Holding his hand over his mouth to muffle his words from the prying ears of any person standing nearby, Adams responded, "I need to speak with Deacon Bandulog. I have some information he requires." As he talked into the receiver, Adams dull brown eyes darted around at the people standing nearby, looking for any indication of untoward interest in his conversation.
There was a hesitation in the response from the man at the church. It was only a delay of perhaps 3 seconds, but the delay seemed odd to Adams.
Finally, the man spoke, "Deacon Bandulog does not normally provide counsel over the telephone. He is very busy with business of the church. What is your name?"
Replying quickly, Adams said, "I'm Brother Richard Adams."
Then continuing in a more haughty tone, he said, "I was personally given a vital mission by the Most Holy Your Grace in furtherance of the doctrines of The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany. My explicit instructions are to report directly to Deacon Bandulog."
When there was no immediate response, Adams blustered, "And if you value your continued association with the Blessed Fellowship, you will connect me with Deacon Bandulog without further delay!"
There was a longer hesitation in the response from the man at the church, and a distinct, uneasy feeling began to creep down the spine of Brother Richard Adams. He was on the verge of hanging up the phone when the man on the other end said, "Hold please."
The hold seemed to last an eternity. As seconds turned into minutes, Adams' nerves became badly frayed. He felt like a cockroach trying to hide under a discarded piece of trash. The casual glances some people gave him as they passed by began to deeply scare him. What if someone recognized him? Although the afternoon temperature was cool, greasy sweat broke out on his forehead, under his arms and across his back. Wet stains soaked his khaki shirt under his armpits, and he considered taking off his jacket but decided against it because he was afraid the wet stains on his shirt would only attract more unwanted attention.
At last a quiet voice answered the telephone in a whisper so low that Adams had to cover his left ear to muffle the street sounds and press the receiver closely to his right ear in order to hear what was said. "Brother Adams, may the grace of the Almighty be upon you. This is Deacon Bandulog."
Richard Adams felt an emotional relief so profound that his knees slightly buckled. Gathering himself together and taking a deep breath, he said, "I have specific information regarding the blasphemers. I wish to report to you as ordered by the Exalted One."
The only response was a whispered, "Tell me your news, Brother Adams, that the wrath of the Lord may be unleashed upon the heretics."
Pulling the note paper from his jacket pocket, Adams consulted it briefly and responded, "On Thursday, May 6, Major James Blunt, Dr. Diane Hoffman, Captain Thomas LeBlanc and the alien creature will be at the YMCA Building in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. They'll fly into the Carlisle Base by cargo plane and take an Army vehicle from there to the YMCA. The sole purpose of the meeting is to interview an Army sergeant and a civilian blind man. The blind man will be escorted by his brother. The meeting is to take place inside the swimming pool facility at 1900 hours which is after closing time for the YMCA. At that hour, the facility is normally closed so no one else from the public should be there to interfere."
After a brief pause, the whispery voice said softly, "I have the information. Your service to The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany is recognized and shall be entered upon the Sacred Scrolls of the Church. Once the blasphemers have repented and been cleansed of their sins, you will be sanctified by the Church."
With those words, there was a distinct click and the phone line went dead. Adams slowly replaced the receiver on its hook and peering around, walked back toward the bus stop. He couldn't shake the feeling he was unappreciated. As far as he was concerned, he hadn't been glorified sufficiently for his loyalty to the Church.
He silently thought, "What good will it do me for my loyalty and sacrifices to be entered upon some Sacred Scroll?”
Coming to a resolution, Cpl. Richard Adams, faithful Brother of The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany, decided that once the blasphemers were cleansed, he was going to have a heart to heart talk with Your Grace about adequate, sanctified compensation. Smiling at his thoughts, Adams boarded the bus and headed toward his apartment.
***
Deacon Braggu Bandulog glided down one of the hallways deep within the heart of the building housing The Exalted Fellowship of the Holy Epiphany on his way to his ready room. His specially designed crepe rubber shoe soles made no noise on the wooden floor.
