by Ciaran Nagle
'Time to shiny up and wake, missy,' he announced cheerily. 'Got some fresh coffee if you want, just come up when you ready.' His good humour seemed out of place with their surroundings.
Nancy wanted coffee desperately but more than anything else she wanted a shower. Her body was sweat-sticky inside her clothes and her mouth felt like she had smoked 40 cigarettes. What was her hair like? She decided not to look in the mirror again. e.
The memories of yesterday came surging back into her mind like beery gatecrashers. Africa? Drive a lorry? Charm people from different tribes? Right now she felt barely able to hold a cup without spilling it. Anything beyond that was asking too much.
She pulled herself onto her knees, avoiding the death whisperer above her, then slowly stood up and climbed over the side of the jeep and onto the floor. Fifteen hours she'd been in this wretched smelly plane she realised, looking at her watch. They'd stopped once to refuel, God knows where, just as the light was fading. All she'd been able to see was sand and wilderness and a few dusty shacks around an uneven tarmac. Who had built an aerodrome here in the desert? Why?
The plane was banking gently now as she made her way unsteadily forward toward the cabin door. The co-pilot was sitting on the right of the cabin. The pilot on the left, also in a blue flight suit, was speaking through his microphone, presumably to air traffic control. Through the windscreen ahead Nancy could see a few small lights in the distance. Co-pilot turned towards her and offered her a thermos and a cup.
'Fresh made,' he grinned through amazingly white teeth.
Nancy gratefully took the cup. Whoever these two were, they weren't clandestine agents or spies. They were just functionaries. They probably knew nothing about Nancy or why they were flying her to Gambia. They were just doing their job flying Israel's obsolete munitions to her ally in the west African continent.
Nancy felt homesick. She wanted to be back in Ealing, joshing with Mel again and selling cruises. Or was this all happening because she'd slept with two boys and might have tumbled the third if he hadn't been gay?
'I'm sorry,' she said.
'What you say?' Co-pilot
'Oh nothing, just thinking out loud.' Nancy took another sip of coffee and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Her blouse was crumpled and smelt of oil. Her hair felt like matted dog fur. What a mess.
'Final approach, tower.' Pilot.
'You better sit down now missy in case of bump.' Co-pilot was looking after her. Not much of that from the rest of humankind recently.
Nancy stepped back and swung herself into the navigator's seat. She put her coffee on the floor and buckled herself in.
A few moments later she could see the runway lights coming up to meet them and then a light thump from the wheels and the deceleration as the pilot cut the power back.
The plane slowed after a few hundred yards then taxied off the runway and came to rest not far from the two-storey control tower. The engines gave a final cough as the propeller discs ended their long shift and came to rest. Noughts became crosses.
The runway lights went out and, a second later, so did the control tower's. One solitary perimeter light remained on in the distance casting a glow in their direction. Silence enveloped the aircraft. No airport vehicles sped to meet them. No customs officials appeared. No passport control beckoned. Nancy suddenly thought about her passport. Was she supposed to bring it? No, Habib never mentioned it. She realised she didn't officially exist.
This was truly illegal. What if they just decided to kill her? Who would know she was ever there?
Co-pilot peered back at her. 'Who meeting you, missy?'
Darned if I know, thought Nancy. If no-one came to claim her, her mission would be over. Maybe she could just stay on the plane and wait for it to go back to Israel. She'd tell Habib his plans fell through and there was nothing she could do about it.
'I was hoping you'd tell me. Do you really not know?'
'Some times different people. Brother is big organisation.' But it seemed co-pilot was now starting to realise that Nancy was in the dark. 'Well,' he said 'we go back Israel midnight tomorrow. Maybe see you then.' He was smiling encouragingly and Nancy warmed to him. She wished she could pour out her heart to him. She also knew that he could not help her.
'Brother. What sort of an…Where is Brother based?'
Co-pilot's smile drooped. He turned away with a shrug and a mutter that could have been 'if you don't know, I don't know'.
