The Harbinger of Change

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  “Okay, Son, calm down, and I’ll tell you. I had a dream, too. Actually, my last thought before I fell asleep last night was, what would the world you described be like? The answer that was placed in this dream surprised me, because I thought for sure it would have brought chaos.”

  “Placed?”

  “Yes Son, placed. You know, I was raised Catholic, so my understanding and take on religion is skewed, but I know a vision when I see and feel one. I’d never had a dream like this before. I went back in time and saw the scenes of my childhood playing out in an accelerated mode. I always saw so much good trying to happen, coupled with so much frustration from those who could never achieve it.”

  James had adjusted in his chair and taken a big mouthful of potatoes. Pablo patiently waited during the pause.

  James had continued, “There was always some disgruntled human under the guise of being close to God, who would stop all growth and all good. They were people who were angry, frustrated, and blocking any positive that might arise, always perverting even the most innocent of human behaviors into sin. My fifth grade teacher, Sister Connors, was the most-bitter person that ever misused the Bible.”

  This time it was eggs and ham that caused the pause, followed by a bite of bread and a drink of coffee.

  “Sister Conners was responsible for more inferiority complexes in the boys than a high-school cheerleader with a put-down mouth. She just had this way of getting in your head, and soon you believed the things she was saying about you were going to come to fruition. So, Son, I tell you this because it’s the reason I turned away from the Church, turned away from religion. So for me, James Haberman, to sit here and pontificate the merits of anything to do with God, is in and of itself a miracle. There was a time, I was maybe eight or nine, when they hadn’t stolen my faith yet, and I remember feeling untouchable.

  “With someone as powerful as God on my side, I was truly invincible. As I grew, I saw the poverty and injustice everywhere, and not only in my country, but throughout the world. My parents watched the five o’clock news every day of my life and were totally oblivious that they were terrifying their child with war, death, and crime on a daily basis. Being as astute as I was, I started to comprehend at a very early age. When my classmates didn’t know what the Vietnam War was, I did.

  “Those experiences alone killed any thought I had that God was real. All the other myths of my childhood were lies, so why not God too? Forced into Catholic School, I felt like an observer who was not emotionally attached to the scene in any way whatsoever, and, through the years, I had seen enough abuse of God that I determined it was just a way to exercise power over people, and nothing more.”

  Pablo had looked earnestly at his mentor and said, “James, that’s how I feel about money right now.”

  He had looked back at the boy—such an innocent face, and such an innocent boy. “Son, I was serious when I said I believe in something extraterrestrial was at work here in my dream. Maybe we come from an alien race spreading their seed on inhabitable planets, or maybe there is an overseer of us all. Whatever you want to call God, Pablo, I do believe that the God particle will never be found.”

  James had stopped talking and had stared out the window at the little section he could see of the Limmat, breaking the eye contact they had been sharing. A tear had run down his cheek. “I spent a lot of time angry at the Church, Pablo, and angry at God. I didn’t want my place in heaven. I didn’t believe I deserved it. You know what I’ve done in my adult life. I’m not so sure that there’s a place for the ‘perfector of death’ in heaven.”

  “Listen, Son,” he said, looking back into Pablo’s eyes again, “I swear this, on the very same God we speak of, that I never built any weapon with the intent of hurting an innocent person. I only built things to defend my country, and to make money, of course. As smart as I was, I tried to be naïve to the fact that there were people that would use some things I made for evil. I say, ‘tried,’ because I knew the truth, deep down. I knew we did things in the name of freedom that would not be sanctioned by God. Until last night, I thought that I lost my place in any of the places you would find God; that my business of death condemned me to the place Sister Connors always said I would end up.”

  “James, what happened last night?”

  “I can’t quantify what happened the way you can, because I don’t believe in your God, Pablo. All I can tell you is that whatever Supreme Being is controlling this world, that Being wants me to help you.”

  * * *

  Pablo had known from James that at the same time they were having that conversation, Jeremy had seen the tails and had known he was being followed. This time a hurried lane change from behind had caught his eye. Three left turns had confirmed it. He had been sure they had been bugging him too. These guys obviously had far reaching resources. They had seemed sure the boy had been about to reach out to one of his teachers.

  Jeremy had been thankful that James and Pablo had been smart enough to know all this in advance. It had saved his life, he was sure of it. He had known that his friends would never be safe, though, because these guys would never stop. It had been a month now, and the school had been abuzz with many rumors, but he had known better than to partake in them.

  Jeremy had contemplated leaking the story to AP or Reuters and letting the chips fall where they may, but then he had thought better of it. Who knows how many lives that would cost? He had decided he would just have to endure the countless intrusions and harassments until they stopped.

  Jeremy had seen the tail pull in behind him and park as soon as he did. His fear had been that they would find some thread that linked him to this whole mess, and then the guys tailing him would be doing a lot more than that. He had nervously looked in his side mirror down the street to make sure nobody was advancing on him.

