Jo-el

Chapter 35 THE TRUTH

I made spaghetti with clams in a white wine sauce, straight from a packet. It was right up there with ‘okay’. The bottle of Pinot Grigio mellowed the food disappointment. Pippa gave Billy some spaghetti with cheese, which did the trick.

“What’s the plan?” Pippa asked as we cleared away the plates.

“For you, or for me?”

She stopped and looked at me. “Both of us.”

“Well, you’ve just pissed off the CIA big time, that’s for sure and I’m a wanted man. So we can’t be seen in public in the US. You’ve seen the TV news, the FBI are rounding up pedophiles by the bus load, next they’ll be arresting kidnappers and rapists and for good measure there’s seven serial killers who’ll be behind bars in the next day or so. The paperwork will keep them busy for a year. The Brits are doing the same,”

“How did you do that?”

“Me, I just told Sally what I wanted to do, she did the rest.”

“How?”

I paused and considered my decision. Do I tell Pippa everything? Would she believe me? Would I be putting her at risk? Seemed to me she was already at risk.

“Pippa, let’s finish clearing up and I’ll tell you.”

It was about the time Billy went to bed, so Pippa made him comfortable in the second bedroom. She hadn’t mentioned the sleeping arrangements so I presumed she was sharing with me or I’d be on the sofa. Funnily I didn’t seem to mind, I hadn’t slept with another woman since I’d dated Mary, I’d never been unfaithful and, to be honest, it scared me. I decided to let fate take its course.

Half an hour later we were comfortable on the sofa, Pippa was finishing the Pinot, while I nursed a Black Label. She looked at me and waited, her wide, brown eyes like jewels set in silk, her face a throwback to the actresses in the era of Lawrence of Arabia.

I told her everything, almost. The face on my computer; the trip to fetch the container; the belt computer; my heads-up display; my smart-suit, that elicited a few questions.

“What do you really look like?”

“I’m can’t show you,” I said.

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter and it’s for my security.”

I told her about Cirion. She said she didn’t believe me, at first. I asked her, “how do you think I am able to do all this? Can’t you see that none of it can possibly make sense, otherwise.”

I set up the disc-monitor and showed her pictures of Cirion and the strange people, with so many different skin colors. She held her face in her hands, her eyes glued to the screen, her mouth gaping open.

I told her about the network of computers installed on earth so many years ago and I told her about the data base of information covering everything that’s happened on our beautiful planet since that time. She cried.

“How can you deal with all of this?” Pippa beseeched me.

“I’ve had a little more time to get used to it, I guess. I’ve used the technology, I’ve seen things and experienced things that no one on earth has. Do you want to see Jesus Christ? A three-dimensional video of the real man?” I put Jesus on the screen, tending to poor people in a village near Jerusalem.

Her voice croaked, she could hardly speak, tears gushed down her face. She kept wiping tears away from her eyes as she watched the Holiest of men displaying unimaginable kindness to all around him. How could you not worship such a man?

She wanted to see her mother as a child in India. I showed her. More tears erupted, her mouth quivered with love, she reached out to hold her mother in her arms, the hologram so real. She saw herself as a child, she remembered the toys she’d played with, each one setting off another flood of emotion. Eventually she asked me to stop and she put her arms around me and held me as tight as she dared, her cheek pressed hard against mine.

“You haven’t asked me the question?” I said.

She pulled away and considered me carefully. “I’ve asked a lot of questions?”

I studied her for guidance, but there was none. “Why?” I said.

“Why!” she said, unsure.

“Why, now? Why did the people of Cirion decide to contact us, or me, now?”

“Does it matter?” she said and snuggled up close again. Now she was biting my ear.

“What?” I exclaimed, “don’t you care?”

“Not right now, Jo-el, no.”

“She wants you Joey, do you need it to be spelled out in giant letters? Right there, on the sofa, hope it holds up, don’t know how you’d explain that to Mrs. Greelitch.”

“Leave me alone, Sally.”

