Chapter 5
Chapter 5
F or several minutes Aaron stared quietly at the coffin. Then he studied the crowd, his eyes coming to rest on me. “If Bones and his mystery protégé taught me anything, it’s this...” It was here that, having been held at bay this whole time, Ashley’s emotions surfaced. “It takes a shepherd. That uniquely gifted loner, maybe someone who doesn’t play well with others, who is willing to leave the safety and security of the flock to find the one. To suffer cold. Hardship. Injury. Darkness. Even hell itself. To track the one. Rescue them from harm. Lift them out of hell.” As he spoke, a tear cascaded down his face. “And this shepherd is the most unusual of persons. He or she is willing, by some innate character trait and gift of God, to pay a steep price. One that may include their own life. Theirs is a selfless existence. It’s a me-for-you life. And it makes no rational or logical sense whatsoever. It”—he touched his stomach—“comes from down here. Down where our love lives. Where our hope is birthed. And our courage takes root. I can find no other explanation. These are the Keepers of us. Bones was mine. And without them we are lost.”
He shook his head. “That day in my office, amid a haze of cigar smoke and Bones’s muddy boots resting on my desk, I asked him, ‘What about you? What will you do?’ Bones drew on his cigar and let it out slowly. ‘Kill the wolf.’”
A minute passed. Wind blew. Cold cut through me. Ashley continued, “And he did. Doing so cost him his life. A life he willingly gave.” Another moment. “Two weeks after Bones died, given the information he was able to obtain, our agencies around the world have freed and rescued over ten thousand trafficked boys, girls, men, and women.” He shook his head. “Ten thousand. Kids who are home now. Back in the arms of their loved ones. And yet they’ll never meet the one who freed them. Never know his name.”
Having followed the GPS coordinates on the back of their childhood picture and found Frank’s data vault, Eddie and the team had immediately begun unpacking it. When he called me, I could hear his excitement: “It’s all there. Names. Numbers. Addresses. Accounts. Videos.” He paused to catch his breath. “Frank gave you the truth.”
From that moment, they had coordinated with Ashley and the people underground, who then coordinated with teams and agencies around the world. And ten thousand walked free.
Bones did that. Under the guise of capture, he’d gone back. For his brother. Something I’d never considered. Never contemplated. And I’m rather certain Frank hadn’t either. My response to Frank was to crush his windpipe. Douse him with gasoline and set him on fire. Given the amount of evil he’d inflicted on planet earth, why not?
But not Bones.
Bones suffered beating after beating to reveal to his brother the singular fact that while he’d known a way out of that hell on earth, he’d come back. Every day. Including that final day. Bones was sending a signal to his brother: I will never leave you. No matter how guilty. Frank had no box for this. In the end, Bones’s actions shook something loose in Frank. Something buried. Something maybe even good. One second before he died, Frank gave up the location and codes to the closet where he held his secrets. The second-to-last piece of the puzzle. And thanks to Guido and Bernie’s help, who had sung like canaries, Eddie and the team unlocked all of it. The last piece was the evidence he held over his seven generals. What he used to blackmail them. But that undoubtedly died with Frank.
In the end, what we saw play out on the world’s stage was a conflict of kingdoms.
In Frank’s kingdom, one man—without feeling or empathy—enslaved the innocent and bled profit from their flesh. A world where the one dominated the many. Concealed in shadow and pungent with the smell of death.
A slave market.
In Bones’s kingdom, one man walked into that same market and said, “I’ll buy them all.” And when the slave master scoffed, “With what?” Bones paid it. With his life. This exchange was inconceivable to me, and yet Bones had known it going in and walked in anyway. As he descended into that putrid darkness, he tore iron bars in two and ripped prison doors off their hinges. It’s why Freetown is called Freetown.
I could understand running through hell to rescue the innocent. I’d done that and inked the record on my back. A record of those who felt undeserving. Of the betrayed, rejected, and abandoned. But Bones not only emptied the market; he ran back into that same hell—the hell of hell—a second time, to rescue the slave master. Why?
This was my problem.
As the days passed and the answer built, it weighed me down. Pressing on my soul. Then, unable to keep it at bay any longer, I felt it hit me all at once. A freight train. Because he, too, was enslaved. Unlike the masses, Bones found mercy for his executioner. Whereas, in my mind’s eye, I’d killed him a thousand times over, cutting off his head and posting it on a stake outside the city walls.
Wanting justice, I’d kept a record of wrongs. Payment to be exacted from the guilty. On my terms. It fueled and justified my need for revenge. But not Bones. Bones had kept a record of hope, recorded on his heart.
There’s a difference.
What had found me as a boy on a river troller had carried me through the academy. Through Roger’s betrayal. Through Marie. Through Key West, tending bar, and Karen. Through more than a hundred countries and three times as many rescues. Through gunshots, knives, hospitals, and infections. Through Angel and Casey and Clay and Ellie and Summer and Shep. Through Freetown and Frank, the two words that would define my life.
Then Bones.
I stared at that coffin and wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I did not understand. Why Bones? Why?
Had Bones’s last selfless act had any effect on Frank? Did it change anything in him? If so, was the gain worth the purchase price, or was his sacrifice in vain? I couldn’t say. In my mind’s eye, I stared at the picture of the two boys. Suntanned skin. A contrast of sunlight and shadow. Ashley was right: thousands of prison doors had been flung wide. Ripped off the hinges. Shackles loosed. And slaves walked out of darkness. Out of one kingdom and into another. One life for the many—starting with the one I’d written off. Who wasn’t worth the cost. In my life, I’d been loved and loved much, but I did not understand that kind of love.
