The Atua Man

by John Stephenson

  Jason held her tight and said in a quiet voice, “Okay. We’ll be careful. They have guards in the hall and in the parking garage.”

  Lillian had tears streaming down her face. Jason hugged her and for the first time in his life he felt extremely vulnerable. He handed her the mobile phone.

  “This is Melanie’s. I don’t think they can tap into it. I want you to call your father and see if you and Alex can stay with them for a couple of weeks,” He whispered.

  She looked at the phone briefly and put it on the table.

  “Oh, they’d love that, but how are we going to get Alex up to Chester?”

  He reached into his pocket and gave Lillian the keys he’d taken from the garage. “Just drive up there,” he said in a very hushed tone.

  “We’re just reacting, Jason. We need to think this through; meditate.” She put the car keys on the table next to the phone.

  “You’re right.”

  Hand in hand they walked over and sat in their meditation chairs. Jason quickly attained a complete mental stillness. Lillian closed her eyes and cleared her mind of the thoughts surrounding their situation. She tried to release the fear and speculation about what was happening.

  Jason felt himself begin to merge with the fabric of life. slipping into the nonphysical dimension. Something in the back of Jason’s mind prompted him to squeeze Lillian’s hand.

  Lillian opened her eyes and saw him dissolving into the atmosphere. He was like a digital photo that had been blown up and pixilated. She saw the spaces around the molecules, and what appeared to be solid looked like a holographic projection. She looked down at her hand in Jason’s hand, and it was as ethereal as his.

  “Jason!” she said loud enough to bring Jason back into the physical.

  He opened his eyes, looked into Lillian’s eyes and then down at their hands. They both watched their hands and arms come back to physical reality and spent a moment in deep silence and awe. And then they looked at each other’s countenance and burst out laughing.

  “Okay, now what?” Lillian said.

  “How about some music?” He smiled, got up, pulled Lillian from her chair—they had not let go of each other—and he led her over to the kitchen table. He tuned the radio to a soft rock station, and she turned it a little louder than normal.

  “You and Alex have to get away from me so you can’t be used to force me to do something I don’t want to do. Right?” Jason said.

  “Okay. But you’ll be a prisoner. They’ll control what the world sees of you. How will we know what’s really happening?”

  “I’ll keep Melanie’s phone and use your computer.”

  “You think it will be safe?” Lillian opened the phone and jotted down the number on a scratch pad.

  Jason shrugged his shoulders. “You’ll be in the normal world up there and can get police protection if you need it. Tell them there are some issues at the ministry…”

  “Dad will love that.”

  “Yeah, I know. You can play on his dislike for me. You’ll have Alex’s computer and your mobile.”

  “And Alex’s mobile.”

  “So, we’re good.”

  Lillian hugged Jason again, but this time without tears. “I guess I better get going.”

  Jason’s mind was already elsewhere. “I guess I’ll have to redo the trust,” he said as Lillian left.

  Outside her apartment Lillian walked quickly toward the elevator at the end of the hall. “I’m going to fetch Alex. Do you know if Donny’s in the garage?” she said to Thomas as she hurried past.

  Thomas Parker thumbed the button on his lapel mike and gave this information to watch captain. Just as the elevator door closed he called out, “Wait. Donny’s not there!”

  The elevator landed in the garage and Lillian looked at the collection of keys Jason had given her. She recognized the key to the Range Rover, the vehicle she and Donny usually used, and walked over to where it was parked. Two repairmen were fixing the door to the parking office that Jason had kicked in, and the regular guard was standing at the gated entry from the street.

  Lillian unlocked the door to the Range Rover using the remote on the key, got into the black SUV, and started it. She immediately locked the door, adjusted the mirrors and seat, and looked to see if anybody was approaching her. The men working on the kiosk looked up briefly but immediately went back to work when they saw that it was Lillian. She backed out of the stall and drove toward the exit. Again, she looked to see if anybody was running toward her. At the security gate, Lillian waved to the guard and put her window down. “I’m going to pick up Alex from school,” she said.

  “Where’s Donny?” the guard asked.

