Icarus came at him, stepping, kicking once in a faked attempt at Goose’s crotch, then followed immediately with a front snap kick that caught Goose in the face. Stunned, Goose nearly fell, but caught himself, then saw Icarus launching another kick. Goose slipped to one side, roped his right arm under Icarus’s extended right leg, and drove his left fist into his opponent’s face.
Hammered down, Icarus hit the ground, but quickly twisted away from Goose. Still on his side, Icarus managed a sweep kick that knocked Goose off his feet. Goose tried to stand, but Icarus came up off the ground at the same time and threw himself forward again. They grappled on the debris-strewn ground.
That was Icarus’s mistake. Goose had wrestled in junior high and high school. There wasn’t a more dangerous fighter in the world than a wrestler gone to ground. Still, hours of battle and combat stress as well as days of living on the run and prior existing wounds and injuries made for a short fight.
Goose held Icarus in a choke hold when he felt the fight go out of the man. Goose’s breath whistled in his own lungs as he released the man and shoved him away.
Icarus lay on the ground. He coughed and blew dust as he struggled to regain his breath.
Forcing himself to his feet, almost unable to bear the screaming pain in his knee, Goose stood swaying. After getting his feet solidly under him, he walked over to Icarus and grabbed the man’s belt, lifting him from the ground.
“Stand,” Goose ordered. He gasped, unable to speak at length.
Wobbly and weak, Icarus stood. His face was bloody and caked with dust. He peered warily at Goose.
“Get your … hands up.” Goose lifted his own hands up and clapped them on his head. “Easier … to breathe. Opens … lungs.” He worked on getting his own breathing back under control. The heat made the air thin and dry.
They stood uncertainly for a few minutes, staring at each other.
Pain pounded inside Goose’s head. Two teeth were loose. Every breath stretched his bruised ribs.
Icarus’s nose was broken and crooked. He spat blood at his own feet. Both his lips were puffy.
“That,” Goose said after a time, “has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen a grown man do.”
Icarus glared at him belligerently. “Are you ready to listen now? Or do we have to do this all over again?”
“You’re crazy.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“We’re through talking,” Goose said. He spat blood as well, then wiped his swollen lip. He knew his face wasn’t in much better shape than Icarus’s.
“You wanted to talk to me earlier.”
“You’ve already told me everything I need to know. You said you don’t know how to get Chris back. I believe you.”
“But that’s not all I have to tell you.”
Goose shook his head. “You want to talk about the Rapture?”
“That’s what happened.”
“That’s what some people are saying is what happened.”
“How can you doubt?” Icarus demanded. “You said you believed in God. Don’t you see His hand in this?”
“It doesn’t make sense. God wouldn’t take my son. So it has to be something else. What I want to know is how can you believe?” Goose responded.
“Because believing—” Icarus halted for a moment—“believing anything else is impossible.”
Goose was haunted by Bill Townsend’s words. Before Goose had met and married Megan, Bill had talked to Goose about faith and the end times.
“It’s all about believing, buddy,” Bill had said while they’d worked on Goose’s pickup truck. It had been a lazy Sunday afternoon, after Bill had persuaded Goose to go to church with him that morning. They’d scheduled the afternoon for changing oil and doing light mechanical work on their vehicles. “See, you’ve been around the world a few times now. Fought in more wars than most men have ever seen. And you’ve come away from all of them whole, Goose. Have you ever wondered how that happened?”
Goose had. During those years, he’d seen good men die in the Middle East, in Bosnia, in Africa, and again in the Middle East.
“Is it because you’re a good soldier, Goose?” Bill had asked. “I know you don’t think that covers everything you’ve gone through. Just lucky? Nah, luck runs out. It’s something more, and that’s what’s scaring you now.”
Just when Bill had come into his life, Goose had struggled with his own personal problems. Despite his successes in the military, his life was empty. He’d supposed part of it was because Cal Remington had been accepted for OCS and was wearing lieutenant’s bars and moving in different circles.
“Once you eliminate luck and superstition, get over all those ideas that you’re actually that good or are in any way responsible for your survival despite the odds against you,” Bill had continued, “then you come down to the hardest decision you’ll ever make in your life. At least, in this life. You have to start looking at faith, at the plain and simple fact that God has a plan for you and it’s not your time to check out.”
As good-naturedly as he could then, Goose had argued against faith. Thankfully, Bill hadn’t taken offense.
“Some people are just more stubborn than others,” Bill had said. “But you know what? No matter how long it takes, God will wear you down. You’ll be shown enough life, enough struggle and conflict, that ultimately you’ll see that faith is the only way to go.”
Goose had argued more, pointing out that faith in something—or Someone—that couldn’t be weighed or measured went against everything he knew from his time in the military.
“You’re looking at it wrong, Goose. Faith isn’t just harder because you can’t weigh and measure it. Faith is also easier because you can’t weigh and measure it. There’s no criteria you have to meet, no recon you have to do, no SOP to follow in order to become a believer and put your faith in God. All you have to do is open your heart and
