The Zul Enigma

by J M Leitch

  She bit her lip and her eyes watered, darkening them to an even deeper brown.

  ‘Okay!’ Carlos said. ‘I don’t want to make you cry five minutes after you get here.’

  Rebecca blinked back the tears. A little laugh escaped from her lips. ‘And I don’t want to cry,’ she said picking up her glass. ‘I’ve done too much of that lately.’

  They ordered tiramisu.

  ‘You haven’t mentioned the new project. Is it still a big secret?’ Rebecca asked.

  Carlos grinned. ‘Not any more,’ and he told her all about his plans.

  ‘That’s brilliant. So when do you inaugurate the campaign?’

  ‘In two months. We launch it worldwide via satellite TV. We’ll show highlights of the Session and follow up with a flood of infomercials, ads and editorials. So far, the support’s been overwhelming.’

  ‘Because of the problem with Russia?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s got a lot to do with it in the western world. Although the crisis has eased over the past few weeks, people are still worried. They’re used to reading about wars going on in Asia or Africa, but when something could start up in their own backyard…’

  The waiter brought the desserts and they devoured them without another word.

  ‘And how about you?’ Carlos asked. ‘You said you’re only here for a couple of days?’

  Rebecca nodded and her expression became so grim he wished he hadn’t brought the subject up.

  ‘I wanted to go straight to Hungary and visit my friend. I need a good friend right now. But she’s away till Monday. So I came here first.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Budapest. I’ll stay with her for a week before going back to the UK and tidying up my affairs. Then I’ll return to Europe and volunteer. But I’ll definitely come here again. I love Vienna.’

  ‘Use my place as your base. It’s near the UN – it’s perfect.’

  ‘I really hardly know you and…’

  Carlos held up his hands. ‘No strings, no problem and I hope there’s no argument.’

  ‘I feel it’s an imposition…’

  ‘It’s not. I spend so much time on this campaign, I’m hardly ever there anyhow.’

  ‘Okay,’ she smiled, ‘I’ll think about it.’

  CHAPTER 9

  A month later Erika was at the airport yelling, ‘Hey, over here!’ and waving her arms in the air to get Drew’s attention as he strolled out of the customs hall.

  When he spotted her he grinned and strode towards her. He dropped his bags on the floor and cupped her face in his hands. ‘You look even more beautiful than I remember,’ he said and bent over to kiss her.

  She tipped up her face and a low moan escaped her lips as she felt his warm soft mouth cover hers and her body was flooded with a rush of desire. She caressed his face, all stubbly after missing it’s morning shave and slid her arms round the back of his neck pressing herself against him. Then she broke the kiss and looked deep into his blue eyes.

  ‘Welcome to Vienna,’ she whispered.

  ‘What’s all this?’ Drew said, flicking her hair.

  It was getting on for ten in the morning and the rush hour crush was easing as Erika drove him into town.

  ‘I cut it,’ she replied shaking her head. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I like shaggy,’ he said, ‘but what I don’t like is you choosing a flat for me that’s so far away from your place.’

  ‘You need to be close to your office.’

  He grunted. ‘Where’s Ashby and Josh?’

  ‘They’re at school.’

  ‘Shit! I must be jet-lagged. Of course… it’s Monday.’

  ‘Talking of the boys – there’s something I want to say. You see Drew, in the past I’ve always kept any relationships I had quite separate from them. Of course they know I date but I never wanted them to get close to any of my men friends, because I never met anyone I thought I could be that serious with. But with you… because you’ve known them all their lives… it’s different. You’re already a big part of our family.’ She shrugged, ‘and if you’re serious about us…’

  ‘Of course, I’m serious!’

  ‘Chill honey. It’s just that I want us to take it slow. Very slow.’

  ‘You saying you don’t trust me?’

  Erika put her hand on his thigh. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. But you’ve got to admit you do have quite a history. Up till now it’s only ever been me and my boys… just the three of us. It’s going to take a while for us to factor someone new into that equation.’

  ‘We’ll do just fine. Don’t you worry.’

  Stopping at a red light, she turned to him. ‘That’s why I wanted you to have your own place. And why it’s best it’s not too close. Until they get used to you being more than just a friend. They adore you… and you’re terrific with them. But I’m scared they might start feeling… well… insecure when they realise you’re taking some of my attention away; that our family’s gone from three to four; and that there’s another permanent voice of authority around. I just want to handle things as sensitively as I can.’

  ‘And that’s just one of the things,’ Drew leaned over and kissed her cheek, ‘I love about you.’

  ***

  Later the same day, Carlos was waiting outside the customs hall for Rebecca. ‘Carlos!’ she exclaimed when she saw him, ‘I didn’t expect you to meet me.’

  He smiled at her surprise. ‘It’s all part of the service,’ he said taking her suitcase and walking in the direction of the car park.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’

  He looked round. ‘I left early. In any case, I worked all weekend.’

  ‘How is the campaign going?’

  ‘Fantastic,’ he replied, laughing.

  When they got to his flat he showed Rebecca into the guest room and went into the kitchen to make coffee.

