Bring Them Home
I looked at the phone in my hands and felt the ache of the distance that separated me from Hope and Jin. I was breathing hard and sweating. In the minutes I’d been waiting, I had been running—running to find my way out of these mountains. I couldn’t stand the thought of Hope and Jin being held hostage.
Hope had sounded confident, not scared at all. But that was Hope. She would not be intimidated by anyone. Even Dempsey. And she didn’t sound like she was hurt or—
The phone beeped, and I pulled up a text. “Stay tuned for more messages,” it said.
Dempsey was probably just tying up the line because he wanted me to wait, but I had waited long enough. I was going to need some help on this, and even though Zack was my obvious choice, there were others I could call, others who would not alert any government agencies and trigger Dempsey’s contacts. I began to dial and then heard the beep of another incoming text. It was from the same number as before.
“So sorry about the virus,” it said. “But you know I can’t allow you to use this phone.” The words flashed long enough for me to read them, and then the screen went blank. I pushed every button I could think of; I pulled the battery out and put it back in; I pounded the phone against a tree. To no avail. The phone was dead. Dempsey must have sent the worm when he sent the text.
I threw the satellite phone into the bushes and pulled out my cell phone. No bars.
I began running again. I needed to get out of these mountains to locate my family. I reached the edge of a clearing and stopped cold. It was as if a plate of invisible glass had been stretched across the finish line of a 100-meter dash and I had run directly into it. An unseen hand was holding me back, telling me to wait and listen. I suddenly realized what Hope’s last words had been when she’d been holding me in her arms, the ones she had been so careful to urge me to remember in the phone call. She hadn’t told me she loved me. What she’d said was You bring back those boys unharmed—especially my son. I’m holding you responsible. You bring them home.
Hope knew me well. She knew I would abandon everything and everyone to come for her. She knew it, and she was telling me not to. She wanted me to stay here and save the boys. But Hope didn’t understand the situation. She didn’t realize that the boys were in far better hands with Ron than they ever could be with me. She didn’t realize that every second she was in danger took at least a year off my life. I could no more abandon Hope to Dempsey than I could try to survive without breathing. Without her, I couldn’t live.
I began running again. I could see glimpses of the mountain pass before me. Once over the top, I would be at the road in a matter of a few hours. Somehow I would find where Dempsey was holding them—I would find him and hurt him, just as I had done the night he’d hit Becca. Dempsey claimed this was not about revenge, but I knew how badly he hated to lose. I’d always thought he’d be back again someday. But I’d never thought it would be like this.
I stopped to catch my breath, and the invisible hand pushed me again, urged me to stop and turn around. But my family was on the other side of that ridge, a family I had never expected to have, a family that meant everything to me. Not all of your family, a voice inside my head seemed to say. Not Peng.
I should have felt guilty for not including Peng in my thoughts of family; instead I felt angry. I thought back to the day at the orphanage, to Mistress Wu’s insistence that we not bring the baby home without taking the brother. I should have seen the signs then. I should have paid more attention to the look in her eyes when Peng entered the room. She was afraid of the boy. She wanted him out of her orphanage; she wanted someone to take him away. In trying to make Hope happy, I’d let my guard down. I recognized now that bringing Peng home had been the beginning of a wedge between Hope and me, a growing rift in what had been a perfect union.
I slowed a bit. I was being unfair. Peng was just a kid. If there was something wrong with him, it was because he had been emotionally damaged as a young child. Even so, I couldn’t help but think I had brought something unsafe into our home, like a pet rattlesnake in a box.
I began running again, and my thoughts came with me. My anger moved from Peng to God. Why couldn’t we have been given someone more like Shi-Shi, an honor student who brightened every room she stepped into? Or even someone like Joey, far from perfect but lovable all the same, lovable and teachable. I thought of all the boys in the Scout troop. If they survived this trip, they would probably all be going on missions in a few years—all starting families and bringing grandkids home for visits. I couldn’t imagine what Peng would be doing. Maybe helping convicts escape from high-security prisons, maybe running an illegal drug ring back in China, maybe just disappearing into the mist. Of all the people we could have brought home, why did it have to be Peng?
Because I knew you would understand him. The words came into my head at the same time the invisible hand stopped me again. I had reached the top of the ridge, and I could see Mirror Lake and the highway next to it. I could see the reflection off the windshields of cars in the parking lot. I could see the path to Hope. Turning around made no sense now. Neither did the words that had come into my mind. If there was one thing I knew, it was that I did not understand Peng. Surely someone else, anyone else, could do a better job as his parent.
Bring them home. Hope’s words were insistent in my mind.
Almost against my will, I found myself turning around. With tears streaming down my face, I began to make my way back in the direction I had come.
I remembered a conversation I’d had with Ron about how to tell the difference between a prompting from God and random thoughts that entered the brain. I tended to get a lot of random thoughts, and if I acted as if all of them were promptings, things would not turn out well. When I’d asked Hope the same question, she had just seemed exasperated. “You just know,” she had said. But that was it. Hope just knew. She had the advantage of having once died and gone over to the other side. For her, the veil was thin. My veil seemed like a brick wall a hundred feet thick.
“You don’t know,” Ron had answered. “Not really. Sometimes not until years later. That’s why it’s an act of faith. You either act on promptings, or you don’t, and then you learn from that when to pay attention in the future. You do your best to sort out the real from the random. If you are thinking about jumping off the roof because you think you might be able to fly, that’s random. If you think you should go check on your neighbor because they’ve been sick, it’s probably something else.”
“That’s not very helpful,” I’d told him.
“Well, there’s always the rule of threes.”
“The rule of threes?”
“If the same thought hits you strong three times in a row, you can be pretty sure someone is sending you a message.”
I’d had the strong impression to go back three times now. I was pretty sure I’d just encountered the rule of threes. And once I turned around, I’d somehow known it was the right thing to do.
In my mind, it still didn’t make any sense. It seemed like I was playing the game Dempsey wanted me to play, making the moves he wanted me to make.
Should I do what he said and turn myself in? But then what would happen to Ron when they found out he was the Delta operative? Should I wait for the assassination team and try to fight them off? This made about as much sense as jumping off the roof and expecting to fly.
I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I needed to head back toward the boys, back toward Peng. Difficult or not, he was my son. And I still had a day before the assassination team showed up.
Maybe I would think of something.