Forsaken (16 page)

I turned and looked at him. In the bending light, in profile, the lines in his forehead and around his eyes were deeper, sharper than I’d ever noticed. A shadow cut a dark, diagonal slash across his cheek. “I don’t believe that this is your last day with either God or Kacey.”

“No offense, but it doesn’t matter what you believe. That’s part of the cruelty of it. It doesn’t matter what you believe, or the anchormen, or the preachers, or the editorial writers, or the people watching on television, or whoever. It’s not a group decision. It’s just God and Kacey and me. No one else decides; no one else pays.”

I touched his arm. “You’re a good man, Simon. When
I met you, I was prepared to believe you were a fraud. But you’re not. You love God and you love Kacey, and I just don’t see how that can result in something bad. I hadn’t prayed since I was a kid, but I’ve prayed very hard for you for the past few days. I don’t know if that’s a plus for you or not, but I know I’m not the only one.”

He put his hand on mine. “You judge me too kindly because you don’t know me well. I have more flaws than you think. But I appreciate your prayers. I really mean that. I’m glad you’re praying. I guess that shows that every situation, no matter how bad, has some good results.” He loosened his grip. I wanted to reach out and pull his hand back to mine.

“Somehow, something good will come of this,” I said. “It’s just hard for us to see right now. Something like this could not happen to a man like you unless there was a purpose.”

“I’ll agree that any purpose in all of this is hard to see.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Please don’t ask.”

“I’m sorry. That was presumptuous of me.”

He rubbed the back of one hand with the fingertips of the other, as if trying to scrub something off it. “It’s all right. I just can’t make myself tell you. If I’m going to die inside, I may as well die only once. That will be tonight.”

A tear edged from the corner of his eye. He wiped it with a finger. At that moment I knew what decision he’d made.

“I’m sorry. I’m sure I’m less of a man than you thought.”

“No, you’re one of the few real men I’ve ever met.” My neck grew warm.

He looked into my eyes and smiled. “Thank you again.” He clapped his hands on his knees. “Well, I’ve been praying all morning, and we can’t stay here all day, I suppose.” He stood up and stepped out into the aisle. I got up and followed him down the narrow hallway and out of the church.

Outside Simon shaded his eyes with his hand and gave a slight wave. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you.”

He jogged down the sidewalk and around the corner of the building.

When I arrived at my car, I opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. I put the key in the ignition, but rather than starting the car, I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. Kacey was going to die, and as horrible as that was, it wouldn’t be the end. For Simon it would only be the beginning. He was about to enter a living hell. There must be something that I could still do to change things.

I had to try.

THE DALLAS CELEBRATION WAS such an obvious target for terrorists that the City of Dallas had imposed its strictest security measures ever for a nonpolitical event. We checked everything from the limousine drivers to the microphones. I had to be at the Challenger Airlines Center hours before the program to coordinate with the police and the FBI.

After my talk with Simon at the chapel, I went home to change clothes, then grabbed a burger at a drive-thru. As I was chewing my burger, I had an idea. On my way to the auditorium, I stopped at FBI headquarters for a talk with Michael Harrison. After much cajoling, I left his office with an envelope in my pocket.

In it was something that I hoped might save Kacey.

As I drove toward the arena, I called to check on Simon. Elise answered the phone and told me that he’d remained in his room the whole afternoon. She’d been even more protective of Simon than usual lately, at least when it came to me. She didn’t volunteer to let me talk to him, and I didn’t press the issue.

I spent the afternoon at the arena working with the police and the volunteers from local churches. Around 5:30 I stepped outside for some air. The day had been unusually warm for late March, and many of the pedestrians around the arena wore shorts. I looked down at my black wool pants and shook my head. At some point the law of averages had to work in my favor in the appropriate-dress department, but it sure hadn’t yet. Under the circumstances, though, I couldn’t work up a good lather of self-criticism. My inadequacies didn’t even register on the radar screen of the day’s problems.

I walked around the outside of the arena, and the evening was so calm that the south breeze barely ruffled the sleeves of my white cotton blouse. In contrast to the tranquil weather, the streets surrounding the auditorium had the feel of a circus just before the lions enter the ring. Television technicians marked their territories. They prowled the sidewalks next to vans from which satellite dishes extended like giant ears. Reporters moved in tight semicircles around blue-jeaned camera operators whose hoisted equipment protruded from their shoulders like metal appendages. Occasionally, the more prominent reporters received last-minute grooming from
attentive assistants—a licked finger applied to an errant hair, a calculated tug on a crooked tie. Scattered amongst the packs of television workers, street vendors barked at roaming herds of pedestrians, hawking everything from hot dogs to “Free Kacey” buttons.

In its morning editorial, the
Times
speculated that, except for Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon, Simon’s statement might be watched by a higher percentage of people with television sets than any live event in history. The
Dallas Morning News
reported that the best seats to the celebration were bagging up to a thousand dollars on Internet auction sites. Several prominent Las Vegas bookies speculated that it was one of the most heavily wagered events of all time. Kacey was the prohibitive favorite.

My phone beeped in my pocket. It was one of the security guards I’d assigned to ride with Simon in a police-escorted convoy. They were five minutes from the arena. I jogged back into the building and hurried toward the underground tunnel where I would meet his car.

When Simon arrived, I opened the door for him. He stepped out, carrying his tattered Bible, and wiped a palm on his leg.

I touched his elbow. “How are you doing?”

“Is there a room somewhere for me? This is the first time we’ve done anything here since it opened. I don’t know my way around.” His eyes moved from me to the car to the tunnel entrance and back to me. He shifted his Bible from one hand to the other. I needed to get him to a place where he could at least try to calm down.

“I’ll show you.” I turned and headed into the building, looking over my shoulder at him as I walked. “Where’s Elise?”

