An Open Heart (41 page)

“Why?”

She squinted at him. “Hasn’t he kept you in the loop about his misery?”

“I guess not.”

“Hang on,” she said, unlocking the bars. “Let me dress. We have some catching up to do.”

“The gunfire,” the boy chuckled. “I thought they were coming after me.” He smiled with a row of uneven teeth. “But they are after you.”

Jace nodded. “Yes. Please keep your voice down.”

It was too late. He heard voices and movement crashing through the trees.

“Lie down,” the boy said. “I’ll cover you with sticks.”

Jace obeyed. He had little choice. The boy pulled branches across Jace and sat down, machete in hand.

Jace looked out from beneath the pile of cut branches, the discard that was too small to make good charcoal. His young partner was tapping the machete against a worn pair of Bata Bullets, the Kenyan version of cheap Converse court shoes.

Two more men appeared, one carrying an AK-47. They spoke to the boy in rapid Kikuyu.

Their voices rose. Arguing. The boy gestured with his knife, shaking his head.

The man shoved the boy to the ground. More arguing.

Finally, a deal. The man pulled out a stack of bills and peeled off three.

The boy pointed at the sticks.

Jace had been sold out for three thousand shillings.

Back in Kijabe, the night turned to morning, and word of Jace’s disappearance traveled fast. Gabby paced her small apartment and prayed, while wondering,
What do I really know about this man?

She pulled an old RVA yearbook from a shelf and turned to the index. After a few minutes, she found what she’d been looking for. There, on page 72, were the senior pictures of the Rawlings twins, Jace first, sporting a serious pose, and then Janice, smiling as if she were a sunbeam ready to light the world.

The thing that struck Gabby was the girl’s eyes. And the more she stared, the more she saw another face. Anita Franks.

Wow,
Gabby thought.
Subtract a few years and Anita was Janice.

The phone rang. It was Chaplain Otieno.

“Hello, John.”

“Sorry for the early hour,” he said, skipping the routine greetings. “I wanted you to know that a group is gathering for prayer. We need to lift up Jace. We will be at station hall in one hour.”

“I’ll be there.”

She looked at her suitcases. All that remained was to put in her toothbrush.
Oh, God,
she prayed silently,
I so want to be on that plane.

Dave tied the last suture knot to close the skin. His patient was alive. “Stay with him in HDU and monitor his urine output every hour. If he falls below fifty ccs per hour, let me know. Give him morphine liberally. Cover him with Kefzol. And don’t even think about extubating him until morning.”

Paul smiled in spite of his fatigue. He couldn’t wait to call his mother. He was sure his village would all know of his exploits by lunch.

The intern looked at Evan Martin. “Ready to move?”

Evan nodded. “Let’s roll.”

His captors kept Jace in the back of a village duka stockroom until a car arrived just after sunrise.

This time, Jace was restrained, bound hands and feet, and dropped into the trunk.

For the next four hours, all he knew was road noise and his bruised body flopping about over merciless potholed Kenyan roads.

After two hours, his captors opened the trunk and allowed him to drink water from a cup. He was so thirsty, he didn’t worry about amoebas or the dysentery sure to follow. A large man scoffed at him. “I’ll bet you are praying, huh, Daktari?”

Jace shook his head. “No. I’m not much for that anymore.”

The man’s face changed, an inquisitive look replacing his smile. “Maybe you should learn,” he said.

Then the trunk slammed and the journey continued.

In the darkness, Jace reviewed his life, a life he wasn’t sure would continue beyond that day. In spite of his present danger, the hours of captivity seemed to prod Jace into an inspection of his past.
Funny,
he thought.
All the significant plot points in my life story revolve around death.

Timmy O’Reilly.

Janice.

Anita Franks.

Michael Kagai. Anthony Kimathi. Boniface.

He thought about praying. And he remembered the day he promised never to talk to God again.

It had been on that final campout on the Malewa River for Jace and Janice and their RVA friends before they all left Kenya. It was their last day, and they’d returned to a favorite spot with high cliffs to swim.

