The Valley of Dry Bones (31 page)

“Save that!” Katashi said. “You've got a room full of people in there who need you, and they don't know any of this. You can't just bring the enemy in here without explanation. Mahir's about ready to kill himself, Doc's lower than I've ever seen him, and everybody's still wondering what happened to you. Bob's waiting to pray you in as the new pastor, and this is how you want to start?”

“What'm I supposed to do? I didn't give our location away. For all I know Mahir did. But I'd rather get Willard inside before he gives us away to someone else. Who knows how far away the military is?”

“How do we know they're not with him?” Benita said.

“No way he'd do that to me, not after yesterday.”

“You don't know that,” Katashi said. “You've got to tell us the story.”

“What do I do with him in the meantime?”

The other three looked at each other. “You tol' Alexis, right?” Benita said.

“Everything that happened, 'course.”

“Then she don't gotta be there when you tell us. Make WatDoc wait outside the utility door. She can be in the garage on the other side in case he tries to get in or bring anybody else.”

“I don't like it,” Zeke said.

“C'mon,” Katashi said, “you've got be sure everybody's on board with this before you let him in here. The Mongers have been our nightmare since we got here.”

“They almost killed you once,” Benita said. “And now Cristelle.”

“He's gonna be here soon,” Raoul said. “Make a decision, man.”

Zeke returned to the periscope. “He's about two hundred yards out and he's put the truck out of sight. All right, Katashi, explain it to Alexis. Get her stationed in the garage and be sure Sasha stays in the Xavier quarters with the kids. Then get back to the Commons with the rest of us. Benita, go tell Bob I need a minute with him when I get there, and tell everybody else to take a break if they need to because in five minutes Bob's going to pray for me, and I'll talk.”

Zeke raised the scope and connected with Willard on the walkie-talkie. “Come down the decline and wait at the utility door. Don't try to communicate until you hear from us. It'll be at least twenty minutes. I'll have personnel stationed on the other side of the door. If we detect anyone else in the area, you won't get in. You'll surrender your weapons when you enter. Click once if you copy and agree.”

Click
.

Zeke felt a sense of urgency on his way back to the Commons, but he couldn't make himself hurry. Neither could he shake the ominous feeling of a major transition. That was natural, he knew, with the retirement of his pastor of so many years and the impending loss of Jennie, who had meant so much to him and his family.

But he had personally undergone such a change in just three days that it was as if he were suffering jet lag or even whiplash. Called of God, thrust into a pastorate (small as it was), chased by federal agents, nearly killed yet hardly injured.

And now an archenemy had become an unlikely ally and someone for whom God had—he could think of no other way to put it—made him sympathetic. No one else could have accomplished that. Zeke knew the paradoxical nature of his faith, how the meek were to inherit the earth, the
poor in spirit were to be comforted, to be rich you were to give, to lead you were to become a servant, to live you must die. But the real crucible for the Christian was that the true believer was called upon to love his enemy.

Well, Willard had been more than an enemy. Here was a character, a personality, a type Zeke found abhorrent—crude, rude, in-your-face. Yet now God had not only given Zeke a word for him—a name he could not have known of a relative Willard hadn't seen for more than a decade—but He had also made Zeke care about the man. And not just his soul. Sure he wanted Willard to come to faith, as any believer should want everyone to do. But this was more than that. Zeke found himself drawn to Willard as a person, a human being. He cared about him.

How could he communicate that to the rest of the holdouts? They would be wary, and he couldn't blame them.

As he moved through the underground complex, he recalled the final days of construction. When it all came together, the final pieces taped and glued and snapped to a superstructure designed to withstand enormous weight and shifting earth—the integrity of which had just been tested by the weight of a tank—he, Doc, and Mahir had brought Pastor Bob for the initial walk-through.

Their fear had been livability, of course. Could normal people, middle-class suburbanites who joked that their spiritual gifts were creature comforts, maintain their sanity? Or would it have the feel of a steamy, cramped, echoing submarine from which people would long to escape every day?

