Fallen Masters (54 page)

“But the bottom line is, the late President’s son is safe?” Diane asked.

“Well, we can’t say that for sure. We know that by all accounts he was alive two hours ago, and we know that he was apparently comfortable with whoever it was that took him. But for now, we have no idea where he is.”

After that report, the news did turn to the Academy Awards ceremony that was to be held tonight, and they discussed the pictures that had been nominated for Oscars.
Glory in the Ruins
seemed to be the odds-on favorite for best movie. Ryan Frederick seemed to be a lock for best male actor, while Damaris Royce had the nod for best female.

Charlene herself had a song nominated for the Best Original Song award, which she would be singing during the ceremony. They also discussed Charlene’s role in the ceremonies tonight, and had a clip from her performance in Mexico City.

Charlene turned the TV off, looked again at her cell phone. Dawson hadn’t called her. Maybe he didn’t think she was serious when she’d invited him to call. Ha! Why wait on the invitation? This was the twenty-first century, after all. Why not call him?

Charlene picked up the phone and dialed the hotel operator.

“Yes, Miss St. John?”

“Would you ring Dawson Rask’s room for me, please?”

“Yes, of course.”

Charlene heard the ring and for just a moment, almost hung up. Her mind raced along the now-bright path of time and opportunity that lay ahead. Now that she had been given a clean bill of health and had experienced more than one real miracle in her life, she felt a renewed zest for living. She couldn’t help but think Ryan had something to do with it. He had always been a positive force radiating creative, loving energy. She felt she was being guided by him in this moment—perhaps she had been for some time and never realized it.

She decided not to hang up the phone.

*   *   *

Dawson had been watching the same news program as Charlene, and when they finished the report on the happenings at the warehouse at 1512 Jesse, he turned it off. Lying on the table beside him was the card Charlene had given him. He picked it up and looked at it for a long moment.

Had she been serious? Did she really want him to call? Or was this simply a “we must do lunch sometime,” with no specific date stated. He turned the card over a few times in his hand as he thought about it. Why not call? Why not call now? He didn’t know that, just as he was deciding to call her, she was dialing his room number …

Just as he reached for the phone it rang—the ringing startling him. This had to be Bobby. He picked it up.

“Okay, Bobby, what can Jack Lewis and I do for you now?”

“Uh, Mr. Rask?” It was a woman’s voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dawson said quickly. He chuckled. “There’s no caller ID on these phones, and I thought you were someone else.”

“This is Charlene.”

“Charlene?” It couldn’t be, could it?

Charlene laughed, and again, there was the sound of perfectly harmonized wind chimes. “We met in the elevator, remember? One famous person to another?”

“Yes, yes, of course I remember! How could I not remember? It’s just that, I didn’t expect, I mean…” Then he blurted: “You won’t believe this, but I was just reaching for the phone to call you.”

“I choose to believe it. That way I don’t feel like I’m intruding.”

“No, no, not at all!”

“Good. Dawson, you do know that the Academy Awards are tonight, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know. Oh, and I even know that you will be singing at the awards.”

“That’s true. And I have a ticket for an escort. I really was serious in the elevator—I wonder if you would be my escort?”

Dawson wasn’t sure he had heard what he thought he heard, and he sat in stunned silence for a moment.

“Dawson, are you still there?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here.”

“What about it?”

Dawson looked up and saw a smiling C. S. Lewis.
“By all means, my boy, do accept. You will have a splendid time.”

“Yes, I would love to escort you. I wasn’t sure if you really meant it when you made that generous offer, but I can’t think of anything in the world I would rather do.”

“I am in room 1912. Call for me at five thirty, that will give me time to nibble on a cracker and have a glass of wine or something to calm my nerves before we go to the Hollywood Grand Theatre.”

“I will be there, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Dawson said.

“Oh, like Mr. Fitzpatrick.”

“What?”

“My pet squirrel.”

“You have a pet squirrel?”

“Never mind. I’ll see you at five thirty.”

