Martha finds me again seeking consolation from the hummingbirds at Capon Springs, and sits next to me.
“I checked with all of my contacts inside Four. I can get you anywhere in North America in secret, but none of them can get you across an ocean.”
“Without help from Aislin and Garai, the only thing that can save me now is money. Lots and lots of money that we don’t have.”
Martha’s head snaps towards mine.
“Money? How can money save you?”
“Spoken by someone who never wanted or needed large amounts. This is still the world built by men. With enough money, you can hire a high speed transport and a crew that will take you anywhere, with no questions asked and no paperwork filed.”
“There’s another Four secret you need to know. Something I haven’t told anyone.”
“Are there members of Four that are super rich?” I ask.
“Only one.”
Martha looks away.
“Great. How quickly can we contact him?” I say.
“Immediately.”
She looks at the porch floor.
“What’s the problem?”
“I should have told you weeks ago…”
Please, not another fight over Four’s secrets.
“Go on.”
“It’s you, Cephas. The super wealthy member of Four is you.”
“Me? I’ve done well with books, but I’m hardly super wealthy. Besides, Henry froze all of my assets the day we escaped.”
“Do you remember giving me control over all of your affairs while you were on the Traveler’s Initiative? While you were gone, I moved every penny as soon as it came into your accounts, and from there made it disappear into accounts that I control. For the record, you did make a bundle on book sales while you were back in time, but that’s not where the bulk of your money came from.”
“I don’t understand. Where did money come from, if not my books?”
“Inheritance.”
Her eyes again drop to the floor.
“The only relative I know is Aunt Jennifer and she’s not dead.”
“Jocie revised her Will the day before you all time-travelled and she left it all to you.”
“She left everything to me and because estates are required by law to probate within seventy-two hours after death, you made it all disappear. But why would she leave everything to me?”
“Only she can explain that,” Martha says. “Her Will included a password-protected video message for you. The instructions say the password is your poem. What does that mean?”
“When we were training for Travelers, Jocie and I spent a lot of time together. I found out she wasn’t the person I thought she was. We spent evenings in my room discussing the Bible. I shared with her the end of a poem I wrote when I was eight and trying to cope with the death of my parents. I had no idea it had made such an impression on her.”
Martha looks hurt that I shared such personal information with Jocie.
“Jocie said you could look inside people and see their souls. It sounds like you shared some very special, intimate moments with her. Like you looked into her eyes the way you used to look into mine. Jocie wanted sex from you, but she got something much more special.”
My eyes begin to well up.
“So what did you tell Jocie about her soul that touched her so deeply?” Martha asks.
“I told her that inside her I could see just a tiny flickering spark. If she had known more about souls, she would have been insulted by it. I told her she could grow the spark into a flame by feeding it with kindness and caring for others. She heard Christ’s message, and just before she died, she told me I’d saved her.”
I feel a tear roll down my cheek, which Martha catches with her finger.
“You were trying to care for her soul? Someone like her?” Martha asks.
“Christ would say a wounded soul like Jocie’s needs our care the most.”
I can see Martha is feeling a little foolish that, even in death, she allowed Jocie to get under her skin again.
“All souls are special to the Lord,” I say. “But your soul is the one that’s far and away the most special to me. It has been for quite a while now.”
We stand there for a long while, until she looks at me brightly and stares into my eyes. I see a soul that’s like an inferno. At our fight in the woods, she said she still loves me, but I haven’t said it to her. I don’t know what’s holding me back.
“Would you like to see Jocie’s last message to you?” she asks.
“It’ll have to wait. We need to arrange for a transport to Egypt; but first we need to get from here to a major airport. You said you could get me anywhere in North America. How do members of Four get around without being noticed?” I ask.
“It isn’t the glamorous mode of travel someone with your wealth can afford. We figured out long ago that tube cars filled with cargo instead of people have very low security. They’re not comfortable, but they get you where you need to be. Those of us who are “on grid” tend to work for courier services and sneak members who are “off grid” into the cargo cars.”
“Couriers? What sort of things do they carry?”
“Anything that needs to be hand-carried but mostly valuable things for rich people and sometimes transplant organs.”
“What about papers?”
