She flipped through the handwritten legal pads. Some were filled with quotes supposedly attributed to Sebastian Wolf. She was surprised to see pages and pages of scripture. What was it Drucker had said? Wolf believes that religion gets in the way of following Jesus. For a guy who disapproved of religion, Wolf sure liked to quote the Bible.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit — Matthew 28:19
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” — Acts 1:8 ESV
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. — Ezekiel 36:26, LS XXIV
And in turn, you will return my heart from stone to flesh, so that all men may share in the wisdom of the LORD. And the whole world shall rejoice. — LS XXXI
Ellis recognized some of the scriptures from her studies at Our Lady of Lourdes, the Catholic school she had attended during junior high and high school, as well as her adult Bible study classes. Others weren’t familiar. The capitalized abbreviations at the ends of each passage typically referred to Bible versions. KJV stood for King James Version, ESV was English Standard Version, and so forth. She had never heard of LS. She could only guess that it referred to the Living Scriptures that Drucker had spoken of.
There were pages and pages of such odd scripture, many of which appeared to have been altered significantly from the versions she was familiar with. There was a strong emphasis on resurrection throughout all the passages, as well as many that seemed to validate the pursuit of science as a God-given directive.
Soon she came upon what looked like a series of hand-drawn org charts. Most were half-completed, a mixture of names and question marks. There were dozens of names, representing every ethnicity imaginable.
Written at the top of the chart on the first page was, S WOLF (SHEPHERD). Sebastian Wolf, she assumed, although the term “Shepherd” meant nothing to her. The level immediately below it had two spaces, both filled with question marks. The third and fourth tiers contained some names she recognized, among them N. GISH, and on the same level, R. PRESTON, among others.
She felt a rush of excitement. This was what she was looking for. A membership list. The fact that there were so many question marks, and no full names or titles, was unfortunate. But she had a written document that appeared to validate the victims’ induction into a secret society. Now maybe she could connect the dots.
A knock at the door broke Ellis’ focus. She paused a moment, orienting herself. There were supposed to be two guards outside. The knock came again, more insistent this time.
“Ms. Ellis?”
She got up from the bed and tightened the white robe around her waist.
“What is it?” Jenna said, pulling her headphones off. Her eyes got big as she watched her sister retrieve the handgun from the nightstand next to the bed.
Ellis shushed her sibling, then went to the door and looked through the peephole. It was Jack McClellan, a longtime secret service agent who had been assigned to lead the security team guarding the suite. Ellis figured Speers had put McClellan on the job because he was a familiar face, having worked with her to defend the capitol during the Ulysses Coup.
The rumor was that he had taken a bullet meant for George W. Bush that he would never get public credit for. Why didn’t he just retire? He had served five administrations. Surely he’d maxed out his pension by now.
She opened the door and found herself staring at the horrendousness of Jack’s homemade dye job. He was obviously gray by now, and the jet black smear of thinning hair wasn’t doing anything to conceal it.
“Major fail,” he scolded. “As we discussed, you need to ask one of our qualifying questions before opening the door. What if someone was behind me, holding me at gunpoint? That might be my only way of signaling to you that there was danger.”
Ellis sighed irritably. “Okay, Jack. You got me. Are we done?”
He turned to the side and waved his hand. A hotel staffer approached with a room service cart. “I think maybe I should have a bite of that prime rib,” McClellan said as Ellis pulled the cart into the room. “Might be poisoned.”
“Nice try.”
As Jenna dug into her dinner, Ellis’ focus returned to Drucker’s list. She was sure now that Gish and Preston had known each other through the Fellowship World Initiative. Now she had to try to identify some other names on the list.
Throughout the chart, a Y-axis indicated numbers by each level on the org chart. The Fellowship is a hierarchical society. You have to level up over time. Near the top, you’ve got world leaders, notable scientists. Wolf’s name had no numerical attribution, which appeared to place him as the big kahuna. The second level — where there were only question marks — was the number 21. The number 20 was written beside Gish, Preston and a few other names she didn’t recognize. On the subsequent pages were a list of 19s and a few 18s and 17s.
The amount of diversity among the listed surnames was worrisome. While Ellis guessed that there were plenty of ethnic minorities in the House and Senate these days, as well as in British Parliament, there couldn’t be this much diversity. That meant this list contained people from all over the world. The Fellowship World Initiative appeared to be truly global. Could all these people be world leaders? And if so, did that mean they were all in danger?
The thought of the crisis spreading to additional nations was frightening. She had to talk to Carver.
She went to her bag, looking for her satphone, and remembered she no longer had one. Speers had confiscated it, fearing that it had been compromised. Carver’s satphone number, as well as Arunus Roth’s, had been programmed into it. She went to the desk, powered up her computer, and logged into the secure mission cloud. She posted a private message: call me.
She got up and paced, then flattened herself into the carpet and bent her legs into a pigeon pose, pondering next steps. Without first names, titles and associated nationalities, identifying these people would be hard. Ellis kicked herself for not keeping up more with international political and scientific news. Maybe then she would recognize some of these people.
She flipped to a back page and found a whole new slew of Level 20 names. One stood out among them: V. BORST.
Something shifted within Ellis. Vera Borst? Mother of Mary?
She did a web search for the name. It was evidently quite rare — there were virtually no other exact matches. United Nations Under-Secretary-General Borst. Like Carver said, a big shot.
Ellis quickly navigated to the woman’s Wikipedia page, where Borst’s headshot was pictured above an image of the United Nations flag. She realized she had never really considered the flag’s design before. It had a blue background, with white laurel wreaths framing what could only be described as a bleached map of all the world’s continents as seen through a rifle scope.
Borst’s face was soft and round under a Peter Pan haircut that made her head appear to be remarkably orb-like. The 49-year-old UN leader hadn’t worn any makeup, even in what was obviously a posed photograph. One of those ultra-organic types, Ellis thought.
According to her Wiki page, Borst had been born in Amsterdam and earned a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering before abruptly leaving science for politics. She had been elected to the Netherlands’ lower house during her first try, and had served in the country’s diplomatic corps for a decade before being appointed UNICEF director. She had subsequently been appointed an under-secretary-general of the United Nations.