Okay, if You’re really out there, I can handle a challenge, I thought. But if You’re listening, could I at least get a decent road map?
57
Connor
New Zealand is one of the most beautiful, unspoiled places on earth, for the most part removed from the so-called “rat race” plaguing the rest of the world. It’s a land of mountains, glaciers, fjords and rivers, of grassy fields, lakes and evergreen forests. Three quarters of the population inhabits the North Island, but it is the more remote South Island to which Lynne and I went in search of a safe place in which to take refuge while we awaited the birth of our baby.
Christchurch, founded in 1850 as a colony of the Church of England, was named for Oxford University’s college, where the city’s founder received his education. It’s a blend of the old and the new, evidenced in its blend of contemporary architecture and the earlier Gothic structures. The compact downtown area, built around the willow-lined Avon River, is complete with bridges, boatsheds and ducks.
We checked into a small hotel and set out to figure out how to find the sanctuary we’d been promised in the visions. “Where do we begin?” I asked as we wandered into a small café for breakfast.
“The vision said we were to come to Christchurch and we would be directed to a safe house, didn’t it?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I think we should look for a place to rent. Make our intentions known,” Lynne said. “In the New Testament, the apostles were instructed to go into Jerusalem and look for a man with a donkey. In other words, they had to take certain actions to set things into motion.”
“I wasn’t given any other instructions,” I said, still skeptical of the whole thing.
“That’s why we play it by ear for now.”
We took a table and ordered. “I hope wherever this promised safe house is, it has a suitable kitchen so we can cook.” I paused. “So I can cook. I think we should keep you out of the kitchen. I want you to get as much rest as possible.”
“I’ll be fine, once we can stay in one place,” she assured me.
When the server brought our meal, I asked, “Do you know of any homes in the area for rent?”
The girl thought about it. “Not nearby, no,” she said, “But I’ll ask Sam—my boss. If there’s anything to be had, he’ll know. Sam knows everybody.”
“Thank you, we’d appreciate that,” I said. "My wife and I are new to your country."
She smiled. "Welcome."
Lynne ate as though she were starving. “This baby’s got an unbelievable appetite,” she told me.
I was amused. “Are you sure it’s the baby who’s so hungry?” I asked.
“Of course.” She took a bite. “It has to be.”
“Excuse me.” A man approached their table. I was immediately defensive, but Lynne put her hand over mine and shook her head. “I couldn’t help overhearing you talking to Mindy,” the man was saying. “You’re looking for a house?”
“Yes, we are,” Lynne said.
The man looked to be in his seventies, a smiling, rotund fellow with a broad smile. “Calvin Hawkes,” he introduced himself. “I may be able to help you.”
“Please, sit down, Mr. Hawkes,” Lynne invited him.
He nodded and pulled up a chair. “I’ve got a place, owned it for over thirty years now. My wife and I lived there until she passed away last year,” he said. “Much as we loved the place, I just couldn’t stand to live there without her.”
“I can understand that,” I said, giving my wife’s hand a little squeeze.
“It’s a big house,” Hawkes went on. “I should tell you, though, it’s in a bit of a remote area. Don’t know if that’s something you’d want.”
“It sounds perfect for us,” I said.
“It’s been closed up for almost a year,” Hawkes said. “We have caretakers. There’s a little cottage on the property. They live there. They haven’t had much to do with Mary and me gone, but I kept them on because they were so loyal to us.”
“That could be a big help,” Lynne said.
“My wife is pregnant,” I told Hawkes. “She needs to rest as much as possible.”
“Then Gabriel and Rafaela will be a good fit for you,” Hawkes said. “Rafaela’s a midwife.”
Lynne and I exchanged looks. It seemed to us that we had already been directed to our safe house.
The house was all we could have hoped for. It was secluded, the closest neighbor at least five miles away. It sat on a hill, surrounded by tall trees. It was a large, rustic house, all flagstone and wood beams, with two working fireplaces. The windows were large, offering a spectacular view of the valley below. The caretakers, a pleasant older couple, were preparing the house when we arrived.
“We’ve stocked the pantry and refrigerator,” Gabriel told me. “Rafaela has laundered all the linens and made the bed in the master suite for you and your wife. If there’s anything you require that’s not here, just let us know.”
“Thanks, mate,” I said. “I think all my wife needs right now is a hot meal and a good night’s sleep.”
“The linen closet is stocked with towels and bed linens,” Rafaela said. “And I’ve prepared dinner. It’s in the warmer. I thought you might be too tired to cook after the long drive.”
“Thank you,” Lynne said. “We appreciate that.”
“If that will be all, then, we’ll be going.”
“What do you make of them?” I asked Lynne after they returned to their cottage.
“They seem very nice,” she said. “Why?”
“I suppose I’m a bit paranoid, given all we’ve been through,” I said. “I can’t quite trust anyone.”
“Mr. Hawkes said they’ve been here a long time,” she said. “It’s not as if they just got here ahead of us.”
