Fallen Masters (41 page)

“Shortly before driving to the Henry B. Gonzalez Center in San Antonio
,
President Jackson announced that he had invited Charlene St. John to the White House, where he intended to present her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award that can be bestowed upon a civilian. Here, we see President—”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, the pictures became black and white, and the words changed in midsentence.

“—Kennedy as his motorcade drives past the Texas Book Depository in Dallas. But the mood of the crowd alongside the motorcade changed suddenly from one of excitement and joy to one of horror and sorrow as the shots rang out. Mrs. Kennedy, who is resplendently dressed in a bright pink suit, reached first for her husband, then crawled out onto the back of the car, as a Secret Service agent jumped on. The car accelerated quickly, and the president was taken to Parkland Hospital. We are waiting for further word.”

Now, on-screen, sitting at a desk in a newsroom, Walter Cronkite stared into the camera.

“From Dallas, Texas, the flash—apparently official—President Kennedy died at one
P.M.
Central standard time.
” Cronkite removed his glasses and looked up at the clock.
“Two o’clock Eastern standard time, some thirty-eight minutes ago.”
He put his glasses back on, and paused for a long moment before continuing. His voice broke, slightly, as he went on.
“Vice President Lyndon Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas but we do not know to where he has proceeded.”
Cronkite removed his glasses yet again.
“Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly, to become the thirty-sixth President of the United States.”

Dawson was immobilized for a moment as he watched the screen. This wasn’t archival footage! He was watching the telecast of the Kennedy assassination as it was originally broadcast on November 22, 1963!

What was happening to him? He hadn’t even been born yet when JFK was killed. This entire day had been a series of bizarre events. Had President Jackson been killed? Or was it Kennedy? Was there some sort of warp in the space-time continuum? Was he in the present, or in 1963? He looked at the room receipt and saw that it was dated in the present. Perhaps he was in both time periods simultaneously.

He felt an overwhelming feeling of dizziness and went over to the bed to lie down.

Within a moment, words and pictures flashed by him, and he could feel air rushing by, as if he were riding in a car with his head sticking out the window. Was he asleep?

He felt himself falling, and involuntarily grabbed on to the bed with both hands. He forced himself to open his eyes.

He saw a man standing in front of him. He was pleasant-looking, with relatively chubby cheeks, bald except for a crown of hair that passed around his head just above his ears. He was wearing glasses and clothes from the 1960s.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my room?” Dawson asked, startled by the appearance of the intruder.

The man smiled pleasantly, nodded respectfully, then said one word: “Perelandra.”

“What? What does that mean? Why do I keep hearing that word?” Dawson asked.

The man disappeared before his eyes, though like the Cheshire cat, his smile remained for a second longer.

Dawson was breathing hard, and he could feel his heart beating in his chest. He looked over at the TV, which he had left on. When he lay down, the TV was broadcasting images and reactions to the JFK assassination. Now the talking heads were reacting to the assassination of President Jackson. He was back in his own time, but who—or what—was that apparition that had greeted him when he awoke a moment ago?

“… leaves behind his wife, Win, and a son, Marcus Jr.”

It was one o’clock in the afternoon in Melbourne. The hotel had a convenient time chart in each room and, consulting it, he saw that it would be eight o’clock in Decatur, Illinois, where his parents lived. When he called home, his mother answered the phone.

“It’s awful,” his mother said. “It is so terribly sad.” She began to cry over the phone, and a moment later his father’s voice came on.

“She’s been crying all day,” Alex Rask said.

“It is a sad day,” Dawson concurred.

“I remember when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were killed,” Alex said. “I remember the sense of anger I felt, that all of us felt. I mean here we were, fighting a war overseas, while our best and brightest were being killed back home.”

“Pop, do you remember when President Kennedy was killed?” Dawson asked.

“Yes, of course I remember,” his father said. “Everyone who was alive then remembers it, vividly. I was a student, and I had just gone to the cafeteria for lunch.”

