31
plaid
ALEJO WOKE THE NEXT MORNING WITH a cool breeze rustling the gauze curtains and caressing his face. He was lying on his stomach on a single bed with thick wool blankets in a room with walls that smelled of cedar. His limbs felt like lead and his heart torn to pieces, but he forced himself to sit up on the edge of the bed and breathe.
The man Wara loved was dead, thanks to Alejo
Gabriel had blown himself to pieces in jihad, trying to make Allah love him. Alejo still remembered the scoffing tone of his friend’s voice in the delivery truck when Alejo told him his decision about Jesus: “The Quran tells us everything we need to please God. And I’ve been doing it all. We are the best of the best, che. Why would we need some person to take away our sins? We are serving Allah every day. We’re not unbelievers who don’t follow his laws. He’s got to accept me.”
What better way to earn Allah’s favor than as a suicide bomber, making the ultimate sacrifice to do Allah’s will?
Except man can’t earn God’s favor. Alejo resisted the urge to sink back down onto the bed, depressed. Only the Savior of the world can atone for the sins of men.
Everyone is dead, Alejo thought. My life is a mess. God, I can’t think about anything but Wara’s tortured eyes as she misses Noah, or Gabriel, shouting Allah Akbar and pulling the detonation cord.
Alejo groaned and leaned forward onto his knees. Last night, after Alejo had composed himself, Rupert told him that, from the camera phone video, it was clear that Gabriel had entered the restaurant in a tuxedo, apparently hired to play the violin in the restaurant of the Hotel Diplomat during lunch. He had simply walked over to the table of the two Israeli diplomats while playing a violin piece and detonated the explosives.
The early estimates were in favor of a death toll of over seventy.
I have to do something, or I’m going to go crazy in here. Alejo stood up suddenly.
Tabor was about his size and had left him a mound of clean clothes on top of a cedar chest in the corner. Alejo got dressed and padded out of his room on bare feet, towards the bathroom on the first floor where he and Wara had been given rooms.
Leaving the bathroom, Alejo could hear the soft clink of silverware coming from the kitchen, around the corner from the end of the hall. He found Rupert Cole, along with Tabor and Sandal, breakfasting on pancakes and coffee. Rupert was lounging in a worn, khaki bathrobe with the same woolly slippers on his feet. Sandal was wearing a tight red sweat suit that no one over twenty-five should be caught dead in, covered in jewels and large silver letters. Her jet black hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, dark circles under her eyes. She slowly nursed a chipped mug of black coffee, eyes flitting to Alejo with a bare acknowledgement of his entrance. Alejo immediately pegged her as not a morning person.
Tabor wore running gear and seemed chipper and alert. He nodded at Alejo and gulped the last of something that looked like a protein energy shake. “Ru really wants you to stay,” Tabor said, languid eyes twinkling. “He made you pancakes. The guy is a great cook.”
Alejo slid into a chair across the table from Tabor, where an empty place setting seemed to be waiting. He assumed that Tabor and Sandal must be some kind of agents in the organization Rupert worked with, the “job offer” he had mentioned last night. If he had to guess, he would say Sandal was from Iran or Iraq, and Tabor from Israel. Rupert ducked into the kitchen and reappeared with a glass carafe of French Press coffee, which he emptied into Alejo’s mug.
“Good morning. I assume you like strong coffee,” he said in an even tone, then placed a platter covered with tinfoil in front of Alejo. “The ones with nuts are banana mango. Then there are the German chocolate ones, too. Honey and butter are right there.”
“Wow. Thanks.” Alejo looked up at him and offered a tight smile. He was actually glad that Rupert was holding off on the job offer until after breakfast, because Alejo felt like dirt. “I’m impressed. Is Wara up yet?”
“No, she’s still sleeping,” Sandal croaked, looking up groggily from her coffee, “which I would still be if certain people hadn’t insisted I go running with them.”
Tabor scoffed. “I don’t know why you didn’t just stay in bed. You only ran like a hundred meters with me, anyway.”
“You know I don’t do mornings.” Sandal glared at him, then forked a bite of pancake rather violently. She speared Alejo with her bleary gaze, about to speak when Rupert dumped two pancakes on Alejo’s plate and clapped him on the shoulder.
