Andrew hesitated. He removed his headphones and slowly stood up.
“Come here, my good lad,” said Akebe.
Andrew stepped in front of Akebe. He kept looking over at Frances. She nodded to him.
“Andrew Johansen, it is my honor to present you with the reward that your performance deserves.”
Akebe gave Andrew an awkward bear hug and kissed him on both cheeks. Then Akebe stepped back, drew his sword, and raised it over his head. Two of the caterers—large, muscular, warrior-looking men—jumped forward and pinned Andrew’s arms behind his back. Gabriella and Sandy saw Frances O’Donnelly grab Romano Goldstein’s arm in shock. “Stephen!” she shouted.
“Ah, yes, my dear Frances,” said Akebe. “Peripeteia.”
Akebe brandished his sword overhead and said, “Death to incompetence!”
As Akebe’s arm slashed down toward Andrew’s chest, Joe jumped next to Akebe, grabbed his wrist, and bent it back. Bones snapped. A cry of pain barked out of Akebe’s throat, his sword clattered to the floor. Simultaneously the two mercenaries holding Andrew fell unconscious at Thomas’ feet. In seconds they lay bound hand and foot with zip ties, and Akebe found himself tied to a chair. He was howling in pain and twisting against his bonds.
Andrew drew the pistol out of his pants and fired six rounds in Akebe’s direction; all six sprayed the wall. Joe stepped next to Andrew, secured his wrist, and pointed the gun at the floor.
Softly he said, “Drop it now, Andrew.”
Thomas and Joe grabbed the fallen mercenaries and hauled them out. No one asked where they were taking them or what they planned to do with them.
Back on the rocky ledge, Gabriella said, “Ow, Sandy, you’re squeezing my hand.”
“Oh, sorry, Nonina. I’m still getting used to viewing live TV here on your rock.” Sandy rubbed the old woman’s weathered hand.
“My dear, it’s your rock now, too.”
The scene in their vision continued. Romano Goldstein stood next to Akebe and said, “It is with the most respect that I speak to you Akebe,” he said.
Akebe ranted, “You will all be tortured. You will all be killed. This is an act of mutiny. I am your leader. I am your superior. Release me this minute. Those thugs have betrayed me. Andrew must be eliminated. Untie me this….”
Andrew came behind the screaming ex-chairman and wrapped a two-foot piece of duct tape around his mouth and eyes. Then he stepped around in front of him and began pounding his head with both fists. Randal and Romano ran to Andrew and pulled him away.
“The old buzzard tried to kill me. ME! I’m the one who runs this ship of psychos. I’m the brains behind everything you killers think of.”
Frances slammed Akebe’s sword down on the conference table. “Enough!” she said loud but calmly. “Drag Mr. Cheron out of the room and leave him there until our security men get back.”
Randal and Romano complied with her order.
“Andrew, take your seat at your table and settle down.
“We still have urgent work to do here. Now that we have taken care of the immediate agenda item, we must proceed.” She laid the sword on the floor and placed the gun on the table in front of her. Randal and Romano returned to their seats.
“Unless anyone has any objections, I will assume leadership until we have time to consider a transition and elect our new chairman,” said Frances.
No one objected.
“Despite Akebe’s obvious mental breakdown, his strategy for our immediate future is sound. We will continue on the course we have set out, to suspend our attacks on individual obstructionists and focus all our resources on eliminating this bothersome annoyance that has been effectively thwarting our noble and righteous cause to rebuild America. The very survival of our great nation depends on our complete control of its citizens. We must all be thinking the same way, believing the same beliefs and living our lives on the same pathway to success.
“Do I have your support? Olivia?” a nod in Frances’ direction. “Randal?” a thumbs up. “Romano?” another nod. “Donald?”
Donald Snow was reluctant. “Mrs. O’Donnelly, I have the utmost respect for your intelligence and your loyalty to our cause. I just think it’s a little hasty to decide on the leadership of this executive board of the most important organization in America and perhaps the world. I cannot give my total agreement to having you lead us. I reserve my opinion.”
