The Watchers

by Reakes, Wendy

  “Farewell, Lakey.”

  “Wait, my name’s not Lake…”

  But they were gone.

  Now, at two AM, despite her soothing hot bath, Mia was on edge. She tightened her robe and gazed with longing at her soft bed. She wanted more than anything to slide beneath the sheets and sleep forever. Instead, she went to her desk in the corner of the room. She turned on her PC and waited for it to fire up. “Come on, come on…” She strummed her fingernails on the side of the keyboard. There. She typed in her password, Watcher1. A picture of Tom larking about in Times Square flashed onto the screen. She was in.

  She checked her IMS for a message from him. Nothing!

  She did the calculation. She hadn’t had any contact with Tom since yesterday morning.

  “Where are you, Stoney?” Mia muttered to herself. “Where are you?”

  Tom could feel his cell phone vibrate. Text message from Mia it said on the display. The guard was only a short distance away. He should ignore it. He had more important things on his mind that didn't involve chatting with Mia for hours about the Watchers. He could tell her about the siege, and where he was right at that moment, but she'd only freak out. He didn't want to put her through that.

  Only moments before, he’d sent a text to his contact at The Star. Tom had told him to get in touch with the feds, or whoever was dealing with the siege, and tell them that he was on the train, awaiting instruction. They still hadn’t called back and that was five minutes ago. Earlier, when he’d called 911, he couldn’t hear or be heard over the noise of the train, so he’d had no choice but to hang up. So far, the benefit of having the only cell phone on the train was no benefit whatsoever.

  He saw Jay peer around the seat. Everyone in the carriage was silent. The only noise was coming from the motion of the train as it made its way through the city. They had already figured they were heading West, Pennsylvania way.

  Tom touched the cell cradled in the palm of his hand, willing it to come to life. His thumb moved across the screen. View message from Mia. ‘Where the hell are you?’ It read as if the words were screaming.

  His thumb worked efficiently across the screen on his cell. Reply Mia. He tapped in a quick message. ‘Can’t talk now…L8er’ Then he pressed send. He quickly checked his battery and the signal. Both were looking good.

  A reply came almost immediately ‘Where r u?’

  He touched reply. She wouldn’t let up. ‘On a train…NY siege…Hiding…Watchers no show!’ He pressed send.

  Her reply came back almost instantly. ‘OMG,' it read.

  Mia wasted no timewhen she received Tom's message. She knew exactly what she needed to do. The realisation that Stoney was caught up with the siege in the States had blown her mind. Only a few hours before, Uriel had told her they could do nothing to save the hostages being held by the Iranians in America. Nothing!

  Earlier, after she’d left the Watchers and travelled home from Stonehenge in the dead of night, Mia had turned on the car radio. The soothing night-time music was supposed to calm her; take her mind everything, but instead, she’d listened to the news channel, to hear an update of the drama unfolding in the States.

  ‘…negotiations. The hostages are now boarding the train…’

  Mia listened as they spoke of the terrorists who had requested a train to take them out of New York City and other places around the states, but there was something else…they were demanding US troops leave Afghanistan. It was an impossible condition, yet they had threatened to kill one hostage every fifteen minutes if their demands were not met. Within two minutes, she’d switched the channel back to Radio One.

  Now, while her parents slept in the room down the hall, unaware of their only daughter's plight, Mia ran from the house and across the large garden towards the wall that separated their land from open fields. She jumped, as she had jumped many times before, and sat above it before she pulled her legs over and landed on the other side. She ran across the open field, over rough soil with wheat stalks, lashing her bare legs and keeping her eyes focused on the glade beyond. The moon was full and its light guided her, but as she got closer to the trees and it covered the natural light, she switched on her torch and shone it to the ground.

  She slowed to almost a crawling pace just inside the woods, searching the ground for the one thing that would connect her to the Watchers. She shone her torch, and the beam pinpointed a branch that had fallen from a tree. There! She picked it up and tested its strength.

  “Perfect,” she whispered.

  The branch was large, but it wasn’t heavy. She held it out in front of her with each hand clutching the Y-shaped prongs as the single protrusion pointed out in front of her. She decided it was the best she could find, so she began to run once more, towards the nearby village of Avebury, where the circle of stones would act as her very own spiritual telephone exchange.

  Taking the shortcut across the fields, with the branch cradled in her arms, she recalled Tom’s text when he told her he was on the train. Then she remembered Uriel telling her the innocents of the siege in America could not be saved. At that point, the Watchers had assumed the hostages and the terrorists were still inside the station. But, now they were out in the open, so, as far as Mia was concerned, the rules had changed.

  Earlier, when she was waited for Tom to respond to her text, she had searched the internet, Google, the only server open to them now. Many people avoided it, since it was claimed that when they were staring at the screen reading Google, someone was watching them back. Two years ago a writer had been arrested by MI5 after he'd searched for some data for his new book. He'd Googled ‘terrorist', ‘Iran', ‘nuclear bombs', ‘revolution' and suddenly they were breaking down his door. He'd finished his book in prison after they'd banged him up for nine months for resisting arrest and perverting the course of Justice when he went online and complained. That was the world they lived in now. Nobody trusted anyone.

