by G. H. Holmes
“Come on, guys.” Tom got up. Glass crunched under his feet.
Ben maintained, “It wasn’t me!”
“Yes, it was!” Raff pointed at him, wide-eyed. “I shot it to him, and he kicked it way up high in the air, and then—“
“No! I didn’t…!”
Stark’s eyes settled on his daughter. “Sarah?”
“I didn’t see it,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in despair.
Stark patted her little back. “It’s okay, Sweetie.” He turned to Ben. “I don’t want to hear it.” To Raff he said, “Your dad does windows?”
Raphael nodded.
“I’ll call him later. We’ll see what we can do about this; we’ll work it out.” They stared at him, horrified. So he said, “Don’t get carried away now. Stuff happens. You’re not the first ones to destroy a window with a ball, and you won’t be the last ones either. Hey! It happened to me before.”
“Really?”
“Sure.” Tom turned to Ben. “Go get a broom and an empty bucket from the shed.”
“But Raff—“
“Raff can carry the hand broom and shovel. Takes two to kill a window, takes two to clean it up.” He clapped his hands together. “Move it, guys. On the double.”
The boys ran off.
They were finished with lunch. It was 1:23 PM now, and Raphael’s mother still hadn’t called or come by to pick up her son.
Romy stood and said to Tom, “You mind taking him over to his grandparents in Wilmersbach?” a village barely a mile away.
“I don’t like Grandpa Kurt,” Raff cried, his knees above the table’s edge, his feet on the bench. “He’s so strict. I’ll be doing homework all day.”
“Give him another half hour,” said Tom, folding his newspaper in half. He had the nasty habit of reading while eating.
“I’ll have to do dishes,” said Romy. “And I want Ben to start on his homework.”
“We can do it together!” proclaimed Ben.
“Yeah.” Romy cast him an annoyed glance and picked up some plates, taking them to the sink. “You know yourself how much you get done sitting next to Raff.”
“Uh-uh!” Ben protested. “We’ll get done faster.” He ribbed his friend, “Right, ole buddy?”
Raphael munched away loudly on a left-over carrot.
Her face became pleading. “Can you take him?”
Tom looked up. “You’re taking Ben to guitar lessons at two?”
Romy gave a strained sigh. “If I ever get done here.”
“Sarah goes to ballet at two fifteen,” Tom said matter-of-factly. “You’ll leave in twenty minutes. Why don’t you take him then? You can drive right through Wilmersbach.”
“It’s out of the way.”
“Not by two kilometers.”
Raff sighed deeply. “She doesn’t like me…” He slumped on the bench and frowned, his green eyes on Romy.
“It’s not that,” Tom said quickly. “It’s just that sometimes you’re a little wild. And Ben’s supposed to get on with—”
“You don’t like me either.”
“Oh, Raff. Get a grip, will you—?”
Ben broke in, lifting his finger, pretending to be in class, “Can we get something?” He was referring to sweets in the pantry.
“Yeeeh!” Sarah screamed, clapping and jumping up from her chair.
Without waiting for an answer Raff bolted and ran out into the hallway; Ben scurried after him. Sarah followed.
Romy flipped up the tap handle; water shot out. “I’d appreciate if you’d get rid of him now, before he dismantles what’s left of this dump.”
“Don’t be silly,” Tom said. “You’ll be on the road in a few minutes. For me to take him would be a waste of perfectly good gasoline.”
She turned around, glowering at him. “I don’t really care for your exercise in logic here. I just want him—Ouch!” She grimaced and shook her hand. The faucet behind her was steaming.
He got up. “Ben! Raff!”
Two chocolate-smeared faces appeared in the doorframe. Sarah was still busy in the narrow room down the hall.
“Wipe your faces and let’s go outside. Let Mom do her dishes in peace.” Turing to Raphael, he said, “In fifteen minutes she’ll take you to your grandpa’s.”
Raff’s shoulders sank.