That walk-through made them nervous initially, and they split up, feeling too close. But when they reunited, realizing there had been plenty of room to pass each other as each checked every corner of the place, they had to admit they believed the others would like it—not just settle for it.

They had been right. Though this would be no one's first choice, they weren't here for the luxuries of home. Many, many missionaries who lived aboveground had things much worse. The holdouts had made it work, and for many years it had served its purpose.

If Willard entered, would that mean the end? Had Zeke misread him,
and was he disingenuous, paving the way for others with ill motives to finally thwart all the holdouts had accomplished? That didn't gibe with Zeke's apparent calling to become God's mouthpiece, but for all he knew it could be the way He closed one door and opened another.

As Zeke came within sight of the swinging double doors that led to the Commons, Alexis arrived with her look of determination and that purposeful stride he knew so well. She grabbed him by the shoulders. “I wish I could be in there with you,” she said, “but you know you can trust me with this. You sure you want him inside?”

Zeke nodded. “In twenty minutes or so I'll give you one click. Go to either of the west periscopes to be sure no one else is in the area. By the time you get back, Raoul and Benita will be on either side of the door. Make Willard show you both hands when you let him in. If he tries anything—”

“I know.”

“All three of you—”

“I know, Z.”

“I have to say it, Lexi. You've got to put him down. This place, these people, are all on me. I'm letting him in because I trust him. But if I'm wrong, he's dead. He should be carrying a .357 Magnum, so have Raoul take that and bark at him to hand over the other one as if he knows for sure he's got one.”

“Does he?”

“No idea, but if he does, he'll give it up. Then just bring him on in. I want to see how he responds to Mahir and Cristelle especially.”

“Me too.”

“But if you send Raoul to be with me, who's going to be with Mahir?”

“Let me worry about him.”

Z
EKE WAS IMPRESSED
with how the Commons had been refigured. Cristelle's bed and IV stand had been moved to the center of the back row. Danley was on her far side feeding her something. She looked tired. Mahir sat at a table on her other side, and while he still looked miserable, Cristelle was close enough to speak to him, while Danley and many of the others looked wary and Raoul still stood directly behind him.

The Gutierrezes sat at a table directly ahead of them, and next to them Elaine Meeks sat with Gabrielle Xavier. Bob and Jennie Gill sat to her right, at the end of the table, Jennie dozing, her brow knitted—Zeke assumed in pain.

Three chairs faced the group, the one in the middle empty. Doc sat in the one on the right, Katashi on the left.

Bob had risen and approached when Zeke entered. Zeke summoned Benita to join them.

“You fix the room like this?” he said.

“
Sí
, with Pastor Bob.”

“Perfect.”

“
Gracias
.”

He told her what to do when he finished speaking. “And have Raoul join you. I'll give you a nod, and you head down there right away.”

“He ain't gonna give three of us no trouble,” she said.

Zeke nodded. “But don't hesitate—”

“We won't,” Benita said. “But you gonna leave Mahir alone?”

Zeke shook his head. “I'm taking him with me to my quarters and we'll wait for you there.”

Bob shot him a double take. “You're sure about this?”

“Still playing it by ear. If it doesn't feel right at the time, I can abort. I won't give Alexis the signal to let Willard in and I won't send Raoul and Benita down there. But if everybody here feels okay about it, it's gonna be a ‘go'.”

Zeke didn't like the look in Pastor Bob's eye. He asked Benita to excuse them.

“Sure,” she said. “Good to go.”

Zeke pulled Bob to the side. “You worried about Jennie, or about what I'm doing?”

“I don't have peace about this yet, Zeke. I'm not hearing you say God's been clear with you about this. Has He?”

“I can only tell you He was working on Willard yesterday.”

Bob nodded. “Like everyone else, I want to hear all about it. I'll offer a pastoral charge–type prayer, then just give us the basics from last night.”

