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was at Petra I had the dream again." Decker paused to breathe and calm his
pounding heart. He hadn't tried to, but he was beginning to sound more and
more like a prosecuting attorney about to drive home his point to the jury.
Christopher didn't like being put in this position and it was obvious that he
didn't care for Decker's tone.
"What dream?!" Christopher demanded, wanting to waste no more time at this
game. "What are you talking about?!"
"It was the same dream I had in Lebanon."
There was a long pause while Christopher studied Decker's face in confusion.
"You mean," he asked, "when I rescued you from the Hizballahl\ That's what
this is all about?!"
"That's what Tom was talking about," Decker answered. "I never told anyone
about that dream except
Tom and Elizabeth. In the dream you came into my room to get me. 'It's time to
go,' you said. But when I was following you out, I stopped you to ask about
Tom." Decker watched Christopher for any reaction to what he was saying. There
was none. "I asked you where he was. You knew but you didn't care. If I hadn't
insisted, you would have left him there to die."
"But that was just a dream!" Christopher interrupted, his good hand
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outstretched, appealing to
Decker's reason.
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"But it wasn't just a dream!" Decker shot back in anger. "In New York you told
me that you used astral projection to come to Lebanon to rescue me. It was
you! It wasn't just a dream!"
Unable to argue the point, Christopher's arm dropped to his side.
"You came there to rescue me!" Decker continued. "Just me! You had no
intention of rescuing Tom!
You were just going to leave him there to rot away and die! That's what Tom
must have realized."
Christopher's disposition suddenly seemed to change. His anger and
defensiveness vanished and instead he just waited and listened. "I don't know
how Tom knew it was more than just a dream, but
I'm sure that's what he meant when he said you were going to leave him.
Somehow, Tom knew that it wasn't just a mistake or an oversight. You were
going to leave him.
"You don't really care about Humankind about people at all. If you did,
you would never have forgotten about Tom."
Christopher's composure had now become so incongruous with the situation that
Decker had to pause.
Not only was Christopher undisturbed, he almost seemed amused.
"But he wasn't a part of your plan," Decker began again haltingly, growing
more and more unsure as the look of amusement on Christopher's face became
more and more pronounced. "You didn't need him to carry out your plans. You
only needed me." Decker stopped, the last words falling from his lips merely
from the momentum of the words that had gone before.
Christopher now smiled broadly, and it became painfully obvious that he was
smiling to himself and not at Decker. Decker had expected denial or anger;
certainly not this.
Finally the smile became outright laughter.
"Damn!" Christopher said finally, almost shouting. "That's pretty good,
Decker! Even if it did take you twenty-three years to realize it."
308 Acts of God
Decker was stunned. Was this an admission ... or just ridicule?
"Frankly, Decker, arguing with you is taking more time than it's worth
anymore," Christopher said.
"To tell you the truth something I do as seldom as possible," he added and
then raised his hand in mock surrender, "it never even occurred to me to
rescue Tom Donafin. As you said, I was there to get you." Christopher
shrugged. "Why should I have cared what happened to Tom Donafin?
"Of course, at the time, I had no idea who Tom was. I thought he had been
killed along with the rest of his family in an auto accident. You see,"
Christopher explained, "Tom Donafin was supposed to have died years before in
a little late-night meeting that was arranged for his family with a drunk
driver. It was a beautiful sight blood and broken glass everywhere," he
said, digressing.
"The drunk driver wasn't even scratched. He felt so guilty about it after he
sobered up that he hanged himself in his jail cell. He left a wife and two
sons nearly penniless. And the best part:
when he hanged himself, the guard was watching. He didn't even try to stop
him. It was perfect.
"Well. . . almost perfect. I thought the whole Donafin family had died.
Apparently Yahweh's minions managed to hide your friend Donafin from us all
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those years." Christopher shrugged off any personal responsibility for the
oversight, "I had no idea who he was when I came to get you out of
Lebanon.
"You know," he said, pointing his finger in the air and shaking it slowly to
emphasize his syllables as a realization dawned on him, "I'll bet that's why
he let you think he was dead all those years! Donafin, or Saul Cohen, or
somebody, must have realized that the best way to hide him from me was to let
you think he was dead. If the two of you had stayed in regular contact after I
moved in with you, sooner or later I would have realized who he was and
arranged another
'accident.'"
Then another thought occurred to Christopher. "The day I was shot, was Donafin
standing there with you at the U.N. when you told me you wanted to introduce
him to me?"
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