11
Monday, 7 July 2003, Afternoon, 101°F/38°C
A minute ago Romy had buckled the squealing children into the Beamer and had driven off with them. It was quiet in the garden now. Coco was still snoozing somewhere, and Tom got back to thinking about grace. A bottle of chilled mineral water in his hand, he strolled down to the garden house, where his laptop still sat on the table.
He blinked as he entered, his lids heavy over half-closed eyes. It was boiling hot in here now, and without thinking he put the bottle down and pulled off his T-shirt, baring a v-shaped, muscular torso with a shock of graying hair on the chest and a grisly, sickle-shaped scar above the heart. He dried his face with the shirt and tossed it onto the corner bench beyond the table.
His jeans felt clammy, too. He hesitated and glanced at the ceramic clock on the wall by the door.
1:51 PM.
Romy and the kids wouldn’t be home for at least two hours. He didn’t expect any visitors. He had the world to himself.
He tilted his belt and checked the color of his underwear.
Black. Right.
He wore zippered Liz Claiborne boxer shorts, luxury edition, thanks to Grandma in America.
Kicking off his sandals, he loosened his old Diesel leather belt, shook his legs, and stepped out of his frayed Levi’s, already wearing no socks. Looking down on himself, he found the boxers looked inconspicuous, almost like regular shorts.
He threw the jeans on top of the T-shirt on the bench, dropped into the rickety chair in front of the laptop, and reached for the bottle of Justus Brunnen mineral water he’d brought. After rapidly gulping down half of its content he reattached the lid, put it away, and closed his eyes. Random thoughts began to spill into his sluggish mind.
Grace…
To get something for free.
Joy.
“God gives all things freely to be enjoyed.”
1 Timothy 6.
Tom’s hands went through the moist hair on his graying temples.
No man but one ever asked to be born into this world. This fallen, sinful world. God was love; that was his character. Therefore God would make sure that life on this planet was not just bearable but pleasant for the individual. Primarily for the believing one. God was good. Can’t act out of character. Therefore, a blessing was on its way, always. All things, including the current crisis with his wife, had to work together for good for those who love Him. Even in 100 degree heat.
Stark inhaled slowly, deeply.
Grace brought joy. If there was no joy, the problem was not with God. God was a giver. The problem was with one’s inability to receive grace. Attitude had a lot to do with experiencing joy.
Attitude, oh yes…
He groaned and stretched. Then he yawned and his mouth turned into an ever-widening abyss, as if he meant to swallow the earth. It fell shut, and sweet languor remained. Tom blinked.
He sat up.
God gave gifts and goals and growth in the gifts to attain the goals. Gifts, growth, goals; all three grace… The ideas sloshed through his head, overcoming inertia and crashing into one another like heavy marbles.
Peter got the gift to talk, but he grew fitfully, receiving revelation knowledge and yet denying the Lord. But then he got the drift… broke through to a history-making mega-ministry. Good for him.
Grace. There were different… different kinds.
God gave fresh starts. Purity.
“You have to be born of water and the Spirit.” John 3.
Water: natural birth; Spirit: new birth.
A swimming pool! A cool blue pool.
That and a waterproof laptop…
A vision flashed by
: Grandma’s trailer in Florida, it’s little A/C humming. Cool air on his face. Chilly air. He shivered. Sweat broke out on him, spurred by the cold water he’d downed a minute before.
…But even after the New Birth man needed grace. To save him from carnal impulses; the mind was not fully sanctified yet. The mind was fried tonight, today...
What—?
He rubbed his face awake.
Temptation…
There was grace to overcome temptation. Tom blinked sluggishly, slouching back. Greater is he… that is in me… than he… that is in the world.
Suddenly he heard the swift clicking of high heels on the concrete outside. His eyes popped open and he quickly sat up.
The silhouette of a slender woman emerged and stood in the doorframe, looking in. The sun in her back ignited golden curls, creating a glistening aura around her head, a profane halo.
