Trial by Fire (26 page)

I
ssie smelled the smoke as it began to seep in through the one hole she had to get oxygen, and with her hand she tried to cover it up. But the metal was hot, and she recoiled. She remembered the oily rag she had seen in the trunk and groped around in the cramped space until she found it. Quickly, she stuffed it into the hole. The smoke stopped seeping in. Despite her fever chills, she felt the heat being turned up around her. She closed her eyes and knew that it was almost over.

Soon her spirit would leave her body and it would float into heaven where she would be with Jesus in paradise…just as he had promised the thief on the cross. That was the option he had chosen for her, and it was all right. “Just please, Lord,” she whispered weakly, “please protect Nick and his congregation. You must have angels that could take care of them. You must have ways.”

She heard the fire crackling around the car. Soon the fuel tank would ignite.

She hoped it would be over quickly.

 

C
ruz was a little thrown when he saw Nick running from the area, jumping into that car, and skidding away. And then he heard the sirens and that had shaken him as well, but the emergency vehicles had flown right past Aggie Gaston's house. They weren't coming here.

The possibility occurred to him that they might be going toward the fire. He cursed, realizing he should have ignited the car instead of just the structure hiding it. He had chosen that way to give her a slow, frightening death, in which she felt the heat rising by degrees, and had a long time to think before the car actually went up.

She was probably dead by now, anyway. She had probably died from smoke inhalation, and the fire had probably already claimed the car. If they were about to find her, it was probably too late.

He looked from Jennifer to Harris to Graham, and knew they were wondering when he would give the signal. But Nick Foster was gone. There was no use scattering the flock unless he could take the shepherd too. He wanted to wait just a few more minutes. Maybe Nick would be back.

He gave them the signal to wait, then he checked his watch and decided he'd give it ten more minutes. The service would go on for at least another hour. They had plenty of time.

T
he smoke was like a beacon as Nick got closer, and he felt as if the Holy Spirit was leading him just like the cloud over the Tabernacle when the Israelites were in the wilderness. It was telling him which way to turn, how far to go into the woods…

Behind him the fire truck forged through. The closer he got, the more certain he was that this was something to do with Issie, but he had a terrible feeling that they were getting there too late.

As the cloud of smoke thickened and made it impossible for them to see, he kept driving until he saw the blazing stable up ahead. Then he saw the flames and realized that it was the car inside that was engulfed. He jumped out—ignoring the pain in his legs—and headed for the flames.

Behind him the firemen leaped off the pumper truck and began unwinding the hose. He saw Junior Reynolds, Cale Larkins, and Ray Ford, the chief, working quickly. They ran the hose up to the building and began dousing the flames.

As they pushed the flames down with the water, Nick opened the door. A blue Subaru sat at the center of the building.

“Issieeeeee!”
He bolted in with the hose spraying alongside.

“I've got to open the trunk,” he shouted. “Issie may be in there!”

They kept dousing the flames as Nick ran back to his car for a crowbar, then in just a few deft motions, was able to disengage the trunk lid. Coughing and gagging on the smoke, he threw it open. And then he saw Issie.

She lay limp inside the trunk, her lips dried and cracked, and her face bruised and cut. “Issie!” He lifted her out.

Just then he heard the sirens of the rescue unit and he rushed her toward it. He didn't even wait for the gurney. He just climbed with her in the back of the unit, and Steve Winder immediately began hooking her up to oxygen while Karen Insminger, the medic filling in for Issie, put a mask on Nick.

As soon as she could breathe, Issie's eyes came open. Nick came into her focus and she tried to rise up. “Issie, you're going to be all right. You're okay,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

She tried to grab the mask off of her face, but he fought her to keep it on.

“Come on, Issie. You've got to breathe with the mask.”

She shook her head and tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come out. “Please,” she whispered. She pulled the mask off again. “How many did they kill?”

“How many did who kill?” Nick asked her.

“At your church,” she said. “Wednesday night?”

“It's Wednesday night right now,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

She managed to partially sit up. The urgency in her eyes was startling. “Nick, you've got to stop them.”

“Stop who?”

“Cruz and all the thugs that burned your church down,” she managed to say. “They have a plan…They're at Aunt Aggie's…they're going to kill everybody!”

Steve slowed his ministrations and shot a look up at Nick.

“Issie, just relax. Just calm down and rest a minute.”