“Fair enough, Donald,” Frances said. “With that, let us proceed with today’s business. Andrew is prepared to brief us on a draft war plan to eliminate FITO. We will take a short break and come back in fifteen minutes.”
Sandy lay her head against Gabriella’s thick black mane of hair. She closed her eyes.
“All this power, these spiritual gifts: Nonina, are we allowed to be normal humans?”
“We must be human, my dear granddaughter. It is through our humble humanity that the Spirit can work. Now watch,” she said, “Anna Stone is acting as our camera there at the conference. She has gone into Frances’ room.”
“You think that will help?” Anna asked Frances.
Frances was pouring an inch of vodka into a glass. “I don’t care if it will help or not. I know it will flush out this terror from my bones.” She threw the drink down her throat and poured another. Then she sat on the couch and leaned back on the cushions and sipped from the glass.
“My god,” Frances said. “Such violence. Look, I’m shaking like a leaf. I have to calm myself down.”
“You are responsible for thousands of violent deaths, Frances,” Anna said. “Have you never been this close to any of them?”
“No. But when you are convinced that your cause is just, you know you are justified and righteous,” Frances said. “In spite of how nervous I am from that mess downstairs, I know we must press on with our surgical operations, eliminating those who obstruct our ultimate goals.
“Anna, I need you to assist us. Call the catering service. Tell them our crew has quit and we will be sending them four more Directorate employees to work for them for the remainder of the conference.”
“All right, Frances, I’ll handle that,” said Anna.
Frances stood up and smoothed out her slacks. “I so appreciate you being here, Anna. You are a comfort to me.” Frances reached over and stroked Anna’s arm.
“You’re welcome,” said Anna.
Sandy observed the conversation. “I wonder how Anna has the ability to assist these barbarians,” she said. “Knowing what she knows about their wicked business, she still manages to be a friend to Frances.”
“Yes,” said Gabriella. “Anna Stone is a remarkable person. I have seen the connection she has to the Spirit. It is more powerful than any I have seen. She never wavers.”
“They’re reconvening in the boardroom. Akebe has been removed,” said Sandy. “Our two angels have permanently disposed of him.”
“Yes,” said Gabriella. “I don’t know if you can see them in their angelic state, can you?”
“Where?”
“They’re in the sky above the mansion giving Ogoun a severe thrashing. He was Akebe’s Loa–his god. It will soon look for another human to demonize,” Gabriella said.
“No, I guess my vision doesn’t include angelic beings yet. That’s fine with me. Whatever I now know about all this paranormal, spiritual, telepathic, telekinesis stuff is all I can handle,” Sandy said.
Sandy looked up at the screen in the sky. “Here we go again, Nonina. The executives are gathering.”
Frances tapped the table with her fingernail. The board gave Frances their attention. “Everyone take a long deep breath. We must proceed.”
“Our operations officer will begin his briefing. Please hold your questions until he takes a break. Andrew?”
“Operation FITO,” Andrew began, “will involve all six of our squads. We will mass our forces in a circle around FITO’s position, attack them, and crush them.”
Gabriella put her arm around her granddaughter. “
Ogoun is hovering over the board members. He seeks a body to inhabit.”
“Yes,” said Sandy, “and it looks like Frances may be slipping away from us.”
The two women on the rock looked at each other, their eyes ablaze with strength and courage. The autumn afternoon sun angled over the ocean casting diamonds on the waves.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
From her command post in the loft of the barn, Sandy looked out at her defense force. They formed up in two companies on the parade filed. Cielavista, once a peaceful seaside estate, now pulsated with the energy of a paramilitary training camp.
Task Force Saber’s two companies, Anvil under Captain Roberto Ramos and Striker under Captain Frederick Sanchez, stood at attention before Colonel Carlos Santiago, Ground Force Commander.
