by Ted Dekker
“Please, you have to know that neither of us had any understanding of how destructive their techniques were at the time,” David said.
Johnny wanted to feel anger, but he felt nothing.
“We didn’t know about the torture,” David said. “Or the invasive identity manipulation.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Johnny demanded. “How could Samuel do this and call himself my friend?”
“No, never! When Samuel told you of his vision and the X Group, you insisted that you should do exactly as he suggested. You said it was the least you could do after what he did for you. You were a man of deep faith. In your mind, infiltrating the enemy’s camp was the only right thing to do.”
“I don’t remember any of this! You make me sound like some kind of crazy superhero!”
“Superhero? Aren’t we all? Isn’t that what all men, women, and children of faith are? Isn’t that what Project Showdown was all about? We, the ostracized few, given power to aid the very society that fears us? You just happen to have an extra portion, thanks to the books. You’re this world’s Samson, Johnny.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And I don’t believe you,” Kelly said. “What kind of person would actually think he could infiltrate the X Group without being killed?”
“A boy who once faced the vilest evil and walked away. A boy who survived Project Showdown: Johnny. And a person who would give his life for Johnny at a moment’s notice: my son, Samuel.” The tremble in David’s voice vibrated along Johnny’s nerves. “And I don’t mind adding,” the older man continued, calmer now, “they were right. The president’s alive today because of what Samuel and Johnny did.”
“You don’t know that,” Johnny said. “Assim Feroz ordered the hit on the president. Kalman won’t back off just because I failed. For all we know the president will be dead in an hour.”
“You’re sure it was Feroz who ordered the hit?”
Johnny looked at Kelly, who nodded. “Yes. There’s no way to prove it, but that was my understanding.”
“If the world knew, Feroz might call off any second attempt. If he was implicated in any way, it would destroy his initiative to disarm Israel.”
“No. He would deny it,” Kelly said. “And he’d make the United States look foolish for suggesting it.”
“It would be his word against ours, surely—”
“Your own CIA would probably also deny it,” Kelly interrupted. “They’re in bed with Kalman. You’ve put us in an impossible situation! Our lives, your life, Sally’s life, the president’s life, and who knows how many others’—they’re all in Kalman’s line of sight. Clearly you don’t understand how ruthless he is.”
“I’ve seen worse, believe me. Perhaps he should be dealt with directly.”
“Kill Kalman?” Kelly said. “This isn’t a simple matter. He’s no longer in Hungary. Any sign of trouble and Kalman would move immediately. Even if I could find them, they would know I’d compromised them and take the necessary precautions.”
“They’ve moved my pit?” Johnny asked, surprised.
“They’ve abandoned the camp, at least temporarily.”
He wanted to ask when he and Kelly might go back, but he immediately felt foolish for even thinking such a thing. He was done with them. Wasn’t he? Of course he was!
“How would Kalman suspect that he was in danger?” David asked.
Kelly shook her head. “He’s tied in with all of them. Interpol, CIA, NSA, the Russians, the Chinese, the French—they all need him. They all want him. He has many, many guarantees. If he dies, every country that’s ever used him will be exposed, and they know it.”
“There has to be a way.”
“If I supposedly once had power from these books,” Johnny said, “isn’t it possible that others also have a power from them?”
“Yes. Two others. But we’ve been watching them. The rest were confidentially integrated back into society for their own protection.”
“How do you know it’s only two? What if someone else used the books? Someone evil?”
“No.” David motioned emphatically with his hand. “We’d have seen it by now.”
For a few moments they each were lost in thought. Johnny tried to remember a conversation with a boy named Samuel about being recruited by the X Group, but he didn’t have the slightest recollection of talking, much less agreeing. What kind of man would agree to such a thing?
A man of virtue. But he didn’t feel like a man of virtue.
A man of great faith. But he didn’t have any faith.
A man who was unique and powerful. But he didn’t want to be either unique or powerful.
A man who was still expected to do great things. But Johnny was overwhelmed by a desire to be normal. Hadn’t he paid enough of a price these last ten months? Hadn’t he done what he and Samuel had agreed to do by saving the president?
He stood and crossed the room, suddenly angry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been truly angry. It was the emotion he’d first learned to shut down in order to survive Agotha. But now, learning who he was or had been, he embraced the sentiment—enough of it to raise his pulse a few beats.
“Why are you telling me this?” He knew the answer, but he asked anyway and then answered himself. “What do you expect me to do, protect the president? I don’t even know how to protect myself any-more. The skills I had were dependent on my singular focus.” He shoved a finger against his head. “On my mind! Now I’m full of doubts. I probably couldn’t hit a barrel at a hundred yards now.”
“No one’s suggesting that you need your skills to protect the president,” David said.
“Then what?”
David interlaced his fingers and put both elbows on the table. “I don’t know. I’m not the one with the power.”
“I have no power! How can I convince you of that? Should we test it? Strap me to a bed, electrocute me, see if I can withstand the heat?”
They both stared at him.
“Do you want to place me in a box full of hornets, see if I can survive their stings? Shove a needle through my shoulder, see if I can withstand the pain?”
David’s face was white.
