by Mel Odom
“God does love you, Jenny,” Megan said, fresh tears stinging her eyes. “God loves all his children.”
“Do you really believe that?” Challenge rang like naked steel in Jenny’s voice. “Or are you just saying it?”
“I believe it,” Megan said, and she was surprised at the strength of the conviction in her voice.
“Do you realize the difference you made in Gerry’s life?” Jenny asked. “You held onto him long enough that he didn’t die painfully, long enough that God had time to take him in an eye blink.”
In that instant, Megan did see that. Some of the anger she felt at God lessened, and even a small part of the pain that she felt over the loss of Chris eased.
“More than that,” Jenny said in a hoarse voice, “you got to see Gerry disappear. Do you know how many people are reporting disappearances on the television who didn’t see their family or friends or anyone else disappear?”
“No.” Megan reached across the table, drawn by the young woman’s pain, and smoothed her hair from her face. Twenty-three years old; so alone and so scared. What has happened to you? “No, I don’t.”
“Hundreds, Mrs. Gander,” Jenny said. “Probably thousands. But you saw the disappearance. There was no alien ray beam. No weapon. Nothing. Gerry just—left. You were shown what happened to Chris. If you hadn’t been called in last night, if Gerry hadn’t ended up on that building and you hadn’t gone up after him, you wouldn’t have seen anything. You would have woken this morning to find Chris vanished and his crumpled clothes left behind in his bed. You wouldn’t have had the answer you have now. Don’t you see?”
“I do,” Megan said, tasting the salt of her own tears on her lips. “I do see. I also see that God put you here with me to help me.”
Jenny was silent. More tears ran down her face. “I wish I could believe that, because I am so scared right now.”
“You can believe it,” Megan said. “What other reason could there be for you to go out on a non-date with a teenaged boy and his fake ID last night?”
Jenny shook her head. “I don’t know. But God—God has never been part of my life.”
Megan smoothed the young woman’s hair from her face, unable to stop herself, wanting so badly to take her fears and pain away. “God has always been part of your life, Jenny. Whatever you’ve been through, God helped you survive it to get to this moment. To be with Joey. To read that book Bill left that I have never seemed to find the time to get to.” She took a shuddering breath. “To help me believe. And I will help you to believe. I promise.”
Unable to sit in her chair anymore, Megan got up and walked around the table. She put her arms around Jenny and held her tight, then was surprised at how fiercely the young woman held her back.
The doorbell rang.
Breaking the embrace after a final squeeze, Megan walked to the front door. After last night, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find a group of MPs or Boyd Fletcher on her front porch.
Instead, Melinda Dawson stood there. Melinda was one of the kids that Megan counseled on a regular basis. Tall and gangly, with punkcut, brilliant red hair and Goth-style clothing, not quite fitting in with the base kids, Melinda was prone to violent displays that unnerved her mother, a single parent who worked at the base commissary.
“Mrs. Gander,” Melinda said hesitantly. Then she burst into tears. “My mom is gone! I found her clothes in her bed! She was gone! Just like all the other missing people!” Her voice shattered and she stepped toward Megan with her arms outstretched. “I don’t know what to do! Nobody can help me find her!”
Wrapping her arms around the young girl, Megan held her tightly. “It’s okay, Melinda. We’ll figure out what to do. I promise. We’ll figure out what to do.”
“I didn’t know where else to go!” Melinda said.
“You came here, Melinda. That was the right thing to do.” Glancing up from the girl, Megan looked out into the street in front of her house. She saw other kids then, all of them clients of hers. All of them were coming to her.
If Jenny had not helped her see the truth of what had happened, Megan knew she would have been overwhelmed by the arrival of the kids. Instead, she was ready, and she knew then the task that the Lord had put before her.
29
Turkish-Syrian Border
40 Klicks South of Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 1526 Hours
When he topped the small ridge in the Hummer he’d requisitioned from the motor pool, Goose saw that one of the news teams had beaten him to the site and were even now setting up their satellite relay equipment on the big truck carrying the OneWorld Communications logo.
The dirty-brown stream occupied the ragged center of the small depression. Almost thirty feet across and no more than four feet deep, the slow-moving stream snaked through the depression in gentle undulations between the moderately steep sides. In several places, animal runs and bare areas showing high foot and vehicle traffic had scoured the rough riverbank. A few small trees grew along the banks, stubbornly not giving in to the heat and the sun and the barrenness that plagued the land. Weeds grew in clumps, like knotted scabs from a fungal disease.
Over three hundred people—Rangers, U.N. peacekeeping troops, Turkish army soldiers, and even a few nomadic tribesmen who lived outside the cities—stood along the hills leading to the stream. There were a few vehicles, military Jeeps and trucks, but for the most part it was obvious the spectators had arrived on foot. Under the sparse shade offered by the anemic trees, litters bearing wounded from all three military forces sat with groups waiting to move them forward in the long lines that had formed at the stream’s edges and met in the middle where Baker stood baptizing people.
