First and Only

by Flannery, Peter

  ‘The Prime Minister said nothing of this to me,’ the Chancellor objected.

  ‘The final decision was given to us,’ explained Admiral Grant. ‘If we considered this matter to have defence implications we were to respond accordingly.’

  The situation had taken a serious turn for the worse. Steve could keep silent no longer.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ he said. ‘Psimon’s no threat to you. He’s done nothing wrong.’

  ‘You misunderstand, Mr Brennus,’ said Vice Admiral Fallon. ‘This is not about the threat, nor is it a matter of wrongdoing. This is about control.’

  The Vice Admiral looked at Steve as if he, of all people, should understand this.

  ‘Psimon represents a new entity,’ the Vice Admiral went on. ‘A new capability if you will. Governments have been looking for years at the possibility of ESP and its applications, both military and otherwise. But there has not been a single breakthrough, anywhere in the world. The conclusion has always been that extra sensory powers did not exist. But now…’

  Here he looked again at Psimon, and somewhere in the background a mobile phone began to ring.

  ‘…Now we know they do. And we must make certain that it is we, and not our enemies, who control this new capability.’ Then… ‘Will someone answer that damned phone,’ he barked.

  ‘But what will happen to Psimon?’ asked Mr Chatham as the American aid rummaged in his attaché case for source of the insistent ringing.

  ‘Psimon will be detained and studied,’ explained the Vice Admiral. ‘He will be treated well and housed in comfort.’

  ‘But he will not be free?’ persisted Chatham.

  Vice Admiral Fallon seemed to have no problem with the scruples of this action.

  ‘We cannot afford to have Psimon falling under the influence of other parties who might take an interest in his abilities. I can assure you,’ he added smugly, ‘the Russians or the Chinese would not treat him so well as we intend to.’

  ‘And what if he refuses to co-operate?’ asked Steve.

  ‘He has no choice,’ said Vice Admiral Fallon. ‘In time he will see that.’

  ‘And how long will you detain him?’ asked the Chancellor, who clearly had considerable doubts of his own.

  ‘Oh, we cannot let him go,’ said the Vice Admiral. ‘The world can never know that he exists.’

  There was silence in the room as the implications of what he was saying began to sink in.

  ‘No one will speak of what happened here today,’ the threat in the Vice Admiral’s voice was deadly serious. ‘No one will even acknowledge that Psimon ever exists. You will forget you ever…’

  ‘Vice Admiral Fallon, sir,’ interrupted the aid who had answered the phone and was now clutching it anxiously as he approached his commanding officer.

  ‘Not now, damn it!’ snapped the Vice Admiral.

  The Vice Admiral turned back to look at Psimon to see if he showed any sign of understanding that his life, as he knew it, was over. He felt no sympathy for the young man. As far as he was concerned Psimon had brought this upon himself. Did he expect them to ignore someone who could break their codes, read their secrets and tamper with their technology.

  ‘Hell, no!’

  But if the Vice Admiral was looking for signs of regret and humility in Psimon’s face then he was sorely disappointed. Indeed, Psimon’s eyes burned with an intensity that was decidedly unnerving.

  ‘Vice Admiral,’ said the American aid more urgently.

  ‘I told you…’ said the Vice Admiral, rounding on his subordinate. ‘Not…’

  ‘I think you should take this call,’ said Psimon in a voice which, for all its softness, was utterly chilling.

  The Vice Admiral shot a blazing look at Psimon.

  ‘Who the hell is it?’ he demanded, thrusting out his hand to take the phone.

  ‘It’s Force Command,’ said the aid, leaning in to convey his message more quietly. ‘Two of the subs on Operation Tsunami have broken radio silence.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ dismissed Fallon in a fierce hiss. ‘Nuclear submarines do not break radio silence.’

  ‘They do if there’s a DISSUB emergency,’ said Steve who had overheard the whispered words.

  Fallon’s eyes fixed on Steve like the barrels of a gun. DISSUB was the code word used to designate a submarine in distress.

  Fallon put the phone to his ear.

