Solomon's Porch (23 page)

There weren’t many children left in Fallujah, so when Vargas’ marine escort came upon a small group of them, they were immediately suspicious. Aziz and ten other kids, the oldest fifteen and the youngest no more than five, were playing in an empty lot, kicking around something brown and half flat that at one time could have been a soccer ball.

Despite having to endure the hardships of being born in an oppressive society and in a war zone, Aziz was a beautiful child, full of love and hope. Barely twelve, he was already almost manly handsome with bright eyes and a mind to match. Aziz knew who the Americans were. They were his heroes. He loved them because they were getting rid of the men who had taken over his town, the evil monsters who had killed his father and his brother. Aziz had on a light sweater that was three sizes too big for him. Because the raggedy ball was his most prized possession he tucked it under his sweater for safekeeping before he ran toward the American convoy that was slowly pulling up behind his makeshift football field.

That’s when the mortar rounds hit, five in rapid succession. All missed the marines, but it put them on the defensive. They were under attack.

Running out of the smoke was when Jose first saw him, or rather when he first saw an indistinct but obviously human shape, and it was moving straight for his vehicles and his men. Just as he caught sight of Aziz, the platoon started taking rifle fire from the opposite direction. Two of Vargas’ soldiers were quickly wounded.

The American platoon, and by every military protocol quite properly, opened up. They sprayed the surrounding buildings with round after round, hoping to destroy or at least silence the source of the incoming fire.

Aziz was petrified. When the mortars hit at first he stopped. He knew what to do, drop to the ground and lie flat until the fighting was over. But these were the Americans, he told himself, not the cruel gangsters who terrorized his family and his town. To be with them was to be safe. He began to run in the direction of his heroes.

Satan was forcing Jose not only to watch, but to virtually relive his worst nightmare.

When Aziz ran toward the American platoon’s position, so did the other children. Only Vargas and one very raw and frightened young marine private were focusing on Aziz and his buddies, the rest of the men were fully occupied with the wounded and the firefight.

“Please, no.” Jose begged for the vision to stop. He was back there again, smelling the same smells, feeling the same fear, feeding the same hate.

“What’s wrong, Vargas,” the demon heckled. “Big bad marine doesn’t have the stomach to witness his finest hour? You f***ing coward, you worthless pile of s***! You’re a baby killer, that’s what you are, Vargas. You’re scum, not a marine. You’re not even a man.”

Jose watched himself, as large as life and right in front of him, make the same mistake twice. The young marine private could see now that it was children who were thirty feet away from their position and closing fast. He hesitated, couldn’t bring himself to fire despite knowing full well that one or all of them might be carrying enough explosives to send them all to hell.

Jose did not hesitate. He was a professional soldier, a highly trained and disciplined combat veteran in the employ of the United States government. Given the situation, his men were taking rifle and mortar fire, they were pinned down and at least two of them were wounded, there was no time to do anything but react.

General Vargas saw that the lead kid coming at them had something stuffed under his shirt. His hand was also inside his shirt, holding on to something. Detonator! Jose concluded.

Vargas then unleashed his automatic weapon on Aziz and his friends. When he fired so did his young marine escort, who, of course, followed his General’s lead. Seconds later all of the children were dead, their small bodies desecrated by hot lead.

At that point the skirmish ended. Chaos was replaced by order.

“Dear God, no,” Jose pleaded. “No, no. Lord have mercy on me a sinner. Please Christ, forgive me. Forgive me, Aziz.”

“You murdered innocent boys, Vargas,” the demon accused. “Put them down like rabid dogs. But it was nothing new to you, was it! We’ll just put it on your account.”

The vision continued as Jose and the rest of his platoon carefully moved out from behind the cover of their vehicles to investigate the situation. They were cautious, “frosty” was their term, alert with weapons at the ready. The remaining unwounded marines led the way, very conscious that they had a General behind them to protect.

“F****n’ A, Sarge,” said the young corporal. “These kids were clean. Nothin’ on em.”

The words cut through Jose’s soul like a hot dagger once more, exactly as they had on that day.

Gunnery Sergeant Williams also did not hesitate. He’d been through this before and knew exactly what had to be done.

“Look again, Corporal,” Gunny ordered.

The Corporal did, searching each small corpse thoroughly.

“Like I said, Gunny, nothin’ on em,” the Corporal repeated.

The Sergeant then walked over to investigate for himself. The General was a few feet behind him, watching closely and listening to every word.

“I see an undetonated explosives package right here under this one’s shirt, Corporal! What, are you blind? Do your job soldier!”

The Corporal looked for a third time. All he saw was a deflated and shredded ball stained almost completely red by blood under the boy’s sweater.

“Gunny, I mean come on, Gunny. That’s not a … ” The Corporal’s comments were cut short by his Sergeant’s rifle butt not so gently poking him in the ribs.

“Who is that standing over there, Corporal?” Gunny shouted.

Short of breath from the blow to his chest, the Corporal answered weakly, “General Vargas, Gunny.”

“Damn right it’s General Vargas. Now get off your a** and double time it in the Humvee over to that position about a click south of here where those Army punks have a pile of captured munitions. Get me a proper insurgent explosive device and bring it back here. You read me, Corporal?”

Jose watched as both the Sergeant and the Corporal looked at him, both waiting to see if the General would put a stop to the Sergeant’s plan.

Vargas watched himself look at his men, then silently turn away and walk back to the Humvee to search for his canteen.

“Corporal, if you expect to make it out of here today without my boot permanently shoved up your a** I suggest you get moving!” Gunny yelled.

“They covered for you, Vargas. Your men concealed your crime, made it look all neat and tidy. A nice clean little killing, all right and proper.” The demon was playing his hand now.

