Alive From the Dead

At the upper end of a very narrow escape shaft, Stoner felt a blast of air and dust, followed immediately by a strong concussion that knocked him flat against the dirt floor of his hideout. The earth around him shook violently. His ears rang with pain. The collapsing main tunnel forced accumulated seepage water into the shaft and it rose rapidly to David's shoulders before subsiding several feet, leaving him very shaken and soaked to his skin.

Instantly, tons of earth filled the main tunnel, squeezing more and more water into the only space left for the frightened fugitive. Soon, there was nothing larger than a small pocket of air into which Stoner wedged himself in an effort to remain above the muddy mixture. He jammed his head tightly against the top of the shrinking cocoon.

"They really must be crazy to go to all of this trouble for one helpless missionary!" The compressed air muffled David's half-mumbled words. In spite of the terror of the moment, he found a touch of humor but quickly refocused on the extremity of his situation. I won't live long if I stay here, he thought.

Stoner had already tried repeatedly to dislodge the heavy metal doors above him. The escape shaft opened onto a grassy slope at least fifty yards from the Citadel walls. He again coiled his body with his back against the doors and gave a desperate upward thrust. There was movement. Benet meant for the explosion to produce David's capture. Instead, it was becoming an aid to his liberation. He groaned and pushed again. The doors moved a few more inches.

Sunlight, in the form of a narrow shaft, spurred Stoner to try harder. Another effort produced a gap of eight inches. An instant before looking away from the slice of bright sunlight, David thought he saw something drop into the water. He followed the beam of light and what it revealed nearly stopped his heart.

Inches below his feet, a three foot long viper violently writhed and hissed at the interruption of its leisure. The creature had been enjoying the sun's lingering warmth upon the

metal door until the mountain, and the door itself, began to undulate beneath the snake causing it to squirm back into its den.

With blurring speed, borne of sheer terror, Stoner jerked the hunting knife from his belt and, with a slashing motion, hacked the viper in half. He repeated the frenzied action several times until he was positive the danger was over. The thought that other deadly snakes might be slithering near him in the darkness boosted David's adrenaline output. His heart pounded furiously as he gave a superhuman push that only fear could produce. The door banged open against a boulder and David scrambled out of the hole.

Before the explosion and the subsequent flurry of events, Stoner had stuffed the remaining supplies smuggled to him, along with his change of clothes, into his shirt. In his frantic effort to escape, he dropped the knife and tripped over a rock, landing stomach down on something that was moving. Stoner rolled off the object and, to his horror, discovered a larger snake. It struck at his chest, sinking its fangs into the bundle of extra clothes instead of David's flesh. Before the viper could strike again, Stoner came down on it with a rock he had unconsciously clutched in his left hand as he fell. David kicked the thrashing snake away and sprawled on his back exhausted.

How did David Stoner come to this moment? Joshua Calebs had warned the young man

not to pursue a certain mystery man, especially when the matter involved Haitian politics, but he had done so anyway to his own peril. In his effort to apprehend the man, David ran afoul of a petty Haitian politician; the very Albert Benet who ordered the tunnel demolished.

Only a few months before finding himself a heartbeat from eternity, Stoner was just an idealistic humanitarian with a pregnant wife and a brand new ministry among the starving peasants in the northern plain of destitute Haiti. He could not have imagined that his dream would become a nightmare in a matter of minutes after he arrived at Cap Haitien. The events that followed only complicated his life and filled it with constant danger.

On the fourth day of March, 1996 David and Lisa Stoner approached Cap Haitien on an international missionary flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. David pressed his cheek against the moisture-streaked window of the twin engine commuter for a better view of the rugged coastline. They had been over water for two hours and twenty minutes. Other than the islands of the Bahamas, the only substantial land mass the passengers had seen was the nearly barren mountains of Haiti: one part of an island called Hispanol. "Look, honey! Look at those mountains! I didn't think they would be so large."

Lisa leaned across her husband. "I'll bet they look much higher from the ground."

"Of course, but even from this altitude you can tell how sharply they rise above the valleys."

The plane's altitude began dropping as the Metroliner aimed for an area of flat land between two mountain ranges. Making a wide bank from west to south, the airplane then turned east over clusters of huts and unpaved roads. On the peak of one mountain stood an ugly, gray structure known as the Citadel. The sprawling, foreboding fortress, partly in ruins, was being restored through international funding as one of the wonders of the world. In their preparation

for the move to Haiti, the Stoners researched the Citadel and its legends. La Citadelle appeared

more awesome than the magazine photos depicted it, even though partly obscured by the rain. Supposedly the effort to construct the fortress cost tens of thousands of slaves their lives. All building materials and the weaponry, including a score of cannon the size of small automobiles, were carried by slaves up the narrow, steep trail. It was a superhuman effort.

David and Lisa tightened their seat belts and prepared for the final approach. The Metroliner passed the last mountain and began to rapidly let down toward the runway.

Knifing its way through an unusually heavy torrent of tropical rain, the sleek turbo prop descended to a single asphalt strip, a ribbon of bleached asphalt surrounded by partially constructed houses. The airstrip was located a mile east of Cap Haitien.