The Resurrectionist

by Jackson, Gil

  ‘Hello. I want an actor ... Yes, a child will

  do nicely.... And its mother, if you please. The operational notes will be posted you as usual.’ He replaced the telephone. ‘It’s come to it now. And talking of puppeteering you’re little better than me setting up Angus Paul the way you did. Although it was still a good exercise seeing Marco Giuseppi using his powers and getting David Weinberg involved. Pity we didn’t get him killed. An air strike seemed like a good idea. Still, there’ll be other chances, with O’Hare back on the case.’

  Daniel Sullivan smiled. ‘That’s why I shall be overseeing this one personally.’

  ‘Feeling a need to keep your hand in?’ Johnson replied.

  He settled a look of better leave it to me in future on him. ‘It might be as well. Don’t you think?’ Sullivan replied sarcastically.

  ‘And if he recognises you?’ Johnson said.

  ‘He won’t, not after all these years and in any case he won’t be looking for anyone else. He’s after a witness to the unexplainable. I’m safe. And that’s another thing; I’ll have to get Giuseppi from pulling stunts like he did on Weinberg. Making magic on someone like him can get too O’Hare.’ Sullivan replied.

  ‘Yeh! Like you can control him,’ Johnson said adding, ‘He’s getting desperate don’t forget that, he wants him; he’s been waiting 2000 years for his day.’

  ‘Well if he wants our help, that’s our control over him, he’ll have to wait longer, won’t he.’ Sullivan replied. ‘But he’ll not get the outcome that he’s expecting.’

  ‘We hope.’ Johnson said anxiously. ‘But why set O’Hare up in the way you are. Why not let him get fed up with standing on platforms all day?’

  ‘Because he knows too much. And there is ever a chance that he’ll come across someone that’ll know that witness and lead him to us. This way, he won’t.’ Sullivan replied.

  ‘Well, don’t forget, the old fool’s no fool. If he doesn’t know anything of us, it’s a safe bet he’s aware that something’s afoot. But we’ve a link with his past; he’ll know that people are trying to cover this up. If he hasn’t discovered that Spannocs and Giuseppi are one and the same.’ Johnson said.

  ‘Unlikely. All he can be sure of is the existence of the Spannocs. Covering up for him does not necessarily mean that there’s an agreement of the activities to the man.’ Sullivan replied.

  ‘Yes, well we’ve had this argument before, the so-called end justifying the means; and it might not wash in a court of law.’ Johnson said.

  ‘We’re bigger than any court and so is this operation if it brings us to where our masters want us to be....’ Sullivan replied.

  ‘If the world can handle it.’

  ‘Whatever. At the end of the day the human race is on the same side; we may not understand it yet, but we all want what to know who our father is. And I won’t make the mistakes you made with Angus Paul. He might have come near to killing Giuseppi. When Charlie O’Hare’s been dealt with that’ll only leave David Weinberg.’ Sullivan replied.

  ‘There’s an irony. If you hadn’t wanted to be experimenting with Angus Paul, Weinberg would not have been involved. Didn’t see that one coming did you? Thought it would be Charlie O’Hare. You got another that knows. The difference between me and you is I don’t underestimate anyone. And I don’t put my trust in anyone either; that includes our superiors however pious. I’m mindful of what Spannocs’ represents, who he is and how dangerous all this is! And if we’re to survive this so should you. We’ve been working on this a lifetime me and you, lets keep it as tight as the original thinking behind all of it and pray that what we are doing is the right thing.’

  ‘That Pandora returns to her box ... with no more people in high places being involved.’ Johnson said.

  ‘Exactly so. And may the Lord, on His return, not think too unkindly on us for interfering in His business.’

  ‘A-men to that.’

  * * *

  As soon as Lomax had run into his paymasters’ wall of unavailable information looking out the name of the witnesses that were cleaning the station the time the girl’s body was found, confirmed to him what Charlie had been saying all along: that a seam of conspiracy existed within the fabric of the FBI. Or, more, that its right hand not knowing what its left was doing kept responsibility for what they were about, whoever they might be; and however they managed it, well away from John Edgar Hoover. No mean feat.

