I was surprised by his statement. “Unfortunately, he is,” I said. “Satan’s strength lies in the fact that most people either don’t believe he’s real, or they believe he is but think they can stand up to him on their own.”
“You don’t believe that’s possible?”
I frowned. “You can’t fight a supernatural war with the weapons of this world,” I said. “It would be like taking on Godzilla with a pea shooter.”
Connor chuckled at the mental image that prompted. “So you don’t believe bad things just happen, that we’re programmed either by DNA or by our environment to do wrong?” he asked.
“No. We all sin—that’s one thing. It’s quite another to look into the face of true evil,” I answered. “To forgive, we have to be able to understand what we’re expected to forgive. How do we begin to understand true, absolute evil?”
“And how would one define absolute evil?” he challenged me.
I gave the question some thought. “9/11. The Holocaust. Darfur,” I said. “Mothers who murder their children, but afterward can’t explain why they did it. Actions that are indefensible. Satan is a real charmer, a master manipulator. He whispers in your ear, enticing. Evil is easier than good. More fun, some would say.”
“Do you believe Satan—or God, for that matter—speaks to the individual?” he asked then.
“Sure, absolutely,” I answered without hesitation.
“In an audible voice?”
I removed the cap from my water bottle and took a long swallow. “Sometimes,” I said, “but usually it’s a voice that comes from within.”
“Like schizophrenia?”
I shook my head. “Throughout recorded history, those who heard and saw what others couldn’t were automatically labeled mentally ill,” I said. “Sure, there are some who actually are, but consider what made them ill.”
“The voices,” Connor said. “But who decides what’s true evil? Does one get labeled evil simply by being different, outside the established norm? Wasn’t that how Hitler justified the killing of millions of Jews? Isn’t that bin Laden’s excuse for turning commercial airliners into weapons to commit mass murder? He claimed, I believe, that the West is decadent, populated by evil individuals?”
I gave a little laugh. “You should be a sociologist,” I said. “What did your father—your biological father—do?”
Connor's mood turned abruptly dark. “I have no idea who my father was.”
“So, am I going to have to call him sir?”
This came from my longtime partner, Tim O’Halloran, a tall, thin, bespectacled African-American who had a habit of introducing himself to newcomers at the site by saying, "I know, I don't look Irish."
Yes, he had a warped sense of humor.
Tim and I had been friends since our days at the University of Utah, and partners for the past ten years. Ours was the kind of friendship that allowed us to be totally uncensored with each other, as Tim was now.
“No,” I assured him, wiping my face with a handkerchief.
He wasn't convinced. “Is there going to be a problem?” he pursued as he reached for his toolbox. “Is he going to override every decision we make? Do we have to consult him on everything?”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s not going to pull rank,” I said, checking the fixed GPS receiver. I decided it was probably best not to admit that I’d initially had the same reservations. “When I met him, he sure didn’t look like a billionaire’s stepson. I don’t think money means all that much to him.”
Tim adjusted the harness on the GPS rover unit worn by one of the team members. Using global positioning, which relies on US military satellites, we were able to map out the site and create a contour map of the area. He grinned at me. “It sounds like you spent a lot of time looking at him,” he said.
“Tim!” His wife scolded him gently. Isabella was a photographer who documented their work on film. She was tall, reed-thin, with a mass of tight black curls framing her heart-shaped face. I used to tell him she was far too beautiful to have wound up married to a nerd like him.
“There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it if she did, babe,” Tim defended himself. “She’s been alone way too long. It’s about time she met somebody who can make her see all men aren’t like that jackass she married.”
“For the record, Connor and I are strictly business,” I cut in. “Mixing business and pleasure would be a very bad idea.”
Tim made another adjustment in the harness before sending the rover out. “Yeah,” he said, unconvinced. “That’s why you let him move in with you. Talk about sending out serious mixed signals.”
“He needed a place to stay,” I said with a shrug. Again, I'd had the same reservations. “He won’t be staying very long.”
Tim turned to Isabella with a look that suggested they had been speculating about just how I'd managed to obtain the funding so easily. Then he turned back to me. “I say go for it. You deserve to be happy.”
“You just met Connor. For that matter, I just met him,” I said, parking my butt on a large wooden crate. I wiped my hands on my jeans. “How would you know if he could make me happy or not?”
“I don’t,” Tim conceded. “But I’ve been there with you through David Masters and that bonehead Darcy. I watched you get kicked to the curb by both of them. This is the first time since the divorce I’ve seen you look at a man like you gave a rat’s ass. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t--but you won’t know if you don’t take the chance. You like the guy. Why don’t you want to admit it?”
Isabella spoke up. “It’s possible she doesn’t want you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” she guessed, looking around to make sure all of her kids were within her range of vision.
“Funding for five years, and you didn’t even have to submit a proposal,” Tim reminded me. “Even if you don’t have ideas about him, I think it’s pretty clear he’s got ideas about you.”
