The Caleb Collection Read online

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.”

  This was no ordinary priest. A tad eccentric from his years below the surface perhaps.

  “The mortals above are carrying guns now,” Jason said. “You do realize that, Father. The EPLF is less than five minutes up the road.”

  “Precisely. Which is why we are hurrying. You think I walk with such haste every waking hour?”

  “You knew they’d be coming? That’s not what Daal told me. He said this would be a simple in-and-out trip to collect the orphan and take him to safety. Somehow it isn’t feeling quite so simple.”

  “Ah, Daal. He was always a bit smooth with the tongue. Rather like a lot of priests I know. It’s a case of humanity, I suspect; insisting on some brand of the truth altogether unclear, but made clearer with insistence.” He shuffled on and held up a finger, half turning. “What you cannot establish with wit you can always further with a little volume, don’t you think?”

  Ordinarily Jason would have chuckled at the old man’s own wit, but the image of those trucks plowing over the hills outside tempered his humor. The priest was muttering now, and his echoes sounded like a chuckle through the tunnel. They hurried deeper into the earth.

  “Maybe you could just bring the child out to the Jeep,” Jason said. He was having a hard time communicating his urgency to the old senile goat. “Maybe I should go back and—”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  They broke into a torch-lit room furnished with a single wooden table and two chairs. The priest turned to face him. His long eyes sagged in the surreal orange light.

  “Do I . . . yes, of course—”

  “Or do you just say that you believe in God to appease me? I see doubt in your eyes, young man.”

  Jason blinked, stunned. Father Matthew was clearly out of touch. Outside a war was looming and he wasted time philosophizing about God in the bowels of some lost monastery. The old man spoke hurriedly now.

  “Do you believe that Jesus Christ was a madman?”

  “What?”

  “Do you believe that when he announced that his disciples would do greater things than he had, he was delusional?”

  “What does this have to do with anything? We have to get out, man!”

  “I thought not,” the priest said. “You do not believe. And yes, we are short on time. But our lives are in God’s hands.”

  “That’s fine, but if you wouldn’t mind I would like to get out of here before the bullets start flying. I’m not sure your God is quite so attentive to my interests.”

  “Yes, I can see that you’re unsure.”

  “And why did you call me here in the first place, if you’re so confident that God will save you?”

  “You are here, aren’t you? I will assume that he sent you. So then he is saving us. Or at least the child. Unless we are too late, of course.”

  Jason shoved the logic from his mind and tried to control his frustration. “Then please help your God along and get me the kid.”

  The priest studied Jason’s face. “I want your word. You will die before allowing Caleb to come to harm.”

  Jason balked at the man’s audacity.

  “Swear it.”

  It was an insane moment and he spoke quickly, to appease the man. “Of course, I promise you. Now get him please.”

  “We found him at the gate when he was a baby, you know. Abandoned here by a retreating Eritrean commander who had just killed his mother during the last war. She was a European nurse. The soldier left a scrawled note with the boy seeking absolution for his sins.”

  Father Matthew stared unblinking, as if the revelation should explain some things. But the tale sounded rather par for the course in this mad place.

  “The boy is no ordinary child. I think you will see that soon enough. Did you know that he has never seen beyond the gate? You will only be the fourth man he has ever laid eyes on in his ten years of life. He has never seen a woman.”

  “He’s been in this monastery his whole life?”

  “I raised him as a son. Where I go he goes. Or in this case where I stay, he has stayed. Except now. Now God has sent you to deliver the boy and I am bound by a vow to remain here.”

  He reached inside his tunic and withdrew an envelope. He handed the brown packet out to Jason, who looked unsure. “These are his papers, granting him refugee status outside of Ethiopia.”

  “Outside? I was under the impression that I was taking him to Addis Ababa.”

  “As long as he is in this country, his life is in danger. You must deliver him to safety beyond our borders.”

  Jason was about to tell the old man that he was losing true north when a door suddenly burst open to their right. A boy ran into the room, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Dadda!” He spoke in Amharic, but he didn’t look Ethiopian. His skin was a creamy tan and his dark hair hung in loose curls to his shoulders—he was clearly of mixed race. A simple cotton tunic similar to the priest’s covered his small frame.

  The boy ran up and threw his arms around the priest’s waist, burying his face in the man’s tunic. Father Matthew palmed the envelope, smiled, and dropped to his knees to hug the child. “Hello, Caleb.” He kissed him on his forehead and looked into the boy’s eyes—eyes as brilliant blue-green as Jason had ever seen.

  “Caleb, your time has come, my son.” He smoothed the boy’s hair lovingly.

  Caleb faced Jason with those large, round eyes. The priest had prepared the boy already, and Jason wondered what the boy knew.

  A tremor shook the ground and Jason instinctively glanced up. It was a shell! A shell had detonated outside!

  Father Matthew’s hand grabbed Jason’s and pressed the envelope into his palm. The old man’s eyes were misted by the flame’s light. “Promise me, my friend, I beg you! Take him beyond our borders.”

  “I will. I will. Get us out of here!”

