Agent for a Cause (The Agents for Good) (17 page)

Along with praying for Kevin I admitted my belief in God through His Son Jesus as the truth and author behind all of creation. It was a truth of fact that I had known for a long time, but had never personally sought out, much less asked for the forgiveness of my many sins.

It was humbling beyond belief to know that killer and murderer that I was I had been forgiven. Why had I waited so long to experience relationship like this? The answer came to me then. Not in an audible voice, but rather in a series of thoughts that were put into my understanding by my Creator.

I hadn’t known to pursue relationship, because I had never had a meaningful relationship to know what it was like and how eminently desirable it was to have above everything else in life. So God had put a sweet caring woman into my life, who had never ceased to except me and pour her heart into me.

Through her love God had shown me what relationship was and led me to Him and now I had the ultimate relationship that any person could ever entertain in life, one with God Himself. All I’d had to say was that I was sorry and that I wanted Him to manage my life for me from now on, as I gave my will to choose back to Him, even as I believed in what His Son had done for me that I could now testify to as I felt His Spirit sweep into me erasing all doubt, as it brought me peace and wholeness that I had never known before.

I don’t know how much time had passed when I felt the phone shake against my palm, which mildly startled both of us. I quickly answered it still on my knees beside Anna where we had been praying beside the bed as if we were little children.

“Tyre?”

“Yes Sir?”

“I’m sorry to hear about what’s going on! I was looking forward to congratulating you on your newly yoked status in life and it saddens me to see that tragedy has already found you and your new life with your family.”

I didn’t say anything in the pause that occurred then. I don’t think I was breathing either.

“Tyre I want you to know that you always have my full support and the board is meeting tomorrow on this very matter and I really can’t see them objecting to our complete support in overturning this whole ordeal.”

“Thank you Sir!” I said as I felt relief wash through me.

I had thought I had known what his answer would be, but I hadn’t known for sure.

“I’ll send a car by for you in the morning. I want you both to come. Is your lovely wife nearby? I’d like to speak with her.”

I handed the phone to Anna and she took it hesitantly. “Yes?” She whispered into the phone.

“Mrs. Gravitausky or if I may, Anna, I just want to give you some peace if I may. Your son is not the first such case to occur and based out of the knowledge I have of these occurrences in the past, I can say what I am now with a great deal of surety. Anna your son is not being tortured and he isn’t in danger of being killed either, for the moment. If your son was a normal functioning boy then yes torture could be an option on their table, but he isn’t and these dark people who have taken your son are not fools. They know that such methods with your son would net them nothing as he is incapable of mounting a desired response to such treatment. As I said before this type of abduction has happened with other autistic children that were gifted as your son is. They will take your son to a neutral lab like setting. At first they’ll keep him sedated and then gradually they’ll bring him along out of it to full consciousness. They’ve probably brought in someone trained in dealing with autism to oversee the boy and keep him balanced emotionally. They’ll make no demands of him, but simply surround him with the elements that make up his particular genius. Then they’ll just sit back and watch as your son creates whatever it is that he is good with. He won’t be doing it out of any desire to please them, but rather out of a need for comfort doing something that is familiar to him. Even after he is completed with the project they will hold on to him a while longer, which could even be years. For one they may need the technology reproduced again and secondly, the child may make another breakthrough that they may have use for. So knowing their standard operating procedure we know three things. He isn’t being tortured. He isn’t in immediate danger of death. And knowing the first two gives us the time to formulate a plan of action that will enable us to pick the best scenario in the rescue of your son and his safe restoration back into your arms.”

Anna looked at me as if seeking to assure herself that I agreed and I nodded in affirmation of Chantry’s breakdown of the situation. I was grateful to Chantry beyond words could express as I saw a small measure of peace come over Anna’s distraught features.

“Mister Chantry I don’t know who you are or what you do really or even how you plan to save my son, but I believe you in what you say because of the respect that I know my husband has for you. I don’t know how to express my thanks to you enough!” Anna said emotionally into the phone.

“Saving a child’s life and restoring a family back together is all the thanks I need. You don’t know many of the people your husband works alongside of for the greater good, but we know you and your now part of us. We never leave our own behind!”

“Thank you!” Anna whispered into the phone again anyway.

“I look forward to meeting you tomorrow Anna. Try to get some rest and lunch should be there shortly. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Anna gave me back the phone just as there was a knock on the door. We both got up and I went to the door. Sure enough it was room service. I let the attendant in and he wheeled in the cart heaped high with far more food on it then was needed for two people, who were sick to their stomach with fear.

I tipped the waiter and he was quickly gone. I lifted a lid to view under it as Anna came up to stand with her face pressed against my chest and I wrapped a comforting arm around her as I looked under the other lids.

“Hungry?” I asked.

She mumbled something and I pulled her head back to see a strange expression on her face. It was kind of a self-deprecating look that I didn’t like. I stroked her cheek with a thumb and instinctively she seemed to know what it was I wanted to know.

Her eyes were troubled as they met mine, “Does it sound really bad of me if I told you that all I want right now is for you to make love to me over and over again? I know it’s terrible my……”

I hushed her with my fingers over her mouth. “It’s not terrible at all! You experience love through touch and you need comfort so it’s only natural that you would crave what makes you feel loved.”

I slipped her up into my arms and started towards the bed as she lay her head down against my shoulder.

“What makes you feel loved Tyre?”

“Words.” I responded.

Her head came up and she looked at me with surprised curiosity, “Words?” She asked with evident surprise.

I nodded, “Words of affirmation. You have the power to slay me or build me up with the words you speak to me.”

“How else can you be loved?”

