The Deadly Secret of Dr. Arcanum Lock’s Evolutionary Spirit Project: A Bodacious Baby Boomer Escapade
By Sara M. Barton
It’s a bitter pill for we baby boomers to swallow -- youth is often squandered by the young. If only we had their rollover minutes....There may be snow on the roof, but there’s plenty of gas in the tank -- let’s hit the road of life while we can still rock and roll!
Published by Sara M. Barton, at Smashwords
Copyright Sara M. Barton 2012
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Prologue --
How far would you go to save a friend’s life? Would you betray your marriage to do it? Would you take risks and abandon the life you love, just for the chance to keep your friend from dying? How much is any man or woman’s life really worth? Which among us are pawns in a post-Cold War game and which are players? How much collateral damage is acceptable in the new Millennium, where the past is supposed to be long ago and far away? What if it really isn’t over? Are smoke and mirrors just a means of showing us what we hope to see? There are grown children, now baby boomers, still in the grip of the undiscovered past, still drawn together by the unseen threads that tie them to each other. Childhood terror is real. It is the stuff of nightmares, monsters under the bed, and things that go bump in the night. But it is nothing when compared to the heinous acts of people who will do anything to win the game without being caught.
One -- A Blast from the Past
As I stood behind the tree, struggling to silence my gasps, my heart was pounding so hard, I actually thought I could hear each beat. I felt like a complete idiot. How could I not have seen this coming? I did the automatic checklist in my head. What could give me away? No perfume. My hunter would not get a whiff of my scent. I was wearing a black turtleneck, black denim jeans, and a black faux fur vest. All dark colors. That was good. Gold necklace with a crystal snowflake pendant, gold hoop earrings. Reflective surfaces. That was bad. I carefully tucked the necklace inside the turtleneck and pocketed the earrings. The chilly Washington night offered little moonlight. That was both a help and a hindrance. Why did I not realize the danger before I left my little borrowed flat in Dupont Circle? I would have made different decisions. I would have reached out for help. I would have called Geo immediately and told him everything. And now, now it was too late. I was out here on my own, unarmed and running for my life, cut off from the people I love and trust. I hadn’t felt so alone since the incident with Jack in Little Neck. The common denominator? The same hunter who was after Jack was now after me.
I thought about what brought me to Rock Creek Park at 6:30 on this January night. Did I want to help my best friend? The text gave me the meeting location and the time. I didn’t recognize the number, but it had a DC area code. If I wanted to know what was happening to Valerie, I should come. I realize now that the hunter picked a good spot for his attack. In the middle of winter, the tennis courts behind the junior high school were empty, flanked by quiet streets and with little foot traffic. I saw the dark silhouette approach the specified meeting place. When he was twenty feet from me, he raised his arm. I thought he was waving to me and I returned the gesture. But I was wrong. Horrified, I watched him bring his gun up to line up his shot as I stood there, frozen in fear. My brain processed the information and spat out a warning to move. As I bolted, I felt the bullet whiz past my ear like sleet on a winter night, a slight sting against my skin. There had been no sound, only a whisper in the wind. The muffler on the weapon made sure of that. The sudden arrival of a cyclist pedaling along the path at full speed distracted the hunter, and I took advantage of the moment. I took off like a rabbit pursued by a hungry coyote. Crashing noisily through the four inches of ice-crusted snow, I left the path and tore across the field. I fled to this dark refuge of trees in search of sanctuary, trying to lose myself in the maze of trunks, obliterating my tracks in the snow. And now, as I tried to catch my breath, I realized that when I ran from my pursuer, I ran away from civilization, instead of heading towards it. Had he expected me to run and hide in this grove of trees or continuing fleeing across the open field, towards the P Street Bridge? Was he closing in on me as I crouched there? Did I just make it easier for him to murder me? Through the darkness, I strained to see signs of movement. Maybe I had lost him when the cyclist cut in front of him on the path.
As I crouched there, I weighed my options. The big trick was going to be going back out into the open, where I would have no cover. And yet, how else would I get back to safety if I didn’t risk it? One moment I was making plans to escape, and then next I was listening to Cio-Cio San’s aria from “Madame Butterfly” whistled softly. An icy shiver went through my body. The lovely notes of “Un Bel di Vendremo” slipped into the air. What kind of opera-loving killer was stalking me?
