The Dead Saint

by Marilyn Brown Oden

  President Dimitrovski, The Wall Street Journal identified you as a "real Balkan statesman." You were a bridge builder who held a unique vision of peaceful cooperation between nations, a vision of mutual respect for every country's sovereignty and territorial independence and internal policies. You would not let us forget our double immorality of deceit and violence. Sometimes you bore alone the burden of your vision of peace, and always you incurred political and personal risks because of it.

  A low mumble filled the hillsides as the translator relayed the last sentence.

  Personal risk, thought Zeller, like I incur now. For this was not only his final shot but also his farthest. He was behind the security snipers, supposedly beyond the range of accuracy. Yet it was within his range of confidence. He had practiced this distance hundreds of times over the years. He noted the winds. They had ceased. He adjusted.

  President Dimitrovski, in your inaugural address you dared to affirm love in a time of hatred and quoted St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, whose words describe love as all-inclusive. That worldview is dangerous to political self-interests. It counteracts a world where humanity fears differences, relishes hostilities, spreads seeds of hatred, and takes violence for granted—a world of contrived misperceptions, a world made ripe for manipulation by power mongers.

  For an instant her eyes turned toward the officials on the platform and, loaded with disdain, targeted John Adams. Their glint of steel reflected an arsenal of strength. Adams stiffened. She focused again on the flag-draped casket.

  In your inaugural address, you also spoke of ideals and holy duty. But you did not stop with words. You lived them out!

  "Holy duty." Now would be a perfect time, thought Zeller, a dramatic moment. No! Let her finish. She deserves that much.

  President Dimitrovski, your favorite song was "O Lord Take My Heart." You led with heart—a courageous and open heart. You repaid your enemies with understanding, your critics with compassion. You were not afraid to keep promises or make compromises. You armed yourself with political honesty, and disarmed others with your generosity of spirit and disinterest in personal power. You refused to give up on human beings. You taught us that we can rewrite our songs of hatred and destruction, and begin to join together in harmony, singing a new tune of freedom and dignity for all.

  "Freedom and dignity for all." Including me? Zeller could tell the speech was nearly over. He silently positioned his rifle barrel in the canale. Held the target in the crosshairs. A single shot through the head. He eased his finger onto the trigger. Get ready, Freund. But not quite yet. No.

  President Dimitrovski, in honor of your memory, I commit to the international community that I will use all the means at my disposal to build a world of peace and unprecedented unity and justice, perpetuating your dream that one day we will live as brothers and sisters upon the earth.

  The leader of the most powerful country in the world had offered homage instead of haughtiness. President Benedict nodded respectfully to the family and turned to walk back toward her place, her head bowed in humility. Her demeanor needed no translation. The watching world knew that the Superpower's reign of arrogance had ended.

  Gunfire!

  132

  A single shot to the head. Zeller lay down flat. "Over there!" he shouted in Macedonian above the screams. "He ran into the trees!" No one knew where the voice came from and no one cared. Some ran toward the trees. Some away from them. The cemetery was in bedlam now. People running everywhere. Every which way. Colliding with each other. Thousands of people who wanted to survive. To get away. They were focused on themselves and their loved ones, not on looking for a sniper. The sniper was the one person they did not want to see.

  Zeller gave Freund a fond farewell pat and tucked a note under the barrel. He stuffed his gloves in his black suit pocket and leaped down in the tree covering into the running, hysterical, black-clad crowd. Running himself. Blending in. Getting away. Into the trees and down the hill. Running with the crowd away from Butel Cemetery. Running. Slowing. Walking. Reaching the car he'd purchased and driving out of Skopje before roadblocks could be set up. Ending his life. Beginning his life.

  He had only one sadness. If he'd been a Secret Service agent, he'd be a hero instead of a murderer, a hero for saving President Benedict's life. John Adams was dead.

  EPILOGUE

  Wednesday, 9:45 A.M.

