The Circle of Sodom

by Pat Mullan

  The overlays created their own motion picture for Owen MacDara. More and more stable blues fragmented into shades of instability, eventually ending with the current unstable map of the US.

  "That ethos and solidarity that gave this land its stability a century ago are gone. Despite Johnson's great society, the Blacks are no better off. Racial hatred is stronger than ever. The Godless left and the Religious Right are going to settle their differences at the point of a gun. Abortion doctors are being murdered. The Right have taken out contracts on America."

  "You're painting a pretty bleak, one-sided picture. Couldn't you just as readily mount a defense for the side of stability and reason?", interjected MacDara .

  "No! Not this time. I believe that mankind, womankind, have reached a watershed in their existence. They are fully bent on a battle to the bitter end."

  "If you're right, what can we do to avert it?"

  "Nothing! Our only hope is to accelerate it and ensure that our planet is not destroyed in the process."

  "That's a truly bleak future you're presenting."

  "No, it's not. The truly bleak future is here now. The future I see is one of renewal for the earth. The cutting away of decayed and rotting growth. And the emergence of a new and stronger seed. Our seed. We must survive to govern and rule beyond the millennium."

  "And you are that new seed?"

  "Yes. I've been nurtured by my father and by the Institute that he founded. I have been well prepared."

  "Why are you telling me all of this?"

  "Because I have made a judgement about you, Owen. You have the steel to be one of us. I want you to join our movement."

  This turn of events had taken Owen MacDara entirely unawares. He stood up, walked over to the window and looked out at the sprawl of Los Angeles. Should I play him along and pretend that I'm interested, he thought. No, Thackeray would see through it. Better to play it straight. He turned around and faced Tony Thackeray who had, by this time, logged out of his system. The De Kooning print once again dominated the wall. The choice of De Kooning was perverse, mused MacDara to himself. He knew that the CIA had used American modern artists like Willem De Kooning as a propaganda weapon in the Cold War. De Kooning never knew about it. The CIA secretly funded exhibitions around the world to show that abstract art was proof of the artistic and cultural freedom that existed outside of the Soviet's rigid system. But Thackeray knows all that and that's exactly why he has the De Kooning playing such a prominent role in this conference room, MacDara reasoned.

  "Tony, I'm honored that you're inviting me to join you. Truthfully, I've never seen the World the same way that you do. Maybe you're right and maybe I'm blind. I don't know. I'll have to think about all of this."

  "That's what I specialize in, Owen. Helping you to think. Don't take too long. I'll be in the US for at least another month. The Institute will always know where I can be reached. Remember, we need strong people to govern and lead us after the chaos."

  And with that, Tony Thackeray ushered Owen MacDara to the door of his office and thanked him once again for coming. Still in thought, Owen didn't hear the receptionist bidding him goodbye and he didn't see the young man sitting in the reception area until he accidentally knocked over his briefcase. Stooping to pick it up, he apologized to a face that he knew he'd seen somewhere before. It was only after he'd taken the elevator to the ground floor and emerged into the sunlight of Wilshire Boulevard that he remembered. That face was the face of the Brother who'd been standing inside the entrance vestibule of the El Habesh Mosque in Florida. I wonder if he recognized me, thought MacDara . His face showed no sign of recognition. But I can't rely on that. I'll have to assume that he recognized me. And I'll have to assume that he'll tell Thackeray. And then Thackeray will know that I know.

  "You're certain it was him, David?"

  "Absolutely. The light shone directly in his face the night he left the Mosque. I was going to challenge him that night because I'd never seen him before. But I decided that he must be a new convert and I let him leave. I never thought about that until today. I knew I had to tell you right away."

  "David, you did the right thing. Thank you."

  Tony Thackeray realized that he had underestimated Owen MacDara. It was now obvious that MacDara knew that he headed the Circle and must suspect that he was involved in the killing of his friend Murph and the attempts on his own life. But he couldn't prove a thing despite his suspicions. How much did MacDara really know? He'd been working with Shields at the NSC; that much he already knew. If MacDara knew about the Circle and about him, what else did he know? No more surprises, Thackeray promised himself. This is the last time he'd ever underestimate Owen MacDara.

  After David had left, Tony Thackeray reflected on the laws of probability. What was the probability of MacDara's chance encounter with David? How did MacDara find his way to the mosque in Florida? Luck or the laws of probability? Only a couple of trusted brothers in his Inner Circle knew that he, the Chosen One, was also the Honorable David Anthony Llewellyn Thackeray, head of the Thackeray Institute.

  He picked up the phone, asked his secretary to see that he wasn't disturbed for any reason, locked his office door, removed his jacket, tie and shoes and assumed the yoga posture he used for meditation in his continual search for perfect self-knowledge.

  He allowed the past to return, let his mother back in again. He consciously conjured her up in a spiritual exercise that induced a self-hypnotic state. In that state he would achieve profound contemplation, samadhi, the perfect absorption of his thought with the object of his thought, his mother. She was here again, smiling at him and beckoning him to follow her..................................................................................

