I had to try.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
THE DALLAS CELEBRATION WAS such an obvious target for terrorists that the City of Dallas had imposed its strictest security measures ever for a nonpolitical event. We checked everything from the limousine drivers to the microphones. I had to be at the Challenger Airlines Center hours before the program to coordinate with the police and the FBI.
After my talk with Simon at the chapel, I went home to change clothes, then grabbed a burger at a drive-thru. As I was chewing my burger, I had an idea. On my way to the auditorium, I stopped at FBI headquarters for a talk with Michael Harrison. After much cajoling, I left his office with an envelope in my pocket.
In it was something that I hoped might save Kacey.
As I drove toward the arena, I called to check on Simon. Elise answered the phone and told me that he’d remained in his room the whole afternoon. She’d been even more protective of Simon than usual lately, at least when it came to me. She didn’t volunteer to let me talk to him, and I didn’t press the issue.
I spent the afternoon at the arena working with the police and the volunteers from local churches. Around 5:30 I stepped outside for some air. The day had been unusually warm for late March, and many of the pedestrians around the arena wore shorts. I looked down at my black wool pants and shook my head. At some point the law of averages had to work in my favor in the appropriate-dress department, but it sure hadn’t yet. Under the circumstances, though, I couldn’t work up a good lather of self-criticism. My inadequacies didn’t even register on the radar screen of the day’s problems.
I walked around the outside of the arena, and the evening was so calm that the south breeze barely ruffled the sleeves of my white cotton blouse. In contrast to the tranquil weather, the streets surrounding the auditorium had the feel of a circus just before the lions enter the ring. Television technicians marked their territories. They prowled the sidewalks next to vans from which satellite dishes extended like giant ears. Reporters moved in tight semicircles around blue-jeaned camera operators whose hoisted equipment protruded from their shoulders like metal appendages. Occasionally, the more prominent reporters received last-minute grooming from attentive assistants—a licked finger applied to an errant hair, a calculated tug on a crooked tie. Scattered amongst the packs of television workers, street vendors barked at roaming herds of pedestrians, hawking everything from hot dogs to “Free Kacey” buttons.
In its morning editorial, the Times speculated that, except for Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon, Simon’s statement might be watched by a higher percentage of people with television sets than any live event in history. The Dallas Morning News reported that the best seats to the celebration were bagging up to a thousand dollars on Internet auction sites. Several prominent Las Vegas bookies speculated that it was one of the most heavily wagered events of all time. Kacey was the prohibitive favorite.
My phone beeped in my pocket. It was one of the security guards I’d assigned to ride with Simon in a police-escorted convoy. They were five minutes from the arena. I jogged back into the building and hurried toward the underground tunnel where I would meet his car.
When Simon arrived, I opened the door for him. He stepped out, carrying his tattered Bible, and wiped a palm on his leg.
I touched his elbow. “How are you doing?”
“Is there a room somewhere for me? This is the first time we’ve done anything here since it opened. I don’t know my way around.” His eyes moved from me to the car to the tunnel entrance and back to me. He shifted his Bible from one hand to the other. I needed to get him to a place where he could at least try to calm down.
“I’ll show you.” I turned and headed into the building, looking over my shoulder at him as I walked. “Where’s Elise?”
“I asked her to ride over with the others.”
When we arrived at Simon’s dressing room, I punched the security code into the keypad and swung the door open. Although I’d checked the room out earlier, I went in before Simon and took another look around. It was the size of a very large family room but furnished in a hip, minimalist way—black and white leather and stainless steel. Along the wall to the left, a long narrow table overflowed with an assortment of fruits, cheeses, breads, cold cuts, and soft drinks. A door off the wall to our right opened into a cavernous marbled restroom. I opened the door and checked it out. Everything appeared in order. Looking at Simon in his yellow chamois shirt and corduroy slacks, I wondered how out of place he must feel in this room that was obviously designed with rock stars in mind. I wasn’t sure this was the setting he needed right now.
