by Haydn Jones
"I’ll be okay," he said, trying to sound upbeat.
"I think you need a break, just to get away for a while. Why don’t you ask Summa to go fishing with you again, like you used to do down in Monterey?"
"Yeah, maybe I will." Richard looked at his watch. "Must go, look at the time." Standing up he moved over to Susan and kissed her forehead. "See you tonight," he said, as he made for the door.
“Richard!”
“What?"
"I love you.”
"I love you too."
Fourteen
Richard Stark had moored his boat for the night in its usual place at Pier 39 after another day of trips to Alcatraz and was driving the short distance toward Fisherman’s Wharf for the meeting that had been on his mind ever since the funeral of Jack Freeman’s son. The evening sun was shining in his eyes and the sea front was bustling with people enjoying the warm sea air. The sound of gulls, the occasional ‘honk’ of a seal and the smell of boiling crabs reminded you that this was the Embarcadero, San Francisco, a place with an atmosphere all of its own. The sea was a calm blue and Alcatraz appeared closer to the shoreline than normal.
Minutes later Richard had arrived at the old brick building, still deep in thought.
"Okay let’s get started, Richard’s here now," said Adam Domaradzki, as Richard walked into the building.
"Everyone sit down please. We have no time to waste this evening."
Looking around the table Richard noticed that Jack Freeman wasn’t at the meeting.
Standing with his hands in a praying position Domaradzki waited until there was complete silence from his disciples. "Lord God hear our prayers and guide us, your devoted followers, through the coming weeks. Give us the strength to carry out your commands without question and bring peace to those who fear you. Amen.”
“Amen."
"Children of Jesus, the time is now close. Soon the Lord’s hand will wipe clean the evil doings in Houston and we will rejoice in his work." He paused, breathing in slowly. “It's with great sadness that I have to inform you that Jack Freeman has been taken into hospital for observation today, I know you will all join me in wishing him a speedy recovery."
"That’s thanks to the maniac that murdered his boy," retorted Summa angrily. Domaradzki took a deep breath and tried to remain calm.
"This means of course that we need another Disciple to join Summa in Houston. Do we have a volunteer amongst us?" There was silence in the room. "Then may I suggest we ask you Richard, to offer your services to God. Your mechanical skills would be a great help." Silence prevailed for a few embarrassing seconds. "Richard, did you hear me?"
"Is it the will of God?" asked Stark, in a low monotone voice.
"Yes, it is the will of God."
"Then I must obey."
"You will be rewarded in Heaven. Believe in the word of the Lord. I need you and Summa to stay behind tonight to sort out the details of your mission," said Domaradzki in an upbeat manner.
Richard Stark fought to control his emotions. Thoughts were spinning wildly in his head and his body was tense and trembling. His complexion was sallow and he looked ill. Quickly, he poured a glass of cold water from the jug in the centre of the table and drank. The coldness in his throat comforted him briefly, and he wiped his sweating palms on his denims.
“Is that you, Richard?"
“Yeah, it’s me, sorry I’m late. I went for a drink with Summa after the meeting."
"Keep your voice down you’ll wake the kids."
"Sorry, I’ll be up in a minute."
After visiting the bathroom, Richard poured a glass of cold spring water from the refrigerator into his favourite glass and walked slowly upstairs to the bedroom.
“Hi, babe."
“Hi. How’s Summa?"
"He’s Okay… I’ve decided to take your advice, so I asked him if he’d like a fishing trip to Monterey again."
"And?"
“Yes, he’s all for it."
"I’m glad. You need the break. When do you plan to go?”
“Oh — in a couple of weeks. Gives me a chance to get a skipper sorted out for the boat. I’ll have to pay him of course, but it’s better than no money at all whilst I’m away."
"Good idea.”
"Kiss me," said Susan, from the bed. "I’m nearly asleep." Richard kissed her before undressing. As he got into bed Susan was already sleeping. That night he didn’t sleep at all He lay on the bed and the idea of suicide seemed the answer to his nightmare.