  After a few minutes she joined him. ‘My goodness, Carlos! This place is amazing. Look at that courtyard. It’s beautiful. And inside it’s so modern. I love these skylights. It’s so bright.’

  ‘How do you take your coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘With a splash of milk. No sugar.’

  ‘Like me – that’s easy to remember.’

  He put some of his favourite biscuits on a plate and they sat on stools at the kitchen counter.

  ‘So… how was Budapest?’

  ‘Lovely. It was great to see my friend.’

  ‘And England?’

  ‘It was okay.’

  ‘You got everything sorted out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ Rebecca looked up from under her lashes, biting her lip. ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’

  ‘I do want to,’ she said, and took a sip of her coffee. ‘His name’s Stuart Morrison and I’ve known him for six years. He was a real player. Then he started angling for me. I wasn’t interested at first, but he persisted and ended up sweeping me off my feet.

  ‘After a roller-coaster ride for a year, as I found out about the web of other women he was involved with, he told me he loved me and asked me to move in. I was ecstatic.

  ‘It was okay for a while. Then as the months passed things started going downhill. He became dismissive and moody. I was always afraid of making a wrong move or saying the wrong thing and upsetting him. It was like walking on broken glass. More and more often he’d call to say he had to work late or had to entertain business people. Sometimes he wouldn’t call at all.

  ‘Then one morning,’ she reached to pick up a biscuit, ‘I left some file I needed for work at home. When I got back and went in the bedroom to get it I saw he’d made the bed – something he never normally did. Then I noticed all my perfumes and make-up and all the photos with me in them had disappeared. He’d hidden everything in a drawer. It was obvious what he was planning and I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. I couldn’t stop shaking. I went on to work plotting how I could catc
h him red-handed with whoever she was. But in the end I decided against it. Because by that time he’d started getting violent.’ She took a bite of the biscuit.

  ‘¡Hijo de puta!’ Carlos shouted.

  ‘It started with a cigarette burn on the back of my hand. Then it got worse. Slapping, kicking, pulling hair – never anything bad enough to put me in hospital – but I had loads of cuts and bruises and bald patches… and more than a couple of black eyes. Of course, I never told anyone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if I had, they’d have said leave him. I mean, that’s what you’d say, right? But I wasn’t ready. Not then.’ She ate the rest of the biscuit and Carlos topped up their coffee.

  ‘How could you let him treat you like that?’

  She shrugged. ‘I loved him. I knew he was troubled. I wanted to help. And when you’re in the middle of something like that, after a while it seems normal. You don’t see how bad it is until you get out. The more I puzzled how I could get through to him, to help him, the more interested I became in how our minds work and why people behave in such different ways. Then I met someone who was into meditation. They told me that by following a meditation practice you can make yourself stronger… realise your own potential.’

  ‘Hey!’

  She smiled. ‘So I started to meditate… and I’ve been doing it ever since. That’s how I broke up with Morrison. My unconscious mind became unlocked and I found a strength… a truth deep within me… something I could trust… and I began to change. One day I woke up and the veil had dropped from my eyes. I realised that although at times he could be funny, and very romantic when he wanted, he actually was nothing more than an angry, lying, insecure little man with an inferiority complex and a filthy temper. I realised that was not the kind of person I wanted to share my life with. Finally the spell was broken.

  ‘I was on tenterhooks till I moved out, though. You see I didn’t want to run away in the middle of the night… I wanted to talk to him about it… explain what had happened. Well, that was a joke. He didn’t want to know. He just said “do whatever you want”. He didn’t even look up from reading the paper. The last days were nerve-racking. I was just waiting for him to explode and attack me. But I kept it together… and so did he.

  ‘He couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye though. The morning I moved out he’d already left. So I wrote him a note and left my keys on the kitchen table.’

  ‘Have you seen him since?’

  ‘No. But I called when I got back from Budapest to tell him some things I wanted to say. Since then I feel it’s properly ended.’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘Finally the nightmare’s over.’

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘So I’m in New York all day Monday?’ the President asked.

  ‘Yes sir,’ Anita settled on the couch in the Oval Office and rested her clasped hands in her lap, ‘you fly out Sunday afternoon for the pre-launch dinner hosted by the Secretary-General for the heads of state and religious leaders that night, and return on Tuesday.’

  ‘It’ll be quite some affair, huh?’

  ‘Even one of the Princes of England will be there. I must say Dr Maiz has pulled off an impressive initiative in a very short space of time. The whole world’s been saturated with doom and gloom for too long, it’s ripe for something positive. People are fed up hearing about the never-ending recession, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Israel, Al-Qaida, the oil crisis, climate change, swine flu, natural disasters, yet another Russian threat… this new initiative is inspirational. Everyone thinks they’re having a hand in creating a better future for themselves.’

  Bob grunted and crossed his long legs at the ankles.

  ‘And just look at the backing it’s getting,’ she continued. ‘The media’s made a complete turn around. After condemning the UN for being so,’ she made quotation marks with curled fingers in the air, ‘“ridiculously naïve” at the outset, they now realise the public is interested in hearing a positive message for a change. Now they can’t praise the UN enough.’

