Chosen

by Lisa T. Bergren

  “It happened, Alexana,” he mumbled hoarsely. “The bus attack. I’m leaving now. Do you want to come with me? You said you had to get back.”

  Nodding gravely, Alexana turned to tell Sam and rose to go. Sam grabbed her hand, looking at Ridge with mistrust. “I can drive you home tomorrow after my shift.”

  Alexana shook her head. “No good. I have an appointment with Professor O’Malley tomorrow afternoon. I’ll see you next week for Ash Wednesday services.”

  Sam nodded and kissed her on the cheek. “Be careful, little sister,” he quietly admonished.

  Alexana hurried away with Ridge, topping the stairs as the Philharmonic reached the crescendo of Ravel’s Bolero.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FEBRUARY 21

  Ridge had found no solace in sleep. He was haunted by the knowledge that innocent people had died and he had known it was going to happen. Not that he could have done anything, he told himself. But the question ran through his head again and again: Given the correct time line, would I have done anything to stop it?

  He had made one live report on the evening of the bombing, and the visual images still turned his stomach forty-eight hours later. This time it was not only soldiers who had died. He was haunted by images of Steve’s footage, taken shortly after the attack occurred.

  A Palestinian woman, burned horribly herself, wailed not in physical pain, but over the dead body of her two-year-old son. A Hasidic Jew appeared in one corner of the camera frame, watching the woman as tears streamed down his face. Ridge shook his head. So much pain. So much anger. So much need for healing.

  He sat in his hotel room, in shambles from weeks of living on the go, and thought about calling his brother. He needed to talk with someone, and his younger sibling was as close to him as anyone. But as he picked up the receiver and started to dial, he thought better of it. Philip would just tell him to buck up and handle it. Ridge wanted to talk it through, explore why he was feeling these things. Phil would not welcome that.

  He hung up the phone and rubbed his face with a callused hand. What is happening to me? Over the years, he had witnessed hundreds of similar attacks in war-torn countries. Why should it bother him now? His mind kept clicking back to one thought: Jesus. What would this man called Jesus do?

  A true Christian would do everything in his power to save a Jew or a Palestinian from death. Alexana’s words rang in his head. As he thought about the Palestinian toddler killed by a bomb Arab radicals had planted, he suddenly knew: Jesus would have wept like that old Hasidic Jew. Ridge knew little of the Christ, but the image rang true to his mind and heart.

  He picked up the phone and dialed.

  A distracted voice answered on the fourth ring.

  “Alexana? I know you don’t want to see me on a personal basis, but I really need to talk to someone. Please.”

  After a momentary silence, she answered simply, “Come over.”

  Ridge breathed a sigh of relief. “Right away?”

  “Anytime.”

  Alexana awaited Ridge’s arrival. She hadn’t intended to see him again outside of business. But his voice had changed her mind. It was so different. So sad … not full of life and bravado. For an instant she wondered if it had been a ruse to see her, but she dismissed the thought. The man was clearly in pain.

  Ridge arrived twenty minutes later, his normally smooth hair in a tangled mass. Two days’ beard growth revealed neglect. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. To Alexana, he looked as if he might be ill.

  “Come in,” she said, touching his arm gently. “I have some tea on. I’ll join you in a moment.”

  She brought in two Jerusalem pottery mugs, filled with steaming lemon tea. “Have you eaten?”

  Ridge shook his head as he gratefully accepted the drink.

  “No one can talk without energy to think clearly. Let me get you some fruit at least.” She was in the midst of rising when his voice stopped her.

  “No, Alexana. Please. Just sit down and talk to me.”

  She sank back down to the couch: quiet, waiting. The way he said her name made her shiver. She forced herself to concentrate on his reason for coming, and not his gray blue eyes, or his well muscled forearm.

  He took a deep breath and began. “As you might have guessed, I’ve been wrestling with the bus attack since it happened. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve had information like this before. In the past, my rule has been noninterference: Just report the facts. It’s gotten me to where I am today.

