Blinding Fear (6 page)

Chapter 5

Frank Whalen lovingly surveyed his new telescope in the cool, early autumn darkness of his backyard. He slowly ran his bony hands and fingers over the 12” diameter, light-gathering tube that was the literal and figurative heart of the Orion Skyquest Truss-Tube Dobsonian instrument. Even saying the officious, awkward name gave him joy. He couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. He caressed the carefully crafted—and very expensive—eye piece and lenses, dreaming how the thousands of planets, stars, asteroids and comets above him in the Rocky Mountain night would soon come into focus. He congratulated himself again on his decision to move into a house that was more than a mile above sea level; less atmosphere to fuzz-up his viewing and image-taking. Forget twinkling stars. He wanted them sharp and unblinking for optimal viewing.

The telescope, lenses, fully mechanized and computerized tracking system, camera, mounting pedestal and other assorted hardware and software, gadgets and gizmos had cost him thousands of dollars and dozens of hours to set up. With a grimace he also considered the unfortunate, additional cost—the destruction of his marriage.

The twenty-six years he’d spent with Margery had been rocky almost from the start. Along with other, far-too-numerous marriage-crushing issues, she’d never been able to understand the passion he had since he was a boy for all things celestial. It began with his obsession with Star Trek and Star Wars memorabilia and ended with his long-term goal of finding and officially naming a comet. The idea of a married man with two kids desperately trying to get William Shatner’s autograph was repulsive to her. It was one thing when Frank bought every science fiction television episode and movie Shatner had ever been in. It was another when he flew off to Las Vegas for a three-day Star Trek convention and adamantly refused to allow her to come along.

“You’ll hate every minute of the convention,” he’d told her. “All you’ll want to do is gamble and probably lose thousands of dollars. We’ll never see each other anyway.”

He waited in line three hours for a chance to get Shatner’s autograph. He couldn’t help but smile remembering the rush he got when Shatner finally signed an official 1966 Desilu Studios photo of himself for Frank. He was wearing his Star Trek captain’s uniform. It’d been worth every minute! Unfortunately, the disbelieving, stunned expression on his wife’s face when he returned and tried to convey the glory of the moment was something else entirely. It was one more piece of shrapnel—among many—that was systematically chopping his marriage into oblivion.

Inspired by the other-worldly dreams and images he’d soaked in at the convention, he began to put together his own version of the Star Trek credo to “seek out new life and new civilizations.” For him it was a quest to find a comet of his own—one of the ultimate aspirations of the thousands of amateur astronomers around the world.

He started with small, consumer-grade telescopes. He quickly determined they were essentially worthless when it came to anything other than zooming in on the squirrels in the many trees surrounding their Colorado Springs home. Gradually he increased his budget to accommodate what was becoming his obsessive need to connect with the cosmos. He thought the income from his GS-10 federal job as a maintenance mechanic at the Air Force Academy, along with his wife’s job as an assistant principal, was enough for him indulge his growing hobby. Unfortunately, he failed to grasp how deep his wife’s anger and resentment had become. He discovered it had reached major eruption levels when he came home late one day from work to find all her clothes gone and a hand-written note on the kitchen table.

“Got the Visa bill today. $6,382.97!!!!! Nothing but telescope crap!!!! I’m done!!!! Don’t try to call or find me!!!! I’ve told the school office not to accept your calls. I disconnected my old phone and got a new one. My lawyer will be in touch, asshole!!”

He spent several hours trying to figure it all out; finally realizing it was probably all for the good. The kids were out and gone with lives of their own. Anything physical with his wife had ended years ago when she’d put on a lot of weight—not that anything in that department had ever meant much to either of them anyway. He still had a great job and the house—at least for the time being. And now he could devote his free time exclusively to his new equipment and star gazing!

Feeling much better about things, he again looked over the telescope, carefully considering the numerous steps he still needed to accomplish to begin looking for a comet. It wasn’t going to be easy but it was definitely going to be fun!

