An Open Heart

by Harry Kraus

  Her phone rang. It was a friend who worked as a 911 operator. “I’ve emailed you the MP3 file you wanted.”

  “I owe you.” Lisa closed her phone, went to her computer, and clicked on the file.

  Then she listened.

  The 911 call from Anita Franks.

  “This is 911. Please state the nature of your emergency.”

  “There’s been an accident. Oh, God! Oh, God!”

  “Ma’am, please calm down. Where are you?”

  A pause, then Anita’s frantic voice, “Lombardy and Broad. A man is bleeding. Oh, there’s blood coming from his nose and ear.” The voice quieted, as if she’d pulled the phone away and was talking to the victim. “Jace, Jace, come back to me. Come back to me.”

  The 911 operator’s voice again. “Ma’am, help is on the way. Is the man breathing?”

  “I think so. Oh, God. He’s moaning.”

  In the background, she heard Jace’s voice. “Janice?”

  Again, Anita’s voice. “Jace! Jace! Come back to me.”

  “Stay on the line, ma’am. Is he conscious?”

  The sound of squealing brakes and a loud cracking sound ended Anita’s communication.

  “Ma’am? Ma’am?”

  The 911 operator cursed and the tape ended.

  Lisa replayed the file three times. She nodded slowly.

  Jace didn’t hear from his dead sister. He heard from Anita Franks.

  46

  It was nearly dark again by the time the trunk opened. Even so, Jace squinted in the dim light. The men jerked him up and out of the trunk and onto his feet. In spite of Jace’s restraints, it felt great to be anywhere except the trunk.

  He looked around. “Where are we?”

  His captors looked at each other before the older and larger one answered. “Kisii. Witch doctor capital of Kenya.”

  Jace nodded, feeling good in spite of his captivity. His spirit was free for the first time. “Wonderful!”

  “Shut up.”

  Jace looked around. They appeared to be in a back alley. He heard distant voices, but couldn’t see anyone but his captors. “I’m thirsty.”

  They ignored him. Someone slammed the trunk lid. Someone else from behind put a sack over his head. Then Jace felt he was being carried by three sets of arms. Beneath his chest, hips, and feet. A door closed. More voices. The creaking of stairs. Darker now, with no light filtering through the sack. His head was lower than his feet.

  We’re going up a flight or two of stairs.

  He listened. He heard the squawk of ibis. They always sang at dusk. A car engine sputtered, and he thought he heard the clank of metal and the clicking sound of a socket wrench.

  He dropped onto a hard wooden floor. It echoed more than concrete. Jace smelled charcoal. Smoke.

  Communication in a tongue he didn’t understand.

  Soon, they lifted him again, his arms stretched above his head, far out to either side, and tied tightly around the wrists. His feet still touched the ground, but barely. The rope binding his ankles was left in place.

  Finally, the sack was lifted from his head.

  In his face was Simeon Okayo. It was not the Dr. Okayo he’d first met in Kijabe, the one in a business suit who claimed to be a consultant; this was the Simeon Okayo from his dream, the witch doctor with devilish plans. Jace felt his heart quicken. He attempted to calm himself with the words of the Kijabe chaplain: Greater is He who is in you …

  Jace was in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. The ceiling was incomplete, revealing rafters beneath a metal roof. There was a single window around thirty feet away. Jace was tied to metal circles fixed to a wooden wall. In front of him, eight feet away, was a small wooden table on which sat a raised metal dish. A fire was burning in it.

  Jace tried to relax, but found it difficult to breathe if he didn’t push down on his toes. His calves began to cramp.

  Simeon nodded at the men, who disappeared down a set of stairs, leaving Jace alone with Simeon.

  “Nice digs. This your office? You must give me the name of your decorator.”

  Simeon ignored him. His face was striped with some sort of white paint. Loose animal skins hung around his waist. A series of raised scars looped around his neck and upper chest like a necklace. He danced in a circle chanting and threw liquid from the tips of his fingers, splashing Jace’s face and chest.

