by Ted Dekker
Translation: Johnny killed Feroz. The president will be going to his ranch in Arizona. Details of his location and the planned security measures will be left in the same subway tunnel used last time.
“Yes, sir.”
Ed Carter, trembling, set the phone down.
It was now out of his hands.
34
Carl decided to do the thing expected of him.
Children did what was expected of them, and he felt more like a child now than he had since last entering his pit. But that wasn’t entirely true, because when he’d last entered the pit’s familiar darkness, he felt warm and secure. Now he felt cold and afraid.
But he returned to Paradise anyway.
He caught a red-eye out of New York to Dallas and then an early-morning flight to Denver and on to Grand Junction. He was going back to Colorado because the blue pickup truck was there. He was going back to Paradise because the cabin was there, hidden up in the canyon where no one waited.
He struggled with the decision to find Sally again, but in the end realized that he couldn’t go back to his mother because he wasn’t sure that he was her son anymore. How many times had he been led down a path of “truth” only to discover that it was simply part of a grand scheme to convince him of a lie? More times than he could remember.
All he wanted was to be a son and a lover. Sally’s boy and Kelly’s lover. But by being Johnny he could be neither—not really, not if it meant that Sally and Kelly would be hounded by hell. If Johnny could be a normal person and an ordinary lover, then he would like to be Johnny. But Johnny wasn’t ordinary and Carl hated him for it.
The problem was, Johnny hated Carl even more. For this reason alone, Carl decided that he would call himself Johnny, the lesser of two evils.
In the end he was just a lost boy who didn’t belong.
In the end he was rejected by both worlds.
In the end he was numb, flying and driving and walking up the mountain in a haze, choking on the lump that had lodged itself so firmly in his throat that he was sure it would never leave.
He was regressing. He was becoming a boy. The only problem was that he didn’t know that boy, and he didn’t want to know the boy who had become Carl.
Johnny stopped on the ledge high above Paradise, trying to recall some of the fun boyhood memories that must reside somewhere in his mind. Running down Main Street chasing a girl with pigtails. Lazing behind the community center on a hot summer day, bragging about impossible feats.
Nothing came. There was only his blue truck parked behind the community center. No memories, no friends, no sign of Sally.
Johnny hated another thing about himself. He hated this sentimentality that riddled him with weakness. Carl would detest such a show of self-degradation. Carl did.
Johnny impulsively gripped his hands into fists and screamed at the valley. He closed his eyes, leaned into the cry, and shredded the still air with a blood-boiling cry until his lungs were exhausted.
Then he opened his eyes and listened.
There was no answer. No reaction at all. No one ran out into the streets of Paradise to attend to the call for help. Wind passed softly through the trees around him. Birds chirped nearby. A lizard scuttled through the underbrush on his right, undeterred by the boy’s wail.
He was alone. No one cared.
He hated himself.
The tears broke through his protective shell when he stepped back on the path that led up to the canyon. If Kelly saw him now, eyes leaking, she might suggest a treatment from Agotha for his own benefit.
The suggestion sent a shiver through his arms. It was Agotha who’d hurt him, never Kelly. Kelly only protected him. She was as much a victim as he had been.
And neither of them was really a victim, because both had been made strong by the training. Carl was perhaps the best sniper who had ever walked the face of the earth! You couldn’t get much better than that. As for Kelly, Agotha had saved her from a lonely and abusive childhood.
Kelly. She was another reason he was going back to the cabin, wasn’t she? He knew that Kelly could find him here.
He walked into the canyon, bearing an ache in his heart that hurt worse than any needle he’d received through the shoulder. If Agotha could find a way to inflict this kind of pain on her subjects, she would strip them in less time than it took with electroshock or sensory depravation. Physical pain was a faint shadow of this pain in his mind.
Then Johnny was there, standing on the rocky sand, facing the cabin at the end of the short canyon that had once hidden Project Showdown.
He felt nothing but utter loneliness.
He wanted Kelly to come and hold him.
He wanted to die.
Johnny sat on the sand, failing to find the energy required to walk into the cabin. There was no reason to approach the cabin. No reason to leave the cabin.
He lay on his side, pulled his knees into his chest, and continued to cry.
SAMUEL HEARD the soft sobbing and ran to the cabin’s window. He’d come?
His childhood friend lay on the ground twenty-five yards from the porch, rolled into a fetal position.
Samuel sat hard on the bench facing the window. Both he and Johnny had known that Johnny would pay a significant price for going under, but he’d never suspected the terrible lengths that the X Group would go to unmake his friend.
Johnny was only a shadow of the child he’d once been. And no one knew as well as Samuel that being a child was what it was all about.
Unless you become like a child . . . Unless you become like a child, you can’t do much of anything good in this world.
But at what cost? What was the cost of following the path into this kingdom where power flowed beyond the comprehension of most?
Samuel stared at his friend, unable to hold back his own tears. Not only because he empathized with the pain Johnny felt as he lay in a heap, but because Samuel knew that the price had not yet been fully paid.
