Within seconds, the two guards caught up and stopped directly above him, panting.
Immediately, one bent down and kneeled on Khel’s chest.
He spat on Khel’s face, yelling, “Spy!”
Mercilessly, he began to beat his wounded prey.
Chapter 10
It was Sunday, a few days after the FBI visit.
During the day, the longhaired man watched the Chargers lose their football game. He drank during the game, but he wasn’t in the mood for much more drinking afterwards. So later, he arrived at church only with a slight buzz.
He was in a particularly somber and pensive mood, and Pastor Jason noticed it during their conversation after the service. Unlike previous times, he had questions for the pastor about the message that evening.
The two sat at the very back corner of the church once again.
“…so, I don’t get it, Preacher Man. The guy kept giving God excuses because he didn’t want to go. Why did God keep trying to get him to go? Why didn’t the dude just leave him alone?”
“Well, the short answer is, because God had chosen him.” Pastor Jason paused then continued, “God picked Moses to be the man who would be God’s hands and feet on earth to free the Israelites. Throughout the centuries, God chooses certain people to do certain things. Why he picks who he picks isn’t regularly stated in the Bible, so we don’t always know.”
The longhaired man looked up to the ceiling, opened his eyes wide, and blinked several times to clear his mind from the little alcohol remaining in his system. Finally, he tilted his head back down and asked, “Well, how do you know God picked ya to do something?”
Jason took his time to think. Although their conversation was still short, this was already the longest time he had spend talking with him, and he wanted to make sure he gave the best and right answers. “Well, sometimes He’ll put you in positions and environments, where you would have never thought to go yourself.” Jason chuckled, “And those are the easy ones to spot. Sometimes your life just heads you in a certain direction, and the transition is seamless.”
He paused for a while and was unsure of how to ask the pastor the next question. But he didn’t have the patience to struggle too long in order to figure out how to best say it. He settled for this question, “So, hypothetically, let’s say I find myself in some kind of circumstance and what if I don’t want any part of it?
“Huh…” Jason thought about the question. “Well, that’s really your choice to make at the end…God won’t force you to do anything. It’s all up to you.” He thought a bit, and then added, “I’ve been put in situations myself, where I’ve had to decide either to go one route that was tough - that I didn’t really want - versus going the easy route - one that didn’t require any changes on my part. To be honest with ya, going the tough route is really tough.” Jason smiled and added, “Probably an obvious statement, huh? But at the end, the tough way has its rewards.” He explained, “Moses listed his shortcomings in hopes that God would change his mind and move on to someone else. Mind you, God wasn’t happy that Moses was pushing back. And eventually, God told him that he would send someone alongside to help him out. Afterwards, it was Moses’ call and he decided to go.”
There was a short silence.
Then, Jason admitted, “I’m sorry. I’m saying a lot here, but we hardly talk. Right? And I wanna explain to you these things because we may not have another conversation like this. Do you mind if I went on?”
He smiled at Jason and said, “You know, you’re probably right. So, just go for it.”
“Ok, thanks.” Smiling, Jason went on to emphasize a point, “And the key thing here is…is that God will use you exactly as you are, at that point and time. He doesn’t need you to be any smarter, any stronger, any braver, any more experienced, or any more of a better person. He’ll take you as you are, because you can trust Him to provide the rest.”
He thought about it for a while, gazed at nothing in particular inside the church, and then looked back at Jason. “Ok, Preacher Man.” He stood up to leave. “But you know…all this deep, spiritual thinking is gonna drive me to drink.” He smiled, and the pastor chuckled.
“Hey, by the way,” Jason said, “we’re all having a picnic at Kit Park next week. You could come around and get to know some of the people you’ve been sitting around every week.”
The longhaired man thought for a few seconds, as he stood still. He showed his reluctance. “Well, people here have tried to get to know me. And I just push ‘em back. I think I appreciate that they do try.’ He continued in a soft voice, ‘But I’m sober enough right now to realize and admit that I don’t wanna connect with people.’