Chapter 6

Six weeks later, after countless hours looking through his Orion, taking thousands of pictures of grainy and seemingly vacant star fields, Frank found, what by all appearances, could be a comet. Shifting back and forth between two images on his MacBook Pro he could see the movement of a tiny, fuzzy dot. Two days later he repeated the process and confirmed the dot had again moved a little more. He could hardly believe it! Most amateurs like him could spend a lifetime looking for but never finding a comet. Now he had apparently, hopefully, found one in just a few weeks! Ecstatic was far too tame a word to describe his emotions.

Less than an hour later a mysterious-looking, unexpected e-mail dropped into his mailbox. It came moments after he down loaded all the pertinent data on what he hoped was his new comet discovery to the International Astronomical Union’s Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams or CBAT for short. When he learned the CBAT, located in one of the astrophysics buildings on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was THE clearinghouse and repository for 100% of all new comet discoveries worldwide he couldn’t help but chuckle. Talk about cumbersome names! And the “Telegrams” part of the title. How bizarre was that! He could only guess it dated back to the 19th century when astronomers—virtually all in the US and Europe—had to do just that: send a literal telegram with all the dots, dashes, and maybe even ticker tape, to someone in some dusty office in New York or Washington or London detailing when, where and how they’d discovered what they thought was a new comet.

Now he’d done the 21st century version of the telegram and within a short time he receives an e-mail from an organization that sounds like some sort of official U.S. government agency.

He rubbed the three-week stubble on his face, staring at the screen, reading the puzzling subject line out loud over and over to himself.

“United States Department of Strategic Policy and Planning for Near-Earth and Other Space Objects. He snorted derisively, “Policy and Planning.... Near-Earth....Space Objects. What in the world....or should I say universe.” He chuckled softly.

Maybe it was phishing. Maybe it was loaded with a virus that would fry his hard drive. Maybe, lots of maybes; lots of potential downsides but then again might be some upside stuff. If so, it could be major upside!

Then again he didn’t like the overall implications. If the title was genuine it meant some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in the U.S. government had somehow discovered he’d sent details about what he hoped was a new comet to a privately funded, non-governmental organization. Now that person was contacting him. Why? How had they found out? Where did they get his e-mail address? Then again maybe it was nothing more than this organization, whoever they were, trying to confirm his details.

He laughed softly speaking to himself, “Who knows. Maybe there’ll be an award or something in it! I wonder if there such a thing as amateur astronomer of the year?”

He moved the cursor over the title and slowly pressed the pressure pad to reveal the contents.

Chapter 7

Sitting in the 20 year-old Dodge Ram 2500 delivery van, 20 year-old Adelmo Garza could hardly believe his good fortune, thanks to the mysterious man sitting in the passenger seat.

Less than six months prior he’d joined a surge of migrants from Guatemala heading north to the land of milk and honey—the United States. He’d left his impoverished home town of Quixal telling his recently widowed mother he would find a great job someplace in the U.S. When he solemnly promised he would send at least half of what he made back to help support her and her seven other children she’d just laughed angrily.

“And just what do you think you’re going to do to make all this money? Be a doctor, a lawyer, president of a big company? No!” she yelled, rising from her rocker where she’d been pulling feathers off a recently killed chicken. “You’re going to pick fruit or cotton, put on roofs or lay down grass! The gringos will pay you half of what they should and tell you to be happy about it or else! And you will barely make enough to support yourself much less send anything back to your family!”

She raised up on her toes trying to get close to him, waving a finger twisted by several un-repaired breaks.

“I need you here! Now! How am I supposed to take care of your brothers and sisters! You’re the oldest. The Blessed Virgin expects you to stay, not go! It is your sacred duty!”

He responded as gently as he could.

“The Blessed Virgin has told me that I
must
do this, mother. For now, for me to go is our only hope.”

She was close enough for him to smell the onions, beans and tortillas from their lunch on her breath, see her pulse pounding in her neck, her eyes filling with tears of anger and despair. His siblings silently watched the life-changing drama, knowing there was nothing they or their mother could do to stop him. All knew his departure would mean greater responsibility to each individual regardless of age and increased hardship for the entire family.

