The Watchers (28 page)
And yetâif he rejected Abby's world, where did that leave him? The killer of an innocent girl? Accessory to the indiscriminate slaughter of several hundred innocent worshipers? He groaned and kneaded his forehead with stiff fingers. On top of all that, there was the evidence of his very own eyes. He knew what he'd seen back on that stage, and he knew that it was not of this world. He'd witnessed a miracle. And even in his limited experience, people who ignored miracles generally did not go down as geniuses in the annals of history.
He tried to chase the maddening thoughts from his head. Problem was, his only true distraction was to once again address the physical defense of their position. He was a man, and men were wired to take action, to accomplish something.
He thought of the Australian sheepdogs whose urge to herd animals was so ingrained in their little brains that if deprived of the chance to harass sheep, they would instinctively start to wrangle small children or pets around a backyard.
Yep, that's me,
he thought with a wry grin.
Give me a mission or tie me up
.
He calculated that they had traveled a total of three and a half miles from the initial trailhead. From the maps he'd seen, he was fairly confident that the forest extended on behind them for an indefinite distance. For a satellite or a chopper, that distance was essentially nothing. He remembered the power of contemporary satellites and regretted not having urged the women to trudge through the middle of the stream on their way here, to dispel their heat signatures. But then he thought of their overall condition at that point, and knew such frigid and slippery conditions would have been impossible to bear. Somebody would have broken a leg.
With an inner chill he realized that if this house was known in any way to their enemies, or if their approach had been detected, they would have a warning time of only a few seconds before an attack helicopter or hunter-killer team struck. He could rig up a few diversionary tricks like rock-falls or bunji pits, but he doubted the time spent would prove worth it. With today's firing distances and lethal rockets, close distance was no longer necessary. They would be toast against all but the most primitive attack.
So what do I do then?
he asked nobody in particular as he leaned back.
Pray?
The poor victims of the day's shootout had done plenty of praying. It hadn't stopped hundreds of them from winding up dead in a pile too horrific to look upon. Come to think of it, it hadn't done much for all those victims in Rwanda, or Sudan, or Uganda, or a dozen-plus killing fields on this whole blood-soaked continent.
So what was it? Had he let himself fall victim to a bunch of pie-in-the-sky, fuzzy female illogic?
Somehow, in a place deep down within him, it didn't feel like that. In fact, everything about it had the strange, uneasy feel of unlikely truth.
But how
could
it?
He was about to stand and make his presence known to the ladies inside when he heard the door screech open. He turned and saw Sister Okoye leaning out with an intent look on her face.
“We're leaving, Dylan. We're taking a trip.”
“Good,” he answered, almost to himself. “Not a minute too soon.”
“And oh,” she said, turning around in an afterthought. “You can keep those weapons if you like. But just remember. They're not our first line of defense.”
The first ruddy streaks of dawn had just begun to smudge the horizon when Sister Okoye and Abby emerged from the building and, without a pause, began running downslope toward the valley bottom. Feeling his dignity and male pride almost completely in tatters, Dylan nevertheless jumped up with a shout and started off behind them.
At an impenetrable thicket near the water's edge, Sister Okoye reached in and grabbed hold of a tree trunk. To the others' surprise, the trunk gave way and lifted in her hands. Dylan stepped in to help, only to find that he was holding a long, thin canoe of hollowed bark, uncommonly light and strong.
Carrying the craft over his head to the creek, Dylan couldn't help but glance around him anxiously. As glad as he was that they were leaving, and leaving on water no less, he remembered that right now they were operating smack-dab in the center of what he'd picked as the likeliest attack zone. He breathed in relief when Sister Okoye stepped in expertly, picked up a steering rod, and started instructing Abby on how to step in and sit properly without tipping the boat.
“It's going to be difficult, honey,” she warned.
Abby gave her an understanding smile. “Don't worry, Sister. I'm a surfer. If you've never seen that before, it requires excellent balance.” Sure enough, she stepped in with perfect control and quickly sat down on her haunches, hardly lurching the boat at all.