He wore solid black, from his shoes to his form hugging coverall made from the finest silk money could buy. Years of combat experience had taught him silk was an exceedingly strong, flexible material, lightweight and capable of withstanding extremes of both heat and cold. He appeared to be 6 feet tall, but it was very difficult to get a true picture of his size because the darkness in the hallway coupled with the black of his clothing acted as a kind of invisibility screen.
His hair was dark black and cut very short. His most prominent facial feature was a relatively large nose that curved like a hawk's bill. If it is true that eyes are the windows to the soul, then Deacon Braggu Bandulog had no soul. His eyes were very dark and appeared to be lifeless. No person who had ever spent any time with the man had ever seen his eyes change expression. His eyes never showed emotion. Not surprise, not pleasure or pain, not avarice or greed, certainly not fear and definitely never love. Nothing. Lifeless, soulless eyes. Bandulog always wore a black leather shoulder holster with crisscrossing back straps strong enough to support the weight of the solid black Colt 45 pistol he carried.
Two men sat at a sturdy looking wooden table playing a card game as Bandulog entered his ready room. Neither man bothered to look up at him.
Wasting no time or words, Bandulog announced. "We have a mission."
Still not taking his eyes off the cards in his hand, Delmar Nicosta asked, "Is it sanctioned or rogue?"
"Sanctioned by the fat man, himself," replied Bandulog.
The second man named Aamad Rasput glanced up at Bandulog and asked, "Are the Targets soft or hard?"
"Three Army soldiers, a woman, a blind man and some kind of a big pet lizard."
"Doesn't sound difficult, but seriously, a big pet lizard? What's that all about?" queried Nicosta.
Delmar Nicosta was nothing less than a street thug with some military training. He stood 6 feet, 3 inches tall and was heavily muscled. He wasn't necessarily an imbecile, but brain cells had plenty of room to bounce around inside his skull. He kept his brown hair long enough to be styled in a pompadour which he thought made him look exceedingly handsome.
Nicosta had grown up in the New York slums and over the years had graduated from getting beatings to giving beatings. He suffered his first broken nose when neighborhood bullies jumped him and beat him because of his name, Delmar. Two years later, after gaining twenty pounds of hard bone and muscle, Delmar Nicosta had beaten all those same bullies to within an inch of their lives, putting a couple of them in the hospital with broken bones.
After that, no one ever again made fun of his name until his drill sergeant during basic training. Six weeks after basic training ended, the drill sergeant was found dead behind his favorite bar, his head bashed in by a large rock. His attacker was never found.
Braggu Bandulog had seen the photo of the big lizard sitting in the wheelchair when Richard Adams had passed it over to Your Grace. The tale Adams had told about aliens from outer space was simply bizarre. He didn't buy it. He'd seen pictures in magazines and tabloid newspapers of giant lizards roaming around south seas islands. He was not about to have his men question his mental faculties by telling them some cockeyed story about space aliens.
So Bandulog responded with the story he decided was believable, "One of the Army guys brought back a great big iguana from some island in the South Asian seas. Treats the damn thing like a pampered pet. Sit
s it in a wheelchair to move it around. Claims it's intelligent enough to learn commands. Upset his Holy Fatness so much he issued a kill sanction. Something about man has dominion over all the beasts of the earth."
Aamad Rasput intoned, "Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 26: And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Rasput was a black man from Oxford, Mississippi with a knack for quoting Bible verses. He had left his home when he was 16 years old, lied about his age and joined the Army to fight Nazis. He excelled in close combat and was an expert knife thrower. In fact, he preferred to use a knife over a gun because he enjoyed the feeling of gripping the dying body of a man after he had plunged his knife into the heart, reveling as his victim weakened and then slumped over in death.
Ignoring Rasput, Bandulog issued orders, "Be ready to leave in one hour. I want plenty of time for on-site surveillance in and around the kill zone." Turning on his heel, Bandulog silently walked out of the room.