  His hands had been shaking as he had pulled the car keys out of the ignition and he dropped them on the floorboard. As he was bending down to pick them up he had assured himself, I’m sure the bad guys are just doing their homework and checking out all the school’s personnel, where they live, who their relatives are, and who could be hiding the boy.

  Thankfully he hadn’t qualified for threats against his family, since he had been alone since his parents passed. They had both died in old age—they had been in their late forties when he had been born, and had been gone by the time he was 28. No, they hadn’t got a chance of getting to him that way, and he was thankful for that. These were not nice people. He had just hoped they would never be able to get to his friends.

  * * *

  Pablo had also known from his research into everything that at the same time Jeremy was being followed, the leaders of his oppressors had been planning his demise.

  “Well?” Luis said.

  “He eludes us,” Octavio replied.

  “How?” Luis asked. “He’s just a boy, alone.”

  “Well Luis, he’s here because he’s special. We found out that his old school principal called here when he got word of the family. When informed, the boy just ran. No one has seen him since.”

  “He’ll come back Octavio. He’ll come back to the place he feels safe, just wait him out.”

  Luis chided his number one killer. “The money was never found on the compound. For once, my friend, you were wrong. But your yerno just found another account. Thank God you have him in the family.”

  “He’s a good boy, my angry daughter is very lucky. Is all the money there, Luis?”

  “We’re not sure, as the bank is in Zurich. We will have to call in favors, but you know we will have it soon enough. So while we’re working on it, take a couple of days off. Leave your wonderful son-in-law to watch for the kid, and go get a feel for this place. The bank is called the Habib Bank. We have some friends in Zurich, so it shouldn’t be long. I had another thought, my friend. What if the boy has access to his uncle’s account?”

  “Okay Luis, I will get back to you. I’ll scope things out, take a day or two to clear my h
ead, and if you need me to, I can make your withdrawal.”

  “Good, Octavio. Go out and have a meal. I hear the restaurants are some of the finest in the world.”

  “Don’t worry, Luis. I’ll get him. You know I will. I always get my man.”

  Luis had retorted, “In this case it’s only a boy, my friend—only half a job.”

  They had shared a laugh, but they had both known that every day the boy lived, the example and fear they had tried to instill in the locals was being mocked. Word had traveled back to Ecuador that the boy lived, and they had heard rumors that the people were forming an underground prayer movement. That had to be avoided at all costs. Octavio had known that something like that could cause the sheep to think that they had options, and that resistance could garner them a victory.

  No, they had been facing more than half a job, and both of them had known it. This had been the type of shit that causes planes to fall out of the sky—one minute the plane was cruising along, the next a small bolt had worked free, causing a short that caused a failure of another component, and before you knew it, the plane was down. This thinking is crazy. Why do I have such a bad feeling about this?

  “Okay, Luis,” Octavio concluded. “I’ll be in touch. I get it. We have to get him.”

  * * *

  Ibarra was below, and it would be scant minutes until Pablo Manuel found out if he was going to become the single most powerful person to ever live or not. Actually, he could be powerful even without Vera, but not as overwhelmingly so as if she would be able to get him his “needed things.” Not a bad accomplishment for someone in his twenties, especially considering that no one knew Pablo’s name. A lot of people were in for some surprises in the not too distant future.

  Pablo was now at the part of the game where he only needed one more move in his favor, and the game would be over. He could see it so clearly, just like he could see and hear the past verbatim, as if it were yesterday.

  As he watched Ibarra go by, his immediate future lay ahead in the dark, and his thoughts fell back to James and the past. Pablo remembered asking, “So what did you see of my world?”

  James had pondered the best way to get this out. “Well, when I was in college, they forced us to take philosophy, and the professors were all hippies who were into the concept of Utopia. I thought it was the biggest load of crap I’d ever heard in my life. Utopia indeed! We also had the Socialists and Communists, and I couldn’t help but notice that there were no capitalist philosophers. My take was that these guys were all losers, people who wanted to be poor so they could act sanctimonious and ponder this world without greed or money. They were trying to live the song ‘Imagine,’ and I was surely not going to fall into that quagmire of anti-patriotic, anti-capitalist jargon, designed to confuse the developing mind. I was going to get my money.”

  Pablo had looked confused. “I don’t understand where you’re going with all this?”

  “Patience, Son,” James had explained, “I was getting to it. Well, last night, I actually saw this Utopia that the hippie philosophers all mused could exist. It was most bizarre. People still went to work, just like they do now. If you needed something you didn’t pay, you just went and got it. Greed, envy, and crime disappeared. Pretty soon people were working hard just for each other, and a true revolution of thought evolved. It was so appealing that I wanted to stay, but I was pulled out. It was like I was only going to get a small glimpse of paradise before it was taken away. It was evident that if I wanted any more, then I have to help make it happen. I was allowed to oversee, and I felt the pride of being the enabler.”

  “How?” Pablo asked, riveted.

  “By helping you, of course. Son, you’ve been chosen by the Cosmos to change the world.”