  Mia took a chance on Google and typed in Ley Lines. Only two posts appeared a paper from a geology student somewhere in Coventry and another, a fact sheet in National Geographic. She picked that one. She read up about the alleged ley lines and learned they were magnetic currents of energy. Real in every sense of the word, scientifically. A graph appeared showing geological locations of the lines interlocking and spreading in their abundance across English soil and beyond, across the channel to France and further. In Cornwall, from St. Michael's mount, two ley lines called Michael and Mary threaded their way across the South of England, crossing at a point near where she lived, the ancient village of Avebury, where a site of stones stood in two circles within a circle of green mounds.

  That why she was heading there now. It was her only chance. She slowed down to a fast walk, as a pain in her side threatened to knock the wind out of her. When she saw the sign up ahead, ‘Avebury’, she picked up her pace, and like a trooper, ignoring the pain, she carried on. She hurried along the main route lined with ancient stones, to the inner circle she had visited many times before. There, with little breath left in her lungs to sustain her, she came to a standstill and almost collapsed in a heap of exhaustion.

  Mia allowed herself a moment to catch her breath before she once more got to her feet. The dousing rod, otherwise known as a branch from a tree, lay abandoned on the grass, between her parted legs. The moon was bright overhead, its luminous glow spreading itself across the green, making the shadow on the stones stretch across the lawn like giant tables. She had seen the Avebury stone formations many times before, but never in the middle of the night and certainly never when she was alone.

  As her breath began to function in a slower rhythm and despite the adrenalin still coursing through her veins, her thoughts went to Tom when he told her he was in trouble. It was enough to ignite her energy once more. She leaned down and picked up the stick and holding the two protrusions in her hand while the third pointed directly out in front of her, she took a deep breath and then she closed her eyes and began to concentrate.

/>   After a minute she still felt nothing. It wasn’t working. There was no spiritual or physical connection. She wasn’t going to connect with the Watchers and save Tom. It had all been a waste of time.

  She stepped forward. Maybe she should try and pick up a signal first like she had to with her mobile phone. Yes, that made sense. She took two more steps. She closed her mind to everything other than her urgent wish to connect with Uriel, to tell him about the hostages, who were now out in the open, waiting to be saved.

  Suddenly she felt a strange pressure on her hands coming from the stick. It began vibrating. It was working! The force of the rod made her feel a tickling sensation in the pit of her belly. It was picking up some sort of energy force. She considered the notion that the rod was perhaps simply detecting traces of water from an underground stream. She had read that the lines travelled that way around the earth, like blood through veins. She closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could. Help them. She repeated. You can help them now.

  Then, as if the Watchers themselves had shouted in her ear, a message entered her thoughts. Stop the train, it said. Stop the train.

  Sarah

  South of England

  Ted Barrow checked his watch. It was three am. They would be here soon. He didn’t have much time. He opened the door to the barn and went inside, keeping his torch pointed to the floor. He made his way through the disused stalls, empty now since he’d lost all his cattle to the mad cow disease outbreak of ‘93. That’s when the farm went downhill. It had never recovered. He had never recovered. He’d had no insurance and the compensation from the government didn’t amount to much. Damn cheating dirty politicians!

  He arrived at the interior door and unlocked the padlock, flicking the makeshift light switch dangling loosely from the wall inside. Sarah was lying on a mattress wrapped in an old grey army blanket. She was whimpering as she heard him enter. He couldn’t understand why, seeing as he had looked after her like a little princess.

  As he approached her she sat up against the wall, hiding her face in the blanket, she was crying. He had to admit he felt a small amount of satisfaction watching her fear. It kind of made him feel good about himself. In charge!

  Still, there was no reason to be afraid. He hadn’t touched her. He just wanted the company that was all. “I want you to come with me, Sarah.” He held out his hand and touched her shoulder.

  She flinched and pulled back. “No, go away. I want my mummy and daddy.”

  He sighed as he pulled the roll of duct tape from his pocket and scraped the end and he sighed again when he pulled a length from the roll. The tearing noise of it seemed to terrify her even more. She was going to scream, silly girl! He pulled her towards him and wrapped the tape around her head and across her mouth. Her eyes were wide with fear and that pleased him.

  “Give me your hand.”

  She shook her head so he pulled her to her feet with as much strength as he could muster. He was beginning to think her presence in his life had been a waste of time. The whole country was looking for her and that didn’t seem fair somehow. He only wanted some company. “Come on. Don’t be a naughty girl.”

  Grabbing her arm, he guided her out of the room, before he turned and locked the door behind him. Then he stopped. A car was coming up the track towards the house.

  Sarah’s eyes lifted from the gloom of the darkness in the barn. She watched his expression as the moonlight filtered through the gaps in the wood and illuminated his face. He had a look of disappointment in his eyes, mixed with anxiety that made him seem like a cornered beast.

  “They’re here,” he said.

  Chapter 14

  Pennsylvania, USA

  They’d been on the move for over an hour. From where Jay was sitting on the carriage floor, he watched the lush dark green scenery of Pennsylvania’s rugged countryside pass them by, as if he was watching a film from the front row of a movie theatre. Trees flashed past, rows upon rows of them, protruding to the sky like spears, to frosted peaked mountains in the foreground.

