by Ted Dekker
“And what made you so sure he wouldn’t kill me?”
“I thought he was after Feroz, and I wasn’t sure Johnny wouldn’t kill him. As for killing you, it’s not in his nature. Again, read the report and you’ll understand far more than I can convince you of. We are dealing with matters that reside between the head and the heart, Robert. I had faith in Johnny. Enough to put the world on his shoulders.”
“Including my life?”
“Samuel’s vision saved your life. If we hadn’t intervened, you would be dead right now. I would expect some gratitude when this finally sinks in.”
“Intervened? How did you know Johnny was with the X Group?”
David took a deep breath. He bit his lip and answered slowly, with a tremble in his voice.
“Because we put him there.”
The president kept his eyes locked on David for a long moment. “My, my, you have been busy.”
“For your sake. For the sake of Israel.”
“Based on a vision.”
“Based on Project Showdown, which gave me the faith to believe in this vision.”
“And would you happen to know who ordered my assassination?”
“No. The X Group has no political agenda.”
“If you had to guess?”
David hesitated. “Assim Feroz. Impossible to prove. It’s not over, Robert. The X Group will not accept failure.”
“And neither will I.”
“I don’t think you can neutralize them. Certainly not in the time we have. How long did it take to deal with Al Qaeda? From what I understand, the X Group is far more organized.”
“Then what?”
“Keep a heavy guard. Make sure everyone around you is armed to the teeth. And pray that I’m still right about Johnny.”
24
JOHNNY.
The more Carl allowed the name to reside in his mind, the more disoriented he felt.
He and Kelly had walked back to their hotel room in a dizzy silence. She’d fashioned her own theory as to how and why the old man David and his son, Samuel, would make such outrageous claims, and she convinced him to follow a logical course based on that theory. But he knew her own confidence was shaken.
He also knew that he would follow whatever direction she gave him, but he couldn’t dislodge a terrible suspicion that something was wrong.
Kelly left him sitting at the table and went for a list of weapons that he needed for his final mission against the president. Using Samuel was no longer an option. He would have to do this himself. She did her best to assure him that everything would be okay. That they were only doing what they were both destined to do. That the only truth was the truth he knew when he looked into her eyes.
Carl believed her. She was Kelly. She was the only person who truly loved him. He would die for Kelly.
But would Johnny die for her?
Would Johnny believe her?
Would Johnny kill the president of the United States?
Then there was Samuel, a boy of maybe thirteen who talked and acted like someone twice that age. An apparition from Johnny’s past, or another lie sent from Agotha to challenge Carl. Or an associate of Kelly’s like Englishman, playing some deep psychological game that would ultimately manipulate him into a position of yet deeper loyalty.
His body began to sweat thirty minutes after Kelly left. He tried to stop it by retreating into the safe blackness of his mind, but his face continued to flush with heat.
Frightened by his inability to control the emotions or his response, he hurried into the bathroom, stripped off his clothing, and took a cold shower. The water felt like heaven on his body, and for a few minutes he successfully put Samuel out of his mind.
Satisfied, he dried and donned the black pants and shirt he would wear tonight. He didn’t have to form a plan as much as select one from several dozen already waiting on the edge of his consciousness, then modify it to meet the current situation. The fact that he didn’t know the hospital’s layout limited him. He would have to make adjustments during the operation.
Johnny. Your mother’s name is Sally. She is waiting for you in a town called Paradise. My name is Samuel. I’m not an ordinary boy. The sweat returned five minutes after he’d dressed. Buckets of it, soaking his shirt in less than a minute.
He quickly stripped and jumped back in the shower. This time the cold made him shiver. First sweat, now shivers—he was losing his self-control!
Carl stepped from the shower and attempted to forcefully towel away the goose-flesh. But he wasn’t successful. He stared at his reflection in a full-length mirror affixed to the inside of the bathroom door. Pale from the months in darkness. Lean, ribbed with muscle, marked by dozens of scars on his shoulders, hips, and feet—Agotha’s little gifts to him. But it was the way his skin prickled with a thousand goose bumps that fascinated him now. More accurately, the fact that he wasn’t able to make them go away.
He should ask Kelly to give him a treatment! Maybe she carried some of the drugs with her. She could strap him to the bed and use the electricity from the wall outlet to encourage his mind to react as it was trained.
No, no, what was he thinking? He had to complete the mission tonight, before midnight! And it was always Agotha, not Kelly, who administered his lessons—he doubted Kelly would want to shock him. “Who are you?” he asked the shaking image in the mirror.
He answered himself. “My name is Carl.”
“And who is Carl?”
“Carl is Johnny.”
The thin sheen of sweat glistened on his skin. Somewhere deep in his mind, where he erected walls of blackness and formed friendly tunnels that led him to the light, his understanding of truth seemed to have shut down.
Carl who was Johnny began to panic, and this time he couldn’t stop himself. He stood before the long mirror, shaking and sweating and panicking.