“You need to eat,” he said calmly, but the tone left no doubt it was an order. Alejo reluctantly forced himself to eat and gulp down coffee. When he had emptied his plate, Rupert scraped his chair back and said, “Come walk outside with me.”
Glancing towards the hall and still seeing no sign of Wara, Alejo nodded curtly. “Let me get some shoes.”
“I suppose I should change out of my bathrobe,” Rupert sighed, glancing down at his plaid pajama pants, fuzzy robe, and slippers. He shuffled up the winding wood staircase, where Alejo assumed her slept.
By the time Alejo had retrieved his sandals and washed up a little, Rupert was waiting outside the door on a narrow stone path that cut through the grass of his lawn. Beyond the lawn, a dusty area began where rings of tall barbed wire fences circled ostrich pens.
“This is where you live?” Alejo shoved hands in his pockets as the two of them fell in step on a slow walk around the lawn.
“This is my home, yes,” Rupert said thoughtfully. “I’m gone of course, often, for my work.”
“Your brother works at the embassy. And you live here, in the Bolivian countryside, and have an ostrich farm. Why would a gringo want to live all the way out here?”
Rupert scoffed and raised one eyebrow. “Don’t let my pale face fool you. My parents were American, but I never applied for my American citizenship after the age of eighteen.”
“Where did you grow up then?”
Rupert grinned and raised one fuzzy eyebrow at Alejo. ”Would you be at all shocked if I told you my parents were missionaries in Morocco? The man you are looking at is one hundred percent Moroccan, heart and soul.”
Alejo looked over at him and whistled. “Wow. A missionary kid. Morocco. It’s a very nice country. So, would you be at all shocked if I told you I ‘m a pastor’s son?”
Rupert’s calm eyes did, indeed, widen. He recovered quickly and cleared his throat. “Uh, yes, actually, I would!” A grin spread across his face. “We make a fine pair, hmm?”
“Yeah, well you at least have been following the path of your parents. The example my parents gave me when I was young was not one I wanted to follow.”
There was a long pause, and then Rupert said, “I haven’t always been on the straight and narrow path, walking in the light. I’m sure you wouldn’t be shocked if I told you I used to be CIA. I worked at the top levels for ten years, with the CIA for a total of twenty-five years. I was mean, ornery, and I would do anything to get the job done. By the time I was fifty I was on my third wife.”
Alejo pressed his lips together, staring straight ahead.
“Ten years ago, the Lord found me and called me into his kingdom---just like that, from right in the middle of the places of power of the kingdom of this world. I became his disciple—and everything changed. I had a new boss, and I could no longer do whatever the powers-that-be above me ordered me to do, when it was against the orders of Jesus. You know what I mean?”
Alejo nodded, seriously.
“Well, Alejo, I realized I couldn’t continue in the CIA and follow Jesus. When I emptied out my retirement account to give to the poor, my third wife, Ellie, left me. So now, here I am, alone and with all the time in the world to do what the Lord brings my way. For now, it is this organization.”
Rupert’s voice drawled lazily, but his tone was intense. They had reached the far corner of the property now, and Rupert led them into a small grape arbor. He lowered himself with a grunt onto the grass under the tangled mass of vines, and Alejo followed him, sitting cross-legged on the cool ground. He now knew about Rupert’s past: missionary kid from Morocco, CIA, three failed marriages. What he didn’t know was what was going on now, in the present.
What am I doing here?
“I guess you brought me here for the recruitment speech,” he said, measuring Rupert with his eyes. Rupert smiled lazily.
“I guess I did. Like I said, I want to help you. But the fact you were recommended to me in a dream makes me think God brought you here for the recruitment speech.”
Alejo scrunched up his face, surprised by the thought.
“We’re called CI,” Rupert told him. “Short for Cole, Inc, the shipping company here in Morocco my grandfather owned and gave to me. We’ve transformed the company into something a little different. The agents who work with us are called lukes. There’s a verse in the Bible we believe in, and it says, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to bring liberty to the captives.’ We believe in that, bringing God’s kingdom to earth.”
So Rupert wants me to work with him and become a luke.
“Most of us in CI may not have come by our special skills in the best of ways,” Rupert continued explaining. “But now that we belong to Jesus we want to use our talents to obey him, not give power and riches to the kingdoms of this world. We work to save those who are in prison or in danger for their belief in Jesus or their defense of human rights.”
