“In our long-term care facility, Father,” the doctor said, and he pointed to a small, two-story wing beside the courtyard. “They’re the children who will not be going home again.”
“Christopher,” Parenti called out. “Come along for a few moments. There are some other children who’d like to play as well.”
Bondurant was certain he knew what Parenti had in mind. It was bound to draw notice that would expose Christopher. He had known the day might come when his son could serve a higher purpose, when he was ready, when they were ready. But when confronted with smaller miracles to help just a few, he was at a loss. He stood speechless.
“Let them go,” Domenika said. She put her arm around Bondurant’s waist and leaned her head on his shoulder.
In the next hour, Bondurant and Domenika followed Christopher, Parenti, and his pup as the hospital administrator guided them from room to room inside the silent hospice for children. Some of the severely ill children Christopher reached out to touch had been in the hospital for months; a few for years, they learned. There were children with cases of congenital heart disease, acute myeloid leukemia, cerebral palsy, and several forms of cancer. All were curious to have such a friendly visitor in Christopher. Some reached out for hugs from the smiling boy as though he were an old friend. Others were cheered with a simple shy wave of hello or a bark from the dog as they passed. Bondurant watched as each of the children Christopher visited sat up in his or her bed, instantly changed. Several children climbed from their beds to race one another down the hall.
With these recent images from their afternoon at the hospital in his mind, Bondurant held Christopher close in his arms as they bounded down the hallway toward the hospital’s exit. It had been almost two hours since Christopher had begun to make his “rounds,” and news had traveled fast. Twitter feeds and text messages had already alerted the media, and reporters had arrived to report live from the chaotic scene. The small crowd of medical staff, parents, and curious onlookers at the facility’s entrance had begun to swell. The uproar as Bondurant tried to clear their way to leave the facility started to make him concerned for Christopher’s safety.
As they burst from the hospital entrance into the sunlight of the late afternoon, Bondurant set Christopher down and held his hand as they started to run to their hotel across the street. Domenika and Parenti followed close behind. A dozen or more of the most curious took chase. Fortunately, Bondurant and his group made it to the hotel lobby and into the elevator alone. They were breathless.
When they reached their room, Bondurant went immediately to the outdoor balcony and leaned over the railing to measure the problem. A fast-growing crowd had formed between the hospital and hotel entrances. He estimated around two hundred people had gathered. Among the curious, many who had apparently followed them on foot back to their hotel were families with children who’d come from the hospital to find them. They were joined by a handful of doctors, most still in their gowns and medical garb. As he looked down from the eighth floor, Bondurant could see there were now several TV vans, their satellite dishes extended high, hunkered down at the hotel’s entrance.
The noisy crowd that peered upward at the twelve-story building had grown so large that several policemen, their patrol cars double-parked with lights ablaze, attempted to keep the crowd off the busy street that divided the hospital and the hotel. Bondurant watched a man from one of the news crews point his camera directly at him as though he was aiming a gun.
“Domenika, don’t unpack,” Bondurant said. He stepped away from the balcony railing to edge out of sight of the crowd. “We need to leave right away.”
“Jon, what’s wrong?” Domenika asked. She stepped out onto the balcony to join him and, startled at the amount of noise from below, looked down on the chaotic scene. “Oh, that’s what’s wrong.”
“Please come down!” a woman shouted from the driveway, having spotted the two of them on the balcony. “There are more children here who need help!”
Bondurant took Domenika’s arm and tugged her away from the ledge to get her out of view. He knew it was only a matter of minutes before someone in the crowd would determine their room number based on the location of the balcony where they’d been seen.
“Please! Bring down the child!” another shouted. She held a small boy by the hand. “That’s all we ask.”
“I’m here to say thank you!” another young woman with a child in her arms cried out.
“Jon,” Domenika said, “obviously, they want—”
“I know what they want, but I’m worried about Christopher,” Bondurant said. He looked inside for his son and wondered whether they’d made a terrible mistake. Christopher sat on the bed with Aldo, watching a cartoon on TV, unaware of the scene outside. “This could really get out of hand. And put us right back on the grid.”
