A Sacred Storm (7 page)

“Hello, young Thomas,” he said. “Can I come in?”

Although there was a glint of recognition, Jennings didn't know who the man was. “I'm sorry, but my parents aren't home at the moment. You'll have to come back later.”

“But I've come to see you.”

“I can't let strangers in. I shouldn't even be talking to you. You'd better go before I start to shout.”

The old man smiled. “There's no need for that, is there? My name's Alan.” He held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. Now we're not strangers.”

Jennings couldn't remember exactly what happened next, but before he knew it they were sitting on the swinging sofa in the back garden, chatting away merrily without a care. Alan told him tales of the war, and how he had been a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, soaring and swooping and shooting down enemy planes. He told him of his life afterwards as a doctor in a big city hospital. And he told him of his wife and the times they had shared together. Jennings had sat rapt throughout, carried away by the old man's unrestrained enthusiasm and unique gift for storytelling. He was disappointed when he eventually heard his parents coming through the front door shouting his name.

“You'd better go and see them,” Alan had said.

“I'll bring them out to meet you,” said Jennings.

Alan's eyes shone brighter than the stars. “Fill your life, Thomas,” he said.

Jennings felt a warmth spread through him and beamed.

He raced in to find his parents, and after a lot of babbling and tugging, he coerced them outside to meet his new friend. But when they arrived at the sofa there was no-one there. Jennings looked around flummoxed. His mother and father smiled knowingly at each other and went back inside…

…“So, they thought you were imagining this guy?” said Stratton, as he and Jennings strolled down to the stream.

“Yes, they did. But that's not the end of it. I described him to them and told them all his stories, and then my dad suddenly became angry. He raced upstairs and came down two minutes later with a photograph of the old man. I got excited and said it was the same guy. My father began shouting, telling me not to lie, and that making up stories was no game.”

“What did you do?” asked Stratton.

“I argued my case until I was blue in the face of course. It went on for days until he bullied me into submission, and I guess after that I just accepted that I'd been playing games and made the whole thing up. After all, Alan Jennings – my grandfather – had been dead for over ten years.”

“Did your father not wonder how you knew so much about your grandfather?”

“He said I must have been listening to stories at family gatherings and fabricated the whole thing from that. It sounded feasible so I believed him. If you're told something enough as a child it becomes your reality. I must have blanked the whole episode from my mind.”

“But you remember it now?”

“I remembered it when I was hanging there in the jungle waiting to die. It all came back to me, particularly my grandfather's eyes. They seemed to contain a whole world of their own. It gave me comfort somehow. But it also made me think – I haven't filled my life at all, I've just been ambling along in an empty daze…When I think of all he'd done by the time he was my age...”

They reached the stream, stripped down to their shorts, and waded in to wash. Stratton began by clipping his beard with a pair of small scissors from his recovered rucksack, and then set to work with a razor blade, savouring every stroke of delightful depilation. Satisfied that he hadn't missed a patch, he dunked his head into the water to remove the excess foam, and then jerked back with an invigorated exhalation.

Jennings was almost dry when Stratton finally emerged from the stream. He patted himself down one last time and put his clothes back on, thankful that Massa and his men had left them behind. If they hadn't he would probably be having to wear robes like the monks, and even in the jungle it wasn't a good look.

“You shouldn't be so hard on yourself really, mate,” said Stratton as he dried himself off. “You might think you've done nothing with your life, but I'm sure to other people it probably looks very exciting. I mean, I'm sure there's loads of people out there who would love to be in Special Branch. You've been the Prime Minister's personal bodyguard for Christ's sake! How cool is that?! It's better than working in a factory isn't it?”

“When you say it like that it sounds better,” Jennings admitted. “I suppose when you're in a job you tend to forget how it looks to other people. The reality is never quite as glamorous though.”

“Maybe it's not your job that's the problem,” said Stratton.

“Maybe you're right.”

Stratton put his clothes back on and slung his towel over his shoulder. “Right then mate, are you ready for this?”

“I guess so,” said Jennings doubtfully.

“Well then, let's go and find Majami.”

Stratton had persuaded Jennings to receive an attunement from the monk. He believed it essential in the current climate that Jennings be protected as much as possible from the negative energies that were sweeping the globe. Although a basic attunement would not give him immunity, it would give him a deeper spiritual insight and make him more aware of what was going on around him. Stratton had also tried to get Grady to agree to one, but the suggestion was met with a typically humorous dismissal, so he had let the matter lie.

When they got back to the hut Majami was waiting for them. He took them inside to his quarters and bade Jennings sit on a chair in the middle of the room. There was a lit candle in each corner, the air filled with a delicate waft of incense. Majami instructed Jennings to close his eyes and relax with his hands in the prayer position, and to think about letting positive energies flow through his body. Only six months previously Jennings would have laughed at what he was doing, but today, in the middle of the jungle with Majami, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

At first Jennings found it hard to imagine the energies flowing like Majami had suggested, but as soon as he felt the monk's hand touch the crown of his head he immediately felt a subtle surge of warmth travel through his body. After that he remembered little of the physical aspects save for Majami making signs on his palms. What he did recall was the sensation of floating in another dimension, a divine weightlessness that transcended the world as he knew it. It was like speeding through the cosmos at a million miles an hour and standing motionless at the same time. It was like a seismic explosion of knowledge had hit him full in the face and illuminated his entire mind, as a blind man regaining his sight after years in the dark. And most of all it was simply beautiful, like nothing his temporal existence could even begin to match.

When he finally came back to earth he could hear Majami's mellifluous voice coaxing him out of his trance. He opened his eyes slowly and found the world out of focus. The room was blanketed by a thick haze, with Majami appearing pixilated. Jennings shook his head and blinked but his vision remained fuzzy.

