by Ted Dekker
He completed the swap in under five minutes. Holding the volleyball-sized nuclear sphere in sweaty fingers, he returned to the closet and eased the orb into the brown crate. Then he repeated the entire procedure with the second sphere. He sealed the lid and stood as a shiver snaked up his spine. So far so good.
He took a mop and rested it on the lid, thinking the crate might not draw as much attention in such an attitude. On the other hand, the mop normally rested on the floor like any mop. Seeing it propped up so high might actually draw Abdullah’s attention. Yuri returned the mop to the floor and chided himself for being overcautious. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he closed the closet door and stepped back into the lab. He would transfer the spheres to his suitcase later that night and take it with him to Caracas on his leave in the morning.
Yuri stood with his hands hanging loosely at his sides, breathing deeply, calming himself, and looking at the tables before him. The two aluminum cases looked as much like nuclear weapons as they had thirty minutes earlier. Only a trained eye would notice the small variations. So then. He had committed himself.
The bookcase to his left suddenly scraped along the floor and Yuri started. Abdullah? He leapt over to the tables and quickly scanned for any forgotten screw, a loose bolt—anything that might alert the Arab. He brought his sleeve across his face and picked up an idle voltage meter.
Abdullah entered the laboratory frowning, his jaw jutting below gleaming black eyes. He wore a pointed frown that seemed to ask, “So what have you been up to, my friend?” A chill washed through Yuri’s skull.
“They are finished?” Abdullah asked.
“Yes, sir,” Yuri answered. He cleared his throat.
The Arab stared at him without changing his expression for a few long seconds and Yuri felt his palms grow sweaty. Abdullah stepped forward. “Show me the remote detonation procedure again.” He walked over to the table and glared over Yuri’s shoulder. “Show me everything again,” he said.
“Yes,” Yuri answered and hoped the man could not feel the slight tremble in his bones. “Of course, sir.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SCATTERED LIGHT bulbs lit the darkening coast when the pilot finally cut the outboard to a gurgle and coasted the small boat to a rickety dock bordering the river town of Soledad. Casius paid the man his two-hundred-peso fare and made his way into the town toward the Hotel Melia Caribe. From a dozen trips downriver with his father, he knew it was one of three hotels in which one could expect to see tourists venturing this deep into the land.
The moment Casius stepped into the lobby his eyes rested on a pale, lanky man studying a newspaper in the corner. The man’s eyes lifted and met his own. They held for a moment and then returned to the paper. Casius glanced about the room and quickly decided the man was the most likely prospect for a CIA agent. He returned his gaze to the man, willing him to look up again. If the man was an observer, fingering Casius with short brown hair and dark eyes might prove a challenge. But any man with his profile would be reported, and Casius wanted Friberg to know that he had spotted them as well. The man’s eyes had grown still; he was no longer reading.
The man glanced up again and met his gaze. Casius nodded and winked. Recognition passed between them. His jaw firm, Casius turned and walked to the front desk, keeping the man in his peripheral vision. So Friberg had reacted quickly as expected. Forty-eight hours and they already had men in place.
He took a room on the second floor. He ruffled the bed, cracked a few drawers, tested the shower—leaving the shower curtain pulled—and wet a towel. Satisfied that the room looked used, he slipped into the hall. The back stairs led into the lobby below, but an old wooden fire escape led into an alley behind the hotel. Casius climbed through the fire escape, dropped into the alley, and made his way down the dark passage. No sign of the agent.
He walked through alleys to a small shop on the south side of the city. The gray cinder blocks splashed with dirty white paint looked unchanged from his last visit to this alley. Casius stepped up to the shop’s back entry door, found it unlocked, and stepped into Samuel Bonila’s gun shop.
He paused in the entryway, letting his eyesight adjust to the dim light.
“María?” a gruff voice called.
Casius stepped into the lighted shop and eyed Samuel evenly. The man blinked and returned the gaze.
“What are you doing?” Samuel demanded. “We do have a front door for customers. And we are closed.”
“You are Samuel Bonila?” Casius asked, knowing the answer.
The man hesitated.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Casius assured him.
“Yes, that is my name. And who are you?”
“My father was known to you, Mr. Bonila. A foreigner who knew how to shoot. Perhaps you remember him?”
“A foreigner who—”
Samuel suddenly stopped and stared at Casius, searching. “You are . . . ?”
“Yes.”
The storekeeper blinked and took a step forward. “But I can’t see the resemblance. You’ve changed. You’re nothing like the boy I remember.”
“Time changes some people. I need you to keep my coming here to yourself, Mr. Bonila. And I need to purchase a few knives.”
“Yes, of course.” He glanced to the door. “You have my full confidence.” He smiled, suddenly pleased. “And you will be needing a gun? I have some very fine imports.”
“I’m sure you do. But not this time. I need two knives.”
“Yes, yes.” He took one more long look at Casius and then hurried to a case behind him.