“I asked her to ride over with the others.”

When we arrived at Simon’s dressing room, I punched the security code into the keypad and swung the door open. Although I’d checked the room out earlier, I went in before Simon and took another look around. It was the size of a very large family room but furnished in a hip, minimalist way—black and white leather and stainless steel. Along the wall to the left, a long narrow table overflowed with an assortment of fruits, cheeses, breads, cold cuts, and soft drinks. A door off the wall to our right opened into a cavernous marbled restroom. I opened the door and checked it out. Everything appeared in order. Looking at Simon in his yellow chamois shirt and corduroy slacks, I wondered how out of place he must feel in this room that was obviously designed with rock stars in mind. I wasn’t sure this was the setting he needed right now.

I nodded toward the table of food. “Can I get you anything? Have you eaten?”

“Thanks, but I haven’t had much of an appetite.” He sat on the couch, crossed one leg over the other, then uncrossed it and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

I got a bottle of water anyway and handed it to him. “Would you like some company? I can stay.”

“Thank you, but no.” He smiled. “You haven’t stopped praying for me, have you?”

“No. I doubt if my prayers do you much good, though.”

“You say things like that too often, Taylor. You’re a better person than you think.”

I felt my neck warm and wondered how he could give my feelings even a moment’s thought under the circumstances. I didn’t know what to say, so I turned to leave. Then I paused and turned back to him. “Have you got your cell phone with you?”

“Yes.”

“If you need anything, just call.”

“I will.”

I remained in the doorway for a moment.

“Is anything wrong?”

I stuck my hand in my pocket. “On the way over here this afternoon, I stopped off to see Michael Harrison. I hope you won’t be angry. He gave me something that I thought might help you tonight.” I handed him the envelope.

He tore off the corner. Kacey’s ring dropped into his hand. He moved it from hand to hand, then held it in his palm and caressed it with his index finger.

“I thought about it and knew that if I were in your position, I would want something of Kacey’s with me. It just seemed wrong that you didn’t have it tonight. Michael agreed.”

“I’d like to be alone.” He spoke without taking his eyes off the ring.

I turned and walked out the door.

TWO HOURS LATER Elise and I stood at the stage entrance as Simon’s song leader, Donny, prepared to pull back the side curtain and walk out to address the crowd. Every seat in the auditorium was occupied. A hum of voices rose from the floor of the auditorium. The stage was surrounded by more cameras than the playing field at the Super Bowl.

Elise looked at her watch, then at me. “One of us had better go get him.”

“Let’s give him a couple more minutes.”

Under the circumstances the program was drastically shortened. The plan was for Donny to lead the auditorium in one song and a prayer for Kacey and Simon. Then Simon was to go out onto the stage and make his statement. No one knew what he intended to say, whether Kacey would live or die. A father’s nightmare was a television producer’s dream.

At exactly 7:30, a network person in a black silk shirt held his headset tightly to his ear. He pointed at Donny and held up three fingers, then two, then one. He waved toward the stage. Donny pulled the curtain aside and walked to the podium. No band played, no choir sang. The only backdrop was a video screen picture of a giant Jesus, floating in a cloud, his arms outstretched to the audience.

When Donny arrived at the glass pulpit, he said, “I would like for you to join me in a song and then a prayer for Kacey and Simon Mason.” With no musical accompaniment, he began to sing “I Need Thee Every Hour.” Jesus disappeared from the video screen, replaced
by the words to the song. At first the crowd seemed taken aback by the lack of musical accompaniment, so Donny sang solo. Soon a few voices near the front joined in, then more. Before long the auditorium filled with the most sorrowful and beautiful a cappella song I’d ever heard.

About halfway through the song, just as I was about to go get him, Simon walked up. He clutched his Bible in one hand. Elise hugged him. The rings beneath his eyes seemed even darker than they had before. I wondered whether he’d slept at all the past few days. He looked my way and nodded but said nothing.

When the singing stopped, Donny’s prayer echoed through the silent auditorium: “God of love and mercy. Two of your children, Simon and Kacey Mason, are suffering. They have done nothing to deserve this horror that evil men have thrust upon them. We ask why, oh God, you would allow this to happen? How long will you tolerate the senselessness of terrorism? How long will you wait before exacting a price for evil? Bless Simon and bless Kacey, Lord. Hold them near in this time of trial. Guide them and give them strength. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.”

Donny looked toward the stage entrance. When he saw Simon, he turned and walked off the opposite side, leaving the stage empty. The picture of a floating, open-armed Jesus flashed back onto the screen overlooking the stage.

Simon cleared his throat, then stepped through the stage curtain and walked toward the podium. The
silence was cavernous—not a whisper, not a cough. Not a sound of any sort except the clip-clap of Simon’s loafers on the wooden floor. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine the auditorium empty.

When Simon arrived at the pulpit, he placed his Bible on it and looked out at the crowd. His eyes focused on the front rows, then swept deliberately around the auditorium, taking in each section. He opened his Bible and lowered his eyes to it, standing perfectly still for at least a full minute, as if reading a passage. Then he picked something off the page—something that caught the light and glimmered. It was Kacey’s ring.

He held the ring between his thumb and index finger, then closed his hand around it. Looking at the audience he tightened the hand into a fist. With his other hand he reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped his forehead. He placed the handkerchief on his Bible and leaned forward slightly.

“Many of you have sons and daughters of your own.” Though he spoke softly, his words boomed off the walls of the auditorium. “You know what the love of a parent is—what it feels like—how you can love your child so much that it hurts physically. I know that you understand how much I love Kacey.” The muscles in his forearms flexed beneath his rolled up sleeves as he gripped Kacey’s ring with one hand and the podium with the other.