“Is everything alright?” Majami asked.

“I'm not sure,” Jennings drawled. “I feel a bit drunk.”

“Good,” said Majami. “That means the attunement is strong. It will take some time to ground yourself again. Just sit there until you feel your senses return to normal. I will go and fetch some water.”

Jennings leant back in the chair and enjoyed the moment. The fact that his faculties were temporarily disabled didn't matter. He'd never felt so good in his life. His body was generating energy like a nuclear reactor and his grin was so wide it threatened to engulf his entire face. Problems were a thing of the past, and had transformed into a colourful sea of opportunities. It was like entering a dream, or perhaps coming out of one, he wasn't sure which. What he was sure of though was that he'd crossed a border into another realm and his life would never be the same again.

A fuzzy dark figure appeared in front of him. “How are you doing?” said Stratton's voice.

Jennings didn't answer, he just grinned even wider.

“That good, eh?” said Stratton. “Welcome to wonderland.”

It took a good half hour before Jennings finally returned to some sort of normality and even then it wasn't quite what he was used to. The world seemed somewhat sharper than it had: colours were brighter, objects more defined, sounds crisper and more melodic, fragrances were sweeter and more pungent; it was like he'd been watching an old black-and-white TV and was suddenly immersed in state-of-the-art high definition with super-stereo and ultra-smell.

Later on, as he sat outside with Stratton enjoying the evening sun and sipping jungle tea, he felt on the verge of a incredible new dawn. “Is this how you feel all the time?” he asked.

“I don't know, mate, it's difficult to tell isn't it? Only an individual can know how he or she feels. But if you feel the same way I did when I had my first attunement, then no. It's one of those moments you should savour. I think I felt supercharged for about a week – I hardly slept, then it sort of tailed off, or seemed to anyway. It was more like I grew accustomed to my new view of the world though, and that then became my normality.”

“That's a shame,” said Jennings. “I could quite get used to feeling like this forever.”

Stratton took a sip of his brew and gazed out into the trees. “One day you will feel like that forever; everybody will. Or let's say that everybody has the chance to if they let themselves. You're at the start of a new journey. Every step you make will be accompanied by a similar reaction to the one you're feeling now. Each stage of enlightenment will produce a new wave of elation. At the moment you're dazzled by what you see, but that will pass and you'll be ready to move on to something even brighter, and so on until you're able to look directly at the ultimate light and become a part of it.”

Jennings smiled into the distance. “You know what, Stratton? This is the first time I can honestly say I really know what you're talking about. Before, I kind of grasped the concepts, but now I actually understand. Does that make sense?”

“Of course it does. But I think you've always understood more than most people. You've always had the capability it's just been buried underneath years of instilled ignorance. From the moment your parents dismissed the story of your grandfather as fiction you were always going to struggle. Subconsciously you closed yourself off from anything spiritual and concentrated all your thought on the secular world around you, either to please your mother and father, or through fear of looking stupid I guess.”

“Do you think my grandfather will come and see me again?

” “I don't know. He's probably moved on elsewhere. But you'll see him again one day, in some dimension, I'm sure.”

Anatol stood at the window of his hotel and looked out on the buzzing piazza. It was nine pm, and the outside tables of the restaurants and pizzerias were filled with hungry diners all wanting to enjoy the clement evening. Tourists wandered up and down pointing and taking photographs of everything that moved and didn't, while street artists tried to distract them with offers of intimate portraits with their loved ones. In the middle of the square, a performer sat on a unicycle juggling three firebrands, his overly glamorous assistant eliciting exaggerated donations for what was effectively a mediocre effort.

Anatol had half a mind to go out and join the party, but the day had been long, and instead he decided that room service might be a more fitting alternative. He picked up the extensive five-star menu and had a quick browse, but even with all the luxuries on offer he found it hard to work up an appetite. The magnitude of what he had done was beginning to cloy. Eventually he ordered a light selection of antipasti and, more importantly, a bottle of Smirnoff Blue Label to help calm his shattered nerves.

It wasn't guilt that was eating away at him so much as the fear of retribution. After years of working for Kandinsky he knew only too well the penalty for treachery, and a betrayal of this size would be met with an equally severe punishment. But what choice had he been given? Over the previous year Kandinsky's behaviour had become increasingly erratic. The ruthless businessman he once knew had all but disappeared, replaced by some weak-willed philanthropist hell-bent on giving away money faster than the US Treasury could print it. At his current rate of benevolence the whole lot would be gone in less than two years. And where would that leave Anatol himself? There was no way he was going to let all those years of hard work go down the pan just because his boss had seen some kind of imaginary light. Of course, he had put plenty of money away in various accounts, but not enough to accomplish what he wanted. He envisaged himself at the head of his own organization, and with all the contacts he'd made in his years at Kandinsky's side he could easily set up networks in everything from drugs and gun running, to pornography and money laundering. It wasn't that he had anything against legitimate business, it was just that he didn't know anything about it. His background was firmly on the wrong side of the law where the big money resided, and that is where his future dealings would be. His decision hadn't been an easy one, but he was sure it was the right one. And was it really treachery anyway? All he'd done was copy a few symbols from the top of an old box. It wasn't as if he'd sold Kandinsky out to a competitor or anything like that.

Being a trusted employee had made it easy for Anatol to work out what was going on, and as soon as he knew the Catholic Church were interested in the box he smelt money.

And what a deal he had got. Twenty million dollars' worth. It would be enough to set him up in business and then some. He figured that in a couple of years he could turn it into at least a hundred million, if not more. Within a decade he would be bigger than Kandinsky, and able to support his own undersea fortress. He lay back on the bed and started to dream of the future.