by David Sloma
She nodded. “They do. But this was a step up. Something stronger than I've ever encountered before, and I'm no beginner.” She brushed back her gray hair. “I've been an active psychic for all of my life.”
“I know that Barbara, and you're one of the best. I'm sorry this happened to you, and I pledge that we'll do what we can to stop it from happening here again.” Ben looked at Frank, who nodded.
“That would be great, as I don't know if I can do a session until we have some more protections...but there's more. I saw, through the attacker, in his thought forms, Lang and his group. There are still being held captive in the mountain. And, I feel that they will soon be killed if we don't stop what we're doing. That's the impression I got from the attacker, anyway,” she said.
Ben sat back and looked at her. “We're not about to stop what we're doing.” He turned to Frank. “We'll have to launch the rescue team, now. We don't have a choice.”
“Right,” Frank said, pulling out his phone. He started typing a message.
“Did you get a fix on their location?” Ben asked her.
“Pretty much, yes,” she said.
“So, the team is good to go, right?” he asked Frank.
“Yeah,” Frank said. He finished with his phone. “I've told the team to get ready to depart to the site of the RV. The mountain is not far from there. They're on their way. More details to follow.” Frank showed a map on his phone. “This is the place they are being held in, we think.”
Ben looked at the map, then showed it to her. “What do you think?”
She took the phone in her hands, closed her eyes, and ran her hand over the map. She stopped at the same spot, where the mountain was marked. “That's it,” she said.
“Alright, let the team know,” Ben said.
“Right way.” Frank started typing on his phone again.
“Thank you.” Ben took her hands.
She nodded, close to tears again.
“Come on, let's get you a tea or something.” Ben helped her to her feet, and they went out of the room and down the hall to the cafeteria.
“What are you going to do? How are you going to save them?” Barbara asked, cupping her hands around a steaming mug of tea as she sat across from Ben in the deserted cafeteria.
“The rescue team is very good. They'll think of something.” Ben sipped at his coffee, needing the stimulant to keep going, as he had a lot of work to do, and it might be a long night, with the rescue team going out.
“I wish I could have been of more help. I'm not at my best right now.” She was sad and looked down at the table.
“That's totally understandable. You just take some time to rest, and I'm sure you'll be back to yourself in no time.” He smiled a little.
“I hope you're right.” She looked ahead, past him. “There's one more thing...”
“Yes?” He loved having the psychics around and wished his own abilities were stronger; his intuition was usually pretty good. But the psychics did tend to freak him out at times. He looked at the strange expression on her face and felt nervous.
She closed her eyes and spoke slowly, “The facility they are being kept in is a government one. Lang and his group were picked up because they were inside a restricted area. The base is on a drill right now, working with a skeleton crew, so they've not had time to interrogate the prisoners. But when they do, they'll find out who they really are and calls will be made to their commanders. You've got to get them out of there before that happens, because they'll be turned over to the dark forces in the military and will probably never be seen from again.” She stopped and folded down, like it had been a huge effort.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “Now, don't do anymore for now. Just rest.”
She nodded, not opening her eyes. She sipped at her tea and seemed to gain a little strength. She looked at him and smiled weakly.
“I'll leave you here. I've got to relay this information to the team.” He got up and left, leaving her sitting there.
Ben walked through the hallway with the phone on his ear as it dialed. Then he remembered not to put it to his head. He jabbed the button and put it on speaker as he climbed the stone stairway to his office.
“Frank here,” came the voice from the phone.
“Barbara has given me some more information. The facility is on a drill, so the prisoners haven't been questioned, yet. We need to get them out of there before that happens. Tell the team to do what they have to and get them out of there right away!”
“Will do, sir.” Frank clicked off.
Ben hung up and put his phone back on his belt. I just hope they're not too late, he thought. Hold on, Lang! Hold on!
He went back into his office and tried to get caught up with all of the messages, mail, and email waiting for him as the acting head of the Guild. But it was an impossible task and just getting worse as the war for the future of life on Earth heated up.
CHAPTER 42
The rescue team from the Guild made it its business to be ready at a moment's notice.
They'd been standing by, ready to deploy out to find Lang and his group, so they'd had extra time to make sure their gear was in fine shape. It was a team of four men, all former members of elite military forces who had a crisis of conscience when ordered on some very questionable missions.
These missions had to do with killing innocent people, namely some monks in a remote village who refused to give up their sacred books. The soldiers thought it was strange that they were airdropped into the Amazon jungle to take some books from some old monks. But that was the mission. And they were told to use whatever force was necessary to achieve their goals.
That was not the sort of mission the men had in mind when they had signed up for duty. Of course, they had thought they'd be safeguarding their country and protecting it from invaders. But this was the furthest from that they could imagine. They had to go along with the mission, or face court-marital, or worse...several members of other special ops groups had disappeared after they questioned missions just as strange.