“I know you’re in there, Gee,” said the deep voice ten feet away. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And he called me Gee, not Gillian. The only people who called me that were people who knew me as a child. “I can wait. I’m not in any hurry.”
He went back to whistling. I felt that tightness in my chest again as my heart pressed against my rib cage. Suddenly, abruptly, the whistling ceased. I wondered if that meant he was making his move. I made the mistake of taking a deep breath, giving away my position. Silently cursing myself for my stupidity, I waited, but nothing happened. Minutes went by. At last, I dared to stand up, my decision firm and resolute in my mind. If I was going to be murdered, I was not going down without a fight. I would run as fast as my legs could carry me. But in what direction?
Two -- An Auspicious Beginning to a Mystery
You’re probably wondering how I became prey. It’s really a long story. To be honest, I don’t know the whole truth about what happened to me. But I can tell you one thing. I don’t deserve it. I pride myself on being a good person. I’m kind to people and animals. I’m an expert baker. I’m a children’s author and illustrator by profession. I’m a law-abiding citizen. I volunteer with a local mentoring program. Does that make me sound like national security threat?
One little episode signaled the start of this unhappy mess. I was on my way home to Massachusetts after I finished a PR appearance at a major book fair in San Francisco to promote my new picture book, “With an Oink-Oink Here”. Killing time during a stopover at Newark Liberty airport a week ago, I stretched my stiff legs by strolling leisurely through the airport.
“Gee, Gee Goodwin!” A man hailed me as I passed the coffee shop, wheeling my little carry-on as I left Terminal B. “How great is this? My old pal!”
I looked at the man blocking my path. Sixty-ish, average height and weight, blond and balding, pale complexion, green eyes. My mind ran the information through its circuits and came up blank on the name. The only people who ever called me Gee were those from my childhood. When you spend as much time as I did as a child, trying to explain that my name was just another alternative to the more common Jillian, you get used to saying, “It’s Gillian with a G.”
“It’s me, Mason Langford. From Camp Eirene.”
“Mason,” I greeted him. “How are you?”
“Great. Great. It’s been a while. You look fantastic! You haven’t aged a bit!”
“It’s called presbyopia, my friend. You should see your opthamologist about that!” I laughed. Here I was, fast approaching sixty. Hardly the Gillian Goodwin of ten.
“What are you doing here?” Mason wanted to know. Bird-like eyes studied me closely. For a fleeting moment, I felt like I was being sized up as potential road kill by a vulture.
“Heading home. I was in San Francisco for a book convention. How about you?”
“Heading to Pakistan to buy gemstones.” He patted his briefcase. “Big business.”
“Sounds exotic,” I told him.
“It is. Sapphires, aquamarines, kunzite. When was the last time I saw you? Back in 1990, at the 25th ‘Whole World Healing’ reunion? I was there with my wife, Gwen. What have you been up to since then?” he asked. We spent the rest of my twenty-minute wait catching up.
“I’ve had a little success as a children’s author and illustrator. Ten picture books and a children’s television series based on my ‘Wild William’ character.”
“Fantastic. How’s Richard?” I told him all about losing my husband to a heart attack ten years ago and meeting Elek Geodopolis, better known as “Geo” six years later. I shared the information that I had been remarried for three years, my daughter, Natalie, was a new mother, and Geo was president and founder of Ultronics Corporation, a technology company up in Massachusetts.
“How’s Gwen?” I asked him politely, not remembering her at all.
“She’s fine. Living up in Bar Harbor with the new hubby.”
“You two divorced? I’m sorry to hear that.”
“A long time ago, Gee.”
I learned that Mason had three grandchildren, spent twelve years on the Big Island of Hawaii as a professor of geology, and was now living on the coast of New Hampshire.
“I remarried fourteen years ago, Gee. It’s been a great experience. I feel like I finally moved into the life I was meant to live. Sirena’s an amazing woman.”