  “I really don’t know, but I’m late. I don’t want Alex hanging around waiting for me,” she said and the guard opened the roll-up gate. As soon as she cleared the gate she accelerated up the steep driveway onto Wetherby Gardens. She turned right, away from the barricades and the crowds facing Stanford House, and drove quickly down the empty street toward Earl’s Court Road where she made a left and headed for the Thames.

  Barbara hung up the phone and put on the large loop earring she’d taken off for her call. Her trademark was oversized jewelry, but it had its drawbacks. She was at her desk in the ministry’s media center and buzzed for her assistant. The ministry owned a part of StarSatellite, one of Tony’s first purchases. StarSat circled the globe with sports and news, but kept a third of its capacity for St. John Ministries programming. Hidden behind the Tudor parapets on the roof, unseen by the neighborhood, was an array of satellite dishes that kept the world informed of the St. John Ministries activities and programs.

  Jimmy, a young Jamaican man in his thirties, leaned into Barbara’s office and said, “We’re back on line.”

  “Far out,” Barbara said. Jimmy was about to go when Barbara motioned him closer. He smiled, and listened intently. “We’re a go. I just hung up with Bishop Eastman and we’ve got our panel for the show. Get the word out that we will be live this Friday, prime time at seven o’clock GMT. We’ll broadcast on all media. Build up anticipation on MySpace, Friendster, and the other social media platforms. Use the normal key words plus apparitions, sightings, Marsdan … whatever else you can think of to connect this to Jason’s appearance at the hospital. And make up a thirty-second promo to run on The Healing Hour.”

  Jimmy nodded, still smiling, giving Barbara a thumbs-up as he headed back to his cubicle.

  Gary Howell entered on Jimmy’s heels, and he wasn’t smiling. “You’re really going through with this?”

  “The board voted, and Jason agreed. What can I say?” Barbara looked back at her notes.

  “Tony wants to add another person to the panel, the Reverend Cyrus Germaine of Hope Chapel in Southwark.”

  Barbara was stunned. “Are you kidding? He’s the most hateful man I know. Racist, too!”

  “We need a balanced panel, and Tony wants Theodore Spencer to moderate.”

  Barbara couldn’t believe this. “I thought Tony hated that little weasel.”

  “He does, but who better to tell the world the truth about Jason, that Jason is a normal person like you and me, and that the world has nothing to fear from him or our ministry?”

  “I thought we were going to talk about apparitions—the nature of reality, and how it can be misperceived.”

  “We’re going to make sure the world believes that Jason was nowhere near Marsdan Hospital, and what that girl saw was an apparition.”

  “Okay.” Barbara said skeptically. “You won’t be able to control Spencer. I get the feeling you want to sabotage our program.”

  “You just keep to the script we give you and everything will go as planned.”

  Barbara swallowed Gary’s condescending attitude with a smile of her own. “We’ve got that French quantum physicists interested but I doubt he’ll sit in the same room with Cyrus Germaine.”

  “Fuck the scientist. Just make sure Germaine and Spencer get the invitations and passes the
y need. Everything else is arranged.”

  Gary left. Barbara followed him out and walked over to another cubicle. She leaned in to talk to a young staffer.

  “Joyce, tell me, what’s the word on Jason’s appearing to those girls?”

  Joyce pulled up the current data on her iMac. “Twenty-seven percent believe he actually did appear, thirty-two percent think the girls were hallucinating, and that consistent twenty-five percent believe it’s just another sign that St. John is the Antichrist. The rest had no opinion.”

  Chapter 8

  Kensington, London

  Tuesday Afternoon, November 2004

  Theodore Spencer stood on the corner of Wetherby and Bolton Gardens, having milked the crowd for their opinions about St. John’s appearance at the hospital. He was waiting for Samuel to bring the car around when Lillian St. John, in the black Range Rover, raced out of the Ministry’s garage.

  Spencer grabbed his mobile and speed dialed Samuel. “Where are you?”

  “Brompton, turning on Bolton now,” came back Samuel’s voice on the phone.

  “Shake a leg. I just saw Mrs. St. John leaving the Ministry in a terrible hurry.”