  ......... Branwen Hughes was tall, willowy and beautiful, with a fine china complexion. A commoner, by English definition, Welsh royalty by her own, she exuded the air of a true aristocrat. The perfect wife, the perfect match for the life she must lead as Lady Haverford. Daughter of David, who taught history at the local Secondary School, and his wife, Dilys, who ran the village post office, outwardly it seemed that their only child, Branwen, led a very protected and privileged life. But Branwen Hughes led another life, a life connected to the mystical and mythical Celtic past. Her very name, Branwen, was taken from the four branches of the Mabinogi, part of the eleven tales comprising the Mabinogion, the repository of the oral storytelling of Celtic Wales. Branwen, of the 'white breast', was one of the three great queens of Britain and the most beautiful girl in the Celtic world.

  In that secret other world of theirs, David and Dilys Hughes were Druids.

  They lived in two worlds, the real world of twentieth-century Britain and their other Druidic world with its aversion to time and place and the practicalities of modern daily life. Symbolized best by Peredur's vision in the Mabinogion: 'on the bank of the river he saw a tall tree: from roots to crown one half was aflame and the other green with leaves'. The two worlds within which Branwen lived: the green verdant world of daily village life and the flaming, flickering emotional and passionate otherworld of her parents................

  .....................................................the boy was only five years old. He sat on a heavy blanket, wrapped well and swaddled in the clothes of his mother and her friends. The moon cast a silvery, eerie light on the sand around him and illuminated the white froth of the sea as it broke on the rocks at the outer edge of the beach. He could see his mother, her golden hair flowing behind her, as she and her friends ran, naked, in a circle which seemed to extend halfway into the water. A fire glowed in their midst and its flames leaped and sparked into the midnight air. As the boy watched he saw two of them lead an animal, a pig, toward the center of their gathering. While the others danced and frolicked, one of them hit the pig between its two eyes with a sledgehammer stunning it and toppling it to its knees and the other stuck a knife in its throat spewing its blood into the sand as its screams filled the night air.................................
.............................................................

  ...................it was his ninth birthday. The party had ended, his friends had gone home, and his father had left for London again. His mother had explained that the time had come; he had come of age. He would be initiated into the clan, the family, that evening. The room had been in darkness as they entered, only the nervous coughs and shuffling of feet betrayed the people hidden there. He'd been blindfolded right away. He couldn't imagine why because he hadn't been able to see anything at all. The Chief Druid intoned the laws of the clan in the Welsh language, a language in which he was as fluent as English, ending with the order 'let the ceremony begin'. The boy was guided forward, one person at each side, until he bumped into something hard. Reaching out with his right hand he felt the wood of a table, wood with a curved edge, a round table. As he reached out, his hand was grasped firmly and he felt the sting of the pinprick on his middle finger. Then that finger was held and squeezed and he knew they were taking his blood. Once again he was guided around the table until he reached the other side and he could clearly hear the rasp of steel as the blade was withdrawn from the scabbard. Pressed cold and hard against his lips he was exhorted to kiss it firmly. Just as quickly the steel was replaced with skin so soft and warm. The nipple edged its way between his small lips. The voice of the Druid was now the voice of the Druidess, telling him to suck at the breasts of the clan, at the nourishment of the spirit. He did and he could taste the warm milk....................................................

  ...................he had seen his mother naked often but this time was different. She lay prostate on the altar, trance-like. He had watched her drink the potion from the chalice offered by the celebrant, then watched as she reclined, first on her side and then flat on her back, her last movement relaxing her knees and letting her legs stretch out so that her feet dangled over the end of the altar. The celebrant draped his outer vestment over her while those assembled chanted in unison. Just as rapidly, he removed the vestment with a flourish that displayed the intricate Celtic designed animal, a hybrid of a goat and an eagle, whose feet-like talons entwined around the shoulders and encircled the celebrant's neck the moment he donned it and swung around to pick up the gleaming blade. The boy held the silver and gold chalice under the arm of each person as the celebrant made an incision with the blade and let the blood mingle freely. Then helping the boy hold the chalice aloft over his mother, they solemly poured the blood offering over her breasts, watching it run in a river, forming a pond where her navel had been and overflowing to darken the patch of blonde hair framing the entrance to her thighs...............................

  ....................it was his first summer home from boarding school. He was eleven years old and he came home to a house in mourning, to a wake, to a funeral. His grandfather, David Hughes, had died. A stroke, they said. He was only sixty-three. The boy was taken into the bedroom where his grandfather lay, white and waxen-still, with his hands clasped over his chest, bony and lifeless. They made him lay his hands over those cold, cold hands of death............................................................................................................

  ...................it was his second summer home from boarding school and he came home to a house in mourning again. His mother was dead. Too young, too pretty, too full of life, too much to live for, they said. Drugs, sleeping pills, a whole bottle. There was no suicide note. They said that she had been despondent since her father's death a year ago. He didn't believe it. She would never have left without saying goodbye to him. At the graveside he thought she would suffocate. He thought they were burying her alive...............................

