"Wanting of a Hero- Part 1" draft (prelude - ch. 12)

Prelude/ Chapter One

The Narrow Path

           

            When Steve had come home excited to see his wife after a long day of meetings and studying, he found the house empty of the usual buzzing excitement surrounding the ever-joyful Nancy. He looked at the calendar for clues and discovered the notation for her doctor’s appointment from a few hours earlier.

            After nearly a decade with this wonderful woman, Steve instinctively knew that if she were back, where she would be. Without thought for any other once home rituals, Steve passed by the dining room table where he dropped his notebooks and headed out the backdoor.

            The backyard’s short lawn led to a small orchard. The flagstone walkway under the canopy of budding blossoms from the young trees opened to the garden where he found Nancy poking her small hand spade into the ground.

The grass was lush and green this year. The heavy spring rains showed in every living thing. Hopping down branch by branch, a red chested robin made his way to the ground. The freshly dug dirt piqued his interest in his search for the day’s meal.

            Nancy, facing away from him, leaned on one elbow, with her legs crossed and to her side while she excavated the few weeds from her blueberry bushes. She didn’t hear him approaching when he walked around to face her. Steve saw the now dried lines of tears that had run down her face as she dug; leaving worm trails on her cheeks.

            When she saw him her eyes moistened again, then as Steve crouched down to take her in his caring arms, the tears broke loose and ran freely down, dripping onto his warm chest in a cool trickle, as he embraced her. He pulled her in close as if to squeeze out the pain.

            Steve held her while she found her calm again. He hurt because of their problem, but he hurt more for what it was doing to her. His legs began to cramp, and his joints to creak, yet he held her. Slowly her sobbing subsided.

            “I really thought that this time would be different. We’ve been praying about it. I really thought that we deserved to have a baby,” Nancy said.

            Steve had learned over the years to just listen. He was a man and had the innate need to fix problems, but he knew that she simply needed to let it out—that was how women let it go. He hugged her tighter.

            He especially loved how she never turned against him, blaming him for things that didn’t go exactly her way. She did have her moments of anger, but she knew that he was on her side and never attacked him. Life had difficulties and if they upset her, she would only loose her cool for a short time, and not hold onto it forever. Then she would work through the problems, rather than work on ways to pass the blame and hurt around to everyone.

            Steve had found, from many years of counseling, that when one, in the couple, had the need to find blame, other than it just being a broken world full of broken people, there was only strife and struggle. Those kinds of couples would seem to be bipolar. Happy one second at each other’s throats the next then happy again.

He was tired of hearing, it’s your fault, or it’s not my fault. They were always looking for fault, and never able to accept that everything and nothing was at fault.

            Steve and Nancy had enjoyed not having anything to tie them down or slow them, during the honeymoon stage of their marriage—at first. When realization that they could not conceive finally set in, they began going to specialists. “Usually one spouse is unable to reproduce, but fate has given both of you the short end,” the doctor had said. Doctor after doctor had given similar prognoses, some a bit more empathetic, but it was just the same to them. They were broken.

            They had both decided to see what God had in store for them and had elected to not have any artificial means taken. Now that their thirty’s were nearly over, Nancy was ready to give up on her yearly exams—almost.

            Steve waited for Nancy to make the first move. When he felt her embrace loosen slightly he took that as queue. “I think we should get ready and go to Van der Fiji's. We haven’t been out for quite some time, and I’ve been craving some of their famous Pear Clafouti.”

            “Only if you promise to try the Clafoutis aux Cerises this time.”

            “Deal, but I am still getting the Pear Clafouti.”

            “You sure know how to treat a lady. I need to wash. Will you call for reservations? If we hurry we can beat the rush.”

Sara sighed, as she watched the maple leaf float gently to the lawn. She was reminded of the extra beauty brought to the yard by the great tree mid-autumn. It seemed so calm and peaceful in the dimming light of the early evening. She had hoped for a peaceful quiet evening meal with her husband.

Looking out the window, Sara wondered what she should be thinking right now. Since she was nine months pregnant, she felt that she should be lying back in her recliner reading a relaxing book and sipping hot cocoa in front of the fire.

Her quiet thoughts were interrupted when her husband’s black BMW tore through the lawn and came to a roaring halt at the front door.  Her annoyance quickly turned to fright when he began honking the horn like a mad man jumping out of the car and running toward the house.

 “Sara!” he yelled when he burst through the door. “Hurry! Please! We have so very little time.”

“I am coming as fast as our baby will let me,” she yelled back, out of breath and more than a little confused.

“I know, and I am sorry for this, but we must really hurry. Did you get everything I asked you to bring?” he asked as he eased her down into her seat.

While Sara was distracted fumbling with her seat belt, Todd pulled out a briefcase from behind his seat. Before she realized what was happening, he grabbed her by the arm, and with strength she didn’t know her husband possessed, pulled her arm to him pinning it between his elbow and torso. Held firmly in his grasp, he injected her with a hypodermic needle.

As the thick liquid pushed into her skin and began to course through her veins, it began to sting spreading warmth up her arm in a throbbing growing tingling sensation. Panic welled up from her stomach charging out through her tense throat in a roar. “What was that?”   

 Her first thoughts were not of herself, but of the defenseless child growing in her protective womb. “You had better not have hurt my baby,” she yelled in frustration as he went around to the driver’s seat.

He didn’t answer as he jammed the car into gear and tore out of the yard leaving behind a raged scar in the grass to show his passing.

Turning away from him, she asked more calmly than she felt, “Why are you doing this?” Not daring to look at him again, for fear of losing her temper too severely and causing him to crash the car—she waited for a response.

“Why am I trying to save our lives? That is a pretty strange question,” he laughed, “but, then again you don’t know what’s at stake here do you?” he answered her as he reached over to turn on some soothing music.

“Saving us? You are endangering both me and my baby!” She almost screamed. “You are driving recklessly, and that shot. You are acting so strange. What was so important, that you had to go rushing off in the middle of our dinner?”

“I was paged; it wasn’t until I got to the lab that I found out the graveness of our situation. Things are about to get very bad. You just need to trust me,” he implored.

“How can I trust you? You didn’t even ask me before attacking with a needle.”

 It’s an experimental drug we are working on at the lab. It hasn’t made it far enough to start human trials on, but I am sure it works perfectly. It’s the only chance we have, and I must save you and the baby.”

Sara’s maternal instincts wouldn’t allow her to think about anything but the welfare of her child. “What could be so important, that you had to use me and our child as guinea pigs? How can you know for certain that it’s safe for the baby, and what in the name of all that is sane—is going on?“ she began crying, against her best efforts to be strong.

            Steve threw a sport coat over his daily work clothes and clipped on a tie for the restaurant etiquette. Nancy had decided to wear her nice dress, the only one she had had for wonderful occasions—and funerals. They enjoyed the extravagances of the privileged American life style so infrequently that their good clothes looked new from the store, despite being several years old.

            Steve already knew what she would order but, “What would you like this evening my dear?”

            “I was thinking of having the Aged Black Angus Beef Tenderloin with Béarnaise Sauce and Potato and Leek aux Gratin,” she said not looking up from the menu she was reading.

            Steve knew she was playing with him; it just wasn’t her style to order the most expensive meal on the menu. “I was thinking the same thing, and a bottle of their finest.”

            Her eyes peeked over the top of the menu, and then she pulled it back up as a light chuckle leaked from her throat.

            The waiter had the ill-favored timing to show up just then. Steve looked up at him to order their usual and noticed the other guests. People were leaving their unfinished meals and making their way out of the restaurant. “What’s happening?”

            “There has been a terrorist threat on New York City, and everyone in the state has been asked to go to their homes and wait for further information.”

            “Really,” Steve asked. In all of his life he had never witnessed such a thing.

            “Yes really. Hurry, I have to get home to my family. We are getting as far away from here as possible.”

Steve took Nancy by the arm and together they walked to the bus stop. As they waited, the traffic built to an unbridled hysteria and soon became a congested mess.

            “I never knew there were so many cars in our little town,” Nancy said in obvious bewilderment. 

            “I have a feeling that most of these are passing through on their way to safety, or rather away from danger.”

            “I don’t think they are going to make it far in this growing confusion,” sighed Nancy,” especially when the cars from the city reaches here in a few minutes.”

            “That’s for sure, the bus hasn’t gotten any closer in the last ten minutes,” Steve pointed down the street to a bus trying to change lanes in an effort to make it to the next bus stop—their stop.

            “What are we going to do Steve?”

            “What we always do.”

She looked at him with that puzzled look he liked to see when prying a smile out. “This has never happened to us. How can we always do something we have never done?”

            “Easy.” He turned to look at all of the fleeing people and sighing before turning back to his beloved. “We trust God, and wait for him to take us home with him. If it’s our time, let us at least do it with some dignity. Let’s walk home. We can make it in half an hour.”

            Nancy looked him square in the face and kissed him before taking his arm and turning towards home.

Todd had no time to answer, as the emergency beeps came across the radio. “This is Stephanie Cook with the emergency broadcast system, with an important announcement. Everyone on Long Island New York is asked to evacuate in an orderly and calm manner. A terrorist organization, known only as “Hilary’s American Army," has issued a threat against Brook-haven National Laboratory, in Upton. The threat at this time is still unknown, but their past exploits in Iran and Israel have been devastating."

“You already knew about this didn’t you?” she accused. “We should have been off the island an hour ago,” Sara said when she turned off the radio.

“My source said that the blast radius will encompass the entire city, but the radiation could cover three hundred miles—if they use the same dirty bombs that they used in the Middle East. We may not have made it far enough to escape the fall out in time. The drug we both took, bonds to us on a molecular level.  In all of our tests, it shielded the subjects from small doses of radiation with no cellular damage.”

“Blast radius? How are we going to escape? We’ve lost so much time!” She was truly terrified now.

“There is a tunnel running under sea to the mainland. Only a handful of us, with the highest clearances, knows about it. And, that, is assuming we get there before the traffic blocks us off. I hadn’t anticipated the news report so soon. It must have leaked to the press from an intern, or someone who doesn’t understand the mob effect.”

As he spoke, he rounded a corner toward the residential district and the streets were suddenly congested—completely gridlocked. 

 “Watch out Todd! Sara screamed as Todd swerved to avoid hitting the backed up cars. He began muttering incoherently to himself, which only caused Sara more alarm.

“No, no, no…, I chose this rout because it is faster at this time of night. We’re going to have to turn around; everyone on God’s green earth must have been watching TV after dinner..." He trailed off and looked at his wife.

“There aren’t many strategic targets here, in fact I can only think of one; it’s very near my lab.” His face grew expressionless and cold and Sara suddenly didn’t even recognize him. This didn’t seem like the man she married, and it made her blood run cold. Fear made him into a reckless lunatic.

“Where are the National Guard and Homeland Security in all of this?”

Todd turned to look at his wife, seeming to come back to reality. “They are searching, but they are certain that there will be at least three other targets on the eastern seaboard, besides the one that they were warned of. Our nearby forces are spread thin, and no one has found anything yet.”

“Maybe we’re just a decoy for the real targets. There really is nothing here worth attacking—right,” Sara said hopefully.

“You’re probably right,” Todd told her reassuringly and gave her a broad smile that never touched his eyes. His reassurances fell lifelessly to the ground, rendered useless even more so by the false decency, something he never used to fake.

“Okay, now I am worried. You gave us an experimental drug because either you are out of your mind or you know more than you have been telling me. And I am really hoping for crazy right at this moment.”

“You know I can’t talk about my work. It’s top secret.”

“Right now—with everything that’s going on—you are going to give me that ridiculous Top Secret song and dance? Don’t you dare give me that excuse—not this time! You just injected me with your ‘top secret,' so now I am part of your work, both me and our baby. I deserve an explanation.”

“I’m sorry for that, really I am— I just didn’t know what else to do. I should have talked to you about it beforehand, but if we had had time for that we could have been half way to Kansas by now.”

“Where are we going to go? I’m afraid, Todd.” She looked to her husband for real comfort. “We need to go to a hospital so that we can be sure the baby is okay.”

At her words, the car jerked and shuddered as the ground vibrated around them, and Todd had to fight the wheel to maintain control. Then, in a blinding flash of light, the street erupted around them in a fountain of boiling magma. As the shock waves tore through the vulnerable metal of their car, it vaporized into nothing and was absorbed into the ensuing mushroom cloud.

            Quickly tiring of the commotion made by the aggressive and terrified drivers honking and revving, Steve led his wife off onto side streets. They made it passed the business district and decided to take a short detour. They took the bridge to the park and walked up the small hill that overlooked the valley below.

            In the far distance the sky blazed an orange bright enough to blot out the stars. The city of New York, fifty miles away, was still massive enough to light half the sky in that direction.

Steve pulled his wife close, admiring the beauty of God’s creation mixed with man’s domination of it. They prayed softly to God for his will to be done.

While in his reverie, the light of the sky above the city blossomed white suddenly and then faded back to normal. Their eyes saw the world darker for a few minutes. Then, as their pupils dilated, the orange glow returned.

            “Was that the bomb?” Nancy asked.

            “I don’t know what else it could be. Let’s pray for those people who may have been caught in the attack.”

            They prayed for the survivors to be found quickly, for the families of the lost, and for the country to recover from its loss. Then they walked hand in hand back to their home and went to bed.

Chapter Two

Unbelievable

Steve rushed to answer the door. Nancy followed behind, curious about such obnoxiously loud knocking. Steve was almost to the door when it shook with the violent pounding it was taking again.

She watched as Steve paused a moment, then slowly unlocked the dead bolt. As he opened the door, she was in awe that she could see the man’s face, over Steve’s head.

“How can we help you, uh, officer?” Steve asked tentatively.

First looking at Steve and then past him to Nancy, the man replied, “I’m sorry to disturb you ma’am. I am in need of your help.”

Stepping forward, Nancy looked briefly to the grocery bag in one hand and a wadded up bundle of rags tucked into the crook of his elbow. “How can we help you sir?”

He gently handed the wad of old rags to Nancy. “Careful. Please.”

Reaching for the bundle Nancy looked for what might be wrapped in such rags that needed special care. To her surprise, a tiny face stared back at her—she discovered a newborn baby wrapped tightly in the rags. “Oh my,” She gasped.

Too stunned to speak, she sank into the sofa with the baby held tightly to her chest. This reminder that she could not have children took her by surprise, and she just sat, peering into the face of this beautiful baby, cradling it close.

Wide blue eyes looked up at her with curiosity, and then a big smile washed across his face. Nancy could only stare back at this most unusual child. A newborn can’t see more than a few inches from its face, yet this one seemed to see her. And even more of an oddity, he truly appeared to be smiling at her.

The marine handed a bag to Steve, “I’m guessing the baby is hungry. I just got these baby supplies on the way to the church. The two teenagers, who were cleaning there, told me where I could find you.”

Turning back to Nancy the marine began, in a husky voice, "I'm Gunnery Sergeant Roger Brodemire. I'm attached to the unit that was guarding the wreckage left by the terrorists last night—you probably heard about it on the news. Now, I know this seems crazy, but I have to tell you about a dream I had three nights ago. It was so vivid. I was standing at the edge of a crater, and saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a man, slowly sinking into the earth. This is where my story gets really interesting, and why I sought refuge at a church.”

Steve motioned for Roger to sit then remembered the bag in his hand. He opened it to find baby formula and bottles. He handed it to his wife and she took it to the sink, having already decided that the baby was hungry and that the sergeant hadn’t fed the poor little thing.

The men followed her to the kitchen where Roger continued his story.

“I ran to help, I really ran, not like in a dream where you stretch and strain but are always in slow-motion; I ran, but the figure was already gone.  I reached the spot where I thought it disappeared, but found nothing, not even footprints. I start to turn away, and I hear a cry— a cry from a baby. Now I am seeing a baby.

“Startled that I hadn’t noticed a baby lying on the ground, I reach down and pick it up. As I stand up with the baby in my arms, a hand grabbes my shoulder. Just as I woke up with a start, I hear a voice say, ‘save him.’”

Nancy stared at the marine, unaware that the baby had finished the bottle, gulping and sucking at air. The marine simply pointed at the bottle, then continued with his recounting.

 “I awoke in a cold sweat and shaking from the intensity of the dream, never having experienced anything like it before.

“When we were put on alert for the bomb threat two days later, I had already forgotten about the dream. When the explosion rocked the base, I only felt a sense of something familiar. Not until I was on the island staring out over the brink of the crater did I truly recall the dream. The scene before me was identical to the one I had dreamed about—only now, I was not alone.

“I was there to guard the investigation and collection crews, but against what I did not know. I was almost halfway down the side of the crater wall on my way to save the baby, when I tripped on a rock and fell rolling the rest of the way down to the bottom of the crater. Laying there with the wind knocked out of me, I wondered at my stupidity. I rolled myself over to my hands and knees, and look up to see all of the destruction and shake my head in wonder, at how I could get so caught up with a stupid dream. How could there be a living baby anywhere near me.

