The New World Covenant

by Norm & Kim Bourque

  You are the destination

  And wish of my heart

  You are the ending

  The middle and the start

  You are my lifetime

  For you I'd die

  You are my happiness

  And that's why I cry

  Chapter 31

  It was going to be another late night for Shirley enchained in her own sadness. There seemed to be more nights like this than there used to be. Her heart was especially heavy tonight. She needed a distraction from the ache of not having him beside her. Lately he’d been spending too many nights away on business trips. Of course, she knew his latest companion was there with him. It wouldn’t last, this was just another in a long line of secretaries, someday maybe he would grow tired of this lifestyle and realize she was still waiting for him.

  She reached for her laptop; she needed something to fill the empty void. Maybe the chat room would help her tonight. The chat room seemed pretty active tonight, thought Shirley as she entered her username and password.

  Her curiosity was quickly satisfied when she read the topic of the night. Who are the mysterious Messengers that seem to be walking amongst us?

  She usually enjoyed reading the threads, starting from the initial message through to the most recent post. They were usually so harmless and distracting. Some of the conversations were really quite funny.

  As she read the first few messages, she realized there was something very different being discussed tonight. There was fear, concern, confusion, and a sense of heightened awareness, something magical and mystical all over the world, all happening within the last week.

  The first thread started with an account from an eyewitness stating that the Baptist minister at his church had vanished while giving his fiery sermon. Everyone saw it but no one seems to know what happened to him. They searched the entire building but all they could find were the clothes he was wearing. Shirley laughed, expecting the responses to be more light and dismissive, but as she read them, she felt frightened.

  kelly555 wrote that the same thing happened in their small Amish community. Seven of their leaders went into a meeting room and just vanished, all they could find were their clothes and personal items littered around the room.

  MustafaH offered his story as well, stating that his Imam had been talking to a Journalist but shortly after the young man left, the Imam was gone, but what was strange, was that he left his clothes behind.

  RHStrong reported that a nun at her orphanage just walked out the door one day to tend to the garden and they found her clothes alongside the path leading to the garden.

  This strange behaviour was not exclusive to religious people either.

  One of the strangest stories was that of WolfmanJ who told an eerie tale of an entire shipload of people that just vanished. He remembered standing on the shore watching this ship as it floundered in the surf. It had hit a submerged rock and was now leaning precariously on its side. People were jumping from the deck and as they fell, their bodies vanished. The only things recovered were clothes.

  Another report that disturbed Shirley was of a miraculous event that supposedly occurred in a mine in China. With all the stories coming out of that country, their lack of human rights, and total disregard for human life, one hundred twelve miners were working deep in the earth when an ominous rumbling sound came from a methane gas explosion and the tunnel collapsed in on itself. Fearing all the miners were dead, rescuers frantically tried to dig down into the shaft, hoping they were wrong. As they worked, they heard many voices. They looked up and coming towards them out of a thick mist were the miners. When questioned, they were unable to account for how they got out of the tunnel. One miner thought he had seen a stranger with glowing eyes smile at him just before he walked out of the mist.

  Shirley signed out of the chat room, unable to continue to read of these miracles. There had to be a logical explanation or all these people were making it up or they were hallucinating.

  However, chat rooms weren't the only locations where discussions of strange events were occurring. Every form of social media was alive with bizarre discussions of people vanishing. Some very credible eyewitnesses were reporting some of the vanished included prominent members of religious organizations. Many others among the missing include members of charitable organizations and even corporate businesses.

  The World News Community has reported there have been dozens of reports of religious figures, many of whom are the leaders of their faith, mysteriously disappearing over the past few days. They further confirmed they have been overwhelmed with reports of miracles and mysterious strangers at many of the scenes of the miracles.

  Every hour news wires around the globe were finding themselves inundated with new reports of vanishings or miraculous acts of people being save from certain death.

  Could it just be possible that God had sent His Messengers and that they are responsible for the miracles and saving so many people's lives. Are these Messengers really Angels? Is this His way of showing His love, or is this the "great tribulation"? People are disappearing "in a twinkling of an eye". Could this be evidence of "The Rapture" as prophesized? In the beliefs of so many different religious people, were these really the signs of the end of times? Then she thought, aren't miracles good signs not bad ones, when so many people are benefiting and having a second chance in life.

  "There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to why these individuals are vanishing nor does it seem to be restricted to just one religious organization," confirmed a spokesperson from Interpol.

  Homeland Security, Scotland Yard, and the International Policing Community have confirmed this statement and many other similar ones.

  One report included a comment by a high ranking official, "the people in question just disappeared, leaving only the clothing they were wearing at the time and to-date we have no trace or clues to the whereabouts of these people."

