Word of honor read

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  Word of Honor

  Terri Blackstock

  Zondervan (1999)

  * * *

  In the third book in the Newpointe 911, Jill Clark learns the meaning of covenant when she is taken hostage by a suspect in a deadly bombing but isn’t convinced he’s guilty.

  What will it cost to keep a promise?

  Of the four people at the Newpointe post office when the bomb went off, three were killed instantly. The fourth, a five-year-old boy, lies comatose in the hospital and might not survive.

  Who would do such a thing? The answer comes in the form of a gunman crashing through the door of the hotel room where Jill Clark is staying. With a rifle barrel pointed at her temple, the young attorney suddenly finds herself the hostage of a desperate man whose actions hardly fit his claim that he’s innocent of the bombing.

  Only later, when the suspect is behind bars, does Jill wonder whether he’s as guilty as he appears. Prompted by a terrifying attempt on her life, Jill and old flame Dan Nichols dig deeper into the case. But standing in their way lies an obstacle Jill hasn’t counted on: the power of a covenant. It could change her life. Or, with the clock ticking, it could seal her death.

  Word of Honor is book three in the Newpointe 911 series by award-winning novelist Terri Blackstock. Newpointe 911 offers taut, superbly crafted novels of faith, fear, and close-knit small-town relationships, seasoned with romance and tempered by insights into the nature of relationships, redemption, and the human heart. Look also for Private Justice, Line of Duty, Shadow of Doubt, and Trial by Fire.

  Books by Terri Blackstock

  Soul Restoration

  Emerald Windows

  Restoration Series

  1 | Last Light

  2 | Night Light

  Cape Refuge Series

  1 | Cape Refuge

  2 | Southern Storm

  3 | River’s Edge

  4 | Breaker’s Reef

  Newpointe 911

  1 | Private Justice

  2 | Shadow of Doubt

  3 | Word of Honor

  4 | Trial by Fire

  5 | Line of Duty

  Sun Coast Chronicles

  1 | Evidence of Mercy

  2 | Justifiable Means

  3 | Ulterior Motives

  4 | Presumption of Guilt

  Second Chances

  1 | Never Again Good-bye

  2 | When Dreams Cross

  3 | Blind Trust

  4 | Broken Wings

  With Beverly LaHaye

  1 | Seasons Under Heaven

  2 | Showers in Season

  3 | Times and Seasons

  4 | Season of Blessing

  Novellas

  Seaside

  ZONDERVAN

  Word of Honor

  Copyright © 1999 by Terri Blackstock

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this eBook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

  ePub Edition JUNE 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-86072-3

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Blackstock, Terri, 1957-

  Word of Honor/Terri Blackstock

  p. cm.

  ISBN-10: 0-310-21759-8 (softcover)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-310-21759-6 (softcover)

  I. Series: Blackstock, Terri, 1957—Newpointe 911.

  PS3552.L34285W67 1999

  813′.54—dc21 99-057936

  The examples used in this book are compilations of stories from real situations. But names, facts, and issues have been altered to protect confidentiality while illustrating the points.

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible:New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Literary Agent, Orange, CA.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  07 08 09 10

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  This book is lovingly dedicated to the Nazarene

  Contents

  Books by Terri Blackstock

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

&nbs
p; Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Share Your Thoughts

  Chapter One

  The small, hot post office smelled of mold and dust and hummed with the sound of several air conditioning units placed in windows around the building. Cliff Bertrand, the Newpointe postmaster, held his hand in front of one of the vents, and realized it was blowing hot air. No wonder the building was so warm. He gave the side of it a bang with the heel of his hand, as if that would shock it into spitting out cold air. But he knew it wouldn’t work.

  Sue Ellen will be whining all day, he thought. He looked over his shoulder at Sue Ellen Hanover, his postal clerk, who stood at the counter fanning herself as she waited on a customer. With a fake fingernail, she punched out the amount of postage that Mary Hampton’s packages would need.

  “You wouldn’t know it was July,” she commented as she applied the sticky metered strips to the boxes. “You’d think it was Christmas, what with all these packages.”

  “Just some of Mama’s stuff,” Mary said. “She went to live with my brother over in Waco, so I’m shippin’ her some of her things.”

  “You two couldn’t get along?” Sue Ellen asked sweetly.

  Mary looked offended.

  Cliff knew it did little good to scold her, but he gave it a shot, anyway. “Sue Ellen, that was rude. Everybody knows her mama just went to help with her new grandbaby.”

  Sue Ellen shot him a look that said his intrusion wasn’t appreciated. “Cliff, you really need to fix that air conditioner. It’s hot as blazes in here.” She fanned herself with a manila envelope and turned back to Mary. “Yep, them babies always do outshine the older grandkids. Where’s your youngun, anyways?”

