Blessed Child Read Free Page B

again. He drew the boy close and whispered in his ear. When he pulled back, tears snaked from his eyes, wetting each cheek. “Remember what I have taught you, my son. Remember it well. Listen to your heart; the eyes will deceive. Remember.” He spoke in Amharic.
    â€œLet’s go! Hurry,” Jason urged them. For all the talk of delivering these to safety, they wouldn’t make it past the front gate if they didn’t leave now. Assuming the gate was not already overtaken.
    â€œDadda . . .” the boy said.
    â€œGo with God, Caleb. His love is better than life.”
    â€œDadda . . .”
    Jason grabbed the boy’s arm and tugged him toward the arching entry. Leiah, the woman, was already at the door craning for a view on either side. She spun to them.
    â€œHurry, hurry!”
    â€œJason,” the priest said. “What’s soft and round and says more than it should?”
    Jason spun back. “Wha—?”
    â€œThe hem of a tunic.” Father Matthew smiled. “An old Ethiopian riddle about modesty that will make sense to you one day. Remember it.”
    They ran from the monastery together, Leiah in the lead, with Jason and the boy following behind. The midday sun blinded Jason for an instant. He released the boy’s hand and took the steps more by feel than by sight.
    Behind him Father Matthew’s voice urged a faltering boy. “Go! Run. Run to the truck and climb in. It will be all right. Remember my riddle, Jason.”
    There was no sign of soldiers on this side of the monastery, but the detonations of what Jason assumed to be mortar fire shook the ground behind them. Black smoke boiled into the sky. Father Matthew’s burning moat. Oil.
    Jason spun to see the boy picking his way down the broad steps on his tiptoes. His round eyes glanced around, petrified. Jason bounded up the steps, grabbed the boy around the waist, and ran for the Jeep.
    â€œGive him to me!” the nurse demanded, her arms outstretched from the back seat. He shoved the boy toward her. She gathered Caleb and set him on the seat beside her. The boy immediately covered his eyes with his hands and buried his head in her lap.
    â€œGet us out of here! Hurry, man!” Leiah said.
    â€œI am. I am! Hold on!”
    The engine roared to life with the first turn of the ignition. Jason rammed the shift stick forward and floored the accelerator. The Jeep spun in a circle, raising dust on all sides. He angled the vehicle for the gate and grabbed another gear.
    Behind them an explosion shook the courtyard. They were lobbing the explosives to the front! Ahead the gate was closed. The gatekeeper ran out, pointing frantically to Jason’s rear. He glanced back and saw the first truck emerging from a cloud of smoke beside the monastery—a Land Rover painted in desert camouflage.
    Jason didn’t let up on the gas pedal. He had the engine wound out in third gear, screaming for the closed gate.
    â€œOpen it! Open the gate!” he screamed, motioning furiously with his hand.
    The gatekeeper flew for the latch, like a ghost in his flowing white robes. He shoved the gates open and ran for the monastery, uttering sharp cries barely heard above the thumping explosions behind them.
    The Jeep struck one of the gates with a clang and shot out onto the driveway. Jason shoved the gearbox into high gear, veered off the road in his haste, corrected with a jerk of the wheel, and centered the vehicle on the road leading from the valley.
    â€œStay on the road! Watch the potholes!”
    Her warning came too late and their right wheel pounded through a hole the size of a Volkswagen. Jason cleared the seat a good foot before crashing back down. He glanced back to see Leiah’s white face. The boy was still buried in her lap, oblivious to the world.
    â€œWatch for the holes!” Leiah yelled.
    â€œI am!”
    Behind them a huge explosion ripped through the air, like a thunderclap rumbling