Jason looked up at him, “Well, my friend, what about giving yourself a chance?”
Sleeping that night in his apartment, his dream was peculiar.
In it, he heard echoes far away, from a large screaming crowd. From above, a blimp floated lower and lower, down through a clearing night mist, high above the San Diego Chargers’ football stadium.
Down in the stadium, the crowd’s roar was close to deafening levels. Lights that circled the top of the stadium blazed and lit alive the field below.
The Chargers had just received a change of possession, starting their drive at their own seven-yard line. There were less than two minutes left until the end of the game. The score was tied: zero to zero.
The second play ended in the loss of two yards. The Charger’s running back was tackled before crossing the line of scrimmage. It was now third down, on the five-yard line.
Immediately, the Chargers coach called for a timeout. The quarterback signaled to the referee, and the referee blew his whistle for the clock to stop.
The team jogged toward the sideline. The longhaired goateed man was among them. He was the running back. His white Charger jersey was caked with grass stains. The lightning bolts on the shoulders were hardly recognizable. The number on his jersey was double-zero.
On his way to the sideline, he removed his helmet. His hair was drenched and stringy. His face was smudged all over with dirt, and lines of sweat cleared trails down his face.
The coach was an inordinately big man, both tall and wide, an imposing figure. Reaching for him, the coach grabbed him by the shoulder pads and screamed at him, “What in the world are you doing out there?”
Coach towered directly above him, by at least a foot, and was very thick with powerful muscles.
With his helmet in his hand, he panted, “Coach, I’m doing the best I can. I’m trying to figure this all out.”
“What do you mean?!” Coach growled. “I don’t believe you! We call a running play, the linemen run one way, and you’re running the opposite freakin’ direction! Now why is that?!”
The crowd around them screamed as they did the Wave around the stadium.
He looked up, and the lights blinded him. Grimacing, he looked back at Coach.
“You can’t figure this all out on your own! You’re gonna need to follow my directions and you’re gonna need the team, in order to get us a win! Do you understand what I’m sayin’, son?!” Coach waited for his reply. Not hearing one he asked plainly and loudly, “Son, are ya in this game or not?”
“No…yeah…I don’t know. I’m a little confused, Coach. This whole game seemed to happen in just one short minute…” He looked down and shook his head.
“Look up at me, son!” Coach was no longer screaming at him, but yelling to be heard above the crowd, and his hand slapped down on his running back’s shoulder pad.
He looked up.
Coach softened his furrowed brow. “It’s gonna be all right,” he encouraged. “Now, I need you to take my lead. Got me, son? You seem to just run all over the field and do things the way you want to do.” Coach called the quarterback closer into the huddle, and then knelt down, in front of his players. “You’re my running back and you need to follow the play your quarterback calls. Got that?!”
“Yeah, got it. Yay, team! Got it�
�” He tiredly said it, and he wasn’t very convinced.
Coach looked down at his playbook.
The crowd roared again, as the Wave passed by.
Coach instructed, “Now, we gotta run this play to get us a first down, and away from being pinned back on our goal line. Son, you’re gettin” the ball and your linemen are gonna clear the way to the left and you run right behind “em. Got it?”
“Got it. Clear left. Run right…I mean, they clear left and I go behind them. Yeah.”
Coach slapped down on his shoulder pad once again, “Son, you can do this!”
“Got it, Coach.”
The team ran back onto the field.
The men lined up on the line of scrimmage, and the quarterback went behind the center.
He stood two yards behind the quarterback, with his hands on his knees, on the one-yard line.
The crowd began to scream.
The quarterback raised his arms and waved his hands in a downward motion, in order to tell the frenzied crowd to quiet down. He called the play. Hunching down behind the center, he looked left then right. “Hut! Hut!”
The center snapped the ball, and the linemen created a solid wall running to the left.
The quarterback trotted back to meet him.
The lights glared in his eyes, and beads of salty sweat dropped inside them. He ran to his left and met the quarterback in stride.
The handoff was flawless.
