Agent out of Time (The Agents for Good) (22 page)

She moved across the car to sit on his lap. He started to kiss her, but gasped, as his tongue seemed to go loose in his mouth. In dazed confusion he watched her pull a needle from his neck.

What was happening? He was supposed to do this part, was his last conscious thought.

Alex shook his head, as thought made its way back in. There was a sound. What was that sound? He was on a plane! A plane to where? His head came up sharply on the thought of that.

“Ahh, Alex I see that your awake.”

Alex looked around fearfully, “Where am I? Who are you?”

“One question at a time please. You’re on my plane, more specifically your somewhere over the Pacific near New Guinea to be exact. As to who I am, I’m Borden Chantry and my lovely apprentice responsible for bringing you here is Maria Christina.”

Maria walked into the picture in a black suit her eyes decidedly unfriendly, in comparison with their former erotic invitation.

Alex stumbled over himself as he spoke, “Why am I here? What do you want with me? I demand to know!” Alex demanded growing more bolder.

“You, I regret to say Alex are a mistake, an oversight if you will. You see I run an agency that works for good in all endeavors. As you can imagine we have a lot of work piled up to take care of. Our back load forces us to prioritize what we work on and what order we get to it. I regret to say your family’s proclivities for abhorrent behavior in regards to your fellow mankind was placed much too far down on the priority list. That oversight has been brought to my attention and I am pleased tell you Alex that you and your family’s enterprise are currently at the top of the list.”

“No please!” Alex begged sensing this was going badly for him.

“This is no time to beg or show weakness Alex. Not if you want to survive.”

“What’s going to happen to me? What are you going to do?” Alex asked, already feeling sick inside.

“Oh it’s not what we’re going to do to you Alex, it’s more or less what your family will do.”

Chantry gestured to someone behind Alex, “Temple if you would, remove the trash from my plane please.”

Alex was hauled up to his feet, as the side door of the plane slipped open. Alex stared out in fright at the fast passing wind and the tiny spit of sand down below in the ocean blue.

Maria stepped close to Alex, “Ready to join the rest of your family that’s been involved in your little enterprise? You’ll be the last one to join the party. Oh just as a heads up, if you hadn’t noticed, it’s a really small island. We calculate that its resources should be enough to support one human. Happy hunting Alex! It should be a real fight to survive, every tortured moment of it. Oh I almost forgot.”

She pulled a small bottle of sunscreen out from a pocket and slipped it into one of his. “Don’t get sunburned baby.”

She nodded to Temple, who bodily threw Alex screaming from the plane. Alex’s shoot automatically deployed and he started drifting down toward the uncharted desert island and his waiting family members involved in the business, all the while screaming for mercy.

Chapter Twenty Two

Unsung Heroes

One year later

“Are you sure you don’t mind if we stay out that late? The movie lets out at 10:30, but we won’t be able to be back here till 11:00 and I know that’s late for you guys.”

“Deshavi relax, everything will be okay. Stay out all night if you want.” Ella said calmingly.

Deshavi glanced at Trent in a mixture of desire and worry at the suggestion, but motherhood won out.

“I don’t think I left enough milk to do that.” She said anxiously.

Ella wrapped an arm around both Trent and Deshavi and started pushing them toward the door gently, but insistently.

“Everything will be fine. We have a crib. You know where it is in our bedroom. You have a key to the house and the spare bedroom is always available to you so stay out and have fun and come back as late as you please.” Ella said, as she closed the screen door on the anxious parents and waved goodbye to them.

When they were gone she turned back to me with a smile and came closer. “Now we get to have fun with our little man here.” She said softly, as she let the little boy in my arms grab her finger. It hadn’t taken long to become a grandfather all over again, only this time it felt different.

I had basically raised Deshavi as my child, but that wasn’t going to be the case for this little tike. They’d had the gall to name the little guy after me, Caleb Jr. They hadn’t had to do that, but who was complaining. I could hold this little boy for hours and I only hoped there was enough good time left for me to watch him grow up and take him fishing, teach him to hunt, teach him about what I’d learned in life that I thought important enough to pass on.

Right now I felt like I could live to be a hundred given such a purpose as that and maybe I’d do just that, God willingly of course. I glanced up at my beautiful wife’s face and her eyes rose from the baby to meet mine.

“Now I feel like Caleb.”

She gave me a quizzical look, “What do you mean? You are Caleb?”

“No, I mean the biblical Caleb that I’m named for.” I looked back down at the baby in my arms.

“All my life it seems that I’ve just gone from one moment of sorrow to the next. There have been moments of peace, even enjoy intermixed throughout, but they always seemed lost in whatever tragedy came up next. When I was having it good all I could expect was to somehow be beaten down, but not now. I’ve seen God work on my behalf, in my later years, like perhaps I’d never seen before or at least I wasn’t aware of in my younger years. I’ve always tried to be like my namesake of the Bible, but I’ve always seemed to come up short. Caleb always seemed so undaunted by everything that came at him. He always relied in his God and felt that nothing was impossible to him. When he entered the Promise Land he was eighty years old, but his skills as a warrior had not dimmed from the time that he had been forty. He was given a possession in the promise land, even though he wasn’t strictly of Hebrew blood. He was descended from Esau, but later adopted into the tribe of Judah. He had a name, he had a place of his own, he had the respect of many, he had faith to move mountains, and he had a family. Specifically he had a daughter that a warrior by the name of Othniel attacked and captured an entire city just to win the right to marry her. Caleb was firmly established and blessed by God for his faithfulness to Him. In this moment I feel like what he must have felt like.”