I nodded toward the table of food. “Can I get you anything? Have you eaten?”
“Thanks, but I haven’t had much of an appetite.” He sat on the couch, crossed one leg over the other, then uncrossed it and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
I got a bottle of water anyway and handed it to him. “Would you like some company? I can stay.”
“Thank you, but no.” He smiled. “You haven’t stopped praying for me, have you?”
“No. I doubt if my prayers do you much good, though.”
“You say things like that too often, Taylor. You’re a better person than you think.”
I felt my neck warm and wondered how he could give my feelings even a moment’s thought under the circumstances. I didn’t know what to say, so I turned to leave. Then I paused and turned back to him. “Have you got your cell phone with you?”
“Yes.”
“If you need anything, just call.”
“I will.”
I remained in the doorway for a moment.
“Is anything wrong?”
I stuck my hand in my pocket. “On the way over here this afternoon, I stopped off to see Michael Harrison. I hope you won’t be angry. He gave me something that I thought might help you tonight.” I handed him the envelope.
He tore off the corner. Kacey’s ring dropped into his hand. He moved it from hand to hand, then held it in his palm and caressed it with his index finger.
“I thought about it and knew that if I were in your position, I would want something of Kacey’s with me. It just seemed wrong that you didn’t have it tonight. Michael agreed.”
“I’d like to be alone.” He spoke without taking his eyes off the ring.
I turned and walked out the door.
TWO HOURS LATER Elise and I stood at the stage entrance as Simon’s song leader, Donny, prepared to pull back the side curtain and walk out to address the crowd. Every seat in the auditorium was occupied. A hum of voices rose from the floor of the auditorium. The stage was surrounded by more cameras than the playing field at the Super Bowl.
Elise looked at her watch, then at me. “One of us had better go get him.”
“Let’s give him a couple more minutes.”
Under the circumstances the program was drastically shortened. The plan was for Donny to lead the auditorium in one song and a prayer for Kacey and Simon. Then Simon was to go out onto the stage and make his statement. No one knew what he intended to say, whether Kacey would live or die. A father’s nightmare was a television producer’s dream.
At exactly 7:30, a network person in a black silk shirt held his headset tightly to his ear. He pointed at Donny and held up three fingers, then two, then one. He waved toward the stage. Donny pulled the curtain aside and walked to the podium. No band played, no choir sang. The only backdrop was a video screen picture of a giant Jesus, floating in a cloud, his arms outstretched to the audience.
When Donny arrived at the glass pulpit, he said, “I would like for you to join me in a song and then a prayer for Kacey and Simon Mason.” With no musical accompaniment, he began to sing “I Need Thee Every Hour.” Jesus disappeared from the video screen, replaced by the words to the song. At first the crowd seemed taken aback by the lack of musical accompaniment, so Donny sang solo. Soon a few voices near the front joined in, then more. Before long the auditorium fill
ed with the most sorrowful and beautiful a cappella song I’d ever heard.
About halfway through the song, just as I was about to go get him, Simon walked up. He clutched his Bible in one hand. Elise hugged him. The rings beneath his eyes seemed even darker than they had before. I wondered whether he’d slept at all the past few days. He looked my way and nodded but said nothing.
When the singing stopped, Donny’s prayer echoed through the silent auditorium: “God of love and mercy. Two of your children, Simon and Kacey Mason, are suffering. They have done nothing to deserve this horror that evil men have thrust upon them. We ask why, oh God, you would allow this to happen? How long will you tolerate the senselessness of terrorism? How long will you wait before exacting a price for evil? Bless Simon and bless Kacey, Lord. Hold them near in this time of trial. Guide them and give them strength. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.”
Donny looked toward the stage entrance. When he saw Simon, he turned and walked off the opposite side, leaving the stage empty. The picture of a floating, open-armed Jesus flashed back onto the screen overlooking the stage.
