by Don Prichard
Jake refused to ask why.
“He’s been in my father’s care ever since my brothers killed my wife. This photo is their promise of what awaits little Dan once my father lands in prison and can no longer protect him.”
“You try to maim my daughter and son-in-law with explosives, and you want me to feel sorry for you?”
“For him. I want you to go get him and raise him as your own.”
Jake stared at Emilio in disbelief. “You kill my wife, send assassins after me, attempt to injure my daughter … and you have the gall to ask me to save your son and raise him?”
“You’re the only one I trust.”
Jake sputtered. “What about the eighteen passengers you killed from the Gateway, besides my wife? And how many countless others I don’t know about? Tell me, do you feel any remorse at all? Any guilt for what you’ve done?”
Emilio set steely eyes on Jake. “I will face a firing squad for what I’ve done. My son has done nothing.”
“Your son is not my responsibility.” Jake turned on his heel, grabbed his bag from his cell, and stormed out to wait for Lee at the front gate.
***
Every step fanned the coals of Jake’s fury. Emilio had no soul. No conscience. He had pre-meditated the deaths of the Gateway passengers. Had made sure Jake saw him give the signal for the explosions. Had relished Jake’s horror as the blasts sent living humans into sudden oblivion. No remorse. None at all.
Did Emilio care about his son? Or did he only want to deny his half-brothers the glee of control over anything belonging to Emilio? Or was the appeal for Jake’s intercession a manipulation to set him up for yet another assassination attempt?
He strode past the infirmary, then stopped and retraced his steps. Yes, Mallet was still there. An IV remained in his right arm, but the oxygen mask and bandages were gone. His cell door was unlocked, an aide at his bedside. Jake stepped inside.
The aide startled at Jake’s appearance. “No. Go!” Anger furrowed the smooth skin of his brow.
“I want to say goodbye to your patient. I leave Salonga today.” Actually, he had a question he wanted Mallet to answer. It had been gnawing at him like a hungry cannibal ever since the bomb went off at Dana’s wedding. Until today, Mallet had been inaccessible.
“No. Go!”
Mallet tapped the aide’s arm. “I talk.” The words gurgled from a lipless mouth.
The aide clenched his jaw but stood back, hands tightened into fists at his side.
Jake moved closer and got his first close-up of Mallet. Skin and tissue had been ripped from Mallet’s face, head, and torso. He looked like burnt bacon. Jake was familiar with bomb injuries from Viet Nam, but the horror was always fresh.
This could have been Dana and Bentley lying here. Jake fought back the rage tearing at his heart. A rage of righteous wrath. Of indignation at the cruelty of man. A rage that demanded just judgment but was helpless to render it.
“Mallet.” His question crept out of his mouth in perplexed humility: “Why?”
He could swear a smile shone from Mallet’s face, even though the bacon had no flexibility to crinkle at the edges of his eyes or mouth. “Gift,” Mallet croaked.
“Saving Dana and Bentley was a gift?” The answer only baffled him further. “I … I can never thank you enough.” He stared at the mutilated flesh. “You paid an awful price—the sacrifice of your own body—for the precious lives of my children. I am forever grateful.” His question prodded him to dig deeper. “But I don’t understand why you did it. Why, when only five months ago you tried to kill me?”
“God. You gift me.” Mallet struggled to pull something from under his pillow. His fingers scrabbled like a burrowing crab until finally he withdrew a small book and plopped it onto the blanket covering his stomach. Gilt letters spelled out The New Testament & Psalms.
“My Bible!” Jake barely stopped himself from snatching it away.
“I read all.” Mallet held up two mottled fingers.
“You read it two times?”
“Yes.” Mallet fumbled with the book until it opened to a page folded in half. The opposite page identified it as the first chapter of the gospel of John. Mallet smoothed out the folded page, and, with a hand almost too weak to lift the book, raised it for Jake’s eyes. Names and dates written in small script crowded the margin next to verses twelve and thirteen. “I add.”
Jake took the book, sure of what he’d find. The three dates recorded his, Crystal’s, and Eve’s acknowledgement of Jesus as the Son of God. A fourth name and date increased the tally: Pamukpok, 4-85. Jake’s throat tightened. “You believe?”