Ella was crying softly, she pulled my head against her and kissed the top of my head.

“I’m so glad you feel like that honey. It’s been a long road, for both of us, but……” She looked down at the chubby little boy grinning at us and smiled, “It’s been worth it!”

“Yes it has!”

Ella heard the car door close and then the front door opened. She glanced at the clock. It was a little past 2 A.M. She slipped out of bed in the darkness and went to the cradle, bending down she scooped up the warm little bundle of joy and made her way to the door just as a soft knock sounded.

She opened the door and passed off the little guy, who was still asleep to Deshavi. Even in his sleep he recognized and smelled mommy. His little mouth opened and he started nuzzling around anxiously, as Deshavi softly giggled. She turned away to the spare bedroom. Ella smacked Trent on the butt, as he passed by and he gave her a cheeky grin and a kiss on the forehead before he too disappeared into the spare bedroom.

Ella closed the door and slipped back under the covers and I let my hand move suggestively over onto her. She turned her head to me and said teasingly, “Is there something I can do for you secret agent man?”

“Quite a lot actually. How do you feel about going undercover?”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Oh it is, it starts something like this.” I said.

Ella giggled, as I pulled the covers up over our heads.

In the morning I found Deshavi sitting on the back porch gazing contentedly out at the sea, as she rocked Caleb Jr.

“Not going to Sunday service this morning?” I asked.

She looked up and smiled at me, “No, I think we’ll just take the morning slow and catch the evening service. Are you guys going?”

“No there’s something I want…… something I need to do today. Something I’ve put off for a very long time. We’ll be gone overnight so if you don’t mind lock the place up when you go.”

She nodded.

I stepped forward and set a check down in her lap.

She picked it up and stared at it for a moment, but then held it back out to me, “I don’t want the money anymore. I have everything I could ever ask for or need.”

I nodded, “I’m glad you see it that way, but all the same the money is yours now fair and square.” I said folding her hand around the check.

Trent came walking up and Deshavi handed the check to him. He studied it for a moment, but before he could say anything Deshavi said, “I already tried.”

Trent nodded and looked up at me, “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.”

I turned to go when Trent spoke up, “Mom says you’re going on a trip today.”

I nodded.

Trent tossed something jingly at me and I caught it. It was the keys of his Mustang. I looked up questioningly at him.

“A warrior should always have a fine horse to ride.” He said simply.

I lifted the keys slightly, “Thank you.”

Ella slid into the Mustang and I closed her door before getting in on my side. She was looking at me with curiosity, “So where are we going?”

Emotion gripped me, as I engaged the car and took off a little more speedily than perhaps I should have.

“What’s wrong Caleb?” Ella asked, gripping at my arm in a concerned fashion.

“I need to do something that I’ve put off doing for a very long time and I don’t want to do it alone!”

“Caleb honey I’m always here for you!”

“I know that.” I said gripping her hand briefly before I had to shift.

Her fingers brushed at my long hair and I received one hundred percent of her attention, as I drove south and it helped, but it wasn’t enough. Tears started falling and I was afraid to look at her.

“Oh honey what’s the matter?”

I just shook my head negatively and kept trying to focus on driving so that I didn’t wreck us. The car was a real pleasure to drive, but the pleasurable experience was lost to me at the moment, as my past played out over and over on the backs of my eyelids.

I drove for hours and Ella didn’t ask any more questions, she just did her best to be there for me. She knew what it was though that bothered me, when I pulled through the gates into the manicured lawns, where thousands upon thousands of white crosses dotted the landscape.

I’d never been here, but I knew where to go.

I shut the car off and got out feeling like an old man suddenly. Blindly I started for Ella’s door, but she was already out beside me. I gripped her hand desperately and together we headed out across the sea of white crosses.

I found the place, as if my feet had been inexplicably drawn to it. I stared at the little white cross that read, Boaz Longtree.

Overcome with grief I sunk to my knees on the cool grass.

“Hello son. It’s been a long time. I know that what’s important about you isn’t buried here, but is in a far better place than this. Still I thought it would be good to come.”

Ella’s head rested against my shoulder and I let my cheek rest against her head.

“I’m so proud of you son. I don’t think I ever got enough chances to tell you how much I thought of and admired the man that you were. You should see the fine woman your daughter has become. She’s come through hell, but she’s still able for the journey and she has a man you’d be proud of, to share the rest of the journey with. I’m proud of her and I know you would be to.”

My hands shaking I pulled a picture from my pocket, which I laid at the base of the cross. The picture was of Caleb Jr.

“Look what God has wrought son! Our blood will go on, as there is a new little warrior to carry on where you left off and where I will soon enough. Life goes on doesn’t it. You don’t have to worry about how he’ll be raised son. He’s in good hands. He has a good father to mentor him, a mother that lavishes him with love, and a grandmother that simply adores him.” I said squeezing Ella’s hand.

Ella pulled a flower from her hair and laid it beside the picture, “Thank you for your service.”

Guy S. Stanton, III

A few things about me

I live in the country. It’s the best place to be I’m

thinking. I share my life with my beautiful wife, Beth,

my three children and one cat named Herman.

When I’m not lost in a daydream the most likely

place you’ll find me at is flower gardening

or at the movie theatre. I use to think I was strong, but

now I freely admit that I’m weak. My new reality is

okay because Jesus Christ has me covered.

It’s better that way trust me!