Chapter One
Burned
I blinked and tried to keep my poise, but it was next to impossible in the face of how I was being torn apart by Chantry. I’d never seen him so irate. Irate at me of all people!
I didn’t deserve any of the condescending rhetoric that he was heaping upon me, but I remained silent. I withdrew protectively within myself trying to limit the impact of Chantry’s words upon me.
I wasn’t the only one within the room. The entire board was in attendance. Chantry’s harsh and unfounded accusations were hard enough to take without the embarrassment of being dressed down before my peers. I had never wanted to do anything but please the people within this room. Small chance of that now.
“Are you even listening to me Utah?” Chantry called out in question.
“Every word sir.” I responded with in a measured tone.
For a brief moment I saw an emotion of some kind flick across Chantry’s eyes, but then he continued on harshly, “This panel, after taking more than a year to deliberate what happened at the Code tower, has found you unforgivably at fault for the massacre that took place there that night. Over 30 of our own highly trained and experienced agents and 200 some commandos, the finest soldiers the world could offer, all dead, because Company G failed in its objective to halt the flow of reinforcements into the city. The depth of your betrayal extends even farther on a personal level for me. By your own words you acknowledge that you left my oldest and closest friend, Shalako, to die while you carried back a dead commando to make yourself look good!”
“He wasn’t dead when I left Shalako and it wasn’t to make myself look good!” I bit out in retort unable to hold back against the injustice of what had been said in this impromptu courtroom.
Chantry didn’t relent in his attack, “And I suppose we have to take your word on that don’t we, because as the only surviving member of Company G there is no one else to collaborate your story, which in your case is fortunate, even as it is unfortunate that justice cannot be given this day for the honorable dead that you are so squarely at fault for! I would have you exiled to a remote island for the rest of your life, if there was but one hint of collaborating evidence to prove your story wrong, but cruelly there is not. Agent Utah Blaine, as this court of your peers has been unable to mount the case by which to see justice done it is my task to inform you that you are no longer an operative of this agency. You are henceforth cast out to make your own way. If you attempt to contact any member of this agency for reassignment your life will be forfeit. If you divulge any sensitive knowledge, as to the interest of this agency to a third-party your life will also be forfeit. Do you have any questions?”
“No.” I said coldly at an end, with these close minded friends, suddenly turned enemy.
“Then get out of here and may God have mercy on your traitorous soul and forgive you for the noble blood spilled that you’re at fault for!” Chantry said roughly in conclusion.
I stood up so abruptly that my chair fell over backward and I kicked it out of my way viciously to slam into pieces against the desk, then I almost tore the double doors of the council room off their hinges, because I had shoved them so hard. They slammed shut behind me.
I was mad!
They spoke of betrayal, what did they know of it?
I had been the one betrayed here today and because of it my honor was now in shreds. They had taken my respect and thrown it in the gutter and trampled all over it!
In my anger my fist shot out and smashed a red terra-cotta flowerpot. It fell in pieces to the stone terrace steps that I was going down. Its pretty flower arrangement lay strewn about, as potting soil stained the pristine surface of the steps.
I starred at the destruction for a moment. The poor flowers hadn’t deserved their fate, just as I hadn’t mine. I thought about scooping the flowers up, but it was useless as there was no longer a containment vessel for them, or for that matter, me.
The flower’s brief time in the sun and appreciation in the eyes of their beholder’s was over. Now they would just wither and die, as they lays uprooted and strewn across the hot steps, as the sun beat down mercilessly on their exposed roots and bruised foliage. All ability to be of good purpose was gone from them now.
Bitterly, I turned away and made my way down the rest of the stairs still mad enough to kill, because of the enormity of what has just been taken from me this day. It was as if I had sacrificed everything on behalf of my family, only to be scorned and rejected by them, because of trumped ludicrousness.
What they insisted and railed against me was so wrong!
Company G had killed thousands of the enemy and we had halted the advance into the city to a snail’s pace. How was I to blame for anything let alone the loss of so many of our own agents against such superior numbers?
In short it seemed like a no-brainer to me and yet why did they hold me responsible for the loss of so many men?
