Blessed Child Read online

  Blessed

  Child

  Blessed

  Child

  TED DEKKER

  AND

  BILL BRIGHT

  BLESSED CHILD

  © 2001 Ted Dekker and Bill Bright.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Scripture quotations used in this book are from The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dekker, Ted, 1962–

  Blessed Child / by Ted Dekker and Bill Bright.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-8499-4312-6 (TP)

  ISBN 978-0-8499-4513-7 (repak)

  I. Bright, Bill. II. Title.

  PS3554.E43 B58 2001

  813'.6—dc21

  2001026271 CIP

  Printed in the United States of America

  07 08 09 10 11 RRD 10 9 8 7 6

  CONTENTS

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS

  I DISCOVERY

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  II LIFE AND D EATH

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  III THE UNVEILING

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  A WORD FROM BILL BRIGHT

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS

  GOD OFTEN BRINGS HIS CHILDREN TOGETHER in the most unusual ways to accomplish His unique purposes. The way in which we were drawn together leaves us humbled. The seeds of this novel were planted in each of our hearts independently at least a full year before our paths crossed.

  From the beginning, our intent extended beyond telling a good story. Good stories, although hard enough to come by these days, don’t necessarily trumpet the truth. More than weaving a worthy tale, we wanted to write about the mysteries which lay beyond the skin of this world—to bring into focus that truth which is precious to us who believe in Christ’s power and captivating to those who, as of yet, do not.

  With this purpose firmly under our belts, we set out to honor the Holy Spirit with an unapologetic rendering of His power, to draw a grand portrait of our God across the canvas of our world, an offering for His pleasure, rather than one for the pleasure of man.

  Doing so requires a vivid story of God’s power in our world. It requires a clear message, and it requires a canvas on which to paint our portrait. It was in this context that our collaboration was born.

  The story and the writing are primarily Ted’s; the heart of the message and the canvas, if you will, are primarily Bill’s. A thirty-eight-year-old novelist and an eighty-year-old church father; a hand and an arm, members of one body, each gifted for the edification of the other, brought together for His purpose.

  We sincerely pray that your short walk through Caleb’s world will encourage you to consider the kingdom of heaven in new and maybe even challenging ways. We pray it will spur you on to earnestly seek Him, and above all we pray this journey will fill you with hope. The hope for the true treasures of this life—may you seek and find them quickly. The hope of the glory which awaits us in the life to come. May it come soon.

  We would both like to thank the many friends who encouraged us to write from our hearts rather than from good political senses; their names would be too many to mention here. But there is one man whose insight, brilliance, and diligence cannot be overlooked. Thank you, Helmut Teichert, for your unwavering work and inspiration on this project. You have the heart of a champion.

  TED DEKKER

  BILL BRIGHT

  I

  DISCOVERY

  The greatest difference between present-day Christianity,

  and that of which we read in these letters (of the New Testament),

  is that to us it is primarily a performance;

  to them it was real experience.

  We are apt to reduce the Christian religion to a code or,

  at best, a rule of heart and life.

  Perhaps if we believed what they believed,

  we could achieve what they achieved.

  J. B. PHILLIPS

  in the introduction to his New Testament translation

  PROLOGUE

  Minus 3 Months

  WE HAVE TO KILL THE PRIEST,” Roberts said.

  Charles Crandal sat still in the subterranean room’s dim light, legs crossed and relaxed. His dark eyes peered from a shiny bald head, past Roberts to the glass cases filled with his precious artifacts. He said nothing, which could mean anything. But looking into those cold eyes, Roberts felt a very gentle unnerving, which considering his own steely disposition, said volumes. He just didn’t know which volumes yet. Ambiguity was a prerogative that followed great power, he thought, and power was the air Crandal breathed.

  Roberts pressed his point. “He’s talking, sir. If Tempest gets out it’ll be the end.”

  Crandal shifted his eyes but he still did not speak.

  “You kill the priest and this all goes away,” Roberts said.

  “This paranoia is asinine,” Crandal said. “It’s none of anybody’s business. I did what needed done.”

  “Of course. But you’re wrong: they’ll make it everybody’s business. And when the public wakes up one morning and learns that you ordered the killing of several thousand civilians—”

  “It wasn’t an order.”

  “It might as well have been. And either way I guarantee they’ll crucify you. We have a simple solution here, sir. We head this off at the source and it’s the end of it.”

  Crandal unfolded his legs, pushed his large frame from the stuffed chair, and walked to the desk. A green lawyer’s lamp cast an amber hue over its mahogany finish. All but one of the study’s walls were paneled in the same wood, a rich backdrop for his collection of Rembrandts. The other wall was encased in glass and lined with outrageously rare artifacts Crandal had personally collected from the most remote regions of the world. Another dozen pieces sat in their own cases about the office. The few who had seen this room sometimes referred to it as his museum.