“Someone yelled down at me and I answered that I had only broken my pride and waved up to them. I turned to have one last humiliating look at where I was, when I saw a soot covered baby’s face poking slightly out of the ash. By then I was falling over myself to get there, hoping that it was only a porcelain doll. When I reached down, the eyes opened, revealing the most startling blue, in sharp contrast to the black and gray surroundings. Just then, I recalled the voice, save him.

“I Climbed out of the hole with my shirt off, wadded up, and pressed to my side as if a bandaged wound to hide the infant inside. I told the others that I must have broken something in the fall, and that I needed to see the medic.

“My mind reeled inside my head; I had no idea what to think. I had to check myself several times to make sure that I hadn’t hit my head and imagined the whole thing. This was no coma-induced hallucination, so knew that I needed to get help from someone who might give me some ideas. And I found my way to the church.

“You need to understand that I lost my faith quite some time ago. A person can’t do the work that I do and believe that there is any kind of a God; but my thoughts kept coming back to the church near my house where I grew up. When I got there, there were only those two kids, but I still hadn’t come up with anything better, so I gave them a story, and they sent me to you.”

All was quiet as they sat in contemplation. Finally Steve spoke.

“The newspaper said that the area is completely saturated with radiation. How is there anyone out there, even someone to investigate?”

“Do you believe everything you hear from the news? The radiation was gone by this morning; it started receding almost immediately after the blast. All evidence of the bomb suggested that it should have been many times more powerful than it was. The blast was severe enough that all organic matter on the island is now ash and cinder, but now the residual radiation is gone. That’s why there was such a rush to get as many scientists and examiners out there this morning.”

“That’s not possible,” Nancy blurted out. “Radiation does not simply dissipate.”

“That’s what got everyone into such a panic. They don’t investigate a bomb site from a nuclear blast, not even with radiation suits. There simply would not be any remains of evidence. The strangeness of this particular scene is under investigation because they know there was radiation, but it is as if something had absorbed the power.”

“This is more than a little hard to believe. You expect us to believe that you dreamed that you would find a living baby at ground zero of a nuclear bomb blast, and now you have brought that baby here. Why did you sneak the baby away? Why didn’t you have it checked by a doctor?” Steve asked, as he stood up, now a little fearful of his safety and for that of his wife.

The marine stood up to his full height as well, and Steve stepped back.

“Do you have any idea what would happen to this baby if the government found out about it?” He said with just a little too much ferocity.

Nancy stepped between the two men.” I believe you,” she said with startling conviction, “Please, sit back down and stop trying to scare us.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t blame you. I hardly believe it myself,” Roger said as he sat back in his seat. “But I know I was called to help this baby, and I mean to do just that, with or without your help.”

“I don’t think that you are meant to do anything else. You should leave the baby with us,” she said protectively, as she stared down at the big man.

“I’m supposed to save this baby,” he answered firmly.

“And you have,” she fired back. “But now you need to get back to where you are supposed to be. They will be curious about what happened to you, and it won’t be long until they come after you, and if they do, they will find the baby. They can’t find out about this baby, you said so yourself. You can trust Pastor Steve and me to do the best thing for this child.”

She stared at him with such sincere, open eyes that the big Marine innately knew he could trust her. With a deep sigh and a murmured thank you, he ducked back out of the tiny parsonage.

Nancy paced the small living room while Steve stared out the window watching the big marine walk away from them. The baby in Nancy’s arms was now sleeping peacefully and was completely comfortable in his new protector’s embrace.

After assuring himself that the strange man was gone, Steve abruptly turned and headed for the phone on his desk.

The makeshift office in the living room was the only place in their small one bedroom home large enough for a comfortable work desk. When Steve can’t think at the office well, at his church, he would often seek the refuge of his home office.

“Wait,” Nancy blurted out, caught off guard by her own thoughts, “we have to think this through.”

“What is there to think through? I’m calling the police right now. They can help us find the baby’s parents,” he answered, with more than a little surprise showing in his eyes.

Walking over to her husband, Nancy gently put her hand on his, urging him to put the phone down.

“When I said that I believed him, I meant it. And I still do.”

Dropping the phone in its cradle Steve stared at his wife, bewildered and confused. "I thought that you were patronizing him so that he would leave. How can you believe such a foolish story? He is obviously insane. He kidnapped a baby during a delusional episode, and is now acting out a strange fantasy of a self-aggrandizing hero complex."

"I don't think he was lying," she countered, “And he seemed perfectly lucid to me."

"How can you believe such a crazy story?"

"Belief is our business," she softly reminded him. "Let us at least pray about it."

"Someone out there is frantic, and we have their baby. How can you ask me to prolong their suffering?"

"We need guidance, Steve. We should wait until morning, after we have prayed about it."

"I guess you might be right about waiting a little while, I don't want this poor baby to stay at a police station."

I should go out to see what information I can come up with. I will only be gone a couple of hours. Do you want me to bring you anything back for lunch, or something for the baby?" he asked his wife, not sure that she will be happy about his leaving her alone right now.

"No, go ahead; we have everything we need at present. And Steve, be careful what you tell people. If sergeant Brodemire is legitimate, then we need to save this baby."

"Okay honey," Steve replied softly, as he closed the door behind him.

"Please Lord, show us the truth," Nancy whispered in quiet desperation.

Chapter Three

Sanctuary

Lost in thought and aimless in direction, Steve headed down the sidewalk from his house. His mind filled with contradicting thoughts of fear and unbelief left him feeling weak. How could he, senior pastor of Tiger Valley Baptist Church, not believe that a miracle such as this was possible?

Steve had lived in the small city of Tiger Falls, an almost suburb of the great metropolis New York, for his entire life. He was born at the local hospital. All of his schooling was at local private schools. He had never been more than a hundred miles from his home.

While Steve was in his second year at Tiger Falls Community College, his parents died in a plane crash coming back from a business trip to Hong Kong.

Their remains were brought back home, and after the funeral, he changed his major to theology. He wanted to know why bad things happened to good people.

Steve had never had any desire to visit the world outside of his community. There are heathens aplenty right here, he thought.

Despite his unwillingness to explore and travel, Steve had an insatiable appetite for knowledge. It was during his final year of graduate school that he met Nancy, a self-assured and strong-minded woman with her attention set on the greatest humanitarian causes of the time.

It wasn't long until, Steve had Nancy reading the bible and her teaching him the way a good Christian who loves people should love the planet that serves them.

Nancy's plans for going out to save the world from itself was detoured by her marriage to a man who's idea of a grand travel adventure was to visit the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum in Orchard Park New York—forty miles away.

Nancy's eventual eagerness to settle down for family life was inexorably and devastatingly altered, subsequently learning that she was unable to ever have a baby.

Deprived of worldly or family adventures befitting a woman of her character, she went on. Nancy, never dispirited, devoted the rest of her life to his vision and to her God.

The miracle of a child in their life now, after all of these intervening years, seemed like too much of a stretch—and the way of it coming into their lives even more so.

There must be a way of finding out where the baby came from. What would it mean if the story were true? How incredible that any set of circumstances would find a living baby left behind in the crater of a bomb blast.

"Oh Lord, my God, help me now. My faith has never been tested in a way such as this. Would this Marine have found his way to me without your guidance, and brought to me and my wife a baby to protect? Please, Lord, show me your hand in this," Steve fervently prayed.

Steve was brought out of his prayerful thoughts when a bus pulled up next to him. He realized only then, that in his moment of pause for prayer that he had halted at a bus stop. With no other prodding, he boarded the bus bound for downtown New York City.

Steve had been thinking that God did not want him to raise any children. Children of pastors were always little terrors that ran the church like a Mafia, living life off the celebrity status of their father. Everyone knew that pastors' children were the hardest partiers and the daughters were a guaranteed good time. At least that was what the jocks in college said. Steve had no personal experience in that, maybe they were just rumors—although stereotypes usually have at least a kernel of truth in them.

It made perfect sense to him that he and his wife should be shepherds of the church and not be responsible for unleashing havoc on the community.

Steve had some time for thinking on the bus ride to the big city and pondered how he might be able to verify the marine’s story, without giving out dangerous information—if the story turned out to be true.

Going to the police would only serve to bring the eye of the law directly to his front door, and to the house sheltering the baby. Finding out if there was a conspiracy cover-up about the bombing would be impossible for someone like him. Only with a miracle straight from the hand of God could Steve ever discern the truth.

The two men standing at the next bus stop were wearing long trench coats— something like you would see on nefarious characters in the movies, hiding dangerous weapons underneath. The movies are notorious for creating unrealistic themes out of the most ordinary and mundane things in life.

Upon entering the bus and paying their toll, the two men casually made their way to the back of the bus. Their grim faces did nothing to dispel the ominous nature of their fashion. No one dared look in their direction for fear of getting on the wrong side of someone as obviously dangerous as these two surly men surely were.

On their way again, but now with a dreadful foreboding in the air to add to Steve's already overburdened heart, they departed for the final stop before the bus’s return trip back to Tiger Falls.

Inside the city, the streets looked like a warzone. Sandbags and blockades prevented access to streets headed towards the bridge to the island. People gathered around trying to see around all the guards patrolling the streets further prevented access.

Carefully maneuvering the bus through the throngs of people and military vehicles, the driver headed on his way to the next stop on the route. Everyone on the bus now had their attention focused outside of the bus—no one even remembered their apprehension of the two men in trench coats. Even the two men themselves were staring out the window in wide-eyed astonishment.

Steve and the rest of the passengers of the bus disembarked into a seething mass of bustling people. So many people coming to see the devastation left by the attack yesterday had caused the city itself to come to a veritable standstill. And still, the mob of people circling the possible routes through to the waterway seemed to create a pulse all its own, seeming to beat in time to that of Steve's heartbeat. More dread and more questions; what had become of normal?

Uncertain where to start, Steve walked to the nearest roadblock and asked to whom he might talk to for more information about the bomb site, only to have half a dozen automatic rifles leveled at his head.

“I just have some questions,” Steve said to the black rifle holes staring him down, “My name is Steve Stade, and I’m pastor of Tiger Valley Church in Tiger Falls.”

In answer, he received glares from more guards coming over to back up the six, armed marines against, the lone church man.

Hesitantly he backed away from the blockade and the small army heading his way. Steve turned quickly away and ran into the crowded street to become lost among the confusion and chaos.

After looking back over his shoulder to see if the uncompromisingly single-minded defenders of the country were pursuing him, Steve relaxed slightly and found that he had become lost in his rush from undue process.

Going along the boundary of blockades and following the flow of the crowd, Steve began to see the faces of the people and the desire in their eyes to learn the facts of the incident. Total despair seeped in as he realized with complete finality, that if this many people seeking the truth, were being turned aside—he had no chance whatsoever.

Even the news crews who were circling like vultures were contenting themselves with interviewing onlookers, having given up on talking their way through the defenders.

With feelings of doubt and uncertainty, Steve headed away from the mass of confusion in search of a way back to the bus stop. The people passing by never seemed to thin out as the minutes passed. Getting through the crowds of people was getting more difficult with each passing moment.

With every movement becoming increasingly restrictive, Steve began to panic. What if it turned into a stampede—so many people have been trampled under crowds of panicked people.

Now fearful for his life, Steve turned to go with the flow of the crowd, but so many people pushed up against him that his every step was a struggle to stay on his feet.

Oblivious to anything else around him, except the people smashing him in an unknown direction, Steve focused his thoughts on staying calm—to have enough rationality to escape if an opportunity arose.

Suddenly, Steve tripped and fell over unseen steps in his path. With all calm rational thought gone, he clambered up the steps. Driven by need alone he made it high enough to get out from under the deadly rain of feet.

With nowhere else to go, Steve ascended to the top of the stairs and came to the giant doors of an old church. After one long look out over the horde, and finding nothing more to see as far as could be seen, Steve pushed open the massive wooden door to go in for prayer and thought.

To his surprise, even if he had thought a few moments he would have known, there was a huge cross above the altar with the dead body of the Christ hanging from it.

It may be a catholic church, but he couldn’t have been happier to be there and out of the storm, than if it was his own home.

Not being one to sit while praying, Steve started wandering around, passed the huge stained glass, and soon was caught up in the spectacle of the place. Ostentatious though it was, it was also inspiring and mesmerizing. It was proving to be very distracting to thought and prayer.

Steve found his way to the front of the sanctuary. Standing in front of the altar, with so many candles lit and flickering, was at once calming and hypnotic. No thoughts got through except those of the traditions and history of the empire that was the Roman Catholic Church.

When the American constitution was written, the world had been run not by the ruling class but by the catholic diocese through the kings and queens. The separation of church and state was in sole response to that fact. It had been meant only to prevent the government from being controlled covertly by any sect or group other than the people— not to prevent the people in the government from being religious.

It was disheartening for Steve to see how that simple idea had been perverted to the point where even schoolchildren were not permitted to pray in school, even when it was their choice and freedom to do so.

Steve wondered if anyone who thought that this was still a Christian nation was naïve, wishing desperately for something to be true that wasn’t. Steve wished so desperately that it was still true.

This country was so full of those who could not go a few moments without any sort of gratification. They have lost their purpose in the world— the purpose of the individuals' rights and beliefs, where one person helped another. Instead he would hear about how someone laid dying on the sidewalk for eight hours with a dozen other people walking by so intent on themselves that they couldn’t even call on their cell phone for help. Steve wondered about his own purpose.

Back when everyone sacrificed for each other, you were not really giving anything up, because it would eventually come back to you in kind. People helping people was a way of life, so even when they had nothing, they still had everything. Steve wanted to sacrifice and help, but this was crazy.

Now, we have a world of stuff and no time for people. People are second to our need for more stuff, and even further down on the list from our own selfish wants. Not even needs, just wants.

Steve was jarred out of his sorrow for man, when someone bumped into him while they rushed by.

“Sorry man, didn’t see you standing there,” a young man mumbled before he regained his balance and was on his way again.

“I’m sorry too,” Steve said as he turned towards the bounding youth. “I didn’t mean to be in the way.”

Recognizing the person, Steve yelled, “Wait! Tom?” Then Steve heard several people clear their throats, and he remembered that he was in a church and he needed to quiet down.”

Tom stopped and turned back around. “Pastor Steve?”

Tom motioned Steve over and off to the side, to a secluded nook out of the way.

“Tom, it’s so good to see you. When you moved away with your parents I was worried about you finding another good church.”

“Yeah, it’s good to see you too, I have really missed you. I haven’t found a church where I fit in the same as I did with you. How have you been? We should really keep in touch. I’m sorry but I’m in a huge hurry. You may have noticed when I bumped into you. Gota go,” Tom said over his shoulder as he raced off again.

“Wait, I want to come with you,” Steve said urgently as he ran to catch up.

“I can’t let you. I wouldn’t do this normally, but it’s not safe for you or anyone, really. This is important.”

Tom stopped and put a hand up gesturing for Steve to stay. “I am sorry and I hope to see you later. I will explain when I can, if I can.”

Steve grabbed Tom by the arm to prevent him from leaving.

“Let me help. I have no idea what I’m doing; I truly am letting myself be led by the will of God. Maybe I was sent here to help you? Once I got to the city, I really didn’t have a choice about coming to this church. Please, Tom, if you are in trouble, let me help you find a way through it.”

Despite the hand, gripping his arm, Tom was overcome by Steve’s genuine concern for him. “It’s not me that’s in trouble. I have a great friend that needs my help, and I honestly don’t know what I can do to help.”

“Then let me help. Let God help through me, Tom, you are not alone.”

“I’m not alone, there are others waiting for me. I need to go.” Tom pulled gently away from Steve’s grip and turned to go. “I’m fearful Steve; I don’t want you to come with me. I don’t want anything to happen to you, you have a wife and a ministry, and I don’t have anything.”

“I don’t believe that you have a choice in this, neither of us do, I have to go with you,” Steve answered firmly.

Reluctantly, Tom agreed to Steve’s assertive request. Together they ran to the back of the church and disappeared down a dark flight of stairs leading to the basement.

Chapter Four

Dark Descent

The basement of the church was a lot like one would expect— the clutter from seasonal items, the musty smell of moisture, and the hidden feeling that no one should be down here.

Following Tom deeper into the dark, Steve wondered why they were in the basement, when Tom suddenly stopped and pulled back a cabinet revealing a dark passageway.  They followed the hallway until it turned into a tunnel that gradually descended into the depths of the earth. 

The walls and floor became slick slimy.  As the smooth-cut stone turned to natural rock formations, Steve realized that they had just entered a cave.

Having no time to examine or give much thought about the surrounding structure, Steve followed close to Tom— who had the only flashlight.

Soon the walls were wide enough that they could not be seen except by the flashlight being pointed directly at one.

The path they were following at first seemed to be an imperceptible track through the dark, but the first time Steve had strayed from the path directly behind Tom, he slipped and nearly fell on his rear. Upon further examination, Steve found that the slime had been worn mostly away into a narrow path where walked on and much thicker were not tread upon.

Time seemed to drag on for Steve in the never ending dark.  Now finally in rhythm with the route and more comfortable behind the silhouetted Tom, Steve had time to contemplate what they were doing.  It seemed unbelievable that this system of caverns would be running under the church— under the city for that matter.