Tom gripped the table’s edge. His heart began to pound as his eyes frisked the figure.
The hot breeze played with her frock. It was thin and white and barely reached to the middle of her thighs, and Tom perceived her outline through the translucent material. She seemed to wear a yellow bikini under it.
Stark jiggled his head in disbelief.
The sandals on her feet were moderately high-heeled, making her legs seem endless. She stood there and studied him, challenging him like a Bond girl. Minus the gun.
Brrr.
She had the figure of… No, she—
With a languid move she changed her stance and leaned on the frame, her fingers playing with a pearl necklace.
“Hello, Tom.”
She was Gina Delors, Raphael’s mother.
His eyebrows went up; he’d never seen this much of her before.
“Hi, Gina.” He nodded. Stark couldn’t decide whether to get up and play cool, shake hands, or to remain seated.
“I saw that the garage is empty.” She leaned back and pointed toward the house. “But your little house here stood open, so I thought I might find somebody back here…”
He remained in his chair. “I’m here.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Did you see Raphael?”
“You just missed him.” Stark finally relaxed some. “Romy is driving him to Wilmersbach. He ate lunch with us.”
“Oh no,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “I hate to give her trouble like that.” She stepped in.
Now he could make out her features. Her skin appeared bronzed in the amber glow of the garden house. Her face had a couple hard lines, especially around the eyes, but not enough to diminish her appeal. She radiated energy, magnetism, sex appeal. His heart slammed into his throat again.
“Had to work late today.” Gina looked around and found the hole in the window. “I saw this outside. Did you have an accident?”
“The boys killed it with a soccer ball.”
“The boys?”
“Yours and mine together.”
She groaned. “I’ll tell Ralph. He’ll come look at it. He’ll get it fixed for you.”
“Thanks. I meant to call you about that.” He glanced at the clock on the wall next to her. “Gina, when are you usually off?”
Her gaze flew across Tom’s face and settled on the dusty Harley. “Eleven thirty. It’s twelve until I get home. I had to help someone out today. Happens every so often.” Her eyes returned to him. “I just can’t say no to some people.”
“You should have called; Romy was concerned.”
Then she caught it.
“My!” she cried softly, stepping closer, bending down, staring at the ragged scar on his heart with narrow eyes, her face mere inches away from his.
Tom swallowed.
“What have you done?” Her finger reached out and came closer.
Tom stared at it wide-eyed, forgetting to breathe.
Then she touched him.
The hair on his neck bristled and goose bumps broke out all over him. Her forefinger conducted electricity. It coursed through him now.
Stunned, he grabbed her hand and held it in place, his muscles flexing, suppressing the urge to jump up and grab her, be nice to her…
My goodness…!
The impulse subsided, the emotion ebbed away. Discipline took over. Grace.
He released her hand, which she gently withdrew. She studied him out of knowing eyes and smiled; opaquely, like the Mona Lisa.
“Oh, that…” he stammered. “That’s not new.”
“Where did you hurt yourself so?”
He cocked one brow, smirked, and growled, “Romy...”
She laughed, her voice reminding him of tinkling crystals. “I don’t think so. Your wife’s not like that; I know her…”
“No, you’re right. It wasn’t her.” He fell quiet.
“So?” she urged.
“A rocket nicked me in Saudi Arabia, in Ninety-one. There was a war in Iraq before the current one, you may remember.”
She looked at him, shocked. “The Gulf War. You’ve gone to war?” Her hand flew her mouth. “You were a soldier? In the American Army?”
Stark cast his eyes down. “Not exactly…”
Her face revealed that she didn’t understand.
“I worked for the Americans. But I wasn’t a soldier, strictly speaking.”
She shook her head in confusion. “If you weren’t a soldier, what were you?”
He shrugged and rocked his shoulders.
But she wasn’t about to let the subject go. “Did you wear a uniform?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you carry a gun?”
“All the time.”
She hesitated. “Did you shoot at people?”