For a fleeting moment Adelmo considered changing his mind but then realized he had to go despite what his mother said. Their only hope lay somewhere approximately 1,500 miles north as The Virgin had promised.

He enveloped his mother in a hug where he could feel her shaking. As he turned to leave the three-room hovel she reached out, desperately grabbing at his shirt.

“Adelmo! No!”

He pulled out of her grasp and swung the backpack with his precious-few possessions onto his shoulders, waved to his brothers and sisters and stepped out into the blazing tropical sun.

Chapter 8

For nearly six weeks Adelmo used virtually every mode of transportation known to man to get north: trains, cars, trucks, horse-drawn carts and wagons and boats. On some modes he stowed away, on others he simply payed the drivers or owners a modest sum. But most of all he just walked; hundreds of miles and six pairs of shoes worth.

He’d taken all the money he’d scraped together since deciding two years earlier what he had to do. Not nearly enough to pay a human smuggler to get him through the most difficult places or across the Mexico-U.S. border but enough if he were frugal and careful it would last until he reached whatever destination he could.

For most of the way he stayed close to the Gulf of Mexico coast of the various countries he traveled through. He knew he would find cooler temperatures there, more drinkable water, an occasional fish he could catch and sympathetic strangers who might help him.

Crossing the U.S. border was simultaneously simple and terrifying. He and ten others paid a smuggler to ferry them east out into the Gulf of Mexico and then back again to the coast of Texas just north of Brownsville. The mode of transportation was an ancient, eighteen-foot ski boat pushed by a seriously out of tune, 50-horsepower Johnson outboard motor. Adelmo was convinced that only through the direct intervention of the Blessed Virgin herself were they able to make it. Somehow they managed to avoid the Coast Guard and local police and sheriff’s departments. Since he couldn’t swim and the transit was preformed at night he thought for most of the three hours or so it took that his mother had been right.

Once in the U.S., being young and strong, he found there were always men and women who were willing to pay him a lot less than minimum wage—and of course under the table—to tend their lawns, sweep their floors, stock their shelves or whatever menial tasks they didn’t want to do themselves or couldn’t find local help. All he had to do was stand on a street corner in whatever town he found himself in and eventually someone would pull over their pickup truck and signal him— and whoever else—to jump in the back. The jobs earned him enough to continue to move north; always hoping to find another, better opportunity.

Somehow, for reasons he assumed only The Virgin could have planned and directed, he found himself in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the employ of a retired chemistry professor who’d started a small delivery service. It supplied compressed and liquified gases to the many labs and research facilities spread across the sprawling Harvard University campus. Trying to keep costs down he’d hired Adelmo on the spot to drive one of his delivery vans when Adelmo walked in the door asking for work doing any job at any wage. The professor had even rented him a cramped, unused storeroom where he could sleep. Adelmo added a few touches to the tiny space to make it more livable including a small shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Nearly every day Adelmo would offload oxygen or hydrogen or helium or other gases both benign and deadly; in gas form or liquid, super-cooled or air temperature, in canisters and bottles of various sizes, mostly to research assistants at the back doors of their labs or offices. These young men and women, all of whom were quite willingly acting as virtual slaves to their professorial bosses, grew to know him as a routine part of their weeks. Every now and then he was forced to make an emergency delivery in the middle of the night. Typically it was to a lab where a professor had stayed very late trying to complete his project only to find himself stymied by a lack of some gas. Adelmo’s boss would then get a 1 or 2 or 3 a.m. call who would then wake up Adelmo to make the delivery.

“Hey, Adelmo. Got my propane?” or “Sup’ Adelmo. Acetylene today?” or “Got my liquified O2?” became the vernacular of his work day even though he knew only a few other words of English. Of course he knew nothing of the research or experiments they performed.

Now this stranger sitting next to him was offering him something that promised to radically change his life and those of his family.