He had to get to the bed! Lying down would allow him to relax and focus. He stumbled to the bed, still shaking, and lay down on his back. The white ceiling dissolved into a sea of lights that made him dizzy.
Why was his body doing this? Why was he afraid? He was afraid because he was shaking, and he was shaking because he was afraid, because he couldn’t stop sweating.
He heard the door open and close, but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. He couldn’t stop shaking.
“Carl?”
“Kelly . . .”
“Carl!” She dropped her bag and rushed over to him. “Carl, it’s okay. Shh, shh, shh. You’re shaking!”
She placed her hands on his chest and face. “You’re burning up! What’s happening? Please, you’re scaring me.”
“Kelly . . .” He couldn’t seem to say any more past his violent shakes.
“Shh, shh, shh . . . I’m here now. I’m home. It’s okay. I’m so sorry.” “I’m afraid,” he managed.
Kelly lowered her head to his chest and began to cry. “Johnny,” she whispered.
Johnny?
“Please, Johnny. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Please stop.”
He closed his eyes and let his mind fall back into blackness. He suddenly didn’t feel anything. No hot, no cold, not even Kelly on his chest.
She was calling him by his name. His real name. In a moment of stunning clarity, he knew what was happening. Kelly was loving him as she’d never loved him before. She was speaking a deep and personal truth. Something he himself didn’t even know.
Her soft whisper, calling him Johnny, cut to his soul in a way that no kiss ever had. He was swallowed by a profound sense of intimacy that he’d never imagined could exist between two people.
Carl stopped shaking. He opened his eyes. Kelly was weeping. In that moment he knew that she’d wept with him in the tunnel because she was torn by this terrible secret.
The secret that he was Johnny.
She carried the burden for him because she loved him. He put his hand on her head and stared at the white ceiling, moved by her great love. And by this revelation that he
really was Johnny Drake, not Carl Strople. They stayed that way for a long time.
It was Kelly who broke the spell, long after she’d stopped sniffing, long after her breathing settled. She lifted her head from his chest, searched his eyes, then retrieved his clothes from the bathroom and set them on the end of the bed. Carl sat up slowly.
“Dress,” she said, walking to the window. She pulled back the drapes and stared out at the darkness.
He dressed, numb and directionless.
“Your name is Johnny Drake,” she said, crossing her arms. “You were a chaplain with the United States Army. They took you by force when you were on leave in Cairo. That’s the way the X Group works.”
“Then . . . Then the boy was right?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I’m so sorry. I lied to you.”
“My name is Johnny,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Johnny Drake.”
“Yes, yes. I’m so sorry. I—”
“I’m from Colorado?”
“I don’t know.” She turned around and looked at him with cried-out eyes. “I don’t know about the rest. Please, please, I beg you to forgive me.”
Carl felt as if he was going to burst into tears. But he wasn’t Carl, was he? He was Johnny.
“You have to leave me, Carl. I don’t care what they do to me, you have to run.”
“I could never leave you. I have to finish this or they’ll kill you!”
“No, listen to me. It’s not too late for you to reclaim your life. We can never be together again, not after what I’ve done. You have to—”
“No!” Rage welled up in his chest. This is why she’d been so quiet while she lay on his chest. She’d been convincing herself that she had to leave him, although she loved him desperately. “You can never leave me! I need you.”
“You think you do, but you don’t.” She walked to him, keeping her eyes locked onto his. “Please, Carl, you’re an innocent child, don’t you see? Agotha’s turned you into an innocent child and then abused you. And I’ve been her accomplice. You even talk like a child!”
“Tell me one thing. Do you love me?”
Her eyes pooled with tears. “Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. At first it was one of Agotha’s games. But it’s become much more. I love you very much.”
“Then don’t hurt me more by leaving me. I don’t know who I am. If I’m a child, you can’t leave me alone!”
His words rang in the small room, silencing with their truth. There were only two things that Carl knew about himself. The first was that his name was Johnny. The second was that apart from names and places, he was totally and terribly lost.
His identity had been stripped.
“I’m lost,” he said. “And without you, I’m hopelessly lost.”
“I’ve tortured you!”
“And now you will help me heal. I’ll do what they’ve asked me to do. With your help, we can play their game and find a way to beat them.”
Kelly paced between Carl and the bathroom door, staring intently at the floor. Then at him.
“You can’t finish this mission. You may not understand why now, because your moral compass has been dashed, but you can’t.”
“They’ll kill me with the implant.”
“Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
She was anxious now. “Unless you can block the implant. Long enough for it to be removed.”
“I couldn’t even stop myself from shaking. How can I block—”
“That’s why Kalman is so nervous about you! You survived the electric chair, why not the implant? It’s designed to detonate if tampered with in any way, but what if you could shut it off just long enough for a surgeon to remove it?”
“Because the tunnel is gone!”
“Then I’ll help you find it again.”
“Electric shock?”
“No, not that way!” She grabbed his hand and kissed it, then held it against her cheek. “Never that way again, I promise.”