  At his feet lay a gutted animal, the size of a young goat. The organs were lined up on the table next to the fire.

  “Did you invite me for dinner?” Jace asked.

  Simeon halted. “You might say that.” He smiled. “You are the main course.”

  Jace felt his bravado fleeing. He’d heard tales of African leaders actually consuming the hearts of their enemies, something that was said to help them gain strength.

  “It is time you learned a few things, Dr. Rawlings. There is a world out there, one you cannot see.”

  Jace sighed. “I know.”

  “You know?” The man scoffed. “But do you even know why you are here?”

  Jace didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure.

  “I speak to the dead. Janice—”

  “I don’t know who you talked to, but you didn’t speak to Janice.”

  “But you yourself heard her calling.”

  Jace shook his head, trying to process.

  “It was me all along, Dr. Rawlings. The spirits were bribed, and they worked this all out.”

  “Why would you do this?”

  “Our people want to be rich, just like yours,” he said. “And my services are valuable, are they not?” He walked to the fire and used a stick to stir up the flame. “There are powerful men in Virginia that you have angered. A man who wanted you out of the way.”

  “Who?”

  “A confidant.” He added a white powder to the fire. When he did so, it snapped and popped; sparks danced in the air above the flames.

  Simeon continued. “You were misbehaving. I bragged that I could lure you away.”

  “I was stupid.”

  “You are a mortal.”

  “You are going to kill me?”

  “Balance needs to be restored.”

  “You can’t kill me.”

  “This is my town. I make the rules here.” He picked up the leg of the slain animal, waving the hoof over the flame.

  Jace jerked his feet off the wooden floor, lifting himself by his arms. He screamed.

  Simeon smiled. “Now do you believe?”

  Back in Kijabe, Gabby excused herself from the small circle of believers who had gathered to pray for Jace.

  While the group continued praying, Evan stood and met her at the door. “A car is waiting for us,” she said. “But I can’t just leave Jace.”

  Evan shook his head. “You need to go.” He spoke with a whisper. “Get out of this place, Gabby.”

  She began to protest, but he stopped her with a finger to his lips. “What good are you here? I want you safe.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m staying until …”

  She nodded and took his arm.

  “Until I know how this ends,” he continued.

  “I made a promise to Heather.”

  “Tell her I made you return.” Evan hesitated. “There is nothing you can do here but pray, and you can do that on the plane to somewhere safe.”

  Gabby smiled. The gadget geek turned hero.

  “Go!” he said, more forcefully. “I’ll stay here. I’ll come as soon as I know …”

  She understood what he didn’t say. As soon as I know Jace is dead.

  “Be safe,” she said. “I’ll call once I get back to the US.” She shoved a cell phone into his hand. “This is the phone I purchased in Nairobi. You can buy a card to load more time onto it at the duka here in K
ijabe.” She motioned toward the praying circle. “How are you with all of this?”

  Evan looked over his shoulder at the small group circled in front of a stone fireplace in the gathering room of station hall. Everyone took turns praying. Sometimes loudly, binding evil in the name of Jesus, and sometimes quietly, earnestly praising the One who gave His blood to pay the price for their sin.

  Evan raised his eyebrows. “It’s new for me.” He paused, his voice thickening. “I’ve played on the edge of faith for a long time. It’s time for me to get serious. Africa has demanded that of me.”

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  “Pray as you go,” he said. “Jace and I will follow when we can.”

  The tears in her eyes betrayed her thoughts. She didn’t believe Jace was alive.

  She turned to go, but halted. “Call Heather. She is going to meet me at the airport.”

  Gabby watched as he returned to the circle. There was nothing they could do.

  Except pray.

  And in a way, she felt that was enough.

  She hesitated at the door and listened.

  Chaplain Otieno was leading. “In the mighty, merciful name of Jesus, the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world …”

  John Okombo leaned forward and yelled to his pilot, “I thought you were going to land.”

