Name: Ray Sutherland
Book Title: Secret Agent Angel
Website: raysutherland.com
An imaginative and intriguing tale, Secret Agent Angel is a story about how sometimes even angels have to act on faith.
About Secret Agent Angel: Samuel, a secret agent angel on earth, has to improvise when things go badly wrong—and sometimes, Samuel has to prepare people for a purpose unknown even to him. From the jungles of Vietnam with porters on the Ho Chi Minh trail, to Omaha truck drivers who befriend an abused boy, to wounded veterans who need to learn to let go of the past, to an accountant tempted to steal, Samuel works with fallible people, trying to get them to see their true strength.
But forty years of angelic missions come to a head when a fire at a snowbound truck stop leaves one man’s faith—and his life—hanging in the balance. The only hope for success rests with the spiritual power of the humans Samuel has tried to prepare for the struggle. But have they gained enough spiritual strength and awareness? And if not, does God have a Plan B??
An extraordinary story that will stay with readers long after the final page is turned, Secret Agent Angel is irresistible. Tender and touching, thoughtful and thought provoking, heartwarming and filled with heart, Secret Agent Angel is a powerful story about faith, healing, and the redemptive power of love.
EXCERPT
As always the first thing I knew arriving on Earth from Heaven was the terrible dislocation and confusion of re-entering the temporal stream. It doesn’t matter how many times you make the transition, it’s still a terrible wrench to your mind, almost violent in its effect. I spent a few seconds doing the normal head shaking and a shiver to get over the jolt and to get used to being flesh and blood again and then got down to business. At least this time I was undercover and didn’t have to wear a goofy robe and those wings that glow in the dark. They can be fun, but they’re also cumbersome and a real pain to keep clean.
This time, I looked like a reasonably normal human male, dressed in the regulation shirt and tie like that of a junior manager at a big department store chain or insurance agency. I was in the restroom of a convenience store close to the airport, so I hit the toilet handle to make it seem like I was in there for the normal reason and stepped out. I bought a honey bun, a chocolate bar, and the largest cup they had of orange soda because one thing I envy of you humans is eating and drinking. The Boss sure did a good job when he created that and I always take advantage of it when I’m here to earth.
I come here to Earth pretty regularly. My name is Samuel. I’m an angel.
I sat down at one of the small booths in the store and looked out the window as I ate and drank and waited for my subject to show up. I had timed it right and had just finished the honey bun and half the soda when his car went by, headed home after work, with his three year old daughter in the car seat in the back. I dropped the wrappers in the trash and headed to the car which was waiting for me in the furthest parking place. It started right up which is always a bit of a relief when dealing with a car I’ve never seen before. We’ve got good people doing these things, but sometimes the Boss likes to pull surprises even on us. I remember once when I worked in the fifteenth century in Yemen, I got stuck with a donkey with no training, and that caused me to get stranded in a tiny village where I wound up staying with the local Jacobite priest who had been having a faith crisis. The next morning, he had tried to help me teach the donkey manners while his wife supervised. We were having a conversation about his crisis during a break necessitated by the donkey winning a round, and his wife had exasperatedly broken in with, “You won’t get over this unless you get hit with a sign from Heaven!” Just then the donkey let loose with a kick which sent the priest flying, fortunately with no serious damage to anything other than his dignity. That made him laugh and say that very much like the story of Balaam, the Boss had again spoken through a donkey. That didn’t fix his faith but it seemed to give him the boost he needed and he went on to be a faithful leader in the Yemenite church, doubts and all.
I cut off that line of thought and got back to the business of following my subject. We didn’t have far to go, the store I’d picked to start from was only about a mile from his house and I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t stop in for gas or a loaf of bread. Today though, he went straight home, no stops and without any apparent glances in the mirror, even though a look in his mirror would have shown him a rather dark and nasty trail of smoke coming from his exhaust pipe.
As planned, the last stoplight before his final turn into their subdivision caught him and I pulled up next to him and got a good look. He looked exactly like what he was: a junior level management flunky trying to get on the fast track, with ambitions to reach high and talent to match. But today he looked more than harried and rushed at work, he looked troubled and uncertain. His mind was clearly somewhere else because he didn’t notice the light turn green until the driver behind honked. That let me get in ahead of him and slow down so he had to pass me and I got a good look at the girl, too. Amanda was her name and she was a star pupil at Miss Emmy’s Day Care Center and–of course-spoiled rotten by both parents and all four grandparents and two step-grandparents. She had the sweet look that all three year old girls have, even when they’re starving in the middle of a plague. I’ve seen that, too, and I screamed and yelled at the Boss to let me fix some things but got the usual answer.
Everything was just what I expected. That was no surprise since I watched them before I came over, but it was good to confirm it because, as you can imagine–or maybe not-things look very different when you’re on this side and limited to time and space.
Preliminary recon done, I turned off the main road a block before they did and headed to the big department store in the mall where the wife would be finishing her shift as cosmetics saleslady. They had about decided that she should quit that job since his last promotion and she was thinking about going back to college, hoping to study art and either be an artist or at least to teach in a high school. But her pay, little as it was, helped quite a bit and she was nervous about trying to do without it.
I parked in the closest spot, not very close. I wish the Boss would fix that like He fixed the traffic light but that’s one of his inscrutable ways. It’s not like I need the exercise since I’m usually a perfect physical specimen when I come over in human form.
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