  The room hung on his words, and watched the storm clouds gather on his brow.

  ‘You’re joking,’ said Vice Admiral Fallon in a tone that could not have been more devoid of humour. ‘When?’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Admiral Grant. He moved closer to his American counterpart, speaking in a hushed tone of concern.

  Vice Admiral Fallon held up a hand as he concentrated on what the Force Commander was telling him. Then he leaned in close to speak to Admiral Grant.

  ‘Operation Tsunami,’ he said quietly. ‘Two of the subs are in trouble.’

  ‘Yours or ours?’ hissed Grant.

  ‘One of each,’ said Psimon, and suddenly all eyes were back on him. ‘The HMS Vigilant under Commander Douglas Scott, and the USS Carolina under the command of Captain Philip Kern.’

  They looked at him as if he were an alien from another world.

  ‘They will sink within the hour unless you do as I say,’ said Psimon, his eyes holding the horrified gaze of Vice Admiral Edwin T. Fallon.

  ‘This is impossible,’ breathed Admiral Grant. ‘There’s no way on God’s earth you can affect something hundreds of miles away…’

  ‘Tell that to the Prime Minister,’ interrupted Psimon. ‘Tell it to the American President.’

  ‘What is it you want?’ asked Vice Admiral Fallon, in a tone that suggested he would consider just about anything to prevent six billion dollars worth of military hardware from falling to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

  ‘As I said,’ intoned Psimon. ‘I want your assurance that I will not be followed, detained or in any way constrained until such time as I choose to put myself forward for study. And…’ Psimon added, nodding towards the Chancellor who was still holding the pen in his hand. ‘I want a signature on that Class A Transactional Immunity.’

  ‘And if we refuse to do as you ask?’ demanded the Vice Admiral in a final gesture of defiance.

  Psimon smiled but it was someone else who spoke.

  ‘Then we sink your fucking boats!’ said Steve.

  Chapter 24

  Lucifer surveyed the interior of the black transit van. Not a trace of the heretic remained. He locked the van and closed up the barn, lowering the steel bar across the heavy doors before securing it with the padlock. Then he turned his back on the unsavoury requirements of the delusional world and crossed the yard to the chapel. In the sacristy he donned his cassock and cotta before entering the chapel itself.

  The stench of confession assaulted his nostrils.

  He breathed it in.

  It was confirmation that his calling was being fulfilled; that the prophets of mendacity were being systematically removed from the world, those who claimed to know the minds of men; those who spoke of ailments, conditions, insanity.

  They knew nothing.

  They did not know the rapture of attending the chorus in one’s mind, the ecstasy of obedience and the supreme agony of non-compliance.

  How could they know, those empty vessels of flesh?

  Lucifer coiled up the corrugated hose and stowed it against the wall of the chapel. The aspergillum and silver bucket he had washed out earlier. A few small spots of the acid had landed on his arm, just above the gloves, and he had clenched his teeth against the pain; silent, not crying out as the heretics would during the cleansing. Their screams spoke of weakness; his silence spoke of strength.

  He approached the altar and picked up the fist-dagger from where he had left it. The blood had left a crimson slick across the short blade. It shimmered attractively in the light. He would not clean it off. He would leave it to dry like t
hat… put it away another time. Then he crossed over to the lectern to see where his vocation would lead him next.

  Lucifer gathered up the massive bible and stood it on its spine. Then, with a quick prayer for guidance, he let the book fall open. On the page that revealed itself two lines of text were underlined…

  ‘…I hate pride and arrogance,

  evil behaviour and perverse speech.’ (Proverbs 8:13)

  And, tucked in the crease of the page, a cutting from a medical journal…

  The role of anti-psychotics in treating audio hallucinations

  A Lecture by Professor Christian Thomas

  Saturday March 14th

  Lucifer looked at the cutting. He noted the date and the time and heard the rising clamour for action. But no… The latest heretic’s body would be found soon, the medically debauched would be alert and wary. The choir agreed… the clamour subsided.

