THE 13: STAND BOOK TWO (4 page)

It was coming back to him now. He had been sitting on the floor, leaning against the cold steel slab that was his bed. He couldn’t take it anymore. He had been replaying all the conversations he had had with Boz and all that stuff about God that Boz had been trying to get him to listen to. At the time, he hadn’t cared. It was all just ridiculous to him. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with God.

But something changed. Lying there in that cell, after weeks upon weeks of getting beaten, he realized how alone he was. And he realized that he had been that way long before the prison camp. Suddenly, all the things Boz had been saying started to make sense. And just when he thought he had been broken beyond all measure, he felt himself break in a new way, when Boz’s seemingly childish statement came rushing back to him.

“Jon, Jesus Christ loves you.”

He had finally let go and cried out to God. It was like some huge weight had lifted. For the first time in his life, he felt as though he had peace. Even though he was broken and beaten nearly to death, he had peace. He had no misconceptions of getting out of there. And he hadn’t asked God to do that. Rather, he had come to grips with the fact that he would most certainly die in that cell. But the idea that there was a God who loved him and cared for him gave him the strength he needed to just let go and die. So that’s what he had asked for.

God, please, just let me die
.

He was ready. He had closed his eyes and drifted off. But it never happened.

Now, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness in this room, he realized he was somewhere different. This definitely wasn’t the prison camp. The room looked more like a dirtbag motel room. There was a bureau at the foot of the bed with a small television sitting on top. A small round table with a couple of fold-up chairs sat beside the bed. To the left was a little alcove with a sink and a small mirror with a single low-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling.

He tried to lift his head to look around but immediately put it back down, as he felt the pounding race down the back of his skull through his shoulder and into his back. His teeth were chattering now. He was so cold.

He lifted his hand to feel his face and noticed that he was soaking with sweat. But how was that possible? He was cold. How could he be sweating?

Forget how bad he hurt. He had to find out what was going on. Where was he? How did he get out of the prison camp?

He took a few deep breaths and pushed himself up on his elbows. He lifted his head and waited as the pain coursed through his body. There was a time when he had been trained to take the pain and use it. To master it. To let it turn into anger that would fuel him when he had no strength. He had no need for the anger anymore, but he needed the energy for sure. He waited as the pain ticked through his muscles. He focused his mind and felt his body begin to come alive. But just as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, the door to the room opened. Blinding white light from the outside rushed in at him. He lifted his arm to shield his face and saw the outline of a figure in front of him.

“Mr. Keene, you’re awake!”

Suddenly, everything came back to him. He had asked God to let him die. And he had passed out. But then they came for him again—or at least that’s what he had thought. He remembered starting to cry, thinking that even though he’d cried out to God, maybe God hadn’t heard him. That he was too far gone. That somehow God had turned His back on him, as he had turned his back on God for so many years. But it wasn’t them. It was someone else who had come for him.

He had barely been conscious. He was in so much pain. But then he had heard the voice. It was a nice voice. One that wasn’t yelling or laughing at him. And he remembered now that he had recognized the man. But from where? Who was he?

And then he remembered.

“Mr. Keene, please lie back down. You’re not completely well. Your fever seems to have broken. That’s good,” the man said as he came into the room and closed the door.

The man grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back down on the bed. He looked up and tried to focus on the man’s face. It was him. It was the same man that had come for him in the prison.

He laid his head back down on the pillow and realized how hard he was breathing. What little energy he might have had, he had just expelled completely trying to sit up.

“There,” the man said, placing the pillow behind his head. “Just lie there for now.”

The man sat back down in the chair beside the bed.

“Mr. Keene, I don’t know how much you remember. But I—”

“I remember.”

The man nodded. “You had been looking for me for a while, before you were captured. Do you remember what I told you before? That when the time was right, God would send me to you?”

Keene remembered.

“My name is Quinn Harrington, Mr. Keene. I am the Prophet.”

