DAY FIFTEEN
“Run, Gracie, run!”
FBI Special Agent (no longer on probation) Jan Jorgenson was standing off to the side of the goal at one end of the field, the goal toward which Gracie Ann Brice was now running. She was kicking the ball out in front of her, chased by the other team. The parents were cheering in the stands.
“Take it to the goal, Gracie!”
“Go, Gracie! Score!”
Gracie suddenly cut across the field and ran directly toward Jan; she kicked the ball past the diving keeper and into the net. The crowd cheered. Jan clapped.
Gracie’s momentum carried her to within twenty feet of Jan. She stopped and was about to turn back to the field when her eyes met Jan’s. Gracie stared at her, a quizzical expression on her face, as if wondering whether they had met. The other girls surrounded Gracie and pulled her away. Halfway across the field, Gracie turned back. Jan gave her a thumbs up.
I didn’t quit on you, Gracie Ann Brice.
She had not wanted this assignment to the Dallas field office, but now she understood. She was meant to be here for Gracie. She was meant to find her place in life. She was not Clarice Starling. She was Jan Jorgenson and she was catching a flight to St. Louis to join Agent Devereaux.
A six-year-old girl had been abducted by a stranger.
The parents in the low bleachers were cheering for his daughter. But no one cheered louder than John Brice.
“Go, Gracie! You’re the girl! Be the girl, baby!”
John R. Brice was now worth $3.5 billion, but he had decided not to buy the Boston Red Sox for Sam or a bunch of radio stations for Gracie. Or even a jet. But he had written a $10 million check to Gary Jennings’s wife. She said she and her baby were going back to Nebraska to live with her parents on their farm. She said she would be all right, in time. She said she had prayed for Gracie’s return. And Gracie had come home. She was back, the bullies were gone, and with them, Little Johnny Brice.
John R. Brice was a man now.
A different man. The mountain had changed him. He had learned about himself on that mountain. And he had learned about life. He had always held firmly to the theory that life was just an endless succession of coincidences, random events completely without meaning or connection; he had always believed that human beings were like molecules bouncing randomly off each other in the atmosphere. Whom we hit was nothing more than pure coincidence.
It was just a coincidence that Ben Brice and John’s real father had been assigned the same dorm room at West Point, which led them both to Vietnam and SOG Team Viper and Major Charles Woodrow Walker.
It was just a coincidence that Ben had balked at shooting the old Vietnamese woman by the river, which led to an ambush and to John’s real father being killed and to a massacre, which led to a court-martial where Ben’s testimony convicted Major Walker.
It was just a coincidence that Ben and Kate had adopted John, which led to Army bases and Army brats who bullied him, which led him to his room and his Apple computer and to learn computer code, which led him to MIT and to the Justice Department and to Elizabeth.
It was just a coincidence that a hobo spider had bitten Junior, which led to Major Walker’s capture and to Elizabeth’s abduction and to Gracie, which led Elizabeth to John and to the son of Walker’s accuser marrying the mother of his child.
It was just a coincidence that Fortune had run a feature on John R. Brice with the family portrait, which led Junior and Jacko to Gracie’s soccer game and to the Viper tattoo on the game tape.
It was just a coincidence that John had been on the phone with Lou and the trial had delayed Elizabeth’s arrival at the park, which led Gracie to the concession stand without her parents and into Junior’s trap.
It was just a coincidence that Junior’s POS SUV had needed repairs, which led them to Clayton Lee Tucker’s gas station and to his recognizing Gracie’s Amber Alert photo and calling the FBI hotline, which led Ben and John to Tucker and to Bonners Ferry.
It was just a coincidence that Bubba had walked into Rusty’s Tavern, which led them past the booby traps and up the mountain called Red Ridge and to Agent O’Brien, who saved John’s life so John could save Ben’s life so Ben could save Gracie’s life so Gracie could save the president’s life.
It was all just an endless succession of coincidences.
That had always been his theory of life.
He had always been completely wrong.
Life is not random. There are no coincidences. Human beings are more than mere molecules bouncing around life without reason. We bounce around life with a purpose. We are meant to bounce off specific other human beings during our lives, other human beings who will change the content and course of our lives. We are meant to be exactly who we are. John R. Brice was meant to be husband to Elizabeth, father to Gracie and Sam, and son to Roger and Mary and now Ben and Kate. He was meant to be exactly who he was today: a man standing on a soccer field on a fine spring day with his family.
And he felt pretty dang robust about that.
John started yelling again: “Yeah, Gracie! You go, girl! Hoo-yah! Be the girl, baby! You’re the girl! Unh- hunh!”
Elizabeth leaned into her husband and kissed him. She whispered in his ear, “I love you.”
When he had returned from Idaho, she saw in his eyes that he had learned the truth about her and about Grace. But he had not spoken of it. Last night, lying in bed with him, she started to bring it up, but he put his fingers to her lips.
“I don’t care how Gracie came into my life,” he said. “I care only that she’s in my life and that we have her back. The past-mine, yours, Gracie’s-it died on that mountain.”
He said they would never speak about what had happened to her ten years ago or what had happened on that mountain in Idaho. That was all in the past now, and Elizabeth Brice was finally able to leave the past behind her. The violation she had suffered ten years ago had owned her life ever since. But no longer. Because that violation had given her a better life-a child’s life.
Grace was worth it.
Gracie was driving the ball down the field, but she couldn’t focus, not with her SO acting the fool on the sideline, shouting and cheering and doing some kind of funny little dance now. God bless him, he had the rhythm of a rock. Maybe it was better when Dad multitasked during her games… No, this was better. Like, totally. She smiled at him as she ran past.
Everything was different now. Everything was better. Her parents seemed to actually like each other-she had never seen Mom kiss Dad before-and in public! PDA! Dad was a new man, a real grownup, a manly father more than a big brother (although he promised to still take them to Krispy Kreme every Saturday morning). He had bear- hugged her a dozen times since she had come home.
And Mom-wow, Mom was a complete stranger. She had held Gracie and cried and cried when they got off the plane. She hadn’t even stopped to talk to the reporters waiting for them. She had even come up to school and had lunch with Gracie yesterday. That had never happened before. And she wasn’t mad at the world. She was happy. She wasn’t going to be a lawyer anymore.
But she still would not allow Gracie to get a tattoo for her eleventh birthday.
Gracie had changed, too. She was a different girl since the last time she had played on this field. She had been abducted, buried, and saved. She had seen things no fourth-grader should ever see and met people no fourth-grader should ever meet and learned things no fourth-grader should ever learn. And she had talked to the President of the United States of America. They had captured the man with the red hair and long rifle, and the president had called just to say thanks. She made sure he knew she was a Democrat. He laughed and said that was okay with him.
She was even happy to see Sam, even though one look at her room and she knew he had gone through all
