The Portent

by Michael S. Heiser

  “They’re so … different,” a man across the table from Neff observed with chagrin. “They don’t seem to be related at all. They seem completely random.”

  “Anyone have any guesses? Mr. Neff?”

  Neff looked up from the list and shrugged helplessly. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  46

  Fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

  —Vincent Van Gogh

  “That was Nili,” Neff said, slipping his phone into his pocket. “They’re just about set up. She said they’ll call back tonight for the message. I’m not sure what making contact with the Colonel will mean for the four of you, but he won’t be able to trace us.”

  “You’re sure about that?” Dee asked tensely. She was sitting at a desk in one of Miqlat’s training rooms, her hands clasped around a cup of coffee to absorb the warmth and distract her mind. She looked apprehensively at the boxes, circles, and chicken-scratch abbreviations scrawled on the room’s whiteboard.

  “I’m certain,” he answered. “It’ll work beautifully. Madison knows what she’s doing, and Nili can help her procure everything she needs. I called for all of you just now to explain the plan.”

  “I hope you’re right; she’d better know what she’s doing,” Melissa replied uneasily.

  “Madison’s created untraceable phone networks before,” Neff explained. “It’s not that complicated. You buy two anonymous prepaid phones from two different carriers. The phones come with phone numbers, so there’s no personal name attached that anyone could use for ID. You just need to use a public computer to change the IP addresses, then set up call forwarding for one phone to call the other, make sure caller ID is blocked on both, and then set the second phone to call forward to the number you really want to call after it receives the call from the first phone.”

  “Well, that’s clear.” Dee smirked.

  “Why did you send Nili, Madison, and Malone to Israel for this?” Brian asked.

  “And Clarise told us this morning that Ward left in the middle of the night for North Dakota,” Malcolm added. “I assume that’s also part of the plan?”

  “It is,” Neff answered. “I’ll try to explain. Ward will be landing in the next hour or so. When we tell him we’re set, he’s going to call Minot Air Force base to leave our message for the Colonel. The message will refer to the five books left on the desk, so the Colonel will know we’ve received his message and are following his wishes. I presume that, in response, he’ll follow the directions we give him.”

  “But what if someone else takes the call for him? Won’t that person then know that the Colonel is involved in a crime?” Melissa asked. “I’d think that would piss him off, which isn’t what we want.”

  “We’ve thought about that. Colonel Ferguson has a personal extension at the base. Ward learned that by calling and asking a receptionist. If, by chance, anyone else hears his messages, that’s his problem, but we’ll try to keep the message as innocuous as possible. I don’t want him to think we’re trying to incriminate him. That would likely be very bad for Aloysius. I doubt, though, that the Colonel is having anyone else screen his messages.”

  Dee shrugged. “I just can’t help thinking there’s no winning with this guy.”

  “Well, we got you out of Area 51 and have stayed a step or two ahead of him since then.”

  “He’s right, Dee,” Malcolm chimed in.

  “At any rate,” Neff continued, “Ward will use Madison’s phone configuration. If the Colonel actually picks up, Ward has the tools to electronically disguise his voice if he wants to. He’ll be making the call in North Dakota and will destroy both phones with acid as soon as the message is delivered. He’ll make the call inside his car along the highway between Fargo and the college where there are no cameras. He won’t be traceable in any way.”

  “Don’t forget who this is,” Dee warned. “He’s a gangster in a uniform and has access to everything imaginable for finding people. The creep runs the black-op candy store.”

  “You can’t trace what doesn’t exist,” Malcolm said, trying to calm her nerves. “Once the phones are gone and long separated from the caller, he’s got nothing.”

  “What instructions will we be giving the Colonel?” Brian asked.

  “We’re going to tell him to invisibly post what he wants from us on the Minot base website within a specific time window.”

  “Invisibly?”

  “We’re telling him to put his instructions in text of the same color as the white portions of the front-page background.”