E
ven with the chaos of the last few months and the fact that more than half the nation was operating like a third-world country, traffic on the Beltway at 5:30 a.m. was none the wiser. Already, cars were nearly bumper to bumper as men and women tried to traverse the labyrinth into downtown.

“It’s like they’ve already forgotten,” Megan said to no one. But with President Walker touting the line,
We must move forward
, it seemed the American people were eager to try.

As she made her way off the ramp and into downtown, she looked off to the side at one of the thousands of tent cities that had been erected, housing a few thousand of the several million displaced citizens from the other side of the Appalachian Mountains who had braved the journey to safety. As far as the East Coast stretched, makeshift communities like this one had been erected throughout what was left of the country. Still, millions of others were either too scared to try or had just given in to the Chinese government’s new way of life—because for many of them, not much had changed. They still went to work. They still sent their kids to school. But instead of working for an American company or learning American history, workers and students now adopted the Chinese ways of business and education. Many still protested, but many more were just too lazy to do anything about it. As long as no one was trying to kill them and they could still live more or less like they had before, they were willing to settle.

Pulling up to the security gate, Megan badged the waiting marine. He made the required walk around her car then motioned for her to continue. She knew the marine recognized her. They had played out the same scene for a month now. But she was still irked at the flippancy with which the man casually waved her through. She had said something to Jennings at least twice now.

“Does he not remember what just happened?”

“I’ll remind him,” Jennings had said.

Maybe I should remind him!
she thought, passing through the gate.

Inside, she was greeted and led to the waiting room where Jennings was already finishing off a pot of coffee. His second of the morning, if she had to guess.

“Can I get you a cup?” he asked.

“No thanks. Just makes me jittery anymore.”

“Suit yourself.” Jennings put the pot back on the burner. He tore open a new pack of grounds, dumped them in the filter, and hit the button. Within seconds the gurgle of the percolator began.

Though she was bursting at the seams to find out about Jon, she knew—after working with him for five months now—Jennings had his routine. The man was unshakeable. Kicking in the door, demanding information at this hour wasn’t going to generate any kind of favorable response. She sat down and waited for her boss to fill her in.

Jennings pulled a chair up beside her and sat down. “Before you start railing me for details, let me tell you what I know. You can ask questions when I’m done.”

She nodded, her heart rate beginning to increase.

“Last night—or this morning, however you want to look at it—I got a call. But it wasn’t Jon.”

“I thought you said—”

“And I thought you were going to let me finish.”

She bit her lip and folded her arms across her chest.

“It was Quinn,” Jennings continued.

“The Prophet?”

“Yes. He has Jon.”

“Where?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute. The Prophet—Quinn—said that when he found him, Jon was barely alive. Now, I don’t know how he found him, or how they got out of there, but he assures me they’re safe. For now.”

“What about Jon?” She couldn’t help herself.

“He says Jon has been beaten severely and probably has a few dislocated bones and joints. But he’s alive. Quinn has him in a motel in the Chinese territory. He wouldn’t say where, in case someone, somehow was able to listen in. But he says he’s taking care of it.”

“What does that mean, he’s taking care of it?”

“It means what it means, Taylor. Jon’s alive. And he’s in bad shape right now. But Quinn says…” He sighed and gave his shoulders a shrug. “Quinn says that by the time we get there, Jon will be fine.”

Megan was about to lose her mind. “What do you mean, by the time we get there?”

Jennings shoved his chair back and stood up. Frustration lined his face. “Taylor, I’m as new to this as you are. I have no idea what that means. I guess it means Jon is gonna miraculously be healed, like some Lazarus, or something.”

“Lazarus was dead and raised. Not healed.”

“Whatever! All I know is that Quinn said not to worry. Jon is fine. They’re fine. And we can come get Jon in a couple days. Maybe sooner.”

“What are we doing to help them in the meantime?”

Jennings gave another frustrated sigh. “Nothing.”

“What do you mean—”

Jennings pointed his finger at her like an angry father. “Taylor, if you say, ‘What do you mean’ one more time… Quinn says we’re to do nothing. That Jon is going to get better and then we can come get him.”

