A Touch of Betrayal (31 page)

“What do you mean, surrender?”

“Admit your mistakes. Your sins. Ask for forgiveness. Give up trying to run your own life. Turn around, start traveling a different road.”

He prodded the sausages with his fork. That
was
a step beyond belief. A big step. Was he willing to take it?

“There’s more to this than just acknowledging God,” Alexandra said. Her cheek lay against her knees, and her blue eyes searched his face. “Lots of people talk about a higher power—Hindus, Muslims, New Agers. But I’ve given my heart to Jesus Christ, God the Father, the Holy Spirit. My faith is not general. It’s specific. And I have a strong feeling that you and I . . . that we . . . we’re not together, Grant.”

He tossed his empty can into the cardboard lunch box. “I need more time. Time to sort it out.”

She nodded, but the fading light in her eyes said more than her words ever could. There wasn’t enough time, enough faith, enough hope to bridge the gap between them.

Maybe there wasn’t even enough love.

“Add miracles to the list of things in which I now believe,” Grant said as he and Alexandra sat beside a tiny campfire at two o’clock on the morning of their fourth day on Mount Kilimanjaro.

After trekking across the alpine grassland, they had spent their second night in a tin-walled hut at thirteen thousand feet. The next day the party clambered up and over rockfalls, through dry streambeds, and across prickly scrub grass. Frigid air nipped their aching lungs. At midafternoon, they reached the saddle between Kilimanjaro’s two peaks, Mawenzi and Kibo.

Although the saddle was flatter and the climbing easier, the stony scree made for rough going. Gasping for oxygen, the climbers followed a rhythmic pattern—struggle forward a few feet, pause panting, rest ten minutes, stand and totter a few more feet before collapsing to the ground again. Despite nausea and headaches, everyone managed to make it to the last hut at sixteen thousand feet.

“Did you notice Hubert yesterday?” Grant whispered to Alexandra beside the fire. She was sipping a cup of lukewarm coffee as she shivered beneath a blanket. “I bet he threw up fifteen times.”

She covered his mouth with her hand. “Please, Grant. I’m barely keeping this coffee down as it is.”

“But the guy’s been smoking two packs a day, and he’s still with us. It’s a miracle, Alexandra.”

“So, now you believe in God
and
in miracles. Will wonders never cease?”

He chuckled. “Maybe not.”

Grant knew the best part of the climb was yet to come, and he was looking forward to spending it with Alexandra. She, too, had amazed him. Though her face turned pale and she couldn’t sleep at night, and her fingers were too cold and cramped to sketch, she marched doggedly onward. Long ago Grant had realized the woman was tougher than she looked. But this was conclusive evidence of the stubborn determination and sheer willpower that had brought her through two encounters with Nick Jones.

“You know something?” he said. “You’re gritty.”

“What did you expect?” she retorted. “I haven’t had a bath in days. Neither have you, for that matter.”

He laughed. “I mean you’re strong. Determined. I like that.”

“I get my mule-headedness from my father.” She lifted her focus to the moonlit sky. “Daddy wasn’t a quitter. When things got tough, he got tougher. That’s part of the reason he was such a success.”

“Grit is a good legacy to leave. Better than money.”

She nodded. “You’re right, Grant. I thank God for my father and the things he taught me.” She paused a moment, and her voice was wistful when she spoke again. “But he was wrong about people.
I
was wrong about them. Somehow . . . I want to be more open. Even though it might hurt, I want to trust. I just wish . . .”

“What, Alexandra? What do you wish?”

“I wish you could be around to help me work on that. You do it so well.”

“Stay with me.”

She shut her eyes, and the muscles in her face tightened.

“Grant, you don’t know how hard this is.” “Guess again. I’m dying inside, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the altitude.”

He took her hand as the tour guide began to round up the weary travelers for the final ascent. Abandoning their packs and sleeping bags at the third hut, the group donned parkas, gloves, mufflers. As they started forward, their destination emerged. Ahead in the moonlight a cinder cone, an impossibly steep slab of solid black, rose two thousand feet into the night sky.

“Wait a minute,” Hubert, the chain-smoker, panted, coming to a halt. “We’re not climbing
that
, are we?”

“Don’t worry,” Grant said. “The path zigzags.”

The man turned toward him, his eyes dull. “I’m not going.”

“Sure you are, buddy. All you have to do is walk twenty feet one way, turn, and walk twenty feet the other way. Then do it again. It’s not a problem.”

“No,” the man said firmly. “I . . . can’t . . . breathe.”

“None of us can.” Grant slipped his arm under Hubert’s. “Come on, we’ll make this a team effort.”

Alexandra hesitated only a moment before taking the man’s other arm. “You can do it, Hubert.”

Coughing, he took a tentative step forward. Then another. Grant had forgotten how terrifying the cinder cone could be. It was so steep, so dizzying, that one look down could send a person reeling with vertigo.

Gasping, panting, sucking in one chilly breath after another, the travelers ascended the zigzag trail. By the time they were halfway up, Grant considered each footstep a major victory. Hubert dragged his feet over a stony rock, then through a patch of snow.

“Snow in Africa,” Alexandra mumbled.

“Another miracle,” Grant managed.

Her smile carried him forward the next half mile. With each labored footstep, he played Alexandra’s words over and over in his mind.

You have to go one step beyond belief. You have to surrender.

One step beyond belief. To surrender.

One step beyond.

Surrender.

Surrender.

