Unlimited (13 page)

Simon crammed the noose over the hand and hauled back.

The hunter's arm and shoulder came through the broken upper door and his head slammed against the shattered door frame. Simon lashed the cable down tight, trapping the man halfway inside the door. The man's astonished face was inches from his own.

He scrambled away from the hunter. “Give me back my passport!”

The hunter grinned back at him. There was no humor in those glittering black eyes. No life. Nothing.

Then he barked. Like an animal's bark. A predator in sight of prey.

From outside the door there was the snick of metal-on-metal. The hunter's other hand came into view, holding an open switchblade.

Simon raced from the kitchen. Pedro stood by the front door, eyes round, mouth gaping like he was struggling to draw breath in a vacuum.

They fled.

“What were you thinking?” Harold demanded.

Simon watched Pedro hang his head as though he was being punished. But there was no criticism in Harold's voice that Simon could hear. Instead the man seemed genuinely curious. As though he was seeking to understand before passing judgment.

“Did you even give a thought to the orphanage? Or the children?”

“Of course I did,” Pedro replied to Harold. “I hardly ever think of anything else.”

“Then how could you take such a risk?”

“You said it yourself. Because of what Simon might be.”

Simon was certain the hunter took his orders from someone else. The man's gaze had held a predatory gleam but no deep intelligence. He was probably very good at his job. It was doubtful he had any scruples whatsoever. Simon couldn't understand how a man would serve another person so slavishly. He could still taste the man's breath, the foul odor of beef and chili spices. He remembered those eyes and knew the man would not give up. It was only a matter of time before he attacked again.

Harold said, “That did not give you permission to endanger our young charges.”

“I did not do this thing to endanger anyone. I did it to save us.”

Simon liked Pedro. The man held a quiet strength, a quality he hid away most of the time. As though he preferred people to underestimate him.

“I can understand Simon taking a risk like that. But you?”

“Every day holds risk. Every breath we draw in these days. Life itself is a risk.”

Harold stopped then. And waited. Like he knew Pedro was not going to give and there was nothing to be gained by pushing. Two men who had known each other for a lifetime and knew how the other thought. They trusted one another, at a level far beyond words, beyond any quarrel or worry. Simon wondered what it would be like to know another person so intimately. He had spent a lifetime keeping people at arm's length.

Then he noticed the new paper on Harold's board.

The side wall was covered by an oversized corkboard. Upon it were dozens of paintings and drawings and stories. The words were written on wide-ruled paper used by very young children learning to write. Many contained letters of love to Harold. The paintings were cheerful and bright and happy.

There in the center of the board hung Simon's two goals. They held pride of position, right at the heart of the community. The words were so tawdry, the wishes so cynical. As empty as his life.

“Simon.”

Reluctantly he turned back around. And faced the man on the other side of the battered desk.

“Did you find something that justified taking such a risk?”

“Maybe.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I'm not sure. Yet. Can I be excused?”

Harold cocked his head to one side. Inspecting him carefully. Then he nodded. “Yes, Simon. You can go.”

He rose from his chair and reached to the board. He took down the page that contained his two empty goals. And walked from the room.

At the doorway he could not help but glance back. Harold was seated there, his head still cocked slightly. Only now he was smiling. As though Simon had done the right thing. For once.

Simon heard the bell ring through his room's open window. The sound pulled on him like a magnet. He resisted the urge. He remained where he was, sitting at his table on his little stool. Studying the two pages Vasquez had left for him. The scrawled words at the top of the first page branded themselves into his brain.
“Don't let me down. I wish you every success.”

The children erupted from the chapel. A few minutes later, the dinner bell clanged. Simon went outside and joined the line snaking out the mess hall door. The kids giggled and pointed. But when he did not respond, they left him alone. Juan slipped over and asked if he wanted anything. Simon thanked him and said no. Juan must have seen he was more than simply distracted, for the kid didn't say anything more.

Simon took his metal plate and mug to the table by the far window and sat by himself. Even when all the other places became filled, he remained alone. Lost in thought, the lines of numbers danced in the golden light spilling through the western window.

When he was finished eating, he took his plate and mug and utensils to the plastic trays by the dishwasher's portal. Then he walked back to the doorway leading to Harold's room and the orphanage guestroom. The kids were playing their perpetual game of soccer in the courtyard. Juan called to him. Still deep in thought, Simon did not respond. The kids laughed at him, and he carried the happy sound back upstairs.

He left the two pages from Vasquez on the guestroom's battered table and stepped to the window. Only the older kids were playing now, and they played well. Extremely well, in fact. Simon had played intramural soccer through his high school and college years. He knew talent when he saw it. The kids were playing some serious soccer. Their bare feet became a sunset dance, throwing up golden clouds of dust and laughter. He saw a happiness and simple joy, something he had thought lost to him forever.

He shut the window and returned to the table. But the lines of data didn't hold him. Simon rose from the stool and opened the professor's Bible. The book was well worn, the cover so supple he could fold it back upon itself. The onion-skin pages were heavily lined and annotated in the professor's illegible script. Simon had a sense of the professor standing behind him, watching in approval as Simon studied the pages for the first time in his adult life.