****
As we arrange our trip to Egypt, I send Martha’s cousin, William, on a mission to watch cargo cars coming and going from Washington D.C., and it turns out that the government is using couriers to move top secret papers around the country. They aren’t just any couriers though; Henry’s using cult hunters. William poses as a courier carrying a kidney for transplant and manages to look at one set of papers, when the cult hunter carrying them falls asleep. It isn’t good news.
“We have to tell Zip,” Martha says, when William finishes his briefing.
“I know,” I reply. “I just wish there was another way. You know she’ll use the information to kill as many cult hunters as possible.”
“Maybe not.”
I look up at Martha rather than replying and she sighs.
“We still have to tell her.”
“Make the call,” I reply.
When Zip’s image comes onto the screen, I force myself to look away from her fractal tattoo.
“I see you haven’t been erased from time yet, Cult Hunter. Too bad.”
“Time is the most complex puzzle of them all, and one we should all pull together to make sure Henry doesn’t break. Speaking of pulling together: we have information that says the Corps is laying traps using bait we didn’t think you’d be able to resist.”
“Let me guess. Somehow the home addresses of a few of the Cult Hunter Corps are going to slip out to the public. Once my team enters the house, it’ll find the house surrounded. I heard about the paper production and figured out the couriers myself. We’ll see who ends up in a trap.”
“A good trap is a lot like that fractal on your neck, Zip. Sometimes it’s the larger pattern that hides the tripwire. Please don’t make the same mistakes as your brother.”
I start to raise my hand to signal Martha to terminate the connection.
“Don’t pretend you know me,” Zip says. “You don’t know me or my family at all, especially Zach. If you did, you’d know that he’ll have the last laugh on you in the end.”
Of course.
I lower my hand.
I turn to look at Martha through the control room door.
“Martha, was there any nonsense code in the tracker program? Specifically, did the alphanumeric sequence ‘JER5024’ show up in a few random spots?”
“How’d you know that?” Martha asks.
I turn back to Zip, who is now looking uncomfortable.
“I never met your brother, Zip, but I knew him. Zach’s favorite verse was from Jerimiah 50:24: ‘I’ve laid a snare for you, and you are caught.’ Zach created that tracking program and you somehow gave it to Henry.”
“When we were kids, he’d say that verse every time he tricked me in some way,” Zip replies.
“Zach would be ashamed. You shared childhood memories and thoughts and opinions with him, but please believe me that, through his codes, I understand his passion and his faith in ways that you couldn’t. As I broke down his code, I could see his sense of humor, his boldness and even his fears. Those are the memories I shared with him.”
“A serial killer shares the memory of his victim’s last moments and I wouldn’t celebrate those memories either. If Henry is successful in changing the last few months, then I’ll never meet you, Cephas. Instead I’ll have nothing left of you but the wonderful memory of where I was when I heard my brother’s killer was dead. From my perspective, that’s the only memory of you worth keeping.”
****
As we walk to the Bethany command center in silence, Martha gently takes my hand. She starts to raise her hand to put her hair up into a bun, but relaxes her arm without any prompting from me. I see more than a few smiles at the sight of us entering the command center hand-in-hand. Blake calls Martha to his station, but when I try to follow, Amelia intercepts me.
“Not now. Blake needs a minute with Martha.”
“As long as it’s good news, he can have all the time he needs.”
Amelia remains stony-faced.
“Amelia?”
“We’ve all watched your meetings with the other Four houses and with the elders, and even the call you just made to Zip. She sends us each messages daily to join with her and I must admit she makes a pretty good case. For all of our lives, we’ve dreamed of striking back and she’s offering us a chance to do it. Blake is calling a staff meeting to discuss the future of Bethany House, and we’ve all agreed - that whatever we choose to do - we’ll make our stand together.”
“I take it I’m not invited.”
“Actually, Martha isn’t invited either.”
****
“He refused to explain the basis of the meeting?” I ask.
Blake asked us to leave for one hour; so Martha and I are throwing knives.
Martha’s throws enter the wood straight and perfect every time with a soft “whap,” while mine clang against the target sideways and end up on the ground.
“All he said is that he knows I’m under pressure to commit Bethany House to Zip’s combat brigade, and the staff wants to discuss relieving me of that burden.”