Corporal Tommy Bono sat behind the Hummer’s steering wheel. He was young and lean, his angular face a mask of dirt and grease. He’d come from Brooklyn, from a long line of firemen, but he’d wanted to see the world before he settled into the old neighborhood at one of the firehouses. His bloody knuckles showed how hard and fast he had been working in the motor pool to get vehicles ready for the night’s evacuation.
“Man, Sarge,” Tommy said in a dazed voice. “Have you ever seen the like?”
“No,” Goose answered. But he’d heard of events like this one. His father had been baptized in the Satilla River in Waycross, Georgia, when he’d been fifteen years old.
The man who had baptized Wesley Gander had been a traveling revival speaker who had worn a white seersucker suit and played a guitar. The man had favored bluesy gospel, and threw in a few hot licks that had scandalized the mothers in the crowds and won over the hearts of the youngsters. He’d arrived in a battered orange Ford pickup that advertised handyman work and carried the tools of his trade in the back. Before doing the revival, the man had worked around town, mending fences, cleaning out garages, and doing small carpentry jobs in exchange for lodging and meals.
On the final day of the week-long revival, after the man had delivered a standing, shouting oration under the tent that had been borrowed from the farmers’ marketplace, interspersed the whole time with music and anecdotes, he had called for those who wanted to know Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior. Wes Gander didn’t tell the story much, but when he did, Goose was still able to see the fires of conviction in his father’s eyes. The revival had been a come-to-Jesus success that was never again equaled in Waycross, Georgia.
According to the local story, there were so many who came forward that day, and the spirit was so strong among them, that the revivalist had led them on a three-mile walk to the Satilla River. There the baptisms had begun. The man had dunked everyone who came forward, the symbolic resurrection of a person after accepting the Son of God’s most precious gift.
“Get us closer,” Goose said.
Tommy put the Hummer in gear again and crept toward the stream. “What are you gonna do about this, Sarge?”
Goose surveyed all the people around him. “I don’t know.”
Corporal Joseph Baker st
ood waist deep in the stream water. Tall and broad with flat features and a round face, Baker looked like a gentle bear. He stood six feet eight inches tall, the tallest man in the company.
Baker gripped the nose and mouth of the man standing beside him, put a hand under his back as the man folded his arms over his chest, and lowered him into the water. A moment later, he brought the man back up.
The man fiercely hugged Baker, then sloshed through the loose mud of the streambed to where he’d left his gear with a compatriot who was already soaked. The freshly baptized man wore the uniform of a Turkish soldier. The man holding his weapon was a U.N. trooper.
Tommy stopped the Jeep thirty yards from the river. “I can’t go any farther, Sarge.”
“This is good enough, Tommy.” Goose lifted his M-4A1 from the floorboard between his feet and slung the assault rifle over his shoulder. He stepped from the Hummer and felt his injured knee nearly buckle under him as it refused to take his weight, even with the brace. But he took another step and the knee loosened up. The pain was sharp and edged enough to bite ferociously.
When Tommy switched off the Hummer’s engine, Goose heard the singing.
“Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
The music swelled across the stream, filling the depression with hope. As Goose slowed and looked around, the music grew stronger as more people joined in.
“Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
For the first time, Goose noticed that the faces of the soldiers and the people around him were free of worry and fear and tension. They weren’t like the faces of the soldiers he had left back along the border.
“Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
Electricity scurried along Goose’s neck as he listened to the song. In the stream, Bakern kept baptizing the men who stepped forward. He took the first of a line, then switched to the other line. The effort the man made at lowering all those people into the stream water and pulling them back up again was nothing short of Herculean.
“Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
The group of OneWorld reporters made their way down through the people on the stream bank. A woman led the way, and for a moment Goose experienced a flash of recognition, but he lost the woman in the crowd. For a second there, he thought he knew her.
Then he spotted Private Braydon Childers, one of the newest recruits to the 75th. Braydon was tall and fit but wore thick army-issue glasses. Stubble showed along his jaw. His uniform was soaking wet.
Goose moved through the crowd. Rangers that saw him looked guilty and turned away, but Goose also noted that they were men who were on break, relieved of digging fighting holes and setting up booby traps.
The only dereliction of duty going on was Baker’s water supply team.
“Private Childers,” Goose said.
“Yes, First Sergeant.” Childers turned in a smooth quarter turn.
“Why isn’t that water supply truck moving?” Goose kept his voice level and conversational.
“We were pumping water from the stream, First Sergeant, just like we were ordered. There were already people here. People from the U.N. task forces and from the Turkish army. A few of the nomads. All of them were doing the same thing, First Sergeant.”
“Getting water?”
“Yes.”
“But that stopped.”
“Yes, sir. One of the men of our water detail was talking about Corporal Dockery.”
