The Great Thirst Boxed Set

by Mary C. Findley

  “None of your – business!” Anne swore.

  “Talia, this isn’t about Anne and me,” Drew said.

  “Of course it is. It’s about everybody,” Talia said, “and about Jesus Christ, and what He is and isn’t, and what He does and doesn’t do. He’s not a genie. He’s not your personal fixer-upper. He’s the Creator of the Universe. He’s the One who became a man but stayed almighty God.

  “He lived our life. He felt our pain, our hunger, our grief, our … our everything. And He died, horribly, and He rose, gloriously, to fix everything. One life, one death, one resurrection, and we still reject it. We still want things our way. Even if we’re good people, we all have a different idea of what’s good and right and perfect. He has a perfect standard. We stomp on it and say, ‘I want my perfect.’ Do you know what the name Anne means?”

  “It means grace,” Anne replied.

  “That’s what God gives us. We don’t deserve anything, but He wraps us in a blanket of amazing grace. Grace you can’t give your husband, because you can’t believe in it for yourself. There’s grace for Angel, too, but he has to believe. We have to pray, and we have to get some food. Don’t tell me you’re not hungry too.”

  Chapter One Hundred and Five – Jenny Kaine Gets Impatient

  “I am starving!” Keith said, throwing off the blanket that covered him and standing up out of the chair he sat in. “Whoa. Where’s my cane?”

  “You said you didn’t need it,” Talia said.

  He took a few steps. “Yeah,” he said. “I … remember saying that. Wow. I feel … like nothing ever hurt. Okay, seriously, is there any food?”

  She held out a cardboard box. “Sorry it got cold. You slept for two hours. We could microwave it.”

  “Naw. I like cold pizza.” Keith grabbed a slice and chewed off a hunk. “Why am I so hungry?” He took the box from Talia.

  “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting?” Drew ventured. He and Anne sat at the breakfast bar, and across from them sat Angel, also consuming pizza as fast as he could stuff it in his mouth.

  “Any more in that box?” Angel asked. “This one’s empty.”

  “No way. This is all mine.” Keith put a protective arm around the box. He sauntered over to Angel. “You still empty? And you know I’m not talking about your stomach.”

  Angel looked away. “They tell me you know what happen wit’ Eva’s baby. What are you, a priest or somethin’?”

  “I’m a science teacher,” Keith said. “That’s all. What did he tell you – that man who made you kill the baby?”

  “He tell me he gonna to be mi papacito,” Angel said. “He tell me te quiero – he love me. He say nobody else ever will. Esta veridad. Is true. Nobody else give a – about me.”

  “Where’d you get the knife you used to kill Eva?” Drew asked.

  “Remember I show you that cut on my leg when you search me?” Angel asked. “Tell you a big story about a knife fight, an’ I get stitches? I hide it in there. I get it out the night before in the bathroom. Eva don’ believe me no more. I don’ know what I do wrong, but I figure is time to get out. I swear I no mean to kill her. I get my arm aroun’ her neck an’ she stab me, in the same spot I hide my knife. I never see her knife. Mine just – it slip. I like her. Havin’ a mama, is fun.”

  “How did you get away?” Anne asked. “Those guys didn’t find a trace of you.”

  “I no get away.” Angel shrugged. “I get under la casa, into the -what you call? crawl space. I hear everything that happen – when you nail up the doors an’ shoot that guy. I can’t believe you do all that.

  “I think maybe it is easy to make you take the blame for what happen. All them guys, they talk about how you have lotta fun stalking your ex an’ makin’ him suffer.” He shot a look at Drew. “You must really love her.”

  Drew went red and white by turns and so did Anne.

  “So you stayed under the house until we all took off?” Drew asked.

  “Si,” Angel said. “I can never run an’ get away. My leg is bleedin’, an’ these guys catch me. Our spies, they see you come in at the airport. We find out what the deal is wit’ her –” he jerked a shoulder in Anne’s direction “– and mi papa, he tell me I have to split you an’ her up somehow. I see her an’ Eva fight over me when I come to meet them –” he nodded in Keith and Talia’s direction “– so it make sense if I can maybe hurt her, she be trouble for you an’ not help.