“Yes, Christian.” Mallet brought his hands together in a gesture of prayer. “Love God … neighbor … Jake.”
Jake’s heart squeezed tremors up his throat to his chin. He gulped a snatch of air.
Shallow coughs dribbled spittle from Mallet’s mouth. The aide blotted it and gave him a sip of water. “’Milio want hurt Jake. How?” Mallet’s chest rose and fell with long pauses in between. “Find out: wedding. Bomb.” Ragged breaths pulled his eyelids down.
The rest of the story, Jake knew first-hand. Mallet had rammed Jake aside, commandeered the cake, and fled to face the bomb alone. To pay the price of sacrificial love. Every muscle in Jake’s face quivered.
The aide pointed at the cell door. “No more. Go.”
Jake laid the pocket Bible back onto Mallet’s middle and gently placed Mallet’s skin-peeled hand on it. “Thank you, brother.” The words came out in chokes. Blinking back tears, he stumbled toward the front gate.
Mallet’s gift of saving Dana and Bentley was God’s gift. A gift joyfully delivered by Mallet with no thought to cost. With no reluctance to demonstrate the compassion of God that had saved him. Mallet was a spiritual babe of two months; Jake a God-loving man of twenty-three years. Yet, tested, he had failed. He had chosen to live based on his past rather than on his future—his history with Emilio rather than his destiny of Heaven, won for him by Christ. No wonder his heart was hard.
He changed the course of his footsteps. It wasn’t too late.
In group one’s pod, Emilio immediately spotted him. Taking his time, a sneer on his lips, he joined Jake at the pod’s entryway. “Come to gloat?”
“I’ve come to forgive. I’m letting you go, Emilio. You said I’d won and you’d lost. But you were mistaken. Every time you hurt me or wronged me scored a win for you. It was one more link chaining me to you, putting you in control of my emotions and behavior.”
Emilio’s eyebrows twitched upward.
“I’m not excusing what you’ve done—no way. But I don’t have to.” Jake shrugged, surprising himself with the smile that accompanied it. “Fact is, it’s a judicial power I simply don’t have. What I do have is a Savior who loves me and gives me the freedom to put the past behind me. So, do what you may, Emilio, my focus is no longer bound to you. I’m breaking the chain.”
Emilio snorted. “And leaving your wife and all those passengers in my keeping, huh?”
“Your guilt chains you to them, Emilio, not the other way around.”
“Oh? Does refusing to save my son chain you to him?”
The memory of Mallet racing away with the wedding cake rose to Jake’s mind. “No, but God’s compassion motivates me. I will do my best to help him.”
“Good. Here’s the info.” Emilio whipped the photo of the toddler out of his pocket. “Everything you need to know is on the back. Name, birth data, Social Security number, address, phone number. My father is his legal guardian; he’ll need to transfer it to you.”
Jake slipped the photo into a pocket of his parachute pants. “God’s compassion extends to you too, Emilio.”
“Yeah, well, I can take care of myself. Just don’t forget my kid.” Emilio turned his back and ambled into his venue of vultures.
For a minute, Jake watched him, until the reality hit home. Hello, Jacob Chalmers—you are free! Free of the enemy he’d let enslave him for three
years with bitterness. He had wanted Emilio put in prison for the murder of the Gateway passengers, but Jake had put himself into prison too—had built his own cell, even—by hanging onto Emilio’s offenses.
He trotted through the admin pod to the front gate. Lee stood outside, his van at the curb. Jake laughed, and like a kid on his last day of school, ran whooping down the hallway. He’d bathed at the sink this morning, and, good to his promise, he was going to give Lee that big hug!
Chapter 72
Eve peered through the van window, her heartbeat ticking faster as Jake emerged from Salonga Prison’s front gate. So, Marcos had truly come through, and she’d been able to help Jake after all! Doubt had stalked her for two weeks while she and Crystal killed time with a sightseeing spree in the Philippines. Every day, she woke with misgivings hissing in her ear that Marcos’s promise was nothing but political posturing.
Her unsolicited request to the President had been nervy. “I wish to bring prisoner Jacob Chalmers back to the U.S. with me, with his case dismissed. Can you help me expedite that?” Her heart pinging off every rib belied the calm of her voice. Marcos had all but snapped his fingers at his secretary to get on the phone and start the process. Showing off his power? Didn’t matter. She’d kiss his feet now!