“Sirena Elias Langford is your wife?” What a surprise that was. Sirena had her own television segment on “The Big Answer”, a popular New Age cable program. She and a group of her psychic friends from the Inner Sanctum of Atlantis had penned the premier paranormal guide, “How to Awaken Your Inner Mystic”, to share the secrets of the cosmos. The book set out to open the doors to the ethereal world for the ordinary people of the planet, explaining the cosmic principles of telepathy, telekinetics, and channeling spirit guides.
“None other.” He seemed very proud. I had seen her show a few times. Sirena usually wore a colorful tie-dyed scarf tied around her cascade of brown curls to coordinate with her organic silk skirts and blouses as she did her psychic readings for celebrities and ordinary guests in the audience. With a dramatic little shiver, she would descend into a trace and begin to, in her words, filter the ether in search of clues about the past, the present, and the future. Sirena would say something like, “I feel a sadness in you,” and the person would gush about this heartache or that. The truth is we all have shadows of one kind or another on our hearts. Does that make someone like Sirena psychic or just a good guesser? It was hard to prove or disprove anything she claimed to have witnessed in the spirit world.
“Interesting,” I said noncommittally.
“You probably remember her as Maura Elias.”
“Maura, the serious one with the braids?”
“That’s her. She’s an expert crystal healer. That’s how we hooked up again. I was at Mount Kilauea in Hawaii, doing a geological study for National Geographic. I helped her find some natural rutilated quartz. We created Gemcorp together. We’re trying to encourage the use of natural crystals in holistic healing. Each of the gems is blessed with a special ceremony, to carry the message for peace. Sirena’s father, Marcus, gave us the seed money back in 2001.”
I thought the Elias name sounded familiar. Marcus Hoar Elias, the scion of the Hoar family, was a well-known philanthropist who used his enormous wealth to fund projects ranging from open land acquisition to international peace initiatives to paranormal research.
“You should come on as a guest, let her do a reading on you.”
“Oh, nobody wants to see me get a psychic reading,” I grinned. “I’m very boring these days. Happily married, content to be what I am. My life is a little slice of heaven on earth.”
“Come on, Gee. Be true to your roots. Have you forgotten everything you learned at Camp Eirene? We’re supposed to be using our talents to prevent nuclear war.”
“Wow,” I said, unsure of what else I could add. I hadn’t heard the phrase about being true to my roots since that summer of 1965, when I was ten. “It was nice to run into you, Mason. Good luck in Pakistan.”
“I’ll have Sirena call you,” he replied as I headed to Terminal B to catch my flight. Please don’t, I thought to myself.
As I sat on the plane, waiting for the pilot to take to the sky, I thought about Camp Eirene. We were selected as candidates for the free eight-week summer program by our elementary schools because we showed promise as future peacemakers, scoring high for expressing compassion for our fellow students and using our creativity and imagination to solve problems. The ‘Whole World Healing’ committee reviewed tests and teacher observations to narrow down the choices. Each of us was then interviewed at school, to determine our suitability for Camp Eirene.
But this was no ordinary summer camp for children. The ‘Whole World Healing’ committee was looking for “special” children, those of us who had also had mystical experiences of one kind or another. Having had a UFO encounter, a predictive dream, or a precognitive warning of danger was a prerequisite for entry.
Dr. Arcanum Lock was the man in charge of the program and his plan was to teach us to tap into the wisdom of the cosmos by training us to unlock our psychic powers. We were supposed to be the antidote for nuclear war.
My parents weren’t particularly interested in banning the bomb. They saw Camp Eirene as a chance to get one of their kids out of the house for eight free, supervised weeks in the summer of 1965. Camp Eirene was just the first step on Dr. Lock’s Evolutionary Spirit Project, better known by its acronym of ESP.
Three-- Jack and Gill Went Up a Hill
Three days after I saw Mason at the airport, I got a distress call while I was working on preliminary drawings for my new book, “The Man in the Moon”. It was Jack, my buddy from Camp Eirene. Wasn’t it odd that in less than seventy-two hours, I would be talking about that long ago summer for the second time? It goes to show you it’s a small world, after all.
“Gee, I need your help. There’s something going on with Homeland Security. It’s about ‘Whole World Healing’ and what happened to us at camp.”