Pilot and co-pilot both finished their post-flight checks. They flicked lots of switches and shoved papers into plastic envelopes. Satisfied that everything was off, they clambered through into the hold and opened the forward door which folded out to reveal some metal steps to the ground.
'After you.' Co-pilot was smiling, ever-polite. But they weren't going to leave Nancy on the plane.
She went to the front and walked down the steps. A light breeze blew across her face. That felt good, really good.
An anxious-looking African man came from behind the steps and looked up into the plane, ignoring her.
Pilot and co-pilot were coming down the steps behind Nancy. They stopped, one on each side of Anxious who spoke to them in what Nancy assumed was a local dialect.
Co-pilot gestured towards Nancy and said something in reply.
Anxious turned to Nancy in wide-eyed shock. He looked back at co-pilot and said something that must have been 'Really?' and then returned his eyes to Nancy, looking her up and down for several seconds and staring in horror at her breasts. 'You. Woman,' he shouted. It was like an early moment in the Garden of Eden.
'Well, I'm glad you can tell,' replied Nancy who was beginning to feel like the last piece of meat on a shambles table. Nancy had her back to the light, the others were facing it.
Anxious remained staring at her for several moments, wearing the outraged aspect of an alcoholic who'd paid for a cider and been handed an apple juice.
Pilot and co-pilot continued standing on either side of Anxious, their small bags in their hands, watching the encounter with wry amusement on their faces.
They spoke to him again in dialect and he answered them, but without taking his eyes off Nancy.
'You, drive?' he almost spat out the question. Habib had asked that.
Nancy considered him for a moment. Things were going too far. Her tiredness and temper joined forces.
'Thank you. Yes, I'd love a room for the night. And a cold shower. And some food with a cold glass of wine. And when I've had all that PERHAPS YOU CAN TELL ME WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT I'M DOING HERE.'
All three were now staring at Nancy. Their faces glowed like lampposts in the reflected light.
After a long half-minute, Anxious drew in a deep breath. He looked down at the ground apparently in deep thought and then back to Nancy, repeated this several times and finally regained some composure.
'Lafi,' he held his hand out. Nancy took it.
'Nancy,' she said as though she had just met him at a ball.
Lafi took a last look at pilot and co-pilot and muttered something to them. Then he turned furiously on his heel. 'Come Nancy,' he called imperiously and was gone into the night.
Nancy looked at pilot and co-pilot. 'See you boys,' she said quietly and followed Lafi even though she had no idea where she was or where she was going.
Lafi led Nancy through a hole in a chicken-wire gate at the edge of the airfield to where a small taxi-cab was waiting with a driver. He opened the back door for her to get in and himself climbed in the front. The car moved off and sped away into the darkness.
Nancy was a young woman alone in a car with an angry stranger in a foreign country in the middle of the night without any money or proof of identity. She had no idea where she was or how to get home.
'You and I have much work to do before sun come up,' said Lafi coldly without turning round.
And now she was heading into danger.
Heaven's Shore
There was a knock. Jabez looked up.
'Yep?'
'It's Ruth, may I come in?'
'Of course, pull up a rock.'
Another knock. Agatha.
'Agatha. Sit down and come in.'
Agatha took her seat and settled herself in. The globe wall readjusted itself to include her within its circumference.
Both female angels appeared just a few feet away from where Jabez was sitting on a grassy dune, grilling some fish over an open fire.
Politely, they had arranged for rough-hewn stone and tree-trunk seats to be in their apartments for the globe meeting. They sat and looked around them at the sparse landscape.
Luke was already there. He was perched on a rope-swing and gently pushing himself forward and back. He took his Stetson from his head and waved it to Ruth and Agatha.
'Hope you don't mind if I grab a bite while we talk,' continued Jabez while turning the fish. 'Just as well I brought my fishing rod with me, being on the shoreline and all,' he indicated the edge of Heaven just a few feet away and the raw wilderness just visible on the other side of the schism. It may have been called a shoreline but there was no sea to lap at its edge. An open box at his feet hinted at the true origin of his dinner.