  “They say she almost die, but you still send her to watch me? Why you do that? I couldn’t think of nothing to get rid of her, but at least she wasn’t with you. Then she an’ Eva both get on my case about the computer, an’ I know I’m done.”

  “Were you trying to kill Anne when you shot at her in the village?” Talia asked.

  “Maybe,” Angel said with a sly sideways look. “I just want her to go away. This is such a joke, you know? Eva, she tell me all that stuff she do to get to see me, an’ the lies and the poisoning an’ all that she do to cover for me. I freak out, but not for the reason she think.

  “If she gonna do all that, what good she is to us? I need somebody you trust. So I tell her all that crap to make her fix it up with you, but then she quit trusting me. I dunno know what I do wrong.”

  “One of my specialties is making people distrustful,” Anne said. “Lately they’ve all been directing it at me. Maybe I finally made Eva question why you showed up when you did. You just happened to find her right when they started looking for their Olmec connections? And you gave her DNA evidence?”

  “Mi papa take blood from the baby before he have me kill it. See, in the cartels, is all about knowing who you can trust. There’s people you can pay, an’ people you can lie to, an’ people you really have to prove yourself to. He wanted to be able to prove to Eva she can trust me, no matter when he decide to use me to get to her.”

  “So why did you contact Eva? What did you need to get in with these people for?” Drew asked.

  “That news chica, Jenny Kaine,” Angel replied, “she work with mi papa long time to make her movies about illegals who go to El Norte. She say they all innocents – they need understanding. This help mi papa’s business, ‘cause so many of ’em, they are his people – his mules, his enforcers, his coyotes, his suppliers – she get Americanos estupidos to help ’em cross an’ help ‘em stay in the states. Sanctuary cities an’ all that crap – you can thank people like her.

  “So, she contact mi papa, an’ say these people comin’ down to Mexico to look for whatever you lookin’ for. She want somebody to get inside your group an’ find out where you go an’ what you find. But I write Eva a crapload a letters an’ she never tell me anything Jenny Kaine want to hear.

  “Finally she decide to jus’ try to kill you again. She don’t have a whole lotta patience.

  “I go see Eva that night you people show up, an’ I try to scare her by sayin’ somebody gonna to hurt the people she was with. I say it to see if she might panic and I can find out where you are. But you pretty good at what you do,” Angel said to Drew. “We can’t find nothing except when the flights come in. It never work to try to follow you from the airport. I tell Eva she no say the warning come from me to shake her up some more.

  “I figure we get some sign just by how she try to tell them they are in danger, or how they react. Jenny Kaine, she send them fake Indios. She have people follow me to meet Eva, and they follow her back to the camp. My father, he get angry about her spying on us, but she always make him forget about the stuff she do behind his back.” Angel hunched up and didn’t elaborate.

  “Thank you, Drew,” Talia said softly, “for being good at what you do.”

  Drew turned red again.

  “So why did you let Eva find you again?” Keith asked.

  “Like I say, Jenny Kaine, she can get to mi papa,” Angel said, shaking himself and staring at the floor. “We hear about Eva, how she is hunting for me, but I find out all the stuff she do, and I tell me papa she no good for us becau
se nobody will trust her. We forget about all that Christian forgiveness crap an’ how far some of you people take it.”

  “Remember that we haven’t shot you in the head yet,” Drew said in a very mild tone. “Remember that we still can.”

  Keith watched Angel’s Adam’s apple work and saw him eye Drew before he spoke again. “When we find out Eva get back in wit’ you, Jenny Kaine, she say to send me back. But nothin’ ever work out right agains’ you people. Before I know it, I get cut off from mi papa an’ stuck in this casa estupido. I guess I really get bored, an’ let down my guard, an’ that’s why Eva figure me out.”

  “How did Jenny Kaine sniff out the injured American at the hospital?” Drew asked.

  “I hear about that, but I don’ know. Musta been something she do on her own, because mi papa, he is in mourning for me when I show up. It was …” Angel faltered for the first time and a shiver ran through him. “It was like a fiesta … for him.”