Casius left the shop five minutes later with Samuel mumbling behind him. Ten minutes later he checked into a cockroach-infested joint that had the gall to call itself a hotel and took a room on the third floor. He shed the money belts, withdrew five thousand dollars, and hid the rest in the ceiling above the bathroom mirror. It had been over twenty-four hours since his last sleep. Exhausted, he fell onto the bed and slept.
He awoke six hours later to the sound of insects shrieking in the nearby forest as the city slept in silence. Without lighting the room, Casius splashed water on his face and stripped to his black shorts. The jaguar tattoo blackening his thigh would give him away in the jungle so he covered it with a wide band of medical tape. He withdrew a tube of camouflage paint from his pouch and applied the green oil to his face in broad strokes. It was a habit of stealth that successfully masked his face beyond possible recognition.
He shoved the bowie knife he’d purchased from the gun shop into the back of his waistband and strapped the Arkansas Slider around his neck. The waist pouch and the rest of his clothes he shoved under the bed.
Dawn broke over Casius’s shoulder as he left the city on foot and entered the towering jungle. The plantation lay thirty miles due west. It would take him a day and a half to circle the valley and make an approach from the south. The route would add another thirty miles to the journey, but he’d decided the strategic advantage of the longer course outweighed the inconvenience. For starters, the CIA would expect him to take the quickest route now that he had been spotted. But more importantly, the cliffs would be relatively easy to guard. A southern approach, on the other hand, consisted of a hundred thousand acres of heavy jungle inhabited mostly by Indians. It would be more difficult to protect.
As he passed their nests, macaws and herons took flight—squawking at his intrusion into their world. Twice he stopped in his tracks as thousands of brightly colored parrots scattered to the skies, for a moment blacking out the rising sun. Spider monkeys gazed down, screeching at him. The air felt clean; the vegetation glistened with dew. Everything was untouched by human hands here. His bare feet were quickly covered with surface cuts but his pace remained unbroken. During the next thirty-six hours he would sleep only once, for a few hours. Otherwise he would stop for food—mostly fruits and nuts. Maybe some raw meat.
He grunted and cracked his neck as he ran. It felt good to be in the jungle.
CHAP
TER TWENTY
Tuesday
SHERRY BLAKE awoke from her first night of sleep in the jungle with a start. The vision had reoccurred. In terrifying colors and screaming sound.
It took her a few seconds to understand that she was in the mission house, alive and well—not on a beach trying to dig a hole in the sand to escape the acid. She ripped the damp sheet from her legs and reached the door before realizing she wore only a loose, oversize T-shirt. She wasn’t in her apartment with Marisa, for heaven’s sake. She was in the jungle with the priest. She returned for a pair of shorts and her shoes.
Outside, the jungle was shrieking its way into another day, but the noise in Sherry’s mind came mostly from the people on the beach, as the acid rain fell from the mushroom, like brown globs of searing molasses. She shook her head and pulled on the boots.
When Sherry entered the common room adjacent to her sleeping quarters, Father Teuwen had already perked coffee and fried eggs for breakfast. “Good morning,” he said, beaming a smile. “I thought you might enjoy—” He saw her face and stopped. “Are you all right?”
She lifted a hand to her hair, wondering what he saw. “Yes. I think so. Why?”
“You look like you saw a ghost. You didn’t sleep well?”
“Like a baby. At least my body slept like a baby. My mind decided to revisit this crazy vision I keep having.” She plopped onto the couch and sighed.
The father brought a steaming cup to her and she thanked him. “Yes, Helen mentioned them,” he said.
She sipped at the hot coffee and nodded. “I think I might prefer a whale to this.”
Father Teuwen smiled and sat opposite her in an armchair. “Even Jonah eventually decided that speaking the truth was better than the whale.”
“And if I knew that word, I’d be all mouth. Here we are talking about messages from God and yet I don’t have a message, do I? Not even close. All I have is some dreadful vision that plagues me every night. Like a game show in the heavens, daring the guest to crack some absurd riddle.”
“Patience, my dear.” His voice was soothing and understanding. “In the end, you will see. Your path will lead to understanding.”
She leaned back and stared at him. “And maybe I don’t want to go down this path. God is love—so where’s all the love?”
He crossed his legs and spoke deliberately. “The path between the natural and the supernatural—between evil and good—is not such an easy path, Sherry. It’s usually accomplished with things like death. With tormenting. Why do you suppose Christianity waves a cross on its flag? Do you know how cruel the cross was? You would think there might be a simpler, more humane means for God to bring about the death of his Son. But before fruit can grow, a seed must die. Before a child is born, a mother must wail. I don’t see how a few sleepless nights is such an impossible price,” he said, still smiling.
Sherry set the cup down, spilling a splash of coffee on her thumb. “A few sleepless nights? No, I don’t think so, Father. I wouldn’t call being locked in a box while your parents are butchered above you and then living through eight years of nightmares a few restless nights!”
The priest didn’t flinch at the words. “Let me tell you a story, Sherry. I think it may bring this into perspective for you.
