Overture (Earth Song) (23 page)

“
Let’s go have some coffee and talk. Are you hungry?”

“
I’m not going in there wearing these,” she said indignantly, bending forward to show off her handcuffs.

“
Oh, I forgot.” He pulled out his key and took them off. “Better? Come on, I’m hungry.”

She
wasn't hungry and her mind was working as she watched him turn and walk inside. She flirted with the idea of escape then decided against it. The last thing she needed was to get arrested for the second time in as many hours. Mindy followed him inside.

“
So, what do you want from me?” she asked once they were inside and seated at a small corner table. The shop was the kind of place where cops hung out. Hot coffee, warm doughnuts and cold sandwiches were the fare. On most days it would be a busy place, today only a few cops occupied the tables. Their eyes were vacant and staring with fatigue. A few showed signs of battle and some just stared at their coffee in shock.

“
Some answers,” he said as their coffee was being delivered by a scared looking man of Arab descent.

“
I just got here last night, what would I know?”

“
I'm guessing, but I’d say a lot.”

She
sipped her drink, a mocha cappuccino rivaling what she could get in Seattle.

He
continued. “I'm a detective; I get paid to notice things. I knew you were from out of town right away. Your dress, the way you hold your handbag like you believe New York is full of purse snatchers, which to some degree it is. You fit the profile as a cultist, and then again, you don't.

“
Anyway, you said you’re with SETI and, you were here to see Leo Skinner. That's the head astronomer at NASA, isn't he?”

“
I'm impressed.”

“
Yeah, some cops watch the Discovery Channel. So, add you to this 'satellite' in the park and that adds up to you knowing a few things. I'd like to know what you know.”

“
I’ve got a feeling you know quite a bit too,” said Mindy and sipped her coffee. “Why else would a police lieutenant risk his job to take a prisoner out for a cup of coffee?”

He
shrugged and took a bite of the sandwich that had just been delivered then shrugged. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she deadpanned.

Harper
chuckled and took a good look at his ‘prisoner’. She was an attractive redhead with an infectious smile. Her eyes glimmered with a humorous intelligence that his ex-wife lacked, and that was something he enjoyed deeply. For the first time in months he realized how long he had been alone, and missed the company of a woman. That kind of longing could make a man lose his judgment.

“
Okay, I’ll go first,” he agreed and began to tell his story. He had no idea why but he told her everything. As the afternoon wore on he found himself telling her things he had told no one else. The time with Victor while he worked with the sketch artist. His personal revelations that more than one Portal existed. His meeting with Victor only days ago and his participation in the fateful battle just yesterday. She knew it all when he'd finished.

“
Wow, that’s quite a story. I can’t match it in scope, but I can tell you what I know.” The least she owed him was the truth, and that was what she gave him. He was attentive and enjoyed the story. She had taken risks as well, just not with a gun in hand. And like him she'd left behind a life with another person, not an easy thing. “So am I going to jail?”

“
That would seem rather pointless,” he said, looking down into his nearly empty cappuccino.  She was amazed he could consume that much caffeine without passing out or at least trembling uncontrollably. He must have been born in Seattle, and just didn’t know it. “Do you know for certain that the asteroid is going to hit the Earth?”

“
The early calculations were easy. It’s crossing our orbit with an error factor of one lunar orbit or less.”

“
The distance between the Earth and the moon. That’s a big error factor.”

“
We thought so too, so astronomers began tracking the rock’s orbit. We’ll know without a doubt in about a week.”

“
With all the technology you have, it’s still going to take another week?”

“
The trick is, this rock’s coming at a very high rate of speed from a long way away. Before it changed course we knew where it would pass this year within a couple football fields. Now it’s a whole new ballgame. Astronomers track an object by watching how it changes location and doing the math. LM-245 is coming straight at us and it isn’t moving much side to side. That means we need more time to lock down its orbit. NASA has deep space observatories that could have provided detailed calculations, yet they refused all attempts to access that data or even share their conclusions. The official position is still that the asteroid will not hit the Earth.”

“
I’m not reassured,” Harper said, “and this battle over the Portal tells me they're desperate to avoid losing control.” Automatic weapons fire and an explosion echoed down the canyon of buildings, making him jump slightly. "It looks like negotiations have broken down."

From
the direction of the park came another, louder explosion. Harper dropped a twenty on the table and they went outside. The sky was growing dark and bright flashes emanated from the direction of the park. "If people find out that asteroid is going to hit, this city is going to slide head first into hell," Harper said. All along the block, people could be seen loading their possessions into moving vans, trucks, cars and even motorcycles.