  “Too many animals,” he said. “I’m going to come in low one more time and buzz the strip to chase them away.”

  Okombo looked at the dirt strip below them, receding into the distance. In the moonlight he could see that a herd of zebra had taken up the job of mowing the grass around the edges of the runway.

  He looked at his watch and sighed. Dr. Rawlings will be dead before I get to Kisii.

  47

  Jace lost track of time as the witch doctor continued a feverish dance around the fire.

  One by one, Simeon roasted the inner organs of the slaughtered goat, and Jace felt a burning within him, a searing pain like a stake being driven through his stomach.

  Yet Simeon did not seem satisfied. “Something has changed,” he said, pointing a bony finger at Jace’s forehead. “The Christians in Kijabe have gotten to you, have they?”

  Jace watched as the old man ran his fingers over the goat’s intestines, apparently searching for an answer.

  Finally, he looked back at Jace. “You must deny this Jesus.” He shook his head. “He cannot save you.”

  “I deserve to die.”

  “Curse Him!”

  Jace stayed quiet. He found it increasingly hard to breathe.

  Simeon walked to a large leather satchel and retrieved a wooden cross. He walked toward the fire.

  “No,” Jace said. In his mind, he saw the cross in his own hand, as he vowed to God that he would avenge his sister’s death by never serving him. “I was wrong,” Jace gasped. “I love Your cross.”

  “Shut up!” Simeon said. He laughed and dropped the cross into the fire.

  Jace watched as Simeon’s anger grew. The cross, nestled in a bed of hot glowing coals, refused to burn.

  Simeon grabbed another twig and shoved it into the coals by the cross, where it instantly flared. He withdrew it, swinging the smoking stick beneath Jace’s nose. He moved it to Jace’s left arm and rested the stick against his elbow.

  The skin sizzled. Pain!

  Simeon laughed.

  Behind him, heavy footfalls on the stairs.

  John Okombo appeared with two uniformed men carrying guns. “Simeon,” he said, his voice deep and resonant. “He’s passed your test.” He gestured with his hand. “Leave him to me.”

  “You are a ghost,” Simeon said. “What do you want with me?”

  “I’m no ghost.”

  “I saw you die. It’s all over Kenyan news.”

  “You saw me fall. You saw me being loaded into an ambulance. You did not see me die.”

  “But—”

  “This man, this doctor sent me a warning.” Okombo paused, stepping forward with the guards. “I owe him my life.”

  But Simeon shook his head. “The spell is working. He feels the pain I inflict upon the proxy.”

  “Stop.”

  “It was you who paid me,” he sneered. “You had to please the Americans.”

  “Stop.”

  “The gods will not wait. I’ve promised them blood.” Simeon picked up a knife, still dripping with blood from the animal sacrifice. “I will finish him. He is nothing to you.”

  “We will stop you,” Okombo said. He motioned to the officers, who lifted their weapons and trained them on the witch doctor.

  Simeon knelt at the table, the fire flickering in front of him, dancing in the slick of sweat on his forehead. He lifted a small wooden cup above his head. Then, holding the knife high in the air, he aimed the tip of the dagger toward Jace’s chest.

  “No!” Okombo shouted.

  Simeon threw the contents of the cup into the fire. Immediately, a cloud of red smoke enveloped the witch doctor, so thick that Jace strained to see only a few inches in front of him.

  Jace screamed.

  He heard a shot, then footsteps running toward him.

  “Fool!” cried the MP. “You’ve shot the daktari.”

  “I was aiming at the witch doctor.”

  Jace fought for breath and looked down at his chest where a ring of red was spreading. Weird, I don’t even feel it.

  John Okombo waved his arms through the smoke. “Where is Simeon?”

  The officers coughed. “He’s gone. Disappeared.”

  Jace felt faint. The room was darkening.