I had fought valiantly, doing everything I had out of honor and I was excoriated by my own kind as something worse than the gunk one would scrape off the bottom of one’s shoe and discard as soon as possible.
I swung over the side of my convertible’s door and slipped into the seat and fired it up to life. I gripped the wheel hard, as the urge to leave a burnout streak going up the immaculately concrete stamped driveway became an almost overpowering urge.
I gave up on that childish notion and looked heavenward and said, “I just don’t understand!”
Sighing, I put the car in gear and started out fast, but with no black streak of tires left behind. In search of inspiration I switched the radio onto a Christian station I listened to in this area. An old song came on and the words hit me hard.
“I just don’t understand. These lies I’ve been living…………….”
I shook my head, as the words of the song echoed over and over in my head. There had to be a reason as to why all this was happening. I just had to find out what it was and perhaps find some redemption in the situation, if that was still even an option.
Regardless of what anyone said or thought I knew what the truth was and so did God.
Chantry sipped from his fourth glass of wine. He couldn’t handle the effects of alcohol anymore and he knew he’d pay later for this overindulgence on his part, but right now he was drowning his sorrows. Today had been awful!
The sight of the genuine hurt and betrayal in Utah’s eyes had made his soul cringe, but it had proved something about the young man and that was that he could be trusted.
The glass of wine was pulled from Chantry’s fingers and dumped into the shrubbery, along with the rest of the bottle. Chantry looked up into Maria’s unsmiling face of poised beauty. She wasn’t happy with him, even perhaps a little mad at him. She was always silent, when she was truly mad.
Chantry sighed and looked back down. He knew he frustrated her when he didn’t take care of himself, but what was the point of living if one couldn’t overindulge a little. Still it had been foolish of him to drink so much and in some ways he felt like a disciplined little boy beneath the intensity of her harsh glare.
Maria turned to go, but Chantry feebly caught at her hand, “Please stay! I’m sorry about breaking my word about the drinking.”
Maria sighed, but turned back around, “You’ve got to take better care of yourself! The world, this Agency, still needs your guiding influence!”
Over the years Chantry and Maria had drawn very close to each other. Chantry wondered if she had avoided adding to her statement of how much she needed him yet. Maria was a serious person and not the type that made many friends, but everyone needed someone to confide in and for Maria it had always been him.
Chantry was worried about many things, but one thing he worried about especially was what would become of Maria when he was gone. That time would be here soon enough and he didn’t yet have an answer.
Maria was strong, but in some ways she was too strong. A big enough force could cause her to break, because of how rigid she was in her control over herself and her emotions that she never really let out. Who would be there to pick up the pieces?
Chantry didn’t know and it kept him up at night, along with his insomnia. There were mysteries about Maria that he had never been able to discern, even though he had prayed and sought answers earnestly for many years in regard to her.
The first mystery was that he knew absolutely nothing of Maria’s origin of birth. Oh she had a cover story that would fool the most acute of observers, but that was all that it was, an elaborate cover. She fit her cover well.
Supposedly, she had been born in Spain to a Spanish mother and an Arabic father. That certainly explained her olive skinned Middle Eastern look well enough, but if Chantry had to guess he would say she was all Middle Eastern with no Spanish added in. Other than that there was little to go on and he had never confronted her on the matter.
Maria hated Muslims with an unreasoning passion, as indicative of a Ku Klux Klan member and a person of black skin color. It was another clue that hinted at an origin in the Middle East and not that of Europe. Once aware of her unbridled aversion to all things Muslim Chantry had made it a point to never assign her to a mission where she could come in contact with large numbers of Muslims, which had been a hard thing to manage over the years.
Chantry had never felt that he had to help win her soul for God, as she already seemed to have faith. A faith that he’d never really seen her practice, but was there nonetheless. He’d gotten the perception that she was angry with God at first, but then once in conversation, in a moment when she had been rarely unguarded with her words, she had said that she was most cursed by God of all the women to walk the Earth. The statement at the time had astounded Chantry and he had asked how that could possibly be, but she’d said no more on the matter.