He
dropped Mindy off at her hotel and held the door for her to get out. She smiled shyly at him. “Are you going to get in trouble for letting me go?” she asked.

“
No one will even remember you,” he said as they walked up the stairs to the doorway. The doorman nodded and opened the door for them. “Except for me,” he said with his own shy smile, “I'll remember.”

She
was quite a woman and he was sorry he had to leave. For a time he'd forgotten yesterday and that he hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours.

Mindy
stepped close and kissed him right on the lips. It was a quick kiss but still a serious one. “That’s for letting me go,” she said and turned to leave.

“
Wait!” he said and ran up behind her. She turned around and he kissed her with more authority. Mindy felt her legs get weak.

“
What was that for?” she asked huskily when he let her go.

“
That’s for not turning out to be a cultist, and not trying to stab me over cappuccino.”

She
laughed and shook her head. “You are the weirdest cop I’ve ever met,” she laughed.

“
You don’t know the half of it.” He handed her his card on which he’d written his personal cell number. She looked at the number then at the room key in her hand. She blushed brightly at what she was thinking. He saved her by saying goodbye and leaving.

“
Woof,” she said with flushed cheeks and sweat dripping down her back She hadn’t had a man make her that hot since she was in college. Up in her room she stripped off her dirty, smoky clothes and climbed into the oversized bathtub. She leaned back and sighed. The hot water began washing away everything she had seen and heard over the last few hours. Everything except Billy Harper’s strong arms around her waist and his hot lips pressed against hers. She shivered in the hot water, her nipples so hard they hurt when she reached up and rubbed them.

Mindy
bit her lower lip and her head spun. Her cheeks glowed red as she slid a hand down between her legs. “Oh God, what are you doing to me?” she asked the departed Harper.

Later,
finally clean and dressed in a complimentary terry robe, she lay on the bed listening to her voice-mail. A message from Harold in Seattle saying they should have the orbital solution on LM-245 in three more days. One from the hotel manager asking if she needed a wakeup call tomorrow. And finally from Leo Skinner.

“
Sorry to not call sooner like I said I would, but I was held up. The thing you are here to see was taken by a group of religious nut cases yesterday. I used it as an excuse to show up and help negotiate with the whack jobs. Call me back when you get in and we’ll meet for breakfast. My number is...”

Mindy
hung up and quickly dialed the number. “Skinner,” he answered after just one ring.

“
Hey Leo, it’s Mindy.”

“
Great to hear from you. Where were you this morning?” She sighed and told him while leaving out everything with Harper. “Good grief, don’t you young people have any judgment? We’ll have to make it lunch, tomorrow. They’re keeping an eye on me right now. How about the restaurant in your hotel?”

“
See you there,” she said and hung up. She looked up at the ceiling and could only see Billy Harper’s grinning face in her mind’s eye. “I’m in real trouble,” she said.

Victor had done his best to live in the good graces of God since that fateful day in Central Park. Today he was reaching his limits. There had been a fair amount of activity around their new “church” yesterday, and volunteers arrived all day with carloads of food and supplies. Now all the work was done, everything had been moved, and almost no one was around. He hadn’t seen any of his disciples for over twenty-four hours, and worse he was going crazy trying to figure out what was happening in Central Park around the Portal to Heaven! He wanted answers and there was no one to ask. His fear and loathing grew by the hour.

When
he’d gotten to the new church yesterday there were a few hundred faithful to help them move in, listen to him preach, and then have a meal. This morning there wasn’t half of the number from the day before, and they all acted like kids who had a secret they weren’t going to tell their parents. “What the hell is going on,” he grumbled in the bathroom as he brushed his teeth. The worst part was that he had to do the dishes. “The prophet of the Avatar shouldn’t have to do the dishes,” he said, then had at laugh at himself. “Then again, what could be better for His prophet than to scrub a few pots and pans and be reminded of what it is to be humble?” With a shrug he headed from the bathroom to the kitchen.

Several
hours and several towering stacks of dishes later he left the now deserted kitchen that still stank of cat chow mein and headed to his room. It was once the managers’ office and, next to the dining room, it was the biggest space in the church. As he came around the corner he collided with Kadru. They both went to the floor in a shower of papers. “I’m sorry, Victor!” she said and moved to retrieve some of her stuff. Victor was about to ask her what was going on when she coughed and put a hand to her head. He stopped and looked at her. Kadru shook her head, gave a little gasp and fell over backwards.