“No!” she cried. “You've got to stop them! Don't you see? That's why God led you to me. It wasn't to save me. It didn't
matter
if you saved me. You have to save the church.”

“The church is gone,” he said. “It burned down.”

“Not the building!” she cried, grabbing his shoulders. “The people! Cruz is going to kill them. They have guns…”

Her words rang too true, and he stood there, frozen at the horror of it. “Please, Nick!” she said. “Please go!”

“Issie, are you sure?”

“Yes!” she cried. “Oh, Nick. Be careful!”

He got out of the rescue unit and saw Stan Shepherd getting out of his car. Nick ran to meet him.

“It's Issie, isn't it?” Stan asked. “Is she—”

“Yeah, she's alive,” he interrupted. “But she says they're about to have a shooting spree over at Aunt Aggie's.”

“The prayer meeting?” Stan asked.

“You got it,” Nick said. “We better get over there.”

Stan was already grabbing for his radio mike as Nick got into the car with him.

T
hey had waited too long already, Cruz thought, and he was getting uncomfortable. Darkness was beginning to fall, and soon he wouldn't be able to see his targets well. Jennifer, Redmon, and Graham were getting impatient.

The person giving his testimony tonight droned on and on. Cruz knew the minute he quit, they would begin to pray. Once they did, he didn't know how much longer they would have. Soon they would break up and go home. He couldn't let it happen without doing what they had planned, even if Nick Foster wasn't here.

It was time. He nodded to Jennifer, who nodded to Redmon and then to Graham. They all raised their weapons and got their targets in their sites. Cruz got out a pipe bomb and held it under his arm.

He moved his finger to the trigger and fixed his gun on the one at the front, hoping that would be signal enough to get the others to shoot. His heart began to triple-beat as adrenaline rushed to his head. His finger closed over that trigger.

He heard a click at his ear.

He swung around and saw the barrel of a gun pointed at his head. That same black cop who had detained him the other night stood there with barely restrained rage in his eyes.

“You the one killed my nephew?” the cop asked. The barrel of the gun nudged against Cruz's face, and he almost dropped his weapon. Instead, he got his finger close to the trigger. If he could pull it, the others would shoot and it wouldn't matter that this man had a gun to his head.

“Might wanna drop that gun, scumbag,” Sid said.

Cruz didn't even have to aim the gun. It didn't matter if he hit anything. All he had to do was make the noise, send the signal. He got his finger around the trigger and squeezed.

Bullet fire coughed across the property and he heard screams. And then the others went off and there was gunfire everywhere and people screaming and fleeing for their lives.

Sid grabbed Cruz's shirt, pulled him down, and wrestled the gun away from him. Before Cruz could defend himself, he was handcuffed behind his back.

 

N
ick Foster was already running toward his congregation when he heard the first shot and screamed,
“Get down!”

He threw the six-year-old Hampton twins to the grass and tried to cover them with his body.

He heard shrill, piercing screams around them as more bullets fired, and he prayed out loud, not even sure what he was saying. He saw Dan and Mark racing for their wives, Celia trying to cover her toddler, choir members scattering. He didn't know how many guns were aimed on the congregation, but it sounded like warfare.

And then a sharp pain shot through him, knocking him from the children. He lay there for a moment, trying to utter one last prayer, before all went black.

 

C
ruz lay with his face in the dirt, waiting for the battle to be over. The count of fatalities would be worth whatever he had to pay for this. He had accomplished his mission.

His grandfather's lawyer would keep him out of jail, and he would win.

A bullet fired past him, startling him, and he realized someone was trying to knock off the cop to give him a chance to get away. Cruz got his knees beneath him and raised up, preparing to run for it.

People kept screaming as more bullets fired, and Sid turned to fire back.

And then a bullet jolted Cruz, and cut through his leg. He yelled and fell forward again, and realized that the bullet had ignited a pipe bomb.

He tried to stop the wick from burning, but locked in the cuffs, his hands couldn't reach. He let out a bloodcurdling yell. Sid turned and saw the sparkling wick on the side of Cruz's bloody leg, and dived away to take cover.

The explosion that followed sent further terror shattering through the crowd, as everyone saw Cruz dying by his own weapon.

O
ne by one, Stan Shepherd and the other police officers captured the gunmen and disarmed them. In the wake of the gunfire, people were wailing and screaming and groaning.

