BISENTIENT, page 22
About a mile and a half away was a bed and breakfast. Angie couldn't remember a time she'd been so pleased to get her shoes off. Zach went back out and returned with an Indian takeaway, which they ate quickly, with the window of their room open to try and hide the spicy smells. There was only one bed, but they were both too tired to worry and fell asleep, back-to-back with the twitching neon glow from the kebab shop opposite painting shadow pictures on the flowery wallpaper.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
MOLLY WAS SURPRISED that she had been accepted so easily by the CoR. Erik had explained it, more than once, but it still seemed a little odd that the older woman, whose name was Ellen, had so readily taken Molly into the CoR’s offices. They had talked for a while, over more coffee, about the problems with men. Molly played up her part and insisted she couldn’t rejoin her ‘husband’, and Ellen offered her a place to stay. Molly insisted she should pay for the room, but Ellen struck a deal instead. If Molly would help at the CoR offices for a while that would be enough.
A day passed, then another, with Molly doing various odd jobs around the CoR offices. It was a two-story building with a large yard out the back. Only around half a dozen people seemed to work there and over the two days Molly met each of them. She found herself doing everything from photocopying flyers to painting a new section of fence in the yard. To this point nothing seemed unusual to Molly. The others seemed just like anyone else, coming to work and seeming to get on well together. Molly had been sleeping in a room in another building on the edge of town that resembled a warehouse. The large ground floor area was virtually empty and two temporary rooms on concrete posts nestled in one corner. Each room had two single beds, but Molly seemed to be the only person using them.
Each day Molly sent a text with the number ‘1’ which was a simple sign that all was well. Erik had explained the stages of being enrolled in the church and if or when Molly recognised them she would send texts accordingly.
On the third day, a man arrived in a more impressive looking car than the average Gunnison vehicle. He spoke for a time with Ellen, who seemed to be the person in charge. About an hour after he arrived the skinny teen that had been with Ellen in the diner, called Gary, asked Molly to go to the office. Inside were Ellen and the man.
“Molly, I’d like you to meet Mr Robertson, he’d just like to have a talk with you if that’s okay?” said Ellen.
The man extended his hand and Molly shook it gently.
“Sure.” said Molly.
“Ellen tells me that you have had a bit of an unscheduled turn in your vacation?” said Robertson. “I’m very grateful that you have been helping us in our work here.”
“The least I could do after you’ve shown such kindness to welcome me.” said Molly, hoping she wasn’t overplaying her gratitude.
“What do you know of our Church? About the work that it does?”
“Not too much.” said Molly. “I saw Rev. Daniels on TV a few nights ago but he was being interviewed on a political show.”
“Well, the Church is involved in a huge number of humanitarian projects throughout the world and Rev. Daniels believes that we can help even more people by uniting our country.”
“He sounds like a wonderful man.”
“Ellen tells me that you studied Biomechanics in college?” said Robertson.
“Yes.” said Molly. “I had a school friend who lost an arm and I wanted to help people with damaged limbs or amputees.”
“That’s very interesting.” said Robertson. “And a most admirable ambition. If you still hold that ideal, we may be able to offer you the chance to achieve it through the Church.”
Molly was a little taken aback by this as it had not been part of the plan.
“I had no idea the Church was involved in helping victims of limb-loss.” said Molly.
Robertson glanced at Ellen. “The Church tries to help society in any way it can Molly. Skills such as yours will help us to help even more.”
“Do you work with a hospital near here?” asked Molly.
Robertson looked slightly unsettled. “We have our own facility not far from here. It is engaged in vital and complex work. I happen to know that your area of expertise would be highly prized. Now if you’ll forgive me, I must get to my next appointment.”
“I don’t know what to say.” she said.
Robertson smiled and extended his hand once again.
“Leave it with me and I will come back with an offer tomorrow.”
Molly shook his hand again and was shown out of the office and back to her work of sorting clothing donations. She sent a text message from the toilet with a ‘2’, signifying that she was to be invited into the Church.
The data had made its way in encrypted form to James Carver’s secure laptop. The two ex-SAS men had been dropped close to the source of the energy event in the Colorado mountains. They spent two days observing the location and their report made startling reading. Only the backlight from the screen illuminated Carver’s face as he tried to process the details. The hotel suite was dark and silent with the lights of Washington, DC carpeting the night outside.
Carver reached for the smaller, silver mobile phone beside the laptop. He pressed a speed dial number and it was answered on the second ring.
“Mr. Carver.” said Faith Cantrell. “Have you seen the report?”
“Yes.” said Carver. “And please, just James.”
“James, it seems we have a potentially bigger problem than we thought.”
“What does the Company know about this Church of the Reclamation?” said Carver.
“I have a colleague checking that right now, but as you might expect there are so many groups looking to leverage charity status that religious organisations grow like weeds and even the CIA struggles to keep an eye on all of them.”
“Surely a group that owns a huge underground ex-military site must be on someone’s radar?”
“Sure.” said Cantrell. “But our laws on guns and our geography tend to make setting up something like this pretty damn easy.”