Fifteen
It was now December and the time had come for Richard Stark and Summa to go to Houston. The plan was to return immediately after the attack and drive to Monterey, staying there another three days to fish and take photographs of their visit. Susan would never suspect anything and Summa had no family to worry about him anyway.
There was a sound of a pickup truck pulling up on Richard Stark's drive.
"Richard, Summa's here." Susan shouted up the stairs.
"Coming now. Where the hell is my fishing rod?"
"Look in your offspring’s room."
"Thanks."
Susan opened the front door and gestured to Summa who responded with a smile and a wave as he turned the pickup around in the driveway.
Richard’s luggage, in two leather backpacks, was piled on the porch steps, his ticket to Houston safe in the inside pocket of his jacket. Within minutes the luggage was loaded, Richard had kissed Susan, reassured her about Pops and they were ready to go.
"Take care of yourself and take it easy," Susan said, fondly.
“Thanks, darling."
"I love you, you know that don't you? Have you got everything now?"
"If we haven’t it's no big deal," said Summa, in an upbeat manner.
"Take care, both, and enjoy the fishing."
Susan leaned into the truck and kissed Richard again before it sped off up the hill. Richard’s arm was visible, waving goodbye until the truck was out of view. Closing the front door Susan took a deep breath. It was time to visit the hospital to see Pops.
"God, I’m so pumped up, how about you, Rich?"
"I can’t say I’m feeling good about this." Richard’s face was stern and pained.
"We have been chosen to do this, Richard. It’s our duty to God."
"That doesn’t mean to say we have to enjoy it, Summa."
Summa was excited and Richard’s mood was not going to change things. He was relishing the thought of firing thermal rockets into the one-hundred and twenty story Ellington Building. Summa was an old man, quite bald apart from the dyed black hair around the sides and back of his head. He wore sunglasses and in his mouth was a large unlit cigar. He was quite insane.
"The plan is quite simple, Rich, I do the firing, you drive — Simple. When we get there I suggest we relax for a day and survey the target."
Richard was listening intently to Summa’s words.
"We need to get the launcher from the lockup and make sure it’s in good working order. I don’t intend to waste a rocket by firing it at some wasteland trash target."
Richard looked serious. "But, that has always been the Elder’s plan."
"No need, Rich, our targets big enough. The more rockets that hit the building the better."
Richard shivered. He tried to imagine the damage that would accost them as they drove out of the underground parking lot. All around them would be panic and mayhem, even if just one of the rockets was on target, and he shivered again.
"We’ll practice the drill I did with Jack Freeman, so that we’ll know exactly what’s required of each other. It has to be done with military precision Rich."
"Yea, of course," Stark said, with distance in his voice, as the comment broke his thoughts. He knew Summa was the only disciple that could recognize Vicki, from the photos taken at Black’s funeral, although he’d not met her and the framed photo of her at home was taken some time ago. He would have said something by now, deliberated Stark. Would he do this if it was his sister in
volved? Should he be doing it? He asked himself again.
Throughout his life, Richard had questioned very little. He was happy being led. At home, Susan did most of the thinking. On the boat he often switched off and thought about nothing. The Elder Father made decisions for him in the Church and that he was happy with. He knew it was the will of God to eliminate scum like the animal that cut up Jack’s son. Having to kill his pregnant sister though plagued him. She wasn’t scum, she was misguided perhaps, a non-believer yeah, but was she really evil? Domaradzki told him God wanted the evil ones stopped and God can’t be wrong. His thoughts were again broken when Summa spoke, enthusiastically.
"On Monday morning, Rich, you check out those entering the underground parking lot and when we have a full house come back to the hotel. I’m no fucking good at that sort of thing, man. You just tell me they’re all in; and leave the rest to me."