Simon cleared his throat, then stepped through the stage curtain and walked toward the podium. The silence was cavernous—not a whisper, not a cough. Not a sound of any sort except the clip-clap of Simon’s loafers on the wooden floor. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine the auditorium empty.
When Simon arrived at the pulpit, he placed his Bible on it and looked out at the crowd. His eyes focused on the front rows, then swept deliberately around the auditorium, taking in each section. He opened his Bible and lowered his eyes to it, standing perfectly still for at least a full minute, as if reading a passage. Then he picked something off the page—something that caught the light and glimmered. It was Kacey’s ring.
He held the ring between his thumb and index finger, then closed his hand around it. Looking at the audience he tightened the hand into a fist. With his other hand he reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped his forehead. He placed the handkerchief on his Bible and leaned forward slightly.
“Many of you have sons and daughters of your own.” Though he spoke softly, his words boomed off the walls of the auditorium. “You know what the love of a parent is—what it feels like—how you can love your child so much that it hurts physically. I know that you understand how much I love Kacey.” The muscles in his forearms flexed beneath his rolled up sleeves as he gripped Kacey’s ring with one hand and the podium with the other.
“I have given much thought and prayer to my faith and to Kacey during the past week. In fact, I have thought and prayed about nothing else but Kacey and my faith. I have determined that there is one thing that I simply cannot do, no matter the consequences.” Opening his hand, he lowered his eyes to Kacey’s ring. He ran his other hand over his head. Gripping the pulpit again, he looked back at the audience.
“I cannot let my little girl die.” He coughed and cleared his throat, “So I am here tonight to tell you that it is no longer my belief that Jesus is the Son of God.”
A woman in the back of the auditorium wailed. A wave of whispers washed from one end of the building to the other. Cameras flashed.
Simon lowered his eyes again to the ring. He leaned toward the microphone. “Jesus is not the Savior of the world, and Jesus is not my Savior.”
The woman wailed again. Simon’s shoulders sagged. He bowed his head and stood there in front of the crowd.
A man near the front shouted, “God knows you don’t mean it, Simon! And we do too!” Someone near the man applauded. Others near him clapped, also. The applause edged tentatively back from the front few sections but never took hold. Soon the auditorium was silent again.
Without raising his head, Simon picked up his handkerchief, turned, and walked back across the stage, leaving his open Bible on the pulpit. The auditorium exploded again with camera flashes.
As Simon approached the stage curtain, our eyes met. He shook his head from side to side and tightened his fist around Kacey’s ring, then he brushed past us and walked down the corridor toward his dressing room.
No one around me moved. I glanced at Elise, and she turned away. In the audience, some stood at their seats; others sat, but no one moved to the aisles. A smattering of whispered conversations built to a low rumble.
I looked at the pulpit. It was wrong for Simon’s Bible to be there. Wrong for him to leave it behind. I pulled the curtain aside and hurried onto the stage, half running toward the pulpit. As I reached the center of the stage, many in the audience looked toward me, perhaps thinking I was going to speak. When I arrived at the pulpit, I looked down at the open Bible. The page was dog-eared, and Simon had underlined a passage in red. I picked the Bible up and shoved it under my arm. Then I turned and ran off the stage.
When I reached the stage entrance I met Elise’s eyes, but I moved past her without a word. I expected her to follow and hoped this wouldn’t turn into some sort of petty competition to determine who could best comfort Simon. I decided that if she followed I would let her go to him, and I would stay outside his dressing room. As I walked down the long corridor, I looked over my shoulder. She wasn’t behind me.
Despite the pain I knew Simon was feeling, I was relieved at what he’d done. A faith that required the sacrifice of a child made no sense to me. At least Kacey had a chance now. He had given her that. We could only wait to see whether the kidnappers would keep their word. If Simon could get her back, the worst would be past. He could begin to put his life and his ministry back together. Surely God would be merciful enough to forgive him and help him with that.
