by Jeff Dixon
“That’s right, she did,” Jonathan added.
“But I hear the preacher tomorrow night is very good,” Hawk offered.
“Nah . . . I’ve heard him before.” Juliette smiled. “Tim and I can bring the kids. They are always asking to go to Kid Church, so they won’t mind going back again.”
“I love Kid Church!” Shep would feel that way, since he was the one who’d created the special children’s worship events at Celebration Community Church. “I can’t wait to go there.”
“It’s settled, then.” Hawk pushed back from the table. “We’ll compare notes tomorrow night before church. I have breakfast with Farren in the morning. Maybe he can shed some insight on this little photo.” Hawk glanced at the clock and knew it was going to be a sleepless night. He couldn’t wait for breakfast to arrive.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
FARREN RALES REVERENTLY HELD the old black-and-white photograph in his hand. Squinting, he studied it closely. His eyes danced between the three people, but he lingered on the familiar face of the man in the middle of the photograph, Walt Disney, just as Hawk, Shep, Juliette, and Jonathan had done the night before.
While the Imagineer looked over the photograph, Hawk settled into a pivoting leather chair, finished off the pastry he’d picked up on Main Street USA, and gazed at the variety of security camera monitors and control panels lining both sides of this room. He turned slowly in the chair, taking in the state-of-the-art control room; it was also a bunker, safe and secure from all the activity taking place above them in the Magic Kingdom. This room, which Hawk had eventually found and unlocked, had been a part of the key to the kingdom. It was an auxiliary control center that could operate much of the Magic Kingdom if needed. Through a series of deliveries moved from nearby storage areas into this room, and then Farren’s personally wiring the electronics and finishing it up, the room had been created in secrecy. There were only two people that knew this bunker existed, and they were both sitting in it right now, finishing breakfast.
While Hawk had been solving the mystery of the key, Farren had hidden away in this bunker and monitored Hawk’s progress in unraveling the clues that eventually led him to his friend and the mind-numbing secrets this room protected. Upon entering it that first time, he found himself face-to-face with Walt Disney. As Mr. Disney addressed him by name and engaged him in conversation, he soon discovered that he was talking with the most advanced audio-animatronic creation ever made by the company, the AI-1000 Audio-Animatronic Walt Disney. But that wasn’t the only surprise Hawk’s key opened; it was a preview of coming attractions. That encounter with Walt Disney had welcomed him to this underground facility, but eventually he had made it to this control room, which contained the biggest surprise of all: Walt Disney himself.
The shiny silver cylinder in the center of the room glistened as the light emanating from each monitor bounced off its reflective surface. The cryogenic container held the body of the creative genius. Hawk had been amazed to find out that the often-repeated urban legend about Walt Disney’s body being placed in cryogenic suspension was true. Not only was it true, but the legend had been perpetuated by those who knew the truth. Unlike the myth, however, the quest for Walt Disney was not to live forever or to be restored to life when medical science might find a way to do so—instead he was available if the need ever arose for him to come back to rescue, preserve, or reemerge within the company he had created. One of the main roles for Hawk as the keeper of the key to the kingdom was to make that decision, if it were ever a necessity.
His choice as the keeper of the key had also taken into deep consideration that as a pastor, with a heart for God, he would be wise and make the moral and ethical choice about whether such an action was the right thing to do. The secret was his to keep and protect. Farren Rales had chosen him for the task and was the only other person alive, insofar as Hawk knew, that had that knowledge. Now, as he watched Farren looking into the photograph of his dear friend, he wondered what Rales was thinking.
“Aunt Jessie, Walt, and Irene,” Farren read the notation aloud. “Hmmm, then of course there is the note, ‘Aunt Jessie has a special delivery. Walt’s grandparents are trying to Call you. Go back to the roots to find your way.’”
“Yes.” Hawk rolled his chair toward where Farren was seated along a counter below some monitors. “What does it mean?”
“I have no idea.” Farren looked up at him and smiled. “I have absolutely no idea.” He laughed out loud as he passed the picture back to a dumbfounded Hawk.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Hawk took the picture and reflexively looked down at it. “Who are these people in the picture?”
“The one in the middle is Walt Disney,” Farren said slowly.
“I figured that one out.”
“The other one . . . I am guessing the one on the right is Aunt Jessie, and then Irene is seated next to Walt on the left.”
“Farren,” Hawk sighed, not amused by his friend’s laughter. “I guessed the same thing. I asked what it means.”
“I told you, I do not know.” Seeing Hawk’s frustration, Farren tried to quell the smirk on his face. “Tell me where you found the picture.”
Hawk launched into the detailed story of what had happened the evening before, after he had left Farren at the office in the Bay Lake Tower. He told him of the ghost story, the encounter with George, what George had said, and how he had climbed George’s Tower in the Pirates of the Caribbean to find the envelope. He also recalled the reluctance of Reginald Cambridge to open the envelope, his promise to give it to Al Gann, and then the return of his staff members to see for themselves what was inside. Hawk recalled each moment with vivid detail. He paced the room as he talked, his eyes lighting up as he remembered details and acted out what had taken place.