  The priest’s eyes lingered for a brief moment, searching for truth. He whirled for the boy, who stared at the ceiling as another rumble shook the room. He snatched Caleb’s hand. “Follow me! Run!”

  The small shuffle steps Father Matthew had employed to lead Jason down gave way to long strides, and Jason raced to keep Father and son in sight. The priest was an enigma but certainly no idiot. His voice called back as they ran.

  “They are firing on the village behind the monastery. We still have time. I have asked the others to distract them if necessary.”

  “Distract?”

  “We have a moat behind for water. It will be burning with oil.”

  The child ran silently, on the heels of his father. They burst into the same sanctuary Jason had been scolded for entering earlier. Now another figure stood at its center, spinning around to face them as they rushed in.

  She wore a navy blue tunic not unlike you might see on any street corner throughout Ethiopia, but the woman was clearly not Ethiopian. A hood shrouded a deeply tanned face. She seemed to arrest even the old priest’s attention for a moment.

  “Oh yes, I’d nearly forgotten about you, dear,” Father Matthew said. He turned to Jason. “This is the nurse Leiah. She came to us a few hours ago from a French Canadian Red Cross camp in Eritrea that was overrun.�
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  “A woman,” Jason said, not because the discovery was notable, but because everyone knew women were strictly prohibited past the gates of any Ethiopian Orthodox monastery. Yet here was most definitely a woman. A Frenchwoman.

  The woman glanced at the door leading to the courtyard and then back to Jason. She approached him quickly. “Take me with you!” she said in perfect English. She turned to Father Matthew. “Father, tell him he must take me with him!”

  Her blue eyes begged. She grabbed his shirt and tugged gently toward the door. “Hurry! We have to leave.”

  A loud detonation shook the sanctuary and Jason ducked with the sound.

  “Take her,” the priest said. He knelt and took Caleb in his arms again. He drew the boy close and whispered in his ear. When he pulled back, tears snaked from his eyes, wetting each cheek. “Remember what I have taught you, my son. Remember it well. Listen to your heart; the eyes will deceive. Remember.” He spoke in Amharic.

  “Let’s go! Hurry,” Jason urged them. For all the talk of delivering these to safety, they wouldn’t make it past the front gate if they didn’t leave now. Assuming the gate was not already overtaken.

  “Dadda . . .” the boy said.

  “Go with God, Caleb. His love is better than life.”

  “Dadda . . .”

  Jason grabbed the boy’s arm and tugged him toward the arching entry. Leiah, the woman, was already at the door craning for a view on either side. She spun to them.

  “Hurry, hurry!”

  “Jason,” the priest said. “What’s soft and round and says more than it should?”

  Jason spun back. “Wha—?”

  “The hem of a tunic.” Father Matthew smiled. “An old Ethiopian riddle about modesty that will make sense to you one day. Remember it.”

  They ran from the monastery together, Leiah in the lead, with Jason and the boy following behind. The midday sun blinded Jason for an instant. He released the boy’s hand and took the steps more by feel than by sight.

  Behind him Father Matthew’s voice urged a faltering boy. “Go! Run. Run to the truck and climb in. It will be all right. Remember my riddle, Jason.”

  There was no sign of soldiers on this side of the monastery, but the detonations of what Jason assumed to be mortar fire shook the ground behind them. Black smoke boiled into the sky. Father Matthew’s burning moat. Oil.

  Jason spun to see the boy picking his way down the broad steps on his tiptoes. His round eyes glanced around, petrified. Jason bounded up the steps, grabbed the boy around the waist, and ran for the Jeep.

  “Give him to me!” the nurse demanded, her arms outstretched from the back seat. He shoved the boy toward her. She gathered Caleb and set him on the seat beside her. The boy immediately covered his eyes with his hands and buried his head in her lap.

  “Get us out of here! Hurry, man!” Leiah said.

  “I am. I am! Hold on!”

  The engine roared to life with the first turn of the ignition. Jason rammed the shift stick forward and floored the accelerator. The Jeep spun in a circle, raising dust on all sides. He angled the vehicle for the gate and grabbed another gear.

  Behind them an explosion shook the courtyard. They were lobbing the explosives to the front! Ahead the gate was closed. The gatekeeper ran out, pointing frantically to Jason’s rear. He glanced back and saw the first truck emerging from a cloud of smoke beside the monastery—a Land Rover painted in desert camouflage.

  Jason didn’t let up on the gas pedal. He had the engine wound out in third gear, screaming for the closed gate.

  “Open it! Open the gate!” he screamed, motioning furiously with his hand.

  The gatekeeper flew for the latch, like a ghost in his flowing white robes. He shoved the gates open and ran for the monastery, uttering sharp cries barely heard above the thumping explosions behind them.

  The Jeep struck one of the gates with a clang and shot out onto the driveway. Jason shoved the gearbox into high gear, veered off the road in his haste, corrected with a jerk of the wheel, and centered the vehicle on the road leading from the valley.

  “Stay on the road! Watch the potholes!”

  Her warning came too late and their right wheel pounded through a hole the size of a Volkswagen. Jason cleared the seat a good foot before crashing back down. He glanced back to see Leiah’s white face. The boy was still buried in her lap, oblivious to the world.