  “Why did you go back to him?” Keith asked. “You know that’s not love – for a father to do that to his son, don’t you? And why did you try to kill me?”

  “Why you no listen? I have to go back to him. He always tell me he love me. There is nobody else. Nobody else ever care about me. With him I have food, an’ dinero, an’ respect. An’ if I don’t, he find out I am alive sometime. An’ I … I come after you because … because Jenny Kaine tell him your papa make trouble for their plan, an’ she want to kill you to punish him, before she kill him.”

  Keith stepped back. “Did you call my father?” He demanded of Drew. “Does he know I’m okay? Does my grandmother know? Are they okay?”

  “I called your father right after you went to sleep,” Talia said. “They know you’re okay.”

  “I called David to give him a sitrep, just before we left San Lorenzo,” Drew said. “He’s supposed to have eyes on those two at all times. I called him again just before you woke up. David said they all had a quiet, boring day. I need to put David on higher alert, though. Do you know what’s going down with the attempt to kill Keith’s father?” he asked Angel.

  “That was her plan, not mi papa’s,” Angel said. “She just tell him what to make me do to you, an’ he want to know why. Mi papa, he don’t care much about happy, normal families so he say okay. Papa, he say it don’t matter what she is really up to. Why she hate you people so much?”

  Drew moved away and took out his phone.

  “Jenny Kaine wants to wipe out the Bible, and these guys are finding copies of it printed on gold plates that she can’t destroy,” Anne said. “At least, that’s what I make out of all this. I’m not in the inner circle like some people are.”

  Angel stared at her like he thought she was talking crazy. Keith had to smile when she returned a look that seemed to say she agreed.

  “So, that’s everything you know?” Keith asked Angel.

  “Everything I know about you people,” Angel said with a shrug. “Now you can shoot me in the head, if you want,” he added to Anne.

  “What if we turn you over to the Mexican authorities so they can interrogate you about your father’s activities?” Anne asked.

  “Mi papa, he pays the authorities here very well,” Angel said. “I be back with him in a day, or sooner. An’ he be extático – really happy – to see me again, or, if Jenny Kaine has been doing what she does to him, maybe he’ll wanna to know what I tell you about the cartel, and hold an interrogation himself.”

  Chapter One Hundred and Six – Entertaining Angel

  “We can’t,” Talia said with a shudder. “Angel, why did you tell us the truth about everything we asked, if you haven’t changed how you think?”

  “That thing he do to my head –” Angel nodded toward Keith “– whatever it is, it make me so I can’ lie to you. So I am still telling the truth. Tha’s all it is.”

  “Please – do you want seven more demons living in you?” Talia asked.

  “Sounds better than bein’ empty like this,” Angel said. “Maybe they make me strong enough to take over from mi papa and run the cartel myself. Ever since I get here I feel weak.”

  “So you want to grow up to be just like your father?” Keith asked.

  “I am already grown up,” Angel sneered. “I’m not a sixteen-year-old like Eva’s kid would have been. I’m a man. An’ I am already like mi papa, so if you think I should run to Jesucristo, He don’t want me. Unless you do shoot me in the head, I think I make trouble for you.”

  Drew rejoined them after his phone call. “You ever hear of the Apostle Paul, Angel?”

  “Santo Paulo, you mean?” Angel cocked his head. “Only see the statues in the churches. Don’ know nada about him.”

  “He was a murderer, and he took people like Keith and Talia and threw them in jail so they could be tortured and executed,” Drew said. “He had a lot of power, and he used it to make trouble for people who believed in Jesus.”

  “The church don’t make saints out of people who kill people like them,” Angel said.

  “Bear with me,” Drew said. “Paul used to be called Saul. He was a big deal in the Jewish government and religious leaders. He got permission to go to a town called Damascus and arrest a bunch of these followers of Jesus. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but Jesus sent a flash of light at him so powerful it knocked him on the ground and blinded him.”

  “So then Jesucristo can kill him for what He do to his people, huh?” Angel asked. “Or at least make him suffer.”