  ..........and so, the boy grew into adolescence, nurtured by his father in his future vocation, educated in the hallowed halls of the elite and sustained emotionally by his mother's legacy, until.....................................................................................................................

  ...........in his twenty-third year he was sent by his father to study under Dr. Johann Malocco at the Malocco Center for Strategic Studies in Zurich. It was there that he grew to understand his father's mission and to take it as his own. It was also there that he found a way to use his mother's legacy to fulfill his ambitions. It was there that he began to meet with a select few who believed as he did, believed there was another way between the failure of Communism and the decadence of the West. The meetings became more frequent, other believers joined, and his natural charisma and authority gave him absolute mind control over all. Before he left Zurich, he had formed his twelve disciples, his inner circle. They would mete out the justice that must be dispensed. Their tattoo, the snake in the circle, symbolized their role and branded them like a Mau Mau blood oath. They chose their name from one of the great Biblical events, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to remind themselves that the Lord had said He would be 'more severe on the day of judgment than he had been with Sodom and Gomorrah'. The justice they must dispense would be most severe....................................................................................

  Palm Springs, California

  It was no place for someone with acrophobia. MacDara was in a cable car halfway between the Californian desert floor and the summit of Mt. San Jacinto. Palm Springs lay five minutes below him. It's a fifteen minute ride, he kept telling himself. Kate was a romantic. He could feel her entire body imprinted against him as he clung to her. Each time the cable car passed a pylon it seemed to swing wildly. MacDara hung on even more tightly. He didn't look out of the windows and tried instead to focus on the passengers. The car was crowded. One sixtyish, ordinary looking lady stood and swayed in the center of the car. Totally unperturbed. This only made him feel even more vulnerable.

  The lights of Palm Springs dotted the desert floor like scattered diamonds. Dusk had descended but people were still skiing on the adjacent slopes. It had been eighty-seven degrees when they left Palm Springs. Here, on the summit of Mt. San Jacinto, it was only forty-three. Owen and Kate stood alone on the terrace outside the hilltop restaurant. The restaurant was nearly empty. Most of the day trippers had already left the mountain top and had gone back down again. It was peaceful and serene. One could almost be forgiven for feeling impervious to the world up here.

  They had fled Los Angeles late yesterday without even packing their bags or checking out of their suite at the Century Plaza Hotel. Dinner in the Vineyard had been Dover sole and rainbow trout. The sommelier had found a superb 1981 Robert Ampeau Montrachet. The young lady harpist had commenced a rendition of Danny Boy as he and Kate were languishing over a final sambucca and cognac. MacDara had seen him as soon as he entered the restaurant and started talking intently to the Maitre d'. There could be no mistake. It was the Brother he had seen this morning at the Thackeray Institute; the same one he had encountered that night as he left the El Habesh Mosque in Dania. The valet had had their car ready in a couple of minutes and they had sped out of LA driving east into the desert. Two hours later they had arrived in Palm Springs. They picked the first motel they saw, the Biltmore. MacDara had risked a call to the Assistant Manager at the Century Plaza. An exceedingly generous gratuity had ensured that their bags were packed discreetly and sent by next available transport to Palm Springs. They had a private chalet at the Biltmore. There was something sensuous about the smell of the orange blossoms in the warm dry desert air. The door of the chalet was glazed, letting just enough evening light through to gently bathe the room. On impulse, Owen picked Kate up and carried her into the room. Kicking the door closed behind him, he gently eased her feet to the floor, still holding her in his arms. Kate traced her index finger across Owen's lips igniting a fire in him. He gently kissed her eyes, her ears, her face, her hair before merging his lips with hers. Later, as they sat in the Jacuzzi sipping an Armagnac with the perfume of the orange blossoms wafting through the window, they made a decision. They would disappear here in Palm Springs for a few days. Nobody knew they were
here. MacDara could call his office in the morning and reschedule his business appointments. There was nothing that couldn't wait. At least they convinced each other of that.

  Kate slipped her arm through his and kissed him tenderly. The spell was broken. It was time to abandon their hilltop haven and catch the next cable car going down. It was dark now. MacDara knew that he wouldn't suffer from acrophobia this time. The darkness would prevent him from seeing how high up he was. As he turned with Kate, two men in ski masks stepped onto the terrace. They moved with stealth. One of them took something from the pocket of his skijacket. As he did so he was silhouetted against the light from the French windows. The outline was unmistakable. An automatic pistol with a silencer. MacDara moved fast. Pushing Kate to the ground he turned and aimed a karate kick directly at the man's outstretched arm. His foot split the assailant's ulna two inches above the wrist. One shot lodged harmlessly in the wooden deck as the pistol clattered to the ground. The second assailant didn't even try. He turned and fled through the French windows. MacDara picked up the pistol. The first assailant, in agony, holding his useless arm, was halfway to the windows when MacDara pounced on him, knocking him flat to the ground. Holding his head in an armlock, MacDara put the pistol behind his right ear.

  "Alright! Who sent you to get me?"

  "Fuck you!" the man wheezed and struggled against MacDara's stranglehold.