“Tobias,” Henry said, “find us some fish.”
The Water Walker pushed out into the calm, lazy water before them under a flat, blue-grey sky.
“Henry, I hate to bring up negative vibes here on this nice relaxing day, but something bothered me last night when we were moving into the trailer.”
“What?” Henry checked the instruments on the mahogany dash in front of him. He gently rolled the wheel a few degrees starboard.
“Across the street from our trailer, this guy sat there watching us. Did you notice him?”
“I guess so. Dark guy, smoking a cigarette in a lawn chair?” asked Henry.
“Yeah,” Beto said. “I wouldn’t have cared much about him, but your angel, Tobias, was paying him a lot of attention. I got the feeling Tobias didn’t feel very comfortable around him.”
“Okay. Noted. We’ll have to watch out for him, I guess.” Henry was distracted by what was going on a quarter mile to their front. Several spouts of water were churning up out there as if tiny tornados were forming, but there were no funnel clouds around. As they pulled closer to the spouts, they noticed that they were full of fish being flung up out of the water.
“No more talk, buddy. Tobias has finally done something worthwhile. Let’s go fishing.”
Carlos set up a war room in the barn at Gabriella’s instruction. She insisted that they use the barn so the animals could attend the operational briefings. He installed a bank of fluorescent lights over the space where they stored hay and feed. He constructed half walls with plywood over two-by-four frames. He purchased eight plastic folding tables and forty chairs and set them up as a meeting room. At the end of the room he built a tall wall with a screen for the digital projector that he hung from one of the beams overhead. His wife and two nephews helped him with the final setup. She brought in a coffee urn, cups, sugar and cream.
“Gabriella wants us all in the barn at eight o’clock. Pass the word,” he said to those of his family who gathered for lunch in the kitchen of the big house. “We will defend our home against some dangerous people who seek to destroy us.”
Carlos watched his family’s various reactions. His announcement angered some, challenged others, and worried the rest. Some of the women responded with the same bravado as those men who looked forward to a battle. All the elders, both men and women, silently pondered their future.
At eight o’clock Carlos cast a concerned look over the assemblage. All the residents of Cielavista over the age of twelve and all of Carlos’ extended family living nearby found a seat or a place to stand along the walls of his war room. Carlos joined Gabriella, Sandy, and his two eldest sons, Frederick and Roberto, at the head table facing the group. The sharp old caretaker glanced over the edge of the half wall where his two horses, Sadie and Cinnamon, joined the audience. He gave a quick whistle and all four dogs took up places near the front where they could view the screen.
Carlos took attendance, reading from a list of all the members of his family:
The three elders, Carlos, Roberto Sr., and Fredrick and their wives: six;
Roberto’s six adult children and their spouses: twelve (Beto—detached);
Carlos’s four adult children and their spouses: eight;
Frederick’s six adult children and their spouses: twelve;
Roberto’s teenage grandchildren: twelve;
Carlos’s teenage grandchildren: eight;
Frederick’s teenage grandchildren: twelve.
“That’s seventy from my house who can bear a sword,” said Carlos. “Then there are four canine and two equine who can take orders and fight. And of course you, Sandy, Gabriella, and I suppose Henry and Beto when they return.”
Sandy spoke. “We are at war.” She let that statement sink in with the assembled force. “I am going to ask my Nonina to offer a prayer.”
Gabriella stood at her place at the table and recited from the Book of Psalms, “‘Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle,’” she paused and each of the animals perked up their ears at the familiar passage they’d heard Henry shout night after night as he pounded his heavy bag in the stall behind them. “‘My lovingkindness, and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, My shield and He in whom I make refuge.’ Lord, be with us. The victory is yours. Amen.”
“Amen,” the war council repeated in one voice.
Carlos was impressed with the dramatic change in Sandy’s countenance. A commanding spirit inhabited her. He carefully digested every word of her briefing.
“Before I begin the operational briefing, I will take a moment to offer the opportunity to anyone who does not feel fit for the fight to leave the room and make plans to find a safe place to live until our victory is won. No one will judge you for your decision to detach yourselves from the warrior force defending Cielavista. In the same way that Gideon reduced the size of his fighting force when faced with overwhelming odds, we will do the same.”
Frederick’s wife stood up, “I must go and attend to our elderly parents who are living in a home in Gloucester. I am behind you in your decision. God be with you.”
One of the married couples in Roberto’s family stood down, offering to care for all the small children who were too young to be among the war fighters. Three teenage girls joined them. Carlos stood at the door of the barn to bless them as they exited the briefing. The remaining force of seventy two humans and four animals focused their attention on Sandy’s operations order.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Carlene lost her argument with Director Randal Sanford. He insisted that she assemble her team of seers and operators somewhere in the vicinity of York, Maine. He told her that the Directorate issued a new set of orders for her squad. She argued with Director Sanford that her standing operating procedures required that all members of her squad must remain separated, keeping their identities secret even from each other. She tried to get this fat civilian to understand what she knew from her experience in the CIA—compartmentalization. The members of her squad had contact only with her, and if any of them became compromised, she would extract herself from the area of operations and disappear into the atmosphere like smoke.
