Free Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood by Jerry B. Jenkins Page B

knew. But he was also aware that this was going to manifest itself in a frigid, largely silent persona. No more games. No more cordiality. Unless someone could somehow say something that made sense of any of this, he was not going to even pretend to be comforted.
    And it started now. He didn’t want to be mean to his parents. Again, there was no question that they, like everyone else, meant well. And they had suffered losses too. Not like his, but losses nonetheless. They would have to be inhuman to not feel deeply for him. But they couldn’t help him. No one could. Boone could not imagine anyone saying or doing anything that would change an iota of what had become of his life in one horrible instant.
    One moment he had been enjoying the life and marriage and family and career he had always dreamed of and striven for, and the next he had lost everything that mattered to him except his job. And even that, at least for now, held no appeal.
    Boone was reminded of a movie that was already old when he had seen it years before— Catch-22 . He remembered little of the plot, but one scene played out in his mind. A character was standing on some sort of floating dock when a low-flying military aircraft flew into him and tore him in half. He was sure that the way the special effects artists for the picture portrayed it was not likely true to life. The character’s body, from the torso down, was left standing on the dock a few seconds before collapsing.
    No doubt if someone had been hit by an airplane like that, his entire body would have been obliterated or thrown hundreds of feet. But there was something poignant to Boone now about that ugly scene. It represented how he felt. Standing tall one second, chopped in half the next.
    All this rumbling inside Boone’s head protected him in some weird way from the awfulness that had plagued him the day before. He could not have gone on living that way, with such sensory overload that he could barely function. It was not lost on him that this new mind-set was poisonous, that he was internalizing the rage, the confusion, the anger at God, and that it would turn him into someone he could not have imagined being.
    But, he realized, it was this or suicide. He would work at not hurting anyone. There was nothing to be gained by taking his rage out on someone else, especially Jack or his parents or his pastor. But neither was he going to exhibit any pretense. People would want to hear that he was doing okay under the circumstances, that he was numb, that he knew time was a healer. Well, he wasn’t going to say or even pretend that was true. His plan of action, if he could call it that, was to retreat inside himself. He would tell the truth as dispassionately as he could, and while he would not be intentionally unkind, he would engage in no role-playing.
    “I’m sorry for your loss too,” he told his parents, and his mother cocked her head and scowled. Clearly she had not expected him to sound so detached and formal. Too bad. He was sorry for their loss. “Now let’s not take advantage of the commander’s kindness and let him have his office back. He’s one of the busiest men I’ve ever known, and we can talk in the conference room.”
    “Yes, we can pray in there too,” Mrs. Drake said.
    “Well, you can,” Boone said.
    She took his arm as they vacated the office and headed down the hall. “Whatever do you mean, honey? You must be praying every minute.”
    “No, I’m not. I figure if God has something he wants to tell me, like that he’s sorry for letting this happen, he can say so. I have nothing to say to him.”
    “Oh, Boone! You have to know God has some purpose in this! We don’t know what it is, and we’re in the valley of the shadow of death right now, but—”
    “Please, Mom. There is no shadow here. It’s death plain and simple, and the worst kind you can imagine. I’m not going to tell you not to pray if that gives you some comfort. But it gives me nothing, so