  “Watch for the holes!” Leiah yelled.

  “I am!”

  Behind them a huge explosion ripped through the air, like a thunderclap rumbling across the sky. Jason’s heart slammed against the walls of his chest, loud in his ears, spurred by a mixture of terror and euphoria. Machine guns stuttered in long bursts. This was no abstract attack on a village. They were destroying the monastery wholesale, an unspoken taboo, even during an invasion. The monasteries had survived a thousand years precisely because of the reverence they commanded. Slaughter of women and children was far more common in this land than the destruction of a shrine.

  They had nearly reached the crest of the first hill when Jason looked back again. What he saw ran through his chest like a spike on the end of a sledgehammer. He caught his breath. The monastery was without ambiguity history, crumbled and smoking, a remnant of its former structure. No soul could possibly have lived through such a pounding. And if one or two did manage to find the sunlight alive, a ring of trucks with mounted machine guns awaited to make certain they did not savor it too long.

  Jason saw the destruction in a glance. But he forgot it almost immediately in favor of another sight that nearly drove him from the road. It was the sight of a lone truck barreling down the road behind them.

  Leiah must have seen the look on his face, because she spun to face the valley. Machine-gun fire cut through the air, a small popping sound, like popcorn in a microwave.

  “Move it! They’re catching us!” she screamed.

  Something snapped in Jason’s mind. The euphoria of their escape was smothered by horror. They were being pursued.

  “Faster! Drive faster!”

  “Shut up! I’m driving as fast as I can! Just shut up and let me drive!”

  They crested the hill and roared into the next valley. For a few seconds, maybe ten, they were alone with the growling of their own engine. And then the larger Land Rover broke over the hill and screamed after them.

  Jason felt panic wash over his spine. They were going to die. He knew that with dread certainty. His life would end this day.

  2

  THE JEEP MANAGED TO MAINTAIN its half-mile lead only with its engine screaming bloody murder. With the white dust billowing behind them, keeping sight of the Land Rover was nearly impossible. But every time they crested a hill, they could clearly see the vehicle’s relentless pursuit.

  “You can’t make this bucket of bolts move any faster?” Leiah demanded.

  “It’s not exactly a Porsche, is it?”

  Jason could nearly feel her glare on the back of his head. She was a hard one; it took a strong woman to survive in this land. But right now it wasn’t the land that threatened their lives; it was an armed truck barreling down on them. He was beginning to regret bringing her. At least she was keeping the kid quiet. Caleb still cowered beside her, his head buried on her knees, silent.

  “Do you think they’ve gained?” he asked.

  “All I see is dust. How do you expect me to know if they’ve gained?”

  “I asked if you thought they had gained.”

  She looked back for a moment, then announced her verdict. “They’ve gained.”

  “Are you sure?” Jason asked with alarm.

  “You asked for my thoughts. I think they’ve gained.”

  “Well, that’s not good. How do you know?”

  “They’re closer.”

  They came to the crest of a hill and Jason looked back quickly. The cloud of dust from the Land Rover was still a fair ways off, but it certainly wasn’t falling farther behind.

  He spun
back to face the road and corrected the Jeep’s straying course.

  “Keep your eyes on the road. We don’t need you killing us,” Leiah said.

  He ignored her for the moment.

  For another half-hour they kept their distance, and Jason began to recover from the raw panic of their flight. They had a good hour haul to Adwa, the first town in this parched mountainscape. If they made Adwa, they would have a chance.

  They were in canyon lands at five thousand feet. With any luck the cool mountain air would extend the engine’s performance. Heaven knew the Jeep wasn’t made for this. On all sides rugged mountains rose and fell to deep ravines browned by a dry year. Sandstone cliffs ran jagged lines across the horizon on either side. It was like driving through parts of North Dakota on steroids, Jason had often thought. Seventy miles to the east, the salt-encrusted Denakil Desert fell to the earth’s lowest point, nearly 500 feet below sea level. Seventy miles to the west, Mount Ras Dashen rose to over 15,000 feet. It was a land of extremes.

  And now the landscape seemed to have rubbed off on the guerrillas behind them.

  The boy uttered a small cry of surprise, and Jason twisted to see that he’d finally lifted his head and was gaping at the steep escarpment to their left.

  Leiah spoke a few reassuring words in rough Amharic. “Ishee, ishee. ”

  Caleb turned his attention to the Jeep itself, staring in stunned silence at the vehicle that whisked him away from his only reality. The boy likely hadn’t seen a vehicle, much less taken a ride in one.

  Back there at the monastery Caleb’s only father had just been killed; Jason was sure of it.

  “Make sure he doesn’t fall out,” Jason said.

  “You just keep your eyes on the road. Let me worry about the boy.”

  He turned and met her gaze. Her eyes flashed a blue brighter than the clear sky, and Jason held back a retort. Like the priest and the child, she, too, was an enigma.

  The Jeep suddenly coughed once. A chill ran down Jason’s spine. He pressed the accelerator, but it was already flat on the floorboards. The gas meter bounced in the green at the halfway mark.

  “We’re pushing it too hard,” Leiah said.