The Montmartre Club, Heaven.
“Look, people, I’m going to need your help here. Artie, Glen, Duke, Louis, Benny, Shep, can you all get together please, select some music you can all agree on and do a rehearsal. Betty, Billy, Mahalia, Janis, Ethel, Mamie, when the boys have picked the music they want, could you make up a chorus and do the vocals. We’ll put a hold on the stage show while we get this done, the girls can hold the fort out there.”
“Don’t we have to sing praises or sumpin?” Billie Holiday was curious.
“Not unless you want to.” Michael-Lan’s voice was soothing. Actually, he found this cajoling of his human employees irritating. Why he had to persuade them when he could simply order angels around confused him slightly He had noted though that humans, especially the really talented ones did not respond well to being given terse orders. A degree of explanation and polite requests got better results faster. “It’s not the words that are important, it’s the music and the singing. It gets everybody’s mind together. On the same page. That makes our powers so much more efficient. Ladies, this is a chorus of equals not a diva with her back-up singers. You’ve got to work as a team.”
Behind them, the band-leaders were hunched over a table pawing through the music. Artie Shaw looked up and caught Michael’s eye. “How about Black Velvet?”
Michael-Lan looked at the singers and they nodded. “That’ll do fine Artie. Use the area here for your rehearsals, when you’re ready, let me know and we’ll do the performance. I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to get through and make contact so we may have to do several runs through the score.”
“No problem, Michael.” Glen Miller hesitated. “May I ask what this is all about?”
“I’ve had orders from Yahweh. Direct orders even I can’t duck or evade. I’ll be honest with you, Uriel-Lan tried an attack on a city down on Earth and got really badly shot up doing it. Yahweh wants him rescued so we can find out what happened. We’ve got to locate him and open a portal to him so I can go down and get him out.”
The musicians started to exchange looks. Eventually Miller spoke up for them. “Michael, we all know who and what Uriel-Lan is. If the people down there shot him up, well, we don’t feel right about helping you get him out. From our point of view he’s better off dead.”
“From a lot of points of view, he’s better off dead. I don’t like this mission any more than you do.” Michael bit back the instinctive desire to yell orders at the humans and force their obedience. “But, Yahweh wants him back up here alive. If I don’t pull it off, he’ll ask why. At the moment he’s nicely bottled up in his palace and knows little or nothing of what’s really going on. But, if he starts asking questions, he’ll learn. We don’t call him the all-knowing for nothing. He’ll find out about this place and everything we’ve all worked for will get blown away. The humans down on earth have got the measure of Uriel’s attacks, he’s not doing much damage and they’re hurting him worse every time.” And why they haven’t killed him yet is beyond me. ” So, helping me won’t do any appreciable harm down below and will do us a lot of good up here. Not least of which, it’ll stop Yahweh taking over the war and hitting Earth in a full-scale invasion.
“Like the one Hell launched?” Artie Shaw asked the question with a degree of relish.
“Just like the one Hell launched. And the carnage will be dreadful, for both humans and us. That’s what I’m trying to avoid. When the humans get here, and they will, they’ll tear this place apart. You have the humans up here to worry about, I have the angelic host to look after. Believe me, rescuing Uriel-Lan is the best of some very bad alternatives.”
The musicians looked at each other again and nodded. “Very well Michael, we’ll get rehearsing.”
Michael-Lan heard the instruments tuning up behind him and the first tentative notes of “Black Velvet” echoing out of the improvised rehearsal chamber. He walked through the corridor down to the main body of the club and stopped for a second to check the buffet was up to standard. Then he glanced around the room and picked out the next people he wanted to see.
“Perpetiel-Lan-Paschar, glad you could make it here. How goes the special task I have assigned you?” Michael picked up one of the chairs, spun it around and sat on it.
“Very well, we made contact with the subject. He’s calling himself Samandiriel-Lan-Michael by the way. We took him to an adoration session yesterday evening, three hours of chanting praises to Yah-Yah.”
Michael winced, that was dedication to duty. “And he was happy?”
“Of course, he went away feeling very righteous. We’re having him back for a six-hour session in a couple of days. Once we’ve got him on that, he’ll be ready for movement to the next stage. We’ve gota plan to handle that.”
“Good, you and your team deserve a round on the house for that. Remember, he’s got to find out enough to keep him interested and if by chance, he should become a convert…. “
“We’ll talk to you about it before doing anything.”
“Excellent.” Michael-Lan stood up and left his nightclub. Things really were going splendidly.
417th Flight Test Squadron, Edwards Air Force Base, California
“And where do you think you’re going Mikey?” Colonel Samuel Allansen stood behind his co-pilot who was stuffing possessions into a travel bag.
“Oh, hello Sammy. I got transfer orders, with the ABL program axed, I’ve been assigned to the 40th Bombardment Group for conversion to B-1Cs. Sorry, I thought you knew.”
“I did, you didn’t.” Allansen was grinning all over his face at the confusion on Mickey Jennings’ face.
“Sorry?”
“The ABL program is on again, funding was restored by executive order last night. Your transfer has been countermanded, you’ll be staying with the 417th. In fact, we should be getting two new birds as soon as they can be assembled. One of them will be yours.”
“Hey that’s great.” Jennings paused. “What is going on?”
“Uriel.”
“I thought he was down somewhere in Southern California?”
“He is. And the Volunteers are closing in on him. But if he gets out or if Heaven turns out to have more like him, then it’ll be the job of the 417th to hunt him, or them down, and kill him. The Big Brass think our laser will be just the job to slice and dice him.”
“So the whole program will go splat again as soon as Uriel’s dead or there aren’t any more of him?” Unspoken was Jennings’ thought that he’d prefer being in a bomber.
“Not from what I hear.” Allansen looked around and dropped his voice. “From what the wind says, the really big brass at Yamantau have decided that these so-called gods are more trouble than they’re worth. After we’ve dealt with Yahweh, we’re going hunting for the rest of them. If they want to live peacefully with us, fine. If they want to throw their weight around….” Allansen pointed at the laser in the nose of the YAL-1A.
“It’ll be slice and dice time – again.”
Chapter Twenty Nine
Yangon, Myanmar
This was, on consideration, more impressive that the entry of allied forces into Paris in 1944. The liberation of Paris and that of Yangon sixty five years later had many things in similar/ They included the population surging around the tanks and armored personnel carriers, slowing their progress to a crawl while they wound flowers around the gun barrels. The local girls hugging and kissing the soldiers, then riding on the tanks as they made their slow, stately progress down the road. Other occupants of the liberated city throwing gifts to the troops. All those things were shared by the liberation of Paris and Yangon. Only, the liberation of Paris had not had elephants. The liberation of Yangon did. Four of the great beasts were leading the column of armored vehicles down the long road that ended up at the great Schwedagon Pagoda. Already the spire of the temple was jutting into the sky in front of them.