“Are you still there, Dawson?” his mother asked after an awkward few seconds of silence.

“I’m still here.”

“You need to come home. I’m worried about you being alone, so far away.”

“Mom, I’ve got more stops to make on my book tour.”

“That’s just the point,” his mother said. “I read something about you in a magazine the other day. It said that you are one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. That shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t be alone. You should have a wife.”

“No thank you.”

“It’s been a long time since Mary Beth was—uh, since Mary Beth died. You know she would want you to be married and happy.”

“With two kids, living in Middle America in a bungalow with a white picket fence?” Dawson asked.

“I worry about you, Dawson, that’s all,” his mother said.

“Don’t worry about me being alone, I’m doing fine. I just wanted to make sure you and Pop were doing okay. I’ll call again when I get back to the States.”

CHAPTER

75

Two seconds after he ended the call, his cell rang again, and without reading the caller ID he answered, “What? You forgot to tell me that you love me. I love you, too!”

“Well, I appreciate the sentiment, buddy … but let’s start with dinner before we get to the ‘I love you’ stage.” Dawson recognized Bobby Anderson’s voice. The FBI agent was a friend whom Dawson hadn’t spoken to in some time. “Can you talk, Dawson? I need your expertise—and an autographed copy of your new book, so I can personally hand it to Marcus Jackson when he is found.”

Anderson and Dawson Rask had met years earlier, before Anderson joined the FBI. Bobby had been a member of New York’s Finest then, working on a serial killer murder case and thought that Dawson might be able to help him. Dawson had not yet become a widely known celebrity writer, mentioned on all the TV tabloid shows, and appearing often on Page Six of the
New York Post
. He was, however, writing articles for various publications and had developed a justifiable reputation for his expertise on symbolism. Dawson’s unique perspective on the information Anderson brought him helped to solve the case and save a potential victim. And the horror of 9/11 bound them in a tight emotional bond. They were as close as brothers (to tell the truth, Anderson was more like a brother than Dawson’s own biological sibling could ever be), and nobody was prouder of Dawson’s literary success than Bobby Anderson.

By now, Special Agent Anderson was a veteran of more than 200 homicide investigations, most of them multiple killings, some outright mass murders, others serial crimes, all of them horribly violent and shocking to “normal” sensibilities and emotions.

Even today, as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, if Anderson was working on a case that showed certain patterns were beyond the normal police perspective, he would call Dawson. The calls were always on the QT, out of respect for both of their careers.

“What can I do for you, Bobby? I’m in Australia, so it had better be important.” He was feeling raw from his publicity tour and the strange visions that still made no sense, and the death of his President was all too much for one day.

“We’re not doing too well on this end of the planet either, pally,” Anderson said. The two shared their memories about the President, and there was a moment where both men were silent.

Dawson sighed. “Sorry, Bobby. This day has been a bear. So go ahead, tell me how I can help.”

“As your specialty is ancient wisdom teachings and the symbols used by the ancients in their religious rituals, I have some material that has baffled me but may be child’s play for you. I would like to consult with you on a case that has gotten progressively worse over the past months. It seems to be pointing to something else, another event independent of the actual murders, as if predicting a much greater and more horrific event or mass killings on a genocidal or possibly global scale.”

“Is that all? Well, maybe I could add my two pence to your investigation.”

Anderson was taken aback at the flippancy of Dawson Rask’s remark, given the gravity of the situation. He, Anderson, had been brought in on the murder investigation after four of the killings—and there had been seven subsequent deaths, all following the same bizarre and gruesome pattern, clearly the work of the same monster, yet each with a distinctive creative flair (if such acts could be called “creative”) and unique symbolism attached. Early on, he and the local investigators had identified the symbols as possibly related to some larger cosmic pattern but what it was they were at a loss to identify.

