Beyond Eden

by Sherer, B. K. ; Linnea, Sharon

  “I’ll be up and on the terrace by seven o’clock. Can you be there then?”

  “Yes. Until seven o’clock, then. Let me walk you back to Skala. The roads are steep and can be treacherous after dark.”

  “Thank you,” Geri whispered. She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but she did know she trusted Brother Timothy. It was as if she were being rocked away by the tone he used when he spoke of John and of the secret at the heart of Patmos.

  She left a large bill for Mykos the waiter. And she took the monk’s offered arm as they walked together down toward the harbor.

  February 25, 2006, 10:19 p.m.

  Tranholmen Island

  Stockholm, Sweden

  * * *

  The cool cloth did nothing to ease the throbbing in Eric’s head. He felt as if a series of explosions were detonating behind his eyes. The darkness in the room did not help, either. With each burst of pain came a wave of nausea threatening to make him vomit. This migraine was one of his “doozies,” and he had not seen it coming.

  He had been so excited at the thought of venturing outside. Eric had convinced his nurse, a twentysomething bodybuilder type on loan from a Stockholm nursing facility, that he was up to an outdoor excursion. The nurse had even agreed it might be good for Eric and was preparing to accompany him outside when the first symptom appeared. He quickly got the boy to his bed and administered his Imitrex, but it was too late. The disappointment at once again being held prisoner to his health was almost worse than the actual pain in his head. Almost.

  Adding insult to injury, his mother was standing by his bedside patting his arm with a pained expression and saying, “There, there,” as if she were comforting a child. Well, he wasn’t a child! And what he really needed right now was quiet, to focus.

  In his quest for relief from frequent headaches, Eric had done research on methods for coping with pain. He had searched medical sites on the Internet and ordered books and audiotapes. He had tried a number of dietary variations, relaxation techniques, and mental exercises to manage his headaches. None helped.

  Then one day a friend of his father’s offered an alternative. Eric’s father had begun taking him to a Lutheran church in Stockholm when he was a child. The pastor had come to visit Eric when he first became ill and begun to teach Eric some of the basics of meditative prayer. Eric was a quick study. He had a very mature sense of himself, his surroundings, and his future. That was what impressed the pastor most about his young charge, his acceptance that his stay on earth would probably be quite short, and faith that there was something much better waiting out there for him.

  Ever since Eric’s father had left for the States, the pastor had not been allowed back to see Eric. But that did not prevent him from practicing his meditation.

  “Little me. Big God.” He smiled to himself as he felt himself take a long, slow deep breath and let it back out again. The traditional mantra for meditative prayer was usually a single word like “love” or “hope,” but Eric had chosen a phrase from a card given him by his pastor. “Little me. Big God.”

  Eric’s breathing, which had been ragged during previous waves of pain, was now calm and steady. He no longer felt the throbbing pain in his head. Instead, he had a sense of another place, a beautiful place where his mind and body could find relief. He sensed love and care and warmth. Most of all, he sensed peace.

  “This must be what death is like,” he mused. He did not fear death. Instead, he saw it as an adventure, one that would bring him to a place of healing. His beautiful place.

  “Little me. Big God.” As his heart slowed and his muscles relaxed, the migraine medicine was able to make its way to the source of pain and do its work. Mercifully, Eric fell asleep.

  February 25, 2006, 11:59 p.m.

  Kairos yacht, Aegean Sea, 40 kilometers southeast of Patmos

  * * *

  Jaime lay, feeling the constant surging of the waves beneath the boat, watching Yani sleep. The cabin was dark, with just a smattering of light filtering in from the hallway and none at all from the darkness of the sea that surrounded them.

  Yani had piloted the plane from Athens to Rhodes, where they’d been picked up at the airport by two men, Aeolus and Costas, both of whom Yani obviously knew well. Costas would fly the plane to the island of Samos, the island that boasted the closest airport to the much smaller Patmos. Aeolus, meanwhile, drove them to the harbor and welcomed them aboard the yacht Kairos, which would carry them the five-hour trip by sea from Rhodes to Patmos. The Kairos would then dock in the harbor at Patmos, ready to take them the hour trip to Samos, and the airplane, by sea.

