Chapter 47
Chapter 47
I called Ashley en route. Another hour passed while one of the leaders of the free world, along with my team and at least one of his staff members, constructed five more words on an app on his phone. The five words in return were “BOON,” “NICK,” “DARK,” “SLOB,” and “SAME.” We weren’t quite sure what to make of the words, and any rabbit trail we traveled led to some rather dismal thoughts, so we encouraged Ashley to keep playing. Keep her in the game. An hour into our flight, the words stopped populating. Suggesting that her holder had paused the game or she had been caught—an idea we didn’t want to entertain.
The last word to appear was “HURT.” When the word dropped, nobody spoke. A minute passed. Then another. While we wrestled with the deeper meaning and its implications for the girls, one of Ashley’s aides spoke in a hushed tone in the background. “Um... Mr. Vice President?” A pause. “You need to see this.”
Another voice, knowing we could not see what had been handed to Ashley, answered the question on all of our minds. “It’s a ransom note.”
Several seconds of silence passed as Ashely gave his attention to something other than Words with Friends. The aide spoke again. “Sir, they also sent a picture.” Another pause. And then somewhere in there I heard a man’s emotions crack and then a failure to control them.
Five minutes would pass before Ashley was able to speak again. When he did, he spoke as few words as possible. “We need to begin the process of sus... suspending my camp—” Ashley trailed off.
No one spoke. No one challenged him. They had broken him.
Several minutes later, the vice president managed, “Murph.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a commanding statement. And a weak, broken, and breaking plea. Rolled into one giant mess. Ashley was riding the edge, and I heard it in the tone of his voice. He was cracking. His one word to me was all he could muster while he tried not to reveal it to those surrounding him in the room. That was all he said. Spoken once. Nothing more. One of the most powerful men in the world was powerless to save those he loved most.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
When we first met, I’d disobeyed direct orders and run back through the crowd, locking my arm beneath his, and the two of us had run together to the finish line at the end of the obstacle course. Classmates yet strangers, running with fear, with anger, and with desperation. In the end, we beat the clock. Crossing the line with seconds to spare. Actually, he didn’t so much cross it as collapse over it. He lay there gorging on air, his stomach rising and falling several inches with each breath. Saliva, sweat, and vomit frozen to his face. He told me later it was the first time he’d “emptied” himself. And he had. After several minutes, he crawled to his knees and took notice of what we’d done. What he’d done. No longer could they harass and look down their noses with disdain.
Then I watched Aaron Ashley do something. He laughed. Disbelief exiting his body. It was as if he’d broken free from the chains he’d wrapped himself in due to privilege and entitlement. There in that moment, he shed them. Left them right there at the finish line. And maybe in some way, Aaron Ashley was born in that moment. Seconds later, he looked at me. Whether with tears or pain I knew not, but his eyes were glassy. He crawled to his feet and extended his hand, gratitude painting his face. “Aaron.”
It was the first of many times we would extend hands to each other. “Bishop.”
Staring at my phone, listening to his voice, I didn’t hear the vice president. I heard my friend Aaron. Husband and father who played word games with his girls. As his voice had betrayed his emotion at the finish line, so it did now. How could it not? What father could bear up under this? In several hundred rescues, I had yet to meet him. The continuous and tormenting thought of what his girls might be enduring and under what conditions was a horror no father should ever live through. A thousand times worse than death. I understood. So I said it again just to let him know I heard him. “Yes, sir.”
The line clicked dead, and I sat staring out the window, studying the white earth beneath while Camp worked on his laptop. His understanding of all things computer dwarfed mine, so I double-checked my gear bags. Having left in a hurry, I wanted to make sure I had what I needed. What I discovered surprised me.
Months ago, when I’d shot the captain of a barge on the Intracoastal at nearly a mile away, I’d done so with my preferred long-distance precision rifle. A Bergara .300 Win Mag I’d named Jolene. I’d carried her on maybe fifty rescues and would tell you I felt naked without her. She was a comfort and faithful companion. But as I opened my padded canvas rifle bag, I saw I’d not brought Jolene. I zipped open the case, laid the rifle out, and lowered the lever, confirming an empty chamber. Then I opened the box of 178-grain ELD-X Match bullets and loaded twenty into a carrier on my vest. I sat staring at the worn mahogany, blued steel, and Schmidt you can deny it, muting its voice and its tug on your soul; or you can assemble the angry masses, accuse it, and attempt to drive a stake through its chest. But in the battle of the ages, only love still stands. Love is the only thing in this universe or any other to run back across a minefield-littered landscape and lift the wounded off the battlefield while taking shrapnel en route to triage. And when love drops you on the table, bleeding from multiple holes, love smiles, kisses your forehead, and then turns, smiling, even a wink, only to tear off once again into the darkness that shrouds the field. That love has a name. And a reason. And the reason is rescue. The reason is return. The reason is freedom. And from the first day to this day, that love had been unwavering, undefeated, and undeterred. The mushroom cloud rising out of the darkness was caused when love, riddled with slivers of metal, deep scars, and third-degree burns, flung the doors off their hinges, snapped locks, and broke chains for one singular purpose.
Bones taught me that.
And from the grave, he was teaching me again. I had not wanted to learn it the first time. I did not want to learn it now. But I had. And I owed him everything for that.