Underground Zealot 01 - Soon Read online

“It was my decision, but she’s happy, yeah.”

  “Still married?” one asked, proudly showing his own bare ring finger.

  The other two showed theirs as well.

  “Ten years,” Paul said, flashing his ring.

  “Poor boy,” another said. “If I was still married, I wouldn’t be tonight, here on the loose in D.C.”

  “Who’d have thought,” the one next to Paul said, slapping his back,

  “that the babe magnet in our crew would be the only one still married?”

  The others chuckled.

  “And I’d bet cash money you’ve still got the old charm. Am I right?”

  Paul rolled his eyes and, in spite of himself, grinned.

  “You dog! The same old tricks! Am I right?”

  Paul shook his head. “And you still say ‘Am I right?’ after every sentence.”

  “Like I say, some things never change.”

  “Except Andy,” Paul said, solemn again. “Hey, listen, before this thing gets started, what do you know about his death?”

  The three glanced at each other. “Just what was on the news. Why?”

  “Just wondering. I hadn’t heard from Andy in years. I was really shocked. Have you seen his wife yet?”

  They shook their heads.

  “And he had kids too, right?”

  They nodded.

  An elderly man in full dress blues stepped to the podium and called the service to order. “We come this day to celebrate the life of Andrew Edward Pass, born 12 November A.D. 1989, died at age fifty-six, 22

  December 36 P.3. He decided on a military career following the first terrorist attacks on the United States in September of A.D. 2001, two months before his twelfth birthday. He later joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps, eventually became a distinguished military graduate, and graduated with honors from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He excelled as a second lieutenant during the U.S.

  invasion of the Middle East and quickly climbed the ranks with outstanding and heroic service to his country during World War III. He reached the level of command sergeant major of the First Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta, better known as Delta Force. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please rise if you served or trained under Sergeant Major Pass at any stage of your military career.”

  Paul and his buddies stood, and he was surprised to see about half the crowd also rise.

  “Would the rest please stand and join me in singing ‘America the Beautiful.’”

  Paul knew from his course work that this was one of the religious-based patriotic songs that had different lyrics since the war.

  O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain!

  For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.

  America! America! We pledge ourselves to thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

  After the song the host announced that Major Pass’s daughter would deliver the eulogy and invited anyone else who wished to offer a word of remembrance to come up afterward. A beautiful young woman stepped from the front row to the microphone. She clutched a matted tissue in one hand and a tiny, wrinkled sheet of paper in the other. Her voice was thick; her throat sounded constricted.

  “My name is Angela, and I am Andrew Pass’s only daughter. It touches our family deeply that so many are here, though I confess we are not surprised. The influence Dad had on you that caused you to carve out the time to honor him in this way is not foreign to us. He had the same effect at home.

  “Did you find him tough and demanding? We did too. Did you ever find him unfair or harsh? Neither did we. Did he challenge you to look within and yet beyond yourself for resources you never knew you had?

  Did he push you and inspire you to heights you never might have reached otherwise? Then you knew my dad.

  “Dad couldn’t hide his frustration and sometimes even his disdain for what happened to his beloved country before his children were born. But he was a man of deep, deep belief and conviction, and it was borne out in his life. We take comfort today that he lives on. In everything good about you and me, he lives on. And as long as people walk the earth who were shaped in some way by this unique man, he will live on.”

  Try as he might, Paul could not detect in anything she said any suspicion about her father’s death. Nor did he perceive anything that hinted at Andy’s subversive activity—though the line about deep belief could be taken more than one way. His anger flared, and he turned to scrutinize the mourners in the surrounding seats. The NPO agents he’d spotted earlier would be photographing and identifying everyone in attendance. Somewhere among them was the snake who had bitten Andy, injecting him with the poison that bred zealotry and violence and which ultimately cost him his life. If a staunch soldier like Major Pass could succumb to the lure of make-believe, no one was immune.

  If I could get my hands on that fanatic—that killer . . .

  A line was forming to the left of the podium. Paul felt the eyes of his army buddies on him . I was Andy’s favorite. He wrestled to reconcile his fury with his undeniable debt of gratitude to Andy for being a virtual surrogate father to him in the army . Whatever Andy had become, Paul decided, he deserved to be commemorated for the past. He rose and took his place at the back of the line of speakers.

  When Paul’s turn to speak came, he noticed Angela’s double take when he identified himself. He struggled for the right words. “The two years I served and trained under Major Andrew Pass remain the most pivotal of my life. Andy Pass represented everything the army had to offer, and he was the one we had to impress to remain among the select.

  But beneath his drill-sergeant style was a kernel of humanity that I, for one, never detected in other superior officers. When he recognized that I not only obeyed but also enjoyed every torturous task he dished out, he rewarded me—as he did so many others—with respect and friendship. I just want to say that he changed my life. He made me want to excel and to treat others the way he treated me. I hope I can live up to his model.”

