Beckon
Authors: Tom Pawlik
Tags: #FICTION / Suspense, #Suspense, #Thriller, #FICTION / Christian / Suspense
Praise for novels by Tom Pawlik
Vanish
“Fans of Dean Koontz or Ted Dekker will appreciate . . . this debut psychological thriller.”
Library Journal
“[This] exciting page-turner is as unique and creative as it is suspenseful.”
“Pawlik's book is engrossing. . . . The novel's eerie events are thoroughly detailed, and the payoff is worth the time it takes to read this unique tale.”
Romantic Times
“
Vanish
captured my interest from the beginning. . . . I would highly recommend [it] to readers across the age spectrum.”
Associated Content
“The creativity of debut author Tom Pawlik knows no bounds!
Vanish
suspends reality over a solidly scriptural base for a story that will topple readers into a dazzling truth. It might be best to read this book with the lights on, because there is a thrilling element of suspense in these pages.”
In the Library Reviews
“A chilling thriller in the vein of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Ted Dekker. The complex plot, story line, well-developed characters, and shocking ending make
Vanish
a debut thriller not to miss.”
Valley of the Shadow
“Pawlik's sequel to
Vanish
is just as thrilling as the first. The fast-paced, intriguing plot and detailed characters make the novel difficult to put down. The profound spiritual encounters will cause readers to think about their lives and faith in a unique way.”
Romantic Times
“Extremely well-crafted, highly suspenseful, and anything but expected. The complex plot, thought-provoking premise, and creepy scenes . . . definitely draw the reader in quickly.”
“The suspense was excellent. Two worlds intertwine with the heart-racing plots that end in a startling conclusion.”
“Filled with twistsâincluding a great finishing oneâthis is an emotional, uplifting thriller.”
Midwest Book Review
Visit Tyndale online at
www.tyndale.com
.
Visit Tom Pawlik's website at
www.tompawlik.com
.
TYNDALE
and Tyndale's quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Beckon
Copyright © 2012 by Tom Pawlik. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph copyright © Dan Jurak/Getty Images. All rights reserved.
Author photograph copyright © 2010 by Eric Boothe Photography. All rights reserved.
Designed by Dean H. Renninger
Edited by Sarah Mason
Published in association with the literary agency of Les Stobbe, 300 Doubleday Road, Tryon, NC 28782.
Scripture quotations are taken from the
Holy Bible
, King James Version.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pawlik, Tom, date.
Beckon / Tom Pawlik.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4143-3873-6 (sc)
1. College studentsâFiction. 2. College teachersâFiction. 3. BusinessmenâFiction.
4. Small citiesâFiction. I. Title.
PS3616.A9573B43 2012
813´.6âdc23 2011044280
For Andrew, my firstborn.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
To my beloved wife and best friend, Colette: What a blessing you are to me. Your support and encouragement continue to inspire me. I thank God for that day you walked up the driveway and I said you had the wrong house and you told me to shut up . . . and we've been in love ever since. Though, all things considered, I have by far gotten the better end of the deal.
To my PentebroodâAndrew, Aryn, Jordan, John, and Jessi: You have subtly transformed my passion for writing into a necessity. But I wouldn't change a thing. You'll never know how much I love you until you have children of your own someday.
To my agent, Les Stobbe: Thank you for all your prayers, counsel, and efforts on my behalf.
To Dan and Dr. Rachael Romain: Thank you for the enthusiastic support and for lending your expert scientific consultation to this endeavor. And especially for cool-sounding terms like
oxidative phosphorylation
.
To the great team at Tyndale:
Stephanie Broeneâthank you for your continued input, patience, and encouragement. It was a long and arduous road but hopefully a worthwhile one.
Sarah Masonâonce again it was a distinct pleasure working with you on this project. Thank you for all the spackling, sanding, painting, varnishing, and polishing that this book needed. You should have your own editorial reality show.
Dean Renningerâthank you for your inspired work on the cover design. Once again you've captured the mood of the book perfectly and hit the three c's: cool, creepy, and compelling.
