the stairs screamed in agony, threatening to collapse beneath him. Halfway up the steps he saw a small dark figure step out of the house onto the porch.
Mario Subing aimed the pistol in his hands down the steps at the Executioner.
BOTH RACHAEL PARKS and her husband, John, believed strongly in prayer. Before accepting the mission assignment to the Philippines, they’d had a special time set aside each night when they prayed together. The both also did their best to offer up short individual appeals and supplications to God throughout the day. But there had been so much work to be done as soon as they’d arrived on Mindanao that too often they collapsed into bed at night and suddenly realized they hadn’t spoken a word to the Lord all day.
“Yeah, but isn’t there a proverb that says God loves busy hands?” Rachael remembered her husband saying one night when she’d pointed out that they’d forgotten to pray.
“Yes,” she remembered saying back. “But there’s a whole bunch of scripture that says He likes to talk to us, too.” They had both laughed. Then they’d both prayed, because neither one of them were the type who fooled themselves into thinking a rapid-fire thank-you-God-for-another-day-and-enough-to-eat-amen was a real prayer.
Well, Rachael thought as she closed her eyes behind the hood, I’ve got plenty of time to make up for lost prayers now. The fact was that prayer, meditation and thinking was about all she or her husband had been able to do during the past several months.
Rachel shifted her mud-encrusted, water-soaked jeans beneath her and felt the chapped skin on the back of her thighs. Yes, for perhaps the first time in her life, she had all the time she wanted to pray. And though she had taken advantage of it, offering up prayers about her church, her husband, the other hostages, her family and herself, for some reason the words she found herself silently forming with her lips, over and over again, had nothing to do with her present situation. In fact, the words she caught herself saying most often were not even original on her part—they had been spoken by Jesus more than two thousand years earlier while he hung on the cross.
Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do.
Rachael opened her eyes beneath the hood. For weeks after their capture she had hated the terrorists who had taken them hostage. Then she had realized her hatred wasn’t hurting the men who held them captive one bit. But it was eating her alive. So she had prayed that God would remove the hatred from her soul and give her the strength to endure whatever happened. Then she had gone another step and prayed that the Lord would forgive Candido Subing and the other Tigers and that they would find salvation through Jesus Christ.
Rachael smiled as she remembered the sequence of events after the first such prayer. She’d said, “Amen” then felt obligated to add. “P.S. Lord, help me to someday mean it when I ask you I forgive them. Because right now I’d kind of like to see them rot away in Hell for all eternity.”
No, Rachael thought as she sat in the mud as she had day after day after day, her hatred hadn’t disappeared all at once. But somewhere along the line she had forgiven her captors. And now when she prayed for Candido Subing and the others she truly did mean it from the heart.
Rachael looked down and smiled. She still had things to be thankful for. Small things maybe, but gifts nonetheless. For one thing, she could tell it was daytime. The drawstring at her throat hadn’t been tightened all the way and she could see the light on her chest. Lord, I thank you for the light, she said silently, and the new prayer made her realize how many of God’s wonders she overlooked each day. God could make something good out of anything, no matter how evil its original intent might be at the hands of man. And one of the good things that had come out of their captivity was just that—she no longer took such things as the sun going up and coming down for granted.
There was some kind of rustling on the other side of the barn and Rachael’s ears perked. A quick image of Jim Worden flew through her mind. In less than a heartbeat her mind’s eye relived the horrifying death she had witnessed. She saw Jim kneeling on the ground, facing her and the others. He was smiling—he said something—she couldn’t remember what at the moment—then Candido Subing raised his sword and Jim’s head fell from his body. Seconds later his body fell forward while his head fell to the side. There was blood everywhere, but Jim was still smiling.
Rachael suddenly realized that she was crying just as she had when the horrible death had actually occurred.
Rachael bit her lip with her teeth but the tears still flowed down her cheeks. Did Jim’s brutal death serve some higher purpose that she couldn’t understand? Rachael felt herself begin to tremble. She felt as if she might be on the verge of a breakdown. First the tears. Now she was shaking. She was about to scream when she felt the hand on her shoulder.
As suddenly as it had come, the trembling stopped, her eyes dried up and she felt the love of God within her once more. The Lord had given her the sign she’d asked for through her husband. John, sitting next to her, had somehow worked a hand free and now it squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
Rachael leaned her head to the side, resting her cheek against the back of her husband’s hand. It was God at work. God answering their prayers. God giving her a blessing.
Rachael’s cheek still rested on the hand when she heard the rickety wooden door on the other side of the barn slide open. She recognized the voice of Candido Subing shouting orders to his men. She held her breath and knew the other missionaries were doing the same. Although it had been apparent since the beginning that Subing was the leader, he was rarely here in this hiding place. But when he did show up, things happened. And while all of those things had been bad so far, Rachael knew that Subing would also be the one to tell them if they were about to be released.
Boots sloshed through the mud toward the five missionaries. Rachael heard a sigh and then a moan as hoods were lifted off faces. When the sack was jerked from her head she turned in time to see Reynaldo Taboada pull the hood from John. She was glad it was Reynaldo. He seemed different than the others, not as mean. He never mistreated them for the fun of it like some of the guards did and there seemed something almost sad about the man.
“Thank you,” Rachael whispered to John as soon as the terrorist had turned away.
“For what?” John asked, his face looking puzzled.
Before she could thank him for the hand on her shoulder Subing stepped forward to face his hostages. He was obviously about to speak to them; the last time he had done so had ended with the murder of Jim Worden. Rachael’s eyes scanned the area behind him for any sign of video equipment. She saw none and that gave her hope that the horror might not be repeated.
Subing cleared his throat. “I understand,” he said, “that in America there is a game in which someone says, ‘I have both some good news and some bad.’ First, I will give you the good news. America has sent new agents—CIA, I am sure—to look for you.” He cackled sardonically, then spit into the mud. “Now. For the bad news. They will not find you. And the worst news of all for some of you…” He let his voice trail off to build tension. “Is that to make their hunt more difficult, I am going to separate you into three groups.”
Rachael felt a chill go down her spine as she and her husband looked at each other, then back at Subing. Three groups. Five of them left. That would surely mean two hostages in two groups, one in the third. Surely, Subing would allow them to stay together. Even a man as misguided as he had to retain some compassion hidden deep within his soul.
The men of the Liberty Tigers trudged through the mud. Two of them grabbed Roger Ewton and dragged him toward the door. Two more lifted Kim Tate from where she sat next to Rachael, and then another two Tigers