Inside, Parenti had hurriedly arranged their luggage by the door. He turned off the TV and took Christopher by the hand. “Let’s make our way to the back stairwell, shall we?” the priest called out.
“Good idea,” Bondurant said. “We’ll hail a cab a block or two from here.”
“But what about our car?” Parenti asked, nearly out of breath.
“Forget it. It’s parked too close to the crowd. We’ll have to get another one.”
Bondurant bolted from the balcony back into the suite, swept Christopher up in his arms, and headed toward the hallway with Domenika, Parenti, and Aldo, who bounded close behind. Bondurant looked Christopher in the eyes and could see that he was worried.
“Daddy, are we in trouble?” Christopher asked. “Why are we running?”
Bondurant smiled at the boy. “Everything’s fine, Christopher,” Bondurant said. “We just need to leave sooner than we thought.”
Bondurant looked down at his son once more. He had bided his time for years. But now he had the certainty he needed. Countless more lives might be saved by a vial that had been half filled with Christopher’s blood at his birth. It had been hidden away in the hope that a day like this might come.
Chapter 25
Portland, Oregon
Come on, hop in,” Bondurant said. He opened the door to the cab he’d hailed a block from their hotel. Domenika, Christopher, and Parenti settled into the tattered backseat while Bondurant jumped in front.
“Jesus loves you, mon,” the cabbie said as he glanced in the rearview mirror. He adjusted it slightly so he could see all his passengers in the rear. He rested against a sea of large, colorful beads sewn into a seat cover designed to massage his back. Bondurant, who couldn’t resist the irony of the cabbie’s greeting, let out a nervous laugh.
“He loves you too, my son,” Parenti said. The little priest adjusted the flap on his knapsack so that Aldo too had a view. “We need a Hertz rental-car place, pronto, if you please.”
Bondurant was certain he smelled weed in the car. He took a good look at the cabbie, a handsome young black man in a yellow T-shirt with dreadlocks flowing from a brightly shaded Rasta cap.
“Hertz!” the cabbie said.
He shoved the car into drive and launched the cab forward. He’d gone only fifty yards down Eleventh Avenue when he hit the brakes hard. It sent the car’s tires into a high-pitched squeal. Their driver snapped his head around to get a better look at his passengers. He focused on Christopher’s smiling face.
“You that boy,” the cabbie said. “And you, mon, are the little priest.” He slapped his knee in joy.
Bondurant grimaced.
“My name is Christopher,” the boy said. He held out his hand, and the cabbie took it. “Nice to meet you.”
“I hear the radio, mon,” the cabbie said. He pointed at Chris. “You the miracle boy. The one at the hospital. You save all them children, mon. You have the gift!”
Bondurant watched as a broad grin broke out across Parenti’s face. Parenti put his arm around the boy and squeezed him tight.
“Trust me. I told Robaire, I told him it was a trick,” the cabbie said. “He sa
y you the boy Jesus, but I say no, no, no. But he was there. His daughter was sick.” The cabbie turned his attention to the street in front of him and started the cab down the road again.
When their taxi had reached Gibbs Street, it looped fully around a small and crowded traffic circle and then entered the roundabout once more to go around again. Bondurant stared at the meter and wondered if the cabbie was trying to run up the fare.
“What’s your name?” Bondurant asked.
“Jamar, my friend. And what be yours?”
“I’m Jon,” Bondurant said. “And I’m getting dizzy. If we go around this circle again, I’m going to ask you to pull over. We’re in a hurry to get a car.”
“Here’s the problem, Mr. Jon,” the cabbie said. “Sure as this tam on my head, we got company.” He gestured with his thumb to their rear.
Bondurant jerked his head around to look behind them. Three satellite TV vans that bore logos representing the local affiliates were in a tight formation, right on their tail.
“Time to shake them loose, mon?” the cabbie asked. He’d finished careening through the traffic circle at high speed once more. All three vans were still close behind.
Bondurant looked back again. He reached for his wallet and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. He placed it on the dashboard in front of him. “Start shaking,” Bondurant said.
