Triskellion 3: The Gathering

by Will Peterson

  “What?” Kate tried to keep the alarm out of her voice.

  “There was a disaster at the station. A signal failed and a diesel train crashed right through the buffers.” The detective saw the look of horror on Kate’s face and held up her hands. “Nobody was killed, thank God, but a few people were pretty badly hurt. I checked the local hospitals over there, though, and they didn’t admit any kids matching their descriptions. So looks like you’re OK…”

  Laura reached over and laid a hand on Kate’s arm. Then she turned back to Scoppetone. “Listen, thanks for this. Kate really appreciates it. We’ll get out of your way—”

  “One more thing,” Scoppetone said. She pointed at the picture. “I only found this thing because somebody else had already punched it up. You understand?”

  Kate and Laura waited.

  “Somebody else is looking for these kids.” Scoppetone shrugged and sat back in her chair. “You haven’t exactly told me a lot, so I figure I’d better not ask, but just so as you know.”

  “Thanks,” Kate said.

  They made polite chit-chat for another minute or so, but Kate was eager to leave so that she and Laura could plan their next move. Scoppetone was equally keen to get on with her day, but the women’s behaviour had sparked her curiosity: exciting those instincts that made her so good at her job. As soon as they were out of sight she picked up her phone and made a call.

  “I need to run a name, OK, Tony? It’s ‘Kate Newman’. Yeah, I’ll wait…”

  She doodled while she waited. It never hurt to check these things. Somebody she had known twenty years ago getting in touch out of the blue was enough to make anyone suspicious. That, coupled with the fact that another party had called up the same photograph, had been enough to ring alarm bells.

  Two minutes later the dispatcher came back on the line and gave her the information. She took down the details, saying “Oh my God” over and over again.

  Laura held a bagel between her teeth and put her latte next to the computer as she manoeuvred herself and her bags into the seat. The internet cafe was quite empty, but she still scanned the room and arranged her things around her like a barricade: employing the caution and fieldcraft that her years with Hope had taught her.

  Her mouth dry, she logged on to the Hope Intelligence Terminal. It asked for her password. She took a deep breath, then typed it in:

  She held the breath and waited a moment as the progress bar crawled across the bottom of the window.

  Laura typed in the word again: ULURU.

  A wheel spun on the screen. So far, so good. Laura waited. A chair scraped behind her and she jumped; turned around. A young guy with a beard, wearing a beanie, got up, slurping a smoothie on his way out of the cafe. A student from the nearby university, she guessed.

  She turned back to the screen. The wheel was still spinning. She clicked the RETURN key impatiently. Perhaps the connection was slow – but it was more likely that the HIT database was checking and rechecking any incoming information.

  The screen cleared and another window opened. The single word HOPE appeared in white across the top of the black page and a small box at the bottom of the screen asked:

  Laura’s hand trembled over the keyboard. She had not logged on to Hope for over two years. It was not unheard of; people who worked for the Project often disappeared into the field for years on end. Buried deep undercover, with new lives and new identities, agents could sometimes take that long to uncover important information. To gather intelligence from people who were themselves secretive – or had good reason to be hiding.

  And the Hope Project was a very patient employer.

  Laura typed in her agent identification: SHEILA.

  It was the jokey name given to her by the American who had recruited her from the University of Western Australia ten years before. He had been an older man – in his mid-forties when she was in her early twenties. He had been on a sabbatical from an American university and was already a professor – but he had been good to her. Laura, who had not had a father to speak of, had responded to his friendship, and his protection. He had been very confident and knowledgeable, with expertise in Laura’s field of archaeology, and had been happy to guide her research on ancient sites. And then one day, before he left to go back to America, he had asked Laura whether she would be interested in working for him…

  A month later Laura had discovered that sums of money from a company called the Flight Trust were being deposited in her overdrawn bank account. All she had had to do was share her research on Aboriginal Songlines and Bronze Age burial sites across Europe. She had not felt as though she were doing anything underhand or that she was being exploited – this Flight Trust Company was effectively just sponsoring her research, and more importantly, she would have a job with them waiting for her when she graduated.

  She hadn’t realized just how undercover that job would be until she had been asked to move to England and pass on information about a certain burial mound in a village in the West Country. A job had even been arranged for her as a producer with a TV company; all the red tape had been cut, taken care of at government level.

  Her days in Triskellion seemed like a distant memory as she waited to log on to – or rather, to hack into – an organization she now knew to be more sinister and ruthless than she had ever bargained for.

  “Sheila” was eventually recognized and the labyrinthine Hope Intelligence Terminal database opened up in front of Laura’s eyes. The internet cafe computer was not as fast as she was used to. She would have to work as quickly as possible and search very carefully so as not to alert the watching eyes she knew would be monitoring activity on the site 24/7.

  There was one thing she would have to risk typing. If the agents who had approached Angie Scoppetone and the NYPD were from Hope as she suspected, then these names would be at the forefront of activity on the database in the past day.

  Laura typed RACHEL AND ADAM NEWMAN.

  A new window opened rapidly. A box containing the word CLASSIFIED flashed in the middle of the page. Laura clicked on it. Another page opened; this time the box asked for another password.