He ran, following the linemen, crossing the four-yard line. His eyes darted to and fro, searching for an opening to speed through. Then, quickly he thought, “Wait, what if I go right? Everyone is following us to the left, but no one is at the right.”
With a stutter-step, he changed direction.
At the sideline, he could hear Coach yell in agony, “What are ya doin’, son?!”
He continued to run right. The path was clear. He had an open field.
He passed the six-yard line. The crowd roared.
Suddenly, two gigantic defensive men came out of nowhere and pounded into him.
He rebounded off of the men and peeled himself off their grasp. But he had to run the opposite direction in order to stay away from their reach. He ran toward the nearby goal line - the wrong direction.
He was now at the three-yard line.
His teammates screamed, “Turn around! Turn around!”
At the one-yard line, he stumbled over his feet. The two giants simultaneously smashed into him and crushed him to the ground, crossing the goal line and grinding his face into the dirt and grass.
The defense had scored a safety.
The crowd was in shock; their high energy evaporated. His teammates waved their hands at him in disgust, as they walked off the field. Coach looked at him from the distance and shook his head, completely disappointed and exasperated.
He sat himself up, propped by his hands at his sides. A large patch of grass was lodged in the upper corner of his facemask. He was comically dazed, and his head bobbled to the right and left, and to the front and back.
Behind him, off the field, was a line of six cannons. Traditionally, whenever the Chargers scored, there was one cannon that would fire in celebration. But in this game, in this dream, oddly there were six, and they were to fire in celebration for the other team. Beside each cannon a man stood ready to ignite it.
When the two defensive men had pounded him into the ground, the first man blasted his cannon. Immediately, the second cannon exploded then the third, then the fourth, and then the fifth, all in succession.
The sixth man stood at the ready, waiting for the right opportunity, at a much later time, to ignite his cannon.
Behind the goal post, high above the stadium was the scoreboard. It said, Home: 0; Pakistan: 999,999.
Beneath the scoreboard, his head continued to bobble, like a bobble-head figurine.
Immediately, he woke up, sat up on his couch, and propped himself up by his hands.
He was sweating, and his heart was rapidly beating. On his face was a deeply puzzled look.
The message given to him by the oddly numbered scoreboard was strange and unnerving. He shook his head in disbelief, because in the context of the whole dream, the message didn’t make sense.
Tightly shutting his eyes, he thought it through. He remembered Preacher Man’s words, “Well, sometimes He’ll put you in positions and environments, where you would have never thought to go yourself.” Then, he realized that the message he had perceived was correct.
Incredulous, he shook his head and blurted, “What?! Pakistan?!!! I gotta go to Pakistan?!”
* * * * * * *
As Etelson stood in the third floor of the FBI field office in San Diego, she held a composite sketch generated from the descriptions given by the D.C woman, Mrs. Ackerman, of her attacker.
Stevens walked by. “So, that’s our man, huh?”
Etelson stared at the sketch and responded, “Yup, that’s our guy.”
“Well, he doesn’t have long hair and a goatee. So, he’s not the guy we just visited.” Stevens took his gaze away from the composite and walked to a seat.
“Yeah, but,” Etelson said, as she set the sketch down on the desk, in front of her. “I’m not ruling him out. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he was in D.C. the same time the woman was taken by our suspect.” She pulled back her hair and tightened the braids.
Stevens sat on the desk and faced her. He offered, “One scenario could be that these two guys are in cahoots, and Mr. Goatee has an insane desire to be some public hero, driven to some state of craziness due to the loss of his wife and son…I’m not reaching on this one, am I?”
Etelson folded her arms, leaned on one leg, and stared out the window directly in front of her.
Stevens continued, “Another is…our suspect has some previous involvement in Mr. Goatee’s past, wife and son’s accident maybe; and has some desire himself - strange, morbid, or not - to continue giving Mr. Goatee grief.”
