Fallen Masters (12 page)

Pope Genaro had invited Cardinals Luigi Morricone and Zachary Yamba, his two closest confidants, into his study so they could discuss the problem facing not only Catholicism, Christianity, and all the other religions of the world, but all of mankind. As a cardinal, Genaro Giovanni Battista, now Genaro I, had been particularly close friends with both Cardinals Morricone and Yamba. He had known Morricone since both were parish priests.

“May I express a concern, Holy Father?” Cardinal Morricone asked.

“Of course, Luigi.”

“The concern I have is that we may be sounding the drum to a danger that does not really exist. As you know, from the time Our Lord walked upon the earth, there have been rumors of the end of the world. And when the rumors prove to be false, the person who started the rumor loses face.”

“Do you think I am concerned that I might lose face?”

“It isn’t just you who will lose face, Giovanni. We cannot allow such a thing to happen to the Vicar of Christ.”

“But I feel it here, Luigi,” Genaro said, putting his hand over his heart. “I know that it is a message from God. And I am not the only one who has felt it. You heard the words of Rabbi Yahman and Imam Abdul-Majid. They, too, have received a message from God. Even the Dalai Lama is aware of the dark forces that are arrayed before us.”

“But, Holy Father, what can we do besides warn the people?” Cardinal Yamba asked.

“We can unite the people,” Genaro said. “There are almost seven billion people in the world. Surely there is enough truth, light, and goodness among those souls that we can mobilize against the Evil One. We are on the eve of a new year. Tomorrow I will give the blessing, and I will call for the power of daring and assurance in God and in man to follow the way of peace, to be a light of goodness and brotherhood. It is something that all must do: individuals and nations, religions and science.”

“Do you think the evil we face is Satan’s doing?” Yamba asked.

“Do you think it is not?” the pope answered.

“I am sure it is.”

“The Evil One has tried before to use his power against mankind, and always before, God has been able to defeat him. But in the last one hundred years, Lucifer has gained so much ground in the hearts of man that the most evil who have ever lived, and the most evil who are among us now, could tip the balance of power between good and evil. And I am sure you remember the adage from Edmund Burke, ‘All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.’

“It is vital that we do all that we can to combat it.”

“What will do, Your Holiness?” Morricone asked.

“We must pray, Luigi. We must pray as we have never prayed before. We must pray that God uses us as his instrument in this epic battle, that we can mobilize the good who have come before us, and those who are with us now, to combat the legions of hell.”

“Yes,” Morricone said. He sank to his knees in prayer. “We must pray.”

The pope closed his eyes tightly, his face ashen as he poured out his soul in prayer with the men who stood closest to him in this hour of dark destiny.

New York

Ilizea Ibanga arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport exhausted. It had been a thirty-six-hour trip from her home in Kenya to the United States. She had been invited to testify before the United Nations’ Commission for Refugees. In a blur of movement, UN officials and security people whisked her off the plane and into a private helicopter that flew over Queens, over the East River, and deposited her in a condominium just a few blocks from the headquarters of the international organization.

She was numbed by the trip and so took a bath—the first real hot bath she had taken in months—before the session with the commission. She would be in New York for two days, then back home, back to the chaos and fear that had been her life for … how many years? Well, for
all
her life.

Ilizea was a refugee from the interminable conflicts in Rwanda: tribe on tribe, faction against faction, that had torn the nation apart and cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives over the past two decades. She was orphaned, jobless, physically scarred, alone in the world. Yet as she luxuriated in the bath, drawing soap over her tired body, she closed her eyes and breathed in the scented steam and remembered what had brought her here.

The children.
Save the children
. That thought and that thought alone had occupied her mind and soul for the past ten years.

Starting with her little brother. When the militia had come to her village to execute a night raid, Ilizea, sixteen at the time, and her brother Mfon, then eight, hid in the shed behind her family’s house—under a pile of kindling wood and a few tools that her father possessed. This was the drill her parents had made both of them perform many times, until they were sick of it and made jokes about it.