  Another spokesperson for Scotland Yard confirmed they have not had any success locating the missing individuals in their jurisdiction either, but did confirm that there have been no demands of ransom received in any of their cases. They also confirmed numerous witnesses remembered seeing a stranger in the area just shortly before the individual or individuals disappeared.

  Shirley thought to herself, with all these apparent miracles happening all over the world and thousands of people being saved from certain death, it suddenly dawned on her that she also needed a miracle to save her own marriage. Why couldn't she have a second chance too?

  The only way it could get any worse for her, is if she lost him, but had he not already lost her, if so, then what?

  The feelings and emotions welled up inside her as she came to the realization that love, faithfulness and commitment should not all be one sided. She continued to contemplate her own sad and lonely thoughts until it became clear to her what she must do. Something she had not done in such a long time, it was time to find her again. What other options did she have? She would call on him she thought, He is a shoulder that I can cry on, an ear for my voice.

  He had always been there for her in the past, never questioning or letting her down, listening to what she had to say, offering advice in that silent and transparent way he had. Although not totally forgotten, she had slipped away from him, putting some distance between them. Time to fix that, she thought, I need you, she realized.

  She began to pray...to God...for nothing more than guidance, hope, and encouragement to "believe" in the value of herself again.

  Chapter 32

  The squad room had a modern, up-to-date layout. Four-foot partition walls formed cubicles consisting of two desks, a visitor's chair, and a large white board. This arrangement afforded both an element of privacy and a quieter environment in which officers were able to work.

  The squad room was quiet over the dinner hour, many of the cubicles lay empty, and Murphy took advantage of the quietness to work on his reports while Jack was at the dentist's office. He had spent so
much time in the field and at the hospital that he hadn’t had a chance to catch up on the paperwork that always piled up on investigations.

  He found the report from Porter on his search of the hospitals. Two young African American youths received stitches that night, one on the forearm and the other to the chest. They were uncooperative when questioned by police but one of the officers recognized one of the youths from his days on the gang unit. He belonged to a group called the Scorpions, which corroborated their suspicions the injuries were the result of the recent gang fight. One of the other hospitals reported a young Latino boy with a broken arm, also consistent with a fight but he had already left the hospital before police could question him.

  A follow up report from the Forensics lab was included in his inbox. The day before, Murphy had asked them to check out the gun found at the gang scene in more detail. The fact that Sylvia confirmed that the gun did not work concerned Murphy and he wanted to follow up on it. He eagerly read the report. The gun had undergone numerous tests in the ballistics lab, and each time the firing mechanism worked perfectly. There was no evidence there was any fault in the operation of the gun. Interesting, he thought.

  He set up four piles of file folders in front of him, one for the robbery and missing suspect, one for the gang incident and missing boyfriend, and the last ones for the missing Rabbi and his daughter.

  He reviewed each file, scribbling notes on a pad. There was something off about these cases, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Maybe if he wrote out the key items from each, that mysterious something might just reveal it. He moved to his whiteboard.

  An hour later, he stood back and stared at the board.

  He had drawn four columns.

  Column 1 contained details on the Robbery:

  - Successfully robs the bank but doesn't take money

  - Car found parked two blocks from credit union

  - Johnny Strickland?

  - Motive for robbery - sick kid, needs money

  - He disappears

  - Leaves his clothes, gun & money

  - No witnesses to disappearance

  - Talking to someone prior to disappearance (Video evidence)

  - Has not shown up or contacted family

  - Has not visited hospital but devoted father (visited every day prior to robbery)

  - Stranger with green eyes has been to visit sick child (did not sign in)

  Under Column 2, he had written details on Rabbi Jossel:

  - Is alone in his room

  - Motive - Daughter's mental health & wellbeing

  - He disappears

  - Leaves his clothes

  - No witnesses to disappearance

  - Contact with a stranger earlier - salesman with green eyes

  - Has not shown up or contacted family

  - Has not contacted Synagogue

  - Has not visited hospital where daughter was living

  - Prominent position in Synagogue

  - Considered conscientious, responsible individual, well respected

  Under Column 3, he had written details on Hannah:

  - Is alone in her room in secured institution

  - Motive - Mentally disturbed with guilt feelings on death of husband

  - She disappears

  - Leaves her clothes

  - No witnesses to disappearance

  - Unidentified male nurse with green eyes in hospital (at time of disappearance)

  - Has not shown up

  - Has not attempted to return home or contact family

  - Talked to fired employees - no male nurse on staff - who was the Stranger?

  Under Column 4, he had written details on Vince and the Gang Fight:

  - Is with a crowd of people

  - Gang Leader - Vince Diaz

  - Motive - Turf War or possible Domestic Violence

  - He disappears

  - Leaves his clothes and weapons

  - Witnesses - girlfriend and other gang members (not confirmed)

  - Stranger talking to him at time of disappearance

  - Has not shown up

  - Has not contacted girlfriend

  - Gang members had guns that didn't fire. (Why not?)