  The yacht was 18 meters long, and she looked built for speed. Jaime and Yani boarded and went below. At the bottom of the short flight of stairs was a circular table near the galley. The lines were sleek and modern, the boat looked brand-new and welcoming.

  Aeolus went straight forward to start the engines. At least Yani wasn’t piloting the yacht also. Instead, Yani led Jaime into the small hall off of which opened three cabin doors. He opened the door to the master suite and motioned her through. He put down his duffel bag.

  “This is the equivalent of a safe house,” he said simply. He closed the door to the hallway and the room turned a murky black until her eyes began to adjust.

  She watched him take off his windbreaker and shoes and sit on the bed. Then he looked up, as if surprised to see her still standing by the door. “You do know—”

  “Protocol for a safe house, yes,” she said irritably. “During an active operation, the Operatives stay together for safety.”

  “That, yes,” he said, and he exhaled. “Mostly, what it means, Jaime, is this is your chance to sleep. And you need to sleep. We’re in the midst of an urgent operation. We don’t know when the next opportunity will come.”

  As he spoke, Yani had dropped onto the thick white duster on top of the bed, closed his eyes, and gone to sleep.

  Just like that.

  One thing Jaime knew about herself: Nothing woke her up like being told she needed to sleep. It hurt no one but herself, of course, she knew that, but she’d gone through God knows how many deployments more sleep-deprived than she needed to be.

  And she sure as hell wasn’t going to fall asleep here.

  Finally, she took off her shoes and stretched out on the bed, willing her muscles to relax. Even with all that had happened over the last few days, and with all the complexities of what lay ahead, one thought emerged and kept swirling through her mind on an endless loop: Did I blow it?

  When Yani thought she was a Messenger, he had welcomed her warmly. When he discovered she was an Operative, everything had changed. He had shut down completely, on both a personal and a professional level. He’d said he wanted her off the mission. Her inexperience—and the resultant incompetence—was a danger. To herself, to Yani, to those they were trying to save.

  Dear God. She’d worked so hard. She’d made so many difficult decisions, taken so many risks just to get here, only to be rejected completely by the one person whose opinion meant the world to her.

  And yet, when he thought she was only a Messenger, he’d welcomed her. He’d held her. He’d possessed her.

  Had she blown it?

  Yani wasn’t the chauvinist type. He would be the last one to try to keep a woman “in her place,” in a position subservient to his. So what happened?

  He’d given up the greatest honor she’d ever known existed. He’d given up being a Sword. Was this somehow like the O. Henry story where the man and woman had each given up what they held most dear, only to discover that was what the other had counted on?

  She had to get a grip. She was a professional, and she believed completely in the successful resolution of the mission which had been entrusted to her.

  If only Yani hadn’t held her. Kissed her. Claimed her.

  He’d made it clear that to him, now, those minutes had never been.

  So be it.

  As she listened to the steady chug of
the motors of the boat, it occurred to her that now when she thought of Yani, she didn’t usually think of him in terms of Paul, or what Paul would think, or how Paul would act. For years after her husband had been killed by a terrorist bomb on the Pedestrian Mall in Israel, she had measured all men, and her feeling for them, by the standard of Paul.

  Now she wondered why she had to be attracted to men who could very happily live without her, or any woman. Was it their drive, their sense of purpose, that attracted her? Or was she just a masochistic idiot, who only fell for the men who had blinders on? Whichever, it took a lot to get her to let her guard down and fall in love. But when she did, she fell hard.

  For idiots who apparently could turn their feelings on and off and drift off to sleep next to her on a bed without a second thought.

  Lord, center me; quiet my mind. Center me; quiet my mind.