  It was getting dark quickly now. The light was fading on the outside making the train darker inside since the lights had not been turned on. The passengers were tired. Their faces looked haggard and drawn as if this had been the worst night of their life. It probably was!

  Two guards were now at the entrance to the carriage, perched on the arms of some seats near the front, holding their guns vertically at their side with the butts resting on the floor.

  They were conversing in their own language so Jay couldn’t understand what they were saying and he guessed neither did anyone else. Nevertheless, they looked scared, their eyes revealing their fear like a dog searching for food on another mutt’s turf.

  Suddenly the lights went on in the carriage. Now all he could see through the windows was the reflection of the hostages inside the train. It was like the movie had stopped playing and now the lights in the theatre had gone up. Across from him, Tom was still playing with his cell, waiting for a call to come through. “Where are they?” he muttered.

  Jay was also wondering why the feds hadn’t made contact. It was possible they were biding their time. Maybe they thought it would endanger the hostages, or maybe they didn’t believe it was Tom who’d made the call. There could be a number of reasons.

  Jay had sent a text to a few people he knew. Fran for one. She hadn’t answered, which didn’t surprise him in the least. One of his buddies from the local bar had text back, ‘Yeah right, J. And I’m in the next carriage. Drop by for a beer, bro.’ He’d pondered for a moment if that was true, but then decided he was fooling around. Idiot! The only other contacts he had left were his shrink and his client from Wall Street, who’d sent him out on the stakeout the night before. He figured his shrink would simply demand extra sessions, which left the client. Jay still hadn’t got around to submitting a detailed report on the arrival of the Watchers and the potential hanging of the dark-skinned youth, so it was a tough call to make.

  Just as Jay contemplated calling his mother, who probably wouldn’t believe him either, Tom’s cell started vibrating. Jay watched his eyes as the kid read the message. They were wide with horror, and his jaw had slackened. Jay grabbed the phone from his hand and turned it to face him. ‘Stop the train’, it read. ‘Stop the goddamn train.’

  Jay read the text on the phone with his mouth agape. And as he tried to digest the weight of the message, Tom was speaking with that sincerely annoying loud whisper of his.

  “How can we do that?”

  Jay dragged his eyes from the display and scrutinised the kid's face as if he'd never seen him before. "What? Are you crazy?" Jay had to stop himself from laughing. It was probably acute hysteria. "You get ‘Stop the train' from your little English girlfriend and now you're seriously asking me how we're going to ‘stop the damn train'?" What more could he say to someone who had a pea for a brain? "Why did I listen to you? How did you talk me into doing this? I must be crazy. My shrink will want to see me every day for ten years after this."

  A noise from the front made them stop.

  Both of them moved so that they could look around the seat to where the guards were watching the hostages with their gun at their sides. One with a black beard had joined them from the next carriage, and now they were all talking frantically as he delivered a message. Now they were all shouting. They were upset. Very upset.

  Jay and Tom watched the bearded one reach out to one of the male hostages sat on the floor near his feet. He viciously grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt and pulled him upright. The guy held up his hands and shouted with sheer terror in his voice. “Take it easy. Take it easy.”

  The other hostages were starting to panic. Some started screaming and shouting. Suddenly mayhem erupted. A woman stood up and lunged forward to take hold of the man within the grasp of the bearded terrorist. A guard pushed her away and she fell into the crowd. More people stood until the guns were raised and pointed towards the crowd. "Sit, sit," they screamed.
/>
  It was then, at that very moment, as if in slow motion, Jay watched Tom rise to his feet, stagger to the side of the carriage, open the emergency valve plastic cover and press the red button.

  The impact was like a truck crashing into a brick wall.

  The train screeched to a standstill from top speed, deafening them as iron against iron clashed like crashing symbols in a hollow tube. All the hostages who were once standing were thrown onto the people sitting or crouching on the floor. The guards were knocked off their feet from the force of the jolt and the screaming and the crying assaulted Jay’s nerves like a piece of chalk being dragged across a blackboard.

  Tom had managed to get back into position. “You crazy son of a…”

  The train came to a halt.

  For one unearthly moment, silence ensued, until suddenly the whole train erupted to a level of panic greater than before. The hostages were screaming and crying and the guards fired orders into the huddled crowd. “Silence…silence.” A bullet was fired into the roof of the carriage so that silence ruled once more. One of the guards yelled frantic and indistinguishable rants, while the other two went through the partition doors into the next carriage, holding their rifles aloft. “What do we do now?” Tom whispered.

  Jay shook his head. “Beats me, kid. I thought you had all the answers.”

  One of the guards returned and took hold of the hostage he had grabbed once before. He was forcing him off the train, half dragging him, pushing him, screaming for him to move faster.

  With the lights still on inside the carriage, no one could see what was happening in the darkness outside. Some were cupping their eyes to the windows trying to make out the movements of the Iranians and their single hostage. Everyone inside was quiet, except for the woman who had been pushed into the crowd. She was wailing. “What’s happening? Where are they taking him?”