  8— Stampede

  Doug saw the big challenge right away when he mapped his course. He wasn’t a very gifted athlete, which was why he had first gravitated toward mechanics and then towards becoming a pilot. It was a way to get the same kind of clout with women as an athlete, but without all the arthritis later.

  One of the few physical things he excelled at, though, was rock climbing. His high school friends had gone on a camping trip to Yucca Valley once, and had dragged him along. They had ended up in a place called Hidden Valley, and Doug had been hooked from that day forward.

  It had been mile after mile of rock formations of every kind, for every kind of climber. There were the simple boulder areas, and then there were the serious rope climb spots. Doug had done both. Joshua Tree National Monument was the “Wonderland of Rocks” and he had lost himself there.

  There had been something about the myriad of rock formations that let his imagination roll. His mind had just run away as he had gotten lost in all the formations. They had gone back twice every winter (the rocks were too hot in the summer) until he was in his mid-twenties.

  One day he had been free climbing a rock called Black Sabbath, and as he was moving across an exposed ledge, an incident had happened that had brought him to his current thought in the first place. His arms and legs had been splayed, each seeking its own hand or foot hold on a ledge only ten inches wide. He’d still had another fifty feet to saddle when suddenly a shadow had appeared on the rock.

  It had been startling, but he had been stable with good handholds, so he had been in no immediate danger of falling to his certain death. But then the fighter jet had screamed by at a really low altitude followed by the wash. Good hold or not, the wash of a low-flying jet when he was on a rock with no ropes, perched on a ten inch ledge, had tightened his sphincter.

  The jet had come from the Twentynine Palms Marine base, which was dead in the center of their path right now, Doug knew with certainty. As they traversed the desert east of there, he just hoped and prayed that one of those very same low-flying jets wasn’t around.

  Once they cleared Death Valley, the landscape became the same, mile after mile of rolling hills of white. Their plane stayed low, and they were perfectly camouflaged from the one thing that their enemies were hoping for: a shot from the spy satellite searching for them, or a blip from the AWACS.

  They made their way over the vast Mojave National Preserve within an hour, and they were now parallel to the Twentynine Palms Marine base, so far without incident.

  Unbeknownst to them, their timing was just right to avoid a recon plane as they dipped into a valley maybe five miles long. Doug was doing what he thought right to stay alive, becoming a bush pilot in his mind. So many nights this would have ended in tragedy, with their plane flying right into the side of a mountain, but not tonight. Doug thought, these two certainly have good luck, and that’s always a plus.

  Doug was starting to get weary, and his eyes were fatigued. He looked at his watch: three o'clock in the morning. They would still barely have the cover of dark when they landed. He knew once they cleared this stretch, it was another hour over the same type of terrain they had just come out of over the Mojave, only a lot hillier with less desert and more mountains.

  Doug asked, “Did she happen to bring a coke or some other form of caffeine?”

  It took Matt three minutes, but he produced a small bottle of an energy boost drink. Matt said admiringly, “She actually had three of them stored.” He was more impressed by the minute with this girl.

  They both eagerly drank it. Matt stowed the empty containers back in the backpack.

  Doug asked, “What do you think is wrong with her?”

  “I’m no doctor,” Matt answered, “but she’s obviously in shock. I didn’t see any vaginal bleeding or anything unusual when I dressed her, so I don’t think she has a medical issue.”

  Doug thought about that before he spoke. “We were making out before we were attacked, pretty hot and heavy. I take it that was part of the ruse?”

  “I’m afraid so, Doug.” Matt could see that he was hurt by that. “Well Doug, based on your theory, you have nothing to feel bad about. Apparently the attraction must have been mutual, otherwise she would have suffered physi
cal injury during her rape.”

  Neither spoke again for the next hour after that horrid revelation. By then they had cleared the Marine base, and they had a straight shot to the border.

  Doug looked over at him and announced, “It’s go time.” Then they elevated to adjust for the upcoming mountain.

  * * *

  The mood was not good in the war room. All efforts had failed. Satellites had failed, recon had failed, AWACS had failed, and even good old ground spotting had failed.

  President Caulfield addressed the room: “Gentlemen, we need to consider at this point that the plane was a ruse, a way to make us chase our tails while the bad guys got out the back door. At this point, I’d say we’ve obliged them pretty well. But they’re not out the back door yet!” exclaimed the President. “I believe I should declare martial law in the Northwest immediately! It will at least slow down their ability to move about freely.”

  Before the first mumbles began, he pre-empted his critics with a strong follow up. “And I don’t want to hear one person in this room even mumble ‘unprecedented’ or any other hyperboles, because according to Bob Thompson over there, what they stole is ‘unprecedented,’ and I’m not going down in history as the guy who didn’t recognize the time to act.

  “Now, John Q. Public will do better than you think, that’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about the inner cities, so we need to have a show of force to prevent rioting. There’s always going to be some who take advantage, no matter the situation. So have all active and available regular Army back up the Reserves immediately. I want this moving now! Let’s not make this easy. I will go on and address the nation. I’m sure Kim’s already having the speech written.”