“I know you didn’t just bad-mouth my parents.”
James, “I certainly did, but only to the extent to say that a key element in parenting is to help your children learn that they are not the boss of the universe.”
“And your parents, even if they failed at everything else, get a pass if they managed to teach you about God?”
“I’m not saying that at all, just that of the many things a parent needs to do right–”
“And who in their right mind would think that a doctor is less valuable than some shop keeper? That’s just nonsense.”
James, “I don’t mean to be cross, but how do you know? This is where people in and outside of the church have such a hard time. Somebody wants to be a dancer or even a pastor, but why? Did God tell you this is his plan for your life? When you find you stink at it, are you going to blame God?”
“That’s just ridiculous, I’m sorry, God doesn’t go around telling people what career they should choose! What about freewill?”
“I’ll get to freewill, but as for God telling us which career, no he doesn’t necessarily tell you, but if you have any kind of a relationship with him, if you are sensitive to his leadings, at least you’re not at the mercy of what the world would tell you, and every whim and desire that pops into your head, which you have no idea where it came from.”
Lauren, “What do you mean?”
“Well, most people—MOST people—simply follow whatever friends are doing, or what the media lures them into. Ask people how they got to do what they’re doing and you’ll find they have no clear idea. I asked a girl who wanted to be a dancer once, why, and she said, ’cause I love dance. I asked her what she loved about it; she said, it’s so beautiful. I asked her, what made her think she could be a dancer; she said, I don’t know. I asked her, had anyone with evaluative skills ever told her she’d make a good dancer; she said, no. She was two hundred sixty-five pounds if she was an ounce! Dance clothing designer maybe, but dancer?”
“Well, if you use that example.”
He pressed his point, “Lauren, why did you decide to be a cop? And, ’cause my dad was a cop, is not an acceptable answer.”
Lauren, “Actually, from an early age I showed certain skills.”
“And, did someone teach you these skills?”
“No. Oh, I see where you’re–
“Then you see that even if you didn’t—quote, unquote—ask God, he placed within you certain skills that you were further blessed to recognize. All I’m saying is that a tighter relationship with God only enhances your understanding of why he chose this course for your life. Have you ever prayed, and asked God–
“Have you?”
“Yes, and I do so, continually. I get great peace knowing that I’m aligned with his will.”
“People just don’t live like that! You– What kind of Christianity do you practice?”
“Evangelical.”
“Now, I don’t mean to be cross, but you evangelicals come off like you know everything when you know so little about reality and real life. Real people don’t live like that! They live their lives as best they can. They don’t stop every minute and check and see if something is okay with God! And few people can see a deeper meaning in the tragedies of our lives! When I lost my daddy, lots of Christians came to me with that baloney, and it actually made things a lot worse!”
James, backing off from his stance, “I’m so sorry, they really shouldn’t have said that. Nobody can find deeper meaning in tragedy.”
“But I thought you said–”
“I said that Godly results can be the end product of tragedy, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve gotta go looking for them, and you certainly don’t tell someone who’s hurting to do so!” He reaches over and takes hold of her wrist. “When you’re suffering a pain like that, all you can do is hang on and do all you can not to let it take your faith! At that moment your faith is all you got … and it is your faith that, in the long run, will help you to recognize the other things you have, and appreciate them. That’s how you’re able to smile at the little girl on the bus, even with your broken ankle. And should she break her ankle someday, she’ll have you as an example and smile at someone too.”
Somehow he’d done it again! Lauren wasn’t on board with James’ beliefs, but she definitely felt soothing in his words. He was so kind … even while arguing! It was indeed the same kindness she felt at St. Vincent’s Hospital; the same that she felt earlier, when he touched her shoulder and said he was sorry for her loss. She, at last, had dropped her guard. “James, I don’t believe as you do, and I stand firm that most people do not, which places you out of sync with most, but I do accept your belief as valid and valuable.”
“Thank you.” He kind of squeezes her wrist a little then lets go. “This is a reality for me, it is as real to me as this car, or the trees we’re passing. I don’t normally get into heated debates over it with gorgeous women I just met, but it is a part of who I am; and I certainly hope that we’ll be friends—even if we differ on this.”
The Sign Post Up Ahead
It is early afternoon, and Mrs. Phelps is staring out of her front picture window. She has a woven shawl over her shoulders and a hot cup of tea in her hands keeping them warm. In five-minutes time she hasn’t moved an inch other than to receive the cup, she’s holding, from Mary. The only thing that’s moving is her grey eyes. She is transfixed by Joseph, who is across the street with the rest of the family getting a tour of the house from FBI Agent, turned-insurance-adjuster, Al Hinton.
Joseph is in the front yard looking at the smoke stains outside of the windows where the smoke had found its escape. His mom and dad and Mr. Hinton are just inside taking a look at the path of the smoke and discussing how to deal with its stains. Looking out at Joseph, Joanna dons a loving smile, and Joseph looks in to her; then, feeling her presence, Joanna’s gaze goes across to Mrs. Phelps who is still there in the window, staring at Joseph, and her smile fades away. Joseph seeing his mom’s face change slowly follows her gaze and tracks it across the street to the Phelps home front window, but there’s no one there. TAP-TAP-TAP! Joanna taps on the glass and motions for Joseph to come in to her.