  Laura typed it in: TRISKELLION.

  She waited for a spinning wheel, but this time the reaction was quicker…

  Laura thumped the desk. She had been stupid to think that the code word would not have changed in her absence. She tried another route: CINCINNATI STATION, OHIO.

  The screen became a flurry of data and email exchanges. Hundreds of reports had been filed on this topic in the past two days. Good; her enquiries would be hidden among the long list of agent names. Apparently, Hope had deployed thirty agents at the station. Serious questions were now being asked. How had they failed so miserably? Why had their agent let the targets slip through her fingers? Why hadn’t the other agents closed in? How had the incoming train been so effectively sabotaged?

  Who was responsible for such an operational disaster?

  Laura shook her head. There would be trouble. Heads would be rolling, and once you had been excluded from Hope, the future was far from rosy. New name, new identity, exiled to the back of beyond and, rumour had it, worse. Former agents had died from drug overdoses, car crashes, unfortunate falls and food poisoning. Laura shuddered. She continued typing and then studied the results.

  The targets had escaped by car: a taxi.

  She opened a new window: one that accessed Hope’s LPR – licence plate recognition – technology.

  She typed again. LPR+TAXI+CINCINNATI+OHIO+TRACKING.

  Half a dozen results came up. Hope was tracking cars heading in all directions out of Cincinnati. She narrowed the search: LPR+TAXI+CINCINNATI+OHIO+TRACKING+STOLEN.

  The results filtered down to one. A stolen taxi heading along I-74 towards Indianapolis.

  Laura clicked on the licence plate of the listed taxi, and another report appeared:

  Laura knew what Level 5 BETA meant. It meant Top Secret. It meant the case was being dealt with by Hope’s most se
cretive department:

  BETA – The Bureau of Extra-Terrestrial Activity.

  BETA was based in New Mexico.

  Laura quickly punched in GOOGLE EARTH, and then she entered: NEW YORK TO CINCINNATI.

  A blue line, going west, developed across the landscape, linking the towns together. She changed the co-ordinates, tapping feverishly: NEW YORK TO NEW MEXICO. The map pulled out wider and the blue line extended across the country – from New York to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Indianapolis, then on to St Louis, Missouri, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Laura felt nauseous as she plotted the last leg of the straight line that ran across America and ended in New Mexico.

  It appeared that Rachel and Adam were headed for the last place they should be going.

  To Hope’s headquarters in Alamogordo.

  Kate was waiting outside, sitting in a hired Ford parked on a meter and sipping coffee.

  Laura got in.

  “Like the car?” Kate asked. “I got the police scanner from a store on Canal Street. It was made in China but it should be OK.” It had been Laura’s idea and was a way to monitor any police transmissions about wanted Australian fugitives.

  “Did you get some supplies?” Laura asked.

  Kate gestured to a supermarket bag in the back of the car.

  “Good,” Laura said grimly. “We’ve got a long drive ahead.”

  Meredith knocked and walked into the director’s office, smiling.

  “The HIT monitor has just reported a lot of activity, sir. They wanted to flag this up to you. The system’s being hacked right now.”

  The director waved a hand dismissively, his eyes glued to the screen in front of him. “Thank you, Meredith, but I’m already on it.”

  Thanks to the information called up by the mystery hacker, the director now knew where the car they were after was headed. He watched the map open on his computer screen. A blue line had been plotted that joined New York to Cincinnati to Indianapolis. He watched it stretch across the country, following the three co-ordinates. It traced a diagonal line across the states into New Mexico.

  The director allowed himself a smile. The children were driving themselves to exactly where he wanted them to be, saving him the trouble of taking them there. He logged back into the intelligence terminal, deciding to refresh and update his last message:

  He added another line:

  DO NOT INTERCEPT. DO NOT ARREST.

  He was pleased with his day’s work. Things were beginning to swing in his favour. He started to compose an email to Crow in Alamogordo. The man might have an opportunity to redeem himself, the director thought.

  As he was typing, Meredith handed him a piece of paper. She smiled, knowing that she had done something that would please her boss. “They traced the hacker to an internet cafe here in New York,” she said.

  The director studied the data on the printout.

  A code name was highlighted in red.

  SHEILA.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Laura Sullivan. Welcome back.”

  Rachel, Adam and Gabriel sat in a small hotel room. The curtains were drawn and the room was lit only by the flickering light from a small TV set in the corner. The atmosphere between the children had been tense and the conversation all but non-existent since the exchange on the Greyhound.

  Adam was doing his best to lighten the mood. He thrust his hand deep into a large bowl of nachos and ate noisily, talking as cheerfully as he could between mouthfuls. “It’s like being in a rock band or something,” he said. “Another town, another hotel room, you know? Like being on tour and not knowing which city you’re in.”

  “St Louis,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah, I know.” Adam brushed crumbs from the front of his shirt. “I’m just saying that’s what it’s like.”

  “I guess.” Rachel was lying down with her eyes closed. She was not particularly angry with Gabriel any more; she was too frightened for that. She sensed that as they drew ever closer to this mysterious place in the desert that they seemed destined to visit, the danger would only increase, especially if what Gabriel had said about their powers being “blocked” were true.