Stan waited to make sure that there wasn't another guerilla hiding in the trees waiting until they least expected it. Finally satisfied that they were all accounted for, he headed down the hill.

He looked around at the bleeding people one by one. Eddie Neubig had a gunshot in his hand, and Andre Bouchillon looked as if he was clutching a bloody ear. Louis DeLacy, the town's judge, was sitting up, but he was clutching his knee. Stan could see that it had been shot.

He kept looking around, taking inventory of the wounds, but he saw no one bleeding to death, no one who looked lifeless on the ground, no one unconscious.

And then his eyes came to Nick. He was lying on his back and looked as if he'd been shot in the left side.

“Nick!” he screamed, and several of the men scrambled to their feet to help.

Paramedics rushed down the hill with a gurney and started triage. Stan surrendered Nick to them and tried to see who else was critical. Nick seemed to be the only serious casualty.

He heard sirens coming and saw that other rescue units from surrounding towns were arriving on the scene.

He heard a yell and saw Ray Ford at Nick Foster's side. “Save him!” Ray was yelling. “Get him outta here,
now!”
He ran along beside the gurney, and Stan followed. “Stay with us, man!” he yelled at Nick. “Come on, man! You gotta stay with us! We need you. This church needs you. We can't do without you, man!”

Stan saw Nick open his eyes.

“There you are,” Ray said. “You're with me, ain't ya?”

Nick managed to speak. “I'm with you, Ray. I'm with you.”

“You gon' be all right,” Ray said. “You gon' bounce back. Me and Susan, we gon' be prayin' for you.”

“Speaking terms?” Nick got out.

Ray was crying. “Yeah, man. We're back on speaking terms. God knows what he's doin'. You taught us that.”

Nick managed to smile. “Appreciate that, man.”

Stan watched as they loaded Nick into the rescue unit. Then he set about trying to help with the triage scene that had emerged around them.

T
he waiting room outside the ICU at Slidell Memorial Hospital was full of people from Calvary Bible Church waiting to see if their pastor was going to live or die. Word was that he'd been shot in the left side near the kidney.

Allie and Mark, Stan and Celia, and Dan and Jill huddled together in a corner praying for their friend and spiritual leader, and for the doctors who would save his life if it was going to be saved. Other groups huddled in various parts of the waiting room. Some cried over the trauma that they had all endured; others chattered nonstop with a nervous energy that couldn't be assuaged.

When Ray and Susan came in, a hush fell over the room. They said their hellos to various people, then crossed the room and sat down with their closest friends.

“How is he?” Susan asked.

Allie looked up at her with red, swollen eyes. “It's touch and go, Susan. He may not make it.”

“Well, he has to,” she said. “He just has to.” She burst into tears and Celia pulled her into her arms and held her. “What will our church do without him?”

No one had an answer for that.

Susan wiped her face and pulled back. “I had a dream,” she whispered. “Last night, it was so vivid. I saw Ben.”

Jill's face twisted in pain for the mother.

“He told me he was fine, just fine. That he was havin' a big time up in heaven. That he wouldn't come back for the world, not even if they let him. He tole me we would see each other soon…that it might seem long, but it really wasn't.” She wiped her face and breathed in a sob. “And he tole me I needed to go back to the church, stop blamin' God. That death was the best thing ever happened to him.” She broke down and began to weep, and Celia pulled her back into her arms.

They all clung together and wept, then prayed some more. Finally Celia got up. “I think I'm going to run and check on Issie,” she said. “Somebody needs to tell her about Nick.”

“Nobody told her yet?” Ray asked.

Mark shook his head. “Well, none of us. We've all been kind of preoccupied.”

“You know, she's the one who saved the day,” Ray said.

“How?” Allie asked.

“When we got her out of that trunk, the first thing she told us was that they were planning to ambush the church. If it wasn't for her, there's no tellin' how many would have been dead. Sid woulda never stopped Cruz, and those others woulda emptied their guns.”

Silence fell over them as they realized how close they had come. Allie shivered. “Then we owe her a thank you,” Allie said, “a big one. I'll go with you.”

“I'm going too,” Jill said.

Before they reached the door, Mark had joined them. “Wait for me,” he said.

Dan was behind him, and Stan brought up the rear. Together they marched up the two flights of stairs to Issie's room. They found her lying in bed with cuts and bruises and an IV feeding nourishment into her body. Her brother and sister-in-law sat on the couch near the bed talking quietly.