Suddenly, the path brought them up to the wall on their left side and then the wall ended. They rounded the corner, and there they came to what appeared to be a campground.

A dozen people were gathered around a campfire, and nearly as many tents in a semicircle around the fire. On the far side of the central fire was a rough cut hole in the wall. Scree and rock still strewn about the opening revealed that the work was recent.

“Where is Jack?” Tom asked the group.

“Right here,” a voice from behind answered, “and who do you have with you?” Jack asked as he stepped into the light.

“This is Pastor Steve; he’s from my old town, he wants to help us get Roger out.”

“What’s he going to do, pray his way passed the armed guards and back out to safety?”

“You must be a prophet, Jack.” Steve replied with mock amusement. “I will do what I need to do; don’t worry about me.” Steve said with a serious look on his resolute face.

“I will believe it when I see it,” Jack said with a sardonic grin.

“Tom, your friend needs his meds adjusted; where did you find this guy, the asylum?”

“I came to the city for a problem of my own, but God brought me here, to you, despite the important things I have to work out. I can’t prove my worth to you, the truth is that I don’t know what I can do to help, but you can’t argue with God,” Steve began.

“Okay Jack, how about this?” Steve challenged. “If, seeing is believing, then believing is doing. You are right, I am and will be praying, but I don’t pray and wait. I may pray sitting down sometimes, but then I get up. I believe that God led me here for a purpose and now I am going to prove my faith with my actions. You are about to see my faith; so stop stalling, and let’s go make a difference,” Steve said as he turned back to Tom. “After you, my boy.”

Stunned only momentarily by Steve’s conviction, Jack yelled to the group, “Ready up Mark, Tom, and Stee-vvee,” saying Steve’s name with exaggerated importance and more than a little annoyance, “It’s time to raid the government.”

“What?” Steve asked in startled shock.

With only a terse laugh, Jack and Mark hoped through the opening in the cave wall and into the darkness beyond.

“Come on, Steve, I’ll explain on the way to the blast site,” Tom said in response to Steve’s concern.

“Blast site, wait a minute,” Steve said to an already out of sight Tom.

On the other side of the broken wall, Steve found a softly lit highway, underground and with no traffic. Spaced evenly along the tunnel wall were recessed lights giving off a faint bluish cast lighting the interior dimly but completely.  The road itself had no yellow center line; only four Lanes divided by wide white stripes.

“When they built this tunnel for the escape route, the engineers didn’t know about this cave or how close they came to it.  Last night’s blast shook the ground just hard enough to knock a few stones loose.” Tom answered Steve’s unspoken question.

“Friends of mine live down here, in the tents by the opening.  They like the dark and solitude; I bring the residents supplies and things.  They dug out the wall for Jack and me to get through to do some exploring.  It turns out that it goes under the ocean all the way to Long Island, or so we assume.  Until a couple of hours ago it was just a curiosity,” Tom continued.

“Are you telling me that we are going to the site of the bomb attack?” Steve asked with wide eyed astonishment.

“Yeah, that’s what we are doing,” Tom chuckled. “Now it is imperative that we make use of the road before us.  I have a friend who is in the Marines.  He was on leave, home with his parents, when he was called to duty with the terrorist threat.  He called me earlier today; he wanted just to meet with me.” Tom recalled while walking through the unchanging environment.

“When I had gotten to the restaurant he was there waiting for me, but he was being apprehended by M P’s.  I followed them as far as I could, but they took him through the blockades and over the bridge to Long Island.”

“He’s a great friend. He told me that he lived in Tiger Falls for a short time when he was a kid,” Tom said in a somber note.

“Tom, you’re not going to believe this, but I met a Roger today.  He said that he went to my church when he was young, before I was the pastor there; and he was a marine,” Steve said in wide eyed astonishment.  “He said he was gunnery sergeant Roger Brodemire.”

Tom missing a step nearly fell then stopped dead in his tracks. “He was coming back from seeing you?  That was what he was so excited about?”

“There is a lot to his story that you don’t know.  I have to say though; this is too big to be a coincidence. Do you have any idea why they were after him?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know, he asked me to meet him at Starbuck’s in an hour. That was 3 hours ago.  I couldn’t talk to him when they arrested him, but the look on his face told me enough. Nothing scares that guy. I have never seen anyone look that scared,” Tom said with the horror of it still evident in his wide eyed torment.

“Would he do something bad enough to get him into serious trouble?” Steve asked.

“Not a chance, Mother Teresa couldn’t be as honorable has him.  He would never back down, but he is always fair.  Roger took on six LSD loaded bikers attacking a single overwhelmed police officer. I was there for that one.” Tom’s eyes glazed over with honest reverence, as he recalled his friend’s integrity.”

Would he go so far as to take a child out of an abusive home or something like that,” Steve asked, now a little concerned about the Marines over protective instinct.

“Of course not, he is a letter of the law kind of person.  That’s another reason I was so worried and got everyone together. I would never stage a prison break, but this is different. I can’t explain, but we need to get him out of there.”

Now walking in muted silence, Steve pondered the conversation with this now young man, which he only knew as an adolescent.

During their conversation they must have been going downhill because it was easy enough to walk and talk, but now just walking was strenuous enough that their breathing became labored.

Jack and Mark were now far ahead enough that they were just dark silhouettes against a slightly less dark backdrop.

Besides their footsteps, the only other sound was that of a soft humming that grew and declined at regular intervals.  Steve surmises that it must be ventilation fans set at certain points, because the well-maintained blacktop was obviously used for motor vehicles. That there was no traffic showed that it was secret. Being an underwater bridge of massive expense, it must be military.

Steve, being one to always contemplate and give great thought to every detail, was now caught between those of fear for what they might be walking into and the excitement from being led, or rather pushed, by the hand of God himself.

Until now, life as a Christian had been really very boring. Small church in a small town gave to relatively small problems. While a large church can fund more programs and missions, the small church focused on the individual families rather than groups as a whole.

The problem was that he had always prayed for safety and comfort while God’s will, may be for him to take risk, and if he was to fail, to fail big. 

Awakened from his thoughts by tripping over a rock in his path, Steve realized that the road was becoming increasingly littered by rubble. Looking up the road to where Mark and Jack were making their way in front of him, the lights were also missing in a few places.

With every step, it became more obvious that they were reaching steadily a place of great destruction. Only then did Steve recall that there was absolutely no debris back where they started, except what was left from the excavation to get into the tunnel. He supposed that being that close to the cavern wall at its weakest point could be the cause of the small break in the wall. Still, it seemed unlikely that there would be no damage that far away other than that isolated spot. Was he getting the whole story from these would be rescuers?

“We made it,” Jack yelled back to the stragglers.

Looking to where the sound came from, Steve saw only black. “I hope you brought better flashlights,” Steve mentioned to Tom.

Encouraged by the news, Tom started into a jog and headed directly into the darkness, as though into the deepest reaches of space.

Gathering his nerve and faith, Steve hurried to catch up to his fellow adventurers, eager not to be left alone in the utter darkness of despair and seclusion.

Reaching the top of the incline, Steve discovered that not only did the road level out, but it also jutted to the right at a sharp angle where it ended at the largest garage door he had ever seen.

The lights were still working enough to make out the massive door and retaining wall. It was no longer a tunnel, but now a huge room, possibly a staging area for transport vehicles. Because of the room having absolutely no damage, Steve assumed that it must be armored in the extreme.

Captivated by the iron door, Steve was unmindful of his cohorts until he heard a resounding boom from an explosion.

“We’re in, let’s go.” Steve heard from somewhere inside the pervasive cloud of dust and smoke. With his ears still ringing from the insolent concussion of the explosives, Steve headed cautiously into the murky grey expanse of seeming nothingness to follow the sounds of his companions. 

With a rush of fresh air through the new doorway, Steve found a small door to the side of the main entry blown open. The lock was in bits, but the door itself was intact, revealing the sturdiness of the armor.

The walls were lined with conduit for wiring and there was no sign of moisture damage, however there was plenty of damage from an explosion. The explosives for the lock were on the other side of the door and blew the pieces into the passage; clearly this service tunnel was damaged by a much larger explosion.

Making their way through the debris and to the end of the tunnel, they found another armored door like the one they came through from the main staging chamber. The door was embedded into the concrete wall opposite the hole where it used to seal the doorway.

While the opening was packed with debris, mostly blocking access to the areas beyond, they were able to clear an entrance just large enough to crawl through.

With a little effort, Steve pulled himself through the rubble and found Tom on the other side with a hand to help him up.

After brushing away some of the dust and grime from his hands and pants, Steve looked up to find what was left of a concrete garage.

Military-style transport vehicles sat crushed in their parking slots by chunks of concrete and rebar composition boulders. Either some of the escape vehicles were not needed, or the attack was late enough that the building was mostly empty of personnel.

The lights from the florescent fixtures flickered in a desperate attempt to stay lit, but most of them were crumpled and strewn about the wreckage.

The ramp ascending towards the upper levels would be impossible to traverse in a car now, but on foot the traveling was quite easy.

The long spiraling road to the next level was farther than Steve expected, they must have been far underground. When they did finally come out into the next parking area they were relieved to find that it looked more like a normal parking garage, except for the utter devastation caused by the attack.

“It’s amazing that any of the lights work,” Mark said, for the first time where Steve could hear him.

“Yes, these people were set up. The lights have to be running from a backup power source; no way are the city power lines intact.

“We need to get to the top floor to find a way out of here and to where we can look for Roger. Any chance the elevator is in working order?” Jack asked Tom who was poking his head through the doors and down the shaft that had once been an elevator.

Not really listening until he heard his name, Tom pulled his head back and shot Jack a dubious look. “Sure, if you can fly to the top; not even the cables are there anymore.”

“The stairs it is then, let’s go,” Jack said with mock enthusiasm.

With the effort of Jack and Mark, the bent door to the stairwell was pulled back, and they all look into a pitch-black corridor; none being eager to be the first to go.

With all the bravado he could muster, Steve said, “Thou I walk through the valley, in the shadow of death,” and went through the doorway and rushed up the stairs.

Once out of the ambient lighting coming through the doorway, Tom realized that no one was moving to follow Steve and shouted up into the cavernous abyss of absolute darkness, “Do you want a flashlight?”

Chapter Five

Salvation

Stunned by the magnificence of the huge cathedral-like reception room, Steve stared up at the monolithic statue in the center reaching up to the arched ceiling, as if reaching for heaven itself.

Emerging from the emergency stairwell, Tom, Mark, and Jack saw Steve alive and well standing among the wreckage of the once great room, staring up at the only remaining undamaged display were as awe struck as he.

The statue of pure white marble embodied perfectly the majesty and strength of man with his grasp on the earth in the palm of his hand, and his meekness by reaching up to a higher power than himself.

“Wow, look at all the damage. It looks like a bomb went off in here,” Mark said turning to his friends with a huge grin on his face.

“Really Mark, is that what you think happened here?” retorted Tom.

“Hey, I’m just trying to break the trance; we need to move out of here. I don’t think it’s safe in this room. This is why I don’t talk to you humorless fools,” Mark said as he walked to the elevator doors.

“I don’t think the elevator is safe, Mark,” said an irritated Tom.

“Oh! You mean that the seven floors, according to the directory sign that is right here next to the elevator doors, might have collapsed and is all on top of this floor.”

Curious about the floors and the names of the offices, Steve walked over to the elevator, but so many of the letters and numbers had been shaken off, that only floor seven and doctor Todd Blackwell at the top was readable. “The best that I can tell, we are on the ground floor. We should be able to find a safe way out from here.”

“At least someone has a brain here,” Mark said staring straight at Tom.

“Alright, I’m sorry. You’re right, the directory is a good way to find out where we are, but you must admit that it looked like you were interested in the elevators,” said an apologetic Tom.

“I’m sorry too, Tom; I let it look as if I was going for the elevator. Sorry about baiting you; just don’t get too serious on us, you may die from apoplexy on the spot, and I am not dragging your butt out of here.

“Get a room you two; seriously,” Jack said in mock disgust.

“Come on Jack, you know that we need to work together and be able to trust each other with our lives here. This isn’t a school yard recess here. People have already lost their lives.”

“Calm down Tom, I was just playing. Maybe I just wanted something to say ‘I’m sorry’ about, what about you Steve; do you want a turn?”

“Nah, I’m good, you guys are sorry enough for all of us.”

“Oh look who has a sense of humor now, Mister, God will protect me.”

“Jack, definitely not the right time or place,” Tom stepped in for his friend.

“It’s okay Tom, Jack has a right to his beliefs and I do hope to change his mind before this is all finished.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” Jack said as he started for the large double doors facing the front of the impressive statue.

Jack found the hallway on the other side of doors had collapsed completely, so they found an exit out of the back of the building.

Outside the office building they found that many things had been thrown around, but there was not a whole lot of damage to the surroundings.

Traveling around the edge of the explosion was not difficult. The wreckage of ripped apart cars, half torn buildings, and collapsed streets, was more than sufficient to hide among when the occasional patrol passed. The military must assume that guarding the only bridge to the island secured them enough to have a minimal security force guarding the interior of the island.

Because of the island being so loosely manned, the buildings that were heavily patrolled with guards posted at ever entrance were easily the best choice for headquarters.

One in particular stood out to the four men on the quest to find answers and save a life. One building had guards facing possible intruders, as well as guards watching the exits.

“We should probably wait until dark,” Tom stated with on obvious look on his face.

“Except that the patrols and guards will be at least doubled in the dark, when they would expect intruders,” Jack said turning to look at the buildings around the office building of interest. “Right now they believe that the area is secure and our only advantage is their ignorance.”

“I agree,” Mark answered simply.

“Well Steve, what do you think? Is God telling you anything; or are we on our own here—as usual?”

“Jack, it is peculiar you should ask that. I am feeling very compelled to check out that building on the far side over there,” Steve said pointing to a little shop fit snugly between two towering office buildings.

“Seriously; now is not the time to get flowers for your wife. I don’t see any strategic advantages to going to that little building.”

“I didn’t understand why until you just said it. They probably won’t see any reason to give the insignificant flower shop a moment’s thought.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack laughed as Mark and Tom turned and started walking around to the back of the buildings. “Whoa, where do you two think you are going? I just said that we are not going to the flower shop.”

“I guess they didn’t know that you where the designated leader and have made up their own minds,” Steve said as he turned to follow his companions.

As they had suspected the back of the building was just as lacking guards as the front, so their movement was well concealed behind the delivery truck.

The inside of the store looked like an earthquake picked the building up turned it upside down and shook it a couple of times for good measure. All the shelves were toppled, and what looked like every vase in the store had been thrown to the ground and shattered.

“It looks like a wedding gone wrong in here,” Tom said trying his luck with the humor. “Have you ever seen so many flowers?”

Jack smiled, “More like a funeral if you ask me.”

“It’s going to be all of our funerals if we don’t hurry up,” Tom said, looking back to the others urging them on quicker. I think I found something. Would anyone give me a hand?

Without hesitation, Steve hopped over the counter to the cooler where Tom was pulling the door open. “What have you found?”

“This refrigerator has shaken loose from the wall and it looks like the wall behind it has crumbled away. I can see light coming through on the side here. Help me pull it out so I can get a better look behind it.”

After Tom and Steve struggled in vain for a few seconds, Mark and Jack seized the top and pulled the cooler over.

“That wasn’t too loud, but I think we should be a little stealthier.” Steve reprimands.

The force and weight of the refrigerator on the wall anchors was too much for the already cracked and weakened wall, with very little effort the men broke away an opening large enough for them to pass through and into the adjacent building.

Except for the light coming through the newly opened entranceway, the only light in the room was coming from under the gap at the bottom of the door across the room.

After making their way slowly through the dark to the door, they all listened with their ears to the door for signs of anyone on the other side.

After several long minutes they decided that Mark would take a look out the door while the rest waited back at the shop, in case they needed to make a run for it. Mark having been a two time state champion cross country runner made the obvious choice.

After being gone what seemed like hours, Mark finally slipped back into the dark room where his friends were waiting and rushed up to find out the news he had for them.

“I think I found something. Another hallway from this one has two guards at the door. Suspecting that they may be guarding Roger I made my way around and found an adjoining room with a second door in the back. I can hear voices when I put my ear to the wall.

“We need to find a way to look in there; we wouldn’t want to break into a meeting room for the brass,” Mark led the way after they all consented to his plan.

“The room was a lot smaller than the others that we passed on the way. I think that since we can hear through the wall that this is a retrofit partition and doesn’t have the firewall in the middle of it.” Mark nodded to the long wall running perpendicular to the walls with the door on each end.

“If that’s the case, the wall might not go past the suspended ceiling. Let’s carry that desk over quietly.”

“Those were my thoughts exactly, Steve. Jack, you and Tom grab that filing cabinet, it will get us up there a little higher.”

While Jack, Tom, and Steve carry over the heavy four drawer metal filing cabinet, Mark worked on taking down several of the ceiling tiles after finding that the wall did terminate just above the hanging panels.