“Why would Homeland Security care about Camp Eirene?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. I applied a visa for Somalia and I’ve been told there’s a security glitch.”
Jack’s an international aid worker. His specialty is logistics for famine relief. He makes sure the supplies get to the right place in a timely fashion, without getting confiscated by the bad guys. We get together every time he’s back in the States.
“What kind of security glitch?” I wondered.
“I’m suspected of something, but I don’t know what that is. Can you meet me?”
“Sure. Geo’s off on a business trip. Where and when?”
A day later we got together for dinner at Molly’s Moondoggle Cafe on Route One, just outside Little Neck. Jack was glad to see me, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing me so tight, I could feel every muscle in his body telegraphing his fear.
“What’s going on?” I wanted to know. He looked exhausted, big bags under his dark eyes, and a three-day beard.
“Listen, I just don’t understand any of this. It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never run into this much red tape before. It’s like I’ve been burned. All the guy from Homeland Security would tell me is I have been placed on a watch list because of information developed about ‘Whole World Healing’.”
“That doesn’t make much sense. I went to the same camp and no one from Homeland Security has contacted me about it. I’ve been flying all over the country without any problem.”
“I’m supposed to meet an HS guy in ten minutes at Observation Point. He’s promised to give me a copy of my file on the QT. Just sit tight here, have a cup of coffee, and I’ll be back before you can blink an eye. We’ll see what the big secret about Camp Eirene is.” I studied his bright eyes, overly-cheerful smile, and trembling hands. His nervous energy stirred a distant chord in me. I was missing an important clue. Maybe things weren’t as simple as Jack pretended.
“Why meet you here? Why not just give you the file at the local Department of Homeland Security office?”
“He told me he was doing me a favor, that he’d get in trouble if anyone knew he was sharing the file.” Jack said it matter-of-factly, like this was a normal way of passing along information.
“Why didn’t you call your friends at State? Surely they could help you clear this mess up.”
“No one’s taking my calls or answering my emails, Gee. I’ve been blacklisted and I don’t know why.” He shook his head. “If I don’t make my trip, a lot of people will die of hunger. I have to get back to Somalia. There’s still a serious threat of famine.”
“Jack, why did you call me? What is it you want from me?”
“Honestly?” he asked. I nodded. “You’re really the only person I trust from Camp Eirene. You’ve always been sensible, Gee. Not like the others. You think things through and you have a good head on your shoulders. You know there are bad guys out there and wishing them away won’t solve anything. In the real world, the bad guys use real bullets, real knives, and real bombs to create real terror. Happy thoughts won’t save lives. Wishing won’t change minds. Action will.”
Jack was reaching out to me now because we shared a bond, so who was I to turn him down? He needed my help and that’s what he was going to get.
“Why don’t I go with you?” I suggested.
“No, no. My instructions are to come alone.”
“I promise I’ll stay out of sight.”
“No, Gee. You wait here. I’ll be right back with the file and we’ll go over it.”
My friend Jack went up a hill to fetch something. Even though he had asked me not to, I followed him because I was worried he was in real danger. And there, on the top of Observation Point, in the cheerful community of Little Neck on a chilly January evening, when the sky was bright and the moon was nearly full, I witnessed his attempted murder. I watched in horror as Jack was tossed by two silhouettes in the darkness over the railing of the observation deck, bouncing off the rock face like a rag doll. A moment later, a bright flashlight made a pass across the rocks below. Satisfied, the two men congratulated each other on a job well done and walked back to their waiting vehicle. As soon as the black van peeled out of the parking lot, I went tumbling down the rocky incline after Jack. My fingers fumbled on my cell phone as I descended. Without my reading glasses, I screwed up the first 911 effort. Finally I got a dial tone and a voice on the other end.
“Little Neck Police. Where are you and what is the nature of your emergency?” I spit out the details as quickly as I could, giving the dispatcher my name, location, and the details of seeing Jack fall. I left out the part about the two men throwing him over the railing. “Can you see him? Is he conscious?”
“Oh, wait. I’m half way down.”
“Take your time. Don’t rush. Be careful.” Some of the boulders were bigger than others, and the challenges were almost too much for me. I had some trouble climbing down the rocks in the dark. A couple of times, I slipped, scraping skin as I fell. When I got to the ledge fifteen feet below, I saw Jack’s crumpled, bloodied body.
