The Top Floor

Around the World Missions receives a request from an archaeologist seeking Eugene’s contact information. The caller is Dalton Kearn. Whit tells Martin not to release anything, but Leonard fears that Dalton will now discover Eugene is his son and use that connection to find the family he once imprisoned.

Whit brings in Jason, who has been provisionally reinstated as a National Security Agency agent. Dalton is suspected of smuggling, theft, espionage, and other crimes in several countries, but he understands the law too well to leave evidence strong enough for major charges. Leonard’s testimony about twenty years of captivity would still leave one person’s word against another.

Jason proposes that they find tangible proof themselves. Leonard remembers persuading a Wolof named Aziz to help record a video of conditions at Dalton’s African dig. He does not know what became of it, but the abandoned site offers their best chance of finding evidence. Leonard reluctantly agrees to return to Africa with Eugene and Jason, while Whit remains in Odyssey to protect Katrina and investigate Dalton.

During the flight, Eugene speaks of God’s providence in the astonishing chain of events that reunited father and son. Leonard sees only a murdered wife and child, stolen years, and long imprisonment. Eugene cannot explain every sorrow, but argues that their unlikely reunion across continents is harder to attribute to chance than to a larger plan. Leonard remains unconvinced.

In Odyssey, Whit’s State Department friend Diane quietly provides information she is forbidden to state openly. Dalton is believed to be living in a heavily guarded penthouse atop New York’s Rock Rim and Tower. Whit now knows where their enemy may be hiding, though reaching him will be another problem.

Near the old African dig, Leonard, Eugene, and Jason hear a man crying for help and find Aziz tied to a tree. He warns that Dalton’s armed men are preparing to destroy the nearby Wolof village. The group races there and finds the attackers gone but a timed detonator connected to wires running throughout the settlement.

Eugene attempts to patch into the detonator without breaking its circuit, hoping to discover the remaining time and disarm it. Before he can succeed, the explosives destroy every hut. Jason has taken cover, and Aziz soon reports that all the villagers are safe because Dalton’s men forced them out before setting the charges. Their homes, however, have been erased.

Leonard believes Dalton is destroying anything connected to his African crimes. He asks Aziz about the videotape they made years earlier. Aziz admits that Dalton bribed the Wolofs with treasure on the very day Leonard entrusted him with the recording. Instead of taking it to authorities, Aziz hid it beneath the false bottom of an ancient ivory Ashanti box as protection he might someday use against Dalton.

The tape may have survived because Dalton’s men removed the village treasures, including the ivory box, before the explosion. They do not necessarily know the recording is concealed inside it. Jason follows their trail alone while Leonard and Eugene stay to build temporary shelters for the displaced families.

As they work, Leonard finds a carved Ashanti idol among the ruins and dismisses it as useless. He compares Eugene’s Christianity to the beliefs that failed the villagers. Eugene argues that disproving one belief does not disprove every belief any more than one false equation invalidates mathematics. Leonard calls his son rebellious and says he has failed to teach him properly, leaving the painful disagreement unresolved.

Jason tracks Dalton’s men to an airstrip but arrives after their cargo has left for New York. The stolen treasures are bound for Rock Rim and Tower - the very building where Dalton lives. The ivory box and its hidden evidence may soon enter Dalton’s guarded penthouse. Jason, Eugene, and Leonard decide to follow, while Whit announces that he is ready to join them.