Dylan had far less luck. He stepped in and nearly launched the whole canoe downstream with only a single foot planted inside. Catching himself, he used that lone foot to steer the front of the canoe closer to him, then gingerly placed the other one inside.
“Good,” said Sister Okoye from the rear of the craft, and with one long plunge of her rod they were off.
It was a strange navigation for both Abby and Dylan, for the stream's channel was incredibly narrow, just barely deep enough to accommodate the canoe's shallow hull. At nearly every push, Sister Okoye's choices of navigation angle narrowed down to one thin slanted approach through thick undergrowth. Often, passage required a helpful push against a tree trunk or even a hand-paddle from Dylan in the front. It impressed the two how skillfully the older woman managed to steer their ungainly boat through the bottlenecks and sharp turns required to proceed downstream.
Soon a second lively creek joined theirs, then a third just minutes later, and before they knew it the stream's volume had doubled, making their path far easier. The three began to breathe more freely and glance around them. Three thick, mist-layered columns of sunlight had just pierced the jungle ahead of them, testimony to the coming dawn. A huge flock of birds chose the moment to launch into a vigorous chorus, filling the forest with a soaring crescendo.
Again, Abby thought about how Nigeria and its people continued to confound her expectations and surprise her at every turn.
“So where are we going?” Dylan asked at last, breaking the blissful silence.
“We're taking the next step in Abby's search,” Sister Okoye said. “A place called Sungbo's Erebo. One of the most amazing spots in all Nigeria, and it's right at the end of a few miles' boat ride from here.”
“Will we be exposed between here and there?” asked Dylan.
“No, although such concerns mean very little to us now. We're in God's hands, not that of G.I. Joe or anybody's armed guerrillas.”
“I understand, Sister, but if this is God's route for our leaving, I'll just say that God has an excellent nose for tactical planning. He made a call I would have heartily approved of.”
“I'm sure He'll be glad to hear that,” Sister Okoye answered with a defiant grin.
Just then, as in counterpoint, a pair of choppers bellowed overhead, just a half mile or less in front of their position. Dylan ducked by reflex, but noted that where they were on the creek was well concealed by tree branches extending from the banks. Only northward, in the distance, did open sky even reveal the passing aircraft.
He shook his head in relief. Had they been delayed by just a few minutes more, or been a few hundred yards still upstream, they would have been caught andâunless Abby's and Sister Okoye's God performed a feat worthy of the Old Testamentâwould be dead by now.
Then he saw themâhis blood froze in mid-heartbeat. Mere hundreds of yards behind them, but headed in the opposite direction, ran a dozen barely visible silhouettes. Armed
machete men
.
He pulled out the gun, his fingers straining for action. He turned, raised an index finger to his lips for silence, and gestured for Sister Okoye to slowly push them farther downstream.
She complied. Her motion produced the sounds of wood creaking and water lapping. He gritted his teeth in dread, then breathed once as the motion caused them to float forward nearly ten feet.
Dylan looked back at the human caravan. He gripped the stock and trigger guard, hard. But he could also see that the gunmen were not looking around. Although distant, they were clearly fixed only on what lay ahead. They were preparing for a raid, and their gazes were locked resolutely before them.
Dylan inwardly gave thanks for every yard of waterline that slipped by, taking them out of sight by the thinnest margin of safety.
He continued to shake his head, with the relief turning to amazement as he considered it.
Abby's God pulls through again, but He sure has a perverse affection for close calls. . . .
He glanced ahead and almost laughed. Here came a large tributary from a steep channel on the right, so ample that it instantly doubled their channel's width. A minute passed like an hour. The threat was swallowed up in jungle and then faded away. Like a promise of easier days, the dawn started up in earnest, inflaming the sky to their left in a dozen shades of orange and turquoise.
“Will the three other women be around to get caught?” he asked Sister Okoye in a still-cautious whisper.