On top of the filing cabinet, Mark was able to just lean over the wall far enough to lift up one panel’s corner and peak into the other room just in time to see the door swing into the room.

Two guards swaggered into the room and positioned themselves one on each side of the door casing. Following behind, two more guards drug in a body and tossed him to the ground. The prisoners just stood there, obviously accustomed to the sight already. The two guards grabbed a woman by the arm and escorted her out the door to be followed by the two remaining guards.

As soon as the door was shut, three of the people hurried over to their fallen comrade.

“What do you see,” whispered Jack in quiet eagerness.

Mark patted the air below him signaling his friends to wait patiently. He withdrew his hand to reach out and waved to the prisoners on the other side. In a harsh whisper he asked, “Is he Alright?”

Several stunned faces turned up to meet his eyes just visible passed his waving hand in the dark recess of the ceiling. One of the three attending the injured man stood up and walked over to where he could talk to the hiding man quietly. “He is exhausted from being tortured, but he will recover enough in a few minutes.”

“Tortured? What is going on here? Is Roger Brodemire with you?”

“No, I don’t know any one by that name. We were the ones lucky enough to survive the bomb, if you can call this being lucky.

“I was in my basement when everyone else was fleeing on the packed roads. I and these here with me have similar stories; our shelters protected us from the radiation long enough for whatever happened to it. It seems that no one else on the island survived. I can still see the bodies; so many dead.”

“Wait, hold on. I, we, didn’t see any bodies.”

“I don’t think it was possible for them to clean up this quickly. Where did you come from?”

“We came from the mainland this morning through a secret tunnel. In fact, it’s only a few blocks from here and I intend to get all of you out of here.”

“You wouldn’t see any bodies this close. Anyone this close would have been instantly vaporized. Believe me; the radiation was bad enough that every living creature on this island died shortly after the attack.

“Are you sure that you can get us out of here? These people are ruthless. They want to know what happened to the radiation, we should all be dead by now.”

Mark looked out over the miserably company of survivors, “I will get you to safety at any cost.

“I will be right back; I have to let my friends, here with me, know what is going on.” Mark withdrew from the room.

“We have to wait for them to bring Susan back,” the man whisper shouted up to the ceiling.

A short while later one of the ceiling panels slid away and Mark dropped through the opening. Crouching down behind a desk he motioned one of the men over. “I need someone big and tall to stand in front of the door, to block the view from the little window in it.” 

As the man walked towards the door to shield the room from view, the man who Mark had first been talking to, made his way over. “Susan is back and she can walk— they aren’t quit as rough with the women.”

“Help me get some things closer to the wall; we all are going to have climb over here. My name is mark.”

“Thank you for coming, Mark.”

Soon Mark and Robert had makeshift stairs ready for escapees and began helping people up and over one at a time.

Busy helping the last person up through the hole Mark was startled by the sound of shattering glass and looked up to see the man at the door stumble from being hit a glancing blow through the window.

The man straightened himself up as the canister that struck him rolled across the floor and ruptured into a fog of noxious gas.

“Quick Bill, run!” Robert shouted for the big man to escape with them.

The door burst open as the two posted guards rushed the escaping hostages. One jumped for Bill, and the other one fell crashing to the floor.      

Mark saw Bill stumble from the weight of his attacker and hurried to his aid. Nearing his trustee Mark saw the guard pulled off Bill and knocked unconscious.

Grinning like a mad man the saving stranger stood up tall, “Mark?”

“Roger!”

“Get up there you two, Mark will be right behind you,” stated a commanding Roger. “It’s great to see a familiar face right before the end; now run you fool!”

“Come with us; Jack and I came to save you.”

“I wish I could, the rest of the army is on it’s as we speak, someone is going to have to hold them off.” True to his words two more guards rushed through the door and Roger ran through them like a linebacker bowling ball and out the door.

Knowing better than to tempt fate, Mark climbed the jumble and through the opened panel. Turning to take one last look in the direction his suicidal friend went he tripped and fell backwards through the ceiling of the escape room.

Chapter Six

Fire for Effect

“What was all that commotion?” Steve asked the big man he and Jack was helping down from the desk to the safety of the floor.

“We’ve been discovered,” the man said looking around the dark room until his eyes settled on Robert, the man that had been their pillar of strength during this injustice. “I only made it because one of the army, or maybe he was a marine, arrived just in time to save me and Mark.”

At the mention of Mark’s name the group looked up to the hole in anticipation of his return, but he had not yet emerged.

Tom, worried for his friend, climbed the makeshift stairway and poked his head through the void to peer into the room that had been a prison for these poor innocent souls. “Ow!” Tom cursed, and in response the ceiling exploded into a shower of panel fragments and dust.

Momentarily frozen by the suddenness of the unexpected assault from above, Steve was shoved aside as Jack pushed passed him to get to his fallen comrade. “What happened?”

“Someone kicked me in the head,” Tom said as he ducked back out of the panel space.

Groaning from a mangled heap on the floor Mark offered up his apology, “I was distracted, I am sorry Tom. Roger was in there. He went back to give us time to get away.”

“Roger was the Marine that the big man over there saw?” asked a bewildered Steve.

“Bill and I wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for Roger.” Mark explained as he lay motionlessly on the floor.

“Are you hurt,” asked a concerned Jack? “You bounced off the desk pretty hard.”

“My leg may have brushed it a little, but I’m okay. We had better get moving.” Mark cringed in agony as he tried to move his leg under himself to get up.

“I think it’s fractured,” Jack diagnosed from the unnatural bow in Mark’s shin.

“Is there anything to make a splint?” Tom asked, but the only answer he would receive was the distinctive sound of gun fire from inside the building.

“That’s our queue that we have overstayed our welcome. Tom, help me get Mark to his feet, or… you know what I mean,” growled a straining Jack.

 With Jack and Tom on each side of Mark for support, they followed the group of survivors led by Steve back through the flower shop.

 “The guards are gone from the back doors out here, let's hurry before they return,” a surprised Steve informs the group following him.

“Sounds like they have their hands full with Roger, he is one bad animal. Too bad he won’t make it,” stated a sorrowful Tom.

“Why is that? He seems to be doing pretty good so far,” asked a confused Robert.

“He won’t kill anyone, not intentionally anyway, he is just drawing them away knocking unconscious those he can, but none of that matters, he will be overrun as reinforcements arrive. We had better not waste his sacrifice standing around here.” Tom’s eyes swelled as he led Mark out the door.

The refugees paused under the great statue to catch their breath after the breakneck run they had made through the devastated city blocks.

The statue that had seemed so magnificent and mighty was now only a shadow in the gloom to Steve’s eyes, now less accustomed to the dark, having come from outside rather than the dark recesses of the building this time.

The mood of the escapees was down a little, from the thoughts of Roger’s sacrifice for them. Rarely does someone do more than just speak of giving for the good of someone else.  Steve could hear some of the people around him talking about what Roger had done, was still doing for them. A few of them seemed to be working up the resolve to go back for him.

Steve, while heartened by the sentiment, knew that they would be only sacrificing themselves in vain, unlike Roger’s truly heroic efforts. “Listen up everyone. Roger has done a great thing for us and we must abide by his wishes. He has asked nothing in return for his actions, he only asks that you honor him by trying to live.

“Mark, Jack, Tom, and I came here to rescue him,” Steve chuckled, “As silly as that now seems. Now, however, we know his wish is for us to all escape. Roger is a true hero whose morals are beyond reproach. He did not do this for us because it was convenient for him or easy. He simply believes that it right and good.

“When I met him, it was due to his struggle for the sake of a human life,” remembering back to earlier that day, Steve winced at the pain caused by his lack of trust for the man. “While he hadn’t been to church for a very long time, and he thought that he had lost his faith, I don’t think I have known a more faithful person. I for one have been honored to know him and will regret only that he is gone, but never his valiancy and sacrifice for others.”

Boom… debris shaken loose from above rained down on the gathering.

“What was that?” a stunned crowd asked in unison.

“They have started mortaring this building,” a voice from the depth of the shadows answered.

Again, as one, the group turned to the new threat.

Stepping out of the dark passageway Roger showed a broad smile, “While that was very touching, you need to know that I am not gone yet. For the most part they have lost interest in tracking me and have turned their full attention on eradicating you.

“This was the reason that I was headed to the concentration camp in the first place. I found out that they had all the information that they believed they could get and were sending in units to tie up the loose ends, as they called it. This is not our military; they are led by a rogue radical, which I believe is the head of Hillary’s American army and he will stop at nothing to reach his goals. And he has come here to discover what it was that has impeded his plan. Something has sucked the radiation out the very molecular structure of the surrounding.”

Boom, Boom, Boom… the force of the explosions shook the people as well as the surroundings.

“What are they trying to do? They aren’t even coming close to hitting us,” a muddled Susan asked.

“They are not trying to hit you; they are trying to collapse the already ruined building. Follow me, we can sneak into the next office building,” a commanding Roger urged.

“No, Roger. We didn’t come here to hide; this is our escape route. There is a secret tunnel under the laboratory here. I thought it was military, but no one seems to know about it. This building must have been for something incredible, but now it’s our way to safety.” Steve walked over to the stairs leading down to the tunnel.

Holding the door open for the others to follow, Steve urged his companions to follow. As everyone, except Mark, Tom, and Jack who have the burden of an injured man, rushed to the open door with renewed excitement, the dust continued to increase choking their efforts.

The ceiling, no longer able to hold under the continually added weight, finally gave way to the next volley of mortars and the seven floors above crashed down on its helpless victims with a violent finality. 

The force of air, which was pushed from the room as the rubble took up the space in the chamber, thrust Steve through the doorway and down the stairs. Being able to grab the hand rail was the only thing that saved him from the promised broken bones of a landslide down the stairs.

To Steve’s surprise the room had not been completely filled. The statue in the middle had broken off halfway up, but what remained had caught a support beam that was retaining a great deal of the crumbled concrete and steel.

Steve started into the tunnel like pathway leading to the statue where his friends and companions had been. Along the way, to Steve’s horror he found crushed body after crushed body. Large chunks of rebar enforced concrete had stormed down smashing and impaling everyone in its path of destruction.

Unwilling to leave behind anyone Steve made his way through the rubble and carnage at last reaching the end of the procession. Steve’s hope was crushed finding the lifeless forms of Mark and Tom. Kneeling over their bodies he wept with his face in his hands.

A faint noise caught his attention, and he looked down in time to see some small debris pushed aside by a hand reaching up through the jumble.

Hurriedly Steve worked to clear away the rocks and managed to dig out Jack— mostly. A heavy chunk of concrete laid half across Jack’s chest. Steve was unable to even budge the boulder.

Wheezing Jack took in a small breath to speak to Steve and coughed in a convulsive spasm releasing a foamy spew of blood from his lungs.

“Don’t talk; I will get you out of here.”

His lungs momentarily cleared enough to say a few words. Jack asked, “Are you and everyone okay?”

Drawn between revealing the horrific tragedy to a dying man and easing his burden with a coddling lie, “You and I are the only survivors,” Steve answered Jack.

Steve continued to dig out his friend by clearing away everything on top of the massive boulder to find that it was the arm of the statue, and it was still attached to the torso of the monstrous sculpture.

Coughing up more frothy blood from his lungs Jack spit out the gruesome mess from his mouth. “I still believe that demons and the devil are merely representations of human characteristics and flaws. I feel that people are selfish and weak looking to blame something or someone other than themselves for absolutely everything bad in their lives.”

“Jack? What are you saying?"

“I, however, used to believe that all Christians were just flawed people looking for excuses. All of the Christians that I had known were always enabling the poor. Because of that the poor would stay poor because they would have no motivation to get up and get a job. Christians are like welfare, creating lazy people by teaching them that they don’t have to do anything to survive; that they were only teaching people to abuse the system. I always hated when they said someone was less fortunate, like luck had anything to do with working hard and earning a living.”

Curious Steve asked, “What do you believe now?”

“Exactly the same but for one thing, there are some real Christians out there and if their faith is half of what yours is, then they need to get out in the world and help people.”

Sweating from the exertion of clearing away the rubble Steve sat down next to his pallid friend. “I am no different from any other Christian except that I have been put into a position to prove my faith to you and to myself especially.”

“You are the only survivor from this expedition, your faith protected you. It’s freezing in here; it’s hard to believe that it’s the middle of summer.”  

“No Jack, if I was able to save myself through my strength in my faith I should have been able to save everyone. My faith gave me the courage to go out to do whatever it was that God wanted me to do. I believe that I am still alive against all likelihood because God is not finished with me; he still has a plan for me. My faith in God gives me the endurance to do His will and opens the gates to heaven for me.”

“So, I guess he is through with me then. Steve, would you pray for me?” Jack’s eyes bulged momentarily from the shock of dying, and then his face became peaceful.

Steve closed his friend’s eyes to the world and gave thanks to God for receiving him into his arms. The look on Jack’s face revealed that in the end he repented and was then able to see the face of God and had found his way home.

Chapter Seven

Providence

Children were playing, dogs were running, the world was at peace in the late afternoon sunlight, except Steve was unaware of any of it. His thoughts, back through the tunnel, the ride on the bus and the walk back to his house were troubled to say the least.

Steve hurried home; his mind was full of fear and worry. He contemplated why he survived and what if the rogue evil mastermind had enough clues for the army to find his home.

Steve came home terrified by what he had found out, to find a couple from church visiting on the front porch with his wife on their way out. After they were gone, she retold about how they had wanted to be missionaries, but had too many obligations to go themselves. Their business had taken off immensely, and they wanted to fund a missionary expedition.

“They want us to go,” she said. “They believed they were compelled to talk to me about it.”

Too shocked to speak, Steve just stared at his wife with his head cocked to the side— which Nancy took as a loud no and by the way are you out of your mind.

“This is perfect. Get packed now.”

It was now Nancy’s turn to stare dumbfounded. “Are you making fun of me,” asked a confused wife? “I was just telling you what they said.”

“I am serious. On my way home I was doing my best not to worry— to leave it in God’s hands, but I was struggling. I couldn’t think what we were going to do. This is perfect. I don’t know how we are going to do it, but this is yet more proof positive that the way is being cleared as we speak,” an excited Steve stammered.

Realizing that his wife was too stunned to start herself into motion, Steve gave her a reassuring hug and led her back into the house.

The following morning found Steve and Nancy groggily dragging their tired bodies out of bed to start the new day that awaited them. After telling his wife the story, leaving out only the gruesome details, they had gone to bed, but sleep evaded them both like the winning lottery ticket in Powerball.

Having left Nancy at home to pack up the few things that they owned in their humble little home, Steve met with the Johnson’s to work out the details of mission trip to Africa.

Without Steve informing them of any part of the hidden terrors that he had been through, Janet and Bill had planned the entire excursion.

Janet and Bill Johnson prearranged to take three months’ vacation. They still wanted to be part of a missionary group, and they thought that it would be okay to leave their kids and business for a short time, in the hands of a few trusted people.

They had bought a boat and wanted to sail along the coast of the continent of Africa distributing bibles along the way while they decide where to leave Steve and Nancy.

The only thing that they hadn’t accounted for was the addition of a baby and the urgency to leave immediately. The Johnson’s promised Steve that it would be all worked out and to meet them on the dock in the morning.

Walking from Bill’s office Steve decided that he should go and help his wife pack the house before he went to his office in the church.

To Steve’s surprise Nancy had their luggage pilled in the living room, and the walls were all bare of the few personal photographs.  He found Nancy in the kitchen just finishing up with the refrigerator, all the food in a glad bag ready for him to haul out to the garbage.

“That about does it,” exclaimed Nancy when she saw her husband enter the room.

“Was that really necessary?”

“It’s bad enough that we are leaving someone to deal with the mess we are leaving behind, but I’ll be darned if I am going to leave a stinky mess in the refrigerator. Who knows how long it will be before someone will be able to get around to take care of the empty parsonage,” explained an exasperated Nancy.

“It’s hard to believe that everything we own will fit in four suitcases. Nancy, where is the baby?”

“He is with Steff at the church, waiting on us.”

“Already? We aren’t leaving until morning.”

“Well then we had better find a place to stay for the night.”

Confused about his wife’s strange behavior, Steve asked, “Are you alright dear?”

“Am I alright? Have you forgotten what happened yesterday? I don’t know about you, but right now I feel like we need to get away from here.”

“We aren’t fugitives; we have a right to stay in our house.”

“I just have one of those woman feelings, I can’t stay here another night.”

          Steve knew better than to argue about one of her feelings, it wouldn’t even do any good if he won. No matter how right you are, you are wrong, when it goes against one of her feelings.

So, Steve picked up the trash bag and hauled it out to the dumpster and returned to find Nancy carrying two bags out the front door. He hurried to catch up to her and locked the door to his home for the last time.

By the time they got to the church they were too drained to be upset with each other. The bags weren’t extremely heavy, but they were old and didn’t have wheels on them like most of the new ones.

Until he got to the church, Steve had forgotten that he was leaving his congregation without a pastor and with only four days until Sunday. He called an emergency meeting, but no one was going to be able to make it until five thirty.

