“This has your name on it.” Mei handed her a folded piece of paper. “There’s also a passport in here. American. Has your picture, but with the name Elaine Leonard.”
“Hal.”
“Your father left this for you?”
Gemma nodded. She fingered the paper, but didn’t move to unfold it. “He buried it here.” The words washed over her as she said them. Her father had found her secret place, he’d preserved it as a haven of safety. And he’d written her a note.
The leaves shifted once again. Gemma dropped the box and scooted as far back as she could in the small space. “What is…”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
Gemma stared. The figure sat up. Leaves and branches fell to the ground and she saw his face, blood covered. Eyes nearly swollen shut, red had pooled under his nose and dripped down his chin. He looked like he’d been in the ring for two rounds already.
“Terrence.” She breathed his name as fear raced through her. His hands and feet and knees were all tied up and his elbows had been taped to his body in a binding that wrapped around his stomach. There was little shirt still visible with the amount of blood on him.
Mei lifted that giant gun and pointed it at his face. Even with his eyes like that, he had to be able to see it. “Don’t move.”
Chapter 26
Every foot John placed on the ground was agony. Every breath shot fire through his lungs. That thin body armor might be almost invisible, and it had stopped the bullet, but it had left a bruise the size of Montana on his chest. Sweat poured from his temples but he kept walking. It was the only way to get help for his town. One step at a time, all the way through this mountain that would never end.
He’d followed the tracks for what felt like ever before he saw sunlight on the other side. John hadn’t been out of Sanctuary in more than two years. He didn’t miss it, even with what was happening now.
His knees buckled, and he planted his hands on the grass as he sucked in clean, fresh air. Ground angled down, away from him. This side of the mountain didn’t look too dissimilar to his side. Ponderosa trees. Rocks. Probably a deer, or mountain lion. If he never saw another tunnel in his life, it would be too soon. He didn’t know how he was going to walk all the way back through the mountain to town after he made his call, but God would figure it out.
John rolled to his back and slipped his phone from his belt. “Please work.” The words were barely audible. He coughed, pulled the water from his backpack and drank the last couple of drops. He held the bottle above his mouth and waited for that last drip. He’d gathered enough intelligence over the last couple of weeks to figure out where the way out of town was.
Thank You, Lord. Now God needed to bring another miracle, because John was all out of steam and strength and ideas.
He lifted the phone again and tried to make out what was on the screen. Signal, but barely. He dialed, praying as it rang that he’d get through.
“Grant Mason.” His brother’s voice was like a fresh bottle of water.
“It’s John.”
“Are you okay? What’s happening?” The words came out like a rush, and then Grant went silent.
“I’m probably the only one that is okay.”
“We’ve been trying to reach you all day. Ben is freaking out. Mom has been calling me every half an hour, and even Nate was on the phone, saying he can’t get through to Pat.”
John ran down what had happened.
“Okay, I know ‘siege’ was on the list, but I never thought it was actually a possibility.”
“It happened. Chandler shot me, and now he’s claiming the town as his.” John took a breath so he could continue. “Please tell me we can deal with this.”
The fear was like a voice, screaming into his ear. You aren’t strong enough to save them. They’ll die, and you’ll be alone forever. Andra. Pat. The baby. Aaron. His family was back there, and John was out here. “Please tell me I did the right thing.” Tears spilled onto his cheeks. John squeezed the bridge of his nose and tried to get ahold of himself.
Grant spoke in his ear. “Brother, you did the only thing you could. Staying there, you could save one. Maybe you could save your family. Now you’re going to save the whole town.”
“And if Andra dies? Or any of the boys?” None of them would forgive him, and that was fine. John wouldn’t forgive himself. “How do I go on after that, Grant?” He choked on his words. “You need to get a helicopter here. I can’t even get up. I’m useless. I walked all this way, and for what?”
“To get word out,” Grant said. “We’re calling everyone in now. We’ll come and get you, and then we’re going to retake that town. We’re going to work together, not alone. This team will get Chandler and get the town back. Okay? Us. Not you, alone. Not Ben. Us, together.”
John squeezed his eyes shut and fought back the emotion. “I have to get back there. Now.”
What was Andra thinking? Did she believe he was alive? No one had seen him, no one saw Bay. It was almost like God had shielded him from their eyes just so that he could get out. Could it be possible? He didn’t know, he’d never experienced anything like it. But now that he was out, it burned in him to get back there. Sanctuary had fallen, and they had to save the people.
“I’ll have you picked up. Don’t move. We need a static position.”
“We can’t just fly into town. Chandler will start shooting them like hostages.”
Grant said, “When we go back in we do it with a plan. Fast as we can, but not without making sure everyone knows what we’re doing.”
“Get Ben on it.”
“Soon as he calls me back, I will.”
John nodded even though his brother couldn’t see him. He clenched his free hand into a fist. “I have to get up. I have to move.” If he couldn’t function, how could he help? The bullet had slammed into him with a force that felled him. Stunned, he’d lain there with his eyes closed, waiting for the bullet to the head which would finish him off. But it never came. Sheriff Chandler had gone onto his next task and left John in the street.
