A Treasure Deep

Alton Gansky

Copyright 2012

Smashwords Edition

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ISBN: 9781301534517

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Scripture quotations taken from the New
American Standard Bible
^®
, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963,
1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission." (
www.Lockman.org
)

Alton Gansky is the author of 4o books,
novels and nonfiction. He is a former firefighter, architectural
project manager, and Christian minister. He resides in Central
California. www.altongansky.com

To Mike and Cathy Fell,

longtime and supportive friends.

—AG

HIS LEGS WERE ON FIRE, the muscles mere kindling in a
blast furnace of exertion.

He stumbled ahead, forcing one foot to follow
the other. Each step splashed through inky puddles on the asphalt.
The cold rain that fell, feeding the coursing gutter rivers and the
asphalt ponds, did nothing to cool the electric heat charging
through his body. His chest tightened again, squeezing as if he
were in the hand of a malevolent giant intent on slowly crushing
him until his eyes popped and his ribs shattered like late summer
twigs.

Another step; another stride; he
couldn’t—must not—stop. Pain was irrelevant; escape mandatory.
Weary legs protested and sent the fire in them burning to his
lungs. He was no longer inhaling; he was gulping for air like a
fish tossed on a cold, dark shore.

Water from the storm poured through his hair
and into his eyes. Would the case be secure enough? Would the rain
get in? That would be disastrous; a loss of historical
significance. He clutched the leather satchel to his aching chest
and swallowed more air.

He moved more slowly now, not by choice, but
because his old body could offer no more. Too many decades had
passed; too many years had piled upon his stooped shoulders.

Still he ran. He had run from the car when
the attacker pushed him from the road. He had run along the vacant
downtown Seattle street, and now he ran down a narrow alley. Light
from street lamps pushed back the predawn darkness with a jaundiced
glow.

Dr. Jamison Henri played no games with
himself, held no foolish hope of escape. This alley was the gullet
of the monster that would bring his death. He knew that this was
the last day of his life, that his existence could now be numbered
in moments. The face of his wife flashed into his mind with the
intensity of a strobe light. He could see her gray-black hair and
crooked smile. “You be careful, old man,” she’d said this morning
as he walked from the house. “I want you back.” He’d assured her
that he would be home in time for dinner.

He’d been wrong.

Now he needed to hide. The wet footfalls of
his pursuer echoed down the alley. To his ear they sounded like the
beat of a kettledrum. The man was coming. Unlike Dr. Henri, the
attacker merely walked. Henri had seen that each time he had cast a
fearful glance over his shoulder. Walking was all that was
necessary. Henri couldn’t run far, and he couldn’t run fast.

“Hide it,” Henri mumbled to himself. “Let God
protect it. Please, God, don’t let that man have it.”

A sharp pain dug deep below his sternum as if
someone had driven a spike there with a hard blow from a mallet. A
deep groan spewed from Henri’s lips, and he doubled over. Only the
strength that came from fear kept him standing.

Heart attack. Again. He’d had such an episode
two years before and knew the symptoms well: tightness in the
chest, difficulty breathing, pain spreading from his chest to his
left arm. Open-heart surgery had saved his life then, but there
would be no saving him this time.

Another step, then another. His feet felt
weighted with lead, and his knees threatened to buckle. Tears came
to his eyes, not from the pain in his chest, not from the fear of
death, but from the realization that this act of violence would
crush his dear wife. “Dear, gentle Claire,” he whispered.
Thirty-five years she’d been by his side. They’d traveled the
uncertain paths of life in unison, reared a special child together,
and fallen more in love with each passing day. His death, he knew,
would wound her with a grief that would never heal. His attacker
was killing two people.

“Where ya goin’, Pops?” The attacker’s first
words. His voice was cold and hard as ice. “Ain’t no place to run,
old man.”

“Leave me alone!” Henri called back. What a
stupid thing to say, he thought. No words would appease the animal
behind him—there was more demon in him than human. Henri stumbled
to the side, his shoulder slamming into something hard. The large
object gave off a hollow sound. He clawed the metal dumpster, using
it to steady himself before trying to run again.

“I’m younger than you by thirty years, old
man. You really think you can outrun me?”

Henri clutched the satchel even tighter to
his heaving chest, as much to protect it as to ease the pain of his
heart. His body was betraying him when he needed it the most. He
started forward again.

There was an ear-popping crack, and Henri was
spun around. A half second later a new pain flooded his body, and
he immediately knew what had happened. The pursuer had shot him.
Instinctively, Henri dropped a hand, grabbed the back of his left
thigh, and found it sticky wet. He turned around and tried to take
another step, but only his right leg was working. Henri thought the
bullet had shattered the bone in his left leg.

There would be no more running.

He hopped once in a brave effort to distance
himself from the criminal behind him and to protect the precious
bundle in his arms. It was one hop too many. Dr. Jamison Henri fell
to the wet, trash-littered alley. The asphalt met him with
unforgiving resistance, his head bouncing off the hard surface and
his shoulder driven from its joint. The new pain didn’t matter; his
brain could embrace no more anguish. “I’ve failed,” he said. “I’ve
failed the world. I’ve failed God.”

He began to weep.

“Crying don’t move me none, Pops.”