Alejo’s temple throbbed and he felt himself grimacing. Of course, this was what he wanted to do. When he worked with the Prism, hadn’t it been to bring justice to the world, to help those in need?
He could do this, work with Rupert in CI. But now? Now Alejo barely even knew who he was. So much had changed.
“I’m…really messed up, Rupert. What you’re saying is all I want to do. But I need help.”
“I know,” Rupert said simply. “These are hard times. What would you say if we prayed, right now?”
Alejo blinked. “Ok.”
When Rupert had finished praying, Alejo felt too weak to get up just yet. “I just need some time…” he started to say hoarsely, but Rupert was already heading out of the vineyard. “Take a half-hour,” he said, eyes sparkling. “Then I’ll be back. We have plenty of time to discuss details about CI later. There is one thing we have to talk about now, though. It’s going to be good, son.”
Alejo couldn’t be sure, but he could have sworn that, just before Rupert turned to go, he had winked.
The half hour alone under the grape leaves was intense, and Alejo prayed and thought, trying to get his bearings. He felt so relieved, being forgiven by Jesus. But there were so many things that were still messed up, other people he had hurt.
Right now, I’m thinking mainly of Wara and my family.
An image of Noah Hearst’s very pale, grieving parents flashed through his mind and he sighed. There didn’t seem to be much he could ever do to make it right with them.
Alejo closed his eyes, listening to the sound of songbirds in the fruit trees outside the grape arbor. Fallen grapes fermenting in the sun gave off the essence of sweet red wine. Rays of sunlight filtered through the leaves and warmed his face.
I can see.
It amazed him again, and he remembered the despair he had felt in Univalle, when he woke up and realized everything was black.
Alejo thought about the cool steel of the Khan’s gun against his temple, the hurt of betrayed love in the Pashto man’s red eyes as he stared Alejo down. He couldn’t remember the actual shot, but he was sure it should have been lethal. God had let him live, and brought him here, to this place, to another follower of Jesus who seemed to understand everything he was going through.
A dry crunching sounded outside the canopy of grape leaves; The hanging greenery parted, and Rupert ducked inside, downing something from an ancient olive-green thermos with golden paisleys. Another red plaid thermos was in his other hand, which he held out towards Alejo.
“Coffee,” he said briefly, taking another swig. “You might as well know, I’m an addict.”
“Thanks.” Alejo unscrewed the lid of the thermos and took a drink of the bitter liquid. Rupert really did make strong coffee.
Another perk of working with him---along with the fact that he had dreams of the future and seemed to hear directly from God.
Rupert downed more coffee, then stiffly sat down in the grass at a comfortable distance from Alejo. “Ah, what are we doing here hiding out under the leaves and sitting in the muck like kindergartners?”
Alejo grinned.
“I have a slew of chairs over on the porch. But it is kind of nice in here, isn’t it? All shady…” Rupert settled in a little, then faced Alejo squarely.
“The time is coming to ask all your questions, but I want you to work with me. If you accept, I would like to propose a time of discipleship here, at the farm. What that means is learning to follow Jesus, to be a disciple. We would spend three months together, along with the other guys who come in and out of here, and I’d teach you everything I’ve learned over the years. Do you think I would drive you batty?”
“Maybe.” Alejo paused. “But I need it. I’m kind of starting from scratch. Even if you find out later I don’t meet your requirements to work in CI, I think I really need to stay here. Since you’re offering.” He felt his mouth tip into a lopsided smile. Rupert seemed pleased.
“I’m offering. After the three months, you would go on an exploratory trip with some of my lukes, to open your eyes a little to what we do and help you decide if you want to join. I want you to know, too, that we can help your family. I’ll tell you about that later, some very nice options of places they can settle. I would love to meet them. But, about Wara…”
“I really messed her life up, too,” Alejo muttered. His relief was intense at the idea of someone helping him resettle his family and Wara somewhere safe. “Can you get a new ID and passport for her, too? We could ask her where she’d like to live, maybe close to my family…”
“You saved her life.” Rupert held up his hand to stop Alejo. “And, sending her to live with your family isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. Last night in my office, you mentioned her a lot. You talked about how she has great linguistic skills, makes even-keeled decisions under pressure, and has good tactical decisions---for a civilian, you understand. So, son, I was thinking that Wara should also stay here with us. We need more female lukes, and with her coloring she would be able to pass as native in many places that a lot of the other women can’t. Wara could work with us,” Rupert repeated, “and you can help train her.”