Sandy was amazed at Carlos who mounted a wooden platform at the head of the formation, with Company Anvil to his left and Company Striker to his right. Every warrior maintained a rigid position of attention, dressed in olive drab tee shirts, camouflage pants, and combat boots. Their elderly commander barked out his commands for the day’s physical training.
Sandy’s heart swelled with pride and sadness watching this once happy throng of adults and youths, who should be spending their days home-schooling, gardening, building, farming and fishing, now trained to face a vicious enemy in lethal combat.
At Carlos’ command the trainees assumed the push-up position. In perfect unison they counted out each cadence and the repetition. Thirty push-ups—men, women, and youngsters. They held that position and yelled, “A sword for the Lord and for Gabriella!”
Carlos commanded, “Position of attention,” long pause, “move!”
The warriors-in-training all popped up into the position of attention as one organism.
“Jumping jacks, in cadence,” pause, “exercise!”
Without a break from the push-ups, the unit sprang into the next exercise. Sandy realized the Lord had possessed Carlos with a commander’s spirit, enabling him to rapidly form these individuals into one solid fighting force.
The unit broke down into ten-man platoons for their morning run and Sandy joined the second platoon of Striker Company. She fell right in with the soldiers led by their platoon leader, Paul Sanchez, one of Fredrick’s older sons. It was a three-mile run through the roads and pathways of Cielavista. The pace of the run was quick, and Sandy had to push hard to keep up. The run ended with the platoons returning to the parade ground and reforming in companies. Sandy stepped to the side of the formation, hiding her exhaustion, and listened to Colonel Santiago lead them in prayer.
“Father in heaven, we give ourselves to you again today. We stand at attention before you and await your orders. We trust You, Father, that as you give us our marching orders, You will also give us all the supplies, equipment, and instruction to carry out Your mission. All glory to You, our Supreme Commander.”
And every soldier in the ranks joined Carlos in their battle cry, “A sword for the Lord and for Gabriella!”
“Dismissed,” said the colonel.
The trainees broke ranks and jogged to the mansion for their breakfast in what now was a military chow hall.
At the officers’ table, Sandy, Carlos, Frederick, and Roberto sat together over coffee, fruit, eggs, toast, and bacon.
“Peter has found a range suitable for our weapons training,” said Sandy. “The busses will be here in a few minutes.”
Carlos said, “We’ll need three days there and we’ll be all set weapons-wise. Where is it?”
“It’s an abandoned farm about an hour north of here,” said Sandy. “Used to be owned by a retired army general who brought all his old Army buddies there to shoot.”
“How’d we get permission to use it?” said Carlos.
“We bought it.
“I trust that our Lord will empower our young warriors with excellent marksmanship abilities.
“For your information, we now have an alliance of angels. I have assigned three of them the task of covering the sky overhead with a protective shield that will prevent any enemy observation of our activities. I believe that shield will help to divert them to our decoy location on Cape Neddick.”
Carlos sprang up out of his chair and walked quickly to the stranger who had just walked into the dining hall, a young man who looked too thin for his clothing, whose face was sunken, whose head was shaved bald, and whose eyes looked vaguely familiar.
“Sir,” he said to the young man, “you’re not allowed in here. Come with me.” And he grabbed the man’s arm and began escorting him out. The young man was smiling.
“Well, Carlos, this is a fine welcome home,” he said.
Carlos looked closely at the intruder’s face. Sandy jumped up from the table and ran to him and threw her arms around him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, still clinging to him.
“Hi, Mom, I’m home,” Hank Junior said. “Where’s Dad?”
“A vineyard in New Hampshire,” said Frances. “Who would have ever thought such a place existed? How long will we have this place, Randal?”
“As long as we want,” said Randal. “I’ve leased it for a year, and if we need it for that long, we’ll just buy the place.”