Babette Rea, Andrea Martin, and the whole sales and marketing teamâthank you for all your ongoing efforts to make this project successful.
And last but not least, to Jerry Jenkins and your excellent staff at the Christian Writers Guild: May God continue to bless your service for Him.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2:7
Part I
Jack
/Â Â //Â Â /
Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel.
Mark Twain,
Letters from the Earth
Chapter 01
Chicago, Illinois
The last time he saw his father alive, Jackson David Kendrick was only nine years old.
The gray light of dawn was seeping in between his bedroom curtains when Jack woke to find him standing in the doorway. Dr. David Kendrick was a willowy, spectacled anthropologist at the University of Chicago. His black skin and wide brown eyes gave him a youthful appearance, but the flecks of silver frosting the edges of his hair made him look more distinguished and professorial. So people who didn't know him could never tell if he was twenty-nine or forty. But this morning, his normally thoughtful eyes looked weary as he sat on the edge of Jack's bed.
“Sorry to wake you so early, but my flight leaves at seven thirty.”
“Where are you going this time?” Jack sat up and asked through a husky yawn.
“Out west,” his father said. “Some field research on an old Indian legend.”
His father had often explained the kind of work anthropologists did, but all Jack really knew was that he was gone more often than not. Always traveling around the world to study some obscure ancient culture. He said he was trying to learn more about themâwho they were, where they had come from, and why they had disappeared. But Jack had always felt there was something in particular he was searching for. Something that continued to elude him. Most of the time he would come home from his trips looking tired and disappointed.
“What kind of legend?” Jack persisted, figuring that if he kept peppering his father with questions, he could keep him from leaving as long as possible.
His dad stared out the window for a moment. In the shadows, Jack thought he saw hesitation in his eyes, as if he was pondering exactly what to say. “One about a very
old
civilization that I believe actually existed out there. A long time ago, before most of the other tribes had even migrated to this continent.”
“Who were they?”
“Well, that's just itânobody knows for sure. One legend says they built a whole subterranean city under a mountain somewhere. And that they may have been very advanced . . . maybe even more advanced than the Egyptians.”
“That's cool.”
“Very cool.” His dad grinned. “Anyway, it's kind of a mystery I've been working on for a few years now. So if I can find some proof that they actually
did
exist . . . well, it could change most of what we know about human history.”
“Change it how?”
His father laughed and rubbed Jack's hair. “I'm on to you, kiddo. I'm running late, so we can talk more about it when I get home.”
“Fine,” Jack huffed. “Are you gonna be back for my soccer game on Saturday?”
“I'll try, but Aunt Doreen's bringing her video camera just in case.”
Jack's shoulders drooped. His father's sister had moved in with them after Jack's mother died in a car wreck six years earlier. It wasn't that he disliked his auntâindeed, she was the closest thing to a mother Jack could remember. It was just that his father had missed five of his last seven games, and watching Aunt Doreen's shaky video footage wasn't the same.
His father stood to leave, but Jack clutched his wrist. “When can I start going with you?”
His father looked down and sighed. “Maybe when you're a little older.”
Jack groaned and lay back on his pillow. “You always say that. But you never say how much older.”
His father gave a soft chuckle. “Just a little more than you are now.”
He kissed Jack on the forehead and slipped out of the room. Jack listened as he collected his bags from the hallway and carried them out to the car. A minute later the engine chugged to life, and Jack ran to the living room window as the car backed out of the garage. He watched his father drive off down the street, turn the corner, and disappear.
Chapter 02
Chicago, Illinois
Twelve years later
“Jack . . . you haven't gotten any further.”
Jack Kendrick looked up from behind his father's old mahogany desk as Rudy finally returned with the pizza. “Because I've been too weak from hunger. What took you so long?”
Rudy shrugged. “It's Friday night. The place was packed.”
Jack had spent most of the day sorting through the contents of his house, trying to get it ready for the estate sale. He'd been making great progress until he got to his father's study. In that room Jack felt more like he was emptying memories out of his own head, dredging up a strange concoction of old emotions.