  “Out there.” Mary nodded through the glass doors at the child playing on the floor with a toy fire truck.

  “Scrawny little thing,” Sue Ellen said, taking Mary’s check. “Can I see some ID, please?”

  Cliff shook his head at the absurdity of the request, since Sue Ellen knew Mary well enough to wag her tongue all over town every time the single mother stepped outside her house. He heard Sue Ellen tapping her fake fingernails on the counter, as if she had a million better things to do than wait for Mary to dig her driver’s license out of her purse.

  Disgusted, he grabbed his keys and the refills for the stamp machine, and headed out to reload it. As he pushed through the door into the outer room, he saw Mary’s sandy-haired five-year-old crawling along the wall, running his fire truck as fast as he could. He smiled, but the boy hardly noticed him.

  Cliff jangled his keys and opened the machine.

  Instantly, the boy was on his feet, peering into the machine as if glimpsing something sacred. “Hey, there,” Cliff said.

  “Hey.” The boy watched, fascinated, as he stacked the packages of stamps in the appropriate places. “Can I do one?”

  Cliff grinned and handed him a stack. “Put those right here.”

  Pete’s eyes rounded, and he slid them carefully into their slot.

  “Good job. What’s your name, son?”

  Pete looked up at him. “Peter Jacob Hampton.”

  Cliff held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Peter Jacob Hampton. I’m Clifford Wayne Bertrand. How do you do?”

  The little boy shook. “D’you do this everyday?”

  “Every single one, except weekends,” he said, closing the machine back. He looked down at the truck lying on the concrete floor. “Nice truck you got there.”

  “Thanks.” Pete fell back to his knees and began making an engine noise as he ran along the wall.

  Cliff chuckled and picked up his box. “See you later, Pete.”

  “Bye.”

  As Cliff pushed through the door in the back room, he glanced back and saw the child watching him with awe, as if wondering what treasures lay behind the mailboxes.

  Pete watched the door close behind the man, and decided on the spot that he was going to be a mailman when he grew up. That, and a fireman. He went back to pushing his truck.

  The door at the far end of the building opened, and Pete’s attention shifted to the man coming in from outside. He was sweating hard and breathing fast, and carrying a box that looked like it held a big present. Pete stopped pushing the truck and sat up, trying to imagine what could be inside. The man stepped past him and set the box down against the wall, then started back to the door.

  “That ain’t where you put that, Mister,” Pete said. “It goes over there.” He pointed to the slots in the wall.

  “That’s right where I want it, kid.” The man hesitated as he looked down at him. Pete noticed that the man was missing some fingers, and he bent some of his own to see how it felt. He started to ask him what had happened to them, but the man spoke first. “Hey, you know, that truck sure would fly on that half wall outside. Why don’t you go out there and try it?” Not waiting for an answer, the man pushed back through the door he’d come in. Pete watched through the glass doors as the man climbed into the passenger seat of the blue pickup. The driver pulled away.

  Quickly, Pete’s attention moved from the blue pickup to the half wall he’d suggested outside the building. He glanced through the glass doors and saw his mother paying for their package. If he went outside, just this once, would he get in trouble?

  Deciding that the wall’s incline was worth the trouble it would cost him, he pushed through the door and hurried to the wall. His throat made a rumbling sound as he set his truck on the wall and gave it a shove.

  He would never see it hit the bottom of the incline.

  The explosion was so loud Jerry Ingalls heard it from half a mile away. “What in the—?” He slammed on his brakes. The blue pickup skidded across the street.

  “What are you doing?” Frank shouted. “Drive, man! Drive!”

  As Jerry tried to right his pickup, he looked back through the rear window. He could see the black smoke rising from where they’d been, filling the sky. “That’s the post office!” he said.

  “Up here,” Frank said. “Take a right up here.”

  Sirens began to blare a few blocks away. Jerry turned in the direction he’d been told, his heart racing. “Do you know anything about what happened back there?”

  “Yes,” Frank said. He was dripping with sweat now, and the humid Louisiana air crept through the pickup in spite of the air conditioning. “But I can’t tell you about it now. Just drive.”

  “Drive where?” Jerry demanded. “If you’re involved in something, man—”

  “I need your help!” Frank’s bellowed statement left no room for argument. “Drive to the Delchamps parking lot. I have a car. Drop me off, then you head for Chalmette. There’s a motel right on the outskirts of Chalmette. The only one in town. The Flagstaff, I think it is. Go there and rent me a room. Don’t use my name or yours. Tie a hand towel over the knob so I can find you. I’ll meet you there tonight and tell you everything.”

  Jerry’s head was reeling from the orders. “Frank, if you had a car, why did you just have me drive you to the post office? What have you gotten me into?”