  - Ballistics confirms one gun found at scene should have worked.

  - Stranger had green eyes.

  As his eyes moved through the four columns, he realized there were some similarities between them all. He took another colored marker and began underlining the common threads in each case.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” he said aloud, scratching the back of his neck.

  When he stepped back this time, the board had underlined items in all four columns.

  He studied the list of similarities:

  Someone disappears

  They leave their clothes

  Possibly talks to someone before disappearing (possible male with green eyes)

  Has not shown up or contacted their families

  Murphy sat in his chair and stared at the board, trying to understand the implications.

  Who was this stranger with green eyes that always seemed to show up? What was the connection? There had to be something, green eyes really aren't that common and there is just too much coincidence in the similar descriptions of all of the identifications.

  He turned to his computer and entered the world of the Internet. Knowing what to look for, it didn’t take him long to find similarities. Pages of printed-paper later, he had answers but even more questions as well.

  How and why, he kept asking himself as he read the papers, his highlighter filling the pages with bright streaks of yellow.

  Sensing there may be a connection to his own cases, he added some of the information from the printed pages into a fifth column on the board.

  Internet - UNUSUAL DISAPPEARANCES:

  Religious Figures:

  - 7 Amish leaders

  - An Imam

  - A nun

  - 2 Buddhist Monks

  - 4 Priests

  - A Baptist Minister

  - A Salvation Army volunteer

  - A Senior Terrorist Leader

  - Many others (too many to list)

  Other Disappearances:

  - A whole ship full of researchers & scientists studying climate change

  - An archaeologist

  - A geologist

  - A librarian

  - A stay-at-home mother of six

  - 3 lawyers

  - An accountant

  - The CEO of an International Oil & Gas Company

  He was running out of room to put any more Disappearances, there were too many to list.

  In all of the reported disappearances listed above, there were indications the people left behind piles of clothing, same as in his own cases. Those reports that included witnesses also identified a stranger in the vicinity at the time of the disappearances of the possible victims. However, what were they victims of?

  During his research, he had noted there had been numerous reports of miraculous events, including people saved from certain death, but even in these cases, there was mention of a stranger showing up to save them.

  Jack found him there much later, bleary eyed, hair jutting out from his head in an untidy mess, his tie was gone, and his shirt was wet with sweat.

  “Man, you look like the dog's breakfast. What have you been up to while I was gone?” Jack asked as he slumped into his chair, rubbing his sore jaw.

  “I’ve been sorting out these case files while you’ve been taking it easy in a dentist chair. By the way, can I get you a donut?" Murphy retorted. Jack laughed.

  He continued, "None of this makes any sense.” He grabbed the stack of papers and threw them on his desk.”

  Jack studied his partner. He hadn’t seen him this riled up in many years, probably not since before he’d met Seraphina.

  “Well, try it out on me. I’ll tell you if it does or doesn’t,” Jack said.

  Murphy went to the board and started to explain.

 
It took some time for Murphy to lead Jack through the material to reach his conclusion, and by then Jack looked just as confused as Murphy.

  “So you’re saying they are all connected?” Jack asked.

  “I can’t see any other way around it, and believe me, I’ve tried,” croaked Murphy, his throat dry.

  Jack studied the board closely. There was no denying it, Murphy was right, there did seem to be a connection, there were just too many disappearances without a valid explanation. Others had witnessed some of those disappearances listed, but as in the case of the Rabbi and his daughter, there were no witnesses for some as they were alone at the time, but there also was no logical explanation for them especially if you took in the clothes left behind. Some of the cases referenced the appearance of a stranger shortly before the vanishings as well, which also tied in with their cases.

  “Okay, so let's say you’re right and it’s not just a coincidence. Where does that leave us?” Jack asked Murphy.

  Murphy replied, “If we assume there is no coincidence and they are all connected then we need to get more information on who, what, why, and especially how, these things are being done. So let’s be real clear on what we are looking for?”

  "In all of these incidents including our four cases, people have just disappeared," Jack responded.

  Murphy nodded. "There's also one more common thread that specifically connects our four disappearances together," he paused, "They all seem to have had a visitor just prior to vanishing."

  Jack agreed, "That visitor thing does seem to be too much of a coincidence. Let's take this one-step further. I've been reading about a number of miracles happening lately, the saving of hundreds of lives. There's a story of miners in China led out of a mine where there had been an explosion and one about a plane that mysteriously landed in a cornfield with part of its wing missing. Another one where hundreds of people were saved from a fire by a mysterious stranger, the whole building was burnt to the ground. There seems to be dozens of stories on the Internet. I wonder if there is something to connect these miracles with the disappearances as well."