Chasing the White Lion by James Hannibal (best free e book reader .TXT) 📗

you wish. But Val’s right. You don’t have to do this. You don’t owe anyone.”

“That is where you are wrong, amico mio. My eternal account is credited, yes. But wrongs as grievous as mine demand earthly consequences. The time has come for me to face them.”

The dismay in Val’s expression left Talia puzzled. She had spoken with such disdain of her father before. They’d been estranged for years, yet now she refused to be parted from him. “What about the talk we never had?” asked the grifter, on the verge of tears. “We could go somewhere, sit down for a while.”

“I have seen all I need to see—heard all I need to hear.” Don Marco took Tyler’s hand as well and placed it in Val’s. “This, whatever it may be, has my blessing.”

A shout from the computer station stole Talia’s attention. Eddie slapped his fidget spinner down on the folding table. “We’re in!”

When she looked back again, Val had buried her head in Tyler’s shoulder. Don Marco was ambling away across the tarmac toward a commercial jet—an old man with nothing but a rolling suitcase to his name.

CHAPTER

FIFTY-

NINE

BO SUPHAN

SUPHAN BURI PROVINCE, THAILAND

THEDAYSANDNIGHTS in the cinder-block building had blurred together. Thet Ye couldn’t remember how long they’d been there. Aung Thu did not remember either, and he no longer answered when Thet Ye asked.

When the soldiers had herded them inside—a barefoot race from the truck to the building—Thet Ye had seen a matching structure across the road. He could only hope Hla Meh, Teacher Rocha, and Pastor Nakor were in there. They had been taken in the other truck. He hated being separated from his best friend, not knowing if they’d ever see each other again, not knowing if she’d ever forgive him.

Most of the children in Thet Ye’s building were boys. They slept on the dirt floor. They ate whatever the soldiers threw at them. They drank from a pail of water left in the corner each morning.

Early in their stay, when the soldiers left them alone, a few whispered of escape. Aung Thu’s friend Su Chat even tried to sneak a look through the curtain covering the door. Soe Htun, the leader with the burn scars, caught him. The yelling—the slapping and kicking—was more than Thet Ye could watch. Afterward Thet Ye had gone to Su Chat, but the boy crawled away to hide in the corner. No one spoke of escape from then on.

Thet Ye knew how to pray. Teacher Rocha had shown him, and he liked to pray out loud whenever she asked for a student volunteer. “Prayer is not a list of desires and requests,” she would say. “Prayer should be a conversation. We begin with praise and thankfulness because God deserves it, even when we’re sad.”

In the doldrums of surviving, prayer had become Thet Ye’s constant companion. And once he got started, he’d been surprised how easy thankfulness came. He waited in line to scoop a handful of water from the pail, then bowed his head for another. “Thank you, God, that we are alive. Thank you for sending Pastor Nakor and Teacher Rocha with us. Thank you for the food and water we have.”

Shouting outside interrupted him, followed by the rat-a-tat report of a machine gun. The boys closest to the curtain door scooted backward into the room, pressing against the others—a learned response. Activity meant someone was coming, and no one wanted to be in a soldier’s path when he came through.

More shouting.

A long silence.

About the time Thet Ye and the others dared to breathe again, the teenage soldier staggered through the curtain. His weapon hung from its strap, bouncing against his legs. He didn’t seem to notice the children. He kept walking, and they stumbled over one another trying to get out of his way. He stopped in the middle of the room.

They watched.

An older soldier came in next. “What are you doing? I told you to get them lined up!”

Shaken from his stupor, the teen tried to obey. He took up his gun and yelled, “You heard him. Get up! Get moving!” But he walked backward as he spoke and tripped over poor Aung Thu.

The teenager toppled into a pack of terrified boys. His hands never left the machine gun. His finger never left the trigger. When his shoulder hit the floor, the gun went off.

This did not go well for anyone.

The bullets etched a line in the cinder blocks above the older soldier’s head. The whites of his eyes grew two sizes. He stormed past scrambling children and put the barrel of his gun under the teenager’s chin, lifting him to his feet. “I should kill you. I should kill you right now as I killed Soe Htun. Give me a reason not to!”

The same terror that paralyzed the children around him, paralyzed the teen. The older soldier growled, then flipped the rifle around and smashed the butt into his forehead.

The teen crumpled, crying.

In that moment, Thet Ye knew for certain Pastor Nakor had spoken truth. The teen soldier was a captive child like the rest of them, a captive child with a gun.

Blinking in the sunlight, the children from both buildings lined up on either side of the road. Hla Meh was there. Thet Ye tried to call to her but found his voice almost gone. It came out as a hoarse whisper.

She didn’t hear him.

“Hurry up. Get them organized.” The soldier who’d hit the teenager barked the orders. Had he killed Soe Htun as he claimed? Had he taken over? Something had clearly changed. One of the trucks waited in the road, engine idling. They were being moved again.

The soldiers pulled boys and girls out of each line. Children shuffled across the road with armed escorts in a strange trading game until Thet Ye’s line was all boys, and Hla Meh’s all girls. He saw no sign of Teacher Rocha or Pastor Nakor.

The new man in charge pounded the side of the truck to