Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [204]
71
Administrative Wing
“This I got to see to believe,” the warden said the next morning as Thomas sat across from him. “Quiet, you say?”
“Like nothing I’ve ever experienced here, sir, especially on the Row.”
Gladys knocked. “Okay, what in heaven’s name is going on?” she said, her fist full of paper. “We got all these in this morning’s interoffice mail.”
She slapped them down in front of the warden, and he began to pick through them, finally lifting his eyes to Thomas. “You been complaining about too light a workload. Well, here you go, Mr. Gung Ho.”
Nearly every man on the Row had requested a visit from the chaplain, and not one of them in the isolation unit.
“This is as close as I’ll ever get to having a group meeting here,” Thomas said.
“You better just go slow, that’s all I got to say,” Gladys said. “Something doesn’t smell right, and the review board is gonna be sus-pi-cious. These men are up to something.”
“Let’s go down there,” the warden said. “Gladys, how long has it been since you’ve been on the floor?”
“Oh no you don’t. More’n six years, and that’s too recent. I was with you, and they still wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“These guys might behave this time,” Thomas said. “They would have yesterday; I guarantee it.”
“Well, maybe so, but lucky for me and you, not to mention them, I’m busy.”
Death Row
The polite banging and scraping began just as breakfast was ending, and someone called out, “Brady! You talking again today?”
Brady quietly began with passages from the Gospel of John.
“I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. . . . I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
Brady hesitated as officers arrived at a cell across the way. It was time for the man’s shower, but he held up his index finger as if asking that they wait a moment, and to Brady’s utter amazement, they turned and looked at him, as if giving him permission to continue.
“These are the words of Jesus,” Brady said. “No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life.
“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.”
The intercom crackled. “Keep moving, gentlemen. Darby isn’t going anywhere.”
The officers escorted the man away, and Brady continued, breaking only while the shower was running. And while he waited silently, so did everyone else.
Thomas and the warden had showed up just as Brady was interrupted by the supervisor from inside the observatory. They stood off to the side, and Thomas peeked at the boss.
LeRoy was wide-eyed. “Can’t believe it,” he said.
When the shower stopped and all that could be heard was the man dressing and being cuffed, Brady began again.
“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him. But anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
Brady stopped and nodded at Thomas, who looked