28th March
‘Are the married quarters OK for you both?’ Joan enquired as Helen and I sat down with her and Etienne for an evening meal in the dining hall at Bovington camp.
‘Fine,’ Helen replied. ‘How long do you think we’ll need to stay here at the camp?’
‘I don’t think it’s safe for you both to go home at the moment,’ Joan answered. ‘Also, ARK have no idea where you are and don’t know about MI5 involvement, so that may give us an advantage in pursuing ARK and Arkangel.’
‘What happens now?’ I asked.
‘We’re following a number of lines of enquiry right now,’ Joan explained. ‘We have twenty-four hour surveillance on Gerald Hunter and the other four known members of ARK – the five that call themselves “the Masters of ARK”.’
‘Why don’t you bring in those five for questioning?’ I said.
‘Four of them are influential Anglican bishops,’ Joan answered. ‘All hell would break loose, so to speak, if we picked them up, and we couldn’t hold them. Also, they don’t know that we’re monitoring them, so we’re more likely to get information if we carry on as we are at present.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Are there any other angles that can be followed up?’
‘We’re looking into the backgrounds of Reginald Harris and Douglas Rider,’ Joan answered.
‘Was Douglas Rider the other one that died?’ interrupted Helen.
‘Yes,’ confirmed Joan. ‘The CIA is still interrogating Roger Hartnell,’ she continued, ‘and we’ll begin to question Christian Leadbetter in the morning.’
‘The Reverend Leadbetter,’ I said. ‘Has he recovered?’
‘Superficially, he’s behaving normally,’ clarified Etienne, ‘but he claims to have lost all memory of events from when the meteorite landed until the time he was in the psychiatric ward.’
‘Do you believe him?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ replied Etienne. ‘It’s a classic response to the internal conflicts he couldn’t resolve.’
‘Why should the amnesia date from the meteorite impact?’ I queried.
‘Possibly that was the day when reality started to depart from the familiar norm,’ Etienne speculated.
‘I can relate to that,’ I said.
‘Where is he now?’ asked Helen.
‘He’s in the secure hospital wing on this camp,’ Etienne replied. ‘Bringing him here was a bit of a risk. We’ll have to keep him now, otherwise he’ll inform ARK of our involvement. We need to find out what he knows, however, and we may get more from him while he’s still disoriented.’
‘What about people who might want to visit him?’ asked Helen.
‘We’ve let it be known that he remains very disturbed and has been transferred to a very specialist mental health unit in Aberdeen,’ Etienne answered.
Joan looked at me and continued with her explanation of her current strategy. ‘The final line of enquiry,’ she said, ‘will hopefully follow from the fact that we expect Arkangel to contact you.’
‘What makes you think that?’ I asked.
Etienne answered the question: ‘Arkangel believes that you hold the secret to some pretty spectacular supernatural powers. He believes that God has imposed a duty upon him to obtain that secret for the Church, and he also believes that he has a duty to stop you using those powers in some dark and demonic manner. He doesn’t know where you are, but he is likely to have your phone number or email address. The logical thing for him to do is to contact you directly. Have you had any emails or texts?’
‘I haven’t checked emails since yesterday morning,’ I said, removing my phone from my pocket. ‘And my phone’s been off since we left the farmhouse.’
I switched on the phone. It beeped to announce an incoming message. I looked at the message and then passed the phone to Joan.
Hello, Mr. Morrison, read the text. I believe it is time that we spoke, face to face. It was signed, Arkangel.