He collapsed back onto the grass and a breeze drifted over his face like a kiss. John held the phone to his ear. “I have to be able to do this, Grant.”
“You will. Just rest.”
Rest? Nothing to do but wait. John hung up the phone and dropped it on the ground before he threw it at the nearest tree. He looked up at the sky and let out a frustrated cry. Everything he wanted to be, everything he wanted to do. All those people to save, and he might only be able to save some while he lost the ones who meant the most to him.
**
Gemma sat frozen. “Terrence is in my tent.”
Mei flipped the gun backwards and slammed the handle part into his temple. Terrence fell back on to the grass. “Are you going to read that letter?”
She looked up, ready to snap at Mei for being so uncaring about what Gemma was feeling. Then she saw the look on the Chinese woman’s face. Her eyes shone, almost childlike under the emotion that swam there.
Mei said, “I’d want to read a letter my father sent me. Even if it was bad, I’d still read it. I’d probably carry it with me, forever.”
“Then you know how I feel. But you need to give me a minute.” She scooted back as far as she could go to get away from Terrence. He’d still be able to reach her when he woke up. “I don’t like him being here.”
Mei nodded. “I’ll get rid of him for you. But you should know, there could be something in that letter which might help the people in this town live to see tomorrow. So read it now, before we do anything else.”
Gemma looked through the other papers that were with the gun and the passport. A photo of five men; on the back their names were listed along with Saigon Base, March 1976. These had to be the CIA agents Bill Jones had testified against—the ones Hal kept him safe from. It grated on her that a murderer could be protected, but it wasn’t for her to decide. No one person was more or less valuable than anyone else, b
ut people seemed to assign more value to the victim. Or an innocent. People who couldn’t protect themselves.
“Why are people in power always so much worse than the bad who have no authority? Instead of just being mean, they make people’s lives a living nightmare and we can’t avoid them.”
Mei took the photo. “That’s why there are people like me in the world. We do what we can, dispensing justice where it would otherwise never have come in this life and trying to save just one more person who can’t—or won’t—save themselves. It’s what I was born to do.”
“Don’t you ever want to just walk away? Disappear and go live another life.”
“Sure, but then I’d have to live with the fact that there would come a time when I didn’t do anything, and I could have saved someone.”
Gemma stared at the woman who just might turn out to be a friend. “So you’re basically a superhero.”
“You forget. Superheroes are all good all the way to the center of who they are. That’s why there aren’t any in the world. And I’m not one of them.”
Gemma didn’t know that she agreed with her friend. Plenty of people were many shades of good and bad. She looked at Terrence, still unconscious. Some were a lot worse than others, but the rest were all a work-in-progress moving toward who they wanted to be. She’d always figured those who accepted they were evil, like Bill Jones, were the ones she was sad for. They couldn’t get better, because they’d given up and surrendered to it.
“Now read the letter.”
Gemma unfolded the paper and read aloud,
“My dearest Gemma,
For years I have prayed for one chance to tell you who I really am. Your father. For years I have watched you grow, not just in height and age but in character. In strength. You have stood up for the ones who couldn’t protect themselves and been hurt because of it. I tried to shield you the only way I knew how, with secrets. But it didn’t work.
There is nothing worse in this life than realizing the worst you could have imagined has come true. If you’re reading this, things are bad enough in Sanctuary—or for you personally—that you have sought solace in your tent. I tried to build a place of protection, a Sanctuary, for you but I could not. It was beyond my power, but you carved one for yourself in the middle of my nightmare.”
Gemma swiped a tear from her cheek and kept reading.
“Even now that Bill Jones is dead, I’m afraid for us. For your mother. For you. The world is full of evil, a dark stench that creeps into our lives and corrupts even the best of us. I have allowed an evil man to hurt everyone I love because it was my duty to ensure he remained in Sanctuary. I thought the town would heal something in him, and it was too late before I realized it had not. Things were the same as ever, maybe worse.
Bill Jones has, for years, spread his evil to others and to you. Dan suffered because of it. His mother was a casualty of my war, and I allowed it. For that I will always be truly sorry. Because of it, I can never have the happiness I desired for myself and for our family. If Dan Walden cannot have peace and love in his life then neither will I.
My prayer is that you will leave. I know you have lived in town your whole life, but I wish for you to see the world. There is beauty in it, and I believe that you will find peace, because I fear that you won’t find it here. That is why I have left you this gift, a way out. Protection.
The photo enclosed in this box will save your life when those who hunt me for my part in the betrayal against them come for you. Maybe they are all dead. Maybe my era is over now. But if it is not, use this photo to bargain for your life. There is nothing more important to me than that you live. Leave. Be free when I could not. Love when I could not. Find a Sanctuary of your own.
Your father always and forever,
Hal Leonard.”
Gemma snatched up the photo and scrambled to the lantern. She found the matchbook she’d always used to light the wick. Mercifully, it was dry.
She struck a match and held it to the photo.
Mei didn’t move. “Are you sure about this?”