With his spare time Steve wrote out his planned sermon into notes that someone, probably Ned Thompson the local newspaper editor—he liked to talk, could easily follow.

For Nancy the time went by a little more slowly, but with the baby and Stephanie for company she found the agony of waiting a little more bearable.

“What’s his name?” Steff asked when she decided that the baby bottles should be marked to discern them from the used bottles left behind in the nursery. A newborn’s bottles should be more sterilized than normal, I just want to be sure he gets the safest ones, she had said.

“His name is…”

“Victor,” Steve answered from the doorway.

Startled, Nancy looked at her husband then grinned and stated with pride, “Victor Stade.”

#

The meeting lasted three long hours and ended with Steve, Nancy, and Victor going home with Janet and Bill Johnson—luckily they had brought their Escalade which fit the luggage and four adults comfortably.

“Would you mind stopping by the parsonage so I can make sure that I didn’t leave the oven on?” Steve asked when they pulled out of the church parking lot.

“If you need to make an excuse for something, don’t use your wife’s incompetence,” snapped a hostel Nancy. “You know that I, for a certain, would have checked everything.”

“I’m sorry everyone, I don’t know why I said that. I guess I must be nervous about leaving.” Steve looked apologetically at his wife.

“We can drive by it on the way to my house, if you see it and need to get out and say your good-byes, we can spare the time,” teased a good-natured Bill.

“I just can’t shake this strange feeling; I just know I forgot something,” answered a slightly embarrassed Steve. “Probably just seeing the house will help.”

When the Cadillac rounded the corner, three blocks from the parsonage Bill saw that they needed to get out of there immediately.  He drove casually to the next corner and stopped at the stop sign two blocks from the house. All eyes were focused forward to the military vehicles surrounding the pastor’s old house.

Bill took a left, instead of the right that they would have taken, were they going directly to his home. What should have been an eight minute drive took forty-five minutes by the time they circled back around to pull into the Johnson driveway.

 Steve could tell that Bill was hesitant about getting out of the SUV and bringing them into their home, but in the end, they all went inside the Johnson’s upper middle class house.

Bill and Janet left their guests in the family room while they went to tuck their kids into bed.

“Okay, this is awkward. I had hoped to tell them the whole story only after we were out in international waters.” Steve said to an ashen faced Nancy. “I hope they aren’t doing anything rash, like calling the authorities or anything like that.”

If Nancy looked pale before, she looked ghost like at the mention of the police being called.

“Maybe you should sit down, Hun, you aren’t looking well. Do you want me to hold Victor for a while?”

At that Nancy perked up, “No thank you dear, I would like to keep holding him. For some strange reason, I feel like the only reason I haven’t fainted is because I have him so close to me.”

When Bill returned, Steve stood and waited with a look he hoped portrayed regret.  Janet shortly followed her husband, with a tray of glasses and a liquor of some sort- Steve didn’t know by the bottle because he never drank.

 “We knew something was amiss when you insisted on leaving immediately, but I never suspected… whatever all of those military vehicles imply.”  Bill motioned towards a glass.

“No thank you, I don’t drink,” Steve declined.

“I have known you a good long time,” Bill continued. “I trust you more than anyone else alive. It seems we have quite a lot to talk about.”

Janet sat the tray down and started to pour another drink for herself then thought better of it and put the stopper back in the bottle.

“I’m normally a brandy guy, but this seems like a scotch night if ever there was one,” Bill guffawed which startled Janet and Nancy.

“I am sorry Bill, I don’t know what else to say,” apologized an uneasy Steve.

“You sure you don’t want a drink, it settles the nerves a little.” Bill asked when he got up to pour himself another.

After pouring the dark brown liquid to the brim of his glass, Bill sat back down in his overstuffed recliner. Steve saw him staring off as if in deep thought then snap out of it, apparently remembering his guests. “We must replay the meeting over in our heads,” he explained. “If whoever is after you was able to find where you live, they undoubtedly know where you work.”

Bill paused to let the implications sink in then continued, “By tomorrow noon, everyone at our meeting will have been interviewed. Do any of you remember telling anyone why you were leaving or where we are going?”

“I started to tell everyone, but I didn’t get that far into my speech when the proverbial hell broke loose. I never got another word out that didn’t have to do with apologizing or fixing the mess I loosed on poor Ned Thompson.” Steve said reliving the confusion and raucous meeting.

“Nancy?” Steve asked.

“No, at least I don’t think so. Steff and I just sat in the back with Victor; no one really paid any attention to us. I was thankful then, that we were left to our own devices, but even more so now.” She sighed.

“Well, I think we should have a couple of days before they get around to interrogating people at my office, many of whom know our former plans.

“We still have the advantage, because they have no idea what they are looking for. They only know that I was on the island.” Steve said believing that that revelation would set everyone at easy.

Janet who had been silent until now jerked upright with sudden understanding showing on her face. “You can’t possibly mean the island.” When Steve didn’t answer she continued, “Are you poisoning us with radiation?” She jumped up to rush from the room.

“No! It’s alright, wait.” Janet stopped at the door to hear what Steve was going to say. “The radiation was gone by the time I got there. Actually, that is what has the government in such a scramble. The attack was put on the back burner after the discovery of the nuclear radiation having been nullified somehow.”

Janet relaxed visibly, but did not return to her seat so near to Steve. “That is something, if it is true.”

“I will tell you everything, I promise. But, we have to get Victor to safety first. This has something to do with him.” Steve said trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “We have plenty of time to talk about the details on the voyage. Right now though, we need to focus on getting far out to sea without drawing attention to ourselves first.”

“It would be too suspicious if we left in the dark of night, besides things are set up for tomorrow morning. We just need to get a good night’s sleep and set out early tomorrow morning.” Bill cajoled, who felt much more relaxed.

         

The morning did not come nearly soon enough for Steve and Nancy. They both laid in bed worrying about whom they gave to much information to, and Nancy had to get up every two hours to feed the baby anyway.    

Nancy followed Steve downstairs to see if anyone else was up yet. To their surprise Janet was already in the kitchen making breakfast.

“Bill will be back in a few minutes, he went to make sure that everything is still safe to go. He left instructions for me to take you and the kids if he does not check in by 7 am.” Janet explained to the daunted couple.

“We never heard him leave,” Steve said with question in his tone.

“We didn’t want to bother you. You probably didn’t sleep any better than we did last night.”

Steve wondered about Bill, and how well he could trust his longtime friend. Janet seemed normal enough, under the circumstances she was not as nervous looking as he and Nancy.

“How do you like your eggs?” Janet asked neither one in particular.

Steve turned from looking out the window to look at his wife when Bill walked through the door on the opposite side of the room.

“I don’t know if it’s good news or not, there is no sign of trouble anywhere that I could find.” Bill said as he sat down to breakfast. “I’m famished. Are you two going to eat?” He said looking questioningly at the two empty chairs in front of the steaming plates of food.

Steve pulled out the chair for Nancy. “We just got down here. Your house is so quiet we thought everyone else was still in bed.”

“Well, maybe you were just more exhausted than you thought. We couldn’t sleep, so got up after a few hours and went over a few last minute details. The house sitter slash, don’t tell the kids this, baby sitter will be here shortly and the boat is ready for our departure as we eat.” Bill reassured the harried couple.

“It’s great how everything has come together so well. Thank you, Bill. And thank you Janet. You two are so wonderful,” said an emotional Nancy.

“Don’t worry dear,” Janet soothed, “everything is going to be fine. We will soon be away from all of this mess.”

“It sure will, Nancy. Janet and I have every detail worked out.” A knock at the door interrupted Bill and left the kitchen to answer it.

Chapter Eight

Out of Bounds

The drive to the marina was as normal as any ordinary day. But, the sailboat! It was a yacht at forty-seven feet in length. Steve had never seen anything so beautiful. Not only was it a luxury that he never imagined being a part of, it was also what was going to take him and his family to safety.

“You didn’t expect four people and a baby to sail comfortably, for who knows how many months, in one of those little boats?” Bill pointed at a twenty-seven foot single cabin sail boat. “Come on, let me show you around.”

Steve and Nancy followed Bill across the dock to the slip on the end, where the large vessels where docked. Janet was already aboard and waving them over.

Once on the deck Janet handed them each a pill and glass of water. They looked at her momentarily puzzled. “Dramamine. You said you had never been on a boat before, so it’s a good idea to plan for the sea sickness, for the first few days anyway.” They both swallowed their pills and handed the cups back to the waiting Janet.

Bill waved to Tim, the signal that they were good to go, and he could take the car back home. Back to the only life Steve had ever known. Steve couldn’t bear to watch as the car pulled away, but he could still hear the tires grinding on the gravel, and his heart sank.

He couldn’t look back- he shouldn’t look back. Bad things always happened to the people in the bible that looked back at what they were leaving behind, instead of only looking forward to where they were being led. He didn’t need to look to see, he would never forget what his world had looked like.

Steve could honestly say that he was no longer fearful of the dangers and the unknown that he leading his family into, because he had faith that he was following the plan. Steve also knew that no matter how well he followed the plan, he was only human and was bound to mess it up. This is a whole new level of faith. Having faith in a creator was child’s play, compared to believing that God has a plan for you. Out of nearly seven billion people on the planet and that he was the one chosen to save the baby. And, to be merely human and be part of a God sized plan.

God often chose people that were too weak or too small or too old or too young for the job, but was willing to trust him, to show to people that he was God. Steve couldn’t help but to feel puny. How bad could he mess up, and things still work out?

Looking out to sea and passed, in his mind’s eye, Steve couldn’t even begin to fathom the future or his role in future events, he was just a humble servant. He felt that he was on the brink of an abyss where on wrong step and he would take everyone over the edge, and he was not even in control.

This was more than unknown territory, it was uncharted and way outside of Steve’s comfort zone. “God please lead me not into temptation and thy will be done.”

“What was that?” Bill asked from the stairs leading down to the lower cabins.

“Oh, just a little prayer.”

“Are you coming then? I want to show you your room and other important features.”

Steve hurried after Bill. “Are you coming Nancy?”

“You can show me later. I’m enjoying the fresh sea air. I think Victor likes it too.”

Below the deck the luxury level went way up. Steve could not believe that someone would think of putting some of this in a boat. The kitchen was small, but clearly designed for functionality. Each sleeping cabin had its own bathroom. Their room was as big as their house had been.

Bill showed Steve his and Janet’s suite. And Steve thought he had entered the Hilton, or some other fancy hotel that he had never been able to imagine what it was like.

The luxury and ease of life one had access to with a little money was beyond what a simple man could comprehend. The new boat smell was more than what he could think of in a new car smell that everyone talked about. The sheets were the softest and smoothest of any fabric he had ever felt.

Lost in luxurious splendor, Steve hadn’t noticed that Bill had left, and was startled when the engine came alive with a purr. He left the cabins and went up to the captain’s deck to see what was happening.

“Steve, you look pale,” Nancy said as Steve emerged from the stairs.

“I heard the motor start-up, is anything going on?”

“Not that I am aware of,” she said.

Nancy followed Steve to the helm and they found Bill and Janet there laughing to a joke they only heard the tail end of.

“What is happening? Why did you start the motor?” Steve asked. “This is a sailboat, do we need to hurry?”

“Oh, I didn’t realize— you wouldn’t know,” Bill chuckled. “We have to maneuver out of the slip and out to the bay under diesel power. Even a smaller boat than this is too unwieldy to rely on wind. Calm down, nothing is wrong. Look out there, there is one coming in. Do you see how they are bringing the sails down?”

“I guess I must seem a little paranoid.”

“Just a bit,” Bill agreed.

“Well, I still haven’t told you anything about what I have been through, so you will just have to forgive me for a little while yet.”

“When you’re ready, Steve,” Bill said and turned the ship out to sea. “We have a long journey ahead of us.”

Nancy was in heaven, so to speak, enjoying the Jacuzzi in their room and Steve walking around and exploring the interesting gadgets and compartments with Victor sleeping soundly in the middle of the enormous bed.

They had been out to sea almost an hour now, with all of their concerns left far behind them. Luckily, neither of them suffered from motion sickness, as far as they could tell with the Dramamine still in their systems.

Leaving home wasn’t as bad as Steve had thought it would be. The novelty of extravagance that neither had known was dulling the uncomfortableness of being farther away from where he had grown up and lived his entire life.

Steve wanted to let his bride soak in the hot bubbly water for the rest of the trip, but somehow holding Victor close to her, made her seem more alive and vibrant. The hot tube seemed to be helping her in other ways though, but Victor would be waking from his after lunch nap at any time.

Nancy must have sensed what Steve was thinking. She looked at her husband staring at her and stood up breaking his trance. “Would you hand me that robe dear? I should get dressed before Victor wakes.”

“He’s fine there in bed, and if he wakes, I can put him in the play pin.”

“Steve,” Nancy said.

“Oh. No, I meant, that he is okay. This isn’t. I didn’t mean.”

“Come on; let’s go see how our gracious hosts are doing. I could do for a little more sun and open sea air.”

Blushing, Steve wrapped his beautiful wife and got the diaper bag ready to go topside. Steve was a bit of a prude he realized, but he thought it natural to be uncomfortable outside of his own personal bedroom.

Nancy was almost dressed when Victor opened his eyes. Steve picked him up, eager to go out to the common area. When she was finished, Nancy accepted Victor from Steve and the headed up to the great expanse of blue.

After checking with Bill to see if he needed anything, Steve and Nancy went to the lounging area to enjoy the incredible sight. There was no land in sight.

Soon, Bill and Janet came out with refreshments. “I made us some iced tea,” Janet said and sat the tray down on a handy table between the rows of recliners.

“Bill! We are still moving,” Steve questioned.

“Oh, I guess you don’t know about GPS guided autopilot either. This is as much fun as taking the new boat out itself. I can’t wait to take you to the theater room.”

Steve’s mouth dropped a little at that. “You have a movie theater onboard.

“Just a small one. And the satellite Internet lets us download pretty much anything we can think of. I can help you set-up your laptop to the Wi-Fi, sometime.”

Steve’s head was spinning with everything he had access to now, and how he was just able to keep the budget for the church each month.

“Bill, what is that, another ship?” Janet interrupted.

They all turned to see what Janet was pointing at. Far out on the horizon a dark spot was visible, and became several dark spots.

“I’m not sure,” Bill stammered and turned toward the bridge. “I’ll get the binoculars and have a look.”

By the time Bill got to the bridge the dark spots had turned into large ships, and they were coming fast. Looking through the glasses to be sure, Bill yelled down to his guests, “You better find a place to hide. Janet and I will have to try reasoning with them. They are definitely military, so if they are looking for you and the baby you should be out of sight. And get down, they probably have binoculars also.”

Steve and Nancy hit the deck as one and crawled to the stairs. “Catch!” Jill tossed the diaper bag. “Hide your things as well.”

They got down to their room and put the bags of luggage in the closet and cleaned out the bathroom. “Now, where are we going to hide?” Nancy thought out-loud.

“There are many places, but…”

“But, what?” Nancy asked.

“But, if they search the ship, they will find us anywhere we hide, the boat isn’t that big.”

“That’s great. So what do you suggest?”

“Well, let’s hide in the theater room, and if they search, because the Johnson’s couldn’t persuade them otherwise, maybe it won’t look as if we were hiding, and therefore look less suspicious.” Steve suggested.

The boat jerked and shuddered momentarily. “They must have bumped the ship, maybe to latch on somehow."

“Like for a boarding party? We need to hurry!”

The sound of many pairs of stomping boots echoed through the chambers, and Steve and Nancy rushed to find the theater room. Then it stopped.

It was quit when they found the theater. They waited in the silence, for what seemed like an hour.

Suddenly the boots were stomping again, and the sounds of things crashing to the floor could be heard even though the heavily insulated theater room. And as suddenly as it started, it stopped again.

“What do you think that was all about,” Nancy whispered.

“Negotiating, pleading, I don’t know. Maybe they were able to convince them that they are alone out here.”

They waited in silence again. Victor waited quietly.

A ray of light suddenly came through the door that opened to the room. Steve leaned over Nancy holding her down low and gave her a big under the bleachers kind of kiss. The lights popped on, and the couple laid there momentarily blinded.

“Come on you two love birds,” someone said from the entrance.

Steve sat up to see three gun touting uniformed men waiting for them. They stood in an unaggressive posture with their weapons cradled in their arms, confidant that they would have no trouble.

Steve stood to face the intruders, “What is this all about?”

“Move it. You’ll find out soon enough,” the man in the middle and the front said.

Steve and Nancy had no choice. They were led to the deck and emerged from the stairs as Bill and Janet were being escorted to a ship on the starboard side of the boat with their hands shackled behind them.

Steve turned to follow his fellow prisoners, but a large gun wielding man blocked the way, cuffed their hands and motioned them to the ship on the port as another man took Victor.

They walked the plank to the waiting ship and were led to the stairs.  Nancy started down immediately and Steve followed. He paused on a whim just before his head was below the deck to look at the poor innocent people he had unwittingly dragged into this mess. And saw Bill being un-handcuffed, just before Steve was shoved into the waiting darkness.