Henri rolled onto his back and looked up into
the dimly lit face of his attacker. He was smiling in the yellow
light. It was a smirk of pleasure.

“I’ve failed,” Henri mumbled between sobs.
“God forgive me, I’ve failed so badly.”

“That you did, old man. That you did.” It was
too dark to make out details, but the attacker’s voice and manner
made Henri think that he was facing a young man. What had he
shouted? Something about being “thirty years younger.”

Through tear-washed eyes, Henri watched the
attacker raise his hand. Despite the dim light, Henri could make
out the outline of a gun. “The bag goes with me, Pops.”

“No,” Henri protested. His heart seized for a
moment, then returned to its irregular, ineffectual beating.

“No?” The attacker laughed. “I don’t think
you can do anything about it.”

Henri’s eyes focused on the muted outline of
the man’s finger. He could see it begin to tighten.

“Whatcha think? Head shot? Or maybe the
throat? Hmm. Decisions, decisions. I know, how about—”

The attacker was gone.

Henri blinked, and in that time, he heard a
hollow crash. Something had hit the dumpster. There was a cry of
pain. There was another crash; then Henri caught a glimpse of a
body staggering backward across the alley. There was another sound,
one of metal skipping along the asphalt. The assailant had lost his
gun.

“Stay out of this,” the attacker shouted.
“This ain’t no concern of—”

There was another sound, much softer. The
attacker back-pedaled into the alley wall, closely followed by
another form. A man. Henri rolled on his side to better see what
was happening. The man was taller than the attacker, and he was
giving no quarter. Before the gunman could regain his footing, the
stranger threw a punch that landed squarely on the jaw. Dr. Henri’s
attacker went weak in the knees and stumbled forward, only to be
driven back with an uppercut that nearly lifted him from his
feet.

The gunman dropped face first to the wet
pavement. The stranger stood over the still form for a moment, then
approached.

“No,” Henri said. “You can’t have it. It’s
too important.”

“Settle down,” a smooth, strong voice
said.

Henri watched as the stranger reached to his
side. A gun! Henri thought. A second later he saw, not a gun, but
another small device appear in the man’s hand. He raised it to his
head and spoke: “Nine-one-one.”

PERRY SACHS HELD the phone to his ear with his left
hand while the voice-activated dialing feature of the cell phone
placed the emergency call. He exercised his right hand, extending
his fingers and clinching them into a fist, gritting his teeth as
he did so. No broken fingers, but he was sure he’d damaged
something. He didn’t know the unconscious man lying on the damp
pavement, but he did know that he had a very hard head.

Perry Sachs had rounded the corner in his BMW
after a late night session reviewing drawings for an industrial
project in Canada. Tomorrow he’d scheduled a meeting with project
engineers, so he had stayed late at the office to prepare. The last
thing he’d expected to see at two in the morning was an elderly man
running from the scene of a fender bender. At least, Perry had
assumed it was a fender bender. The man who walked quickly after
the elderly gent caught Perry’s attention. There was something
about his manner—something that couldn’t be explained but that made
the hair on Perry’s neck stand on end. Pulling to the side of the
deserted downtown street, Perry exited the car and followed at a
discreet distance. He watched as the old man turned down an alley.
Not wise, Perry thought. He picked up his pace.

“Ain’t no place to run, old man.” Perry heard
the words. They were hot with threat. A second later, he heard the
crack of a gun. His first urge was to turn the other way and run
for the safety of his car, but Perry was not one to surrender to
urges. He peeked around the corner of the alley and saw the second
man standing over the first. He watched as the standing man raised
his arm. Perry knew what was coming.

Words were exchanged between the downed
victim and the gunman. Perry chose to ignore the conversation,
grateful that they gave him the two things he needed most: time and
surprise.

“Whatcha think?” the gunman asked. “Head
shot? Or maybe the throat? Hmm. Decisions, decisions. I know, how
about—”

Perry stepped within arm’s reach and seized
the attacker by the shoulders from behind, grabbing the material of
his coat in tight-wadded fists. With all his strength, he pulled
back and spun around, dragging the attacker with him. The man
stumbled back, losing his balance, exactly what Perry had hoped
for. Perry continued his spin, releasing the attacker at the last
possible moment. Momentum sent the man cascading backwards into the
side of a large dumpster next to the alley wall. He hit the metal
container hard and dropped to a sitting position. The gun he held
had come loose from his grasp and bounced down the alley. Perry was
on the offensive before the startled thug could shake loose the
surprise that stunned him. Clutching the front of the man’s shirt,
Perry pulled with all his might, yanking the man from the ground.
The gunman said something, but Perry wasn’t listening. He did,
however, hear a thick thud as the man’s body slammed into the
alley’s other wall.

That should have been enough to take the wind
out of anyone’s sails, but the man straightened himself and
shouted, “Stay out of this! This ain’t no concern of—”

Perry finished the conversation with a right
fist to the attacker’s jaw and a sharp uppercut. Pain ripped up
Perry’s arm as his knuckles made contact. The gunman dropped like a
board. Moments ticked by, and Perry waited for the man’s next move.
There was no next move, just the paralysis of unconsciousness.

Turning his attention to the victim on the
ground, he approached slowly.