Megan pursed her lips and shook her head.

“But right now, we need to check some things out.”

Megan leaned forward on her chair. As much as the vagueness irritated her, the FBI agent in her was intrigued. “Check what out?”

“Quinn didn’t say exactly. But he did say that the Chinese are not our biggest problem right now.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I think they’re exactly our problem!”

“Yeah, well, Quinn says they’re not. And that we should not concern ourselves with them right now.”

“And who
should
we concern ourselves with?”

“Us.”

Megan stood up now and began pacing back and forth. “I don’t even know what that means!
Us!
What are you talking about?”

“Seems we’ve got another skunk in our backyard.”

Megan immediately felt her stomach weaken. After the debacle of Marianne Levy selling out the country the way she had, the mere thought of another turncoat undermining the integrity—or what was left of it—of the country was sickening to her. “Who? Not President Walker?”

“No. Quinn was adamant that it’s no one we’re aware of. And he says it has nothing to do with the Chinese this time. Just that something’s festering within our new borders that will cripple this country worse than it already is.”

“And let me guess.” She set her jaw tight. “He’s not saying who.”

“And that about brings you up to speed, Taylor. Now I suggest you get Boz in here so we can start trying to figure out what the heck is going on and how we’re going to stop it.”

She reached for her sat-phone and her jacket. “I’ve got to go by my office and get a few things. I’ll call Boz on the way.”

B
oz Hamilton sat on the porch of his old farmhouse and looked out at the rolling field in front of him. The house was said to be more than a hundred and fifty years old, but no one knew for sure. He only cared that it was out of the way, peaceful, and gave anyone who sat on its front porch at 6:15 in the morning a spectacular the view of the sunrise. That, and the unseasonably warm weather, made it an almost-perfect morning.

Boz closed his Bible, having spent the last forty minutes studying the book of Acts—
chapter 20
, verses 13 through 38. His personal devotion time had been in the letters of the apostle Peter the last few weeks, what with the invasion. Peter’s letter to the church always comforted him whenever he was facing any kind of trial or persecution in his life. And if the last few months didn’t qualify as that, nothing did. But this morning, something had caused him to flip elsewhere in the scriptures. He figured it was God’s Holy Spirit directing him there. And for what reason he had no idea. But it definitely troubled him. He might not have been the most intuitive person on the face of the earth, but the fact that he’d definitely felt God’s urging to study this particular portion of His Word caused his pulse to quicken and his anxiety level to bump up a couple of notches.

He stood up from the old wooden rocker and knelt down on the dry, cracked boards that made up the wraparound porch. With the warm rays of the ascending sun cascading on his neck, he bowed his head and began to pray.

Thirty minutes later, he rose and went inside the house. He could already smell the sharp scent of bacon as it drifted along the fall breeze being carried throughout the house via the open windows. He found Eli Craig standing over the stove with a ridiculous apron tied around his waist and an even more ridiculous chef ’s hat sitting atop his head.

“G’mawnin, Uncle Boz,” the Brit said in his best Virginia drawl. “You want some fried pig?”

Eli Craig was perhaps England’s best operative, sort of a
real
James Bond. He had served in His Majesty’s Navy, where he’d risen to the rank of admiral in a very short period of time, before being hand selected to serve in England’s most clandestine intelligence service, MI-5, following in his father’s legendary footsteps. If his father had put the Craig name on the map concerning spy work, Eli put it on the globe. He was a world-class operative, with King William’s own personal endorsement.

Eli had been a teenager when he met Boz for the first time. He and his mother had been kidnapped, the target of a wealthy Saudi because of the elder Craig’s involvement in bringing down the Saudi’s family patriarch, a man who dealt heroin and illegal arms. Boz Hamilton and his team had been sent into a volatile, unstable region to retrieve the Craig family, which they’d done without setting off even the slightest alarm; they had gone in and out as if they’d been ghosts. And a friendship—no, a family bond—had been born between Boz and Eli.