  Railway maintenance had said she had up and left, which Charlie mentioned was a little unusual for someone from her background. Jobs didn’t fall off trees. He had shrugged off the observation. Her replacement would not have been told anything. Not until Charlie happened to ask her how long she’d been doing her job? Did she know the person she’d replaced? No! The black mama told him that she worked for an agency and was under orders not to speak to strangers! That was the cruncher! The pepperoni on the rye! (He laughed and whispered to himself all at the same time: the fooking conspiracy reveals its ugly ahead once again, so it does.

  Settling for what he was good at; buying a ticket every morning at Brooklyn Central, walking down the platform, watching people coming and going; getting used to the same faces of the workers that used the station for their daily travels to and from offices, and factories: wherever. He knew human nature; knew that people are creatures of habit. That some will give impressions of importance and bury their heads in books or newspapers, bankers, non-manual; others in groups of twos or threes, rough labourers with language to match talking of the game; children with adults, going to school or shopping, or visiting. There were the ones that were different every day: tourists or casual travellers that were using the station infrequently. Soldiers, sailors. But Charlie was looking for something different. He was looking for someone that would give away knowledge of a previous cleaner; and that would show themselves in some way or the other to the present company.

  Hours on end he spent down on that platform until he knew every crack in its walls, on its floor. He saw the same adverts pasted to the walls and watched them being replaced. He watched the Subway Sun change its headline flash from ‘Go And $ave’ to ‘Maybe You Can’t Get To Heaven But You Can Live In New York - Crowded Sure!’; ‘The Resurrectionist Is Coming’; and it made his eyes sore. He persisted. Listening. For a passing comment, anything. The kind of throwaway remark people might make to others they did not know but travelled with daily; something that’s changed, or altered, but by the end of a week or a month or a day they would become familiar and notice. People with outgoing personalities that did not bury themselves within in spite of an overcrowded world; where the human spirit to make a friendly casual acquaintance with another had not been knocked out of them. Cheery souls he called them.

  Six weeks of patient work. Routine that would bore the heart out of a dull-head let alone a thinker. The kind of boredom that would be unimaginable to those same people that would have felt safe in the tracks they covered. Only the single mindedness of a true professional would keep his sanity. And the kind of job that could never be given to another would bear fruit.

  He found what he was looking for. Off the D 6th AV-HOUSTON train. Not quite what he expected; but enough of a lack of subtleness to confirm his presence was not known. She had not long to live herself unless he was quick.

  ‘That’s where that little girl was found hanged!’ she said to her travelling companion as she stepped off the train and onto the platform.

  He looked around and about himself and calmly walked away from her making his way up the platform at a pace.

  * * *

  Charlie O’Hare strolled purposefully out of the subway and into the street. Leaving behind the operational area that he had become so accustomed and at the same time so thoroughly sick. Leaving the multitudes of travellers that he had become familiar and that in another world could so easily be sitting next to in bars, or shops, or museums or libraries. But who remembers such casuals? Except the one that was following him and who, he would have to
lose and reverse roles.

  A priest, someone he would know, have heard of, a suspected existence; but not in the role that he was acting. In spite of the other’s surprise that Charlie had walked away from the set-up and came upon him so quickly he hardly had the time to take any evasive action to bury his identity let alone kill him.’

  Charlie watched from a corner as the man came out of the entrance to the South 4th Street subway and stopped and threw the paper that he had tried to hide behind earlier hard into a bin in frustration that he had so easily lost his man. The realisation that he was the hunted, hailed a Yellow cab. He didn’t have to wait too long before one drew up alongside of him. Got in and whisked into the traffic. Charlie waited for some distance calmly doing the same.

  ‘Would you be so kind as to follow that cab. Double fare.’

  In fifteen minutes the ensuing cab pulled up outside the Christian Science building at

  44th Street and Charlie watched him pay off the driver and walk inside. ‘Here?’ the cabbie said to his passenger.