“We don’t even really know him,” I reminded her.
Before we got into bed that night, I put my handgun on the nightstand. I was taking no chances.
58
Lynne
When I woke the next morning, I was ravenously hungry. Connor was still asleep. Not wanting to disturb him, I said a silent prayer of thanks that I was not vomiting and went downstairs in search of food.
First, I checked out the large, restaurant-style refrigerator. It was filled with fresh milk, orange juice, fruits and vegetables, lean meats, fish and poultry. There was freshly baked bread in a warmer. The cupboards contained assorted herbal teas, oatmeal and whole-grain cereals.
“Lynne!” Connor called to me from upstairs.
“Down here—in the kitchen,” I called back to him.
I could hear him running down the stairs. He gave a heavy sigh of relief when he saw me. “I woke and you weren’t there,” he said, embracing me from behind.
“I got hungry.”
“No vomiting this morning?”
“Not yet, thank God.”
“You should have woken me,” he scolded me. “I would have come down and fixed a tray for you.”
I gave him a disapproving look. “What are you going to do, keep me on a pile of pillows and spoon-feed me until this baby is born?” I wanted to know.
“I might.”
“I’m perfectly capable of doing almost everything I did before I was pregnant,” I assured him. “Women have been having babies for centuries, you know.”
“Maybe—but you’re the only one having my baby.”
I opened the refrigerator again. “Was this your idea?” I asked.
“I told Hawkes to let the caretakers know I wanted you to have only fresh, healthy food,” he admitted.
“And here I am, craving chocolate.”
“Chocolate?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Now, I might be persuaded to give you a bit of chocolate.”
“Persuaded?”
He took a chocolate bar from a drawer. I licked my lips. “Come to Mama!”
“Not so fast!” he halted me. “What will you give me for it?”
“Give you for it?” I started
to laugh. “I’m going to have to bribe you for a candy bar?”
I made a grab for it, but he raised his hand high over his head, putting the chocolate bar just beyond my reach. As I stretched to reach it, his mouth came down on mine. He kissed me, lowering his arm just enough for me to snatch the candy from him. Then he lifted me up so that I was sitting on the counter. I kissed him deeply, then turned my attention to my reward.
He plucked an apple from a basket next to me on the counter, but I took it from him. “Better not eat that. I’m pretty sure in Paradise, apples are off-limits.”
59
Darcy
I had no trouble locating Mackenzie's birthplace…but after thirty years, locating people who remembered him and his mother was another story. Finally, I found a former neighbor, an elderly woman named Maddie MacDougal.
“I used to sit with the wee one when Anne was out,” the woman remembered. “He was so smart, that one. But so sad.”
“Sad?” I asked.
“Anne was a troubled lass,” she said, shaking her head. “She tried to take her own life more than once. The wee boy, he loved her so much, but he could not depend on her.”
“She was mentally ill?”
She nodded. “Heard voices, that one. Quite unstable.”
“But she married well.”
“That she did,” the woman said, smiling for the first time. “Anne was very beautiful, and that was what Mr. Rhys-Williams wanted. A beautiful young woman for his bed. He pursued her, until she said yes. He married her and took her and the boy to London to live. We never saw them again, but we heard she got pregnant, had another child. Heard the poor lassie died while her baby was still nursing. Most of us thought she finally did herself in.”
“Why would she do that, with so much to live for?” I questioned.
“She was sick, that’s why.” Maddie MacDougal paused. “It was an odd thing about the boy. He had a way of knowing things.”
“Knowing things?” I asked.
Maddie nodded. “I had cancer. The doctors held out no hope. I’d not told anyone of it, but the wee boy knew. He climbed up on my lap one day, gave me a big hug and told me he was sorry I was ill, that he didn’t want me to die.”
“Obviously, you didn’t,” I said, feeling like an idiot for saying it.
“No, and that’s the strange part,” Maddie said. “I had cancer. There was no doubt. But after that day, I went back to my doctor, and I had not a trace of it. It was gone. It was a miracle.”
“A miracle?”
Maddie nodded. “The wee boy, he was a healer. He had the gift.”
A large part of England and Wales was hit by an earthquake measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale. Buildings shook for up to thirty seconds in parts of Wales, London, Wiltshire, North Yorkshire and West Midlands. Aftershocks were felt later that morning from what was believed to be the United Kingdom’s largest quake in ten years. Seismologists from the British Geological Survey said the quake was not connected to temblors occurring in other parts of the world.
Flights in and out of Heathrow Airport were cancelled. Tired and frustrated, I arrived early to get a flight to New York, only to find it was one of many cancelled. I called Ally. Might as well get the execution over with.
“Darcy—where are you?” she demanded impatiently. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“My cell was dead,” I said.
“Is your computer dead as well? Have you even checked your e-mail?”
“Truthfully? No.”
“Would you care to explain?”