“
Oh, shit,” he said and slid over next to her. She was facing the ceiling, part of her body appeared painfully rigid, but one arm was jerking hard enough that he grabbed it to keep her from hitting herself. “She’s having a seizure,” he realized. “Someone, help!” he yelled down the hall. In a second he heard running footsteps and a couple of the faithful came to a surprised stop when they saw them. “Call an ambulance!” Victor ordered.

“
The police will show up,” one of them complained.

“
She’s one of my disciples,” he snapped back. “God will protect me, I don't fear the police! We can do our work even if I'm in jail, it makes no difference. Now call the ambulance!”

“
I don’t need an ambulance,” Kadru gasped, Victor’s head spin around. She was still lying there but she wasn’t shaking any more. Her eyes were wide as she sucked air like a fish out of water.

“
You need medical attention.”

“
No, there is little that the doctors can do for me now.” Her arms shook with the effort as she managed to sit back up. “I need to tell you something, can we talk in private?” Victor looked at the two faithful and nodded his head. They looked at each other then left them alone. “Can you get me to my room?” she asked, as she gathered up the items she had been carrying.

“
Sure,” he said and lifted her up. She couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds and Victor wondered if she was this light when they'd first met. He couldn’t recall and then suddenly remembered how she always looked tired. As he walked with her, he spied that several of the things she was carrying were prescription medication bags. There were an awful lot of them. “So tell me what’s going on,” he said when they had reached her room.

“
I’m sick, have been for a couple years.”

“
Yeah, I figured out that much in the hallway.”

She
gave a weak smile and lowered herself into a chair with a sigh. “It’s a rare form of cancer in my brain that attacks the medulla oblongata, the brain stem. There is no way to operate and no one has ever been cured.”

Victor
took a deep breath and looked down at the floor. “Why do you take the faithful first?” has asked God under his breath.

“
A couple months ago after my first round of chemo, I got up and left the hospital. I’d had enough. I went home, got my grandfather’s old .45 he’d used in World War II, and went to Central Park. I sat there in the North Meadow and prepared to end my life on my own terms. That was when I saw Shiva’s Avatar arrive.”

“
You were there too?”

“
Yes. I saw it appear. I saw the metal walls pop into existence. I saw you come up and demand to be let in. Then I saw the wall disappear. You confront the Avatar. You were not imagining things, Victor. There was something between you and it. Something spiritual! When I saw you on that street corner a couple days later, I had no choice but to follow you. It didn’t matter that the words you spoke were Christian. The Avatar was more. It was all religions; it was none of our religions. Anyway, I’m rambling, I need to take some medicine and get some sleep.”

Victor
brought Kadru a glass of water. She swallowed a disturbingly large handful of pills. He didn’t want to guess what kinds of chemicals they were. He took the empty glass back and she smiled at him before lying back in the little cot.

“
How long do you have?” he asked her.

“
Doctors said I had a good year or so, that was before I stopped treatment. The pharmacist that’s been keeping me in drugs says the only other person he’s seen with my sort of cancer only lived a couple months. It won’t matter, the asteroid sent by God is coming and His children will be through the Portal to Heaven. My fate was sealed when I caught this terrible curse, but as long as I still draw breath, I will fight to get us through that Portal.”

Victor
sighed and patted her hand. The medication was taking effect and he could see the lines in her face slackening as the pain was deadened. “Where did you get the money, Kadru? The money you gave us back before we had any money?”

“
It was my money. I run a website for Indians here in the US. It helps them find family members and even dates. It was started as fun and it made me a millionaire.” She smiled at him weakly and he shook his head.

“
All those anonymous donations?”

“
They were me, mostly. I’ve funneled a couple hundred thousand into our coffers. It wasn’t easy at first, which is why I set up that webpage. It made it a lot easier and it was out of your view so you couldn’t get wise to what I was doing. Don’t look at me like that, it’s my money and I’ll do whatever I want to with it. I’ve given a lot of it away to family, the rest will be yours. What good will money serve shortly?”

She
was starting to slur her speech so Victor got up to go. Then he remembered what he’d wanted to ask her when they had run into each other. “Kadru, I know you are tired, but can you tell me where everyone is? I can’t even find Duke, and I have to throw him out of my bedroom most nights.”

Nearly
asleep, she mumbled something so he leaned closer. “What was that?”

“
They went to take back the Portal for you.”

Her
eyes closed and her breathing became slow and regular. Victor looked at her, then out the stained window toward the sky. “What have I become?” he asked.

“
Shiva,” she whispered in her sleep.