Ashley glanced at me. “Bones used to come to our Georgia farm and spend a few hours. Swim in the spring. Ride the zip line into the pond. Mimic Mountain Dew commercials.” Subtle laughter. “Every time he did, I was mesmerized by two things: eight-pack abs and the number of scars carved across his body. How many? I don’t know. A hundred or more I should think. He earned twenty-seven from one shotgun blast. Eleven from a knife fight. Four from a grenade. A dozen or more from being tortured in a Russian gulag. And this says nothing of those that riddled his insides. Car wreck. Plane crash. Helicopter shot down—twice. During his last medical exam, I required a full-body scan. He pushed back. I ordered. We counted seven separate bullet fragments still in his body, and enough buckshot pellets to kill large farm animals by lead poisoning. His skin was a road map, a history of war. A record of rescue. Of ransom.
“When swimming in our pond, our kids would point and ask, ‘What about this one?’ He’d tell them about the dragon who blew fire or the knight with a flaming sword or the damsel in distress in the castle—something to feed their imagination and not their fear. Bones’s scars told a story. Of blood shed on behalf of another. Of payment exacted. Of light shining in darkness.”
Ashley studied the rows of white stones. “In a rare self-reflective moment, Bones once told me, ‘We are but dwarfs perched atop the shoulders of giants.’” A nod. “Bones is my giant.” Ashley cleared the snow off the flag and kissed the coffin. Then he turned to leave but thought better of it. When he spoke, his lip trembled, betraying what might be rage.
“Since I heard... of his death, I have wrestled with many thoughts, but one keeps returning. We live in an evil day. An evil age. Darkness is raging. The light is fading. As long as we live, there will be wolves. But here’s the question facing me. Us. Do we still have the stomach to kill the wolf?” A tear leaked down his face. Ashley pointed. “He did. One life for ten thousand.” His eyes scanned the crowd. “I pray to God we do, because”—he raised a finger—“wolves hunt in packs.” He paused. Swallowing. A moment passed. Then two. “How do you measure a life?” A long pause. “I measure mine by his scars.” Then he tapped the coffin, which sounded hollow and haunting. “Because without them, I’m not here and I’m not me.”
When he finished speaking, a decorated marine to his left shouted orders. Startling me. In the distance, a line of seven marines raised their rifles and fired into the air, cracking the silence in half. Gunner leaned against my leg, whining. More orders followed. Another volley of fire. A final order. A final volley. Ordinarily, twenty-one-gun salutes were reserved for presidents. But the president had given an order. As the smell of gun smoke filtered through the air, two marines folded the flag and presented it to the OIC. Officer in charge. He smacked his heels, palms up, flag held aloft, and walked in straight lines and ninety-degree angles, coming to a stop in front of the family member Bones’s will had designated. “On behalf of a grateful nation.” I extended my arms and accepted the flag, which weighed ten million pounds. When I did, something deep inside me cracked down the middle.
Normally, the military honors service held at Arlington National Cemetery would close at that point, those in attendance would leave, and then a dedicated crew would actually bury the coffin. But Bones had made a final request in his will. “Ask my friends to lower me down.”
The only thing heavier than that flag was that coffin. As the rope slid between my fingers, tears followed. When it came to rest on the frozen earth below, Gunner walked to the edge, whining. Sniffing. Then digging at the dirt. Pulling. Trying to will Bones back to the surface and the land of the living. But he could not. We could not. Bones was gone. I heard myself say that and shook my head. How could this be? As the snow fell heavier, blanketing the world in white and silence, a lone bugler played “Taps” and I lifted the handle. One shovelful. Then two.
The slideshow returned. I had found him. Majorca. Lying in a crypt. Face swollen shut. Bleeding out. Gurgling. Lungs filling. Somebody had really put the leather to him. The light from my headlamp bathed him as I laid my hand across his heart. Checking his pulse. Letting him know I was there. “Bones, I’m so sorry it took so...” My pitiful attempt at an apology.
He feigned a smile and shook his head. Mercy in his eyes. “There’s... nothing to forgive.” Then he had pressed my forehead to his and kissed my cheek. His final blessing. His last act as priest.
Spilling earth onto the lid of his coffin, I looked inside me and found much to forgive. Starting with me. I could not forgive me. Not now. Not ever. When he needed me most, I failed. I had one job. Get Bones. And I had not. When I looked down, I saw Shep had risen out of Summer’s lap, walked to the ledge, and placed his hands on the handle. Helping me shovel dirt. His eyes were large, round, and glassy as he stared up at me. I gritted my teeth. Forcing the air in. Out. In. Out.
And buried my friend.
As the parade of black cars exited, Summer kissed my cheek and loaded into the Suburban with Shep, Clay, and the girls. Leaving Gunner and me alone with a mound of dirt that now shrouded memory in darkness. I don’t know how long I stood there. Minutes. An hour. Two. I was trying to find words, but despite the fact that I, David Bishop, had published half a million words in some seventy-five countries and just as many languages around the world, I found none. Words failed me. I knew it was time to go but I didn’t want to turn my back on him. Didn’t want him to see me walking away so I bowed slightly, stepping backward. In reverence. In respect. For love of my friend. When I did turn, I found myself alone save one man. Camp. Standing quietly at my six. Dark glasses. Dusted in snow. A sentinel to my sadness.