  “But something’s changed. I feel more responsible somehow. I couldn’t have stopped the attack if I had tried, since it happened a day earlier than I’d been told. But I know I wouldn’t have said anything anyway.” He looked up at her, the anguish plain in his eyes.

  Alexana was silent, sorrow invading her heart. She waited for him to continue.

  He rose abruptly and began to pace. “What keeps haunting me is what you said about Christ. How you said he would have tried to stop it. As I look at footage of the carnage, dead bodies strewn everywhere—and me there reporting on it with an appropriately grim face for the world to see—all I can think about is how phony I am. How utterly false. And how could the God who accepts an innocent two-year-old boy into heaven accept a liar like me?”

  Ridge turned to stare out the window. “What is it about you that makes me tell you my deepest, darkest secrets?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Oh, Ridge—,” she began.

  He turned back toward her, interrupting. “Why would God want me? Why would he be making me feel this way? I know it has to be him, because I’ve never experienced anything like this. After all, I’m ‘Ridge McIntyre, CNN,’ ” he said in his best on-camera voice. “I’m supposed to be made of steel.”

  “No one is made of steel,” Alexana said softly. “Be glad you’re not. Be glad that you have a heart God can reach. I told you Jerusalem is a city of passions. Like Jerome said, it will be here that you will make a decision about Jesus. What you’re wrestling with is fundamental to the faith. Sin. Guilt. Grace. I’ll try to explain it the best I can—but please know that I’m not a perfect witness. Jesus comes to us with open arms, whether or not we want or deserve him … he still paid the price. We only have to accept his gift of love.”

  She rose and stood beside Ridge at the window. Outside, a vendor hawked fresh flowers cut from the hillsides of the Galilee. “Jesus is real, Ridge. He walked in the hills beside Lake Gennesaret among flowers like those you see out there. He died for you. For me. And he rose again. The key to God—and to the peace you so desperately seek—is in him.” She thought for a moment. “We’re approaching Easter, you know. This is a good time of year to explore what Christianity is all about. Come with me tonight.”

  “Where?” Ridge asked dully.

  “To an Ash Wednesday service at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer.”

  He gave her a blank look. “Ash Wednesday?”

  “Traditionally, it’s a day when some Christians remember how we’re separated from God by sin and reconciled through Jesus. The first Christians observed Easter and the days before it with a passion. For them, it was a season of penitence and fasting. Converts were prepared for baptism. Those who had been notorious for their sinful lifestyles were freely accepted back into the fold, reminding everybody about the message of forgiveness that Christ embodied.”

  She touched his shoulder in encouragement. “Everyone needs a time of self-examination. It’s not all gloom and doom, Ridge. It’s a message of hope and glory. But to get there, we first need to truly acknowledge where we stand: without Christ, away from God.”

  Ridge nodded, not yet embracing Alexana’s beliefs, but apparently finding comfort in her words.

  Alexana walked to a small table and picked up a well-worn pocket Bible. “Here. This verse might help. I think it’s in Job.” She scanned the pages. “No … Joel. ‘ “Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and
not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God.” ’ ”

  She paused. “In the old days, mourners would tear their clothing, crying in the streets in very public displays of sorrow. But God wants us to tear our hearts, open them to him, and him alone.” Alexana studied his face, realizing that she might have said too much, making him uncomfortable.

  Yet she pushed on. “But here’s the message of hope. ‘For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.’ It is a good time of year to think about Christ: who he said he was, and what that means for you today. You are standing on the land where he once stood.” She spoke earnestly. “He offers peace and absolution, Ridge. You just have to accept it.”

  Ridge turned his gaze back out the window, saying nothing.

  “Meet me there tonight, Ridge,” she said, her eyes imploring him to come. “Go back to your hotel, take a shower, think about what I’ve said, and come. You risk nothing. Only a chance at salvation.”

  Ridge managed a faint smile and, lost in thought, left without saying good-bye.

