The Sixth Station (19 page)

I even had time to sit in the first-class lounge for a few minutes. It kept me out of sight of the cops patrolling the airport terminal.

I walked in, showed my ticket, ordered a big glass of Chianti, plopped down at an Internet carrel, and logged in as [email protected]

Nothing.

Within fifteen minutes, they announced that the flight was boarding, and I proceeded to the gate, showed my ticket and passport, boarded without incident, settled into a big, luxurious seat, and took the glass of champagne the flight attendant offered. Bliss: No one was seated next to me and I was drinking champagne. Too bad my new friend had been brutally murdered and I was wanted for Murder One.

It wasn’t until the plane’s door had closed and the Jetway was beginning to roll back that I finally relaxed. Good luck with that. Abruptly the Jetway began rolling back into place and the airplane door in front of the Elite cabin opened. Six police officers and four men in suits boarded and immediately conferred with the captain.

Oh, God.

The captain’s voice came on the PA: “No problem folks.”
Right.
“Just a quick random check by these fine officers to make sure everyone’s passports are up to snuff. Can’t be too careful in these times.”

Horse crap!

The officers began looking up and down the rows, checking random (my ass) passports. When they approached my row, I voluntarily offered up my passport. They looked at the photo, looked at me, looked back at the photo.

“Miss, Za-lucky-Jay?”

“Yes,” I said, automatically touching my hair. “It’s terrible, right?” I asked, trying for some humor. Or something.

The officer didn’t acknowledge my remark at all and instead waved over a colleague who was busy checking the IDs of what looked like an honest-to-God rock-star couple two rows up: ugly guy with bad teeth, spectacular girlfriend.

The agent handed his colleague my passport when she arrived at my seat.

“Miss Zalucky-Jay?” she inquired.

“Yes,” I said again, touching my red spiked hair.

“May I ask why you’ve traveled to several countries in the Mideast?”
Oh, no. Tell the truth that you’re a reporter, and you’re dead; lie and you’re dead.

I went for the lie. “Well, not for a looong time. My husband’s in a rock band. Played for the troops. I was the publicist. The Pan—ever heard of them?”

“Yes, I have,” she answered inexplicably. Then she conferred with the male officer. As they were doing that, the rock couple started complaining. Loudly. In rock-star Cockney.

“Bloody hell,” the man said, “I have to make a connection to Istanbul. This is bullshit!”

His companion, a platinum-blond, hard-body, rocker chick, started laughing. Very loudly.

The officer automatically handed me back my passport and went over to them. When the agents inquired about something or other, the rocker got furious.

“Do you know who I am?” he said menacingly.

Maybe he’s also in the Pan Band.

When they asked again for his passport, he said, “Bugger off,” and went back to his drink. Within seconds a scuffle ensued, and the couple was hustled off the plane kicking and screaming.

This was getting weird—two checkpoints and two violent passengers—both had been there just in time to take the heat off of me. First the fat smoker and now a skinny rocker.

Naaah
.

By 8:00 the flight attendants had offered more drinks (yes), blanket and pillow, choice of entrées for dinner (yes, yes, and some of that), and after-dinner drinks (yes).

I reclined my seat to the full, yes, full sleeping position, which almost worked wonderfully, but then I tossed, turned, and tried to make myself comfortable enough to sleep. As I was drifting off, I remembered.
The envelope!

I put the seat back up, turned on my reading light, and dug into my red bag and pulled out the faxes from Dona.

The large Best Rate Motel envelope did indeed hold five pages. And each one was so explosive, I could have been arrested as a mad bomber.

The first was a photocopy of an old clipping from the
New York Post
that was probably half a tabloid page in its original size, including the photo of a somber, freckle-faced girl with medium-length, medium-colored hair, wearing a dark crewneck sweater over a light shirt. It was clearly her school picture, but the child wasn’t smiling.

“Theotokos Bienheureux in happier times,” the caption read. That was her “happier times” face? The story was a shocker—for me at least.

New York Post

April 14, 1981

Honors Student Goes Missing: Cops Seek to Question
Parents

By Marsha Kranes

A twelve-year-old brown-haired, freckle-faced seventh grader, Theotokos Meryemana Bienheureux, a student at the Friends Seminary Quaker school on Seventeenth Street, has been missing since Thursday.

When the girl, known affectionately by classmates as “Theo,” did not show up for school either on Friday or Monday, her teacher, Ms. Debbie Chasen, became concerned and called the child’s parents, Leah and William Bienheureux, at home.

Chasen’s concern turned to worry when messages left on the family’s answering machine were not returned. Two days ago, she tried reaching personnel at the Catari Relief Services Worldwide offices, located in Rockefeller Center, where the Bienheureux couple works.

The CRSW is a philanthropic organization that sends missionaries, teachers, emergency relief workers, and supplies to third-world countries around the globe.

Chasen told the Post, “When I still hadn’t heard back from Mr. and Mrs. Bienheureux, I called the CRSW office. Theo has never missed class. Ever. She’s a top student who has a perfect attendance record.

“I spoke to a receptionist, who said the Bienheureuxs were out of the country, but that someone would return my call,” Chasen added. “But I never heard back. I tried again and was put through to Mr. Bienheureux’s answering machine, which indicated that they were no longer working at the New York City offices and have been reassigned to Indonesia. I know that they move around a lot, and right now Indonesia is suffering through a terrible drought. We at Friends are working with relief organizations there as well. But still, the Bienheureuxs never signed Theotokos out of school.

“I’ve asked Quaker relief workers in Indonesia if there is any way they can find out more for us.”

Lt. Det. Richard Marino, of the NYPD Missing Child task force, told the Post that the bureau is investigating the strange disappearance of the girl.