At first glance this looked like a string of run-of-the-mill occult or Satanic murders, the kind that common criminal minds used to cover up more simple murders. In his gut, however, the FBI man felt strongly that there was an evil force behind these killings, something that had far-ranging consequences.

Anderson said to Dawson, “I must add this: I was
told
to call you. Or, perhaps I should say, I had no choice but to call you.”

Dawson said, “That’s weird, Bobby—okay, so where are these murders taking place?”

“Belfast, Ireland,” Anderson said matter-of-factly, as if it were Anywhere, Anywhere.

Inexplicably, Dawson felt as if he had been sledgehammered in the chest. Was this another reference to C. S. Lewis? Something was nagging at his mind and welling up in his soul. But he was at a loss as to its origin. For several seconds he could not breathe. He thought he might be having a heart attack.

*   *   *

“Dawson? Dawson? Are you still there? Are we still connected?” Bobby asked.

The American agent held his BlackBerry away from his ear and looked at it. He did not believe in ESP or in anything that he could not see or touch, yet through this case he had come to believe that he had actually seen and touched—and even smelled and tasted—evil. Now, he sensed strongly that Dawson had experienced the same kind of blow he had when first brought into the investigation, when he had first visited the killing field and seen the beginnings.

Dawson Rask, celebrity author, had been bitten by the same evil insect that Bobby Anderson had. Bobby knew it. The silence on the other end of the wireless conversation was loud—and eloquent—testimony.

*   *   *

Dawson finally said, “Northern Ireland. The ancients considered Ireland a mystical, sacred island. I’m sure you know that. The Romans never conquered Ireland, as they did Britain, not because it was worthless, as they claimed, but because they were afraid. They would never admit that, the macho sods that they were.

“Cromwell finally did the job, but that was very late in the game. And it was at a horrific price that still hasn’t been repaid. Such a bloody history, yet the mystical voices and phenomena still echo down through the centuries to our time. I should say down the millennia. Long before there was a Rome, there were priests and seers wandering about Ireland, north and south, east and west. They created signs and symbols that represented the stars and planets that fit seamlessly into the belief systems developed elsewhere, until it all became one—a language of the spirit. Spoken by men with good hearts and men of evil intentions.”

“So, you think the fact that the killings are in Ireland is significant?”

“In a word, yes. That’s about as brief a statement as I can give, given that this call is on your cell phone plan.”

“But here is the thing. These murders signify something that is happening all over the world.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s a hunch, born of a long time investigating this kind of thing. But it’s more than just that.”

“All right, what do you have?”

“First, satellite imagery that reveals a chart, with the last two to be found in the field in Belfast at ten and eleven o’clock. The spokes from the circular chart point to all the other places where bodies have been found—in direct lines.

“Further, there is nothing overtly to relate any of these victims to any other, yet every one of them had one thing in common. Carved on their backs, as intricately as any tattoo, is a kind of mystical writing, astrological glyphs and numbers, like latitudes and longitudes. That’s one reason I think it is international in scope. Then, how they are arranged for some kind of display or statement to the world.

“And, just inside the left thigh, the words ‘Viva Domingo,’ are carved on every one of them.”

“Viva Domingo? You mean as in Viva Castro, or Viva Perón? Who is Domingo?”

“I don’t think that’s it.
Viva
means ‘live,’ and
Domingo
means ‘Sunday.’”

“Live Sunday?”

“Yeah.”

“What does that mean?”

Anderson chuckled. “Well, Dawson, that’s why I called you,” he said. “I was hoping you could tell me what it means.”

“I don’t have any idea.”

“Now comes the real freaky part.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Are you telling me it hasn’t been freaky until now?”

“Yeah,” Bobby Anderson said. “The real freaky part is that the heart has been surgically removed from every one of them.”

“Why in heaven’s name would someone do something like that?”

“I assure you, my friend, whoever did this, did not do it in heaven’s name. In fact, if you listen to Dave Hampton, they did it in Satan’s name.”

“Dave Hampton? That kook? Who listens to him?”