“He’s here. Oh, dear God. Jack?” He was groaning, but he couldn’t speak. “He’s alive!”
Twenty minutes later, he was removed from his precarious perch just below the wooden observation platform by helicopter. A team of rescuers strapped him onto a gurney, momentarily landed him on the tarmac of Observation Point so they could stabilize him, and then he was loaded into the aircraft for the med evac flight to Boston. The doctors worked on him all night long. It was touch and go.
Investigators peppered me with questions, but I didn’t have much to tell them because I didn’t really know anything. About two in the morning, a couple of Homeland Security investigators showed up at the hospital, wanting to know how the Department of Homeland Security was involved. According to their records, there was no current investigation of Jack. No one had flagged him as a security risk, at least officially. To them, this whole thing sounded like some kind of prank or publicity stunt. But I’ve known Jack for forty-eight years. I trust him with my life and he trusted me with his. Why would he lie to me about all this? The biggest question that needed answering was why was someone trying to kill Jack? If I knew the why, maybe I could figure out the who. At least that was my plan while I was sitting in the ICU at Mass General, watching my friend fight to survive.
But that was three nights ago, when the world was still somewhat sane and I was not running for my life in Washington, DC. Geo had been stranded in Bonn, his passport stolen from his hotel room safe. It would take the U. S. Embassy a couple of working days to replace it. Jack was still unconscious and unable to help investigators. That’s why, when my best friend Val, former roommate and fellow Camp Eirene alumni, called, I followed my heart, not my head.
It was her desperate plea had brought me here to the nation’s capital. I was chasing shadows that I could not see, and chased by ghosts I could not recognize. Right now, the hunter was getting closer to me, and I needed to focus all of my attention on surviving.
Three -- Secrets Can Come Back to Haunt You
Valerie Vanderslunk Del Torres was a talented first violinist for the New Hope Orchestra. We went all the way back to Camp Eirene as bunk mates. Long after that summer, our lives remained entwined. Valerie and I were roommates for two years after college, when we both lived in Washington. She did a lot of studio work, recording pieces for commercials, television, even movies. She was the one who inspired my love of music and took it to new heights. We rented a work/live loft space together. It became my art studio and Val’s rehearsal space. Always practicing, she would play for hours on end. That’s how I came to love classical music. Just watching her fingers dancing on the strings, just seeing the bow bobbing back and forth as she swayed rhythmically, squeezing out the sweet notes, was mesmerizing.
When Val called me yesterday, she sounded distraught. She spoke so quickly, I had trouble keeping up.
“Take a breath. Slow down. What’s this all about?” I asked in my most soothing tone.
“Gee, I need your help! Oswaldo will leave me if he finds out what happened! This could ruin our marriage!”
“What did happen?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone. Can you come down here, to DC? Please? I wouldn’t ask, but it’s really important. It’s about Boston.” Boston. Immediately, I knew what she was talking about and I knew that she might be right about Oswaldo. He was a devout Catholic, a consul from Spain, a well-respected international businessman. For him, reputation was everything.
I couldn’t be two places at once. Do I stay with the unconscious Jack or do I rush to Val’s side? Could I help her solve her problem and get back to Mass General before Jack regained consciousness? What if he didn’t recover? What if he died in my absence? Could I live with that prospect? The big question was did Val need me more at this moment in time than Jack did. From the tremor in her voice, I thought the answer was yes. It was just before nine in the morning. I could try to get a flight.
“Can you meet me at the airport?” I asked Val.
“Oh, thank you! You’re a life saver, Gee. I don’t want Oswaldo to know you’re in town. Would you mind staying in a friend’s apartment? She’s out of town and I’ve been watering her plants for her.”
Six hours later, after leaving my contact information with the nursing staff and instructions to call me immediately if Jack woke up, I was at Reagan National Airport. With just my carry-on bag in tow, I quickly made my way to the pick-up area outside the terminal. Waiting for Val, I tried to think of the last time I had been in DC. It was two years ago, when her daughter, Delores Del Torres, was walked down the aisle of the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle by her father. It was a picture-perfect event, from the flawless bride to the elegant reception, with every impeccable detail attended to, and yet, I found it a rather sterile event, without much heart and soul. Delores was her father’s daughter, raven-haired and dark-eyed, well-schooled in the art of appearances. She married a Congresswoman’s son. No doubt, she would live a charmed, if not charming, life.