“You cannot seriously believe he’d put out that kind of money for—” I couldn’t even say the words. It was ridiculous. Connor wasn't the kind of man who had trouble finding women who'd be willing to share his bed.
“He’s not here for the ambiance,” Tim reasoned, pulling a bottle of water from a nearby cooler.
I shook my head. “There’s nothing between Connor and me and there’s not going to be,” I said firmly. I'd learned my lesson when it came to men. “And for the record, Connor is not interested in any woman beyond a roll in the hay. He’s been completely honest about that.”
Tim grinned. “How long do you plan to maintain that vow of celibacy?” he wanted to know.
Pam Hill, the team’s botanist, spoke up then. “He can move in with me,” she volunteered.
“You only have one bedroom,” Isabella pointed out.
Pam put down the tools she’d been digging with and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. Her blond hair escaped the cloth headband she wore, spilling across her forehead. “We’d only need one,” she said. “If I had a man who looked like him under my roof, I’d be all over him like a bad rash.”
“If you got all over him, he’d probably end up with a bad rash,” Tim said, only half-joking. Pam had a reputation for promiscuity. It didn’t matter if the men were married or single. A wedding ring didn’t stop her.
“Hey, Connor!” Isabella called out. He was heading toward us. She raised her camera to get a shot of him.
“No photographs!” he shouted, waving her off.
“This is just for—”
“No photographs!” This time, there was anger in his voice.
Isabella lowered her camera. She and Tim both looked at me, perplexed. I shrugged. “He’s very private.” But I wondered if that was really the case, or if there were more to it than that.
11
Lynne
“What do you think of the changes I’ve made?” Connor asked as he escorted me into the lab.
I looked around, amazed. The equipment he’d ordered had arrived, and t
he place looked like something out of Star Trek. There were half a dozen lab techs in white coats, checking over everything.
“I barely recognize it,” I said. “This is so high-tech—what are we going to do with all of this?”
He smiled. “That’s up to you.”
“Me?”
“We’re going to need something to work with. Find us something.” He regarded me with amusement. “Consider this a challenge.”
I walked around, taking it all in. “I don’t even recognize some of this equipment.” I turned back to face Connor again. “You could always create Frankenstein’s monster if you get bored.”
He leaned back against one of the counters, folding his arms across his chest. “You’re used to operating on a shoestring,” he observed. “That’s now at an end. If you want to make history, you have to gamble.”
“Are you planning to make history?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
I didn't believe for a moment that he was joking.
12
Connor
I was on my laptop, ordering equipment for the lab, when Lynne came in with a small cardboard box with holes poked in the lid. “What have you there?” I asked, nodding toward the box, hoping it was not a snake. I'd always had a bit of a fear of them, though I was not quick to admit to that.
She sat down next to me. “My patient.” She lifted the lid so that I could see what was inside. Huddled in one corner of the box was a tiny bird with one wing askew. “He’s injured his wing,” she explained.
I looked up at her. “What are you going to do, put a splint on it?” I asked, amused.
“Hardly. I just have to keep him quiet and make sure he gets enough nourishment until he heals. Then I send him on his way.”
“And how will you know when he’s well enough to be set free?” I asked.
“I won’t. But he will.” She placed the box on the table in front of me.
I studied the tiny creature for a long moment. It brought back a sudden rush of memories from the distant past, of all the injured creatures my mum and I tended when I was a wee lad. “They’re God’s creatures, just as we are,” she would tell me. “We are responsible for them. We must take care of them. We have been given stewardship over all the creatures of the earth.”
“Then why do we eat them, Mummy?” I asked. It didn’t make sense.
She smiled patiently. “We’re allowed to kill only for food,” she explained. “One day you will understand. But you—you have a gift, and a responsibility to use that gift to make this world a better place.”
“What gift, Mummy?” I wanted to know.
“You’re a healer,” she told me, extending her hand to me. She was holding a bird that had crashed into our kitchen window. It looked to be near death.
“He’s dying,” I remembered her saying. The pitiful creature was barely breathing. My heart broke for it.
She shook her head. “He’s hurt, but he’s still alive. You can heal him.”
“But how?” I didn’t understand. “What can I do?”
“Touch him. Stroke him,” she instructed.
I did as she said. I always obeyed my mum without question. I stroked the bird’s tiny body with my fingers, and almost immediately, its wings started to flutter. Mum released her hold on it, and it flew away as if it had never been injured.
“If I can heal animals and birds, Mummy, why can I not heal you?” I asked.
She looked surprised. “Why would I need healing?” she asked.
“You’re hurting,” I observed solemnly. “I can see it in your eyes.”
She hesitated. “There are different kinds of hurting,” she tried to explain. “Some hurts only God himself can heal.”
“Why doesn’t he, then?” I challenged.
“In his time, he will,” she assured me. “There are things we must accept without question.” She hugged me tightly.
But there were things I had never been able to accept.
I was up early the next morning, working on my laptop again. Almost as an afterthought, I decided to check on the bird. I lifted the lid on the box slowly, trying not to startle it or allow it to escape. Not that it could, weak as it was.
