“But like we were saying,” Devon said as the room service man came out and set a tray with a large coffee carafe and cups on the table. “Time travel technology? Made by the government?” She swept her gaze over everyone at the table and showed a thin, amused little smile.
With that pouty set of her mouth, Rick thought she made the time-travel assertion sound so howlingly absurd that it would have required no more words to deride the idea.
Nevertheless, she added, “Since whatever made these things obviously works, it was obviously not made by us. Not putting down the ingenuity and know-how of the American technology sector, of course.”
“Of course you’re not, honey,” her husband said with the perfect deadpan.
“Of course she’s not,” Rick couldn’t help adding with a grin now.
Everyone chuckled at that as they poured cups of dark-roast Kona coffee.
As Rick did so, the thought skittering through his mind was, Either these people are the world’s biggest bullshitters, or I’m actually starting to like them. How he would tell Cornelia this would be another matter.
“But here’s what I’m getting at,” Markwell said, again with deadly seriousness. “If the local cops and the FBI and Homeland Security—not to mention your little globe group and the people at the Pentagon—”
“Like General Barret?” Devon cut in with a roll of her eyes. “Our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?”
Markwell nodded with a thin, knowing smile. “If they all think these people are a threat…,” he said, but let his voice trail off, all the while studying Rick with that piercing, intrusive glare. He was, Rick knew, asking him to confirm or deny the statement.
So Rick said, “They do.”
“Then what do you think all the other Wexlers and their little playmates all over the islands will do next?”
“These people are not just in Hawaii,” Cornelia replied quickly.
“I know,” Markwell said.
“Well,” Cornelia said, “I think—and you might want some psychiatrists and psychologists to give you real data—but I think some people don’t have any sort of purpose to their lives unless they think they’re surrounded by enemies.”
“I agree,” Rick said. “The late Murray Wexler’s pals are those people.”
“Clinical paranoids?” asked Devon. “Bordering on schizophrenia?”
“Maybe,” Rick replied. “And to answer your question, if the cops and the FBI and the military start running around trying to apprehend these people—just to tell them to tone down all their New World Order time machine Illuminati bullshit—it will be like confirming their worst fears.”
Markwell gave a grim nod. “Like the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in ninety-three.”
Rick knew he’d pegged Markwell correctly. This was not a stupid bumpkin who’d stumbled into politics Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-style, despite the tawdry image he was incapable of shaking. “Like Fonzie used to say on Happy Days, ‘Exactamundo.’”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Markwell replied. “I never liked the idea of cracking down on civil liberties. Not even in times of national emergencies. Our country’s strong enough to weather an emergency with our freedoms intact. But there’s never been an emergency like this.”
At first, Rick almost smiled. For one thing, Markwell sounded like he was in full politician mode. However, his staunch civil liberties stand almost made Rick blurt out, “Senator Markwell will always fight for your right to party. People with a penchant for a wild, unconventional time in the bedroom will love those civil liberties.” However, Markwell did end on a note that was open for all sorts of sinister interpretations.
A heavy silence hung in the air before Marwell added, “And I will never support any curtailing of Americans’ freedoms.”
“Good, Senator,” Rick said with all sincerity. “I mean, Brandon. That’s really good to hear.”
“You know,” said Cornelia, “the funny thing is that yesterday the heads of the globe team were worried that you might take steps toward a heavier government hand in this.”
“They must have been thinking of the wrong Brandon Markwell.”
Not if you’re known as Senator Bling, Rick thought with an inward smirk.
“So what about those so-called globe-experiencers?” asked Devon.
Rick said, “You’ll have to talk to the group’s head doctor, Kristine Murakami. Real interesting woman. But as far as I know, she’s found nothing extraordinary about any of them.”
“Wow,” Markwell said simply. “No kidding.”
“And how about the story out of Nebraska?” Devon asked, throwing Rick for a loop.
When he glanced at Cornelia, she appeared to be just as confused by the question.
“What story?” Rick asked.
Devon replied, “Someone claims a very sick fifteen-year-old girl was healed after seeing a newly arrived globe on the island of Crete.”
“I haven’t heard about that.”
“Well,” Markwell said, “the Internet—and even the mainstream press—is full of all kinds of crazy noise. It’s easy to miss.”
“And you’re sure this isn’t a bit of noise?”
“This is an American kid,” Devon said.
“Her doctor swears it’s true,” Markwell tagged on.
3.
“If it’s true, it could be a real game-changer,” Rick said as he drove their borrowed SUV west on Ala Moana Boulevard and toward Hickam Field.
The information Devon Markwell had dropped in their lap had Rick and Cornelia grappling with its implications rather than comparing their impressions of the slick-glamour of the Nevada power couple. Just before they left the Markwells’ suite, the senator had invited them to a show their Vegas magician friend, “The Mindbending” Alexander Dorian, also staying at the Four Seasons on the Big Island, was putting on every night. Rick would have been game, just for the sake of seeing how another professional illusionist was dealing with the globe phenomenon. Maybe “The Mindbending” Dorian even knew something about how “The Astounding” Jerome Pike was doing these days. The last Rick heard, Pike had completely disappeared from the public eye after his assault in Florida.
