Chapter Forty-nine

THE SECOND LETTER, the one addressed to Jude Garrett via the Oval Office, was from Battleboi.

It was better written than I could have imagined and, knowing the big guy, I was certain that he must have sweated over it for hours.

‘I was in handcuffs and shackles, ’ he said, ‘one of ten prisoners inside a bus with barred windows. We were heading across the runway at La Guardia to take a Con Air flight to the Big House down in Kansas when two black SUVs with their sirens going made us stop.

‘I figured that whoever the guys inside were, they must have had a really high security clearance to drive across an airport but, apart from that, I wasn’t interested.

‘That morning, I had written to Rachel telling her not to wait for me and I was trying to work out how I would deal with fifteen years in Leavenworth. ’

He told me that the two US marshals on board the bus – guys who hadn’t stopped sneering at him because of his size and eccentricity – got out and met the men in suits who were scrambling out of the SUVs.

The most senior of the suits – who turned out to be a high-ranking executive in the Department of Justice – showed his ID and started barking orders. As the convicts watched through the barred windows, the two marshals immediately got back on board and made their way through the prisoners.

‘They stopped next to me, unlocked the chain securing me to the seat and led me towards the door. I asked them what the hell was happening, but they didn’t answer. They probably didn’t know themselves.

‘On the runway, the executive officer handed me a letter. I ripped open the envelope and saw that it was from the Oval Office, but I didn’t know what it meant – for once in my life, I couldn’t compute.

‘By the time I finished reading it I was pretty close to crying. It was a presidential pardon. “For services in defence of your country, ” it said.

‘God knows who you are, but you said you would do everything possible to help me, and you did. ’

He wrote that, after the formalities were completed, he made his way back to Old Japan, ran through the apartment without even taking off his shoes and found Rachel in a corner of their bedroom, distraught. She looked up, saw him and thought for a moment it was a dream. Then the dream smiled, reached out his arms to her and, being the son of devout Catholic parents, told her in wonder, ‘It’s the Gospel of St Mark, babe – chapter sixteen, verse six. ’

She had no idea what he was talking about and didn’t care – she let him fold her into his huge embrace, kissed him and, after they had stood for a long time in silent gratitude, he sat down and wrote the letter to me.

‘You gave me a second chance – a chance for life, a chance for love, a chance for kids. How do you thank somebody for that? ’ he said.

‘I suspect that we’ll never see each other again, but always remember, on this date every year we will set a place at our dinner table for you and wait for your knock on the door.

‘Travel safe and may God, by whatever name you know Him, protect you. ’