“I’m going to watch, see how good you are.”

“Jesus, Sally, give me a break, please?”

“Don’t take the Lords name in vain, Joey.”

I was suddenly distracted when I felt Pippa’s hand reach inside my pants, yowser! That had the desired effect. We wrestled each other’s clothes off. At first I worried that she’d see an old man, but that didn’t happen, thank God. I kept hoping she wouldn’t realize I wasn’t as young as I looked, but things went well. In fact, it was truly magic. Best sex I’d had for years. Sorry Mary, but I’m a truthful guy. And it lasted for quite a while, well by my previous standards, a long while. I felt like forty-something again. Must be those life pills, eat your heart out, Viagra.

We fell asleep on the sofa, eventually, our arms and legs intertwined like an octopus. When I woke, I worried about Pippa getting cold. It was late, eastern time, Pippa didn’t move, so I carried her carefully into the bedroom and made her comfortable. I returned to the living room and poured another Black Label. I burned with happiness, fighting the urge to check what was happening in the world. The warmth of the scotch added to my carefree mood. Sally played music for me, softly. Michael Bublé on Pandora. I sat like that for more than an hour soaking up the glow.

“You’re a stud, Joey!

Jesus, this wasn’t a discussion I relished.

“Not now, Sally.”

I didn’t hear anything more from her. Perhaps she was jealous, nah!

Sunday morning brought a bitter wind off the ocean. Pippa made breakfast, Grapenuts and bananas for me, egg on toast for her and egg soldiers for Billy. We didn’t speak much and avoided the events of the previous night. Billy was sat in front of the TV watching cartoons, Pippa and I around the kitchen table drinking coffee.

“He’s a great kid. Keeps himself amused.”

“Yea, I worry though. Maybe he needs a sibling.”

“You want more?”

“Sure, why not, but I’d like the whole family thing, you know?”

I was about to mention Maggie and Sean, but decided against it. I felt her eyes on me, she was studying me for something.

“You can’t talk about it, can you?”

I looked at her and wondered about where this was going? Nowhere was my conclusion, how could it? Built on a house of cards. What would I be when this whole mess was public knowledge.

“No, I’d rather keep my previous life secret,” I replied.

“You have kids?”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry.” She stood up and began clearing away the breakfast things. “What are we going to do now?”

“Check on what’s happening and take it from there.”

“You were going to tell me why, last night, before we were distracted?” She ginned.

“Do you want to know?”

She stopped what she was doing. “When I lay in bed this morning I started thinking about all the crazy things you told me and showed me last night. It’s mind boggling. I always believed there was other life in the universe, it’s too vast to imagine we are it, so to speak. And why shouldn’t they be ahead of us? That’s just fate. But hundreds of millions of years, that’s amazing. I would have expected them to have contacted us already. But then again, the technology on earth has only taken off in the last one hundred years, a miniscule amount of time in their eyes. I think it’s frightening for me to comprehend the technology that you have access to, can you imagine someone from a hundred years ago? These people from Cirion, they’re so far away, I can see why we don’t figure in their plans. You told me they haven’t invented a means of travel faster than the speed of light? I think I read that Einstein said that was impossible anyway, maybe it is. So, we’ll never meet them, why should they bother with us? I would imagine that they are just getting around to contacting us because they think we are ready.”

She waited for me to reply.

“I think you should sit down before I tell you the reason.”

Pippa’s expression sullied, slowly she took her seat at the kitchen table. She sipped her coffee and was quiet.

“Before you blurb anything more to the brown bitch, I think you better hear something, Jo-el.”

I was shocked by Sally’s tone and rhetoric.

“Is something wrong, Jo-el?” asked Pippa, she read my face, she was scared.

“What is it, Sally?”

“I was running through Pippa’s movements on Wednesday and I lost her for nearly thirty minutes. Part of those minutes’ co-inside with the time Alberton was missing.”

“Are you saying she’s working with him and this whole arrest thing is a lie?”

“Could be.”