But when the time came, it saved their lives. Their parents did not survive. The militia cut them and sixty others in the village to pieces and took all the girl children over the age of twelve with them. All that were left when the troops drove away were about thirty kids, mostly boys, mostly naked or in rags, and Ilizea and her brother. Ilizea was the oldest, and they looked to her for leadership. They looked to her to save them. What now? What would they do? Where would they go?

“Come with me,” she said simply. She counted them, had them gather whatever food they could find and water in portable containers. Whatever they could carry they carried on their backs and in their hands. “Come with me,” she said, and they followed her.

They walked out of their village and headed east. For more than a month she led them through the hills and forest lands, avoiding population centers wherever she could. She brought them into western Kenya. Every single child survived under her care. They were weak and hungry, incredibly dirty, but each had a smile on his or her face when they arrived at a safe place—an orphanage where they would be kept until permanent arrangements could be made.

Ilizea worked for the next four years at the orphanage and made trips back to her home to bring out more refugee children and even some adults. Miraculously, she worked unmolested for all that time and could account for hundreds of lives saved.

She wanted to ask the United Nations for support in her work. She couldn’t be certain they would do anything at all, but speaking to the commission would be good publicity for the cause.

Ilizea Ibanga dried herself off and dressed in a new suit that a supporter had provided for her. She ran a brush through her hair. A knock at the door signaled the time had come for her to go to the UN.

Whatever happened, she had done what she could, what one person could, to save some lives, to
save the children.…

CHAPTER

23

New York

Dave Hampton gazed into the camera as he read a breaking news bulletin:

“On the heels of the strange hurricane activity reported in the Atlantic Ocean that now threatens the entire East Coast of the United States come reports just moments ago of seismic activity in Asia—in fact, throughout the vast Pacific Rim region of the world. Just moving on our newswire are these reports of earthquakes in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Australia, with tremors felt as far away as Hawaii, Vancouver, Seattle, and Los Angeles.

“Measurements of these quakes vary from a minimum of 7.1 on the Richter scale to the 9.1 quake in Japan, which just last year was devastated throughout its southern islands by a similar phenomenon. Viewers, something is unfolding on a cosmic scale that we can only begin to guess at.

“Earliest estimates of the death toll already top two hundred thousand. And let us not forget the recent events in Turkey, a country that has seen a huge chunk of its population decimated by yet another natural disaster. Coincidence, ladies and gentlemen? Sadly, I think not.”

*   *   *

Dave Hampton was sitting in his high-backed, overstuffed leather chair sipping a root beer as he listened to Gaye Mullins, the assistant to the president of the American News Channel network.

“You are beginning to make some people nervous,” Gaye said. “Your conspiracy theories have been great theater up until now, and the more you were reviled against, the better your ratings. But this theory that you’ve been pushing lately, musing about this…”

“Sinister shadow?”

“Yes.” Gaye brushed back a fall of blond hair. “Dave, what are you doing with this—this doom and gloom thing? Where are you going with it?”

“I wish I knew,” Dave replied. “I could be flippant and say that I’m going wherever it takes me, but I have no idea where that may be.”

“Do you know there is a movement under way to boycott businesses that advertise on your show?”

“How could I not know that? I’ve probably gotten ten thousand emails on that subject.”

“You can see then, can’t you, why we at ANC would be a little concerned?”

“Have my ratings dropped?”

“No,” Gaye said. “Quite the opposite. They have increased by almost twenty percent since you started on this.”

“Then why is ANC concerned?”

Again, Gaye brushed her hair back, mostly a nervous gesture.

“Because the negative publicity about your show is increasing exponentially, and by extension, that publicity is reaching the entire network.”

“You know what they say, Gaye. All publicity is good publicity.”

“Dave, let me ask you something. And this is a personal question, from me to you. I’m not representing the network on this.”

“All right, ask.”