  Now they would not even be able to recognize their enemy.

  In those brief periods when the fear for herself and Adam faded a little, it was quickly replaced by an even greater fear for their father. If she had harboured any doubts about what the Hope Project and those who worked for it were cap-able of, they had evaporated at the railway station in Ohio. If they could threaten a child in the way that woman had, then there would be no limit to what they would do to Ralph Newman.

  Rachel’s only hope was that they would quickly realize that her father was of no use to them – but even that was of little comfort. She knew how ruthless Hope could be when it came to those who had become expendable.

  Perhaps she and Adam were already too late…

  “Maybe we should start a rock band,” Adam said. “I mean, if we can speak any language we like, then I could probably play the guitar like Jimi Hendrix.” He shoved in another mouthful of nachos, flicking through the TV channels at the same time. “And you can probably sing like Madonna. No, way better than Madonna. What do you think? Rachel…?”

  Rachel was not listening.

  “I’m going out,” Gabriel said.

  Rachel opened her eyes and sat up. “Where?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “I just need some air.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said. Gabriel was being evasive and she wanted to know why. But it was more than that – unwilling as she was to admit it to herself, she also craved time alone with him.

  “No, it’s fine,” he said. “I think we’re starting to get on one another’s nerves anyway. I won’t be long. Will you two be OK?”

  Rachel stared at him, but Gabriel wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Yeah, no problem,” Adam said, still munching on nachos. “Bring back a few beers, will you?” He glanced up to see Gabriel heading for the door with no intention of answering him. “Worth a try,” he muttered.

  At the door Gabriel turned. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Adam raised his hands as if the idea were completely ridiculous. “Such as?”

  “Anything.”

  Rachel waited less than a minute after the door had closed behind Gabriel, before saying, “Let’s call Laura.”

  “What?” Adam got to his feet. “You heard what he said.”

  “He’s not being honest with us.” Rachel reached for her jacket. “And it’s not the first time. Come on; don’t you want to know if she’s heard from Mom?”

  “Course I do, but—”

  “We’ll go down to the lobby and use the payphone. Even if they are monitoring Laura’s cell, we won’t stay on long enough for them to trace it. Adam?”

  “I guess it would be all right.”

  They walked down to the lobby, nodding politely at the seedy looking man who had checked them in, believing them to be old age pensioners from Alaska.

  A man was talking on the public phone. Rachel caught his eye, and without a word he hung up and walked away.

  Rachel dialled the number.

  “Mel Campbell…”

  “It’s me.”

  “Thank God.” The relief was plain in Laura’s voice. “Are you OK?”

  “We’re fine,” Rachel lied. “Do you know where Mom is?”

  “She’s right here,” Laura said. “Hang on.”

  Rachel was relaying the conversation back to Adam when she heard her mother’s voice on the line. “Mom? You OK?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Please don’t ask me that,” Rachel said. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I really don’t want to tell you.”

  “Is Adam all right?”

  “He’s fine. He’s right here.”

  “I’m fine!” Adam shouted.

  “What are you doing?” Kate asked.

  “We think we know where Dad is,” Rachel said. “We’re going to find him.” She could hear that her mo
ther and Laura were driving and she suddenly had the overwhelming sense that they were getting closer. “Are you in America?”

  “We’re coming to get you,” Kate said.

  “No!” Rachel shouted. “You need to go back. Turn round now and go back to Australia!”

  “I can’t go back.”

  “Why not? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. Look, I’m just so worried about you both.”

  Adam was pointing at his watch. “That’s nearly a minute,” he said. “Time to hang up.”

  “I’ve got to go, Mom,” Rachel said. “Love you.”

  Adam snatched the phone from her and shouted, “I love you too…”

  He hung up before his mother had had a chance to answer. The twins began walking back across the lobby. “She sound OK to you?” Adam asked.

  Rachel knew there was little point in lying when her brother could read her mind so easily. “There’s something she’s not telling us.”

  Adam was worried too but did his best to smile. “It’s starting to run in the family,” he said.

  Neon lights that spelled the word FOX shone in the night sky and cast a red glow over the several thousand Triple Wheelers filing in through the main doors of the building. Across the front of it, a huge semicircular billboard, painted to look like a clock, had been raised.

  A banner read: TICK-TOCK. TICK-TOCK – THE GATHERING DRAWS NEAR!

  The “Fabulous” Fox Theatre on Grand Boulevard had been built in 1929 on the site of what was once home to the Grand Avenue Presbyterian Church. The theatre was rightly known as the Pride of St Louis, and just as every major motion picture had been shown in its magnificent five thousand-seater auditorium, almost every great entertainer of the twentieth century had, at one time or another, entertained the people of the city from its vast stage.

  Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Elvis Presley…

  Now Ezekiel Crane was slowly stalking its opulent corridors. He sucked in the air that was infused with a rich and magical history. He studied the photographs and playbills that lined the walls before stopping in front of a framed poster for a Fox production from over fifty years before. The line-up of artists that had appeared in 1955 had certainly been impressive.