So, the four had boarded a small private plane in Rio. They wore camouflage fatigues with no markings on them, nor did they carry any ID. They were Americans, but their own country would do nothing to help them, officially, if they happened to run into any trouble. Some other covert soldiers might be sent to get them out of whatever jam they might get into, but that was not guaranteed. And, if the four happened to be captured by a foreign military, then all bets were off, as no help would be coming at all.
Knowing all this, the four elite soldiers went on their mission into the jungle. The plane flew them out there at night and kept low over the spot where the village had been found. The village had been unknown until that time, due to its remoteness and the heavy foliage that had obscured it from view. Only a recent tropical storm had taken down enough trees that a military plane flying over had spotted the huts on the ground.
Some civilian researchers had been sent in, hired by a company at arm's length but controlled by the military. What they had found sent the hairs on the back of the necks of the high command on end. It turned out that the isolated village numbered about a hundred people and was led by a couple of shamen who had extensive knowledge of plant medicine and how to navigate in the psychic realms.
The researchers were able to piece together that the shamen knew all about the modern world, and even about the researchers themselves! They told the researchers about their lives, including intimate details that they couldn't have known, except by mind reading abilities. The researches didn't stay in the village long, as they were so shocked.
They returned to make their reports, which were read by the secret ops commanders. In the reports, the shamen had said things that they knew were going to be read by the commanders. They said that they knew their military was being run by the Dark One, and that their time on Earth was coming to a close; the spiritual war was about to reach a fever-pitch and destroy them.
Of course, the commanders w
ere shaken, as the shamen had spoken true. The commanders were demon-possessed and evil, and they knew what they were doing—at least the entities who were possessing them knew what was going on.
Dropping a huge bomb on the village would have been their first choice to eliminate the shamen, their knowledge, and their people, but that would raise too much attention and too many questions. So they sent in an assassination team to do it on the quiet side. “Bring me their heads!” was what one of the commanders had actually said to the four-man team, who didn't know if their commander was kidding or not.
The four men parachuted to the ground in the village at night, with their night vision goggles on. To say they were surprised to find the village awake and with a hundred spears pointed at them would be an understatement.
The soldiers knew they could start shooting and would kill a number of the villagers, but there was no way they could get them all before having to reload. Then, they'd be stabbed to death with the sharp spears. So, they didn't shoot.
The villagers took the four men prisoner. First, the four men were stripped of their uniforms and weapons and placed in a hut. Then, they were given a plant medicine brew in their water by the shamen, who watched over the men as the strong mixture took hold of them.
Once the men started to become intoxicated, they tied the men down to stakes, as they were all carrying around demons and needed to have them exorcised. The two shamen danced around the four men all night, shaking their rattles with shells and bones, beating drums, playing flutes, and singing.
The men's spirits came out of their bodies, and the men were shocked! The shamen could clearly see demons attached to the men and chased the demons away, then they cleansed the men's spirits before they went back into their bodies.
The men woke up the next day feeling better than they had in years but also bewildered. None of them had had such a spiritual experience before. The shamen talked with the men, for they knew their language. Somehow, the shamen seemed to know many languages.
They counseled the men, helping them understand what had happened to them, how they had been possessed by demons and that the evil deeds they had done were not strictly their faults.
The men felt remorse and asked what they could do now, to make amends for the terrible things they had done in the service of their demonic masters. The shamen told them about the Guild, and that they should leave their military and join them, so they could fight on the side of good.
The shamen devised a plan where they would leave their village and lead their people deeper into the jungle, to another uncharted place where they would not be found for years to come, they hoped. They said they had received spiritual guidance to move to a new place that would be safe.
The shamen would let the four men go, as they were now cleansed and transformed. The men agreed not to go back to their old lives, having been through what they had experienced—now that they had a spiritual awakening.
There was some fear on their parts that their old employers would track them down, but then again, these four men were hired killers, so they would be able to defeat most any attacks coming upon them. Plus, with some spiritual techniques the shamen had taught them, like how to use their ESP abilities, they would be almost undefeatable warriors.
The four men watched the villagers disappear into the jungle, taking their wisdom with them, then they found their own way out of the jungle, on the run from their own people. Luckily, each man in the team had been young and single, without a family to be threatened by their desertion; a requirement that the special ops group liked in their members, as then they had fewer restrictions on their missions.
The four men knew their old lives were over, and they wanted it that way. They were skilled in building new identities anyway, as part of their training, something they'd done countless times in foreign countries they worked in. They would now be able to use those skills to survive on their own.
Once they got back to a city, they disappeared into the crowd and made contact with the Guild, just like the shamen had instructed them to. From then on, the four men became valuable members of the Guild, training others with their special ops knowledge and also psychic tools they had learned, forming the armed division of the organization. The Guild didn't prefer violence or force, but they did use it to protect and defend themselves when needed.