Crystal scooted in tight against her to share the view out Eve’s window. They giggled when Jake grabbed Detective Lee in a big bear hug. Would he do that to them after they stepped out of the van to surprise him? To Crystal, no doubt. But not her. Last thing she’d told him was that whatever had been between them was over. Forgotten. As good as never happened.
The hurt on his face as she left was a knife in her heart. The man had just told her he loved her, and that she had loved him. She fled the visitors room because the guilt was more than she could bear. Maybe she wasn’t accountable for her memory loss, but she was responsible for how she’d mismanaged it.
And now, here she sat, with Jake and Detective Lee ambling across the prison apron toward the van, laughing at their horseplay. Jake had no idea she and Crystal were in the back seat. No doubt Lee was chomping at the bit in anticipation of Jake’s shock.
Jake wore parachute pants, a tee, and ragged sandals. A good two weeks’ growth of stubble marked the start of a beard. Impressive was not exactly descriptive of his appearance. In his Marine Corps uniform at the wedding, he’d been dazzling. With his beard and longer hair, he’d been the valiant warrior and protector. Yet, the man striding toward her with a bounce in his step, animation in his face, and exuberance in his voice had her heart sprouting wings.
He’d said her memory loss was not an obstacle to his love. So why should she let it stand in their way? Why look to her past to define herself? To cross a river, she didn’t need a road behind her; she needed a bridge in front of her. A bridge like the one she’d built to her father and brother. A bridge made of new experiences and new relationships and new memories.
Crystal reached over, opened the van door, and scrambled out. “J-a-a-a-k-e!” she squealed. He stopped short, eyes wide, and barely got his arms open before Crystal pounced on him with her own bear hug.
Her turn. Eve stepped out, aware her greeting would send signals to Jake. Aloof—no expectations, please. Or friendly—just don’t step over the line. Or warm—open to possibilities. Her mind fogged at which she wanted.
Before she could act, Jake took the lead. Astonishment, then delight, lit his face at the sight of her. “Eve!” Crystal released Jake and turned to watch them with the biggest smile Eve had ever seen.
Jake didn’t exactly race to her, but his strides were long enough that he may as well have. She took a step backward, leery of a collision, but at the same time conscious of a wave of excitement crashing over every nerve in her body. Two steps away, his arms opened. One step away, and they reached out for her.
The air whooshed from her lungs as he seized her arms at the outside of her shoulders. Gave a little squeeze. Slid his hands down her arms to clasp her fingers. “Thank you for my freedom.” His voice was deep. Steeped with emotion. Intimate.
She inhaled. Swallowed. Nodded acknowledgment. Tried to synchronize tongue and lips to form words. Could think of nothing but the track of his hands down her bare arms, the tenderness of his fingers curled around hers. Inanely she whispered, “My pleasure,” then caught herself and said, “It was long overdue. I’m sorry.”
“You can stand here and stare at each other all moony-eyed, or you can get in the car and catch a plane to the United States,” Lee said. “Which is it?”
“I vote for the moony eyes,” Crystal said.
Eve withdrew her hands from Jake’s. “Catch the plane and don’t look back.”
“We’re flying out together?” Jake opened the van door for Eve to climb inside. “Where to?”
“Chicago, if you don’t mind. We need to do a little legal debris clean-up.” Eve winked at Crystal. “Maybe throw in some sight-seeing and”—she looked pointedly at Jake’s attire—“some clothes shopping.”
Jake’s chuckle trailed him to the opposite side of the van, where he opened the door for Crystal to slide in next to Eve.
Crystal shook her head. “Nope. You hafta sit between us, dude.”
Jake ducked his head, eyebrows raised, to peer in at Eve.
“Only if you promise no moony eyes.” Eve grinned and patted the seat. They’d save that for later. Include it as part of her new bridge to the future.
Jake slid in, then Crystal. His arm rested lightly against Eve’s as the three of them squished together. Warmth radiated from his skin to hers. Warmth from his heart too. She breathed a quiet sigh of contentment. The struggle that had separated them was over. It could be put away.
Forgotten.
The End
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