He lowered his glasses, put his finger on the stopwatch button and waited. It seemed like an eternity before the outside lights went off.
Instantly he pressed the button and looked down at the watch. They were set for three minutes.
The Disciple moved forward across the field. By morning the rain would have erased his tracks. A light came on in a downstairs window and he raised his glasses and switched off the infra-red. The male Infidel was sitting at a desk in front of a computer; he switched on a desk lamp; he raised something, a glass, a tall-stemmed glass, to his lips, and drank.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil. For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. Psalm 37.
The Disciple was staying in a small, draughty room in an old hotel on the seafront in the resort city of Brighton and Hove. His room overlooked a windblown promenade, a rusting, ruined pier, and a sea that had been churning dark and restlessly, like his heart, during the three days that he had been here.
It would be so easy, just to wait until the lights went off in the house, make his move, do his duty and then leave, cross the Channel tonight on a ferry in his rented car. By tomorrow night he could be sleeping in the arms of Lara, and the Lord.
But no. Like Job, his patience had to endure further testing yet. An email from his Master, from Harald Gatward, instructed him to wait a little longer, to prepare more thoroughly, to bide his time until the time was right. That at the moment, God had warned, there was danger.
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Psalm 32.
The Disciple lowered his glasses. He listened to the sounds of the night, of air hissing in the winter grasses, of a gate creaking and the distant clatter of a train, felt the rain against his face, the damp chilling his bones, but in his heart burned a deep glow of warmth. Dr and Mrs Klaesson and their Spawn were inside the walls of that little building.
When the command came he would be in the arms of Lara and the Lord, before anyone had even discovered their bodies.
78
From: Kalle Almtorp, Swedish Embassy, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
To: John Klaesson bklaesson@morleypark. org
Subject: Disciples
John,
I trust this email finds you well and coping with that terrible British climate! Life here in Malaysia is good although the heat took a while to adjust to. I am curious to know how you are. How is Naomi? Luke and Phoebe?
I am writing with possibly good news. My contact at the FBI tells me (very confidentially!) that they now have a lead in their search for these Disciples of the Third Millennium. Still early days, but (and please don’t repeat this) there is some evidence pointing to a religious cult based in exile in a remote part of Europe. These people may be funded by the son of one of America’s richest families, but I understand the evidence is only very tentative at this stage.
As soon as I have more news I will be in touch again. Meantime, it would be good to hear from you. Scary how time passes. How many years since we last saw each other?
Halsningar!
Kalle
John balled his fist and raised it in the air. ‘Yes!!!!!’
Then he tugged the last olive off the cocktail stick, chewed it, and drained the rest of his martini.
Rain spattered against the window in front of his desk. It was a truly foul night and the wind seemed to be freshening. This was great news! They were going to get those bastards. And then they would be safe, at last.
He’d needed something to cheer him after the grim pronouncements of Dr Michaelides, who had just left half an hour or so ago.
He tilted the cocktail glass back and let the last drips of the drink roll into his mouth. Then reality set in. Oh Jesus, what the hell did they do now?
Wait. Wait for the psychologist to come back to them, that was all they could do.
In an attempt to cheer Naomi, he went through to the kitchen and told her the good news from Kalle Almtorp. He embellished it a little, telling her that the FBI were days away from an arrest. From scooping up the entire damned cult.
In just a few days, they would be free from their worries!
But Naomi had not just drunk an extremely large martini; she was stone cold sober. She did not share any of his joy or his alcohol-fuelled optimism
She told him life sucked.
79
Shelia Michaelides hurried to her Victorian terraced house in the centre of Brighton, her tiny umbrella useless against the gale, and she was drenched by the time she reached the sanctuary of her hallway. Changing into a dry pair of jeans and a sweater, she made herself a coffee, took a Marks amp; Spencer tuna pasta salad out of the fridge, then carried a tray up to her little study, sat down at her desk and booted up her computer.
Her mind was churning as she dug her fork in to the pasta, and her stomach felt knotted with anxiety. Haven’t eaten all day, must eat something! She chewed slowly, each mouthful a struggle, forcing herself to swallow, her throat tight and dry. Rain scratched the window, and through the darkness she could just make out the silhouette of her neighbour’s house across from her back yard.
She stood up suddenly, leaned forward and unwound the cord from the hook, letting the blinds drop.
She was shaking. Shaking from a fear she couldn’t define. Always she had been in control. Now for the first time she felt out of her depth. There was some syndrome that Luke and Phoebe Klaesson had which she had never encountered, and it spooked her, increasingly.
She began typing.
Luke and Phoebe Klaesson observations. Day Three. These are not human beings as I know it. They are manipulative, brooding, in a way that suggests the normal restraints of human existence are absent. Clear signs of sociopathic behaviour, but something beyond that…
She stopped and thought for some moments. She needed to talk to other psychologists about this, but who?
The cheese plant filling the small space between her desk and the wall looked in a sad state, badly in need of watering. She went downstairs, filled the can, came back and poured the contents into the arid soil, thinking, thinking.
Thinking.
She typed again.
Autism? How to explain this speech between themselves?
How?
Then, reluctantly, she forked another mouthful of pasta into her mouth and chewed, thinking. Thinking… there must be other case histories out there somewhere, in papers, in books, surely?
She was a member of a child psychologists’ newsgroup on the internet, that circulated a weekly summary of case histories, new treatments, new drugs and general information. It was a good group, with psychologists in over thirty countries participating, and in the past she had always received informed responses to any questions she had asked.
She typed out an email, summarizing her observations of Luke and Phoebe, asking if anyone else had ever experienced anything similar with a patient.
To her surprise, the following day she received emails from ten psychologists. Five of them in the United States, one in the United Arab Emirates, one in Brazil, one in Italy, one in Germany and one in Switzerland.
Four of the psychiatrists informed her, separately, that the twins they had seen with similar characteristics had been conceived in the offshore clinic of the murdered American geneticist, Dr Leo Dettore.
She googled the name Dr Leo Dettore.
Among the first batch of hits that came up, one was indexed:
Newspaper. USA Today. July 2007. Dr J. Klaesson.