“My men loved me,” Vargas explained. “They knew I’d do anything for them, so they did something for me. What they did was wrong, but well motivated. You are a liar if you say that makes them evil.”

“Did I say they were evil? No, I said you were evil. Come on Vargas! Enough of this! We don’t have to see and deal with all this pain. I can take you anywhere you want to go. How about you come with me and we’ll go back to Saigon in ’
70
and sample some of those fresh young Vietnamese delicacies you like so much! Or would you rather stay here with the convicts and pray yourself to death?”

Jose could see Carmela and her angel again and could hear who he swore was Peter exhorting him to command the devil to flee.

Jose prayed once more, this time silently. The demon and his imps were shimmering in the foreground of his vision, fading in and out.

“You beast, you servant of hell, all my life you’ve been with me, tempting me, feeding my weaknesses. It’s over, I’m through, and so are you.” Jose sounded confident now, like a man who was certain of an outcome before a conflict began.

“Vargas, you worthless piece of trash. You can’t get rid of me that easily,” the demon responded.

“Oh yes, he can.”

Entering Jose’s vision now was another angel, brilliant white with large, stately wings. Despite his angelic form, his basic structure was undeniably human; he looked like a white man, about thirty, with light brown, curly hair.

“Gabriel. My old friend! Why must you always intervene to help these wretched creatures? You are more pathetic than they are.”

“Humans are made in God’s likeness and image. Do not mock the Lord, your God and Creator, by torturing them. Away with you.”

Gabriel spread his beautiful wings, and as he did Jose saw a fountain of Light stream from them, a Light more powerful and intense than looking directly into the sun. Before he was forced to look away he saw the Light, the very Uncreated Energy of God, envelope and disintegrate the demon and his imps.

Jose returned to the reality of the world back on the porch, still seated on the folding chair with his brothers now standing over him in a circle, each with a hand on his head or his shoulder.

“My God,” Jose whispered. “My Lord God. What happened? Did you men see what happened?”

“We saw, Jose, we saw,” Peter said, as he knelt down and put his arm around his disciple.

“Then it was real?” Jose asked.

“Very real, General. All of us here saw everything you did,” Saul reassured.

“The demon, he’s … ” Jose looked to Peter for confirmation.

“Gone, brother. You and Gabriel sent him back to hell.”

For the first time since Ramon’s death, Jose Vargas wept. The tears were mixed, some were shed in the godly sorrow he now felt for his sins, and some were shed in joy for the blessing of being liberated and at peace with God. For almost half an hour, one of the toughest and proudest soldiers ever to put on the uniform of the United States Marine Corps cried like a child.

When he was finished, he experienced an emotion heretofore unfamiliar to him; settledness. Jose was “perfected,” to use St. Peter’s term. He had now become the man he needed to be to fulfill God’s purpose for his life.

“I need to tell you men the rest,” Jose said to his brothers. “After that day when the Iraqi children were killed, I made it my business to find out everything I could about them. Two of the older ones were probably insurgents, as if that mattered. But Aziz, he was special.”

“How so General?” Larry asked.

“Aziz was loved by everyone. He was always friendly, looking to help anyone in need. He was also touched by God. Everyone who knew him was better for it.”

“Some months later, after I had quit active combat command and was kicked upstairs, I was back in the states. Someone knocked on my door at Parris Island in the middle of the night. I thought it was an aide with urgent news, but it wasn’t.”

“When I opened the door, there they stood. Aziz and Gabriel glowing in the night air.”

“My God in heaven,” Saul exclaimed.

“I fell to my knees, shamed. I thought for sure they were coming to take me away, to send me to hell where, gentlemen, without Christ, I most certainly belong.”

“Aziz says to me, ‘General, don’t be afraid. I’m in a better place now. I forgive you.’ Gabriel says, ‘The time has come, Jose. What will it be? Will you put your faith in God and become His servant?’ I told him yes. I was then given the same vision all of you men have had, the one of us standing on the porch and fire shooting from the tops of our heads. Then I passed out. Hours later a quite worried corporal had me transported to the infirmary; I woke up there.

“Can you believe it, though? Until now, gentlemen, I still had some doubts. God forgive me. At times I thought I might be losing my mind, even considered the idea that I had been poisoned by some chemical back in Nam and again in Iraq. As you all now know, I’m a very stubborn man.”

“How did you find us?” Peter asked.

“That would involve me, Mr. Kallistos,” Tim Austin interjected. “Gabriel sent me to get him and bring him here.” The men had heard nothing as yet from the seventh disciple.

“That’s right,” Vargas confirmed. “Tim found me fishing in a trout stream out in western North Carolina. He knew things that no one else could possibly know. I’m so thankful God did not give up on me and that He has given me the chance to help put an end to the senseless violence of war.”

“Once more, General?” Kenny asked, puzzled.

“When Gabriel and Aziz came to see me that night, they told me that it was my job to show God’s people that ‘the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.’”

“And how exactly do we accomplish that, General?” Larry wanted to know.

Jose smiled. He was beginning to understand how all of the shapes were arranging themselves to form the picture.

“Why, through you gentlemen, of course. The Lord intends to use us as His tool to demonstrate the futility and evil of national organized murder. I believe, brothers, that very soon we will make believers of millions and enemies of millions more.”

Fourteen

“Do any of the other inmates know?” Peter asked.

“No sir, Mr. Pete. We kep’ it ‘tween us. Not the type of thing one should be broadcastin’,” Malik explained.

“Good, good. Lord have mercy, brother. Who is God going to bring us next? I’m half expecting the Pope himself to stroll in here.”

The seven took a dinner break after hearing General Vargas’ testimony. That’s when Malik pulled Peter aside and told him that Mr. Austin had an “issue” he should be aware of.