Chapter Nine

No Holds Barred

At midday the sun overhead scorched the cracked and parched earth. The black CH-47F Improved Cargo Helicopter pulling away left a cloud of choking dust to mark its dreadful passing after leaving its cargo— the prisoners. The last one out of the transport helicopter Nancy followed behind her husband. She could only stare in shocked disbelief at the high fences topped with razor wire.

She, her husband, and six others were dragged through a series of electronic turnstiles on their way inside the heavily guarded Emergency Center. Their chains linked together at hands and ankles pulled taut as she slowed every few steps to make sure the woman carrying baby Victor was still coming.

Nancy watched as each one approached the final gate, the shackles were taken from their hands and feet. On the inside of the fence leading to the main yard, inmates were gathered around and choosing newbies— like a slave auction block.

Steve and Nancy were last in line. The others had disappeared into the crowd or were dragged off by their new owners. “You can’t let that happen to our baby,” Nancy pleaded with the female guard carrying Victor.

The stone faced guards unlatched both Steve and Nancy, while the guard handed the infant to Nancy.

They waited as if somehow they were going to be treated different from the other innocent people. The guards started becoming agitated, and one pushed Steve into the turnstile.  “Move, before I push you through the closed gate,” said the biggest man Nancy had seen in her life.

“Ram him through the strainer, Hoss,” said someone from inside the fences. “Squeeze his juice out on this side, like you did that guy last month.”

As the gorilla like man stepped back, as if he needed a running start, Steve took Nancy by the arm and pulled her after him.

“Welcome to Hell’s Bathroom, FEMA Camp number twenty-one,” said one of the guards on the outside. “Enjoy your stay.”

Nancy found that she had been wrong, because the man coming through the throng of captives was easily a foot taller and two feet wider than the menacing guard on the outside of the fence.

“Out of my way,” the giant growled. “I want that baby.” Those near him didn’t hesitate to scramble out of his way.

Nancy watched as Steve’s color turned ashen, while he looked as though he was shrinking as the giant came closer. She knew Steve had never defended himself before, but there was no way he was letting anyone near his wife or Victor.

She watched in horror as Steve pulled himself up to his full height of five feet and eight inches and put his fists up near his face as the huge man, and his entourage came near. She could see that he intended to protect her and she felt warmth at the thought— momentarily. His efforts would be as futile as walking into a tornado. 

The brute casually swatted Steve’s shoulder and threw him as though he were nothing more than an annoying fly.

Steve was still rolling as Nancy shrank away against the fence. Her attacker bent down to look her in the face and growled like a rabid dog as he reached for the baby. His warm breath stank of alcohol. She fought the urge to squeeze her eyes shut, blocking out the nightmare from her vision.

When his hand touched the infant he froze, none but Nancy could see his face change to pure emotional pain and his eyes blazed with the terror that should have been hers alone.

The kingpin let go and turned, walking away slowly at first, then more quickly. The shock in the eyes of all who watched was apparent even to Steve, who had landed quite far away. The minions with the monster man, trailed behind their boss in confusion, but none dared speak.

A man ran over to help Steve up and a woman that had been by his side rushed to Nancy, after seeing that these newcomers were not going to be molested by the unruly mob.

“I thought certainly you were going to be Ivan’s new pets. I don’t know what changed his mind, but I think I want to be your friend. What do you think Dee?” The man said.

“I could certainly use the company of another woman.” She said, then turned to Steve and Nancy, “Would you care to share our pod?”

Nancy, who was too shook up, only stared at the woman in front of her, but Steve nodded in assent for both of them.

After the big honcho left the yard, the others disbursed, leaving Steve and Nancy alone with their new companions. They didn’t know what to think, and they were not willing to risk finding out what had bothered the heartless killer, so they did not pursue the usual course of taking slaves and left them alone. 

#

The Pod, as Dee had called it, was a room at the top of the building with the outside wall gone- having crumbled to the ground sometime in its history.  An already nervous wreck of a woman, Nancy clung to the wall by the door that was only six feet from the precipice.

Dee noticed Nancy’s terror, “This was the only space left for us. Its survival of the fittest here, so we count ourselves lucky that those mindless brutes didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to sleep up here. They were afraid of rolling over in their sleep and off the side. And,” She pointed outside, “That guard tower right there, with that trigger happy sniper who is staring at you through his scope, added to their dread.”

Nancy slid down the wall to the floor, no longer able to stand. Steve sat down with her and held her in his reassuring arms.

Troy came back shortly with two jars. One had a clear, but brown tinted, liquid in it- Steve assumed it was water. The other was mostly brown and looked like vomit. He put the jar up to his lips and slurped down a mouthful of the sick looking stuff, then took a swig of the water. “It’s best to wash this down with some water,” he said.

“What is it?” Steve asked.

“Well, it’s never the same day to day, but it’s food, or garbage, puréed into this here slurry of your basic food groups. Do you want some now? I would wait until I was good and famished if I were you. It’s an acquired taste, if you know what I mean. You eventually get numbed to it though. With a little water to wash it down with I mean.” Troy said as he tipped up the jug for another slurp.

Sniffing the contents of the jar Steve jerked it away from his face sloping some of the remaining goo over the edge to drool down the side and onto his hand, “I will take your advice on that,” Steve said. “I’m not sure I could get hungry enough for that stuff.”

“I lasted a weak,” Troy said. “I puked  it all back up the first time, promising myself I would die before doing that again, but like with my first hangover, I couldn’t keep that promise either.”

“You have been here awhile then?” Steve asked.

“Oh yeah, it has been a while.”

“Why are you here? You don’t seem any worse than Nancy and I?”

“It’s a pretty short story.

“We were holding up in our snug little cabin in the mountains when troopers parachuted in passed our traps. Someone had turned us in, they wouldn’t say who.”

“It was those dirty rats, the Jenkins,” Dee cut in. “They were jealous that we had ten years’ worth of food saved up for the end times. No good deed goes unpunished. We warned them about what was coming and they laughed at us.”

“Calm down Dee,” Troy said and turned back to Steve and Nancy. “That was nearly two years ago, and you know women, they can hold a grudge well beyond the grave.

“All of that planning and hard work, that fat old Dorothy Jenkins has probably eaten all ten years’ worth by now,” Dee jumped in again. “You know they went up there and made it their own after we were gone.”

Troy laughed, but Dee glared at him with a look that could freeze water, then she burst out laughing herself.

“Our son got away,” Troy said. “Quinn had been out hunting for some days prior. He is out there somewhere now, planning a rescue, if I know my son.”

Suddenly excited, Nancy asked, “Do you think he really can get you out of here? And, maybe us to?”

“Oh, I’m sure of it. He will be sixteen next month and eager to prove himself a man,” Troy said proudly.

The light dimmed in Nancy’s eyes. “He had been gone for several days, out in the wild, when he was only fourteen?” Nancy asked.

“We had been training him since he was old enough to walk,” Dee said in defense of her parenting skills. “We knew the dark days were coming long before the labor pains of the earth started.”

“Labor pains?” Steve asked.

“Haven’t you noticed the increasingly terrible weather, the largest earthquakes in recorded history, the strange signs of the moon, aggression in the Middle East, food shortages, and… I could go on?”

Steve knew about the end coming someday, but to be as arrogant as all the previous generations that were sure that the world was going to end during their lifetime, was not what would help him get through life.

“I’m not sure that that is the kind of being prepared that Jesus taught about. He spoke of being prepared by studying the bible, praying to God for guidance, and listening to the Holy Spirit, so that you will not be deceived. He said, in his parables that the wicked should run and hide, but his people were to be servants and to show their fruit, or their proof, by living for him.”

“Well, you might be right about some of that,” Troy said, “but I don’t want to be anywhere near any of that. And you think we haven’t been doing anything to help our fellow man? We have been telling people about all the horrors that are coming. We have been sharing our knowledge of the signs. We have implored people to help us prepare by investing in land in the hills and food and other supplies. We have been working on them for years.”

“Yes, it sounds as though you have been working very hard. You have been spreading the bad news to everyone around you. But, Jesus asked that we spread the good news. He said that we would be imprisoned and brought before judges, but, as he always says, do not worry, the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say, you are to be their witnesses.”

“He says when you flee, pray that it is not winter. We are to run and save ourselves.”

“No matter how hard you try to hide and shelter yourself from the evil that is the world, your delusional fantasy is always broken by the fact that you are in the world. If you are going to make a difference, you must be a light in the darkness, not just a shadow hiding among the blackness.”

“We are in the world, but not of the world,” Troy responded.

“Alright, boys. None of that matters that much. We are all here, together, and I think we need to work together to survive,” Nancy cut in.

“Speak for yourselves, Nancy,” Dee put in. “We have been doing okay so far. Well, we had a couple of close calls over these last few weeks, and it seems to be getting worse around here, but we don’t need any more mouths to feed.”

“Alright, I forget how the negativity can be so contagious. I’m sorry. We do want you here. It’s lonely. And, well. It’s just that we have never seen Ivan back down like that. It looked like the life was drained out of him.

“I talked to some of the other POWs, and they said that he went to his rooms and passed out.”

“Is he going to be Alright?” Steve asked?

“What do you care, you have no idea what would have happened had he not fallen ill.”

“He needs to be taught the good news, not be trampled into submission.”

“Oh, here we go again. Do can’t really believe that everyone should be forgiven, do you. I have never seen a worse monster than Ivan the terrible. I know for a fact, that sometimes his servants are sacrificed to feed his goons. He won’t eat the garbage that the rest of us have to suffer. I don’t think he is human anymore. Are we supposed to forgive monsters,” Troy asked?

“Only God can…"

The sound of a single gunshot cut through the air and their conversation.

Chapter Ten

To Save a Life

Troy and Dee had gone to find out about any news in the prison, leaving Steve and Nancy to themselves. The gunshot was news, and anything to break the daily monotony of prison life was welcome news.

Steve couldn’t understand the conspiracy theorist personality, but he had to admit that there might be some truth to it. The Wade’s must be right about something, they were in a secret military prison after all. They don’t send people to regular jails for simply wanting their privacy. This was where they sent people they didn’t want in the judicial system.

While Steve and Nancy were not thrilled about being in a prison, they were determined to be Christian about it. They were not going to pout or grumble. They both new it would serve no purpose, and it might do a lot of harm. It is never a good idea to reveal too many of your weaknesses, unless you are a sociopath and need the pity.

Nancy told Steve what had happened to Ivan and how he seemed to have been drained of his life force after he touched Victor. Steve assured her that it was because he was on the edge of some illness and the stress or excitement of the day had pushed the monstrosity over the breaking point.

The view outside the walls and the tower of death was stunning with bright orange mountains below a cloudless blue sky.

The vision of the happy little family standing together holding their baby at the portal to the great blue abyss of sky, with the breeze blowing Nancy’s hair back into the tower room, must have been a sight to see for the seasoned veterans of the prison.

Steve and Nancy were unaware that their roommates had returned. They stood there enjoying the fresh air of the desert, oblivious for the moment of their misfortune at being imprisoned. 

The Wade’s had returned with two large men, dragging Ivan, and were momentarily captivated by the sight of the blissful serenity extrude by the Stade’s very being. “You still want to forgive and forget?” Troy asked the silhouetted couple with their backs to him, “Here is your chance. When the rival gangs got word that Ivan was in a coma, they attacked the ruling clan— Ivan’s clan. They were going to kill him.”

At sight of the immense man, Steve tensed out of reflex, but since he was completely subdued relaxed visibly. “Was he shot?”

“The sniper guard shot one of Ivan’s men that had jumped on the fence trying to escape the bloodshed.” Troy answered the question of the gunshot.

“What caused Ivan’s coma, was he ill?”

“Who knows? He certainly seemed fine until he got on the wrong side of you three. Seems like a good enough reason to be your friend, rather than your enemy. It’s the law of the jungle in here.”

“What? We didn’t have anything to do with that. I was nothing more than a nuisance that he swept away without effort.”

“That leaves Nancy and the little baby.” Troy nodded towards them.

Steve looked to Nancy for support, but knew she already thought something was out of the ordinary with Victor. The innocent looking baby had survived an atom bomb, and had lived long enough for the radiation to disappear mysteriously preceding his rescue. Steve was not a man learned in science, but it seemed like a huge impossible coincidence that the radiation had been drained from the area Victor was in and now something like life energy was drained from the person threatening them.

It had been hours since Victor or any of them had eaten, Steve was definitely feeling the hunger cravings, but Victor just lay in Nancy’s arms seemingly content. Content like one feels after devouring their thanksgiving meal, it seemed to Steve.

“John and Scott, you can lay Ivan in the corner over there,” Troy, pointed to the corner that had a few inches of the outside wall remaining. “I don’t think he can move while comatose, but I don’t want to take the chance of him rolling out the window.”

After wedging a few spare things against Ivan’s side, as an extra precaution against rolling, John and Scott found room to sit with the new friends.

“I see why no one ever comes up here, this isn’t a room so much as it is just a narrow ledge. How do you sleep?” asked a curious Scott.

“You do what you have to do to survive, well so do we, we just don’t do it by taking from anyone else,” Troy said in an accusing tone.

“You must know that if it’s not us, it will be someone else. So, why shouldn’t it be me? Trust me, there are much worse here, luckily we are stronger.” Scott said looking at Troy.

“You mean you were stronger. As I see it you two are just a couple of lackey thugs working for the one who was stronger.”

“It’s all we have known,” John, responded, “we have been working with Ivan since we dropped out of school.”

“You three have been together since before you were put here?” Steve asked.

“Like John said, it’s the only life we have known. If it wasn’t for Ivan, we would probably be just victims like everyone else.”

“What are you going to do now? It sounds like you just lost everything you had here.” Nancy asked.

Overcome by her genuine concern, Scott and John could manage only weak shrugs.

“I think they are going to have to decide if they are going to wait here for Ivan to recover, or go to one of their rivals for refuge. They certainly don’t have any friends in here. They have been terrorizing people since before Dee and I got here.”

Steve got up, walked over, and put a hand on each of the boys’ shoulders, “You have to make a choice, but not until after we have had a chance to talk. I must tell you some of life’s truths, the truths that no one else is going to tell you about.”

“What do you mean, everything I need to know, I learned in kindergarten?”

“That’s probably true, but you didn’t listen to those who cared and wanted well for you. Did your parents take you to church?”

“Yeah, my mom took me to church, when my dad was too hung-over to stop us, or when Sunday fell on one of the last few days before payday. That was when she would be out of her drugs.” Scott said.

“No. My parents were not even home on the weekends, but some of my friend's parents tried. I only went a couple of times— it was so weird to see all of those families together, and with their own spouses.”

“It sounds like your parents were together as some sort of business venture, John.” Steve said. “No child should have to go through what you two did.”

“What is so wrong with a little adversity, everyone needs toughened up a little.”

“Even if that’s true, everyone needs to be loved even more so. Being loved by two caring parents is great and needed, but there is another love— a perfect love.”

“Who needs love; that stuff is for wimps.”

“You know you do. If you didn’t need to act tough for your ego and the benefit of your audience, you would admit it to yourself.  Do you love someone? Do you want to love someone?”

“No, of course not, that’s for wimps,” Scott exclaimed.

“I did,” John admitted. “In ninth grade, I loved Julie Somethinson. I actually went to school the whole year, so I could see her. However, she moved away with her parents. I would have stayed in school for her. I would have died for her.”

“Did you ever look for her?” Nancy asked.

“I thought about it. However, I thought so long about it, that by the time I thought I was ready to, I realized that I was a horrible person. She deserves better than me, even if she would want to be with a criminal.”

“Do you believe that because you are afraid to be rejected or because you truly care that she gets the best possible husband?” Nancy prodded.

Conflicted John looked down and answered, “I don’t really know.”

Steve let John think about what kind of love he was capable of for a few minutes then asked, “If you knew how to be a good and honorable person, would you do it— for her, or even for yourself?”

John never looking up shrugged his shoulders signaling that he was ready to hear about real love.

“John, you have never seen real love. All of the love you have seen is the fantasy love portrayed on television or the movies. You should know that that is all unrealistic. Are your friends like any of those actors pretending to be like you? It is all exaggerated glorification of the aspects the writers and producers want to portray. It’s pure fantasy, and so are the love and sex that is so exaggerated in those shows— it’s not real.

“John, people make mistakes. Every single person on the planet messes up every single day. The women and the men on movies spend years and sometimes decades to learn how to pretend to be attractive people— at least for the couple of hours during the movie.

“The director is giving you an emotion through their works of art. Moreover, just like a painting, you are not seeing any of it in context. The emotion you are feeling is from your mind filling in the missing aspects with what it knows is real love.

“Love on earth is not something that you feel— it is something that you do. You can’t know real love without knowing where it comes from.

“You can do things, good things, for someone that you don’t love, but when you do things for someone that you do love, it reinforces both her’s and your feelings—and that is where you get the feeling of in-love from. Only God is real love.

“God gave us life. Not because it was just a side effect or an accident of having too much fun, and oops he was a father. God deliberately formed our bodies and put our soul in each and every one of us with his own breath.