Johnny was desperate for the end, but he was only at the beginning.
Samuel’s father had made the right call when he’d guessed that Johnny would return to the cabin. They both knew that if anyone could reach Johnny now, it would be Samuel, but even he wasn’t sure Johnny could be reached by anyone.
Samuel’s mind flashed back to that day in Paradise a dozen years ago when they’d first met. When heaven had collided with hell. Neither he nor Johnny had been normal since that day.
They were both outcasts. Unless Johnny embraced his alienation and stepped willingly into the role, he would fade into powerless obscurity—so it was with all of the faithful.
It took Samuel ten minutes to compose himself and wipe the evidence of tears from his face. Then he took a deep breath, stepped up to the door, and went out to meet Johnny.
THERE WERE only two places Kelly thought Johnny might go.
The pit in Hungary.
The cabin in Colorado.
The pit would be the more difficult destination. So she went to Colorado.
If there was a way to flog herself and thereby accept punishment for what she’d done to him, she would gladly accept each blow. If she could find a way to repay him, no matter how ludicrous or how great the cost, she would do so. Betrayal was a terrible, terrible thing.
She had betrayed Johnny by making him someone he wasn’t. By stripping his identity and forcing another one upon him. By pretending to love him only to win his allegiance.
She’d never expected to fall for him. It cost her dearly, but not a fraction of what she was willing to pay to win his trust one more time, this time as the Kelly who truly loved him.
She wept openly on the plane, leaning against the window to hide her face from the other passengers but not caring if they stared, which they did. It was another lesson she was learning: when this much sorrow ravaged the heart, the mind shut down any respect for etiquette. Assim Feroz was dead. That was good.
The president was alive. That was good.
Englishma
n was not only alive, but brimming with a power that Kelly had only dreamed about. This was bad.
But Kelly didn’t care, because there was another power at work within them all, and this power was intent on destroying the only man she’d ever loved, with or without Englishman’s help.
Back in the Egyptian desert, she’d been abandoned and abused before escaping. She remembered how it had felt to be rejected and alone, without a mother, a father, or a true sense of belonging. Humans went to great lengths to belong. To fit in. Agotha had taught her this, and together they’d leveraged the tendency against Carl, luring him to belong to them. To her.
They’d done the job well. Too well.
If they survived this ordeal, Kelly would take him to the desert, where they could heal together. To Nevada, where no one knew them. To the place she had always intended to take him.
If they survived. And if they died, she wanted to die in his arms no matter how melodramatic that sounded. They were all a page ripped from the story of life anyway. All humans were, whether they realized it or not.
Dear Johnny . . . Dear Johnny, what have I done to you?
THE FACT that Johnny had outwitted him turned all of Englishman’s happiness into bitter anger. It didn’t matter that he was the Terminator or that in the end the Terminator always won. This setback was humiliating.
There was still hope. More than hope, certainty. Even when Johnny won, he was really losing. But this didn’t make Englishman feel any better. He would first kill the president, not because he had been ordered to do so, but because by killing Robert Stenton he would undo what Johnny had done in saving the man’s life.
Then he would find Johnny, and he would reduce him to a desperate, blubbering fool.
And then, when Johnny was only a shell of himself, he would choose to kill him. That wasn’t the original plan, but the original plan was now obsolete.
This new plan made Englishman happy. Not as happy as he’d once been, plotting and planning all these months, but still happy. He still had the trump card, and this, too, made him happy. But Johnny was turning out to be a more worthy adversary than he’d originally calculated.
He’d retrieved the information on Stenton’s ranch and would soon board an airplane bound first for Denver and then Grand Junction, where he would collect all he needed from the safe house. He would then head for Arizona, where he would be free to level whatever paltry security they threw his way and take the man’s life at his leisure. The Terminator would undoubtedly kill the whole family—father, mother, and son. So would Rambo if pressed.
So would Englishman.
He didn’t need the information Kalman had provided, only the destination. But he had it nonetheless. Better not to be overconfident, considering a single stray bullet could end his life as easily as the president’s.
Englishman began to whistle in the backseat of the cab that was taking him to the airport. But his whistle sounded hollow. In all honesty, none of these mental gymnastics were bringing him happiness. His identification with the Terminator and Rambo wasn’t helping. He couldn’t remember such a profound lack of happiness.
He stopped whistling.
When he met Johnny again, he would make sure that Johnny never whistled again. Ever.
35
Hello, Johnny.”
Johnny opened his eyes.
H “I remember the first time we met here,” Samuel said.
Johnny pushed himself up on his elbow. The blond boy stood ten feet away, smiling at him. He was here? Johnny blinked. The image was still there. Samuel was here. He climbed to his feet, embarrassed to have been caught in such a vulnerable state.
“You remember?” Samuel repeated.
“No.”
“You will. Give it time. My father tells me that you remember your mother.”
“Some.”
“Then the rest will come too.”
Johnny felt dazed. Trapped in a hopeless depression. “I’m not sure I care anymore.”