A car horn beeped three times. Val pulled up to the curb in her white Lexus SUV.
“Hi,” she said nervously as I slid in beside her. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you. Can we go somewhere to talk?”
“Sure,” I told her. “I could use a cup of good coffee.”
Val took me to a little bakery in Arlington, where we split a blueberry muffin while sipping our medium coffees. I noticed her hands shook while we talked.
“There you have it,” she said when she finished her tale of woe. “I’m being blackmailed. Someone knows about the baby.”
I thought back to that summer when we were sixteen. Val had become pregnant. The father was a college-bound senior. Both families agreed the best solution was adoption, and that was the plan. But at the last minute, Val had cold feet. She wanted to keep the baby. Her parents agreed to raise it as her sibling, and thus, baby Julie joined the family. Now the blackmailer was threatening not only to share the information with Oswaldo, but also with Julie. How many families would be forever changed by the devastating news?
“What am I going to do?” Val wondered. “Why is this happening now? It would be one thing if Julie had been adopted, but she wasn’t. Who’s doing this to me?”
“Where’s the photo you received?” Maybe if I looked at it, I would somehow figure it out. From her purse, she withdrew a small manila envelope. Inside, there was a photograph of a young Val with baby Julie. Penned across the top, there was a message.
“Does your ‘sister’ know the truth?”
“Val, do you remember when this photo was taken? And where it’s been all these years?”
“It was taken for Christmas when I was a senior and Julie was about eighteen months old. It’s been in my living room for ten years.”
“So, it’s been in your possession all this time.” I thought about the significance of that. “Val, do you have any new people working at the house? Housekeeper, cleaning service, workmen of any kind?
“No, there’s just Maria, and she’s been with us for ages.”
“Was there anything else?”
“Yes. A second note was tucked into this morning’s copy of the Washington Times. I found it after I talked to you.” She pushed a piece of paper across the table. Reaching for it, I noticed that it had a watermark. This was handmade cotton rag. Tree-free. Specialty paper. As an artist, I appreciated working with quality paper. This might be helpful information. Not your average blackmailer’s choice of paper. The words were written confidently across the width of the sheet.
“‘What will your husband do when he finds out your secret?’”
“Gee, I can’t let Oswaldo learn the truth about Julie. He’ll leave me!”
“I doubt that,” I said reassuringly. “He loves you. You two have been married for thirty-five years. You have a history together.”
“His career is everything to him! He can’t afford the gossip.” Her big brown eyes filled up with tears, threatening to spill over onto her cheeks. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a couple of days. Her fingernails were ragged-edged, chewed short. Clearly, this was overwhelming my friend. I thought about Jack’s demeanor just before he left for the meeting at Observation Point. There were definitely similarities between them.
I thought about Julie’s father. Henry had been at camp with us and he stayed in touch with Val as a teenager. They got together in the summer of 1970 and Julie was the result of that coupling. Henry Farnsdale’s father was an attorney in the Justice Department at the time, very worried that his career would be negatively affected by the baby.
“Val, who knew about the baby, besides you, your family, and the Farnsdales?”
“You. Jack. The adoption agency. And Arcanum Lock.”
“Arcanum?” I admit I was shocked. “Why would you tell Arcanum?”
“I didn’t. He called me one day, out of the blue, when I was about four months pregnant. He told me that the spirits had contacted him and told him I was having Henry’s baby.”
“Oh.” Even after all these years, I still didn’t believe that Arcanum was really psychic. Call it a gut feeling I had. I didn’t know how he knew the things he knew about us, but there was no way he was getting his information from the cosmos. He knew too many real things about us. “Did he want something from you?”
“As a matter of fact, he did. It was actually Dr. Lock’s idea that Julie should stay in the family. He said the baby was special, a gift to the world. I had been selected as her mother because I could help her, and if I gave her up for adoption, she would forever be lost.”