  Jaime tossed as restlessly as the winter sea below. She thought she had been called to be an Operative. It seemed Clement, the wisest man she knew, had confirmed this. But Clement would also have known that Yani had given up being a Sword. And Clement had paired them on this mission.

  Lord, center me; quiet my mind. Center me; quiet my mind.

  Her mentor, Renata, had instructed her well about her first reentry. “Suddenly the world will seem to you a screaming muddle,” she’d said. “You’ll want to plant your feet and yell, ‘All of you, slow down; be quiet! You must stop the foolishness before another child dies of hunger, before another man is unjustly tortured, before another woman is raped. You must stop!’

  “But you can’t stop and yell, and if you did, it would make no difference.

  “There will be time enough to live your life as an agent of change. No, during your first reentry, you must narrow your focus. Concentrate only on the task at hand. Take it to completion.”

  The task at hand. The kidnapping of five people, two females, three males, all the children of former Eden dwellers. Who could want them, and why? And how come they were taken from the families that had emerged with Jorgen Edders?

  It seemed Britta Sunmark was their best lead. But with only three days remaining of Jaime’s four-day pass, there wasn’t time to follow leads willy-nilly. If time was no object, Ms. Sunmark would certainly be a person of interest, to be found and interviewed. Hopefully she would be found within the next 24 hours and would either yield more information or be counted a dead end.

  Dear God, it was hard lying here next to Yani. Jaime had spent countless hours trying to figure out who he was, and she felt no closer to the answer than she ever had been. But she knew what he was and what he stood for. And she knew he exuded a magnetism she had seldom encountered. As if he were a magnet and she were nothing but one out of a million iron filings, irresistibly drawn.

  He’d treated her as an incompetent.

  That fact alone helped her find her footing. Clement would not have sent her if she were. He would not.

  Her focus needed to be entirely on the abductees. Her focus now was Daniel Derry. Did, whom she’d known since he was a lanky 11-year-old. Did had always had a sense of humor, a feeling of moldability that neither his brother nor his sister had. They were each so accomplished, so polished, so sure of themselves. Daniel, by contrast, had been a bit awkward, a bit unsure, and entirely approachable. The others you admired. Daniel she identified with. She loved that kid.

  She would find him. She would bring him home.

  She stretched out again and began a guided meditation, meant specifically to relax her muscles. Even if she didn’t sleep, she could rest.

  She held the picture of awkward, completely lovable Daniel Derry in her mind. And she prayed herself to sleep.

  Sunday

  February 26, 2006, 4:47 a.m.

  Kairos yacht, Skala Harbor, Patmos

  * * *

  “Jaime, wake up.” Yani’s voice was gentle.

  “Jaime,” he said again, shaking her shoulder, and she sat upright, getting her balance, pulling herself to consciousness.

  She looked at him through the filtered dark and thought, Don’t be caught off guard by his tone. He only calls you Jaime because he knows Paul called you Richards. You told him that. For him, your first name is not a term of endearment; it’s a term of differentiation.

  She noticed that the door to the hall was open; there were small running lights along the corridor. She looked at Yani. He had his windbreaker and shoes on.

  “What time is it?” she asked. “Are we there?”

  “Yes, we’re at Patmos. It’s about 4:45 in the morning.”

  She must have fallen asleep, after all. Jaime found her shoes, pulled them on, and retied them.

  He was using a small flashlight the size of the fingernail on his thumb. “We’re not putting on lights,” he said, and she nodded.

  “How do we get ashore?” she asked.

  “There’s a dinghy. Aeolus will take us. I’ve already been ashore,” he said. “I’ve gone through whatever files are at the office building owned by Future Imagined and Achieved—FIA. I did find one mention of Britta Sunmark. It was on an empty manila file folder. Nothing in it. Not even a Xerox copy of her grant application. No trace of her relationship with them, or the project she’s working on. Not in files, on Rolodexes, or on the computers.”