  ‘No. Drive on by and stop over there, drop me off, go around the block and park on the corner before the building. Wait for me there.’ Charlie got out and walked back on the other side of the street to see the priest come back out, look in both directions and get back into the same cab that was waiting for him. Charlie watched it go, whistled. His cab driver nodded at him through the wind shield and pulled across. He got in.

  ‘Same deal?’

  ‘So it is,’ Charlie replied.

  ‘Want me to find out where he’s going?’

  ‘You can try, but I doubt he’s told him.’

  The driver called his control and got the answer that Charlie had been expecting.

  ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘Forgive me asking, buddy, but whose side you on, only that’s a priest isn’t it, what’s he done?’

  ‘I’m the law, and he’s absconded with the outing money from the church’s old people’s day out at the races.’

  The driver, surprised at such an instant reply, was left with a puzzled look on his face; decided to leave things as they were and drove on silently.

  Charlie settled down for a journey of an indeterminable length and destination. Out onto the interstate highway the cabbie could keep a respectable distance without drawing attention to the occupant of the cab in front. On they drove for fifteen miles before turning at Malaka’s corner on the New Mexico junction. A single road with not another car on it.

  ‘Stop here!’ Charlie shouted.

  He got out. ‘What’s down there?’

  ‘Only a building. Offices. Nothing much. He won’t be able to get out any other way but this one.’

  Charlie got back in. ‘OK. Straight for it fast as you can. Catch that cab and pull him over.’

  They pulled alongside the cab, the priest was running from it. Charlie, paid off, jumped out and chased the passenger from the other cab into the gloom below the building. Straining his eyes to accustom to the dark he saw the priest trying to operate a door with a card. The man turned and Charlie thought he recognised him.

  The man fumbled the card dropping it. Turning he pulled up his cassock, revealed a silenced gun from its folds, fired it once into his chest.

  ‘Stay down!’

  He went outside into the daylight the still smoking gun at his side. The cab driver wound down his window.

  ‘Everything OK, sir?’

  ‘Everything’s fine ... sir.’

  Levelled the gun at the driver’s head and let go his second bullet of the day. Pulling the driver from his cab, he let his body fall among the dust and parched cactus at the side of the road. Blood came from one of the stab-holes that were each side of the driver’s neck — neither caused by a cactus needle. He would not walk away from a second death. The priest looked down at the body, genuflected, sat in his still warm seat and drove off.

  * * *

  Charlie ever so slowly opened his eye and viewed what he could. Seeing nothing he turned his head, still seeing nothing lifted himself from the dust of the floor and brushed himself down. Slightly dazed from the impact of the bullet he steadied himself against a car and unbuttoned his shirt to see what damage it had done. Pulled off the bullet protective vest beneath his shirt and held it to the light. He looked through a burn hole. A momentary sweat and nausea came across him and he flung the vest into a trash can in the corner. He pulled himself together stepping out into the daylight and began a hot, dusty three mile walk back to civilisation to flag down a passing car and interview the witness he would not have any trouble finding a second time.

  * * *

  Franklin Lomax was surprised that Charlie had found the witness to the girl that had been found hanging. That he had to wait six weeks to track her down he thought routine of taedium vitae of the order most high. And shocked when he casually mentioned she had seen a paranormal event, went on to re-count what she had said to him.

  ‘Screaming she was. They closed the station for the night for engineering works and I hadn’t been told, I was still in the tunnel. Like a banshee, a woman with long flowing hair and no face pulled the little girl hanging at the entrance to the tunnel and laid her gently down on the platform. Another, this one looked to be a demon, came on to her but was driven away by yet another but not without a struggle by others: a short black shimmering creature. Maintenance crews: men in white coats with electrical boxes and wires that were connected to the electricity supply from the subway switched on the power and threw copper bands over something. I didn’t dare move in case the rails got live. There were flashes of electricity like lightning that held onto something, before screaming and fighting it managed to release itself and fly off into the tunnel right past me. It was like a scene from a mad-house.... Then they saw me....’