Gemma was glad the woman didn’t try to stop her. “I don’t want this. It isn’t going to be a bargaining chip, as much as Hal might’ve wanted that.” The corner curled up toward where she held it. When the heat hit her fingers she dropped the photo on the ground. “They want it, they can’t have it. I won’t give up something Hal spent his life keeping out of their hands.”
Mei’s face shone with something that looked a lot like respect. Gemma couldn’t decide whether she cared or not what the woman thought.
“I’m not giving it to Chandler. I’m doing what I should have done with all those papers in the radio station in the first place.”
“Good.”
She didn’t need the woman’s approval, either. “But now—”
Mei slapped her hand over Gemma’s mouth. Before Gemma could react she touched the index finger of her free hand to her closed lips.
“I swear I saw someone go this way.” A man, outside their hiding spot, crunched through the pine needles. A branch cracked. More than one set of footsteps.
His cohort said, “I smell burning. Is something on fire?”
“You mean like Janice’s house?” They both snickered. Gemma wanted to launch from their spot and punch the guy in the face.
Mei shook her head.
She wanted to do it, but that didn’t mean she was going to.
Mei dropped her hand. She patted the photo and the ground around it to extinguish the fire. Her sleeve pulled back with the movement, enough that Gemma saw a stripe of skin around her wrist. It matched the circle of red on her own wrist from being bound by Terrence’s parents.
Mei looked up and Gemma realized the woman knew she’d seen it. Mei pulled her hand back and adjusted her sleeve.
Terrence’s leg moved.
The footsteps outside got closer. Gemma’s stomach knotted as Mei moved again. What was she doing now?
Mei took items from her pockets and set them gently on the ground, no sound emanating from her movements. A granola bar. Another one—birthday cake flavor. A metal pen. A knife in its own sheath. Mei tucked that in her boot and motioned to the gun still lying in the box. Gemma lifted it out, but Mei mouthed the word, Yours. Did Mei think she was actually going to use it? Dan had taught her how, but that didn’t mean she liked guns.
Terrence shifted and moaned.
The footsteps were right outside now. One of the men said, “I think there’s something in here.”
Gemma reached over and put her hand on his mouth. She could hold his nose as well, but he’d thrash as his body searched for air.
Mei pulled her pant leg down over her boot to hide the knife and then blew Gemma a silent kiss. She crawled to the entrance, rocked back on her heels like a sprinter and then burst out of the hiding spot.
“Hey!”
Over the man’s yell, the sound of a gunshot made Gemma’s whole body jerk. Please don’t let Mei get killed.
“Stop!”
Feet pounded the dirt away from her. Mei wasn’t dead.
More shots rang out.
“Okay, I’ll stop!” Mei’s voice drifted back, her yell quiet over the distance she’d run. “Don’t shoot me, I’ll go with you.”
“The sheriff wants to talk to you.”
“Okay. Just don’t hurt me.”
“Sure,” the man’s voice wavered on a laugh even as he said it. Gemma heard an “oof” and someone thumped onto the ground.
She lifted her hand from Terrence’s mouth and moved away as quietly as she could. She sat again and bit her knuckle to keep from crying out and giving away her position. Please don’t let Mei get hurt. The woman had given herself up to save Gemma. Probably there was an ulterior motive of taking that knife and being brought to the sheriff. Mei wasn’t going to go down without a fight. But what was Gemma supposed to do? Hal had told her to leave. To live.
She wasn’t going to leave without at least telling Dan where she was, but
how could she do that when all she had was one gun?
Gemma glanced at Terrence.
His eyes were open.
**
A soft knock on the door. Matthias was leaning against the counter by the coffee pot. The Hispanic man shrugged, so Bolton wheeled across his kitchen to the back door. “Who is it?”
The voice beyond the door said, “Sergeant Pepper’s lonely hearts club band.”
Matthias shook his head. “What?”
Bolton just smiled and opened the door. The general—or at least he used to be—strode in, followed by a former air force officer who was now his assistant. Behind him was Michael, Louis, and Maria’s husband, Tim.
Michael and Louis made a bee-line for Matthias. They were godfather’s to his daughter, only they took that in the full Italian meaning of the word Godfather. And everyone in town knew it.
Major General Halt pulled up a chair and his assistant, in her forties and never outside without her uniform of a pant suit or skirt suit, found his stash of coffee and set the carafe under the sink to fill. Guess we’re having more coffee.
Bolton turned his chair to face the table. “Is there a reason why you’re invading my kitchen this evening?” Though he figured he knew why, considering they’d broken curfew and snuck in the back instead of ringing the doorbell in front.
Halt cleared his throat. “To make a plan, of course.”
“A plan for what?” Matthias folded his arms. Beside him, both Italian men did the same, even though Michael only had one arm. Matthias rolled his eyes. “Bolton and I have been friends for years, you know that. Why would we be planning anything?”
“You’re going to let Chandler run this town?”
Matthias didn’t answer. Bolton pulled forward to the spot at the table where there was no chair and set his hands on the table. A mug of coffee was placed in front of him. He told the general’s assistant, “Thank you” and then said, “This is an extremely delicate situation, Halt. Matthias isn’t going to put his daughter in jeopardy.”
Sanctuary Forever WITSEC Town Series Book 5 Page 29