand his jibes, but now I don’t know. I’ve had so many doubts lately, and he’ll see that and assume I’m coming to my senses.”
“As in throwing your faith away?”
“But I’m not! I’m just
at a bad patch.”
“Everyone has bad patches,” John said quietly, and something in his voice made her realize he might be going through a hard time, too.
She studied the flowered bedspread. “Remember how we talked about that verse that says all things work for good?”
“I remember that I had just asked you how you defined good when that little girl appeared at the barn.”
“Yeah, well, tonight I thought about what it meant whenever I wasn’t too scared to think.”
“And?” He gave her his full and focused attention.
“I think the only way that verse can be true is if God’s idea of good is different from mine.”
John looked away, his eyes staring at middle distance, seeing something she couldn’t. “Back in basic training, we had a drill sergeant none of us could stand. Febus was his name. As we listened from the front-leaning-rest position, he used to tell us, ‘Men, you might think that I’m making your life harder, but someday you’ll realize that I made it better.’”
“Front leaning what?”
“You know, push-ups.”
“Ah.” She grinned. “So was he right?”
John nodded. “It sure didn’t feel like it at the time, but he was. Everything they put us through was to make us better soldiers, better Rangers, better Special Operators.”
Liz could hardly sit still. She felt as if she was on the edge of discovering something truly important. “In other words, God sometimes puts us in the front-leaning-whatever in order to actually make us better down the road? And not just better people, but better Christians, better image bearers of Jesus, better in the ways that really count.”
John frowned. “But what about all those people who died at the hotel? What about Julie? Are you saying that God made them die or made her a hostage just so you could be better?”
Liz was horrified at the very idea. “No! I’d never say that.”
“Okay. Neither would I. So what are you saying?”
She took a moment to get her thoughts in order. “Maybe it’s that terrible things just happen because we live in a broken world. Evil men do evil things, but God can take those terrible things and somehow redeem them if we ask Him to. One way He redeems them is to use them to make us spiritually stronger.” She looked at him. “What do you think?”
John smiled at her. “I think I’ve never before had a conversation like this with a pretty girl.”
She flushed again. “No, really! This is great stuff, John! I can finally see that things going wrong can work for my good, but it’s good as God sees it, good to make me better, even though it hurts, good to force me to rely on Him more.”
John looked away, suddenly sad.
“What?”
He shook his head.
If whatever was between them was going any further, they had to talk to each other, even when it was difficult. “What is it, John?”
He shrugged, and Liz felt his shoulder rise and fall against hers. Had she leaned into him first or he into her? Who cared? She loved the feel of him resting against her, and she loved resting against him.
She merely sat and waited. The room was dim and quiet, conducive to shared intimacies. She watched him close his eyes and screw up his face, as if he hurt deep inside.
“I had a good friend, Vernon James,” he finally said in little more than a whisper. “He was our medic. A big, black man who really loved Jesus. Last month when we were on a mission, he was trying to help a woman deliver a baby, and the car she was in turned out to be a suicide bomb.” His voice dripped with pain.
“Oh, John, I’m sorry.”
When he didn’t say anything more, Liz said, “And that’s what made you disappointed with God?”
“Worse. It made me want to stop believing in Him anymore.” He looked at her, his face uncertain. “I’m finding it harder to put Him out of my life than I thought I would.”
You’ve got to keep believing John. You’ve got to. “I bet it is. How do you walk away from Someone who is everywhere?”
“Exactly. All kinds of things remind me of Him. Godly people like you who hang onto Jesus even when there’s tragedy in your life. Gracious people like our hosts who remind me that all the world isn’t bad. And the sky. Did you see that sky tonight when we were marching? Where did the stars and the planets and the clouds come from if not from God?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s driving me nuts. I don’t like uncertainty and ambiguity. I want definite answers, definite proofs.”
She rested her hand on his arm. “If we had all the answers, we wouldn’t need faith. We wouldn’t need God.”
“I don’t know, Liz. I really don’t.” He pushed up off the bed and sighed, turning to her. “But I’d better try again to make that call.”
Washington, D.C.
THE PHONE BEEPED TWICE. “Mr. LaFontaine, General Cooper is on line one.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. Little surprised him, but a call in the middle of the day from Buck Cooper did. Something was up. He smiled. Suddenly the day had extra spice.