“Do you believe what you are saying? Do you believe the world is about to come to an end?”

“I don’t believe I have said that, Gaye.”

“No, but you are certainly implying it.”

“No such implication is intended. I am merely reporting on something that nobody else seems to be covering. Something is going on, Gaye. I don’t know what it is, but it is wide, deep, and it is reaching out across all humanity, regardless of nationality, religion, or race. And it is very frightening.”

“You are frightened?” Gaye asked.

“I’m terrified.”

“I, uh, please, Dave. Tone it down just a bit.”

“I’ll do this,” Dave promised. “I won’t speak of it again until I have something more to talk about. Something more concrete.”

“Thanks,” Gaye said. “I think.”

Gaye left the room, and Dave, having finished the rest of his root beer, crushed the can and launched it in a basketball shot toward the waste can on the far side of the room. It dropped in.

“Three points in any auditorium,” Dave said under his breath.

CHAPTER

24

New York

“Mr. Hampton, we just got a call from a woman in Grenada who wants to speak to you. She has been calling and Skyping all day, and she won’t stop until she gets you. She’s on your Skype now. She says she has some important information for you,” Julie said. Julie was a smart twenty-one-year-old intern who believed, sincerely, that her internship here would be a gateway to a television career of her own.

“I’m not sure working for me is going to get you anywhere,” Dave had told her back when she signed on. “As you will discover after you’ve been here awhile, I’m considered somewhat of a kook.”

“A kook with more viewers in your time slot than all the other cable networks combined,” Julie had replied.

“That’s true.”

“What’s the woman’s name?” Dave asked.

“What’s her name?” Julie asked into the phone. She nodded, then looked back at Dave. “She won’t give a name.”

“So I’m supposed to talk to any kook who comes in asking for me? Tell Jerry to send her away. That’s what we hired him for, isn’t it?”

“He can’t talk to her,” Julie said. “What? Tell him what? Are you crazy? I can’t tell him that.”

“Tell me what?” Dave asked. “Now you’ve got me curious.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Now you’ve really got me curious.”

“She says when you were fourteen, you had a—uh—” Julie blushed and stopped in midsentence.

“I had a what?”

“You lost your virginity to your mother’s friend.”

He turned redder than a radish, blushing as he was put firmly in his place. “My God! How could anyone know that?”

Julie laughed and quickly covered her mouth with her hand. “You mean you did? Your mother’s friend? She’s old!”

“She wasn’t always old, kid,” Dave said. “Tell Jerry to connect her.”

“Are you serious?”

Dave reached out for the phone.

“Jerry? Yes, this Dave Hampton. I’ll have Julie brief her over Skype. What does she look like?” Dave laughed. “Lena Horne? You old fart, how is Julie supposed to know what—? Never mind. I’ll tell her.”

Five minutes later Julie reported back to her boss that the older, regal-looking light-skinned woman was very much for real. Dave said, “Thank you, Julie,” and he switched on his desktop.

“I can stay here if you need me for anything.”

“Thank you, Julie,” Dave repeated, and he took Julie by the arm, then escorted her out of his office.

“Good evening,” Dave said, half looking at his computer screen and multitasking by reading some papers on his desk and punching in a text message on his handheld mobile phone. “I didn’t get your name.”

“My name is Patricia Rose Greenidge, but everybody calls me Mama G.” Her voice was soft, melodic, and had a strong Caribbean accent.

“Mama G?
You
are Mama G? I’ve heard of you, your radio broadcasts, your webcasts.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Why didn’t you just tell Jerry your name?”

“My name doesn’t always open doors.”

Dave chuckled. “I must confess, Mama, you came up with one hell of a way of opening this door. How did you know that? How could you possibly have known it? I was so embarrassed, I never told a soul. Not my best friend, and certainly not my mother.”

“My guides told me. They tell me all sorts of stuff when necessary. And that was necessary for me to know to get through to you. They also revealed to me that dark forces are descending upon us. And you know this, too.”