Etelson began pacing left and right, a few feet in front of Stevens. Momentarily, she offered, in dramatic fashion, with exaggerated tones and gestures, “And another is: there’s some yet-to-be-uncovered third party. A person who - at one end of the spectrum - could be a mere observer. Or! Who, at the other end of the spectrum, could be someone who enables or even orchestrates the actions of the two - of the said Mr. Goatee and the aforementioned Mr. Jarhead.” She stopped pacing, “Ya follow?” Then, she continued, wagging a forefinger, “But, just to what end?! That, sir, needs further consideration.”
Even though he saw Etelson was being overly theatrical, he tried to take her point seriously and responded, “Ahh…ok. I follow. Hmm. But what makes you think there’s someone else possibly orchestrating? If there’s a third party observing, I guess that’s possible. But orchestrating?”
Etelson explained, “There are two victims dead and one saved. The landscape involves at least four different cities - if you count San Diego. And if you bring in the accident, with the wife and kid five years ago, and you look at this national scenery, then I say, sir, that’s orchestrating!” She spread her arms wide in a circle, as she spoke.
Stevens asked, “What made you think of that?”
She reigned in her tone and said offhandedly, “Well, it’s a hunch…I’m all ‘hunchie’ today,” she smiled, and then crossed her arms, nodding several times.
Etelson was silent for a few moments, and then, she finally divulged, “Well, ok, I also got a report on an interview this morning. This couple staying at the Montreme - just before things started falling down from the rooftop - said they were on a couch in the lobby looking outside one of the big windows facing the street.” Etelson paused to take a breath, then continued, “They were watching this guy, just at the other side of the window. The guy fits the description of our Mr. Goatee.”
“Hmm, yeah. Well, we know he was there.”
“Yeah, hmm. So, anyway, they said they watched him stare at the window, for a few seconds. Then, he turn
ed around and looked up. Way up.” Etelson waved her hands high in the air. “Up and at the edge of the roof, of the opposite building…” She paused for dramatic effect and said, “Dumm-dumm-dummmmmm…there was a guy up there! He wore a thick hooded coat - on a hot day, mind you - and he was pointing across the way, toward the rooftop of the Montreme. Then, all of a sudden, stuff started dropping to the ground, right out of the heavens!”
She stomped a foot and stretched out her hands, “Ta da! There’s your third party.” Smiling, she stayed in her pose.
“Wow, ” Stevens said, “…ok, agent, at ease.”
Etelson responded to the command by leaning back on one leg and crossing her arms in front of her. She said, “By the way, if ya didn’t catch it, I added to the story the part about the ‘right out of the heavens’ just to make it more dramatic.”
“I think I caught that, Ett. I think I did.” He shook his head, “But it didn’t add to the drama. No, sorry.” Stevens looked away for a few moments, and then finally asked, “And when had you planned to tell me about this new and important tidbit of info?”
Etelson nodded a few times and answered, “…about now.”
“Well, gee, thanks for the timeliness.” Stevens then thought about it. He wondered out loud, “Huh, a third party, a maestro. Gotta think about that for a bit.”
Stevens swiveled in his seat. After a few moments, he shifted gears to another subject. “Were they able to get you the info we need about the details of Mr. Goatee’s accident?”
“Yeah, they’re working on it. Nice folks here.” She smiled and began to say in a daydreaming tone, “Nice place, San Diego. Maybe I’ll retire here. Buy me lots of sun tan lotion. Drink lots of margaritas. Meet a guy with long hair and a goatee. Stay at the beach all the time…I’d be set.”
Stevens grinned and nodded his head, “Of course you would, Etti. Of course, you would.”
Stopping her dreamy pose, Etelson’s mind went back to work. “Let’s send this composite out to the media outlets. And since Mr. Jarhead likes to prowl the hotels and motels, those guys get to get some copies also.”
“Sounds good.” Stevens rocked back in his chair. “Hey, I’ve got an appointment today with the Director of Antiquities, at the San Diego Museum of Man.” He pointed south toward downtown San Diego, “It’s just over there, at an area called Balboa Park.”
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