  “But won’t their web people know the Colonel is involved in a crime?”

  “Again, how he keeps that a secret is his problem. He’ll be motivated to make it happen once he knows we’ve gotten his message. Anyone viewing the site during the time the message remains posted would never see the words. Madison will take a snapshot of the page’s code and get the text that’s posted. That’s why we sent her and Nili to Israel. Once they access the Minot base homepage, their visit could be traced. We assume the Colonel will try that.”

  “But why Israel?”

  “So they can set up their own server network and can connect to the Internet at a completely secure access point, one that Nili’s intelligence contacts in Israel will provide. Madison will have everything set up with encryption and a VPN to hide where the visit is coming from. She’s an experienced hacker and knows the techniques used to trace. She won’t overlook anything. A secure access point, encryption, VPN, and control of the servers will prevent a trace.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “We could do everything I described here or somewhere else, but we don’t have the time it would take to make sure all the possible connection points for accessing the Web are totally secure. If we use Nili’s Israeli resources, everything’s in place except for buying some new hardware that we’ll destroy afterward.”

  “It’s been almost four days since you got back from your board meeting and they took off with Malone for Israel,” Dee replied. “That doesn’t seem like saving time.”

  “It would have taken weeks some other way,” Neff responded. “It’s the best we could do. I’m worried about Aloysius, but I’m certain the Colonel’s goal isn’t to kill him—it’s to find you. Once we know exactly what he wants, we’ll know how to approach things.”

  “What if he wants a trade?” Melissa asked.

  “There won’t be any.”

  The four of them looked at Neff’s face and saw a mixture of calm and hard resolution.

  “He’s your friend,” Brian spoke up.

  “He is—but so are all of you. We don’t trade lives. And to be honest, Aloysius would be incensed if I made any such deal. Knowing the efforts Andrew undertook to get you out and hide you, he’d never want that to fail. He’d die first.”

  “I believe it,” Malcolm said. “That’s exactly what Andrew would have done.”

  “And in all likelihood, did,” Brian added soberly.

  “One more thing,” Neff said. “We have to assume that the Colonel knows that the board meeting took place.”

  “But if he draws that conclusion, doesn’t that make you—and us—vulnerable?” asked Melissa.

  “Not really,” Neff replied. “No element of the contact attempt is taking place anywhere near here, and the hardware will be liquidated. Even if the Colonel visited every board member for an interview, there’s nothing to tie anyone—particularly us—to the contact effort. He might deduce someone in the room knows your whereabouts, but that suspicion doesn’t get him anything specific if the contact is untraceable. Besides, he’s using Aloysius to draw you out. Whether the point of leverage is connected to the college or not is incidental.”

  “That’s been bugging me, actually,” Malcolm said. “It’s easy for us to see that the book titles finger each of us, but the picture that surfaced from the coffee shop only had Melis
sa in it. We assume that someone at some point identified Melissa, and that was how the Colonel would have been led to the college. The Colonel would assume Brian was with her, but how would he know Dee and I were with them?”

  “I can answer that,” Neff replied. “After the meeting, I had a conversation with Gloria.”

  “Father Fitzgerald’s secretary?” Malcolm asked.

  “Right. She happened to tell me that a uniformed Air Force officer had visited her office the day before Aloysius disappeared. He actually spoke to several people who work in the administration building, asking about Brian and Melissa. Gloria told me she mentioned seeing the two of you with your friends—an African American couple. That was all he needed to hear.”

  “Makes sense.” Malcolm sighed. “She’d have no reason to think she was talking to a psychopath. I’m sure the Colonel was tickled to pick up the trail of all four of us.”

  “Tickled?” Dee scoffed. “More like a shark smelling blood in the water.”

  Neff sat down next to Dee. “Deidre, you can be sure I understand the kind of person we’re dealing with. I’ve dealt with enough warlords and mercenaries with no regard for human life to know that this guy is cut from the same cloth—especially after seeing what he did to Aloysius. We don’t take any uncalculated risks.”