In addition to her hatred of all things Muslim she hated any male that expressed a desire for intimacy with her and in general she disliked most men other than those she respected such as himself, Flint, and perhaps Tyre. Chantry had at first attributed Maria’s aversion to men to some past sexual abuse and perhaps an overbearing father figure, but in time he had rejected those conjectures of her as well.
He now very much believed that she had never been intimate with a man in her life, whether for pleasure or rape. And as for an abusive father figure she showed no hesitation in regarding him in a fatherly way so that couldn’t be it either.
Maria was such a mystery, but perhaps most intriguing and downright alarming of all was that she did not age. He had known her for a number of years now and she hadn’t aged one day. She tried to disguise it with the artful use of makeup, but wipe it away and you would still see the flawless skinned beauty of a woman of about 25. Beneath the makeup she was the same woman who’d approached him so many years before in search of a job.
Maria’s ageless condition, however it was achieved, was a mystery above all the mysterious things he’d discovered over the course of his wildly varied life. He knew of only one other individual that could boast of such an endless vitality and defy the aging process that all humanity had been cursed with since the Garden of Eden, when man had fallen from grace and perfect unity with the Father, because of sin.
Chantry’s eyes flared wide, as they were lit up by a spark of Divine origin and he exclaimed, “But of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” He chuckled out in glee, as his melancholy mood lifted away entirely.
“Chantry are you all right?” Maria asked cautiously eyeing him up with concern.
Chantry looked back at her, his gaze alive with probing merriment in a way that she hadn’t seen in a long time.
He chuckled again, as he indepthly studied her, which made her nervous. What was he up to?
“Couldn’t be better my dear! I’ve found someone to pick up the pieces so to speak.” Chantry said before chuckling again to himself. He rolled away in his wheelchair with more vigor than Maria had seen from him in over a year.
What did he mean by picking up the pieces?
Was Chantry beginning to lose it mentally?
Chantry’s progress stopped and he swung back around, “I almost forgot in my excitement to tell you……”
Maria held up a hand interrupting him and asked, “What are you so excited about Chantry?”
Chantry smiled warmly at her and said, “I’m excited about you darling. Everything is going to be all right Maria, you’ll see!”
Chantry’s words hit Maria with an impact that struck her to the core, as if they had been prophecy itself.
Chantry went on with what he had been about to say before she interrupted him, “Go find Utah tomorrow and give him his assignment. I believe he’s ready for it and after the hell I put him through today I know that I can trust him, but he’s probably going to be angry so consider yourself warned.”
Maria had for the past several years, since Chantry had been confined to a wheelchair, become his legs helping Chantry to continue administering to the needs of the Agency. She nodded her understanding numbly, as her mind still dwelt on Chantry’s previous words and the impact that they had made on her. Chantry was about to leave again.
A little desperately she called out to him, “Chantry what did you see? What were you shown?”
Chantry rolled up to her and took her hand in his arthritic one. Gazing deeply into his eyes she saw joy and peace and the sight of it caused tears to threaten, which she hastily blinked the evidence of away.
“I was permitted to see a little of the future my dear in concern to you and now I am at peace. Things are going to change Maria, as they always do in life, but be at peace Maria for Divine favor is about to be poured out into your life, until you overflow with it. It will not be taken away this time, but you will have joy and an end and even rest, until all things are made new again and perfection is restored to all of creation. You are not cursed Maria, but you will be blessed and your generations restored.”
Maria fell to her knees, as tears slipped free and buried her head in Chantry’s lap. After a long moment she blubbered out, “You can’t know what you’re saying!”
“No I don’t really, as I don’t know much about you, but I have spoken what I’ve been given to speak and it will come to pass. Your time of bitterness is nearly over.”
Maria cried out softly, “You’re going to die soon aren’t you?”
Chantry nodded, as he patted her head softly with his hand, “Yes, but you’ll be in good hands. I promise!”
Maria didn’t seem to hear him though. The job and the stability that it had brought her was coming to a close. What was she to do then?
She was going to lose her only friend in the world. How could that be a blessing?