  ‘What happened ... next? When they saw you?’ Charlie asked her, admiring the way this woman managed to hold down a job with only one arm.

  ‘One gave me a fifty dollar bill, said they were making a film and that I was to say nothing....’

  * * *

  ‘Perhaps they were,’ Lomax said.

  ‘They weren’t making no film,’ Charlie said. ‘They were trying to trap something from outer space, or somewhere—’

  Lomax propped his head into his hand. ‘Charlie. This is going to have to stop. You’re going to have to retire. You’re seeing things, again.’

  ‘Am I? Frank saw the same thing. Twenty-four years ago. And now David. And it’s all making perfect sense now, and you’ve to abandon preconceived ideas and come with me and Frank on this. You had an unsolicited telephone call to withdraw David from Mexico, didn’t you? Paul’s gone, after going after Frederick Spannocs, head of Ocean. Ty Colsson, the CIA man, killed in a helicopter crash after his release from hospital — hit by a freak electrical storm — or so they said. The same hospital that he was in with David Weinberg after they were “accidentally gas attacked during a government scientific programme to control wood wasp” in Mexico by our own people. And the chances of David making anything like a full recovery from that are remote — his lungs are likely fooked! Now this Government Agent — I’m convinced of that — dressed as a priest. Turns up and after a car chase shoots me before making his escape. And if we looked deeper, I’ll bet you a dollar to a dime, someone within the Bureau knows who he is. Are you with me? Or are you that man and know it all anyway?’ Charlie put his hand to his shoulder holster and took hold of the handle of his gun.

  Lomax familiar with the movement and seeing the desperation in his face; absentmindedly scratched his forehead, stopping short for he was looking down the barrel of a Colt .38. He stayed still fearing that Charlie might overreact and shoot him. The silence between the two men was overwhelming. He reached out to Charlie’s hand and slowly moved the barrel slowly away from his own face. Charlie instinctively flicked his armed wrist and repositioned it at Lomax’s temple, lowered it. ‘Let me tell you what I know.’ Lomax said.

  Charlie stayed poised.<
br />
  ‘From what you’ve told me: your part in all of this, I’ll accept. Having said that though I have not altogether been as blind as you think I have, excepting creatures from outer space, the lack of any real activity in the pursuit of the continuing crimes against children is a wonder both to me and others. Now I know we’ve had arguments about Frederick Spannocs and Ocean International; but I’ve also had directives from Hoover’s office, as David has to leave it all alone; which that spoke volumes to me. But having said that I’ve also had directives to pursue enough to satisfy the police, the newspapers, councillors and senators because of public interest....’

  ‘Public interest?’ Charlie queried of him.

  Lomax held up his hand to quieten him.

  ‘... And that, as diplomatically as I can, I have done; as also the humouring of you with Allan Georgos: oh, yes, he’s with the FBI, but not a part that either you or me would recognise. And yes, he worked with Angus Paul, or thought he did. For it turns out that their masters were not the same. That is where we start to lose it. What Georgos said about him and his illness was true; he did suffer a virus that affected his brain, and maybe his judgement. For whoever his masters are; and we don’t know; nor does anyone else — or are not admitting to it if they do — we can’t be certain that it was his brief to take out Frederick Spannocs or whether he tried by his own volition. The one thing I can tell you for certain is that there is no such organisation as the Order of the Most Divine Third Circle or whatever they styled themselves, at least not in our vocabulary of cranky get-togethers and let’s have a laugh list. The only mention of it is confined to the notes that were found in Paul’s office by Georgos, which you and I are aware. Angus Paul is dead; and the fact that no one has owned up to that within our illustrious ranks, left with the agreement to send David Weinberg to Mexico to investigate his disappearance — which coincidentally — dragged up old acquaintances and friends for you. The chapter on that file being closed. OK so far?’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘Good. Events that you have been involved with the last six, ahmm, excuse me, weeks: what you have told me of your life experiences: psychic phenomenon....’