Dawson hung up the phone. “Yes!” he shouted. He saw C. S. Lewis and raised his hand. “High five!” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind, you couldn’t do it anyway. Damn, my tux, it will be a mess!”

Ordinarily, Dawson wouldn’t even have a tux with him, but he had taken it to Australia because there was supposed to be a black tie event in his honor, sponsored by his Australian publisher. The event was canceled after the President was shot, and Dawson’s trip cut short.

He took the tux from the suitcase and groaned. It looked as if it had been slept in for a month. He took it in the bathroom, hung it on the towel rack, then turned the shower on as hot as it would go.

An hour later he fought his way through the steam in the bathroom, turned off the shower, then brought his tux out into the room, where he hung it up to let it dry. He was pleased to see that his impromptu pressing was successful. The formal attire was wrinkle free.

*   *   *

When Charlene heard the knock on her door, she looked over at the digital clock. It was exactly five thirty and she smiled, wondering if Dawson had waited in the hall until the exact time. She opened the door.

“Oh, you are in a tux!” she said.

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“Yes, you look wonderful in it. It’s just that I asked you on such short notice, I wasn’t sure you could come up with one in time.”

“I always keep it with me, just in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case a beautiful woman asks me to escort her to the Academy Awards.”

All the time Dawson was talking, he was holding one hand behind his back, and she leaned around to look. “What do you have?”

Dawson brought around a single daisy. “I brought you a flower. You should put it in water right away.”

Charlene laughed. “Put it in water? It’s silk. In fact, it looks suspiciously like the ones in front of the elevator down in the lobby.”

“It is,” Dawson said. “But you aren’t supposed to call attention to that.”

Charlene took it. “It’s beautiful. I’ll get it in water at once.” She put water in a drinking glass, dropped in the plastic daisy, then scooped up her bag and wrap. “Shall we go?”

“Yes, we should get a move on. But … I kind of want to tell you something, though, before we go.” It was as much a question as a statement from him.

“Sure. What is it?”

“I want you to know where I was earlier. I mean—what I was doing. We rescued the President’s son from his kidnappers. The FBI did, actually. A good friend of mine, Agent Bobby Anderson.” He related the whole story, including the bizarre coincidences of Mama G’s metaphysical involvement and Rae Loona and Tyler Michaels’s presence on the scene.

Charlene took it all in without batting an eye, though her pulse was racing quite a bit faster than usual. “You don’t say,” she offered when Dawson had finished his account of the adventure. He looked a bit shell-shocked. “You don’t say…”

A thought was forming in her mind as she fiddled with her wrap and let him help her put it around her shoulders. Then she calmly added, “I will tell you about my conversation with the President when we are in the car. It all fits in.”

Thinking to herself, she also realized she could top even that event with her vision of the Blessed Lady who had, she believed, cured her cancer. That, too, fit into this plan that was unfolding before her very eyes. Tonight would represent a major step forward for her—well beyond the Oscar nomination for her song. No, something more, something bigger, something
much
bigger than she had ever experienced lay ahead.

CHAPTER

97

Omar drove the truck all the way around Piccadilly Circus, showing Shakir where five major streets joined. “As you can see, some moments there are more people than other moments. In order to have the maximum effect, we need to detonate the bomb in the middle of the largest crowd.”

“All those people will be killed,” Shakir said.

“Yes, that is the point.”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“What do you mean, what if you can’t do it? How hard is it to drop a backpack? That is all you have to do.”

“Yes.”

“There, look,” Omar said, pointing to two buses that were loaded with Japanese vacationers. They began spilling out into the plaza.

“Allah has provided for us,” he said. “Go, now. Get in the middle of them. If you are lucky, you can get over one hundred of them.”

Omar reached across in front of Shakir and opened the door. “Go now,” he said. “Go quickly. Fill your mind only with the thought of paradise, for that is where you will be, one minute from now.”

Omar did not notice that tears were streaking down Shakir’s face. And even if he had seen them, he would have misread them. He would have thought that Shakir was frightened because he was about lose his own life. Shakir was frightened, and saddened that his action could take as many as one hundred innocent lives, and no doubt grievously wound many others.