Samuel clasped his hands behind his back and paced. He stood under five feet, a short boy. His eyes were blue, like his father’s, and his skin fair. He wore tan shorts that ended just above knobby knees. His beige socks were scrunched down around the lips of brown leather hiking boots. It was amazing to think that he was the same age as Johnny. But was that really true?
Even though Johnny no longer cared to remember his childhood, he couldn’t deny the strong sense that he’d known Samuel before New York.
“My father told you about Project Showdown,” Samuel said.
Was that a question? “Yes.”
“And about our meeting to discuss the vision I had. Your insistence to enter the X Group.”
“Yes. Do you know what I did in New York?”
“You saved the president and then killed his enemy.”
So they’d found the body. Not that it mattered.
“Do you know if Kelly’s safe?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Johnny nodded and turned to face the cliff. Samuel was undoubtedly here to talk more nonsense about Project Showdown, but Johnny only wanted to be alone. Or with Kelly. For all he knew she was dead. The terrible sadness he’d felt earlier returned.
“You haven’t finished the task, Johnny. You know that, don’t you?”
He looked at the boy. At the man who looked like a boy. Samuel drilled him with soft, kind eyes. Did he like Samuel? Johnny did. Maybe even Carl did. But the person trapped between Johnny and Carl felt too lost to care about a man who looked like a boy and claimed to be his best friend.
“You haven’t become what you’re meant to become,” Samuel said.
Johnny wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What I’ve done isn’t enough for you?” He knew he was giving in to selfpity, but he felt justified. He couldn’t imagine a man, woman, or child who’d been put through as much as he had been put through in these last few months.
“Enough? No. I know that sounds harsh, but you’re not the only one to walk this path.”
What on earth did the boy think he was saying?
“Unless you become who you were meant to be, untold harm will come to an untold number of people. You are chosen, Johnny. I would be more gentle if we weren’t so short on time, but you may be the only one who can stop the X Group from killing the president.”
“Me? You have the wrong person. I don’t stand a chance against Englishman!”
Samuel blinked and stilled. “You’ve foiled him twice now. What do you mean?”
“Twice? You mean here and in New York. I was lucky that Kelly came back here, and I just managed to stay out of his line of sight as I fled him in New York. I wouldn’t characterize either as foiling him. The next time he’ll kill me.”
Samuel stopped pacing and dropped his arms. “You . . . You’re saying that Englishman has power?”
“You don’t know?”
“My father assumed the reports were about you.”
“Your father was wrong. I don’t know who Englishman is, but he can maneuver physical objects with his mind. Knives and guns. Cars. I have no doubt he could walk up to this cabin and level it with a hard look. Me, on the other hand, I can change the temperature. Maybe the gift will come in handy when I find myself standing among the flames of hell.”
Samuel’s face had lightened a shade. Two shades. For a long moment he stood stock-still, staring at Johnny without so much as breathing, it seemed.
“You’re sure . . .”
“Do you think I would have fled his initial assault if I thought there was any way to take him? The only way to keep Kelly alive was to force Englishman into using her as a hostage.”
“That means . . .” Samuel had come upon a revelation of great weight. “Then he must be either a fictitious character or someone else who was given power by the books.”
“Fictitious character? He’s real, I can swear that much.”
“Real, yes, yes, of course. But written from the books, not born of this earth.”<
br />
“A demon?”
“Or a human given power by the books like you were.”
“I don’t have power! Why is it so difficult for you and your father to understand that? It isn’t there!”
“I think it is. But I also think you’re so lost that you no longer can truly imagine it. Belief begins with the imagination, you know. The day a faith loses imagination is the day it dies.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. You never read Spider-Man? Accepting your true identity means understanding that you are a stranger to this world. A freak, ostracized by the very people you want to help.”
The words struck a chord. At least the bit about being a freak. But the idea of his being someone who had a unique power to dispatch evil seemed absurd. Even if it wasn’t a fantasy, he honestly didn’t know who he was or had been or wanted to be. He was trapped.
“I see it every day,” Samuel said.
“Sure,” he said. “There are thousands of superheroes running around this planet, struggling to find their magic.”
“Not like you, no. Unless I’m mistaken, there are only two others, not counting Englishman. But the path you’re on is essentially identical to the path all men, women, and children of faith finds them-selves on. To be or not to be, that is the question, as they say.”
Johnny honestly didn’t know what the boy was saying. Samuel elaborated.
“Once born into childlike faith, brimming with belief, typical people begin to lose their faith. Society mocks them. Their friends smirk. They come to change the world, but over time the world changes them. Soon they forget who they were; they forget the faith they once had. Then one day someone tells them the truth, but they don’t want to go back, because they’re comfortable in their new skin. Being a stranger in this world is never easy. Look at me, I should know. Don’t feel sorry for yourself, Johnny.”
“Have you been in my pit? No? Have you been strapped to my hospital bed? No? Then you have no right to tell me anything, including how to feel.”
“Actually, I do. I’ve been through worse. But I admit I’m being a bit direct. We are running out of time. And if you’re right about Englishman, we may already be out of time.”