Free Saint by Ted Dekker

greatest warriors and spiritual masters.
    The notion that Carl had actually managed to control the temperature in his pit by affecting the zero-point field was altogether earth-shattering. It may have been proven that the empty space between atoms was filled with large amounts of energy, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to believe that Carl could affect this field.
    â€œPut him on the range,” Kalman said. “Let’s see what he can do.”
    â€œHe’ll need a few hours to normalize and eat.”
    â€œHe shoots before he normalizes.”
    â€œEvery man has his limits.”
    â€œWe’ve broken his limits many times.”
    â€œThe drill he faces this afternoon will test his shooting in an optimum setting before stretching him to his limits,” Kelly said. “I suggest we wait as planned.”
    Kalman looked at her, and the darkness in his eyes made Kelly regret her suggestion. But he didn’t object.
    He simply turned and left the room.

7
    T he Englishman watched the man cross the compound with his typical nonchalant amble. Tall and well toned, with shortcropped hair and a small nose that made him look boyish. He had become ruthless as required, but his soft eyes contradicted his stature.
    I am lost, I am found —Carl was trapped between the two without the slightest clue as to how lost and found he would truly be before it was all over. Lost to himself, found to the darkness that waited below hell.
    Englishman wanted to grin and spit at the same time. It was all growing a bit tedious, but he’d known from the moment he walked into this terrible camp that he would grow bored before the fun began.
    Soon. Maybe he could change his name from Englishman to Soon. Soon rhymed with noon , as in Daniel Boone.
    There was no way he could adequately describe the depths of his hatred for the man who was stealing the show with all of his move-this- move-that emotional control nonsense. Englishman could and would drop Daniel Boone the moment he felt good and ready.
    Which would be soon.
    He took a deep breath and shifted his eyes toward the pretty girl. Kelly. She was playing her part well enough, but he wasn’t sure she could toe the line. Her emotions could get in the way, despite all her training. Did she know the true stakes? He wasn’t sure. Either way, he wouldn’t trust her. He’d come here to make sure Carl did what was expected of him, or kill him if he didn’t, and Englishman was hoping it would be the latter, because he hated Carl more than he thought humanly possible.
    If they only knew why he was here, what lay in store for them, how he would do it all . . . My, my.
    Hallelujah, amen, you are dismissed .
    NEARLY FIVE hours had passed since Kelly liberated Carl from his pit. She’d hooked him up to an IV and pumped enough glucose and electrolytes into his system to wake the dead. He’d been in his pit for two days, she told him. A meaningless bit of trivia.
    He ate a light, balanced meal, then showered, shaved, and dressed in his usual training clothes per her instructions. A short run brought him fully back to the present, the physical world outside the tunnel.
    Kelly had asked him to meet her and the others at the southern shooting range precisely at three for a drill. He wandered the compound for half an hour, then made his way south, past the hospital, which doubled as the administration building; past the barracks; past a small mess hall that they rarely used and a weight room that they frequently used.
    He supposed that he spent an average of three days every week in the pit, but he rarely recalled anything about them. In the beginning his training was filled with the pain required to break him. Needles and electricity and drugs. They still used electricity, but once he’d learned to control his body, his training had turned more to his mind.
    The mental training sessions, like the kind he endured in the pit, were now hardly more than