In an instant, the cabbie jumped the curb onto the wide pavement that fronted an entire block of jewelry and fashion stores. Soon they began to coast down the middle of the sidewalk at ten miles an hour. They rolled past the traffic snarled on the street beside them. A crowd of shoppers on the walkway farther ahead scattered on the pavement as the cab approached. The cabbie laid his hand on the horn and laughed loudly as he crept slowly forward. He split the remaining crowd in two. Parenti closed his eyes and placed a hand in front of Christopher’s face to shield him from the sight. Bondurant’s own face went pale.
“I take the alley to Twelfth,” the cabbie said. He made a sharp right turn without touching the brakes and missed a cement wall by inches. “Give thanks, mon. They don’t know Portland like Jamar know Portland,” he boasted.
When they were halfway down the narrow alley between the walls of two buildings less than a foot away on either side, Bondurant turned around to see if they had lost their pursuers. For the moment, they had.
“If they smart, they catch up on Curry,” Jamar said. Suddenly, the cab emerged from the deep shadows of the alleyway into the bright sunlight again. It tore past a crosswalk, barely missed a pedestrian, and then accelerated down the street again.
“How far is Curry?” Bondurant shouted out. The roar of the engine nearly drowned out his voice.
“Mon, we on it,” the cabbie said.
Bondurant turned to look behind them again. Fifty yards to their rear, the TV trucks had begun to advance on them once more. Jamar seemed to pay them little mind. He adjusted his rearview mirror again to see Christopher and Parenti hunkered down in the backseat.
“Christopher, my mon,” the cabbie shouted. “Tell us why you wants to be the Christ child. You better watch. You might get hurt.”
Bondurant watched Christopher, who stared up at Jamar in earnest. Domenika froze at the driver’s words.
“God wants us all to be like Jesus,” the boy said. “Right?” He looked up at Parenti.
“He certainly does,” the priest said.
“Hah!” the cabbie said. “This is righteous. I love God, mon. He loves me. Do you love God, Mr. Jon?”
The moment the cabbie posed the question, he took a hard right turn onto Marquam Hill Road and steered the cab across a break in the median strip. Then he accelerated down the wrong side of the street as if he owned it. Cars on the divided four-lane road honked their horns and steered wildly out of the way to avoid a head-on collision with the cab. Aldo let out a frightened yelp and receded deep into his knapsack home.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Bondurant cried out. He wanted to escape the vans in pursuit, but not at the expense of their lives.
“I said, do you love God?” the cabbie shouted again.
Bondurant stared straight ahead as the scene unfolded. Then he heard a cacophony of car horns behind them. When he turned around, he saw that one of the pursuing vans now sat sideways, stalled in its lane. It had spun out to avoid oncoming cars. The remaining two vans still swerved in unison like the tail end of a snake behind the cab. Bondurant looked at the speedometer. It read forty-five mph. With the speed of the oncoming traffic, it felt like they were traveling at the speed of light.
“You get us to a rental-car place in one piece, and I’ll love God all you want,” Bondurant shouted.
“Hah!” the cabbie said as he pounded his palm on the steering wheel.
After another half mile of terror headed the wrong way down Marquam Hill Road, the cabbie hopped the median again and took a sharp right turn onto Jackson Park Road.
“Here’s the thing, mon,” the cabbie said. “God, he puts us here in this world. To live. To learn. To love. But the greatest of these things is love. Trust me. Am I righteous, Father?”
Before the priest could answer, they crossed over onto Terwilliger Boulevard and came upon a small bridge that arched over the Willamette River. Just before the bridge, Jamar hit the brakes hard, bringing the taxi to a full stop. As the TV van behind them swerved to avoid slamming into their rear, it quickly ran out of room. It veered into a construction zone at the edge of the bridge. Several workers in hard hats dashed to the side as the van skidded through a temporary guardrail and ground to a halt in a shallow ditch below. The cabbie hit the gas once more and looked at Parenti again.
“Unfortunate, but unhurt,” the cabbie said, pointing to the now-stalled van. “Am I righteous, Father?”