  He had furnished his private enclave in majestic fashion, which seemed appropriate considering the kind of decisions that had been conceived here, three floors under the D.C. earth in seclusion from even the agency he had directed for eight years. The National Security Admin
istration’s roots ran deep, but the ex-director knew its holes and he lived in one now.

  Two years ago he’d left the agency and set his sights on this loftier goal, but he’d never relinquished his power. Not really. He hadn’t even lost his command post—he still ran his world from this room.

  Crandal reached for a copy of Time magazine, featuring his smiling face on its cover with the inscription “The Power Broker” beneath it. “Killing is never the end of it, Roberts. You should know that by now. You end one problem and create another.”

  “Then tell me a better way.”

  “Did I say there was a better way? I’m simply telling you that killing someone doesn’t always silence them. Especially not a priest in a country that worships their priests.”

  “It’s a risk we can’t afford not to take. Sooner or later someone who matters will listen to the old man.”

  Crandal tossed the magazine back onto the desk. “Then we go all the way. We go after the entire monastery. If we set out to silence, then we silence them all. Including the village around it.”

  Roberts felt a tug at his lips. Here was the old Crandal talking, putting aside politics for the moment and dealing decisively with the problem at hand.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “It worked before, why not again?”

  “Another invasion?”

  Crandal nodded. “Tempest.” He stretched his neck and rubbed his throat with a thick hand. “Did we go this far south last time?” he asked.

  Roberts arched his right brow. “You’re thinking we should search again?”

  “Why not. It’s in that region somewhere—I’d stake my life on it.”

  “But would you stake your presidency on it? The last thing we need is another leak.”

  Crandal chuckled. “Leak? We plug our leaks, remember? And if you’re really worried about leaks, Ethiopia is the least of your concerns.”

  He had a point there.

  Crandal sighed. “Stage the invasion, kill every living soul within ten miles of the Debra Damarro, and then flatten it. But have them at least take a look. Okay, Roberts? Humor me.”

  1

  Three Months Later

  Minus 3 Days

  JASON BROUGHT THE OPEN-TOPPED PEACE CORPS JEEP to a stop and turned off its ignition. The engine coughed once and died. He hauled himself up by the roll bar and studied the browned valley ahead. The Ethiopian Orthodox monastery known to locals as Debra Damarro loomed against the rolling hills, a square fortress hewn from solid rock. Why the ancients had built here, in such a remote corner of Tigre in northern Ethiopia, so far from the beaten track of worshipers, was beyond him, but then so was the tenor of Orthodoxy in general. And Christianity, for that matter.

  Acacia trees swayed in the courtyard, serene in the afternoon heat. Jason kept his eyes fixed on the iron gate where Daal insisted he would be met and speedily serviced. The Eritrean invasion was only three days old, but already the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF) had brought the border dispute as far south as Axum to the west; it was a wonder they had not overtaken these hills yet. But then Ethiopia wasn’t taking the sudden invasion along its northern border lying down. They were obviously keeping the enemy forces occupied elsewhere, where more than a single remote monastery was at stake.

  It was not the first time Eritrea had made this absurd claim to the land beyond its drawn borders. Absurd because even the pagans knew that Orthodox Ethiopians would defend their northern holy sites to the death. The queen of Sheba had first brought Solomon’s wisdom and, according to many, his child, here to her castle near Axum, fifty miles to the southwest. The Jewish religion had swept through the hills, and several hundred years later, the Ark of the Covenant had followed—also to Axum, the priests insisted. A growing contingent of scholars at least agreed with the Ethiopian Orthodox community that the Ark’s last known resting place was indeed somewhere in northern Ethiopia.

  Christianity had first come to Africa here, along this northern border. And now for the second time in ten years, Eritrea was openly disputing that border. It was like trying to argue that Florida really belonged to Cuba.

  Absurd.

  Most of the relief workers in the surrounding towns had already fled south to the country’s capital, Addis Ababa, with the first evacuation order.

  Most. But not Jason Marker. Daal, his Irob interpreter, had begged him for this one favor. To deliver this one orphan stranded at this remote monastery to safety. And why would he risk his life to save a single child in a land where a hundred thousand would die in the next famine? Why would he head north, closer to the EPLF forces, instead of blazing a trail south as demanded by the Corps?

  Perhaps because he was in the Corps: the kind of man who at least on occasion threw caution to the wind for a sense of greater purpose. Or maybe to appease the guilt he felt at having decided to leave Ethiopia for good.