  ‘Yeah… well we know how unpredictable the general public can be,’ Bob said, still smarting from the lambasting the press had given him over NASA.

  ‘So far the media’s still full of it,’ Anita replied. ‘They’re lapping it up like fat cats lap up cream. The main thing is, it helps us.’

  ‘You made the right call at the end of March. Back then I’d never’ve believed how big this thing would get. And we’d’ve looked like complete morons if we’d been dead set against it from the start.’

  ‘It’ll die a death in a few months,’ Anita said. ‘Initiatives like this always do.’

  ‘The main thing is with the launch in New York taking the limelight, people won’t be looking at what we’re doing back here in DC. Not next week. Slipping the legislation through while the focus of the world is on the UN is the only way we’ll get those cuts approved.’

  ‘I just hope it doesn’t backfire on us.’

  ‘Don’t worry Anita. It’s time we started shutting NASA’s activities down. That white elephant’s been blowing money on useless research like it’s going out of fashion. And as for the International Space Station? We’re tied in so tight with the Russians and the rest of them, it’s unhealthy. We need to be strengthening our autonomy, not reducing it. This’ll be our first step.’

  ‘We’re facing less opposition from OOSA since Maiz left.’

  ‘Yeah. That worked in our favour. So… what have you got?’

  ‘I’ve been working on the Press Campaign with Tony,’ Tony Wilson was the White House Press Secretary. ‘He’s come up with a schedule to trickle feed press releases, editorials, ads and infomercials out to the private and public domains, starting next week to prepare the public. We want to reassure people so they won’t be alarmed, mistakenly thinking we’re calling a halt to investment in space projects altogether since this, unequivocally, is not the case.

  ‘The message we want to get across is that rather than reducing our space technology budget, we will redirect it through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Also that there are still some crucial programmes we’ll continue to fund through NASA.’

  Bob nodded.

  ‘We describe DARPA’s structure: how it only has a handful of technical professionals, allowing it to function with minimum management levels facilitating rapid decision-making; how it works on project-based assignments only; and how it neither owns nor operates any bases or laboratories but out-sources all it’s support facilities and personnel. We highlight that the agency’s lean structure allows it to get things done quickly and as overheads are kept to a minimum, ensures every project is completed in the most cost-effective manner possible.’

  ‘Unlike that blood-sucking monolith NASA.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, sir. That is the inference we mean to draw. We also explain that DARPA will sub-contract NASA to collaborate on some aspects of future projects.’

  ‘I see,’ Bob shifted his weight again and leaned forward, elbows on the arm rests of his chair. ‘I like it Anita. That should placate the NASA supporters.’

  ‘We also highlight DARPA’s key mission, which is to focus far into the future on radical innovation and major change, rather than frittering away large sums of money on near-term incremental needs that frequently become redundant before the benefits they yield outweigh the number of dollars invested.’

  ‘Precisely what we need to be doing.’

  ‘And finally,’ she added, picking up her notebook from where she’d placed it beside her on the couch, ‘we mention that DARPA is not restricted by the standard civil service process, so it can directly hire eclectic, world-class performers with expediency.’

  ‘But you’re not completely sold on this, are you?’ Bob said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

  She dropped her head, ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘DARPA has many critics. Some believe they’re a bunch of maverick scientists who could unleash
who knows what chaos on the world, considering the way they’re able to operate pretty much unchecked.’

  ‘That’s an extreme view, Anita.’

  ‘And a common one, sir. And a justifiable one, considering DARPA’s structure. The checks and balances just aren’t in place.’

  ‘Which is precisely why it can work the way it does.’

  ‘I know, but I believe it would be wiser to hold back for a few months while we work on DARPA’s image – have them present a friendlier, more trust-invoking face, while we incorporate tighter control over the projects we’re approving.’

  Bob shook his head. ‘We can’t afford to wait. Just like you said, with the current atmosphere of love and peace and tolerance, it’s the ideal time to make this move. In a coupla months, when the consciousness initiative has become old news – because the UN can’t keep this level of momentum going forever – that’s when the backlash of suspicion and fear will take hold again and by then our policy to protect Americans and keep them safe will be exactly what the voters are looking for.’

  ‘I just hope you’re right, sir,’ she said.

  ‘I know I am. If we’re to keep our nation safe in the future, we have to redirect US focus from control of space to ownership of space and DARPA’s how we get there. The only way our nation can remain invincible is to integrate space into our combat strategies all over the globe and now Dr Maiz is no longer heading OOSA tracking the peaceful use of outer space like a pit bull, that job’s become a helluva sight easier.’

  ***

  At the UN office in New York, Carlos finished updating Greg on the status of the campaign launch.

  ‘I must say Carlos, you’ve performed miracles in such a short space of time,’ and Greg raised his brows in admiration. ‘It’s impressive. Very impressive.’

  ‘Not just me Greg – it’s the whole team. They've been working day and night.’

  ‘And you already initiated your people in a meditation practice?’

  Carlos nodded, grinning. ‘Of course. First thing I did. I had to prove to them it really worked,’ he laughed.