by Bob Mayer
Angelique followed DiSalvo to a tent that had just been set up. Technicians were wiring in computers and communications gear. DiSalvo went to a field table that had an old-fashioned paper map on it. “We’re here. We believe the Dark One is here.” He tapped a spot on the map just above the Devil’s Fork with his finger.
Angelique held back a sigh. The famous finger-map tap. On a map where the scale of the width of a finger meant kilometers in area. “Do you have a specific location, Father?”
“I do, but we can discuss that when we get closer. How long will it take us to get there?”
“We can helicopter in—”
“No. We go by boat. There aren’t helicopter landing zones up there. We did a satellite recon of the area.”
Angelique was surprised. “We would have to rappel in off the helicopter. It would be—”
“No.”
“Might I ask why, Father?”
“How long by boat? We’ve got two zodiacs we can use.”
“Less than a day by boat. But there is the Devil’s Gorge, here.” She used the tip of a pen to point. “The river narrows between two rock cliffs. The water is not negotiable. We would have to hoist the boats through. Difficult, but previous travelers have rigged pulleys along the cliff top. I’ve made it several times. Still, we should arrive tomorrow evening.”
DiSalvo shook his head. “I don’t want to there tomorrow. I want to arrive on the day after.”
“But—”
“There will be protests from the others,” DiSalvo said. “You will support me on this decision. It is the will of God that we arrive on the second day.”
Angelique bowed her head. “As you wish, Father.”
Moheli, off the Coast of Africa
The island is part of Comoros, a country most have never heard of. Comoros is off the southeast coast of Africa and consists of four islands dotting the ocean between the northern tip of the island of Madagascar and the northern border of Mozambique on the African continent. The island called Moheli is the smallest and least known of the four islands, multiplying ignorance with anonymity.
Before the Suez Canal opened, Comoros lay on the main shipping line as wayfarers wound their way around the Cape of Good Hope and north toward the Middle East and the Indian Ocean and back. But the Canal opened in 1869, casting the islands into neglect. Even the French Government, which had held sway there, lost interest, although one of the four islands voted to remain a French territory, a confusing matter of little concern even to the French. The token platoon of Foreign Legionnaires who used to man a lonely outpost on the main island had been pulled out in 2001.
Of course, it was not because of neglect that this force was brought home, but rather the long arm of the Brotherhood. They’d needed a place to build and test the Great Commission. An isolated place. A place they could control. The destitute and isolated island of Moheli fit the bill.
With unlimited funds, the Brotherhood carved a runway out of jungle. It also built an camouflaged complex, invisible from prying eyes, looking like a small hill with jungle growing on the roof. Along the edges of the runway, tucked into camouflaged bunkers also covered with vegetation, were eleven Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, code-named “the Blackjack” by NATO. There were the most modern Russian bombers, which meant they were somewhat old, but capable of carrying a considerable amount of ordnance at two and half times the speed of sound over considerable distances. The Blackjack, much like the American B-1 is a variable-sweep wing heavy bomber, so big it is the world’s largest aircraft designed for combat. There were also four refueling planes, which gave this small air fleet the capability to cover the globe in less than twelve hours.
The planes had been stranded in Ukraine when the Soviet Union disintegrated. When the Russians refused to fork over sufficient funds to buy them back, but also refused to supply spare parts and the mechanical know-how to keep the planes flying, Ukraine supposedly destroyed the bombers to great publicity.
In reality, the Brotherhood stepped in with deep pockets and bought not only the aircraft from Ukraine, but the parts and mechanics and pilots from Russia. The planes disappeared from sight and now rested comfortably in their hardened bunkers, ready to take to the air at a moment’s notice, although it would take more than a moment for all to be ready for them to take off.
The bombers were not quite the same as when they had been purchased. They’d been retrofitted with a large radar dome on top, similar to the American Boeing E-3 Sentry. Where bombs were supposed to be carried, large generators and a small control center had been placed. The Blackjacks were no longer bombers, but very fast and expensive retransmitters.
On the far side of the runway, a fifty-foot wide satellite dish was carved into the side of a mountain. It was the critical component of the Great Commission. It was covered with camouflage netting and powered by immense generators buried underground.
To prevent notice by spy satellites (not that many paid attention to this remote part of the globe), the landing strip was covered with trees and brush in large planters that could be carted off in less than thirty minutes. The local population had also been bought off, and the Brotherhood’s secret base, code-named the Mission, was indeed secret to most.
Earlier, under the cover of darkness, the runway had been cleared, and three of the Blackjacks had taken off into the night sky. They’d quickly reached their designated points. They were now on station, lazily circling, stretching the service ceiling of the aircraft at an altitude of 50,000 feet.. One was three hundred miles to the north of Moheli, the second three hundred miles further north, both over open ocean. The third was over the southern portion of Somalia.