  He looked at the floor in front of him, noting what appeared to be the seam of a trapdoor beside the goat. What a charlatan—he only made it look like he disappeared.

  Then, blackness.

  Okombo pointed to the knife Simeon had apparently dropped as he made his exit. “Cut him down.”

  The two officers cut the ropes binding the American surgeon’s wrists and lowered him to the floor.

  John Okombo knelt over Jace Rawlings, placing his fingers on his neck. “He has a weak pulse.” He ripped away the shirt to expose a wound entering the chest a few inches below the clavicle. “It must have missed the heart or he would be dead by now.” He motioned with his head. “Call the pilot. Tell him to ready the plane. We need to take him to Bomet.”

  “Why not the district hospital? It is closer.”

  “There is a Christian mission hospital in Bomet, Tenwek. They will know how to treat him.”

  “They can treat him at the district hospital.”

  “They will not know how to deal with Okayo’s curse. At Tenwek, they can battle not only for his body, but for his soul.”

  The officer nodded and made the call.

  “Let’s get him outside. The car should be in the alley.”

  John Okombo lifted Jace like a child in his arms, cradling him and carrying him down the wooden stairs.

  Once outside, Jace started coughing, spraying blood onto Okombo’s shirt. “Open the back door,” he said. “And get a blanket. The night is cold.”

  In Nairobi, at Kenyatta International Airport, Gabby took her seat on British Airways Flight 61 bound for Heathrow. She sat next to a white-haired woman, who smiled and extended her hand. “Tilly Brown,” she said.

  “I’m Gabby. Looks like we’re going to be seatmates.”

  The woman nodded. “I’ve been on safari. I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. I looked at my bucket list very seriously and decided it was time to visit all those places I’d never been.”

  Gabby smiled. Please don’t tell me about your chemo.

  Too late.

  “My surgeon said he could save my breast if I had chemo and radiation. It nearly killed me, but I made it. My husband wasn’t so lucky. He di
ed of lung cancer last year and made me promise I’d take a safari to Kenya like we’d always talked.” She paused, fastening her seatbelt. “Were you on safari?”

  “Not exactly.”

  The woman didn’t take the hint that Gabby didn’t feel much like talking. “So why were you in Kenya? I’ll bet you have a boyfriend in the Peace Corps, don’t you?”

  “I was helping in a mission hospital. I’m part of a cardiac surgery team.”

  “Oh, my, that must be something! I’ve always thought medical mission work would be the most glamorous life imaginable.”

  Gabby sighed. Not exactly glamorous in the way you might expect. She smiled at the old traveler and wondered what she would think if she told her the truth, that her friend may have been killed after they’d encountered a vicious spiritual war, that they’d been caught up in dirty Kenyan political games, and that she was on her way home to lick her wounds.

  Instead, she just nodded. “Oh. Well. Yes. Glamorous.”

  “I’ll bet. Did you see any breast cancer? I hear that women in Kenya have little access to mammograms. You know, if it wasn’t for mammography, I would still be walking around with cancer in my body and I probably still wouldn’t know it. Why, did you know that by the time a breast cancer is the size of a pea that it’s likely been in your body—”

  Graciously, the woman hushed while the flight attendant explained emergency procedures in case of a water landing.

  Gabby used the opportunity to slip on a sleeping mask to cover her eyes and pulled a blanket up under her chin.

  Before she slept, she prayed for Jace Rawlings.

  48

  Jace fought for consciousness. He wanted to tell them he was alive, not to give up, but the nurse didn’t seem happy about his blood pressure. In fact, he’d heard her tell the doctor that she couldn’t find it.

  He tried to breathe, but it felt as if some giant hand was squeezing his chest. The harder he fought to breathe, the more it felt as if movement of any kind was impossible. Am I strapped down?

  He moved his tongue against a hard object. Am I entubated?

  For a moment, he saw, first from below, and then from above that a young Kenyan doctor was pumping on his chest.