The other three shivered slightly as they contemplated the view. On the other side of the divide was the beginning of Desoland. Of all the fingers of Inferno it was the most scorched. Even so, a few squat creatures could be seen darting about, scurrying from hole to hole.
All angels had been to some part of the shoreline before. A trip to this region was part of the induction into Paradise when they first arrived. Even then, they'd viewed it from a distance without actually landing. But for all of them, bar Jabez, this was the first time they'd seen it so close.
Jabez looked across at Agatha. Her brown hair, some of it threaded through ivory beads, cascaded down to her hips. She was wearing a blue-hooped T shirt, calf length jeans and pumps on her feet. Her wings were slightly open and revealed a tartan inlay that perfectly accompanied her dressed-down denim.
So that's the fashion for student angels, thought Jabez. Fetching.
Ruth as ever was immaculate, this time with her wing tops gold-dusted and wearing a shimmering yellow knee-length dress and matching shoes all topped with a golden tiara inlaid with those same liquid sapphire stones. 'Class act,' he whispered to himself.
Luke as usual was wearing a check shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots. The Black Frontiersman. Jabez had not bothered to dress up for this important meeting and was still clad in traditional angel white pants and white sweater.
'Angels, thank you for coming.' While Jabez was eating the salmon freshly sent in from Ocean Rapids on the other side of Paradise, Luke decided to begin the meeting by introducing everyone formally. He steadied his swing and placed his feet firmly on the ground. 'We only know a little about each other from our records so let's play our baby bios now. I'll start.'
In the space between them another Luke appeared and started to speak. The apparition described his background and formative experiences and showed scenes from his life on Earth as he guarded wagon trains of pioneers crossing Oklahoma. It finished with a tour of his part of Heaven. The apparition disappeared. Now a second Ruth took shape and went through the same rapid biography. It was exciting to see the makeshift hospital in the Alamo, a flustered Ruth binding up the wounds of Mexican soldiers and American settlers on adjacent beds. Then Agatha's avatar followed with its depiction of Second World War Great Britain and the Bletchley Park codebreakers. Finally Jabez's double described building a thriving farm in iron age Judea, despite the foolishness of his spendthrift brothers.
'So now we know each other a little better, I hope we can also work well together,' declared Luke, drawing the introductions to a close.
'Before we get started, why don't we sing?' suggested Agatha in her clipped Oxford accent. 'It'll put us in a positive mood.'
'What are you thinking of?' Jabez.
'I heard a beautiful song recently. It's about a man who falls in love with a woman only to find out she's his long lost sister.'
'So they can't love each other?' Ruth.
'Well, that's the point. They can love each other. For ever.'
'Interesting.' Luke. 'Where did you hear it?'
'David sang it. Live. At the Eden Hall in Desert Springs, not far from where I live.'
'David? The David?' asked Luke.
'Yes, the David. He says that when he was King David in Jerusalem he spent too much time fighting so now he's in Paradise he doesn't want to be in any of the combat battalions. Instead he's built a business making harps and teaching angels to play them. I've seen him play and sing live. He's very funny.'
'Funny?' said Jabez. 'So let me get this right, you mean King David who stoned Goliath and was always beating up the Philistines is now an entertainer?'
'Yes,' said Agatha. 'He says he always wanted to be a musician. He only got into soldiering because of the lack of concert halls in one thousand B.C. Judea.'
'Very amusing.' Luke.
'It's a good line.' Ruth.
'Well it sounded funny when he said it,' apologised Agatha.
'I think we should move on,' cut in Jabez hurriedly. 'Before you tell us that Attila the Hun is now an opera singer. Look, all of you, we need to make progress. We're not getting anything done.'
'Jabez. Why are you looking so sad suddenly?' asked Agatha. 'Is it something we said?'
'No. Nothing.' He smiled weakly. 'Thanks for the suggestion about singing Agatha. But I'm not quite in the mood. I'd prefer to get cracking.'
'Yes, let's get down to work,' agreed Luke quickly, with an eye on his friend. 'So, bring us up to date on Nancy then, Jabez.'