He studied her silently. His Adam’s apple bounced once, then he said, “Maybe.”
Her eyes widened. She whispered, “Did you kill someone?”
A tense moment went by.
“Maybe…”
But Tom wasn’t about to tell her anything. That he’d been a “private contractor working on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, engaging in paramilitary activities,” when the Pentagon had simply hired a bunch of its freelancing former operators as Congress capped regular troop strength in certain theaters. She didn’t need to know about Little Birds and GPS and escape maps made of silk; of foxholes and 90 kilograms of gear, mostly water; of laser target designators, the green circles of gun scopes, of 20.000-dollar sniper rifles and custom-made Heckler & Koch PDWs, sound suppressors and flash hiders. And C4, lots of C4…
She didn’t need to know.
He glowered at the floor, the muscles in his neck bulging.
Why tell her that he’d been a hired gun, a mercenary, a killer, free from the codes and inhibitions that restrained the real military when push came to shove? She didn’t need to know of bayonet points, muffled screams, rivers of blood, and the torment of the flesh at night; bouts of extreme violence after times of great stillness.
His hands were clean now, his heart pacified, the blood of sinners washed away by holy blood, the Blood of the Lamb.
“Somebody tried to kill you,” Gina said. “Look at that. Somebody tried to rip your heart out.”
“Oh,” he said. “There wasn’t all that much to rip out until I became a Christian.”
Her eyes roamed his face. “Romy says you’re so sweet…” She paused. “What were you?”
His arched eyebrows wrinkled his forehead. “I’m not really free to tell you. Just that I did missions for the American government.”
She didn’t insist. Instead, her voice began to drift, “I would have never thought… Here, nobody our age has been to war. Germans don’t make war anymore, you know,” she said, just a bit smugly.
Stark was not about to root for Saddam. The Germans… He grinned. “The drunks have become teetotalers.”
She leaned on the Harley, one foot on a footrest.
Like a Bond girl. Romy never stood like this.
“Hey!” she said, noticing his laptop. “You’ve got e-mail?”
“We’ve got Internet too.”
“Want to leave me your address?”
“You give me yours?”
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll mail you and Ralph about the window, and you click on the reply button and tell me when he’ll come by. This way we’ll get automatically registered in one another’s address books.”
“Perfect,” she said. “My address is Gina-dot-Delors-at-Web-DE.”
“Easy enough to remember.” He was already opening Outlook Express. “I’ll be mailing you.”
She pulled her wrist up to her eyes, looked at her watch, and said, “I really have to get going now. My! Ralph is probably sitting at home, waiting for his lunch. I didn’t tell him that I’d be late. Then,” she shrugged, “he might not even be there.” She shrugged again and went to the door. “Bye, Tom. Was good talking to you. Say hi to Romy for me.” She waved her fingers at him, obviously waiting for him to get up and accompany her to the gate.
But he didn’t move. “See you, Gina.” He waved, manly, with his whole hand.
“Bye then. And mail me.”
“Sure will,” he said.
She turned, and her heels clicked away.
12
Monday, 7 July 2003, Afternoon, 101°F/38°C
As soon as she was gone Tom rose and stepped back into his jeans. One such incident was enough for the day; he didn’t want to provoke another. Like with the mail lady. But she’d already been here. He heard the metal gate up front slam shut behind Gina as he walked up to the house to change into proper shorts.
Walking barefoot on the scorching concrete, his thoughts returned to ‘91, when he’d been Echo Six…
Despite venturing out on ridiculously risky missions, not for duty, honor, or country, but for money and money alone, Stark left the Gulf in sound physical condition. Having survived its blood, fire, and brimstone, he spent April and May in the bars of Hereford, England, binge-drinking with a buddy, a former SAS sergeant, until he had to vanish because of one callous theft too many. After slipping off the Great British isle, he returned to the States, where he settled in Fayetteville, North Carolina, simply because he was already familiar the hang-outs of the town.