“That is quite a story.” Farren smiled as Hawk finished. “You told that story with such style, I could see every detail of it. It reminds me of the man in your picture there.”
Suddenly speechless at the compliment he had been given, Hawk felt his face blush as he gazed back toward the picture in his hand. He had been waving it around absently as he told the story, using it as a prop to enhance the tale. He paused, took a deep breath, and returned to the chair he had been seated in. Looking from the smiling Walt Disney to Farren, he waited. His old friend had to know something about this picture, about the encounter the night before, and about whatever would happen next—or might be happening right now. He could not image Farren not having some perspective that would help him.
“So you met George last night?” Farren said mildly.
“Yes.” Hawk leaned back in his chair. “And unlike the legend and the stories in the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, George is not a ghost.”
“In some ways he is.” Farren leaned forward to Hawk. “In some ways, he is.”
“A ghost?”
“I said in some ways. His name is George Colmes. I haven’t seen him for years.”
“And he is one of the Imagineers chosen by Walt and Roy Disney to protect the company and create the key to the kingdom?”
“Yes.” Farren spoke softly. “He is one of the three Imagineers who helped to create this layer of protection for the company.”
“Tell me about him.” Hawk sat up straighter in his chair.
“George Colmes was one of the Imagineers that Walt and Roy selected to design this intricate plan of succession and survival for the Disney Company. How we accomplished our tasks was left to us. The only time we connected with one another about what we were doing was when we thought we were crossing over into an area that might impact what one of the others was creating.”
“So your job was to find the keeper of the key.”
“Yes, we believed if each person had a specific role and worked exclusively of the others, it would provide an additional layer of security, in case anything went wrong.” Farren gestured toward Hawk. “You were my choice.
You now possess
the key, the pieces of it I was tasked to give you, and you are now in a position of power in the company—and you now have Walt himself.” Farren nodded his head toward the cylinder.
“So now I meet George, and he gives me directions to find a picture on top of a haunted tower, and you describe him as some kind of ghost.” Hawk pursed his lips. “Did I summarize that correctly?”
“Pretty much.” The old man smiled. “George Colmes, like all of us, had to do his best to protect what he had been entrusted with. He was very involved, as we all were, in developing the Florida Project. After Walt passed away, George was busy steering the developers who were trying to get the resort built and opened.”
“I don’t remember hearing of him before.”
“You wouldn’t have. George had a very different role than I did. Most didn’t know him very well. He was a very close friend of Roy Disney. As Roy stepped up his leadership to get Walt Disney World built, George was a guide, a friend, and a strong influence behind the scenes in making things happen.”
“So, with Walt gone, he and Roy probably worried about the future of the company and this plan that was being created?”
“Probably more than I ever realized. When Roy suddenly died just after the Magic Kingdom opened, George retired unexpectedly and was never seen or heard from again.”
“Wait.” Hawk leaned heavily on the arm of the chair. “Why did he disappear?”
“I always believed it was because he had lost Roy, which was just as emotional for him as losing Walt. He became like a ghost . . . I have not seen him or talked to him since 1971, the year the resort opened. He had no family that anyone knew of . . . he just disappeared.”
“You say no one knows where he went or what he did after he retired? But he was a part of a select group of people like you . . . you had to have some idea.”
“No, I really didn’t.” Farren shrugged. “Though I had suspicions, to be sure. Little things I noticed.”
“Help me here. I’m not following where you’re going.”
“I know, my friend. I really am not trying to confuse you. Let me see if I can explain this to you.” Farren rose and made a sweeping gesture around the room with his hand. “The things that I was busy doing were completed because of the people I trusted enough to help me. Although they never knew details of what they were doing, they completed the tasks I needed done. They never had enough information to understand the vastness of the projects I was a part of. Even if they suspected they might be involved in something bigger than I was letting on . . . they could only be suspicious. They had nothing else to run with, no more information to find, and no more places to find it. I chose them, like I chose you, because I trusted them. I suspect George Colmes probably operated in a similar way to do what he needed to get done.”
“But you don’t know what he was trying to do?”
“No. Eventually he would be responsible for making sure you would know or have or see or do whatever the Disney brothers had given him the task of passing on to you. But what that might be, I can only suspect.”
“What do you suspect?”
“What did he tell you?” Farren rose to stand in front of Hawk.
“I told you,” Hawk replied. “He told me to unlock what never was, to protect what is yet to be.”
“Is that all he said?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“No, Grayson . . .” Farren grabbed each arm of Hawk’s chair and leaned in over him. “There had to be something else.”
Hawk was taken back at the intensity of his friend. His mind rewound to the encounter in the caverns of the Pirates attraction. Thinking back, he remembered George had asked him a question. At the time he heard it, he thought it was misplaced or silly. Now he was trying to recapture the memory. Hawk lowered his head and tried to recall each line that was uttered. One of the reasons he had been so successful in solving the mystery that Farren had created was because of his ability to notice and remember details. In the world of Walt Disney, details always mattered and discoveries were always waiting hidden in plain sight.