“What is it, Mom?” says Joseph as he walks in through their damaged front door.
Joanna replies, “I’m concerned about something. We’ll go over it as soon as we’re done here. Meanwhile, just … just, work with us inside here, ’kay?”
Joseph, humoring his mom and having a little fun at her expense says, “Uh, sure, Mom, ’m gonna go tell Wally and the gang that you thought it better if I play inside.”
She smiles at her son, fighting back a laugh, and then rejoins the conversation with her husband and Mr. Hinton.
Mr. Hinton is totally convincing as an insurance man. He patiently goes over what is covered by their policy and the order in which they should proceed. He makes sure that nothing is missed by telling them that an assigned employee of their insurer would be in touch on Monday to cover the point-by-point details, which is what he arranged with their insurer earlier on the phone.
Joanna, having missed a bit of the instructions distracted by Mrs. Phelps, asks, “I’m sorry, but when do we get to move back in?”
Robert, “Apparently all we’re waiting on is the electrician.”
“Why can’t we move back until he comes?”
“Cause there’s no heat and the high today is only gonna get to about fifty-two. I’m afraid we’re gonna have to impose upon sweet old Mrs. Phelps for at least a few more hours.”
Joanna looks at him and says, “Yeah, well, we need to talk.”
Robert says innocently, “Okay.”
Hinton then asks, “Why don’t we all go to your upstairs sitting room, its ten degrees warmer, and there is almost no smell of smoke there. We can finish up here, and I can see if I can get that electrician to shake a leg.” They are grateful for his help, but of course he has an ulterior motive for migrating them all upstairs. The FBI man knows th
at it puts them closer to the closet he had not yet searched, and for a man like Hinton proximity equals opportunity!
As he leads the group up the stairs Robert says to Joanna who’s following along with Joseph, “So what is it? Sounds like you feel we’ve worn out our welcome at Mrs. Phelps.”
Joanna, “It’s not so much that we’ve worn it out in her mind, but I’m sensing some things that …” She then motions and mouths that she doesn’t want to talk about her in front of Mr. Hinton.”
Always perceptive, and equally opportunistic, Hinton says, from the front of the pack, “If you don’t mind, let me check one thing in Joe’s room, and I’ll come join you two in a minute. Joe will you help me?”
“Sure,” says Joseph.
Robert and Joanna look at each other, sure that he did this just to grant them a little privacy. Hinton then goes with Joseph into his room and continues his clandestine search for the boys all-important journal, pretending to examine the extent of the damage in the closet.
The large 4,800 square-foot home has an upstairs sitting area with two love seats, a wing-back chair and a table arranged in front of a modern rose window. Joanna sits down with Robert and in whispered tones says:
“Robert, something isn’t right with Mrs. Phelps.”
“Really? What’s going on?”
“She is acting terrifically weird with regard to Joe.”
“Weird? How?”
“Well, yesterday when she first spotted him she looked at him like, hmm, well, you remember how everyone acted around the little boy in that Twilight Zone movie, the one that had the power?”
“What! You mean the Billy Mumy character that was controlling everything?”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t Billy Mumy”
“Yeah it was, he played the little boy.”
“He’s to old to play the little boy–
“He played the father in the remake, remember when his daughter had the power”
Joanna, peeling her eyes at him, “Robert.” Then, returning to her whisper, “Not the point here, but you do follow what I’m getting at, she’s been glaring at him like he’s … he’s … evil or something!”
“Really? Are you serious? I haven’t noticed.”
“Trust me, she has”
“Oh, I do, Glory”
“Yesterday, when she first spotted him with that look I just mentioned, she took hold of my sleeve so tight I had to snatch it from her grip just to get away to talk to the firemen.”
“Oh, I know what you’re talking about. You’re talking about the Twilight Zone theatrical movie, with that kid from The Hogan Family, you know, that was called, “Valerie” until Valerie Harper up and left.”
Joanna just stares at his head and asks, “How do you keep so much information in there! Yes, that’s the one, but are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, we’ll just have to talk to her and find out what’s going on. We haven’t seen much of her lately, and perhaps something happened that makes her suspicious of young boys. When people get older they sometimes get more cautious. She has that live-in nurse now, right?”
“Yeah, but this isn’t just caution, remember what I said about HOW she looks at Joe.”
He pauses a moment, then takes a serious tone. “You’re right, let’s talk with her right after this.” He looks around, and taking his wife’s hand he says, “You know this is our old family prayer spot. We haven’t been together here in a long while.”
Joanna takes a deep breath and waxing nostalgic says, “Hmm.”
“What?” She just kind of shrugs her shoulders. Robert knowing too well what she was thinking adds, “He’s a college boy now Glory, he can’t be here for everything any longer.” She tucks her head into his shoulder and gives him a big tight hug.