An image of the impaled Ranger filled Goose’s mind. From what he understood, Dockery was still alive, though the medical team working him didn’t know what was keeping him alive.
“They say Dockery saw Bill Townsend disappear, First Sergeant,” Childers went on. He looked at Goose. “I was told you were there. Maybe you saw the angel, too.”
The electricity skated across the back of Goose’s neck again. “What angel?”
“The angel that came and took Bill Townsend away.” Childers blinked behind the thick glasses.
Goose shook his head. “I didn’t see an angel, Private.”
“I was told Dockery saw one. He said the angel came down and touched Bill Townsend on the shoulder and told him it was time to go.” Childers searched Goose’s face. “Did you see that, First Sergeant?”
Goose hesitated briefly. “No. No, Private Childers, I didn’t see that.”
A crestfallen look dawned on Childers’s face.
“I didn’t see Bill Townsend disappear,” Goose said. “I turned from him, then turned right back. He was gone that quick.”
Childers smiled. “That’s when the angel took him, First Sergeant. That’s what Dockery is saying.” He looked back at the crowd that had formed down at the stream. “One of the guys talked about that. He said that the angels had come and taken the good men—”
“There are a lot of good men left behind here, Private,” Goose pointed out.
“Yes, Sergeant. I know that. But what I mean is that the angels came for the believers. Men like Bill Townsend and Conley Macgregor and Stan Thompson. We got to talking among ourselves, and we all kept coming up with the same kind of men. Those that disappeared, First Sergeant, were all men who were in church every Sunday, men who prayed before meals, men who spent time trying to talk to the rest of us and explain about God. They were men who believed absolutely in the Savior.”
“Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
“But we didn’t listen, First Sergeant,” Childers continued. “We didn’t believe enough. Most of us, we’re good men, just like you say. But we weren’t those guys. John Taylor, he spoke up about then and said he’d never been baptized. That’s when Jim Yancy said that Corporal Baker had been an ordained minister back in Ohio.”
Goose knew that was the case. Bill Townsend had told him the story of how Baker had been a young minister until his wife had died in childbirth. He had left home after her funeral, worked at odd jobs to support himself before he’d enlisted in the Army at twenty-nine.
“John asked Corporal Baker to baptize him,” Childers said. “He said he wanted to be saved in Christ before he ended up dead out here.”
Goose looked out at Baker as he dunked yet another man. The corporal seemed tireless, like a man possessed. And maybe, Goose admitted, Baker was. The energy surrounding the stream was a strong current, a powerful force that wouldn’t be denied. He could feel it.
“At first,” Childers said, “the corporal said he couldn’t do it anymore. Said he couldn’t believe. John Taylor, he asked how could Baker not believe when Dockery had seen an angel, when so many people had disappeared just like is described in the Bible. Gone in a twinkling, that’s what Bill used to witness to me.”
“Just as I am, Thy love unknown
Hath broken every barrier down;
Now, to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
“John Taylor,” Childers said, “he started losing it. He was afraid.” The private’s voice broke. “I guess we all were by that time, though I’m ashamed to admit it.”
“Fear’s nothing to be ashamed of, private,” Goose said. “Every man in this op is afraid. I’m afraid.”
Childers blinked at him. “You?”
“Yeah. There’s something Patton used to say about fear. He said, ‘Courage is fear holdin
g on a minute longer.’ That’s what we’re doing out here. Holding on a minute longer.”
“Baker finally gave in, First Sergeant,” Childers said. “With John Taylor asking him, with me asking him, and the others that hadn’t been baptized, Baker couldn’t turn away. So he baptized us. And once he started, once all those other soldiers figured out what was going on, they came forward, too. You can’t blame Baker. We got it started and he just hasn’t had the heart to turn them away.” He paused. “Truth to tell, First Sergeant, I think Corporal Baker has found him something out in those waters that maybe he never really lost.”
Baker lowered another man into the water and brought him up. As soon as the man was steady, the corporal reached for another and began speaking.
“I still need that water supply truck running, Private,” Goose said. “All your crew has been baptized?”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
“Get them together. You’re in charge. Get that truck moving again. I’ll tell Corporal Baker he’s relieved of the water detail and he can continue here.”
“I will, First Sergeant.” Childers made his way through the crowd and started calling his squad to him.
Goose walked down the hill and stepped into the stream. The water was warm and moved sluggishly, rising to wrap around his thighs. He crossed to Baker, feeling his boots slip on the mud.
Baker paused in his baptism. Water droplets spotted his flushed face. “First Sergeant,” the big man greeted him. He looked nervous, but he also looked like a man who wasn’t going to be deterred from his appointed task.
Goose was aware of the stares of the other men around them. Fear hollowed all their eyes.
“Carry on, Corporal. I just wanted you to know that you’d been relieved of the water detail.”
“I was going to get back to that as soon as I could,” Baker apologized. He turned his face toward the stream banks. “But they just kept coming.”
