Chapter 19
The recording ended. I was too stunned to say a word. Hesidence started talking, “Matthew, you have some pretty scary friends and what’s even crazier is that you’re protecting them. Tell me what you know and I can work with you.”
“What should I do?” I asked.
“Go to the airport and leave town,” he answered.
“It would be impossible to get tickets out of here tonight.”
“I’ve already made arrangements. I was having two of my couriers flying back to the states tonight. They’ll give up their seats to you. Just go to the counter and see if you can purchase seats. When my couriers see you they’ll make the proper arrangements. Now, get out of there. I figure that you have about two hours before your assassins arrive,” Hesidence told me.
“Who are the assassins?” I asked.
“You’ve seen them before. Russo uses his two personal body guards for deeds like this.”
“The ones that look like Starsky and Hutch?” I blurted out.
“I never thought of it like that but yeah, you’re absolutely right. Now, be careful, Matthew.”
I hung up the phone and ran up the stairs to Beth. Her first reaction when I told her was tears. She cried for fear. She cried because of what I had gotten us into. She cried because we had to leave behind everything we collected and bought over the years. She cried to release the tension. Following the tears, Beth flew into action. She packed two bags quickly for herself and me while I went through my home desk to make sure that no names and addresses of our friends in the States were left behind. I planned to drop off Beth at my old friend’s house.
My old friend, Mary Grace, and I had gone through grade school, middle school, high school and then to a good Catholic college together. She was more like a sister than anything else. Sometimes the two of us thought of going off to be a priest and a nun. Of course, Mary Grace was one of the earliest believers in women’s rights. She fluctuated between being a nun and a priest. Her frustration over the Catholic church’s restrictions on women may have been one of the reasons why she eventually left the church. More likely, it was because she fell in love with a seminary student named Brian Guthrie.
Brian had started his own church outside of Washington, D.C. in an outlying town called Riverdale. It was a mix of charismatic, evangelical and Episcopalian. It was simply referred to as the Chapel. The growth had been very surprising to the older staid and traditional churches in the area. Brian’s ability with music, his intensely deep understanding and ability to plainly explain the Bible brought thousands of hurting seekers of God through the Chapel’s doors. In Mary Grace, Brian had an excellent partner in a ministry that was reaching into the real lives of people in the D.C. area.
I knew Mary Grace and Brian would be both sympathetic to our problems and at the same time I was aware that the Chapel was referred to as a dissenting church or more precisely, they weren’t followers of the new messiah and his unification of the world’s faiths. We would and could be safe there.
Dissenting churches came in as many different varieties as their were people in churches. Some were fronts for more radical, racist groups, others for militias, some belonged to the broader Patriot movement. The Chapel linked itself with no group. It held to a conservative view of the Bible but wouldn’t have been considered a member of the radical religious right. As Pastor, Brian Guthrie wanted to give his congregation the Bible’s view. He didn’t see how the two fit together and had moved his flock outside of the traditional churches that linked themselves to the clone’s unification of the faiths. The Chapel was never seen as a political or armed threat. It was simply people with a dissenting view.
As Beth packed, I worked on a decoy. In the garage I had two large bags of sand and in the attic was a full-size cut-out of me that Beth had made for my fortieth birthday. I dragged the bags and the cut-out into the bedroom. I bent my oversized photo in half and stuffed part of it under the covers and the rest of me stuck out as if I was sitting up in bed. With the small lamp on the nightstand shining on my life sized photo, it would be hard for anyone peering through the window’s sheer curtains to tell what it really was. I hoped anyone peeking would mistake it for me sitting up and working in bed.
Beth walked into the bedroom as I tied rope and twine around the room. “Matthew, what are you doing? We need to get out of here. I’m frightened.”
“Beth, if they come soon after we leave and find the lights on but no movement or the lights off and no movement, they’ll break in and discover we’ve left. If they do it too soon then the assassins might catch us at the airport. This will slow them down,” I said as I pointed to my rigging.
“Matt, I don’t want to sound stupid but how?” she asked.