Now was such a time.
It was night. The four men boarded a helicopter on the roof of a Guild building in Mexico, nearest to where the RV was found, where they had been waiting for the order to move out. The helicopter looked like any other vehicle used by the rich to move about. It had landed on the office tower and picked up the four men in business clothes, whisking them away.
In the 'copter, the men changed into their battle gear, all black fatigues and night vision goggles. They checked the weapons that had been waiting for them and donned their backpacks filled with gear they might need to rescue Lang and the others.
The men were let out of the helicopter at the remote farm where the RV was. The 'copter then took off again, going into hiding in an area near the edge of the restricted zone, close to the mountain they would be heading for soon.
The RV was unguarded and hadn't been opened again since Lang had left it, the readout that one of the men carried said. He had the code and popped the door open. They drove the RV near the mountain, then parked it by the side of the road.
They then walked quickly in the other direction, leaving the RV as a decoy. The plan was to walk right up to the hidden mountain door, which was accessible from a roadway.
They knew that they only had minutes before they were apprehended, skeleton crew on a drill or not, so they set the explosives quickly but well, in several locations around the mountain.
They blew the charges on the door first, as that would be their best way in. The other charges went off right after, causing damage to other areas of the mountain and would be good diversions for the few guards that were on duty.
Then, the four men waited by the door. Sure enough, the guards from the base came tearing round the rubble in ATVs to see what was going on. They were easy targets, and the four men took their IDs and ATVs, and went in the way the men had come out.
Since the base was understaffed, the blast doors had been left open in the inner tunnel of the base. Once the four men had gotten through the outer door, it was a straight shot right inside, shooting all who opposed them as they rode on in.
The leader of the four drove them forward, tossing hand grenades around corners, taking out any opposition, and there was little with the few soldiers on staff. Most at this base were technicians or researchers, who went running for their lives at the first sign of trouble. It wasn't long before the four came to the holding area.
They broke open the holding cell with plastic explosives and led Lang and the others outside, where the helicopter was waiting for them. They had to run, as word had come from the helicopter that backup troops were on their way, the invasion having been reported. Also, the action had been seen on the cameras inside the mountain by another base. The RV was already on the move, driven by one of their associates who would hide it.
As they got onto the helicopter, Lang saw military trucks arriving in the distance, their headlights bouncing along. They had gotten away just in time. “Thank you,” Lang said to the four. “But I don't even know who you are. The Guild sent you?”
“That's right,” the leader of the four said. “But no names, we prefer to keep a low profile. Ben Veers sent us. Just call us The Four.”
“Alright. Good job, Four!” Lang smiled.
The helicopter flew low and fast over the landscape, taking the passengers to the village near the seaport. From there, they were loaded on a truck and driven to the port where they would find a ship waiting to sail them away, all arranged by Veers.
“Thank goodness we have friends like Ben Veers,” Lang told them, as they rode to the seaport. Charles looked out the window at the towns going by, wishing he
had time to stop and enjoy them, to get to know the way of life there a little, as it looked like a tropical paradise. But maybe another time, he thought.
What he didn't see, nor did any of the others, were some of the Watchers floating nearby in their energy bodies. They had made themselves invisible, just wanting to watch the rescue operations. They did, by virtue of their high vibrations, lend an aura of luck to the rescue, but they didn't directly interfere. They were pleased that these good people had been rescued, and that the work of the Watchers was going to continue on with them.
They did permit Lang a momentary glimpse of a flash of light out of the corner of his eye, as he was sensitive to the Watchers and had spoken with them in medium sessions over the years.
He felt an urge to lift the flap over the back of the truck and look behind them. Maybe seeing if they were being followed. He noticed the flash of light and felt the vibration of the Watchers, who he had felt many times over the years on his spiritual journey. He smiled to himself as the truck whisked along, no one else being any the wiser, he knew.
CHAPTER 43
The truck arrived at the port just as dawn was breaking and parked behind a busy market area where many vendors were unloading their wares for the day. Amongst the strong smell of fish, The Four, now changed into civilian clothes and with no obvious weapons, led Lang and his group through the market.
They were able to grab some food to eat as they passed by, as some of it smelled so tempting, like hot waffles. They'd not eaten since their capture, so The Four permitted a few minutes to get some food to go while they stood watch.
Then it was across the dock and straight into a ship that had been arranged to carry them, the Destiny. It was a large shipping vessel, empty after delivering its cargo from Europe and now bound back home. There was ample room on the ship, as most of the sailors were not there; it was running with only a lean crew for the journey back. The captain of the ship was in the Guild, so he'd made sure there were plenty of cabins for his new passengers. There was even a helicopter on the ship, should they need to make a quick escape.