Randal overruled his subordinate so Carlene scheduled a squad meeting, but she still made every attempt to keep her people apart. She had all her seers and her two operators check in to the Atlantic Inn, each in separate rooms far apart from each other. She made a strict schedule of check-in times so they would not see one another at the registration desk. She delivered a package to each room, a box of theater makeup with instructions how to disguise their faces, and large clothing to conceal the shape of their bodies. Then to assemble them for the meeting, she set up an elaborate plan where each person was picked up in a separate hired car and taken by different routes to the meeting place, a cottage she had rented for her temporary lodging near the objective: Cape Neddick, Maine.
The cottage smelled like vanilla to Firdos, a fragrance he associated with his controller, Carlene Wood. Back in his trailer at View Point, he kept a vanilla-scented candle lit all the time. He always drank vanilla-flavored coffee and at most of his meals he ordered vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Firdos’ feelings for Carlene affected him in a strange and powerful way. He never felt a thing for his parents. His school teachers in Baghdad scolded him for having no respect for them or his classmates. They brutally punished him for his selfish and uncaring attitude. At home his family gave up on him after he turned six. To them he would simply be the one son who had no future. But now under the seductive influence of Carlene, something new and frightening and exciting came alive in him. He craved her dominance.
The hired limousine dropped Firdos off at the side of the cottage. It was a large seaside rental property with six rooms on the first floor and four on the second. He wandered through the rooms, following Carlene’s hypnotic fragrance into the kitchen.
“You’re the first one here, Firdos,” she said. “Have a seat there at the cou
nter. Nice job with the makeup. I wouldn’t have recognize you if I didn’t know who you were. The overalls make you look fat, and I know you’re in good physical shape.”
Firdos sat on one of the stools at the counter. Carlene put a cup of black coffee in front of him. He looked at her chest. She was wearing a loose-fitting sweatshirt with the words, “Welcome to Maine, the way life should be” stenciled on it.
“How you doing, Firdos?” she asked.
“I have no problems,” he stated flatly.
“I noticed that Dick lets you use the shop car. Do you drive that to Salem and back?” Firdos was growing more comfortable talking with her, unconsciously falling under her mind-controlling power, unaware that Carlene was probing his brain for the essential elements of information she needed for her report.
“I got a place here in a trailer park—View Point,” Firdos said. “I kept my apartment in Salem so I don’t have to change residence from Massachusetts to Maine. Randal suggested it that way.”
“So is the work at the shop going okay?”
“I don’t care much about it.”
“What’s the trailer park like?” she asked.
“My rooms in the trailer are fine. No smoking allowed. I have to smoke outside,” answered Firdos. The voice of this woman was having a warming effect on his insides. He focused his eyes on her back as she moved around the kitchen preparing some rolls and pastries for the gathering. The sweatshirt concealed her form, and her slacks hung loosely from her hips, keeping the shape of her lower body a mystery.
Carlene looked over her shoulder and asked, “Any neighbors there?”
“Uh, at the trailer park—no. It’s empty after the summer season,” he said.
Then he thought a second. “Umm, a couple fishermen came in the other night, across the street. I saw them unpacking their car.”
“What did you say to them?”
“Nothing.”
“Firdos, would you tell me a little more about these two fishermen? What were they like?”
He let his gaze drop from looking at Carlene to the countertop in front of him. This type of question always made him stumble. He wanted to answer correctly. He wanted to impress Carlene.
“What do you mean ‘what were they like’?”
Firdos froze as Carlene leaned toward him from her side of the counter. He stared at the smile she implanted on her face. He followed her hand as it brushed back a strand of hair.
“Anything, Firdos, you remember about these two men who entered the trailer across from you in the View Point Trailer Park? You were outside your unit having a cigarette, right?”
Speaking from a half-trance, Firdos’s brain strained to please his supervisor. “There were two guys,” he began. “One tall with light skin, one short guy, darker, black hair. The little one seemed to be helping the bigger one. They got out of a black SUV with Massachusetts plates. The tall one concentrated on the luggage and their fishing tackle, the small one was more observant of the trailer, the yard, the street and….”
Carlene crossed her arms, rested her forearms on the counter, and leaned close to Firdos’ face. She locked eyes with him. “And what, dear?”
The “dear” fell on Firdos’s heart like a silk scarf. He belonged to her. This moment was the first time in his life that he actually looked someone in the eyes. It took him a minute to reengage his brain so he could speak.
“And there was a feeling I had,” Firdos found himself continuing from a place in his mind he’d never used before. “I can’t explain it, but the best I can say is these men shined. Not with light but with something, they shined. Some kind of power came off them, I don’t know how to say it. I’m sorry. I don’t have the words. I’m sorry, Carlene.”
“That’s okay,” Carlene said softly and placed her hand on his arm. “You are doing phenomenal, Firdos. Anything else?”
“This is very strange,” Firdos said. “Another thing I saw last night.”
“Start by telling me where you were and what you were doing, my dear,” coaxed Carlene.