Osgood sipped his coffee and eyed his captors while wondering if he was going to get out of this alive. A little over a day ago, he would not have given a dollar for his life. The fanatics had swarmed into the Portal dome, all crying triumphantly, and many just crying. They danced around the dais in glee like some South Pacific tribe around a crashed airplane, their God taken form. Several of them were wounded and still bleeding. For a fleeting moment Osgood thought he might just walk out without being noticed, then a huge black man arrived. He wielded a massive handgun in each hand and was bare-chested. He reminded Osgood of an obsidian Hercules.

Then
another man arrived, a tall man with an air of authority about him. His conservative gray suit was streaked with blood and he carried a frightening little machine gun like he knew how to use it. They called him Gabriel and he instantly took charge and got them calmed down. The black Hercules was called Duke and he took over guarding the prisoners. With his arrival went any hope Osgood held out for escape. These characters were in it for the long run.

The
first thing the police and the military reinforcements did was to secure the perimeter so that no one went in or out. Duke and Gabriel tried to get people out several times, but all this achieved was to kill more of the faithful. Eventually a telephone was delivered via a small tracked robot. Several of the more fanatical believers shot the robot full of holes. Still, the phone amazingly survived. Gabriel was now in communication with the authorities.

“
Demands? Our demands are that you open the perimeter and allow our people free access in or out.” And that was how the negotiations went for hours on end. While Gabriel kept up the stonewalling, Duke had his own work to see to. He watched the captives and used his cell phone constantly. Huge maps of Central Park were laid out and notations were made. Every time someone tried to get in or out, the police and military reactions were recorded. Osgood watched him work every chance he got. Duke knew what he was doing. The notes he made on the paper were in a precise hand and intermixed with military symbols. Neither he nor Gabriel was a common fanatic like the rest. They used hand-picked bodyguards who stayed close and didn’t ask a lot of questions. They were all hard-eyed killers. These men carried their weapons ready, followed orders quickly and without question.

“
What do you think about all this?” one of Osgood’s men asked.

“
Well, that guy talking to the negotiator is an ex-cop; I’d stake my reputation on it. Now that character over there…”

“
The big African-American guy?”

“
Yes, him. He’s military, and well trained. He’s running that end of the operation. Volant and his crowd don’t know what they're dealing with. The rank and file are just street people mostly, but there's something about those two that suggests they are experts, well-motivated and have a plan.”

Eventually
a true cease-fire was reached and the cultists took formal control of the compound. Someone found their way to the cafeteria and brought back food for everyone, even the prisoners. For the most part the hostages were treated with indifference. The cultists ignored them unless they were spoken to and asked nothing of them. While they were watched every moment, there were no threats against them either. An entire day had passed with little change.

Osgood
managed to become invisible to most of the cultists. He could meander around the main dome and check the occasional display without being questioned or challenged. When Duke had found out he was the chief scientist he was given more freedom than any of the others. He promised to be sure none of the equipment exploded. Little did they know that he and his men shut down everything dangerous that first day.

Osgood
was standing next to a control panel pretending to check its displays when Duke’s cell phone rang. The big man turned away from everyone as he answered. Though Osgood was getting up in years, his hearing was perfect. Sometimes he could hear voices on the other end of someone else's call. This time that other person was so enraged, hearing him was no problem at all.

“
Duke here.”

“
Damn you, Duke! How dare you do this without me?” Duke frowned at hearing Victor on the other end. He had hoped for more time.

“
You said it wasn’t to the point of using any ‘special’ means I have available, but you didn’t say we shouldn’t try something.”

“
Quit mincing words with me. What gave you the right to lead the faithful like this? Are you a prophet too? Has the Avatar spoken to you?”

“
No, Victor, I know God has spoken to you. I know you better than just about anyone, that’s why you couldn’t do this. You don’t have the heart for it.”

“
And you do? How many people died there yesterday, Duke? How many of them were innocent, how many of our faithful have gone to Heaven? Or should I wonder how many you have sent to Hell?”

“
Those who serve in the army of the Lord shall know Heaven.”

“
Don’t quote scripture to me, Duke, I taught it to you!”

Duke
looked up as Gabriel came in and caught his attention. The ex-police officer walked over with a questioning look on his face. “It’s Victor,” Duke mouthed for his compatriot.

“
Oh, shit,” Gabriel mouthed back. Duke cracked a pained grin and returned to his conversation.

“
-have you been listening to me, dammit?!”

“
Yes sir. About a hundred and fifty of our children died.” Victor was stunned silent for a moment. “Paul is dead and Mary is missing. Someone thought they saw her being arrested near the end. Gabriel is here with me now; he helped plan it all out.”