Carl considered her words. What choice did he have? He could either kill the president or take his chances with the implant. She was right, there was no real choice. He would have to set his mind on shutting out the implant long enough for a surgeon, assuming there was one, to take the implant out, assuming such an operation could be done without damaging his brain.
“They’ll still come after us,” Kelly said.
“And without me, you don’t have a chance.”
Her eyes searched his, side to side. He felt a moment of deep empathy with her. She would pay such a price to love him.
What if all of this is just part of the game?
Carl dismissed the absurd thought. See, he could still control his mind. He’d just done it.
He leaned forward and kissed her. “I will die for you, my love.”
“No, you won’t. If you die, then I die. They’ll never quit. It’s forever, Carl. Do you understand that? If we do this, we’ll be on the run together for the rest of our lives.”
“Maybe we can find some life before we die.”
“Maybe.”
“Then we should go to Paradise.”
Kelly grabbed the bag of weapons off her bed. “Not until we take care of the implant. We have six hours. There’s a doctor outside the city that we’ve used before. The implant sits behind the brain, set to trigger if exposed.” She glanced at him. “You’ll have to remain conscious so you can block—”
“Kalman will trigger the device before then.”
“Not if we leave now. We still have some time.”
“Does this doctor have a pit?”
She looked surprised that he’d asked the question. It was a ridiculous question, of course. He didn’t know why it came out.
“This is New York. There will be no pits in New York. Ever.”
“Okay. I’ll find another way to block the pain. And the implant.” “You’ll have to find a way to block the tracking device for a few hours, or he’ll know we’ve left the city. Can you do that?”
“I can try. Do we have a choice?”
Kelly shook her head and closed her eyes. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. Even if we get rid of the implant, Kalman will send Englishman after us.”
“I’ve beat him before.”
Her eyes opened. “Not in real life, you haven’t.” There was a strange darkness in her eyes that bothered him. “Not when he pulls out the stops. We’ll have to find a hole to live in.”
“I love the dark,” he said.
“And I hate it.”
They quickly packed two duffel bags, one for weapons and one for the rest. This was their collective material wealth, this and $87,000 in U.S. currency remaining from the $250,000 Kelly had brought with her.
Kelly scanned the room after they’d wiped it down. “One last question before we leave. Should I call you Carl or Johnny?”
He thought for a moment.
“Carl,” he said. “I don’t know who Johnny is.”
25
He is called Englishman. He’s not the Englishman, of course.
Neither is he Dale Crompton. He doesn’t really know who he is anymore, so he is who he wants to be, which is far more and far less than any Englishman.
The man taps his thumb on the leather steering wheel in the Buick he took from a nameless parking lot this morning. The radio is on. He dislikes the song’s lyrics, but the beat fills him with energy.
Pain is in the game,
And the game is in the name
The singer has no idea what pain is. If Englishman had enough time, he might find the singer’s home and rearrange his view of pain.
The name is Slayer
If you really want to know
He hunts in the dark and kills in the light
Any man who can sing such words without knowing their meaning deserves to be hunted down. Still, the beat is good and Englishman hums with the guitars, u
nbothered by his butchering of the tune.
He’s not Englishman. He’s Jude Law. He’s Robert De Niro. He’s Hannibal Lecter. He’s whoever he wants to be . . .
The one called Englishman cracked his neck and cleared his mind. His drive to tell the story perfectly dogged him like those irritating hornets. And by perfectly he meant in a way that kept them forever in the dark where they belonged.
The story had to be more personal. First person. He started again.
I am called Englishman. I’m not the Englishman, of course. Neither am I Dale Crompton. I don’t know who I am, so I am who I want to be, which is far more and far less than any Englishman. An Englishman has a history; I do not. An Englishman is weak; I am not.
I look like Jude Law. I smile like Robert De Niro. I laugh like Hannibal Lecter. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Hallelujah, amen, you are dismissed.
Englishman nodded and repeated the words that had become a kind of mantra to him. He’d touched the hand of the gas station attendant fifteen minutes earlier when he’d stopped to fill his tank. Did the girl have any idea whose hand she was touching? No.
Did she know how many throats he’d cut? No.
Did she even suspect that he hated women? No.
Did she want to kiss him? Yes.
Did she love him more than she loved Jude Law? Yes.
Did she realize how much he liked corn nuts? No.
Would he return and kill her for wanting to kiss him? He didn’t know. Probably not—he wouldn’t have much idle time in the next few days.
Englishman paused. He understood the plan, but he’d never liked it much. Yes, he embraced the idea in the very beginning, but that was before he understood that he had the power to find a better plan. Like telling a better story.
Playing the part of Englishman had grown stale and tired. The killings had become boring. How many ways could you kill a person anyway?
There would come a time when he would walk into Kalman’s hospital and take off his head with a machete. Better yet, shave him bald and fry him in that electric chair of his.
Johnny had picked up some skills, but he was still weak. The show-down ahead made Englishman’s skin crawl with anticipation.