“Well there’s those two and then there’s gift giving, quality time and one other that I can’t think of right now. You have aspects of quality time in your makeup of how you feel loved as well. It’s normal for people to have different combinations of love languages.”

Her surprise hadn’t gone away, “Where did you learn that Tyre?” She exclaimed.

“A book I read once.”

Her look of shock had only intensified and I was beginning to feel a little insulted. What kind of an ignorant caveman did she think I was!

“You read about love languages?” She asked further, as if she couldn’t still believe the conversation we were having.

I laid her down on the bed and then started taking my shirt off. “I read about all sorts of things Mrs. Gravitausky.”

She actually slightly blushed, but her eyes lit up like tree lights on Christmas morning.

“What sort of things?” She asked shyly.

“Oh I think it’ll be better if I show you.”

Her words were silky smooth as she said, “Have I ever told you what a handsome stud you are?”

I smiled; boy did she ever catch on fast as to the how the game of love language was played.

“I don’t recall, perhaps you could explain why you think that way of me in greater detail later.”

Her infectious smile crinkled up further, “As you wish handsome man.”

My job was to keep that smile there for the rest of today. All the fears and the what if’s of life would make their unwelcome presence known again tomorrow, but until then she would have peace from the barrage of negative emotions hounding both of us. It was a good job to have.

Anna gripped my hand nervously as we rode together in the back of the black Mercedes through the German countryside. I’d never been where we were being taken before.

When Chantry had nursed me back to health it had been on an estate in France. I knew a little about the estate in the country though that we were headed for. It was where the board met. The board was comprised of all of the team leaders of the agency and Chantry served as the chairman of it.

Flint was a board member, but he had never spoken of what took place there. We entered a private lane and off in the distance I could see the refurbished castle as its white stone gleamed in the sun against the backdrop of the alpine slopes rising all around it.

The agency I worked for was peculiar to say the least among all the semi secret organizations of the world. We had no secret vows or rites or traditions. We could leave at any time. We didn’t work for hire and yet there was no shortage of money.

We agents did the work we were assigned by Chantry and I’d never had cause to object to anything ever asked of me to do. We respected each other’s privacy as a group of extremely talented individuals and for the most part worked together cohesively.

What we did in the world could be considered both bad and good depending on the viewpoint of the individual, but we only worked on assignments that we felt personally led to the greater good as it befit our own perspectives independent of any one nation or group of nations in the world.

Sometimes our actions lined up with the agendas of the powers that be, sometimes they didn’t. Which is why we never took outside funding so that we were beholden to no one’s rules other than the ones we imposed on ourselves.

We did do favors for certain influential powers in the world from time to time, that bought a lot of personal favor, which in turn allowed us for the most part to work in complete autonomy from the rest of the world’s oversight. I said as much to Anna as we approached the castle.

“So you’re like a superhero club.” She said.

I grimaced, “That’s not exactly the best way of putting it, but I suppose in a crude way, yes, that might be something close to it.”

We were there. The door opened and I got out and then helped Anna emerge from the car. The liveried servant was dressed down to the tee, but I couldn’t help but think that he had several black belts to his name as well as a thriving intellect masked behind his look of servile ability.

The stone walls of the castle surrounded us and I wondered at what defense mechanisms they might hide, because the meeting spot of the board was no secret in the underworld that contained many who hated us and the work we did.

We stepped through the massive front doors into the immaculately preserved interior of the castle vestibule. Anna looked a bit of the tourist at the moment, as she looked all around her with interest.

“I see the old castle has intrigued you as it has me these many long years.” Came a voice from off to our left.

The voice was warm in its quality, but it always sent chills through me. I turned to see Borden Chantry. His agent name was all I knew him by. I had come to know over the years that Chantry was a very big man in the realm of men with an equally big heart, but it was always hard for me to be around him. He had in a sense once killed me and then brought me back to life.

There had always been an awkwardness I had felt around him since then. Chantry, among his many talents, could be utterly charming and I could already see that he had relaxed Anna considerably. Anna moved off to where a servant with a seemingly genuine smile gestured. I had missed something!

Chantry turned to me and smiled the old weathered skin of his face crinkling, “Relax Tyre I haven’t stolen your treasure from you. She’s just taking a tour of the castle while you brief the board on exactly what has happened.”

I nodded as I tried to cover up how much I didn’t like it when he seemingly just read my mind, as if it was an open book. It was like that with no one else I had ever encountered. He always seemed to know what I was thinking, which was always unnerving to me.

I glanced in the direction that Anna had gone, “I’ll do whatever it takes to get Kevin back. Whether the agency helps or not.”

My eyes went back to Chantry as my definitive statement of intent trailed off.

I saw understanding in his eyes, “Your point is well taken. It is your right, as it should be every man’s right, to stand up in the defense of the sacredness of his family, even if opposed by the governance and strictures of mankind in doing so. It is a worthy endeavor that every man blessed with the responsibility of caring for a family should strive to maintain. I am not against you in this endeavor to restore your family bonds Tyre and neither is the board. So relax because you are among friends Tyre.”

Yes that may be so, but as friends I could only afford for them to give me one answer and as friends I prayed that they would do just that. We had been walking as Chantry talked and now we stood before a pair of double oaken doors, which I presumed to be the entrance of the board room.

Chantry seemed hesitant upon entering through them and I looked curiously at him and felt myself grow uncomfortable, as I watched the emotion build up in Chantry’s face as he looked at me with the eyes that had gazed into mine once as I lay dying. He sniffed and a self-deprecating smile came out as he wiped at the corner of one eye.

“You’ll find Tyre that when you get old you lose whatever self-control that one possessed as a young man and are little better in holding emotion in than a woman is. I believe it’s something to do with more estrogen in the blood than testosterone as one grows old.”