“How do we proceed?”
“We’ll see what the CIA knows of this church and the FBI, hell maybe even ATF as well. We need to tread carefully. We don’t need Uncle Sam tramping all over this or, how do you say…the cat will be well and truly out of the bag.”
Carver sometimes found his double lives interfered, one with the other. In his role as a government minister, he had at his disposal certain tools for situations like this. Acting in his role as a member of this parallel organisation he was not yet at home with what his toolbox actually contained.
“Is there something I can do?” he asked.
“For now, James, just be reachable. If we need to move against this ‘church’ we may call upon some more of your resources. Let’s learn what we can and convene a conference in say four hours?”
“Okay.”
The conversation was over and Carver resumed his scanning of the report. The sheer volume of supplies going into the mountain base hinted at a significant workforce. Grainy pictures of the device from bodycams implied the men had been able to enter the facility. The pictures meant nothing to Carver but he forwarded them to a special server on the dark web. This server was monitored automatically and notified relevant people as files were uploaded to it. Technicians around the world were already receiving notification to download and analyse the contents. As he closed the lid of the laptop to try and grab a few hours of sleep, he realised that the report did not state whether the two men who uploaded the data were successfully exfiltrated.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
AS SOON AS Molly seemed to have been accepted by the church, Plater left Gunnison. He maintained the facade of an annoyed partner for the benefit of the hotel staff, who all despised him for seeming to leave his partner to fend for herself in their sleepy town.
He drove out of Gunnison and joined Kathleen and Erik at their makeshift camp.
“Is this really going to work?” asked Plater.
“By the looks of these text messages it seems so.” replied Erik, finishing his coffee and tipping the dregs out onto the ground.
Kathleen was sat quietly apart from the men thinking about the huge risks Molly was taking. She was ashamed to admit she was also hoping that somehow this might bring her some news of Dawn.
“Why have they let Molly keep her phone? I thought you said they took away all that stuff?” asked Plater.
“If they take her into the Church then they will take everything.” said Erik. “But she’s on a kind of probation right now. While they check her out, as much as they can.”
“It’s only been a few days but how do you stand the waiting?” said Plater.
“I’d say you get used to it.” began Erik. “But you don’t. Fact is we made a plan and seems like it’s working, far as we know. That’s a pretty sassy woman and I reckon she’ll be just fine, long as she sticks to the plan.”
“So, you said it could take weeks to be accepted, right?”
“Uh-huh, whatever you think of ‘em, they’re not stupid.”
“And you’re going to stay out here waiting?” said Plater.
“Uh-huh, that’s the game. You have somewhere you need to be?”
“No, but it just seems like we’re wasting time.”
Plater fell silent, scanning the featureless landscape, the warm sun causing him to half close his eyes from the glare. He knew Erik was right. Molly knew what she was doing and from what he’d seen of her in the short time he’d known her, she did have a calm and confident way about her. As the sun rose higher the temperature climbed even more. Plater was tempted to close his eyes and rest but resisted, being unwilling to drop into the realm. Preferring to wait until he had more energy and his thoughts were not so troubled.
Molly lay awake gazing into the starry night through the dirty window of her sparse room. She was wondering what the CoR could want with someone with biomechanics expertise. She had stuck to Erik’s instructions to volunteer little information about herself unless asked directly. She had played the part of someone pre-occupied with her failed relationship but was always enthusiastic in any task given to her. She was also surprised that she still had her phone, but the reception was patchy at best. If her degree in biomechanics was going to be helpful, she thought she’d better try to recall some of the key elements. Like most students she’d already forgotten quite a bit of what she’d studied just three years ago.
“Heads up.” called Erik, looking down at his phone. “Text from Molly, she’s on the move, let’s get packed up.”
The two tents were collapsed and crammed back into the 4x4 in less than ten minutes. Kathleen had her laptop, tethered to her mobile, showing a pulsing red dot that was Molly’s phone. It had already started to move. The 4x4 joined the road and within five minutes they were following the red dot at a distance of about a mile. They seemed to be heading for the mountains.
Rev. Daniels sipped a strong black coffee as his limousine turned into the private airfield. It drove straight to the side of the runway and when the driver opened the door, Rev. Daniels got out and crossed in four giant strides to the door of the private jet.
“Good morning, sir.” said a young woman as Rev. Daniels squeezed his bulk into one of the armchairs in the spacious cabin. “Can I get you anything before we takeoff?”
“No darlin’, I’m good.”
Within minutes, the jet was taxiing to the end of the runway and following clearance began to accelerate.
Rev. Daniels pulled out his phone and scrolled through his messages. Most were sycophantic congratulations from minor party members or donors to his campaign, but there was one from Wallace Clayton.
‘Uninvited visitors’ was all it said. Rev. Daniels hit a speed dial on his phone.
“Yeah?” said Clayton.
“What happened?” said Rev. Daniels.
“Coupla guys, ex-military, caught sneaking around. Didn’t have much to say for themselves. Don’t think it’s Uncle Sam.”
