The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (10 page)

Naturally, I obeyed.

After a week of praying and skipping meals,
an
explicit and unambiguous
revelation
came
.
God
told me
what my next mission would be
.
I was going to
enlist in the United States Marine
Corp
s.

Chapter 7

Ben’s phone rang, tearing him out of
Zachariah’s story. It was Fran. “That
’
s quick
,” he said
.
“
You
check messages on a Sunday night
?”

“
I get an e-mail alert whenever a message is left.”

“Government efficiency. Impressive. Where are you?”

“
At home, watching Lilly
cook dinner.
You’re on
speaker
, by the way
.”

“Hi, Lilly
,” he said. “What’
s cooking
?”

“Ethiopian
red lentil stew. I’m making it with lamb this time
.
You want to join us?”

“I’ll take a rain check.
”

“
He’s too busy,” Fran said, “playing
accident
investigator.
What’s up with that?”

Ben looked at Zachariah’s
iTouch
. “It’s a long story.”

“Give me the short version.”

“Bike
r
was speeding,
flew off the road,
crashed, and
died. I stuck aro
und to take photos of the clean
up, went down to look around at the crash site, and found an
iTouch
half-buried in the ground. Being a good citizen, I’m going t
o bring it to my friend at the
s
tate
p
olice so she can pass it
on
to the
family
.”

“But your nose is itching, smelling a
story
, right?”

I
n the background, he heard Lilly
say, “Ben
found
another
conspiracy?”

“That’s unfair,” he said.

Fran was laughing. “We’re worried about you. It’s not the toll road again, is it?”

“I was right
about that
,” Ben said. A year earlier he had spent months pursuing a rumor that the body of a missing Washington lobbyist was buried by his unhappy client in the foundations of a toll road overpass in Montgomery County. “The contractor was dirty.”

“But the lobbyist
was alive!”

Fran was
correct
.
The lobbyist had ru
n off to St. Thomas, fearing for his life, and
re
surfaced only after his client was arrested for overchar
ging the
f
ederal government.

“So
tell me,” Fran said, “
what is it now? Harley Davidson
is orchestrating a
n insidious
cover-
up to hide the fact that the victim was actually testing its concept
flying motorcycle?”

“That’s bad,” Lilly
yelled from the kitchen.
“
I’m calling Keera
!
”

“
She’s calling Keera
,” Fran said
.
“
It’s for
your own good.”

“No problem
,” Ben said. “Have your queen call my
queen.”

“I heard that!” Lilly
’s voice soun
ded closer. “You’re in trouble,
boy!”

“Laugh all you want,” he
said. “Even paranoids are
sometimes
right.
I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?
”

“Stop by
after
ten,” Fran said. “I have a team briefing first thing in the morning.
But you can
still join us tonight for…what was it, sweetie?
”

“Ethiopian
lamb
stew,” Lilly said
.

“It’s tempting,
” Ben said, “
but I’m in the middle of reading something good.”

Chapter 8

Z.H. Journal
Entry # 2
:

Boot camp at
Parris Island
required very little adjustment for me
after
serving
two years
as a
Missiona
ry
, almost a decade of Boy Scouting,
and a lifetime of
happy obedience to church authorities. The
simple
diet
, physical exercise,
and
pride in excellence
were also ingrained in me
. It was as if I
ex
changed my
Missionary’s
uniform of
a dark
suit and
black
tie for
the soldier’s uniform
of
fatigues and dog
tags, the authority of
our
bishop for the
clout of our
drill sergeant, and the ascetic life of
long
days
filled with
pavement pounding and
upbeat
proselytizing for the
military routine of dawn-to-night
drilling
, spit and shine, and weapons training.

It was that last element—
the
process of
integrati
ng
weapons into the fabric of our minds and bodies
—
that
later popped up as
an unexpected hurdle for me. Guns had been part of my life—for hunting and
for protection
during camping trips in bear country, so a
t first
I totally embraced the military’s drive to forge
a unity of man and his firearm
. I had
somehow suppressed the fact that all this effort had a single goal: To kill
people
.

In retrospect
,
I realize that my troubles started on the first day of
basic
training,
at
the
moment I signed for my new M
16 without realizing how my faith and my new best friend
contradicted each other
. While this
conflict continued to simmer all the way to
one
fateful day on the beach, it was compounded by
my
mates
, whose adjustment
to military life
was
slow
er than mine
.
They accused me of arrogance, but
I
dismissed
it as
a passing
manifestation of
stress and physical pain
because a
rrogance was
a character trait no one had
ever
accused me of before, certainly not
back
in
Utah
or on the Mission
, where all my friends had been fellow
members of the
Melchizedek
Priesthood,
Saints,
destined to
eternal afterlife of
rul
ing our own worlds as gods
.

Crisis came on
a
day
that
started as
an exciting
stepping stone in my
development as a US Marine
—the first full-fledge
d
practice
attack on a
fortified
target. I was selected to lead one of the two forces.
Prior to our nighttime departure,
back in camp,
I
rehearsed with
my troops fake attacks on our bunkhouse. They made snide remarks about loss of precious sleep time, but went along in t
rue Marine
spirit.

It
started
at midnight
with
25
mile
s
of
a
fast-pace
d
hike
through
sand dunes
and
chest-high water in full gear, guns held above heads
. We
assembl
ed
for
a two-pronged beachhead attack
as
bullets flew over our heads
toward
the
early
sun
, which pe
e
ked over the ocean
behind us
.
A group of visiting Marine officers, who flew in from their respective units for the occasion,
prepared to
observe us and grade our performance.

The
target
was
very
realistic, a
n
out-of-use bunker
with a maze of
tunnels
, perched
above
a small bay
near Fripp Island
that had once been identified as a
potential Nazi landing site
. It had since
serve
d
as a perpetual fake enemy base
for training drills.

I
led
my
force from the south
east
, whi
le
another force came in from the north
east
. To prevent cross
fire, we were to shoot only with the
rising
sun
at
our backs,
an easy-enough rule to follow
in theory, but much more
difficult in the reality of an adrenaline-filled
attack
.

T
he battle
got underway,
me
in the lead,
shouting orders and pointing here and there
.
I found myself inside the bunker, running down
the
open-top
tunnel
s
, shooting
short bursts of
bullets ahead to
drive away
imaginary defenders. The noise and
gun smoke were
overwhelming, and sand flew off the walls, clinging to
my
goggles, still wet from the seas
ide approach.
The visiting officers shadowed us overhead
, running
along the tunnels. They were in full gear, including vests and helmets, not an unreasonable precaution considering the proximity to live rounds.

I was going fast, having memorized the layout beforehand, heading to the rear of the compound where
a flag had been posted in the radio room
. It was us or
the other force
, and t
he winners would get
to ride buses back to the base and enjoy
extra hour
s
of sleep
while the losers hiked all the way
back
, loaded with
their
gear.
I was determined to win it for my team.

But when I turned a corner, a very realistic mannequin popped up
in front of me
,
clothed in military fatigues and checkered headdress,
and I froze.
I wanted to shoot it, I really did,
but
my trigger finger refused to budge. The soldier behind me, not expecting this sudden halt, bumped into me, and we both fell. As I hit the ground, my weapon accidentally discharged
. T
he bullet sing
ed
my cheek
and lodg
ed
in the
dirt
wall next to us, kicking off a spray of sand.

One of the instructors
overhead
blew a whistle and yelled, “Medic!”