  Samuel drove up a moment later, stopped, threw open the passenger door, and Spencer jumped in. “Go down Wetherby. She’s in a black Range Rover.”

  Samuel turned down Wetherby and accelerated when another car, a Jaguar sedan, flew out from the Ministry’s garage, forcing Samuel to slam on the brakes.

  “What the … Who’s that?” Samuel asked.

  Spencer thumbed through pictures of Ministry personnel in his notebook as Samuel picked up speed and followed the second car. “Looks like Gary Howell, their Head of Security, but I don’t know who’s driving. Head after both of them.”

  Lillian kept looking in her rearview mirror but couldn’t tell if she was being followed. Her normal route took her along King’s Road to Fulham High Street for the fifteen-minute trip to Alex’s school. She had to assume that if Tony knew she’d left the compound, he’d figure out where she was going and would send a car after her. She needed to think and make some calls, not just rush ahead like the others might expect. She was only a couple of minutes from Putney Bridge and just beyond that was the Putney Exchange shopping center. She decided to duck into the shopping center to plan her next move

  The traffic wasn’t bad. She crossed the Thames just as the signal changed, and knew that would give her a couple of minutes on whoever might be following her. She turned into the shopping center and drove up to the rooftop parking.

  First Lillian rang Alex’s school. She knew Alex wasn’t allowed to answer his phone while on campus, but she also knew that the school recognized Alex’s need for additional security and in that way the school was very cooperative. She reached the Junior School secretary and asked her to pull Alex from his rehearsal and have him call her. Then Lillian called Sir William Boyd, their solicitor, and arranged a Skype meeting with Jason for the following morning. Lastly, she called Jason on Melanie’s phone and told him of his appointment with Sir William. She didn’t want to stay on the line for long and told him to check her MySpace page for more information. She reminded him that she left her password on the dining room table. A moment later her mobile rang.

  “Mom,” Alex said anxiously, “what’s going on?”

  “Everything’s okay, just a little change of plans. I’m coming to pick you up early, but not in our usual place. You know that pub across the street from your school? On Woodhayes Road? Run over there and wait for me in the little courtyard.”

  “Why can’t you just pick me up in front of the school?”

  “Donny and Mr. Howell are probably on their way and I don’t want you to go with them. Grab your things and go over to the courtyard now.”

  Alex heard his mother ring off. The secretary released him, and he picked up his backpack from the foyer, and left the school. He ran over to the pub on the far side of the little triangle park and hid behind an iron fence in the pub’s courtyard.

  A couple of minutes later Alex watched a Ministry Jaguar pull up in front of his school. Donny got out and rushed into the building. And then another car, one that Alex didn’t recognize, drove slowly past the school and turned off West Side Common to park across the street from the pub. Alex then saw his mother pass the school and the Ministry’s Jaguar. She didn’t slow down but looped around the little triangle common, and pulled up in front of the pub. She stopped the Rover so that Alex could get in without being seen. Alex left his hiding place in the patio and jumped into the car. As soon as he was inside and buckled up, Lillian pulled away and headed back the way she came.

  Spencer stood beside his Vauxhall, leaned on the open passenger door and watched Gary wait for Donny in front of the school. He didn’t notice Lillian drive by.

  “Isn’t that the black Range Rover we were following?” Samuel hollered as Lillian accelerated up the road.

  Spencer saw the SUV and jumped into Butler’s Vauxhall yelling, “Go! Go! Go!”

  “What’s she up to?” Samuel asked, pulling away as fast as the old car could.

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  “Why would she pick up her kid at a pub and not at school?

  Spencer smiled. He had a feeling that things were going to get juicy. “Like I said, we’re going to find out.”

  Chapter 9

  Chester, England

  Tuesday Evening, November 2004

  That evening, not yet twenty-four hours since Jason had appeared before the girls at Marsdan Hospital, Lillian sat in the parlor of her parents’ home thinking how radically her life had changed that day. In the last ten years, since Jason had established the trust and made her, David, Melanie, and Dorothy trustees, Lillian had lost many of her friends as well as her freedom. Now she felt she was on the verge of losing her husband too.