“There was something else.” Hawk locked onto the question he had momentarily lost. “George asked me something that I thought was odd. He asked me how I was going to unlock the kingdom.”
Rales released the chair and straightened up. “And then he told you to unlock what never was, to protect what is yet to be?”
“Yes, and I thought it was an odd question, because when I found all the pieces you had hidden, and found this . . .” Hawk looked around the room. “Well, to be honest, I thought I already had unlocked the kingdom.”
“No, my dear friend.” Farren was smiling. “You have been given the kingdom. It is yours. But you have not unlocked it . . . yet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVEN’T UNLOCKED the kingdom yet?” Hawk rose to his feet and began to pace. “I found so many pieces of this incredible puzzle you put together for me. I did things to solve it because I was worried about you and thought something had happened to you. I put my friends at risk, my reputation on the line, and . . .”
“Someone you trusted betrayed you.” Farren stated the part that Hawk was going to skip.
“I haven’t forgotten.” Hawk had wrestled with it more than anyone knew. Kiran Roberts had exploded into his life. He’d trusted her, and she’d helped him unravel some of the clues and get access to places he never would have found. Then he discovered that she had been using him to get the key for herself and her associates. “I just don’t talk about her.”
“Of course.” Farren nodded.
“But now you’re saying I’m not done yet? Last night Juliette, Jonathan, Shep, and I were thinking this was another mystery to unravel . . . but . . . seriously . . .” Hawk stopped pacing and looked at his reflection in the silver cylinder. “What else is there?”
“I don’t know, I honestly don’t know.” Farren turned his palms up. “I only know what I was supposed to give you. George was given something by Walt and Roy that he was supposed to take care of until I chose the keeper of the key . . . that is you. Now George has decided it is time to give it to you.”
“He gave me a picture.” Hawk held up the photo.
“He gave you a clue.” Farren moved to Hawk and took the picture from him. “I said earlier I didn’t know what happened to George. Yet there were times I suspected he was still very active in the company. Just like I had people I could trust to help me, George had the same kind of influence. He has been very busy . . . or so I believe.”
“Busy how? What kind of busy?”
Farren turned to one of the monitors and took a seat in front of it. Grabbing a nearby wireless keyboard, he began pounding on it using the two-finger method. After a series of keystrokes, he brought up an aerial view of the Walt Disney World Resort. He pointed at it, then circled it with his finger. “Do you know what this is?”
“The Walt Disney World Resort?” Hawk decided to play along. Farren was one of the greatest living storytellers, and when he unpacked ideas, they came in the form of stories. Farren believed—and so did Hawk—that stories can change the way you look at life and view the world. Each person lives out the story he was created for, and each day a new page of the story begins. You never know what lies on the next page, and you live life a word, a phrase, and a paragraph at a time. In life, there is no skipping ahead to the ending. Instead you have to take the journey to get there. If you do it right, you will enjoy the story.
The story of Hawk’s life was radically different since he had met Farren. But he had enjoyed the story. There was a feeling in his gut that he might be at the first sentence of a new chapter that Farren was getting ready to read aloud to him.
“Very good.” Farren paused, as he began to hunt and peck again on the keyboard. “It is not just the Walt Disney World Resort, it is your kingdom. The kingdom you possess the key to.”
A new image appeared on the screen. This was Walt Disney Worl
d from a bygone time. The aerial view featured the familiar Magic Kingdom with only the Contemporary Resort and the Polynesian Resort. Massive amounts of undeveloped land surrounded it. Once again Farren traced it with his finger. “You recognize this?”
Hawk mentally unraveled the years, to a happy moment from his childhood. “Walt Disney World when it first opened.”
“Exactly, this was what we looked like in 1971.” Now as Farren hit a key, the image went from the original view on opening day to the current layout of the property. “Look at all the changes. We have made many changes and come a long way over the years. Walt Disney World is always changing, and changes happen fast. Sometimes people like the changes, sometimes they don’t. But change is a constant here. We are always improving, expanding, and enhancing for the enjoyment of our guests.”
“Right. That is what we are supposed to do . . . isn’t it?”
“Sure, but have you ever wondered if there was a deeper meaning to some of the changes?”
Hawk looked at the images as Farren toggled between the resort of the past and the resort of the present. He pondered what he had just been asked. “I don’t know. I always believed things were changed to improve them. I never knew I needed to look beyond that reason.”
As soon as the words were spoken, Hawk realized it was what he had always believed . . . until he was given the key. Over the last year and a half, he had been noticing details about how the park changed that didn’t always make sense to him. His mind unfurled a list of unasked questions he had been collecting. Perhaps it was time for him to start getting answers. Snapping his attention back from the mental list was the silence that had filled the room while his friend paused after his last statement. The quiet disappeared.
“Most don’t. And why would they?” Farren left the image on the 1971 version of the resort. “You asked me what kind of business I suspect George has been up to. . . . I think he has been very active. I believe that he has continued to influence the changes and development of the resort.”
