Mission Compromised (44 page)

“The house is
bugged?”
Rachel gasped. “What kind of people are you working with that would bug our house, Peter? What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“I'm going on a very secret mission to Turkey. It's not dangerous, but it's politically very risky. If something goes wrong, I suppose I could end up in Turkish custody, and you might not hear about it until it hit the news. If I haven't contacted you by the eighth, call Colonel North. He'll
know what to do. That number is his pager. Leave the phone on, and if he doesn't call you back in three or four hours, try General Grisham's number—but only if North hasn't called you back. Knowing North, he probably sleeps with his pager.”

Peter managed a little smile then, but it did nothing to reassure her. An hour later, she had dropped him at the VIP terminal at Andrews and he had kissed her good-bye.

Now, six days after that surreal departure, the breakfast sandwich she hadn't touched was still in the refrigerator downstairs. She was sitting on the edge of their bed while outside a late-winter storm pelted the windows with freezing rain. Rachel couldn't shake the cold she was feeling; having already put on a robe, she now went to stand under the overhead sunlamp in the bathroom.

She sighed. Rachel felt totally off balance in their relationship. Peter had said some special things to her at dinner last week—and now she was even having second thoughts about whether to move forward with the divorce and a life and career of her own. He had confided in her, something very rare for him. He told her that he wasn't happy in his new assignment, and he was beginning to see what really mattered in life. He had confessed to thinking long and hard about their marriage following their disastrous Christmas. He said that she really mattered most to him—and she had melted in his arms.

But after he had gone, some of the same doubts resurfaced. All week she wondered what she should do.

Her friend Sandy hadn't been much help. It turned out that Rachel didn't realize what a religious zealot Sandy was.

First she had pressured Rachel to admit it was wrong to get a divorce. She told Rachel that God hated divorce—He loves people, she was quick to add, but He hates divorce. “The Bible encourages people to work out
their problems with God's help. Just stay committed to making the marriage work. If two people want a marriage to work, it will,” she had told Rachel.

Rachel told Sandy her advice sounded kind of naïve, that Sandy was operating on a different wavelength. Still, she was persistent, and Rachel finally gave Sandy a reluctant commitment that she would postpone any move regarding a divorce for at least a month.

Rachel walked back into her bedroom and sat down on the bed once more, still thinking about what her friend had said. “Well, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” Rachel had asked her friend.

“Why, just use that time to pray and trust God.”

I don't even know what that means
, Rachel thought. Sandy had invited her several times to attend an evening Bible study with some other career women in her church. Finally Rachel got so weary of saying no that she went just to keep Sandy from nagging her.

She reflected on that experience.
Wasn't as bad as I thought, she told herself. In fact, I kind of enjoyed it. It sure was different than I expected.

For one thing, there was no pressure. None of the other women made Rachel feel uncomfortable. For about forty minutes the women read from one of St. Paul's letters in the New Testament, and then discussed its relevance for their lives. Then they prayed. The group leader had asked for requests that could be shared with the women, but Rachel felt too self-conscious to say anything. The other women were not as reserved. Without embarrassment they offered several explicit, personal prayer requests—a son on drugs, a husband who spends his evenings watching pornography on the Internet, a sister facing a mastectomy, another woman facing a layoff. Rachel was amazed at the ease with which they laid bare their hearts.

Interestingly, some of the women said that they wanted to praise God for answers to prayer—and they told how things had improved in their lives.

Yeah … I wish things were that simple
, Rachel thought. She remembered how she had admired those women for their faith, all of them Christians like Sandy. But Rachel didn't even know what it meant to have faith. She wasn't a religious person, having grown up in a more or less secular home. Neither of her parents had been to church much, although she had memories of her grandmother being that kind of person—one who claimed to know God and felt at ease talking about that aspect of her life. Rachel identified herself as a Christian, in the way one would say, “I'm an American” or “I am Scots-Irish.” It had more to do with her family background and overall culture. She felt that she was a Christian because she had grown up in “Christian America” and held most of the same values as those who had more clearly identified themselves as Christians—like the Golden Rule or being against murder and other crimes, and obeying the Ten Commandments. Rachel wondered parenthetically how many of them she'd broken.