*   *   *

As Asima hurried to Piccadilly Circus, she checked her watch. If Omar was on schedule, and she had learned that he was very much a man of structure, she had only three minutes remaining in which to stop it.

Then, unbidden, a memory of her days in college flashed back to her. She was in the market when an older woman approached her. At first she thought the woman was going to ask her for money, and she felt embarrassed because she had no money to give.

*   *   *

“Do not be afraid of me, Asima,” the woman said.

“Who are you? How did you know my name?”

“I am Patricia Rose Greenidge, but many call me Mama G. May I touch you?”

Asima was startled by the strange request, but there was something in the old woman’s eyes that calmed her, and she knew that the woman offered no danger. The old woman touched Asima … putting her hands on Asima’s cheeks.

Asima felt a strange surge, almost like a wave of electricity emanating from Mama G’s hands.

“You are a very special woman, Asima,” Mama G said. “One day you will make the greatest sacrifice and it will help so many”

*   *   *

Up until this moment, Asima had always thought that the sacrifice was giving up her own hopes and dreams to help Muti raise their family. But now she was looking at it with a whole new perspective … a perspective of sacrificing her son.

She saw him getting out of Omar’s truck. He was carrying a backpack.

“Shakir! No!” she shouted. “No, please, don’t do it!”

“Mama!” Shakir called back.

“Lay down the backpack! Come to me!”

“Mama, I can’t. I have to do this!”

“No, you don’t!” Muti shouted, and looking around, Asima saw her husband coming up behind her.

Shakir looked at his parents, then back toward Omar, who was still waiting in the truck. He hesitated for just a second, and then laid the backpack on the ground.

“Good!” Muti shouted. “That is good! Now, come to us!”

Shakir started toward them, and Asima was overwhelmed with a feeling of relief and gratitude until she saw something that made her blood run cold. Omar had come out of the truck, and now he was punching numbers into a cell phone.

Asima knew exactly what that meant. He had no intention of letting Shakir make up his own mind. There was a cell phone embedded in the backpack, and the moment the cell phone rang, it would send a charge that would detonate the backpack. Dozens, perhaps hundreds would be killed, and everyone would report that the last person they saw with the backpack was Shakir.

Asima started running toward the pack, dashing by Shakir without so much as a greeting.

*   *   *

“Asima!” Muti called, “What are you—?”

Then Muti saw Omar dialing the phone and he knew exactly what Asima was doing.

“Asima! No!” he shouted.

*   *   *

Witnesses would later report that they saw a beautiful woman come running from nowhere to grab the backpack. They watched her strange action and were confused by it. Some thought perhaps she was stealing it, but in instead of trying to run away, she jumped over the concrete wall of a trash-collecting bunker.

There was a loud explosion. Smoke, flame, and pieces of body flew into the air—Asima’s body and the concrete walls absorbed both the blast concussion and the shrapnel. Asima’s was the only life lost.

*   *   *

Mama G envisioned this scene as if she were there in London, watching, moving with the crowds.

She felt the impact of the bomb, like a fierce burst of hot air against her face, pushing her body back. She caught her breath and wiped tears that were running from her eyes.

Watching what the signs of the skies had foretold—the darkness spreading, now below as above—overwhelmed her with sadness. Asima … the young woman had never been far from Mama G’s mind, and the seer now felt even closer to her than ever. How many years ago had it been since they met face-to-face? Even then, the older woman felt there was something special—a spiritual strength and deep inner compassion—that marked Asima and set her apart from others. She had hoped the young student would have a long and productive life, but she knew in her heart that a shadow lay across Asima, and the stars were not aligned in her favor.

Still, she also felt that her relationship with the intelligent young Muslim woman would continue for a long time—a very strong feeling, which Mama G now knew to be true.

Yes, Asima was gone, but so many other lives had been saved. The yin and yang of existence continued. Yet the forces of darkness still seemed to be getting the upper hand.