“No, they left in the opposite direction right after we did,” she answered. “They're on foot, but they're local women and they will be hard to catch. Besides, they will try and create a diversion. God willing, our pursuers will never even think to look south along our route.”
The next few hours would prove to be among the most beautiful and memorable Abby would ever spend. The stream broadened into a river whose path through the rain forest was a never-ending display of wonders and rare snapshots of natural life. By trip's end, she had spotted a python slung ponderously over a tree branch, a leopard and her pup drinking at a small pool of still water, a small crocodile weaving across the waterline, and more birds of every iridescent color and exotic shape than she even knew existed. An unlikely cool breeze, heralding the rainy season to come, even lifted itself across the path for their comfort.
The fact that she was encountering these sights as spontaneous and natural accidents, not from the pixels of a television screen or even the deck of a tourist boat, but here in the middle of a legitimate adventure, one that had nearly cost her life, made the apparitions that much more thrilling. After all, she told herself, the formaldehyde smell of the hospital had hardly faded from her, and here she was in a canoe, holding her breath against being discovered by assassins and jungle beasts alike.
You've come a long way, baby . . .
At some point, Sister Okoye asked Abby whether her Sight was showing her many disturbing apparitions.
“No,” Abby said. “Actually, I just realized I've hardly seen any spirit life all day. Just fleeting shadows. Runners, I've gotten to calling them. But that's all. It's quite a relief.”
“That is because nature is generally free of demonic concentrations or strongholds, unless you happen on a spot where something truly evil or provocative has happened. You may catch a glimpse, as you mentioned, of individual sprites on their way here and there. But those are usually in a weakened, famished state, anyway. Not much of a threat.”
Her peace momentarily disrupted by the exchange, Abby was only glad to let the conversation lapse and the river's beauty return to settle back over them.
Some of that peace admittedly dissipated for good when, halfway through the trip, Sister Okoye, true to her word, started in on Dylan and his reeducation.
“So you are a great warrior, it seems,” she began.
“I wouldn't presume to put a label on it, Sister. But I have done a great deal of fighting. Much of it solo work. By myself.”
“I know what
solo
means, Dylan. You are proud of this work?”
“Much of it was in direct service to my country, to what I would consider the cause of freedom. So yes, I am proud of what I've done. It's not easy, and it's not for the faint of heart, as we like to say. Sometimes that makes me even prouder still.”
“Have you killed many men, Dylan?”
“Yes, I have.”
“How many?”
“To be honest, I try not to keep count. It's not exactly the part of my job I like to think about the most.”
“But . . .”
“I don't know, maybe three dozen. Maybe as many as fifty.”
Even though she was quite gratefully staying out of the conversation, Abby visibly stiffened at that response.
“What is your view of spiritual things, Dylan?”
“What do you mean? Whether I believe them or not? What kind of spiritual construct I subscribe to?”
“Let's start with whether you believe in a Creator God.”
Instead of the rapid response, which so far had characterized the exchange, this time the question was greeted with deep silence. Finally he answered just as Sister Okoye was about to take a new tack in her questions.
“I would usually say no, and I always have,” he answered in a suddenly mild voice. “Only today, I just now realized. Right this second, my answer is yes. I do believe in a Creator.”
“Of course, what kind of fool would you be, here, in this place, to look around you and not believe.”
“It seems that way, yes,” he answered in a reflective tone.
“And yet, Dylan, believing in a Creator alone distinguishes you from almost no one. Even the animists out east of here believe in a Creator. So does Satanism. So does witchcraft. So does Islam.”
“I suppose you're right. Yet so far I haven't signed up for any of those, have I?”
She paused while pushing the pole backward, something she needed to do less and less with the strengthening current. “But, Dylan, you should remember that in the last twenty-four hours you've been a witness to more signs and wonders of the Christian faith than just about anyone ever has without throwing himself to the ground and begging to be received into His kingdom. You've seen angels. You've seen a terminally ill woman be healed of her illness. You've seen the power of an actual miracle. Most people could hardly ask for more proof than that.”