On the top floor of the three story command facility that controlled the Mission, a cluster of Brotherhood scientists was gathered around monitors, each doing their assigned duty. A man in the brown robe of a Jesuit sat behind a desk in a small room at the back of the control center. He looked through a one-way mirror at the scientists. He was a small man with just a fringe of white hair around the crown of his head. He watched as a helicopter settled on the uncovered landing pad adjacent to the building and a black man wearing a colorful robe disembarked. Accompanying the man, whom the Jesuit knew well, was a man he had never seen before. This man was heavyset and wore the robes of the Russian Orthodox Church. In a few minutes, both men were in the office, standing on the other side of the desk.
“Brother Abaku,” the Jesuit scientist acknowledged the black man.
“Monsignor Firth,” Abaku returned the curt greeting. The two men had had many disagreements over the project during the course of its development, but they had always managed to put them aside for the greater good. “This is Father Sergut.”
Sergut nodded a greeting but didn’t say anything.
“They are ready in Atlanta, Monsignor,” Abaku continued.
“You did not need to fly all the way here to tell me that, Brother.”
“No, I didn’t, Monsignor,” Abaku acknowledged. They had run their first field test from here over a month ago, but the test subjects had been located only forty miles away on a boat, and things had not worked as expected. Today they were going to try to reach a longer distance using multiple planes are relays.
“I think it is too soon, Brother,” Firth argued. “The transmission will be picked up. The Illuminati is already on our trail.”
“It does not matter if it is picked up,” Abaku said.
“I know that we are—” Firth began with a puzzled look on his face, but Abaku interrupted.
“We have two days before the end.”
For the first time since Abaku had met the man over twenty years ago, Firth was speechless. His mouth flapped for several seconds but no words came out. Finally, Firth bowed his head and clasped his hands in prayer. Abaku glanced at the clock on the wall.
Eventually Firth separated his hands and placed them on the desk as if to steady himself. He formed his words carefully. “How do you know it’s two days?”
Abaku quickly updated Firth on Wormwood.
When he was done, Firth nodded vigorously. “Then of course we must complete the Great Commission.”
“That is why I am here,” Abaku said. “We must run this last test through multiple aircraft and over the horizon.”
Firth was still nodding, his mind racing. “Yes. And it will work. We can do this.”
Abaku looked out the window at the satellite dish. It had doubled in size since the last time he had visited a year ago. He remembered when they’d initially used a portable dish mounted on a truck. All on a theory. A theory that Father Kopec had done a great deal to help develop. The dish transmitted radio waves. Very special radio waves. The wave went through the air, the distance determined by power, and since they were frequency modulated waves, via line of sight, which was why they’d needed the planes.
Sergut finally spoke. “I do not understand what this is.”
“He hasn’t been briefed?” Firth was surprised.
“I thought I would leave that to you, as this is your complex,” Abaku said.
Firth wondered why the Russian was here at all, but since he had come with Abaku, he had to assume this was the will of the Brotherhood. There were secrets inside the organization. Necessary secrets to keep their enemies from stopping the Mission.
Firth steepled his fingers. “As you know, for centuries the Brotherhood has tried to complete the Great Commission by sending missionaries around the world to spread the word of God. A grand effort indeed, but one that was staggering in its implications if considered mathematically. To fulfill the Great Commission, every single person on the planet must be exposed to the promise of Jesus and redemption. Yet people are being born every second and the population’s expanding at a pace faster than our ability to spread the word the traditional way.”
“Not just staggering implications,” Abaku interrupted, “but statistically impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible for those who serve God,” Firth said.
In reply, Sergut just grunted. “And? Go on.”
“The other problem with using missionaries was that the various sects and denominations, all of whom believed in Jesus, but disagreed on the form of their church, refused to work in concert. Too often, each was focused more on trying to recruit new members for their specific church rather than spreading the word of our Lord.”
Sergut nodded. “Before the Brotherhood the three of us would never be standing in the same room. So how does this—” he waved a large paw at the Mission—“solve our problems?”
“Do you know how your mind works?” Firth asked Sergut.
“’Works’?” Sergut was puzzled. “In what way? How I think?”
“Do you know what a thought is?” Firth asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Is a thought real? We assume it’s real inside our head, but is it real outside of our head?” Firth slapped both hands on the top of the desk. “To most people this is reality. But if you listen to a radio, is the voice you hear real? Most likely you would say it is. But you can’t see the radio wave, can you? Do you know what a radio wave consists of? A television wave? Yet when you turn on your television you see what appears to be a real vision.” The words were tumbling out of Firth, as if bottled up, and Abaku realized the man had been isolated here too long with the technicians.
“There are levels to reality,” Firth continued. “The mind operates on one of those levels, which we call the psychic plane. You could also call it the virtual plane. ‘Virtual’ means something exists in essence or effect, but not in actual form.”
“You are starting to sound like a gypsy,” Sergut muttered. “With their crystal balls and blasphemous claims of being able to commune with the dead.”
“No,” Firth said emphatically. “Psychic means something that pertains to the mind. And the mind is the last frontier of science, not space. It is the thing we use the most and understand the least. The gift God gave us to make differentiate us from the animals. It is the most holy of gifts.