“For the better or the worse?” Cornelia asked, not looking up from her iPad as her fingers quickly slid across and tapped away on its surface.
“I don’t know.”
“Or it could be a wild goose chase. Like David Kwan and all the globe sensitives.”
“It could be that too,” Rick had to concede.
Cornelia suddenly looked up from her tablet for a moment. “All right, listen to this!” she exclaimed, then went back to studying the information she’d just found. “Her name is Sally Foster. She’s fifteen, just like Devon Markwell said. She lives outside Lincoln, Nebraska. The family’s originally from Kansas City, Missouri. They moved to Nebraska because of her father’s telecom-executive job. Everything was going perfectly for the family until a year ago, when Sally was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer. Three months ago the doctors told the family she had less than a year. Maybe five, six months at most.”
“So what were they doing in Crete?”
“Recreating a family trip to the Mediterranean from three years ago. There’s a grandmother in Greece. It was one of Sally’s happiest memories visiting there. And now was her last wish that they try and go back to the Mediterranean before she died.”
“And they happen to run into a globe.”
“Exactamundo.”
Rick couldn’t help grinning at that. “Could it have been a natural remission?” he asked, despite the fact that he doubted the possibility, and the question caused some troubling implications to start bubbling up from the depths of his mind. “I mean, a remission can happen on its own…can’t it?”
“I don’t know. All
this says is that her doctor doesn’t think so.”
“So what are the reactions to this so far?”
“Mixed.”
And Rick suspected as much, explaining that uneasy feeling that had been haunting him ever since they left the Markwells’ penthouse. “Oh really?”
Cornelia’s fingers worked the iPad. “Some think it’s a miracle. Others that it’s a fraud.”
“Miracle?”
“Oh yeah. Take your pick. It was from Jesus, from the earth spirits and globe makers, angels, or aliens. Whatever people already happen to believe in.”
“Remember back when all this started? There was somebody somewhere dying of cancer who left his hospital and treatments to be cured by a globe. There’s no word of whether he got better, is there?”
There was silence from Cornelia for about two minutes. “I can find stories about it,” she mumbled as she kept searching the web. “Mainly scientists railing and ranting about how this is all a hoax and making people do stupid things. You know, giving up on science and reason and putting their faith in superstition and pseudoscience. But nothing more. If he would have been cured, I’m sure we could find something. The way the Markwell woman heard about this girl. Actually, I think if we wouldn’t have been so focused on every news story about people hearing hums and vibrations, we probably would have heard about Sally Foster by now, too. There’s been quite a bit about her on the web.”
In his gut, Rick had suspected as much. “Strange that only one person gets healed so far, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Cornelia said with a rueful tinge to her voice. “The nature of the unexplained and the paranormal, isn’t it? Reminds me of this one story I covered as a rookie reporter. The owner of this diner in Gainesville said the face of the Virgin Mary appeared on one of her buttermilk pancakes. She said she felt in her heart that there was a purpose to it all. Whole bunch of people flocked to see her from all over Florida. Even as far away as Georgia and Louisiana. They wanted to, you know, hear what the meaning of it all was.”
“So did she reveal what it was all about?” Rick couldn’t help blurting out.
“Oh, yeah, she did. She said the Virgin wanted us to love each other.”
“That’s it?” Rick asked, knowing how disdainful it might have sounded, even though he didn’t intend it like that.
“That’s it. Although you did have a lot of people who said they felt feelings of good will and euphoria after their pilgrimage.”
That bit of information actually gave Rick a sinking feeling. “Nobody said anything about feeling a buzz of positivity or feeling like they were vibrating from love and good cheer, did they? Because if they did, we better keep that to ourselves.”
“No, not that I recall.”
“Good.”
“I know what you mean. Kristine Murakami would be back to calling us a bunch of con-artists.”
“You know it.”
“Well, I should add one more thing. As I recall, the whole thing didn’t turn out so well for everyone. There was this one guy who walked off his job—can’t even remember where he worked—to make the trek to see the miraculous pancake. Left some big project or something that was on a tight deadline. Real serious stuff, you know. Worth like, I don’t know how many million dollars to his company.”
“To witness the miracle and have his life change.”
“Yeah,” Cornelia said with a painful wince. “And he was told that we should love each other.”
“That must have been disappointing.”
“His life did change, though.”
“It did?”
“Unfortunately. He was fired.”
It figured, Rick realized, not helping at all his growing sense of dread and foreboding. “Maybe we just need a little solid scientific data about this Nebraska girl,” he said, noting the unsteady tone in his own voice.
“Sure. Tell Murakami and the rest of the military brass that we should jump back on their big plane and fly to Nebraska.”
4.
“As a reporter myself,” Cornelia said, “let me just put it out there that the senator would not be happy with this kind of small meeting and the clampdown on information.”