From her command post in the main building on the heights of Zolinos, a vineyard-resort, Frances could see nearly the entire property. Randal had sectioned off the fan-shaped acreage into six encampments, one section for each of their squads. Rows of white modular units had been set up between the rows of grape vines. Frances watched the groups of soldiers slog through the newly graded muddy roads to their training sites. They looked like robots.
Only five days ago the Directorate was finishing up their planning session four hours west at the Canyon Ranch. The buildup for the attack on FITO was rushed and chaotic. Frances took charge of the recruiting network, Randal became the troop commander, and the other three, Romano, Olivia, and Donald divided the logistical and administrative tasks among themselves.
Frances labored under a strange mixture of emotions—resolution of purpose, a sense of patriotism as well as anxiety, mistrust, and fear. She was nowhere as certain of the strategy as Andrew seemed to be. He tried to assure the executive board members that their first priority target would be FITO’s location on Cape Neddick in Maine.
Andrew insisted that all his data and all his logic programs pointed to that conclusion. He showed the board that his telekinetic receivers indicated positive human activity and positive energy emissions from Neddick, all identified with FITO’s imprint. While the indicators from FITO’s previous location near Cape Ann had always been somewhat intermittent, most recently they had faded completely from his recordings.
Frances and Randal accepted Andrew’s assessment with some skepticism, so they located their field headquarters equidistant from both of FITO’s probable sites. That way if Andrew was wrong, they could shift resources from one target to the other. The vineyard outside the tiny country village of Sandown, New Hampshire, proved to be the perfect isolated location for their training camp.
But Frances’ doubts plagued her: too many new personalities, too many loose moving parts to feel the least bit comfortable about the operation. In the past each of Andrew’s six squads operated separately. They were experienced in their roles as seers and operators—locating personnel targets, identifying the shooters, brainwashing them, and supporting their attacks on the obstructionists. But they were woefully inexperienced at leading a force of hypnotized warrior-brutes into combat. And they were even less qualified to cooperate with the other squads in a unified attack.
So as Frances looked out over this rapidly assembled herd trudging through the mud, following orders in their mind-numbed states under the command of an obese, erratic commander—Randal Sanford—she groaned in dismay.
Randal burst into the command center, clumps of mud falling from his absurd rubber boots. His face was flushed. He was hyperventilating. “We need twenty more men. Today.”
“Randal, we have only four more days before we establish our attack positions outside Cape Neddick. This gang of fighters looks like it’s barely capable of any kind of unified operations. How are you going to integrate twenty more new recruits into these units? And how are you going to house them, equip them, and even feed them?”
“See, Frances, I told you. You worry too much. This fighting force is coming along marvelously. You know George Washington fought the British with a militia force that he put together on the fly. Our cause is as important as his at the birth of our nation. We’re only talking about three new warriors in each squad, plus two for the headquarters. Our seers are working on finding them as we speak. They should all be on board by tomorrow morning.”
“Fine, Randal,” said Frances. “By the way, must you keep that silly sword on your belt? It only reminds me of the nasty business we had back at the Ranch.”
“This sword symbolizes my command power,” said Randal. “And what you call nasty business, I call a significant event in the history of the Directorate. Buck up, girl. We have a battle ahead and a mighty victory for our cause.”
With that he tromped out of the command post, leaving his muddy tracks behind. Frances pulled her flask out of her hip pocket and took a long sip of vodka. Before Randal cleared the door, Andrew was pounding on his table and shouting.
Henry and Beto, aboard Water Walker on choppy seas, sat quietly with four lines in the water all baited with cut herring.
“Why we keep coming to the same spot?” said Beto. He was on his second pipe that morning.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it the lighthouse?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many fish we caught here in this spot—in what?—four days in a row. How many?”
“Zero.”
“Just checking. I wondered if my math was off,” said Beto. “I wonder where our weird neighbor went. I kinda miss him, you know. Mister Personality.”
Proof Through the Night Page 17