It started alarmingly as Adelmo sat in his van in a McDonalds parking lot gulping down a double quarter pounder with cheese, fries and an extra-large Coke. The very tall, middle-aged Anglo man, dressed in what looked to Adelmo like an expensive suit, had simply opened the door, stepped up and sat down. Nearly before Adelmo could react the man spoke quietly in perfect unaccented Spanish, easing some of his initial fear.

“Just relax, Adelmo. You’ve got nothing to fear from me. I’m here to offer you a job.”

Suppressing the urge to throw open his door and flee, Adelmo lowered the Coke he’d been sipping. He waited a few seconds, gathering his thoughts trying to grasp what was happening. “Okay, but who are you and how do you know my name?”

The man responded carefully and slowly in a mellow, perfectly modulated baritone voice. Adelmo estimated him to be in his mid-forties although his face was nearly free of wrinkles. He could see the man’s fingernails were immaculately manicured and had recently shaved with an ever-so-subtle hint of aftershave. On that alone he guessed the man was wealthy.

“I’ve seen you driving around the Harvard campus in this van and realized you might be the man I need for a very important job. I took the liberty of tracking down the company you work for and talking to the owner. He had some very nice things to say about you.”

Just sitting there Adelmo could sense the man had extreme confidence in himself. His facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and calm demeanor spoke of someone who liked and was nearly always in control

“You haven’t told me your name yet,” Adelmo said not really knowing what else to say or do.

“My apologies,” the man replied. “I’m being rude. I know this must be very strange and frightening to you. I’m Paul Scarlatti. But please, just call me Paul.” He reached into an inside coat pocket and pulled out a wallet which he flipped open to reveal some sort of official-looking ID badge with his photo on it. He couldn’t read it but as best Adelmo could tell the language was probably Italian.

The man offered his hand to Adelmo, smiling every so slightly.

Adelmo slowly took it and felt the physical strength and unmistakable confidence in the grip.

“Alright,.....Paul. What’s this job all about? Why me?”

Paul looked away for a moment, as if carefully considering what he had to say. “I represent an organization that for many, many years—centuries actually—has defended the Church and the faith that I know is such an important part of your life. We are in the midst.....”

Adelmo cut him off. “How do you know that!?”

“As I said, I talked to your boss. He told me about the shrine to our Blessed Virgin you erected in your room.” He paused for a moment. “It is very important to us that the man we hire have a powerful, unshakable faith in the Roman Catholic Church and The Virgin; a faith such as yours.”

“And what does my faith have to do with this job of yours?”

“Perhaps I should rephrase my terminology,” the man who called himself Paul continued. “What I am prepared to offer you is not so much a job as it is a mission on behalf of our holy church. A mission to strike a blow against those in this world who are determined to destroy it and everything for which it has stood for hundreds of years.” As he finished he intently stared at Adelmo, his battleship-grey eyes carefully watching him.

He broke the man’s intense stare, picking up a french fry, now growing cold. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. ‘Mission’? What does that mean? What am I supposed to do?”

“Drive this van,” Paul answered.

Adelmo couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief. “Just how is my driving this van going to help you in this mighty, righteous cause of yours. And, by the way, how much are you going to pay me to ‘drive’?” He picked up the Coke for another sip.

“Five thousand dollars.”

Adelmo nearly choked on the drink. “Obviously there is more to this job or mission or whatever you want to call it than just driving! I think it’s time you tell me what you really want.”

Paul steepled his fingers, paused for a few seconds, started to say something, stopped and finally seemed to achieve a course of explanation.

“Over the centuries you may know that there have been, as best we know, ten of our Holy Church’s Popes who have been assassinated while in office.”

Adelmo simply shrugged not having a clue; his historical knowledge of the church limited to what Father Jorge had imparted to him while he was in training as an altar boy—essentially nothing.