  Three Weeks Later

  At 9:45 on Wednesday morning, Lynn entered the Oval Office. Awed and intimidated, she sat in a large leather chair, her feet barely reaching the floor.

  "I appreciate your coming early, Lynn." President Helena Benedict's short, dark hair enhanced alert, wide-set eyes, windows into another's soul and mirrors into her own. They were the color of a blue lagoon. Opal earrings matched them, her only jewelry. She wore a trim, dark suit, tailored but not masculine. She had managed the political arena without rigidity or shallowness, a spruce tree swaying with the wind while remaining rooted. "You handled the challenges remarkably well."

  Challenges. As good a word as any. "Thank you, Madam President."

  "I expected my request to be a simple favor."

  "I would do it again." The words came without forethought. Astonished, Lynn realized they were true.

  "Knowing the dangers? Putting yourself in harm's way?"

  Lynn shrugged. "I like adventure."

  The President smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."

  Lynn didn't feel adventurous at the moment, however. She sat forward, undersized in the oversized chair. Her thin china cup clicked on the saucer as she glanced at the old saddlebag resting incongruously on the coffee table. The light caught the M on the flap. Neither the saddlebag's invitation to nostalgia nor the homey aroma of cinnamon tea could dispel the aura of the Oval Office. "It is humbling to be here."

  "For some. For others it evokes arrogance." The President picked up the saddlebag. "My father gave me this soon after my inauguration." Her hand tenderly brushed across the cracked leather. "He died a few weeks later."

  "I'm sorry." Lynn knew all too well grief's journey, like walking barefoot on an endless path of thorns.

  "I invited you to thank you personally." The President traced the M on the old saddlebag. "Also, because you have earned the right to hear what my father told me." She looked up sharply. "I share it in the strictest of confidence, Lynn Marie Prejean Peterson."

  Normally Lynn would have been surprised to hear her second name. But the President's full-of-surprises knowledge had ceased to be surprising.

  President Benedict spoke softly. "Its contents reveal family secrets."

  Secrets.

  "Lynn Marie Prejean Peterson," she repeated, "we share the same second name."

  Lynn knew her only as President Helena Heffron Benedict."Marie?"

  "Do you know whose namesake you are?"

  Lynn totally respected President Benedict, but she was confused about where this was going. Like every citizen who talks with the President at the White House, she supposed, she replied without questioning. "I am named after my great-grandfather's sister, Marie-Vincente Prejean."

  "She was called Vini," said the President.

  "Her married name was McGragor," added Lynn. "Vini McGragor. I recognized the name in your note to Major Manetti."

  "I'm named after her also. My father was her grandson."

  "I didn't know she had a grandchild! I thought her son died young and childless."

  "It's far too complicated to go into today. It would take a book to tell the story." She glanced again at the saddlebag. "Suffice it to say that a family secret was kept even from me until after I became President."

  Speaking of family secrets with the President of the United States made Lynn uncomfortable.

  "The point is that you and I have the same great-great-grandparents—far removed from our generation. Nonetheless, we are extended family." She smiled warmly. "I wanted you to know."

  "Thank you." Lynn could not quite get her mind around the fact t
hat the President was a distant relative. She felt awkward and shifted to more comfortable conversational terrain. "Your speech at President Dimitrovski's funeral was wonderful."

  "The words came easily because of my respect for him."

  Lynn glanced again at the old, worn saddlebag on the coffee table and wondered if it had inspired the President's ranch hands imagery in her note to the major.

  "There is something else that requires confidentiality." The President waited for a nod of agreement. "The man you identified as Zechariah Zeller left behind his sniper rifle and a note. We have kept it out of the news, but you deserve to read a copy."

  Lynn read it slowly, hearing his voice as though he were speaking to her on the telephone.

  FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

  John Adams, alias the Patriot, hired me to assassinate the President of the United States. Proof exists on a security camera at Hotel Aleksandar. Time: 10:00 a.m. today. Computer software can cut through his disguise. A lip reader can tell you his words. In the beginning I did not know he was evil. In time I learned he was bad for his country and for the world. Offering me a contract on President Benedict proved he had become too dangerous to live. I knew if I refused, he would hire someone else. I shot him instead of her. I saved President Benedict's life and rid the world of a monster. If I were a CIA agent, you would promote me for a job well done, not try to capture and punish me. If I were a Secret Service agent, you would decorate me as a hero, not hunt me down. Consider these facts!

  "The hotel surveillance video offered the proof he expected," President Benedict affirmed.

  Lynn shuddered. "I can't imagine . . . if you had been . . ." She couldn't finish.

  "Apparently abetting conflict and benefiting from the chaos was John Adams's strategy, financially and politically."

  Lynn thought of how the flutter of a butterfly in one part of the world can create chaos in another part of the world. Yet, she reminded herself, chaos is not always destructive.

  "What troubles me most," the President spoke with heavy disappointment in herself, "is that I didn't see it coming."

  "No one did. But even in so short a time in office, you recognized that something was wrong. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone outside the system." Start with St. Sava flashed across Lynn's mind. "In your note to the major, you mentioned St. Sava. May I ask how you know about it?"

  "As a child my father spent his summers in Crested Butte, Colorado. One of his good friends was a boy named Joseph Machek."

  Lynn thought of Viktor Machek.

  "Joseph's father had come from Croatia as a boy to work in the Crested Butte mine, and he told my father the story. He also told him in sworn confidence that he came from a long line of members of St. Sava." The President's hand caressed the saddlebag as she gazed out the window. "My father kept that confidence until he brought me this. The story of the ancient society was one of the secrets he shared with me that day. He said I could trust St. Sava." She looked again at Lynn. "Later, during one of my conversations with President Dimitrovski, he conveyed his trust also."

  Lynn recalled his comment on the phone when she asked about St. Sava: "Things are not always what they appear to be." That was the last time I spoke with him. I can never do so again. Death's finality offers no second chance for words unsaid and deeds undone.

  "I'm afraid my note to Marsh wasn't clear. I meant for Marsh to begin with St. Sava, not as an enemy, but as a source of help."

  Words! Bridges or chasms, depending on how they are interpreted.

  "I understand that John Adams was also behind an attempt on your life, Lynn. And Zeller aborted it." The President picked up the note he had written. "Ironic, isn't it? A respected presidential advisor sought both our deaths, and a world-class sniper saved both our lives."

  "Perhaps Blaise Pascal had it right," Lynn replied. " 'The heart has its reasons, which the reason knows nothing about; we know it in a thousand things.' "

  "Did you ever wonder why I contacted you?"

  "I thought you were desperate."

  President Benedict smiled. "More so than I realized. You and Dr. Peterson have done outstanding work internationally, which got my attention." The President's blue-green eyes held Lynn's. "But family—I trusted that."

  The somber ceremony honoring Elie began at ten o'clock in the Oval Office. Loyal Vice President Parker attended. Mrs. Darwish, Viktor, Milcah, and their two children had flown on a plane arranged by the White House. This may have been the first time a member of St. Sava was in the Oval Office, but Lynn suspected it would not be the last time. She and Galen, Chief Armstrong and Francine Babineaux, Cy Bill and Bubba had flown together from New Orleans. All of them formed a semicircle around Mrs. Darwish, grown frailer. She held Milcah's hand as though her daughter also might suddenly vanish. Two sons in less than two weeks. Lynn could not imagine the extent of her pain, of doubling the suffering of one child's death. She marveled that Mrs. Darwish could rise each morning and stand erect.

  Yet Zeller had spared her the toll of a long, media-frenzied trial that would have let no speck of John Adams's dishonor remain privately dormant and could have culminated in the death penalty, anyway. Very few government officials knew the truth, and the ones who did had advised President Benedict against making public John Adams's conspiracies, including his attempt to have her assassinated. They warned that it would create citizen instability and mistrust of the system. Lynn wondered, however, if President Benedict had agreed largely for Mrs. Darwish's sake. Her son's delusional malice made no headlines. Knowledge of his responsibility for her other son's death remained within a tight, closed-lipped circle. Bubba had retrieved the copy of Elie's data from Cy Bill, still sealed in the envelope, and destroyed it. Mrs. Darwish's perception of John Adams, nee Adam Ristich, as a respected and important man could remain untarnished. May it be so!