  “A fight for your country!” Frank yelled back. “You’re in, now. There’s no turning back. You owe me, Jerry! And you owe your country.”

  “My country?” Jerry asked. “What are you talking about, man? The war’s been over for twenty-five years!”

  �
��I’ve been a POW, Jerry. For twenty-five years, and there were others there with me. They told you the war was over, but it came home with us. Communism is infiltrating our government, Jerry. The captain was part of it.”

  “The captain? What captain?”

  “Bertrand, man! He works for the feds, and he’s part of the whole thing.”

  “Cliff Bertrand? Frank, he’s retired from the army. He’s just a postal clerk, not some kind of spy.”

  “He’s helping them to take over, Jerry. I don’t expect you to understand. You weren’t held all those years, like I was. But we have to stop it.”

  Jerry gaped at him. “Frank, you weren’t a POW. You were in a VA hospital.”

  “That’s what they want you to think, but there were others held there,” he said. “You don’t know what’s going on. It’s worse than the Viet Cong. They’re going to take away everything, Jerry. They’re trying to lull us into a false sense of security, and then we’ll let them do anything they want. They already have our government.”

  Jerry’s heart was racing. He pulled into the Delchamps parking lot and turned his pickup so he could see the black smoke still hovering above the post office. “Man, you didn’t blow up that post office, did you?”

  “You just don’t understand,” Frank said. “But I’ll explain everything. I’ll tell you at the motel. Be there. You owe me, Jerry.”

  With that, he launched out of the pickup and took off between the cars.

  Jerry didn’t wait to see which car was his. The sirens were getting louder, and the smoke billowed with urgent fury as he pulled out of the parking lot. Something told him he had just become a wanted man.

  He reached behind him, got his hunting rifle from its rack, and set it on the seat next to him. He hoped he wouldn’t need it, but he had a real bad feeling.

  Frank was right. He did owe him. He could at least meet him and find out what was going on. Maybe he could talk him out of pulling any more sick stunts, make him go back to the hospital that had been his home for so long.

  As he headed out of town, he looked back toward the post office. The black smoke of Frank’s iniquities rose like a tragic prayer into the sky.

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I’m sure many of you who follow C-Ent would have heard of one of the surprise hit dramas of the year thus far – Word of Honor. And, once again, I was in an extended reading rut when I picked up the drama, Word of Honor, which, in turn, inspired me to pick up the novel Faraway Wanderers. Now, it is not the first time I’m reading a Priest novel, but Priest’s novels tend to have complexities which a casual reader undertaking a light read may fail to appreciate, which is why I tend to reserve Priest’s novels for when I’m in the proper mood to settle down with a novel.

Now, those who watched Word of Honor is, in all likelihood, going to realise rather quickly going in, that the two main leads in Word of Honor are rather different from the two main leads in Faraway Wanderers. The two main leads in Faraway Wanderers are arguably more complex, less righteous and less white-washed than their drama counterparts. Indeed, in Faraway Wanderers, our first male lead, Zhou Zi Shu, is the former leader of an organization of spies and assassins whose only loyalty lay with the Emperor – and the novel (and not even Zhou Zi Shu himself) makes excuses for his acts during his time of service; in his attempt to stabilise the power of the Emperor (then Crown Prince), he has murdered, wronged, and turned a blind eye to many innocent people. But Zhou Zi Shu has never regretted any of his actions; he believed in the ‘greater good’, that in stablising the power of the Emperor (and preventing the Empire from engaging in self-destructive power snatches), the majority of the population would benefit, and accordingly, the sacrifices made by the innocent people who were wronged are justifiable. We are therefore introduced to Zhou Zi Shu at the start of the novel as an (arguably) morally grey, mature and complex character whose main motivation is to retire from the Imperial Court (since the power of the Emperor has been successfully stabilised). To that end, Zhou Zi Shu willingly pierces seven nails into his body – a torture which all persons intending to leave the special organization is required to undergo (and which would result in such persons living no more than three years after the nails have been pierced into their bodies) – and finally embarks on his short journey of freedom.

It is during his journey of whiling away his three years that Zhou Zi Shu meets our other main lead – Wen Ke Xing. Being the leader of the Ghost Valley (being a valley which evil people congregate), Wen Ke Xing is no stranger to brutal murders and constantly changing loyalties. And, unlike the drama, there is little to no redemption arc for Wen Ke Xing here; he never regrets turning the pugilist world topsy-turvy (and indirectly contributes to a lot of bloodshed in the process), and he never ever forgave (explicitly) the endless greed and hypocrisy of the majority of the people in the pugilist world. All in all, if one is looking for further detail / exposition of the lives and motivations of the characters in the drama, it will be futile to read the novel, as the two sets of characters are intrinsically, very different people at heart.