  Lucifer would be prudent. He flipped the pages back to a leaflet that lay in Psalms…

  ‘His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats;

  trouble and evil are under his tongue.’

  Psalms 10:7

  He lifted the leaflet…

  INTERNATIONAL PSYCHIC CONVENTION

  He opened it and scanned through the programme of events for the following day…

  Sunday 8th of March

  Morning

  10 – 11.00am : Beyond the Veil with Jonathon Fry: Clairvoyant.

  11 – 12.00am: Sixth Sense & Sensibility with Colleen Edwards: Medium.

  Afternoon

  1.00 – 2.00pm: A Winning Mind with Sam Delaney: Sports Psychic,

  2.30 – 3.30pm: Challenge the Psychics: An open debate.

  4.00 – 5.00pm: Be Thine Master with Suzie Murkoff: Psychic Healer (treating everything from shingles to schizophrenia).

  The psychic healer, Suzie Murkoff, had been circled in black. People like her should not be given a platform for their deceit. She obviously had no comprehension of what true authority was.

  Be Thine Master!

  Perhaps she should be the one to attend a lecture…

  Know thy place!

  Heresy comes in many guises.

  Lucifer would go.

  Chapter 25

  Psimon’s flat was filled with the smell of Chinese food. The mood of the two men stuffing their faces was buoyant, triumphant. It felt like a victory feast

  ‘…we sink your fucking boats!’ said Psimon, doing his best to mimic Steve’s voice but there was no way he could match the savage certainty of Steve’s tone.

  ‘Well that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?’ asked Steve, laughing and scraping together the last of his Kung Po Chicken with his chopsticks.

  ‘No,’ said Psimon, failing miserably to keep a straight face. ‘Actually I was ready to tow the line.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Steve, spinning a prawn cracker in Psimon’s direction.

  Psimon looked across the room at Steve. This was the first time he had seen him smile; really smile, as if he were happy. Despite everything, the relief that they would not be ‘disappeared’ to some secret military base was intoxicating. It put everything else into perspective.

  ‘Well, almost everything…’ thought Psimon.

  Steve put his plate to one side and took a swig from the cold bottle of beer.

  ‘So just how long have you been planning this whole ‘coming out thing’?’ he asked.

  ‘A while,’ said Psimon, taking a sip of his own beer.

  It was a typically understated answer.

  ‘And the rest,’ thought Steve, casting his mind back to Psimon’s planning wall and thinking how efficiently Psimon had humbled those in power; those who had thought to confine him.

  ‘So tell me about this business venture of yours,’ said Psimon suddenly.

  ‘You mean you don’t already know,’ teased Steve.

  ‘I’d rather hear it from you.’

  Steve quirked his head. It seemed a lifetime ago since he had been wrangling with bank managers, negotiating with suppliers and paying a fortune in research costs to companies across the globe.

  ‘It was all about power generation for the domestic user,’ said Steve wistfully. ‘Self sufficiency for the home.’

  Psimon noted the use of the past tense.

  ‘Wind turbines on chimney stacks,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Steve with a smile.

  ‘I thought you could get those from B&Q nowadays.’

  ‘Yeah, you can,’ said Steve. ‘But we were working on a more integrated approach.’

  He sat forward in his chair and it was clear that, despite everything, his enthusiasm for the project had not been extinguished.

  ‘Super efficient turbines, designed in Sweden… solar panels from Germany… and a new generation of photo-electric cells developed here in the UK.’

  ‘Sounds expensive.’

  ‘Not as bad as you might think,’ said Steve. ‘Thanks to a charming wife who haggles like a Moroccan carpet seller.’

  Psimon smiled at the pride in Steve’s voice.

  ‘We’d also managed to secure enough orders to bring down the unit costs. We’d designed a system that would pay for itself in five to ten years; not the fifteen to twenty that the market was currently offering.’

  ‘Impressive,’ said Psimon. ‘I’ll take one.’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Steve regretfully. ‘There’s a small problem with supply on account of the business being completely screwed.’

  Steve looked down at his hands. Then he clapped them together and grabbed his bottle of beer.