“The child has not been seen for over a week. The parents, however, were going about their normal activities until three days ago, even though the messages on their answering machines had been placed probably six days earlier,” he told the Post exclusively.

“This sends up a red flag for us, because in that period of time—from the last time Theo was seen leaving Friends Seminary on Thursday until today—nothing. It’s like she disappeared off the face of the earth.”

Since her parents were French nationals, he said, the disappearance took on all sorts of international complications, if they chose to go that route.

That being said, immigration has no record of Leah, William, or Theotokos Bienheureux leaving this country. They did not, as far as we can determine, ever enter Indonesia, either.

The question then, is “Where is Theotokos Bienheureux?”

The story went on to describe the parents’ prestigious Fifth Avenue apartment building, where, it was stated, they occupied—get this—a ten-room spread.

Why would missionaries live in that kind of Wall Street hedge-fund luxury? It made no sense.

Also quoted were the comments by neighbors who spoke about the “strange” Bienheureux family, who seemed to have only late-night visitors and who often took in children from other countries for short periods of time.

The story finished with this quote from one of the building’s doormen, Frank Wilson, thirty: “Theo? She was a good kid, never in trouble, always behaving,” he said. “I thought she had come home from school that day, but I can’t be positive. But I know I never saw her after that day. That I know for positively sure. I’m scared for her. I hope she knows she can call the building if she’s in trouble. I’ll personally go get her and bring her home.”

When questioned about the parents, Wilson would only say, “I don’t know anything about them. Quiet. You have to ask my supervisor.”

I wondered if this Wilson guy was still alive—if I could find him, or better yet, if Dona or Donald could find him—he might be a source of untapped info.

I reluctantly put the faxed document down and picked up the next one.

On the top of the story—though very badly distorted by time and the old faxing method—were three headshots of young men in various religious garb.

March 27, 1982

Special to the
International Herald Tribune

Blackout Blamed on Explosion of Comet

A comet, visible only in the skies over Turkey, which had unexpectedly emerged, then brightened and exploded in record time, was the cause of the blackout that affected most of Turkey and parts of Europe, it was reported by the International Astronomical Union.

Three astrophysicists who are credited with being the first to discover the astral phenomenon late last week—Professor Gaspar Bar-Cohen, director of astronomy at the Wise Observatory in Tel Aviv, Israel; Dr. Mikaeel Hussein, astrophysicist-in-residence, University of Cairo, Egypt; and Dr. Balaaditya Pawar, head of the Mount Abu Observatory, Rajasthan, India—admit that the massive size of the comet led them to believe at first that they were witnessing the emergence of a new star.

“We regret this error and apologize for having misled our colleagues with premature announcements we inadvertently passed along to the IAU,” they wrote. “The comet’s collapse resulted in its ‘coma’—a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the sun—to grow bigger even than the planet Jupiter. Furthermore, unlike most comets, VCH1244 [self-named by the three astrophysicists] lacked the tail usually associated with such celestial bodies. This resulted in our mistakenly jumping to an inaccurate conclusion.”

As for the blackout, the
Gazette Journal of the Astronomical Union
explained, “Because there are sinkholes in the nucleus of VCH1244, which gives it a honeycomb-like structure, and because this comet had grown to such astounding proportions, it created a brief energy vacuum.”

In a conference call to the three scientists yesterday,
the
International Herald Tribune
also learned, “This energy drain occurred as VCH1244 collapsed, which then exposed the comet’s ice to the sun, which in turn transformed the ice into gas,” Professor Bar-Cohen explained.

On March 23, the comet, which had been visible in the night sky over certain parts of Turkey, suddenly erupted and expanded as it lit up the skies over all of Turkey.

Added Professor Hussein,“What comets do when they pass near the sun is very unpredictable. We expected to see a ‘coma cloud’ and a tail, but this was more like an explosion, and we saw the bubble of gas and dust as it expanded away from the center of the blast.”

Experts estimated that the comet’s show and the ensuing energy drain it created would last for several weeks and perhaps as long as several months.

However, the dire predictions proved to be completely, if inexplicably, wrong. In fact, the comet self-destructed within hours of exploding, and by late last night all power had been restored throughout Turkey and the affected areas of Europe.

Dr. Pawar concluded, “This was a once-in-a-lifetime event to witness, similar, I expect, to what observers must have experienced in the night sky during the birth of Christ.”

I was astounded that a far-fetched explanation, the ridiculous story, and its accompanying apology—by three astrophysicists who actually said that they mistook a comet for a star—was published without question. And that was back in the day when investigative reporters actually were allowed the time to investigate a story.

But even more interesting than the cock-and-bull that those three distinguished star-men had carefully scripted for whatever reason, was Pawar’s one unguarded comment. You could almost feel his companions kicking him under the table.

He had actually compared the star or comet or whatever the heck it was to the Star of Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus.

Why? And why would they embarrass themselves by admitting that they’d been so stupid as to not know the difference between a star and a comet?

Fear? Intimidation? All of the above?

I hoped to God (or whomever) that those astrophysicists were still alive and that I could find them. The story didn’t give their ages, so they could be sixty, ninety, or dead and buried.

A sidebar to the piece, which I almost didn’t read because I thought it was unrelated, actually detailed some of the reactions—and predictions—to the comet’s appearance. In addition to all the Regular Joe “loonies” who predicted it presaged the Second Coming were these bulleted items:

•
Canadian prophet Doug Clark called the comet a “star” and said that it signaled that Jesus was to return and lure Christians away from the Tribulation by April 1982. His basis was something called “The Jupiter Effect,” a theory put forth in a best-selling book by John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann. The book claimed that on March 10, 1982, an alignment of the planets was supposed to trigger earthquakes and fires that would kill millions.