Her husband was no help when it came to personal faith in God. Peter had always been such a self-sufficient person that he'd probably never considered God as having any particular relevance to his life. And his parents were much like her own—not religious, and only in church on special occasions like Easter and Christmas because it was traditional—not because the family drew any other meaning from it.

Yet…
Rachel recalled how, at the funeral of Peter's brother Jim, there was an officer who had presented the family with the folded American flag and took just a moment to share details of Jim's odyssey of faith.
How could that officer know for a fact that there was a place like heaven
—
and that Jim was there? How can anyone be sure?

Sandy is like that
, she recalled. Sandy had that same quiet, inner assurance and seemed to be at peace with herself.

Rachel stopped brushing her hair and stood up. She glanced at the small alarm clock on her bedside table and decided to give in to an intuitive persuasion. She reached over and picked up the phone. After two rings she heard a familiar voice.

“Hi, Sandy, it's me.… I hope I didn't wake you.”

Sandy laughed. “Are you kidding? Our teenagers are still doing homework, and my husband is watching a ‘Seinfeld' rerun. What's up?”

“Oh, nothing … just wanted to talk. Peter's still away and—”

“I hope you're not still thinking about divorce.”

Rachel chuckled. “The way you came at me the other day, I don't know if I have what it takes to fight
God over
divorce.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Rachel, honey … I didn't mean to come down on you with all that fire and brimstone routine, but I was so scared for you … and what you were going to give up. And I had just heard Dr. Dobson or somebody on the radio that morning talking about how God hates divorce—”

“No, Sandy, you didn't hurt my feelings. I can understand how God—assuming there is one—would be against divorce. I guess …”

“What is it you're
really
afraid of, Rachel?”

“I don't know … honestly, Sandy, I don't know. I'm really mixed up. I guess I'm scared because I don't have the kind of assurance that you have, you know? I mean … when you asked me that question the other day—”

“When I asked you, ‘If you died tonight, do you know for certain that you would go to heaven?'”

“Yeah, that one. I got kind of mad at you for asking it. I thought you were being pretty presumptuous. I mean, how can anyone know for sure?”

“Well, do you believe that there is a God?”

“Yeah … I suppose I do, y'know? I mean, look around at the universe and everything—how could it all just happen? I guess that deep inside I
do
believe in God.”

“OK, and do you remember what we were talking about in Bible study when you went with me?”

Rachel tried to recall the subject that evening. “Wasn't it about what St. Paul said in … uh … was it Romans? In the Bible?”

“Hey, you
were
paying attention!” Sandy said, then added, “Do you remember those verses where Paul talked about how everyone in the world, not just churchgoers, have sort of a built-in antenna that tells them that there really is a God?”

Rachel laughed, “Is that what it says in the Bible—built-in antenna?”

“I'm paraphrasing,” Sandy said with a chuckle. “Anyway, what he said was that everyone knows at least
some truth
about God because God has revealed His existence and something about Himself to every culture. There's something within our hearts that understands that God exists—that the invisible qualities of His infinite love, eternal power, and righteousness all have a ring of authenticity in our hearts and minds. That's because He established something called ‘moral law' in us. Deep down, we know the difference between right and wrong because God is righteous and we aren't.”

“OK, I think I understand that and can accept that.”

“Well, Paul says that if God exists then so does His righteousness. And he says that the trouble with human beings is that not one of them has ever measured up to God's standards of righteousness. Paul says in chapter 3—do you remember this part?—that we've all sinned and fallen short of God's expectations and demands. And that brings up the reason for the Christian gospel. He says—in that same chapter 3—that God ‘came by Christ'—that is, He became a man—the Son of God … and
well, you know the rest of the story. Jesus lived a perfect life, preached against living contrary to God's standards—St. Paul calls it sin—and then He was crucified. Paul says, ‘God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement,' and he said that
through our faith in Christ's sacrifice
, we can have forgiveness.”