  ‘Well, enough about my woes,’ he said. ‘There’s just one more day of our agreement to go. And I can’t wait to see how you plan to top today.’

  Again Psimon smiled.

  ‘Nothing quite so dramatic,’ he said.

  He reached down the side of his chair, pulled out a leaflet and tossed it to Steve. Steve caught it against his thigh. He turned it over. He recognised the title. He had seen it on Psimon’s planning wall.

  INTERNATIONAL PSYCHIC CONVENTION

  ‘Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,’ said Steve, opening it up and glancing through the articles that trailed the various speakers. ‘I used to know a Sam Delaney,’ he said, reading the article about the ‘Sports Psychic’, who was apparently having great success with one of the premier league rugby teams.

  He read down the list of sessions scheduled for the Sunday, smiling at the ridiculous names that the speakers had given them. Then, just as it had been on the planning wall, there was one session circled in red.

  2.30 – 3.30pm: Challenge the Psychics: An open debate.

  It was in between the Sports Psychic and the Psychic Healer.

  ‘Should be an easy crowd, at least,’ said Steve.

  ‘How do you work that one out?’

  ‘Well, they already believe in psychics,’ he said. ‘Then again…’ he added with feigned gravitas. ‘They say a prophet is never recognised in his time.’

  Psimon failed to respond to Steve’s cautionary, raised eyebrow. He seemed pensive and subdued.

  ‘I was only joking,’ said Steve, seeing that Psimon looked uncomfortable. Surely you must know how it goes.’

  Psimon lowered his eyes.

  ‘Things get a little hazy from here,’ he said quietly.

  Steve was suddenly concerned. Was this the same man who had faced down the head of Fleet Force Command? Who had manoeuvred the British and American governments into abiding by his will?

  ‘This is the fear you mentioned?’

  Psimon gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  ‘And you can’t see through it?’

  The shake of the head was just as slight.

  ‘Well, are you sure you want to go then?’ asked Steve.

  ‘I must,’ said Psimon.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Steve, feeling suddenly annoyed at Psimon’s irrationality. ‘In fact,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you just let the Americans take you?’


  Psimon looked up but Steve refused to be unnerved by the dark expression in his eyes.

  ‘I mean it,’ he went on. ‘You say you are going to die soon… tomorrow, by the sounds of it.’ Steve’s anger and frustration were coming to a head.

  Psimon averted his eyes.

  ‘So why not let Vice Admiral Fallon take you?’ he beseeched. ‘You’d live a comfortable life on a secure military base. No one could get to you. And, if you co-operated, who knows what they’d allow you. You might not be free… but at least you’d be alive.’

  Steve sat back as if he had made a pretty convincing case.

  Psimon said nothing for a while. His posture was closed, withdrawn… his eyes downcast. Then finally he spoke, in that quiet arresting tone.

  ‘Could you do that?’ he said.

  ‘Do what?’ asked Steve.

  ‘The killer won’t stop,’ said Psimon, seeking out Steve’s eyes with his own.

  Steve felt a familiar and unpleasant chill run down his spine.

  ‘In sixteen years they haven’t caught him,’ said Psimon. ‘Who’s to say they’ll catch him at all.’

  Steve stared into Psimon’s stone grey eyes.

  ‘If he doesn’t take me,’ said Psimon. ‘He will take another…’

  And suddenly Steve understood.

  ‘So I will ask you again…’ said Psimon. ‘Could you live in safety, while another took your place in death?’

  ‘No,’ said Steve, speaking as a man who had faced a similar dilemma more than once in his military life.

  ‘No,’ repeated Psimon, ‘and neither could I.’

  Steve looked at Psimon. He had an appealing face, the face of a nice young man, as Steve had thought from the first. But his eyes were those of an older soul. They were the eyes of someone who had known pain and fear. They were more like the eyes of a seasoned combat veteran than those of twenty-something lad from the suburbs of Manchester.

  ‘For fourteen years,’ Psimon went on. ‘I have shared the pain and deaths of people who have died at his hand.’

  ‘I know.’