Rick and Cornelia’s meeting with Markwell had prompted this immediate meeting with the key personnel in charge of the globe-study group, but everyone else was excluded. Base Commander Lloyd Brubaker gathered Rutkowski, Graham, Murakami, and Knight, but the conference room they were in was locked down and two of the Navy SEALS they had brought from California were guarding the doors.
Via a massive high-definition screen on one of the walls, Garret Robinson was able to add his input from Travis Air Base. But that input right now was a derisive chuckle. “Yeah, the senator who just crawled out of whatever orgy, or swinger’s club, or whatever sleaze pit he and his wife usually enjoy spending their time in.”
“Never let it be said that I like to tell others how to live their lives or what kinks to indulge,” Dan Knight said, planting his elbows on the conference table, aggressively leaning into the conversation. His posture reminded Rick of a sumo wrestler leaning forward and getting ready to ram his opponent. “And I’ve defended Markwell before, but given everything that’s happening, and his take on this whole conspiracy theorist situation, I don’t think Brandon Markwell’s qualified to have anything to do with the phenomenon or this project or this group.”
So Rick had the impulse to shove back. “And, as you pointed out a few days ago, someone who’s been pretty damn successful back in Nevada. Reelected to office three times?”
“As they say, that was then and this is now,” Knight snapped.
“And I happen to think he makes some sense here,” Rick shoved right back.
“But on the ground right now we make the decisions on this,” Brubaker jumped between them suddenly.
“I’m just warning you,” Rick said, “he’s going to want to come down here and talk to you.”
Knight leaned back in his chair and threw his hands apart with a shrug. “National security. Can’t we just shut all of this down? Classify everything?”
“Aren’t we getting a little extreme here, Doc?” Cornelia replied.
“Are we missing some part of the big picture, Cornelia?” Knight answered her.
“What big picture?” Cornelia asked. “That we had another globe appear somewhere? At least it was in the Pacific.”
“Hey…Hawaii? Philippines? We were in the same ballpark,” Rutkowski said with some mild snark in his voice.
“But it’s not the end of the world yet, is it?” Rick said.
“Except,” Knight replied, as deadly serious as ever, as tightly wound as he had been since the King’s Medical Center incident the day before, “people are acting like it. All over the world. You mark my words, we’re gonna have more attacks like the one at the hospital.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Robinson said from the teleconferencing screen.
“Are you ready to see a van full of explosives drive up to the gates of this base?” Knight asked.
Rick noticed everyone shift uncomfortably in their seats all of a sudden.
“Look,” Kristine Murakami said, “the uncomfortable fact is that it could happen. We need to recognize that.”
“I completely agree,” Brubaker seconded immediately.
“So what about the rest of these assholes?” Rutkowski asked grimly, appearing to first chew up, then spit out each word. “Like the ones at the hospital? That nutcase they have in custody….”
Graham shuffled through some papers in front of him. “Moloy,” he said, taking and skimming one of the sheets. “His name’s Gary Moloy. His friends all over the Internet are screaming that he’s being tortured. That civil liberties are being suspended all over Hawaii, and the military will soon be rolling the tanks down the streets.”
“Yes, th
at’s exactly what I’m talking about!” exclaimed Rutkowski. “What are we going to do about it?”
Cornelia turned to Brubaker. “Colonel, remember what you said yesterday? About their First Amendment rights?”
Before Brubaker could say anything, Robinson replied, “Cornelia, look, we know how you feel about that. But the fact is that this is a special circumstance.”
“The First Amendment has survived much bigger emergencies,” Rick interjected.
“No,” Robinson came back, “I really don’t think so—”
Before he could recite his fears of the apocalypse, Rick couldn’t contain himself from adding, “So what do you all propose? That we start arresting anyone who’s written some stupid, paranoid rant on Facebook about the globes and conspiracies?”
“No,” Knight said, “just the maniacs like Moloy and Wexler and the rest of their kind.”
Rick almost shook his head in melodramatic dismay. “Oh, God. I can’t believe that the sleaze ball politician’s the only person who’s making sense right now.”
“By proposing to do nothing?” Brubaker asked, impatient disgust well planted on his face.
“No,” Cornelia said, “not by proposing to do nothing—and right now I’m just feeling really unclean agreeing with the sleaze ball politician—but if we overreact, we could be doing more harm than good.”
Rick noticed Knight rolling his eyes. Before the professor could reply, he said, “Look, Doc, approach this as an anthropologist. You got all these paranoids out there. Hiding in their basements, out in some hole in the jungle, wherever. If you try and round them up…hell, if you just try and talk to them, they’re going to take their insanity to the next level.”
Knight shook his head. “Rick, they’re already there.”
“No, they’re not! And this is what Markwell said, and he’s one-hundred-percent correct: It’s going to be just like Waco in ninety-three. They believe the war with the government is coming, and if you try and interfere with them in any way, they will see that as a confirmation of all their paranoia.”
“Then you better start putting up barriers against car bombs,” Cornelia said.
Confirmation Page 27