“Has it ever occurred to you that I’ve only been able to do a few things beyond what’s considered natural even after intense training and focus? Now that you’ve undermined my faith by introducing all of this nonsense that only a child could possibly accept, I’m a shadow of myself.”
“Only by choice,” David said.
“I don’t want to be this person you’re describing! I don’t want to be Johnny if Johnny is anyone but Sally’s son. I’m Carl! Everything else is foreign to me. I’ve tried, believe me—I’ve racked my mind trying to be someone else, but I’m not. I’m Carl, and Carl loves two things: Kelly and his pit.”
Kelly stared at him. It occurred to Johnny that his anger could be justifiably directed at her. If he continued down this path, she would be faced with more pain than she could bear, and in front of David. He didn’t want to do that to her.
Johnny let his anger dissipate. His outburst wasn’t satisfying anyway. He wasn’t sure he even understood it. Why wouldn’t he want to be the person David described? Because he wanted to be normal. Just himself, as he knew himself to be.
Carl.
He could still control his emotions to some extent, which was good. Maybe he still had some of the other skills he’d come to this country with. Maybe he was still a good sniper. A good assassin. He hoped so. Their survival might depend on it.
He returned to his seat. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not the one with power either. I can’t do anything more than nudge a bullet to follow a path ingrained in my head. And don’t tell me I haven’t tried hard enough. If there’s one thing Agotha taught me well, it’s how to try. I tried in ways most can’t or won’t, and I have the scars to prove it.”
Kelly put her hand on his arm. Johnny closed his eyes and swallowed. He w
anted to throw himself at her and beg her to hold him. To comfort him. But he could no more break down again than he could stand and run around the cabin naked.
They sat in silence, sifting through these agonies.
Kelly finally broke the silence. “Can you tell us more about Project Showdown?”
David stared at her. It took awhile for him to respond. “Why don’t we eat something? I brought some steaks. Then I’ll tell you about Project Showdown. I trust you’re not given to nightmares.”
29
It was midnight. The orange light that flickered in the cabin’s windows had winked out an hour ago. Englishman—now clearly cognizant of how boring the name Dale really was after trying it on for a few hours—had seated himself crosslegged on a boulder fifty feet from the shack two hours earlier and watched in silence, listening to the soft murmur of voices inside.
All three had come out once to use the outhouse behind the cabin, but none of them had seen him staring at them from the shadows beyond the ring of light cast by their lamps inside.
The canyon rested in perfect peace under a half-moon’s pale gaze. A pebble clicked on his right, dislodged by a lizard or a small rodent that scampered away. Then peace again.
He could hear the silence. Feel its stillness. Smell its crisp purity.
The town of Paradise was a disappointment. Nightlife was evidently something these mountain folk didn’t regard with much interest. Obviously they’d given up their affinity for grace juice.
He’d considered making a bit of a ruckus in the town before going up the mountain but decided that now was not a good time to leave a trail. There was nothing the hapless mountain folk could offer him that he didn’t already have anyway.
He had bigger plans. Johnny.
They were in a test of wills, a contest of choices, and thus far Englishman had made the superior choices. In all likelihood, Johnny was only now even learning that he had a choice.
The fast-approaching end to this game seemed rushed after nearly a year of patience. A shame that he wouldn’t need to use his trump card after all. Part of Englishman didn’t want to end it so quickly. Perhaps he should extend the game. The decision momentarily paralyzed him.
Being human wasn’t always the easiest way to make a living. He let the angst fade.
Englishman stretched out his left hand, shoulder-high, and opened his palm, eyes still fixed on the dark cabin. Something whistled softly through the night. A stone slightly smaller than his fist smacked into his open palm.
He had half a mind to take this rock back to Hungary and bury it in Agotha’s throat. Are we impressed with lowering the temperature and nudging bullets, Agotha?
He tossed the stone into the air. Instead of falling back with gravity, it reached its apex two feet above his hand and was summarily snatched away by the night behind him. He heard it strike the distant canyon wall to his rear, hardly more than a tick.
He stretched his arms and shoulders by crossing them in front of his chest, then reached for his feet. Two hours without moving had left him stiff. He put his hands on his hips and swung his body around at the waist, cracking his back with the motion.
The black leather coat over his shirt fell long, roughly a foot below his belt. He pulled both sides back and hooked them behind two holstered pistols like a gunslinger.
Black canvas shoes. Black nylon pants that stretched easily if his maneuvers required them to. The only part of him that wasn’t camouflaged by the night was his sandy-blond Jude Law hair.
He hopped off the rock and landed on the sand with a soft thump. Careless, but with odds like this he hardly needed to creep up on them like a mouse. Still, he walked soundlessly toward the door, hands ready.
He withdrew one of the guns from his hip, a Colt Model 1911 .45 caliber. Jacketed hollow-point 230-grain bullets with enough kick to knock a man across the room. Single-action, recoil-driven semiautomatic with a magazine of 10 +1. Custom blue-steel barrel. Englishman’s pistol of choice.
He stepped up to the door, took a deep breath, cocked the gun by his ear, and tried the door. Unlocked.
Here it was, then.