  Later, Paul stood in line to file past the bier and greet the family. He was surprised when Angela broke from her place in the receiving line and approached. “So you’re Paul Stepola,” she said, smiling through tears and taking his hand in both of hers. “Daddy spoke so highly of you.”

  Her dignity and warmth had been evident when she spoke, but up close her beauty was disarming. And she smelled of lavender. Despite his anger at her father and the gravity of the occasion, Paul’s attraction to Angela was immediate, intense, and visceral.

  “Oh, surely not,” he managed. “Your dad had so many trainees and subordinates over the years—”

  “I’m totally serious,” she said. “You must have epitomized what he was looking for in Delta Force. I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

  Paul could barely murmur how pleased he was to meet her. Wild thoughts coursed through his brain . Though no stranger to the power of seduction, he had never before felt this kind of instant, overwhelming connection to any woman—not even Jae.

  Good thing she’s not here.

  “Your remarks were perfect,” Angela said. “It was obvious you really knew him.”

  “Well, Angela, he meant a lot to me—to all of us. I hope we get a chance to talk some more about him one of these days.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I would love that.” She let go of his hand to gesture toward two young boys. “Those are my sons, and I’d like to introduce them to you.”

  “Certainly,” Paul said, sobering. So she was married. Well, so was he.

  He shook hands with the boys, and both had to be coaxed to look him in the eye and tell him it was nice to meet him. Paul slipped Angela’s business card into his pocket.

  * * *

  The burial was restricted to family. Walking to the parking lot with his buddies, Paul declined their invitation to lunch because of his flight. Their departure left Paul once again isolated in his anger. Unready to head back t
o the car, he veered off the pavement into the snow-covered cemetery.

  Tromping past the rows of headstones and the Robert E. Lee and John F.

  Kennedy memorials, Paul moved into a section where all the headstones were cross-shaped.

  A plaque read: Religious symbols were common before World War III, when it was the custom for every enlisting soldier to declare his denominational preference.

  Paul spat in disgust.

  As he walked on amid the tombstones, his outrage mounted. Life had been torn from all these young men and women—so many barely out of their teens—and for what? Because fanatical Muslims waged holy war on the West? Because religious groups in Bosnia jockeyed for primacy? On and on it went, back to the dawn of history, people persecuting each other over abstract ideas. That their tombstones symbolized the ideas they died for seemed the cruelest of ironies.

  And what were these ideas about? Outlandish notions of an afterlife.

  Sure, it was hard to imagine that this life was all there was. Paul could identify with the need to believe there was some form of nirvana in the end. He’d like to have known his father, and, short of that, to think he might still meet him one day. But were such wishes worth killing for?

  dying for? His mother was right. That these religious fanatics all thought they knew the truth—with many convinced that theirs was the only truth—proved they all were deluded.

  Even worse than delusion was the compulsion to inflict delusion on others—to corrupt even strong-minded men like Andy Pass.

  Paul’s stomach was empty and his feet were cold. He had worn nothing over his shoes, not planning this foray into the dead zone. He headed back for his car, turning to look at the crosses that seemed to line up all the way to the horizon. I hope it gave them some comfort. And yet here they lie.

  * * *

  By the time Paul got back, Jae had everything packed and the kids ready to go. Once the pile had been transferred to the car, the good-byes began.

  Ranold held Paul’s arm to slow him as he approached the car. While Jae was getting the kids buckled in, the old man spoke quietly. “You may not have done the best for yourself, attending that funeral.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Paul, the agency is focusing more and more on homegrown subversives. If it comes out—the truth about Pass, I mean—and it’s known that you went to his funeral, that you were old friends—”

  “I didn’t go as an old friend.”

  “Whatever made you go, it was imprudent.”

  “You’re saying it could hurt me inside the agency?”

  “Of course.”

  “That would require my knowing the truth before I went, now wouldn’t it?”

  Ranold pressed his lips together. “You did know. I told you.”

  “Then I would be in trouble only if anyone in the agency knew that you had told me. Am I right? Surely I can count on you to sit on that . . .

  Dad.”

  3

  Paul was relieved to wake up in his own bed in Chicago Sunday morning.

  The winter sun flooded through the windows and glinted off the clean, crisp snow. Jae was already downstairs with the kids, and he could hear them clamoring to go ice-skating.

  “I guess they felt cooped up at my parents’ house,” Jae said when he joined them at the breakfast table. “It might do us all good to get some exercise and fresh air.”

  “Could you take them?” Paul said. “I don’t feel like skating, and I want to make more headway at my mother’s house. I want to clear everything out over the holidays and get the house ready to put on the market.”

  “We could all come and help you.”

  “No, thanks. You’ve done plenty. Most of what’s left is that stuff she saved, which no one can really go through but me.”

  “That seems depressing after a funeral.”

  “It’s what a funeral puts me in the frame of mind to do. ”

  * * *

  The truth was that Paul had felt cooped up too. He craved an afternoon alone. After letting himself into his mother’s house, he stood in the front hall and relished the quiet. His mother had spent her whole adult life in the neat suburban home where Paul grew up, with a live-in caretaker after she’d begun to lose her faculties. During her last few years, she was increasingly gripped by dementia, unable even to recognize her son and grandchildren. Last Wintermas, Paul had set up a tree for her, though he could tell she had no idea it was there.