He set the Bible to one side and unfolded the photograph. The picture had been taken by a grad student on the day Vasquez had given Simon the key he still wore around his neck. Vasquez had his peculiarities. Most of the MIT professors and many of the students had some odd trait or another. The resulting jokes were a means by which the brilliant minds could be kept in human perspective. At the time that picture was taken, Simon and the professor were becoming very close. The professor had seen Simon as the student who would someday take his place and continue his research. The afternoon he had given Simon a copy of his key, Vasquez had revealed his secret research and his longing to provide free power to Mexico's poorest citizens. Vasquez had then bestowed the key like a king offering a loyal subject a crown.

And Simon had responded with a joke.

While the sounds of kids playing soccer filled his room with the music of heartfelt joy, Simon tried his best to tell the professor good-bye. But the professor's smile mocked his desire to turn away.

Simon unfolded the page he had taken down from Harold's board. The orphanage director's handwriting was almost as bad as Vasquez's. The two desires Harold had copied down were pitiful. They were certainly not funny. They mocked him as well.

Simon turned the sheet over. The blank page was an invitation. Not merely to write something down. Rather, Simon heard a faint call to move on. To start anew.

He was still staring at the blank sheet of paper when the kids went silent, and night drew a desert hush over his bare room. Simon rose from the stool and stretched. He cut off the light and lay down on the cot. He stared at the ceiling for a time. Finally he rose and turned the light back on and went over to the table. The empty page was there beside the professor's photograph. Waiting.

Simon knew if he didn't write, he would not sleep. He put down the number one and beside it wrote the words that had been bouncing around inside his head ever since leaving the professor's house.

To do something more.

He set the pen down and started to turn away. He wanted to, but he knew he was not done. The professor stared up at him. Waiting.

Simon picked up the pen and wrote the hardest four words of his entire life.

Beside the number two, he put:
To make things right
.

The words raked across his heart with talons of bitter regret. But after he cut off the light and lay back down, he discovered that the act granted him a sense of release. The burden he had been carrying for nearly a year was not entirely gone. But a tiny chip had been broken off. The weight was not so heavy. He breathed a little easier.

And for the first time since it had all gone down, Simon found himself able to say the word that had brought him two thousand miles. Too late to say to Vasquez, perhaps. But to say it at all offered him a sense of tragic conquest.

He whispered to the night and the man who was no more, “Sorry.”

Then he rolled over and shut his eyes.

He slept and did not dream.

Sofia's home was an apartment above a café and an art gallery. Her balcony overlooked the square and the orphanage gates beyond. The apartment belonged to Harold. He had bought it at the end of his first mission trip. Before returning to America he had wanted to anchor himself here. It was a move typical of Harold, planning for the future in concrete ways. By that point Harold knew this was where he had been called to spend his remaining days. The apartment was his way of not allowing the pressures of the outside world to change his mind.

Harold had offered her the place while she was still in university in El Paso. He had hoped it would be a way for her to maintain her connection, and he also wanted to heal the wounds caused by her departure and all the struggles that had preceded the move north.

Sofia carried her morning coffee and her Bible out to the balcony. Dawn spread out over the quiet plaza. Doves filled the trees that lined the square and filled the morning with their soft calls. She read a passage and prayed and reflected on her past. All while she was growing up, missionaries had visited from the U.S. Some came with church groups for a week, they worked around the orphanage, then they left. Others came with college mission groups or as couples on temporary assignment, stayed for a month or so, and then eventually they left as well. Sofia had gotten on well enough with most of them. But in her secret heart she had resented them. They had come and then they had left. They had abandoned her. Just like her parents.

The couple that had taken her north had been different. They had both retired from academic posts, and they knew and loved Harold and believed in his work. They returned every winter and taught for three months. They had recognized something more in Sofia, so they helped her apply for a stipend at their alma mater and helped her with the government forms for a student visa. Then one day she had simply packed her bag and walked across the Rio Grande and entered a new life.

For her, entering university had been like spreading her wings. When she returned the first time, full of trepidation and dread, Harold had welcomed her with open arms. For Sofia, his understanding and forgiveness had been the clearest answer to prayer she had ever known. Harold had never been one for quarrels. And he could see how happy and hopeful she had become. The arguments had been with Pedro. Her brother had felt bitterly disappointed. Her returns from university had been painful, for Pedro had silently accused her of abandoning him. Just like she had accused others.

She had no problem with Pedro's dream of running the orphanage. People defined personal success in different ways, that was one of Harold's central precepts. Pedro had been born with a compassionate heart and a desire to serve. It was what made him so good at his job for the city. The people of Ojinaga trusted him. He was the kindly side of the local government, the human face of Enrique's push for change and growth. He would be ideal as the orphanage director once Harold stepped down.

What Pedro had not understood, what he had refused to accept, was that she had wanted
more
. But for her, having more did not mean giving up the orphanage.

Her attention was drawn back to the present by the orphanage bell. She sipped from her coffee, which had grown cold, and watched as Juan swung the gates open. The big doors caught the morning sun and turned the color of frozen honey. Juan grinned and waved at her. This was her favorite time of day.

Then Simon Orwell crossed the orphanage courtyard and entered the chapel.

Simon told himself he was only doing what his scientific training had taught him. Take whatever opportunity was available. Observe carefully and objectively. Analyze the results. Make necessary adjustments. Repeat or select an alternative. And above all else was the simple edict to
move forward
. Search for data. Analyze. Apply. But as Simon entered the chapel's shaded interior, he sensed he was doing the right thing. Faith had meant so much to Vasquez.