“God knew beforehand, that many, maybe most of us would, given the opportunity, turn away from him. Nevertheless, he gave all of us a choice to love him, in the weak insignificant way that we humans love, so that those of us, who love him, despite the struggles and hardships of life, would know true love.

“We know that our love is weak and ineffectual because he gave us proof of his real and true love. While we were still hating him and disobeying his trust, he sent a part of himself to live as one of us. Jesus was God in the flesh of our human weakness and frailties. Jesus had to deal with the same sinful nature that plagues us. Jesus had been tempted by every possible human weakness, and he refused to give in.

“After living a sinless life, he was executed for crimes that he was completely innocent of. And, all of this while knowing that we were sinners and incapable of fixing ourselves. Jesus, allowed himself to be murdered, because we could not live up to his standards. He let himself die, rather than destroying the evil world, so that those of us who would love him would live.

“Out of all the religions in the world, and there are many, Christianity is the only one where God loved his creation so much that he came down to our level then sacrificed his only son for our good. All the other religions believe that their god will grant them eternal life if they prove that they are good enough or work hard enough to get there. However, the truth is, none of us can get to heaven on our own. We can’t even see it on our own. If we were capable of making it to heaven on our own, we could just make our own heaven. But, no matter how hard anyone tries, this is and always will be a broken world—until the one who made it fixes it.

“But, it’s not all our fault, there is someone working against us. Another of God’s creations wanted to rule like God himself. Satan, an angel, was cast out of heaven and left on earth, with many other angels that believed they could win against God.  Whether the devil believes he can still win, still unable to get himself back up to heaven, or has resigned himself to loosing but trying to hurt God by taking away as many of God’s children as he can before his end, I don’t know.

“I can’t see everything the way that God does, but the best I can explain, is that God is allowing this broken world, with its broken people, tormented by a broken angel, to continue for the purpose of sifting out the righteous people to populate the new world that he is going to replace this one with.

                                                #

Nancy had withdrawn from the discussion as Steve took over telling about Jesus' sacrifice for them. She moved near Ivan, worried for the vicious criminal, but terrified about what would have happened if Victor had not stopped him.

With one touch, Victor seemed to have drained the life force out of this monstrous human being. Then, after they were safely away from his overreaching grasp, he showed back up. Though not as a murderous and terrible conqueror, but as a helpless and fragile person.

She found, looking down on the helpless form, that she could no longer hate the man. He was an evil, greedy, selfish, person. God still loved this man. She found herself feeling sad for whatever had happened to make him into the criminal he had become.

Nancy had heard Scott and John telling Steve about Ivan, and that was when she had decided to move over to him. Now she felt compelled to help him somehow. She thought about what Ivan had become.

In the outside world, Ivan had been a Mafia boss, but spoke against The Rockefeller Group and its New World Order of population controlling bankers. His out-spoken and loud public displays got him sent to the first operational FEMA camp.

He couldn’t be all-bad then. Maybe it was just a matter of convenience and ignorance that led him to a life of crime. He was simply the largest man she had ever seen. His size would have made it easy for him to take whatever he wanted from whomever he wanted.

Nancy was just beginning to see the monster on the ground in front of her as a person when Victor reached out and touched Ivan’s forearm. Ivan’s eyes opened and looked Nancy full in the face.

Chapter Eleven

Out of Control

Steve, startled by the sudden inhalation from Nancy behind him, turned to see Nancy stumbling backwards toward the open abyss of desert air. From across the room He felt helpless as he moved seemingly in slow motion to her rescue. He had not taken a full step towards her, when her foot caught on the lip at the edge of the remaining wall.

Nancy tripped on the rubble and was falling backwards out the portal, and Steve was no nearer to reaching her. Suddenly Ivan was there and had ahold of Nancy’s flailing arm. Steve could see the shock of falling change to pure terror as she jerked her arm to free herself from the monster man’s glove like hand. When she pulled to rip her hand free of his grasp, she managed to pull herself back into the room and landed against Ivan’s massive bulk.

Ivan let her go when she was safely into the room and she collapsed at his feet.

Steve was finally at Nancy’s side, and ignoring her apparent savior, cradled her in his arms, amazed that she hadn’t loosed her grip of Victor.

Nancy’s eye lids were fluttering, the stress overwhelming her left her weak and on the verge of fainting. As she fought the blackness creeping in, Steve asked her if she was okay and her eyes opened fully to the recognition of her husband’s caring voice.

“Oh, Steve, I feel so stupid for letting a panic attack take control of me.”

“Don’t be silly, you had every right.”

“I almost killed myself. I didn’t need some bad person to do it for me, I almost did it all on my own. I almost took Victor over the edge with me.”

Realization showed on Nancy’s face as she looked towards Ivan, who had gone to his friends. “Ivan saved my life,” she whispered.

                                                #

After Nancy and Steve composed themselves, they joined the group where John and Scott were filling Ivan in on the situation.

Steve waited, until Ivan had received the report and seemed to be thinking things through, to broach the subject of a new life. “I realize that you haven’t had time for things to sink in, and you are probably already making plans for your revenge, but I implore you to listen to me before you take action.”

“I don’t know who you are,” said a weary Ivan, “but, there is something about you and your family, “Ivan nodded towards Nancy, “that give me pause to consider. While I was apparently unconscious, I was living another life. It must have all been in my head, but it is no less real to me. I need to talk to someone, something that is of rare occurrence for me. I am a take charge and final decision kind of person, and the consequences be dammed, but… I need to sit.”

The odd group of unlikely companions situated themselves as well as they could in the cramped little room. They sit lined up against the wall, each facing out to the open air of the late afternoon sky over the Nevada desert. The ever-watchful gaze of the sniper peered through his scope at each face in turn, before turning his attention back to the rest of the prison.

Steve having fortified his courage sat to the right of Ivan with Nancy next to him. John and Scott sat to Ivan’s left. Troy and Dee sat on the far side of Scott, next to their meager possessions.

The group sat in silence for several minutes, Steve hoped that John was at least giving some thought about the love of God he had shared with him earlier. He felt that he hadn’t had enough time with the two of them to persuade them into giving any of their attention to powers outside of their own little misguided world.

“Is there a God?” John asked Ivan breaking the silent reverie.

“Before today, I would have knocked you out that window for bringing up the name of that so called benevolent being. The one who let my father and mother die in the Russian gulag and then forced me into their fate. But, today… I can hardly believe that has only been a few hours. Today, I met God.”

“What!” Scott asked. “Did you lose your mind while you were out of it?”

“You would be out the window behind John for talking to me that way—before today.” Ivan laughed. “I no longer find that I am filled with rage. I have peace. I never imagined that calm and serenity could feel so good. Rage and anger have always been my closest dearest friends.”

While John and Scott seemed to be stunned, Steve was dumbfounded. He knew, he wanted to believe, that God could turn a person’s life around in the blink of an eye, but he had only witnessed the long, often futile struggles of man to work and fail at changing their lives to the better. It was always something he could count on. He would help someone back onto their feet and they would work hard and get themselves back up, just to fall back full on their face.

Paul, in the bible, meet God on the road to Damascus, where his life was changed in an instant. but the miracles in the bible seemed to always be the pinnacle of man, the highest point of man’s connection to God, with only the long road down to the end times. Until recently where he has been in the midst of God’s world changing will.

“I don’t know where to start…”

“Start with telling us why you wanted to take my baby!” Nancy growled.

“That was a different me. I was a different person back then.”

“Back then? It has been three hours!”

“For me, it has been three years.”

“I think Scott is right, you are out of your mind.”

“Like I said, I don’t know where to start. I think your question is as good a place as any.

“I was born and raised in a Russian gulag until I was fifteen. That was when my parents died trying to keep them from taking me away to join the army. Needless to say, I was in the Russian army, until I was seventeen when I deserted.”

“What does any of that have to do with Victor?”

“Is that his name?” Ivan asked looking into the steel blue eyes of the baby in Nancy’s arms.

Nancy jerked Victor out of view of this hated man’s view. “You don’t have the right to even look at him. You are a monster, and no way has anything changed. I don’t know why you saved us, but it was probably a subconscious reaction that you had no control of.”

“It was reflex, at first, but in times like those, action slows to a pace where one can think much more quickly than anyone could possibly move. It was an eternity while I held your wrist preventing you from falling backwards out the window. It was you, that pulled yourself in, because I was in conflict with myself and unable to pull you in or let you go. My two selves merged into one as I awoke from my out of body life. For a few moments I was both, the loving caring person that God created and the evil monster that I allowed created in me by sinful selfishness.”

“What?” Nancy said incredulously. “You aren’t in the middle of explaining that, it wasn’t your fault that you became a monster, and really it was the prison and you’re being forced into the army as a child?”

“No, it was entirely my fault. When I came to America, I thought I was doing good, taking over for the weak and impotent. I was honorable in my dealings— at least I thought so at the time. I did not allow my men to harm women or children— those who did were made a public example of. I did the punishments myself. My reputation was not gossip in my city— I killed those men in full view.

“I made my fortunes honorably, by only stealing from the thieves themselves. I never gave thought to the fact that the more I took from the criminals, the more they took from the honest hard working victims.

“My law was the law. The police became lazy because they dare not get in my way. I was the police, essentially. I enforced the laws, not realizing that I was the worst of the criminals. I truly thought I was what was best for the people. As long as they kept me on top of my little kingdom, I allowed them to live their paltry little lives. I was king of the world. I was law unto myself.

“However, I discovered that there truly was power beyond the government and myself. I spoke too loud and too often against corrupt government, and that very same corruption came after me like I could not even imagine.

“That’s what lead me here, but the driving force that lead me and my ambition was the need to fill some void. I began to suspect that because my childhood had been ripped away from me, that I needed to recreate a family life and raise a son.

“I looked for a suitable mate to start a family with, but it turned out that the kind of women that were attracted to a guy like me lacked any sort of intellect. Women of learning or class were repulsed by me.

“When I saw a child being brought to me, here, in prison, I thought it a sign. It was divine intervention, to give back what was robbed from me. I saw in him,” Ivan pointed at Victor, “a chance for redemption. I had to ad him to my empire— such that it was.”

“You thought that God would give you, a baby?”

“Clearly I was wrong. The moment I touched him, my life was taken. The world that I found myself in was incredible beyond anything I had imagined. I don’t know what brought me back to this reality, but I was at first crushed to be back to this broken world.  However, things began to come together in my head as I was saving you. A completely new world was appearing before my eyes, the possibilities were coming into focus for me, for the first time.

“While the world I was dreaming about, if indeed it was a dream, is not possible in the world the way that it is. An angel from God showed me what was intended for this world, before corruption and evil found a home in it. Plans are developing inside my head. Plans based on an empire centered on God and his son, rather than my own misguided selfish ambition.”

“It was Victor,” Nancy began. “After you were brought here, in a coma, I was curious about you. While you were unconscious, you looked peaceful, even serine. I got too close and Victor reached out and touched you— that’s when your eyes opened.”

“That was why you were startled into leaping from a seven story building? You wanted to get away from me?” Ivan asked with earnest concern revealed in his mournful eyes.

“There was no want involved. I panicked, and all brain activity shut down, I was all reflex,” Nancy hastily explained. “From the moment I first saw you and you threw my husband away, I could feel the evil surrounding you.”

“Do you still feel that same evil now?” Ivan asked rhetorically. “My heart is now full of the incorruptible spirit of God. I am sorry and I will live with those shames for the remainder of my earthly life. I am grateful to be used by God, and your child is used of God as well.

“That is some remarkable kid you have there. What did he do to me? He looks to be only a few weeks old, how does he look at me like that, and how did he reach to me when I was unconscious?”

“It’s a bit of a story, and really, we don’t know much anyway. We adopted him and are protecting him from, well, that group you were talking about.”

“I can see why. He has abilities that are well beyond human capabilities.”

#

Steve told the group everything he had been through. He had decided that while he didn’t want anyone to know about Victor, he was going to need help. What better help than a man freshly on fire for God. Scott and John seemed the only liabilities, and John appeared to be willing to consider God. If he was wrong about the two men, Ivan was still their boss.

Ivan agreed that both objectives were in line with his new calling. They were going to teach the inmates about God, while working on a way to freedom and safety for Victor. They all understood that they were brought together for the benefit of saving the child. Only Scott was undecided.

“Victor was sent to the world, by God, to give us hope and power in the times to come. We can be willing accomplishes to God’s plan, or obstacles to be overcome by God himself, undermining his authority, ultimately being crushed and sifted out like so much garbage.” Ivan stood to face Scott.

“God loves you, Scott. I have— as have so many others— used you for my own selfish gain. I was wrong. I was just like the government of Russia, in that I recruited, not for a higher purpose, but for my want— my greed and dominance. My will is flawed. Please allow me to make it up to you. I can show you that there is a God of love, who knew your name before the first star in the sky was created by his word.”

Chapter Twelve

Out of the Fire

The heat of the day was gradually creeping into the stone of the walls where it would stay well into the night.  The still cool brick would give some relief along with the shade of the roof to the dwellers of FEMA camp number twenty-one, until the late afternoon and early evening.

Scott wiped the sweat from his face. “How can you speak to me of a loving God, while you decay in an unjust prison, full of hate filled individuals bent on your suffering and detriment—all for their own gain?”

“A well man has no need of a doctor, as does a man who has God not need someone to show him God. No matter how you feel about it, I cannot do you the disservice of allowing you to continue to live in ignorance.” Ivan said.

“My followers looked to me for a strength and power that I did not possess.  Christ’s followers looked to him for strength and power that they themselves did not possess. My strength and authority is limited to a handful near to me. Jesus’s strength and power echoes throughout time and have no limits. My influences and strengths are imagined through fear and threat. God’s, is love.

“Whether it was God’s will or not, for us to be here, we are here, and it is God’s will for Victor to be protected, and I choose to be part of that plan. The creator of the universe is asking for our help. He does not need our puny insignificant efforts at help, yet he wants us. He loves us that much. We are like this child, helpless and weak. We are like ants, and still he chooses to let us help, to be part of something wonderful and glorifying, if we but choose him.” Ivan turned to look out over the great expanse of desert before him. Now that his eyes were opened, he could see the great beauty of the world, and the magnificent power that was required to create it.

Ivan noticed the guard in the tower and his rifle was to his shoulder looking down to the ground in the yard. Ivan looked down and had to lean out the window to see that most of the population of the prison was out, in the heat of the day, amassed in the yard. “What is going on outside?”

The tower guard fired into the crowed.

“We had better get out of sight,” Troy said.

The door burst open and two men with makeshift knives rushed in. Ivan leapt over the people sitting in the cramped quarters, and grabbed each assailant by the throat and shoved them back out the door.

They both hit the wall on the opposite wall, but only one dropped his knife as he slid to the floor. Ivan grabbed the hand wielding the knife and lifted the shaken attacker off the floor by it. Looking the man in the face, with his feet dangling a foot and a half off the floor, Ivan growled, “Do you have any idea who I am and what I could do to you?”

Steve squeezed passed the bulk of Ivan in the hall and took the knife from the floor before the other man could reach for it. “Don’t want you hurting yourself,” Steve said looking the fallen man in the eyes.

The rest of the occupants of the room moved to the hall to be out of eyesight of the guard tower.

“We were only looking for a place to hide. The prison is at war.”

“And the weapons?” Ivan asked.

At the mention of the knife, the restrained man let the weapon fall harmlessly to the floor where it rattled loudly in the silent hallway. Troy grabbed the knife from the floor.

“In case it was occupied. It was just for encouragement, in case they wouldn’t let us in.”

“I had previously vowed to myself, that anyone who came to me with a weapon would be killed first, and then asked why,” Ivan growled.

The man’s face paled and he hung limp as if resigned to his fate.

Ivan let him fall to the ground, where the man began to weep.

“But today, you have been spared by God. Jesus set me free and I now vow to forgive, as I have been forgiven.

“I don’t understand,” said the man. “I know who you are. I have seen you kill men and spit on their corpses before letting your men strip them for spoils.”

“Then let that be a testimony to the glory and power of the one most high. He has done a great work in me, and I am no longer consumed by hatred and rage.” Ivan reached out a hand to the fallen man. “I am now ‘Ivan the changed’.”

The man hesitantly took Ivan’s hand, “I’m Trevor.”

After helping Trevor to his feet Ivan turned to the other man who had not moved from the spot he had fallen. Reaching his hand out to the man Ivan asked, “Will you also take my hand in friendship?”

Scott stood closest to Ivan and stared slack jawed at the man he knew most of his life, who couldn’t be farther from the man he had known.

“James,” the man said as he clasped hands with Ivan. “I want what you have.”

Ivan laughed, “You are to be among the first, to be in on the new foundation of this prison. Today we are going to take over this place.”

Every eye in the hall looked at Ivan in shock.

“We are going to remake this place into a church of God.” Ivan said as a huge grin spread across his face.

                                                          #

Steve and Nancy, reluctantly followed Ivan, Scott, John, Troy, Dee, Trevor, and James through the hallways and down each flight of stairs, as if into the pits of hell itself. The riot below, murderers and thugs, would surely be the end to their safety.