Chapter 10 – Pool Party
Despite the travel itinerary they got from General Collier's aide, it was decided the best way to get from Washington, D.C. to Carlisle, Pennsylvania was to drive. The distance was only about 140 miles, and the roads were decent. The car was much quieter than a cargo plane cabin with its constant engine and prop noise so it was feasible for Blunt and Hoffman to continue their efforts to mentally talk with Whatsit. Blunt was the most adept communicator because he had spent the most one-on-one time with Whatsit since the day he captured him, but Diane was quickly catching up. Tom LeBlanc had joined in the efforts as a way of alleviating boredom during the drive.
Since he had visited the Carlisle Army Barracks several times in his career, LeBlanc took the wheel. Whatsit, wearing his Sombrero outfit, was in the front passenger seat leaving Jim and Diane to share the back seat. They decided to play a silent 'Count the Cows' game as they drove through the Maryland and Pennsylvania countrysides, concentrating their thoughts on the simple task of finding cows and counting them. Whatsit and Diane took the passenger side, and Whatsit turned out to be very competitive. His ability to mentally focus on a task was incredible, and he constantly picked out and accurately counted herds of dairy and beef cattle as they drove by the farms bordering the highway.
At one point, Whatsit twisted in his seat and looked back at Jim, a sly smile curling up the left corner of his lips and boasted, "It is truly a shame your brain is so sluggish and muddy compared to my own. You may as well concede your defeat now since I'm so far ahead in cows you won't be able to overcome my lead."
Sliding his eyes from Whatsit to Diane, Blunt spoke out loud with a grin, "So this is what we get? A big, green, alien lizard bragging about counting cows."
Glancing back at Whatsit, he concentrated his thoughts and projected with a mental smirk, "Oh, yeah? Well you just missed 550 cows in the last field we passed."
Twisting his head quickly back around to his window, his eyes searching in vain for the herd of cows he thought he had missed, Whatsit stared for several seconds until he picked up a burst of mental laughter coming from Jim Blunt's brain. Turning his head briefly to scowl at Blunt, he returned his attention to the passing fields, determined not to miss another opportunity to increase his winning total.
Playing the game during the trip turned out to be a stroke of genius. Whatsit's competitive nature led to excited bursts of mental shouting as he discovered new herds of cows and added them into his total. Jim, Diane and Tom all discovered constant exposure to the mental projections of the alien lizard sharpened their ability to receive and interpret his thoughts. An added benefit of their endeavors was their constant headaches were disappearing.
They arrived in the city of Carlisle in the late afternoon on May 6 and decided to kill time by driving around the area to familiarize themselves with the roads and various businesses bordering the YMCA facilities. Nothing about the sleepy city seemed out of the ordinary. Timing their arrival at the YMCA facility with only 10 minutes to spare before the scheduled meeting with Sergeant Sanger and Mr. Tripman, they gazed around the parking area outside the pool building to see if they could spot any loiterers. The evening sky was filled with thick storm clouds making it impossible for any light from the moon and stars to penetrate the darkness. The parking lot lights were widely scattered and provided very little light to brighten the parking area. The principle risk Blunt was trying to avoid was exposure of Whatsit to the general public. Sergeant Sanger was a decorated Army veteran unquestionably loyal to the United States. He would keep his mouth closed. The blind man, Tripman, and his brother had been run through security and received clearances permitting limited disclosure of the existence of Whatsit. Encouraged by the quiet neighborhood and the absence of people at the facility, Blunt decided it was safe for them to park the car and move into the building.
Grabbing flashlights, Blunt and LeBlanc led the way from the car across the parking lot to the three story brick building housing the indoor pool. The main entryway into the facility was a set of double steel doors set with large panes of clear glass. The doors opened upon a small, covered alcove perhaps eight feet wide and six feet long leading into the western side of a large swimming pool. The pool was 25 yards long and painted a light blue with eight black lanes painted on the bottom for competitive swims. Wide concrete concourses bordered it on all sides with the widest concourse on the east side leading to doors marked 'Men', 'Women' and 'Manager'. It appeared the floating lane lines had been removed from the pool for the evening. They were rolled up on large spools now propped against the north and south end walls. A four tiered set of wooden bleachers probably capable of seating 60 people lined the west wall. A strong smell of chlorine bit at their noses as they walked through the entry doors. The building itself was solid red brick with a flat roof supported by open steel girders that crisscrossed perhaps 30 feet overhead. A series of industrial sized overhead lights hung from the girders. There were no windows in the walls, and the overall feel of the place was that of a large cavern. As they walked onto the western concourse from the entry doors, their steps echoed in the vast, silent space.