“Could be isn’t enough, Sally, I need to know, definitely.”

“Jo-el, are you okay?”

I glanced at Pippa, I was feeling distraught, I didn’t want to believe what Sally was saying. I had feelings for her, I thought she was on my side. My throat went dry. “Give me a minute, Pippa, something’s up. I need to check it out.” I stood up and went to the living room, Billy was watching TV, he looked up at me so I went out the front door, quickly adding a coat. The wind swirled around me, blowing my coat out, I pulled it toward me and buttoned it down. In the distance I saw white-horses on the ocean.

“How long do you need, Sally?”

“Hang-on, here’s what I’ve got. Alberton wrote something on a small piece of blue paper, like a tear-off strip from a note pad. This was before he saw Pippa. It said ‘Go to the basement in ten minutes.’”

“And she went?”

“Yes.”

“So, Pippa and Alberton met in the basement and we have no idea what they talked about and then she was told to go home? Shit! How could he know I’m blind underground?”

“It’s not brain surgery, Jo-el, maybe he figured it out or maybe he’s just testing a theory. He tells Pippa something significant in the basement and wants to see if you respond.”

“These guys aren’t stupid, that’s for sure. But if he’s so smart, why doesn’t he believe me? I’m trying to help. Why were you checking Pippa?”

Sally was quiet for a moment. “Because Alberton spent most of yesterday in the basement.”

“Shit! So, they have a way of keeping secrets from me?”

“That’s the crux of it.”

I paced around the side of the cottage, out of sight, trying to figure out what to do about Pippa. “Maybe we can play their game? I need a bug that I can place on her somehow.”

Sally was quiet for a moment, “found one, shop store in Miami, nobody there right now.”

“Okay, bounce me there.”

I was suddenly blind, my eyes fought the darkness, slowly shelves came into focus. “Third shelf down, just to your left.” I searched the shelf and found a round, plastic device in a plastic package. “That’s it.” I put it in my pocket.

“Back to Rodanthe.”

I was back along the side of the cottage, I stepped to the front door and pushed it open, Billy was glued to the TV, Pippa was still sitting at the kitchen table, both hands around her coffee.

“There’s a pocket inside her handbag, load of crap in there. Remove the bug from the plastic and switch it on, little black slider on the side, the battery is good. There’s a micro SD card in place, it will record up to sixty hours. You’ll have to get it back to listen to it.”

“It doesn’t transmit?”

“Not powerful enough, too small. Wouldn’t work anyway underground.”

Pippa’s handbag was in the bedroom, I found the pocket, switched on the bug and drop it inside. There wasn’t a zipper but a small piece of Velcro held the pocket shut.

“Now you need to ditch the bitch.” Sally at her most eloquent.

I went back to the kitchen and kissed Pippa on the cheek. “I need to go to London.”

“What’s up?”

“The Home Secretary wants to meet me.” I smiled, “they appear a little more grateful than your lot.”

“Yea, I’m sorry about that, they’ll come around.”

“You can stay here, the keys for the car are on the mantelpiece.”

“Will you be long?” Pippa, didn’t look comfortable.

“Gosh, I don’t know, no more than a couple of hours.”

Sally piped in, “She doesn’t know what to do, the two-faced shit.”

Pippa beamed at me, her expression pleading. “Can you take Billy and me back to DC?”

“Is that wise?”

“Oh yea, Joey, play the bitch!”

“I think I’d like to visit my father.”

“Are they still watching her condo?”

“Of course.”

“Pippa, won’t they arrest you as soon as they know you’re there?”

“They want you, Jo-el, not me.” She stood up put her arms around me and pressed her cheek against mine.

“Oh, please, I think I’m going to barf.”

“Sally, shush a minute.”

“Whatever you want,” I said.

“I’ll be fine, Jo-el really. Anyway, you can rescue me,” she kissed me lightly on the lips and grinned.

“Where’s your father?”

“He’s in Maryland, my mom’s in India right now, he’s lonely.”

“Okay, I guess you should get Billy ready.