How to surrender? What to surrender? Grant studied his boots as they crunched down on black cinder.
Surrender the things that stand in the way. Pride. Self-reliance. Intellect. Arrogant doubt.
You
stand in the way, Grant. You depend on yourself. Depend on Christ. Surrender.

Why?

For Alexandra? To make her stay.

No. That couldn’t be the right reason.

Grant’s lungs were bursting with the effort to breathe. He could hardly hold onto Hubert. Gritting his teeth, he took another step. Everything inside him ached. Most of all, his heart ached.

That was why he must surrender. To fill his heart. To heal the wounded emptiness. To bring hope into the wasteland.

A hot tear trickled down his frigid cheek.
Yes, God. I want to surrender. I will surrender.

I do surrender.

Grant reached the last switchback and turned to start up the final few yards.
Turn onto a new road,
Alexandra had said. As his feet took the final steps to the peak, his resistance broke.
Jesus Christ, I surrender. Guide my feet on this new road.

And then they were there—all of them—standing at the summit and staring down into the wind-whipped crater of the dormant volcano, Mount Kilimanjaro. Hubert burst into tears. Alexandra hugged him. Everyone shook hands. Cameras snapped. The tour guide passed around a flask of coffee. Then everyone sank to the ground to await the sun.

Alexandra snuggled down next to Grant, a little apart from the others, and kissed his cheek. “Miracles,” she whispered.

Grant had the strangest sensation he was floating. But it wasn’t the altitude. It wasn’t even the woman beside him, though he took her hand and folded it within his own. He had expected surrender to bring darkness. He had anticipated a heavy depression at the death of what he had treasured most—the well-integrated sense of himself. The baring of his heart and soul should have brought despair. Instead, he soared.

The stars faded. The moon slipped away. Pink light filtered across the eastern sky, banishing the blackness. An orange hue washed in behind the rose. And then the sun emerged—brilliant rays of burning gold. The snow turned to diamonds.

Grant stared, transfixed. Awed. Humbled. His own significance paled in the glory of God’s majesty. Tears streamed down, and he couldn’t make them stop. Didn’t care.

“I love you.” Alexandra’s words barely registered.

God loved him.
At this moment nothing more mattered to Grant. He understood; his vision was clear; he saw the road ahead.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” she murmured into the wind. “I can’t figure out how to make my feelings for you okay, but I need to tell you. Grant, I love you.”

He bent and kissed the chilly wool of her mitten. How could he speak? How could he convey what was in his heart—for her and for his Lord and even for himself? Wrapping his arms around her, he buried his face in her hair.

Alexandra had said she loved him. Another miracle. A miracle so rare, so precious, the words of response failed to form on his tongue. He kissed the silky strands of gold and held her so tightly she could probably feel the beating of his heart.

“Alexandra,” he tried. “I need . . . need to say . . .”

Whoops of celebration shattered the moment as a second group of climbers emerged at the crest. Grant fell silent, observing the repeat of tears, photographs, and hugs. One of the newcomers, a burly fellow in a heavy parka and ski mask, pumped his fists and managed to do a modified victory tango. Grabbing a female climber, he swung her around twice and gave her a big kiss.

Grant smiled, his own heart brimming with joy. “Alexandra, something happened to me,” he began again. “Climbing the mountain, I . . . saw . . . I understood . . . the reason—”

“Look, everybody!” their tour guide shouted. “The clouds!”

Grant and Alexandra scrambled to their feet. The thick mist that had wreathed the mountain had begun disintegrating rapidly in the early sunlight. As the clouds parted, a sweeping vista unrolled like a carpet. Greens, browns, and golds wove into rich brocade patterns. Villages nestled among patchwork fields of corn and beans. Like thin silver threads, distant roads crisscrossed and then forked into channels of rust red dirt. As far as the eye could see, this majestic Eden rippled on and on, finally fading into distant shades of olive, blue, and purple.

“Where’s my camera?” someone cried.

The stunned awe vanished as suddenly as it had come. Climbers began vying for the best and highest spots from which to photograph the scenery. Not far from Grant and Alexandra, the burly fellow dug around in his backpack and began fitting pieces of his camera together.

Standing behind Alexandra, Grant held her close, sheltering her from the chill wind whipping across the mountaintop. He had to tell her what had happened to him, had to find the words. For a man whose life had been consumed with choosing the right phrases to convey folktales of mystery and wonderment, he was at a loss to explain the puzzling miracle that had just occurred in his own life.

Paradoxical phrases tumbled around, tangling his tongue.
Surrender had brought victory. Death had led to new life. Sacrifice had allowed healing. Darkness had transformed into light.
Ironic. Confusing. The experience of transformation defied analysis and explanation, yet it demanded revelation.

Grant took a deep breath.

“It’s about God,” he said. “Jesus Christ. Alexandra, a few minutes ago . . . while we were on the last few steps of the cinder cone . . . I finally understood.”

“Understood what?” She lifted her head. “Grant, what are you trying to tell me?”

“Surrender. I know what it means. I get it now.” Still searching for the right way to explain, he focused on the other climbers in the distance. The burly man had assembled his camera. Now he lifted it and swung it into position.

“I saw my own life for what it was,” Grant continued. “The emptiness overwhelmed me and I knew—”

A muffled pop cut off his words. Alexandra jerked backward in Grant’s arms. Then she cried out in pain and slumped against him. He turned toward the sound.

A nine-inch silver barrel gleamed in the early light.
It was not a camera.
The burly man held a gun.
Jones.
Recognition dawned slowly in Grant’s stunned mind. Too slowly. The metal slide on the semiautomatic pistol slipped back to click in another round.