“One day not too many years ago, near the end of World War II, a common man—a doctor—was detained and brought to a detention camp with his wife. His twelve-year-old son was in the safekeeping of his grandmother, or so the doctor thought. In reality his captor, an obsessed man named Karadzic, had also found the boy. Bent upon breaking the doctor’s spirit, they placed the man in a cell adjacent to two other cells—one holding his wife and the other holding his son. Of course he did not know his son was in captivity—he still thought he was safe with his grandmother.
“The wife’s and son’s mouths were strapped shut and each day all three were brutally tortured. The doctor was told that the screams from the cell on his left were his wife’s screams, and those on his right were the screams of a vagrant child, picked from the streets. He was told that if he ordered the child’s death, both he and his wife would be spared, and if he refused, they would both be killed on the eve of the seventh day.
“The doctor wept continually, agonizing over the groans of pain from his wife’s cell. He knew he could spare her with the death of one stray child. Karadzic intended on dragging the son’s body in after the doctor had ordered his execution, in the hopes of breaking his mind.
“But the doctor could not order the child’s death. On the seventh day both he and his wife received a bullet to the head, and the boy was released.” The priest paused and swallowed. “So the doctor gave his and his wife’s lives for another, not even knowing it was that of his own son. Does this seem fair to you, Sherry?”
Sherry’s head swam in the horror of the tale. Another emotion muddied the waters of her mind—confusion. She didn’t respond.
“We don’t always understand why God allows one to die for another’s life. We don’t easily fathom God’s Son’s death. But in the end”—he swallowed again—“in the end, Sherry, we will understand what Christ meant when he said that in order to save your life you must lose it.”
Petrus looked away and shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe my parents’ death saved me for this day—so that I might speak these words to you.”
Sherry dropped her jaw. Father Petrus was the boy? “You were—”
The priest looked back to her and nodded, smiling again. “I was the boy.” Tears wet his cheeks and Sherry’s world spun. Her own eyes blurred.
“One day I will join my parents,” the father said. “Soon, I hope. As soon as I have played my role in this chess match.”
“They both died for you.”
He turned away and swallowed.
Her chest felt as though it might explode for him. For her. She had lived through the same, hadn’t she? Her father had died for her above that box.
The father had found love. Love for Christ. In some ways, she had as well.
“What is it with death? Why is the world filled with so much violence? Everywhere you turn there is blood.”
He turned back to her. “In living we all eventually die. In dying we live. He has asked us to die. Take up your cross and follow me. Not a physical death necessarily, but to be perfectly honest, we of the West are far too enamored with our own flesh. Christ did not die to save us from a physical death.”
“That doesn’t remove the horror of death.”
“No. But our obsession with life is as evil. Who is the greater monster, the one who kills or the one who is obsessed with their own life? A good strategy by the dark side, don’t you think? How can a people terrified of death climb up on the cross willingly?”
The statement sounded absurd and Sherry wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“In the great match for the hearts of men, it isn’t who lives or dies that matters,” Petrus said. “It’s who wins the match. Who loves God. We each have our part to play. Do you know what the moral of my parents’ story is?”
She looked at him.
“The moral of the story is that only true, selfless love will prevail. No greater love hath a man than to lay down his life for a friend. Or a son. Or a stranger in a cell next to you.”
“Your parents died.”
“We all die. My parents defeated Karadzic. Their love set me free to do what it is I must do.”
“So do you think I’ve been brought to the jungle to die?” she asked.
He tilted his head down slightly. “Are you ready to die, Sherry?”
A ball of heat washed over her skull and swept down her spine. It was the way he asked the question.
Are you ready to die, Sherry?
No.
It all swam through her mind—her parents’ deaths, the father’s story, her own nightmares—they all swirled together to form this lump that swelled in her throat.
She stood and walked into the kitchen. “What’s there to eat?”
DAVID LUNOW handled the paper cup gingerly. Someone had told him that coffee grew acidic once its temperature fell below 170 degrees. He supposed real connoisseurs could gauge this with the dip of their tongue. All he ever managed was a blister and a curse. Either way, in his opinion, good coffee was always piping hot.
Mark Ingersol stood next to him on the arching park bridge and stared at the brown water below. “I know you hold some reservations about going after Casius, and frankly, I share them. But that doesn’t mean we don’t follow our orders. Neither does it mean we slack off. If the director wants us to take Casius out, then we take him out. Period.”
“In my opinion, you’re begging for problems,” David said. “This is the kind of thing that blows up in your face.” He felt Ingersol’s stare, but he refused to look. “We’ve been at this two days and already Casius has walked in and out of our fingers, stopping just long enough to let us know that he was fully aware of our pursuit. We’re lucky he didn’t lure our man into some alley and kill him.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t change our objective here. And that objective is to kill Casius.”
Ingersol picked up a pebble that rested on the railing and flicked it into the water. It landed with a plunk and disappeared. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough. The Rangers will be inserted before nightfall.”
David leaned on the railing. “If they fail, I suppose you could always carpet bomb the jungle. You might get lucky.” If Ingersol saw any humor in the statement, he showed no reaction. “Actually, if the teams fail, you wait for Casius to come out and hope to catch him on the rebound. Like I initially suggested.”
“What are the Rangers’ chances?” Ingersol asked.