The Bodyguard ("Angels" story #60)

ANGELS
by Michael Kroetch

The bodyguard is going to Mexico. He doesn’t know the country’s language, but has decided not to let this ruin the arrangement. He did not get the mission information from his wire. However, he’s expecting to soon. Very soon. In the mean time he’s walking around, biting his lip, and waiting.

He can see the place in his mind—what he will be protecting—that island there in the middle of dry land with all its white faces, prayer books, blonde hair, and men with many wives. He can almost hear them singing. The chosen ones. Always busy. Always working. Just like him. He doesn’t know much about Mormonism, but he imagines this is just what they are looking for. At least from him. Detachment. He will be a tool for them. Their guardian. He will not be part of their colony of shimmering buildings any more than he will be part of the country itself. It’ll be perfect. He might even need his gun.

He touches the gun in the pocket of his suit and traces his finger along its ridge. Caressing it. He thinks about its birth in some little town near Jerusalem and the happy man there who built it so beautifully. For it to have lines so clean and pure that man must have been a believer in God. It would be nice to meet such a man. But not while on duty. If the bodyguard were on duty and in Mexico, he might be forced to use the beautiful gun against its maker. He would not want to, but the choice would not be his to make. The gun’s maker would be the one responsible. If the maker didn’t want death, he would never walk up unannounced like that while a hundred sweet voices broke the sky with songs of angels and the pleasures of redemption.