  “You were already there?” Jaime asked. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I’m waking you now,” he said. “The only thing I did find, on one of the back Rolodexes, was an address for our friend Constantine.”

  She looked down at the small scrap of paper he held with a street address and number.

  “It’s here on Patmos. Go see if you can find him before he leaves the house for the day.”

  “All right,” she said, trying not to let her annoyance show that he’d already started the mission without consulting her. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to FIA. I didn’t have time to check all the backups on the computers, to see if the files had existed and been wiped or if the key information is kept off-site.

  “It’s dark enough that we can go in together on the skiff,” he said. “But after that—”

  “I know, I know. We won’t be seen together at all.”

  “Especially here,” Yani said, standing. “It’s a small island.”

  February 26, 2006, 4:55 a.m.

  Somewhere dark

  * * *

  This time, they woke him from a sound sleep. For a wonderful moment he had no idea where he was.

  And then Daniel was awake, the two guards silhouetted against the open door to his room.

  He tried to swing his legs around to sit up, but there was a weight on them.

  He cleared his vision and looked down.

  It was that baby.

  “Come on!” The guard seemed unusually gruff. For some reason, Daniel became afraid. He tried to move the toddler, but she was sleeping and made a noise that made it clear that she was obviously objecting to the idea of being awakened.

  “Bring her, too,” said Lab Coat Guy.

  “Easier to leave her,” said the other guy.

  “No, it wouldn’t be safe.” Daniel spoke without thinking. “I mean, this place isn’t baby-proof. She could get in all sorts of trouble.”

  “Doc says bring her,” Lab Coat Guy said, ignoring Daniel.

  The second guard grimaced and reached down to grab her, but Daniel was quicker. He scooped her up and held her to his chest. She woke up, confused and cranky, looked at him as if ready to howl her objections. Then she saw the two men standing behind her, and she grabbed on to the material of Daniel’s shirt with both hands and clung to him.

  He struggled to his feet, trying to find his balance with the extra weight.

  Lab Coat Guy grabbed Daniel’s arm and jerked it forward. He started walking in front of them.

  Maybe it was being awakened from a deep sleep that had scared him. Maybe these guys were acting like they always did… or maybe his time was almost up. He held the little girl closer
. She smelled moist, not like she had a dirty diaper or anything, just kind of baby-sleepish.

  He knew the short walk around the corner and down the hall to the lab by heart. The only point of interest, besides passing the locked, windowless door to the yard, was that he walked through the galley kitchen. He made a point of seeing what food items the guards had around that they weren’t sharing. But this time something surprising happened as he preceded the guards through the kitchen and passed the locked outside door.

  The door directly in front of him that led to the laboratory opened, and another burly guard came out. He was herding somebody also. This guy had short black hair and looked like he was old enough to be out of college.

  The guards glared at each other as if this was a terrible faux pas. Daniel came to his senses quick enough to say, “I’m Daniel,” as he passed.

  “Jimi,” said the other prisoner.

  Lab Coat Guy shoved Daniel in the middle of his back hard enough that he stumbled and nearly fell. “Shuddup!” Lab Coat Guy commanded.

  He opened the door to the lab and pushed Daniel and the baby through, then slammed it shut again.

  The doctor lady was there. She looked stressed. “The boy first,” was all she said.

  Daniel took it as a hopeful sign that they hadn’t killed Jimi and he’d just come from here.

  Lab Coat Guy shoved Daniel toward the chair. “Can I go outside?” Daniel asked.

  “What? It’s too cold,” said the doctor.

  “You always let me,” he said. “I have my coat. You give me your word.”

  “It’s dark and cold,” she repeated.

  “You give your word,” he said, standing, looking at that awful chair. “Please. It’s all I have.”

  Now she looked like she was upset. “All right,” she said.

  The goon grabbed the baby away and shoved Daniel down. He caught himself on the arm of the chair and stood for a moment, trying not to cry. There was something so… What does it matter? about her response.