“Can they do that?”
“We’re not an army. If the whole house is determined to join Zip, then I should be the one to leave. I just can’t believe Blake is behind this. He isn’t exactly the coup d’état type.”
Whap. Clang.
Martha’s target looks like a porcupine. Mine looks like someone spilled a drawer full of cutlery on the ground in front of it.
“You’re not stepping into the throw and your release is sometimes too early, and sometimes too late,” Martha says.
I attempt another throw, while taking a better step, and miss the target entirely.
“I hope my life never depends on you throwing a knife,” Martha says. “Get into your throwing stance and let’s see what we can do.”
She steps behind me and lays her hand over mine so we’re both holding the knife then presses against my back to mimic my stance.
“You’re all hunched over so your hips are tilted forward.”
She grabs me around the chest with her free arm and pulls me up, while pressing her hips into me from behind to straighten me.
“Now begin your throwing motion slowly.”
As I begin, my butt shifts back a little and she applies pressure with her hips again to correct me.
“By hunching, you’re not getting a proper rotation or weight transfer. Start again and stop where you think you’d release the knife.”
I again begin to hunch and she again presses against me. I stop at my usual release point.
“You’re still just a little too early.”
We repeat the exercise again and again, until she’s satisfied; then says we’re going to try to throw together at low speed. The first two attempts result in the usual clang, but the third sticks softly in the target.
“Now full speed.”
“Together? Won’t that be pretty awkward?”
“If you do it right, we’ll be synchronized and you’ll never know I’m here.”
I line up for the throw, but as I step into it and release, my old habits return. Martha attempts to correct me, but we’re both off balance and start to fall. I try to twist out of the fall and end up on my back, with Martha on top of me. She shows no signs of leaving.
“I take it you’d rather go back to fighting with sticks?” Martha asks. “At least now I know what’s been throwing you off balance.”
No words come to me.
“You seem to have hit your target,” she says as she sits up, still straddling me.
I wonder what shade of red my face must be.
“Twice.”
I follow her gaze and see the knife I threw is in the bulls-eye.
****
By the time we’re summonsed back inside the house, every knife I throw is sinking deep into the target, though my overall aim is still fairly random. Blake asks us to join the staff in the command center, which we again enter hand-in-hand.
“Martha, you’ve been a great team leader. In the months you’ve been here, everyone’s skills have been expanded and sharpened. I’d even go so far as to say we’re now Four’s only combination technical and light-combat team.”
“But?” Martha says.
“But we’ve come to believe there’s more this house needs to accomplish than training and spying.”
“If you’re going to ask for new leadership, then you might as well do it in front of Zip,” Martha says. “Get the whole Council up on the screen if you want.”
Blake is flustered by the idea for a moment, but then sets his jaw and says “Fine.” He doesn’t contact the other houses, but he does find Zip and then uses the private frequency to contact Austin as well. Austin must be somewhere on the other side of the world because we can see the lights of a city skyline behind him.
“You’re speaking for all of Bethany now, Blake?” Zip asks. “Good. It’s about time that house gets off the fence.”
“We just can’t take any more of what we’re seeing,” Blake replies. “The Bethany staff has watched the conferences between Dr. Paulson and the Four Council and his conversations with the elders, and we know what needs to be done. We’re ready to do whatever’s needed. We’re ready to fight the good fight.”
“Excellent,” Zip replies. “For some reason, Cameron, my best field commander, has been dying to move to Bethany. I can send him right away.”
“I never said we’re planning to fight for you,” Blake says. “The time machine is a threat to Cephas and to all Christians, but you and the elders have hung him out to dry. Bethany is now unanimously dedicated to finding the time machine and stopping any government attempt to assassinate Cephas. You can cut us off from the Four network if you like, but we won’t allow him to stand alone.”
Zip cuts her connection, but not before everyone sees the sneer on her face.
“You have my full support,” Austin says. “Does this mean you don’t need a new team leader?”
“She doesn’t always say what needs to be said, but we already have the best team leader we could ask for,” Blake replies and the staff applauds.
Blake turns to me.
“The vote was unanimous. We’re all prepared to take this hit for you.”
Thank you, Lord, for sending me a flock to feed.