“Thank you, Miss Davis. Oh, and while I have you, please call Senator Herger and tell him I won’t be able to meet him at the Army Navy Club for lunch today.”
Michael spun from his computer and snatched up the sleek brushed-aluminum telephone, which was the only other object on his massive mahogany desk. He pressed a button. “Recite the Corps, Maggot!”
There was chuckling on the other end of the line. “You always did treat me like a plebe, Michael.”
Michael refrained from saying that he treated everyone that way. “Major General William Cooper. To what do I owe this great honor?”
“I have a problem, Michael. A big one.”
The tone of Buck’s voice told him this was no joke. He sat up in his black leather chair and grabbed his gold-plated Mont Blanc pen. He slid open the top drawer and extracted a tablet the read LaFontaine Industries across the top in a stylized logo.
“I’m prepared to copy, Buck.”
“It’s Johnnie. I just got a call; his team is missing.”
Michael closed his eyes, allowing himself a brief moment of pain. He loved Johnnie like the son he never had. Then he pushed the hurt and fear away. Only weaklings allowed either pain or love to determine their lives. He was all business when he barked, “What? Where?”
“In the Middle East somewhere. They won’t say exactly, of course.”
“Not even to a two-star general at the Pentagon?”
“I’m not in the chain of command. You know that.”
Michael did know. Buck was traditional Army Johnnie was anything but. The boy had turned his back on family tradition, enlisted, and gone Special Forces. He’d always been his own man, much to Buck’s distress. Their conflicts had never failed to amuse Michael, who went out of his way to get along with Johnnie, and not just to get Buck’s goat. If he felt a genuine affection for anyone, it was Johnnie. Of course he liked Buck, too.
“Well, what can I do?”
“I don’t know, Michael. You tell me. I know you’ve got some back-channel pull up there. What did they used to call it down in Central America?”
“Palanca.”
“That’s it. Anyway, even my talking to you about this could lose me my job, so be discreet. But Johnnie’s in trouble, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to do something.”
Michael was standing now. Getting things done was his specialty. “Buck, I’ll do what I can. You have my word. Give me an hour to make some calls, then get back to me on my cell phone.” He reeled off the number. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can dig up for you. Unfortunately, I don’t have many contacts in the Middle East, but I’ll buy a C-130 and fly it over there myself if I have to.”
“Thank you.” Buck sounded momentarily hoarse. “You are a true friend and patriot.”
Michael agreed with that assessment, but he didn’t say so. “I’m glad you called, Buck. After all, the boy is my godson.”
He hung up and punched the intercom button again.
“Miss Davis!” One of his serious goals in life had become to fluster her. He’d been trying for six years and hadn’t succeeded yet.
“Yes, Mr. LaFontaine?”
“Call the senator back. Ask him to meet me for lunch in twenty minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell him—”
“I’ll tell him the emergency smoothed itself out once you became involved, and you find yourself free after all. You are delighted because you had been looking forward to this lunch very much.”
Some day. Some sweet day. But not today. It fascinated him how she took words out of his mouth, her lie always making him sound as good as or better than his own would have.
“Thank you.” He punched the off button and reached for his suit coat. The good senator would be miffed, but he’d be there.
Michael smiled. The man would probably stand on the table and sing the theme song from Hee Haw if he asked him to. Six-figure campaign contributions would do that to a politician. More important, they would help him get an inside scoop from one of the senior members of the Defense Intelligence Committee.
He put on his suit coat and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He stepped out onto the terrace overlooking the White House and the Ellipse. As always the sight made him proud to be an American. Certain that his intensely sophisticated anti-surveillance technology protected him from listeners, he dialed an international number from memory and got a voice recording.
After the beep, Michael said, “We need to talk,” and flipped the phone shut. He looked down onto 17th Street. Traffic was at a standstill as usual. Forget the limo. He’d walk. It would be faster, and the exercise would help him think.
Whatever it takes. Hadn’t that always been his motto? It had served him well in the past, and he saw no reason to change his way of thinking now. What it took, in this case, was more information about what was happening with Task Force Valor. He’d been out of Military Intelligence for more than ten years, but he had learned the value of keeping up with old friends.
The phone in his hand chirped. He looked at the caller ID and smiled. There was one of the oldest now.