Alejo felt his jaw drop. “Umm, I don’t…I don’t…sir.” He paused, trying to think of something rational to say. “She doesn’t know anything about…all this kind of life.”
“Neither did you, when you started,” Rupert shrugged, taking a large swallow of coffee. “She can learn. Listen, son. When we prayed today, we talked about God’s forgiveness. What I wanted to talk with you about now is the issue of forgiveness from others who you have offended. Wara is a woman who has been hurt. Because of you. Unintentionally, but I still believe that God would have you make it right.”
This was a totally unexpected turn of events. He had envisioned his new connection with Rupert helping his family and Wara to a safe location, to happily start their lives over. Not Wara in close proximity to him, who she didn’t care for at all.
Besides, being close to him was dangerous.
“Alejo, I have a sort of penance for you,” Rupert continued explaining to a dumbfounded Alejo. “Not to be forgiven by God, but to make things right and restore what you have destroyed. Because of what happened, Wara’s safety, work, and the man she loved were taken away. If Wara joins CI, you can protect her and watch out for her. You can help her use her talents for the kingdom, by sharing what you know so she can work with us. And you can try to give back what you took away: the man that she loved.”
Now Alejo truly gaped.
What?
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m assigning you to love Wara, and be the man that she loves in return. I want you to take Noah’s place.”
Alejo cringed. He swallowed against a throat that was dry like sandpaper, then sputtered. “Uh, that is a very bad idea. Wara can’t stand the sight of me. I’m the man who blew up her bus and killed Noah.”
Alejo felt sure that Rupert would see the craziness of what he had just suggested.
“Yes, you did tell me about that,” Rupert remarked calmly, seemingly unfazed. “This is what I propose. It’s pretty simple. I think we should explain all this to Wara—about CI, the exploratory trip, and see if she accepts. If she feels called to join and agrees to go on the trip, then it’ll be all settled. You will do what I say, train her, and be the man she loves.”
Alejo had to really work to compose himself enough to speak. “Sir, I would like her to work with you, because I think she would be good at it, and I know she can learn. I’d feel a lot better knowing I could keep an eye on her. But I’m 100% sure she would never accept, not if she knows I’m here. And would be her trainer!”
Alejo could just see the look on her face now: repulsion at the idea.
“It’s never going to happen,” he repeated. Why could Rupert not see this? “She might accept being a luke, but she would never love….me.”
Rupert waved one hairy hand at him. “It’s really not that complicated, Alejo,” he continued slowly, as if explaining something to a small, particularly dull child. “Who was Noah to Wara? He was a man who loved the Lord. He was her best friend. He loved her unconditionally. You can do all this.”
Alejo’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. He unscrewed the lid to his thermos with a vengeance and took a long gulp of hot, strong coffee.
“Besides,” Rupert was pressing on, “I’ve spent quite a few years in my day around guys like you. I can read you pretty well, even if no one else can. I know you’re interested. In her.”
Coffee spewed from Alejo’s lips onto his muddy knees as he nearly choked.
“I think you’re already a little attracted to her. C’mon, I’m not asking you to crawl on your hands and knees from here to the Vatican with a belt of nails around your waist, or live for a year on locusts and honey. Just a little penance, a little making things right. You’ll be fine.”
Rupert heaved himself up from the ground with a loud crack, clumps of dirt clinging to his worn jeans. Alejo was still stunned, and he wiped coffee from his chin with one sleeve, watching Rupert warily.
“We should tell her tonight, at the latest,” Rupert said, walking towards the edge of the arbor. Apparently noticing Alejo draw back like a deer in the headlights, Rupert turned around and crossed his arms, annoyed.
“I didn’t mean we should tell her tonight that you’re proposing marriage! Jeepers! For that, I’m giving you some time. All I meant was that we should talk with her about CI and see what she says.”
Alejo got up from the muddy grass, rather shakily. “You said that Wara was in the dream you had, didn’t you?” he asked, feeling a headache coming on.
“She was.” Rupert seemed much too delighted. “God sent her to me, too, and I think we are just beginning to discover the reason.” With another wink, Rupert disappeared into the yard, leaving Alejo alone, standing in the arbor.
With a deep groan, Alejo shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking towards the house.