  The door to the Oval Office opened, and a woman entered with two teenagers, a girl and a boy. They hung back hesitant.

  Vice President Parker moved toward them, inviting them into the semicircle. "Mrs. Darwish," he said, "this is Mrs. John Adams."

  "Please call me Sally, Mrs. Darwish," she said hesitantly. She pointed to herself and repeated, "Sally."

  "I meet you at last, please!"

  "You speak English!" Sally smiled, obviously relieved." This is Jennifer, your granddaughter. John was right; she does resemble you. And this is David, your grandson."

  Mrs. Darwish's frail arms wrapped first around Jennifer and then around David, her spontaneous love overcoming the teenagers' reticence toward a stranger.

  "I have long wanted you to come to visit us," said Sally. "Since you are here, if you could spend a few weeks with us, we would like that very much."

  Mrs. Darwish nodded, too moved to speak. She embraced Sally, giving and gaining strength.

  President Benedict entered and warmly greeted each person by name, thanking the police chief and crime lab expert and Cy Bill (minus Ebony) for their hard work following Elias Darwish's death. She told Bubba that she had old ties with New Orleans and was a Saints fan, and she had seen him play. Her aide handed her a plaque, and she asked Mrs. Darwish to step forward. With dignity and grace she bestowed upon Elias Darwish the Posthumous Presidential Award of Merit for his brilliance, diligence, and valor in service to the United States of America, which cost him his life. The President's eyes teared but did not overflow.

  The President shook hands with Rachel Darwish and then paused, extending her arms in a gesture that asked permission for a hug. Permission granted. The President of the United States and the grieving mother from Sarajevo embraced each other, two women who knew how to love, one suffering its loss and the other offering genuine compassion. Watching them brought tears to Lynn's eyes, tears that overflowed.

  At the close of the ceremony Lynn spoke for a few minutes with Mrs. Darwish. "I remember your family pictures. Now you will be able to get many pictures from your daughter-in-law."

  Mrs. Darwish smiled. "I have a daughter a
nd a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law. And four grandchildren." She started to say something else but hesitated, her smile fading.

  "Are you all right?" asked Lynn.

  Troubled eyes answered. "I do not understand, please. John was important to the American government. Elias was important to St. Sava—and a football player in America. But Elias gets the high award." She looked at the plaque for a moment. "On that day when Adam came, he was . . . He did not seem . . ." With a heavy sigh she asked Lynn a question she did not want to hear. "Did he do something . . . wrong?"

  Oh, God, help me choose my words wisely. "He was an advisor to the President. You can be very proud of that. His service to the country was expected. But Elie volunteered his service."

  Her eyes filled with relief and gradually brightened like a rheostat lamp being turned up. "Thank you, please." She hugged Lynn.

  Lynn would always be able to recall the multi-dimensions of that moment. The feel of the small, fragile woman, their arms entwined. The smell of cinnamon rolls and Turkish coffee served on silver trays. The sound of soft chatter around them, celebrating Elie's life. The glint of the Posthumous Presidential Award of Merit catching the light and forming a rainbow of colors that danced across the President's desk.

  President Benedict told everyone goodbye with an old word: "Farewell. In the full sense of the meaning. Fare well."

  As they left, curiosity won and Lynn spoke privately to Viktor. "Over a century ago a boy from Croatia went to Crested Butte, Colorado, to work in a mine. His last name was Machek."

  "Stephen. How do you know of him?"

  "A friend told me the story."

  "He was my grandfather's uncle. The Machek family tree goes back for generations."

  Like its ties with St. Sava, thought Lynn.