Rudy set the pizza on a stack of boxes. “You've been stuck in here for the last three hours. What's up with that?”
Jack sighed and shook his head. “I guess I just put it off too long.”
Jack and Rudy had been best friends since their sophomore year in high school, when Rudy's parents relocated from New York. Jack had first seen the scrawny white kid getting harassed by a gang of juniors and couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He had intervened on Rudy's behalf and wound up getting suspended for the ensuing fistfightâjust one of many during his teenage years. His aunt Doreen had grounded him for a week, but he had won a loyal friend in Rudy Peterson.
Jack took a slice of pizza and looked around the room. “He never even let me in here when I was a kid. Dad was always pretty guarded about his work.”
“I guess.” Rudy chuckled. “So, what? You got this psychological never-measured-up-to-my-old-man's-expectations-and-now-I'm-all-filled-with-regret thing going on?”
“No, it's just that there's so much stuff,” Jack said through a mouthful of pizza. “He never threw anything away. I guess he was a more meticulous researcher than I remember.”
“Y'know, Jack, no offense, but some people call that being obsessed.”
Jack stared at the stacks of boxes filled with files and books and a host of obscure artifacts his father had collected from all over the world. The man had apparently not been able to part with any of them. And neither had Jack.
The last twelve years had been filled with regret. A day hadn't gone by that Jack didn't wish he could travel back in time and beg his father not to go on that trip. But research had been the man's sole passion in life.
He'd written several papers on his theories about the lost pre-Columbian civilization, none of which were very well received by his peers in the anthropological community. In fact, they had largely repudiated them. After his disappearance, one had even written an article for the
American Journal of Archaeology
titled “David Kendrick's Fatal Obsession.”
The scurrilous piece had been intended to lay his father's crackpot ideas to rest once and for all, but it had only served to strengthen Jack's resolve, and he promised himself that someday he would make them eat their words.
So when he finally arrived at the U of Chicago, Jack pursued his degree in anthropology with the goal of salvaging his father's reputation and following in his research. It had been no easy task enduring the insufferable arrogance and condescension of his father's former colleagues. Yet for Jack, rehabilitating his father's legacy had now become
his
life's expedition.
His
odyssey.
His
obsession.
After graduation, Jack was set to start working on his PhD and decided it was time to finally sell the old house to help finance this new stage in his life. And part of him was well ready to be rid of it. The place had become a brooding mausoleum of sorts, haunted by the ghosts of a father he had barely known and a mother he couldn't remember.
It had only been on the market for two weeks when he'd gotten an offer, and now he was in a rush to clean it out. Aunt Doreen and his other relatives had already divided up most of the furniture, and Jack was going to box up the files and artifacts from his father's office to go into storage. Everything else was slated for the estate sale. Jack would've loved to bring the massive, ornate desk with him, but he knew it wouldn't fit in his apartment. He just hoped it would go to a good home. A doctor or a lawyer perhaps. Or maybe another teacher.
They polished off the pizza, and Rudy started hauling boxes to the garage while Jack finished cleaning out the desk. He pulled the drawers out one by one to wipe the insides with a damp rag. Years of dust and moisture and more dust had built up a mucky residue.
Jack was stacking the drawers in a clear spot on the floor when he noticed something strange. One of the drawers was a little shorter than the rest. And the back panel looked like it had been glued together with considerably less craftsmanship than the others . . . as if someone had lopped four inches off the drawer's length to make room for something inside the desk itself.
Jack peered in and saw a crude wooden box mounted to the back with something wedged inside. His heart was pounding as he pulled out a large yellow envelope and tore it open. Inside was a brown folder.
Rudy returned for more boxes, and Jack showed him what he had found. Rudy's eyebrows curled into a frown. “What is it?”
“I don't know,” Jack said, almost too excited to talk.
The folder contained several loose pages, and Jack laid them out on the desk. One of them looked like a copy of some kind of official document. Large portions had been blacked out, but it appeared to be a journal entry or maybe part of a report. The date in the corner was four months before his father had disappeared.