“Twenty years ago, a few of us among the Brotherhood—those who were also scientists— began wondering if there might not be a better way to spread the word to complete the Great Commission. At the time, our concept was simple: use radio and television to transmit the word. We came up with a plan to co-opt all media outlets around the world at once to spread the word. The problem was that it would require everyone to have access to a radio or television, and then to have them all on at the same time. And choose to watch and/or listen. And the larger problem was that those we most desperately needed to get the message to, those who had never even heard of Jesus, lived in remote places, like this island, where this technology had not yet penetrated.”
Abaku glanced from Firth to Sergut to see how the Russian was taking this. It was an interesting aspect of the Brotherhood that Firth had not even asked why the Russian was here and what role he would play in coming events, or even where he was from. The implicit belief in God tended to extend to an implicit belief in the Brotherhood.
“What we have been doing here at the Mission is developing a way to make the human mind the receiver for the message of God. And then transmit the message to every person on the face of the planet simultaneously.”
Sergut’s bearded face was expressionless.
A bit taken aback by the lack of reaction, Firth pressed on. “Do you know what a radio wave is exactly?” He did not wait for an answer. “It’s an electromagnetic modulation of particles that are called photons. Photons have zero mass but we know they exist because of their effect. They are all around you, but you can’t see them. In a large city, your brain and body are continuously being bombarded with radio and television frequencies. And most of them you don’t even notice. But have you ever been driving in your car and have a song or tune in your head and then turn on the radio, and voila, that same song is playing? How would you account for that? It is a question we pondered here for quite a while. We figured there had to be something to it. That the brain was actually picking up some frequency. After all, the nervous system does work off of electricity. It took us a long time and much experimentation, but we have finally found that frequency.”
And other frequencies, Abaku thought, but did not say. There was more to the Mission than even many of those who worked on it knew.
“Actually,” Firth continued, “it’s not just one frequency. We transmit two sets of signals, both in the high frequency range. One between two point eight and seven megahertz and the other between seven and ten megahertz, both at very short wavelength. We pulse these rays at increasing levels of power. At the correct power and rate of pulse, it will produce a virtual field in the dish. And then we shoot it out of the dish.”
The Russian looked at the dish. “How far can you transmit?”
“Currently, line of sight,” Firth said.
“Then . . .” Sergut didn’t complete the obvious question, jumping to the answer. “The bombers?”
“Yes,” Firth said. “They’ve been fitted with their own dish on top, much like the American AWACS. They can blanket the planet within five hours of take-off. They are capable of linking together and retransmitting the signal we send from here as they spread across the planet.”
“I still don’t understand how this works,” Sergut said.
“It would be difficult to explain the exact physics,” Firth replied.
Abaku gave the other scientist a sharp glance. Not difficult—practically impossible. They knew it worked, they just didn’t know how it worked. They were like children playing in the dark with blocks, trying to build something. Last year they’d tried it locally, on a small scale, and it had not worked to the standard they’d desired. Why, they didn’t exactly know, but such was their faith that God was guiding them, that they were confident it would work now, with their refinements, on a much larger scale.
Sergut nodded. “Impressive. And you’ve tested it?”
“Yes. In Atlanta and here,” Firth said. He glanced a
t Abaku. “And now we’re going to run a test link through three planes.”
“Where will this test come down?” Sergut asked. “And to whom will the Great Commission be given?” Abaku glanced at the Russian, afraid he was overdoing his faux-ignorance, but Firth was too caught up in his pride over what had been accomplished here to notice.
Abaku stepped in. “Wait and see.” He looked at Firth. “Are your people ready?”
“We are,” Firth affirmed. He glanced at the clock. “The countdown has been running all along. Two minutes until test.”
They all turned toward the control room. Switches were being thrown and power was flowing to the dish. Even at this distance, inside the building, the charge in the air could be felt. The air above the satellite dish began to shimmer, much like the air above a road on a hot summer day.
Firth went over to a metal briefcase set on a table near the window. He used a key on a chain around his neck to open the case.
“This is the nexus of everything,” he said as he revealed what appeared to be two iPads on steroids. They were three times thicker, with touch screens and a stubby antenna sticking out of the top. “Half the frequency modulation code is on each.” Firth took one over to an empty table, and then the other to a desk over twenty feet away.
“Why half on each?” Sergut asked.
“A fail safe system,” Firth explained. “Such power can never be in one person’s hands. The wireless connection won’t be made if they are closer than ten feet to each other. And each must be activated by touch at exactly the same time. It is similar to the system used in missile launch centers, except using wireless and a screen instead of keys.” He took a cable and ran it from each tablet to the Mission’s mainframe computer, which would link it to the dish.
Then he removed a thumb drive. “This,” he said as he plugged into one of the tablets, “is the message of God.”
Both tablet screens came alive.
Firth looked at Abaku. “Brother, would you do the honor of accompanying me?”