  “He could have,” Drew replied, “Instead, he decided to make Saul into His servant. Scratch that. The Bible uses the word slave.”

  “El Dio don’t wanna keep somebody around who murders and tortures people. Nobody would trust him. An’ if he is a slave, those people who used to think he was big stuff, they would spit on him. You’re not making any sense.”

  “And that’s the essence of God,” Drew said. “You have to change your thinking to start to understand anything about Him. Think about this: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Tell me which one of those descriptions fits that guy you keep calling your papa.”

  “The thief,” Angel said.

  “And the other one is Jesus,” Drew said. “Who do you think He meant when He said they?”

  “Those people of His.” Angel scowled. “The ones that sit around and listen to Him and do everything He say.”

  “You mean the disciples?” Drew laughed. “They pestered Him about which of them was going to be the greatest. They wanted to call fire down on people when they didn’t fall in line. They tattled on people who tried to serve Jesus but weren’t part of the in-crowd. They fell asleep when Jesus was about to be arrested, and they ran when it happened. For sure they didn’t always do what He said.”

  “Who is it, then?”

  “Change ‘they’ to ‘everybody.’ Jesus said, I came that everybody may have life and have it more abundantly.”

  “Jesucristo comes for the good people. Not people like me.”

  “Kid,” Drew said, “Jesus even came for people like your papa. He’s not willing to have anybody die lost. He wants everybody to repent. And He made that possible by His death and by rising again.”

  “Now you’re talking like a priest. What is with you people? Don’t you get it? If mi papa wants me, he find me, an’ the longer I stay with you, the bigger the chance he help Jenny Kaine find those people.” He pointed at Keith and Talia.

  “I think I might have a plan,” Talia said. She started to sing. Keith and Drew joined in on “Trust and Obey.” Anne and Angel stared at them.

  “Hey, I can sing again,” Keith exclaimed. “Guess I got the rest of my miracle, finally.”

  “You the one all that stuff fall on, si?” Angel asked. Keith nodded. “An’ the one Jenny Kaine go after in the hospital?”

  “And found me instead,” Anne said with a smile.

  “Yeah,” Keith replied. “I’m the one.”


  “They say you no walk. They said it is easy to kill you. Nothing is easy wit’ you people.”

  “Jesus said we’d have life abundantly,” Keith replied with a shrug. “But you’re right. This morning, I could hardly walk. Right now, all better.”

  “Jesucristo give you a miracle? He heal you?” Angel asked.

  “Kinda looks that way. I’m still taking it all in, but, yeah – gotta give God the glory. Seems like a miracle to me.”

  “An’ they say you understand Spanish when you don’t know Spanish? And you make el diablo come out? So you a santo or something?”

  “Hold on,” Keith protested. “You need to give credit where credit is due. Jesus did all that. Not me. He told me to get up and walk. I still don’t know Spanish. I have no clue how to make a demon come out. You were talking about being weak, since you got here, but look at those tie wraps down there on the floor. You broke those.”

  Angel picked up one of the zip ties and pulled on it. “No way I break this. Jesucristo, He musta done that too.”

  “Thanks for making my point.” Keith grinned. “So, look, Angel, if Jesus can do all that, don’t you think He can get you free from your father?”

  “Maybe,” Angel muttered. “Seem like He have the power, if He want to. Don’t know why He want to.”

  “Hold onto the thought that He wants to give life to everybody,” Drew said.

  “You said you might know a way?” Keith asked Talia.

  “Yes. But we’ll have to hide him in plain sight. I’ll need my Doomsday Duffelbag.”

  “Never leave home without it,” Drew said, and headed out to the Jeep.

  “Tom, I know you were looking forward to this trip,” Keith said, “and you got your parents to come this time, and everything worked out so good. That’s why it’s so hard to ask this of you. That’s why we need to talk to you all together and ask if you’ll help us do this.”

  They sat together – Keith, Talia, Joshua Bradley, and Tom, in the hotel room Tom’s parents shared. It was almost midnight, and no one was in a particularly good mood.