Taking in the features of the facility, Jim Blunt said in a voice that echoed in the empty vastness of the pool area, "Tom, why don't you check the Manager's office and see if you can't find the light switches."
LeBlanc moved off toward the other side of the pool, and Blunt turned to Diane and Whatsit and said, "Diane, why don't you take Whatsit down to the end of the bleachers and sit. I would prefer it if the first thing our guests see when they get here is me, not our lizard friend."
Nodding in full agreement, Diane grabbed Whatsit's arm and guided him toward a seat at the end of the bleachers. As they walked away, three of the twelve large hanging lights nearest the south end of the pool area suddenly flicked on, and a moment later, LeBlanc walked out of the Manager's office and made his way back to Blunt's side.
"Decided to turn on only those three instead of them all," he began.
Anything he was going to say next was interrupted when the entry doors opened and Sergeant George Sanger walked through them. They recognized him immediately from his military file photos. He was of average height and build and was wearing the standard issue khaki shirt and pants with a web belt held by a shiny brass buckle. He had a happy looking face with a large, mobile mouth that smiled easily. His ears stood out widely from his head, the distance accentuated by his close cut flat-top hair style. The skin on his face, neck and hands was darkly tanned from constant exposure to the sun. His eyes were strikingly light blue and seemed to have internal sparkles that glinted when he moved them. Blunt recalled what Diane had said about Sanger during the Pentagon meeting. He was a sniper with really sharp vision. Sanger could reportedly see something from 20 feet away what a normal person could only see from 5 feet away.
He stood in the doorway only a moment and then said, "Hello. I'm here t
o meet a Major James Blunt. My name is Sanger, Sergeant George Sanger."
Blunt shook Sanger's hand and introduced himself and LeBlanc. Curiosity getting the better of him, Blunt asked, "Sergeant, my briefing says you have a good eye for details. That true?"
Sanger gazed back at him nonchalantly and replied, "Yes, Sir. I can focus down pretty tight. Sometimes when I'm bored, I help out the air traffic controllers at the base by reading the tail numbers on airplanes as they circle waiting to land. Of course, I don't need binoculars. They kinda get in the way."
They didn't have time for more pleasantries because the entry doors opened again. Through them entered a man wearing dark sunglasses and tapping a metal red and white walking cane. He was accompanied by another man who held the door open solicitously until both the blind man and he were inside.
Jim Blunt recognized John Tripman and his brother, Eli Tripman from photos taken by military intelligence agents. John Tripman looked to be about 5 feet, 6 inches tall with salt and pepper hair of medium length combed back over his head with painstaking precision. His complexion was very light, as if he rarely got outside to enjoy the sunshine. He smiled easily, revealing slightly yellowish colored teeth. Eli Tripman looked like a slightly larger version of his brother although his skin was tanned and his hair black had no hint of gray. Jim guessed he was at least 10 years younger than his older brother, John.
Walking forward, Jim Blunt extended his hand out of habit to John Tripman and then began to lower it sheepishly as he thought to himself, "Idiot, he's blind!"
Blunt was genuinely shocked when John Tripman reached out, grasped his falling hand and shook it vigorously. Smiling at him, John said pleasantly, "Major Blunt, I presume. I can tell from your startled look you weren't expecting me to shake your hand."
Jim realized his mouth was hanging open, and he hastily snapped it shut. Tripman then turned his head directly towards LeBlanc and smiled, saying, "And you, good sir, must be Captain Thomas LeBlanc. Love your 'stache."
The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. Page 13