The final doors that open out to the seething masses of raging men, seemed to Steve, to be the final barrier that protected Him and his family— and Ivan strode to them as though they led to freedom.
          Steve watched from the back of the procession, with his wife and child, as Ivan put his hands to the middle of the double doors and shoved them out as his body weight propelled them forward. Sound as thunder shook the walls, from the doors slamming open, on the inside where he hid in the shadows. Steve held firm to Nancy’s hand and the two followed out through the open gateway to a nightmare world.

The momentary blindness of going from the shade of the interior to the sun lit exterior left them vulnerable, but Ivan had stopped at the top of the stairs. Steve and the others lined up on either side of the big man.

The scene before his virgin eyes, took in the horror, in shocked terror. Bodies lie dead or crawling, leaving behind blood soaked sand. The bodies near the fences piled deep did not move. Fortunate for most of the prisoners, the guards only shot the prisoners who got too near the fence.

Half of the inmates where dead or dying, yet they continued to fight. Steve could not imagine the single-minded futility that it took to linger for an eventual fruitless end. There must be more in hiding, but the numbers out in the fight were more than he would ever have dreamed. The mob effect must surely have been where they came up with the concept of zombies. Like zombies, these people attacked and died, never slowing, never stopping, ever raging.

The slam of the doors had not gotten the attention of the inmates, but Ivan boomed in a deep resonating voice, “Stop!”

Only the handful squabbling at the bottom of the stairs showed sign of having heard Ivan. Not discouraged Ivan strode down the stairs grabbing men as he passed. He pulled men apart and thrust them away from each other. He snatched weapons out of startled hands and worked his way through the horde.

Steve could not believe his eyes. Everywhere that Ivan passed, the fighting stopped. He made a circle around the yard and back to the steps. Most of the fighting had stopped, and when Ivan shouted for attention again, the rest of the ruffians halted.

At the top of the steps, after the entire group was at his attention, he dropped the armful of weapons letting them tumble down the stairs as they would.

Ivan stood there, unmoving. Time seemed to stand still while Ivan stared out across the crowed. The silence was becoming uncomfortable for Steve— he could only imagine how it felt under the gaze of Ivan.

Finally, Ivan lifted his hands and eyes to heaven. “God has spared those of you who are left. Some of you here will be a part of God’s plan. I have been visited by messengers of God,” Ivan said as he returned his eyes to the former rioters.

At words about God, many in the crowd wandered off to other parts of the prison. As many that had left stayed behind, and they all had known Ivan.

“I am here to save as many of you as are willing. God has granted me the privilege of teaching you of him, and helping you to find him.” More people left at words of their needing saved.

“And,” Ivan continued when the unwilling had left. “I have been told to help save you from this prison.” The crown became more attentive and gathered closer to listen.

“There is in place a revolutionary task force of anti-government rebels, and God has put on their minds to come here. There is soon to be a battle here.

“I am here to implore you to put your trust in God. With this prophesy and the coming event, you will have more evidence than most believers are ever given. If you cannot believe in God after this, your hart has been hardened and will never be swayed. You are to be given a special privilege, but do not think that you deserve it. You are being asked to help the chosen of God, to get him to safety.

“Do not count yourselves as lucky that you are about to see the hand of God at work, because even a pagan can believe in something he sees— it takes faith to believe in something that you cannot.”

“When is this battle coming?” a voice from the crowd yells.

“Today,” Ivan responded. “We have little time, but we need none anyway. Our fleshly freedom is upon us, but it is your spiritual freedom that I am here to bring you to. What is it for a man to gain the world, but to lose his soul? Do not squander this gift you have been given. I am going to pray over us, and it will begin.”

Many in the crowd stood and looked around. They could see no sign of anything to come and settled back down.

“Our lord in heaven, creator of the universe, I lift your name in reverence so that all present may hear and believe in you.”

Steve wondered if he should be the one up there praying and leading people to Christ— it was his calling after all. However, these people already knew Ivan. He decided to just be honored to be a part of God's plan. Steve could sit back and watch from the sidelines for once.

"We pray to you to protect these people through the events coming and allow them to have time to find you.  I pray for your forgiveness, I have sinned more than most and I do not deserve your mercy. I now choose to love you, trust you, and do your will. Let your will be done, and not my weak and selfish desires. Amen.”

A whistling became evident in the air. A guard tower exploded and rained down ruble chasing the group of prisoners towards the doors to the building.

Steve stood shocked momentarily as fifty people turned towards the stairs leading towards him and his family. A severed arm from the guard in the tower landed between him and the coming rush of panicking prisoners. He decided that they had the right idea and turned to take his wife into the prison.

More whistling from the coming mortars terrified the people even more.

“Stop!” Ivan yelled. “The back of the building. We must go around to the back. Follow me!”

Ivan made his way through the confused people; despite their indecision they made a path for him and the others following him. Steve was surprised at how easy it was for him to follow Ivan.

More guard towers were hit. And still there was no sign of the attackers. The military base was five minutes away and reinforcements would be on their way by now. Steve could not understand what the anarchists thought they would accomplish, but he did trust God.

Steve hadn’t needed evidence from God before all that had happened, but being in the middle of it truly was humbling. He couldn’t stop or even slow the hand of God, should he have wanted to. He was surprised that his faith was not any stronger than when he was just a small town pastor living the day-to-day life of a child of God. He thought that he would be ever so much more faithful in light of the mounting proof of God. Perhaps, he thought, the proof of God has always been so overwhelming, that more evidence was redundant. If one could not believe, then one simply could not believe.

The group was on the side of the building making their way to the back, but some lingered at the end and peaked around the corner when the front of the building was hit by a mortar. Three prisoners lay dead from shrapnel blown loose from the wall of the building.

Steve turned to go to them, but Ivan turned him back around to follow. “They cannot be helped now.”

Steve did not argue— he knew it to be true without being told, he just felt so helpless— and useless.

The entire yard and front of the facility were being bombed now. From the back of the building they could see very little, but the sound was that of a warzone.

Chapter Thirteen

Into the Pan

The explosions shook the building again and again. The militia was clearly not coming to rescue any one. Steve and his group simply waited for Ivan to lead them to an uncertain safety.

When the bombing stopped the prisoners, encouraged, peaked out around the building and saw people rushing through the pervasive dust from the broken building towards the downed fences.

“Not yet,” Ivan said.

Most heeded his words, but five men and two women could not restrain their want for freedom and ran for the open fences.

As the group watched and the people escaped, they turned questioning eyes to Ivan in obvious confusion.  They turned back and watched until the escapees were out of sight around the train station.

Not long after the last one was out of sight she and a handful returned—running in a terror-stricken panic, until blood flew out of them in a spray.  The reinforcements had arrived and were shooting anyone in sight from the back of the transport vehicles.

Ivan’s followers now hid behind the walls of their home— their prison once again. Ivan stood, arms crossed over his massive chest, and watched the heavens. It seemed to Steve that he was watching for direction from an angel of God— that no one else could see.

The army of radical anarchy chose that time to attack. The pickup trucks full of men charged down the dunes towards the encampment drawing the attention of the armed forces. The scene was ridiculous. Men in plain tattered clothes attacking uniformed military. 

Half of the group stopped at the top of the dune while the other half continued down. Puffs of smoke could be seen from them half mile away. Seconds later soldiers fell by the dozens. Then the sound of hundreds of high power supersonic rifles could be heard over the shouting of the falling soldiers. Seeing the laws of faster than sound in action was awe-inspiring, and horrifying to Steve. Still the army advanced on the guarding military unit.

The commander soon realized that his men were not in a defensible position and outnumbered, moved his soldiers in towards the building.

The military kept the building to their backs, ready for the assault. Then the mortars rained down again.

The military scattered from the surprise of the attack. The anarchist army was at the fence to greet the fleeing soldiers.

The already fading light turned the ambience red. A brilliant sunset to burn the bloodied images into Steve’s mind.

As the last of the guards and soldiers were executed Ivan gathered his herd into the far back corner, where the fences remained. He asked his people to sit behind him, and as the advancing rebels come towards the group, Ivan wet to his knees and raised his hands— as if to surrender.

“Are you the prisoners of this camp?” one of the men of the army asked.

“We are,” Ivan responded to the scruffy man.

“You just wait right here while we secure the building. When our comrades confirm that the nearby base is secured, we will figure out what to do with you.

Seven guards remained to watch over the unarmed prisoners while the others searched out to crumbling building. Steve could only imagine what they would find left after their mortars had done their work.

A few bloody and dirty prisoners were escorted to the back of the building; more than Steve believed would have survived— but, only a handful of those who had left when Ivan began speaking.

Soon, a group of rag tag men returned. As they stopped, a young man emerged out of the group. “Has anyone seen Troy or Dee Wade? I haven’t come across their bodies in the debris,” the young man asked peeking around the immense form of Ivan.

Troy stood up slightly to get a look at the speaker, and then helped his wife to her feet. “Quinn!” his mother shouted and started for her son. Two guards leveled their guns on her and Troy. They stopped, but Quinn rushed though the sitting people to embrace his parents.

Steve was surprised, as he imagined his wife must be. Quinn was a tall slender boy, dressed better than the hillbillies he was with, but was showing signs of starting a scruffy beard. And, he really had come to rescue his parents.

“Steve. Nancy.” A voice called out. A burly man came through the crowed of rebels.

Steve couldn’t believe his eyes. Emerging from the crowed, an unarmed Bill came forward. They locked eyes, and Bill rushed to Steve. Helping him to his feet, Bill crushed him in a bear hug.

#

The nighttime desert air was chill but invigorating. Steve hadn’t felt this alive when he had escaped New York— the sole survivor of a bombed building attack.

Walking a free man through the dark desert with his betrayer, didn’t bother him the way he had thought it would. God has been by his side through this entire ordeal— he couldn’t wait to see what his savior had in store for him now.

Steve and Bill walked behind Ivan, with Nancy and Janet following behind. They had been driven to the rebel’s camp where Janet waited for her husband’s return. Ivan convinced them that they should not stay with the rebels— they were on a mission for God and needed to be on their way. A dozen others, including Scott and John, followed Ivan and his wards through the desert on their mission— the only sounds where the hissing of their feet through the sands.

After an hour of walking, thinking— silence, “Why did you betray us?” Steve asked quietly and much calmer than a man without God would have.

“I figured you would think that— it was their plan after all,” Bill said as if he were relating the weather of just another mundane day.

“What!” Steve stopped.

Ivan continued onward while the group behind waited for Steve and Bill to continue.

Bill waited silently for Steve to follow after Ivan. He finally motioned towards Ivan. Steve began walking again.

“It must have looked bad,” Bill said, “but I was not part of it. When they un-cuffed me— for your benefit, I assume— I was shocked. When your boat pulled away, I was horrified as I realized what you must have been thinking. I prayed out load right then and there, in front of everyone.

“They sent Janet and I back to our boat, and once we were off theirs, they left. It was cruel what they did— to all of us.”

Steve did not know what to think. The story fit, but made no sense. “How did they find us so fast, if you didn’t tell them where we were?”

“We didn’t know what had happened until after we followed them to Mexico. We followed you. I felt guilty— though I had done nothing.

“Finally, after two weeks of tracking, we made it back to U.S. soil. We are actually just inside of Death Valley. When we got here, we met some people who seemed to be just wandering the desert. We told them of the outrageous actions of our government.

“We followed them back to their camp, were we waited. They came to us and offered us a proposal. At first, I was disturbed, but I soon realized that it was the only way.

“A rouge military group had you, and we were informed that when their leader reached the prison, he was going to be interrogating you.”

Steve listened in silence, and prayed.

Bill continued, “They told us that they were attacking that very day, as the sun set, and they proposed that I join them. Another was there for the very same reason. They introduced Quinn to Janet and me. I was against letting a boy be part of the gruesome task, but he had already convinced them that he had training and would be of help. I wasn’t in a position to argue, but I would not carry a weapon— and I urged Quinn to forgo one as well.

“We were given information that their intelligence had uncovered. Their hillbilly look is more a distraction than reality— though, many of them are quit red necked.

“They only knew that you had been on Long Island and was the only escapee, but they didn’t know about the baby. That was very good news, if they had an inkling about the baby, they would never stop hunting you. Fortunately, we have time to escape, and the rebels— or America’s Last Hope as the call themselves— will be a hindrance to the military pursuers.”

“Why didn’t you say anything when we were back with them? I would like to have heard what they had to say.”

“They wouldn’t have talked to you. Besides, you saw what kind of a hurry they were in to get out of their before the regular army showed up— they would all be killed against hardened marines.”

“Why do you think they wouldn’t have talked to me, they just rescued us from false imprisonment?”

“You were a coincidence for them, they never intended rescuing you— only because it wasn’t an inconvenience did they. They are a bit odd you know. I just got in right by accident, something I said about a government conspiracy or something.

Steve sensed that Bill was sincere. While praying, he was overcome with peace and gratitude for what Bill and Janet had done for them. “Thank you Bill.”

Bill blushed, realizing that he hadn’t been bragging, but what they had done was selfless— and dangerous.

Steve caught up to Ivan, who seemed to have a one-track mind, and asked him if he had any idea where they were going.

“Not a clue, I just follow the light.”

“What light,” Bill asked.

“That one right up front. We are following right behind him.”

“Him? There is no one there. And, there is no light but the stars overhead.”

Ivan looked over his shoulder at Bill, “You really don’t see?”

“I don’t see anything either,” Steve said.

“Well, you had better stick close to me then. I don’t want you getting lost without a guide.”

“I have to say, I am a bit jealous that you have been chosen to see the light of God,” Steve said.

“It is easy to follow God when I can see him— how much more blessed are those that follow him when they cannot. How weak is my faith that I need to be put on the right path by and angel from God himself?” Ivan looked down in shame.

“Look up Ivan,” Steve said, “Jesus paid the price and took away your shame. You are in God’s will, and you should be proud of that.”

“But you are here because you are following God, and yet you cannot see the angel before us. That means that your faith is so strong that you don’t need to be pushed in the right direction, unlike me, who needs to be coddled and have my hand held so I don’t get lost again.”

“Or,” Steve thought out loud, “We need you, and no one else will do, for whatever is in store for us, and God is rewarding you for your obedience. You know that Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament, was visited by an angel of God before he found his faith. Like you, he was incognitos to the living world and saw the invisible side. Paul never felt sorry for himself.”

Ivan stood erect at the feeling sorry for himself part, but realized that he was being silly letting his weak flesh-self rule him. “I have never read the bible. I have a lot of making up to do. I am so stuck in worldly ways, that I feel as though I need to earn God’s forgiveness. It is mankind that I need to make up to, God has forgiven me completely.”

#

          They continued through the night not needing to stop and rest. Steve thought that he had never felt better in his life, and he had not slept or eaten for two days.

          The sky was starting to lighten up in front of them as they topped the crest of a high hill. The sun was rising behind them and had not risen above the horizon, but the sun’s light illuminated the sky above in the most brilliant gold and oranges contrasted by the deep blue sky of the not yet day.

Cresting the top of the hill, Steve saw on the valley floor below them a small private airport. A lone cargo plane sat on the runway.

As they got closer, Steve could see men loading the plane with forklifts. Some men came out of the hanger and walked casually toward the group of people coming down the sandy hill towards their plane.

Ivan waved at them and shouted, “Hello, may we get some water?”

“My govorim tolʹko russkiĭ,” they said back.

“What?” Bill said.

“Prekrasno,” Ivan said, and turning to his friends, “They said they only speak Russian.”

The forklift drivers finished loading the plane as the group met the Russians at the back of the large plane. Ivan talked with them for a while then came to speak to Steve and the group. “Steve, they knew my parents! When I told them why I was in America and that we were fleeing, they offered all of us a ride. They are flying their cargo back to the motherland, but will be stopping at Cancun to trade this cargo for another on their way home.”

“That’s great,” Bill, said, “My boat is across the bay. My boys should be there by now and can sail across to meet us.”

“Cancun is not on the way to Russia,” Troy said.

“It’s true that eastern Russia is much closer if they go back west, but Russia is a big country and they are going to civilization, which is west, near Ukraine.”

“And they have room for all of us?” Steve asked, looking at the group of fifteen including himself.

“They said there are not enough seats, but we could make due. If any of you want to part with us and hitch hike to Las Vegas, it’s that way about a hundred and fifty miles,” he pointed toward the rising sun. ”Or Los Angeles is that way two hundred miles or so,” he pointed away from the sun. “It’s dessert either way you go.” And Ivan turned walking up the ramp to the cargo hold boarding the plane.

All but four followed immediately behind Ivan. Steve looked back at them as they seemed to be deciding their own will for their lives. The decision to follow where God led him was getting easier for Steve, but he never needed to be compelled to do so. He had been content living in Tiger Valley, and he would have been content to stay there, if it had been God’s will.

They were all onboard and ready to takeoff, to an unknown future, in the hands of God— and Steve loved it. Those who fail to plan, plan to let God lead— for who can say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.

Рука Бога was written on the side of the airplane in huge bold letters, though Steve had no idea what it said, he was drawn to it and thought he liked it.