  The early days of the work had been thrilling. Jason would speak to thousands of people about his book and was able to lift many of them to the heights of spiritual bliss. With baby Alex strapped to her back, Lillian had seen her husband’s effect on people, and she’d felt the love of the crowds and had witnessed so many people transformed and healed. David had been their only helper—he had done everything from rounding up volunteers, to managing the large number of people, to babysitting Alex when she and Jason had needed to be alone. Melanie was also part of the early days, although she seldom traveled with them. Melanie handled the tons of mail that came to Lillian’s London flat and made sure the embryonic Ministry had enough money to operate. Dorothy stayed in the apartment and edited the transcripts from the rallies that would later become Jason’s best-selling books. The detractors and hatemongers had yet to surface, and the need for a trust and a board of directors hadn’t even been considered. Fame had not yet become a kind of prison.

  Lillian questioned why she wanted David to come back. He had been in her life nearly as long as Jason. If circumstances had been different, she might be living in Hawaii with David instead of in Jason’s fishbowl in London. She had noticed the look on Jason’s face when she suggested they call him. Jason and David would always be best friends, but when Lillian was with the two men, their competiveness made her uncomfortable.

  Nancy Harvey, Lillian’s mother, came into the parlor and set two glasses of sherry on the coffee table along with a package of letters tied with a ribbon. “I found these when I was getting your room ready.”

  Lillian looked at the letters as if they were toxic. “Did you read them?”

  “Of course. I’m your mother.”

  “I should have burned them years ago.”

  Nancy put her hand on her daughter’s hand with a mother’s love and the wisdom not to say anything. The ladies looked into the flames of a small fireplace.

  “Dave is coming back,” Lillian says softly.

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “It seems the only way out of this mess.”

  “Won’t it stir up old feelings?”
<
br />   “Oh, Mom, not at all. Jason caused this current mess just by being himself. It was my idea to call Dave. At first Jason didn’t want to. I think he was more hurt when Dave left the Ministry than I ever was. Of course Jason thought David betrayed him, and in a way he did. Dave was the buffer Jason needed so that he could stretch his saintly wings. I don’t think Jason ever realized how much he used David. I think Jason saw David as an extension of himself. I cringe to think where we’re all headed.”

  “My poor darling. All I want for you is to be happy.”

  Chapter 10

  Oahu, Hawaiian Islands

  Tuesday Morning, November 2004

  That morning, before dawn, David drove out to the North Shore with his nine-foot-six-inch Dick Brewer surfboard hanging out the back of his pickup. He had heard that a swell was coming in and the radio had confirmed it. He was tuned to Perry and Price, Honolulu’s morning radio show for commuters. They played some music, gave the weather and surf reports, commented on the news, and warned of traffic tieups. David wondered if they would mention Jason. The Marsdan incident was the kind of story they loved to comment on.

  He switched the radio off and put a tape in his cassette deck. He didn’t want to hear about Jason. With the windows down and Leon Russell’s Back to the Island blasting from his dash, David left the ever-growing Honolulu suburbs, passed Schofield Barracks, and motored up the grade through what used to be acres of sugarcane and pineapple fields. Now they were mostly fallow. He had a setting moon in front of him and in a few minutes he would be at Laniakea sliding across smooth walls of curling energy contending with a gang of kids young enough to be his children. He would be doing exactly what they were doing, getting connected to the sea before going to school, or work… or London for that matter.

  David was the same age as Jason, taller, and now fifteen pounds heavier than he had been in his twenties. He had gray hair and needed glasses to read a menu. He parked his truck across the highway from the surf break. The beach came right up to the highway at that point and the only place to park was a patch of dirt along what had once been a cane field. The surf was perfect and only a few people were out in the water that early. A station wagon drove onto the shoulder across the highway from him and stopped, blocking his view of the waves. A pair of thirteen-year-old boys pulled their boards from the back of the car and ran off toward the beach. David could hear the adult who dropped them off shout after them to not be late for school. The scene reminded him of the August afternoon when he and Jason were that age, and the event that changed his life. It was the first time he realized how dangerous Jason could be.