As for the immediate future, it never occurred to me that the remainder of Simon’s evening would involve anything more than sitting and waiting—waiting to see if Kacey would be freed. After all, this was a kidnapping, and that was the logical next step.
But the world that surrounded Simon Mason was a big one, and logic didn’t always rule.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
APPROACHING SIMON’S DRESSING ROOM, I slowed to a walk. I had no idea what I was going to say to him, and it made sense to give it some thought before I knocked on the door. Roger Ferrell, a security guard with whom I’d had a brief fling a couple of years earlier, stood up from a folding chair next to the door, raised a giant hand, and waved. I’d stopped using Roger for security jobs as soon as I got to know him. He was too irresponsible to be trusted. Somehow he had convinced someone at the Challenger Airlines Center that he was up to the job of guarding Simon’s dressing room. That hadn’t pleased me, but it wasn’t my call.
Roger’s charcoal sport coat barely contained his arms, which were as big around as my thighs. “Tough night, huh, Taylor?” His jacket flapped open for an instant, exposing a holstered Beretta M9. Between his body and his gun, he had plenty of firepower. I hadn’t dated him for his brains. I wondered whether he’d somehow miraculously developed the sort of judgment that ought to accompany a weapon with that much muzzle velocity.
As I stopped and pondered what to say to Simon, I nodded at Roger’s gun. “You like your Beretta?”
He opened his coat and drummed his fingers on the pistol. “It’s what the Army Rangers use. You know your guns, don’t you?”
“I had a good teacher. You weren’t Special Forces, were you?”
“No, but I think it’s cool. Once you shoot one of these, you don’t want to use anything else.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I motioned toward the door. “Is he in there?”
“Just went in. Looked pretty grim. I heard his talk—” Before he could finish, something slammed against the door from inside the room.
“What the—” Roger grabbed the knob and rattled it.
Something crashed, and glass broke. Then someone shouted. I couldn’t make out the words or the voice. “Simon?” I shouted.
No response. Something slammed against a wall again, this time farther into the room.
&
nbsp; I punched in the code and tried the door. Nothing happened. Roger looked at me. I pointed to the door. “Break it down.”
He stepped back and heaved his body into the door. The frame shattered, and Roger fell face first into the room, shards of splintered wood raining to the floor around him. I hopped over his legs, took two steps, and stopped.
A huge, fat man in a red Hawaiian shirt had Simon pinned against the opposite wall. The man’s back was toward us, and his massive legs were spread and bent at the knees as he pressed his weight down on Simon. In his right hand he clutched a broken juice carafe. The jagged glass glinted in the light, so close to Simon’s face that the last remaining drops of orange juice dripped down his cheek. Something red was also dripping. It looked like blood. It mixed with the juice, streaking Simon’s face red and orange. A vein in the side of Simon’s neck glowed bright purple as he strained to prevent the man from driving the glass into his face.
To my left Roger popped up on one knee, pulled out his Beretta and pointed it at the Hawaiian shirt. I spun and swung my fist down on his forearm. It was like hitting a granite counter top. “You’ll kill them both!” Pain shot up to my elbow, but I moved the gun far enough off line to stop him from firing.
Wheeling back to my right, I ran straight toward the fat man, brought my leg back, and kicked it up between his spread legs. He howled and dropped to his knees. The carafe flipped into the air, descended end over end, and crashed to the floor next to his feet.
Just to Simon’s left was a glass end table with a brushed-stainless-steel lamp. I lunged toward it, grabbed the lamp by its neck, and yanked the cord from the wall. Turning, I took two giant steps and swung the lamp like a baseball bat. The thick base of the lamp slammed into the side of the fat man’s head. He collapsed from his knees to his stomach and lay there like a beached whale. Within seconds, a bloody red circle was expanding on the floor beneath his hair.
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