Summa tugged the steering wheel, and the truck lunged down the exit road off the 101 in the direction of the airport. They would leave the Ford in the long stay parking until their return in three days time. Then they would drive down to Monterey along the coast road to finish off the holiday with some sea fishing.
"I’ve booked the same room on the twenty-fifth floor, so I know the elevations and distances are the same and we’re well within the range of the launcher." Summa said, confidently, "I don’t expect to miss." His face glowed with enthusiasm. "You should see the baby, Rich, it’s an eighty-four mm Carl Gustav, M3 lightweight, and it’s got four high explosive rockets. Shit, they’ll destroy the place," he said, excitedly.
He was a young boy when he fought in Vietnam, for the 9th Infantry Division. His target then was much harder to hit, invisible most of the time and always on the move. Badly injured in ‘Operation Enterprise,’ fighting to clear Long An Province, he was flown home. For him, it was the most exciting time of his life and he missed the rush that pure fear gave him, he missed the camaraderie, the killing. Now though, he was going back and he couldn’t wait.
Twenty minutes later and they had arrived at the Houston airport domestic departures. The young girl at the United Airlines desk informed them that there was no delay, gave them their boarding cards, and directed them to gate number 12.
"The flight is departing at ten minutes past eleven, you have twenty-five minutes, plenty of time."
As they walked to the gate, Summa turned to Richard.
"There’s no turning back now, my friend."
“No, I know," responded Richard, looking straight ahead.
Sixteen
"Bin 8, for the third time this morning, Rob," Yuri enthused, as McPherson entered the control room.
"Worth further investigation I think," responded McPherson, enthusiastically.
"It feels like we're homing in on something here."
"Bin 9," shouted Yuri, as the light on the main panel illuminated red. "That’s significant isn’t it, Rob?"
"It should be, if my software is doing what it was designed to do." McPherson sat down at a spare computer screen and tapped in his security code. The system acknowledged him and opened the menu page. McPherson picked up the mouse and pulled the cursor down the options on the screen until 3D Spectral Analyzer was highlighted. He quickly clicked on it and absorbed himself in the details.
"We seem to be closing in on something," said Jerzy Rozanski, excitedly. His square chiseled face, flushed with excitement. He was normally the quiet type, not one to show his emotions, but today he was stimulated, and it showed.
Vicki could sense the excitement in the room and her pulse quickened. As she bent forward to look at one of the monitors she felt a sharp pain in her belly and it caused her to take in a short breath and her hands instinctively cradled her now large pregnant tummy. No one noticed her discomfort in the excitement and the pain didn't persist.
"What have we got?" said Hunter, entering the dimly lit control room.
"We’ve got a Bin 9,” replied McPherson, staring at the screen as he typed. His intense expression lit by the glow from the monitor.
Hunter wanted success badly. "Have we made contact?" he asked eagerly.
"No, we haven’t," but the data’s becoming more structured.
Hunter again asked. "What do you mean, structured?"
Absorbed, McPherson didn’t hear the question. "There are four or five Globular Clusters in this sector aren’t there Yuri."
"That's correct, Rob.”
McPherson’s mind was focused. "Okay, lets home in on this baby. Yuri, send positional instructions to the five other satellites so that they all face this sector."
"Right away," said Yuri, sitting at another monitor some feet from McPherson. The instructions were tapped in and the ‘Confirm Positional Details’ button flashed on the screen. Yuri clicked the cursor on the screen button and the information was transmitted to the satellites. High above the earth, silent Retro’s fired on the sides of the huge metal structures, hovering effortlessly, like birds of prey in the sky. Simultaneously, each unit obeyed the new positional commands, slowly turning their long detector tubes to lock on to the new co-ordinates in Ursa Minor. Servomotors turned on each satellite adjusting the immense solar panels to compensate for the change in position and maintain maximum power generation from the sun's rays. The message ‘New station positions confirmed’ flashed on Yuri’s monitor.
"It's done, they’ve all locked on," confirmed Yuri, staring at the monitor in front of him.