  Though most cancer was now curable, certain strains defied the best efforts of modern science. A century of study had yet to unravel the intricate mechanisms of the brain. For Paul’s mother, cutting-edge treatments had served only to slow the virulent disease. All the doctors could do, Paul had been told, was keep her comfortable until the end. His mother’s death, when it came, was anticlimactic, for Paul had said good-bye years before.

  The upstairs rooms were now empty, but Paul had not yet tackled the basement, jammed with a lifetime of mementos. A trash can by his side, he began sorting through the dusty boxes. Financial transactions had been electronic for decades, so Paul was surprised to find a cache of checks used before the war—carefully filed and made out in dollars, United States currency when each country had its own. For all her tidiness, his mother was a pack rat. He plucked out a few checks to show the kids and jettisoned the rest.

  By early afternoon he had cleared out half of the storage space. Now he started unearthing artifacts of his parents’ marriage. His mother had given him many of his father’s papers, photos, and possessions long ago, and he remembered seeing some of these, the ones she kept, when he was young. He came upon his parents’ marriage license, their wedding invitation—the celebration had been held in a hall on an army base—and a ribbon-tied stack of old-fashioned greeting cards, with graphics on the front and preprinted messages inside, congratulating his parents on his birth. Beneath these was a heavy, cream-colored vellum envelope with the remains of a flattened blob of a dark red wax on its flap—a broken seal, Paul supposed.

  Clapping the dust from his hands, he picked it up and turned it over.

  On the front was the inscription, in strong black letters: “For My Son on His Twelfth Birthday.” Paul remembered that one of his schoolmates had gotten such a letter, written by his parents on the day of his birth and expressing their hopes for his future. He had asked his mother about it, but she professed ignorance of the tradition. So where did she get this one? He slid out the letter inside and was surprised to see the date of his own birth at the top of the page.

  My beloved son,

  Your birth today was a miracle, filling me with a joy greater than I have ever known or thought possible. Holding you for the first time, I felt blessed . . .

  Paul paused at the peculiar, antiquated word.

  . . . with the ultimate earthly gift. One day you will hold your own child and understand the profound depth and breadth of a father’s love.

  The day you read this letter you will turn twelve. On the threshold of manhood, you will be old enough to understand another kind of love—the love of God. It is a much maligned love at the time I write. There have been persecutions and terrorist acts around the globe—supposedly undertaken in the name of God, as different groups construe Him—which have drawn us into world war. Many, your mother among them, have turned away from a God they see as the root of the world’s misery. But you must not turn away, Son. First, God’s love transcends all earthly gifts, even the gift of your birth for me. God so loved the world that He sacrificed His perfect, only Son, who died on the cross to save us.

  Accepting that love has been the most important and fulfilling decision of my own life.

  The second reason is that God’s Son has promised to return in glory to gather up those who believe in Him. The Bible tells us “He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe away all their tears.”

  But those who have rejected God will face a very different fate: punishment and suffering beyond anythin
g we can imagine or have ever managed to inflict upon each other. The end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, describes in vivid and terrifying detail what will befall those who incur God’s wrath.

  This may happen in your lifetime, Son. Many scholars see our current world conflicts as the fulfillment of the Bible’s ancient prophecies. The Gospels tell us that we must be ready at all times,

  “for the Son of Man will come when least expected.” And in Revelation, the Lord Himself reminds us several times, “I am coming soon.”

  I hope to be at your side when you read this letter. But if I am not, I hope I will at least have had time to educate you in these things as soon as you were old enough. Otherwise, you must seek the truth for yourself. I urge you to open your heart to the truth—to become not just a man but also a man of God.

  Your loving father,

  Paul Stepola Sr.

  Paul stared, aghast. His father had died when he was too young even to have a memory of him. He had formed an image of the man from his mother’s photographs and stories, as well as those of his fellow soldiers, who invariably depicted him as noble and brave, honest and warm—a hero and a trusted friend. Until last week, ironically, those were the same terms he would have used to describe Andy Pass. How could it be that neither of the men after whom he had modeled himself—the ones he had believed defined what it meant to be a man—was what he seemed?

  This was the only direct communication he had ever seen from his father. And clearly his mother had kept it from him. She had to have been the one who broke the seal—she hadn’t trusted her husband.

  Was she afraid that at twelve Paul would be too susceptible to his father’s words? Did she want to preserve Paul’s illusions—and her own—

  rather than acknowledge that his father was so gullible and cowardly? Was she shocked—as Paul was—that instead of wisdom or inspiration, all her husband had offered his son was a myth about a man who died on a cross and was coming to punish those who didn’t buy it?

  I needed more from you at twelve, Dad. I deserved better. Thanks, Mom, for sparing me this till now.