“I was sitting in the yard in front of my trailer. I was sitting in a lawn chair. Smoking. I was on my second cigarette. Then the black SUV pulled up.”
“Good, go on,” she said.
“As the two guys unloaded their bags from the car, a wind swirled around in the street between where I was sitting and where they were unpacking.”
“Yes, dear, a wind,” said Carlene. “Tell me more about this wind.”
Firdos was exploring the depths of a hidden cavern deep inside himself. Carlene was with him on the expedition, her hand on his arm, mothering him. He was having difficulty expressing the effect the wind had on him and on the climate around him.
From a memory of a hot, sparsely furnished classroom in Baghdad, a childhood scene flashed into Firdos’s mind. His tongue came alive with a verse from the Quran, “‘And We shall remove from their breasts any hatred or sense of injury. Gardens of perpetual bliss: they shall enter there, as well as the righteous among their fathers, their spouses, and their offspring. Angels shall enter from every gate (with the salutation): ‘Peace be with you, that you persevered in patience! Now how excellent is the final home!’ From the Quran 7:43 and 13:23–24.”
Firdos was trembling and tears were coursing down his cheeks. Carlene leaned back and nodded.
“Firdos, you have done very well. Your report is extremely important,” Carlene said. “You see, our organization has been confused about the location of our enemy. They have been under the impression that our enemy was located on the shoreline on Cape Ann down in Massachusetts, and recently they have some indications that they may be located on Cape Neddick, Maine. With your incredible talent for seeing into the spiritual realm, you have determined that there are enemy agents on Cape Neddick.”
Firdos sniffed and wiped away his tears. He was overjoyed with the praise Carlene was heaping on him.
“This report of human and angelic activity on Cape Neddick confirms that our enemy is in fact located there,” said Carlene.
He watched her go to her briefcase and take out a spiral notebook and pen. She put it in front of Firdos and told him to record the Quran verses and everything else he could remember from what he just told her about his experience in the trailer park.
“Stay here, Firdos. I’ll be back in a few,” Carlene told him as he started writing. “One of my other squad members is arriving.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
An unexplained calm settled over Anna as she walked from her balcony, through her bedroom to the living room of her suite, and picked up the hotel phone.
“Frances O’Donnelly’s room, please,” she spoke into the receiver.
“Good morning, Frances. It’s Anna. How are you this morning?” Anna greeted Frances.
“Fine, my friend. You’re up early.”
“And so are you. If it’s all right, I’d like to come over to see you. Okay?”
“Sure, come on over. I’ll order up some breakfast,” Frances said.
Anna sat across from Frances in the breakfast nook in Frances’ suite. “I suppose neither of us are really aware of exactly why you invited me here, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me.”
“Okay, Anna, I’m all ears. I ordered eggs, toast, home fries, orange juice, and coffee from room service. What have you discovered about your purpose for being here other than moral support for me?” Frances was smiling.
“Apparently I can see angels,” stated Anna.
Frances seemed receptive, “Okay.”
“Two of them appeared to me a little while ago while I was meditating on my balcony. If you can imagine a clear glass bottle, shaped like a man filled with water, that’s kind of like what they looked like. Transparent but still visible. Each of them a little larger than a typical man. They hovered in the air outside my balcony.” She waited to see how Frances took this description.
“Two angels. Did they speak?”
“Oh, yeah. They spoke. Look,
I don’t really get what you are into here, but from our conversation there in North Little Rock, I’m certain that this Directorate is controlling all or most of the mass killings in the news. You assert that your board is morally superior to everyone else and that justifies the killings. You, my dear Frances, have had your eyes opened. God chose me as the instrument of your revelation. Akebe Cheron called this meeting here at the Canyon Ranch Resort to solidify his authority over the activities of the Directorate and over all of you.”
“So what did these angelic messengers say?”
Anna looked up to the ceiling and noticed the waves of barely discernible blue air. “Is that you, Thomas?”
His voice in her mind said, Yes. Frances watched all this, wondering.
Anna said, “I’m quoting the angel: ‘Tell Frances that Akebe is planning to murder Andrew in plain sight of all the other board members during the first session this morning. Frances has to stop him.’”
Frances coolly put her fingertips together and touched her index fingers to her lips as in prayer.
Room service arrived with the breakfast order. The waiter was one of the servers from the reception, a security specialist hired by Akebe.
“Thank you, sir,” said Frances. “Would you please stay here for just a few minutes? I’d like to have a quick word with you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the server—too muscular to be a waiter—said.
“Anna, I’m going to ask you to remain in your room this morning. I’ll take care of this situation,” said Frances as she removed her portion of the breakfast.
Anna gave Frances a pat on the shoulder and exited her suite, pushing the serving cart across the hall to her room.
Andrew stepped out of his van into the New England morning and urinated in the parking lot. Once again he had not needed any sleep. He walked around his vehicle scratching himself and dialing his cell phone. Frances’ voice came into his headphone.
“Good morning,” she said.
“I got here last night. I have the op-plan completed. You wanna see it before the meeting or what?” Andrew said.
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