Seemingly on queue, Hinton and Joseph emerge from Joseph’s room.
• • •
The crisp Saturday afternoon seems to be flying by, and nowhere is it more apparent than back at the Secret Service where time to solve this mystery is quickly running out. A research team member of Lauren’s is walking quickly up a long corridor repeating to herself, “Be neat, be quick, be organized. Be neat, be quick, be organized.” She is tapping against her thigh a file folder, bulging with fresh analytical data from James’ journal, which pages were scanned and sent by Agent Hinton. Entering the Deputy Director’s office suite, she comes to Danning’s Assistant, Mark Clark’s desk with urgency and nerves written all over her face, and says:
“Hi Mark, I have some data that I need to present to Mr. Deputy Director Danning.”
Mark is amused by her delivery and with a smile says, “I’ll show you in directly, but before you go in, you might want to—well, breath!”
She smiles and takes a deep breath. After a five-second calming moment, she says, “Okay.”
He pats her on the shoulder and leads her in. “Deputy Director Danning, NSA IAD Wheaton, FBI AD Ramirez, this is Lead Research Analyst, Mary Sorenson, from Analyst Coles’ team. Agent Coles rather, has asked her to present her findings directly to you.” On his way out Mark whispers to her, “They’re all yours.”
She mouths back, “Thank you!”
Danning and Ramirez have stood up to greet the nervous young lady. Danning breaks the tension saying, “Good afternoon Miss Sorenson, we’re sorry the situation requires we have you in on a Saturday, but we’re eager to hear what you’ve found.”
“Thank you, sir, and it’s no trouble.”
As they retake their seats, she proceeds to hand out three of the four copies of her data and briefs them on the nature of the data found in the journal, the overall quality of the data, and then the specific cross references and pertinent items of interest. Having done that, she focuses their attention on one key point, saying:
“Sirs, and madam, one thing of urgent interest is this. On page forty-seven of our report you’ll see the documentation of who might have had access to Joseph. According this entry, if you’ll also pull up page seventeen of the journal copies, note the highlight that says, Joe and I met all of Dad’s work friends today. This would have been in March of that year, and as our report indicates, it’s shortly after the first episode, which is documented on journal page fifteen.”
The NSA, FBI and Secret Service managers follow along dutifully, each making notes of their own on their copies as she continues:
“We conclude that while there is no way to know whether all of Dad’s work friends is just a figure of speech—and it is worth nothing that James is only ten years old at this point—this, combined with the chat room transcripts prove definite contact, and establishes the trend that Mr. Market took his boys to the office often, perhaps regularly, and perhaps without the wife. There are nine other instances of this, so we believe it is safe to conclude that office personnel would have been on first-name familiarity with both boys.” Turning to Danning, “Sir, the reason for bringing this up is, there’s a tremendous amount of data down there, and even our electronic analysis is producing more possibilities than we have time to review. I was hoping perhaps you could text Lauren—Agent Coles—and ask her to make specific inquiries of James as to who they knew from the office, who visited them at home etc., so we can focus our research.”
Miss Wheaton, looking at both, Danning and Miss Sorenson asks, “Can you get a copy of this over to my office?”
Danning, who seems slightly preoccupied, replies, “All the electronic is available. Call and give this data to whoever you want to look at it.” He hands her a business card with secure access credentials written on it, and returns to what at face value looks like compulsive straightening of the papers on his desk. Standing near the window to make her phone call, Alice is fascinated with his diversion.
Ramirez turns to Mary and asks, “Could you pull a list of all the employees and get them to my assistant–”
“Bill.” Alice interrupts, “I think we’re already doing a criminal if that’s what you were– Hello? Yeah. Hey, I need you to pull do
wn some new data and help complete a threat analysis. Yeah.” She tells him the codes, then with some discretion answers some questions that come over the phone, “Um … do a kidnapping with ransom, a serial, and a … and a, um, torture. Thanks.” She hangs up the phone. Ramirez and Mary are both staring at her as her words quite frankly unnerved them.
Danning does not even look up. He has meticulously spread certain pages of the report and the journal across his desk. Taking off his glasses and cleaning them he buzzes Mark on the intercom and asks him to bring Mary a seat. Her face registers surprise, and she eagerly awaits his question. But there is a moment of silence, not more than a minute, which for Mary is uncomfortably long. Then Danning looks up at her and asks:
“Miss Sorenson, of the members of your team, would you say that you are the most familiar with this data?”
“Yes, sir. Though I would not say that I am thoroughly familiar.”
“That’s understood, but we have a finite amount of time to solve this, and we must do the best we can with the best that we have, and at this moment that’s you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Miss Wheaton, Bill,” says, Danning, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a series of questions without interruption”
Alice sits back in her seat with an expression of, why not, and Ramirez who’s still marking up his notes says simply, “She’s all yours.”
Danning surveys his pages and then closes his eyes for a moment. With them still closed he asks. “Mary, on the page of possible contacts, please cross out every name of anyone who interacted with Joseph in anyway before the first episode.”
The Journal: A Prophecy, A President & Death Page 14