“What happened with Mahir while I was gone?”

Bob shook his head. “She wants to forgive him and won't take no for an answer.”

“What're we gonna do? We're in no-man's-land, so she couldn't press charges if she wanted to.”

“And she wouldn't, Zeke! She's working on Danley to forgive him too. It's not right that Mahir tries to kill her twice in three days and yet he walks. But you're the shepherd of this flock now, and you know what that means.”

Zeke nodded. “I can't look the other way, and I don't want to. I'm the gatekeeper. The safety of these people is on me. I can't believe I have to protect them from Mahir, of all people.”

“We need to get started. Listen, if you do decide to bring WatDoc in here, you'd better tell these people what's been going on with you.”

“God talking to me? You serious?”

“Do as God leads.”

When Zeke was seated between Doc and Katashi, Bob stood behind them and the three of them laid hands on his shoulders.

“Join me,” Bob said. “Father, thank You for what You have done in Zeke's life, for saving him, calling him, teaching him, and using him. Thank You for his family and that today he stands on the threshold of expanded ministry.

“Our passion, Lord, is that You use him beyond his highest expectation, keep him clean in the midst of a corrupt generation. May he shine in a dark world. May he draw deeply from the rich well of grace. Keep him learning the power of prayer.

“Give him the passion of the Savior, who commanded His disciples, ‘Go therefore and make disciples.' As a Good Shepherd, go before him, keep him from sin, and humble him under Your mighty hand.

“And now, Ezekiel Thorppe, I commit you to God and to the word of His grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. This we ask expectantly in the wonderful name of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

To Zeke's surprise, when he rose, the people clapped.

“Thanks, Bob. I accept this role as from God. My task now is to explain what happened when I left here in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. I intended to create a diversion to make sure Danley eluded his pursuers—which he had done well without me. Raoul offered to help, which would have kept me out of a whole lot of trouble.

“But I unwisely went rogue, endangering not only my own life, but all of yours as well. I owe you every detail, but I am going to rush, because I have a guest I'd like to invite for lunch. By now you have an idea who that is—which I also must explain and answer for.”

As Zeke sped through the story, the looks of alarm were punishment enough for his errors in judgment. But when he reached the account of God providing, of all people, the holdouts' archenemy to rescue him from certain death, Zeke was reminded of what was so special about this little
band of evangelists. They too seemed suddenly interested in the soul of one who had so long been a threat.

And when he told of God giving him the name of Willard's sainted aunt, he knew Bob had been right about telling them everything. Elaine held up both hands like a grade-school crossing guard. “So sorry to interrupt, but are you saying God gave you a word of knowledge?”

Zeke said, “I don't claim any special revelation or gift. All I know is that God impressed that name on me, and I just told you Willard's reaction. Here is a man who may not have been reached any other way, and he's not reached yet. But I'm sure curious about why he's here now, aren't you?”

“Very,” Elaine said.

“Now let me tell you what else God has been saying to me.” And Zeke told them everything from when he first heard God's voice Sunday morning through what had happened surrounding Gaho's death.

“That how you knew you could vote for me and not worry about it?” Doc said, smiling. “God told you?”

“Actually, yes. He didn't tell me the outcome, but He told me to vote for you and to tell Gabi I was going to.”

“That's scary,” Gabrielle said.

“It was to me too,” Zeke said, “but I realized God is not in the business of scaring His children. There has to be a reason for this.”

“All those verses He's giving you sound evangelistic,” Katashi said. “If you're supposed to tell those to people in power, that's exciting.”

Zeke nodded.

“That's why it's so important that we come back together as we once were. God is calling us to something strategic.”

“You think He wants WatDoc on our side?” Mahir said.

Zeke wasn't sure how to respond. Where was Mahir coming from? He had gone to Willard behind their backs, maybe thinking he was rooting out a suspected terrorist. But who else's attention might that have brought to them?