Paul ignored the obvious, expected ignorance and continued. “The most recent was John Paul I who in 1978 after 33 days in office, was found dead. Over the years, speculation has it he was killed by one of his Cardinals. I won’t go into the political ‘whys’ or ‘hows’ other than to say that as a result Church leaders in Rome decided it must never happen again and set up an organization—the organization that I now lead—to ensure it. The security protocols put in place then helped save the life of John Paul II who was shot in 1981 by a crazed Bulgarian assassin hired by the Soviet KGB.”

Paul paused, looking back to Adelmo after having stared into nothingness thru the bug-splattered windshield. “I know this is a lot to take in but are you beginning to understand?”

Although he knew nothing of the events Paul had described, Adelmo felt a strange excitement slowly growing within his soul. “Are you saying there is another plot to kill our pope, Pope Francis, and you want me, and this van, to be part of your plan to stop it? How can I know all this to be true? Other than that badge—which could, of course, be false—what proof do you have of who you are and this so-called plot?”

Paul nodded with a gentle laugh. “I can see that you are as perceptive and intelligent as I had hoped. Let me show you something that might help convince you.”

He pulled an iPhone from a pocket inside his jacket. For a few moments he scrolled through various screens eventually finding what he was looking for. He showed Adelmo the screen.

“This video was recorded, at very great risk by one of my agents, at a secret meeting of the conspirators who are plotting Pope Francis’ assassination. It took place in a computer lab in a building on the Harvard campus. They are using the computer to plan, organize and store the details of the plot. They are also using it to hack into the churches computers in Vatican City in Italy.”

Adelmo interrupted him, confused and suspicious. “Why are they using this computer? Why don’t they just use a desktop or laptop or tablet or something else small?”

“One of the conspirators works at the lab. He has 24-7 access and knows all other security details. The computer is much more powerful, sophisticated and secure from hacking than anything they could buy off-the-shelf. They feel this is the safest way to plan and carry out all the many details.”

Adelmo shook his head. “If you know who these men are why don’t you just arrest them?”

“Because we are not citizens of this country. We did approach American intelligence and law enforcement officials but they said they need more proof before they act. We don’t think there is enough time left. We believe they are very close to carrying out their plot.”

Paul stopped for a moment then said, “Look, before you ask any more questions let me show you the video. It may help convince you” He pushed an activation key on the screen and turned it to show Adelmo.

The jerky, occasionally out-of-focus image appeared to have been recorded from a hidden body camera and showed two men in a large, windowless room sitting at simple table. One of them was typing at a keyboard in front of a computer monitor whose screen was not visible. In the background Adelmo could see and hear what appeared to be a large computer.

The on-screen man not typing started speaking. “How much time’ve we got?”

The typist responded, “Not much. Francis’ travel plans have been completed. He leaves Italy for his tour of Asia in three weeks.”

A voice that Adelmo guessed belonged to the person carrying the camera added, “Have you been able to find his exact itinerary details?”

“Yeah. You can see them here,” the typist said. He pointed to the monitor.

The camera’s view shifted around and the monitor’s screen could be seen although out of focus. The other man leaned forward as well to look more closely and scrutinized something on the screen for a few moments.

“Just like you said. Looks like Jakarta, Indonesia is the best place. Security there is the weakest by far of any other city.”

“Our people say they won’t have any trouble smuggling in the hardware we need,” the typist added. “We can bribe anybody we want.”

Just then Adelmo could hear an audible noise like a door opening somewhere else in the room. Both men quickly turned to look in the same direction off screen and a moment later the video image went dark.

“I don’t know what all this means,” Adelmo said, waving his hand at the iPhone. “And I still don’t know who you really are!”

“Maybe this will help,” Paul said as he reached into his pocket again. He pulled out a quarter-inch thick stack of hundred dollar bills, handing it to Adelmo.

The man knew that simply by holding it Adelmo was tacitly, and more importantly, psychologically accepting the proposition. “That’s a good-faith down payment—three thousand dollars. You get the other two once you complete training. If I wasn’t serious and honest about my offer would I carry that kind of money around with me?”