  But most likely because he wasn’t really risking his life at all. The Eritreans would probably not harm an American. Daal had sworn nothing less before running off to see to his own family. So Jason would engage in this one last humanitarian mission and close this chapter in his life. And just as well— working in Ethiopia had been like trying to extract water from a bag of flour.

  Jason wiped the rolling sweat from his forehead, rubbed his hand on his khakis, and dropped back into the seat. The monastery seemed quiet enough. He reached for the key, and the faint rumble of an engine drifted through the air.

  His hand froze. It wasn’t the Jeep’s engine, of course. He hadn’t turned the key. Jason scanned the horizon quickly. The road ran past the monastery and climbed the hills to the right, disappearing into valleys and reappearing on the distant hills beyond like a tan snake.

  He saw the trucks then, tiny dots slinking into a valley several miles off. A small grunt escaped his throat, and for a terrible moment he couldn’t think. He snatched up his binoculars and peered at the trucks. EPLF! It was an EPLF column, headed toward the monastery, no more than ten minutes off. Which meant what?

  That Daal had been wrong?

  Jason’s doctorate was in agriculture, not military maneuvers, but he hardly needed an education to tell him that this was not good. His heart was doing the job splendidly.

  He spun around in a panic and grabbed for the old bolt action .30-06 he used for the occasional hunt. His sweaty palm slapped at the worn wood stock and managed to claw it off the back seat before sending it clattering to the floorboards behind.

  What was he thinking? Take on the Eritrean army with a thirty-ought-six?

  Jason fired the Jeep’s engine, shoved the stick forward, and dropped the clutch. The old World War II vehicle jerked forward. He tore for the gate, blinking against the simple thought that he was headed the wrong way. He should be leaving.

  It wasn’t terribly clear why he did continue for that closed iron gate. At any moment his arms would yank the steering wheel and whip the Jeep through a one-eighty. But they did not.

  A figure in robes suddenly ran for the gate and threw it open. Jason roared through and braked the Jeep into a skidding stop, three meters from the monastery’s foundation. Wide, sweeping steps cut from sandstone rose to an arching entry. Heavy wooden doors gaped open to a dark interior. Behind him the gatekeeper was yelling in Amharic.

  Jason slid from the seat and bounded up the steps two at a time. He ran through an internal circuit and into the cavernous sanctuary. He slid to a stop on the polished stone floor. To say that the room was empty would have misstated the matter. Although Jason was indeed alone in the huge domed sanctum, an imposing silence filled the space, heavy enough to resonate through his skull with a distant ring. His blood pounded through his ears.

  High above him a yellow face covering half the dome peered down unblinking, engaging his eyes.

  “Sire!”

  Jason spun.

  The voice echoed across the sanctuary. “Sire, you are not permitted in this room. It is for priests—”

&nbs
p; “Where’s Father Matthew? Do you have a Father Matthew here? I have to see him!”

  The white-draped priest stared at Jason as if he’d just swallowed a small boulder. He held an ancient text in his arms, a huge book browned by time.

  Jason lowered his voice. “Please, man. Forgive me, but I have to see Father Matthew immediately. Do you know that there are soldiers—”

  “It’s quite all right, Phillip.”

  Jason turned to the new voice. An old priest wearing the same traditional white garb as the other priest shuffled with small steps from a doorway on his left.

  “Come, come, come.” He motioned for Jason to follow.

  “Father Matthew?”

  “Yes, of course. And you are the good man Daal promised, yes? Then come, come.”

  The priest pulled at a wiry white beard that hung a good foot off his chin. He smiled and his large oblong eyes flashed knowingly, as if the whole thing were a play and he held a secret part that he was now executing perfectly. Jason glanced at the first priest, who had bowed his head to Father Matthew.

  “We don’t have all day, young man. You have come for the boy, yes?”

  Jason faced Father Matthew. “Yes.” He headed for the old man, who nodded and shuffled hurriedly from the room.

  They walked into a passageway cut from the same sandstone as the monastery’s exterior. The whole structure was literally one large rock, carved and chipped away over many years, not so unusual in northern Ethiopia. Jason hurried after the priest, who moved very quickly considering his small steps. They descended a flight of steps by the light of a torch’s flickering flame and then followed a tunnel farther into the earth. He’d never been so deep in a monastery. Stories of the secret underground caverns were common, but Jason had never suspected they were much more than small enclaves. Certainly not serviced by the well-worn passageways he was seeing now.

  “Welcome to the mystery of our faith,” the old man said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Amazing.”

  “And it makes us priests feel rather special, crawling through the earth like moles while the flock wanders above.”