“This bag of sand is heavier than that bag. Just before we leave, I’ll poke a hole in it. The sand will slowly come out until the bag hanging in the air becomes the heavier one. When the one in the air falls it will pull this rope attached to the twine. And the twine will pull the chain on the light and then pull over my fortieth birthday gift so it looks like I’ve laid down. They’ll wait until they see the light go out and then probably hang back for another half hour. That should be enough time for us to be on the airplane,” I told her proudly as I pointed to the different elements of my decoy.
“OK, Mister Bond, I’m ready to leave unless you have to have a martini, shaken and not stirred, before we go,” she joked. It was her attempt at lightening the moment. I appreciated it.
We headed downstairs and into the garage. I slipped out of the side garage door and crept along my neighbors side of the hedges. I wanted to see if we had any company lying in wait beyond the end of our driveway. I saw nothing. I pushed open the garage door and slowly backed the car out. Then I secured the door and jumped back in the car. I was ready to back out of the drive when a car tooled down our street. Both of us held our breath. At first I thought it was slowing down. My eyes must’ve been playing tricks on me. In another minute it went on by.
I backed out and then gunned the car in the direction of the airport, maneuvering through every rarely used street I could think of. It took us extra time but I didn’t want to be discovered on the road. It would be better to take the longer, “less scenic” route.
Once at the airport, I pulled the car into the parking area stopping in a no parking zone and we leaped out. I decided to leave the keys in and the doors unlocked. If it had been the United States, the vehicle would’ve been stolen and in some chop shop in a few hours—totally untraceable. In Zurich, I wasn’t as sure but I hoped airport security would find the car and at least tow it away. That way, the car would not be easily found by our assassins.
We both wanted to run through the terminal to a departing flight gate but every instinct told me not to draw attention to ourselves. We walked calmly, chatting and keeping our heads down. As we passed the different monitors, I checked for flights to the United States. Swissair had one leaving in thirty-five minutes.
I went to the counter and asked for two tickets. I had been right earlier. There were no tickets available and I saw no one walking up to us. I turned again to the counter to beg for the first possible seats when I was tapped on the shoulder. I looked around to see a thin framed man. He smiled at me saying, “Excuse me, but I heard you mention a need for two tickets. Our plans were just canceled and we have two seats available”
“Can we make arrangements with the ticket counter then?” I asked.
“Sure, let’s talk with these counter people and get you on this plane.” In a few minutes, Beth and I were moving slowly down the aisle of the airplane searching for our seats. We found them and dropped our weary bodies into their soft cushions. It would be a long flight but both of us would probably sleep for the whole trip.
I just started to relax and mentally go through what we had carried with us. Beth grabbed clothes, photos and lifetime memorabilia from Cari and her kids. In my backpack were copies of the important clone files and fifteen thumbdrives with evidence I had gathered. I had been scanning my notebooks and Russo’s diary over the last few months. Digital copies were a lot easier to carry and certainly lighter than forty boxes of notes.
My family was still in danger. I decided that I wouldn’t reveal any of my knowledge and files to the C.I.A. unless I was assured that everyone would be safe. Besides, I wasn’t sure that Hesidence had the power to protect us. What if his government decided to jump onto the clone’s bandwagon. I’d be eliminated in a minute. Politics was nothing to trust your life to. I knew that I would hold the information. I only wish that I had released it sooner than I am doing right now as I write this.
The jet’s engines roared as we taxied down the runway. Any moment we would be safe until our assassins could catch a plane and join us in the United States. I had a several hour head start on the killers and wanted to put as much distance between us and them as possible.
The pilot revved the engines when I noticed a long shadow falling on the carpeted aisle next to me. It moved slowly stopping at each row as if it were checking or searching for us. The shadow moved closer until one of its extremities raised in the air. It got closer and closer to me. I expected any minute to be attacked by my invisible, dark assailant. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to know what was coming next. Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Sir, would you like a pillow for the trip?”
I popped my eyes open and saw the bright smile of the Swissair stewardess. I laughed inside, took the pillow and was soon out cold from exhaustion.