  “I’d prefer no risks at all, Mr. Neff, but I know we have to try to get your friend away from him.… I know it all too well.”

  47

  Without courage all virtues lose their meaning.

  —Sir Winston Churchill

  “I’ll get it,” Brian said, hearing the knock on the door. He set his laptop on the floor next to the recliner. Melissa anxiously looked at him over her glasses and put down her book. He opened the door to their pod. Neff stood on the other side, a foreboding look on his face.

  “Do we have something?” Brian asked with urgency.

  “We do. I’ve asked everyone to meet in the Pit. This will involve all of us. As soon as you can, please.” He glanced at Melissa.

  Without a word, Melissa rose from couch and put on her shoes. The three of them walked the short distance to the foyer and The Pit in silence. Brian and Melissa saw that most everyone had already arrived. They took a seat next to Malcolm and Dee. Neff stood and waited until everyone was accounted for.

  “I just received a message from Madison. She, Nili, and Malone are already in the air, en route to the East Coast of the United States. Ward should be home tonight.”

  “The East Coast?” Fern asked. “Why there?”

  “Because of this,” he said, holding up a piece of paper. “The good news is that everything went as planned for getting a message from Colonel Ferguson.”

  “What does he want?” Malcolm asked.

  “That’s the bad news,” Neff answered. “But of course we couldn’t expect anything comfortable. I’ll read it to all of you. It’s simple and direct.”

  Congratulations. To acquire the package, meet me at the coordinates below precisely forty-eight hours from now. The location is a restaurant. Dr. Scott and I will have dinner. After I see that Dr. Bradley, Dr. Harper, and Dr. Kelley have also made the trip, I will release the package at coordinates provided to Dr. Scott. Failure to follow these directions will be most regrettable. Do not disappoint me.

  41°22 ′ 35.14″ N, 71°30 ′ 45.13″ W

  Neff folded the paper and put it in his pocket. The four named in the message sat in silence. There was no need for words.

  “Do you know this location?” Sabi asked softly.

  “It’s a restaurant on the coast in Narragansett, Rhode Island,” Neff replied.

  Sabi nodded quietly. Clarise whispered something in his ear. He shook his head.

  “Does Nili have any thoughts?” Clarise asked.

  “She does. She’s already sent me a sketch of how to approach the location with exit strategies. She likes the layout of the area. It offers several tactical advantages.”

  “I don’t like the sound of it even now,” Fern said anxiously.

  Neff continued. “Forty-eight hours from the time of reception would put us around dinner time, no surprise there. Given the venue, there should be a lot of people on the scene, so that bodes well.”

  “Like hell it does,” Dee exclaimed with worry. “This guy isn’t going to give a rat’s ass for anyone who comes between him and what he wants.”

  “I don’t doubt that, but the demand is pretty straightforward.”

  “Don’t be naïve.”

  “I’m not. I’m sure there’s more to it. But the message is interesting for what it doesn’t say, at least in my experience.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Brian.

  “He only wants to meet with you, for one. Second, he doesn’t demand that you come alone. Granted, he wants some sort of visual proof the others made the trip, but he could have been far more restrictive. Be that as it may, I can tell you all right now that, other than Brian, none of you are going near this guy. We’ll see to it. We’ll provide the visual verification he demanded at a distance, since he didn’t give us specifics.”

  Brian remained silent.

  “He could come with his own private army,” Melissa said ruefully.

  “He could, but I doubt he will.”

  “Why?”

  “Madison said there haven’t been any attempts to trace the reception. That gives me some insight into this guy already. He knows he’s in control of the situation and is pretty arrogant about it. He doesn’t need to trace us. We have to come to him.”

  “That’s entirely familiar,” Dee said under her breath.