“You are insane, son. And you are high,” Parenti said as he continued to shelter Christopher in his arms. “But yes. Righteous, too.”
“How far are we from Hertz?” Bondurant asked. “There’s still a van behind us.”
“You want to lose this van too, yes?” Jamar asked.
“As badly as the others,” Bondurant said. He was intent on losing the last van, as it was beyond his imagination to try to explain the miraculous events of the day to the press.
“Then we take the scenic route,” the cabbie said.
Jamar executed a daring hairpin turn and headed in the opposite direction on Route 26. The taxi jumped a sidewalk again at a narrow point right before a high cement curb. As its engine roared, the taxi bounced hard onto the surface and swerved to avoid a set of light poles that lined the street. The last remaining van on their tail, wider than the cab, followed but broadsided the tall curb. Its undercarriage slammed onto the sidewalk with a bang. Sparks flew from underneath the van. The van’s driver, who’d made a safe escape from behind the wheel, looked on forlornly as his vehicle’s drive shaft lay twenty yards behind.
“Hah!” the cabbie shouted out as he looked back and flashed the victory sign. “Scenic route. You’d better hold on.”
Bondurant peered ahead and cringed. He saw only blue sky before them for a moment and knew it meant they approached a steep decline ahead. He was right. Within a second, the cab launched off all four wheels and careened down a steep concrete embankment in what felt like an uncontrolled dive. A flock of angry seagulls scattered in every direction. The car bounced and scraped its way noisily toward the freeway at the foot of the embankment below. When it finally cleared the freeway entrance and skidded onto the street, Jamar accelerated hard. As his tires smoked, he spun the cab into a four-wheel drift across the road toward a parking lot marked with a massive yellow-and-black Hertz sign. As he entered the lot at high speed, he missed the two parked cars at his front and rear by only a hair. The cab’s tires lightly bounced against the curb and mercifully brought the car to a sudden halt.
“Yes!” the cabbie cried out as he turned the radio down. “We live. We learn. We love. But the greatest of these is what, my mon Christopher?”
/> “Love!” the boy shouted as he squeezed the cabbie’s shoulder. He climbed from the backseat of the car as if he’d hopped off a carnival ride and raised both arms high into the air. “The greatest of these is love!”
Chapter 26
Dickerson, Maryland
Bondurant had left a half-dozen urgent phone messages for Khan at WHO offices scattered around the world. He didn’t know Khan personally but presumed she would at least take his call. None was returned, and he was livid at her lack of response.
Now that Christopher had clearly demonstrated the unbelievable power to heal others in need, Bondurant knew there was no time to waste. Many more people had died from the plague since his son was born. It was time to act. When he was finally able to confirm that Khan was in Washington, D.C., not far from their new home, he moved fast.
It was late in the evening when he arrived at WHO’s offices on 23rd Street. He banged on the steel entrance door to the building in the faint hope that she might be there. A security guard at the front desk tracked down an assistant, who told Bondurant that Khan had already left for the evening. She had just departed for the subway, was headed out of the country, and would not return to the office for two weeks. With any luck, he might be able to catch her at the station if he stepped on it.
Bondurant sprinted to the Foggy Bottom station three blocks away. He was out of breath when he finally reached the dimly lit subway platform. The station was quiet, long past rush hour, and only a handful of late-night commuters waited for the next train to appear. Bondurant scanned the platform for any sign of Khan. He had never met her before, having only seen her face on TV. But he remembered her as a striking woman. He was confident he would recognize her if he could only get close.
As the next train arrived and slowly glided to a stop, a woman at the far end of the platform rose quickly from behind a post where she’d sat. She stepped into the first car of the train when its doors slid open before her. She was too distant to recognize, and Bondurant wasn’t certain it was Khan. He knew the train would depart soon and that he might lose his only chance to catch her. He hopped into a car at the middle of the train just seconds before the sliding doors sounded their warning chime and closed behind him. He hoped he’d made the right decision. He began the long trek to the front car of the train as fast as he could.
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