It wasn’t moving. It lay on one side, its tiny legs stiff. It was dead, or so I thought. I decided to dispose of it, but when I reached down to pick it up, it jerked as if startled and hopped to its feet, its feathers ruffled. It looked up at me, as surprised as I was.
“Little bugger,” I growled. “You sure as hell looked dead.”
“That’s odd,” Lynne said, coming up behind me.
“What?” I asked, still baffled by what had just happened.
“The bird,” she said. “Last night, he wasn’t doing very well. I was starting to think he might not make it.”
“They may look fragile, but the little bastards are actually quite resilient,” I said with an offhanded shrug.
“I think he wants to go home,” Lynne said, observing the bird for a long moment. It looked up at her expectantly. She took the box and went over to the door. I followed, watching as she opened the door, then lifted the lid from the box. The bird didn’t move. It seemed to be waiting for instructions.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” I asked. “You’ve worn out your welcome. Go!”
The bird took off, flying confidently westward until we could no longer see it. I put an arm around Lynne. She didn’t push me away.
She turned to look at me. “Did you ever have a pet as a child?” she asked.
I thought about it. “When I was very young, I had many pets. All of them temporary,” I said. "Hungry strays, injured creatures. Mum had a soft heart."
"I think I would have liked her," Lynne said.
“My mum used to say animals had the ability to see evil. She said they could predict the weather, foresee disasters and see demon spirits.”
“They can,” Lynne said quietly.
“Any stray that came to our door was fed what crumbs we could manage, no matter how little we had,” I remembered. “The lost tend to stick together, it would seem.
The nights in the Sinai could be surprisingly cold. Most evenings, I would return from the lab, Lynne would come in from the site, and whoever got home first made dinner. Afterward, we'd finish up our paperwork, then settle down with coffee or hot cocoa and unwind. I found, to my surprise, that I genuinely enjoyed being with her. I was comfortable with her in ways I’d never been with anyone else.
I was going to miss her when the time came to leave this last outpost of hell and return to London. A shame, really. If circumstances were different, I’d take her with me.
“You want whipped cream?” she asked as she took the mugs from the cabinet.
“Sounds good. Need any help?”
“To make cocoa?” She laughed. “I’m not that pathetic in the kitchen.”
I sat on the couch. I noticed a photo album lying atop a stack of books on the floor and picked it up, leafing through the pages. I saw that most of the photographs were of children. Boys, girls, all ages and sizes. Some were recent, while others appeared to be old photographs. I found it interesting that she kept a traditional photo album, rather than putting all of her photos on her computer. A bow to traditionalism? I wondered.
“Family photos,” Lynne said as she came into the room, carrying our mugs. “I don’t get home very often, so I bring all of them with me.”
I looked up at her. “The black-and-white shots—you and your sisters?” I asked.
She settled down beside me, handing me one of the mugs. “’Fraid so,” she said. She pointed to one of the group shots. “That’s me at seven. I looked like an ugly little bird.”
I smiled, sipping my cocoa. “I find it hard to believe you could ever have been ugly.”
She tapped the photo lightly with the tip of her index finger. “The evidence speaks for itself,” she told me. “I had to grow into this face.”
I looked at her for a moment, res
isting the urge to touch that face. “You’ve succeeded.” I turned back to the photo album. “Your sisters are all in dresses. But not you,” I noticed.
“I was always a tomboy,” she said, “as different from my sisters as I could be. Mom said I was nothing but trouble, right from the start. I surprised her and arrived three weeks early. She and Dad were at a prayer retreat near Kansas City, and she went into labor right in the middle of morning prayers. Twenty-one hours later, I arrived—red-faced and screaming, or so I’m told.”
“Prayer retreat?” I asked.
She nodded. “My father’s a preacher. He has a small church near St. Louis,” she said.
I chuckled at the thought. “I warn you now, you’ll not make a convert of me,” I said. “I’m a lost cause.”
“There’s no such thing,” she said with certainty.
“Says the eternal optimist.” I continued to look at the photographs.
“That’s how I was brought up,” she said, turning her attention back to the photo album. “My sisters were all sweet, calm babies. I, on the other hand, was a difficult child who wanted to walk before I could crawl and had a temper, even in the crib. My mother said I would become frustrated and scream until my face turned red when I was unable to do anything I wanted, even minor stuff.”
Her expression changed. “I was always the odd one. I was the only one to leave Missouri, even to attend college. My sisters all married local men and stayed there. They all managed to stay married and have families. I’m the only one who failed as a wife.”
I finished my cocoa and set the mug aside. “You’re quite a paradox, Dr. Raven,” I told her. “You’re an accomplished professional, an independent woman, but you want the fairy tale. You want what your siblings have, but you took great pains to distance yourself from that lifestyle. You want children, yet you’ve put yourself in a position that makes motherhood an unlikely prospect.”
Chasing the Wind Page 5