Vicki smiled at no one in particular and gave a little shiver of excitement.
"Bin 10, we’ve got a 10!” Jerzy shouted, as the last light lit in the row. McPherson looked up, almost nonchalantly, for the briefest of moments before studying the monitor again.
"What have we got, Rob?" shouted Hunter, as he quickly walked towards him. "Answer me, Rob.” Hunter said, impatiently.
"I don’t know yet. It’s much too early. I need to do a lot more analysis, but it appears to me that we’ve found a sequence of long data repetition."
"You mean a message?"
"I don’t know. It may take days to search this stuff for meaningful data, if there’s any at all, it’s not guaranteed, Colin."
"We have the weekend my friends. Let’s get down to business," said Hunter, as he strode purposefully out of the room, leaving his loud, enthusiastic voice ringing in their ears.
McPherson could feel his pulse racing, he knew this was significant but at the same time found it hard to believe it was happening. As he was sitting at his terminal something showed on the filter monitor that made him freeze. For some thirty-seconds or more McPherson franticly typed instructions on the keyboard. "Someone get Hunter back here now," he shouted in excitement seconds later.
"What is it?" Shouted Rozanski.
"Someone get Hunter, now,” repeated McPherson impatiently.
"What the hell’s going on, Rob?" Asked Yuri. Just then Hunter returned to the control room sensing there was something happening
“Okay, what have we got?" he said, smiling nervously.
McPherson looked at Hunter, his expression was intense. "I think we need a video link with the President."
"It had better be good, Rob, what is it?"
McPherson responded. "You remember the digital signal that was sent into space in 1973 from the Arecibo Telescope?"
“Yeah.”
"Well, we've just received a reply."
"Can you understand what they’re saying.” Hunter asked.
"It’s too early for me to tell but the signals are definitely some kind of structured communication." Replied McPherson.
Vicki flinched, but nobody noticed.
"Get the President on the line!” shouted Hunter. "Right now!”
"Where are they from, do they say?” Rozanski asked.
"They're showing some kind of positional map like our digital message showed Earths position but I don't understand what it means."
The video screen lit up next to McPherson and the President’s face appeared. “Gent
lemen, what do you have for me?" he asked with interest.
“Mr. President," replied McPherson. "We appear to be receiving signals from an alien source far more advanced than ourselves."
"How do you know that?” enquired the President.
"Because they’ve mastered time-travel.”
"What do you mean?"
"The signals we’re receiving are coming from our own Solar System."
There was a chilling silence in the control room as everyone wrestled with Rob McPherson's words.
Seventeen
Summa looked at his watch, through barely open eyes. It was six o’clock and he had slept well. He pulled his naked body upright and leaned on the headrest. Last nights cigar was still in the ashtray next to his bed and he reached out to pick it up. It tasted good as he rolled the end around on his lips. He thought about the day ahead as he stared at the plain wall opposite and decided to go to Beaumont in the rental car later that morning, to pick up the launcher and rockets. Impatiently, he got up and walked to the veranda.
Looking across the plaza he could see the tall Ellington Building and its fragile glass skin mimicking the blue sky. He raised his hands to hold the imaginary launcher and recoiled as the invisible rocket headed towards its target; his pert lips making a childlike rocket sound as he exhaled. He laughed loudly as he walked towards the bathroom, not waiting for the rocket to reach its target.
Richard awoke to the sound of the phone ringing on the table next to his bed. Reaching out he slowly fumbled to pick up the receiver and pulled it to his ear "Yea," he said with a deep, rough morning voice.
“Rich, get up, we’ve got work to do."
“Yeah, okay."
"Order breakfast in bed and be ready to leave in one hour okay."
"Okay, where are we going?"
"Beaumont," and then the phone buzzed in his ear as Summa ended the call. Richard Stark lay in bed and stared at the blurring ceiling as tears fell from his cheeks on to the starched white bed sheet.