  “I could be wrong,” Neff continued, “and we’ll plan as though I am, but this guy seems so cocksure of himself that I’m betting he’ll show up with only a driver, maybe even alone. He’s sure he will get what he wants. I’m sure he knows he could have asked us to do practically anything, and we’d do it. But all he asks for is face time with Brian. It’s totally ego-driven.”

  “He’s absolutely a narcissist,” Dee replied. “But he’s also a highly intelligent manipulator. He’s capable of anything. Even if he’s alone, he could take hostages and demand an exchange for us. Or he could poison Brian. He could—”

  “Let’s think about who he is a bit more,” Neff interrupted. “I’ll give the devil his due, but he does have something to lose here with that kind of behavior.”

  “Like what?” asked Melissa. “This guy is tripped out on his own power.”

  “That’s my point.”

  Melissa eyed him curiously.

  “The Colonel obviously loves holding that position,” Neff explained, “and whatever he’s up to mandates that he holds the position he does. He’s not going to do anything publicly that could get him arrested or court-martialed. If he makes sure to keep what he’s doing isolated to the four of you and his own cronies, he’s immune to any trouble.”

  “How so?”

  “Remember, there’s no evidence that actually ties him to Father Fitzgerald’s abduction except our interpretation of the books on the desk. The same goes for what he did to Becky. He knows we aren’t going to go public with anything since, if he got hauled in by the police, he’d make you sound like conspiracy nuts in five minutes. Are you really going to testify that the guy who abducted Aloysius runs Area 51, kidnapped you to work on a secret project about alien disclosure, artificially inseminated you and Dee, and now wants to track you down because he’s pissed that you got off the base after threatening to destroy his UFO fleet with a nuclear bomb in a briefcase?”

  “Okay.” Brian sighed. “We see your point.”

  “He’ll do all he can to terrify you and get what he wants—and he doesn’t need to spray a restaurant with bullets to do either. It’s an ego trip.”

  “That doesn’t mean he won’t try something,” Malcolm objected. “I don’t doubt for a minute this is bigger than getting reacquainted with Brian. He wants something else.”

  “Probably. If any of you have an idea, I’d
love to hear it. It may help our planning. The only thing I can say now,” he said, looking at Brian, “is that if he does try anything, we’ll have a few surprises for him. Unless he comes with a small army, we’ll be prepared—and so will you.”

  48

  Bravery is the capacity to perform properly, even when scared half to death.

  —General Omar Bradley

  Neff squinted as he scanned the front of the restaurant from the driver’s seat of a rented black SUV while Brian, seated next to him, peered through a set of binoculars. Nili and Melissa sat quietly behind them, watching as best they could through vehicle’s windshield. They were parked in the second row of the parking lot facing the small seaside restaurant where the Colonel had dictated their contact would occur.

  “Anything?” Neff asked, without glancing at Brian.

  “Nope.”

  Neff tilted his two-way radio toward his mouth. “Still no sign of him, Malcolm?”

  “That’s a negative,” Malcolm’s voice came back through the speaker after a few seconds of delay.

  Neff glanced to his left at a second SUV, this one silver, idling at the opposite end of the parking lot. Malcolm, Dee, Madison, and Clarise occupied the vehicle.

  “Everything okay on the island, Ward?” Neff asked, making the rounds. Nili’s tactical plan called for helicopter and water escape options.

  “Quiet—boring as all get out,” Ward replied from the cockpit of the transport helicopter they’d chartered.

  “Let’s hope that doesn’t change,” Neff replied. “Malone, you seasick yet?”

  “A little—doing better than Kamran, though.”

  Neff smiled, remembering the last time his friend had drawn the short straw of staying on the water. He hoped the high-speed passenger boat was overkill, but agreed with Nili that all options should be available.

  “Anybody know why they call this place George’s of Galilee?” Malcolm asked, trying to make small talk.

  “Beats me,” Neff replied. He shook his head when he overheard Dee scold Malcolm for asking the question.