Dale twisted the knob and pushed the door open, leveling the gun as he did so. His eyes were fully accustomed to the dark, so before the door had completed its full swing, he’d taken in the table, the kitchen, the loft above the kitchen, and the bedroom door on the back wall.
Still not a sound.
Moving fast, he slid to the loft ladder, hopped up onto the fifth rung, and scanned the sleeping area. Bed with rumpled blankets. No body.
No body.
He spun and dropped, catlike. The wood floor creaked. All three must be behind the bedroom door, sleeping soundlessly.
Moving more on instinct than with calculation, Dale flew across the room, shoved the door open, and trained his weapon on an empty bed.
Empty bed.
Empty room.
Empty cabin.
“Don’t move.”
The voice, which he immediately recognized as Johnny’s, came from behind.
“Drop the guns. All of them.”
He could have leveled the man then and there, without even turning. But he did have a couple of challenges if he made a move now.
His first challenge was that any one of Johnny’s bullets would kill him as quickly as any other man’s. The less-skilled man would undoubtedly get off a shot before falling from Englishman’s attack, and at this range, he wouldn’t miss Englishman’s head.
His second challenge was that he didn’t know where the others were. They’d obviously been more alert than he guessed. Kelly might not be Johnny, but with a gun at close range, she could kill just as easily.
Englishman turned slowly, gun hand raised.
He’d turned three-quarters of the way around when Johnny shot him in his leg. “I said drop the gun. The next one goes through a bone.”
Englishman felt the pain spread through his thigh. Flesh wound, right thigh, hardly more than a crease. Still, he dropped the Colt.
“The other guns as well. And the knives.”
No sign of Kelly or the old man. Englishman searched the darkness for any clue of the woman. Nothing. If Kelly hid nearby, she was silent. “Now,” Johnny said.
Englishman complied. The other Colt from his hip. The two 9mm’s at his back. Two knives from his calves. He’d misjudged Johnny, but if the chaplain knew the extent of Englishman’s skills, he’d have shot him while he had the chance. Instead, Johnny thought he had the upper hand and intended to question him. Or use him.
Englishman let a shallow grin cross his mouth. Johnny still didn’t know the truth.
He spread his empty hands. “Satisfied?”
The man who loved the dark stared at him in the pale moonlight. “Hello, Englishman. You walk too loudly. I’m surprised you found us as quickly as you did.”
“It won’t be your last surprise,” Englishman said. “Why don’t you kill me?”
“I’m going to. How did you know about this place?”
“Kalman knows many things.”
“He’s ordered you to kill the president?”
“We never fail, you know that.”
“Yet you failed now. It seems that Kalman forgot to tell you about the trap door in the bedroom. Only a fool would build a cabin at the end of this particular box canyon without an escape route. David Abraham is no fool.”
So Kelly and the old man had escaped through some sort of hatch in the bedroom floor. They were probably on top of the cliffs already. This meant that there was no gun trained on him, other than Johnny’s.
“You should have gone with them,” he said.
“After you tell me what I need to know. Where is Jenine?”
Englishman grew impatient. One of the knives on the floor began to float. It lifted three inches from the ground and slid horizontally above the wood floor.
Johnny glanced down, eyes registering surprise.
The knife sprang shoulder-high and sliced towar
d Johnny in silence. Englishman was prepared to dodge a shot from Johnny’s gun, but it never came. Johnny was immobilized by indecision. Or he’d already concluded that shooting would guarantee his death, even if he did hit Englishman.
“I know other tricks as well. I suggest you drop the gun.”
Johnny studied the blade at his neck, then lifted his eyes. They exchanged a long stare.
Englishman winked.
Johnny slowly lowered his gun. “You’re affecting the zero-point field?”
“Drop the gun.”
Johnny’s pistol fell from his fingers and clattered on the floor.
“Actually, it’s nothing so scientific as the zero-point field or any of Agotha’s theories. I’m surprised that you, of all people, don’t know that.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Dale Crompton. I’m Englishman. I am the personification of man’s worst fears. I am Jude—”
A creak behind Englishman stopped him cold. He dropped to one knee and felt the sting on his cheek a thousandth of a second after he heard the crash of gunfire from the room behind him.
Kelly had returned for her lover. Her bullet smashed through the window as it exited the cabin.
He palmed a 9mm from the floor where he’d dropped it and was twisted halfway around when her second shot split the night. He rolled to one side of the door and brought his gun up for a clean shot.
From his peripheral vision he saw a blur.
Johnny was coming for him.
Englishman’s momentary lapse in concentration had let the knife fall from Johnny’s neck. Now he was forced to consider both Johnny and Kelly. But this wasn’t a problem for Englishman. As long as he had direct sensory input from each of them, he could . . .
The window behind Johnny crashed.
In that split second, Englishman knew what had happened. Johnny wasn’t coming for him. He had thrown himself backward through the window.
Englishman was already in the process of shooting a bullet into Kelly’s head when this realization hit him. And with the realization came another: Johnny had just gained the upper hand. Evidently he knew enough about how these powers worked to know that Englishman needed a line of sight or sound to affect any object. He was removing himself from that line of sight.