Ruth and Agatha looked at each other quickly. Neither said anything.
Jabez sat up on his rock, cleared his throat and looked at them all.
'OK, the latest on Nancy is that she's arrived in Gambia and been picked up by Lafi Touray who is a Brother acolyte but also a chancer. He's taking risks by trying to run an independent operation outside of Brother. Nancy has been given two code letters, a capital R and a small e, by the other side. I'm going to ask Agatha in a moment if she can help us with fiendish puzzles. Ruth has kindly joined the team to enlighten us on Nancy's state of mind. We're going to need all the help we can get on that front because her reaction to meeting Lafi Touray, her cheek and feistiness in that meeting, were not what I was expecting at all. I had Nancy down as being petrified on arrival in a foreign country in the dark without any papers, friends or money. In fact she had more fight in her than a rhino. We're behind in this game and we need to catch up fast. Luke you've got something for us to watch, let's begin with you.'
'Sure,' responded Luke. 'Let's just refresh our memories by watching this sequence together.' He looked at the ceiling of the globe above him and spoke to it saying, 'Catch-up sequences now.'
In the space between the four of them, just in front of Jabez's fire, Nancy appeared at the moment when she saw the letter e through the window of the jeep inside the transport plane. The angels felt the tense atmosphere, heard the throb of the engines and saw Nancy moving around in the dark surrounded by military vehicles, far from home but bravely keeping her spirits up. As they watched the e burn up and disappear, the angels shivered inwardly. It was not often that a direct manifestation of Infernal activity was witnessed, even in a recorded sequence, within Heaven's golden realm.
Next the angels saw the action as she descended from the plane at Banjul and met Lafi. They watched as she met Lafi and dealt him the verbal right hook that knocked him back on his heels "…yes I'd love a room for the night and a cold shower…"
Jabez finished munching his grilled fish off a skewer while they watched.
The sequence ended and the figures vanished.
'Shall I go first?' Agatha.
'Sure, blue jeans, go ahead,' replied Jabez warmly.
Agatha smiled back at him.
Serious now, Agatha folded in her wings till the tartan disappeared from vi
ew. She looked down at the ground, concentrating, and began to speak.
'There are many types of code that the other side use to entrap men and women. It's still too early to be sure which type they may have used. That's a problem because we don't know how much time we have or how long the code is. It could end soon with a third letter or it might be a whole sentence or more.
But there are three main code types and it's likely to be one of these. The first is a simple instruction. An injunction. It may tell Nancy to do something. Humans are intensely curious so they often follow these injunctions just to find out what happens. Often with disastrous consequences. The second is an appeal to ambition. It's a promise of wealth or power if they follow a particular path, normally one that is harmful to others. The ambition code has been used many times. It's a powerful bait and has seen many souls lost. But the third is the most dangerous and also the hardest for the enemy to pull off. It's a code that spells out what a human is. If the code message arrives at the same time as a revelation from somewhere else that 'this is the person I was always meant to be', the combination of the two together are powerful and invariably fatal. The soul will be lost and the enemy will control their life for ever. It's hard for the enemy to co-ordinate this, however. It needs detailed planning on their part, which they're not normally good at. But on the rare occasions when they've done it successfully in the past they've gone on to inflict colossal damage on Earth. I sincerely hope it's not the third code type.'
Agatha paused and waited for a reaction.
Jabez was the first to respond. 'Thanks Agatha, but I guess we're all thinking the same thing. Whatever they're doing smacks of considerable planning. We'd be foolish to assume it's one of the first two codes. My instincts are shouting that it's the third. Luke, Ruth?'
Luke chimed in. 'I agree. They know something about Nancy that we don't. That incident off the plane was amazing. There's more to Nancy than even she thinks there is. That's why this revelation idea rings true. Nancy's personality hasn't stabilised, despite her years. She's still finding herself and so she's open to something or someone revealing who she is and what she is. She would find that kind of revelation difficult to resist. Ruth?'