  CHAPTER TEN

  FEBRUARY 28

  Look out!” Ridge screamed, dodging another bullet. Drawing upon training received at a special CNN boot camp, he dove and rolled over the dusty street in Beirut. Loathing to give up his just-repaired camera, Steve Rains moved much slower. As Ridge turned, another shot rang out; a split second later, Steve went down with a shot to the abdomen. The camera fell away, unnoticed.

  “Steve!” Ridge yelled. His friend was fifteen feet away, directly between the source of the shots and the protective wall Ridge had found. “Steve!”

  The man did not respond. Ridge scanned the dark, bombed-out building, searching windowless holes for signs of the sniper. To his horror, he caught sight of a gunman as he raised his gun again and fired. Ridge ducked and winced as Steve cried out again, this time shot in the leg.

  “Oh, Lord,” Ridge mumbled. “Don’t let him die. And if my time is up, sorry about not getting back to you on the whole salvation thing.” His words sounded flippant and unappealing, even to him.

  Gritting his teeth, he ran, half-stooped, over to where Steve lay, nearly unconscious. “I’m gonna help you, buddy,” Ridge assured him. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

  Another shot was fired. As Ridge automatically bent lower, the bullet sang past his head. He could feel its path as if it had singed a mark along his forehead, temple, and ear. The slug struck the ground behind him with a dull thud. As if in a dream, Ridge acknowledged that he had narrowly escaped death.

  “Get out of here, man. Send in the marines,” Steve managed to grunt out.

  “No way. I’m getting you to the hospital.” Ridge’s body was taut with adrenaline; he shrugged back the fear that threatened to set him into massive trembling. Ignoring Steve’s moans and quiet swearing, Ridge pulled at his friend’s arm, lifting the man over his shoulders and back.

  Three more bullets sang past his ears as other snipers joined the game. He had carried Steve almost to the wall before he felt the shot. The impact of the bullet stunned him. He felt no pain, but looked down to see blood spreading over his shirt.

  Ridge passed out before he could even determine the location of his wound.

  MARCH 1

  Ridge woke up in a hospital bed to find Steve sitting beside him, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. His friend was in a wheelchair and wore only white hospital-issue pants, revealing a white bandage around his abdomen. “I suppose I owe you some flowers or something,” Steve said.

  Ridge raised a hand, feeling as if he were moving in slow motion. He rubbed his eyes. “Just tell me you got some footage of the whole thing.”

  Steve grinned. “Some award-winning shots before I was hit. But better yet—you won’t believe this—the camera fell, rolled, and came to rest as I was hit again. Caught the whole thing, at least from the waist down. Then, enter you, the News Junkie Stud. It caught part of our little escapade: the third bullet, barely missing you as you leaned over me, then you picking me up and carting me away like some fairy godmother.” Steve grinned. “Unfortunately for the censors, your princess was not so grateful.”

  Ridge managed a faint smile, remembering Steve swearing in pain as he carried the man to safety.

  “You caught it all on film?” Ridge asked incredulously.

  “Well, not all of it. Even seeing our legs with the audio gives me the willies, and I was there.”

  “That’s it? You couldn’t get me carrying you to safety and taking a bullet for you in the process?”

  Steve raised his hands and shrugged. “Hey. I’m good. But not that good.”

  “Well, I suppose it’ll have to do. What’d headquarters say?” Just speaking sapped his energy. He struggled to stay awake.

  “They’re thrilled. Our footage, such as it is, has been played on every network and on countless feeder stations. The world is waiting for Ridge McIntyre to regain consciousness. Our story made the front pages of the L.A. Times and the Washington Post.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding. You’re a hero.” The man stood with some effort, painfully bending down to jokingly give him a smacking kiss on the cheek. Ridge grimaced and pulled away. “You’re my hero, man. Thanks for saving my life.” Steve sat back down and wheeled away toward the door. “I’m glad you made it too. The bullet somehow missed any vital organs when it passed through. You lost a lot of blood, man, but you’re gonna make it. Oh, and by the way, headquarters will be sending a full camera crew to do a bedside interview with the News Junkie Stud this afternoon, once they find out you’re conscious.”