Janice had always been afraid to join the others in a daring leap from the top into the water below.

Jace dared her, taunted her, telling her it was her last chance before college. He jumped, screaming as he fell. The water was cool. Refreshing.

And that day, deadly.

Everyone else had jumped. Some were swimming in the water below. Others sunned themselves on flat rocks on the other side.

Jace climbed back to the top where Janice sat judging his jumps.

“Seven point two,” she said.

“Oh, come on. That was a nine!”

He walked to the edge again. The rocks were getting slick because of everyone’s dripping bathing suits.

A straight jump wasn’t really that daring. You needed to clear a distance of only three feet to avoid the jagged rocks below. But Jace wanted a higher score, so he did a handstand on the edge of the cliff.

“Stop, Jace, you’ll fall!”

“I’m not going to fall. If I just lean over, I’ll clear it easy.”

“Jace, no!” She walked over and pulled on his shorts.

He collapsed his handstand. “I’ll do a flip then. You’ll give me a ten for a flip.”

“Stop.”

“Why?” He looked at her, then remembered. “You think I’m going to die, don’t you? You think I’m going to miss my chance to be saved, don’t you?”

“Jace, don’t.” Janice looked over her shoulder at their classmates, who seemed uncomfortable at the twins’ exchange.

“You do it then. Jump. Jump or I’ll flip.”

She edged closer and stared down at the water.

“It’s only twenty-five feet, give or take.” He smiled. “Less than a second.”

He snuck up behind her, meaning only to give her a scare. He only intended to shove her shoulders and then pull her back.

He yelled as he grabbed her by the shoulders. She gasped and immediately pushed back, but lost her footing on the muddy cliff edge.

Her foot slipped over and Jace lost his grip. Her head bounced off the rocks as she went over.

Jace heard, rather than saw, her descent. Thud. Scream. Thud. Silence.

He’d heard that scream in his head a thousand times since that day.

He looked over the edge. Her body lay mostly in the water, having rebounded off the unforgiving face of the cliff.

He jumped immediately, yelling her name, “Janice!”

He swam back to her and turned her face toward the sky. Her neck bent at a sickening angle. Blood and bubbles came from her nose and mouth.

“No!”

The others came.

No one could help. Janice gasped. Once. Twice. Three times.

And then she died in Jace’s arms.

That afternoon, he took the small wooden cross his sister had worn around her neck and tossed it into the campfire. He whispered, “I asked You to show me if You love me.” He paused. “So now, I guess I know.”

He spoke the next words crisply. Each was a stake pounded into the dry earth of his heart. “I. Will. Never. Serve. You.”

Midmorning in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, the Honorable John Erastus Okombo was set to take the stage at a political rally. The air was electric. Some were comparing him to President Kibaki and wondered if a Luo could do a better job of uniting a country separated along so many tribal lines. Certainly his success negotiating exports of Kenyan coffee and tea were examples of his smooth tongue. Okombo’s future could only be bright.

But rising to power in Kenya took many friends in the right places and a willingness to be ruthless to one’s enemies. He couldn’t have Jace Rawlings talking to Kibaki’s anticorruption czar, raising questions about his driver or his loyalties, could he?

Soon,
he thought,
Jace Rawlings will be out of my way forever.

Okombo looked out over the crowd, scanning for friendly faces. There was the group of some of Kenya’s finest physicians he’d invited to brag of their modern facilities. Even the heart surgeons, his generous benefactors, were there to cheer.

Once introduced, it took but three Okombo-sized strides to reach the podium.

He raised his hands to silence the crowd.

He waved at a television crew.

At first, the shot sounded like fireworks. The crowd cheered, expecting a colorful display.

Okombo felt the impact without conscious recognition of pain. Instead, as he stumbled backward, clutching his chest, his only thought was that he’d been shot.

A man in a dark suit dove to protect him, shielding the minister’s body with his own. Okombo tried to speak, but he couldn’t get his breath. He tried to push the man away.
Dr. Rawlings, you were right.