Allie was the first to knock. Issie's eyes opened partially.

“Issie?” Allie asked, tentatively stepping inside. “Feel like company?”

Issie nodded. “Come on in, Allie.”

They all came into the room, filling one side of it. Slowly they made their way around the bed until they surrounded her. She was pale as death and had dark circles under her eyes. Bruises and a gash colored one side of her face and both eyes. Her lips were cracked. Allie put her hand over her mouth.

“I saw the news,” Issie whispered. “Said nobody was killed.”

“Thanks to you,” Allie said, beginning to cry again. “Oh, Issie, it was awful. We were running, but there was no place to go. If the police hadn't stopped them, there would have been fatalities.” She stopped on a sob, unable to go on.

“We owe our lives to you,” Jill said.

Celia took her hand. “Our children, people we loved.” Her voice broke off, and she caught herself in tears. Swallowing hard, she said, “I really appreciate what you did, Issie.”

“I didn't do anything,” she said. “I just told the truth. I just wish I could have done it sooner.”

“Are you okay?” Celia asked.

“Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be fine,” Issie said. “Just sore and tired. I'm going to have to have a little plastic surgery to clean up the cut on my face, I'll be on antibiotics and fluids for a while, but I'm going to be okay.”

She managed to open her swollen eyes and looked up at Jill and Dan. “Where's Nick? He was really worried about me when they pulled me out of the car, but he hasn't come by to see me.”

Jill pushed the hair out of her eyes. “Issie, Nick was shot.”

Issie sucked in a breath. “Oh, no. I knew it. I knew it.”

“He's in surgery,” Allie said, “but we don't know how bad he is.”

“We'll let you know as soon as we get word,” Mark threw in.

She began to sob, and her brother got up and came to the edge of the bed. He tried awkwardly to calm her with a pat on her hand, but she wouldn't be comforted. “Why Nick?” she wailed. “Why Nick, of all people?”

None of the others had an answer, so they just stood there, weeping along with her.

“I don't get it,” she cried. “I didn't know it was going to be so hard. I thought after I gave my life to Christ that things would get easier, not worse.”

Everyone just stared at her through their tears. “You gave your life to Christ?” Mark asked.

“Yes, in that trunk. And God kept me alive so I could tell them. But why didn't he spare Nick?”

“We don't know,” Allie said, “but all we do know is that accepting Christ doesn't mean you're instantly immune to suffering. Look at all of us, Issie. We've all been through it.”

Issie looked at Mark and Allie and thought about the killer that had gone after Allie two years ago. Mark had even been shot trying to defend her. She looked at Stan and Celia and recalled the poisoning that had almost killed Stan and how Celia had suffered in jail for weeks trying to prove her innocence in the crime.

And then there was Jill and Dan, and it had just been a few months ago that Jill had been held hostage by a man considered a terrorist, and had fought for her own life and Dan's while she tried to help justice be served.

No, she couldn't say that they had been immune to suffering. Even the very church that she had thought was so protected had taken its share of pain. Now it appeared that there was more suffering to be done.

“Then what good is it?” she cried. “What good is it to be one of God's children if you're not taken care of?”

“Oh, but you are taken care of.” Allie leaned over the bed, putting her face close to Issie's. “Issie, you are. Because even if something happens to Nick, we know we'll see him again.”

“It doesn't make it easier,” she cried. “It makes it a lot harder.”

“But we don't have to despair. God has his reasons, and they're bigger and broader reasons than we could even imagine.”

If the words had come from anyone but Allie—the woman whose husband she had once tried to steal—they might have been intolerable. But she was aware that Allie knew the hard way.

“I know this is silly,” Issie said, “but I was in love with him. I know it's ridiculous, somebody like me, falling in love with someone so unattainable. A preacher, of all things.”

“Issie, I think Nick's had a thing for you for a long time,” Allie said. “Maybe God does have a plan for you two. It's not over yet.”

“We have to pray,” Issie said. “It worked before, when I prayed that God would protect your congregation. And he did. He really did. Prayer works.”

She struggled to sit up, and they raised the head of her bed. “Come on,” she said, reaching for their hands. “Everybody, please. We've got to pray.”

They all held hands and stood around the bed of the bad girl of Newpointe, who had been washed and restored and changed, and prayed with her that Nick would be all right.