. . . suggests similarities to original piece found in . . . pre-Columbian engravings, even though the peripheral markings point to a later dating; the design and construction are definitely Bronze Age or earlier. . . .
Access to the original data is extremely limited. . . . has been kept under tight security at . . . The first artifact discovered in . . . and the next stage is to determine location of second site . . . hopes to find the second piece at that location.
There were also several photocopied pages from an old
National Geographic
article titled “Diminishing Caieche Population Raises Concerns among Anthropologists.”
The body of the article largely discussed the plight of an obscure American Indian tribe in western Wyoming called the Caieche. Anthropologists worried that the decline of the enigmatic tribe could lead to a total loss of their history, still relatively unknown. But there was no mention of an artifact or anything else related to the first document.
The final page contained what appeared to be a hand-drawn depiction of a circular emblem with various figures scattered around the interior.
There was some text in the lower corner of the page that had been blacked out completely. Everything except a string of numbers: 520712.
Rudy peered over his shoulder. “What is that thing?”
Jack could barely contain himself as he paced the study. “I'm guessing it's a drawing of the artifact the report mentions.”
“Yeah, but what
kind
of artifact?”
Jack shook his head. That was the million-dollar question. The mystery only seemed to deepen. He had spent the better part of the last twelve years looking for an answer to his father's disappearance. The FBI had searched for months but found no trace of him. No clothing, no equipment, not even his rental car. Yet after all these years, these documents had to hold some significance. Some clue to what had happened.
Rudy continued, “Why would he hide these in here?”
“And who was he hiding them from?” Jack muttered, lost in thought. Then he perked up. “I need a map of Wyoming. I have to find this reservation from the article.”
They went to the kitchen, where Rudy had his laptop sitting on the table. He booted it up and typed
Caieche
and
Wyoming
into the Internet search engine.
“Not much here on the Caieche,” Rudy said. “But it mentions the small reservation in Wyoming. Eagle Creek.”
“That's got to be where my dad went. I bet someone there talked to him. They might even remember him.”
“Jack, lookâ” Rudy held up his handsâ“I don't mean to rain on your parade, but that was twelve years ago. And you don't even know if that's where your dad actually went.”
“It's got to be. The only clue the FBI had to where he went was his plane ticket to Salt Lake City. And this Eagle Creek reservation is only a few hours' drive from there.”
Rudy snorted. “And a much longer drive from Illinois.”
“I know.” Jack grinned at him. “That's why you're coming with me.”
Rudy shook his head and laughed. “Uhh . . . no, I'm not. I've got a research internship lined up for the summer, remember?”
“C'mon, Rudy, all I need is a week,” Jack persisted. “Two, tops. We can take my dad's old Winnebago and make a whole road trip out of it. It'll be fun.”
“Dude . . .” Rudy rubbed his eyes. “I'm telling you, I am
not
going to Wyoming. Especially in that ratty old RV. Does that thing even run?”
“Of course it runs. It runs just fine.” Jack tried to sound confident, though he hadn't had the vehicle running in over a year. “I've just . . . never actually taken it that far before.”
“Which is another reason why I'm not going with you.”
Jack grew serious. “Look, this is the first real clue to finding out what happened to my dad. Do you have any idea what that means to me?”
“That's exactly my point. You're not thinking straight. Your dad disappeared out there somewhere, and now you want to go after him? You don't think that's a little dumb? Not to mention dangerous?”
“That's because he was alone. He didn't have anyone to watch his back. I'm not going to make that same mistake.”
“No, you're going to make a whole new one.”
“That's why I need
you
,” Jack said. “I need your expertise.”
“Really? I have a molecular biology degree. How much good will that do you?”
“Come on. You've forgotten more about science than I'll ever know. Plus, you're the only person I really trust on this.” Jack sighed, and his voice softened. “I'm asking you . . .
please.
You're my best friend. I need your help.”
Rudy stared at him for a moment. A long, painful moment. At length he rolled his eyes and took a breath. “Fine. Two weeks. Just don't get all sappy on me.”
“Great.” Jack grinned and slapped Rudy's shoulder. “I knew I could depend on you.”