Rev. Daniels paused briefly. With his mind pre-occupied with his campaign and the next rally he first assumed this was related to the intrusion. Maybe rivals trying to find dirt they could use on the campaign trail. But then he reasoned that since he was very careful about visiting Redemption and always had been, he doubted anyone could link him to the place. This meant someone had either detected the first test of the machine or was taking more than a healthy interest in the Church.
“I need to know who sent them”
“Okay. And after?” said Clayton.
“Loose ends.” said Rev. Daniels closing the call.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
GROBUS CONSULTED HIS satnav as he approached a quiet junction in the heart of Buckinghamshire. The screen indicated he should go left and within three hundred yards he would reach his destination. The Holworth private hospital and long-term care facility stood in its own grounds of around five acres. It was a former rectory that had been expanded over the years with several outbuildings added, including a stable block which had been converted to accommodate the hospital’s long-term patients.
The effectiveness of the Third Eye ritual had been impressive. Oculus had been able to see clearly the invoice from the Holworth private hospital as Mason had opened his mail. He had managed to capture most of the address, certainly enough for the satnav to get a fix.
The Skoda looked somewhat out of place amongst the Mercedes and Audis of the doctors and well-heeled visitors. Grobus straightened his tie as he approached the reception desk.
“Good afternoon.” he began. “I believe you have a patient here by the name of Gail Hartston?”
The receptionist, a local lady in her early fifties, appraised Grobus for just long enough before answering to detect the slightest hint of discomfort in his manner.
“And you are?” she said.
“Rufus Henry, madam, I am solicitor for Mr. Mason Plater.” Grobus handed an embossed business card to the receptionist. “He wishes me to check from time to time on the patient, Ms. Hartston.”
Grobus hoped he had sounded authoritative enough but the look from the receptionist betrayed some doubt.
“It’s normal to register intended visitors.” she said, typing on her keyboard to bring up the visitor list. “Your name is not on it I’m afraid.”
“This must be an oversight on Mr. Plater’s part. I assure you he has instructed me to check on Ms. Hartston’s condition and keep him informed.”
“I’ll need to check with Mr. Plater, if you’d like to take a seat in the waiting area, I’ll call him now.”
“That won’t be possible I’m afraid as Mr. Plater is away on business. If you could just see your way to allowing me to see Ms. Hartston I can be on my way. I’m sure Mr. Plater will sort this administrative issue when he returns.”
The receptionist was not happy. Protocols and procedures were central to the efficient running of the hospital and this was most irregular. She didn’t like this odd-looking little man either. She couldn’t put her finger on it but there was something about him that made her uneasy. She looked again at the business card.
“One moment” she said at last. She picked up the phone and dialed a four-digit extension. “Miss Watson? I have a gentleman in reception wishing to see Ms. Hartston…Yes…No he’s not registered but says he is Mr. Plater’s solicitor….No he’s away travelling…Yes, very well, thank you Miss Watson.”
Placing the phone down, the receptionist passed a form and pen across to Grobus and asked him to fill it in and someone would collect him shortly. Grobus completed the form with completely fictitious details and was soon met by another woman, of similar age to the receptionist but dressed as a nurse.
“Mr…Henry.” said the nurse, reading from the form Grobus had completed. “Please follow me. This is not the way we usually do things here. Our clients require complete privacy and discretion.”
“I do apologise.” said Grobus. “I understand that this is a recent arrangement and was quite sudden, so I hope you’ll forgive our lack of preparation?”
The nurse glanced at Grobus and forced a brief smile as she pushed open the door to the long-term patients’ area. There were only three beds in the room, two with older gentlemen and one with Gail Hartston. The nurse stopped at the foot of the bed and picked up the charts to check that the morning’s tasks had been properly performed and signed off. Satisfied, she took a couple of steps back and Grobus approached the side of the bed. He looked down and immediately recognised the features of the powerful astral creature he had seen. Her hair was a different colour but this was definitely her. He could barely contain his excitement. To have found an earthly body for such an astral being could enable the OND to influence, control, even defeat this creature.
A rhythmic beeping came from the nurse’s pocket.
“I’m afraid you will need to leave now.” she said to Grobus.
“Yes, of course.” replied Grobus. “I just need to take a picture and record the treatment status for Mr. Plater, two minutes? I know my way back.”
The nurse considered for a second or two but the insistent beeping made up her mind.
“Very well, but please don’t take too long.”
The nurse left the ward and even before the door had swung shut Grobus had a small pair of scissors in his hand and was cutting a lock of Gail Hartston’s hair.
CHAPTER FIFTY
THE COMFORTING CREAKING of the old ship masked the pause in conversation. Plater was peering through the small, salt encrusted windows to the stern while Gail and Bartholomew sat silently in the tilting cabin.
“How do you know it is more than normal activity?” asked Plater.
“It seems to be related to The Book.” said Bartholomew. “Our spies tell us that much progress has been made and that there is excitement amongst the higher functioning beings in the Valley. Something important is happening and that surely means something in the real world.”