She was mad, but I knew she would be. I tried to think fast, to come up with a way to soothe the savage beast. “I’m still in London. I’m stuck here,” I went on. “The damned earthquake brought everything to a halt. No planes are taking off—at least not yet.”
“If you’re lucky, the earth will open up and swallow your sorry ass,” she snapped. “If not, I’ll do the job myself.”
“And what, may I ask, is responsible for this delightful mood you’re in?” I had to know what I was up against.
“I pulled you from this assignment,” she reminded me. “Charlie’s dead and you’re going to get yourself killed.”
“So you do care about me,” I chided her.
“Don’t press your luck, Darcy.”
If I believed in reincarnation, I'd say Ally was a Mafia hit man in another life. “I’ll get out of here as soon as I can,” I assured her.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The line went dead. I stared at my cell phone for a moment, fairly certain the call hadn’t been interrupted by an act of God.
On the flight back to New York, I found I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d discovered in Britain. He believed an angel was protecting him…
“I had cancer, Mr. Darcy. I was told there was no hope. He hugged me…it was a miracle….”
“He was the most extraordinary genius I have ever encountered….”
They look like ghosts…spirits…angels….
“His mum believed he had been chosen for a divine mission….”
“He believed Christ could be cloned….”
“He genetically manipulated an average racehorse and nothing on four legs could beat him….”
“We’re pregnant, Darcy….”
Lynne was pregnant. She was having Mackenzie’s baby. The question is, what kind of baby would it be? I wondered.
60
Connor
I was worried about Lynne.
In less than five months, she would give birth, and I was no closer to finding a way to deal with Edward and his associates than I had been the day we left Egypt. I had no idea what I was really up against. How could I fight an adversary I couldn’t identify?
I walked alone on the hillside near the house. Lynne was inside, resting. She tired more easily now. She would often sleep for an hour or two in the middle of the day. I wondered if I would be able to take her to a hospital when the time came to deliver the baby, or if we would have to deliver the baby here, without the benefit of medical facilities, should they be needed.
Every time I looked at her, every time I felt the baby move, I was overcome by guilt. I couldn’t feel joy without being reminded of what I’d done to those other children and their parents. There were kids out there somewhere who might never get to go home again, who might never have a normal life because of me.
Frustrated, I picked up a large rock and threw it.
I was accustomed to being in control of every situation. In my lab, I’d always been in charge. I knew all the facts. I knew how to proceed. Everyone under me deferred to my judgment.
But now….
“It’s difficult for you, being out of control, is it not?”
I shook my head. “Not you. Not now.”
“You already know the truth. You know what must be done. You refuse to face it.”
“Truth?” My laugh was hollow. “You expect me to believe some crazy story about Satanists who think I’m the key to the Apocalypse?”
“Do you not see they’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to control you? Even as a child, you were a threat to them. They were willing to kill your mother to prevent you from fulfilling your destiny. They are willing to kill your wife with the same objective in mind.”
“Why do they want my child?” I asked.
“They know he will be his father’s son. Only by facing the truth can you protect him.”
“Even if I believed this crap, what difference would it make?” I wanted to know. “How would I be able to deal with them?”
“Alone, it will be impossible. You must surrender yourself to your Father. He will work his will through you.”
“My father?”
“Your Creator.”
“Right. I’m going to place the fate of my family in the hands of an entity in which I don’t believe. I’m many things, but suicidal is not on the short list.”
Autumn had arrived in the southern hemisphere, a
nd Lynne was now almost six months pregnant.
To me, she was a marvel. Her hair was long and loose, the way I liked it. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed in the crisp, cool air. She wore baggy shirts and sweaters over maternity pants, and she looked ten years younger. Her body seemed to be blossoming with her advancing pregnancy.
I never thought of pregnant women as being attractive. I’d heard others gush about how beautiful a woman was when she was expecting a child, but I’d always found pregnant women to be somewhat grotesque, with their skinny arms and legs and bulging bellies. But my wife was not like the other pregnant women I’d seen. Her whole body seemed to have ripened, like the women depicted in the masterpieces in Edward’s art collection.
My doubts about becoming a father so soon after we married dissolved as I watched her body change and anticipated the arrival of my son. My son, I thought. I knew the baby was a boy. It wasn’t the wishful thinking of a man who wanted a son to carry on his name. That didn’t matter to me at all. I simply knew, the minute the baby began to make his presence known, that this child was a boy.
And once again, I found myself thinking of the children whose lives I had ruined, and the guilt threatened to consume me.
“You’re developing some muscle here,” Lynne said, stroking my bicep. “All that wood chopping is turning you into a real lumberjack.”
We were curled up on the couch in front of the fire I’d built in the massive stone fireplace. A storm had descended upon the valley, and power had been out for the past two hours. We could see flashes of lightning through the windows.
“Is it, now?” I asked, amused.
“Next thing I know, you’ll be wearing plaid flannel.”
I kissed her. “You know, these muscles didn’t come from chopping wood,” he told her.
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