“How?” Rachel asked bluntly.

“Through repentance, and faith in the fact that Christ really did die for you and your sins.”

Some of what Sandy was saying was still going over her head, but that last statement seemed clear enough. Rachel didn't understand it all, but one thing that she did relate to was the innate ideas of right and wrong. It didn't take Sandy to point out the wrong things going on in Rachel's life. She knew intuitively that although she probably wasn't as bad as a lot of other people, she could certainly, and accurately, be called a sinner. She began to weep quietly, overwhelmed by a sense of guilt. Tears of regret ran down her cheeks but she made no noise and her friend didn't know that she was crying. “It … it's a lot to take in,” Rachel said.

Sandy began telling her again how
everyone
is guilty—that nobody is better or worse in sinning. “Sin is sin, whether it's a biggie or some little one,” Sandy told her, adding, “No one is exempt from the fact that he or she has broken God's laws.” Rachel felt the weight of her enormous guilt. She thought of her adulterous affair with Mitch … of her anger and resentment toward her husband … and she felt absolutely helpless.

“I don't want to live this way,” she admitted to Sandy. “Can you help me?”

“Of course. Do you want me to come over—to talk and pray with you?”

“Not tonight … it's too late, but are you still off the flight schedule tomorrow? Can we meet for lunch?”

“Yes, honey, I'd love to.”

The guilt that Rachel had been feeling gave way to a sensation of being bathed in feelings of love—Sandy's love as her close friend, but it was something more than that—something vague and unfamiliar. It was a perceptible and real feeling. And Rachel recognized it, even though it was impossible for her to describe or quantify it.

She hung up the phone and broke down even more. Her feelings had taken control. Feelings of guilt … pain … loss … then feelings of love … hope … and the sense that at last she might even be able to forgive herself.

Rachel was looking forward to tomorrow with Sandy.

 

Saddam International Airport

________________________________________

Area 12
Baghdad, Iraq
Wednesday, 1 March 1995
1000 Hours, Local

 

Hussein Kamil had made arrangements for considerable pomp and ceremony when the UN nuclear inspectors arrived in Baghdad. There was a band and a news conference to greet the officials and let them—and the world—know that Iraq had nothing to hide.

Kamil summoned one of Iraq's top generals to escort the inspectors to the Al Altheer site they had demanded to see. They would, of course, find nothing at all suspicious. The UN personnel insisted on bringing their test equipment and video cameras. There was no objection by the Iraqis, and the general led a procession that even included TV journalists. They were underway in less than an hour after the UN plane landed.

Leonid Dotensk's flight from Kiev had arrived a day earlier in Damascus, and he had flown into the Baghdad airport, three hours ahead of the UN aircraft. He had also checked in with General Komulakov, who
reported that the first wire transfer of 50 million Swiss francs had cleared at the Kiev bank.

Dotensk looked for Kamil in the crowd, but decided to try and meet him when he left the entourage. Dotensk went toward the UN aircraft parked on the tarmac. Security was everywhere at the airport, but some of the elite officers knew Dotensk on sight, and knew that he was an important man who often met with their commander. When the Iraqi Army major saw Dotensk trying to get past the guards, he waved him in.

Dotensk and Kamil got to the area beside the plane at about the same time.

“Good day, my friend,” Dotensk said. “I want to introduce you to your nephews.”

Kamil smiled and looked among the faces in the hangar until he saw his two nuclear scientists. He motioned for them and the four of them walked out to the portable cargo ramp leading into the plane. Kamil strode up the ramp into the plane's cargo hold. Dotensk and the two scientists followed.