  “Great. Just great. And quit calling me that,” Ridge muttered wearily. But Steve was already gone. Ridge traced the bullet’s path, where it had passed along his head. The second had apparently passed cleanly through his body. He remembered his prayer. Hey, God, guess you have some business with me yet, huh?

  His thoughts turned to Alexana and the words she had spoken on Ash Wednesday a week before. Too ashamed to show up at church, he had not gone to services that evening. Consequently, he had not seen Alexana since. He had plunged into his work, wanting to forget the whole thing, but that single bullet had brought it all back.

  MARCH 9

  Alexana could feel the excitement and tension in the city as Christian pilgrims entered Jerusalem by the hundreds in preparation for Palm Sunday and Easter. It had been a long while since she had seen Ridge—nine days since the shooting—and she frowned at the way she had last spoken to him. I’m not a perfect witness, she thought, remembering her disclaimer. That doesn’t even begin to describe your lame attempt, Alexana Roarke. There the man was, ready to hear the gospel for the first time, and you bombard him with so much information, you scare him off forever.

  Alexana tried to tell herself that she only cared because she wanted to show others the importance of faith. But she could not deny the truth: She missed seeing the handsome man. Protect my heart, Lord, she whispered the now-familiar petition. I don’t want a man who doesn’t want you.

  Alexana had heard about his escapades in Lebanon over the BBC. The audiotape of his encounter with the sniper in Beirut made for sensational audio footage. Even without a television, Alexana knew that Ridge had nearly lost his life.

  She had fought the desire to travel north to see him in the hospital, telling herself that she had no right to be there … to say nothing of the fact that he had not called in weeks.

  He obviously did not want to see her.

  MARCH 16

  Shopping in the suk, Alexana had just negotiated a price for a luscious assortment of red, orange, and green peppers for a marinated salad when she recognized a voice in her ear.

  “Hi there, Doc.”

  She turned, feeling a blush creep up her neck and hoping that it did not show. “Ridge! Are you okay? How long have you been back?” Her words sounded forced, trite, and she fought off feelings of guilt for not having looked in on him.<
br />
  “I’ve been back about a week,” he said, obviously uncomfortable as well. Alexana could not help but wonder as he turned to the fruit and vegetables before them, picking out some apples and pears.

  “I—”

  “How have—”

  They both started talking at once, stopped and laughed, then began speaking simultaneously once again. Both dissolved into laughter, which broke the tension like a welcome rain.

  “Ridge, I want to apologize,” Alexana tried again. “I think I came on too strong about the faith and all.”

  “No, Alexana, don’t apologize,” he assured her gently. “The truth is, it’s all I’ve been thinking about—and running away from—these past weeks. It wasn’t you.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to say that. I know myself. I can be so tuned into something, I don’t even stop for breath. I’m just so in love with my faith and want others to know it that when I get the chance, I’m rather like a freight train.”

  Ridge looked down at the woman in front of him. “I could never see you as a ‘freight train,’ even when you’re giving one of your impassioned speeches.” His look was tender and intimate.

  Alexana’s blush deepened.

  “I’ll say it again. Don’t apologize. Your words were well-intentioned, and they reached me in a way I can’t describe. I know that you are nothing but honest. And I apologize for not calling you after that day. You probably thought you drove me away, but I just really needed time to think about what we had talked about.”

  Alexana pushed aside the desire to ask where that process had left him. She nodded in understanding, then turned and discussed with the merchant fair prices for more vegetables and paid him.

  Ridge went back to examining the fruit, particularly the green bananas, while she fumbled with her change. As she turned to go, he glanced at her with a smile.

  “Well, Ridge,” she faltered. “I’m glad you’re up and well. Really.”